I think I saw one report saying that the dispersant was likely to be worse than the oil (although the disperssant is not great, it was just plain stupid for anyone to say the oil would not create serious impacts). I saw another one that said that oil naturally leaks into the ocean and so it would all be ok!!! I couldnt quite believe my eyes when I saw that one.

This is actually very accurate description.

“Large swathes” – some 35,000 hectares cleared – one of the biggest clearing projects in Australian recent history.

“pristine” – I think about 25,000 hectares of the 35,000 hecatares had not been cleared before 2002. Some 10,000 hecatares appears to be from previous government plantations given to the TLC – clearly this would have been pristine prior to it being cleared as well.

“high-conservation value” – it has been listed as a site of international signfiicance by Parks and Wildlife, and Tiwi environment described as the “jewel in the crown” of the North by leading ecologists (ANU’s Brendan Mackay). Being isolated for about 10,000 years from the mainland it has large degree of endemic species and sub-species, it is one of only places in North Australia protected from the cane-toad and other huge threats. Being the furthest point north in NT, it recieves highlest level of rainfall and therefore has some of healthiest, tallest and most pristince tropical eucalypt forest in the NT.

We love applying our own failed whitefella logic to aboriginal people – that “economic wealth” somehow corrosponds to dealing with social ills (health, alocholism, identity, suicide etc). Everyone knows there is not a lack of money going around in aboriginal communities, and “poverty” is not the issue. Royalty payments from agribuinsess or mining are just as much “sit down” money as welfare payments.

Aboriginal people need daily lives they can be proud of and relate to their own culture and sense of identity. The fundamental identity and nature of most aboriginal people is that they frame their worth, role and identity in their own community. Tiwi people need to be provided employment opportunities which relate to looking after their own community (local tree harvesting for housing, small scale agriculture to supply local food, bush meat and plants to utilise cultural understanding, environmental management, doctors, nurses, government workers etc etc). Not planting trees for white investors in southern cities for woodchips to Japan. You go to the Tiwi islands now and you will see it run by white fly in and out consultants, with all the food and materials imported.

And also lets be clear, the 4 members of the Tiwi Land Council are completely responsible for this as well as the big bad Great Southern company. They started and promoted it, they plugged all the Aboriginal Benefits Account money into it, they kept whipping it like a dead horse and distributed the small money the came from it to their family members and divided the community. They even denied support to those people who did not want the plantatinos on their land.

Lets also be clear that these Land Council members are not ordained representatives of the Tiwi People. They dont allow women on the Land Council, there was no consultation over the plantation when it started. The information they put out was deeply misleading, and they dont even conduct Land Council meetings in Tiwi.

Saying “at least they had a go” is just plain ignorance. That is the exact mentality that keeps driving this disastourous project along after 10 years of failure (and decades of failure with similar projects before that). Let not forget they talked up the aquaculture project and the miing project just as much and they both fell over as well.

...] And now see Bob Gosford’s story about Ding the Dingo… [...

...] apologies to Bob Gosford, who takes such things much more [...

Dr John Howard from the National Cannabis Prevention Centre is one of the speakers at a national drug and alcohol conference being held in Darwin today. Dr Howard says under grog bans, heavy drinkers have switched to cannabis. “Some people think, ‘Okay, they’re using cannabis, they’ll be quiet, it will all be okay’,” he said. “And I think initially people were content with that and they felt, well, this is much better than the grog. “But over time what many of the communities are seeing has been the concern about money. “It’s expensive, and so it’s a drain then on resources again, like there was with grog, but secondly, some of the mental health concerns that are coming through with heavy use of cannabis.”…”When we’ve gone to communities where they said that it was there, it was not a predominant thing [before the intervention],” he said….”But I think that in many places where we allow a sense of hopelessness, or it’s all too hard, to occur, why wouldn’t you want to medicate yourself somehow to get through a day.”

And I can add just a little to that – recently i was in a large east-Arnhem land community that has a reputation as being the Ganja capital of that area – according to normally reliable sources there are two drugs of choice that are freely available and widely used – Ganja and Kava…