A new group of Greenpeace activists have taken to the trees in the Leard State Forest in north west NSW to stop Whitehaven Coal clearing land during winter and endangering hibernating wildlife.

Five Greenpeace activists were arrested on Sunday after a three-day protest in the treetops of the forest.

However, another five protesters have built a giant web rope in another part of the forest overnight in order to hinder the company's plan to bulldoze the trees as part of its Maules Creek Mine expansion.

"We hope to stay as long as long as possible," said Greenpeace senior climate campaigner Nick Clyde from the giant web rope.

"We've got food and water and settling in for the long haul."

Whitehaven is spending $767 million developing Maules Creek mine in Leard State Forest and is progressively demolishing around 1660 hectares of native woodland to extract coal by early 2015.

The company had expressed a preference to avoid winter and early spring land clearances to avoid the "key breeding/hibernation seasons for threatened bat and bird species".

But the government recently approved a revision to the firm's biodiversity management plan (BMP).

A Whitehaven spokesman has said the company, previously owned by mining baron Nathan Tinkler, has outlined measures to move wildlife before clearing the land.

Mr Clyde said a neighbouring mine at Boggabri was not permitted to clear land during winter due to the danger to hibernating wildlife but Whitehaven Coal has been allowed to break the rules.

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Whitehaven Coal tree top protest continues

JR Landworks Retention Pond Land Clearing
Utilizing our forestry mulcher machine and some hand cutting in steep sections, we cleared the vegetation, trees and debris from the banks of this large wast...

By: Jonathan Baigis

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JR Landworks Retention Pond Land Clearing - Video

Yesterday at 6:52 PM An IRS ruling has made donations to the trust tax deductible, clearing the way for buildings, property and monetary donations to create affordable housing.

By Amy Calder acalder@centralmaine.com Staff Writer

WATERVILLE A nonprofit organization that seeks to provide affordable homes to people with low to moderate incomes has received tax-exempt status, allowing it to receive tax-exempt donations of homes, land, money and other gifts.

click image to enlarge

SEEKING HOMES: The Waterville Community Land Trust is seeking homes that can be used to create afforable housing. This house at 11 Clark St. was going to be the first, but was deemed too deteriorated to use, so the city gave it to Habitat for Hummanity.

Staff Photo by Amy Calder

Donations for the Waterville Community Land Trust may be sent to the fiscal agent, community group REM, 93 Main St., Waterville, ME 04901. The trusts Facebook page, watervilleclt@gmail.com, will also soon have information on how to donate. Donations also may be sent to the land trust at P.O. Box 1834, Waterville, Maine, 04901.

The Waterville Community Land Trust received notice recently from the Internal Revenue Service that, as a public charity, it is exempt from federal income tax, which means donors get a tax deduction for gifts to the trust.

The land trust plans to buy or acquire houses and land, renovate them, and sell them at affordable prices. Homeowners may later sell the homes if they wish, but the trust will retain the land ownership and a substantial amount of any profits. The idea is to increase home ownership, improve neighborhoods, help prevent deterioration and restore the historic fabric of neighborhoods.

Nancy Williams, executive director of the multi million-dollar Lake George Land Conservancy in Bolton Landing, New York, initiated the idea for the Waterville Land Trust.

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Waterville Community Land Trust gets tax-exempt status

The Daily Briefing Buckeye Forum Podcast

The Dispatchpublic affairs team talks politics and tackles state and federal government issues in the Buckeye Forum podcast.

County land-bank officials caught a $1.5 million break this week when Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced that he would extend the deadline for counties to be reimbursed for money they spend to demolish blighted properties.

The attorney generals Moving Ohio Forward program made up to $75 million available in matching funds for counties that knocked down community eyesores and prepared formerly distressed properties for redevelopment.

Franklin County originally was awarded about $8.2 million for demolitions, with the money to be divided between the county and Columbus, which has its own demolition program.

Counties were given until the end of last year to spend the money, but many found the deadline hard to meet. So late last year, the attorney generals office extended the deadline until Saturday.

That still wasnt enough time for some land banks, including Franklin Countys, and the state relented again.

In a letter sent to land-bank leaders this week, Matt Lampke, DeWines mortgage foreclosure counsel, extended the deadline to Sept. 30. He said that any money left over could be redistributed to counties, but preference would be given to those that got their work done by the end of this month.

John Rosenberger, president of the Central Ohio Community Improvement Corp., which operates as the countys land bank, said the land bank struggled at first to find and acquire distressed properties to knock down. But the problem with meeting this months deadline was a lack of contractors.

You cant just grab a sledgehammer and a pickup truck and go to work, Rosenberger said of the need to find qualified contractors who could handle all aspects of the demolitions from utility disconnections and asbestos abatement to final site clearing.

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State extends deadline for counties to spend blight-demolition money

Conservationists are demanding the Queensland Government investigate concerns about illegal clearing in the state's north.

The Wilderness Society says it is worried bulldozing of a 30,000-hectare area in the Gilbert River catchment began before a permit was issued.

Queensland campaigner Karen Touchie says the State Government is failing to properly regulate clearing of native vegetation.

"This is at its heart a very special catchment in northern Australia that's under extreme threat from both this land clearing that we're talking about today but also another project," she said.

"Together those two projects look to clear around about 200,000 hectares of land.

"What's worrying is basically it seems to demonstrate that the Queensland Government is entirely unable to do even basic due diligence either in terms of what land is suitable for agriculture in that catchment or indeed what landholders may be doing on their land in terms of clearing."

The clearing was approved under new vegetation management regulations in Queensland designed to make way for high-value agriculture projects.

Ms Touchie says there is evidence suggesting clearing might have begun before a permit was granted.

"We did a flyover of the catchment earlier this year and just visually we're slightly concerned at the maturity of the crop given that the approval for clearing had just been given," she said.

"We then went back and sourced some public satellite imagery. On the basis of that imagery it seems to us that there's a high probability that clearing may have occurred prior to the Queensland Government approving the clearing."

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Conservationists fear land for project in Gilbert River catchment cleared before permit issued

29 May 2014| last updated at 11:52PM

KUALA LUMPUR: ONE million residents in Wangsa Maju may face a water crisis soon if two developers do not stop illegal earthworks on their land.

The clearing of land on a Class Three hill slope has resulted in the pollution of Sungai Gombak.

The river supplies water to the Wangsa Maju treatment plant.

Due to land clearing, muddy surface run-off is flowing into Sungai Lalang and Sungai Salak. These two tributaries flow into Sungai Gombak, turning it muddy.

This had led to the closure of the Wangsa Maju water treatment plant from March 3 to May 13.

The plant supplies water to close to one million residents in the area.

Luckily for the residents, their water supply was not disrupted as they were getting water from the Klang Gate Dam.

Gombak District and Land Office district officer Datuk Nor Hisham Ahmad Dahlan said the Wangsa Maju treatment plant will need to be closed again if there are more downpours.

"If the hill slope is not rectified, then Sungai Gombak will continue to be polluted and the water treatment plant will not be able to process the water from the river," he said.

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Surface runoff muddies Sg Gombak

A mayor from the south-east of South Australia has gone on trial facing three charges of illegally clearing native vegetation.

Adelaide Magistrates Court heard Richard John Vickery cleared a large area of his property at Shaugh in 2008 so he could lease the land to an onion farmer.

Prosecutor Sam Whitten alleged Vickery cleared the land in contravention of the Native Vegetation Act.

He says chemicals were used and all seeds and stumps removed, leaving the land sterile.

"The land had approximately 90 species of native vegetation, supporting a high diversity of native plants and animals," the court was told.

Mr Whitten says the land had been cleared in the past but in a way that allowed native vegetation to regrow.

"What happened in 2008 was of an entirely different scale and extent," he said.

"By completely removing seeds and vegetation and using chemicals the soil was effectively sterilised. The native vegetation is unlikely to ever regenerate."

Mr Whitten says Mallee stumps removed might have been decades old.

"The prosecution accepts the land was suitable for use of rough grazing but was not suitable, due to the presence of native vegetation, for intense cultivation," he said.

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Tatiara Mayor Richard Vickery accused of illegal land clearing

A discussion on outdoor exercise equipment, a crosswalk light for Huntley Drive and the issue of land clearing were among the topics at the May 20 regular meeting of the Clarenville Town Council.

Shawn Hayward photo

Clarenville Council

Age-friendly park equipment

The recreation director obtained three separate quotes for exercise equipment for the age friendly park, located near the Clarenville High School.

The three prices were $19, 924 from Activate Playgrounds, $20, 354 from The Playground Guys and $29,390 from Henderson Recreation.

Recreation committee chair David Harris says they decided to go with The Playground

Guys since Activate Playgrounds couldnt get the full list of desired equipment.

Harris says the recreation committee had a great deal of discussion as to whether the exercise equipment will get used by the public.

We asked our recreation director to go out and talk to other municipalities who have similar equipment and similar age-friendly parks in their community and see if it was utilized and well received, says Harris.

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Councillor at large

SINGAPORE: The haze that is expected to hit Singapore in the coming months could go on for as long as three months, experts have warned.

This is similar to what the Republic experienced in 1997, they said.

Prolonged hazy skies could happen if a strong El Nino effect sets in, compounded by the already-started illegal land clearing by farmers in Sumatra.

El Nino is a phenomenon which causes severely dry weather and high temperatures in this region.

According to environmental reports, there were more than 3,000 hotspots in Sumatra at the peak of the haze crisis in March alone.

This compared to about 2,700 in June last year.

The next dry season will occur between June and October, and experts are concerned illegal land clearing in Sumatra will result in large-scale fires.

"If they deliberately set fires to clear land, particularly if it's land being cleared illegally, they are not going to listen to anyone who tells them not to start the fire," said Mr Faizal Parish, Director of Global Environment Centre, a non-governmental organisation based in Malaysia.

"They won't take immediate action to put out the fire. The problem (in Sumatra) is the need for active enforcement on the ground."

Worse, the March fires have not yet been put out completely.

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Experts warn of long period of haze

InsideClimateNews.org I entered the Amazon on the wings of a military-trained cowboy from San Antonio, Texas. Below, the Araguaia River flowed reddish-brown along a meandering path that extends some 1,600 miles before flushing into the Atlantic Ocean alongside the Amazon. Peering down from the cockpit, John Carter reminisced about life before bulldozers, fires and guns forced a tactical retreat.

"When we lived here, this was all my backyard," he says. "During the dry season, this water is crystal clear. I used to go spear-fishing."

The forest was so vast when Carter and his Brazilian wife Kika moved here in 1996 that he recorded clear cuts whenever he flew, in case the engine on his plane ever gave out. But soon enough the land rush was on, and the forests went up in flames set by people clearing land. When the carnage arrived at their doorstep, Carter consulted with his wife and they chose to fight, for their cattle ranch, their forest and the frontier he grew to love. Outspoken and seemingly fearless, he became something of a legend.

Below us, flat plains extended beyond the river, dark pools of water gleaming in the morning sun. Individual trees popped out of the barren earth at oddly regular intervals, each perched atop its own termite mound where it would remain safe during the annual floods. We continued north into the state of Mato Grosso"thick forest"and the flood plains gave way to a patchwork of ever-larger agricultural fields.

Although Carter eventually moved his family back to the United States due to a steady stream of death threatsand one attempt at sabotage on his planehe has been quietly building what he calls an "insurgency" in the Amazon through the grassroots operation he founded, dubbed the Aliana da Terra, or Earth Alliance. Set up in 2004, the Alliance consists of more than 700 landowners large and small who have committed to a core set of principles, including legal and sustainable agricultural methods as well as fair labor practices. Currently funded in large part by the Norwegian government, its territory covers an area that is more than twice the size of Connecticut. Carter has been slowly selling off his own assetscattle includedto make it all work.

On this particular day, Carter is flying a plane he co-owns with Jim Cable, an American businessman based in Brazil, and our first stop was the Xavante Mariwatsd indigenous community. I watched tribal members wave from below as Carter set the single-engine propeller plane down on a dirt runway. Inside a concrete building on an open plaza, he paid his respects and then got down to business.

The Alliance has helped the tribe drill a well, put up fences and start a cattle herd. Now it is working with them to expand a joint program to fight increasingly severe fires. Most are agricultural fires that have jumped the line, although Carter suspects fire is also being used as a tool and a weapon now that the authorities are keeping a closer eye on deforestation.

Carter told the tribe that the Alliance was ready to continue training its members in firefighting and work with them to expand operations so long as the tribe adopted a plan to support the program in the long run with sales from its cattle herd.

"I just need to see if you are in agreement," he said. "Who is going to coordinate this is you, not us."

The Xavante chief, Damio Paridzan, listened at a school desk in the middle of the room. Dressed in black pants with a black button-up shirt, complete with a feathered headdress and classic Brazilian Havaiana flip-flops, he spoke of the governments decision to relocate the tribe in the 1960s and its subsequent struggle to regain its land. After praising Carter for his help, he raised his voice and asked the question: "Should we close the deal?" The room erupted in cheers.

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An American Cowboy Fights for the Amazon