Environment - Bass Coast Post

Enough to drive you wild

4/10/2018

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.

Inverloch home ticks all the boxes

31/8/2018

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 walk on the wild side

29/8/2018

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

High hopes for first solar project

28/8/2018

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.

Full steam ahead

2/8/2018

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.

In the footsteps of the ancestors

22/6/2018

Revegetation of a coastal woodland near Rhyll has special meaning for John Eddy. Photo: Gabrielle Mahony

Local energy projects spark interest

19/5/2018

A MEETING on energy justice in Wonthaggi last weekend attracted a full house of people wanting to hear more about local energy projects.

Pioneering farmer shows the way

19/5/2018

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.

Powering ahead

3/5/2018

Photo: Solar Wholesalers

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.

My beautiful lagoon

17/4/2018

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.

Watch this space

5/4/2018

Anitra Nelson

Activist-scholar Anitra Nelson discusses options for small and shared living at the eighth South Gippsland Sustainability Festival on Sunday.

A force of nature

4/4/2018

Florence ('Zing') Oswin-Roberts cares for a koala at her home, ‘Broadwater’, Cowes

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.

Down by the river

14/12/2017

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).

Bandicoot island

1/12/2017

Phillip Island’s new fox-free status gives hope for one of Victoria’s most endangered species, the eastern barred bandicoot.

Rich river pickings

1/12/2017

By Joel Geoghegan

DRIVING on the highway past Bass over the past few weeks, you may have noticed something interesting happening between the river, the highway and the Bass Coast Landcare Network office.

The power behind the mine

5/7/2017

Friends of the State Coal Mine president Steve Harrop. Visitors to the mine will be able to compare the performance of different panels and batteries.

Wonthaggi’s state coal mine has long been a magnet for history buffs. Soon it will also be drawing visitors interested in new technology.

Outfoxing the fox

30/8/2014

Researchers estimate there are less than a dozen foxes left on the island but finding them will be difficult.

By the 1970s, foxes had wiped out nine of the 10 little penguin colonies on Phillip Island and the world-famous Penguin Parade appeared doomed. Then researchers started doing the sums.

The hoodies of Red Rocks

15/2/2014

Red Rocks' three hoodie chicks, aged almost five weeks. At last count, Victoria had about 500 hooded plovers left, of which Phillip Island had 44. Photo: Kim Wormald

Dog-owners have joined the ranks of those keeping vigil over Red Rocks' precious hooded plover chicks. Sue Saliba reports.

In Darwin's footsteps

30/11/2013

The protected blue groper, Shack Bay, December, 2013

By Rod Webster

IF YOU go down to Shack Bay, between Cape Paterson and Inverloch, tomorrow, you might see the bobbing heads of more than a dozen snorkellers.

They’re taking part in the Great Victoria Fish Count, part of the Victorian National Parks Association’s Reefwatch program.

Hoodies update

12/1/2013

Graeme Henry meets the sole surviving chick.

After watching a pair of Cape Paterson hooded plovers fail to raise a single chick from four clutches of eggs last summer, Graeme Henry was delighted when two chicks hatched out in early December. He continues the story.

My hoodies

8/12/2012

Hooded plover. Photo Birdlife Australia

After watching a pair of hoodies fail to raise a single chick from four clutches of eggs last summer, the Cape Paterson hoodies have their fingers crossed.

On a wing and a prayer

13/10/2012

A version of Rod Stewart’s Maggie May has been playing out in a Wonthaggi street. Just as things were going well, a human blundered onto the scene.