Around The Web

Carbon Farming Initiative - Application to vary methodology determination

Department of the Environment - Fri, 2014-05-16 14:50
Application to vary methodology determination Native forest protection (Avoided deforestation) - comments close 25 June 2014
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National Waste Policy Implementation Report 2012 and 2013

Department of the Environment - Thu, 2014-05-15 16:18
The National Waste Policy Implementation Report 2012 and 2013 sets out progress against the National Waste Policy’s five-year implementation plan.
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Notice of intention to vary the Ambient Air Quality NEPM

Department of the Environment - Wed, 2014-05-14 14:17
On 29 April 2014, Ministers signalled their intention to vary the National Environment Protection (Ambient Air Quality) Measure for particles reflecting the latest scientific understanding on health risks arising from particle pollution. The...
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Portfolio Budget Statements 2014-15

Department of the Environment - Tue, 2014-05-13 20:20
The Environment Portfolio Budget Statements for 2014-15 were released on May 13 2014.
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Public consultation: draft approval bilateral agreement between the Commonwealth and Queensland

Department of the Environment - Tue, 2014-05-13 19:16
The Department is seeking public comment on a draft assessment bilateral agreement with the Queensland. Comments close 13 June 2014.
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Traces of cocaine in our tap water don't prove we have a problem

The Guardian - Tue, 2014-05-13 01:37
The cocaine byproduct is just one of the many traces of pharmaceutical compounds and other contaminants found in our water – and new contaminants are discovered all the time. But should we really be worried?

According to various headlines this weekend, we Brits use so much cocaine that traces of the drug have been found in our water supply. A study by the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) aimed at assessing the danger from pharmaceutical compounds in drinking water revealed that even after intensive purification treatment, minute quantities of benzoylecgonine – the metabolised form of cocaine – were found at four sites in Britain. So are we a nation of coke-heads? And does the presence of something related to a class-A drug in the water we drink actually matter?

The answer to the first question, says Sue Pennison of DWI, the independent body that ensures the water companies supply water fit to drink, is not clear. Benzoylecgonine, she notes, "is also an ingredient in a popular muscle-rub, and there's no way of telling which it came from".

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Honeybees abandoning hives and dying due to insecticide use, research finds

The Guardian - Sat, 2014-05-10 01:45
Harvard study shows neonicotionoids are devastating colonies by triggerring colony collapse disorder

The mysterious vanishing of honeybees from hives can be directly linked to insectcide use, according to new research from Harvard University. The scientists showed that exposure to two neonicotinoids, the world's most widely used class of insecticide, lead to half the colonies studied dying, while none of the untreated colonies saw their bees disappear.

"We demonstrated that neonicotinoids are highly likely to be responsible for triggering 'colony collapse disorder' in honeybee hives that were healthy prior to the arrival of winter," said Chensheng Lu, an expert on environmental exposure biology at Harvard School of Public Health and who led the work.

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Behind the rise of Boko Haram - ecological disaster, oil crisis, spy games | Nafeez Ahmed

The Guardian - Sat, 2014-05-10 00:11
Islamist militancy in Nigeria is being strengthened by western and regional fossil fuel interests

The kidnapping of over 200 Nigerian school girls, and the massacre of as many as 300 civilians in the town of Gamboru Ngala, by the militant al-Qaeda affiliated group, Boko Haram, has shocked the world.

But while condemnations have rightly been forthcoming from a whole range of senior figures from celebrities to government officials, less attention has been paid to the roots of the crisis.

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Emissions Reduction Fund exposure draft legislation

Department of the Environment - Fri, 2014-05-09 13:20
The Emissions Reduction Fund exposure draft legislation is now open for public comment. Comments close 23 May 2014.
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Emissions Reduction Fund exposure draft legislation

Department of the Environment - Fri, 2014-05-09 13:20
The Emissions Reduction Fund exposure draft legislation is now open for public comment. Comments close 23 May 2014.
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Invitation to comment on six species listing assessments

Department of the Environment - Wed, 2014-05-07 13:43
The Threatened Species Scientific Committee is seeking comments on the assessment of six species. The public consultation period closes 20 June 2014.
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The goblin shark: a rare glimpse of something truly hideous

The Guardian - Wed, 2014-05-07 02:06
A fisherman trawling for shrimps off the coast of Florida has become one of the … err … lucky few people to have come face to face with this monster of the deep

Name: The goblin shark.

Age: You'd have to ask it.

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ASC NEPM ERRATA update

Department of the Environment - Tue, 2014-05-06 15:00
ASC NEPM ERRATA update and Frequently asked questions
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Invasion of albino snakes threatens Gran Canaria wildlife

The Guardian - Tue, 2014-05-06 00:41
Soaring numbers of albino California king snakes prompts warning that they could take over 70% of Spanish island

Invasive species experts will gather in Gran Canaria this week to offer their advice on how best to control an albino variety of a popular pet snake whose population has exploded across the island in recent years, decimating local bird and lizard species.

Originally brought to the island as pets, the albino California king snakes were set loose or escaped decades ago, said Ramón Gallo, a biologist who is spearheading the effort to control the population through a project called LIFE+Lampropeltis.

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Chris Packham: Why I'm fighting to stop the slaughter of Malta's wild birds

The Guardian - Sun, 2014-05-04 09:05
The island is the EU's last outpost of licensed spring shooting. The TV naturalist explains why it's time to stop the barbarity

When it comes to life and death I'm probably more stoic than most. But last week I cried in front of more than 20,000 viewers on YouTube. Like all our team, I was close to exhaustion – we'd been on four hours sleep a night for days. I was also clearly depressed by the daily slaughter we had been witness to and the relentless attrition that had been mounting with every dead bird I'd seen blasted from the Maltese skies. But in truth from the moment I reached into the cardboard box that held a shot Montagu's harrier and gently felt its badly broken wing, as soon as I saw the blood of this beautiful and rare raptor on my fingers and looked at the defiance and confusion in its brilliant yellow eyes, it was a predictable reaction.

I like birds, and this was a very special bird. That morning I had been out with a team of observers from BirdLife Malta, patrolling the dry fields of this tiny island where about 10,000 hunters wander and wait to shoot at turtle doves and quail. It's their highly controversial spring hunting season, the only such in the European Union, of which Malta has been a member since 2004.

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Exposure draft of the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Amendment Regulation 2014

Department of the Environment - Fri, 2014-05-02 10:15
Interested parties are invited to make submissions on the exposure draft of the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Amendment Regulation 2014 (the draft regulation) by 2 May 2014.
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New threatened ecological community listing

Department of the Environment - Thu, 2014-05-01 11:39
The Minister has approved the listing of a new threatened ecological community: Kangaroo Island Narrow-leaved Mallee (Eucalyptus cneorifolia) Woodland
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NEPC Annual Report 2012-13

Department of the Environment - Wed, 2014-04-30 09:31
The National Environment Protection Council (NEPC) Annual Report for 2012-13 is now available.
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Meeting of Environment Ministers - Agreed Statement

Department of the Environment - Tue, 2014-04-29 17:11
Environment ministers from across Australia met today in Canberra to progress key environment issues of national significance. Following the Council of Australian Governments’ (COAG) decision in December 2013 to streamline and refocus its...
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Chris Packham: Malta is a bird hell

The Guardian - Mon, 2014-04-28 20:14

The BBC presenter talks of confrontations with hunters and police while making films to highlight the cruelty of the annual bird shoot

When Chris Packham announced he was heading to Malta to report on the island's annual spring bird shoot as if he was a war correspondent covering a conflict, even his admirers probably thought he was guilty of hyperbole.

But after a week in which the naturalist has detained by police for five hours, shoved to the ground by gunmen and witnessed the illegal killing of dozens of endangered birds, his mission to raise awareness of the annual slaughter of migratory birds has been more like a battle than he imagined.

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