Memes, rage and campaigns

Just to prove I haven't entirely lost my sense of humour - here are another couple of gems I found on Facebook. I've always thought cats had a rather wry sense of humour and this confirms it. 

You might have to be an Aussie to appreciate the next one. I think it's hilarious and for anyone who has stepped barefoot on a kid's Lego block, it certainly captures the moment.

So what else is happening? 

Apart from watching gorgeous baby wombat or numbat Facebook videos, and going for bike rides, I'm still busy with the Fire & Biodiversity group. It's going to be a long haul. The odds of having a win against any government department are slim. I still think it will come down to occupying the forest and chaining ourselves to trees but for now I am supporting those who believe we can effect change through the usual channels. 

Unfortunately this takes time and in the meantime, forest management agencies are destroying ecosystems while we are forced to look on. But we have many allies now - nearly 2000 people in the Facebook group and they are watching closely. So even though the enquiry we are calling for was recently declined by the environment minister, we are keeping the pressure on. They know we are watching and we will hold them to account eventually. I just hope we can slow the damage until then.

I'm doing the graphic design work for our group and that is keeping me pretty busy. The infographic above is me working out style and format - content yet to be decided. To have a chance of winning this fight we need the public behind us so a huge re-education campaign is required. I say 're-education' because at the moment most people believe prescribed burning is keeping them safe and convincing them otherwise is a difficult argument to prosecute. The public have little idea of the destruction that is going on in our precious forests and a lot probably don't care as long as they believe 'hazard reduction' programs  are stopping their houses from being burnt in a wildfire. They conveniently ignore how many wildfires are actually escaped prescribed burns. They also don't understand how decades of forestry and short cycle fire management have contributed to the problem by encouraging highly inflammable understorey.

Above was a known numbat habitat, 'prescribed' burnt in March 2021. No numbats have been seen in the area since and it is likely baby numbats were incinerated in the hollowed out logs that these little guys live in. 

Below is an image of a numbat that has had to evacuate the fire - it is disoriented and possibly stressing about its babies and loss of its home. (You can just see it off the right hand corner of the inset).

This is a karda (Racehorse goanna) with its foot burnt off in another 'prescribed burn' in the Mercea block of the Walpole Wilderness last year. In a cool fire, these lizards would likely escape, but the fires being conducted by 'authorities' are so hot, often incendiary fires that encircle an area, leaving no escape routes.

Lots of images of cute bioturbators and marsupial mammals will be needed to change minds so I'm getting more familiar with tiny honey possums (for the logo below) and numbats (in the infographic above).

New vector logo. I had to redo it as the old one I did in a hurry was only raster and low resolution.

Original Numbat.

More graphic experiments - creating motifs to be used and reused on different educational material.

I'm not being paid for this work but I am happy to use my skills for something important so I don't mind. My 'real' job still pays the bills.

I haven't been blogging much for months and the reason - a combination of using computer time to do graphics, but also an inability to express the grief and rage at the wanton destruction of our beautiful country as these maniac arsonists burn the hell out of it. Sometimes I am just too angry for words, but I'm determined to keep fighting - maybe just because my sense of justice won't allow these bastards to get away with it.

Photo refs: Courtesy of FaBWA Facebook group page

Artwork: © Author - Mad Fish Designs