Logan and Albert Conservation Association

The Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM) is undertaking a substantial waste reform program comprising three main elements:  a new waste strategy,  new legislation, including a new Act and  an industry waste levy.

Queensland's Waste Strategy 2010 – 2020 Waste Avoidance and Recycling Consultation Draft can be read and downloaded here. It is a 44 page pdf document.

A stakeholder advisory committee will be appointed to provide advice to the Minister on the strategy's implementation, including preparation of the necessary legislative measures.

Submissions on the draft strategy can be made until 31 July 2010. Please note: this date has been extended at the request of stakeholders.

Submissions may also be forwarded by post or fax. Send your submission to:

Project Manager – Queensland's Waste Strategy consultation
Natural Resources and Environment
Department of Environment and Resource Management
GPO Box 2454
BRISBANE QLD 4001

Phone 13 13 04  Fax: 07 3330 5996

Submissions must be received by the closing date and include:

the name and address of each submitter

the signature of each submitter (an electronic scan is acceptable for email submissions)

the reason for the submission

a statement of the facts and circumstances supporting the submission.

When making a submission, please ensure that direct quotes or comments are referenced with the relevant section of the strategy.

A draft master plan has been prepared to guide the future development of Logan West Parklands, which will be located minutes from the Park Ridge town centre on the Mt Lindesay Highway Service Road, next to Park Ridge High School.

Council officers will be available at the following locations to discuss the master plan.

Council officers will be available to discuss the master plan. Last opportunity to comment on the Draft Landscape Master Plan with planners is at Park Ridge Village Mt Lindesay Hwy Service Rd Thursday 22 July 2 pm to 4 pm.

Documents council have currentl made available can be viewed or downloaded from this page.

What is not included for our background studies is the Flora and Fauna Management Plan. This is a contentious issue as such documents are essential components to all development plans - but are most often not readily accessible.

This is  being envisioned as a tourist mecca. As such the online feedback at http://haveyoursaylogancity.com.au/loganwestparklands ask the following - most of which focus on the built environment and not the natural environment. Management of each and scenic amenity of each is vastly different.

What activities or facilities would make you and your family spend the day at Logan West Parklands?

What would be in your dream playground that we can include here?

What outdoor events would you like to see at Logan West Parklands?

Do you have any other comments, ideas or suggestions?

How could the environment centre become a valued asset for the Logan community?

The FAQs offer some suggestions you might like to comment on.

This image of glider sightings has been compiled from sightings reported from residents along Camp Cable Waterford Tamborine Road and Hotz Road as part of the VETO survey from March to June 2010.

The blue marker represents feather tail glider sightings. The aqua marker represents sugar glider, squirrel glider or general glider sightings.

The aqua marker with the star represent the greater glider sightings. The yellow markers represent residents who reported wildlife sightings but did not report glider sightings. There was a total of 50 residents (mostly directly affected and some indirectly affected)  so far who have reported these results to VETO.                                                                                                                          

 This image with the VETO willdlife sightings from the surveys conducted from March to June 2010. Some are current sightings and some are historic sightings. There are a total of 50 residents surveyed so far (mostly directly affected and some non directly affected) . The red markers represent koala sightings reported by residents . The yellow markers represent residents who did not report seeing or hearing koalas on their property.

The use of digital tools available for us all now - as and when we learn how to use these webtools - are an essential piece of out activist - advocacy toolkit. Photos maps aerial images from Google Earth or NearMap can help us support our efforts to secure ecologically sustainable development.

Business as usual is not acceptable for us now, our children and future children.   

Biodiversity is the variety of all living things; the different plants, animals and micro organisms, the genetic information they contain and the ecosystems they form. Biodiversity is usually explored at three levels – genetic diversity, species diversity and ecosystem diversity. These three levels work together to create the complexity of life on Earth.group is linked to the International Year of Biodiversity 2010 website, a joint venture between the Australian Museum and the Council of Australasian Museum Directors (CAMD). This project includes museums across Australia working with people and communities to discover, celebrate and promote biodiversity, and encourage participation in biodiversity events all around the country.

Flickr.com is an amazing social website which allows us to share globally - or privateIy our photos videos and more.

The International Year of Biodiversity 2010 Flickr website is intended to be a 'biodiversity hub' for events in Australia. The site allows you to promote your biodiversity news and events, share your stories and ideas.

The aim of this group is to invite you to post your photos here and have them displayed also on our International Year of Biodiversity 2010 website. You can also add stories, follow our Twitter feed and even share videos - anything to do with biodiversity is warmly welcomed!

From all sections of the globe the scientific community is alerting us to the risks that our children and future generations will face if our new urban designs fail to account for the full potential for humans to develop in their natural evolutionary home. In America an organization Children and Nature has been working for several years to help us understand - and to provide assistance - the essential connection humans have with natural areas. This is the bush, fresh water country creeks, boulders and hills, forest litter, butterflies and bugs, all species great and small. Children need freedom to explore in their own time, in their own - to play in the dirt.

There are many resources available on their website.  http://www.childrenandnature.org

The built environment does not provide the same opportunities the physical, mental, and social benefits that contact with the outdoors and nature provides to children.

Now that globally more than 50% of people live in cities, unless natural areas are included within accessable walking range, we potentially run the risk of losing the breadth of all of human stages of development.

In Australia research concurs with a 2007 State Government investigation into playground spaces in Victoria finding that young children ''need exposure'' to natural environments to appreciate the ''complex variations of texture, sound, light, smell, colour and temperature''.

The subsequent government report - The Good Play Space Guide - highlighted the creative impulses that can be fostered by play with the ''loose parts'' of nature - the leaves, twigs and gumnuts. But how realistic is it to expect today's kids to get out in the bush?

Geoffrey Woolcock Associate Professor at Griffith University’s Urban Research Program  was one of the Australian delegates at the OECD World Forum Measuring and Fostering the Progress of Societies in Istanbul in 2007. Much has been written in the current decade about  children's lack of contact or opportunity for contact with natural areas - areas of bushland wilderness and creeks which have not been changed by human actions or activities. He recently delivered a talk Unnaturally natural? where he reported on the work of Richard Louv, the American author of the award-winning book Last Child in the Woods.  

Geoffrey Woolcock is a keynote speaker at Logan City's inaugral LOGAN ECO ACTION FESTIVAL 2010.

Louv’s book has compiled research from around the world, arguing forcefully for children to be reintroduced to the wilderness.