The debate over water reform has received less scrutiny of late with the drought broken in much of the country and national attention turning to matters such as the carbon tax debate, the bankrupted Malaysian refugee solution and of course the coverage of the footy finals.
Throughout the entire region the environment continues to face growing pressures. It comes from a growing range of converging issues like urban expansion; destruction of native forests; rapidly expanding populations; growing inequality and poverty; water, soil and air pollution; and the international inaction on climate change.
A key report released yesterday by the Australian Government’s Climate Commission has served a grim warning to coastal regions of Western Australia about the effects of climate change.
The current famine in southern Somalia should have come as no surprise. Aid agencies have been warning of the consequences of the worst drought to hit East Africa in thirty years. Republished from The Conversation.
Despite being two years away from an official federal election, the government’s knife edge majority has seen us move to an apparent permanent election footing. However while hard hat-wearing, baby kissing politicians are becoming more visible on our news screens, quality policy discussions on vital infrastructure issues appear to have taken a permanent back...
Alex Schlotzer spent the weekend at the Climate Action Summit as someone committed to seeing political action taken on climate change. More specifically he was there in his voluntary role as coordinator of the Brimbank Climate Action Network (BrimbankCAN). This is his account of the weekend.
Queenslanders have already lost homes and livelihoods to floodwaters, now they could be faced with huge impacts to biodiversity in beautiful Moreton Bay.
The NSW Government's decision to end its support for the Hunter's unpopular Tillegra dam has been described as a major victory for the community by the NSW Greens.
A major study has found the Asian region, along with that of the Middle East and North Africa, as being most at risk from water stress. The study found key Asian economies of China, India as also being vulnerable to water shortages.
The Victorian state election is proving to be another series of negative attacks being largely directed by the lacklustre efforts from the major parties.
An OECD report has said Indonesia must reform its government spending to better achieve important Millennium Development Goals such as improvements in sanitation and water supply.
Given the nature of agriculture in this country and the effects of rising populations both here and globally, I contend it is time to re-examine the virtues of a stable productive yeoman farming sector.
The Philippines-based Manila Water Corp's purchase of Australian water company United Utilities Australia (UUA) will result in closer co-operation in water management and more sharing of knowledge between the two nations, according to Australian Ambassador Rod Smith.
A study has found population increase to be four times more important than the effects of climate change on water availability.
By Rich Bowden: The Pacific nation of Fiji’s water crisis continues this week with the water supply of a small island reaching critical levels, according to local reports. The Fiji Times has reported that over 100 families on Druadrua Island, off Vanua Levu, the second largest island of the country, have been identified by...
October 17 to 23 is National Water Week in Australia, a week dedicated to raising awareness of the country's most precious resource
The banning of the toxic chemical endosulfan has been welcomed by the Greens though action on the pesticide should have occurred much earlier, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye.
Scientists in California have reported a significant increase in freshwater flow into the world’s oceans per year claiming it to be a result of more extreme and frequent storms caused by the shift in the world’s weather patterns.
Fijian authorities are blaming the El Nino weather pattern for the water crisis that has emerged in the country's Western Division.
By Damian Baker: As part of our new focus on development and human rights issues, theangle.org is reposting old articles printed on the site which still have a high degree of revelance. We start with co-founder Damian Baker’s trip to Papua New Guinea in November 2009 where he encountered the lives of the people...
Kevin Rennie, writing in Global Voices, finds the distraction of the footy finals season and the negotiations over the first federal hung parliament in Australia in seventy years as the reason the mainstream media in the country has delivered scant attention to the real reasons behind the UN Millennium Development Goals Summit in New...
World Water Week attendees in Stockholm, Sweden have heard that increased urbanisation is hampering global attempts to reach overall UN goals on increasing the number of people with access to safe drinking water.
Indonesian companies tend to avoid directing their corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds to water and sanitation projects, preferring instead to provide finance for more short term programs, a recent Indonesian conference has heard.
While water recycling and desalination have both been touted as showing the way forward on water reuse, and helping to offset a “peak water” scenario, experts have noted significant drawbacks to both, including the amount of energy needed to power wastewater recycling and desalination plants.
While the concept of peak water as an overarching term for the increased shortage of water supplies in Asia remains contentious, it has served to focus attention on the increasing water crisis facing many countries
An integrated water management system, though essential to protect developing nations facing climate change, is but one part of a wider “climate proofing” system, a report released by the UK-based sustainable development NGO Forum for the Future has said.
While water activists and environmentalists have hailed the recent decision by the UN General Assembly to grant access to safe water and adequate sanitation as a human right, Australia and New Zealand followed the United States, Canada and the UK in abstaining from the vote.
The announcement yesterday by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott that a Coalition Government would end the current protection policy of Australia's waters highlights a lack of leadership over marine parks, according to environment group WWF-Australia.
An American water distributor company believes it can resolve many of the world's water shortages by shipping water from where it is plentiful, to destinations in Asia and the Middle East via an Indian distribution point.
The release of a list containing more than 80 of Australia's most dangerous pesticides, many of which are banned overseas, has raised questions of the effectiveness of Australia's regulatory system.
The Philippines-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) $US100 million loan to China’s Wuhan Province to help finance the Wuhan Urban Environmental Improvement Project is expected to act as a template for the country and the region, bank officials have said.
ADB Assistant Chief Economist Juzhong Zhuang, editor of a new book on inequality and inclusive growth in Asia, says rising growth rates in Asia have masked rising inequality, leading to two faces of Asia - one shining and the other suffering.
A conference focusing on countries' adaptability to climate change has been described as a "turning point" for climate change science.
The Australian Government has signalled its intention to assist the development of its near neighbours' water infrastructure funding a multi-million dollar program to improve people's access to an adequate water supply and sanitation facilities.
WWF Australia has called on the country's pesticide regulator to follow the lead of the United States and ban the controversial toxic pesticide endosulfan.
Despite a number of high profile attempts to cap the US's now-worst-environmental disaster, the oil well in the Gulf of Mexico continues to spew oil at an alarming rate.
Asian and Pacific countries are amongst the beneficiaries as Australia's Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance, Mr Bob McMullan, announced earlier in the month his government would provide grants for 44 clean drinking water and sanitation projects throughout the world.
The findings of a key report of the effect of climate change on vulnerable has been challenged at climate change talks in Germany.
The Australian Greens have called for better water monitoring methods to be implemented in the wake of allegations that contamination of creek systems has occurred near the Ranger Uranium Mine in the Northern Territory.
Environmental group the Conservation Council of WA has criticised the State Government for its lack of support for the environment in its second state budget.
A consortium led by Japanese company the Mitsubishi Corporation has successfully acquired Australian water company United Utilities Australia Pty Ltd (UUA) for $A225 million, making it the first Japanese public-private partnership of its kind for the purchase of an overseas utility.
By Sue Pennicuik and Bob Hale: ‘Fair Share’ was the theme of the second Asia Pacific Greens Network Congress (APGN), hosted by the Green Party Taiwan and Taiwan Friends of the Global Greens, that we attended on the weekend of 30 April – 2 May. It was a huge effort for the small group...
The Australian Greens have said Treasurer Wayne Swan's third budget shows the Rudd Government has turned its back on key environmental reforms, including a tax on carbon.
A new report issued by specialist insurance group Lloyds, along with environmental organisation WWF, has warned global businesses of the consequences of corporate inaction in fighting the growing global water scarcity crisis.
Developing economies in the Australasian/Pacific region will be affected if a push from the world's richest nations to raise water prices is successful.
A UN-sponsored report has listed nine recommendations for world Governments and NGOs to reach Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on sanitation.
Developing countries, including those in the Asia Pacific region, require increased funding and community cooperation to ensure schools have access to clean water and adequate sanitation facilities, according to a new UNICEF report.
Environmental NGO WWF has called on Federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burke and State ministers to fix the country's national pesticides authority when they meet at a conference in Darwin tomorrow.
The Conservation Council of Western Australia has called on the Commonwealth Government to act to save what remains of the state's wetlands.
A growing population and increasing industrialisation have been listed as the chief threats to water supply in the Asia Pacific, according to a UN-sponsored report released last month.
Kevin Rennie interviews Clive Porabou — representative of the people of Bougainville — about the Mekamui people's continued opposition to the giant Panguna copper mine.
Water data management in Australia has received a boost with the unveiling of a new information transfer format.
Rising sea temperatures have caused coral bleaching at the world's southernmost coral reef at Lord Howe Island, say a team of Australian researchers.
A report released earlier this week by technology giant Siemens has called for an $83 billion investment from business and governments over the next ten years to ensure Australia's water and renewable energy future.
A new climatic index developed by Australian and Chinese researchers will help scientists understand why southwestern Western Australia has experienced such a decline in rainfall over the past 40 years.
Parliamentary Secretary for Water, Dr Mike Kelly yesterday announced Federal Government funding for a water recycling project on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.
By Rich Bowden: Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has turned up the heat on the Queensland Labor Government, calling its proposed legislation to protect a number of wild rivers in the State’s north “outrageous.” Mr Abbott promised to introduce a private members’ bill into the federal Parliament which would would reverse the Queensland Government’s...
By Rich Bowden: More than twenty percent of the five thousand children who die every year in East Timor, do so through preventable diseases caused by poor sanitation and drinking unclean water, according to a new supplementary report released by aid agency WaterAid Australia. The NGO said despite poor or non-existent sanitation facilities being...
In the first of a five part series, author and archaeologist Jon Moore takes a sideways look at the great climate debate and asks the question, is everything we are being told bollocks?
By Rich Bowden: Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett yesterday confirmed an earlier announcement that he had decided against giving the Queensland Government the go-ahead to build the contentious Traveston Dam on the Mary River near Gympie, in Southeast Queensland. Three weeks ago the Minister had taken the unusual step of telling the media his...
By Rich Bowden: Not content with running a highly effective anti-dam campaign that helped to ensure the conservation of the Mary River Valley, the Save the Mary River Coordinating Group is now looking to work with other conservation and farmer groups for the region’s future. The group was instrumental over a number of years...
By Rich Bowden: A recently-released report on the state of New Zealand’s glaciers has found they have, once again, lost a significant portion of their ice mass. The National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA), the NZ-based organisation which conducts both commercial and non-commercial research in the field of environmental sciences, has found...
By Rich Bowden: Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett has rejected the Queensland Government’s bid to build a dam at Traveston Crossing near Gympie in the south east of the state. The Minister says he considered the options carefully but decided against the proposal on its dubious environmental grounds. “After considering the Traveston Dam proposal...
A decision on whether the Queensland Government’s controversial Traveston Dam will go ahead will be made within a few days. Environment Minister Peter Garrett told Channel Ten’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday November 8 that he would “…make a proposed decision over the next week,” adding he would, “take account not only of what...
The Premier of Victoria just happens to be one of the worst apologists for big polluters. And it’s no wonder when the state of Victoria is seemingly beholden to the interests of big polluters.
Lae city in Papua New Guinea’s eastern Morobe Province is struggling to cope with another outbreak of cholera.
While PM Kevin Rudd has welcomed 60 percent population growth in Australia by 2050, others have questioned if the country can sustain this.
Environment groups have challenged the Qld Infrastructure Minister with evidence that his own Water Commission had suggested a more efficient method of drought- proofing SE Queensland.
Many Pacific nations face inundation by rising sea levels blamed on warming global temperatures, a Fiji-based climate expert has said.
Security guards in the PNG Porgera valley have been accused of killings, assaults and the burning villages in the name of Barrick gold.
Three women and a man have chained themselves to the conveyor belt of a coal mine near Helensburgh, NSW.
Climate Camp '09 has a "water not coal" theme as protesters focus on polluted water supply caused by the expansion of a coal mine.
Qld Premier Anna Bligh has backed contentious fish transporting technology for the Traveston dam.
The decision on Qld's controversial dam at Traveston Crossing now officially rests with the federal Environment Minister.
Protests over the proposed Traveston dam have intensified as the project awaits the go ahead from the federal government.
A deal between the Federal and NSW Governments has seen an embargo lifted on federal purchase of NSW irrigators' water.
A report commissioned by the Mary River Council of Mayors, has found the contentious Traveston dam to be unnecessary.
