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AWPC Complains to Members of Parliament re Melbourne Water rush project & wildlife impact

To Lisa Neville, Lily D’Ambrosio, Paul Edbrook:
Good morning Honourable members of parliament,

Official complaint against Melbourne Water retarding basin upgrades.

I am sending you this email this morning in regards to Melbourne Water’s retarding basin upgrade in Lee St Frankston. Melbourne Water have used a very short period of time to communicate with the community about this project.

The way they have proceeded has not been open and transparent, they have used excuses of potential danger to the community without backing these claims with scientific data. When they have been approached to do so, they have communicated that we need to put in a freedom of information request (which we are in the process of doing).

We have no issues in improving infrastructure that will improve efficiency and safety to the community, as long as it is done in the guidelines of the law that does not have a negative impact on the environment, community groups and the community.

It would seem to us and members of the broader community in Frankston (who have expressed concern about wildlife welfare) are concerned with the rush to undertake this project and lack of transparency. which may in fact lead to breaches of the law and impact wildlife, local wildlife shelters. As such the Australian Wildlife Protection Council is filing this as an official complaint to you against Melbourne Water. Attached is correspondence of this project to date.
[For correspondence see “AWPC TO MELBOURNE WATER RESPONSE ON TREE REMOVAL LEE ST RETARDANT BASIN”

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Cultivating Murder – a brutal “political” killing

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A farmer who gunned down a NSW environment officer during a protracted and terrifying ordeal has been jailed for at least 24 years. Glen Turner had been shot three times by 78-year-old farmer Ian Turnbull –  a man hellbent on revenge, and who died in prison.

“He shot an innocent man, twice,” Robert, the only witness to the murderous 20-minute game of cat-and-mouse Turnbull played with the pair, and was shown on Sunday Night program.

Ian Turnbull, then 81, used a hunting rifle to murder Glen Turner, 51, who was on public land with a colleague on July 29, 2014, near the farmer’s property at Croppa Creek in the NSW’s north. The murder prosecution and legal proceedings in the Land and Environment Court for alleged illegal land clearing had put his family under immense financial pressure, and took aim at the Native Vegetation Act. By the time Turnbull had been fined $140,000 plus costs over the illegal clearing in 2011, Glen had become, in his mind, his nemesis, the focus of a hate bordering on obsession.

The colleague of slain environment officer Glen Turner has told how he pleaded in vain with gunman Ian Turnbull to put down his gun and let him seek medical help.

glenturner

(image: NSW Police – http://www.northerndailyleader.com.au/story/3877437/sir-put-the-gun-down-turner-colleagues-plea-to-ian-turnbull/)

Turner had grown up in a small town and when he started his own family, in his 40s, he’d moved to a bush block 60km outside Tamworth. Asked to describe the most comfortable part of his job, he once replied: “Talking to farmers. Driving around properties with the ‘old mates’ chatting about the weather, how good the cattle look, how bad the government is and that I only work for them, not make the rules”. Much of his job involved compiling the evidence used to prosecute farmers for illegal clearing and he was acutely aware that a conviction could financially devastate them. It was the old ­farmers that Turner often felt sorry for, the ones who still remembered the days when the government paid you to clear land. Some of them innocently got themselves into trouble, he told his superiors during one work review, and “really need our help, not our punishment”.

Murderer Ian Turnbull had pleaded guilty, a year earlier, to illegally bulldozing nearly 500ha of trees, and was facing a hefty fine and a ­potential legal bill of more than $300,000. Meanwhile, his 47-year-old son and 29-year-old grandson, who owned the properties Turnbull had cleared, had amassed their own legal bills fighting a state government order that they restore the cleared land to pristine bush – an exercise they said would bankrupt them.

As soon as the murder hit the headlines, it fascinated film-maker Gregory Miller, whose credits include environmentally themed documentaries on climate change (Cool School Antarctica) and China (New Beijing: Reinventing A City). Miller has now finished the documentary Cultivating Murder, which looks at the consequences of the killing and the tensions between farmers and environmentalists over land clearing for large-scale cropping. It starts a series of screenings around the country on April 20.

The film also shows the environmental damage that land-clearing has caused in the area, including the destruction of koala habitats. “Koalas all over the east coast of Australia are under massive threat,” Miller says. “It’s bizarre that we’re not just killing off the Great Barrier Reef, we’re killing off our iconic native animals.”

Trailer:

Cultivating Murder – Trailer from Real Film Festival on Vimeo.

The heart-rending story of environmentalist Glen Turner, who was gunned down on the side of a road in Croppa Creek

From 13 May, 80 mins
Full $18 Concession $14 Members $12
Federation Square, Melbourne

In May, the Government released a draft package of biodiversity and land management reforms.  It included scrapping the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 and the Native Vegetation Act 2003.  In a conflict of  interests, the NSW under the Baird government was making land-clearing EASIER, in what’s called “reforms”.  Chair of NSW Farmers, Mitchell Clapham said current legislation is “enormously damaging” for farmers and welcomed reform.

“We have enormous tracks of land in the north-west of the state that are now covered in invasive native scrub and, because of the current acts and legislation, cannot be managed,” he said.

Environmentalists fear the reforms will result in wide-scale habitat destruction and wildlife extinction.

So, the Colonial mentality of clear, slash and burn still continues, despite greater knowledge in conservation, climate change and our abysmal native animals extinction rates!

References:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/robert-strange-tells-how-glen-turner-pleaded-to-get-him-medical-help-20160428-gogy4t.html
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/farmer-ian-turnbull-jailed-for-murdering-environment-officer-glen-turner-20160623-gppzki.html
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/how-a-row-over-land-clearing-left-compliance-officer-glen-turner-dead/story-e6frg8h6-1227055190971
http://www.news.com.au/national/crime/hunted-like-an-animal-he-shot-an-innocent-man-twice/news-story/f0bb51812918e91cf1ad12d2f13dcead
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/documentary-cultivating-murder-tells-story-behind-brutal-political-killing-20170412-gvjsuk.html

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Kangaroo cull approved for next to the Carlisle River Wildlife Shelter

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Carlisle River Wildlife Shelter’s Ron and Carola Anstis are heartbroken to learn animals they had spent years caring for were being shot dead thanks to approval from the State Government.

Embedded conflicts of interests exist within the State government because they have responsibilities for both administering the Wildlife Act, to protect native species, AND for administering permits to kill them! (Authority to Control Wildlife permits).

They are the only wildlife shelter in the area that cared for Eastern Grey Kangaroos, between Geelong and Warrnambool, and that’s a big area. However, the area is too small to share with wildlife, and some narrow-minded people still want to access firearms, and kill them. The Anstises take in pouch young we care for them for about two years and spend more than $1000 on each.

Ron Anstis said “we just told the department we can’t put that much into it only for them to allow someone else to kill it. This is the same department that issue us our wildlife licence.” So the same Government Department, (Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning- DELWP), that issues wildlife licences, is the same department that issues killing permits.

Ron and Carola have no ability to fight that permit what so ever, and there is no appeals process to allow residents to dispute cull permits where required.

babyjoey2

The Department admits they have no data or records on how many native animals in Victoria, of most species, except for anecdotal evidence.

The government officer was satisfied that the landholder had explored available nonlethal management measures, such as maintenance and improvement to boundary fencing, prior to applying for the ATCW. “The officer also confirmed that the kangaroos were causing damage to pasture from overgrazing….” Wonder if they’ve assessed if it’s been “overgrazed” from overstocking of livestock and/or feral animals?

“Two rabbits eat the same amount as a kangaroo and a cow with a calf at foot will eat as much as 30 kangaroos; DELWP should be required to explain to the applicant the dietary differences between kangaroos and cattle so that the applicant can be properly informed about the amount of competition for pasture that actually exists,” Mr Anstis said.

The couple left a rescued joey at government office in protest over a kangaroo cull permit at their neighbour’s property.

The Anstises were forced to leave eight-month-old Angel at the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning offices in Colac on Tuesday. Anstises had decided to stop rescuing and rehabilitating joeys and injured eastern grey kangaroos because of the contradictory action by DELWP of giving their neighbour permission to legally cull 60 roos! The neighbours want to improve their pastures, the cheap way.

The couple, with 23 years of experience in wildlife care, is calling for state government change that would see exclusion zones around wildlife shelters to prevent the allocation of culling permits.

Victoria, the most cleared and damaged State, has lost it’s balance, and has no place for EGK! Livestock, infrastructure, land clearing, roads, urbanisation and liberal distribution of ATCW means these iconic native kangaroos are doomed to be left to die, if found as joeys, in the large area of Victoria that the Anstises served.

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Victory for vegan campaigners as Iceland dumps kangaroo meat

After receiving criticism from animal welfare charity Viva! and pressure from consumers, British supermarket giant, Iceland have announced they have stopped selling kangaroo meat. Viva!’s long running consumer campaign included a funeral procession for wildlife inside an Iceland store and a nationwide Day of Action, demanding they stop selling kangaroo meat.

• Kangaroos are brutally killed in the outback for international meat trade
• Baby joeys ripped from mother’s pouch and clubbed to death
• Health risks associated with consuming kangaroo meat

Iceland had stocked kangaroo meat, marketing it to consumers as a ‘low fat exotic meat’. However, what they failed to mention is that the kangaroo meat industry is one of the most brutal and violent in the world. It is sold as ‘just a bit of fun’, but don’t be fooled. It is the product of suffering and blood-shed on an enormous scale. Millions are shot every year at night in Australia’s vast outback. Mesmerised by powerful search lights, the animals are supposedly shot in the head but many are mis-shot and die a slow, agonising death.

Experts from both the UK and Australia have expressed their concerns about the health implications of consuming kangaroo meat and warned than it ‘could be riddled with pathogens’. Five years ago, independent testing had found dangerously high levels of Salmonella and E.coli in kangaroo meat bought from Australian supermarkets. In 2014, dog ‘treats’ made from kangaroo meat were withdrawn because of Salmonella contamination.

In addition to the potential health risks, Viva! warns of serious animal welfare issues surrounding the killing of kangaroos. In the UK it is a common misconception that kangaroos are farmed; when they are in fact completely wild animals. As such, their population can fluctuate massively – and can be especially impacted by factors that can be difficult to predict, such as drought (which is only expected to worsen because of climate change) and disease.

Baby kangaroos (joeys) are pulled from their dying mother’s pouch to be clubbed to death. Still dependent adolescents are shot and dumped or left to die from predation or hunger without the protection of their parents. Popularising and commercialising the meat of wild animals – whose populations are finite and unstable – is deeply irresponsible and potentially disastrous.

Whilst populations can build up in some areas they have plummeted in others. In 2015 alone there was 6.8 million kangaroos earmarked for slaughter. According to the Australian Government’s own figures, since 2001 (compared to 2015) there has been an overall drop of 12,577,598 kangaroos in the areas where they are hunted.

Animal welfare organisation Viva! have campaigned against the sale of kangaroo meat since the late 1990s. Recently they have also successfully stopped major British supermarkets Sainsbury’s, Morrison’s and Tesco from selling the meat. Only Lidl has failed to listen to Viva! and their customer’s concerns about the meat and as a result is the last major supermarket still selling it.

Juliet Gellatley, founder and director of Viva!, explains why Iceland ditching kangaroo meat is an milestone:

“We are delighted that Iceland have taken kangaroo meat off their shelves after listening to Viva! and their customer’s concerns. What was being promoted as a little bit of fun to British consumers hid the brutal reality that the kangaroo trade drives the largest massacre of land based wild animals in the world today. We are committed to supporting Australian wildlife groups to end this repugnant, merciless and thuggish trade.”

Notes to editor

1. Iceland quote was obtained from Keith Hann, Director of Corporate Affairs keith.hann@iceland.co.uk on 30 January 2018 – his full quote was:

“I am happy to confirm that Iceland removed all lines containing kangaroo meat from sale last year, in response to feedback from our customers.”

2. Viva!’s kangaroo campaign website www.savethekangaroo.com
3. Viva!’s previous campaigns against this industry have achieved wide media coverage including: The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Grocer and The Sun.
4. For details of the human health implications of eating kangaroo meat please see Viva!’s updated fact sheet: https://www.savethekangaroo.com/factsheet (it includes details of a brand new kangaroo butchering facility closed down because of health concerns)
5. Viva!’s Day of Action took place in 2015- however the consumer campaign has been ongoing since

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