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SEng Victoria Newsletter - October 2013

Announcement of the reappointment of Professor Carmen Lawrence.

Round two of the Strategic Water Purchase Initiative in Victoria has commenced with a budget of up $5 million . Round two will close at 5.00 pm AEDT on 6 December 2013, unless the limit of the budget has been reached before this date.

Does Nature have rights?

Australia’s Native Vegetation Framework will guide native vegetation management across the Australian landscape. Australia's Native Vegetation Framework

100 percent of the global warming over the past 60 years is human-caused, according to the IPCC's latest report

The fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report states with 95 percent confidence that humans are the main cause of the current global warming. Many media outlets have reported that this is an increase from the 90 percent certainty in the fourth IPCC report, but actually the change is much more significant than that. In fact, if you look closely, the IPCC says that humans have most likely caused all of the global warming over the past 60 years.

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SENG SA Chapter News and Events

Russians drop armed guards on to the deck and round up the crew of the Arctic Sunrise, which is protesting against Gazprom drilling

Armed Russian military have stormed a Greenpeace ship protesting against oil exploitation in remote Arctic waters.

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Six machines to exploit fast currents in Pentland Firth will be installed as first part of much larger planned tidal scheme

Six vast underwater turbines are to be lowered into the tidal currents of the Pentland firth in the first phase of one of the largest tidal energy schemes in Europe.

Permission to install the six squat machines, which look like underwater propellers, has been granted by Scottish ministers as a demonstration project to prove they work, with more than 50 of the machines eventually due to be installed on the seabed off Caithness.

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Climate contrarians appear to be running damage control in the media before the next IPCC report is published

The fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is due out on September 27th, and is expected to reaffirm with growing confidence that humans are driving global warming and climate change. In anticipation of the widespread news coverage of this esteemed report, climate contrarians appear to be in damage control mode, trying to build up skeptical spin in media climate stories. Just in the past week we've seen:

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Environment movement is in 'deep denial' over the right ways to tackle climate change, says Canadian author

Canadian author Naomi Klein is so well known for her blade-sharp commentary that it's easy to forget that she is, above all, a first-rate reporter. I got a glimpse into her priorities as I was working on this interview. Klein told me she was worried that some of the things she had said would make it hard for her to land an interview with a president of the one of the Big Green groups (read below and you'll see why). She was more interested in nabbing the story than being the story; her reporting trumped any opinion-making.

Such focus is a hallmark of Klein's career. She doesn't do much of the chattering class's news cycle blathering. She works steadily, carefully, quietly. It can be surprising to remember that Klein's immense global influence rests on a relatively small body of work; she has published three books, one of which is an anthology of magazine pieces.

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In the first case concerning impacts on a matter of National Environmental Significance under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), the Federal Court ruled in favour of the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources.

Gwydir Ramsar Wetlands - Penalty decision

Between 1 March 2007 and 17 April 2007 Hardies Hill took an action that damaged habitat for an important population of the Striped Legless Lizard (Delma impar) which is listed as Vulnerable under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999

V/Line will pay more than $188,000 after undertaking clearing works that affected the population of a listed critically endangered species.

On 17 July 2009 the Federal Court declared by consent that Rocky Lamattina & Sons Pty Ltd took an action likely to have a significant impact on the South-eastern Red-tailed Black Cockatoo in contravention of section 18(3) of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999

Bridge and Marine must pay $200,000 towards the remediation of grasslands, purchase of offsets and recovery actions for a nationally protected species after it cleared an important grassland site for storage of heavy materials.

An enforceable undertaking was accepted on 8 February 2010 from Holcim Australia-formerly Cemex Australia-following an incident in late 2008 where work at the company's quarry damaged part of the National Heritage place.

An investment company will pay $62,000 towards conservation research and protect up to 13 hectares of threatened species habitat after breaching national environment law.

The City of Greater Geelong Council approved works that resulted in the removal and disturbance of approximately 0.8 hectares of a critically endangered ecological community