Enviro body ’tweet ban’

GEELONG Environment Council has accused Alcoa of banning it from the company’s Twitter feed for asking difficult questions.
Council president Joan Lindros described the snub as “extraordinary”.
Ms Lindros said the ban was applied as the group sought assurances that Alcoa would move to protect ecologically-sensitive heathlands if it relinquished its power station operations at Anglesea.
“I am amazed Alcoa has taken that action (the ban),” she Lindros told the Independent.
The environment council linked from Twitter to an open letter to Alcoa urging the company to “take some action now’’ to ensure the heathlands within its leasehold area were “passed to the highest government authority for ecological protection in perpetuity’’.
“If they sell it, if it’s to a Chinese company or some company that doesn’t care about our environment, that’s the worry’’ Ms Lindros said.
The environment council is also running a simultaneous campaign over the destruction of more than 1200 trees in Great Otway National Park.
The council said Department of Environment and Primary Industries had removed the trees at Big Hill and Breakfast Creek prior to burn-offs, distressing residents, conservationists and farmers and destroying bird and marsupial habitats.
The removal of 1000 trees to burn 370 hectares at Big Hill left a “tangled mess of roots, trunks and branches”, Ms Lindros said.
“Access in and out of the area is now difficult. The forest trees and tangled branches lying on the ground will make it extremely hard for department staff to control the burning trees around the boundaries.
“These could burn for weeks and potentially start new bushfires.’’
Alcoa and Department of Primary Industries had not replied to the Independent’s calls for comment when the paper went to press.