NEWS DESK
Kids rally for climate action Stephen Taylor steve@baysidenews.com.au THE 500 students, parents and grandparents who rallied at Mornington Park on Friday to demand positive action on global warming got their message across in a constructive, wellbehaved manner, Mornington police said. There’s was one of more than 100 school strikes for climate occurring around Australia, Friday 20 September. The rallies were organised by the student-run School Strike 4 Climate website. They followed strikes in March at which 150,000 people marched in Australia and 1.5 million took part worldwide. The rally follows Mornington Peninsula Shire’s declaration of a climate emergency last month. This was confirmed by Cr Simon Brooks who spoke at the rally. The shire is working on ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the effects of climate change. (See “Peninsula’s climate emergency” The News 12/8/2019). Several students addressed the crowd, including a nine-year old primary school boy, a year 12 girl and a Deakin University student. They spoke of their concerns for our rising sea level and a warming climate, and the impact this has on birds, fish and animals – and people. The students are advocating for no new coal, oil or gas projects in Australia; 100 per cent renewable energy
Picture: Yanni
generation and exports by 2030, and funding for a transition and job creation plan for all fossil fuel workers and communities. After the rally a long column weaved its way up Main Street to the office of Mornington MP David Morris. No one was there so the marchers turned around and walked back along the footpath to Mornington Park and dispersed. “By taking time off school and work
together around the world, we’ll show our politicians that people everywhere want climate justice and we’re not going away until we get it,” says the School Strike 4 Climate event description. “We’ll strike in solidarity for everyone who’s already being hurt by the climate crisis and everyone who will be impacted if we don’t act now: workers, first nations’ peoples, young people, mining communities and
more.” The demonstrations were held three days before the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York, which aims to bolster ambition and accelerate actions to implement the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Speaker Angus Boyd-Bell, 9, in grade 4 at Balnarring Primary School, said climate change was important because he had grown up spending time in the bush enjoying wildlife. “I have
heard that over 200 species are gone each day because of climate change,” he said. “Soon it could be zero and maybe that will become a reality if we don’t change what we are doing now. “Many politicians say that they are going to make changes to prevent climate change but they are actually doing zero per cent of what they say they are going to do. “We want change now and we are going to get it.” Deakin University environmental science student Mariah Stellato, 22, said: “Today we are standing for what we are standing on.” As part of her studies she had visited the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, which hosted talks by government ministers to showcase the detriments of climate change. “This island will become the first country to be impacted by climate change which will result in its people being the world’s first environmental refugees,” Ms Stellato said. “The Australian Government’s solution was to give money to aid this island rather than change our fossil fuel consumption. Certain politicians state that ‘loud, mouthy activists’ are stopping the fossil fuel industry and mining projects, such as Adani, from going ahead. “That’s why today is important. Let us be the ‘loud, mouthy activists’ taking action and treating climate change for what it is – a crisis.” The next climate strike will be at Mornington Park, 9-11am, Saturday 30 November.
Data will help scientists to track fish VOLUNTEER fishers working as citizen scientists to tag, release and report the capture of King George whiting in Port Phillip and Western Port bays is helping improve our knowledge of their behaviour. The fishers, working on a three-year Monash University research project funded by recreational fishing licence fees, are helping track the fish’s movement patterns. “We know whiting enter our bays when they’re only a few months old and leave again at about four years
of age to mature and begin spawning offshore,” Victorian Fisheries Authority CEO Travis Dowling said. “What we don’t know is how juveniles move within and between our bays up until they depart.” Fishers have tagged nearly 700 whiting, the biggest 48cm, with 60 per cent in Port Phillip at Queenscliff, Geelong, St Leonards and Clifton Springs, and 40 per cent in Western Port at Somers, Tortoise Head and Middle Spit. Mr Dowling said 39 tagged whiting had been recaptured so far and none
had moved between bays or offshore – yet. “In Western Port, one tagged whiting moved 20km from Somers to Dickies Bay, at San Remo, over 11 months, growing 5cm from 35 to 40cm,” Mr Dowling said. “Another showed the greatest shortterm movement recorded so far in the study, swimming from Somers to Middle Spit in a bit over three weeks – that’s about 24km! “In Port Phillip, one tagged whiting was recaptured near Queenscliff by
the same angler who’d tagged it 45 minutes after it had been released.” Mr Dowling said the longest period between tagging and recapture was 16 months. The fish had grown 11cm – from 33 to 44 cm. Like most recaptured fish, this whiting was caught close to where it was tagged. “As fish get older and start to move out onto the coast, more recaptures from further afield are expected.” Mr Dowling said it was hoped the project would reveal more secrets this summer. He said much of the credit
could be attributed to just four keen fishers who have tagged and released 83 per cent of the whiting in the study. “It’s great to see passionate fishers so involved in local research, on a species they really care about.” Fishers catching a King George whiting carrying a yellow tag should report it to whitingtag@gmail.com or call 5258 3686. They should record the tag number, fish length, date and location of capture, and release it so it can further contribute to the project’s database.
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Bayside
Frankston Times
24 September 2019
PAGE 11