Water report inflames farmers .. * DANIEL WILLS * From: The Advertiser .. * October 15, 2010 12:01AM
FIRED UP: Farmers protesting over the Murray-Darling Basin Plan burn copies of its guide in Griffith yesterday. Picture: GABRIELLE DUNLEVY/AAP Source: AdelaideNow
BURNING copies of the controversial Murray-Darling Basin Authority report is an "understandable" response from farmers to "very scary" water use cuts flagged by the plan, former Riverland MP Karlene Maywald says.
Ms Maywald is chair of the steering committee charged with driving the State Government's response to the controversial plan and was a member of Premier Mike Rann's Cabinet until the March election.
South Australians will get their first chance to meet Authority officials face to face at two public consultation meetings in Renmark today.
Thousands of irate Riverland farmers, fruit growers and other locals are expected to turn up for this morning's meeting at the Renmark Hotel, despite the venue only able to hold about 250 people.
Up to 40 tractors are also expected.
Ms Maywald said the meeting would be "volatile" and she always expected "World War III" would break out when the MDBA plan was released.
"The number one objective of the draft is to return the health to the river and we all agree that has to occur. The problem is the numbers are scary. You have communities that are quite rightly angry.
Misguided water whingeing .. Bernard Keane .. Last update 10:13 AM, 15 Oct 2010
Crikey
While the level of emotion is understandable, some of the people of Shepparton and Deniliquin haven't done their communities too many favours with their antics at the Murray-Darling Basin Authority consultations. Showing up with nooses, making comparisons to Hitler and burning copies of the relevant document – the guide to the draft of the plan – won't help anything. As Griffith's deputy mayor Dom Testoni suggested this morning to the ABC, once the passion is vented over the next couple of weeks, there can begin a process of providing detailed feedback to the MDBA. Nonetheless, hysteria and predictions of disaster may just feed urban perceptions of whingeing cockies.
The claim is repeatedly being made that the size of the proposed cuts have come as a shock to irrigators. This is hard to sustain. As early as October last year, .......
Can we save the Murray Darling? .. Saturday, October 16, 2010 .. By Nick Soudakoff
The Hume Weir on the Murray River at the height of the drought in 2008.
The deluge of rain hitting south-east Australia has broken the 10-year drought that brought the Murray Darling Basin and many farming communities to the brink of disaster.
A few months of wet weather have brought the wetlands back to life. The rivers are flowing again, and farmers might even be able to harvest a bumper crop if they can beat the mass locust hatchings.
On October 8, the Murray Darling Basin Authority released The Guide to the Draft Murray Darling Basin Plan. It is an outcome of the Water Act of 2007, set as law the principle that human water use must remain within the basin’s ecological limits.
Irrigation-dependent communities have responded furiously to the draft. At consultations around the basin thousands are turning up to protest the threat to their livelihoods and their communities’ existence. .......
This plucky fawn had an incredible escape when it dived under a fence to get away from a huge golden eagle. Photo: Milan Krasula/Solent News & Photo Agency
11:07PM GMT 27 Dec 2011
The young doe had to run for its life after the golden eagle swooped in for the kill.
Photographer Milan Krasula snapped away as the chase played out in front of him.
The 30-year-old spent four days trying to get a great picture of the annual eagle hunt, where owners release their birds to hunt prey.
But instead of diving for a smaller animal, the eagle amazed watchers by dive-bombing the deer and trying to fly off with it. He said: "You have to be very lucky to get a good shot, as you cannot predict where the prey will be hiding.
"I found an area that I thought it would be good for a photo and where some smaller animals might be hiding.
"I was waiting there around an hour or so, when all of a sudden there was a young little doe running out from the forest.
"One keeper then released his eagle, who was about 200 metres away from me.
"He did not see the little doe running and had actually released the eagle to get another animal.
"Of course, the eagle went for the doe instead of the other prey."
Milan, from Liptovsky Hradok, Slovakia, added: "Both the doe and the eagle were heading towards me.
"I was lucky to witness such an event of mother nature and I was lucky enough to have a camera with me and capture it.
"It happened so fast, by the time I checked the images on the back of the camera, both the doe and the eagle were gone.
"It was an unsuccessful attack by the eagle - I think the life of the doe was saved by a nearby fence.
"It wanted to jump over it but was so frightened and scared it only managed to slip underneath, giving the eagle no choice but to abandon the chase.
"The eagle flew back to it's keeper and the doe disappeared in the forest among the trees."
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