canberrabirds

Last old growth trees

To: Martin Butterfield <>
Subject: Last old growth trees
From: Mark Clayton <>
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2018 02:49:08 +0000

Martin,

You don't know how right you are. When the NSW Liberal Government wanted to allow shooting in various national parks and nature reserves, including both The Charcoal Tank and Buddigower Nature Reserves, I sent a detailed letter to both the NSW Premier and the Environment Minister explaining how we had been banding in the area for (at the time) about 28 years and there was nothing to shoot except the odd bird bander, the reply I received was nothing short of a load of garbage .... "feral animals cause a lot of damage to the state's economy, blah, blah, blah..... - typical government gobbledegook". It DID NOT address any of the issues that I  presented to them. Thankfully the proposal fell through.

The question that I want our local "Environment" Minister to answer is what is the ACT Government doing to ENHANCE the local environment for the critically endangered Regent Honeyeater, The endangered Swift Parrot and the vulnerable Superb Parrot among other species. I also want to know what his credentials are for holding that post and does he see any conflict with his other portfolios.

With regards to the trees being discussed on the chatline I notice that it is all the planted Eucalypts have been removed (why plant them in the first place, it was just another example of the bloody waste of money by successive governments here) and have been distressed to see that the three remaining 'old growth" Eucalypts are to go as well. Why not temporarily relocate the cycle path presently on the northern side of the duplication, remove the exotic (? Plane Trees) and widen the road on that side - but that would take too much thinking. I think from memory there were 70+ old growth trees removed from the suburb of Crace out of a total of about 90 that occurred in the area. I will not hold my breath waiting for the ACT Government to approve this Old growth tree proposal, (are there any left - this looks a bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted) they want the land to build on. Look at what they did to just about every tree surrounding Mulligans Flat.

Enough from me as I am getting rather angry typing this. If I do get an answer to my questions to the minister I will place them on the chatline.

Mark


On 12/06/2018 12:17 PM, Martin Butterfield wrote:
Mark

I am shocked that you don't trust the "Contact my Minister" page to get through to the Minister himself.  

Presumably you suspect the bland and anonymous approach offered by the ACT Government website means all you'll get as a reply is a set of standard paragraphs chosen by an intern who will not answer your questions.

Martin


On 12 June 2018 at 12:05, Mark Clayton <> wrote:

Thanks for this Jenny.

On a similar vein,  does anyone have an email contact for the ACT's Environment Minister,Mick Gentleman as I have a few questions I would like to ask him. All our local politicians seem to be very hard to have direct contact with.

Mark


On 12/06/2018 9:33 AM, Jenny Bounds wrote:

The Conservation Council, COG and a couple of other groups have nominated to the ACT Scientific Committee, the loss of large (hollow-bearing) eucalypts as a threatening process in the ACT.  COG submitted information related to impacts on 2 of the ACTs threatened birds, Superb Parrot and Brown Treecreeper.  That nomination is still under consideration.  If accepted by the ACT Government, we are hopeful it will improve the current planning system processes.

 

There is currently an ACT Legislative Assembly Committee Inquiry, Nature in our City, open to submissions.  I understand this has been extended until the end of June.  If you feel strongly about the loss of our trees and impacts on our birds and other wildlife in our city, send in a letter.  COG has put in a submission.

Further information on the Inquiry terms of reference and lodging a submission is available at: http://www.parliament.act.gov.au/in-committees/Getting-involved.

 

Cheers

Jenny Bounds

COG Conservation Officer

 

 

Thanks Fleur. Awaiting the inevtable.

Yoursare maybe the last images of a great old tree.

 


From: Fleur r Leary m("gmail.com","fleurr.leary");" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"> <>
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2018 5:18:08 PM
To: John Harris
Cc: chatline
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Last old growth trees

 

Some shots of the spiral bark tree mentioned below - very beautiful and just today some hollows were being checked out by a pair of galahs……

 

 

 

Wonderful old growth trees are about to be felled for the Gundaroo Drive duplication. I live near Gundaroo Drive and I admit to being annoyed at the crowded narrow road and lack of foresight by ACT government when the old Crace farm became suburbia. I admit to being glad, at last, that they are constructing a road wide enough to cope with the population explosion out here. But I am sad for a number of reasons to see that this requires the removal of trees perhaps two centuries old. 

These trees include an ancient Yellow Box and several old Eucalypts, one of which has that highly unusual spiral bark. They are attractive old trees and among the few remaining trees with constantly-used nesting hollows. Another sadness is that these trees hold the last memories of this end the old Gundaroo Road, almost certainly trees that were preserved because they were roadside trees. Some bits of the old road were still traceable near them before Crace suburb was built and a little remains in Forde. 

The time to preserve these old trees would have been when the suburbs and road infrastructure were first being planned but that was driven by financial arrangements with minimum costs. It has been too late for some years now. There is nowhere sensible now for the duplication to go.

The trees all have notices on them announcing their removal and giving a number to ring. I admit I will be glad of the road improvement but I will shed a tear when short-sighted bureaucracy finally takes the trees.

 

 

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