List koalas as endangered species: Greens

They spend their days looking half asleep while gorging on gum leaves. But the seemingly lazy ways of Australia's koalas need to be preserved under federal laws, the Australian Greens say. Greens senator Larissa Waters will push for the marsupials to be listed as a nationally-threatened species in the Senate today. "The koala is not listed as nationally threatened because there are clumps where there are quite a lot of them," she told reporters in Canberra. "But there are areas where there are very few." Such areas include Queensland's "koala coast", which encompasses the bayside portions of the Redland, Brisbane and Logan local government areas. With fewer than 5000 koalas left in south-east Queensland, Senator Waters believes koalas along the koala coast may become extinct during the next 10 years. "I don't know what they will call it if there are no koalas left," she said. If the koala were listed as a nationally threatened species (under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act), it would be an offence to injure the creature. "It also means that any development that is going to have a significant impact on koalas needs to get federal approval," Senator Waters said.

Dolphin deaths worry conservation group

Conservationists say too many dolphins are being killed in shark fishing nets and a ban is needed urgently. There is concern that dozens of dolphins may have been killed in south-eastern waters off South Australia this year. Kyri Toumazos from the shark industry says exact figures are not known, but fishing practices are not to blame. "There's been a lot more bait life in that area which has accumulated enormous amounts of dolphins in that region which is something that is not historically the case," he said. Alexia Wellbelove from the Humane Society International says action is needed. "It's not only a conservation issue, potentially it's also an animal welfare issue," she said. "What we're asking AFMA, the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, to do is put some measures in place to protect the dolphins. "If those can't be put in place then the use of gill nets needs to be banned in that area until they can figure out what the problem is that's causing all these deaths, because it's totally unacceptable." She says the fishing industry needs independent advice on the issue. "What we need to do is actually get some dolphin experts to give the industry some advice," she said. "I don't believe the industry has the capability or the understanding of dolphins sufficiently to be able to give us that information with any certainty."

Al Gore: climate science "reality" versus Republicans

For Al Gore, the choice is obvious: Either accept scientific reality about climate change or believe what the fossil fuel industry is paying some Republican candidates to say. "Anti-climate lobbyists ... give massive campaign contributions and they're not shy about making it clear to the candidates they support that there's a quid pro quo. In return for getting their money, these candidates have to pretend that they really believe this nonsense," the longtime climate change campaigner said on Wednesday in a telephone interview. Asked whether Republican candidates who have accepted contributions from fossil fuel industries are compelled to toe the skeptical line on climate change, Gore replied: "That is absolutely the case." "We have to weigh whether or not we will accept the judgment of every national academy of science of every major country ... or whether we'll instead take the advice of ExxonMobil and the Koch brothers and Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck," Gore said.

Source: Green Times