Coalition | ConservationBytes.com

The environmental Abbott-oir

9 04 2014

“What?”, my wife exclaimed, “Is this guy Satan¹ himself?”. Within 6 months in office, the Abbott-oir has:

attempted to remote World Heritage protection for a large expanse of Tasmanian forest;
vowed to reinstate logging in Tasmania on a large scale;
broken promise to fund Sumatran rhino recovery;
decided to dump 3 million tonnes of dredging spoil on the Great Barrier Reef;
scrapped management plans for most of the nation’s representative system of marine protected areas;
rollbacked protection in national parks, including allowing logging, grazing, fishing and hunting;
refused to send any Australian delegate to global climate change discussions;
allowed Western Australia to proceed with a large-scale cull of great white, tiger and bull sharks;
weakened Australia’s recently passed anti-illegal logging bill;
nearly achieved legal immunity from any challenges to his decisions on mining projects;
weakened the processes involved in development proposals by ‘cutting the green tape‘;
vowed to halt the creation of any more national parks, saying that Australia already has too many;
proposed to ban consumer boycotts of corporations that damage the environment;
cut $100 million in funding, and axed 500 jobs, in the federal Environment department;
continued to push for abolishing the carbon price.

Cry? Despair? Laugh? No – fight.

Comments : 24 Comments »
Tags: Australia, Coalition, environmental destruction, environmental policy, LNP, Tony Abbott
Categories : conservation

The lengths Abbott will go to destroy environmentalism

7 04 2014

Over at ALERT (Alliance of Leading Environmental Researchers & Thinkers), Bill Laurance has highlighted yet another major blow to environmentalism in Australia: the Coalition’s latest push is to ban consumer boycotts of environmentally damaging corporations. The following press release went out this morning. You can also find more details on the Abbott proposal here and here.

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An international scientific group has decried an Australian government proposal to ban consumer boycotts of corporations that damage the environment.

“It’s clearly a bad idea,” said William Laurance, a professor at James Cook University in Australia and director of ALERT, the Alliance of Leading Environmental Researchers and Thinkers.

“Boycotts have been one of the most important arrows in the quiver of responsible conservationists and consumers,” said Laurance. “They’ve convinced many environmentally predatory firms around the world to clean up their acts.”

Consumer boycotts have improved the behaviour of hundreds of aggressive timber, oil palm, soy, seafood and other corporations around the world, say the scientists.

“Boycotts get the attention of environment-destroying companies because they hit them where it hurts—their reputation and market share,” said Corey Bradshaw, a professor at the University of Adelaide. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 12 Comments »
Tags: Australia, autocracy, bans, boycotts, Coalition, environment, Environmentalism, fishing, palm oil, seafood, timber, Tony Abbott
Categories : Australia, biodiversity, conservation, corruption, ecosystem, environmental policy

Australia’s (latest) war on the environment

3 03 2014

Yes, the signs were there, but they weren’t clandestine messages written in the stars or in the chaos of tea-leaf dregs. We saw this one coming, but Australians chose to ignore the warning signs and opt for the American political model of extremism, religiosity, plutocracy and science denial.

Enter the ‘Tea Party’ of Australia – the ‘new’ Coalition where reigning Rex perditor Prime Minister Tony The Monk Abbott¹ has, in just a few short months, turned back the clock on Australian environmental protection some 40 years.

Yes, we saw it coming, but it wasn’t a tautological fait accompli just because it concerned a ‘conservative’ government. It’s difficult to remember, I know, that conservative governments of yesteryear implemented some strikingly powerful and effective environmental legislation. Indeed, it was the former incarnation of the Coalition government that implemented the once-formidable Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act under the direction of then Environment Minister, Robert Hill. A colossus of sorts, the EPBC suffers from many ailments. While it’s the only really bitey environmental legislation we’ve got, that colossus is a lumbering, limping giant missing more than a few teeth – it needs a complete overhaul.

As most Australians are unfortunately aware, The Monk repeatedly and defiantly promised to repeal the Labor-government carbon price implemented in July 2012, despite the absolute necessity to tax the heaviest polluters. While somewhat sheepish about his recent climate disruption denialism following his election in 2013, a denialist he remains:

Let us re-familiarise ourselves with some of his historical pearlers: Read the rest of this entry »