Our environmental credentials are looking good

Sunday, 24 January 2010 13:58

I am very proud that 50,000 trees have been propagated and planted by council in the past 12 months and was pleased to be able to plant a red cedar at Mossman in an area where they would have been prolific before the early timber cutters wiped them out early last century. An additional 30,000 trees were provided for community groups such as Treeforce and Rainforest Rescue which operates north of the Daintree. Council has completed a greenhouse gas emissions inventory and set carbon emission reduction targets. Practical initiatives include solar public lighting in parks and at boat ramps, renewable energy systems on library buildings and voltage reduction for building lighting circuits. A great achievement has been the closure of the Portsmith Landfill. The siting of a major landfill next to Trinity Inlet has been a major cause of concern for the last two decades with the risk of leaching and environmental damage. Unfortunately, it is not feasible to capture the methane gas emissions for power generation. Regrettably, the previous council did not initiate this when emissions were at their peak. It was great to see the headline, Bicycle paths the way to a more livable future in the Cairns Post's Thinking Allowed column by reporter David Sexton. David recounts his daily experience of riding into the city to work and how important it is that bikes and cars are kept apart as much as possible. Fortunately our future-thinking councillors have been able to carry the day and we'll be proceeding with the first separate cycle-way to be built outside of Brisbane. With improvements also underway to other bike paths leading to the city, we will end up with safer ways to get into the city and be able to lessen our reliance on cars.