Are miss-guided Greens wreaking havoc on innocents and pawns of industry? Marine Reserves <strong>The</strong> Australian Government wants to Costa Cabral and her family set out to complete its rollout of marine reserves work the land with techniques they had this year. <strong>The</strong> Government received over learned from their father. <strong>The</strong>y planted 450,000 submissions during its 3 month fast-growing timber trees for sawmills public consultation period with about 80 up river. For the market, they put in per cent generated by an international fruit trees. With woven shrimp traps- online campaign run by conservation identical to those in West Africa-they groups including the American Pew caught shrimp that drifted in the creek. Foundation. Cultivated forest like the Costa Cabral's <strong>The</strong> government proposes to make the are found throughout the Amazon 1,000,000 square mile Coral Sea, an Basin. Yet careful stewardship of the important Australian Tuna fishery, a environment has not always worked in marine reserve with limited fishing the Quilombolas' favour. Often allowed but the conservationists want to environmental organisations assume make the whole sea a no take zone. that all human actions inevitably That means yachties, trailing a single lure degrade the forest. Two hundred to catch a feed. Fishermen say the miles west of Mazagao Velho, government’s proposal is already so Quilombolas on the Trombetas River restrictive the fishery would not be viable. managed the forests so beautifully that in 1979 Brazil established a 1,500 According to an ABC report of April 21, Dr. square mile biological reserve on the Terry Hughes, director of “Coral Reef east side of the river. <strong>The</strong> legislation Studies at the ARC Centre for Excellence” creating the reserve prohibited "any in Townsville wants the government to alteration of the environment, including make the Coral Sea Reserve a 100 per hunting and fishing in the area", cent no-take park. "So we have a societal infuriating the people whose families choice to make. Do we want to make had been living there for a century and everywhere in the ocean equally degraded a half. Ten years later, a half dozen or do we want to have a few places that Quilombolas were engulfed by a new are very special where we afford a higher national forest of almost equal size on level of protection?” the west side of the river. <strong>The</strong> national forest opened itself to a gigantic Bob Norson of the Boonooroo Centre for bauxite mine while forbidding it's long “Common Sense and Scientific Accuracy” term inhabitants to cut down trees. claims this is an unscientific and emotive appeal, ("everywhere in the ocean equally And more locally, from a recent article degraded") and others agree. in <strong>The</strong> Sydney Morning Herald: A LARGE, wooden sign by the dirt road <strong>The</strong> ABC report also quotes Canberra warns visitors to Leard State Forest University's Dr. Bob Kearney. He is a critic that collecting firewood is against the of what he claims is a "decline in scientific law. rigour" and lack of support for claims A few hundred metres down the track, madewhen it comes to Australia's plans to a great cavern of grey and white and give up a third of its exclusive economic brown piles of earth stretching almost zone to marine reserves. "It's just to the horizon opens up between the absolute nonsense, it's scientific claptrap trees. to claim the yellow fin tuna is under any <strong>The</strong> contradiction is not lost on Phil threat.” Laird, whose family has been farming Maules Creek in the state's north-west This kind of conflict is found world for six generations. <strong>The</strong> 7000-hectare wide and lessons are there for the forest, in which a huge open-cut looking. coalmine sits, is named after them. From the National Geographic, April 2012: In an article about the troubles facing A u s t r a l i a n f i s h i n g i n d u s t r y i s Amazon communities composed of native decentralised and often family operated. peoples and descendants of escaped Apparently less political clout than slaves (Quilombolas): American lobbyists. <strong>The</strong> Diuron Saga From a March 27 report, ABC: “A World Wildlife Fund report says the herbicide Diuron has been found at 55 times its considered safe levels in creeks that drain into the reef, and as much as 100 times safe levels in the reef itself.” <strong>The</strong> report concludes the widespread use of the chemical is endangering the Great Barrier Reef. <strong>The</strong> Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority lists the declining quality of water in catchment areas as one of the biggest threats to the reef. Besides mining waste and dredging, Diuron use by the cane farming industry is an important part of that problem. <strong>The</strong> World Wildlife Fund says it is being found up to 60 kilometres from shore inside the World Heritage area of the Great Barrier Reef at concentrations harmful to coral, and has been found to be representing about 80 per cent of all of the herbicide load in the reef. <strong>The</strong> Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority has been reviewing Diuron's use for the past decade. TCP has been covering this subject since issue number 5, (2003). TCP questioned a resident of a cane centre near Mackay why council didn’t allow cane farmers to sell their waterfront property for development to create a buffer between the fields and waterways. He responded that sugar mills covet every acre planted and will guard it’s supply of raw material with considerable political clout.
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