EVERYONE is invited to celebrate the start of the whale season by joining National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) and ORRCA (Organisation for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia) this Sunday for an official whale census.
Dedicated local whale watchers Elaine Reid, from Byron Bay, and Tiffany Lee, from Tyagarah, have been regulars up at Byron lighthouse for the past five months watching the whales on their northern migration spotting 80 whales since May 18 this year.
The June 4, 2016 week of wild weather has stress tested beaches and coastal management strategies along the east Australia coastline. Maximum wave heights reached almost 10 metres in the peak of the storm.
It is not surprising that developed areas with long term pro-active coastal management strategies to protect beaches and foreshore assets have weathered the test with very little impacts and developed coastlines with “do nothing” or ad hoc strategies have fared badly.
Examples of pro-active coastal management plans are Gold Coast and Noosa. Both use a combination of terminal seawalls combined with beach nourishment and coastal control structures such as groynes to widen the beaches seaward of the walls.
It was a big day for Australia’s first national title competitors at the inaugural nudie Australia Adaptive Surfing Titles. Cabarita Beach on the NSW north coast was the idyllic location for the event with fun waves and great conditions for the surfers.
The three-day event included an Adaptive Surfers of Australia (ASA) Forum, Adaptive Surfing Coaching Clinic and a day of competition surfing that decided the Australian Titles.
Mono was one of the standout competitors of the event and easily took out the AS2 division with a heat total of 12.66 to give himself a shot at back to back ISA World Adaptive Titles later in the year when the team travels to California to take on the rest of the world.
Byron Shire Councillor Rose Wanchap has hit back at critics of the Council’s rock wall at the Belongil.
In a full-page advertisement in this week’s Byron Shire News Cr Wanchap slams critics, particularly the Greens. She also attacks local media, accusing them of not wanting to publish the “good news” that the Belongil wall was a success.
“It is all too easy to twist facts to make a person look sinister,” she says in the advertisement.
Amid concerns as to Council’s CZMP policy decisions, Councillor Chris Cubis has answered Voice of Byron questions around Council’s decision-making process.
When asked for his response to allegations that the Committee preparing the CZMP was loaded with Belongil residents, Cr Cubis said that the CZMP was prepared by Council’s accepted coastal experts.
“In fact, there was no committee full of Belongil Residents writing the CZMP as suggested. We have run stakeholder and community forums, accepted the feedback and published it as part of the CZMP,” he said.
“The process has been both exhaustive and transparent.”
Story & photos John Campbell
All of a sudden, the threat of the wooden spoon looms larger than the prospect of a finals berth for the Byron Bay Red Devils.
Undaunted, however, by the boys’ leaky journey through the troubled waters of NRRRL Season 2016, and ignoring the inclement weather, an estimated 2,417 hardy souls turned up to support the Bay on Sunday in their clash with the Casino Cougars.
The iconic coastal and tourist region of Byron Bay and its surrounding towns has become the first local community to conduct a full audit of its greenhouse gas emissions as it maps out a plan to reach 100 per cent renewable energy and zero emissions by 2025.
The emissions inventory – unveiled at the local RenewFest festival that attracted some 2,000 people on the weekend and formally released on Tuesday at the National Assembly of Local Government in Canberra – assessed emissions from energy, buildings, land use, waste and transport, and possible solutions.
Telephone scammers posing as Australian Taxation Office officers have sparked a warning from Scamwatch, with some victims having already lost more than $100,000.
Police say they are investigating a number of frauds reported over the past month, in which people received calls claiming to be from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has signed a $36.6 million deal to buy APN News & Media’s Australian regional newspaper business, which includes The Byron Shire News and The Northern Star.
News Corp, already holds a stake of almost 15 per cent in APN, which means shareholder approval would also be required for what would be deemed a related-party transaction.
AS the federal election campaign trail heats up, the funding promises are being dangled left, right and centre but Byron seems to have become the ‘Forgotten Bay’.
Byron Shire Council Mayor Simon Richardson said, “you could be forgiven for thinking that the Byron Shire had been excised from the Richmond electorate.”