THE MEANING OF OZ - All you need to know!

Wasn't me - I would never wear clothes in such poor taste!

Be there on Friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Studio becomes hospital for fire-stricken koalas
January 16, 2007/the AGE


Wildlife carers have to be a hardy bunch by nature, but yesterday Lorraine O'Brien broke down.

She is nursing 40 burnt koalas in one room of her home near Warrnambool, refugees from a disastrous fire in the Framlingham State Park, thought to have wiped out half its koala population. Yesterday, one koala bit Ms O'Brien while she was dressing its wounds, taking "a big piece" of her thumb.

"I'd said the next koala that bit me, I'd bite it back," she said. .... <cont>

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/studio-becomes-hospital-for-firestricken-koalas/2007/01/15/1168709682692.html

why do they pack them in bamboo leaves? does that keep them fresher longer?

I'd laugh, farmer, if it wasn't such a disaster.
These fires are destroying so much wildlife.

Rumour has it that would not be a bad thing. Overpopulation was beginning to have an affect on the forest.

This is certainly the case on Kangaroo Island where the South Australian Government has an ongoing sterilization program in place to stop the destruction of the valuable gum trees.

seems funny, dunnit?

Koalas are disappearing all along the east coast - because their habitat is gone.

Yet in some places they're becoming overpopulated.

Must be awful for them though!

I'm impressed with that woman threatening to bite one back!

I wonder if there is a market for this new Aussie paint product in the UK?

Perhaps I should have posted it on the 'British Thread', but that would be unsportsmanlike, and we Aussies are not like that, are we now?

I heard the news today, oh boy ....

Is nothing sacred?

Blundstones going off-shore!

Just watched Sharapova win. With the sound off[/b]. Surely screaming like that is against the spirit of the game.

Was also reading that concert goers cant be trusted to wave flags...whats all that about?

It is the wearing of the flag to identify themselves as belonging to a certain violent culture.

Last year This "gang" were very intimidatory.

It may interest you to know that in sweden wearing the swedish flag would immediatly identify you as a neonazi type to any member of the general public.

Lot of Brits waving flag for Andy Murray right now. One assumes they're not all fascists.

I didn't see Andy Murray play - but just checked the results.
He appears to have given Rafa Nadal a bit of a shock, but he's on his way home now.

He got further along the tree than that prize prat, Lleyton Hewitt.

Serena Williams (US) just beat Peel (Israel) in 3 sets. Pretty close match.

My sis came over from Tas recently, and while we were chatting about duck billed oojamaflips, twenty eights (I think that's what they were called - parrot type things) and other wondrous things, she mentioned that there were plans for a bloody great pulp mill to be built, almost directly across the river which she overlooks.

There is a massive campaign against this atrocity, and a petition has been signed by thousands of locals, sent to the Governor (is that the correct title) of Tas, which he has totally ignored.

The guy who plans to build this monstrosity is a certain Mr Gunn, who apparently runs a large business empire in Oz (and other places), and who just happens to be (allegedly, of course) a VERY good <ahem> "friend" of the Governor.

He has had tests carried out on how much pollution this mill will supposedly spew out into the river, and reckons that it will be pretty harmless.
However, the main wildlife organisation in Oz (forget the name) have carried out a few projections of their own, and have come up with a very different picture, saying that this mill will wreak havoc on the local wildlife, and cause massive pollution.

Apparently, this Gunn bloke isn't very popular throughout Australia (he als owns a hardware chain, etc?) and yet has (allegedly again) very good political connections which ensure that he can get these sort of schemes past the planning permission stage with consummate ease.

She was going back to Tas with the intention of trying to either join, or start, some sort of protest/boycott movement regarding this mill, and is looking into the most effective way to go around doing this.

Any ideas?

Is there one in existence already (a protest movement, that is)?

Links?


Specifically, the pulp mill is due to be built somewhere near Beauty Point (Launceston way) but on the opposite river bank.

Does anyone know of this scheme, and have more detailed info/views regarding the whole thing?

As a general philosophy I would like to suppert Gunns. Oz has been very good at selling off it natural assets in raw form. I believe it is now time to start value adding and create real jobs.

Forestry in all its forms and the value adding is an enormouse portion of tasmanias gdp.

http://www.gunnspulpmill.com.au/iis/V1/Executive_Summary.pdf

As to the siting of this particular plant I do not have enough (real) information yet. I tend to NOT believe the emotive rubbish being promoted by certain environmental groups.

Finally, 20 years ago a pulp mill was proposed for this area. environmental activists killed it. Along with the mill went around 350 jobs. 1000 hectares of pine plantation is neglected and a hazard (this is being addressed) The mill now succesfully operates about 2 hours away. No environmental problems AT ALL
EDIT (additional information)
effluent similar to that wich will be produced by the plant was tested. no increase in "nasty chemicals was found. rest assured if environment groups were able to physically show some form of damage from pulpmill effluent they would do so. There is no environmental build up of chlorine and dioxins that can be attributable to the pulp mill.
approx 8000 people attended a rally on Saturday 16th September many of these people were rent a crowd greenie dole bludgers from the mainland.

The wilderness society tells half truths, uses emotive wording and just plain wrong arguments.
I would also say gunns would take any possible advantage so it is good to have some people keeping them on the straight and narrow.

Sorry for not getting back earlier, DP (been walking the dog), and it's interesting to hear another viewpoint, having only heard what my sis had to say, which obviously wasn't completely objective, her having the possibility of having to live within sight of the mill, etc.

I think half of the problem is the way Gunn has gone in there with both feet, wirtually telling the locals to go and stick their protest where the sun doesn't shine.
He sounds like a Rupert Murdoch type, I don't know whether that's a fair assessment of him or not, but if a tycoon tried to stemroller through something like this in my area, I'd probably be hopping mad as well.

She moved to Tas from Perth some time ago, and immediately fell in love with the place for its natural beauty and more temperate climate.

Since she's moved there, property prices have started to go a bit mad, as many more mainlanders arrive to buy holiday homes, or settle there permanently. The natural beauty and weather seem to be the main attraction, and prices are forecast to keep on rising in the future, as the influx seems to be pretty constant.

In the time she's been there, she's seen vast areas of land, mainly natural woodland, cleared and re-planted with uniform rows of fir, obviously planted there for future processing. This seems to be an ongoing thing, with new areas seemingly being cleared and re-planted.

Her view is that Oz will lose something very special, if all this is allowed to continue unabated. In the end, Tas will just become one large lumber mill, she reckons.

I can understand the employment argument, but surely, if Tas IS just starting to become highly regarded by mainland Aussies as a place to go and see/live, surely employment could be created by promoting the Island as one large nature reserve. Tourism, if promoted properly, would bring in quite a bit of wealth/jobs to the place, or is this too simplistic?

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(Very popular advert on Tas TV for a certain brand of Tas beer, apparently.........two men, playing around with huge engine parts, gradually assembling them with massive nuts, bolts etc.
At the end, the camera pans back to reveal a HUUUGE outboard motor, which they put into the water, attaching it to the beach with an enormous rope.
"You ready?" One says. The other says "yep" whereupon they start up the motor and rev the engine.
Next shot shows Tasmania slowly being towed out to sea, away from the mainland.)

You may well be right. However I dont think a softly softly approach was ever gonna work. too much noise from radical greenies. This artical says the mill is in the wrong place. If ENSIS scientists are saying that, I believe them.
This is the most recent artical I can find
the Mercury
Note the comment at the bottom "Just build the bloody thing"

The pulp mills I know about are well away from "populatiion centers" when I have visited them i have never noticed an objectionable odour. they are basically smokless. any emmisions are white "smoke/steam" that integrates with the atmosphere within 10m of the stack
This pic is terrible (best I can do) but you can see how little emmision there is.




Tourism is already huge. Tourism does not provide labouring/unskilled type jobs. the people who fill the unskilled type jobs in an area end up drugging, or fighting, or other unsavory criminal pastimes. they dont leave cause they never get the money together.



hmmm, most of the replanting I know about is Native hardwood.

We have 1000's of hectares of pine planted here. In most cases you wouldn't know. people say pines drive away native animals. I work sometimes in pine forests and it surprises me how much wild life they actually support.

eucalypt plantations as habitat

[/QUOTE]The natural beauty and weather seem to be the main attraction, and prices are forecast to keep on rising in the future, as the influx seems to be pretty constant.