Dearest reader

Thanks for visiting.

Alas, there's not much new news here. It's been a while since I posted - I guess I've run out of Kanawinka chronicles puff in a way. I continue to work with the birds on our beaches. I'm pretty cross with the local environmental management agencies and have lots to say about them - but I have to work with individuals from these agencies. So in the interest of productive working relationships and positive attitudes, I've refrained from posting.

blogspot.com is also pissing me off changing the way the site works and tracking me through the Google empire.

I'll return to post when I'm refreshed, renewed and I've some good solid positive environmental or cultural news.

In the meantime, I've published a blog about building model gliders and writing about aeroplanes called on the bench & in the air. If you would like to visit, you are most welcome:

http://undercarter.aussieblogs.com.au/

Road Kill: why do people drive like that?

Some years ago I took leave and escaped the frenetic chaos of life in the big city. I spent an idyllic week camping with koalas among Victoria’s last great stand of manna gums at Mount Eccles in the Western District. A koala strolled through my campsite as I ate dinner one evening, pausing to raise its nose and sniff the scent of cooking. Another spent three days in an overhanging eucalypt, uttering its unearthly calls, raining down discarded gumnuts and urinating on my tent. After six days observing their behaviour, I felt quite close to these endearing creatures. On the seventh, I struck camp and headed west for the remainder of my holiday, but within ten minutes my carefree mood had evaporated.

Eastern grey kangaroos Macropus giganteus
and emus Dromaius novaehollandiae
grazing serenely in the reserve

On the road ahead, a tragic sight resolved out of the long shadows of dawn light. I knew almost immediately that it was a dead koala. As I slowed, a solitary black raven rose lazily from the carcass. A maelstrom of emotions burst within me and the world seemed to implode as I coasted past and pulled over in the gravel. I looked in the rear-view mirror as the raven returned and settled into its meal. Calming my stomach before going back to deal with the gore, I blurred the image in the mirror and focussed instead on the scene ahead. I could not believe my eyes. There was another forlorn heap not 200 metres away. I sat there and gripped the steering wheel till my knuckles turned white. I was in shock.

A black wallaby Wallabia bicoloryet
is yet another gruesome casualty
on the road around the reserve

With rising consternation, I drove up and went over to the second silent victim. The body was intact, peaceful and still, outstretched limbs reaching for the other side of the road, face down in blood pooled on the white line. I grasped the still supple hands and lifted it to the verge, laid it in the grass, and examined it closely through welling tears of frustration and loss. The irony of the situation nearly overwhelmed me. After days observing their behaviour from a respectful distance, death had brought us close enough to touch. But the beautiful creature was ruined and my curiosity damned. A car came swooshing by, not slowing or deviating from its course, the driver glancing curiously as she sped past on some urgent business.

Despite this section of road being used primarily
by locals, many drivers refuse to slow down
at this well known wildlife hotspot

The koala was a juvenile female, small and light with perfect fur. Not a mark on her apart from signs of head trauma; dislocated jaw, a couple of smashed teeth and a bloodied tongue hanging out the corner of her mouth, black button eyes wide open but lifeless, big black nose with a pink patch under the tip. Her body was still warm. I checked the pouch and was relieved to find it empty. I looked around for a manna gum, found one close by and laid her gently at its base for the carrion-eaters to do their work away from the dangers of the road, the heartless road. I collected my thoughts and set off for the first victim.

As I walked back, a truck came barrelling down the road. The raven abandoned its breakfast and flew hard for cover at the last minute as I braced for the impact, but the truck passed the koala’s body between its wheels. The driver’s eyes met my steely stare as he roared by with such force I was nearly blown over. This koala was much heavier and older, clearly a male, with head injuries like the female but less blood, just a trickle from one white tufted ear. The raven had already taken one eye, the other was half closed behind furry lids. I noted the big pads on his feet, cracked with age and experience, long strong claws and big muscular limbs. His almost white fur was patchy and well worn around his rump. As I put him down against another manna, he expelled a last breath and I was alarmed that the poor creature might still be suffering. But no. He was cold and rigor mortis had set in. As I left, the first shift of flies arrived with a hum.

recently installed 80kph signs are ignored
wildlife signs are removed or vandalised
and native animals are considered
just another bloody nuisance

This was too much for me. I had no heart for further travel and soon turned for home. I could not understand why animals were hit and left for dead to be ground into bloody pulp, along with the creatures that came to clean up the mess. I cursed our reliance on the car and a supply system that put so many huge trucks on the road. I wondered what kind of example we were setting for our children. You know? Animals are great, treat them with respect and treasure them . . . until they get in our way. My mind raced every time I came across another pathetic pancake of blood, bone, flesh and feathers. It was a very unpleasant journey. I have not been car camping since and I am regularly reminded of that sad scene on the lonely road to Bessiebelle every time I encounter road kill. Once you are sensitised, it is everywhere. As my friend Hope laments; “Drivers have a lot to answer for. I know a person who lives in the area who killed five kangaroos in a year, mangling their own car five times in the process. And you hear her complain; ‘Oh they wiped out my car.’ Why do people drive like that?”

Landscape under siege

While driving back from Mount Arapiles in the Wimmera Plains some years ago, I remember enjoying the spectacle of rock sentinels growing steadily on the south-east skyline, heralding my approach to Gariwerd - The Grampians. In the flat and relatively featureless farmland, this complex of dark blue-green forested bluffs and ridges dominates the skyline and invites the curious to enter and explore. They are a monumental and majestic sight, a vast timeless remnant of the way this country looked for millennia before Whitefella arrived. They had become a familiar and welcoming sight after decades of walking among their secluded folds and camping in their peaceful embrace.

But suddenly, all was not well. A new and unwelcome sight had me mourning for a vision lost, at least for the duration of my lifetime. There was a vivid orange scar on the slopes of the Mt Difficult Range, a large silver telecommunications mast impaled in the middle of the raw wound. A heavy sadness stole into my heart. It seemed an inappropriate and careless disregard for this precious remnant of wilderness, a slap in the face to those of us who care for the silent grandeur of iconic landscapes, an ugly reminder of the relentless march of so-called progress. 

Industrial graffiti and cultural vandalism;
view from an ancient rock shelter
where Gunditjmara ancestors
contemplated their country
at Cape Duquesne

Some time later, I was escaping the confines of that great Australian ugliness, the urban sprawl we call Melbourne, on route to walk among the wildflowers of Gariwerd. As was my habit for thirty years, I motored west peering eagerly ahead for the first sight of the Mount William Range's serrated buttresses. But another unpleasant surprise confronted me. There was a new and imposing man-made barrier to superintend the panorama, the Challicum Hills wind farm. The ranges in the background were still there, but now my senses had to negotiate this intruding fence of fans and towers. It was both frustrating and disorienting.

Visiting the PacificHydro website is revealing. The Challicum Hills page is headed by a photograph of the landscape I describe. It boldly illustrates the installation set against the backdrop of Gariwerd as though these steel and composite structures somehow belong or enhance the landscape. “Am I alone,” I worry, “in thinking that this is a travesty, a crime against our heritage and country?” Like so many aspects of our media assaulted lives, it is simply more marketing hype, weasel words and superficial images that dress up the imposition of commercial imperative and present it as benign grand achievement. I nearly gag when I scan the copy and read claims of “tourism opportunities” generated by this industrial eyesore, and the lip service given to supporting local environmental groups. Frankly, I find it sly and manipulative at best, dishonest and delusional at worst.

Like the Martian tripods in War of the Worlds
wind generators loom over volunteers
working to conserve the area's
natural features

I moved to rural south-west Victoria four years ago. Every few days I get my supplies from Koroit, which nestles on the rim of Tower Hill caldera. A regular delight has been pausing on the heights to scan the district, particularly the panorama to the north where the distant peaks of my beloved Gariwerd can be discerned on a clear day 80kms away. Familiarising myself with these ancient landmarks helps me get my bearings, reassess my place in the world, reinforce my humility, and promotes a feeling of wellbeing and belonging. Alas, in recent months, the construction of the Macarthur and Hawkesdale wind farms has imposed a unwelcome screen across this referential aspect; a veritable blockade of machines.

Recently, I took a friend hiking along a section of the Great South West Walk. Bristling out of the rolling limestone hills of Capes Nelson, Bridgewater and Duquesne, ranks of wind generators now crowd close to the edges of cliffs and dominate the otherwise spectacular coastal views. As we negotiated the trail, a fresh south-westerly was blowing onshore. Despite this, we could still hear the moan of generators and the throb of blades for much of our walk. We paused at The Springs campsite and wondered how anyone could sleep there with its monotonous score of mechanical sounds. We pondered the juxtaposition of high-tech industrial installation and sensitive cultural precincts, like the Gunditjmara stone tool fabricating site. The overlooking towers and rotating blades were certainly a constant distraction in our attempts to quietly observe and enjoy native birds among the remnant coastal flora. On our return, all blades were feathered and stationary, the generators inert as the wind speed had increased. We could not understand why these structures were built in such an exposed position, when clearly they are unable to handle the wild conditions that characterise these promontories. I found the whole day deeply disturbing. The landscape is ruined and I doubt I will take anyone there again.

Wilderness or industrial landscape?
The distinction is blurred
as the human stain
congeals

Clearly, renewable energy is a good thing. But why do we have to make such a mess wherever we go and whatever we do? There are alternatives to the careless way we currently erect long lines of wind generators in single file across our landscapes, often in places of great cultural and environmental significance. But ultimately, with evidence building that our way of life is fundamentally flawed, we need to review our crude concept of economic growth and its reliance on ever-higher levels of consumption. The proliferation of wind generators is only a symptom of a wider malaise, a greedy society hell-bent on maintaining unsustainable lifestyles at any cost, while steadily eroding our quality of life.

Productivity; Oh really?

This short missive (rant) is a response to the New Your Times article 'Let's Be Less Productive' and resultant Facebook shenanigans . . .

We must not confine our thinking to conventional capitalist arguments at the you-and-me level. Micro economics is like looking at the back of a cart to determine what is pulling it. Western Capitalism is like the SMS Titanic; its practitioners have fallen for their own rhetoric and are blithely overconfident as a largely hidden natural phenomenon threatens disaster.

The whole point of 'Let's Be Less Productive' is to critique the paradigm that accepts increasing productivity as a good thing. The more we earn, the more we produce, the more we consume, the more frenetic, wasteful and meaningless a human life becomes. I think we need to question the economic theories that underlie our beliefs and practices, because in these times, evidence is accumulating exponentially that there are fatal flaws in the human endeavour. To flourish, even survive, we need to think outside the constructs set by a system that is failing us.

Capitalism as we know it is not sustainable because it is a crude and inefficient arbiter of limited resources, which include human productivity. It is utterly dependent upon winners and losers. It has only worked in our lifetimes because the First World has been able to rip the heart out of the Third World. It has only worked because we accept our own domestic Third World; the underclass of poor, disadvantaged and disenfranchised.

The capitalist economic model is based on input costs reduced to dollar values offset against revenue from product. Responsibility for decisions about allocation of wealth and resources is deferred to the dynamics of supply and demand as articulated in the market place. Vital factors are completely ignored or poorly accounted for; what it means to have or lose a job, environmental impacts, the true costs of waste, the value of wilderness, security, satisfaction, anxiety, instability, social capital (a few examples from a huge list). In fact, it relies on so many assumptions and waivers that it cannot reliably predict the outcomes of real-world interactions.

This is why the market is not free and never was. It is manipulated, sometimes with benign intentions, but more often to serve the needs of vested interests.

Despite these inherent flaws in the most basic mechanisms of capitalism, it is still widely accepted as a given, the only way forward for a democratic society.

There is more to concern us. Capitalist management ethos openly discourages leadership decisions based on humane ethics and higher motivations like; friendship, loyalty, support, mentoring and guardianship. It encourages egocentric short-term thinking – the so called individualism; what's in it for me? It creates forums for unprincipled and ruthless practices, like that weird construct called the financial market. Weird? Just ponder the reasons given for share and currency fluctuations; then try to make sense of the futures market. Capitalist witchcraft? You betcha!

Now quality. Capitalism emphasises the socio-economic (class) distinction associated with quality goods primarily as a marketing device, over and above any inherent advantages like longevity, reliability and aesthetic value. Materially affluent people are able to pay high retail prices for exclusive (quality) products to display their superior status as winners in the system. Meanwhile, many (the patronisingly labeled battlers) are only able to afford lower quality products with inbuilt redundancy that facilitates high turnover. In our consumer society, quality is all about branding lifestyle. It is NOT about quality of life.

We need to rethink what constitutes quality, value and wealth, and how to more equitably manage and distribute limited resources in a sustainable way, not just in terms of our species, but the whole biosphere.

Productivity accepted as an unquestioned principle is a dangerous cul-de-sac.

Fuel reduction regime; scientifically evaluated intervention or politically motivated mismanagement?

“The torching of the State is proceeding under the delusionary supervision of DSE.”

It is little wonder that to many people in Victoria, DSE is known as Department of Smoke and Embers.

Last Saturday was the beginning of the Labour Day long weekend. Around lunchtime, the Department of Sustainability and Environment ignited 1,000 hectares of Herb Rich Woodland and Lowland Forest in Southwest Victoria, including Dunmore Forest and part of Mt Eccles National Park.

The smoke pall spread from the Grampians in the north to many miles offshore, at least 150kms in total. Two huge billowing columns were visible from 60kms away. Cumulonimbus anvils thousands of meters high were generated above the smoke by the intense heat. It's an all too familiar and scary sight to anyone who's experienced wildfires.

Is this a responsible way to manage native forests
and reduce atmospheric carbon?

The photographs were taken about 19:15. By 21:00 these fires were listed as controlled on the DSE website. This is highly unlikely, as the fires could be seen burning on the horizon for another three days. When I flew into Hamilton following day, the smoke was so dense that from 1,000 feet we were barely able to see the mighty Grampians mountain ranges only 30kms to the northeast.

Thousands of native animals were killed, maimed or displaced. There is evidence of a rare population of bandicoots at nearby St Helens Flora Reserve [see older post St Helens - a landscape for woodland birds]. What is the likelihood of other populations of bandicoots surviving in surrounding pockets of native forest? Not much chance now!

Again in this age of marketing and double-speak, a Government Agency sports a name that implies something it is not. The burning of our forests and reserves for fuel reduction to mitigate bushfire risk is neither sustainable nor informed by environmental science. The latest official mumbo jumbo for this kind of destructive mismanagement is community risk reduction.

In a recent conversation with a Ranger [environmental management professional], I was told that many DSE staff object to the current regime of fuel reduction burns. But they have no choice and are bound to instigate policies set by their ministerial master in response to findings of the Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission.

As a concerned environmental activist observed; “It’s been a disaster for years, since we had a reasonable Forests Department and a Soil Conservation Department. Governments certainly know how to stuff up our country in order to win Melbourne seats.”

Our lingering fear of the Australian bush
manifested in mismanagement by fire

It is clear to me that a high proportion of Australians are profoundly fearful and ignorant of The Bush. We have disconnected ourselves from the Australian wilderness by a process I suspect is part of the retched cultural cringe. And as food production, a process that ought to link us intimately with the land, becomes ever more industrialised and unnatural, and our predominantly urbanised culture evolves, we are increasingly alienated from the natural world. But if we care to listen, there is wisdom and guidance available from Indigenous peoples and others intimately connected to the environment, like naturalists and Wildlife Carers.

A friend suggested an intriguing reference: The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia by Bill Gammage. “I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It highlights the tragedy we see here, the tragedy of ineptitude and gross mismanagement through bureaucracy."

Fuel reduction burns have no basis in science and are politically motivated. Surely we must protest against this delusionary policy that amounts to just another excuse to destroy precious native flora and fauna.

If you talk to animals, they will talk with you
and you will know each other.
If you do not talk to them you will not know them,
and what you do not know you will fear.
What one fears one destroys.
Chief Dan George, Tsleil-Waututh Nation

Road Kill: accounting for the carnage

We uniquely are capable of apprehending the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, proper and improper conduct toward animals. If being human isn't what requires us to treat animals humanely, what in the world does? Wesley J. Smith

There was no warning. Suddenly, it came straight at her out of the darkness. In a heartbeat, maybe two, a frightening roar, a blinding flash, and the brutal impact of steel pulverising flesh and bone. She was hurled through the air to land a quivering heap on the gravel beside the road. A last heartbeat trickled blood through her shattered teeth, her one remaining eye clouding as life fled the traumatised body. She never knew what hit her. Neither did the little one hidden in her belly clinging desperately to life. The victim was a young female eastern grey kangaroo with her first and last joey. The joey had survived, cowering deeper into the security of his mother’s pouch. But something was terribly wrong. His universe had been violently disturbed. Now his mother was still. He couldn’t sense her pulse. The smells of blood, torn flesh and intestinal fluids signalled unknown terror. And her warmth was ebbing away. Inevitably, he faced a slow and lonely death from cold, dehydration and starvation. The trucks thundered past all night, oblivious to these two creatures lying mute and discarded among the human detritus that lined the road; plastic bags and burger boxes, a cigarette lighter and butts, a strip of rubber tread, a child’s headless doll.

left on the road to be pulverised
beautiful creature made macabre monster
courtesy of man and machine

Every hour on Australian roads, vehicles kill six hundred frogs and reptiles, and one hundred and forty four mammals and birds. That totals about seven million creatures a year according to incomplete, conservative and outdated Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates. Apart from some studies along specific roads focussing on kangaroos, wallabies and wombats, probably because their size leads to expensive insurance claims and threatens human injury, we do not have comprehensive statistics on road kill across the nation. Considering the dimensions of the task, perhaps this is understandable. In 2010, Australia’s road network extended 820,000 kilometres, easily enough to pave our way to the moon and back. In that year, 16 million vehicles used the roads to motor an astounding 226,632 million kilometres, equivalent to seven and-a-half return trips to the sun.

There are more detailed statistics available for Tasmania. Avis rental cars even come with a road kill survey form in the glove box for drivers to fill out. Concerns about the survival of the State emblem have led to collecting road kill data as a means to monitor the declining population of Tasmanian devils. There is also disquiet about the Holiday Isle’s image as an unspoiled wilderness destination for domestic and international tourists. Thousands of carcasses line the roads through the forests, stark reminders that this is no island paradise. Despite a concerted effort through numerous studies, the gruesome annual toll of 300,000 mammals and birds is thought to be a significant underestimate. But on these figures alone, road kill is a disaster of epic proportions.

New Holland honeyeater stunned on the road and rescued
this one was lucky and flew away

Yet this is only the tip of the iceberg. The statistics do not account for injured animals that manage to leave the scene and succumb out of sight of the road. Many animals are parenting when maimed or killed, their orphaned offspring left to fend for themselves before sufficiently developed to have any chance of survival. Many joeys die a slow and lingering death hidden in their mother’s pouch. The toll on insects and other invertebrates is completely unknown. Many of us will not acknowledge this as an issue, yet studies in other parts of the world have shown that road kill has contributed to the local extinction of species like dragonflies. There are wide-reaching effects of road infrastructure on habitat and wildlife behaviour that scientists struggle to understand and most of us do not even imagine. Studies predict that up to twenty percent of the ecology of the United States of America is directly impacted by roads. But the current climate debate clearly illustrates our capacity to ignore warning signs, label expert analysis alarmist, and continue on our habitually destructive ways because negative impacts do not tangibly impinge upon our everyday lives.

This is not really the case with road kill. It is obvious and ugly. It is in our faces. It upsets people. Australian tourist operators and chambers of commerce worry that visitors from all over the world come to see our amazing wildlife and wilderness, only to be confronted by their hosts’ apparent disregard for the wellbeing of our unique creatures. One tourist was moved to write; “My wife and I spent two weeks touring Tasmania in 2004. We were upset with the road kill. It was the worst I’d ever seen. I wrote to the Tasmanian Government about our thoughts.” It beggars belief that most individuals and families can love and pamper their pets, watch endless programs about meerkats, gorillas, whales and dolphins, tune in to countless children’s programs hosted by actors impersonating wild animals, yet tolerate the systemic and very public brutalising of much-loved native species like the koala.

road orphaned koala joey in care
facing an uncertain future

The dark shroud of progress

One after another, the buildings and street-scapes of Melbourne are demolished, gutted or significantly altered in the name of progress, a sterile justification almost universally synonymous with commercial imperative. Here's a short missive in response to 'Windsor gets final go-ahead' in The Age: 
 
The changing face of Melbourne; no building, iconic or otherwise, is safe or secure against the onslaught of "economic arguments". So called heritage values are no match for cold hard numbers representing developers' predictions of material gain or loss. As is so often the case, a government department named to give the impression that it manages issues in our interest [ie Heritage Victoria on behalf of the People of Victoria], in fact becomes little more than an agency that lends an air of process and respectability to the greed and self-interest of parties pursuing personal gain. 
 
And what of this term heritage? "Evidence of the past, such as historical sites, buildings, and the unspoilt natural environment, considered collectively as the inheritance of present-day society" [Dictionary.com]. One wonders what kind of cultural landscape we are building, or ravaging, for future generations of Victorians to inherit.

under development
120 additional rooms
and a 26-storey glass and steel tower;
will what survives really be The Windsor?