Logan & Albert Conservation Association

Opportunity to comment on the Logan City Draft River Wetlands Recovery Plan 2013 - 2023  closes Friday 30 May 2014

Read 2 documents from this link: http://lcc-consult.objective.com/portal/environment__sustainability/riverrecovery?tab=files

 Logan and Albert Conservation Association (LACA) commends the Council on its plan for river and wetlands recovery. The underpinning strategy of re-engaging the community with Logan’s rivers and their associated waterways is very sound and is deliverable over time through the beautification and access/engagement actions outlined in the Plan. 

 Logan City is home to a significant koala population and has one of the world’s largest koala conservation centres located at Daisy Hill Conservation Park. This facility is a Queensland state government conservation park. The social and economic value of koalas to our city and nation is difficult to quantify however, it is undoubtedly significant. This Koala Conservation Strategic Plan aims to ensure the long-term viability of koalas in Logan City and demonstrates Council’s commitment to koala conservation over the long term. How well does Logan do it now and will koalas in Logan and surrounding areas be protected by implementing this 10 year strategic plan 2013-2023?

                                     Have your say on the Koala Conservation Strategic Plan by completing the online survey before Friday 16 May 2014.

The link to this survey is  http://lcc-consult.objective.com/portal/environment__sustainability/lkcsp?tab=info

For more information you can email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or phone 3412 44 91

Although there is no direct invitation - you can also email your submission to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Online process will probably close at 5pm. Please send any late submissions also. Remember to include name/s and address/es of submitter/s and signing is preferred. You can also email cThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

You will need to read this document  http://www.logan.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/287691/2014-Logans-Koala-Conservation-Strategy.pdf to be able to comment on the 4 strategic outcomes - 28 page document with captivating images of koalas.

 In summary, the plan is based on achieving the following key strategic outcomes:

• SO 1 – Improved science of koala ecology and habitat requirements in Logan;

In Logan, koalas are most frequently sighted in the eastern suburbs of the city including Daisy Hill, Shailer Park, Carbrook, Priestdale and Cornubia. Residents of Greenbank, Logan Village, Browns Plains especially Berrinba Sanctuary, Jimboomba, Munruben, Mundoolan and others will not agree.

To achieve a net increase in koala habitat in the city and South East Queensland it is essential that a regional approach is undertaken and areas of koala habitat are connected through ecological corridors.

• SO 3 – Improved koala safety and health;

Logan City is expected to grow by more than 200,000 residents over the next 20 years and beyond. Logan City will continue to be one of the fastest growing areas in Queensland with dramatically increasing urban development and increasing pressure on the natural environment and koala habitat.

• SO 4 – Increased positive community engagement and awareness of koala conservation actions.

To achieve the strategic outcomes of this Plan it is essential that it is supported by an active, engaged and supportive community including residents, land owners, businesses and the Development industry  

 The online survey basically asks you to answer same 4 questions about each outcomes

1.       Are these actions the right actions to ....                                

2.       Are there any actions that need to be changed to .....

3.       Are there any additional actions you think we should be doing?

4.       What ideas do you have to support the delivery of these actions?

and finally any extra comments. Please consider a submission regarding any point / points you are concerned about.

These could include - 

Importance of using best possible and latest mapping. ie SEQCatchments Koala Habitat Map for  Logan - with Regrowth map and Observations, Genome Barrier and  Pinch Point Maps as has been done for Brisbane City Council.

Koala policies, programs, zones, map layers  and legislation  should be included in town plan  not merely as offsets opportunities

Undertake and publish Natural Areas Management Plans 

Invest in Koala Research 

Use citizen scientist programs like Great Koala Count to track sightings and include results in mapping

Develop stronger land stewardship programs with community to reward incentivise residents to retain and extend bushland habitat.

Place higher value on existing habitat with existing koala populations being retained in perpetuity for wildlife ie such areas are not suitable for industry and housing developments. Rezoning of such land at Browns Plains for conservation is critical if Logan wants to consider itself - and be considered by others as a "proactive koala-friendly" community

Educating community on living with wildlife - especially koalas has to be a high priority to remove any misconceptions that exist 

PLEASE MAKE A SUBMISSION IF YOU CARE ABOUT KOALAS WHEREVER THEY MAY BE. MUCH MORE NEEDS TO BE DONE IF WE DO NOT WANT TO SEE THE LOCAL EXTINCTION OF KOALAS IN LOGAN AND SOUTHEAST QUEENSLAND.

Koalas in SEQ are not protected and there in no connectivity not in Logan's new planning. The new Queensland Government SPP is a disaster for koalas and wildlife.

DECLARATION as ENDANGERED is needed. It won't happen unless community makes it happen!!

Please send your submission asap 

Your choice to complete online - or write your signed submission and send to

Chief Executive Officer
Logan City Council
PO Box 3226
Logan City DC Qld 4114

or email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

While both Logan and state government support an OFFSET scheme to "pay for" koala habitat to be cleared, neither Logan and Albert Conservation Association LACA nor Australian Koala Foundation AKF supports a general offset policy,

LACA's document http://www.laca.org.au/images/Planning_Scheme_Environmental_Submission_writing_kit.5points_docx.pdf also has some points relevant to Koala Conservation Strategy

The Australian Koala Foundation has recently requested a change to Australia’s environmental offset system, which poses serious issues for the conservation of koalas. The current system allows the government to approve environmentally damaging building projects if the business pledges to make up for destruction of native habitat by providing similar habitat elsewhere. Deforestation has led to the decline in the genetic diversity of koalas, but has also increased disturbance, injury, stress, and competition for food or territory due to overcrowding. It also creates barriers that prevent koalas from roaming for mating purposes, and the addition of another habitat does not even ensure that koalas will migrate there.

The koala is considered a threatened species in three parts of Australia, but their habitat is being destroyed by removing irreplaceable foliage that they depend on. The destruction of native habitat creates major gaps or breaks across the koalas’ landscape. A recent study from the University of Queensland revealed the importance of maintaining at least 30% of forest land to ensure the koalas' survival. Results point to the importance of the species access to wide landscapes, because habitat isolation can threaten genetic diversity which is necessary to conservation. Researchers found that genetic diversity “dropped rapidly” once the country’s amount of forest land fell under 30%. It is important that the Australian government take measures to increase the amount of forest land to a level suitable for conserving the rapidly declining species koalas.

 Many thanks to all the wildlife carers who rescue rehabilitate and release - from turtles to owls to koalas and kangaroos. They are always confronted with issue - where to they release and they are required to relocate to home territories of each animal. Will this endanger the wildlife - koala or other again. Lets reduce the risk by having a good conservation strategy - with teeth - in our town planning. Up to us to ask. Council does not have all the answers.

 Environmental Submission writing kit for the Draft Logan Planning Scheme

due: deadline 5 pm Wednesday 30 April

Logan and Albert Conservation Association have 5 key concerns relating to the strategic planning that underlies the planning documents. We have explained the background behind each concern and make a recommendation for how those values - which are core values for our organisation - could be improved. Please read the following document to read all 5 points. The first 3 points are covered in the pdf document lower down the page. Regional biodiversity corridors and Priority Development Areas (PDAs) are the last 2 points added.

Planning_Scheme_Environmental_Submission_writing_kit.5points_docx.pdf

Do not include attachments (which would have to be digitally signed) unless you need to

Submissions must be properly-made for Council to consider your feedback. A properly made submission means:

•          You must include the full name and address of each person making the submission

•          Submissions must state the grounds for the submission and the facts or circumstances to support the grounds. See text in red below

Apart from email submissions (preferred)  written submissions - posted letters or email attachments, but NOT emails, must be signed by each person making the submission

So the simplest and best option for submissions is to direct email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Submissions can also be made Via post to Logan City Council, PO Box 3226, Logan City DC, Qld 4114, but have to arrive by 5 pm Wednesday 30 April

 Significant environmental concerns to comment on include

Koala mapping not included as statutory overlay in Draft Planning Scheme

Offsetting and the Council’s flawed Ecological Significance scoring

Limited locally significant flora and fauna mapping

Background information for each is provided to explain why Logan and Albert Conservation LACA and others are concerned.

1. Koala mapping not included as statutory overlay in Draft Planning Scheme

Background: While out of date mapping of Koala habitat does appear in the Draft Planning Scheme, this is not legally supported mapping (ie not statutory) and therefore has little chance of being defended in a court challenge. 

Logan's draft planning scheme has been widely publicised online and at libraries. Comments /submissions

close Wednesday 30 April 2014 5pm

A full calendar of events was / is provided at this link http://www.logan.qld.gov.au/planning-and-building/planning/draft-planning-scheme/upcoming-draft-logan-planning-scheme-events. It is unfortunate that most of these opportunities were between 9am - 5pm, challenging for those working a fulltime day job.

A “Planner Desk” may still be available at Council customer service centres and council's administration building.

A form for your completion is available from council's website. For your convenience this is the form LoganPaperSubmissionForm2014.pdf

• Online: www.logan.qld.gov.au/draftplanningscheme [ not really as pdf has to be printed out - filled in - and posted - or scanned and emailed]
• Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  
• Post: PO BOX 3226, Logan City DC, Qld 4114 
• There are blank forms available at Logan City Council admin and all /most libraries.

It is noteworthy that all planning schemes have to be accepted by Queensland State Government and also align with South East Queensland Regional Plan which is currently being reviewed with the new plan to be completed by the end of 2014.

 How will the new regional plan work?

The Queensland Government is reforming the planning and development system to ensure the state’s continued growth and prosperity. In the context of the review of the regional plan for South East Queensland, the most relevant of these
reforms is the

The Queensland Government is reforming the planning and development system to ensure the state’s continued growth and prosperity. In the context of the review of the regional plan for South East Queensland, the most relevant of these
reforms is the single State Planning Policy (SPP).Two pages worth reading at  http://www.dsdip.qld.gov.au/resources/factsheet/regional/seq-regional-plan-fs5.pdf

Discussing his memoir Remembering Tomorrow, veteran political activist Michael Albert talks about the stages in public awareness that gave rise to the 60s anti-establishment movements. These included growing realisation that corporations were often crooks and environmental plunderers, governments were not always honourable, politicians told lies, many women suffered physical and sexual abuse, lawyers did not always represent justice, and birds were disappearing.

Sound wearily familiar?

But for people living through the Pollyanna world of the 50s and 60s this was shocking. Environmental movements, along with feminist, black power and anti-war campaigns, quickly sprouted in response. There was growing conviction that things had to change - or be changed.

In the 21st century this is broken. Mass ecocide, corporate corruption, political impropriety and sexual abuse routinely fill-out the 24 hour news cycle.  Contrasting the present with the past, Michael Albert believes the average citizen’s propensity now for coping with these daily horrors can be neatly summed up in the statement “I don’t want to hear this because I can’t do anything about it”.

 Which, as a self-defence strategy, is tantamount to adopting a state of corpse-like torpor. 

 But it is voter torpor that has provided fertile ground for backward looking conservatives and development interests wanting to exploit a politically numb and easily spooked public. Following Tony Abbott’s margin-of-one-vote arrival as leader of the Liberal party, and with the willing support of a small army of shock-jocks and lobotomised journalists, conservative spinners and strategists in Australia began the earnest task of eating the brains of their target audiences, cheered on of course by industry interests.  The objective was to create a receptive Australia where it would remain possible in the 21^st century (as economist John Quiggan puts it in his book Zombie Economics) for dead ideas to continue to ‘walk among us’ – at least until all the coal gets pulled out of the ground.  

And certainly, when it comes to zombies -  defined variously as ‘animated corpses raised by magical means’ or ‘one who looks or behaves like an automaton’ - who better than zombie puppet-master Abbott to raise the dead and breathe some sort of life back into the decaying political ideas of the extreme right?    

So what is the game plan employed by government and industry to keep the undead in a state of unthinking about environmental threats such as climate change and coal ports on the Great Barrier Reef?

There have been some 450 ENVIRONMENTAL DISPUTES arising out of previous free trade agreements which include ISDS provisions similar to those proposed for the TPPA:
By the end of 2011, corporations like Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Dow Chemical, and Cargill had launched 450 investor-state cases against 89 governments, including the US, to fightcommon-sense environmental laws and regulations. Among these cases were challenges to bans on toxic chemicals, fracking, timber,mining regulations, programs that incentivised green jobs and renewable energy programs.

Recently Peru has been required to pay Renco the largest ever damages award of USD$ 4.2 billion for banning products that had contaminated the La Oroya, Peru environment and had poisoned 95% of children there. An incredible outcome protecting the polluter!!
The US Lone Star Mining company is currently using ISDS provisions in the North American Free Trade Agreement to sue the Canadian Quebec provincial government because it has suspended coal seam gas fracking pending a study of its environmental impact.
Ethyl vs Canadian Government 1998-99: US company Ethyl successfully challenged a Canadian ban on gasoline additive MMT which the Canadian government claimed was harmful to human health and the environment. The Canadian government agreed to withdraw the ban and pay Ethyl $13 million
On August 25, 2008, Dow AgroSciences LLC, a U.S. corporation, served a Notice of Intent to Submit a Claim to Arbitration under Chapter 11 of NAFTA, for losses allegedly caused by a Quebec ban on the sale and certain uses of lawn pesticides containing the active ingredient 2,4-D. The tribunal issued a consent award as the parties to the dispute reached a settlement
In the United States and Canada the reality is that federal governments are often willing to "lose" these cases in order to discipline provincial, state or municipal governments that have adopted progressive social and environmental policies.

The proposed TPP foreign investor privileges would provide foreign firms greater 'rights' than those afforded to domestic firms. This includes a 'right' to not have expectations frustrated by a change in government policy
In the US, the powerful corporate lobby position on the Australian Labor Government's position is, quote: 'American companies should be able to side-step the Australian legal system in the event of certain legal disputes'
Under ISDS rules, even when governments win, they often must pay for the tribunals' costs and legal fees, which average $8 million per case.
The TPP would expand the scope of policies that could be attacked. For example, in health, the office of the United States trade Representative has also proposed patenting surgical procedures - a move that would force Congress to change IP law and one that could force surgeons to obtain permission from patent-holders before performing surgery!
Australia is already experiencing the effects of ISDS provisions with Phillip Morris, having failed in Australia's High Court, now attacking Australia's cigarette labelling policy off-shore using a 1994 'Investment Agreement' with Hong Kong that contained ISDS provisions. This could cost Australia hundreds of millions of dollars.