You can choose 4 of the following

This is doing the rounds again;

❝ You are stranded on a desert island, you can choose 4 of the following ❞

Alone Australia S2 – Start of episode quotes

At the start of each Alone episode there is ominous, inspiring, or adventurous introduction quote to lead us into the contestants in the wilderness. I’m collecting them here to see if they tell a story by themself.

Episode 1

❝ Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. ❞

— Donna Tartt

Episode 2

❝ The most important factor in survival is neither intelligence nor strength but adaptability ❞

— Charles Darwin

Episode 3

❝ Necessity is the mother of invention ❞

— Richard Franck

Episode 4

❝ Life is a circle. The end of one journey is the beginning of the next ❞

— Joseph M, Marshall III

Episode 5

❝ When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on ❞

— Franklin D Roosevelt

This week’s links (2024-04-21)

In brief:
🏛 Netanyahu’s office hosts emergency talks on feared ICC warrants for PM, ministers (2024-Apr-19) [Times of Israel]
🌳 Aerial video shows mass coral bleaching on Great Barrier Reef amid global heat stress event – video (2024-Apr-16) [The Guardian]
🌳 Incomplete nature reforms leave our environment dangerously exposed (2024-Apr-16) [Climate Council]
…

🌳 From bird baths to rocks, seven things people put in their gardens to help wildlife, and how well they work (2024-Apr-23) [Biodiversity Council Australia]

❝ While all seven feature types were used by wildlife during the study, water sources were used more frequently compared to shelter sites, with bird baths being the most commonly utilised wildlife-friendly structure …
For structures that were already present in gardens when the project began, citizen scientists completed 179 surveys of 23 ponds and 1513 surveys of 119 bird baths. Bird baths were used by birds on 53% of surveys, while ponds were used by animals on 45% of surveys. In comparison, artificial refuges such as reptile shelters, frog hotels and nest boxes were used on less than 20% of inspections. ❞

🌳 Labor’s broken promise on environment protection laws (2024-Apr-20) [The Saturday Paper]

❝ Scathing independent assessments of the Environment Protection Biodiversity and Conservation (EPBC) Act, amid mounting evidence of biodiversity loss and habitat destruction, have presented the Albanese government with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to strengthen Australia’s environmental framework. This week’s announcement that the government is only advancing parts of its promised package, however, suggests it is choosing instead to walk back its commitments to deliver the necessary overhaul. ❞

❝ Nature is in crisis. The 2021 “State of the Environment” report declared, in no uncertain terms, “the general outlook for our environment is deteriorating”. The condition of rivers, reefs, wetlands, soil, native vegetation and biodiversity is continuing to decline, while the number of plant and animal species listed as threatened or endangered increases. Australia has lost more mammal species than any other continent, has one of the highest rates of species decline in the developed world, and is the only developed country that is a deforestation hotspot. Climate change is compounding damage from deforestation, invasive species, pollution and urban expansion.
This poor environmental scorecard is due largely to Australia’s broken Commonwealth environmental law. Professor Graeme Samuel’s review of the EPBC Act, delivered to government in October 2020, painted a dire picture of a dysfunctional legal framework lacking integrity and in need of fundamental reform. He found a lack of public trust in the act’s ability to protect nature, stemming from poor transparency, inadequate opportunities for community participation in decision-making and approval processes, limited pathways for legal review, and perceptions of poor accountability for government decisions. ❞

📄 Australia state of the environment 2021 [Commonwealth of Australia]

🏛 Subject: Violence against women (2024-Apr-19) [Press conference – Melbourne, Attorney-General’s portfolio]

❝ ATTORNEY-GENERAL MARK DREYFUS: There is a crisis of male violence in Australia. It’s a scourge on our society and it must end. We have to do more. We know we can do more. We’ve done a lot in the last few years. I think there’s been a change in the way in which society thinks about the issue of family violence but we’ve got to do more.

JOURNALIST: Even looking around that room I can see more women. How do you see men taking a bigger role in addressing this?

ATTORNEY-GENERAL: I think by men in positions of leadership, and you’re starting to see that, calling it out, and by men everywhere in society, acknowledging that this is a problem for men. That we have to talk to our sons, we have to talk to our colleagues. We’ve got to acknowledge it as a problem for men. ❞

🏛 Rape Culture Pyramid (2018-Sep) [11th Principle: Consent!]
Version 5 Created by Jaime Chandra & Cervix (CC BY-NC-SA)

“Rape Culture Pyramid” by 11th Principle: Consent!, used with permission from Jaime Chandra, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA

❝ Tolerance of the behaviours at the bottom supports or excuses those higher up. To change outcomes, we must change the culture.
If you see something, say something! ❞

🏛

pic.twitter.com/3RZs3Ozjay

— Henry James Garrett (@henryjgarrett) April 16, 2024

❝ (Violence against women) That we have to talk to our sons, we have to talk to our colleagues. We’ve got to acknowledge it as a problem for men. ❞

— Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus
2024-Apr-19

Banff Mountain Film Festival 2024

Get some Banff stoke into your day!

❝ The 2024 Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour is a celebration of the mountain and adventure sport world. Sharing over 2 1/2 hours of the most exhilarating short films from explorers, runners, mountain bikers, skiers, paddlers and climbers from around the globe. ❞

Tickets

This week’s links (2024-04-14)

In brief:
🏛 Lehrmann v Network Ten Pty Limited (Trial Judgment) [2024] FCA 369 (2024-Apr-15) [Federal Court of Australia]

…
🚴‍♂️ Women’s Race – Live Stream – Amstel Gold Race 2024 Sun 14 Apr at 9:00pm [SBS On Demand]
🚴‍♂️ Men’s Race – Live Stream – Amstel Gold Race 2024 Sun 14 Apr at 10:45pm [SBS On Demand]
…

🌳 Brumbies & the ABC (2024-Apr-15) [ABC|Media Watch]

❝ Jamelle Wells has a clear personal bias on the issue of control of feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park … and has also been directly working to assist activists in their campaign to stop the control of feral horses. ❞
– Email, Jack Gough, Invasive Species Council, 10 April, 2024

🌳 Top environmental groups say some of Labor’s new laws could take conservation backwards (2024-Apr-13) [The Guardian]

❝ The Albanese government is backing away from a promise to substantially transform how nature is protected in Australia and is planning some changes that would make things worse, according to eight of the country’s top environment groups.
The conservation organisations said they were concerned the government planned to break up promised legislation for new environmental laws and defer some difficult reforms until after the next election, if it wins a second term. ❞

🏕️ OutdoorHer (2024) [The BMC]

❝ This resource is for everyone who is looking to learn more about women’s health and kit requirements in the outdoors, from participants to leaders and allies. It has been created with inclusion in mind and we hope that it helps to support and improve adventures for all, speaking to a range of issues that have often been overlooked.
Inspired by conversations with walkers, climbers and leaders about managing their periods, menopause and toileting when out in the wild, BMC and Mountain Training have created some simple ‘how-to’ guides that go through these topics and more. ❞

🏕️ Three castaways rescued after a week on Pacific islet (2024-Apr-12) [The New Daily]

❝ Three castaways stranded for a week on a remote desert island in the western Pacific Ocean have been rescued after using palm fronds to spell out the word “HELP” on a sandy beach. […]
While stranded on the island, which is part of the Federated States of Micronesia, the men had access to food and water. They also recovered their damaged skiff. ❞

❝ The comforts of life’s essentials — food, fire, and friendships… ❞

— Julia Child

This week’s links (2024-04-07)

In brief:
🏛 Rise in activity from rightwing extremists who want to trigger ‘race war’ in Australia, Asio warns (2024-Apr-10) [The Guardian]
🏃 Russ Cook: ‘Hardest Geezer’ makes history as first person to run full length of Africa A man from West Sussex has become the first person to run the full length of Africa after he crossed the finish line in Tunisia. (2024-Apr-08) [The Standard]
🏕️ Here’s What Really Kills People in the National Parks (2024-Feb-27) [Backpacker]
…
🚴‍♂️ Women’s Race – Live Stream – Paris-Roubaix 2024 Sun 7 Apr at 12:15am [SBS On Demand]
🚴‍♂️ Men’s Race – Live Stream – Paris-Roubaix 2024 Sun 7 Apr at 7:05pm [SBS On Demand]
…
Alone Australia:
📺 Alone Australia Season 2 [SBS On Demand]
🔊 Alone Australia: The Podcast delve deeper into each episode with season one winner Gina Chick and SBS News presenter Darren Mara [SBS|Apple Podcasts]
📺 Out Of The Wild – Gina Chick How life has changed for inaugural Alone Australia winner Gina Chick. In conversation with Leigh Sales. (2024-Apr-08) [ABC Australian Story]

❝ Kids ask a million questions, while adults tell me they love my hippy antics. In Vinnies I was approached by a shy preteen girl who wants to be an adventurer. I high-fived her and told her to go for it. She left with a grin; mine was even bigger. ❞

— Gina Chick

…

🏛 Whopping rate and rent rises driving people to extreme housing alternatives (2024-Apr-10) [Stuff NZ]

❝ Hitting the road at retirement age used to be a lifestyle choice for “grey nomads” with a luxury motorhome and a travel bug.
At the other end of the age scale, Aotearoa is a popular choice for Instagrammers living “vanlife” in search of sunsets in high-end campervans decked in pale wood, white linen and fairy lights.
Now people are considering life on the road as a necessity rather than a choice. ❞

🏛 24 hours, seven mass shootings — as an election looms, what does a day of gun violence look like for the United States? (2024-Apr-07) [ABC News]

❝ Asked whether they can foresee a future in which gun control was effectively in place in the US, the experts who spoke to the ABC are in agreement.
“I think there’s no likelihood at all that the constitution would ever be changed so as to either remove or limit that right … I just don’t see it within the realms of possibility now,” Dr Harris says.
Professor Wolpe says: “There will be no change. Zero.” ❞

🔥 Planned burns: could they be making our forests more flammable in the age of climate change (2024-Apr-04) [The Age]

❝ Environmental scientists Professor David Lindenmayer and Adjunct Associate Professor Phil Zylstra, from the Australian National University and Curtin University, argued in a recent research paper that prescribed burns can actually make forests more flammable. ❞

🔥 Coming of age: research shows old forests are 3 times less flammable than those just burned (2024-Mar-23) [ANU Fenner School of Environment & Society]

❝ Cooperating with country today means moving away from prescribed burning across large areas. Frequent burns may be useful only close to homes, or in other locations where we know with confidence they can achieve an ecological goal or help firefighters stop a burning edge.
Elsewhere, we should work with forest landscapes and allow them to become open again. We can support this process by refocusing fire management to quickly suppress fire when it does break out. ❞

🏕️ If you really want kids to spend less time online, make space for them in the real world (2024-Apr-02) [The Guardian]

❝ … that this isn’t just about phones, but over-anxious parenting and the decline of adventurous, unsupervised play for younger children: climbing trees and falling out of them, making dens, roaming the neighbourhood on your bike, and other experiences the National Trust’s research suggests too many children lack. […]
As a society we nag kids to get off their phones into the real world, but won’t make room for them here; we put adult convenience first, and are then surprised when children don’t flourish. ❞

🏕️ Three-quarters of children want more time in nature, says National Trust (2024-Apr-01) [The Guardian]

❝ More than three-quarters of children want to spend more time in nature, the National Trust has found, as the conservation charity pushes ministers to ensure youngsters are no more than a 15-minute walk from green spaces.
Nearly two-thirds – 63% – of parents are able to take their children to nature spaces only once a week or less, citing accessibility as the main barrier, the survey of 1,000 children aged seven to 14 and 1,000 parents by the trust and the children’s newspaper First News found. ❞

❝ When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. ❞

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

Protected: Alone Australia – Season 2

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

April – Waring Wombat Season

Waring Wombat Season (April-July)
Cool, rainy days follow misty mornings. The time of highest rainfall and lowest temperatures.
Waring (wombats) emerge to bask and graze in the sunshine.
Bulen-bulen (Superb Lyrebird) males perform their courtship displays.
Hearts of Kombadik (Soft Tree-ferns) are the major food when no fruits are available.
Days are short and nights are long.
The constellation of Sagittarius rises in the southeast after sunset, indicating the mid-point of cold weather.

❝Wumangurruditj, that’s wombat. Put a piece of wombat, a piece of pork and a piece of porcupine [echidna] and you can’t tell the difference. ❞ – Jessie Hunter, 1999

— Eastern Kulin Seasonal Calendar [Melbourne Museum]

In the April-2024 Sky

06 Apr – Moon close to Mars and Saturn in morning sky
08 Apr – Daylight saving time ends at 3 am
08 Apr – Moon and Venus close
08 Apr – Lunar perigee at 358,850 km
09 Apr – New Moon
10-11 Apr – Crescent Moon near Jupiter
11 Apr – Saturn and Mars spectacularly close
15 Apr – Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks will appear from mid-April just after sunset
19 Apr – Mercury and Venus close
20 Apr – Lunar apogee at 405,623 km
22-23 Apr – Lyrids meteors peaking
24 Apr – Pi-Puppids meteors peaking
24 Apr – Full Moon (Pink Moon)

🌗 Skynotes: April 2024 [Scienceworks]
🌗 Monthly sky guides: Sky Guide April 2024 [Powerhouse Museum]
🌗 The Sky Tonight: April 2024 [Scitech]
🌗 Astrophiz – Astrophiz189: April SkyGuide [Astrophiz|SoundCloud]
🌗 Planets Visible in the Night Sky in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia [timeanddate.com]
🌗 Moon Phases – Lunar Calendar for Melbourne, Victoria, Australia [timeanddate.com]
🛰️ AUSTRALIA – Melbourne [Find Starlink]
☄️ Coming Events: A Year of Southern Astronomy for 2024 [astroblogger]
☄️ Meteor Shower Calendar [timeanddate.com]

This week’s links (2024-03-31)

In brief:
🏔 An international database of judgements on climbing and mountaineering accidents (2024-Mar-27) [UIAA]
🌳 The ‘Mother Tree’ idea is everywhere — but how much of it is real? A popular theory about how trees cooperate has enchanted the public and raised the profile of forest conservation. But some ecologists think its scientific basis has been oversold. (2024-Mar-26) [Nature]
🏕️ Bushwalker who survived kidney failure on NSW wilderness walk warns of tough conditions Bushwalker praises PLB for saving his life (2024-Mar-31) [ABC News]
🏕️ Exploring the Backyard While a grand trip might offer novelty and excitement, there’s adventure to be found in territories much closer to home. (2024-Feb-03) [NYT|archive.today]
🏕️ British Correspondent’s Bag and Photojournalist’s Bag (2020-May-22) [Abandoned Republic]
…
🚴‍♂️ Women’s Race – Live Stream – Paris-Roubaix 2024 Sun 7 Apr at 12:15am [SBS On Demand]
🚴‍♂️ Men’s Race – Live Stream – Paris-Roubaix 2024 Sun 7 Apr at 7:05pm [SBS On Demand]
🚴‍♂️ Women’s Race – Live Stream – Amstel Gold Race 2024 Sun 14 Apr at 9:00pm [SBS On Demand]
🚴‍♂️ Men’s Race – Live Stream – Amstel Gold Race 2024 Sun 14 Apr at 10:45pm [SBS On Demand]
…
Alone Australia:
📺 Alone Australia Season 2 [SBS On Demand]
🔊 Alone Australia: The Podcast delve deeper into each episode with season one winner Gina Chick and SBS News presenter Darren Mara [SBS|Apple Podcasts]
📺 Alone Australia Season 2 Episode 1 Recap – At Night I Dream of Sandflies Tim’s Alone Australia Recaps Are Back (2024-Mar-23) [We Are Explorers]
…

🏛 A ‘small target’ government in a big moment (2024-Apr-04) [The Shot]

❝ The Prime Minister, quite literally the man who founded the Parliamentary Friends of Palestine in his younger days, now instructs his government to abstain from UN votes calling for a ceasefire in Gaza – a conflict being called a “plausible genocide” by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The same Prime Minister, who once spoke with fire for the Palestinian cause, now supplies Israel with materiel with which to wage that “plausible genicode”, assistance he refuses to withhold despite growing global condemnation.
This is shifting the essence of who we are as a nation. And this is why Albanese is a major disappointment to many who voted for his party, and many who didn’t. ❞

🔥 Holy smoke, Easter has been hazy as planned burns choke Melbourne (2024-Mar-31) [The Age]

❝ The smoke haze that has blanketed Melbourne over the Easter weekend is expected to clear on Monday night or Tuesday when a cold front moves over Victoria, the Bureau of Meteorology says. ❞

🪃 Evidence found in Mithaka Country of Australia’s first miners (2024-Mar-30) [The Saturday Paper]

❝ When the controversy erupted I was bemused because the facts speak for themselves and the outrage seemed to be confected. I think when people look back on this period they will wonder what all the fuss was about. It seems to have more to do with academic pride than scholarship.
European terms like “farming” cannot accurately describe Aboriginal food propagation methods but hunting and gathering is even further from the truth. It seemed that some in the press were desperate to deflect the idea of economic and agricultural activity in order to maintain the myth of peaceful and justified invasion. The rest of Australia seems ready to accept the obvious. ❞

🏕️ Authorities tell tourists ‘don’t just rely on Google Maps’ while travelling through outback Queensland (2024-Mar-29) [ABC News]

❝ Outback explorers are raring to hit Queensland’s red dirt tracks, but authorities are worried about the volume of inexperienced travellers relying on location mapping apps.
The Easter school holidays marks the unofficial start to the outback tourist season and tourism operators are busily preparing for an influx of visitors.
The State Emergency Service (SES) in the state’s far west said its biggest concern was people taking wrong directions while using location mapping apps. ❞

🔥 NSW coroner calls for overhaul of firefighting systems after black summer bushfires (2024-Mar-27) [The Guardian]

❝ The state coroner, Teresa O’Sullivan, presented her findings on Wednesday after holding hearings across the state for more than two years to examine 25 deaths and 46 fires across NSW that occurred during the 2019-20 bushfire season.
She made 28 recommendations directed to the commissioners of the NSW Rural Fire Service and police and the chief executive of state-owned infrastructure company Essential Energy. ❞

📄 Inquests and Inquiries into the 2019/2020 NSW Bushfire Season – Volume 2 Decision of State Coroner O’Sullivan [PDF]
📄 Inquests and Inquiries into the 2019/2020 NSW Bushfire Season – Volume 1 Decision of State Coroner O’Sullivan [PDF]

🧗 Playground charged over 8-year-old child’s horror 7m fall (2024-Mar-23) [news.com.au]

❝ WorkSafe Victoria alleges the child was playing at Funtopia Maribyrnong playground in July 2022 when they fell from a height of seven metres and sustained a fractured spine.
The workplace safety watchdog alleges the child fell due to faulty climbing safety equipment in an accident that could have been prevented.
It has accused the company of failing to reasonably reduce the risks of uncontrollable falls by adequately inspecting, maintaining and replacing its climbing safety equipment. ❞

🧗 Play centre charged after child injured in serious fall (2024-03-22) [WorkSafe Victoria]

❝ In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. ❞

— Albert Schweitzer