Greens join forces to save the Tarkine

Posted on September 23, 2012 by rowenadelarosayoon

The Wilderness Society, Tarkine National Coalition, and GetUp! joined forces in the campaign to protest the “out-of-control” mining ventures in the Tarkine in Tasmania and push for its enlistment in the World Heritage Site.

Convoluted rocks at the west coast off Tarkine. (Photo: Flickr)

Massive banners in front of a proposed Venture Minerals’ open cut mine in the Meredith Ranges have been unveiled as part of the Tarkine wilderness. Tarkine is claimed to have been recently assessed by the Commonwealth and Tasmanian Governments to have a national and World Heritage values prompting strong community oppositions to any developmental aggression.

Here’s from the campaigners:

Liz Johnstone, Tarkine campaigner for The Wilderness Society, said many of these values, however, are under threat from new open cut mines. Some are proposed in existing conservation reserves that have been watered down to allow mining and exploration.

Venture and a range of other companies have plans to build strip and open cut mines in the region, ahead of the findings of an Australian Heritage Commission assessment of the environmental significance of the area.

Miners, Australian Workers Union join forces to support mining in the Tarkine. (Photo: ABC)

Paul Oosting, campaign director for GetUp, said the Tarkine has evolved over 40 million years to be what is now one of the few last remaining wild places on the face of the planet, yet Venture Minerals wants to go into what is currently a conservation area and strip mine it for just 2-8 years.

“Today we have seen the Tasmanian community stand up and take action to not let this happen and we know that they have the support of people from around the country who want to see this area properly protected,” Oosting said.

Vica Bayley, campaign manager for Wilderness Society Tasmania, said that the event signals an escalation of the community campaign and a counter to the provocative actions of the Australian Workers Union and the mining industry who are pre-empting the current national heritage assessment and pushing ahead with risky mining proposals.

“The AWU, the mining lobby and companies need to back off and allow due process and the heritage assessment to conclude before locking in destructive proposals that threaten the values of the area and impact on the heritage listing that previous assessments prove this region deserves,” Bayley said.

GetUp’s “Save the Tarkine” campaign

The action before Monday’s (24 Sept) Extraordinary General Meeting of Venture Minerals’ shareholders in Perth, where a decision will be made on capital raising needed to kick start its mines in the Tarkine. “The company, its shareholders and financial backers must realise that mining World Heritage value wilderness is a risk not only to the environment, but also to their investment,” Bayley said.

More info about this campaign: Tarkine National Coalition, Wilderness Society Tasmania, GetUp!

Tasmanian Premiere Lara Gidding maintains that the Tarkine is insignificant, with mining representing only one per cent of the region.

Blog Link: Asian Correspondent

Super trawler can’t super fish

Posted on September 12, 2012 by rowenadelarosayoon

Super trawler Abel Tasman could suck schools of mackerel off Australian waters (Photo: Pierre Gleizes/Greenpeace)

MV Margiris, the giant fishing vessel measuring 146-metre long, has been banned from its grand mission to fish 18,000 tons of pelagic fish off Australian waters.

Even before it reached Australian shores, more than a dozen of Green groups have already sounded the alarm bell pushing the Federal Government to block the super trawler.

Baptising it with a new name, Abel Tasman, early this month did not help the super ship either to set its past records straight. Green groups alleged the humongous vessel to have plundered the seas off the Pacific and the coasts off West Africa, among other major international waters. The vessel, longer than the Sydney Harbour Brige, can dwarf and make local fishing boats look like toys– if allowed to sail on, they said. The ship is now docked at Port Lincoln in South Australia.

Abel Tasman could be the largest fishing vessel to sail on Australian waters. (Photo: News Corp)

The Parliament said Abel Tasman cannot go ahead with its mission– banning it for two years until a comprehensive scientific research and review of the Small Pelagic Fishery Agreement has been made. Fisheries Minister Joe Ludwig also announced a review of the 20 year old fisheries management legislation, in light of concerns about super trawlers devastating fish stocks.

Australian-owned, Seafish Tasmania, entered a joint venture with the Dutch-owned MV Margiris for small pelagic fishing that would net schools of Blue Mackerel, Jack Mackerel and baitfish. The MV Margiris weighing 9,499 tonnes can process over 250 tonnes of fish a day and has a cargo capacity of 6,200 tonnes.

Seafish Tasmania Gerry Green said the venture was estimated to provide jobs to about 50 people, including 45 in Devonport, Tasmania. At least, 15 of whom are likely to be from overseas. “It is going to be hard to tell these employees, some of them who were long term unemployed, that we no longer have a job for them,” SBS noted.

But the Tasmanian Times unearthed some evidence claiming the “Dutch owned, EU subsidised, Margiris Trawler, offers “no advantage to Tasmania or for that matter Australia.” If there is one beneficiary, it would be Seafish Tasmania owner Gerry Geen, the online paper said.

Pelagic or mid-water trawling is the process of deploying and towing a net at a chosen depth in the water column to catch schooling fish such as herring and mackerel. This differs from “bottom” (benthic) trawling in which a net is dragged along the ocean bottom where fish such as cod, haddock, and flounders live.

The Government's zoning of Small Pelagic Fishery. (Photo: AFMA)

Small Pelagic Fishing zones by AFMA

The Small Pelagic Fishery (SPF), managed by the Australian Fishery Mangement Authority (AFMA), is a purse-seine mid-water trawl fishery extending from Southern Queensland to Southern Western Australia. The AFMA said there are currently 71 licenses and five active vessels operating targeting several species including Jack Mackerel, redbait, Blue Mackerel, and Australian Sardine (off NSW only). Yellow Tail scud is taken as by-product.

AFMA has adopted various harvest strategy such as input and output control including limited entry, zoning, mesh size restriction, and total allowable catch limits. They are said to be based on sound science and best marine management practices.

Supernet scoops tonnes of small fish. (Photo: Greenpeace)

However, Greenpeace oceans campaigner Nathaniel Pelle said, “These ships literally vacuum up entire schools of fish”

Greenpeace, GetUp, Environment Tasmania, and the 14 other conservation and fishing groups galvanised a CommunityRun! to block the giant net off Australian waters

The Fishingworld website noted:

Greenpeace oceans campaigner Nathaniel Pelle said the organisation had confronted the Margiris off the coast of Mauritania in March, for its role in what it says is overfishing in the North Sea and South Pacific ”to the point of plunder”.

The environmental group claims the industrial super-trawler is part of the European Association of pelagic freezer trawlers (PFA), responsible for “some of the worst fishing excesses on the planet.”

It said PFA vessels had been reponsible for jack mackerel stocks off Chile plummeting by 90 per cent.

“There has never been a trawler of this scale in Australian waters to my understanding before and that is a serious concern that we just don’t know what effect it will have on the food chain,” Greens MP Kim Booth said.

Reflagged Abel Tasman awaits fate at Port Lincoln. (Photo: Ivon Perrin)

The Sea Shepherd said,

If this super trawler is allowed to operate in Australia, it would mean huge impacts on the already critically endangered Southern Bluefin Tuna and albatross, and the tragic death of seals and dolphins through being trapped and drowned in this super trawler’s indiscriminate killing nets of death as “by-catch”.

If overfishing does not stop, the world’s fisheries will completely collapse by 2048. The reality is that the oceans that provide up to eighty percent of our oxygen are in deep trouble and allowing this super trawler to operate in Australia’s waters would be a further sealing of humanities fate.

Sea Shepherd are calling on all our supporters to please for our oceans sake and our children’s sake, please assist Sea Shepherd in stopping this super trawler.

And the drama on the super trawler continues.

Blog Link: Asian Correspondent

Australia’s new Fairfax media to promote mining agenda?

Posted on June 18, 2012 by rowenadelarosayoon

Following Gina Rinehart’s massive share buy outs last week, Fairfax announced its long-overdue plan to go digital via paid subscription— scrapping outdated print versions of Australia’s major broadsheets, namely the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Mining billionaire Gina Rinehart is now one of Australia’s most powerful women (Photo: AAP)

The media company is set to shut down the printing presses of the two papers located in Chullora in Sydney’s south-west and Tullamarine in north-west Melbourne, respectively, the ABC reported.

About 1,900 jobs have to go in the next three years shocking workers at the presses.

Andrew Jaspan, former editor-in-chief of The Age and a current editor of The Conversation, also said about about 20 percent of the editorial staff, about 150- 200, are also poised to lost their jobs. He added that the media company can still produce a “premium print” edition using a few journalists.

He said the media company has been mismanaged by people who do not have direct experience in the media industry.

Fairfax announced massive job cuts (Photo: Julian Smith)

The print editions, he said, are outdated formats invented 155 years ago noting that the Internet has radically changed the nature and the way news are distributed. He said “rivers of gold” generated by advertising have been dried up.

One by one Fairfax was stripped of its classified advertising “rivers of gold”. The jobs went to Seek.com.au, Cars to Carsales.co.au, homes to Realestate.com.au.

He proposed the digitalisation of Fairfax way back in 2007 when the company’s market value was $5 billion. After five years, the value dipped to as low as $1 billion. The shareprices also collapsed from $5 per share to 60 cents which predators like Rinehart has taken advantage of, he added.

The former Fairfax editor said Rinehart will not run the media like an investor but instead she will use the media to sway public opinion.

Back in 2010 she and her fellow mining barons spent $22m to get rid of Kevin Rudd’s proposed mining tax….. And so successful was the campaign that they got rid of Rudd and saved themselves an estimated $20bn in taxes.

Rinehart’s appointment of Australia’s leading climate change sceptic, Ian Plimer, as an advisor to her mining companies is simply a taste of what’s to come. As one senior Fairfax editor remarked, expect this kind of front page once Rinehart gets control. “Exclusive: Climate Change is a Hoax”.

Activists group, GetUp, tell supporters to exposed the “truth” behind Rinehart’s Fairfax raid. (Photo: GetUp)

Rinehart grabbed nearly 19 percent of the total shareholding of Fairfax Media in two separate buy outs last week. Her company, Hancock Prospecting ,confirmed she has increased her stake at the company from 13 percent, a status which already made her the majority shareholder. She cannot hold more than 20 percent unless she bid for a takeover as stipulated under Corporations Act, the ABC said.

Queensland slams UNESCO, defends gas on the barrier reef

Posted on June 5, 2012 by rowenadelarosayoon

UNESCO has released its damning environmental report on the Great Barrier Reef, but the Queensland State Government hits back saying the report poses an obstacle to the multi-billion dollar seam gas business.

The report came in time when the mineral boom is underway and the Queensland Government is excited about financial gains. Queensland Premier Campbell Newman said his Government understands the issues raised in the report but could not accommodate some of its chief recommendations, News Corp. reports.

Newman said his government is in coal business and he is not going to see the economic future of Queensland shut down.

UNESCO sent a team of experts in March to assess the status of the reef confronted by both natural and man-made threats. While natural threats could be beyond control, the impact of the latter can be minimised if the Queensland Government can review and adopt strategic solutions.

The international body said the World Heritage listed site is under enormous pressure amid increased developmental activities, including additional port infrastructures in and around the Great Barrier Reef and ongoing management of major liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants at Curtis Island and Gladstone Harbour.

The dredging in Gladstone Harbour for the seam gas has been blamed by local environmentalists for the area’s poor water quality and a skin disease affecting marine life. Green activists say dredging has adversely affected whales and dugongs in the area.

UNESCO recommended to the State Government to stop port facilities expansions and to undertake a comprehensive review and strategic solutions to protect the Outstanding Universal Value of the reef.

It warned the reef could officially be listed “in danger” if the federal Government fails to convince the international body it has improved its performance before February next year.

Whether Queensland would be able to help improve environmental conditions of the reef or not, both state and federal governments have already given mineral explorations a go. Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke supports the developmental projects saying the approval of applications has been in full swing. He said there was not much he could do to prevent development applications already in progress.

Mining magnates Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart have likewise secured government’s approval of their mining ventures in Queensland. Further, the two mining lords have been pressuring the Government to allow them to build the world’s largest coal export facility right in the heart of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. The facility is envisioned to double Australia’s coal exports. The mining moguls expect to hear of Government’s decision in 36 weeks time, GetUp noted.

GetUp, an activist group, said mining billionaires are used to getting their way,” but they’re not the only ones who know how to fight.” The group has forged a tie up with Greenpeace and BankTrack to undertake an advertising campaign in key financial market in Asia and India to warn potential investors not to invest in these projects.

It’s not just UNESCO who are against the massive expansion of coal and coal seam gas facilities. We’ve just released an opinion poll that found 79 per cent of Australians are already concerned about the expansion of mining along the Reef’s recognised heritage area — and that was before UNESCO’s scathing criticisms started to make headlines nationwide.

GetUp is optimistic the ad campaign will work. It claims that in 2009, it funded ads in the European Financial Times to discourage potential investors who were previously considering to fund Gunns’ pulp mill in Tasmania.

Blog Link: Asian Correspondent

Xstrata’s video parody backfires

Posted on April 25, 2012 by rowenadelarosayoon

Australia’s mining giant, Xstrata Coal, is reported to have written Mumbrella, an online discussion site of “everything under Australia’s media and marketing umbrella” this week. The letter contains a threat of a legal defamation suit over a published video parody on Australia’s mining business allegedly posted by Mumbrella.

The Australian confirmed the letter to be genuine. Tom Cregan, legal counsel of Xstrata, wrote Mumbrella Editor Tim Burrows:

We therefore require that the video…..(and on any other website hosted by Mumbrella or YouTube) be removed immediately and remind you that all persons involved in the publication of defamatory material are equally liable for defamation. We also observe that the reproduction of the whole of the video taken from www.thisisourstory.com.au appears to constitute a breach of copyright.

The video has been deleted due to defamatory allegation. It is purportedly produced and posted as a union campaign by former Chaser member Charles Firth. It was deleted from the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union’s You Tube account in early December after a complaint from Xstrata.

As early as December, however, activist groups have put up a new site featuring a collection of parodies on Australia’s mining industry, This is the Real Story. Similar videos are also posted on You Tube, including this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=b5pmbicsvhQ

The site comes with a Facebook page which is nearing a thousand fans.

This is the Real Story claims to be a site put up by a group of concerned satirists comprising of the Australian Satire Institute of Australia, the Chamber of Satire Studies (NSW), Queensland Satirical University, the Royal College of Japery (WA), Federal Council of Satirical Councils (Federal Branch).

“Together our member organisations comprise over 85% of all satirical output in Australia. These are the real stories about what Australian mining is doing to the economy. …These are the real stories about what Australian mining is doing to the economy,” the site claims

The main video voices over the claim of how good to do business in mining—to dig up the wealth of the earth and export it overseas. It also voices over a parody where to get mining workers– from overseas labor or indigenous which are far much “cheaper.”

The site is sponsored by the AMWU and is supported by activist groups, GetUp! and Fair Go for Billionnaires.

The site compiles collection of video parodies about “the real stories in Mining” including that of Clive Palmer claiming the CIA to be involved in Australia’s mining conspiracy.

While mining export boom should be a good news, local workers, indigenous communities, and Green activists have been on the rise to oppose mining.

Al-Jazeera also has produced a film on the mining ventures currently being undertaken in Australia. The video claims that while natural resources are powering Australia’s economy to record highs, there is a dark side to the mining boom.

Australia is blessed with rugged beauty and a wealth of natural resources – including coal, iron, natural gas and gold. Such minerals are powering Australia’s economy to record highs. And as demand from China for more resources grows, new mines continue to open across the country. But critics say there is a dark side to this success story. Mining regions attract transient workers keen to make a quick buck, creating social and environmental problems and a rising crime rate. Mines are also draining Australia’s pool of skilled labour from other industries and driving up wages. 101 East asks: What is the cost of Australia’s mining boom?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ewpuCPvkVmg

To get involved and get updates directly into your inbox, you can subscribe stories from the organisers.

Blog Link Asian Correspondent

“Flower Power” induces same-sex marriage bill

Posted on February 14, 2012 by rowenadelarosayoon

Two private bills that will pave the way to legalising same-sex marriage in Australia have been introduced today, the ABC reported.

Labor MP Stephen Jones signalled he would introduce a private at the ALP’s conference in December. This will be the second bill following last week’s indication that Greens MP Adam Bandt and Tasmanian independent MP Andrew Wilkie would put forward a separate bill.

Same-sex supporters take the streets of Australia

This is a groundbreaking development on marriage equality in Australia following oppositions from the conservative religious and political groups. Edward Santow, chief executive of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, also expressed apprehension of any proposed same-sex legislation saying it ”is bound to fail” if not thoroughly discussed in a forum or parliamentary inquiry, the Sydney Morning Herald in its Opinion page said.

However, few days before Valentine’s, same-sex activist group GetUp! urged supporters to mobilise a campaign to soften the hearts of the nation’s federal politicians.

Employing a romantic tactic to soften the hearts of parliament members, GetUp! in partnership with the Australian Marriage Equality, asked followers to send roses to their favourite MP to remind them to review same-sex marriage. “What better way to remind our political representatives of where we stand on Valentine’s Day than to spread some love, and show them that in matters of the heart, we’re united for equality?”

The group has intended to ”flood” the offices of political representatives with roses as a “reminder that Australians believe that two people who want to make a lifelong commitment deserve full and equal recognition before their family, friends and the law,” the group said.

Earlier today, 3000 roses arrived in the Parliament House in Canberra. Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abott received 500 each, Nine News reported.

Supporter can continue to send flowers through the group’s Chip In To Send a Rose page.

Gay rights protest in Australia

The roses on Valentine’s are only a prelude to a more intimate petition. In the coming few days, GetUp! also plans to send “three wonderful same-sex couples” to dinner with the prime minister.

Optimistic for the passage of a bill on marriage equality, GetUp! said Valentine’s Day is the most auspicious day to send love and to be united in love. “We’re closer than ever before to real marriage equality in Australia. So this Valentine’s Day, we’re not giving up on love, and we’re not letting our politicians give up either – not until marriage equality becomes the law of the land, “the group said in an email.

GetUp! claims it was able to gather more than 150,000 petition signatures last year and rallied alongside more than 10,000 other supporters at the ALP National Conference. It also takes pride in the video production of “It’s Time” which has viewed by more than 5 million viewers and still counting.

The group has reasons to be optimistic. The group said the ban on same-sex marriage has been lifted in California. In time of the Valentine’s Day around the round, the Hufftington Post also reported that the state of New Jersey has already passed a bill to recognise same-sex marriage– a move move that supporters called a “civil rights milestone” and Washington became the seventh state in the US to enact a law reconizing same-sex marriage on Monday.

News Link: Asian correspondent