If you are interested to follow discussions and decisions made by council concerning Environment and Sustainability issues, one way is to read the minutes of meetings. Council in May agreed to participate in EPAs Koala Habitat Mapping program and also a Queensland University research project called Conserving species in Human Modified Landscapes. The document for the committee meeting Tuesday 27 May 2008 is available on Logan's website.
The minutes of the previous meeting, available here contains discussion about State of Environment Queensland 2007.
The release of the report was widely reported in the media with the key issue of our ecological footprint being 7.19 global hectares which is three and a half times the world average. Whilst it states that this is 2% less than the Australian average, it must be recognised that this is very much a consumption based measure and the Australian average reflects more on the higher consumption rates of major cities such as Sydney and Melbourne.
Other key issues of relevance include:-
• Queensland's greenhouse gas emissions increased by 4.9% from 1999 to 2004 despite the reduction in tree clearing which contributed a fall of 26.2% for that sector of the emissions.
• Air quality remains good with few exceedences of the Air National Environment Protection Measure (NEPM) and where they occurred in SEQ it was the result of essential burning programs and bushfires.
• Atmospheric concentrations of Ozone depleting substances continue to fall.
• The States wetlands continue to be lost at the rate of 7,000 hectares per year.
• Salinity is expected to affect 3.1 Million hectares by 2050.
• The Brisbane and Logan estuaries are reported for poor water quality.
• Point source discharges of nitrogen and phosphorus have reduced slightly but no data is available on diffuse discharges.
Meeting dates are available online here.