“All it takes today it seems, is having

some money to follow your dreams.
The day comes up the sun goes down
and life goes fast in every town.

This stuff you eat that feasts on you
I’m finding it mighty hard to chew!”

There is another Benoit crow poem here .

Ecospherics Ethics :- “An anthology of ecological, philosophical, spiritual, economic and cultural articles, editorials and reviews exploring the values of the planetary Ecosphere, its ecosystems, communities and wild species – as the natural and time-tested source of a new and compelling “Earth Ethic” for humanity.” plenty of food for thought on this website!! ABOUT the AUTHORS .

“Addiction to Plastic is fuelling marine disaster”  (Tim Elliott  July 25, 2010 . Sydney Morning Herald). The article says:- “ ‘Plastics are lighter but more damaging than heavier waste like timber and concrete,’ said Jeff Angel, from the Total Environment Centre. ‘If you [throw away] a brick, it stays in the same place, but plastic floats around.’  He believes the problem is worse than previously thought, and authorities have routinely “massaged” data on consumption and recycling.”

Benoit, my friend , a ten month old Crow (Mt Warning Caldera Region) says ".......

This Crow Poem reminds us about our personal responsibility to the beautiful life on this planet, and how we need to reign in our wasteful lifestyles and clean up our waste that we have already left all over the planet.

Cryptic Moth Productions :    ”ADDICTED TO PLASTIC  the Rise and Demise of a Modern Miracle” – a film by Ian Connacher.

Product Stewardship Bill 2011  C20011B00048 :- “ A Bill for an Act to provide a framework for reducing the environmental and other impacts of products, and for related purposes( Administered by: Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities)”  http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2011B00048

Environ. Sci. Technol., 2005, 39 (12), pp 4421–4430  Bioaccumulation of Organochlorines in Crows from an Indian Open Waste Dumping Site:  Evidence for Direct Transfer of Dioxin-Like Congeners from the Contaminated Soil

National Toxics Network:

http://www.ephc.gov.au/ : COAG Standing Council on Environment and Water – PRODUCT STEWARDSHIP :- including Australian Packaging Covenant, Beverage Containers, Televisions and Computers, Packaging Impacts and Plastic Bags. You will also find information on Industrial Residues, Movement of Controlled Waste, National Waste Policy.

• 2010 National Waste Report for Australia (http://www.ephc.gov.au/taxonomy/term/89).
• Guidelines for the Assessment and Remediation of Contaminated Sites :- more information about these guidelines for the  assessment, management and containment can be found at http://www.ephc.gov.au/taxonomy/term/43

Australia’s National Waste Policy at the Australian Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage & the Arts . The Draft National Waste Policy Framework – opened for comment on 8 July 2009 & closed on 31 July 2009 with the Department receiving over 60 comments.

The Environment Protection & Heritage Council : The EPHC  addresses “broad national policy issues relating to environmental protection, particularly in regard to air, water, and waste matters“, as well as  natural, Indigenous and historic heritage issues.

National Environment Protection Council : a National outcome of the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment (May 1st, 1992) made between the Australian Local Government Association, the Commonwealth of Australia, the six State Governments, the Northern and Australian Capital Territories. The NEPC was incorporated into the above EPHC in 2001.

Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal

Riki Ott’s website : author of “Not one Drop”, Riki Ott  is a community activist, a former commercial salmon “fisherm’am,” and has a degree in marine toxicology with a specialty in oil pollution. She understands (first hand) the Exxon Valdez oil spill and has some valuable resources on her website, especially relating to oil spills and the issues of  “Corporate Personhood,” which can be defined simply as “the illegitimate notion that a corporation can claim political and civil rights to overturn democratically enacted laws”

Boomerang Alliance :

Michael Reynolds and Earthship Biotecture Green Buildings and Garbage Warrior , a film by Oliver Hodge

Gyrating Crow at phansythat.blogspot

Crows : info and photos about the Torresian Crow – an Australian native bird.

There is  plenty of info, on the internet for and about CROWS.

If you want to find out more about my friend, BENOIT, have a look at my “Wisdom in the Land” Bluecray blogspot .

I have known Benoit for over nine months now. He is a wild Crow, and his parents and siblings are also all wild.   He chose come to visit me, when he first flew from his nest, in the Crow’s Ash Tree beside my home.  Gradually, over time, he and I have become “friends” and he will now fly onto my arm, and talk with me. He also likes to sit on my head and yell very loudly!!! He is extremely bright, and his parents have their work cut out for them, in raising him, with his two other siblings, Baba (the elder, very brave crow) and Lucy (the youngest, who everyone loves.!)

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Benoit and his father, with some Spangled Drongos (migratory species) and little Litoria sp. frog : some of the Australian Native Wildlife affected by clearfelling of Habitat for Green Fuel on the east coast of Australia.

I have added the above environmental advocacy collage of Benoit(photo taken just before he left the nursery) and his Father (taken in October 2010).

Benoit has been gone from the crow “nursery” for over a year now. His father and mother have since raised two more youngsters (fledged 2009), who have also left, after spending ten months in the nursery. These two young crows can sometimes be seen flying overhead, at a respectful distance from the nursery, occassionally with Benoit.

There are now more young crow babies in the nest(August 2010), and they shall probably leave the nest and take their first flight in a matter of days from now. Unfortunately, the BIOFUEL industry has clear felled much of their nursery area for “green fuel”, leaving much bare and degraded land. However, the parents and 3rd lot of youngsters appear to be OK. I have been helping them out with some extra food and daily clean water, which they very much appreciate. Many of the local birds and other wildlife, however, including at least two endangered Rufous Bettongs have lost their homes and habitats, to this most dishonourable clear felling.

February 2011. Only one baby crow survived the nesting period in 2010. The goannas, many of them, came through the Crow nursery during early spring. The mother and father CROWS spent three weeks, fighting off the goannas, but eventually, a goanna took three babies from the nest, and left only one survivor, a little crow baby who I named  Neo Jack.

Neo Jack’s photo is below:-

Neo two weeks fledged, and some local clearing for biofuel near Burringbar, NE NSW, Australia.

They should serve as a warning to many small communities in the Mt Warning Caldera Region of NE NSW and SE QLD, Australia.

Mullumbimby is a beautiful, at times flood prone town that lies on the Brunswick River. Mullumbimby township supports many artists, farmers, families ( who honour the rights of future generations of children to live in an environmentally sustainable community), pensioners, people with disabilities and active community members. It’s town centre is a peaceful thoroughfare and commerce hub that serves regional families and businesses.

The people of Mullumbimby, through the Mullumbimby Community Action Network, have spoken clearly to voice their lack of support and disapproval of the building of a Woolworths Supermarket within the location targeted by the Supermarket giant Woolworths. Woolworths, if built in Mullumbimby, will bring with it a number of extra corporate strengths to this peaceful rural town.

• Corporate credit
• more plastic (- NO – not the bags they pack your stuff in – the plastic that is around all their products  - fresh, processed and pre-packed such as meats, vegies, breads and many imported  products) that will end up in drains, recycling, land fill, animals digestive systems, food chains etc
• more traffic as delivery trucks, regional shoppers taking advantage of the hours of operation of the supermarket
• sewerage “the wet weather storage and (required) stringent monitoring and management of the irrigations system … to prevent effluent runoff; and the pumping out of effluent and its removal to Tweed which is illegal in the Byron Shire (Council Policy No. 5.59) which would set a precedent for other potential inappropriate development.” (from Mullumbimby Action Group letter to NSW Premier Nathan Rees, The Honourable Kristina Keneally NSW Minister for Planning, Ms Paula Tomkins)
• Mullumbimby Town and regional Heritage visual IMPACT

This Planning Right of Way by the NSW Department of Planning appears to be on the side of  the Woolworths giant ( which is also a large owner of Poker Machines in Australia) in this Far North Coast Region of New South Wales, Australia.

The building of this Woolworths Supermarket may herald future NSW Government condoned development expansion and rough riding over local  community well being.

The bluecray vision is that  cultural, community, commonsense, environmental and social  support return this planning right of way back to the town people of Mullumbimby.

And so, if you care about how  government and corporate power uses “behind the scenes” practices and economies of scale  to lever socially and environmentally undesired and harmful projects on to small rural communities, then please go to the Mullumbimby Community Action Network homepage and give the community your support.

YouTube Videos

Byron Shire Echo Article by David Lovejoy “Woolworths blocked at the drain” 16th June 2009 for an update on events

Sydney Morning Herald Article : 28th September 2009 “Woolies forced to explain pokie business”

shop till you drop bop till you pop
the Bluesfest of Byron is near
the Belongil site’s ready
and Tyagarah looks steady

The Byron Bay Bluesfest 2009 clearly illustrates that the  dichotomy of human rational, ignorance and self-gratuitous environmental belief systems is alive and well in Byron Bay, 2009. The Byron Bay Bluesfest has a long history within the Mt Warning Caldera Region and beyond.
And the slow subtle degradation of habitats and environmental health in the Byron Shire also has a long history.  Players in this field (Belongil Fields and beyond) can pat themselves on the back, preen their egos and shuffle their heads back into the sand. I just wonder how many cigarette butts, bottle tops and pieces of plastic they will find there, after the Byron Bay Bluesfest 2009 is gone and the animals that have survived the trauma of forced relocation come back to their homes to continue their lives.
I love music, I love the land, I love the animals and the human spirits that live in this beautiful Mt Warning Caldera Region.  I pray with all my might that some mass consciousness shift occurs at the Byron Bay Bluesfest at Belongil Fields (or is it Tyagarah?) this year (2009), so that the coming years of Bluesfest “mania” (Tyagarah ?)become directly, immediately and thoroughly accountable to the authentic spiritual land guardians of the Mt Warning Caldera Region.
I say this, because it is clear to me that the Byron Shire is incapable of taking care of this beautiful part of the world – one only has to walk along the shoreline at Byron and through the parklands to see just how much plastic, rubbish, cigarette butts, bottle tops, batteries and god know’s how much unseen waste and toxins have infiltrated the habitats that they proclaim to protect.
The Arakwal people are the historical custodians of the land in this area. Their land stewardship preserved a unique and diverse environmental heritage, much of which has now been swallowed up by inappropriate 19th, 20th and now 21st century development.  Today, more and more people have an increasing  impact on this area and region, and from what I can see, the heritage and rights for the native animals that live in the Habitats of the Byron Shire have been severely compromised.
Words like “precautionary principle”, “environmental sustainability”, “caring for country” and “global crisis” mean nothing, when the current dichotomy of human words and actions are let loose on the planet. Please don’t let the “vision fade”.

2009 Spendour in the Grass Festival Yelgun

Byron Shire Council and the Splendour in the Grass Festival – article in Byron Shire Echo 27th January 2009

Environmental Defender’s Office NSW

EDO Compliance Portal – a tool to assist citizens in enforcing environmental law

Byron Flora and Fauna Study 1999 (google HTML) or at Byron Shire Council publications website