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Letters continued from page 18 for the enjoyment and use of all over 100 years ago. Today, North Coast Holiday Parks intends to develop 95 per cent of it into high-density tourist accommodation, block residents’ access and in the process destroy what is left of its natural attributes. Th e Terrace Reserve is home to what remains of an Endangered Ecological Community (EEC) of Coastal Cypress Pines. These Coastal Cypress Pine communities are very rare and are protected under the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995. To clear the way for more tourists and to allow large caravans and boat trailers into what was once recreational parkland, many of these magnifi cent and endangered pines have been illegally cut down and all have been virtually stripped bare by cutting off all branches lower than four metres. Claims that the trees should be cleared for the safety of tourists are ludicrous. Th e trees were there way before any campers were allowed into the reserve and this is precisely why this end of the reserve has never been used as a designated tourist area. Please, all concerned readers, visit www.savebrunswickforeshore.com and go to the Environmental section and see for yourself a documented record of the ruthless environmental destruction done to the historic parkland and river bank. Better still go for a walk through the reserve and see the destruction for yourself. As a government appointee North Coast Holiday Parks thinks they can do as they please, so while you’re on the site sign the online petition to let the minister know that this Crown land is our land and we won’t put up with its commercialisation and destruction. Crown Land has strict legislation about environmental protection but again North Coast holiday Parks totally ignores it. Sean O’Meara Brunswick Terrace Action Group Off ended Th e article in a recent edition of The Echo proclaiming ‘a chilled-out time for schoolies’ in the Bay was deeply off ensive to many of the residents of Byron Bay. Th e reporter did not bother to interview any local residents, and was obviously unaware of the other articles and letters in The Echo about lack of affordable housing, the increased police presence, and the disturbance caused to many residents by unruly schoolies. It may have been a chilled out time for schoolies, but it certainly hasn’t been for many locals. Where were the Red Frogs when residents were evicted from their accommodation so it could be rented at outrageous prices to schoolies? Where were the Red Frogs when locals had to clean up their streets aft er rubbish bins had been upended, when the streets and properties were being vandalised; and where were the Red Frogs when locals and tourists alike were kept awake by schoolies partying and walking the streets intoxicated? Mothering the schoolies? It is apparent the intent is to build ‘Schoolies’ in Byron Bay into an event like that on the Gold Coast. The article proclaims Byron Bay to be Australia’s second largest destination. Th e invading Red Frogs (or is that cane toads?) pumped up by their ‘success’ with schoolies on the Gold Coast, have this year brought DJs with them. What are we to expect next year? It seems Th e Hub is yet another cynical and anti-community initiative backed by the Holiday Letting Organisation. At least the police have remained responsive to the complaints from locals. Yvonne Jessup for Enough is Enough Th e police’s lot Th e police have a diffi cult and important job in our society. Th ey are required to deal with unpleasant situations that the rest of us prefer to avoid. Very often, police work needs the cooperation and support of the public in order to be eff ective. For these reasons, police offi cers can make their job easier by cultivating friendly relations netdaily Bumper Christmas Edition out Friday December 23! BOOK YOUR ADVERTISING NOW! Booking deadline Wednesday December 21 Phone 6685 5222 or email adcopy@echo.net.au with the community and treating members of the public with courtesy and respect. A friendly approach usually inspires a friendly response. Conversely, police officers make their job harder when they abuse their power and treat the public with contempt. Such an approach will create tension and resentment in the community, resulting in distrust and fear of police. Th e behaviour of individual offi cers is representative of the practices and standards of the police force in general. Th e philosophy and attitude of the leadership will guide the screening of police practices and set the standard for police behaviour. Th e conduct of police in general can be positively infl uenced by the involvement of the community, through giving voice to the standards the community expects from its police, as well as through friendly and sincere dialogue with police offi cers on a personal level. John Scrivener Main Arm No guarantee Australian workers are currently being sold the idea that compulsory superannuation contributions paid by employers into an employees superannuation fund of choice are guaranteed by the government. Workers are also encouraged by the government to make additional contributions from their wages with the incentive that the government will match a certain amount of these extra contributions. Superannuation funds advertise their wares day and night via television, radio and print media. The warm and fuzzy message is that workers can look forward to a blissful self-funded retirement with the wonderful assurance of a government guarantee. Just the words ‘Government Guarantee’ should have triggered alarm bells in my brain – ‘warning, warning, Will Robinson’ – as it appears that our superannuation entitlements may end up ‘lost in space’. Although there are substantial fi nes for breaches of superannuation laws, the government’s own mechanism for recouping unpaid superannuation contributions, the ATO (Australian Taxation Offi ce), states on its website that ‘the ATO will rarely (if ever) sue’ for the moneys to be repaid. Legal websites I have researched all imply that civil or criminal prosecution is fraught, indicating that such action will be expensive and success unlikely. If an off ending company declares bankruptcy and goes into receivership, directors of the company may become personally liable for unpaid contributions and their assets can be taken to repay employees. I suspect this applies only if the assets are in the directors’ names and they actually own those assets. Brain Training ...improve functional neuroplasticity So it appears that governmentguaranteed superannuation is not guaranteed at all. In fact it appears that it’s only real benefi t is a a tax-break for the wealthy. Surprise, surprise. Russell Thomas Mullumbimby Mysterious pay rise What I don’t understand is how the prime minister can give herself and her cronies such a massive pay rise when I sit here, half way through my pension fortnight, working out how to turn vegetable broth into a meal – ah, I might have some rice left . I didn’t choose to go on a pension and I didn’t choose to be disabled. When I worked, I worked long and hard. I paid lots of taxes, I donated to charities and I supported the P&C at my children’s school. Later, I was a full time volunteer for 15 years, putting in up to 80 hours per week. I was, and am, a good citizen. Life changed, and I retrained to re-enter the workforce. I was looking forward to continuing a comfortable, middle-class existence, but my health failed and I ended up on a pension, for which I am very grateful, pittance though it is. What I would like Ms Gillard to explain is why she thinks she is worth more money than the ‘leader of the free world’. Aft er all, Obama’s still calling the shots. Moana Perrot Upper Wilsons Creek DO YOU NEED TO: • Focus for longer periods of time • Increase physical endurance • Filter out internal and external distractions • Improve ability to monitor mental and physical actions • Progressively improve coordinated performance Interactive Metronome (IM) is a clinically proven researchbased therapy, which allows the brain to strengthen existing, and build new, neural pathways. PEOPLE WHO CAN BENEFIT INCLUDE THOSE WITH: • Sensory Integration Disorder • ADD/ ADHD • Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) • Stroke • Autism Spectrum Disorder • Learning diffi culties • Athletes • Executives wanting to refi ne fast and accurate memory and problem solving For further information contact Empact on: T: 1300 721 944 E: admin@empact.com.au W: www.interactive metronome.com.au 20 December 13, 2011 The Byron Shire Echo www.echo.net.au
Comment Get Echo news daily: www.echonetdaily.net.au Biodiversity through the proliferation of life Half Price Ceiling Insulation Fibreglass Batts Geoff Dawe seeds, agriculture will make the appropriate adjustments. We Th ere is a saying about not be- will fi nd then that most of it ing able to see the forest for is devoted to orchards or food the trees. Th e attempt at biodiversity as it is currently practised is something like that. Th e ‘trees’ that block the view are an endemic violence in the forests with accompanying horticultural areas. Because they provide tonnages of food from comparatively smaller areas, land area required to feed R3 rating $2.50 per sqm $250 for average 10 sq home area consciousness of the whole of humanity that has ‘civilised’, the population reduces. The rest returns to habitat. Human and that can clearly be seen in food choices is the main driver Arnold Toynbee’s monumental 1973 swan song, Mankind and of biodiversity. Feed oneself with human food and one goes Mother Earth. It is subjugation a long way in ensuring wild na- of the other that is humankind’s primary learning of the responses of civilisation. Subjugation has been the foremost attitude toward introduced the oxygenation of ... cells and and fruit are now the largest soil organic matter is depletture is fed. Biodiversity is not an issue for focusing on the death of some species, but on the life of all species. It involves greater Save $$$ on your energy bills species. As a society, there is not the noticing that so-called noxious plants and animals are nature diversifying. Land is degraded from what it was at fi rst settlement. So is a consequent environment for cancer development’. Professor Gruben-Graham has also said that ‘there is a direct correlation between the consumption of animal products and the section yet there is no attempt to change the orthodoxy of grain predominance on the basis of what science has found. Humankind’s greatest use of science in the 21st century is toing in Western culture in urban, rural and forested areas through human activity, species living upon it naturally readjust. Th ere is no evidence that when soil organic matter noticing of the connectedness of ecology such as soil, atmosphere, human diet and even human emotional wellbeing. In short, it requires a more holistic view. Contact 6684 4397 Will deliver air with climate change. It is leaching of calcium from the ward knowledge that increases levels and atmospheric condi- silly to expect plants and ani- body’. In case there is wonder- the possibility of our merging tions return to 1788 levels, and mals who are part of dynamic ing whether that does not just with other life rather than in humans make appropriate ad- rather than static ecosystems include meat, but also dairy, the invention of another techjustments to their own lifestyle to remain in the usual areas David Wolfe in his book, Eatnology that sets us apart. Diet- rather than directly to the lives as though the environment ing for Beauty, reports that science provides knowledge of the other species, that there has not changed. Life does not ‘a 12-year Harvard study of that enables merging but is will not be a predominance of stand still. Lebanese philoso- 78,000 women demonstrated largely being ignored. native vegetation over that inpher Kahlil Gibran would say it does not tarry. It attempts to take up positions wherever that those who drink cow’s milk are more likely to have osteoporosis and brittle bones’. troduced. Procrastination The many books on diet The case for weeds environmental conditions are As far as wheat fields go, and the apparent confusion is Weed advocate Peter An- right for it. Our job is not to act the eating of grains as cooked not a record of the absence of drews, whose story was one as gatekeepers because we have food, as well as all food cooked diet knowledge, but a record of the most popular presented psyches of national boundaries ‘above a certain temperature of procrastination among peo- on the ABC’s Australian Sto- and passports, but to ensure (slightly above 200F)’ accordple about food. Laurens Van ry, was described by former life is able to move to every ing to Wolfe, ‘causes a path- Der Post in Russia in 1963 saw deputy prime minister John niche suitable for it. ogenic response in the body that at Russian mealtimes, be- Anderson: ‘Like so many Species thrive called leucocytosis whereby white blood cells (leukocytes) cause even in the modern period they had known times of prophets, Peter Andrews was not initially welcomed in his The possums know this. are actually used to digest food scarcity, ‘No matter how own land – but it seems that Some of them are in New Zea- much as they would attack a tempting, varied and abundant many people are now asking land. Eucalypts are not shy foreign substance. Th is state- the dish on the table, the hands why we didn’t listen to him either. Some of their species ment has been confi rmed in of the Russians present would earlier.’ Peter’s view of the so- thrive in Israel. The deliber- hundreds of experiments and all fi rst reach for bread.’ cietal concern for the overrunate movement of all species is based on the research of the Food, like nurturing from ning of native vegetation by to where they will thrive puts Swiss scientist Paul Koucha- a mother, is a fundamental introduced, is that, ‘my own the pro-life back into proliferakoff ’. emotional as well as physical experience... has been exactly tion (pro-life-ration). Th e suffi cient return of carbon to the Eff ects of diet tie to survival. Most people of our own culture suff er an the opposite. Because native plants are better adapted to soil where nature exhilarates in People are generally unin- emotional hollow. Nineteenth natural Australian conditions, rampancy depends on it. But formed of what science has century American philosopher they will always win out over in order for this to happen hu- lately found about diet. At a Ralph Waldo Emerson recog- introduced plants in the end man society needs to reorgan- delicatessen the other day the nised this when he wrote, ‘the – as the casuarinas and river ise itself so that the eff ects of girl behind the counter was ruin or blank that we see when oaks did over the willows at rampancy reduce labour rather glad to hear for example that than increase it and so that the olives are one of the most al- balance returns more to the nakaline of fruits and therefore tives. something of an antidote to Biodiversity was radically the unhealthy, mostly acidify- reduced in Australia because ing eff ects of animal products landclearing took place pri- and grains which are a lot of marily for grain fields and the Australian diet. Of the peo- we look at nature is our own eye’. Th ere is a vain attempt to fill the ruin or blank within with excessive sensory pleasure, especially that provided by food. Since processed grains and animal products are generally not suited to human diet (my farm) Tarwyn Park.’ Moreover, Toynbee has perceptively noted that with our present game of pejoratively labelling unwanted plants and animals as weeds and vermin, this human selection process in place of natural selection BYRON GUIDE MAGAZINE 2 0 1 2 grazing. Th e CSIRO and the University of Sydney have both concluded that 92 per cent of ple who read this, there will be hardly anyone who will already have known that about olives in the excessive quantities they are now consumed, it is reasonable to presume they are has actually ‘reduced the number of surviving species’. His view was a 1973 prescience Last ads NOW environmental degradation and yet we are daily surround- largely comfort foods, bringing of Ahmed Djoghlaf ’s fi ndings, in Australia is caused by ‘anied by a health crisis, and act as comfort to humans at the cost who as executive-secretary of mal industries’. Evidence also though a closer inspection of of the comfort of other species. the UN’s convention of biolog- appears to be accumulating what we are eating is irrelevant Th e full cost of the emotional ical diversity said in 2010, ‘Th e corresponding to that that to it! Furthermore, olives are hollow has been the destruc- news is not good. We continue excessive use of animal prod- a dry-climate plant, this is a tion of human bodies and the to lose biodiversity at a rate ucts also causes human body dry country and in relation to accompanying destruction of never before seen in history degradation. Nutritionist Ro- the country’s size and aridity, habitat. Th e phrase ‘everything – extinction rates may be up zalind Gruben-Graham says bugger-all have been planted. is connected’ loses its triteness. to 1,000 times higher than the ‘the cooking of food results A further travesty in diet ed- Inattention and inappropri- historical background rate.’ in the formation of numerucation is that it is little known ateness of diet has reflected If there is eating of healthy ous carcinogens, especially in that the diet pyramid where as inattention to the fact that human food, which is basi- the case of fats’. She says that when proteins are heated, ‘the overall eff ect is a reduction in grains have been allocated the largest section on the bottom is no longer correct. Vegetables landclearing was the major cause of the reduced biodiversity of native species. Because cally leafy greens in far greater quantity than we are used to, vegetables, fruits, nuts and [Phone] 6684 7390 [Mobile] 0428 847 390 [On Line] www.byron-bay-guide.com.au www.echo.net.au The Byron Shire Echo December 13, 2011 21 Rusty’s
Page 1 and 2: THE BYRON SHIRE Volume 26 #27 Tuesd
Page 3 and 4: Local News Lilly Pilly preps up for
Page 5 and 6: Local News Mullum’s new chamber o
Page 7 and 8: Local News National yoga Local cop
Page 9 and 10: BECK’S STUBBIES 24 X 330ML 39 Lim
Page 11 and 12: Local News Recycling at the triple
Page 13 and 14: Letters Council is in working order
Page 15 and 16: Letters Sat down to read The Echo
Page 17 and 18: Christmas Gift vouchers for a Hot A
Page 19: LOCALLY OWNED & OPERATED Ballina
Page 23 and 24: Christmas Shopping COLOURFUL CHRIST
Page 25 and 26: Shopping AMCAL PLAZA PHARMACY Chris
Page 27 and 28: NEW Motors are slower than cars, ho
Page 29 and 30: Volume 26#27 © 2011 Echo Publicati
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Page 43 and 44: Service Directory SERVICE DIRECTORY
Page 45 and 46: SMALL, URGENT & EMERGENCY ELECTRICA
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