http://asiancorrespondent.com/73041/australia-another-heatwave-triggers-bushfire-alert/

Australia is on bushfire alert as a heatwave spreads across the southern states of Victoria and South Australia, with  temperatures soaring to over 40 degrees Celsius.

One of the images on Black Saturday’s bushfire in Victoria (Photo: News Ltd)

Melbourne and Adelaide started the year with a daytime high of 40 degrees Celsius, AAP reported.  Sydney and Brisbane, meawhile, are reported to have a more tolerable levels at around 26-28 degrees Celsius, while Perth experiences around 31 degrees.

Holiday-makers who are heading to the bush in the southern states are warned not to put up campfires. Fire and safety authorities have already issued bushfire alert warnings to caution residents and tourists to be bushfire-ready.

A total fire ban has been issued in many regions in Victoria including tourist destinations such as the Southern Grampians, Apollo Bay, Warnambool, and other southwestern areas. The fire ban strictly disallows campers to build a campfire during the night while frolickers are also not allowed to light up a barbecue grill.

Sam the koala became famous around the world after this photo was taken during the Victorian bushfires. (Photo:Reuters)

In 2009, the bush fire famously called the Black Saturday razed 450,000 ha (1,100,000 acres) in Victoria sending residential, agricultural, and touristic areas into ashes. Affected areas included Kinglake and Whittlesea, Marysville, Central Gippsland, Beechworth, and to as far as the old gold town of Bendigo bringing to a total of 170 districts in ruins.

In 2006, the Grampians National Park was engulfed by another massive bushfire which burnt 130,000 hectares — or 47 per cent of the park.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals estimated that over a million of animals have perished in these bushfires. Other wildlife species have suffered from severe burns. Koalas and kangaroos which inhabit most of the bush habitat are most affected while the Leadbeater’s Possum, Victoria’s faunal emblem, is under further threat to extinction.

South Australia is reported to have issued total fire ban on 13 districts out of 15.

This koala was left homeless after the bushfire (Photo: News Ltd)

Victorian Fire Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley urged people—especially campers— to take extra care amid extreme heat conditions. He said most of the earlier fires started with campfires.

http://www.theage.com.au/business/native-woodchipping-sector-in-rapid-decline-20111228-1pcu0.html

The aftermath of logging the world’s tallest hardwood trees for woodchips in the Styx Valley, Tasmania. Photo: Dean Sewell

THE Australian native forest logging industry is in dire straits. The international crash in demand for native forest woodchips has the industry desperately scrambling for replacement markets.

While the native-forest sawlog sector will continue, the industrial logging model that has driven environmental destruction and public conflict is in rapid decline. The industry’s Plan B is the economically suspect and public relations nightmare of ”dead koala power” – large-scale power stations run on native forest woodchips. This is a clear sign of desperation.

Promoters of native forest biomass energy argue that logging produces ”waste residue”, conjuring images of a few leftover branches being picked up from the forest floor. The reality is fundamentally different.

With existing industrial logging methods such as clear-felling, vast quantities of standing forests unsuitable for sawlog production are woodchipped. In the majestic tall eucalypt forests this often amounts to 85 per cent of the timber cut being for woodchips.

In the 1960s and ’70s, ports were established to allow these ”waste residues” to be exported as value-adding. Export woodchipping then became the main driver of industrial logging, destroying ancient giants, wild valleys and wildlife habitat.

Markets and society have rejected this environmentally damaging business model. The industrial native forest industry is on life support. Woodchip exports have collapsed in Tasmania, while jobs are being shed in Victoria and logging intensified in New South Wales.

While biomass energy production from other feedstocks may have a bright future in Australia, native forests should not be a part of the picture. While some sources of biomass can provide cost-effective renewable energy, native forest proposals are underpinned by subsidised public forest woodchipping, unsustainable wood supplies, and the destruction of highly valued forests.

Advocates also paint a misleadingly simplistic picture that native forest biomass reduces carbon emissions. This is based on the flawed assumption that replanted trees take up all the carbon released when a forest is logged.

Australia has the most carbon-dense forests in the world. When these forests are logged and burnt, that carbon is released into the atmosphere and only a portion is reabsorbed over several decades when trees regrow. This results in large carbon pollution emissions.

Recent research on biomass-specific native-forest harvesting in North America in the journal Nature Climate Change showed that, after assessing all harvest and energy generation emissions, bioenergy was worse for the climate than fossil fuel generation in 80 per cent of the regions studied.

In addition to climate pollution, logging for biomass will be an environmental disaster for forest ecosystems that are already heavily impacted by logging, climate change, increased fires and feral pests.

The native forest industry relies on government regulation, such as regional forest agreements and forest practices codes, to claim environmental sustainability. There is also an increasing marketplace reliance on the heavily flawed Australian Forestry Standard certification system.

These mechanisms have proven grossly inadequate in protecting the environment.

Despite these systems being in place, forest giants are clear-felled every day in the wilderness valleys of Tasmania, native forest logging is pushing the Leadbeater’s possum to extinction in Victoria, and koala habitat continues to be destroyed in NSW.

When conflicts emerge between forestry contracts and environmental regulation, laws are changed or bent to allow logging to continue. For example, after several successful court cases by conservationists, the Victorian government has proposed changes that will allow loggers to ignore legislation to protect threatened species legislation, virtually signing the death warrant of the remaining 500 or so Leadbeater’s possums, the state’s animal emblem.

Past experience does not augur well for native forest biomass. Despite the existence of soon-to-be-repealed Howard-era renewable energy incentives, failed projects are found across Australia. Over the past two decades, energy retailer rejection, community and conservationist opposition, poor economics and environmental regulation have ensured projects have not left the drawing board.

The push for a native forest biomass industry that relies on failed regulation and drives the destruction of precious remaining ancient forests will be vigorously opposed by conservation groups such as the Wilderness Society and, judging from experience, by broad sections of the community.

Warrick Jordan is national forest campaigner for the Wilderness Society.

http://www.starnewsgroup.com.au/mail/mountain-views/326/story/146718.html

COMMUNITY groups and the public are being invited to have their say on a project that would form a new state park to protect Victoria’s endangered flora and fauna.

The Woori Yallock Creek Park Alliance (WYCPA) received Liberal Coalition support for the potential park last year with the Government referring the case to the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council (VEAC).

VEAC has opened its investigation to the public along with plans to identify the biodiversity and ecological values in the area, identify current and future threats and make recommendations for appropriate management arrangements.

VEAC will consider future management opportunities for approximately 3250 hectares of public land east of the Dandenong Ranges and south of the Yarra Valley.

Gembrook MP Brad Battin said public submissions were welcome to VEAC until 20 February 2012.

“This work will build on the great efforts of conservation already being achieved in the Yellingbo Conservation Reserve Area, providing information on ways we can further protect the area’s natural assets and identifying more options to reduce threats to this vulnerable species,” he said.

Three of Victoria’s state emblems reside in the area, including the floral pink heath, the endangered Leadbeater’s possum and the helmeted honeyeater.

WYCPA members believe linking the habitat areas would allow for better management and eco tourism in the area.

For more information visit www.veac.vic.gov.au or contact Brad Battin’s office on 9796 1987 for a brochure.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/zoos-a-breed-apart-for-species-on-the-brink-20120107-1ppew.html

Endangered: Leadbeater’s possum. Photo: Dan Harley

MELBOURNE’S zoos will become urban arks, breeding sanctuaries for 20 of the most at-risk species in the state, as scientists struggle to save them from extinction.

Flagging a strategic shift to become a ”zoo-based conservation organisation”, Zoos Victoria – which includes Melbourne Zoo, Healesville Sanctuary and Werribee Open Range Zoo – has released a ”priority” list of species it believes are in urgent need of help.

The list includes 11 species that are already the subject of the zoos’ conservation efforts, including the Tasmanian devil, mountain pygmy possum and orange-bellied parrot. Nine additional vulnerable species, including the Baw Baw frog, Leadbeater’s possum, the alpine she-oak skink and the Guthega skink, are set to be brought into captive breeding programs in the coming months.

Endangered: the spotted tree frog. Photo: Trent Browning

”Australia has the worst species extinction record in the world,” said Jenny Gray, CEO of Zoos Victoria. ”Rather than rush off to Africa to help them save the gorilla, why can’t we save our own species? We are a rich country. It should be possible.”

The list of 20 was compiled following a risk assessment of vertebrate species’ prospects over the next 10 years. Criteria for deciding those most at risk included population size and threats such as habitat decimation and introduced predators, including foxes.

Ms Gray said a catalyst for the list was work done by Zoos Victoria staff on Christmas Island in 2009. Following a drawn-out bureaucratic process, the team went to the island to capture and breed the critically endangered pipistrelle bat.

The Tasmanian devil, also endangered, needs human help to survive. Photo: Jacquie O’Brien

They were too late. The conservationists could find only one bat on the island and recorded the last sounds of its life.

”It made us think, ‘Is it our role to record extinctions?’,” Ms Gray said. ”I don’t think it is. There are species out there that aren’t as big and charismatic as a rhino, but they need someone in their corner fighting for them.

”We need to do better at listening to the alarm bell when these species are under threat, or there is a chance we will lose them.”

The zoos’ threatened species biologist, Dr Dan Harley, said it was sad that the Victorian public knew more about ”lions, tigers and bears than our own species”. Although many on the endangered list are small and nocturnal, they have ”unusual and charismatic lives and are far more aggressive than you’d ever think. Some of them make lions look like horses.”

Dr Harley said it was important to make the endangered species more relevant to people, especially city dwellers. ”These are animals that are in our backyard and we want Victorians to see how special they are,” he said.

”The Tasmanian tiger was a lost opportunity – the last one died in 1936, which is a relatively short time ago. It was a classic scenario of not acting until it was too late.

”The Leadbeater’s possum wasn’t seen for 50 years, we thought it was extinct and it was on our doorstep. The Baw Baw frog is only found on Mount Baw Baw, nowhere else. These species are just one bushfire away from extinction.”

Early action isn’t the only change in strategy – Zoos Victoria will focus on quality rather than quantity, ensuring that the genetic pool of species remains vibrant and encouraging animals to act as they would in the wild, prior to release.

”Conservation in the 1980s and ’90s was almost a numbers game,” he said.

”What we are doing is a distinct change from that. It’s about identifying which species it makes the most sense to work with and focusing on genetic make-up and animal behaviour that is suitable for release.”

Ms Gray said Zoos Victoria saw itself as ”having one role in the big picture, which also includes Parks Victoria, aquariums and so on” in the effort to save vulnerable species.

But with limited funds for conservation and an expanding human population, isn’t it inevitable some species will die out?

”We don’t say that about people, so why would we say that about animals?” Ms Gray said. ”If we say it’s OK for one species to die out, where do you stop? It’s a slippery slope. We will keep fighting for every species that is in danger.”

http://www.wyndhamweekly.com.au/news/local/news/general/bandicoots-get-haven-to-breed/2424139.aspx

WERRIBEE Open Range Zoo is stepping up the fight to save the eastern-barred bandicoot from extinction.

In a move to boost its conservation arm, Zoos Victoria, which includes Melbourne Zoo, Healesville Sanctuary and Werribee zoo, has released a priority list of species it says are in urgent need of help.

Werribee zoo’s life sciences curator, Madelon Willemsen, says her efforts are aimed at the eastern-barred bandicoot, which is endangered in mainland Australia.

The zoo has installed six kilometres of 2.3-metre-high feral-proof fence and built breeding pens for the 20 bandicoots under its protection.

“The fence around the property will prevent cats, foxes and rabbits, who live in the same habitat as eastern-barred bandicoots, then we plan on releasing some into the basalt plains open-range areas of the zoo. At the moment, the bandicoots can breed five joeys at one time, but the average is three a year, so it’s quite surprising these animals are in danger of becoming extinct,” Ms Willemsen said.

“We feel with our help we’ll be able to save them.”

The bandicoot is still prominent in Tasmania, where there are fewer foxes, but only about 300 are left in Victoria.

Werribee zoo aims to foster a self-sustaining population of bandicoots it can reintroduce into the wild near Hamilton, while maintaining a population in captivity. Next in the zoo’s sights are the Leadbeater’s possum and Lord Howe Island stick insects.

“Melbourne Zoo is doing good breeding work with endangered animals, but they don’t have the space we do here at Werribee.”

http://berwick-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/grants-to-help-threatened-species/

http://cranbourne-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/grants-to-help-protect-species-across-casey-and-cardinia/

http://free-press-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/kallista-teen-fights-for-possums/

http://lilydale-yarra-valley-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/toolangi-forest-logging-halted-until-2012/

A HALT on logging in a Toolangi forest has been extended until February, 2012.

The Supreme Court today extended the injunction to stop logging in Sylvia Creek forest near Toolangi after VicForests agreed to the moratorium.
Healesville-based conservation group My Environment Inc has challenged the legality of VicForests logging operation on the grounds that the area is habitat for the endangered Leadbeater’s possum.
The full court hearing is now scheduled for February 6, 2012.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-19/court-extends-sylvia-creek-logging-injunction/2905978

The Victorian Supreme Court has extended a ban on logging at a contentious site north-east of Melbourne until next year.

Environmentalists took the government’s forestry arm, VicForests, to court last month over its timber operations at Sylvia Creek, near Toolangi.

They argue the site is home to the threatened Leadbeaters possum.

The court this morning extended an injunction blocking logging until next February, when it will revisit the matter.

David Walsh of VicForests says the group is complying with current legislation but hopes court proceedings will clarify how its timber operations should work.

“VicForests has chosen not to challenge the interim injunction at this stage of the game to allow this matter to be fully resolved at a trial as quickly as possible,” he said.

“VicForests will vigorously defend themselves as the trial begins in 2012.”