VICTORY!
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FOREST CONSERVATION NEWS TODAY
Australia Establishes Massive Conservation Areas, Still Eco-Renegade
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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org, Inc.
http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Portal
http://www.EnvironmentalSustainability.info/ -- Eco-Portal
http://www.ClimateArk.org/ -- Climate Change Portal
October 14, 2002
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by Forests.org
The Australian government – pushed to the wall by local and
international wails of outrage regarding its misguided climate change
and land conservation policies – has announced two major new
conservation areas. Australia has set aside massive areas of
European occupied desert lands as an Aboriginal reserve; and has
protected one of the wildest places on earth - a smoking volcano
covered with snow and glacial ice, rising above the world's stormiest
waters - as the world's largest fully protected marine reserve. No
doubt – this is VERY important and good news. Good on Australia for
acknowledging that continental and global sustainability requires
large conservation areas.
Australia remains an environmental renegade with a disgraceful record
of unsustainable land and climate policies. This announcement is a
transparent effort to deflect criticism from its depauperate
environmental record. In August, Forests.org dubbed Australia –
together with the United States, Brazil and Malaysia – as the "Axis
of Ecocide". Per capita, Australians generate more greenhouse gases
and clear more land than the people of any other wealthy nation.
Australia faces stark and looming ecological limits.
Australia refuses to protect its naturally limited forests and
other native vegetation, particularly from agriculture and logging
(especially in Tasmania), and does not support dramatically reducing
greenhouse gas emissions. Abysmal land management practices are
causing soil salinity, destroying habitats and species, polluting
scarce fresh water resources, contributing to both regional and
global climate change, and generally undermining continental
ecological sustainability.
Together with its mates in the “Axis of Ecocide”, Australia
threatens the Earth and humanity’s very existence. Thanks for the
conservation gestures – now get on with establishing a basis for
Australian and World ecological sustainability.
g.b.
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ITEM #1
Title: Australia sets aside massive area for conservation
Source: Copyright 2002 Reuters
Date: October 11, 2002
CANBERRA - Australia set aside a massive chunk of outback desert
yesterday as the nation's largest protected area, turning the
territory over to Aborigines in a bid to protect the culture and
environment from outside influence.
The area covers over 98,000 square kilometres (38,000 square miles) -
more than twice the size of Switzerland - in Australia's remote red
centre, where European settlers have had little impact and Aboriginal
landowners live a traditional life.
The recognition of the protected area, called Ngaanyatjarra, follows
five years of lobbying from Aborigines for funds to save the area
from feral animals and non-native plants which have spread across
Australia since Europeans settled in 1788.
While the lands have always been managed by Aborigines, the official
status as a protected area will give the traditional owners money to
help trap non-native animals such as foxes, fence off waterholes and
develop eco-tourism ventures.
Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment, Sharman Stone, said the
women of Ngaanyatjarra have already begun to nurture native
vegetation for food - dubbed "bush tucker" in Australia - on a
commercial basis to help fund further protection.
"The Ngaanyatjarra lands are unique.... The continuity of traditional
land management practices and absence of European impacts over such a
large area has afforded local flora and fauna a high level of
protection," Stone said in a statement.
The remoteness of the area, on the border of Western Australia, South
Australia and the Northern Territory, has saved the area from the
ravages of grazing or pasturalism that has hit other areas of the
country.
It is the 15th indigenous protected area proclaimed in Australia, and
the largest ever, incorporating sections of the Gibson, Great Sandy
and Great Victoria deserts.
Some 150 bird, 103 reptile, 47 mammal and 11 frog species are found
throughout the region, while almost 650 plant species have been
catalogued. At least five threatened species lived in the area, Stone
said.
ITEM #2
Title: Australia Creates World's Largest Marine Reserve
Source: Copyright 2002 Environment News Service,
Date: October 9, 2002
CANBERRA, Australia, October 9, 2002 (ENS) - One of the wildest
places on earth - a smoking volcano covered with snow and glacial
ice, rising above the world's stormiest waters - was set aside by the
government of Australia today as the world's largest fully protected
marine reserve.
The new 6.5 million hectare (25,096 square mile) Heard Island and
McDonald Islands Marine Reserve is 4,500 kilometers (2,796 miles)
southwest of the Australian mainland and 1,000 kilometers (620 miles)
north of Antarctica.
About the size of Ireland, the marine reserve is one of the most
pristine environments left on Earth to be protected from commercial
activities.
It falls within Australia's 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone
surrounding Heard and McDonald Islands and surpasses another
Australian marine reserve, the 5.8 million hectare Macquarie Island
reserve, as the world's largest.
Australian Environment Minister Dr. David Kemp said the new reserve
would protect the habitat and food sources of some of the world's
most spectacular marine creatures, including the southern elephant
seal, the Sub-Antarctic fur seal, and several penguin species.
"The Heard Island and McDonald Islands Marine Reserve is being
declared to protect the conservation values of the region and
provide an effective conservation framework to manage the region in
an integrated and ecologically sustainable manner," the minister said
today.
It is the only sub-Antarctic island group to contain no known species
introduced directly by humans, which makes it invaluable for having,
within one site, an intact set of interrelated ecosystems;
terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine, in which the ongoing
evolution of plants and animals occur in a natural state, the
Australian Environment Ministry says.
The vast colonies of penguins and seals on these island beaches are
one of the great wildlife sights of the world, including the world's
largest macaroni penguin colonies, each containing an estimated two
million birds. When the wind dies and the skies clear, these
congregations create an incomparable cacophony of natural sound.
The waters of the reserve are important to two species of albatross -
the light-mantled sooty albatross and the black-browed albatross.
Bottom dwelling soft corals, glass sponges, and giant barnacles will
also be protected.
The island group lies near the meeting point of Antarctic and
temperate ocean waters.
Heard Island has Australia's only active volcano, Big Ben, which is
also Australia's tallest mountain. McDonald Island's steep shoreline
is so well protected that only two successful landings have been made
since it was discovered over a century ago.
The Heard and McDonald Islands were inscribed on the UNESCO World
Heritage List in 1997 for their outstanding natural natural beauty
and aesthetic importance.
Dr. Kemp says the park will provide a scientific area for study of
the ecosystem within the Heard Island and McDonald Islands region.
WWF-Australia will nominate the new marine reserve as a Gift to the
Earth - WWF's highest international conservation honour which is
awarded to initiatives that advance the conservation of biodiversity.
Margaret Moore, WWF-Australia senior marine policy officer, has been
working on the development and negotiations for the reserve for over
two years. "This important new reserve will play a crucial role in
protecting the habitat of the nationally threatened southern elephant
seal as well as rare seabird species such as the wandering albatross
and the southern giant petrel," she said.
"This is one of the most significant conservation decisions taken by
Australia. It acknowledges Australia's responsibility to manage
remote areas of our oceans," said Moore today. "The world
acknowledges that we have exercised our sovereignty in the region
with great responsibility," said the minister, "and the declaration
of this major new marine reserve, the largest fully protected marine
area on the planet, and second only to another Australian reserve in
the same region, maintains that great tradition."
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