The Great Southern Star, Page: 14
Tuesday, 9 May 2006
AN environmental journal has labelled Senator Ian Campbell's blockage of the Bald Hills Wind Farm as"short sighted" and smacking of a political stunt. An article in the March/April issue of EV News, the journal of Environment Victoria, said, "Environment groups have labelled a decision by the Federal Government to block a proposed windfarm under the guise of saving the orange bellied parrot as short sighted and illogical. The article continued, "Federal Environment Minister lan Campbell, has decided to block the development, citing a new report which found the wind farm could pose a risk to the endangered parrot. "On closer inspection, the report did not find that the Bald Hills wind farm posed a danger to the parrot at all. "Instead, it looked at the collective risk from numerous wind farms across the state-some existing and some proposed-and found up to one parrot a year could be killed."
The report even concluded banning wind farms would have extremely limited beneficial value to the conservation of the parrot. "Putting that aside, it's troubling that Minister Campbell seems eager to save this one species while blindly ignoring thousands of other species. "Scientists have predicted up to a million, species will be extinct bv 2050, due to the effects of climate change. "Climate change threatens to change or destroy crucial habitats, from alpine zones and mountain rainforests, to eucalyptus and gum forests, coastal and inland wetlands, as well as the Great Barrier Reef," the article continued.
With Australia being "one of the worst greenhouse polluters per person in the developed world, the Federal Government must start taking climate change seriously and make deep cuts in the amount of greenhouse pollution we produce. "Otherwise their support for the orange bellied parrot is nothing more than a political stunt." The EV News report suggested that wind farms are one way we can reduce the impacts of climate change.
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