Logan and Albert Conservation Association
FREE SCREENING OF BAG IT - Is your life too plastic
6.30 pm Thursday 21 February
Logan Village State School Hall 25 -39 North Street Logan Village
Waterway litter, particularly plastics, pose a serious threat to our turtles and other marine wildlife. Current research shows that up to 30% of turtle deaths in Moreton Bay are caused by the ingestion of plastic litter.
Healthy Waterways Clean Up crew collect over 250,000 items of floating litter from South East Queensland's waterways every year.
LACA VETO and Greater Logan Canoe Club - supported by HEALTHY WATERWAYS are showing this film to launch our local Logan Plastic Pollution Revolution.
Come along, watch film learn more about why and what we all care about.
Logan River is one of our city's greatest natural treasures. 
We do not want it to be a drain carrying plastic - or any litter - down to
Moreton Bay where these bits - that NEVER BIODEGRADE - will harm marine life.
Floating human litter and other carelessly discarded items also reduce our human pleasure in river related activities.
You are also invited to take part in our CLEANUP AUSTRALIA DAY - RIVER CLEANUP on Sunday 3 March at Larry Storey Park Waterford.
Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for further information
Volunteer by registering at www.cleanup.australia.org.au
See flyer for both activies here. 
Clean-up_Ad_v4.pdf
World Wetlands Day 2 February 2013
Wetlands and Water Management.
Wetlands are not wastelands.
The key objective of World Wetlands Day 2013 is to raise people's awareness of the interdependence between water and wetlands, to highlight ways to ensure the equitable sharing of water between different stakeholder groups and to understand that without wetlands there will be no water.
Cartoon by Seppo - Finnish environmentalist.
The importance of wetlands to the world has been recognized in the international Ramsar Convention signed in 1971. Wetlands include lakes and rivers, swamps and marshes, wet grasslands and peatlands, oases, estuaries, deltas and tidal flats, near-shore marine areas, mangroves and coral reefs, and human-made sites such as fish ponds, rice paddies, reservoirs, and salt pans. There are 163 contracting countries and area governed by wise use protocol is 197,347,539 hectares.
Moreton Bay in SEQ south east Queensland is number 631 joined since 22 October 1993. See complete site list here.
This makes the health of Logan and Albert Rivers doubly significant as they contribute to the health or otherwise of Moreton Bay. Unfortunately the Healthy Waterways Report Card for these waterways is lower than acceptable ie not healthy.
What is waste?
There is no waste within the natural world unless we consider what humans have wasted. Nature recycles everything – even water - so that everything contributes to the overall benefit and survival of eath's natural system.
By comparison, many of us discard potential resources carelessly because we no longer value them for ourselves. These potential resources often end up in the waste stream. In the recent past we may have been very keen to buy the products which having served their original purpose are thrown away.
No other species creates such waste as humans do .
Unfortunately in our haste for a fast convenient lifestye some products that we produce - mostly from by products of the fossil fuel industry - may survive for a very long time in the environment and take up space on land or water which could be better used. Within the natural world a clever closed loop system has many organisms benefiting as items are returned to the soil or earth.
Waste is a major global problem as we try to cope with items tossed away. Even some food which we need to sustain us is considered as waste instead of a beneficial resource. No food needs to be regarded as a disposable commodity to end up in landfill. Spoiled food is valuable to return nutrients to the earth and there are many ways to achieve this such as worm farming and composting. Food waste is a complex challenge at all levels in all countries. This Guardian article raises some issues
Despite the number of horrendous unsustainable development or infrastructure processses being proposed in Logan, Gold Coast, Scenic Rim and Ipswich, community strength and energy to defend the natural assets of the region remain strong and continue to strengthen. SEQ has significant biodiversity values that are appreciated by longterm residents in the region and we are determined to protect them despite the unreasonable economic pressures and expectations that big business, state government and corporations want to impose.
Pre-election promises of the Campbell Newman led LNP government have been broken and the local members must also feel our disappointment. A platform based on the four pillars of economy, construction, tourism and agriculture leaves both natural and built environment out of the equation.
Click on image to read article.
Disinformation is also challenging to deal with - especially when government changes the rules to suit its 'development at any cost' agenda - cost being only dollars for construction. Follow detailed history at VETO's website for analysis of issues an alternatives. Queensland Minister McArdle's approval of the second Loganlea to Jimboomba 110kV powerline allows Energex to continue to "Gold Plate" their network with more "poles & wires" when other alternatives are available.
Santa has been a regular visitor to the privately owned Berrinba Sanctuary over the years but this year he is celebrating with the owners opening its gates to the wider community.
Visitors on the day will be treated to a range of activities and children will receive a free gift from Santa. Read about the festivities on WEEKEND NOTES. Read article here.
This an open day but not official opening day - that is yet to be planned and will be a very very special day for wildlife caring community.
Lots of fun, buy your lunch, listen to the singers, enjoy the natural bushland setting and maybe see a koala snoozing in nearby tree.
You will an Australian carnivorous marsupial even rarer than our vulnerable koala - a captive bred Dasyurus maculatus - the Australian native cat - or spotted-tailed QUOLL, Tiger quoll, tiger cat, yarri (in Herbert River District), burrumbil (Mulgrave River and Atherton Tablelands, north Queensland). Wildlife Queensland provide information about the quoll here.
Animal tracks and scats provide information about wildlife around as do the unique sounds produced by animals and birds. Listen to the sound made by a quoll on this page where you can also see its tracks and scats.
You will meet many people who care about Australia's unique wildlife and the essential habitat needed for them to survive. Berrinba Sanctuary - on the edge of Logan not far from Karawatha Forest which is part the recently gazetted wildlife corridor Flinders Karawatha Corridor - is home to many such flora and fauna.
Meet Alex Harris at Berrinba Sanctuary open day 15 December 2012.
If you are new to becoming engaged in helping to save Australia's iconic koala you may not yet know the name. She is responsible for developing an amazing online website and tool to allow citizen scientists all over Australia to record their sightings. Come along to Berrinba Sanctuary open day 15 December 2012 and meet her and hear first hand about Koalatracker which is Australia's first national crowdsourced koala map. 
This amazing tool has been provided for us all to use. So lets all become KoalaTrackers so we can report koala sightings, view the koala map, view member photo galleries, use resources and search the database to learn more about koalas in our area and more.
CLICK HERE OR ON IMAGE ABOVE TO GO TO THE WEBSITE. Also provided there are phone numbers for sick or injured koalas.
Our environment and the laws that protect it are under attack like never before. If environment protection were left to the states, they would have dammed the Franklin River, put oil rigs in the Great Barrier Reef and built Traveston Dam.
Big business leaders hijacked a meeting of state and federal governments COAG earlier this year and what they demanded weakens Australia's environment laws. Inexplicably the Prime Minister acquiesced - perhaps to get acceptance for another item on agenda?
This December 7, when state Premiers and Prime Minister meet again at COAG the plan is to take the next step to gut Australia's environment laws before final sign off at a meeting in March 2013 and hand power over to the states.
Before this happens, tell the Labor and Liberal parties not to gut Australia's environment laws. Here is a letter you must personalise with your details and perhaps add / delete comments.
Citizen-Letter-re-EPBC-changes.doc02/12/2012, 18:02
The following document contains details of federal members and senators so that you can email your concerns to them. Federal-Government-Email-addresses.doc
There is also a petition you can sign here and another petition here and a submission to a SENATE INQUIRY The effectiveness of threatened species and ecological communities' protection in Australia.
Submissions should be received by 14 December 2012 - preferably online in electronic form. Details regarding this are available from a secure website here https://senate.aph.gov.au/submissions/pages/index.aspx
Alternatively you can email directly to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with an attached Adobe PDF or MS Word format document. Advice on making a submision will be added here shortly.
Why has consumerism hiiacked the spirit of Christmas? Do we need to spend dollars to celebrate this special time for practicing Christians and even non Christians? Do the advertising campaigns, sales, cojoaling and promises to children prompt you to buy something to show you care?
Do retail products occupy too much space in our homes and hearts at Xmas?
Giving someone you love a truly unique present, and supporting a local and/or independent artist at the same time, kind of produces double levels of gift-giving warm fuzzies.
Your time is the most precious gift to give and if you are creative and make or grow something that gift is giving twice.
Consider instead purchasing gifts that give back ie adopt an animal in care, plant habitat for wildlife, support any number of conservation groups locally nationally or globally. Pay for a gift subscription to Wildlife magazine, digital or hardcopy. Give to charity to support those unfortunate who have little. Whatever you decide to buy, know more than its purchase price.
The LNP has approved the Loganlea to Jimboomba High Voltage Power Line.
This time next year we will POTENTIALLY have huge concrete poles throughout Logan Village & Jimboomba. See first-hand the poles that will damage our environment, make our community less liveable & make our power bills even more expensive.
Please come to Jimboomba Sub-station on Camp Cable Rd (opposite Maryland Rd).
Saturday, 1st December at 1.00pm.
Show your Xmas spirit & support those people directly affected – it will only take about 20 minutes.
IT IS NOT A SINGLE ISOLATED ISSUE! ALL OF US will be impacted by poor decisions - especially local wildlife that are little valued by many unless as a specimen in a zoo.
COME ALONG TO PROTECT LOCAL KOALAS who co-exist harmoniously with local landholders, and also the cryptic elusive quoll.
COME ALONG TO PROTEST FURTHER DEGRADATION OF LOGAN RIVER
- 5 or more crossings
This time next year should be subject to all approvals being met by conditions imposed by federal compliance agencies for EBPC Act. Because LACA Logan and Albert Conservation Association communicates our concerns to federal agencies wherever matters of national significance are concerned ie quolls and more recently koalas, Energex is aware that they are required to refer the matter to the department.
When the matter is referred it will be open for public comment on the departments website
http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/epbc/epbc_ap.pl?name=invitation_to_comment&limit=999&text_search=
TIME FOR COMMENT IS ONLY 10 DAYS so we need to make sure we can submit on time.
This being so I am concerned about the minister's statement that
'Energex would begin preliminary works before the end of the year, with the project expected to be completed toward the end of 2014.' Possibly refers to obtaining land from landowners. No Christmas cheer there!
Having this happen over Christmas period also challenges us to be aware of opportunity to put in submissions.
VETO group high hopes and expectation that sense would prevail and Minister Mark McArdle would reject the Energex proposed second Loganlea to Jimboomba 110kV powerline crashed Tuesday evening when a media release from the Minister advised that he has approved this powerline.
Recent information released showed that rising power costs are largely caused by new infrastructure construction costs and not the maligned carbon price / tax.
Logan City Council have supported VETO's efforts for four years to find a better solution to our power needs for the future - one that is both less costly and one which causes less environmental harm.
VETO believed new government was supporting our community in calling for a review of the Energex proposed second Loganlea to Jimboomba 110kV powerline.