Environment

The fine art of mending

18/8/2019

Happy customer Florence with her newly mended wardrobe drawer.

By Hilary Stuchbery

BEFORE the doors even opened for the first Fixit Café at the Wonthaggi Men’s Shed on July 21, people were lining up with items to be fixed.

A rocking chair, a garden fork, a sander and a saucepan were all weighed and handed over to the appropriate volunteer.

Robert Mesley and his team of fixers from the Men’s Shed kept up a blistering pace of mending, while guest volunteers from Melton, Karen and Danny Ellis, concentrated on electrical faults and sewing.

Meanwhile, Iain Ritchie served up endless coffees from the machine and visitors enjoyed the delicious contributions as the buzz in the room intensified.

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Our natural treasures

17/8/2019

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Moonah trees, Churchill Island. Print by Robert Ingpen

Some of Phillip Island’s trees are as historic and memorable as our heritage-listed buildings, writes Greg Buchanan.

By Greg Buchanan

THE old Moonah trees growing around the coastline of Churchill Island are perhaps 200 years old or more. Their twisted and gnarled limbs and dense canopy may have been part of the landscape for indigenous Australians well before the issue of a pastoral lease and farming of the island in the mid 1800s.

This iconic species, a feature of Robert Ingpen’s drawings of Churchill Island, are as memorable as the heritage-listed buildings on the island.

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Where did our beach go?

3/8/2019

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Ecologist Alison Oates, South Gippsland Conservation Society vice president Dave Sutton and Marine and Coastal Council chair Anthony Boxshall inspect the beach after the launch of the report. The wet sand fencing trial can be seen in the background.

By Catherine Watson

WE ARE in uncharted waters when it comes to understanding what’s happening to the Inverloch beaches, according to geomorphologist Neville Rosengren.

He made the comment at the Inverloch Surf Lifesaving Club yesterday as the South Gippsland Conservation Society launched a major report that called for a range of short-term and long-term measures to address or slow Inverloch’s coastal erosion.

The Inverloch Coastal Resilience Report, the culmination of 12 months of investigation and consultation, draws on specialist consultant studies in geomorphology, ecology, cultural heritage and economics commissioned for the project.

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All hands on deck

20/7/2019

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Inverloch beach. Photo: BC CAN

By Michael Nugent

YOU’VE installed solar roof panels, you avoid heavily packaged goods, you leave the car at home and walk or bike, you take your own cup for takeaway coffee …

But while you and I are trying to reduce our carbon footprints and to live more sustainably, individual actions alone won’t save us from climate change’s most severe effects.

We also need collective action from federal, state and local governments to reduce emissions, i.e. climate change mitigation. Collective action is also needed for climate change adaptation, i.e., to help communities adapt to the inevitable effects of climate change, including those already upon us in Bass Coast, such as increased coastal erosion.

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Power to the people

25/6/2019

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Tidal generators at San Remo, a biodigester at the Grantville landfill, floating solar arrays on the Candowie and Lance Creek reservoirs … just some of the ideas put forward for a local energy roadmap. Catherine Watson reports

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People to power energy roadmap

16/5/2019