The long attempt by a developer to build a cable car up the face of kunanyi/ Mt Wellington, in Hobart continues. The proponent, Mt Wellington Cable Car (MWCC) has submitted it’s Development Application (DA) to Hobart City Council. However local resident’s group Respect the Mountain. No Cable Car say that the DA application is incomplete.
Continue reading “Cable Car application is ‘incomplete’”
Australia has enormous problems with large invasive species like feral pigs, horses and deer. These species have negatively impacted huge sections of the continent. Yet self interest sometimes over rides the need to remove these populations. For instance, hunters sometimes argue that animals like deer should be left in wild places like national parks to allow continued hunting. And there is a huge campaign to see feral horse populations retained in the Australian Alps on spurious ‘cultural’ grounds.
Public debate has focused strongly on wild horse populations over the past few years. The threat poised by deer in lutruwita/ Tasmania is set to become a major public issue as the size of the feral deer population becomes clear. It is obvious that deer are moving into new habitats, and will bring enormous ecological impacts as they do so.
Continue reading “Feral deer moving into World Heritage Parks in Tasmania”
Because of the COVID-19 lock down, we have had to cancel the Victorian Backcountry Festival for 2020. However, in lieu of the festival that was scheduled for 4 – 6th September, we are planning a relaxed Sunday afternoon (Sept 6) full of backcountry speakers, seminars and workshops to be held over Zoom.
On 26 October 2018 the Victorian Government, the Taungurung Land and Waters Council Aboriginal Corporation (TLaWCAC), and the Taungurung Traditional Owner group signed a suite of agreements under the Traditional Owner Settlement Act 2010 (Vic), and related legislation. The agreement was signed after a 15-year campaign by traditional owners and three years of settlement negotiations.
The Recognition and Settlement Agreement has now come into effect. This means that ownership of nine Victorian parks and reserves, include Mt Buffalo National Park and a section of the Alpine National Park, and up to five surplus public land parcels have been transferred to the Taungurung Traditional Owner Group.
Continue reading “Taungurung people to jointly manage Buffalo and part of Alpine National Park”
There has been a long community campaign against plans by a ‘tourism entrepreneur’ to establish a private tourism venture on a small island in a conservation area on the Central Plateau of lutruwita/ Tasmania. There have been various legal challenges and a strong community campaign against this privatisation of public space.
Now it has been reported that the development has powers of eviction and the right to install surveillance cameras. It is possible that fines and even prison terms could apply for walkers and fishers who attempt to step onto the island.
Over the past 15 years I have watched our mountain forests – alpine ash and snow gum – burn and burn. More than 90% of the Victorian distribution of snow gums has burned at least once since 2003. Climate change is creating longer and more intense fire seasons and this is changing our mountains. The world has warmed as a result of human activity and now all fire events occur in a warmer environment.
Last summer’s fires showed that we simply don’t have enough resources to fight these ‘fires of the future’.
Maybe this is where you come in.
Continue reading “Young and fit? Living in Melbourne and love the mountains? This one is for you”
It’s wonderful to have all this fresh snow. With the national parks and resorts in Victoria closed, this is relevant for people from NSW and the ACT who are heading to the mountains this weekend.
If you are heading into the backcountry, be aware that there will be some tough weather and snow conditions.
Continue reading “Main Range backcountry conditions report 22/8”
I am keenly aware that no Aboriginal group or nation ever ceded it’s land to the colonisers. So those of us living in Australia are all living on stolen land. There is a lot of unfinished business that needs to be resolved, starting with negotiating a meaningful treaty between First Nations and the rest of the people living on this continent.
For a long time, indigenous people and traditions were white washed out of mainstream narratives about the mountains. As traditional owner groups reassert their connection to Country, that is slowly changing, and we can see it across the Alps. The first Aboriginal person I knew who had a strong connection to the mountains was Eddie Kneebone, who I met through our campaign work in north east Victoria in the 1990s. He had an astonishing depth of knowledge. He was instrumental in the campaign to have the Niggerheads on the Bogong High Plains renamed. It got me thinking about the power of language and names.
Continue reading “Traditional names for ‘Australian’ mountains”
The Major Projects legislation has been widely condemned by community, residents and environmental groups in Tasmania. Now the state government has confirmed they will table the Major Projects legislation this week in Parliament (possibly as early as August 18).
Community group Planning Matters Tasmania (PMT) is calling on Tasmanians to contact the ALP to urge them to oppose the legislation.
Continue reading “TAS Major Projects Assessment legislation in parliament this week?”
The Victorian government is required to prepare and rollout a climate strategy every five years out to 2050. However, because of the C-19 pandemic, it is well behind schedule, so the Friends of the Earth Act on Climate collective has launched a push to write a People’s Climate Strategy for Victoria and is seeking your Big Idea that Victoria could take to act on climate.
It can be something to rein in emissions or protect the community from climate impacts. What could be done in mountain areas and surrounding towns?
There has long been a plan for a wind turbine at Mt Hotham. There have been several bulk buy programs to get solar panels onto houses and businesses at Hotham and Dinner Plain. What about micro hydro power in ski resorts? Or protecting the carbon dense forests of the Victorian Central Highlands? Running ski resort lift operations on 100% renewable energy? Using electric rather than diesel buses in ski resorts. Or building bushfire refugees in mountain communities?
What’s your big idea that will be good for climate change and good for the mountains?
As the long debate over management of wild horse populations continues, the NSW deputy premier John Barilaro has launched an extraordinary attack on the state’s National Parks and Wildlife Service and NSW environment minister Matt Kean.
Campaign group Reclaim Kosci has condemned the comments and says that there is a risk that the public debate could be reduced to a ‘slanging match on talkback radio’ rather than a mature, policy focused conversation.
Continue reading “‘Deputy premier’s attack on NSW parks service condemned’”
The proposal to build Snowy Hydro 2.0 to strengthen capacity for energy storage seemed like a good idea at first. But as the details of the project emerged, especially the likely direct physical footprint of the project, more and more people and groups started to oppose it. (Background stories on the issue are available here).
After the release of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) the NSW National Parks Association said that the plan ‘proposes a completely unacceptable level of damage to Kosciusko National Park’.
However the federal government continues to pursue the proposal.
In response, it has been announced that the National Parks Association of NSW and ex-Energy Australia chair Ted Woodley are considering a legal challenge to the project, which they say will push back the transition to renewable energy and destroy thousands of hectares of national park.
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