Is it any wonder people who care about the world feel disempowered and ineffective when they wait months for a reply from a politician and, if they get one at all, find it is a form letter that fails to address the concerns they raised?
How can you and I make a difference when our leaders aren't listening to us? Do we become apathetic and give up or do we try new tactics?
This is an ongoing blog that I invite you to contribute to by way of reply. Perhaps together we can find what does work, if anything. It's our future - if we let the corporations and leaders who are corrupted by them call the shots, we won't have one.
Bob Irwin, the late Steve Irwin's father, will be the special guest speaker at "An Afternoon with Australian Icons", an event organised by Gail Browning to raise money to help wild kangaroos. Indeed the event really does sound like quite a remarkable Aussie evening, mixing outback with working class and wildlife carers. Overseas tourists might like to book in order to experience something important and non-commercial, in the cause of our wildlife for whom the Australian government and their friends seem not to give a toss. The event will be at the Revesby Workers Club, 2b Brett St, Revesby, Sydney on Sunday 23 May 2010 from 3-6pm. All proceeds to the Australian Society of Kangaroos.
This week two 19 year old men appeared in Albany magistrates court charged with animal cruelty after they dragged a kangaroo behind their car. Will these two get just another slap on the wrist like the Dawesville pair last year ? 
Late 2008 a school teacher helped worried children in Epping write to the Minister for the Environment, Mr Jennings, asking him to help kangaroos marooned by development and battered by traffic. Why did DSE allow Wildlife Victoria to spend time and money on a plan to relocate the 21 remaining kangaroos to safe territory, but then secretly kill the kangaroos in a unilateral decision in January this year? Why did DSE, which is also responsible for planning, allow development to trap the kangaroos? A memorial protest will be held for these kangaroos on Sunday 28 March at 2pm at Oleander Drive off McDonalds Rd in South Morang.We the People can do more about this - see inside!
We do need an 
Someone else who isn't impressed by the Australian and state governments' statistics and treatment of wildlife. 6000 signatures already on the petition!
Dame Judi Dench, one of Britain’s best loved and respected actors and a great animal welfare supporter, has supported the campaign to ban kangaroo products from import by all EU member states. "As a lover of animals and their welfare I am pleased to add my name to the many others across the world who are supporting this very worthwhile campaign.” (Judi Dench)
In March of this year we reported on the impact of the worst fires in Australia's history on Wildhaven, in Kinglake, Victoria. This animal rehab and refuge, from which many native animals had been released after expert care, was 
The role of biodiversity in climate change adaptation a report for the Office of the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment, August 2009, finds that maintaining biodiversity, notably kangaroos, reduces fire danger and makes the landscape more resilient. It criticises the culling of kangaroos in Canberra and notes the oddness of referring to them as if they are outside the eco-system, when talking about restoring damaged land. The report also suggests that kangaroos have their own ways of managing their numbers and that 'management' of kangaroo numbers, by interfering with them, is likely to cause population problems. The report contradicts policies defended by Dr Fletcher, ACT government zoologist, although Fletcher's own PHD thesis would support this report's findings, but his department doesn't.
The “exploding kangaroo population” in Thargomindah Queensland, apparently, is because Russia has banned the sale of roo meat. It sounds like the kangaroo industry pushing their own agenda! The media has reported stupid things like a a woman who was too scared to hang her washing out because of the kangaroo coming close to the town, implying very strongly that they are creating a safety problem as well! 
First rally in NSW an outstanding success, attracting MPs who want to counter the growing 
First new patient in Wildhaven since the fires.
"Russia has just announced a ban on all kangaroo products from the 1st August, citing consistent contamination." Lately our politicians have been "trying to convince the Chinese to buy the rejected Russian export kangaroo slush. " (Pat O'Brien, ex-butcher and current President of Wildlife Protection Association of Australia - Patron Steve Irwin).
Eastern Grey Kangaroos should be safe in our "Bush Capital", however, they are being rounded up, hounded and killed! Jon Stanhope is the Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory.
Shortly after Australians learned of the Chinese practice of confining bears for life in metal corsets and draining them of bile, I noticed Melbourne Zoo was selling little toy bears that were 'made in China'. Lately I cannot help noticing the mushrooming of Chinese tourist shops here selling cute toy kangaroos alongside purses made out of kangaroo testicles. And Australia has an anti-whaling policy but officially condones kangaroo massacres.
Professor Steve Garlick writes that he has received a disturbingly poor account from the RSPCA of their supervision of the mass killing of kangaroos in the ACT.
Human Population growth impacts on wildlife: The endangered Earless Dragon is being used to justify killing thousands of Eastern Gray kangaroos in Belconnen and Majura, but the motive is really developers' profit. As grasslands are turned into building sites, as human population growth is encouraged.. Kangaroos are in the way, as is democracy, so both are being buried. See also:
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