THE Wildflower Society Murdoch Branch is celebrating its quarter-century anniversary with a free community fair in April. It’s at the Cockburn Wetland Education Centre, Bibra Lake from 5.30pm on April 17.

EDDIE WAJON’S last-gasp attempt to save increasingly rare remnants of cockatoo habitat from being bulldozed for Roe 8 has failed.

The long-time Wildflower Society chief had written to deputy prime minister Warren Truss, pleading with him to halt plans to clear 38 hectares of native bush that will make way for a 5.2km extension to join Kwinana Freeway in Jandakot to Stock Road in Coolbellup.

“Land in this area has already been cleared extensively for the Jandakot airport extension, Fiona Stanley Hospital and the Cockburn Central West development,” says Dr Wajon, 62.

“We have decimated the cockatoo population and this will just be another nail in the coffin.

“It’s not worth destroying so drivers can cut five minutes off their journey to Fremantle.”

Cocky request knocked back

Dr Wajon asked Mr Truss to divert the spending to freight rail improvements.

But the deputy PM says rail can’t handle all freight.

“The growing freight task means that there is a critical role for both road and rail … to and from Fremantle Port,” he replied.

Mr Truss says more than 400ha of cockatoo habitat will be conserved, and 8.4ha of Horse Paddock Swamp restored to “offset” the lost North Lake bush.

“Cockatoos need to nest in large banksias, jarrahs and marri trees which are old enough to have hollows,” Dr Wajon says.

“You can’t just replace a 500-year-old marri tree in a day.

“If these trees are gone, where are these birds going to feed? Where are they going to rest at night? They will either be pushed out of the area or starve to death.”

by EMMIE DOWLING