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SENG Victoria Newsletter - March 2014
Animals see power lines as glowing, flashing bands, research reveals
Power lines are seen as glowing and flashing bands across the sky by many animals, research has revealed.
The work suggests that the pylons and wires that stretch across many landscapes are having a worldwide impact on wildlife.
Continue reading...Victorian Eel Fishery
Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder to sell water allocations in the Peel Valley
Richard Branson tells climate deniers to 'get out of the way'
Virgin Group chairman and founder, Sir Richard Branson, has said businesses should "stand up" to climate change deniers and they should "get out of our way".
Branson said he was "enormously impressed" with Apple's chief executive for telling climate change sceptics to ditch shares in the technology company.
Continue reading...Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder may sell more water allocations in New South Wales this year
Aboriginal rights a threat to Canada's resource agenda, documents reveal
Canadian government closely monitoring how legal rulings and aboriginal protest pose an increasing ‘risk’ for multi-billion dollar oil and mining plans
The Canadian government is increasingly worried that the growing clout of aboriginal peoples’ rights could obstruct its aggressive resource development plans, documents reveal.
Since 2008, the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs has run a risk management program to evaluate and respond to “significant risks” to its agenda, including assertions of treaty rights, the rising expectations of aboriginal peoples, and new legal precedents at odds with the government’s policies.
Continue reading...National Waste Reporting 2013
National Waste Reporting 2013
2013–14 round of ABRS Student Travel Grants is now open
2013–14 round of ABRS Student Travel Grants is now open
WWII Darwin bombing shipwreck protected
Queensland Eel Fishery
Queensland Eel Fishery
Agbogbloshie: the world's largest e-waste dump – in pictures
Discarders of electronic goods expect them to be recycled properly. But almost all such devices contain
toxic chemicals which, even if they are recyclable, make it expensive to do so. As a result, illegal dumping has become a lucrative business.
Photographer Kevin McElvaney documents Agbogbloshie, a former wetland in Accra, Ghana, which is home to the world’s largest e-waste dumping site. Boys and young men smash devices to get to the metals, especially copper. Injuries, such as burns, untreated wounds, eye damage, lung and back problems, go hand in hand with chronic nausea, anorexia, debilitating headaches and respiratory problems. Most workers die from cancer in their 20s
Continue reading...Australia in Antarctica: Building on Mawson’s legacy
Proteaceae Dominated Kwongkan Shrubland: a nationally-protected ecological community
SENG National Newsletter - March 2014
Did Discovery Channel fake the image in its giant shark documentary? | George Monbiot
The suspicion that the Discovery Channel had abandoned its professed editorial standards was a powerful one. As I mentioned in my earlier blog, its documentary claiming that the giant shark Carchardon megalodon still exists contained images which gave a strong impression of being faked; reports of incidents which don't appear to have happened; and interviews with "marine biologists" no one has been able to trace.
But allegations of fakery are very hard to prove. As you know, absence of evidence doesn't mean evidence of absence. Just because no one has been able to find the news reports the Megalodon show claims to have found, or any record of the deaths of four people in an attack by a giant shark off South Africa last year, or any trace of the suspiciously handsome experts it used to confirm its thesis doesn't prove definitively that all of them are inventions, even though it's hard to see how they could not be.
Continue reading...