{"id":1561,"date":"2013-12-06T13:21:07","date_gmt":"2013-12-06T03:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=1561"},"modified":"2013-12-06T13:21:07","modified_gmt":"2013-12-06T03:21:07","slug":"federal-funding-denied-for-devil-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=1561","title":{"rendered":"Federal funding denied for devil program"},"content":{"rendered":"In the lead-up to the federal election the former federal government announced it would not provide $4 million in funding for a project submitted under the Caring for Country program by the Save The Tasmanian Devil Program. The Devil Island Project would have enabled the relocation of Tasmanian devils from insurance populations, that are free of the fatal facial fungal disease decimating the species in the wild, to be safely enclosed behind a 4.8km fence across the Freycinet Peninsula on Tasmania\u2019s east coast. Similar plans are being prepared for a 40km barricade in the state\u2019s north-west.\r\n\r\nWhile he refused to commit to funding the project if the Coalition won government, federal environment minister Greg Hunt instead said his intention would be to work with Zoos Victoria and the Tasmanian government on a Tassie devil recovery program, and to: \u201cwork to preserve, protect and help the population of Tassie devils recover.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe STTDP is jointly funded by the Tasmanian and federal governments, but doubts were raised recently about the state government\u2019s commitment to the program after reports STTDP\u2019s research centre at Launceston\u2019s Mount Pleasant Laboratories in the state\u2019s north was to be shut down, putting vital long-term research in jeopardy, and a number of jobs at risk.\r\n\r\nResponding to the criticism Tasmania\u2019s environment minister Brian Wightman said the state government remained absolutely committed to maintaining funding, and he had already discussed ways of funding the proposed fencing project with his federal counterpart.\r\n\r\n\u201cDuring the election campaign and the caretaker period I made it very clear to the Labor Party I was extremely disappointed we had a funding cut. We remain absolutely committed from a state point of view that we will maintain the funding. When it comes to Mount Pleasant , the workers, and the scientific research \u2013 and the Save the Tasmanian Devil facility is a Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment facility \u2013 we remain absolutely committed to the research they do. It\u2019s world class and incredibly important,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nIn criticising the federal government\u2019s failure to fund the fencing project, Australian Greens leader Christine Milne questioned the commitment to ensuring the survival of the iconic species.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s already not got very great genetic diversity. It\u2019s been wiped out in a number of places, and we\u2019re trying to be able to get insurance populations but these are really last-minute rescue efforts, and to slach that is condemning the devil to extinction and it\u2019s wrong,\u201d she said.\r\n\r\nSenator Milne has written to Minister Hunt, requesting that he urgently restore federal funding for the program, and to ensure: \u201cthe vital services of the Mount Pleasant laboratory – the cornerstone of advanced research to find a vaccine – are secure.\u201d\r\n\r\nWightman stressed the federal funding was not directly for scientific projects, but \u201cmoney from a state level would contribute towards scientific research and all other initiatives that we undertake. We, as a government remain committed to the Save The Tasmanian Devil Program and we call on the federal government to resume funding that has been in place since 1996.\u201d\r\n\r\nAnne Layton-Bennett<\/strong>\r\n\r\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the lead-up to the federal election the former federal government announced it would not provide $4 million in funding for a project submitted under the Caring for Country program by the Save The Tasmanian Devil Program. The Devil Island Project would have enabled the relocation of Tasmanian devils from insurance populations, that are free […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1366,1365,302,515,1150,105,334],"class_list":["post-1561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-cuts","tag-economising","tag-funding","tag-government","tag-save-the-tasmanian-devil-program","tag-tasmania","tag-tasmanian-devils"],"rise-blocks_total_comments":1,"rise-blocks_categories":[{"term_id":5,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":415,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":5,"category_count":415,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"rise-blocks_excerpt":"In the lead-up to the federal election the former federal government announced it would not provide $4 million in funding for a project submitted under the Caring for Country program by the Save The Tasmanian Devil Program. The Devil Island Project would have enabled the relocation of Tasmanian devils from insurance populations, that are free of the fatal facial fungal..","blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","full":""},"categories_names":{"5":{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?cat=5"}},"tags_names":{"1366":{"name":"cuts","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=cuts"},"1365":{"name":"economising","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=economising"},"302":{"name":"funding","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=funding"},"515":{"name":"government","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=government"},"1150":{"name":"Save The Tasmanian Devil Program","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=save-the-tasmanian-devil-program"},"105":{"name":"Tasmania","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=tasmania"},"334":{"name":"Tasmanian Devils","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=tasmanian-devils"}},"comments_number":"1","wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","cvmm-medium":"","cvmm-medium-plus":"","cvmm-portrait":"","cvmm-medium-square":"","cvmm-large":"","cvmm-small":"","full":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1562,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561\/revisions\/1562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}