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
 Photo: Geelong Sustainability RESIDENTS of Bass Coast and South Gippsland are invited to help identify local opportunities and challenges in a renewable energy roadmap.
The Roadmap will be developed through a series of community-wide workshops, one-on-one meetings and an online survey. The project is being co-ordinated by community energy group Energy Innovation Co-operative (EICo-op), the group behind the 92 kWh solar farm at the State Coal Mine. EICo-op chair Moragh Mackay, who is leading the roadmap project, says it will include recommendations for government, community and business to realise renewable energy projects in Bass Coast and Souyth Gippsland.  A shared pathway incorporating 138 parking bays, will require the removal of coastal vegetation. Image: Bass Coast Council By Aileen Vening
THIS week I attended the council’s environment advisory committee meeting and showed images of changes at Inverloch beach since 2004. The purpose of the meeting was to persuade the council to defer the second stage of the shared pathway at least until a local coastal hazard study has been completed. Inverloch surf beach has lost up to 40 metres of sand, as well as dune vegetation, in the last few years, leaving sand cliffs six metres high.  Harvey Green with his 2050 diary By Catherine Watson
ELEVEN-year-old Harvey Green set the scene for a recent climate change forum with a reading from his imaginary diary set in the year 2050. He describes a world where the dams are empty, the tomatoes are cooking on the trees, Silverleaves is underwater and Inverloch is ablaze. Harvey asked: “Will my world be too hot, flooded, drought stricken, full of fires and severe storms? Will the wonders of nature be long gone before my children are adults?” Harvey’s reading was the opening act of the Bass Coast Climate Action Network’s (BCAN) first event, a showing of Accelerate, a film about climate action featuring 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben and panel discussion.  Extinct: the Bramble Cay melomys By Suzanne Deed
WHILE many people in South Gippsland honoured their mother with breakfast in bed and lunch at a local restaurant on Mothers’ Day, others gathered in Inverloch for a vigil for Mother Nature and a memorial service for the latest mammal to become extinct in Australia. The Bramble Cay melomys lived on a tiny sand island in the Torres Strait, in Northern Australia. The species has not been seen since 2009, when Bramble Cay was flooded by rising sea levels. It was officially declared extinct on February 18, 2019, the first mammal known to become extinct due to climate damage.  From left, project manager John Coulter, EICO chair Moragh McKay and Energy Minister Lily D'Ambrosio By Catherine Watson
FIVE years ago, a few people gathered at the State Coal Mine cafe for a coffee and a chat about putting on a few kilowatts of rooftop solar panels. Yesterday that initial chat became a reality when Energy, Environment and Climate Change Minister Lily D’Ambrosio performed the ceremonial switching on of the system. In the five intervening years, however, the little system had blown out to a mini solar farm of 92 kWh of solar panels and 41 kWh of battery storage that will power the whole of the energy-hungry State Coal Mine tourist attraction.  Could Western Port’s mangroves help to tackle climate change? The answer, writes Neil Daly, is in the tea leaves, if only the politicians would take notice.  Still from Accelerate produced by 350.org By Maddy Harford
THERE’S a new kid on the block: Bass Coast Climate Action Network, or Bass Coast CAN to its friends. We're a small group of Bass Coasters committed to getting the word out about the reality and the impacts of climate change. An increasing number of individuals and organisations are coming to understand the stark ramifications of the remorseless increase in overall global temperatures: rising levels – and acidification – of the oceans, increasing frequency of extreme weather events and melting ice caps to name a few. Is this a climate emergency? We think so!  Photo: Catherine Watson Tree clearing on Phillip Island has reached epidemic proportions, writes Bernie McComb, as new research shows the profound effect of trees on keeping our planet habitable.
 By Susan Davies
THE current electricity market punishes loyal electricity customers who stick with their same retail company year after year. Those are the customers who tend to be paying the highest electricity rates. The Energy Innovation Co-operative (EICO) is encouraging Bass Coast residents to check and compare their energy costs at the government website Victorian Energy Compare.  Gippsland Intrepid landcarers at a previous event controlling sea spurge at Sandy Point. BASS Coast’s young conservationists have an opportunity to meet like-minded people in a beach clean-up and overnight camp on Phillip Island in early December.
The event is run by Gippsland Intrepid Landcare, a volunteer organisation that aims to connect young people aged 18-35 to the Gippsland environment and Landcare through adventure and meaningful activities.  Cartoon by Natasha Williams-Novak By Catherine Watson
PHILLIP Island wildlife carers Kaylene Mendola and Colleen Gilbee found plenty of support when the council confiscated their warning signs late last month. The signs warned motorists to go slow to avoid injuring or killing the island’s native wildlife.  The walls of Cait and Peter Ghys’s strawbale house are half a metre thick and it has just received a 10-star energy rating. By Catherine Watson
AS CAIT and Peter Ghys approached retirement, they decided to fulfil a long-held dream and build a strawbale house.  A tree goanna in The Gurdies, 2018. Photo: Bruce Preston, digitally enhanced by George Papas If you’re lucky enough to encounter a goanna in The Gurdies, don’t stand staring at it for too long, advises Dick Wettenhall
 Ben Stephens at the Phillip Island Early Learning Centre Cowes, proposed for the island’s first community solar project. Totally Renewable Phillip Island is seeking support for its first community energy project.
 Peter Wonfor and Moragh Mackay go through some of the options at the Totally Renewable Phillip Island workshop. While the politicians are still arguing about renewable energy, Phillip Islanders are getting on with it.
 Revegetation of a coastal woodland near Rhyll has special meaning for John Eddy. Photo: Gabrielle Mahony  A MEETING on energy justice in Wonthaggi last weekend attracted a full house of people wanting to hear more about local energy projects.
 Bimbadeen farm at Ventrnor A pioneer in carbon-neutral farming, Ventnor beef farmer Bob Davie will share his hard-won knowledge at Outtrim next weekend.
 By Susan Davies
WHEREVER I go across Bass Coast and South Gippsland and beyond I see solar panels, not just a lonely single string on a house as in the old days when I put solar on my place, but large roof-covering accumulations of solar panels on workshops, factories, shops, houses and rural sheds. To some it's a stinking cesspit, but to local artist and printmaker Susan Hall, the ephemeral Inverloch lagoon is a place of environmental richness and artistic inspiration.
 Anitra Nelson Activist-scholar Anitra Nelson discusses options for small and shared living at the eighth South Gippsland Sustainability Festival on Sunday.
 Florence ('Zing') Oswin-Roberts cares for a koala at her home, ‘Broadwater’, Cowes Many a Phillip Island farmer about to cut down a tree looked both ways to make sure ‘Zing’ Oswin-Roberts wasn’t watching. Zing’s story is told in a new book profiling 23 women who have fought to protect the island’s natural environment over the past century.
 Jarrod Ruche explains the use and construction of contour swales on sloping sites, such as the Bass river garden. By Anne Heath Mennell
WHAT better way to spend a late spring Saturday morning than at the community launch of the river garden at Bass? Around 80 people, from a babe in arms to grey tops, came from all parts of the shire, from coastal flats to the hills and beyond, to celebrate this initiative of Bass Coast Landcare Network (BCLN).  Phillip Island’s new fox-free status gives hope for one of Victoria’s most endangered species, the eastern barred bandicoot.
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