Sunday, March 25, 2012

Black cockatoos and loss of habitat.

Not posting much as I'm busy with uni and find it overwhelming to start trying to write about my chosen "battle" for an environmental cause.
The south-west of Western Australia is a biodiversity hotspot. An area gets chosen for that if it has incredibly large diversity AND has lost a percentage of that diversity, so it's a mixed privilege.
Another two or three or five species are currently at risk as the WA government continues to allow logging of some of our last high conservation forests. "Logging won't affect the black cockatoo populations, " claims the Minister for the Environment, Bill Marmion. Despite public pressure he is ignoring the fact that the forest being logged has some of the last habitat for quokkas, numbats and of course, my beloved black cockatoos.
A great deal of Banksia woodland has been lost from the Swan Coastal Plain, where the Perth metro area is situated. Huge fires, both purposely lit and wild have decimated large swathes of forest down south, where important food and roosting areas existed. The Forest Products Commission is actively poisoning the marri trees in some areas, so that the jarrah can grow, as marri is not worth enough to them.. despite the fact that they get a mere $9 a tonne for woodchips from our 400 year old mighty forest giants.
Habitat trees, over 120 years old and with hollows for the large birds to nest in, are being destroyed, despite habitat tree protection being one of the very few guidelines they are meant to follow.
Our government is totally greedy and seems to want to destroy any last semblance of wild spaces. If they have children and grandchildren, it is going to be a very grim future for them.
Forests cannot suffer repeated clearing. Trees do not grow back fast enough for an 80 year logging rotation; these trees are 300 to 400 years old. The climate won't allow them to grow that fast as there is less rainfall now than before. Our ecosystems are at peril. And you'd have to think that aslo places our race of greedy humans at peril also.
It freaks me out daily and makes me sad and angry that we have so little power to change their minds. I do what I can to raise awareness so at least I can feel like I tried to do something.
This modern world is a very scary place and we may already be too late to save ourselves, let alone the many endangered species that we have already failed to protect.