AMTA Snapshot Edition 158

Mobile industry takes steps to help protect gorillas? Congo habitat The mobile phone industry shares concerns about the plight of gorillas in the Eastern Congo and handset manufacturers take steps to help protect their habitat from destruction. The Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA), Chris Althaus, said handset manufacturers required suppliers of coltan, which is used in some handset capacitors, to verify and certify that it was not obtained from the environmentally-sensitive regions in the Congo.

Your Planet Needs you! ? UNite to combat climate change by recycling your old mobiles this coming World Environment Day - Friday 5 June To celebrate World Environment Day this year, MobileMuster in partnership with Landcare Australia will plant a native tree for every kilogram of mobile phones sent in to MobileMuster as part of the Old Phones More Trees campaign. One of this year?s projects will be restoring precious habitat for Koala?s in Victoria.

WHO and weight of science says children?s mobile use is safe With news reports this week that the French government is considering banning mobile phones from schools, it is understandable that parents may be concerned about their children?s mobile phone use, AMTA Chief Executive Officer, Chris Althaus, said today.

Australian mobile phone shipments rise 2% in 2009. There were 2.8 million mobile phones shipped to Australia in the first four months of this year, indicating that despite the difficult financial times, mobile telecommunications is quite high on Australians? list of discretionary household expenditure. The latest figures published by the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA) show a 1.7% increase in shipments compared to the four-months period in 2008.

Sign up for next week's AMTA Members Forum The next major step in the Government?s process of setting the rules for industry access to vital new spectrum is the Digital Dividend Green Paper. The Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA) has organised an industry briefing on June 4 to update Members on industry efforts to gain clarity over this vital process.

MobileMuster on show at Melbourne?s Waste Education Conference The conference held last week in Melbourne provided a forum for metropolitan Councils to investigate the gaps in waste education and determine how these gaps might be filled by initiatives in the future.

Stronger defence against cyber bullying The power of principals to protect their students from bullying has been extended beyond the school gate, in response to the widespread reach of techno-savvy bullies, the South Australian government announced this week.

Fire phone alerts proposed in 2001 The Victorian and federal governments were urged to adopt a successful telephone-based emergency alert system seven years before Black Saturday, when wildfires engulfed a number of communities before warnings could be given through the media and over the internet, the Australian newspaper writes this week.

Toxic Australian e-waste dumped on China Illegal shipments of electronic waste from Australian homes - old computers, televisions and mobile phones - have been seized from cargo vessels, part of a little-known smuggling trade that fuels child labour and toxic pollution in China.