Reclaimining a sense of place
Mobility and the right to stay in a milieu

"Touristification describes a situation where locals fear their home towns and cities are being developed, designed and managed to attract and accommodate tourists. This touristification process benefits commerce and industries that profit from catering to visitors. Everyone else misses out, or is literally pushed out by rising housing costs. Some places are overwhelmed by short-term overtourism...Local housing, for instance, is being sacrificed for holiday rentals, facilitated by agencies such as Airbnb. local communities do not feel heard or empowered by tourism models which are focused on growth."
>>
https://theconversation.com/overtourism-is-reshaping-communities-in-europe-could-australia-be-next-260173
#tourism #overtourism #Touristification #TouristDestinations #TouristTown #coast #noise #pollution #cars #Bellingen #BellingenShire #harm #community #displacement #FastTrackApprovals #airbnb #regulation #MarketForces #housing #commodification #degradation #LeDroitàlaVille #mobility #RightToStay

The koala procreation season and car crashes

Speeding combustion engines are one of the major threats to unarmoured koalas. No road is ever wide enough for vehicles in the Bellingen/Gleniffer area. Road signage is regularly knocked down and speeding is the 24/7 norm.

Koalas like to meet up between June and December. This is the time when the marsupials are forced to negotiate a fragmented habitat of roads, settlements and degraded logging sites.

Switch on your 'car brain' and consider others.
>>
https://friendsofthekoala.org/koalas-and-cars/
#cars #roads #motorists #NSW #biodiversity #koalas #RoadTrauma #Bellingen #GlenifferRoad #RosesRoad #BellingenShire #SignageKnockedDown #enforcement #MobilityDesign

Pet owners allow their dogs to roam and attack wildlife

"A plea for dog owners who visit or live in the bush to do the right thing and keep their pets under supervision...A veteran animal rescuer is being inundated with injured and orphaned animals that have been attacked by pet dogs."
https://au.news.yahoo.com/sad-find-in-dam-sparks-warning-about-daily-problem-in-aussie-bush-073743963.html
#pets #dogs #wildlife #Biodiversity #BellingenShire #Bellingen #IntroducedAnimals

"We're a biodiversity hotspot, but we won't be if we cover the whole of it in suburbia."

"If you're putting roads through koala habitat, you see more car strikes.

If you're building houses in there, you get more dog attacks,

and ultimately also the more koalas are compressed, you see higher stress in the population, and that results in less resilience and greater disease."

"The science is clear. We need to [be building] up, not out. The most important thing councils can do is protect the habitat that's there and be involved in restoring areas."
>>
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-12/drone-survey-researching-koala-populations-endangered-animals/105279284
#biodiversity #koalas #EndangeredSpecies #RemnantVegetation #NativeForests #sprawl #roads #cars #dogs #BellingenShire #suburbia #SettlerSociety

Remember the Urunga wetlands waste tailings rich in antimony, arsenic, lead and cyanide?

"For five years in the 1960s and 1970s, antimony and other heavy metals leached from an ore processing plant into the melaleuca wetlands. The wetlands used to open up into a moonscape of light grey sand with not a single bit of vegetation."
>>
https://www.crownland.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-07/Urunga-Wetlands-fact-sheet.pdf
https://majorprojects.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/prweb/PRRestService/mp/01/getContent?AttachRef=SSD-5357%2120190227T035916.488%20GMT

Now they want to go for Wild Cattle Creek 'high-grade and high-tonnage' antimony-gold mining >>
https://www.listcorp.com/asx/tmg/trigg-minerals-limited/news/acquisition-of-globally-significant-antimony-project-3091939.html

A Clarence Catchment Alliance community meeting

is being hosted by the Bellingen Environment Centre,
with Blicks River Guardians and Lock the Gate Nambucca,
from 2pm on Friday May 31 at 16 Cudgery St, Dorrigo.
>>
https://clarencevalleynews.com.au/clarence-catchment-alliance-community-meeting/
#NSW #Dorrigo #Urunga #remediation #CoffsHarbour #mining #antimony #gold #extractivism #harm #WildCattleCreek #WCC #water #contamination #wetlands #rivers #waterways #freshwater #MarineWater #platypus #biodiversity #BellingenShire

Paris Bike Boom Leads to Steep Drop in Air Pollution

"The French city’s air quality has improved dramatically in the past 20 years, coinciding with a growth in cycling...Between 2005 and 2024, levels of nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter — two of the most harmful pollutants to human health — have been slashed by 50% and 55%, respectively.”

"City leaders including Mayor Anne Hidalgo have been making a concerted effort to pedestrianize parts of the city, improve bike infrastructure, and promote active transportation in the French capital."
>>
https://www.planetizen.com/news/2025/04/134769-paris-bike-boom-leads-steep-drop-air-pollution
#cars #pollution #harm #air #cycling #pedestrians #BellingenShire #Australia #ActiveTransport #climate

Careless drivers knocking down signage II

Cnr of #RosesRoad, John Locke Pl. Ever since the #GlenifferRoad 'upgrade'. No road is ever wide enough.
#Cars #speeding #roads #motorists #Bellingen #speeding #BellingenShire #inaction #gleniffer #koalas #RecklessDriving

Many pet owners move to the country just so their dogs can roam in wildlife habitat

"We moved to the country to give our rescued working dogs a better life."
74% of Australians own introduced species as pets.
>>
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/mar/14/we-moved-to-the-country-to-give-our-rescued-working-dogs-a-better-life
#dogs #pets #biodiversity #canines #IntroducedSpecies #wildlife #conservation #OffLeash #BellingenShire

Roaming extinction makers: cats

"The Threatened Species Recovery Hub estimates cats kill 1.9m reptiles, 1.2m birds, 3.2m mammals, 3m invertebrates and at least 250,000 frogs every day, with pet and urban roaming cats responsible for about 32% of the wildlife death toll. Cats have contributed to the extinction of more than two-thirds of the 34 Australian mammal species lost since colonisation, and have been complicit in the decline of local populations of birds in many cities. In 2023, the Nature Conservation Council, Invasive Species Council, Birdlife Australia, Wires and the Australian Wildlife Society called for local councils to enforce anti-roaming laws for pet cats."
>>
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/feb/23/you-cant-ban-compassion-helping-stray-cats-is-in-much-of-australia-but-for-some-its-worth-the-risk
#cats #pets #extinction #biodiversity #wildlife #BellingenShire

Road and dog density contribute to the extinction of koalas

Road and highway density (road length per square kilometer) and an aggregation of domestic dogs leads to the demise of the marsupial through vehicle crashes and mauling by pets.

Dissanayake, R.B., Stevenson, M., Astudillo, V.G. et al. Anthropogenic and environmental factors associated with koala deaths due to dog attacks and vehicle collisions in South-East Queensland, Australia, 2009–2013. Sci Rep 13, 14275 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-40827-w
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-40827-w

Koalas and Dogs Don’t Mix
https://cdn.environment.sa.gov.au/environment/docs/pa-fact-koalasdogsdontmix.pdf
Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Managing dog and koala/wildlife co-habitation. Why does leashing matter? Bellingen Council
https://www.bellingen.nsw.gov.au/Development/Public-health-and-safety-services-and-approvals/Ranger-Services/Animal-care-and-control

Major Roads. Australian Openstreetmap
https://eatlas.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/df464abf-59be-41cc-a271-d17035582c4c
#koalas #wildlife #Biodiversity #habitat #sprawl #cars #roads #vehicles #crashes #Roadkill #dogs #roaming #pets #DogOwnership #extinction #GlenifferRoad #RosesRoad #Bellingen #BellingenShire