With monopoly comes responsibility – the NT News, fishos and marine reserves

Professor Karen Edyvane: "With the inaccurate, misinformed and highly partisan, 'anti-Marine Park' views of the Territory's only daily newspaper, the NT News, Territorians are neither being informed of the basic scientific facts, nor the overwhelming scientific consensus and support for Marine Parks - including 'no-take' Marine Sanctuaries. The NT News has instead, engaged in gross misinformation, inflammatory and partisan anti-Marine Park media coverage and editorial commentary."

“True Territorians” Teased by Terrible Tosser Taunts

I indicated by local sign language that I would stay where I was and that he should pass me, a signal involving a closed fist and one or two up and down movements of the wrist 'I'm staying here'. I should have realised of course that this signal wouldn't work cross-culturally and that only when I saw the police officer drive up to my window and start abusing me did I realise that this local signal had no currency with the constabulary. He protested I was being offensive and in between the yelling I attempted to somehow explain the intricacies of Bininj sign language. I realised it was a lost cause. It still is.

NT Media Awards scoop! No Punches thrown…

Nigel Adlam's award as NT Journalist of the Year was unsurprising and - in light of the three minor gongs awarded for solid work - deserved. But there were more than a few mutterings that it might have been better for him to leave the field to the many younger, and no less deserving, early career journalists who might appreciate the the nice cheque and trip to Brisbane for the Walkley Awards in a few weeks as much as he will.

Dump(s) of the week: Borroloola. Gulf country, Northern Territory

AMSANT noted in its submission that it: "...note[d] that the many threats to environmental and public health that have been largely eliminated in the rest of the nation over the past century still blight many of our communities: urban, regional and remote. To this extent, the capacity of comprehensive primary health care to meet the needs of Aboriginal Territorians—to Close the Gap—will continue to be frustrated in environments in which fundamental public health protections are not available or unmet." AMSANT was concerned at the parlous state of environmental health of many of the communities that its members serve, where: "Poor environmental health conditions in remote communities and town camps include inadequate sanitation, water supply, rubbish disposal and grossly overcrowded housing. Basic infrastructure in many remote communities is either absent, inadequate and/or poorly maintained."

“I will have the Police shoot your Dog” – animal management in the NT

This brings us back to the Notice at the Nyirripi Store and begs the following question. Has anyone bothered to ask the locals if they want the Police to shoot their dogs? No? I thought not.

Intervention Sign Wars in the Tanami Desert…part 1,045

Pornography Drop-off Point. "This one is at the airstrip and is one of a pair. The other one is at the entrance to Yuendumu near the patronising “Look for People” sign. We inspect the bins daily. So far nothing has been placed in them. Anything we recover from the bins, we will incinerate."

Deeply depressing news from the North – the slow death of bilingualism in remote Northern Territory schools

Central Australian government schools have lost their last linguist. The funding allocated for the salary for the remainder of the year will go to the Darwin Languages Centre, which deals with non-Indigenous and Indigenous languages, but is mostly about teaching as a second language.1 No funding has been allocated for a Central Australian linguist in 2012. There’s an Indigenous Language and Culture Officer position who supports schools, but again no funding is guaranteed for 2012.

Live cattle ban – the beginning of the end of pastoralism in the Northern Territory?

Pastoralism in the Northern Territory is really a form of strip mining. The pastoralists are mining some of the soil nutrient elements (chemicals) out of the grasses and other leaves and exporting them in live cattle. This is happening to some of the poorest soils and ecosystems in Australia. The operation is being subsidised by the government to a considerable extent. Cattle are little more than parasitic grit in the machinery of our ecosystem. How could it be otherwise? How could the pastoral industry possibly be ecologically sustainable in the Northern Territory?

Shitbox Rally = Clowns, Bulldust and Dickheads on the NT’s Stuart Highway

According to the Shitbox Rally organisers "it isn't a race". But from what I saw over these two days last week some of the contestants thought that the Stuart Highway was their own personal dragstrip. Throw in - as on this past Thursday - a setting sun drilling straight through your bug-encrusted windscreen, more than a few triple-trailer road-trains and the plague-locust army of caravans - travelling at 80 km/h - that infests the Stuart Highway at this time of year and it can be a positively dangerous stretch. Particularly for those - such as most of the Shitboxers - that have never driven the road before.

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