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Econews 13.3.2009
    
The web address for Bryce McDougall who talked about his book “The Too Hard Basket” on show of 13.3 is www.responsibility.com.au
He believes if we can change big business we can change the world and has come up with a new way of doing business, NFPOI’s or Not For Profit of Individuals.

Irregularly I do an econews segment on the show which I collate from enviro orgs and abconline, so I thought it would be good to post them.

The United Nations Climate Change body has accused Australia of hiding greenhouse gas emissions from forestry and land clearing in the UN Expert Review Team’s report on Australia’s greenhouse gas inventory, the Wilderness Society and Humane Society International said today.The inventory reveals that Australia’s emissions since 1990 have risen dramatically in the energy and industrial sectors, and that it is only the claimed reductions in emissions from the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry sector that prevented Australia from recording a 30% increase in emissions. A 7% increase is reported.The UN Expert Review Team made particular comment on issues with the National Carbon Accounting System (NCAS), and on underestimations of emissions from forest clearance and from fire in forests and native vegetation. See the report at    http://www.climate-l.org/2009/01/-unfccc-secretariat-releases-review-of-three-national-ghg-inventories-.html

Nearly two years ago, one of the country’s most significant waterbird breeding habitats in the Gwydir River floodplain was recklessly bulldozed. As a result of The Wilderness Society investigating and publicising the clearing and urging the authorities to act, the landowner was prosecuted and this month, the Land and Environment Court of NSW imposed a fine of $408,000 on two counts of breaching the NSW Native Vegetation Act. This is one of the first successful prosecutions under the 2003 legislation and the largest fine imposed to date. However, thousands of birds lost their breeding sites forever. The Yarrol property was part of the Gwydir wetlands, one of the largest inland wetlands of NSW, which has declined by 90% in recent decades. The site was a rookery for straw-necked Ibis, night herons, royal spoonbills and various rare duck species and located adjacent to an internationally listed Ramsar site. Currently, there is an order in place preventing the land from being farmed and The Wilderness Society will be doing all it can to ensure that this order remains in place so the vegetation can recover. “The offence was self evidently done for the purpose of making more land available for agriculture”, Justice Lloyd found in decision handed down in the Land and Environment Court this month. “The penalty should properly reflect the deliberate nature of the offence, which was committed despite the express instructions given to the landholder that native tress were not to be cleared.”  “The clearing was carried out as part of the agricultural activities on the land and in that sense the offence was part of a commercial operation – that is, it was motivated by commercial considerations.” Broadscale landclearing is a serious concern in NSW. It creates greenhouse pollution, causes salinity, destroys rivers and kills wildlife. NSW still doesn’t have the systems in place to prevent landclearing or to properly measure its extent.   

Deadly plutonium shipment headed for Tasman Sea. On  Saturday March 7 French nuclear company Areva  announced that the largest ever plutonium (MOX) shipment is enroute from France to Japan through the Pacific. About 1.8 tonnes of plutonium in MOX fuel, enough to make 225 nuclear weapons, will travel to Japan via the Cape of Good Hope, the Southern Ocean, the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand and the south-west Pacific Ocean, to arrive in Japanese waters by late-May. Greenpeace protested against the departure of the shipment from Cherbourg this week and are calling on the Australian government to join with Pacific governments, who have publicly called for an end to such dangerous and unnecessary shipments.     

    
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