arbilp3

After Sammirr's great post on their bee hotel, here's some easy instructions on how to build bee accommodation. There's lots of videos on YouTube so you can get different ideas and become better informed. Some bee hotels, using bamboo stalks, are a fun project to do with children. https://www.aussiebee.com.au/bee-hotel-building-tips.html

Australia has close to two thousand species of bee. Some form hives but many are solitary. Some nest in a wall. Some nest in the ground.

This article is a visual feast. Even if you don't read it, the images shown will inspire you. Had to share it. Apologies if I'm putting up too many posts.

So, when someone is called a bush rat, we now know it's a compliment.

>Why are native rats so important?

Australia is home to about 50 living species of rats that have adapted to its environments over thousands if not millions of years.

These rats often perform essential roles in nature...

"We know them to be really good pollinators, especially of our banksias...," "They're good at moving seeds and eating seeds ... they're really good dispersers of fungi spores, the mushrooms that are so key to our ecosystems...

Bush rats have been shown to keep black rats from reinvading places the native species is re-established.

Black rats often like to nest in homes and eat your food, but bush rats prefer to avoid developed places.

"[Bush rats] tend to live in these dense, complex, vegetated, native bushlands," Ms Wauchope said.

Boosting bush rat numbers can also help feed native predators — like goannas, owls and snakes.

Without bush rats these predators sometimes will eat poisoned black rats and then die themselves.

I am truly worried that we will get caught up in yet another overseas war.

A chronic welfare crisis... has been unfolding quietly since the 1990s. The root cause? Rampant habitat loss and the relentless expansion of the blue gum plantation industry.

With their native forests destroyed, koalas are forced to seek shelter in blue gum plantations—a dangerous and temporary refuge. When harvesting begins, koalas risk being injured or killed as the trees they rely on are cut down. Those that survive are left homeless, with nowhere safe to go.

The landscape has now reached a tipping point. It simply can no longer support the koalas that depend on it.

Starving, emaciated koalas are falling from trees, being brought into care—many too far gone to be saved. And for those that survive, there is no safe habitat left to return to.

This travesty has been hidden behind closed doors for far too long. A comprehensive and transparent investigation is long overdue.

A permanent ban on fracking is back on the agenda in Tasmania with the Tasmanian Greens planning to introduce a bill to ban the harmful practice in the opening days of parliament.

The state has maintained a temporary ban on hydraulic fracturing (also known as fracking) for oil and gas since 2015, extending five-year moratoriums in 2020 and again in 2025.

However, the Greens want to follow Victoria’s lead and rule it out permanently.

Some of you may be interested in signing. Already fairly close to ten thousand have signed.

I'm going to see if this works. I've taken two print screens of this article (Renew magazine No. 174) which tests products that are fabricated to keep produce fresh for longer in your fridge.

With the horrific destruction that is happening in the ME right now and the disruption to oil supplies, food is going to become more expensive so it makes sense not to have to throw it out because we let it wilt in the crisper. Even under normal circumstances, throwing food out is bad for the environment as well as our budget.

So, after rule number 1: Don't overbuy fresh produce, and rule no. 2: Grow what you can, if you can, and pick it fresh, keeping what you have stored fresher for longer makes sense.

Also share any edible excess with those who may be struggling financially.

I just heard the founder of Buy Nothing New Month this morning and about this website. We don't have to wait for a particular month to take small actions (or large). The site is full of great ideas and apart from benefiting the environment, you will be benefiting your wallet. https://www.buynothingnew.com.au/

Ok, so this is written up by the Fed Govt, but we need to know about it so we can hold them to account. And I don't know why they don't mention the WA's Ningaloo Coast.

Coral reefs cover less than 1% of the ocean yet support a quarter of all marine life. They also support nearly one billion people worldwide. Protecting reefs globally is critical.

More than 70% of reefs around the world are threatened by climate change. These reefs are experiencing severe coral bleaching.

Climate-resilient coral reefs are more able to survive, recover from and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Australia is leading one of the world’s largest collective efforts to support a climate-resilient Great Barrier Reef.

Royalties from oil and gas extraction are on a sharp downward trend, according to WA budget papers... less than 1 per cent of the state’s revenue and barely 6 per cent of the $6.6 billion in royalties from iron ore.

Commercial fishing contributes more than $1 billion to the state’s economy each year... and most of the industry consists of small family businesses.

While the state government isn’t discrediting the science surrounding seismic blasting impacts, they’re seemingly ignoring it in this case.

For Western Australia’s most at-risk demersal fish species, the fishing ban was one step in the right direction, but the seismic blasting approval “is so many steps back”... “Not only because of the immediate impact to the marine ecosystem, but because it supports an industry that we do not need.”

So here’s the uncomfortable question Australians should ask, especially when our leader Anthony Albanese was so quick to line up behind the strikes: what exactly is the theory of change?

Not the slogan. Not the press release. The real theory. How, precisely, does dropping bombs - or killing a dictator - make Iranian women freer, Iranian prisons emptier, Iranian courts fairer, or Iranian politics more accountable? And how does it secure long-term peace in the Middle East.

If we can’t answer that in plain language, then we are not looking at a pathway to peace and human rights. We’re looking at protracted violence and dysfunction dressed up as virtue.