April school holiday season in NSW is also koala breeding season.

Car crash stats from the Northern Rivers:
"From May 2023 to May 2024, 71 koalas were hit by vehicles, of which just 13 were rehabilitated and released back to the wild. Unfortunately, 80% of koalas hit by vehicles last year did not survive the impact. Our statistics show that there has been a 15% increase in the number of koalas admitted to our Northern Rivers Koala Hospital as a result of car strikes than the previous year. In a single week in 2023 six koalas died from vehicle strikes and from June to December 2022, Friends of the Koala, were called to 42 car strikes across the Northern Rivers region. This is devastating."

"Urban environments are stressful and disorienting for koalas. They experience both acute and chronic stress trying to find sufficient food and negotiating roads, domestic dogs, pools and fences."
>>
https://friendsofthekoala.org/koalas-and-cars/
#mobility #koalas #wildlife #roads #cars #speeding #RoadTrauma #pets #dogs #holidays #Bellingen #NSW #biodiversity

Weeds - "We need to go and make sure you can't buy them anymore."

The ecological damage already caused by weeds that had 'escaped' household gardens was tiny compared to the potential threat posed by plants sold at gardening retailers.

"We've introduced so many plants into Australia now that, when you go for a walk in your local bush, one in eight of the plant species you see there have been introduced. At least three-quarters of weeds established in the Australian environment have come from escaped garden plants, according to a 2004 report by biosecurity strategist John Virtue."
>>
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-06/garden-stores-selling-plants-that-could-be-next-invasive-weeds/105128092
#plants #flora #weeds #gardens #culture #BushDumping #dumping #horticulture #industry #markets #regulation #Bellingen #InvasiveSpecies #NSW

Careless drivers knocking down signage II

Cnr of #RosesRoad, John Locke Pl. Ever since the #GlenifferRoad 'upgrade'. No road is ever wide enough.
#Cars #speeding #roads #motorists #Bellingen #speeding #BellingenShire #inaction #gleniffer #koalas #RecklessDriving

Careless drivers knocking down signage I

#RosesRoad, Roses Bridge, Unnamed Creek, #Bellingen
#Cars #GlenifferRoad #upgrade #speeding

Paris residents to vote on making 500 more streets pedestrian

"Parisians vote in a referendum on Sunday to decide whether an extra 500 of the city's streets should be pedestrianised and greened, in a new push by the French capital's left-leaning town hall to curb car usage and improve air quality."

"This is the third such referendum in Paris in as many years, following a 2023 vote that approved a ban on e-scooters, and a decision last year to triple parking charges for large SUVs.For the past 25 years we've gradually been reclaiming public space for pedestrian traffic, for gentle traffic, and with 'garden streets', to create lungs within neighbourhoods, the places where we live."

"If approved, Sunday's referendum will eliminate 10,000 extra parking spots in Paris, adding to the 10,000 removed since 2020. The capital's two million residents will be consulted on which streets will become pedestrian areas. If Parisians vote in favour of the proposal, the 500 streets to be vegetated will bring the total of these "green lungs" to nearly 700, just over one-tenth of the capital's streets."

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/paris-residents-vote-making-500-more-streets-pedestrian-2025-03-22/
#cars #pedestrians #pollution #air #traffic #FossilFuels #climate #PublicSpaces #Bellingen

Bellingen, Hyde St.: We like speeding trucks and parking, parking and parking...

At least turn Church St. from a car park into 'green infrastructure'