So many trendy little gardens for non gardeners have rows of cordylines. Ugh, they are not vey tough in WA sun and they provide no habitat. After a few summers of them being really trendy and dying in the intense Perth summer sun, I am hopeful that this year people will plant Agaves or Yucca if they want the same look for their boring garden. At least they will survive drought and bright sunlight and need little input. Cordylines are okay in morning sun or under a canopy of other more hardy trees, but I really am not a fan of plants that support no insect or bird life.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Hoverflies across the suburbs.
Tuesday and wednesday saw a huge number of hoverlies hatch throughout the suburbs, resulting in thousands of small, hovering, yellow and black flies. They were busily seeking pollen from flowers to power the next generation. The flowering parsley plants we have in the gaqrden were especially popular. Many other gardens were also abundantly served with these lovely little beneficial insects.
A few things to do to reduce your carbon footprint.
Simple sustainability measures you can do at home.
Target 100 is looking at a group of farmers across Australia who are making changes to the way they keep their stock and farms so that soil is improved and less pollution is caused as well as a swathe of other tactics to reduce their carbon footprint.
Target 100 is looking at a group of farmers across Australia who are making changes to the way they keep their stock and farms so that soil is improved and less pollution is caused as well as a swathe of other tactics to reduce their carbon footprint.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Intense few months at uni
Some heavy heavy concepts have been laid in my brain in the last few months. Many of my assumptions that kept me hopefully bouyed in the quest for helping to save the planet have been shattered. I've seen some good examples of environmental restoration and some not so successful ones, have learnt how much it can cost to carry out such wondrous and necessary tasks and then at the very end been made to realise that climate change is, of course, going to make the difficult task much more difficult.
Climate change is real and it's happening now. I'm not being a doom sayer, it's the truth and yet the governments and corporations keep chugging along, still screwing yet more out of our last fragile environments for a last few billion dollars worth of oil or gas.
There are some positives, a great deal of wind power and solar energy is being harnessed in some countries, but is it too little too late?
Luckily I am resilient, I can(usually) stop myself being depressed about it as I myself carry on and try to gain a science degree so that others may hopefully listen to me and employ me to help make agriculture, big or small, more sustainable.
I'm really not feeling good about what's going to happen in the next few decades. There have been major extinction events before, we're causing another currently...will we go with the rest of them?
Climate change is real and it's happening now. I'm not being a doom sayer, it's the truth and yet the governments and corporations keep chugging along, still screwing yet more out of our last fragile environments for a last few billion dollars worth of oil or gas.
There are some positives, a great deal of wind power and solar energy is being harnessed in some countries, but is it too little too late?
Luckily I am resilient, I can(usually) stop myself being depressed about it as I myself carry on and try to gain a science degree so that others may hopefully listen to me and employ me to help make agriculture, big or small, more sustainable.
I'm really not feeling good about what's going to happen in the next few decades. There have been major extinction events before, we're causing another currently...will we go with the rest of them?
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.
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.
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