In Arnhem Land, Aborigines show the way to save Australia’s threatened ecosystems
Aboriginal conservation in Arnhem Land http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/
journal/aboriginal-conservation-in-arnhem-land-ipa.htm THE INDIGENOUS PROTECTED AREA program has been remarkably successful at helping traditional owners contribute to Australia’s National Reserve System.
A network of 51 IPAs now covers an area similar in size to Japan (365,000sq.km) and makes up almost one-third of the NRS, which also includes national parks, state reserves and protected private land. Some individual IPAs, such as theSouthern Tanami in the NT, are larger than entire European countries.
An IPA is an area of land or sea that has been dedicated by its traditional owners to conservation and sustainable resource use in agreement with the Australian government. It’s different from other Aboriginal land, because traditional owners will manage it in line with World Conservation Union (IUCN) standards.
IPAs are also developed to maintain culture and bring traditional owners back to their land, as well as develop skills, provide employment and find income sources. Management remains with traditional owners, who are assisted by scientists and business managers to ensure conservation standards are met.
See David Hancock’s images of Djelk and Warddeken IPAs in the gallery attached to this story.
THE DJELK IPA includes coastal landscapes, estuaries, wetlands and tropical savannahs. Its 6732sq.km covers the land of 102 Aboriginal clans and 12 language groups marking it out as a place of remarkable cultural diversity. Read more about Djelk here.
Where: Northern Arnhem Land, NT
Established: 2009
Size: 6732sq.km
Threatened species: Arnhem Land rock-rat, black wallaroo, white-throated grasswren
THE WARDDEKEN IPA, bordering Kakadu National Park, covers an area just one-fifth the size of Tasmania and is rich in ancient art sites, rare plant and animal species, and pristine habitats. Read more about Warddeken here.
Where: Western Arnhem Land, NT
Established: 2009
Size: 13,704sq.km
Threatened species: bustard, northern quoll, black wallaroo, Arnhem Land rock-rat, Oenpelli python
Read the full story on IPAs across the nation in issue 110 (Sep/Oct) of the Australian Geographic journal.
Wave power could have a very big future in Australia
The fact that around 80 percent of Australia’s population live in coastal areas , suggests that wave power will play a very significant part in the country’s energy future.
In Australia, oceans could supply 10 percent power Smart Planet, By Lieu Thi Pham | August 8, 2012, MELBOURNE — A new study by the CSIRO (the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization), revealed that Australia’s oceans could supply 10 percent of the country’s electricity by 2050. This is the equivalent of powering a city the size of Melbourne, which has a population of around four million. Continue reading
Traditional Aboriginal owner leads renewed fight against Yeelirrie uranium mining
Traditional owner opposes Yeelirrie development http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-28/traditional-owner-opposes-yeelirrie-development/4227384 Aug 28, 2012 A traditional owner is planning to step up protests against uranium mining at Yeelirrie, near Wiluna. Kado Muir says the new owners of the Yeelirrie deposit in the Goldfields will have a tough time trying to develop a mine at the site.
BHP Billiton has announced it is selling the deposit to Canadian-based Cameco.The Minister for Mines, Norman Moore, has welcomed the deal saying Cameco is more likely to develop a mine at the site.
Mr Muir says he is concerned about the change of ownership. “With Cameco in place, it does cause quite a bit of concern for us because they are a company who will seek to develop the mine as quickly and as soon as they can,” he said.
“That just adds impetus to our campaign to ensure that WA remains a uranium-free state.”
Mr Muir believes the public will not support uranium mining in WA. “We are worried about it,” he said. “[Cameco] are up against the wall in terms of time lines and the people of WA have not yet had the chance to voice their concerns about
uranium mining at the ballot box. “There is no broad community support for uranium mining in WA.”
Mad monk Abbott also ignorant – about uranium mining
Abbott Out Of His Depth On Mining, New Matilda , 27 Aug 2012 Does Tony Abbott understand the Australian mining sector? His inept response to the Olympic Dam announcement showed him mangling the basics of public policy, writes Ian McAuley Last week BHP-Billiton announced that their profit had fallen from $US32 billion in 2010-11 to a mere $US27 billion last year, and that they were shelving their $30 billion Olympic Dam expansion. . Tony Abbott’s commentary on the event exposed him as an Opposition Leader way out of his depth and brought forth confusing statements about the progress of the resource boom.
Abbott’s claim that the carbon tax and the minerals resource rent tax (MRRT) were behind the decision to drop the Olympic Dam expansion was quite at odds with the company’s announcement that the decision was about capital construction costs and “subdued commodity prices”.
The resources at Olympic Dam are uranium, copper and gold, none of which is subject to the MRRT. If anything, global action on climate change should have been expected to boost uranium demand, but the price of uranium oxide has fallen from a peak of $US290/kg in 2007 to around $US110 now, the Fukushima accident and the tumbling price of gas and photovoltaics having dampened any expectation of a price recovery…. http://newmatilda.com/2012/08/27/mining-puts-tony-out-his-depth
Be wary that BHP might push for further environmental concessions for Olympic Dam uranium site
The Guardian Australia 29 Aug 12, “………South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill is also doing his best to sound optimistic in the light of the Olympic Dam decision. Though his predecessor Mike Rann signed a shamefully generous indenture agreement with BHP Billiton in December last year, it wasn’t enough to satisfy international capital. BHP may use the current unsettling situation to press for the bending of the environmental rules to allow for the speedy introduction of the
notorious acid leeching extraction method at the site….
Abbott will step up the anti-union assault even further than Gillard to deliver the conditions transnational investors want.
Lost in all of these events and threatened changes are the wishes and needs of the Australian people. They don’t want a future dependent on exports of uranium to countries like the US where they enable the production of nuclear weapons and depleted uranium shells. They don’t want the wishes of the Aboriginal people ignored or the environment sacrificed to boost the bottom line of transnational corporations.
They don’t want to have to beg profit-bloated transnationals to make a suitable tax contribution out of the fortunes still being made out of resources that rightfully belong to the whole people. They want a sustainable, pro-people economy….
http://www.cpa.org.au/guardian/2012/1562/01-workers-warned.html
Political danger for Victoria’s Premier Baillieu in following irrational anti wind energy policy
Anti-wind farm laws are bad politics for a Premier on the nose, REneweconomy,By Leigh Ewbank 30 August 2012 Ted Baillieu is a Premier in trouble. Since coming to office, he has made a slew of unpopular decisions that have caused his public support to evaporate. Baillieu’s decision to scrap TAFE funding is perhaps the highest profile of these missteps. His anti-wind energy laws, imposed one year, are less well known but are a damaging sleeper issue.The innocuous-sounding VC82 amendment effectively banned wind farms from operating in large swathes of the state. They establish arbitrary ‘no-go zones’ and allow just one objector to stop any wind turbine within 2km, making Victoria the world’s biggest NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard).
Our state’s once lucrative pipeline of wind farm projects has been blocked and capital is fleeing interstate. Over the last 12 months, just one development application has been lodged with the department of planning.
Traditionally, the Liberal Party was seen as the party of business and an ally of science and progress. In recent years, it has become captive to a Tea Party-style culture of anti-wind energy and anti-climate science extremism.
If the Premier was riding high in the polls then he could perhaps prosecute the irrational agenda of the anti-wind lobby. But he does not have political capital to spare on such ideological adventurism. Continue reading
BHP passes off dubious West Australian uranium “asset” to Cameco
BHP offloads Australian uranium project to Cameco August 30, 2012 Business Recorder, BHP Billiton on Monday said it was selling one of Australia’s largest underdeveloped uranium mines to Cameco for US $430 million, just days after delaying its Olympic Dam copper and uranium project. The world’s biggest miner said an agreement had been signed for its wholly-owned Yeelirrie uranium deposit in Western Australia, and was awaiting clearance from Australian regulators and the state government. ….
Chief executive of Melbourne-based BHP Marius Kloppers last week said the company had no plans to develop any uranium projects other than Olympic Dam. “Generally speaking those mines are too small a scale to fit in our portfolio and the product, quite candidly, is too small to fit into our portfolio on its own,” he said. http://www.brecorder.com/agriculture-a-allied/183/1232067/
Rally opposing Sydney’s Hunters Hill radioactive waste going to residential suburbs
Fallout spreads from uranium waste dumping plan http://parramatta-advertiser.whereilive.com.au/news/story/fallout-spreads-from-uranium-waste-dumping-plan/ 29 AUG 12 BY ELIAS JAHSHAN AROUND 200 residents attended a rally at Lidcombe’s Remembrance Park last Saturday to protest the NSW government’s plans to transfer radioactive waste from an old Hunters Hill radium smelter to residential areas, including a facility at Lidcombe.
The rally was organised by the Auburn Asian Welfare Centre and Soka Gakkai International Australia, a Buddhist and non-government organisation.
A spokeswoman from SGI Australia said waste products from at least 500 tonnes of uranium ore processed at the former Hunters Hill smelter remained in the soil, and will be sent to the Office of Environment and Heritage-owned facility at Joseph St, Lidcombe.
At the rally, Monash University environmental engineer Gavin Mudd acknowledged that radioactive waste needed to be removed from Hunters Hill, but said the problem was a lack of transparency in the plans to dispose of the contaminated soil.
Dr Mudd believed the best place for that waste was the Australian Nuclear Research and Development Organisation facility at Lucas Heights.
“The best place is not Kemps Creek, and it’s not (Lidcombe),” he added.
Lucas Heights is prohibited by law from accepting anything other than Commonwealth waste. Dr Mudd said the soil from Hunters Hill would be classed as state-owned waste.
“Politicians can change legislation quickly when the will is there,” he said. THE STORY SO FAR
– The state government wants to rehabilitate and sell the land at the Hunters Hill uranium smelter site, which closed in 1915.
– Contaminated soil waste is to be transferred to a Lidcombe facility.
– November 2011: Auburn Council unanimously votes to become a nuclear-free zone, but state government can still override this vote.
– February: Auburn RSL delivers 1000 signatures for a petition against the plans.
– March: Rally held at Auburn Town Hall.
Country Victoria taking to solar power, ahead of Melbourne
Solar Power – Regional Victoria Gets It http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3361, by Energy Matters, 30 Aug 12, Statistics recently released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) show uptake of solar power technology outside of Melbourne to be higher than in the state’s capital city.
In Melbourne, 4% of households had solar hot waterand 5% had solar panel systems in October 2011. However, in the rest of the Victoria, 9% of households had solar hot water installed and 8% had solar panels. Uptake has probably increased substantially since October last year, but these results help quash one of the many myths of solar power – that only well-to-do big city folks can afford it. Continue reading
Australia to co-sponsor Pacific Energy Summit in April 2013
New Zealand to host Pacific energy summit AAP August 29, 2012 INTERNATIONAL energy superpowers could assist Pacific nations to establish renewable energy, with New Zealand set to host a summit bringing all sides together.
New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully, who is in Rarotonga attending the Pacific Islands Forum, says the Pacific energy summit will take place in April 2013.
It would be co-sponsored by Australia, the World Bank and Asian Development Bank and co-hosted by the European Union.
Renewable energy was a main talking point when New Zealand hosted the forum last year, and Mr McCully says the summit would be its legacy in ensuring the talk turns into action….
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/new-zealand-to-host-pacific-energy-summit/story-fn3dxix6-1226460856384
BHP Billiton downsizes Olympic Dam project, as uranium market collapses
BHP Billiton Shrinks Project Team for Olympic Dam Mine, WSJ, BY ROBB M. STEWART, August 29, 2012, MELBOURNE—BHP Billiton Ltd. is reducing the size of the project team working on scaled-back plans to expand its Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine in South Australia, with roughly 140 employees facing transfer or lay off.
Melbourne-based BHP, the world’s largest mining company by market value, last week cut or deferred billions of dollars in proposed investments and said it wouldn’t approve any new major project until at least the middle of next year as costs continue to soar and commodity prices slump. The highest-profile casualty of the clamp down on spending was its US$30 billion Olympic Dam project, and …subscribers only http://online.wsj.com/article SB10000872396390444506004577618130532297156.html
Collapse of uranium market led to BHP and Cameco halting uranium mining projects
He [BHP CEO Marius Kloppers] said demand for uranium had collapsed after the Fukushima nuclear incident last year
The Olympic Dam and Yeelirrie shocks from BHP came hot on the heels of the decision by Canada’s Cameco to go slow on a development of its Kintyre uranium project in WA’s Great Sandy Desert
Barnett tells miner to sell asset to other developers BY: ANDREW BURRELL The Australian August 27, 2012 BHP Billiton has abandoned its controversial Yeelirrie uranium project in Western Australia, with chief executive Marius Kloppers saying the deposit is too small for the mining giant’s portfolio at a time of collapsing global demand. Continue reading
South Australia can now develop its diversified economy, with the Olympic mirage gone
Mining in SA is still a minnow compared with the state’s traditional economic base. Manufacturing accounts for about 11 
per cent of economic activity, agriculture 6 per cent and mining 4 per cent, boosted by high commodity prices…. despite government rhetoric, SA is far from a mining state.
those things that are the reason why South Australia existed: our agriculture, fishing, aquaculture, food processing,
Prospects take a dive with shelving of Olympic Dam expansion BY: SARAH MARTIN, SA POLITICAL REPORTER The Australian August 25, 2012 BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam mine expansion would have created a hole
in the ground as deep as South Australia’s highest peak.
An open pit 4km long, 5km wide and 1km deep was to be dug across five years to create the world’s largest copper and uranium mine at Roxby Downs in the state’s outback, 560km north of Adelaide.
But it was not to be.
{ at left, BHP’s CEO Marius Kloppers and former S.A. Premier Mike Rann, in the heady days of their ill-judged fervour for Olympic Dam) BHP’s decision this week to shelve the $30 billion project has left SA without the mining boom it was promised. For almost a 
decade, former premier Mike Rann and treasurer Kevin Foley spruiked the transformative power of the mine project,
proclaiming it an economic panacea for the state……
The mine’s promise continued to be sold by the Weatherill administration after Rann’s departure, with budget figures predicated on the mine going ahead, even while a global commodity downturn made its prospects doubtful…..
Adelaide-based chief economist of Prescott Securities Darryl Gobbett
says the government had promised a mining boom that would not
eventuate.
“I think they have hyped up what was going to happen before the
event,” he says. …… Continue reading
BHP dumps its Western Australian uranium project, as well as the South Australian one
BHP abandons WA uranium project Business Spectator, , 27 Aug 2012 Plans for BHP Billiton Ltd to develop its controversial WA Yeelirrie uranium site have been let go after its chief executive, Marius Kloppers, said the deposit is too small for its portfolio with the company bracing for a decline in worldwide demand, …. http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/BHP-abandons-WA-uranium-project-pd20120827-XJSPJ?opendocument&src=rss
UK backtracks on its threat to invade Ecuador Embassy in London, to get Julian Assange
UK retreats on Assange embassy threat THE AUSTRALIAN, AFP August 27, 2012 ECUADOR’S President Rafael Correa has said he believed his country had overcome a diplomatic spat with Britain over its threat to enter the
Ecuadoran Embassy in London in order to arrest Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
“We believe that this unfortunate incident is over,” said Mr Correa. “It was a mistake for the British Foreign Office to say that they would enter our embassy.”
“It’s good that the United Kingdom has given up its threat. Continue reading
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