Affordable housing is good for the environment

Affordable housing is good for the environment

Urban sprawl creates unsustainable cities and towns that destroy local habitats and ecosystems, increase carbon emissions and energy consumption, and contribute to poverty, isolation and poor health in communities. Addressing housing affordability through the planning system can help create neighbourhoods that are spatially efficient, well-connected and well-serviced. These neighbourhoods have a lower carbon footprint and require less energy consumption to build, maintain and use. Neighbourhoods with affordable housing options have the potential be to more socially and environmentally sustainable, helping to minimise the impact of cities and towns on both the local and global environment. 

Article by Melinda Morris, University of Tasmania

The long-spined sea urchin

The long-spined sea urchin

The long-spined sea urchin (Centrostephanus rodgersii) is on the verge of a population explosion that will see it cause lifeless ‘barrens’ in the biodiverse reef habitats across large areas of Tasmania’s east coast.

Large rock lobsters are the only effective natural predator of sea urchins, but overfishing has left to few of them to be an effective control in many areas. Critically, lobsters need to be substantially larger than the legal size before they can flip the urchins on their back and open up their soft underside. The legal catch size is 110 mm for males and 105 mm for females but lobsters need to be at least 140 mm to kill a mature urchin.

State Government back-tracks on compulsory cat confinement

The TCT said today that while there are many positive aspects of the Tasmanian Cat Management Plan, released yesterday, it is highly disappointing that the state government has decided to not legislate for compulsory confinement of pet cats. Instead, the government intends leaving it to each council to implement local by-laws if they want to have powers to confine pet cats...