Mission & Justice

Greg Roberts; 4/9/08

One of the biggest irrigation properties on the Darling River is about to fall into foreign hands after the Rudd Government rejected an offer to buy it. Darling Farms managing director Ian Cole said the purchase would have allowed the immediate release of 20,000 megalitres of water into the ailing Murray-Darling system. Mr Cole said federal Water Minister Penny Wong had been interested in buying the property but her office claimed the commonwealth lacked the power. A European consortium was “very interested” in acquiring the property, and would undertake a second inspection today.

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Matthew Franklin & Siobhain Ryan; 4/9/08

Kevin Rudd will be asked to dramatically lift Australia’s reserves of natural forests and grasslands as part of its climate change solution in a bid to ease emissions cuts on industry as part of the transition to a low-carbon economy. The Prime Minister’s climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, yesterday urged Australia to lift its focus on retaining natural forests and grasslands in northern Australia as part of its climate change response. The Australian understands the concept of boosting biosequestration has the support of senior government figures, particularly given its potential to reduce the impact on industry of the Government’s carbon reduction measures. Professor Garnaut said Australia was uniquely placed to use biosequestration to soak up carbon emissions, with its northern savannahs likely to continue to receive good rainfall despite the effects of climate change.

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Victoria Laurie; 3/9/08

Finding a dingo tracking collar in the Kimberley grasslands is one of the hardest tasks animal ecologist Malcolm Kennedy faces in his research. He’s helped by a GPS satellite that communicates with the collar as the dingo slinks across the stony heat of northern Australia. But it takes a helicopter and a needle-sharp eye to find the animal and retrieve its $2000 collar after the tracking is over.Kennedy’s research is a case of hunter and hunted. He has put collars on dingoes and feral cats, and tracked their movements through several months. “I want to know how dingoes and cats interact,” he says. “Dingoes will eat cats, but do they do it to an extent that has a benefit in protecting small native mammals from cats? “If we found that there was a very big benefit then we’d encourage people to stop persecuting dingoes where threatened native animals are involved. Dingo baiting goes on in national parks.”

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Victoria Laurie; 3/9/08

A scientific study of wildlife in the Kimberley’s grassy expanses is unlocking the secrets of survival v species extinction. Small mammals and some birds have almost disappeared in many parts of northern Australia, says Sarah Legge, an animal ecologist who spends her days measuring the destructive effects of fire, feral predators and out-of-control weeds. That’s the bad news. But the three-year research program Legge has led at Mornington Wilderness Sanctuary, 350km northeast of Derby, has also produced good news. Legge and her team have discovered that by bringing such threats under control through careful land management, such as fire control and de-stocking of cattle, the fate of some endangered species can be reversed. “The results were spectacular, much better than we ever expected,” she says. “The number of mammals increased in every habitat type.”

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3/9/08

An Australian marine scientist has dismissed Japanese research that the body mass of minke whales is declining because of increasingly scarce ocean resources. The study, based on data from two decades of lethal research, found Antarctic minke whales had lost 9 per cent of their blubber. It argues that this has been caused by a shortfall of krill, a vital component of the food chain, due to climate change and the recovery of other species such as humpback whales. An Australian Antarctic division researcher, Nick Gales, says the Japanese study’s methodology is flawed.

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John Wiseman; 3/9/08

Farm production worth more than $1 billion would be destroyed if more Murray River water was diverted to the stricken lower lakes to avert acid poisoning, official advice to the federal Government reveals. The warning, contained in a submission released yesterday by Water Minister Penny Wong, underlines how the Murray-Darling river system is being engulfed by an ecological crisis of unprecedented scope. Hopes that winter rains had brought a lengthy reprieve for the lower lakes at the mouth of the Murray were dashed by advice to Senator Wong from her department, revealing that a decision on whether to inundate them with sea water might have to be made as soon as February. At the same time yesterday, the Murray-Darling Basin Commission said this winter had been the fifth-driest in the past 115 years. With another long, rainless summer looming, the situation in the lower basin was the worst since records began in 1892. “We’re continuing to establish new records that we don’t particularly wish to establish,” the commission’s chief executive, Wendy Craik, said. “There’s really no relief in sight. I think we can say the drought’s continuing to worsen.”

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Matthew Denholm; 2/9/08

Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett may be unable to deliver on his promise to tear up a sovereign risk agreement for the Gunns $2 billion pulp mill on November 30. Mr Bartlett has repeatedly cited the last day of November as the “line in the sand” after which his Government’s support for the mill - particularly the sovereign risk deal - will cease. Last night, however, conservationists were concerned the fine print of the sovereign risk agreement may prevent its termination until well into next year. The agreement, struck during the administration of ex-premier Paul Lennon, provides $15 million to Gunns should parliament protect forests earmarked for the mill’s wood supply.

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Asa Wahlquist; 1/9/08

Tired of watching country towns suffer a lingering death from dehydration, Coleambally in NSW is offering itself and its generous water supply for sale for a cool $3.5 billion. The price - $400,000 more than the Government’s total buyback budget - would include 600 gigalitres of water from the Murrumbidgee River in southwest NSW as well as the town, home to 600 people. “I’m just trying to see how serious the Government is in its water purchase program,” said Robert Black, chairman of the Coleambally Irrigation Area. Mr Black believes the present ad hoc system of water buybacks does not take account of the impact such sales have on a surrounding community. “There is no compassion whatsoever from the federal Government for the shop owners, the fuel agents, Elders, the chemical suppliers,” he said.

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Pia Akerman; 30/8/08

The “cancer” of the Murray - acid sulphate soils - has spread to the river system’s northern catchments in Queensland where up to 200 sites are under investigation by scientists. The Murray-Darling Basin Commission ordered the investigation in southern Queensland amid mounting evidence that wetlands and rivers in the north of the system were succumbing to the poisoning that threatened to overwhelm the Murray’s lower lakes in South Australia. Pockets of acidification are also emerging in northern Victoria and along the Murray River in southwestern NSW. Acid sulphate soils can occur when river and lake beds are exposed to the air as water levels fall, triggering a toxic chemical reaction.

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Matthew Denholm; 30/8/08

Tasmania’s Premier is maintaining his stance that the Gunns pulp mill should “live or die” by a deadline of November 30, setting him on a collision course with the timber industry. David Bartlett yesterday stood by his decision to end government support for the mill, including a sovereign risk agreement, if Gunns has not started construction and locked in finance by November 30. Gunns said on Thursday that it was unlikely to secure finance and a joint venture partner, or be in a position to begin construction, before the first quarter of next year. But Mr Bartlett said he remained of the view that after four years of divisive debate, Tasmanians deserved “closure” on the issue by Christmas. “That’s certainly my view and that’s why I’m not intending to break those commitments I’ve made,” he said.

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