Issue Number 50 - July 2003

Will we STOP Clearing Like There’s NO Tomorrow?

The SAO over many years now has researched, educated and lobbied about LAND CLEARING. The current situation is by far the most hopeful yet. If the current proposal between the Queensland and the Federal Governments comes to fruition, broad-scale clearing of remnant bushland in rural areas of Queensland will be phased out by 2006!

Queensland Needs Your Help … please!

Wherever you are in Australia, would you please consider filling in the postcard enclosed with this newsletter. Land clearing is a national issue and what is happening in Queensland is critical for everyone’s future. Australia is the 6th highest land clearer on the planet and Queensland does the most clearing in Australia. This could change! It is critical that the proposal goes beyond verbal agreements and becomes a reality. People in other States of Australia see more clearly than those in Queensland the effects of long-term, broad-scale clearing and it is well known that it’s a hundred times more expensive to rectify the problem than to prevent land being cleared. Click here for more details on this current negotiation.

For a more complete analysis of the land clearing issue, visit the SAO website and read the updated (July 2003) Vegetation Clearance in Queensland Briefing Note.

The Water Circle – an associated strategy ...

The Social Action Office has established a new group – the Water Circle. This has been established in the International Year of FreshWater as part of the SAO priority area of Living Sustainably.

The first meeting of the group was held at Justice Place on 17 July 2003. At this meeting a discussion was held about participation in SAO activities and its processes and people’s particular interests and concerns with water.

The group is primarily interested in the future of the Murray-Darling River system, and showed great interest in the fact that the source of the Murray-Darling river system begins in Queensland in the Darling Downs and Barwon River catchment areas.

Victoria Kearney, the new project officer engaged by SAO, addressed the meeting and said that she was interested in supporting the group in developing their own strategy to influence water policy issues both in Queensland and at a Federal level. She discussed the maze of policy issues at local, State and Federal government levels, and it was decided that a presentation will be made at the next meeting to explore these complexities. She stated that some of the points of concern in policy are:

• improving cross-border management of water,
• consideration of the privatisation of water as a resource versus a commodity to be traded,
• property rights, ecology and catchment management,
• water use and the production of food and trade profit as an issue for all Australians, and
• participation of those most affected by water policy decisions being involved and responsible for those decisions.

The next meeting of the Water Circle will be held in Brisbane at Justice Place on 21 August 2003 at 6.00pm – anyone is welcome to join.

Do you live in the Murray-Darling Basin?

In preparation for our first Water Circle gathering we checked the Australian Catholic Directory and found out that there are 21 different congregations in 123 different towns that we know of within the Murray-Darling Basin. This crosses four States and one Territory. We know there are some smaller towns not marked on the detailed map that we have and we know that there are several communities of some congregations in some towns – e.g. Canberra, Goulburn, Perthville, Wagga Wagga, etc.

No doubt people who live in the Basin are very aware of the issues at hand and most likely involved in working towards solutions to the problems. We would like to hear from anyone who would like to network and share resources etc.