Salviador

I was looking for large pots today, (hard to find and bloody expensive), and i stumbled upon this brilliant invention Basically you have a line attached to a water tank and bury small porous ceramic pots amongst your plants, they leak out moisture dependent on the levels already in the soil, and the plants root system eventually grows around it. This invention i think is particularly useful for those of us in Queensland atm http://wateringsystems.net/

I think i might invest when i have a garden to myself. It's clearly a small business, and as such i would be happy to support his great idea. But yeah good idea and good luck to all who make cheap alternatives

I have been doing ki-aikido for 3 or so years now. The reason i decided to begin, was to develop a better understanding of how my body relates to others in physical reality. Ki-aikido focuses very much on redirecting intention/ki/energy/a punch in the most mutually harmonious way possible with an attitude of love and kindness. The emphasis for doing this is to become more aware/think less, balance, and being able to psychologically "lead" the opponents mind through baiting your opponent, making him believe he will hit you until the very last second, thus the opponent overbalances just a little, allowing the akidoka to safely redirect him to the ground. If you don't hurt your opponent you end the endless cycle of revenge and reinforce loving kindness. Boxing is the hardest art to combat with aikido as they keep their centre of gravity while attacking, but the law of the universe dictates that whoever attacks first will fall.

Fascinating! It's a skill i would like to develop, could be useful in telling if my friends have skipped a round or other such morally reprehensible crimes!!

Nice, with reference to the first post, i like the contrast between the black and whites with oxygen and prozac and dirt, then the colour of the two guys doofing and generally representing sensible humans. Man who is that in the first picture of the post of the 4 sab members, why he must be the most beautiful man ever created? And that second one, kinda reminds me of a praying mantis, king of the insectoids perhaps? Lovely pics, you inspire me to spend ridiculous amounts of money on cameras :)

If the entire world were coloured blue, there would be no blue. You need the other colours to contrast blue for it to exist. Similarly for something to be relative you must have something absolute, otherwise relative could not exist. Everything i know of changes, however for this to be true, there must be something that remains the same. I would argue that the observing self is the thing that remains the same. Its the same process in everyone, and its the sense of continuity of consciousness despite molecular, philosophical, social and biological changes in your identity. We are the universe experiencing itself, for the universe to experience itself, it needs something to observe and something to be observed. Thus you need a yin and a yang, you need relativity. However the universe itself is absolute.

I've Never had issues with Rev, an honest forum member I think he's offline at the moment, might be online again sometime soon computer pending.

I have one, and i find a compost rich area with medium sunlight and plenty of water allows it to kick along quite nicely. They grow easily from seed!

yeah im there! This is such a good idea for a party, us ethnobots are always nagging about the urban landscape, yet we willingly choose to live in the city... We are of course inseparable from nature and so wherever there is a number of us gathered, there is nature, lets celebrate that!

For some reason annas death has stood out for me, ive noticed more people talking baout it, and it stood out in the news papers and it just goes to show how much someone can burrow into your consciousness without you knowing it

During the day, a few friends and i will be grabbing our inflatable pool boats and taking to the brisbane river with beers and music if you would like to join us during the day and somehow stumble back to yours in the night, otherwise, i will do a solo mission and see you at yours in the night.

you need to come to an eb meet! As far as social stuff goes, youre right practice practice practice. Like you said, youll be half way through a sentence and ull get nervous someone is listening to you, and forget. Your mind is concentrating on the fear and not the conversation, are you prepared to have this happen in social situations in the pursuit of better social skills? More practically, maybe sit down and identify what your purpose for socialising. ie to share knowledge and experience. Ask someone what they do and aim to find out as much as possible, if someone asks stuff about you tell them what interests you about it the most and vice versa. Being fully present in the moment is helpful too, to do this focus on what you can see and hear, and what your first thought is of someone saying something, its usually relevant GOOD LUCK to you

I started out as a ethnobot, but now am also a trance head. I think theres a lot of people who are a mix of both who dont know it yet. EGA sounds good, is that in Melbourne tho? any links to teh detailz?? I have been trancing lots lately with less attention to what got me into it, i think a return to eb might be forthcoming this 2007

MY FIRST DOUBLE POST WWOOOOOOOTTTTTTT

find a comfortable place eyes closed or fixed on a spot just in front of your eyes Observe breathing, just look, dont control it, focus on the physical sensation Become aware that youre observing the breath. This will bring up lots of stuff, when you notice this, become aware youre noticing your thoughts and feelings. The aim is not to quiet the mind, but decrease the amount of time it takes you to realise you got distracted by thoughts and feelings and to bring yourself back to the task of observing. being. Try to bring this increased awareness, and mindfulness. Imagine if you can be more present in everyday life rather than only devoting a part of your consciousness to any given situation.

God helps those who help themselves. You're well on your way mate. If you have a picture of who you want to be then you can mark where you are and where you want to be, all that remains then is to move past those barriers. Your mind will tell you its too hard, you mind will tell you, you can't bear being emotionally expressive, or fun. Your mind will tell you that until you feel better you cant be the person you want to be, however you cant be happy until you are the person you want to be. Whether or not you believe the excuses your mind will come up with, you are still left with a choice, you can stay in your current state; the advantages thereof probably involve the comfort of your current situation, vs the potential uncomfort associated with changing the way you behave. If you want to be more expressive to those you love, then get a picture of what that looks like, then do it. Your mind will tell you that you will be rejected and that you will look like an idiot. Focus on what that feels like, is it an overwhelming feeling that you can't handle like your mind tells you? no, you will find that it is unpleasant but if you dont fight it, you can live with it and function in the way you choose, rather than how your emotions dictate you should behave through avoiding uncomfortable internal feelings. Dxm sounds like it is an excellent platform for you to become connected with your values, from these values you can derive goals that bring you into harmony with these values, then by accepting the fact that life and your mind will throw unpleasant situations at you, and knowing that you can function even with these things in full flight, then you can overcome this shit. The negative stuff will decrease as well. I urge you to look at this site, better yet find an Acceptance Commitment Therapy, Mindfulness based cognitive behaviour therapy or Neuro linguistic programming counsellor/psychologist and work with them on this issue. http://www.contextualpsychology.org/act http://www.contextualpsychology.org/the_si...rocesses_of_act

Light can't be a wave and a particle at the same time from the same observation point, just like free will cannot be the same as determinism from the same perspective. We have both. Our distinction between free will and determinism is a poor one, further contributing to the myth of us being separate from the rest of our surroundings. If we are separate from our surroundings then free will is in place, however if we are governed by the laws of determinism, there is a sense of dimished responsibility and connection on that level. Both perspectives are not particularly functional. To twix. As a probationary psychologist myself, i find the idea of determinism more frustrating than free will in psychology, because it means people don't have to take responsibility for their actions and can blame the way they are on their past. What is important is the present moment, and how you want to experience that, for the rest of your life.(i suspect you are doing research psyc ) Yes my past sux, and i want to effect change that will alter that in my future, by identifying this i can. Of course you could argue this was always going to happen, which is entirely true, but at some level you made a choice to do that. Thus i believe its a similar dealio to light being a wave particle = both dependent on observer ie objective truth=0

Basically, its got a half life of a couple of hundred years rather than a half life of the age of the earth, can be organised have much less potential for weapons, and is more abundant that uranium. The benefits are obvious, but include good for developing countries who would otherwise use coal, due to low weapons potential and relatively short halflife. And economically kikass, due to lots of it around and low half life. The only drawback is we need more research to make it economically viable/. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.htm Thorium November 2006 Thorium is much more abundant in nature than uranium. Thorium can also be used as a nuclear fuel through breeding to uranium-233 (U-233). When this thorium fuel cycle is used, much less plutonium and other transuranic elements are produced, compared with uranium fuel cycles. Several reactor concepts based on thorium fuel cycles are under consideration. Thorium is a naturally-occurring, slightly radioactive metal discovered in 1828 by the Swedish chemist Jons Jakob Berzelius, who named it after Thor, the Norse god of thunder. It is found in small amounts in most rocks and soils, where it is about three times more abundant than uranium. Soil commonly contains an average of around 6 parts per million (ppm) of thorium. Thorium occurs in several minerals, the most common being the rare earth-thorium-phosphate mineral, monazite, which contains up to about 12% thorium oxide, but average 6-7%. There are substantial deposits in several countries (see table). Thorium-232 decays very slowly (its half-life is about three times the age of the earth) but other thorium isotopes occur in its and in uranium's decay chains. Most of these are short-lived and hence much more radioactive than Th-232, though on a mass basis they are negligible. World thorium resources (economically extractable): Country Reserves (tonnes) Australia 300 000 India 290 000 Norway 170 000 USA 160 000 Canada 100 000 South Africa 35 000 Brazil 16 000 Other countries 95 000 World total 1 200 000 source: US Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries, January 1999. The 2005 IAEA-NEA "Red Book" gives a figure of 4.5 million tonnes of reserves and additional resources, but points out that this excludes data from much of the world. Geoscience Australia confirms the above 300,000 tonne figure for Australia, but stresses that this is based on assumptions, not direct geological data in the same way as most mineral rsources. When pure, thorium is a silvery white metal that retains its lustre for several months. However, when it is contaminated with the oxide, thorium slowly tarnishes in air, becoming grey and eventually black. Thorium oxide (ThO2), also called thoria, has one of the highest melting points of all oxides (3300°C). When heated in air, thorium metal turnings ignite and burn brilliantly with a white light. Because of these properties, thorium has found applications in light bulb elements, lantern mantles, arc-light lamps, welding electrodes and heat-resistant ceramics. Glass containing thorium oxide has a high refractive index and dispersion and is used in high quality lenses for cameras and scientific instruments. Thorium as a nuclear fuel Thorium, as well as uranium, can be used as a nuclear fuel. Although not fissile itself, thorium-232 (Th-232) will absorb slow neutrons to produce uranium-233 (U-233), which is fissile. Hence like uranium-238 (U-238) it is fertile. In one significant respect U-233 is better than uranium-235 and plutonium-239, because of its higher neutron yield per neutron absorbed. Given a start with some other fissile material (U-235 or Pu-239), a breeding cycle similar to but more efficient than that with U-238 and plutonium (in slow-neutron reactors) can be set up. The Th-232 absorbs a neutron to become Th-233 which normally decays to protactinium-233 and then U-233. The irradiated fuel can then be unloaded from the reactor, the U-233 separated from the thorium, and fed back into another reactor as part of a closed fuel cycle. Over the last 30 years there has been interest in utilising thorium as a nuclear fuel since it is more abundant in the Earth's crust than uranium. Also, all of the mined thorium is potentially useable in a reactor, compared with the 0.7% of natural uranium, so some 40 times the amount of energy per unit mass might theoretically be available (withouit recourse to fast breeder reactors). A major application for conventional PWRs involves fuel assemblies arranged so that a blanket of mainly thorium fuel rods surrounds a more-enriched seed element containing U-235 which supplies neutrons to the subcritical blanket. As U-233 is produced in the blanket it is burned there. This is the Light Water Breeder Reactor concept which has been successfully demonstrated in the USA in the 1970s. It is currently being developed in a more deliberately proliferation-resistant way. The central seed region of each fuel assembly will have uranium enriched to 20% U-235. The blanket will be thorium with some U-238, which means that any uranium chemically separated from it (for the U-233 ) is not useable for weapons. Spent blanket fuel also contains U-232, which decays rapidly and has very gamma-active daughters creating significant problems in handling the bred U-233 and hence conferring proliferation resistance. Plutonium produced in the seed will have a high proportion of Pu-238, generating a lot of heat and making it even more unsuitable for weapons than normal reactor-grade Pu. A variation of this is the use of whole homogeneous assembles arranged so that a set of them makes up a seed and blanket arrangement. If the seed fuel is metal uranium alloy instead of oxide, there is better heat conduction to cope with its higher temperatures. Seed fuel remains three years in the reactor, blanket fuel for up to 14 years. Since the early 1990s Russia has had a program to develop a thorium-uranium fuel, which more recently has moved to have a particular emphasis on utilisation of weapons-grade plutonium in a thorium-plutonium fuel. The program is based at Moscow's Kurchatov Institute and involves the US company Thorium Power and US government funding to design fuel for Russian VVER-1000 reactors. Whereas normal fuel uses enriched uranium oxide, the new design has a demountable centre portion and blanket arrangement, with the plutonium in the centre and the thorium (with uranium) around it*. The Th-232 becomes U-233, which is fissile - as is the core Pu-239. Blanket material remains in the reactor for 9 years but the centre portion is burned for only three years (as in a normal VVER). Design of the seed fuel rods in the centre portion draws on extensive experience of Russian navy reactors. * More precisely: A normal VVER-1000 fuel assembly has 331 rods each 9 mm diameter forming a hexagonal assembly 235 mm wide. Here, the centre portion of each assembly is 155 mm across and holds the seed material consisting of metallic Pu-Zr alloy (Pu is about 10% of alloy, and isotopically over 90% Pu-239) as 108 twisted tricorn-section rods 12.75 mm across with Zr-1%Nb cladding. The sub-critical blanket consists of U-Th oxide fuel pellets (1:9 U:Th, the U enriched up to almost 20%) in 228 Zr-1%Nb cladding tubes 8.4 mm diameter - four layers around the centre portion. The blanket material achieves 100 GWd/t burn-up. Together as one fuel assembly the seed and blanket have the same geometry as a normal VVER-100 fuel assembly. The thorium-plutonium fuel claims four advantages over MOX: proliferation resistance, compatibility with existing reactors - which will need minimal modification to be able to burn it, and the fuel can be made in existing plants in Russia - hence it could be used from 2006. In addition, a lot more plutonium can be put into a single fuel assembly than with MOX, so that three times as much can be disposed of as when using MOX. The spent fuel amounts to about half the volume of MOX and is even less likely to allow recovery of weapons-useable material than spent MOX fuel, since less fissile plutonium remains in it. With an estimated 150 tonnes of weapons Pu in Russia, the thorium-plutonium project would not necessarily cut across existing plans to make MOX fuel. Past R&D The use of thorium-based fuel cycles has been studied for about 30 years, but on a much smaller scale than uranium or uranium/plutonium cycles. Basic research and development has been conducted in Germany, India, Japan, Russia, the UK and the USA. Test reactor irradiation of thorium fuel to high burnups has also been conducted and several test reactors have either been partially or completely loaded with thorium-based fuel. Noteworthy experiments involving thorium fuel include the following, the first three being high-temperature gas-cooled reactors: Between 1967 and 1988, the AVR experimental pebble bed reactor at Julich, Germany, operated for over 750 weeks at 15 MWe, about 95% of the time with thorium-based fuel. The fuel used consisted of about 100 000 billiard ball-sized fuel elements. Overall a total of 1360 kg of thorium was used, mixed with high-enriched uranium (HEU). Maximum burnups of 150,000 MWd/t were achieved. Thorium fuel elements with a 10:1 Th/U (HEU) ratio were irradiated in the 20 MWth Dragon reactor at Winfrith, UK, for 741 full power days. Dragon was run as an OECD/Euratom cooperation project, involving Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland in addition to the UK, from 1964 to 1973. The Th/U fuel was used to 'breed and feed', so that the U-233 formed replaced the U-235 at about the same rate, and fuel could be left in the reactor for about six years. General Atomics' Peach Bottom high-temperature, graphite-moderated, helium-cooled reactor (HTGR) in the USA operated between 1967 and 1974 at 110 MWth, using high-enriched uranium with thorium. In India, the Kamini 30 kWth experimental neutron-source research reactor using U-233, recovered from ThO2 fuel irradiated in another reactor, started up in 1996 near Kalpakkam. The reactor was built adjacent to the 40 MWt Fast Breeder Test Reactor, in which the ThO2 is irradiated. In the Netherlands, an aqueous homogenous suspension reactor has operated at 1MWth for three years. The HEU/Th fuel is circulated in solution and reprocessing occurs continuously to remove fission products, resulting in a high conversion rate to U-233. There have been several experiments with fast neutron reactors. Power reactors Much experience has been gained in thorium-based fuel in power reactors around the world, some using high-enriched uranium (HEU) as the main fuel: The 300 MWe THTR reactor in Germany was developed from the AVR and operated between 1983 and 1989 with 674,000 pebbles, over half containing Th/HEU fuel (the rest graphite moderator and some neutron absorbers). These were continuously recycled on load and on average the fuel passed six times through the core. Fuel fabrication was on an industrial scale. The Fort St Vrain reactor was the only commercial thorium-fuelled nuclear plant in the USA, also developed from the AVR in Germany, and operated 1976 - 1989. It was a high-temperature (700°C), graphite-moderated, helium-cooled reactor with a Th/HEU fuel designed to operate at 842 MWth (330 MWe). The fuel was in microspheres of thorium carbide and Th/U-235 carbide coated with silicon oxide and pyrolytic carbon to retain fission products. It was arranged in hexagonal columns ('prisms') rather than as pebbles. Almost 25 tonnes of thorium was used in fuel for the reactor, and this achieved 170,000 MWd/t burn-up. Thorium-based fuel for Pressurised Water Reactors (PWRs) was investigated at the Shippingport reactor in the USA using both U-235 and plutonium as the initial fissile material. It was concluded that thorium would not significantly affect operating strategies or core margins. The light water breeder reactor (LWBR) concept was also successfully tested here from 1977 to 1982 with thorium and U-233 fuel clad with Zircaloy using the 'seed/blanket' concept. The 60 MWe Lingen Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) in Germany utilised Th/Pu-based fuel test elements. India In India, both Kakrapar-1 and -2 units are loaded with 500 kg of thorium fuel in order to improve their operation when newly-started. Kakrapar-1 was the first reactor in the world to use thorium, rather than depleted uranium, to achieve power flattening across the reactor core. In 1995, Kakrapar-1 achieved about 300 days of full power operation and Kakrapar-2 about 100 days utilising thorium fuel. The use of thorium-based fuel was planned in Kaiga-1 and -2 and Rajasthan-3 and -4 (Rawatbhata) reactors. With about six times more thorium than uranium, India has made utilisation of thorium for large-scale energy production a major goal in its nuclear power program, utilising a three-stage concept: Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs, elsewhere known as CANDUs) fuelled by natural uranium, plus light water reactors, produce plutonium. Fast Breeder Reactors (FBRs) use this plutonium-based fuel to breed U-233 from thorium. The blanket around the core will have uranium as well as thorium, so that further plutonium (ideally high-fissile Pu) is produced as well as the U-233. Then Advanced Heavy Water Reactors burn the U-233 and this plutonium with thorium, getting about 75% of their power from the thorium. The spent fuel will then be reprocessed to recover fissile materials for recycling. This Indian program has moved from aiming to be sustained simply with thorium to one "driven" with the addition of further fissile uranium and plutonium, to give greater efficiency. Another option for the third stage, while continuing with the PHWR and FBR programs, is the subcritical Accelerator-Driven Systems (ADS), - see below. Emerging advanced reactor concepts Concepts for advanced reactors based on thorium-fuel cycles include: Light Water Reactors - With fuel based on plutonium oxide (PuO2), thorium oxide (ThO2) and/or uranium oxide (UO2) particles arranged in fuel rods. High-Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors (HTGR) of two kinds: pebble bed and with prismatic fuel elements. Gas Turbine-Modular Helium Reactor (GT-MHR) - Research on HTGRs in the USA led to a concept using a prismatic fuel. The use of helium as a coolant at high temperature, and the relatively small power output per module (600 MWth), permit direct coupling of the MHR to a gas turbine (a Brayton cycle), resulting in generation at almost 50% thermal efficiency. The GT-MHR core can accommodate a wide range of fuel options, including HEU/Th, U-233/Th and Pu/Th. The use of HEU/Th fuel was demonstrated in the Fort St Vrain reactor (see above). Pebble-Bed Modular reactor (PBMR) - Arising from German work the PBMR was conceived in South Africa and is now being developed by a multinational consortium. It can potentially use thorium in its fuel pebbles. Molten salt reactors - This is an advanced breeder concept, in which the fuel is circulated in molten salt, without any external coolant in the core. The primary circuit runs through a heat exchanger, which transfers the heat from fission to a secondary salt circuit for steam generation. It was studied in depth in the 1960s, but is now being revived because of the availability of advanced technology for the materials and components. Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) - India is working on this, and like the Canadian CANDU-NG the 250 MWe design is light water cooled. The main part of the core is subcritical with Th/U-233 oxide, mixed so that the system is self-sustaining in U-233. A few seed regions with conventional MOX fuel will drive the reaction and give a negative void coefficient overall. CANDU-type reactors - AECL is researching the thorium fuel cycle application to enhanced CANDU-6 and ACR-1000 reactors. With 5% plutonium (reactor grade) plus thorium high burn-up and low power costs are indicated. Plutonium disposition - Today MOX (U,Pu) fuels are used in some conventional reactors, with Pu-239 providing the main fissile ingredient. An alternative is to use Th/Pu fuel, with plutonium being consumed and fissile U-233 bred. The remaining U-233 after separation could be used in a Th/U fuel cycle. Use of thorium in Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS) In an ADS system, high-energy neutrons are produced through the spallation reaction of high-energy protons from an accelerator striking heavy target nuclei (lead, lead-bismuth or other material). These neutrons can be directed to a subcritical reactor containing thorium, where the neutrons breed U-233 and promote the fission of it. There is therefore the possibility of sustaining a fission reaction which can readily be turned off, and used either for power generation or destruction of actinides resulting from the U/Pu fuel cycle. The use of thorium instead of uranium means that less actinides are produced in the ADS itself. (see paper on Accelerator-Driven Nuclear Energy). Developing a thorium-based fuel cycle Problems include the high cost of fuel fabrication due partly to the high radioactivity of U-233 which is always contaminated with traces of U-232 (69 year half life but whose daughter products such as thallium-208 are strong gamma emitters with very short half lives); the similar problems in recycling thorium due to highly radioactive Th-228 (an alpha emitter with 2 year half life), some weapons proliferation risk of U-233 (if it could be separated on its own); and the technical problems (not yet satisfactorily solved) in reprocessing. Much development work is still required before the thorium fuel cycle can be commercialised, and the effort required seems unlikely while (or where) abundant uranium is available. Nevertheless, the thorium fuel cycle, with its potential for breeding fuel without the need for fast-neutron reactors, holds considerable potential long-term. It is a key factor in the sustainability of nuclear energy. Sources: Thorium based fuel options for the generation of electricity: Developments in the 1990s, IAEA-TECDOC-1155, International Atomic Energy Agency, May 2000. The role of thorium in nuclear energy, Energy Information Administration/Uranium Industry Annual, 1996, p.ix-xvii. Nuclear Chemical Engineering (2nd Ed.), Chapter 6: Thorium, M Benedict, T H Pigford and H W Levi, 1981, McGraw-Hill, p.283-317, ISBN: 0-07-004531-3. See also: lead paper in Indian Nuclear Society 2001 conference proceedings, vol 2. Kazimi M.S. 2003, Thorium Fuel for Nuclear Energy, American Scientist Sept-Oct 2003. Morozov et al 2005, Thorium fuel as a superior approach to disposing of excess weapons-grade plutonium in Russian VVER-1000 reactors. Nuclear Future? OECD NEA & IAEA, 2006, Uranium 2005: Resources, Production and Demand.

nice one! it was a pleasure to read, succinct, and a very good angle to approach this style of teaching in my opinion

could it be yohimbe?

glass molecules of dmt, mdma, psilocin, serotonin plus you get to support erowid!! http://www.erowid.org/donations/incentives_molecule.php

I believe that the universe is reflected in something as simple as a grain of sand. In my opinion, everything we do is a completely new, creation, as before that moment in time nothing before it had existed that was the same. I agree that most creating esp music movies and most art is a tasteful (but not always) combination of two or more previously unlinked concepts or objects. I spose it depends on how you define creation, from what i gather, your definition is the ability to bring something into this reality that didnt previously exist in it. So I can interpret this two ways, that every moment is new, thus the completeness of the universe is continually becoming created and our perception of it updates at a similar speed. Thus the devine creature who makes the grass green is actually you, or your consciousness. The other way i could argue is that you are correct and it is not possible to bring anything into this reality that does not exist as whatever you brought in would already be part of the universe, as per the definition of the universe as everything. good question!

From http://www.dtei.sa.gov.au/stopthink/drug_driving_FAQ.asp Why would it not detect dex-amphetamine (adhd medication)? Does this mean people can get blotto off adhd medication and drive without fear or persecution?

This is from a wilderness society ally. Look up the addresses of your mps in the paper and give them a call, hell know any newpaper editors? call them too!!!!!!! At 6am today the activist camp and pirate ship in the world heritage value Lower Weld Valley, Tasmania was raided by 60 police and special services and the area declared an exclusion zone, the first move by Gunns to log old growth in the area. No arrests have currently been made but the activists were caught off guard and only one tree sitter and two lockons have been successful. Activists climb trees and chain themselves to equipment in these situations in order to give people on the ground time to generate publicity and public dissent. The Lower Weld Valley adjoins the South West National Park, listed by the UN as a world heritage area. It needs to be saved for a multitude of reasons but mainly as a buffer zone to protect the area already listed by the UN. Without a buffer zone in place many species of flora and fauna will be decimated as they no longer have the protection of thousands of hectares of forest. The heritage area will be at great risk of uncontrollable fire when Gunns napalm bomb what it has clearfelled in the Weld Valley. After the Styx valley of giants was saved in the last federal election, Gunns napalmed an adjoining forest and the fire burned out of control for three months, destroying ALL that people around the nation protested to save. The public were then left uninformed. With 64 football fields A DAY clearfelled in Tasmania by Gunns we cannot afford to lose any more old growth. Scientists estimate some trees in the valley are over 900 years old. These regnans, bluegums, myrtle and sassafras amongst many others can never be replaced once gone. Entomology research has taken place in the valley and academics at the University of Tasmania have rediscovered previously thought extinct species, endangered species and also have discovered new species. However, Gunns are exempt from the endangered species act which prohibits the wilful destruction of their habitat. Tasmania's forests need your help today. This area will not be saved without the condemnation of the nation. Call your federal member and register your protest at the destruction of Tasmania's old growth, specifically the Weld Valley which is about to, hopefully, garner the attention of the nation. For there is no chance of saving it if not. We will not get the media we urgently require without your help though so please take two minutes from your day to take some action. If you can, make it down to Tasmania and show your support for the activists over the coming days and week. Flights from Melbourne for this weekend currently cost around $160 for the wilderness experience of your lifetime. All your efforts are appreciated.

We generally meet outside the cafe at the botanicals, the cafe is just near the main entrance to the gardens, where they have the herbs and stuff. IF you arent there by 1230 or so we will move down to the gardens for a while near the lakes just out the back of the cafe. I will attempt to erect some sort or a sign that says eb meet or something so you dont have to ask randoms if this is the eb meet