ABC News reports mourning across Australia of one of their great storytellers, Peter Temple. Temple died at 71. Temple was known for his unique narrative voice, that carried strength and precision, particularly when Australian dialogues.
The South African born author won the Miles Franklin book award in 2010 for his crime fiction novel – Truth which was about police corruption, murder and politics. Together Temple and TV Producer Ian Collie produced a series for ABC television called Jack Irish, starring Guy Pearce.
“The uniqueness of Peter’s writing was this incredible beauty and taut sparseness of his prose,” crime fiction author Michael Robotham said.
“We have probably lost species”, Associate Professor Osia Gideon, head of the University of Papua New Guinea’s biological sciences division.
Unique plant, wildlife and forest species have been lost and more are being threatened as loggers continue to log pristine forest of Papua New Guinea. And, in a new report, scientists have found that the devastation is also affecting climate in South East Asia. The PNG forest contributes moisture into the air in this region.
Russian physicists Anasatasia Makarieva and Victor Gorshkov suggests the role of windblown moisture from PNG’s mainland forests in cooling and creating rainfall in South East Asia and beyond may have been be underestimated.
“PNG’s forests contribute to the maintenance of this current favourable climatic regime,” they said.
“Their devastation could trigger adverse changes in local, regional and possibly global climates.”
By halting the allocation of Kamula Doso, PNG can save 155 million tonnes of CO2 emissions and immediately fulfil its (Paris) commitments – State of the Forests of Papua New Guinea 2014 report conclusion
ABC’s Jemima Garrett wrote an area of Papua New Guinea’s internationally significant rainforests in excess of the size of Australia’s entire Wet Tropics Heritage Area in north Queensland has been cleared or logged in the 10 years to 2014.
There is an international concern that PNG government continues to allow loggers not only to re-log in a short time, but giving the loggers to further destruct pristine remaining intact forest that is very crucial to the world eco-system, for example the Kamula Doso-Strickland region contains one of the largest remaining intact rainforest ecosystems in the world. It is an ecological wonder.
The University of Papua New Guinea’s Remote Sensing Centre report shows pristine rainforest and unique species are being lost, and they are calling on PNG not to go ahead with major new logging concessions.
It took scientists two and a half years to piece together evidence from satellite images to produce their report, State of the Forests of Papua New Guinea 2014.
The report found 11,457 square kilometres of pristine forest had been cleared or logged between 2002 and 2014. Australia’s Wet Tropics Heritage Area, which stretches more than 600 kilometres from Cooktown to Townsville, is less than 9,000 square kilometres.
Jane Bryan, lead author of the latest State of the Forests of Papua New Guinea report said it is a concern that not enough time has been allowed by the government for the forest to regenerate.
“The forest needs time to regenerate and if you harvest again in too short a time period you can permanently damage the species composition and ecology of the system”, Jane Bryan.
Deforestation accounted for 3,752 square kilometres of PNG’s forest loss while degradation of previously unlogged forest accounted for 7,705 square kilometres.
The island provinces of Manus, New Ireland, East and West New Britain saw the greatest proportion of change, followed by West Sepik and Gulf provinces.
“The biggest driver of that change was the expansion of industrial logging into previously unlogged areas,” said Jane Bryan, lead author of the report.
In older logging concessions repeat harvesting as soon as 15 years into the 35-year cutting moratorium is widespread, the report said.
Associate Professor Gideon says the PNG Government’s lack of action is disturbing.
“PNG is a signatory to a number of international conventions about biodiversity conservation but in terms of efforts on the ground it has been extremely disappointing,” he said.
Two-weeks-old Troy suffered heat stress. Picture by Sarah Thorpe, Landcare Australia
ABC News: A sanctuary for orphaned fruit bats on Sydney’s North Shore (Australia) has been expanded to house more pups and adult bats.
Every spring up to 100 fruit bat orphans are hand-reared by wildlife volunteers, then taken to the Kukundi shelter at Lane Cove National Park.
Their mothers can die from natural predators, flying accidents and entanglement in power lines.
baby bats injured by electrocution (on power lines) wait for milk. Landcare Australia
“They will go to backyard fruit. And they will get tangled in backyard fruit netting. And this does terrible things to their wings so they can’t fly,” said Tierre Thorpe from wildlife carer organisation Sydney Wildlife.
“They often get caught on power lines so they get electrocuted,” she said.
The breeding season is in October when it is all hands on decks for volunteers.
Picture by Tiere Thrope shows a baby on a mini-milk bottle. Landcare Australia.
The bats “go through a rehabilitation process in our volunteer’s homes and they come here to gain flight fitness,” she said.
“They learn to fly. They are dehumanised. And we have a hatch at the back which is opened at the time. And then we support feed them for a couple of weeks so they can come back to obtain food while they have their freedom.”
An expanded cage for orphans which was opened this week is expected to cater for 100 babies a year – alongside the 500 adults in a separate cage.
“I’m calling for the Indonesian president to look into the genocide in West Papua and stop only looking at the economic profits – and address the impact mining companies are having.” West Papuan independence advocate Ronny Kareni “I think the most important thing is education and then health care, and then infrastructure. If we can deliver the education program and health program, I’m sure the political tension will drop.” Indonesian president Joko Widodo speaking about the province of West Papua.
World leaders have been arriving in Brisbane, our city, today. Others have already arrived, ahead of the G20 meeting. We have a public holiday today. My son made me some melon and Vodka cocktails, just to ease the heat of the day and tension. Ok, that’s an excuse, but I have not had vodka cocktails since my Uni days. It was such a refreshing drink, I had to have one more.
Some of the hottest conditions on record are expected in parts of Queensland over the next few days with many Brisbane residents heading to the beach to take advantage of today’s G20 public holiday.
Heavy traffic has been reported along the M1, the main highway from Brisbane to the Gold Coast, as people flock to the beach for the long weekend – an exodus that began on Thursday afternoon.
Three women went head to toe in green body paint to send a message to world leaders at the G20 on behalf of PETA. ABC News: Patrick Williams
World leaders arriving in Brisbane for the G20 leaders’ summit will have to contend with very hot weather conditions, with the city predicted to hit 32 degrees Celsius today, 35 on Saturday and 39 degrees on Sunday.
Brisbane’s Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said all of the city’s hotels in our city were fully booked, and those as far west as Toowoomba.
Meanwhile Gold Coast Tourism spokesman Ben Pole said occupancy rates were high across the city, as thousands of Brisbane residents flock to the region.
Two days earlier, helicopters and planes crowded our airspace, in deafening security exercises to protect our visitors. Brisbane is a great city and I hope that everything will go well with the G20 meeting.
I have yet find any Climate Action protesting groups, but I will keep looking.
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