Unless you are dead you will have noticed that we colonial subjects are more and more subject to virtual online government and to digital phone queues, as well as hostage to the big corporation versions. This is a great system for wearing down resistance over unfair charges or bad service, without you being able to argue the point.
The cover photo is of one of the 13 ringtail possums brought into care at stage 1 of VicRoads' clearing. (See "VicRoads mulch wildlife on Mornington Peninsula -AWPC intervention".) She had a deep facial injury which eventually recovered; she has since been released back into the wild. She was one of the lucky ones, many animals were mulched alive or run over by the heavy machinery that VicRoads used. Autumn has arrived and re-planting of the cleared median strip has not commenced, I would assume that it’s because they haven’t yet finished installing the safety barriers. This begs the question why did they go ahead and clear in spring, if they were going to take this long to complete the barriers? They could have left nesting birds to fledge.
Eve Kelly, Secretary
Australian Wildlife Protection Council Inc.
An article appeared in the Irish Times in 2007 about the danger that the wire safety barriers cause to motorcyclists. Back then, some countries were considering removing these types of barriers from their roads. VicRoads, in the meantime, has razed vegetation and mulched wildlife recently in order to install these barriers with their dubious safety record. (See "VicRoads mulch wildlife on the Mornington Peninsula.") No doubt someone is making a lot of money out of selling them to VicRoads. But that's no justification for clearing vegetation and injuring, killing and orphaning protected wildlife. All the less so if they may need to remove the barriers in the future because they are unsafe. The illustration in the article is taken from the Times Record News reporting a 2017 incident in Vernon Texas where a motorcyclist received near-fatal injuries on this kind of barrier. This article is based on part of one called "AWPC call for VicRoads to cease clearing plans on the Mornington Peninsula", by Eve Kelly of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council.
I found what struck me personally as egregious growthist propaganda dressed up as an academic research article on The Conversation, yesterday: "Blaming immigrants for unemployment, lower wages and high house prices is too simplistic." [February 23, 2018 11.26am AEDT]. The article was headed up by professor of economics, Robert Breunig from the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, and co-authored by Mark Fabian, Postgraduate student, Australian National University. Professor Breunig disclosed that he receives funding from the Productivity Commission, which I think is a leopard with continuously changing arrangement of spots according to whatever political background it needs to blend into for survival. Leith van Onselen's debate with Migration Council's CEO Carla Wilshire of the on the ABC’s National Wrapdocumented here, seems to illustrate this, but for all I know the professor and his student actually believe what they write.
Criticising ex-PM Tony Abbott's extremely belated calls for reducing Australia's immigration-fed overpopulation problems, Breunig and Fabian write, “But migrants also bring capital, investing in houses, appliances, businesses, education and many other things. This increases economic activity and the number of jobs available.” It sounds like they are describing molecules in a heated gas.
Increasing economic activity increases impact on our environment and politically disempowers us. Massive population growth in this country is removing our choices of what we can buy with money, whilst inflating the cost of the reduced amenity and shelter that population growth is causing. That's impoverishing. Just on the business side, the cost of premises and paying wages so that employees can afford housing makes Australian businesses globally uncompetitive and provides an explanation for their mysteriously high rate of failure.
I am going to talk about how changes to laws and standards as to how our natural environment and urban spaces are treated and our rights within them are taking place without any meaningful public discussion or empowerment in order to allow growth to proceed.
Breunig and Fabian's article completely ignores the beautiful non-human environment we have in Australia, the green bits of which are being cut up into biogeographical islands, then paved over, subdivided and sold for ever higher monetary value. I suspect this failure to engage with nature is because its writers currently live in a bubble and simply don’t know or care about wildlife or green spaces or have compartmentalised this reality. So they are writing without my values or those of many other Australians or the values that attracted many immigrants.
Although there are laws for the protection of wildlife in this country, they are simply not applied. This is one reason that population growth can continue, for the recently beefed up Prevention of Cruelty Act 1986, the Fauna and Flora Guarantee Act 1988 and the Catchment and Land Protection Act 1994 would otherwise prevent the big business and government agenda for a big human population and infrastructure expansion.
I am, however, acutely aware, because I am involved personally, of how various authorities and contractors are expecting local wildlife carers and rescuers to clean up the huge callous mess and damage to flesh and blood that they are causing. Carers and rescuers are paying for artifical nests, feeding, nursing and medicating so many injured and displaced animals. Then those carers have to find some other place to release them, as habitat is destroyed all around them, whilst people like the authors of this article I am commenting on are claiming that the only problem about housing is failure to release land. We on this side of reality are fighting to stop the ‘release’ of land to bitumen and profit for a few in the growth lobby. (I am also qualified to talk about the growth lobby because I was the first person to write about it in Australia in a 2002 thesis - The Growth lobby in Australia and its Absence in France - which compared our system to the French one, which latter costs population growth as a cost to the public purse.)
Here are some examples of the callous vandalism that is taking place as we speak:
I live in Victoria and currently VicRoads and Melbourne Water are removing an extraordinary number of trees. For the expansion of the Melbourne metro rail project (which aims to cater for our artificially stimulated population growth) I have been informed that around 800 trees are being removed from urban Melbourne. Most of these are large mature trees, which have provided shade and enjoyment to people, and habitat for Australian wildlife, including birds and mammals. The public has not been consulted in any meaningful way about this. The St Kilda Road Avenue that leads to the war memorial and the botanic gardens, has been vandalised for this purpose. This avenue is a feature of Melbourne not unlike the Champs Elysees of Paris. To vandalise this is equivalent to a resounding slap across the face by Melbourne Planners of citizens who grew up here. Many find it shocking and distressing as a recent protest shows. /node/5413
But it is not just rail changes that are destroying wildlife habitat. Melbourne Roads have recently changed their policy on roadside and median strip vegetation, with absolutely devastating results for local climate, ammenity and habitat: /node/5304
Then Melbourne water is now treating small local retardant basins as major dams, under the ANCOLD guidelines. Why are small retarding basins being treated as major dams? Because our 60% immigration fueled population growth has caused urban densification and the proliferation of hard surfaces. Although this was predicted by residents with foresight in many VCAT battles, these hard surfaces now carry the threat of major floods, so the small retarding basins that were adequate for many decades, now are deemed in need of reinforcement to bring them up to major dam status!
What has this got to do with trees and wildlife habitat and human amenity, you ask?
These new ANCOLD guidelines require the removal of all trees from ‘batters’ or dam banks. Since previous thinking caused the planting of trees because trees stabilise earth-forms, this ‘new’ thinking requires the removal of another huge quantity of mature trees, denuding much parkland throughout Victoria. Can you blame me if I suspect this is also to suit private developers and people who want land ‘released’ [from the commons and nature]?
The implications of these ANCOLD guidelines (which are now an Australian standard that is threatening green spaces all over the green bits surrounding this 70% hot desert and rangeland island) are staggering for the green wedges that follow Victoria’s rivers and creeks, their canopies cooling our environment through transpirational heat exchange, lowering water tables through the same transpiration, providing habitat for our wildlife and a green commons for our human spirits. Melbourne Water is in charge of more than 200 such basins. It pretends to follow guidelines to protect the displaced wildlife but in fact it does not have plans in place for their survival and reestablishment. It invites people to ‘revegetate’ what it has devastated, but our wildlife cannot wait for 25 yrs while trees grow to maturity, or 100 yrs plus until natural hollows occur. And the cheek of Melbourne Water to invite the people for whom its works have diminished their natural ammenity to replant such areas and not be paid! Insults added to injury. If you want to read more about this scandal, and its impact on wildlife, community and democracy, have a look at /node/5401 and https://awpc.org.au/awpc-to-melbourne-water-response-on-tree-removal-lee-st-retardant-basin/. Furthermore, there is a rumour that the Federal government is planning to make work like tree-planting mandatory for environmental organisations to qualify as tax-deductible. Slave labour for public works damage! And when every government leads with the plaintive cry of "Jobs!" This is where the labour is required.
And it doesn’t stop there. Big money in densifying rural areas is impeding the passage of kangaroos to their feeding grounds, with the usual myth [See https://awpc.org.au/roo-scientists-admit-industry-stimulates-roo-population-growth-whilst-calling-roos-pests/ ] that there are ‘too many’ - a hollow farce familiar to the wildlife carers who must deal with the injuries that come from ‘gentlemen farmers’ taking potshots with permission from the ever generous and poorly overseen permissions to cull issued by DWELP: https://awpc.org.au/awpc-speak-out-against-the-culling-of-kangaroos-in-cape-schanck/.
And then there are there is the devastation caused by freeways and tollways created to ‘solve’ the congestion problems created by overpopulation. Money given to Parks Victoria by Peninsula Link for predator proof fences around scarce bandicoot habitat has been diverted to another program far from the original area, consolidating the damage that wildlife campaigners thought they might have mitigated in this place.
Of course the public think that Parks Victoria is looking after animals in the parks it manages for ‘healthy people’, but we cannot rely on Parks Victoria. See /node/2376 and /node/2377.
And the examples I give here are actually taking place at the mouth of the Mornington Peninsula Biosphere - scheduled for densification, of course. Shame!
It is not the big-name conservation organisations but the hands on volunteers in organisations like AWPC (whose articles I have used as examples) that are doing the hard yards in this vicious losing battle against a delusional ideology fueled by speculative money that wants to increase human population despite our population being bigger by an order of magnitude than it has ever been for the bulk of its history. Does economics totally lack a sense of proportion or irony? The King Midas myth and the magic pudding pale against the science of modern economics which seems so similar to 17th century economics and official religion.
The notions put forward in the article I am commenting on simply stagger me in their unreal, coldly irrational model of the world we live in, biological human values, and what passes in The Conversation for research and analysis. Unfortunately these are the dominant models and values that are then acted on by governments and their contractors, in a great tragedy for this beautiful and fragile land that gives us all life.
VicRoads doesn't really respect wildlife corridors and rarely includes wildlife crossings in its vast expensive highways, despite its Fauna Sensitive Road Design Guidelines (on what page here to find link to pdf document is unclear). The excuse seems to be that they are too expensive. However VicRoads is costing us all more than money. And last week it sent a giant mulcher to mow down forests of trees which had been planted along the Mornington Peninsula median strips as a climate change mitigation measure by previous regimes.
Notwithstanding VicRoads' "Updated VicRoads Tree Policy, 20 January 2017", the corporation hasn't really changed its mechanistic values:
"The updated policy offers increased scope to consider existing trees, not just new plantings, and consideration during planning and development instead of only responding to new proposals. Mr Wall said historically, VicRoads has been seen by the community as prioritising roads, safety and movement over trees and the wider environment."
And went on to confirm that they would continue to prioritise roads over trees.
If VicRoads puts its roadbuilding above the wider environment, on which we all depend, it is plainly out of control, operating within a grandiose belief system that road-builders are more important than anything else.
Recently they announced:
"We’re upgrading the Mornington Peninsula Freeway between Mount Martha and Rosebud to improve safety as part of Victoria’s Road Safety Strategy & Action Plan, Towards Zero 2016-2020 [...]
And along they came with the enormous tree-mulcher, right at the beginning of Spring, when most birds make their nests. The Australian Wildlife Protection Council (AWPC) Secretary, Eve Kelly, could hardly believe her eyes as suddenly she realised that the considerably forested median strips and roadsides were being mown down at lightening speed by a monster machine. VicRoads had employed a single wildlife spotter who was overwhelmed in her attempts to save any birds, lizards, possums, koalas from the path of the giant mulcher. Eve had more success than most, in getting the Mornington Peninsula Freeway project paused by complaining to VicRoads, when she complained about the plight of the wildlife on behalf of AWPC.
"VicRoads was told the clearing would impact on wildlife now and in the future. "We voiced our concerns about the loss of habitat, and the welfare and care of animals now in rehab at wildlife shelters,' Ms Kelly said later. 'We also raised our concerns about the destructive methods used and the lack of planning, including the time of year this work has commenced.'" (https://issuu.com/southernpeninsulanews/docs/spn_10_october_2017)
There were "reports of dozens of displaced animals, including ringtail possums dropping babies from nests, echidnas and blue tongue lizards being trampled by the authority's 'forestry machine' - and even being mulched alive."
"Ms Kelly said 15 orphaned possums were being hand raised at WHOMP after the drama. Two young ringtails had to be put down."
After complaints, VicRoads met with Brenda Marmion of Ocean Wildlife Shelter, and Eve Kelly and Craig Thomson of AWPC, with Klarissa Garnaut of Wildlife Help on the Mornington Peninsula on speaker phone.
VicRoads stopped the clearing and VicRoads Program Director Bryan Sherrit said the program would be redesigned, that work would restart next year after peak summer season, and that the 'high density vegetation removal machine' would not be reused on this project. He added that 'any future vegetation removal' would use more fauna-sensitive methods.
But trees are not safe with VicRoads and its safe roads project.
This is the problem with corporations. They take over state services and run them for profit, and then they start creating work for themselves. VicRoads benefits from overpopulation in Australia, rolling out roads to connect new suburbs, and thinking up new jobs for its friends. Removing trees along roads is one of the more diabolical make-works they have found. They have become like the Cat with the Hat only not so funny with their expanding manic activities, backed up by huge material resources: fossil fuels and machine of inhuman size.
All over Victoria, citizens are trying to stop VicRoads from running roughshod over democracy, contributing to carbon emissions, turning beautiful trees into mulch and displacing Wildlife.
A "Save Roadside Trees in Victoria" website: https://saveroadsidetrees.com/the-problem/roadside-vegetation-issues-non-vicroads/ was formed in October 2016 in response to shocking plans by VicRoads to remove trees from the sides of roads. The first post appears to have been from Latrobe Valley:
"The Latrobe Valley Sustainability Group is protesting VicRoads’ proposal to remove 90 Endangered Strzelecki Gums plus acacias and wattles (including 24 old and very old trees) as part of a road safety project on the Tyers/Traralgon Road in the Latrobe Valley. Latrobe City only has 23% remaining native vegetation."
"A radical plan to remove roadside trees around the State is underway. It is apparently backed by research, but people are continuing to die on roads where trees are completely absent. Is the program, advertised widely as the “Towards Zero” safety campaign simply an environmentally costly experiment? There has been an increase of 13% in deaths from road accidents this year despite the increases in roadside tree removals."
"Conservationist Sue McKinnon said the tree hollows created an important corridor for the movement of phascogales. “The success of the breeding season of the phascogale is dependent on mobility and large numbers of hollows in a wide range as the male runs around over a huge area to find females to breed with, and after this time the male dies,” she said. “If the phascogales’ movement is restricted by removal of hollows along a corridor, the breeding season may fail."
"The Victorian Auditor-General’s Office has produced a document for various authorities to better engage with the community. Auditor-General John Doyle warns “failing to adequately engage the public risks alienating the community and creating negative impacts through poorly informed and implemented decisions.” Look no further than the #WstnHwy Duplication project for an example of where things have gone badly wrong. http://bit.ly/1TLmTWp (https://saveroadsidetrees.com/solutions/
Unfortunately the groups above seem to have got mixed up with Friends of the Earth (FOE), an organisation affiliated with the Socialist Alliance of AntiFa fame, political organisations which take over environmental and other political territory, but don't do much about it. In fact, many people think that, where you see a group affiliated with the Socialist Alliance, that means that the government or corporation will have an easy time.
Australians are also trying to stop the removal of massive trees along the Western Highway. See "The Western Highway Conservation Group," https://www.facebook.com/Savewesthwyveg/
VicRoads has too much power. It should be broken up and road building be returned to local councils, which cannot work as fast and have many other priorities that would dilute the capacity for road-building to take over.
Vicroads and Transurban Project
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