A Mar. 2020 International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) study found that at least 5,000 koalas (12% of the population) died in New South Wales (NSW) during the 2019-2020 Australian wildfires. The report notes that the estimates are conservative and many more koalas likely died.

The report found that up to 66% of the past three generations of NSW koalas have been lost to droughts, bushfires, and man-made causes.

Josey Sharrad, IFAW Wildlife Campaigner, stated, "Koalas were already living on the brink before these fires, with populations declining in many areas due to excessive land clearing, disease and roadkill and local extinctions already known to have occurred. This disaster and the ongoing nature of the threats could push koalas over the edge. This is a koala emergency. Koalas must be immediately up listed to Endangered on an emergency basis and a moratorium on all harmful activities impacting koalas enforced to allow surviving populations some breathing space while their capacity to recover is further assessed."

The New South Wales Rural Fire Service tweeted on Mar. 2, 2020, "For the first time since early July 2019, there is currently no active bush or grass fires in #NSW. Thats more than 240 days of fire activity for the state. #nswfires #nswrfs"

A World Weather Attribution study found that climate change increased the likelihood of wildfires like those in Australia by at least 30% since 1900. An increase of 2 degrees Celsius could make similar fire conditions at least four times more likely to occur.

2019 was the hottest and driest year on record in Australia. The wildfires burned over 12.6 million acres in NSW and 44.5 million acres country-wide (an area equivalent to the size of England and Wales), killing at least 34 people and about one billion animals, and destroying approximately 6,000 buildings.William Reville, emeritus professor of biochemistry at University College Cork in Ireland, said that other factors contributed to the Australian wildfires, such as the "failure to regularly reduce 'fuel load' in bush and forests," an insufficient supply of firefighters, and arson.

Sources:

International Fund for Animal Welfare, "IFAW Calls for Emergency Uplisting of NSW Koalas to Endangered after Report Reveals True Impact of Bushfires," ifaw.org, Mar. 3, 2020

Center for Disaster Philanthropy, "2019-2020 Australian Bushfires," disasterphilanthropy.org, Feb. 17, 2020

Drew Kann, "The Climate Crisis Made Australia's Wildfires at least 30% More Likely, Study Finds," cnn.com, Mar. 4, 2020

New South Wales Rural Fire Service, twitter.com, Mar. 2, 2020

William Reville, "Australian Bush Fires Were Not Caused by Climate Change Alone," irishtimes.com, Feb. 20, 2020

Tracey Shelton, "Australians Open Wallets, Hearts for Fire-ravaged Communities," aljazeera.com, Jan. 25, 2020

World Weather Attribution, "Attribution of the Australian Bushfire Risk to Anthropogenic Climate Change," worldweatherattribution.org, Jan. 10, 2020

Read more here:
Australian Wildfires Killed 12% of Koalas, Prompting Extinction Worries - ProCon.org

Karachi - Sindh Chief Secretary Syed Mumtaz Ali Shah has formed a Committee to carryout survey of the areas where the underpasses and the flyovers are to be built for clearing the track of Karachi Circular Railway (KCR).

He formed the Committee in a meeting on Monday when it was informed that roads have been built over the KCR tracks in the city and in order to clear the tracks, at least 24 underpasses and flyovers are needed to be built.

Mumtaz Ali Shah directed the Committee to submit its survey report latest by March 20. He also directed the secretary transport for undertaking the work of fencing at the land on both sides of Right of Way of railway and inviting tenders for this purpose within three days.

The concerned officers were also directed to submit detailed report to the transport department about the railway land cleared of all the encroachments so that fencing work could be started.

The meeting further discussed the matters relating to the plying the buses from stations to markets connecting the KCR to the main market places of metropolis. It would be pertinent to for the success of KCR in terms of increasing its ridership to introduce bus system from stations to market places, Mumtaz Shah said.

Chief Secretary directed the Chairman, Planning & Development Board to get prepared schemes for improving the roads and other infrastructures in the surroundings of KCR stations.

When the Divisional Superintendent of Railways pointed out that encroachments still exist at Urdu University and Karachi University Stations of KCR, the Chief Secretary directed Additional Commissioner Karachi to get the encroachments removed and submit the report.

Chief Secretary convening the next meeting on March 20, directed all the concerned to accomplish the tasks assigned to them including survey and submit the reports in next meeting.

Chairman, Planning & Development Board Muhammad Waseem, Advocate General Sindh Salman Talibuddin, Secretary Transport Ghulam Abbas, DS Railways Nasar Ahmed Memon and others attended the meeting.

Read the rest here:
Committee formed for survey of underpasses and flyovers - The Nation

Cody Coombs eased his Ford pickup along a rough dirt road in the Egan Mountains of eastern Nevada, a path once used by the Pony Express to negotiate these remote reaches of the Great Basin. We emerged from a rugged canyon strewn with mine debris into a ravaged landscape of stumps and severed limbsthe remnant of a once-thriving pion and juniper forest.

If I hadnt known where I was, I might have thought I was looking at an industrial clearcut. But Coombs, the fuels manager for the Bureau of Land Management district in Ely, Nevada, assured me that what we were looking at was undertaken in the service of conservation. Wed entered a small fragment of the Egan and Johnson Basin Restoration Project, which, over the next decade, will remove 25,000 acres of pion and juniper forest. This is but one of a host of projects aimed at eliminating vast stretches of these native forests, which, some claim, are encroaching across vast swaths of the Great Basin and the Colorado Plateau at an unprecedented clip.

We continued on, with the November sun blazing overhead, and passed through a valley filled with cattle into an area of low hills covered in a dense stand of pion trees. The temperature dropped noticeably. The pions, some of them 30 or 40 feet tall, were covered in seed-heavy cones. Beneath the trees grew a variety of native plants, which sprouted from a robust layer of cryptobiotic soila vital crust of microorganisms that holds moisture within desert soils and prevents erosion.

Rather than a healthy, mature pion forest, Coombs saw something else entirely. As [pion and juniper] become more dense, we lose the shrub, grass, and forb understory, Coombs explained. It doesnt provide all the functionality we need for animals as well as infiltration of water. He added that dense stands of trees like this also pose a serious fire risk, though it was hard to see, more than 20 miles from the closest town, exactly what was being threatened.

In the upcoming months, Coombs explained, two bulldozers would drag a massive chain through this stand, tearing out trees and scouring the soil in order to open it up for sagebrush. His argument was the same as the one Ive heard time and again from BLM range managers: Native pion and juniper trees, which provide habitat for dozens of plants, native birds, reptiles, insects, and mammals, pose an existential threat to sage grouse. Thus, the trees must be eliminated.

*

In recent years, the greater sage grousea chicken-size bird known for its exuberant mating dancehas had an ostrich-size influence on land policy across the American West. According to the Audubon Society, the sage grouse has lost 90 percent of its historic habitat to oil and gas development, habitat fragmentation, and overgrazing

The BLM has responded by destroying hundreds of thousands of acres of pion and juniper forests. According to the BLM, between 2013 and 2018, the agency spent close to $300 million treating and restoring 2.7 million acres of sagebrush-steppe habitat across the West. It should be noted that treating and restoring (along with the equally vague conifer removal) are euphemisms for chaining, cutting, poisoning, and burning pion and juniper forests.

Indeed, sage grouse protection has become virtually synonymous with the razing of huge tracts of arid land forests. Take, for example, the Bruneau-Owyhee Sage-Grouse Habitat Project, which calls for the elimination of 726,000 acres1,110 square milesof juniper forest in the remote Owyhee Mountains straddling Idaho, Oregon, and Nevada in the coming years. Removing encroaching juniper, reads a BLM press release, will improve conditions for greater sage grouse and many other species that depend on a healthy sagebrush-steppe ecosystem.

Critics arent buying its purported benefits to grouse and instead see the destruction of pion and juniper forests as the perpetuation of old policies of destruction couched in the new buzzwords of ecological stewardship. Whileagenciesspend huge sums committing ecocide against native forests, the cattle and the oil and gas and mining industries continue to destroy the birds habitat, said Katie Fite, public lands director of Wildlands Defense, an Idaho-based environmental group.

Mass removal of pion and juniper forests is nothing new. The forests, for example, were cleared across vast stretches of the Great Basin to provide fuel for smelters during the Gold Rush. In the mid 20th century, millions of acres of pion and juniper woodlands were, in the parlance of federal land agencies, eradicated and converted to sprawling pastures planted with crested wheatgrass and other exotic grasses. The cutting of native forests as a means to protect threatened species is a far more recent development, Fite said.

The BLM and the Forest Service used to openly admit they were destroying P-J forests to get more cattle forage, Fite said. Then, ashazardousfuels and sage grouse funds flowed,the same chaining, cutting,burning deforestation schemes were touted as fire prevention and grouse conservation.

Many large pion-juniper removal projects currently underway can be traced to 2015, the year that thenInterior Secretary Sally Jewell announced an ambitious cooperative plan in an effort to keep sage grouse off the endangered species list. That year, the BLM established 14 sage grouse recovery plans in an effort to conserve 35 million acres of federal lands in 10 states.

The hope, says Brian Rutledge, Audubon vice president and director of the Sagebrush Ecosystem Initiative, is that a collaborative rather than punitive approach would be better to restore sage grouse, which he described as the avian equivalent of the bison in the sagebrush sea of the West. The SEI, founded in 2010 as part of the United States Department of Agricultures Working Lands for Wildlife program, has been a key player in the 2015 plan. It is a diverse and disparate coalition made up of industry and environmental groups, including the Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy, Conoco-Phillips, and the National Cattlemens Beef Association, which, according to the groups tagline, supports wildlife conservation through sustainable ranching.

The SEI was created to slow the decline of sagebrush and the species that depend on it, explained Rutledge. The USDA responded by working with ranchers and with gas developers to slow the disturbance and to actively try to return some of the habitat to its historical carrying capacity.

But under the Trump administration, Rutledge says, science and collaboration has been abandoned in favor of a blatantly pro-corporate agenda. Last March, for example, the BLM reneged on the 2015 sage grouse plans, eliminating more than 80 percent of the 10.7 million acres designated as vital habitat. In addition, the BLM loosened rules requiring buffer zones around mating sites. It also made voluntary the compensatory mitigation requirement, which forced energy companies to replace damaged habitat with restored habitat elsewhere.

*

Back in the Egan Range, Coombs drove to a so-called lek site, where, during mating season in spring, male sage grouse perform elaborate mating dances to woo females. Hundreds of trees had recently been cut from the area and its vegetation was reduced to little more than a thin beige stubble by grazing cattle.

Not only was the lek free of trees, but it was also conspicuously devoid of sagebrush. Coombs assured me that the lack of cover is no impediment to the birds. Sage grouse love heavily grazed areas, he said. It allows the males to display without any kind of obstruction. They seek these areas out.

Rutledge of Audubon says that clearing trees to create sage grouse habitat is not a panacea, but that in places it should be undertaken on a site by site basis in order to aid grouse recovery. Every vertical structure to a sage grouse is a potential roost for an eagle or a hawk, said Rutledge.

Other ecologists I spoke with, however, disputed the idea that pion and juniper forests are death-traps for grouse. Laura Cunningham, California director for the environmental group Western Watersheds, says that evidence shows the birds thrive in a mosaic of sagebrush and coniferous forest.

Cunningham, who worked for many years as a field biologist for the US Geological Survey, says that ravens, not raptors, pose the greatest threat to grouse. The wide-scale transformation of pion-juniper forest to exotic grasslands (like those found throughout the valleys of the Egan Range) has given ravens a decisive advantage. Ravens dont perch on trees to hunt, she said. Cunningham notes that sage grouse are highly susceptible to raven predation in these artificial grasslands, particularly in heavily grazed areas, because there is virtually no cover. [Ravens] are a flight predator, and they see the chicks from the air.

Katie Fite concurs, adding that it is not grouse or sagebrush ecosystems but grazers, miners, and oil developers who are benefitting from the BLMs relentless campaign against the Wests arid-land forests.

Cheatgrass is exploding and grouse populations are hurtling toward extinction, Fite said. Extinction, of course, ultimately benefits industry.

Original post:
Is Pinon-Juniper Clearing Really the Answer to Sage Grouse Protection? - Sierra Magazine

It can be impossible to keep all the dietary buzzwords straightvegan, pescatarian, flexitarian, paleofruitiarian? So where does "plant-based" eating fit in?

First of all, unlike some of these other concepts, plant-based eating is not a diet, and its definitely not a passing fad. Its simply a new label for an eating style that has been around forever, says nutritionist Wendy Bazilian, Dr.P.H., R.D.N. Its a guide, a road map to help you move toward health, while allowing for a lot of flexibility.

Plant-based covers a lot of dietary ground. Bazilian points out that a while a vegan diet is certainly plant-based, so is a lifestyle in which you eat vegetarian most of the time, but indulge in turkey on Thanksgiving, or your mothers pot roast during Sunday dinner. In fact, some of the worlds most popularand healthiestdiets, are plant-based by nature, while still including small amounts of meat. The Mediterranean diet, widely considered to be one of the healthiest eating styles in the world, includes fish, chicken, some low-fat dairy, and the occasional bite of red meat.

Some of the worlds most popularand healthiestdiets, are plant-based by nature.

The American diet has long featured a big hunk of meat in the center of the plate, with a few vegetables scattered on the side as an afterthought. Plant-based simply means switching that equation around. Food grown from the earth, such as vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, and whole grains, are front and centerbasically, the A-listers of your platewhile food derived from animals, such as beef, poultry, fish, and dairy, play more of a supporting role. Its not all-or-nothing, says Bazilian, who is also an ambassador for California Walnuts. You dont have to go entirely meat-free to be more plant-based. Plant-based also means eating more whole foods, while cutting down on processed foods.

Henrik SorensenGetty Images

As Bazilian points out, not all plant-based diets are equal. You can eat potato chips, white rice, and carrot cake and call it plant-based, but it will not do much for your health or weight. In fact, one large study found that while a plant-based diet focused on whole grains, fruits, and vegetables significantly lowered the risk of cardiovascular disease, a "plant-based" diet that included high-sugar, high-fat, processed foods such as sweets and soda, as well as refined grains and potatoes, had the opposite effect.

But if you stick with the plant-based foods you know are actually healthy, the benefits can include:

A lower risk of developing type-2 diabetes

A lower risk of heart disease

A lower risk of developing cancer

A lower rate of cognitive decline

A potentially higher rate of fertility

Even more important: If you're concerned with the increasingly alarming news about climate change, switching to a plant-based diet can help the planet by reducing global greenhouse emissions, reducing land clearing, and helping preserve the habitats of endangered species.

Because "plant-based diet" is such a broad term, there is no clear answer about this, but everything points to yes for weight loss, says Bazilian. Vegetables are high in nutrients and low in calories, she explains. Plus they have higher satiety, so you dont have those energy highs and lows, and you dont get as many cravings. In one study, overweight and obese subjects who followed a low-fat, whole-food, plant-based diet (with no calorie restrictions) for six months lost an average of 26 pounds.

Henrik SorensenGetty Images

Though it takes a little more planning, you can get all the protein you need from plants. In fact, Bazilian points out that several world-class athletes, including the most powerful of them all, Serena Williams, thrive on vegan or plant-based diets. Here are some protein-packed plant-based options:

Tofu, 13 g protein per 3 oz. (try Hodo Moroccan Tofu Cubes)

Walnuts, 4g protein per 1/4 cup. (try this Walnut Balsamic Spinach Salad recipe)

Tempeh, 16g protein per 3 oz (try Lightlife Organic Tempeh)

Edamame, 12 g protein per 2/3 cup (try this Edamame Hummus recipe)

Chickpeas, 7g per 1/2 cup (try Banza Chickpea pastas)

Black beans. 7g protein per 1/2 cup. (try this Santa Fe Corn Salad recipe)

Peanut butter, 7g protein per 2 Tbsp (try Justin's Classic Peanut Butter)

Steel Cut Oats, 4g protein per 1/2 cup (try Bob's Red Mill Organic Steel Cut Oats)

Quinoa, 8g protein per 1/4 cup (try Lundberg Organic Tri-Color Quinoa)

Start by adding more plants to meals you already love, Bazilian suggests. "There are 21 meals in a week, so start by adding add fruits or vegetables to one a day. For example, if you eat eggs and toast for breakfast, add salsa, spinach, or avocado. If you add a soup or salad to your lunch or dinner every day, you'll be getting nutrient-dense vegetables."

As for your main dishes, Bazilian points out that while the popular new meatless meats, such as the Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat, are plant-based, they are also highly processed. You can get that meaty satisfaction from foods that are inherently healthy and not processed, like burgers made from mushrooms, or chorizo made from walnuts and black beans, she says.

"Transition to a plant-based diet step-by-step, and its easy," says Bazilian. "Its a no-risk proposition."

Like what you just read? Youll love our magazine! Go here to subscribe. Dont miss a thing by downloading Apple News here and following Prevention. Oh, and were on Instagram too.

Read more here:
Here's Exactly What You Can and Can't Eat on a Plant-Based Diet - Prevention.com

THE celebrated Australian inventors behind the Flow Hive have launched an online education platform to save beekeepers endless hours of trawling through forums and videos.

Flow Hive has invested nearly $500,000 and two years creating the online portal to help educate novice backyard beekeepers and encourage conservation.

The portal features contributions from leading academics, researchers, educators, scientists, and authors.

Some of the experts who have contributed to TheBeekeeper.org website are: Professor Dave Goulson, a Professor of Biology at the University of Sussex, who specialises in bumblebee ecology and conservation; Doug Purdie, co-founder of The Urban Beehive, an initiative that maintains more than 80 beehives on city rooftops, balconies, backyards and in community gardens around Sydney; and James Dorey, a photographer who is currently completing his PhD at Flinders University in Adelaide, looking at the evolution, taxonomy and ecology of Australian and Fijian native bees.

Flow Hive's co-inventor, Cedar Anderson, said while his journey started as an apiarist and quickly turned to the problem-solving task of creating the Flow Hive, bee knowledge had increasingly become a bigger a part of his life.

"The bee knowledge started from keeping hives as kid, but I learnt more as I started a commercial apiary," he said.

Flow Hive continues to take the world by storm.

"I've learnt so much from so many beekeepers from around the world, and talked to so many beekeepers, and to new beekeepers, researching things to answer their questions.

"We have this new product TheBeekeeper.org and we are learning very in-depth information that is fascinating.

"It (beekeeing) is a never-ending learning journey and that's the wonderful thing because it never gets boring."

There isn't a lot of information out there for beginners wanting to access accurate and high quality information when starting out, Mr Anderson said.

"But any beekeeper, regardless of experience, has a responsibility to be acutely aware of the myriad of pests and diseases that the commercial industry is working to protect the industry from," he said.

"It's often said that if you ask two beekeepers one question, you'll get three different answers.

"Beekeeping practices vary greatly in every region, which is why it's so important that beginners have access to expert beekeeping support so they can maintain healthy bees and develop into knowledgeable beekeepers."

Half of the profits made via the online education platform will support habitat regeneration and advocacy for the protection of pollinators.

Flow Hive continues to take the world by storm.

One of the first projects to be funded will see the natural habitats of the green carpenter bee replaced.

These creatures were once prolific from northern NSW down to Kangaroo Island.

Now, the bees are only found in scattered areas after years of land clearing and bushfires destroyed many bee nests.

Flow Hive has also released another new product which is the Flow Hive 2, with seven frames in a western cedar wood.

"It's very popular in North America and Australia," he said.

"That's their favourite wood type for beehives over there and it has been a popular request for some time."

See original here:
This website has the latest buzz from beekeeping experts - Northern Star

IJM Corp Bhd(March 9, RM1.84)Upgrade to hold with a lower target price of RM1.93: IJM Corp Bhds current construction order book is at RM4.5 billion 32% of which constitutes buildings, infrastructure (11%) and roads (56%) declining from RM5.1 billion in the second quarter ended Sept 30, 2019 (2QFY20). Its outstanding tender book is about RM4 billion consisting of domestic projects equally split between infrastructure and building jobs, excluding The Light City project in Penang and the East Coast Rail Link.

For the Light City, terms are being finalised with joint-venture partner Perennial Real Estate Holdings Ltd and an award worth about RM650 million to RM700 million of external construction works could materialise in 1QFY21. The management is confident in maintaining construction profit before tax (PBT) margins at between 6% and 9%, with material prices remaining conducive at the current levels. The construction PBT margin dipping to 5.9% in 3QFY20 was mainly due to higher finance costs concerning a highway project and is not expected to recur.

IJM Corp remains on track to achieve its sales target of RM1.6 billion for the financial year ending March 31, 2020 (FY20) after hitting sales of RM1.2 billion for the cumulative nine months of financial year 2020 (9MFY20). Sales have been mainly driven by projects such as Shah Alam 2, Seremban 2 and Rimbayu. For the first half of 2020 (1H20), IJM Corp is planning to launch projects with a cumulative value of about RM1.4 billion anchored by Rimbayu and Riana Dutamas.

Separately, the management revealed the Royal Mint project in London with a gross development value of 200 million was handed over to buyers in 4Q19 with a take-up of 90%. For the companys property segment, a comfortable PBT margins of above 10% are anticipated.

Its throughput at Kuantan Port remains healthy amid the Covid-19 outbreak. We understand from the management that Alliance Steel (M) Sdn Bhd with an estimated throughput of seven to 10 metre freight weight tonnes per annum is unaffected so far.

Prospects for a sustained throughput growth are intact with new Malaysia-China Kuantan Industrial Park investors such as Maxtrek Tyres for the land clearing phase and NewOcean Energy pending an environmental assessment. Recent investors such as ICP and Camel Power (M) Sdn Bhd started operations on Aug 19 and Oct 19 respectively.

The highway remains a drag on IJM Corps bottom line as at 3QFY20, with share of associate losses of RM27.3 million, bringing the 9MFY20 sum to -RM73.8 million against 9MFY19s RM30.8 million. The quarter saw sections 5, 9 and 10 of the highway opened in September and on Dec 19 respectively, in addition to section 8 opened on May 19, resulting in interest being expensed off (it was previously capitalised).

We gathered all the opened sections began collecting toll fees in January and on March 20 upon which an amortisation recognition starts.

Based on our understanding, sections 1, 2, 3 and 6 of the Selangor stretch are slated to open in 2021 and where we expect a pickup in the overall traffic volume. For the near term, we anticipate a widening loss contribution as a significant volume pickup is unlikely until the Selangor stretch opens.

Our FY20, FY21 and FY22 earnings forecasts are cut by 6.6%, 18.1% and 17.2% after factoring in widening losses from the share of associates offset by increasing our replenishment assumptions for FY21 from RM1 billion to RM1.7 billion after accounting potential wins from the ECRL and The Light City. Hong Leong Investment Bank Research, March 9

Read the rest here:
IJM Corp expected to remain on track to meet FY20 sales target - The Edge Markets MY

(CNS): Despite continued calls from the Department of Environment to stop the clearance of mangroves on sites without planning permission, developers are still ripping up these critical species. The Central Planning Authority considered an application for after-the-fact land clearance in Prospect on Wednesday, after a developer removed several acres of mangroves, which were part of an important drainage system, in order to dump soil and store materials to support a nearby condominium development.

Developers behind the Grand Palmyra, a luxury condo development project in the Grand Harbour area, simply removed the partially seasonally flooded mangroves on Block 23C Parcel 233, land which has no planning application history or permissions for development of any kind.

The DoE discovered the latest assault on these critical species during a site visit to the area in late January. Researchers found that the mangroves had been cleared from the interior of the site, using access off the former Prospect Point Road and out of view from the more public Hurley Merren Boulevard.

Not all of the mangroves have been removed and the DoE has insisted that those that remain must be retained. But the clearance was done in such a way that it appears the developer was hoping it would not be seen. Whether that is so the materials expected to be stored there as well as piles of soil would not cause complaints or because the developer was hoping no one would notice is an unanswered question.

However, regardless of the motivations of the developer, the DoE made it clear that this practice has to stop.

This continues the extremely worrying trend of illegally clearing mangroves which the Department of Environment has raised to the Department of Planning on a number of occasions, the department stated in its submissions to the Central Planning Authority, highlighting another seven recent cases of mangrove clearance without any planning permission.

The DoE explained that the missing mangroves at this site had provided critical drainage for the surrounding area and an extremely important buffer for Hurley Merren Boulevard from the sea. They said there was a lot more vacant land in the area that could have been used for storage, as they noted the lack of any consideration for stormwater management on the site, which has now been cleared and filled.

Illegal clearing removes the opportunity for reviewing agencies to provide constructive comments and feedback on best management practices and recommendations for retention of ecologically valuable flora to be retained, which may prove beneficial to the landowners and wider area. In this case, the mangroves provide important drainage for the area. Illegal clearing undermines the consultation process and the planning process, the DoE said.

Once again, the DoE experts urged the planning department to take appropriate measures to avoid illegal clearing, adding that its environment conservation officers cannot intervene in these cases until the Species Conservation Plan for Mangroves has been approved by Cabinet, which has still not been done, leaving this important plant increasingly vulnerable.

We recommend refusal of this application, the DoE told planning. Clearing and filling important drainage areas prior to any imminent development is not a practical approach to stormwater management.

The developers request to planning for after-the-fact permission was brief, giving no indication that the developers had grasped the negative significance of removing the mangroves.

The application for the land clearing on the parcel was intended for the material storage and dump area of the dug-out soil from the construction of Grand Palmyra Development located on Block 22E Parcel 382 which was owned by the same developer, K&B Ltd stated in the application. The land clearing will also be done in purpose for the preparation of the future mixed use development to be built on the lot. We hope that the CPA board would find this application to be acceptable.

The limited justification given to the CPA may be because no sanctions have been given to other developers who unlawfully remove mangroves and undermine the Cayman Islands already limited coastal defences.

See this and all of the other planning applications considered by the CPA on Wednesday in the CNS Library (scroll down to Grand Palmyra development)

Read the rest here:
More mangroves illegally cleared - Cayman Islands Headline News - Cayman News Service

RAMBLERS in Wiltshire are worried that too many footpaths are becoming impassable as land owners fail to keep hedges under control.

They are also concerned that Government bodies in charge of rights of way do not have enough funding to help keep them clear.

A West Wilts Ramblers work party led by Paul Millard, the countryside access officer for central Wiltshire, saw the problems for themselves in a village near Devizes.

They have been hard at work in Easterton clearing a path and putting up a bridle gate.

Members found the going tough as the footpath was overgrown and a hedge and brambles had been allowed to get out of control.

Footpath secretary Brian Micklam said: The width was reduced by a fallen fence, including barbed wire, that had collapsed onto the path and was buried under the weight of brambles and tree branches.

I was concerned that the landowner did not realise that encroaching hedges and overhanging vegetation were overgrowing a collapsing fence or that the landowners realised it was their responsibility to keep the path clear.

Now the problem has been discovered it will be the responsibility of Easterton Parish and Wiltshire Rights of Way and Countryside Department to inform the landowner.

Judy Hible the acting chairman of Wiltshire and Swindon Ramblers said that too many paths are becoming unusable.

She said: They are too narrow to be mechanically cleared.

She and Mr Micklam are also worried that the Rights of Way and Countryside Department do not have resources to maintain the footpath network.

Mr Micklam, who last year was presented with a Rambler Association volunteer award, has taken up their fears about the lost paths with Wiltshire Council and his local MP Michelle Donelan.

Originally posted here:
Fears that village footpaths will be lost to walkers - Wiltshire Times

Establishing a productive pasture requires more than just putting down seed and straw. Soil tests will help determine the proper amount of lime and fertilizer. These amendments, along with proper seeding rates, should be applied at the right time of year, usually spring or fall, for optimal growth. It can take a year or more to establish a pasture. Pasture management after establishment is also important, and includes mowing, dragging, and maintaining proper stocking rates. In general, in order to maintain a healthy sod and good groundcover you should have a minimum of two acres of pasture for each horse. Keeping more horses on less pasture requires an increased level of management of both horses and grounds in order to maintain the health of both.

More information on establishing and renovating pastures for horses, forage selection, and grazing management can be found in the Virginias Horse Pastures series, Virginia Cooperative Extension publications 418-101, 418-102, 418-103, and 418-104.

Trees in pastures are beneficial for a variety of reasons. They provide protection from sun, wind, and rain, and are a beautiful scenic addition. Orienting a row of trees from east to west will result in appropriate turf light and encourage pasture forage. However, horses and trees are not always a good mix. Turning out too many horses on small acreage results in denuded pastures or debarked trees, which is neither attractive nor environmentally friendly. Also, the presence of a large number of livestock can result in soil compaction around trees, which reduces the oxygen available to tree roots and negatively impacts tree growth. Nevertheless, some tree species deal with soil compaction better than others. The compaction tolerant tree list includes many native trees such as sycamore, red maple, hackberry, eastern red cedar, sweetgum, black gum, loblolly pine, oak, black locust, willow, bald cypress and slippery elm (Coder, 2000).

Regardless of the trees you choose for your pasture, it is best to fence around them to protect the roots and bark while allowing horses to benefit from their shelter. At a minimum, the trunk should be secured with fencing 2 to 4 feet away. Better protection requires a fence 10 to 20 feet away from the trunk, or ideally out to the drip line (picture the tree top as an umbrella, the edge of the umbrella is the drip line) of a mature tree. However, this may decrease the horses use of the tree as shelter. The Virginia Urban Street Tree Selector at http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/treeselector/ provides a tool to determine mature crown width on certain species.

Finally, some species should be avoided in horse pastures.

For help in identifying trees, bring samples to your local extension office or try your hand at identifying the species with the help of an online tree identification tool at http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/idit.htm.

If your objectives involve land clearing, it is important to familiarize yourself with the pros and cons. Planning and attention to detail during the land-clearing process will help protect water and soil resources while keeping costs to a minimum. This publication provides some practical considerations of costs, regulatory issues, biological and environmental factors, and covers effective methods and easily avoided pitfalls.

For more assistance and information, contact the following public agencies:

Virginia Cooperative Extension Additional printed educational resources and free subject matter newsletters, soil test kits and interpretation, forage management education, pesticide safety and education, and more at http://www.ext.vt.edu.

Soil and Water Conservation Districts Technical assistance, information, and education on the conservation of natural resources, soil, water, and related resources, http://www.vaswcd.org/.

Natural Resources Conservation Services Federal agency providing both technical and financial assistance related to conserving key natural resources such as soil, water and wildlife, http://www.nrcs.usda.gov.

Virginia Department of Forestry Offering Consulting Foresters list, timber buyers list, timber selling advice, and forest management planning, http://www.dof.virginia.gov.

Southern Piedmont Agricultural Research and Extension Center http://www.arec.vaes.vt.edu/southern-piedmont/.

Coder, Kim. 2000. Compaction Tolerant Trees. University of Georgia.

Downing, Adam, Corey Childs, and C.A. Shea Porr. 2008. To Clear or Not To Clear That Is the Question, Virginia Cooperative Extension publication 465-340, http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/465-340/

Johnson, James E. 1997. Firewood for Home Heating, Virginia Cooperative Extension publication 420-003.

Magadlela, A.M., M.E. Dabaan, W.B. Bryan, E.C. Prigge, J.D. Skousen, G.E. DSouza, B.L. Arbogast, G. Flores. 1995. Brush clearing on hill land pasture with sheep and goats. Journal of Agronomy and Crop Science 174:1-8.

McNabb, K. 1997. Environmental Safety of Forestry Herbicides. Alabama Cooperative Extension System. Publication number ANR-846. http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-0846/, accessed March 6, 2008.

Teutsch, C.D., and R.M. Hoffman. 2005. Virginias Horse Pastures: Grazing Management, Virginia Cooperative Extension publication 418-101, http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/418-101/

Teutsch, C.D., and R.M. Hoffman. 2005.Virginias Horse Pastures: Forage Species for Horse Pastures, Virginia Cooperative Extension publication 418-102, http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/418-102/

Teutsch, C.D., and J.H. Fike. 2005. Virginias Horse Pastures: Forage Establishment, Virginia Cooperative Extension publication 418-103, http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/418-103/

Teutsch, C.D., J.H. Fike. 2005. Virginias Horse Pastures: Renovating Old Pastures, Virginia Cooperative Extension publication 418-104, http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/418-104/

The authors wish to thank the following individuals for their contributions in review of this document:

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Options for Clearing Land: Pasture Establishment for ...

As catastrophic bushfires spread across parts of Australia, misinformation about one of the regions most beloved animals, the koala, spreads, too.

Areas of Australia started to burn in September 2019, marking an early start to the regions fire season and scorching more than 5 million acres in News South Wales and parts of Queensland.

When the fires became international news, online stories like this one went viral with shocking headlines that claim koalas are now "functionally extinct" as a result of the blaze.

It is true that several hundred koalas have died in the bushfires (some estimates put the death toll in the thousands) and large swaths of the marsupials habitat have been destroyed. However, the claim that koalas are "functionally extinct" is inaccurate.

The story was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

It appears that the idea that koalas are "functionally extinct" started when the Australian Koala Foundation, a local conservation nonprofit that advocates for koala protection and preservation, released a statement in May 2019 calling on Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to enact the Koala Protection Act, which was written in 2016.

"The Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) believes Koalas may be functionally extinct in the entire landscape of Australia," the statement says. "The AKF thinks there are no more than 80,000 Koalas in Australia."

Since the fires, the organization released another statement in October 2019 standing by its use of the term.

Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the US-based Center for Biological Diversity, told PolitiFact there are two different definitions of "functionally extinct." One is that a species still occurs in the wild but cant effectively reproduce, so is all but extinct. The other, is that a species is so reduced that it can no longer play its role in the ecosystem. Neither definition, he says, applies to the koala.

The koala population is indeed declining, but AKFs estimate is much lower than other assessments.

The International Union for Conservation (IUCN), the global authority on the conservation status of all species, approximates that 300,000 mature adult koalas remain in the wild, and lists the species as vulnerable, a step above endangered and two above critically endangered.

But IUCN last assessed the koala population in 2014, and the species may very well be worse off due to food degradation, deforestation, hunting, drought and fires over the last several years. That said, another group of scholars studied the koala population in 2016 and found comparable numbers.

Nevertheless, several wildlife experts reject the notion that koalas are currently "functionally extinct."

"By either definition, it's hard to see koalas as functionally extinct," Greenwald said. "The last estimate for their numbers is roughly 300,000, and in some places they are very much playing their ecological role of munching on eucalyptus leaves."

Wildlife conservation experts also told National Geographic that its difficult to measure koala populations, even at the best of times, because the animal has a wide range across eastern Australia, are human-shy and live very high up in trees.

Christine Adams-Hosking, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Queensland in Australia, told PolitiFact that koalas "are certainly not functionally extinct" in Australia. And though they have been affected by habitat loss as a result of the fires, she said, its too early to know the impact.

"We will never know exact numbers because we dont know how many koalas exactly there were there in the first place," she said. "Time will tell. Over the next few years, the burnt areas will need to be monitored to see how many koalas recolonize the burnt areas and whether they can successfully build up their population numbers again."

PolitiFact also reached out to the World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia about the claim. The organizations senior manager for land clearing and restoration, Stuart Blanch, told us that while the bushfires are a setback for koala conservation, WWF-Australia does not agree that the species is functionally extinct.

The organization estimates that from July to November, the fires scorched more than 8% of the known koala forest in New South Wales and that, even before the fires, koala populations disappeared from large areas of eastern and southern Australia.

"While koalas will survive this bushfire crisis, the longer-term picture in New South Wales and Queensland is not good unless excessive tree clearing is halted," Blanch said. "WWF-Australia has published a report projecting that koalas will become extinct in the wild in eastern Australia by as early as 2050 and highly likely by 2100 if deforestation and other threats continue. "

The organization said that koalas require remaining eucalypt forests to be preserved, cleared forest areas to be regenerated, and isolated patches of habitat to be connected by newly planted wildlife corridors.

Our ruling

As catastrophic bushfires burn in Australia, claims that koalas are now "functionally extinct" have gone viral.

Many wildlife experts reject this designation, and several estimates suggest there are around 300,000 koalas left in the wild. However, the population is currently listed as vulnerable, and its numbers are steadily declining as fires, and other issues, threaten the animal.

This claim has some truth to it but omits crucial context that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False.

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No, koalas are not 'functionally extinct,' but they are in trouble - PolitiFact