SUBMISSION to HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES INQUIRY INTO BIODIVERSITY
PRECIOUS BEYOND MEASURE
Our biodiversity is inestimably precious[i] because we do not know and cannot quantify what the consequences of losing so many apex species in any ecosystem will be, and Australia has lost SO MANY due almost entirely to LAND CLEARING, which continues to this day.
In this federal government report[ii], it is stated that; “There is perhaps no greater threat to Australia’s biodiversity than climate change.” I, the Queensland Museum[iii] and Tim Low, ecologist & author of 'Climate Change and Biodiversity',[iv] beg to differ. The imperative to lower CO2 emissions is NOT ‘the most important moral challenge of our time…’. According to this scientist who has been studying climate change and biodiversity for decades, who knows more about the specifics and their wider implications than all the rest of us put together, says that CO2 is the THIRD most important priority for governments to address, that the Nitrogen Cycle is the second most important and that THE ABSOLUTE PRIORITY and pressing need for governments and for everybody to act on now, is avoidable BIODIVERSITY LOSS.
It’s all about the ecological balance/stability of our only home in a vast, empty universe –it’s our habitat that a stable biodiversity underpins, not just 'wildlife habitat' – we're all dependent on healthy, resilient, well integrated ecological structures that support all the life on this planet. Any hospital will tell you the first principle in treating illness is TRIAGE – treat the biggest threat to the living body first…and urgently. In terms of slowing down and stopping biodiversity loss, that translates as: (and my list of suggestions is extensive and cannot all be included here):
> STOPPING ANY FURTHER DESTRUCTION OF BIODIVERSITY ANYWHERE, on a continental-wide scale, prioritising threatened, endangered and critically endangered ecologies and facilitating RESTORATION at a grass-roots level. All fragmented remnants must first and foremost be protected, then buffered and linked up wherever possible.
>ESTABLISHING WILDLIFE CORRIDORS[v] - I have done extensive research on this critically important element of regeneration to restore the integrity of ecosystems by connecting fragmented remnants and allowing movement of animals and plants, and will send you this in due course. The thesis for my Bachelor of Arts degree at Southern Cross University is concerned with the restoration of the network of Aboriginal Migratory Trails, mostly saved in the Stock Route System that usurped them, which involves restoring native biodiversity, predominantly ‘bush tucker’ for the benefit of walkers and trail riders. I have also extensively studied the Kyapo Amazon revegetation methods, which can be applied very easily to all Australian ecosystems. I have also submitted a Vine forest revegetation plan, in detail, in my Cloyna Nature Reserve Report.[vi]
…OCEAN LIFE - The main reason why we should restrict emissions RIGHT NOW is to try and save life in the oceans currently threatened with acidification and pollution.[vii] (How’s the biodiversity in the Mexican Gulf by the way? Who is monitoring the widespread collapse of life that has occurred since the entirely avoidable oil spill?)
I have a few questions for Tony Burke:
Re: The possible imminent collapse of ocean ecologies - Do you think the deaths of 90 groper in the Gulf of Carpentaria from bacterial disease, the complete disappearance of Australia’s Giant Cuttlefish, the proliferation of jellyfish around the world[viii], and the collapse of other sea creature populations[ix] are species specific phenomena or could it be the beginning of the collapse of the entire marine ecology due to pollution-oil spills/siltation-land clearing/chemical-pesticide-herbicide-nutrient run-off/global warming/acidification etc? Likewise is the 700% increase in turtle deaths in the past 12 months due to the polluted silt from Cyclone Yasi floods destroying sea grass beds (although if it was, surely there would be a corresponding decline in dugong – has there been? Actually I can answer that myself - yes there has – see viii) or is this also a sign of widespread death in the oceans?
Re: Whaling - You mentioned that the Japanese are engaged in "hubris and illegal conduct" over their scientific whaling program. Better not let them know about the outrageous hubris and illegal conduct YOU have been engaged in by pushing a 6-lane highway through the world-significant biodiversity hotspot of the Sacred Alum Mountain lest they call YOU a hypocrite, and thus undermining our argument against whaling.
Re: Deep-sea Oil drilling - The Federal parliament's Treaties Committee public hearings in Canberra on 20 June examined banning heavy oils from the Antarctic Sea. (www.aph.gov.au/jsct email jsct@aph.au or phone (02) 6277 4002) - Why not ban it in close proximity to Australia’s own pristine reefs, LIKE NINGALOO, where you have just given your blessing to Shell to drill a deep sea oil well just 50 kms from Ningaloo Reef Marine Park, WA, saying you have no jurisdiction to NOT allow it ….. Is that even possible? In any event, you don’t seem to care about a potential oil spill so close to a world-class reef. That is concerning, as you are the one with all the power, calling all the shots.
Re: Your ineptness & negligence in all your portfolios, particularly Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Protection[x]. Isn’t ‘just’ looking after the environment enough responsibility for any one minister? Do you actually have the TIME to attend to; Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities? And also Environmental Heritage & Aboriginal Cultural Heritage even though it is inexplicably not officially listed as your responsibility. Why is Aboriginal Cultural Heritage YOUR responsibility, Mr Burke? What knowledge do you or your environmental advisers have of the highly complex matters of Indigenous culture? This question is for the PM of course, not yourself – you’re just the ‘fall guy’ for this ridiculous situation of totally inappropriate portfolio allocations. (Your glossy ‘Population Report’ was generally regarded as an absolute farce by the way – I could do a much better job.)
> CARBON ABATEMENT - I fully concur with steps towards a global emissions reduction scheme, but only one that actually works to reduce emissions! We must start cutting CO2 emissions NOW in a way that causes as least disruption to society as possible, by any number of initiatives, including retro-fitting all coal-fired power stations with a range of renewable energy technologies suited to their area, (such as GEOTHERMAL, as proposed by the online journal Climate Spectator for example) and SOLAR THERMAL (as was proposed in 2003 which the federal government forced off shore - the water is solar heated by mirrors as it goes into the power station, thus reducing the amount of coal needed to boil it) and retrofitting all industries that burn coal with Carbon Capture ON SITE (not liquefying it, pumping it hundreds of kilometers to a saltwater aquifer or ex-mine, drilling down hundreds of meters into it and then pumping the CO2 down there and hoping nothing ever happens that may cause it to leak - how insane is that? And governments and mining companies are STILL spending multi-millions on research!) Tarong Power Station has just concluded a very successfully pilot program to capture CO2[xi] - If the situation is as dire as Julia Gillard and the Greens tell us, what possible excuse have governments got to not roll it out now?
In this respect, your proposed carbon tax leading to an ETS will be WORSE THAN USELESS (i.e. have a negative impact) in cutting emissions urgently, as it diverts millions if not billions of dollars into bureaucracies to run the schemes, (that evidence elsewhere suggests can easily blow-out into quagmires of rorting and corruption that will requires more millions spent on monitoring and prosecuting), money and energy and time that could be spent far better on addressing the problems directly and IMMEDIATELY.
>HELP THE REST OF THE WORLD CUT THEIR EMISSIONS NOW, by exporting above technologies. (Whisson’s atmospheric water harvesters will be an essential part of this restoration, especially in Africa – more info on this to come)
>CARBON FARMING[xii]
>INTEGRATE POLICIES & DEPARTMENTS - The government does not have an integrated policy on biodiversity conservation (or anything it seems, especially Indigenous issues) ; their bungling dealings with the Malaysian government over a ‘people trading’ deal is the latest evidence of that. It has inadvertently led to negative outcomes for the last few orangutans on Earth. The Malaysian PM now seems to think that because ‘we are friends and partners now’ he can prevent any investigation or not even listen to evidence of rampant illegal logging of rainforests for palm oil, that continues to decimate the orangutans last habitat on Earth, telling us in no uncertain terms to butt out of their palm oil business (“Leave our palm oil plantations alone! You must treat our laws with respect.” ABC News 27.7.11)
….RE-INTRODUCE DINGOES[xiii] back into areas where feral cats, foxes and rabbits have taken over – evidence shows they are far smarter and more genetically adapted to survive than the newcomers, even other dogs. Get the balance right and the dingoes will kill cats and foxes and rabbits and will ‘out-smart’ other hybrid dogs; they may even ‘breed them out’ as one expert asserts. (Will provide reference when found) There needs to be dingo farms set up everywhere, and staged releases into badly affected areas. The dingoes will work WITH humans, just as they have done for at least four thousand years, in this endeavour. (Australian Geographic Oct-Dec 2010 included an argument ‘Bringing back the dingo’ by foremost ecologists in the field in their State of the Nation Report – a two-part investigation into our declining biodiversity. As I have only just come across this, I will include details at a later date.)
….SUPPORT PERMACULTURE - The self-supporting P/C Villages that I have been promoting with a blueprint to establish, in particular to give unemployed people and refugees an option for their future, dovetails nicely into biodiversity restoration, as do all permaculture endeavours. These settlements can be set up in degraded ex-farm land that no-one wants to take responsibility for to rehabilitate back to biodiverse edible landscapes. (Including earth building, free-range livestock, tri-generation power, aquaponics and hydroponic components to provide on-site fresh daily harvesting of supplements). After just a few years of learning (and teaching us…) and establishing self-sufficiency, people will be in a position to incorporate a nursery and revegetation program for endangered plant species for their areas – there will be multiple benefits; obviously for refugees who might otherwise be held in detention, socially to invigorate the local communities, to help increase populations of endangered plants and animals and as ‘bush tucker’ supplements to everyone’s diet – obviously the Aboriginal Land Custodians of that country will be intimately involved in on-going advice and management.[xiv] If their traditional land management regimes were re-established, biodiversity would stabilize and flourish, as it had been for millennia before colonialism.
…..WAYS OF REDRESSING THE BALANCE – One way has been comprehensively outlined on ABC’s Catalyst on 28th July[xv] – “If we can get some successes we can restore the native fauna we’ve largely lost and in danger of losing completely.”
….GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO IDENTIFIED THREATS needs to be speeded up - Myrtle Rust is the latest unwanted import to our shores and it could have far-reaching and devastating consequences to biodiversity. According to experts[xvi], it has a real potential to impact on the Australian environment. 3 dozen Australian native plants in the Myrtaceae are already affected and the disease is spreading fast…. yet governments are not diverting enough dollars into urgent research – again! The Tasmanian government were informed about the facial tumour disease in Tasmanian Tigers over ten years before they finally acted and started spending serious money on research - they watched this awful disease, that could very easily wipe out the entire species, travel down the east coast of Tasmania and get worse and worse and did NOTHING for 10 years. Quite obviously there needs to be much faster response to these diseases which will only get worse as warming continues.
….ASSIST FLYING FOXES, MAJOR POLLINATORS[xvii]
“BATS BE GONE” Ultimatum and threat issued to the Qld State and Federal Governments by disgruntled resident of Gayndah – ABC News 28.7.11) “You’ve got THREE WEEKS to move them or all these people are going to be criminals because WE WILL SHIFT THEM!” (Update 20.8.11 – Government officials have sanctioned the ‘removal’ of these flying fox)
On a news report about the flying-fox ‘plague’, the North Burnett Mayor pointed up upstream of the Burnett River at Gayndah, and said: “There’s plenty of kilometers of river for them to move to…” No, there isn’t – all their food trees where she's pointing downstream have mostly rotted under the at-capacity impoundment of the Paradise Dam.[xviii] She didn’t seem to realise that her council had helped destroy the flying foxes (and all the other plant and animal species along the river) natural habitat along the banks for 45 kilometers, when they built the dam, which must have compounded the current problem.
Campbell Newman also seems not to understand: “Bat droppings, constant noise, lice… these are the things that people have to put up with.” “The Premier is putting bats before people…” “Move them on with smoke bombs … if necessary, the vegetation comes down so they don’t return…” No, the answer is to RESTORE THE VEGETATION in that district, not clear more of it – that’s why we’re in this huge mess in the first place. (I have been hearing reports of horse owners clearing old-growth trees on their properties to prevent flying foxes from roosting in them – this could be an on-going disaster happening with no monitoring by governments.)
(Re the practice of ‘damage mitigation’ by ‘shooting the scout’ – Tim Lowe believes it would be “crazy” to hinder our major pollinators finding food: ”In terms of pollinations, there’s probably nothing better than a little red flying fox.” “We should target protection of our pollinators as one of the main planks of climate change action and that’s not being done at the present time.”)
Anna Bligh at least is now showing a glimmer of comprehension, offering the LNP briefings with scientists: “This is NOT a decision that should be made by politicians – we must be informed by the science.” Isn’t it just a tragic shame that the Queensland Government and the Federal Government didn’t listen to the world’s scientists who told them that building a megadam (especially one that was completely unnecessary and unwanted - built by corrupt government cronies who had native title excised and bought up land north of Gympie for residential real estates, a captive market for the ancient water of Murullbakgera, straight from the Dreamtime to their kitchen tap…) in the heart of a unique remnant of Gondwana biota in a National Park would be a COMPLETE and UTTER CATASTROPHE for all the rare & endangered – and unique - species that lived there especially where they are concentrated in the river and along its banks, as it has indeed turned out to be.[xix] It is on record that Peter Beattie stated at the time; “A government promise overrides all other considerations.” So only now being concerned about taking advice from scientists is monumentally hypocritical of the Premier, who was herself a major player in the building of the dam.
….FIND ALTERNATE WAYS OF MANAGING WILDLIFE RATHER THAN CULLING - The Prime Minister has said if she hadn't introduced the carbon tax, people would be asking her; "PM, why don't you do something about climate change?" The Director of Australia's Climate Change Institute at ANU is asking her; "PM, why don't you do something about the elephant (or in this case the giant endangered koala) in the room ... BIODIVERSITY LOSS?[xx] Its a FAR bigger risk to life on Earth, by several orders of magnitude, than the nebulous 'climate change', being a severe and quantified and IMMEDIATE threat and not just conjecture. He puts the Nitrogen cycle at No.2 and climate change at No.3. (refer to Bush Telegraph 12.7.11, The Anthropocene)
Re: The House of Reps Inquiry terms of reference (at end), to: investigate Australia's biodiversity in a changing climate in relation to nationally important ecosystems. That would be most of them wouldn't it? And seeing as migratory birds feature in Australia’s ecosystems, the rest of the world needs to be considered as well. Land clearing for agri-business has wiped out around 75% of over 300 entire ecological systems in Australia, half of them have only 2-10% left in fragmented remnants and are deemed not saveable as far as Australia's governments are concerned – not enough money they say - maybe that's because they've spent too many $BILLIONS of taxpayers money on their morally corrupt and incompetent bureaucracies.
If life on terra firma completely collapsed, the oceans would swiftly recover – if life in the oceans suffered catastrophic collapse, the entire planet will be affected, i.e. it is far more important to keep oceans healthy. The IUCN has told us the world's oceans are in a far worse condition than previously thought.[xxi] (Also Report on Radio National – will add transcript later) They also said that biodiversity was plummeting, in the oceans and on land and that we are well into a mass extinction phase the likes of which have not been seen on Earth for millions of years. Nice of them to tell us, but I’m suspicious of their representative’s statement: “…fewer humans mean more nature…” and any kind of Dick Smith 'population control' agenda. The fact is that with more caring humans living sustainably, there would be FAR MORE nature! I implore you to watch the documentary 'The End of the Line' about our depleted oceans - 80% of fish stocks have already collapsed in the northern hemisphere oceans.... there's tons and tons of plastic debris accumulated in the five ocean gyres, not just harmful for the birds that ingest it but I heard on radio national (story on LNL) that all the plastic in the sea has been breaking down for 100 years into tiny indestructible particulates that chemicals and toxins attach to and is now embedded in all sea creatures… and humans who eat them!
So the core reasons why we are in this perilous state of perhaps imminently loosing entire ocean and land ecologies, is due to the Australian people’s ignorance and apathy in general, and in terms of governments, due to their inexcusable willful ignorance and corruption … and because SO FEW PEOPLE CARE, nowhere near enough to make a difference [xxii] (despite that old saying that ‘only a few have ever made a difference’…not true in this case. It is simply WRONG to burden individuals like myself with this huge weight, forcing us to do your jobs for you – and unpaid at that.)
Therefore, in terms of triage, biodiversity loss should be addressed first and foremost, and urgently. In effect what the Professor is effectively saying is that the PM is TAXING THE WRONG THINGS. Why set up a huge new bureaucracy, which by itself will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to implement and run, then set up an emissions trading scheme that has been riddled with corruption and rorting everywhere else it's been implemented, necessitating spending many millions more on the ACCC to monitor it and prosecute the rorting that you facilitated which you KNOW will happen because it has happened everywhere else - that is demonstrably WRONG. Spend those billions of taxpayers dollars on action, NOW, to cut emissions, such as has been suggested here and by any number of organisations .... and maybe divert a percentage of it to help the tens of millions of people starving to death in the Horn of Africa.
What the PM should be taxing are the actions that threaten to destroy biodiversity, our most valuable asset and precious beyond measure, such as commercial logging of native forest[xxiii] (sustainable small scale logging for building, crafts etc. is perfectly fine, especially if it is overseen by Traditional Land Custodians. Hemp can replace a whole swag of industries, in fabrics, building materials and paper production) and commercial and residential development[xxiv]; (Ray White Commercial want to 'develop' a township on a pristine headland in NSW - happening everywhere - more to come on that) in fact the destruction of any intact biologically varied landscapes by any entity or agent.
The UN must now issue the federal government with a SHOW CAUSE as to why they should not protect what little integral biodiversity is left.
It has occurred to me lately that we are living in a watershed era where there is so little left, eventually it must be accorded value and protected - the abominable desecration of The Sacred Alum Mountain by the RTA signal the death throws of the old colonial regime that has been responsible for a 'rape of the land so profound' I wonder if it will ever recover even if they stopped now.
I am a lobbyist on behalf of the natural environment and Indigenous peoples and involved in many projects to raise awareness of associated problems and solutions. I work every minute of the day that I am able, including evenings. As the state of our beleaguered planet deteriorates, as more and more animals and entire ecosystems spiral into extinction, the harder I am driven to try and do everything within my power to stop the avoidable destruction of the natural world, focusing mainly on rainforests, predominately in SE Asia where clearing continues unabated and megadams threaten last intact remnants. The tragedy is that so few people care, and doubly so as it is only those who do care who suffer and grieve with every news report of ecological deterioration. It is incredibly unjust that the burden of caring/responsibility is taken up by so few, and usually always those who are not paid for it! We are all only on Earth for a short while and each of us must do whatever we are able to address the effects of the inevitable warming of the planet and the sixth great extinction that is already upon us.
Maureen Brannan 905 Wilsons Road CLOYNA QLD 4605 ph: 0427710523
PS: We need to change the national anthem a bit; where we sing “Our land abounds in nature’s gifts of beauty rich and rare”, we really should start singing; “Our land used to abound in nature’s gifts…” pre-1950 that is, before government-sponsored industrialised agrobusiness wiped out the sustainable biodiversity that Nature, and the Aborigines, had gifted us, on a massive scale, much to the eternal shame of Australia’s governments who TO THIS DAY continue to erase our earthly habitat.
PPS: This submission is incomplete due to ill health, which is due to STRESS caused by the multitude of problems facing us that I seem to be one of SO FEW people who care enough to actually do something - I would have liked more time but I've submitted it on the day so that it can be accepted.
PPPS: Perhaps there is some validity to the Mayan Calendar prophesy - that 2012 did not mark the ‘end of the world’ but the end of a thousands-year long great cycle of recorded time, and the beginning of a new cycle - this may coincide with apocalyptic cosmic events though. Hopefully it heralds a new era of awareness of and respect for all life on our planet, albeit a biologically-impoverished one.
SUBMISSIONS CALLED FOR HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES INQUIRY INTO BIODIVERSITY
The Australian, 1st July, 2011
ABOUT THE HOUSE - Australia's biodiversity in a changing climate
The House of Representatives Climate Change, Environment an the Arts Committee will investigate Australia's biodiversity in a changing climate in relation to nationally important ecosystems
The scope of the inquiry encompasses terrestrial, marine and freshwater biodiversity. The committee will consider strategies to enhance biodiversity conservation and climate change adaptation, including the adequacy of existing governance arrangements. It will also examine the social and economic effects of climate change on biodiversity, mechanisms to promote the sustainable use of natural resources and community engagement. Case studies of nationally important ecosystems, as defined by submissions to the inquiry, will be included. Submissions are welcome by 29 July. For more information visit www.aph.gov.au/ccea or email ccea.reps@aph.gov.au or phone (02) 6277 4580
(One small ad in one national newspaper on one day is NO WHERE NEAR ENOUGH PUBLICITY to engender interest and attract submissions - this must change – individuals, groups and whole communities must be engaged in this great fight to save what biodiversity remains on this continent.)
[i] ’Precious’ – in every sense of its many meanings, as in the undeniable sense of it’s priceless value, the devotion it instills in people who have a deep love of nature … and also that precious few Australians care about it!
[ii] Building Nature’s Resilience: a Draft Biodiversity Strategy for Australia places biodiversity at the centre of conservation efforts for the country. The strategy highlights the need for better understanding of the current and emerging threats to biodiversity, such as the impacts of development and climate change. There is perhaps no greater threat to Australia’s biodiversity than climate change. There is a significant body of scientific evidence on the potentially catastrophic impacts facing particular ecosystems such as the Wet Tropics and Great Barrier Reef. To effectively conserve and manage biodiversity right across the country, we need to continue gathering knowledge and improving our understanding of the emerging threats to biodiversity.
To assist us in gathering this information, the Department of Environment commissioned scientist and author, Tim Low, to conduct an independent scientific study on biodiversity health, ecosystems and landscapes across the country.
Tim Low has completed his investigations and produced ‘Climate Change and Australia’s Biodiversity’. This report is one of the first detailed considerations of how biodiversity may be impacted by climate change.
The report addresses Australia’s major bio-regions, and looks at some of the anticipated effects of climate change including increased climatic variability; changes in the extent and frequency of drought; fire and rainfall; habitat vulnerability, and what this may mean for plant and animal species.
The report acknowledges the complexity of these issues, and suggests some approaches for managing the likely impacts of climate change on biodiversity and encouraging ecosystem resilience.
This report will be a valuable source of information for natural resource managers, landholders, scientists and governments.
Last updated 14 June 2011
Threats to biodiversity
Habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation
In many parts of the country, vegetation clearing has led to habitat fragmentation. Critical coastal habitats have been degraded by urban development in coastal zones and upstream land use practices. Use of Artesian water in the arid and semi-arid zones has led to low water table levels, loss of springs and changes to associated ecosystems. Dams and other obstructions to the flow of water in freshwater rivers and streams can have affects on aquatic ecosystems all the way downstream to the marine environment.
Invasive species
Invasive plant and animal species often compete with, or directly prey on native species. Pest plants and animals can significantly alter essential habitats and effect ecosystem processes to the detriment of native biodiversity. Pathogens and disease also present a real and direct threat to the survival of Australia’s wildlife.
Unsustainable use of natural resources
Over exploitation of wildlife and natural resources results in depletion of those populations and subsequent loss of biodiversity. Illegal collecting of plants and animals is a continuing issue in some areas. In the marine environment, over-fishing of any one species can alter food webs within ecosystems, having a cascading affect on marine biodiversity.
Changes to aquatic environment, water flows, freshwater systems and wetlands
Sediments flowing off land degrade the health of marine ecosystems, particularly coral reefs. Rubbish, chemicals used in agriculture and industry, and light and noise pollution have severe repercussions for aquatic ecosystems. Catchment run-off from agricultural centres and treatment plants threaten biodiversity of freshwater and marine environments. Agricultural chemicals affect land condition. Rubbish, such as discarded fishing gear and plastic bags cause problems for marine mammals and turtles.
Fire
Fire has potential to inflict serious damage on biodiversity. Climate change research predicts fires in some parts of the country may become more severe. The decrease in regular ‘cool fires’, which were more common when Australia was managed by Indigenous communities, has resulted in grasslands being invaded by shrubs and trees. Rainforests have also expanded into wetter eucalypt forests, resulting in habitat loss for many species. (Wrong argument! If ANY rainforest ecology ANYWHERE is ‘expanding’, it should be encouraged! I discovered in 1978 that 98% of Queensland’s lowland rainforests had been cleared for agriculture, the ‘jungle wasteland’ on the coastal strip virtually given away to migrants (mostly Italian) on the condition that they clear it and plant a crop (mostly sugar cane). I then discovered that 75% of the rainforest on the Atherton Tablelands had been cleared. If these percentages are ANYWHERE NEAR accurate - and from what I’ve seen driving up and down the coast, they are – then ANY rainforest expansion from that last 2% remaining (mostly in the Daintree) must be welcome! (Even though the wet eucalypt of Qld have also been massively cleared and now in dire trouble as is the wet rainforests) Surely the government must realise that such a massive wipe out of ecology will have had a MAJOR IMPACT on the macro climate and biodiversity in general? You cannot destroy SO MUCH without climate and biodiversity loss consequences! This seems to be the case as the entire state has been slowly getting drier and drier since the 1970’s.)
Climate change
Climate change is recognised as a major threat to terrestrial and marine biodiversity and ecosystem function. Altered rainfall and run-off patterns, sea level rise, increases in air and ocean temperatures, and changed frequency of weather events are expected. The impact of climate change will vary from more frequent and severe droughts and fires in southern parts of the country, to less frequent but more intensive rainfalls and cyclones in the Wet Tropics.
[iii] In huge lettering on the far wall of the Queensland Museum exhibit on endangered animals:
WARNING
THE BIGGEST THREAT TO ANIMALS, BIG AND SMALL, IS LOSS OF HABITAT
The responsibility, directly and indirectly, lies with us. All over the world, on land and sea, humans are destroying and polluting habitats.
(Then a spiel on how we are destroying and polluting, then – roughly - )
There are 6 things everyone can do: 1. AAA rating shower heads 2. Light bulbs 3. turn off electronic devices at the power point 4. minimise packaging 5. plant a native bush garden 6. use your vote - support those who care about preserving animal habitat.
(Well no. 6 made me laugh - I had no opportunity to vote for anyone who cared about preserving habitat in the Qld state elections – had the choice between two ignorant right-wing crews, plus elections are a foregone conclusion in Qld, the opposition being so comprehensively useless. The lungfish was there, but the biggest hypocrisy was in the endangered bird species display - a tiny, faded & scraggy Coxen’s fig parrot stuffed and stuck onto a branch, maybe the only specimen in existence -there’s not even a photograph of it- in a revolving display that kids just loved to keep pressing just to watch it turn - woopee. Underneath was written:)
GIVING A FIG FOR THE COXEN'S PARROT (Quite obviously, the Queensland and Federal governments COULND’T GIVE A DAMN about this parrot, or any other native species in the Goodnight Scrub National Park … and it’s correct name is the Coxen’s Double-Eyed Fig Parrot)
Coxen's fig parrots have virtually disappeared from their former range. This has been due to the destruction and fragmentation of lowland subtropical rainforest along the coast (The first thing I learned when I came to North Queensland in 1974 was the mind-blowing fact that 98% of Queensland's lowland rainforest had been cleared, mostly by Italian migrants who were given the land by the government on the condition that they clear the 'jungle waste’ for agriculture - the Daintree comprised the remaining 2%. Governments have never understood that you can’t clear so much highest diversity rainforest, billions upon billions of trees, without causing collapse of the ecosystem and a change in the macro-climate.)
There may be fewer than 50 birds left (yes, and a pair, maybe more, maybe all the remaining ones, are in the last intact tangled vine rainforest remnant in Qld, the Goodnight Scrub NP –but when two sightings were confirmed at and near Paradise, instead of triggering protection measures, the Qld government detonated tons of explosives at the site and poured thousands of tons of concrete across the river, which ended up illegally flooding the still protected creek banks within the national park, the Coxen’s prime habitat )Although tracts of more inaccessible rainforest occur on coastal mountain ranges, Coxen’s fig parrot have depended on fruiting trees, particularly figs, in lowland rainforest during the winter. Most lowland rainforest has been cleared for agriculture and development. It is only necessary to remove one critical part of an animal’s habitat to sentence it to extinction.
(There were two maps of the range of its habitat, one showing the extent of rainforest and woodland in 1788, and one of the present remnants, vastly reduced – just the same sort of thing I was thinking of doing with maps and an overlapping plastic sheet. The next display read:)
COXENS FIG PARROT Cyclopsitta disphthalma coxeni
Endangered (Qld) Endangered (Fed) (“maybe less than 50 left in the world”? They have no idea how many are left, because no-one has ever even photographed it and there's no information on it, other than those two sightings where they put the dam – surely that would put it in the critically endangered category)
PROBLEM: The range of the Coxen’s Fig Parrot is thought to have once stretched from near Bundaberg, Qld to the Richmond River NSW. This parrot relied on lowland subtropical rainforest for winter food. The clearing of this habitat has resulted in a decline in its estimated population to as few as 50 birds.
RESEARCH: The Qld Dept of Environment is coordinating a Recovery Plan for the species but at this stage the most critical objectives is to locate living birds. (They were located –on the Burnett River at Paradise – they know exactly where to look but to date, no-one from the Qld Dept of Environment has bothered.)
SOLUTION: After locating living birds, the Recovery Plan seeks to: locate active nest sites, establish a captive breeding population, rapidly acquire information about the ecology and breeding biology of the fig parrots, investigate ways to preserve and rehabilitate critical habitat and harness the resources of community groups to promote conservation of those species. (Surely this makes the Qld govt the most hypocritical in Australia.)
A new report sets out the likely effect of climate change on biodiversity. It argues that aridity rather than heat is the chief threat to plants and animals. The report, by ecologist Tim Low, was commissioned by the Queensland government, but while the report focuses on Queensland, its message is relevant to the whole of Australia. (Hence my changing ‘Queensland’ to ‘Australia’ in the report below, for your easier comprehension that this report should be considered for the ENTIRE COUNTRY) Unlike studies which focus on the impact of hotter temperatures, this report pinpoints lower rainfall as the main impact of climate change on biodiversity. Tim Low says that the effects of climate change may not be as dramatic on the Australian continent as in the northern hemisphere and that Australians do have time to prepare for the impacts.
(My transcript)MC: What does climate change mean?
TL: Higher temperatures, higher CO2 (which helps plants grow so you can get significant changes in plant growth). I go through different regions and look at what to do – particularly looking at plants, the dominant trees as the building blocks of ecosystems and also at rare and threatened species to see which of those stand out as likely to be vulnerable to these threats. Rainfall is not uniform across the state, it may go up in some regions, the global models are not that good. CSIRO has been doing their own modelling – the predictions are all over the place; less rainfall across the board, less or more in certain areas - there’s that much uncertainty in the model.
MC: So you’ve focused on rainfall rather than heat?
TL: (Its going to get hotter.) There was a massive heat wave in 1932 where thousands and possibly millions of birds died across a vast area of inland Australia – we haven’t had a heat wave quite like that in recent years although there were some deaths in 2009 and some in WA and Western Queensland. Heat deaths are something I focus on, certainly for central Australia.
MC: Birds have been moving from dry areas towards the coast…
TL: Yes, it’s a phenomena we’ve seen, and some stay permanently. So crested pigeons and galahs are now normally seen on the east coast. With climate change we can expect more arid zone birds coming east.
MC: I’ve started seeing crested pigeon in coastal capitals, where before I’ve only ever seen them before in the bush…
TL: The distribution of birds is limited by habitat, not climate, and when you consider climate change it could be an indirect response which just shows the complexity of the issue which is why it took me a whole year…
MC: So are you concerned about eucalypts?
TL: People are a lot more vulnerable than trees – we know from fossil evidence that tree species were moving dramatically in response to glaciers coming and going. If you look at the fossil records you don’t see evidence of eucalypts moving – in fact their seeds don’t have any adaptations for dispersal; what they DO have is mobile pollen. So what I’ve strongly recommended in the report is that it’s by protecting the pollinators of eucalypts that we can help them adapt best to climate change because pollen is more mobile than seeds.
MC: So the birds that pollinate them may depart…
TL: If you look at what’s happening with pollinators in Australia, we are losing some of our longest-range pollinating birds – the swift parrot, regent honey eaters - both endangered - and we’ve got this great rise of noisy minors, sedentary honey eaters, which are preventing migratory honey eaters coming in where they have their territories. So pollinators that have strong implications for climate change is one of areas I’ve been studying. We’ve relied too much on Northern hemisphere thinking in terms of framing our responses to climate change and when you look at the unusual aspects of Australian ecosystems you come up with different management recommendations.
The idea in the Northern hemisphere is that movement is the key - and psychologically WE have to make dramatic changes but not the animals – lizards can adapt in rocky outcrops, where they are quite secure – you can have an animal with a small distribution, but then to say that animal has to go further south is not necessarily so.
We got big issues in rural Australia, contentious issues – we’ve got introduced pasture grasses, buffel grass etc., incredibly important to graziers but when that gets into National Parks it greatly increases the fire risk and in a hotter drier climate the LAST thing you want is to increase fuel loads from introduced grasses. So there has to be more duty of care on landholders that if they are cultivated introduced grasses they don’t let them get into national parks and protected areas – that’s one example.
With the mining industry, the normal practice is to try and take degraded land back to what you had before and you can’t do that – you’ve mucked around with the soil and created huge holes etc. What I’m suggesting in these areas is to try and create ‘climatic spaces’ – eg piles of rocks - try and create cool south-facing slopes, areas that are damp, places where animals can go during heat waves, where the sun doesn’t beat down so hard because you’ve got more shade.
And you want us to treat the flying foxes with more respect…
Well certainly, they’re part of that pollination system. One of the real tragedies in Australia is that we’ve got flying foxes increasingly moving into built-up areas, forming camps in cities, so you’ve got residents wanting to move them out which can produce very high stress levels in the flying foxes so they are increasingly being linked to the rise of diseases. In terms of pollinations, there’s probably nothing better than a little red flying fox - I mean they move hundreds of kilometers through the Australian landscape. If you think of a eucalypt living in an area that’s getting hotter and drier, and a flying fox brings it pollen from a couple of hu ndred kilometers further west, it can produce offspring that are better adapted to a hotter, drier climate – that what you want. But if you persecute your flying foxes and lose them, you’ve lost that pollination service and you are hindering the capacity of the eucalypt (and the multitude of species that flying fox pollinate) to adapt to climate change.
MC: You’re mainly worried with the pollination of eucalypts…
TL: Its very hard to predict what the critical thresholds are for any species but we’ve got hundreds of eucalypt species, some of them have got very small distributions. There’s a lot of debate that that means its climatic tolerance is very narrow. If you look at a whole lot of complicated evolutionary issues (that obviously I can’t go into now), I can say they are not particularly vulnerable to climate change. They can adapt by becoming smaller in size - eucalypts have a great capacity to essentially shrink, to turn into multi-stemmed mallees. But what I’m talking about here is their capacity for … they are really promiscuous pollinators, I mean all the flowers, all the insects, the bees the bats that come to a flowering eucalypt, that’s NOTHING like what happens to a northern hemisphere tree and this incredibly high investment in pollination means it can produce seedlings coming from hundreds of kilometers away more adapted to a hotter drier climate. That’s not the whole story but what I’m saying is that we should target pollination as one of the planks of climate change and that’s not being done at the present time.
MC: You’ve also looked at the threat of species extinction – what have you found there?
TL: I think we may have a little bit more time than some places – I think this is part of the natural variability in the Australian climate. It is interesting that the worst heat wave we’ve ever had was back in 1932 (Follow up - was that connected to solar minimum or flares?) so not the heat waves in the last 10 years. So long term impacts are really what we’ve got to worry about. If we look at the glacial maximum going back say 22,000 years, it was much drier then so I think we’ve got a little bit of time before we get to those really critical dry periods where we start losing species.
MC: One of the proposals of what we can do is create more plantations of trees and the argument is that these would both sequester carbon and create bird habitat.
TL: Both benefits are correct but I have issued cautions on two areas there. We have had recent die-backs of eucalyptus during droughts in central Queensland and there’s been a correlation with how densely those threes were growing. So if you plant up your property really thickly with eucalypts then you’re increasing the risk that during drought they’ll just compete with each other, run out of water and die. Another concern is that when you plant up vast areas with plantation, that uses up a lot of water and waterholes can dry out and that’s not good. We need plantations and they have benefits but they need to be backed with good research and adaptive management to see how well they function.
MC: Its about fitting plantations to the environment, isn’t it?
TL: Yes and one of the things to consider is that climate change is adding a huge urgency to rush things, so the need is great for recommendations, more reports like this, so we can quickly get our ideas together to see what works. Different things work in different places - I’m sure there’s a lot of ideas I haven’t thought of so we need to quickly pool those ideas and get on and see what we can do .
MC: Maybe we need specific reports for each state?
TL: What we can say about eucalypts and pollinators applies nationally. I give an example of Tasmania where the ONLY pollinator they’ve got that actually leaves Tasmania and goes to the mainland, is the swift parrot – its an endangered bird - it pollinates their eucalypts, it pollinates their blue gums which are a very important industrial product in Tasmania, but the Tasmanian government is allowing logging in Willanga forest (Follow up) where you’ve got these swift parrots and I’m just saying in terms of climate change, that is just crazy. So I think that the recommendations in this report are applicable far more widely.
MC: Link to full text on our website.(Not there!)
The Australian Government will invest $10 million over three years to develop a National Wildlife Corridors Plan. Designed to prepare our native plants and animals, as well as our agricultural landscapes for climate change, the plan will consider climate change impacts and adaptation, and identify critical linkages in the landscape for the migration of species. It will also aim to protect natural stores of carbon in native ecosystems to minimise greenhouse gas emissions. The plan will be developed with the assistance of an Advisory Group that has been appointed by the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. This Advisory Group, appointed on 12 April 2011, has broad expertise, and includes members from natural resource management, environmental, scientific, Indigenous, tourism, planning and agricultural fields. * Media release - Fed Government (FOLLOW UP & SEND SUGGESTIONS FOR CORRIDORS - More details on this Advisory Group needed – Much more needs to be invested in this initial stage and funding prioritised to implement the recommendations ASAP!)
[vi] TO BE ADDED
[vii] “...the cold Southern ocean is becoming saturated with carbon dioxide, meaning it won’t be able to absorb much more.” - THIS is primarily why we have to stop emitting CO2 now, not just to try and mitigate global warming, which is impossible given the feedback loops and which can be down-played and the science contested - WHY DO GOVERNMENTS NOT TELL PEOPLE THIS IS THE MAIN REASON WHY WE MUST TRANSITION FROM BURNING FOSSIL FUELS ? THIS is why ‘underground storage' should not even be considered and why ‘carbon trading’ is an ineffective distraction from the URGENT need to cut emissions NOW and divert all available money and energy focused on transitioning to renewables and electric vehicles.
Sick oceans suggest seachange for the worse
Fears about climate change focus mostly on what's going on high up in the atmosphere - yet we should be just as worried about developments deep beneath the waves. Despite the Kyoto protocol, a new global carbon budget reveals that emissions have grown faster in this decade than they did in the previous one - which means the future may well belong to jellyfish. About one third of the carbon dioxide that enters the atmosphere ends up in the ocean and its making the sea more acidic. So, rather than talking about 'climate change', should we be talking about 'ocean change'? Award-winning Canadian journalist Alanna Mitchell has sailed the seven seas to investigate the problem, and speaks to us in the National Interest.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/nationalinterest/stories/2008/2375035.htm
Book review - Seasick, Alanna Mitchell
According to Canadian journalist Alanna Mitchell, humans are biologically occupying this planet on sufferance, at the grace of the ocean. The seas both gives us life and keep us alive, she persuasively argues in Seasick, her impassioned environmental exposition. If all life on land became extinct, she explains, creatures in the ocean would flourish. But if the opposite occurred and the oceanic system died, then the land-dwelling creatures would also die. Life would have to start afresh. So why are humans destroying our only hope for survival? Is it because we reason that there are plenty more fish in sea? Mitchell intelligently pulls together the strands of current scientific knowledge and claims that the ocean is sick and the malady is a weightier and a more crucial predicament than atmospheric change. Many scientists agree with Mitchell’s theory of mass degeneration beneath the waves and its consequences to life on this planet. Seasick reveals the global ocean’s vital signs are fading and that “the cold Southern ocean is becoming saturated with carbon dioxide, meaning it won’t be able to absorb much more.” What is the final result of this change? When will it occur? And how will homo sapiens fare? These are a few of the questions asked in this extraordinarily thorough book. If the oceans die, so does all life on land. Is that worth reading about? If you think so, Seasick: The hidden ecological crisis of the global ocean is a timely wake-up call to us all. Pier 9 RRP $29.95.
Earth has seen five mass extinction events - when the dinosaurs became extinct, oceans had become acidic, anoxic that drives huge extinction spasm
In the gulf of Mexico – the dead zone is called 'the blob' – where the Mississippi river runs into the gulf should be teeming with life, as it has been all throughout time till now – as farmers put fertilizer on their crops, washes into gulf, nutrients, phyto plankton love them, go crazy, more plankton unbalances equilibrium, not enough creatures to eat the plankton, falls to bottom of ocean, bacteria eat and uses up all the oxygen as it feeds – like a lava lamp, blobs unmixable – cannot stir the oxygen back into it, takes a hurricane to do that. There are 407 dead zones throughout the worlds oceans, and all growing – Gulf of Mexico one is 17,000 sq kms of ocean, that’s just surface area, not depth – in places goes right down to the ocean floor. No fish, only jellyfish can survive, have low 02 requirement
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the blob in the black sea decreased due to farmers not putting fertilizer on their fields – proves that it is fixable, maybe, but life never returns as it was before, very low biodiversity.
Another Mass Extinction?
Australian scientists fear the planet is on the brink of another mass extinction as ocean dead zones continue to grow in size and number. More than 400 ocean dead zones - areas so low in oxygen that sea life cannot survive - have been reported by oceanographers around the world between 2000 and 2008. That is compared with 300 in the 1990s and 120 in the 1980s. Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) and from the University of Queensland, says there is growing evidence that declining oxygen levels in the ocean have played a major role in at least four of the planet's five mass extinctions. "Until recently the best hypothesis for them was a meteor strike," he said. "So 65 million years ago they've got very good evidence of the cretaceous extinction event.”But with the four other mass extinction events, one of the best explanations now is that these periods were preceded by an increase of volcanic activity, and that volcanic activity caused a change in ocean circulation. "Just as we are seeing at a smaller scale today, huge parts of the ocean became anoxic at depth.”The consequence of that is that you had increased amounts of rotten egg gas, hydrogen sulfide, going up into the atmosphere, and that is thought to be what may have caused some of these other extinction events." *ABC
ACIDIC OCEANS (Notes – yet to be transcribed accurately)
Canadian Alanna Mitchel “Sea Sick – the hidden ecological crisis in the world’s oceans
She saw Tim Flannery to get a broader understanding, in context – plankton are in trouble – plankton are at the top of the geo-chemical cycle and also underpin the entire foodchain. Creatures need calcium, don’t have enough – when oceans get acidic, forests are not the lungs of the world, plankton provides half of all the oxygen we breathe – we are in big trouble in an increasingly acidic ocean – embryos won’t survive, some creatures may thrive but others will die – the pH o the ocean has been 8.2 for 20 million years, has fluctuated at times, but NEVER at the speed of the current rate of change. Already changed by .1% - that is significant – on a pH scale – certain chemical properties only exist in a certain range – most cause is C02 as gas, from FOSSIL FUELS - half of fossil fuel goes into the atmosphere as a gas, gets absorbed by the oceans – creates carbonic acid – the whole phenomena is not understood, only heard of in 2005 that the first synthesis report was published – scientists cannot believe the oceans pH is actually changing – they think it impossible – feed back loop will accelerate the process – “Oceans have the switch of life” – Tim Flannery
Earth has seen five mass extinction events - when the dinosaurs became extinct, oceans had become acidic, anoxic that drives huge extinction spasm
In the gulf of Mexico – the dead zone is called the blob – where the Mississippi river runs into the gulf should be teeming with life, as it has been all through time till now – as farmers put fertilizer on their crops, washes into gulf, nutrients, phyto-plankton love them, go crazy, more plankton unbalances equilibrium, not enough creatures to eat the plankton, falls to bottom of ocean, bacteria eat and uses up all the oxygen as it feeds – like a lava lamp, blobs unmixable – cannot stir the oxygen back into it, takes a hurricane to do that. There are 407 dead zones throughout the worlds oceans, and all growing – gulf of Mexico one is 17,000 sq kms of ocean, that’s just surface, not depth – in places goes right down to the ocean floor. No fish, only jellyfish can survive, have low 02 requirement
When the soviet union collapsed, the blob in the black sea decreased due to farmers not putting fertilizer on their fields – proves that it is fixable, maybe, but life never returns as it was before, very low biodiversity.
Coral reefs are the womb of the planet, the nursery, proxy for Eden
Doing better than most, in terrible shape, locked in – GBR will succumb too, prognosis very bad – even though GBR is well protected compared, acidity (coral cannot form shells) warming (causing bleaching) and sea level rise (drowning) all join to threaten life – nutrient run off though is most immediately important (knew in the 1970’s – cane farmers told govt officials to piss off and not mention it again – (find my email – kurrimine beach – search king reef) overfishing another threat – every time humans expand into the oceans target another species for commercial exploitation, that species population invariably crashes. Been happening since the Middle Ages, can be charted and plotted. It’s the end of the world as we know it. Alanna had an epiphany when she went down to ocean bottom in a submarine – scared witless – she had been trying to charter hope into her future, and realized hope was not something you can artificially engender – it is like love, to hope is to be human.
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Dear Mr Garrett, Japanese Ambassador and IWC,
Regarding Japan's complaint about Australia's 'double standards' in allowing dugong hunting (newspaper article below), please review the email I sent on the 22nd January this year, regarding the hunting of dugong, in support of the argument made to the Japanese government and the IWC as to why whale hunting must end, and why there is little comparison to be made between Aboriginal Indigenous hunting of dugong (which they are in any case voluntarily restricting). Although Mr Garrett states that there is 'no analogy between Japanese whaling and the killing of dugongs', it would be helpful if he could expand on this and explain more clearly to the media why these two hunting regimes cannot be compared. Of course, one of the points to be made is that in many cases, Torres Strait Islander peoples are reliant on this source of food to supplement their diet, whereas even the Japanese people themselves are telling their government that they do not NEED to eat whale, that most do not WANT to eat whale and in fact they would prefer to build up whale-watching tourism rather than kill them. Another reason why both whale and dugong (and turtle) hunting must stop everywhere, is that populations are not stable anywhere as oceans acidify due to changes from unprecedented CO2 levels in the atmosphere -some are already in catastrophic collapse. People will be forced to find alternate food sources in the future and should be preparing now for this eventuality, so that their people do not suffer deprivation. This is the major reason why all ocean creatures, already under stress from CO2 emissions, should not be placed under more stress by unnecessary hunting and fishing. Blue-fin tuna, illegally fished by Japan for many years, is a case in point of catastrophic collapse caused by over-fishing.
Maureen Brannan
S>A>N>E> (Save Australia's Natural Environment)
PO Box 214 MURGON Qld 4605
ph: 04 277 10523
----- Original Message -----
To: Peter Garrett ; Qld Premier ; Qld Parks & Wildlife ; Qld Min for sustainability climate change & innovation ; Qld Environment Minister
Cc: Wildlife Preservation Society ; Wild Magazine ; Wilderness Society ; UQ Faculty of Natural Resources ; National Indigenous Times ; National Indigenous Human Rights Congress ; Koori Mail ; Kevin Rudd ; HACK Triple J ; Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister ; EDO QLD ; Bunya Wakka Wakka ; Bob Brown ; Drew Hutton ; Pat Obrien WPAA
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 11:39 AM
Subject: DUGONG & TUMRA
Dear Ministers,
Please take note of this advertisement which appeared in last week's New Scientist magazine. All governments should be doing SO MUCH MORE to help dugong survive in Australian waters - please take direction from this website ( www.savethemanatee.org ) as to what else you can be doing to help them and all endangered animals.
Some Indigenous people have now voluntarily stopped dugong hunting, which they are legally entitled to do, in recognition of their vulnerable status. (see article below). They should be commended for their foresight and sustainable stewardship of natural resources (although totem animals are much more than just a "resource" for indigenous people) in changing conditions. This state government-endorsed management plan is soon to be adopted by all Indigenous people Australia wide. Also below, comment from dugong researcher Dr Helene Marsh professor at James Cook University.
Maureen Brannan S>A>N>E> (Save Australia's Natural Environment) PO Box 214 MURGON Qld 4605 ph: 04 277 10523
From The Koori Mail, 16.1.08
WIN FOR THE WOPPABURRA
By Christine Howes
What are Traditional Use of Marine Resources Agreements?
> They are developed and managed by traditional owners
> They utilise traditional owner values
> They have government support
> They are a demonstration of sea country partnerships in action
> They recognise the traditional owners' connection to sea country
> They have conservation outcomes including limited turtle takes and no dugong hunting
> They are voluntary
> They are legally enforceable.
THE traditional owners of Keppel Island on the Great Barrier Reef now have full recognition of their right to manage their country. The Woppaburra people, one of five Dharumbal Nation tribal groups, last month took possession of a legally enforceable agreement giving them management control over their sea country.
Designed by the Woppaburra, the agreement - known as a Traditional Use of Marine Resources Agreement (TUMRA) - covers waters around Keppel Island, near Yeppoon, on the Central Queensland coast. It will help to ensure cultural activities co-exist with conservation and management policies.
It was the second TUMRA for the Great Barrier Reef and it is hoped that at least four other groups along the Queensland coast will secure similar arrangement this year. The Girringun TUMRA was the first accredited agreement, signed more than two years ago. It applies to sea country between Rollingstone and Mission Beach, north of Townsville.
Bob Muir, representing the Woppaburra traditional Owners, said the TUMRA was a powerful tool for them to work with.
:We've managed to get the Dharumabl TUMRA for the Woppaburra section recognised by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) and the Government through the Environmental Protection Agency and Marine Parks" he said. "It's been developed by us and its putting our values that we want to use for management into the process.
Its supported by the State Government. They basically sign off on the TUMRA as well as support us in our won management plan that runs for three years."
Mr Muir said conservation, particularly of turtles and dugong, was a high priority for Woppaburra.
"We've agreed to hunt only five turtles for the year, but we're more into conservation than hunting in our country and we want to be more into research and monitoring." he said.
Mr Muir said the Woppaburra were proud to be playing a role in managing their sea country. "It instils a bit of pride in our people," he said. "Its a case of showing how we can all work together."
GBRMPA Indigenous Partnerships Liaison Unit Acting Manager Leon Jackson welcomed the new agreement.
He said the key to the success of TMRAs was that they were voluntary, legally enforceable agreements designed by traditional owners and accepted by State and federal government.
SITUATION CITICAL from Australian Geographic 106
(Dugong listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened species, along with 47 others in Australia.)
VILNERABLE VEGETARIAN
The name of Dr Helene Marsh professor of environmental science at James Cook University, has been synonymous with dugong research and conservation since the 1970's. And she'll probably be involved with securing the future of the species for decades to come.
The dugong, which grazes sea grass beds along our coastlines, is the only exclusively vegetarian marine mammal in the world. A long-lived species with a naturally low reproductive rate, it is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. It continues to face threats from habitat destruction, pollution and entanglement in fishing nets. Part of Helene's approach has been to learn from Australia's Indigenous people, who have hunted the dugong for food for millennia, and to work with them to ensure their needs are considered as part of future conservation efforts for the species.
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World in Hot Water as Ocean Temperatures Reach Record High
Thursday, August 20, 2009
WASHINGTON — July was the hottest month for the world's oceans in almost 130 years of record-keeping.
The average water temperature worldwide was 62.6 degrees Fahrenheit according to the National Climatic Data Center, the branch of the U.S. government that keeps world weather records. June was only slightly cooler, while August could set another record, scientists say. The previous record was set in July 1998 during a powerful El Nino in the Pacific. The coolest recorded ocean temperature was 59.3 degrees in December 1909.
Meteorologists said there is a combination of forces at work: A natural El Nino weather pattern just getting started on top of worsening manmade global warming, and a dash of random weather variations. Already the resulting ocean heat is harming threatened coral reefs. It also could hasten the melting of Arctic sea ice and help hurricanes strengthen.
The Gulf of Mexico, where warm water fuels hurricanes, has temperatures dancing around 90 degrees. Most of the water in the Northern Hemisphere has been considerably warmer than normal. The Mediterranean is about three degrees warmer than normal. Higher temperatures rule in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
The phenomenon is most noticeable near the Arctic, where water temperatures are as much as 10 degrees above average. The tongues of warm water could help melt sea ice from below and even cause thawing of ice sheets on Greenland, said Waleed Abdalati, director of the Earth Science and Observation Center at the University of Colorado.
Breaking heat records in water is more ominous as a sign of global warming than breaking temperature marks on land, because water takes longer to heat up and does not cool as easily as land.
"This warm water we're seeing doesn't just disappear next year; it'll be around for a long time," said climate scientist Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria in British Columbia. It takes five times more energy to warm water than land.
The warmer water "affects weather on the land," Weaver said. "This is another yet really important indicator of the change that's occurring."
Georgia Institute of Technology atmospheric science professor Judith Curry said water is warming in more places than usual, which has not been seen in more than 50 years.
Add to that an unusual weather pattern this summer where the warmest temperatures seem to be just over oceans, while slightly cooler air is concentrated over land, said Deke Arndt, head of climate monitoring at the climate data center.
The pattern is so unusual that he suggested meteorologists may want to study that pattern to see what is behind it.
The effects of that warm water already are being seen in coral reefs, said C. Mark Eakin, coordinator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's coral reef watch. Long-term excessive heat bleaches colorful coral reefs white and sometimes kills them.
Bleaching has started to crop up in the Florida Keys, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Typically, bleaching occurs after weeks or months of prolonged high water temperatures. That usually means September or even October in the Caribbean Sea, said Eakin. He found bleaching in Guam on Wednesday. It is too early to know whether the coral will recover or die. Experts are "bracing for another bad year," he said.
The problems caused by the El Nino pattern are likely to get worse, the scientists say.
An El Nino occurs when part of the central Pacific warms up, which in turn changes weather patterns worldwide for many months. El Nino and its cooling flip side, La Nina, happen every few years.
During an El Nino, temperatures on water and land tend to rise in many places, leading to an increase in the overall global average temperature. An El Nino has other effects, too, including dampening Atlantic hurricane formation and increasing rainfall and mudslides in Southern California.
Warm water is a required fuel for hurricanes. What's happening in the oceans "will add extra juice to the hurricanes," Curry said.
Hurricane activity has been quiet for much of the summer, but that may change soon, she said. Hurricane Bill quickly became a major storm and the National Hurricane Center warned that warm waters are along the path of the hurricane for the next few days.
Hurricanes need specific air conditions, so warmer water alone does not necessarily mean more or bigger storms, said James Franklin, chief hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Putting sea life to the acid test
7/06/2008 12:00:01 AM
In a Hobart laboratory a few weeks ago, a young marine biologist placed the shell of a tiny sea snail on a weighing scale and held her breath. Donna Roberts's critical experiment rested on getting the exact weight of this fragile specimen; any movement in the room could instantly throw off the delicate scale, so sensitive it is called a microbalance.
Roberts had been weighing 100 of these shells, stripped from snails that had been collected from the depths of the great Southern Ocean half way between Tasmania and Antarctica.
The snails, known to biologists as pteropods, swim through the sea like butterflies. They are as abundant as krill and help feed the ocean's huge schools of fish.
The shell specimens dated back to 1996 and the earlier ones had weighed in at 20 micrograms. But Roberts observed that as the specimens became more recent, the weight of the shells had fallen. When her last specimen, from 2005, weighed in at just 10 micrograms, Roberts barely dared to breathe.
"Wow, what is going on?" she asked herself. A halving of shell weight in just one decade was a real worry.
Roberts's still unpublished research is just one reason why her collaborator, Dr Will Howard, from the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, this week convened an extraordinary meeting of Australia's leading marine scientists in Hobart.
For three days, the 50 scientists, along with colleagues from America and New Zealand, focused their collective minds on a threat that has emerged, it seems, from out of the blue: the growing acidification of our oceans.
These scientists now know that burning fossil fuels and massive land clearing are not just warming the planet and raising sea temperatures, they are also changing the chemical make up of the oceans. A vast amount of the carbon dioxide humans have pumped into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution has been absorbed by oceans.
A new report by the Antarctic research centre, released at the Hobart meeting, says that about half the fossil fuel carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by humans has now dissolved into the oceans. If we keep pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at the current projections, by 2100 the ocean acidification will be three times that experienced at the end of the glacial period, 15,000 years ago.
The chemistry is basic. The ocean is a weakly alkaline solution. When carbon dioxide sucked in from the atmosphere dissolves in sea water, it forms a weak acid, making the ocean more acidic. For sea life with fragile shells, corals and
countless other sea creatures, a more acidic ocean could be disastrous and have unknown impacts right up the marine food chain.
"It's going to affect every part of Australia's marine environment, every bit of water that's in contact with the atmosphere," Howard told the Herald . "If I could sit Kevin Rudd down tomorrow, I would say: this is an inevitable and inexorable consequence of our putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It's not going to stop. What we need to do quickly is get some research together where you can anticipate the ecological impacts of this."
So concerned were scientists at the meeting they decided to launch a Hobart declaration on ocean acidification. While their final communique is being thrashed out, all present were alarmed by the growing evidence that the oceans are changing, with consequences so far immeasurable for marine life.
Using the most basic calculation, Australia controls some 8 million square kilometres of ocean. Those waters generate about $52 billion in national wealth, according to the CSIRO, including a $2.5 billion fishing industry, and vast tourism dollars. Just as valuable is the extraordinary array of marine life that protects the coastlines, supports the reefs, and stops algae from choking the beaches.
What the scientists are asking is this: how quickly will the oceans reach the point where some vital sea creatures will not survive? How many will be able to adapt to the new conditions? What happens to all this marine life when rising acid levels combine with the rising sea temperatures caused by global warming?
Right now, the best predictions are that within 50 to 60 years, a serious rise in ocean acidification is likely to leave some species struggling to survive, especially corals and creatures with fragile shells.
"There are distinct chemical thresholds and once they are crossed, these organisms' shells would tend to dissolve," Howard explains. "As the ocean approaches those thresholds, the organisms' ability to make those shells are compromised. There is a zero sum game."
Australian marine scientists working in the Southern Ocean now unexpectedly find themselves on the front lines in this new crisis. For a range of complex reasons, the impacts of ocean acidification are expected to be felt first in the deep, cold, Antarctic waters, which will become a giant lab lesson for the rest of the world.
One of these frontline scientists is Dr Martin Riddle, a marine biologist with the Australian Antarctic Division. Back in December, Riddle and his team made an extraordinary discovery off the Antarctic coast near the Mertz Glacier. Between 600 and 800 metres underwater they came upon a stunning cold water coral community as colourful as anything on the Great Barrier Reef. "We were blown away by it," Riddle recalled.
The discovery made news around the world, but Riddle believes it might one day return to the headlines for quite different reasons than its beauty. Rising acidification of the Southern Ocean is likely to overtake the beautiful reef in 50 to 60 years.
"This could be a dramatic change that nobody but me would have known about," says Riddle. "If we hadn't gone down to find it, we wouldn't have even known about it. But it's really the canary in the cage. It's the early warning system. Ocean acidification is going to affect cold, deep areas first. They will indicate what is likely to happen elsewhere into the future. That is really the importance of this particular site."
If the bottom of the food chain around reefs like this begins to change, he explains, we will see changes in the rest of the food chain. "Does it worry me? Of course it does."
Disturbing findings about the impacts of acidification - some definite, many preliminary - were debated at the Hobart meeting. A series of early lab tests on krill, a vital food source for the Southern Ocean whale population, found that as acid levels rose krill kept reproducing, but the offspring developed deformities. While the research is incomplete and inconclusive, it underscored anxiety about Australia's need for a major research effort to grasp the enormity of the problem.
Professor Maria Byrne, from Sydney University, warned that ocean acidification must be examined in tandem with climate change, especially rising sea temperatures, because the most damage to marine life would come from a combination of stresses.
Last year, CSIRO researchers reported Australia's southern east coast could be hardest hit by global warming, with sea temperatures rising by up to two degrees by 2070. East of Tasmania, sea temperatures are already rising faster than the global average, increasing by more than two degrees since the 1940s.
"We know NSW is a global climate change hot spot," says Byrne. "If you look … from Cape Byron all the way down to Tasmania, you'll see the red on the map of the CSIRO climate change model."
Byrne had previously examined the impacts on sea urchins, “the cows of the sea" that keep NSW shores free of algae. First, she heated their water to 24 degrees, equivalent to the hottest contemporary NSW summer sea temperature. The sea urchins survived OK. But when she raised the water temperature to 26 degrees, things quickly went bad. "I got a 75 per cent mortality rate. The embryos started to die after three days."
And when Byrne added a higher acid level to the water, all hell broke loose. "It's the two stresses together," she said. "It caused massive mortality within hours."
Five years ago, almost no prominent scientist in Australia was talking about ocean acidification, including those who worked on the peak United Nations scientific body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Indeed, the panel devoted just one line to the topic in its Nobel Prize-winning report. That is now rapidly changing.
A bill was introduced last year to the US Senate for a $US30 million ocean acidification research program. Next week, a similar European project will be launched.
The Australian scientists, led by Howard and the CSIRO's Dr Bronte Tilbrook, hope to galvanise political and community support behind a national research effort to help not only Australia but the whole South Pacific region adapt to a profound and enduring change to marine life.
Even if carbon dioxide emissions are radically reduced now, Howard and Tilbrook explain, the oceans will take hundreds of years to recover. But right now, the biggest cause for concern, says Howard, is that it is starting to look like some of the changes are happening much faster than anyone anticipated.
No credit as oceans turn sour
Anthony Bergin and Ross Allen | July 05, 2008
NOW that Ross Garnaut's draft report has been released, most of the climate change debate in Australia will focus on the economic effects of any emissions trading scheme.
However, there's another carbon problem, which will profoundly affect our oceans, that has received scant attention beyond a small band of marine scientists and is largely independent of global warming.
The public, aware of the role of carbon dioxide in climate change, doesn't know of its function in acidifying the oceans and the hundreds of years that would be required for recovery.
Ocean acidification refers to the natural process whereby carbon dioxide dissolves in the sea, forming a weak carbonic acid. The ocean is a major sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide and has absorbed about 48 per cent of the CO2 emitted by human activities since the pre-industrial age.
A recent report from the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre claimed that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is at its highest level in 650,000 years, and possibly 23 million years, and half has been dissolved in the oceans, making them more acidic.
Australia has a direct stake in the ocean acidification problem: it will affect every part of our marine environment. And our offshore estate has just become a lot bigger. Three months ago the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, while not accepting all bids, recognised Australia's claim to the continental shelf where it extends beyond our exclusive 200 nautical mile economic zone. This is a vast oceanic area: 2.5 million square kilometres, or 10 times the size of New Zealand and 20 times the size of Britain.
Rising levels of acidity in the oceans surrounding Australia could have a profound impact on marine industries and dire consequences for many Pacific Island communities, presenting strategic and humanitarian challenges.
Mounting levels of CO2 in the Southern Ocean has caused deep concern among scientists studying the long-term productivity of the world's oceans. Under conditions of increasing acidification, parts of the oceans will deteriorate and progressively become uninhabitable for certain types of plankton, central to the ocean food chain, and coral structures. The Southern Ocean is particularly important because it is very efficient at absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere: it's here where the first effects are being felt.
Ocean acidification is likely to have a cascading effect, reaching parts of the food chain such as fish and shellfish. Marine researchers are saying that a business-as-usual scenario of CO2 production will ultimately result in destruction of marine life on an enormous scale.
Some shell-forming species will struggle to maintain or reproduce their vital shell structures and skeletons, which will have a direct effect on the ocean food web.
Some species will decline, others will be displaced or will disappear, and patterns of fisheries will change, potentially threatening the food security of millions in the Asia-Pacific and damaging Australian fisheries economically.
Another study identified ocean acidification as a primary causal factor in common reef fish getting lost at sea during a crucial stage of their development. And rising acidification could also interfere with the respiration of fish, the larval development of marine organisms and the ability of oceans to absorb nutrients and toxins.
Coral reefs such as the Great Barrier Reef, which are hot spots of biodiversity, will suffer. Acidification will weaken coral structures and stunt coral growth, leading to a significant decline by the middle of this century. This will deprive parts of the Australian coastline of a natural protective barrier against the ocean, leading to greater threats from storm activity and cyclones.
Similarly, environmental threats to nations in our region with extensive coastal exposure will increase, resulting in more demands on Australia to assist countries facing environmental disasters. For low-lying island nations such as Kiribati and Tuvalu, already facing inundation from the rising sea level, the threat could be existential.
Some researchers have proposed ocean fertilisation as a simple, environmentally friendly and effective fix: the deliberate addition of nutrients to the sea in order to stimulate phytoplankton growth in the hope that the CO2 is captured in the marine organisms and then transferred to the deep ocean, where it would be stored, possibly for centuries.
However, neither the environmental safety nor the efficacy of ocean fertilisation has been adequately assessed. It could risk side effects such as artificially induced phytoplankton blooms that degrade the maritime domain of countries that share sea borders with Australia.
In the absence of any clear preventive solutions, and with so much at stake, Australia needs to understand how best to adapt to the problem of acidic seas.
There are several initial steps we should take. We need a more collaborative national research effort to enable broad partnerships to develop across the research community with marine-focused agencies, increasing Australia's capacity and readiness to adapt to global oceanic changes.
The present arrangement of loosely associated research institutions lacks the required funding and co-ordination to develop an accurate national assessment of the ecological impacts of the problem.
Related to this, we need to address our marine research capability. Australia has only two major research platforms, and both vessels are approaching the end of their useful lives. We have less capacity here than many of our neighbours and we are barely on par with NZ's capability.
There are cost-effective, short-term strategies that would start to fill the information gap. There are nine moorings at shelf locations across Australia being established through the integrated marine observing system, which measures what's driving ecosystem change in the oceans.
The federal Government could assist with enhancing the limited carbon-measurement capability of these moorings to help define the natural variability in acidification and how it's changing. Merchant vessels could be utilised to collect water samples needed to measure the rate of change in ocean acidity: sustained observations from Australian coastal waters are required to determine how acid levels are changing and to identify and ultimately predict how ecosystems will respond to acidification.
Australia should become a lead nation in monitoring acidification levels in regional waters and raise the issue of sustaining our oceans at every opportunity in regional and international bodies concerned with global environmental change, such as the International Maritime Organisation.
Australian scientists working in the Southern Ocean and the Great Barrier Reef region have considerable expertise that could assist Indo-Pacific states whose national interests are linked to the oceans. Many of our neighbours in the Indo-Pacific region depend on coral reefs for marine-based tourism revenue and food security. Fish stocks in Southeast Asia indirectly support about 100 million people: understanding the consequences of acidification for these communities could help to prevent future calls for Australian development assistance.
And our security decision-makers need to factor in ocean acidification into longer-term national risk assessments. Talking directly to Australia's marine science experts on the problem would be a sound place to start.
We have a larger stake in this issue than most countries. We are an oceanic superpower, with the third largest area of offshore marine estate in the world. Australian fisheries generate $2billion in revenue, and the Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral reef, supports a $6.9 billion industry. And we're close to the Southern Ocean, which is the principal means for pumping CO2 out of the atmosphere: that's where the alarm bells are ringing.
People didn't believe the melting icecaps idea a few years ago but it's just been reported that for the first time in recorded history the North Pole may briefly be ice-free by September as global warming melts away Arctic Sea ice. Polar scientists believe the chances of a totally ice-free North Pole this northern summer are greater than 50-50, and a Russian parliamentary committee has just warned that the Arctic icecap may be gone by 2070.
As the debate about who wins and who loses in the future Australian emissions trading regime intensifies, we should remember that with ocean acidification there will only be losers. Discovering the ecological effects of our souring oceans requires urgent action.
Anthony Bergin is director of research programs at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Ross Allen is a research analyst at ASPI. These are their personal views.
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Scientists warn growing acidity of oceans will kill reefs. Scientists have given warning of a newly discovered threat to mankind, which will wipe out coral and many species of fish and other sea life. London Guardian, England. 4 February 2005. [related stories]
Coral reefs may start to dissolve in 30 years. Scientists are predicting that coral reefs could start to dissolve within 30 years as rising carbon dioxide levels make the seas more acidic. London Independent, England. 2 February 2005. [related stories]
Oceans to acid. If industrial CO2 emissions continue to increase at their current rate, by the end of the century the surface waters of the world's oceans are likely to become more acidic. Christian Science Monitor. 9 September 2004. [related stories]
Acid oceans spell doom for coral. Driven by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the increasing acidity of the world's oceans could banish all coral by 2065. BBC, UK. 30 August 2004. [related stories]
Probe into rising ocean acidity. The UK's Royal Society has launched an investigation into rising acidity of the world's oceans, which could have catastrophic consequences for marine life. BBC, UK. 17 August 2004. [related stories]
Seas turn to acid as they absorb global pollution. The world's oceans are sacrificing themselves to try to stave off global warming, a major international research programme has discovered. London Independent, England. 1 August 2004. [related stories)
[viii] ‘Soup’ of poisonous jellyfish hit Britain
Shoals of poisonous jellyfish are invading coastal waters around Britain as the seas heat up. Some stretches have been turned into a ‘jellyfish soup’ by thousands of them. The Marine Conservation Society says numbers could continue to rise throughout the summer. It is urging beachgoers to help keep track of the invasion by reporting sightings, although it warned people not to touch the creatures which can sting. Program manager Peter Richardson said: “They are increasing around the world and it has been linked to pollution, over-fishing and possiboy climate change. Already some areas of the UK’s seas resemble a jellyfish soup, such as the Irish Sea where large numbers of jellyfish have been reported.” International Express 26 July-1 August 2011
South Australia's Giant Cuttlefish breeding colony - regarded as a natural marvel – has disappeared. Experts and tourism operators say they are at a loss to explain why the tens of thousands of Giant Australian Cuttlefish have not appeared for their annual breeding migration. They fear the species is in danger, saying less than a quarter of the usual numbers have made it to the shallow, rocky waters off Whyalla and those that have are smaller than usual. This is the only place in the world that the cuttlefish gather in such large numbers to breed. No government department, however, claims responsibility for monitoring their numbers. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the Environment Protection Authority and Primary Industries and Resources SA all told the Sunday Mail they were not responsible for counting cuttlefish to ensure the species was safe. Adelaide University ecologist Professor Bronwyn Gillanders said the cuttlefish looked to be in danger. "I have heard reports the numbers are way reduced," she said. "Initially it was thought they were coming in late this year, but they should have been at their peak abundance in mid-to-late June. It's really hard to tell whether this is a natural phenomenon or something else."
She said more research was needed to determine the cause. "I don't think anybody has any idea about what could be causing it," she said. "The reason it is so concerning is that cuttlefish die after mating. A species like snapper can have a bad recruitment year but the same fish can still come back and lay more eggs. "The cuttlefish can't come back and breed again." Whyalla dive boat operator Tony Bramley believes they are being fished by boats targeting an area just outside the Point Lowly exclusion zone. "We are very, very concerned because the numbers this year are disastrously low," he said. "There is a tiny little finger of coastline out near Point Lowly outside the zone. "I believe that's where they access the reef from the deep water. They should close that. It's been described as the best marine spectacle in the world and we're risking losing it. The cuttlefish have turned up (this year) - it's just the fisherman took them all. "In other years the bottom was a carpet of them. "The reef was covered but if you go out there now, there's hardly any."
Shayne Grant, a former tour operator and local diver, said locals were concerned a major tourism drawcard and ecological wonder could disappear. "Last year they were everywhere but this year they haven't moved in at all," he said. "Tourist numbers seem to be dropping off, too. People are finding out about it." In an emailed statement to the Sunday Mail, a DENR spokeswoman said: "PIRSA protects the cuttlefish aggregation with a fishery closure across False Bay. "DENR is considering advice from the local community to develop a marine park sanctuary zone in the area that will provide extra protection to both the cuttlefish and the habitat they depend upon. DENR has heard the concerns expressed by tourism operators that there are fewer cuttlefish near Whyalla this year, but does not monitor their numbers and is not aware of concerns around a particular fishing location." *Adelaide Now
Dugongs and Turtles
Environmentalists have again warned of an ecological disaster at the southern end of Queensland's Great Barrier Reef, following the discovery of a dead dugong. It was found washed up on a beach in Gladstone Harbour, the fourth dugong, along with three dolphins and 40 turtles that have been found washed up around the harbour since May. The Evans Head Fishing Classic is an "ecological massacre masquerading under the banner of sustainable sport”, and urgent action should be taken to ensure "some sanity” prevails, says Evans Head Fishermen's Co-op. The co-op general manager, Gerry Morgan, says the event should be cut back to three days and entries limited.
Small Fish in Decline
The growth in demand for small fish for feeding pigs, poultry and farmed salmon, could lead to the collapse of some fisheries. Marine scientists around the world have called for fishing effort to be halved for those fisheries at risk. The research, lately published in the journal Science (July 22, 2011) models future populations of forage fish including sardine, herring, mackerel and anchovy. They're vital food sources for seals, whales and seabirds. A global team of researchers looked at fishing off Peru and Chile, California and in the North Sea. Dr Beth Fulton of the CSIRO's Wealth from Oceans Flagship, is a co-author on the paper on forage fish. "They end up in fertiliser, fishmeal, they get fed to fish in aquaculture, if you've got tuna out in in a pen, pet food. "Three of them are some of the world's biggest fisheries for these kinds of fish, and the reason we were doing the work is the Marine Stewardship Council which gives eco-certification to fisheries, they wanted to know the safe rules for these kinds of fish." Their models showed if fishing continue at this rate, marine mammals and seabirds will decline, and the fishing effort needs to be halved. *ABC Read more .... http://www.abc.net.au/rural/content/2011/s3278132.htm
Fish Vanishing
A new study suggests that more than 40 fish species in the Mediterranean could vanish in the next few years. The study released Tuesday by the International Union for Conservation of Nature says almost half of the species of sharks and rays in the Mediterranean and at least 12 species of bony fish are threatened with extinction due to overfishing, pollution and the loss of habitat. Commercial catches of bluefin tuna, sea bass, hake and dusky grouper are particularly threatened, said the study by the Swiss-based IUCN, an environmental network of 1,000 groups in 160 nations. "The Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic population of the Atlantic bluefin tuna is of particular concern," said Kent Carpenter, IUCN's global marine species assessment coordinator. He cited a steep drop in the giant fish's reproductive capacity due to four decades of intensive overfishing. Japanese diners consume 80 percent of the Atlantic and Pacific bluefins caught and the two tuna species are especially prized by sushi lovers. *NetworkItem
Penguins
Young penguins in the Antarctic may be dying because they are having a tougher time finding food, as melting sea ice cuts back on the tiny fish they eat, U.S. researchers suggested on Monday. Only about 10 per cent of baby penguins tagged by researchers are coming back in two to four years to breed, down from 40-50 per cent in the 1970s, said the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Chinstrap penguins, known for their characteristic head markings that resemble a cap with a black line just under the neck, are the second largest group in the area after the macaroni penguins, and are at particular risk because their population is restricted to one area, the South Shetland Islands. "It is a dramatic change," lead researcher Wayne Trivelpiece, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Antarctic Ecosystem Research Division, told AFP. "There are still two to three million chinstrap pairs in this region but there were seven to eight million two decades ago," he said. *GlobalNews Read more: http://www.globalnews.ca/technology/Young+penguins+dying+lack+food+Study/4596766/story.html
(I heard a very brief late night news report a few days ago that hundreds of penguins who had just moulted and were swimming in the sea for the first time, were covered in oil from a ship spill - obviously no 'clean-up crew to help them, so I presume they all died. It wasn't reported by any other media that I know, so another abomination swept under the carpet..m)
[x] It has taken your department 20 MONTHS to process s.9 and s.10 Submissions for protection of the Sacred Alum Mountain (‘Boolah Dillah’) during which time most of the separate sacred icons listed have been utterly destroyed by the NSW RTA with the federal government’s blessings (eg 20 iconic scar/canoe/burial/birthing/Guardian trees felled and woodchipped) and presently Frog Rock is being severely threatened with 3 explosive drillings into its base rock (which happens to be crystalline silica, the dust from the crushing having covered the entire town)
[xi] Tarong's carbon capture scheme More than 75,000 kg of carbon has been captured as part of a pilot program at a South Burnett power station. Tarong Energy and the CSIRO have used special liquids to trap emissions from boilers at the coal-fired Tarong plant. Project manager Michael Sinclair said the project was so successful it had been extended for another 18 months. Again in conjunction with the CSIRO to test another type of technology that's effective in the post-combustion capture plant and to see whether we can further reduce the cost and increase the effectiveness of the plant," he said.
Henbury Station, a 405,000 ha grazing property in Australia’s red centre, has been transformed into a $13 million gamble on the commercial viability of climate change mitigation. The cattle station is set to become one of the world’s largest carbon farms, drawing pollution from the atmosphere by selling offsets to companies that pollute.
Launching the initiative on the deep red banks of the Finke River yesterday, Environment Minister Tony Burke admitted there were no precedents for the Henbury project. The federal government kicked in $9.1m of the cattle station’s $13m purchase price.
“This is the big canvas to provide a big example of allowing a market-based approach to drive biodiversity outcomes,” Mr Burke said.
The conservation effort will begin with the removal of 17,000 cattle by year’s end and thus significant emissions of methane gas. The project managers will then orchestrate a campaign to weed out introduced plants that have choked the propagation of native, carbon-storing species.
New efforts will be made to cull the population of feral camels.
Finally the company will manage fires on the property.
CSIRO site leader Ashley Sparrow conceded the rejuvenation would be “a slow process, since most recovery relies on big rainfall events”.
“I would expect in a while, and after some good rains, you’d see fields full of daisies in winter and high grass in the summer”, he said.
Despite positive discussions between owners RM Williams, Agricultural Holdings and traditional owners, some in the Aboriginal community have bitterly refused to support the project.
Bruce Breaden, a former director of the Central Land Council, welcomed the new opportunities but regretted the Aboriginal people were unable to buy it themselves.
“I’m not cranky about it. I hope it will work,” he said.
But Barry Abbott, who heckled Mr Burke during his news conference yesterday, accused RM Williams and the government of not consulting with Aboriginal people.
“Why couldn’t we have the money to buy it for the Aboriginal people?” the 67 year old asked Mr Burke, who sat with the man to hear his concerns.
“Can’t they give us a block of land each to run animals for killing? What are we going to eat? Lizards?”
Mr Burke said there were “two views within the local community and you’ve just heard one of them.”
Managing Director David Pearse said RMWAH would work with biodiversity and carbon experts to establish a “scientific methodology” to measure emissions sequestration.
Dingo may save Australian wildlife
Wednesday, 11 July 2007
by Sarah Wood
SYDNEY: Dingoes may have a major role in conserving native Australian wildlife, say biologists who are calling for their reintroduction.
Though the species is an introduced predator itself and has faced widespread persecution by farmers, experts now believe it has a vital part to play in suppressing runaway fox and cat populations.
Since European settlement of Australia in 1788, the continent has lost 27 native species and subspecies of mammals, the highest rate of loss in the world, said ecologist Chris Dickman of the University of Sydney. A wealth of evidence implicates the red fox and domestic cat as a major cause of many of these declines.
"To say the [red fox and cat] have obliterated native mammals is an understatement – there are no words to describe it," he said. "The dingo could be one mechanism to control this."
"Native mammal obliteration"
Speaking today at the 2007 Biodiversity Extinction Crisis Conference held at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Dickman revealed data showing that in many areas - surrounding major Australian sheep farming regions - "where dingoes occur there are no foxes."
Dickman's research in a 325,000 km2 area of rangelands in New South Wales suggests that careful management and re-introduction of the dingo into what he referred to as a "conservation wasteland" could benefit 21 threatened species of mammals that still exist.
Other research has shown a correlation between dingoes and low fox numbers on either side of 5,000-kilometre-long 'dingo-proof 'fence constructed by Australian state governments to exclude the dogs from sheep farming areas. The barrier runs through the arid inland of South Australia, New South Wales and into Queensland.
Dingoes are rare inside the fence, but Mike Letnic of the University of Sydney's Institute of Wildlife Research has found that foxes are anywhere from seven to 20 times more abundant than they are on the outside. Other evidence is also stacking up that small native mammals are more abundant and successful in areas where the dingo has not been wiped out all across Australia.
Restoring the top dog
Al Glen of the Western Australia Department of Environment and Conservation, also speaking at the conference, said that in reintroducing the dingo, we would simply be restoring a predator-prey balance that was lost to Australia when the natural top predator, the thylacine, became extinct on the mainland 2,000 years ago.
"When the top predator is taken out of the system, subordinate predators increase in number" he said.
While dingoes hunt foxes and cats for food they also exclude them by competing for resources such as dens, said Glen.
Any decision to reintroduce dingoes to areas where they have been extirpated, would be a big step. For many years there has been continued debate over whether the dingo should be regarded as an introduced pest or a native animal, as it was introduced itself by Asian seafarers 4,000 years ago. The confusion has meant that dingo controls in areas such as the Northern Territory's Tanami Desert, have been followed by a rapid invasion of foxes and subsequent die-off of native mammals.
"Native mammal obliteration"
Speaking today at the 2007 Biodiversity Extinction Crisis Conference held at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Dickman revealed data showing that in many areas - surrounding major Australian sheep farming regions - "where dingoes occur there are no foxes."
Dickman's research in a 325,000 km2 area of rangelands in New South Wales suggests that careful management and re-introduction of the dingo into what he referred to as a "conservation wasteland" could benefit 21 threatened species of mammals that still exist.
Other research has shown a correlation between dingoes and low fox numbers on either side of 5,000-kilometre-long 'dingo-proof 'fence constructed by Australian state governments to exclude the dogs from sheep farming areas. The barrier runs through the arid inland of South Australia, New South Wales and into Queensland.
Dingoes are rare inside the fence, but Mike Letnic of the University of Sydney's Institute of Wildlife Research has found that foxes are anywhere from seven to 20 times more abundant than they are on the outside. Other evidence is also stacking up that small native mammals are more abundant and successful in areas where the dingo has not been wiped out all across Australia.
Restoring the top dog
Al Glen of the Western Australia Department of Environment and Conservation, also speaking at the conference, said that in reintroducing the dingo, we would simply be restoring a predator-prey balance that was lost to Australia when the natural top predator, the thylacine, became extinct on the mainland 2,000 years ago.
"When the top predator is taken out of the system, subordinate predators increase in number" he said.
While dingoes hunt foxes and cats for food they also exclude them by competing for resources such as dens, said Glen.
Any decision to reintroduce dingoes to areas where they have been extirpated, would be a big step. For many years there has been continued debate over whether the dingo should be regarded as an introduced pest or a native animal, as it was introduced itself by Asian seafarers 4,000 years ago. The confusion has meant that dingo controls in areas such as the Northern Territory's Tanami Desert, have been followed by a rapid invasion of foxes and subsequent die-off of native mammals.
Further confusion over the distinctions between wild dogs, which are often classed as pests; and dingoes, which are classed as native species, exacerbates the problem said Brad Nesbitt of the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service. The challenge for wildlife managers is to identify dingoes from wild dogs and hybrids, he said.
Rural opposition
Still, the experts agree that they must proceed cautiously. Not least because they will "undoubtedly face opposition from the rural sector" said Dickman.
He suggested that farmers could keep "watch animals" such as donkeys, alpacas and llamas, which make a lot of noise when agitated, and which also attack predators, protecting livestock.
Government compensation schemes for farmers who have lost livestock to reintroduced coyotes in the U.S. have also proved very effective, he said.
Nevertheless dingo reintroduction may only be suitable as a conservation measure in some areas, added Glen, particularly arid regions.
Further research is required, however, to test the viability of the approach. "If we are thinking about this seriously we must conduct the experiments to get the quantifiable evidence for the benefits," said Dickman.
Dingo may save Australian wildlife
Rural opposition
Still, the experts agree that they must proceed cautiously. Not least because they will "undoubtedly face opposition from the rural sector" said Dickman.
He suggested that farmers could keep "watch animals" such as donkeys, alpacas and llamas, which make a lot of noise when agitated, and which also attack predators, protecting livestock.
Government compensation schemes for farmers who have lost livestock to reintroduced coyotes in the U.S. have also proved very effective, he said.
Nevertheless dingo reintroduction may only be suitable as a conservation measure in some areas, added Glen, particularly arid regions.
Further research is required, however, to test the viability of the approach. "If we are thinking about this seriously we must conduct the experiments to get the quantifiable evidence for the benefits," said Dickman.
Dingo may save Australian wildlife
It just goes to show how finely tuned and balanced is our ecology and the balance of species. Humans have introduced so many foreign animals into Australia since European settlement and by damaging the balance we have lost so many species of fauna and weeds are eradicating our pristine landscape. So many extinctions and vulnerable species of animals have caused an imbalance in nature and only now are we seeing the result of our on-going colonial attitude to our unique biodiversity. Common wildlife are often seen as pests, a nuisance factor for pastoralists. Feral animals have wreaked havoc on them too. With the introduction of the Dingo into the equation, there may be some restoration of the balance. However, the fault lies directly with human intervention and abuse of our environment by producers, landowners and developers. Introduced animals should be closely confined and properly fenced so as to stop any feral animals destroying our ecological balance. No indigenous animals should be seen as a threat or a pest and be allowed to be shot, or be 'harvested' for commercial gain.
Submitted by Vivienne Ortega on 12 July 2007 - 1:05pm.
Wildlife Bytes Ed Comment, Meanwhile we've heard that a Fraser Island resident has seen about 20 dingoes fitted with a big box and antenna around their necks. So that involves more trapping, more handling, more stress and the dingoes have no idea what is happening to them. So much for the Government claiming they don’t want to interfere with the dingoes. The units have boxes hanging from the collar and an antenna. A few years ago a dingo was seen struggling for more than 10 minutes in the shrub, entangled by the antennas, it was stressful for the person watching to witness as she could not assist the animal. Where is the no interference policy being adhered to by DERM? Ear Tagging under 12 months, collaring, hazing, shooting. Did they dart, capture and collar pregnant mums, they are due to have puppies next month, I wonder how they will cope going in and out of the dens with these horrible contraptions around their necks. Meanwhile the RSPCA uses a small GPS device that fits onto the dogs collar, and can be used in conjunction with a mobile phone. And this is DERM, the Government Department thats supposed to be looking after our wildlife?
[xiv] This submission has been sent to: The Koori Mail (02 66 222 666 Editor: editor@koorimail.com ) The National Indigenous Times (1300 786 611 Editor: editor@nit.com.au ) Tracker Magazine (02 9689 4455 Editor: chris.graham@alc.org.au – 0407 555 38) The Land (02 4570 4650 letters.theland@ruralpress.com ) All Aboriginal Councils
[xv] Catalyst 28.7.11 - (Notes taken from segment on the study of owl pellets in caves in the SE Highlands near Canberra: )
“Australia has a terrible record of extinctions ….. the process of decline of our fauna is ongoing … can we be sure they’ve gone completely or do they still hang on in tiny pockets? …. Biodiversity generates a productive landscape … with clear evidence we can start to get them back into these areas …. Unless we know what was there, we don’t know where to look for them…. The owls are really good at finding rare animals … The ‘Wee Jasper’ deposits reveal just how much has been lost from the SE Highlands near Canberra … we are finding species never known to exist here …
(The laboratory is more technically advanced than any other in the world) … Ten small mammals have been identified, only two of these species have previously been seen, reflecting the same level of extinction across most of SE Australia – (and all the way up the eastern seaboard, in lowlands and highlands…eg 99% of the Great Brigalow Belt has been cleared, 98% of Queensland’s lowland rainforests have gone, mostly under sugar cane, and 75% of highlands, mostly for grazing….mb) …Those animals have a really clear role in the ecosystem - it functions because it has all these different components working together … the only way we can restore the productivity is by pumping nutrients back into it ….and these key species are the only things that move those nutrients around the system.
We really have got to think about redressing that imbalance NOW … rebuilding whole communities … we know from the experience of building fox & cat exclusion fences (chiefly from John Walmsley’s ‘Earth Sanctuaries which were forced to close down due to financial pressures as the government failed to support him…) many native species can breed abundantly …. if we can get some successes we can restore the native fauna we’ve largely lost and in danger of losing completely”
[xvi] Fact Sheet: Disease Alert: Myrtle Rust
Angus Stewart finds out about Myrtle Rust, a new plant disease that has the potential to devastate Australia's native forests – 2/4/2011
SERIES 22 Episode 08
ANGUS STEWART: Myrtle Rust is the latest unwanted import to our shores and it could have far-reaching and devastating consequences. I went to the New South Wales Central Coast to find out about this invading pest - Myrtle Rust - from an expert - Kevin Cooper.
KEVIN COOPER: Here we are Angus - Myrtle Rust on a Rhodomyrtus - an Australian native plant . The plant's actually dying off. Myrtle Rust is a fungal disease that's only just been found and has a real potential to impact on the Australian environment.
ANGUS STEWART: And where did it come from?
KEVIN COOPER: Where it came from is yet to be established, but the majority of people believe it's probably come from South America, but this time, we just don't know how it arrived in Australia.
ANGUS STEWART: So where is it right now?
KEVIN COOPER: In Australia, the work over the last 6 or 7 months has shown that Central Coast was very much a focus, but it's really spread from there, down into the Sydney Basin, north along the coast, northern rivers and South-East Queensland is also affected.
ANGUS STEWART: And what species are affected?
KEVIN COOPER: At the moment we have about 3 dozen Australian native plants in the Myrtaceae that are affected. It includes some of the iconic species - Eucalypts, Melaleuca. Also some of the lesser known species like Backhousia, but a lot of important understorey plants as well.
ANGUS STEWART: So there could be devastating consequences to horticulture, agriculture, forestry?
KEVIN COOPER: Absolutely. Any industry in Australia, including the environment, that relies on Myrtaceae - they all, at the moment, are feeling very vulnerable to the impacts of this disease.
ANGUS STEWART: How can you tell this is Myrtle Rust rather than some other fungal disease?
KEVIN COOPER: The telltale signs, in a fresh, new infection, are the bright, yellow pustules that occur when the temperature's right, but importantly, moisture's around - plenty of moisture. But as the disease progresses, typically you'll see leafy curling, dieback of the growing tips- they'll roll back in, and it'll be across a large part of the plant. As the disease progresses through, particularly if it dries out, the yellow pustules will be increasingly replaced by a rusty-coloured lesion on the plant. But always the outer tips of the plants are affected and are affected quite severely.
ANGUS STEWART: So the situation's very serious. What can the individual gardener do to help?
KEVIN COOPER: Every person can make a difference. People will consider using a fungicide, but you'll see pretty quickly it's not practical to spray trees this big. You're going to have to do it fortnightly and it costs a lot of money. So fungicide's not an option, ultimately, for long-term management. So remove high-risk activities like moving infected plants around. You don't want people moving infected plants long distances. We also don't want people working in their gardens in dirty clothes, so please wear clean clothes in areas that are known to be infected. So that's important. If you've got infected plants, when you dispose of your plant material, compost it. It's a very safe way of getting rid of the material.
ANGUS STEWART: So what will doing all these things actually achieve?
KEVIN COOPER: They'll slow the spread. Slowing the spread gives us time to understand and study Myrtle Rust leading to management strategies that will allow us to live with Myrtle Rust into the future.
Further Information:Australian Government Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry
Myrtle Rust - NSW Department Primary Industries
ANGUS STEWART: Myrtle Rust is the latest unwanted import to our shores and it could have far-reaching and devastating consequences. I went to the New South Wales Central Coast to find out about this invading pest - Myrtle Rust - from an expert - Kevin Cooper.
KEVIN COOPER: Here we are Angus - Myrtle Rust on a Rhodomyrtus - an Australian native plant . The plant's actually dying off. Myrtle Rust is a fungal disease that's only just been found and has a real potential to impact on the Australian environment.
ANGUS STEWART: And where did it come from?
KEVIN COOPER: Where it came from is yet to be established, but the majority of people believe it's probably come from South America, but this time, we just don't know how it arrived in Australia.
ANGUS STEWART: So where is it right now?
KEVIN COOPER: In Australia, the work over the last 6 or 7 months has shown that Central Coast was very much a focus, but it's really spread from there, down into the Sydney Basin, north along the coast, northern rivers and South-East Queensland is also affected.
ANGUS STEWART: And what species are affected?
KEVIN COOPER: At the moment we have about 3 dozen Australian native plants in the Myrtaceae that are affected. It includes some of the iconic species - Eucalypts, Melaleuca. Also some of the lesser known species like Backhousia, but a lot of important understorey plants as well.
ANGUS STEWART: So there could be devastating consequences to horticulture, agriculture, forestry?
KEVIN COOPER: Absolutely. Any industry in Australia, including the environment, that relies on Myrtaceae - they all, at the moment, are feeling very vulnerable to the impacts of this disease.
ANGUS STEWART: How can you tell this is Myrtle Rust rather than some other fungal disease?
KEVIN COOPER: The telltale signs, in a fresh, new infection, are the bright, yellow pustules that occur when the temperature's right, but importantly, moisture's around - plenty of moisture. But as the disease progresses, typically you'll see leafy curling, dieback of the growing tips- they'll roll back in, and it'll be across a large part of the plant. As the disease progresses through, particularly if it dries out, the yellow pustules will be increasingly replaced by a rusty-coloured lesion on the plant. But always the outer tips of the plants are affected and are affected quite severely.
ANGUS STEWART: So the situation's very serious. What can the individual gardener do to help?
KEVIN COOPER: Every person can make a difference. People will consider using a fungicide, but you'll see pretty quickly it's not practical to spray trees this big. You're going to have to do it fortnightly and it costs a lot of money. So fungicide's not an option, ultimately, for long-term management. So remove high-risk activities like moving infected plants around. You don't want people moving infected plants long distances. We also don't want people working in their gardens in dirty clothes, so please wear clean clothes in areas that are known to be infected. So that's important. If you've got infected plants, when you dispose of your plant material, compost it. It's a very safe way of getting rid of the material.
ANGUS STEWART: So what will doing all these things actually achieve?
KEVIN COOPER: They'll slow the spread. Slowing the spread gives us time to understand and study Myrtle Rust leading to management strategies that will allow us to live with Myrtle Rust into the future.
Further Information:Australian Government Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry
Myrtle Rust - NSW Department Primary Industries
A bat expert has blamed sloppy horse management for a number of Hendra outbreaks. Twelve horses have died in Hendra outbreaks across Queensland and NSW in recent weeks, prompting calls from political leaders and the community for bats to be culled. Bats are believed to transmit the virus through body secretions to horses, which can in turn infect humans. Dozens of people who came into contact with the sick horses are being monitored and will undergo three rounds of blood tests over 21 days before they can be cleared of contracting it. WWF bat expert Dr Martin Taylor said horse owners needed to heed better hygiene and horse management. "I think sloppy horse management [is to blame]," Dr Taylor said. "Horses are the animals that transmit the virus to humans, it's not bats. "Nobody is calling for a mass culling of horses are they? "The solution to rare diseases like this is good hygiene. "The bubonic plague was defeated by good hygiene." Horse owners are advised not to leave horses, food and water troughs near trees inhabited by bats.
Meanwhile, wildlife ecologist Dr Chris Tidemann has challenged the notion that bat numbers are in decline and should be protected. The grey-headed bat is listed as vulnerable to extinction under Commonwealth law and, in Queensland, it's illegal to kill any bat species as they are protected. "Over the last few years, there's been a steady increase in the presence of grey-headed flying foxes all over the place," he told ABC Online today. "Animals are not just camping [in new places] but dropping young [there]. "That's been happening all over the place, and that's a sign of an expanding population." But Dr Taylor said it would be devastating to Australia's rainforests to lift protections for bats. "Bats are very critical pollinators and food disperses, that's why they are so important to keeping our forests growing and healthy," Dr Taylor said. * AAP
Ed Comment; It was Chris Tideman who was responsible for the planned culling of the Melbourne Botanic Gardens Flying Foxes, but the cull was stopped by community outrage and political pressure. Tideman is an "ecologist" how likes to manage environmental issues by killing wildlife.
The State Government could face legal action for not removing disease-carrying bats from Queensland communities. Kennedy MP Bob Katter will next week announce plans to raise money in communities around Australia to bring legal action against the Government for failing to remove bats in communities including Charters Towers. Should anyone die or fall ill from the Hendra virus or another bat-related disease before the action is launched, Mr Katter plans to launch criminal action against Premier Anna Bligh under section 289 of the Criminal Act 1899 (Qld) for breaching "the duty of persons in charge of dangerous things". In a letter to Ms Bligh last Wednesday, Mr Katter warned he would be calling on groups from across Queensland to come forward and start raising money to force the Government to remove bats from communities. "If a human death or illness arises from the Government's rules laws (sic) and failure to act, such monies raised will be used to pursue whoever's breach of duty of care has resulted in whole, or part, in such human pain and suffering," the letter read. "Without the undertaking of any reasonable action to avoid this danger posed to human life, we intend to hold you, Anna Bligh, personally liable for the death, illness or injury occasioned by the presence of the flying foxes in areas where people live and work in North Queensland."
Mr Katter also sent a letter to Opposition Leader Jeff Seeney on the same day urging him to take a stand on the issue. "As Leader of Opposition we also consider that it is your responsibility to immediately outline to the people of Queensland what your party's position is on this matter. And its intentions with respect to federal LNP's Biodiversity Act, which Act has precipitated the flying fox protection extremes now endangering people throughout Queensland," it stated. The news comes after Liberal National Party members on the weekend passed a resolution to allow councils to move protected bats from communities. Lissner Park in Charters Towers has been home to an increasing flying fox population since 2001. LNP MP for Dalrymple Shane Knuth said his party put people's lives before flying foxes. The whole Charters Towers community wants it resolved," he said. The Townsville Bulletin contacted Ms Bligh's office for comment yesterday but did not get a response before deadline. * Townesville Bulletin
Ed Comment; for those who are concerned or interested in flying foxes, there is a very interesting article here ... http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2011/07/18/3270559.htm
[xviii] Peter Beattie was inexplicably able to sail through state and federal Environment Departments, permission to spend $300 million on building a megadam in the heart of the shire’s (and Australia’s) No.1 biological treasure and tourism asset, the primeval Gondwana jungle remnant known as the 'Goodnight Scrub', paradoxically the oldest and the youngest National Park in Australia. The council had helped stop the last free-flowing stretches of Mighty Murullbakgera, “River of the Breathing Fish, where the Turtle People live” dead in its tracks after flowing through the jungles of Gondwana for 160 million years, inundating not only 45 kilometers of river banks upstream but also ILLEGALLY inundating the rare and unique vegetation along Bowden Creek, the Park’s major waterway. Also gone under still water was the Crossing Place of the Rainbow Serpent Songline at the river (six kilometers of gently dropping rocky river bed rapids, natural riffles that oxygenated the breeding grounds downstream – now under still water) that people had walked since the Dreamtime on their 2 or 3 yearly migration to the Great Bunya Festival. Also gone, rare ancient zamia palm groves. Even David Attenborough couldn't stop them gutting the NP, removing its heart and annihilating the river’s spirit and Dreaming. (The CSIRO also did all they could to stop it, publishing many articles from scientists in their 'Ecos" Magazine and online)
The at-capacity impoundment of the Paradise Dam has caused a wholesale wiping-out of not just rare but unique biodiversity. There have been three major fish kill events (now 4 since the last floods*) on that stretch of river due to this pristine native vegetation rotting under water. This case of the worst vandalism in Australia history should go to the International Criminal Courts yet NGO Conservation groups can’t even win a minor challenge claiming the fish lift doesn’t work! In any event, Professor Jean Joss, lungfish expert at Macquarie University had always said; “What good is their fish lift anyway? Even if the lungfish negotiate it successfully, and there’s no evidence that they will - their breeding sites upstream (the last intact breeding sites on the river) will all have disappeared if the dam is built.”
The Burnett Water For All Group Statement of Key Issues, under Cultural Heritage for Aboriginal People. states:The Wakka Wakka Jinda, Gurang Gurang and other groups affirm:... They would suffer strong spiritual loss, as cultural life is centred around the river, particularly for food. How can this be replaced or valued?
... The Paradise Dam cuts an important traditional pathway (migratory trail/trading route/Rainbow Serpent Songline) which was crossed in the biennial Bunya Nut Gathering at the Bunya Mountains. (this is at a place called 3 mile rapids, 6 kms of gently falling rocky river beds in the main river channel, the river's major riffle area that oxygenated the water for the lungfish & all other species major breeding grounds in the National Park just downstream - all now destroyed by the Paradise dam .... update 12.3.08)... According to Mavis Hawkins, president of the Wakka Wakka Jinda group - "We believe in the stories our Elders told us of the sacred places in MURULLBAKGERA , the 'river of the breathing fish’, now known as the Burnett River. The place where the turtle people lived and bred. (Increase and/or source site) These are special places to us and we do not want to loose them." (Mavis also identified another very significant women's place - a wailing wall for women in the Burnett River gorge - in a letter to editor printed in the Central and Northern Burnett Times. There are also caves in the gorge which I am sure must have had immense cultural significance - all inundated now)
... The Paradise Dam cuts an important traditional pathway (migratory trail/trading route/Rainbow Serpent Songline) which was crossed in the biennial Bunya Nut Gathering at the Bunya Mountains. (this is at a place called 3 mile rapids, 6 kms of gently falling rocky river beds in the main river channel, the river's major riffle area that oxygenated the water for the lungfish & all other species major breeding grounds in the National Park just downstream - all now destroyed by the Paradise dam .... update 12.3.08)... According to Mavis Hawkins, president of the Wakka Wakka Jinda group - "We believe in the stories our Elders told us of the sacred places in MURULLBAKGERA , the 'river of the breathing fish’, now known as the Burnett River. The place where the turtle people lived and bred. (Increase and/or source site) These are special places to us and we do not want to loose them." (Mavis also identified another very significant women's place - a wailing wall for women in the Burnett River gorge - in a letter to editor printed in the Central and Northern Burnett Times. There are also caves in the gorge which I am sure must have had immense cultural significance - all inundated now)
Mavis' letter: (I've lost the date, but can find it through the Central & Northern Burnett Times):
Aboriginal Views
Its time to stop building the dams and weirs.
We, the indigenous people of this area, are totally against any more destruction of this land and its natural water systems, or the natural flow of the rivers. WAMP (Burnett Water Allocation and Management Plan) are well aware that we are against any more destruction.
Already there are too many dams and weirs on the Burnett; water doesn't flow any more in these parts; you will drown in the mud, not the water. Where are the fish going to go? The Wakka Wakka people called the Burnett River "Murullbakgera" meaning "rivers of the breathing fish." (does the plural refer to Barambah Creek, the main lungfish breeding tributary to the Burnett River, or its ‘sister’ river, the Mary?)
Another significant Aboriginal legend is that where the turtle people lived there is a wailing wall for Women.
The Burnett and Barambah are places of great respect for our people - they are sacred to us. It saddens and deeply distresses me when I see the rivers not flowing free. The government should concentrate more on fixing the roads instead of destroying land and rivers.
Aboriginal Views
Its time to stop building the dams and weirs.
We, the indigenous people of this area, are totally against any more destruction of this land and its natural water systems, or the natural flow of the rivers. WAMP (Burnett Water Allocation and Management Plan) are well aware that we are against any more destruction.
Already there are too many dams and weirs on the Burnett; water doesn't flow any more in these parts; you will drown in the mud, not the water. Where are the fish going to go? The Wakka Wakka people called the Burnett River "Murullbakgera" meaning "rivers of the breathing fish." (does the plural refer to Barambah Creek, the main lungfish breeding tributary to the Burnett River, or its ‘sister’ river, the Mary?)
Another significant Aboriginal legend is that where the turtle people lived there is a wailing wall for Women.
The Burnett and Barambah are places of great respect for our people - they are sacred to us. It saddens and deeply distresses me when I see the rivers not flowing free. The government should concentrate more on fixing the roads instead of destroying land and rivers.
Is the voice of Aboriginal people to be silenced again?
M Hawkins, Gayndah
M Hawkins, Gayndah
Very sadly, Mavis died a few months later – probably due to the enormous shock, anxiety and heartbreak of knowing this PRICELESS biological and cultural landscape would be wiped out. This was her last message to the government. The voice of the continent’s Indigenous people was indeed silenced again – Native Title to the river was extinguished, along with its National Park status. The real tragedy here though, was that, to my knowledge, none of the Wakka Wakka Jinda cultural custodians of the river were ever informed that they had a right to apply for protection of all their Dreaming sites under the state or the federal law!* (get confirmation from wakka wakka Jinda) This is a serious breach of due process and will play a major part in any International criminal court procedures.
*Protection of Aboriginal Cultural Heritage: Federal: ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER HERITAGE PROTECTION ACT 1984
Qld State: The Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2003 and the Torres Strait Islander Cultural Heritage Act 2003 commenced on 16 April 2004 as part of a strategy to provide protection for Indigenous cultural heritage and to improve the process for addressing cultural heritage matters. The Acts repealed the Cultural Record (Landscapes Queensland and Queensland Estate) Act 1987 which was much outdated.
LUNGFISH FIGURES DEMANDEDFollowing the January floods, the Wide Bay Burnett Conservation Council(WBBCC)(contact them) fears the population of lungfish in the Burnett River may have been significantly reduced.
WBBCC president and Water Policy Officer Roger Currie said the group had received anecdotal evidence from a confidential source that thousands of lungfish were killed during the flood and subsequent overflow event at Paradise Dam.
The Queensland lungfish is endemic only to the Burnett and Mary rivers," (populations not considered stable in other rivers they have been introduced to...) Mr Currie said. "In the light of this information, we demand that SunWater release all current data on the total numbers of lungfish destroyed as a result of going over the stepped concrete spillway, nicknamed 'the shredder' by fisheries experts, to demonstrate to the public that their corporation operates in a transparent manner."
A SunWater spokesperson said SunWater has a firm commitment to sound and responsible environmental management. (HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA!!!!!!!!!)
Sunwater is required to report all fish deaths to the DERM.
[xx] Scientists say we have entered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene
By Asa Wahlquist
Tuesday, 12/07/2011
Some scientists argue that the world is entering a new geological age. They call it the Anthropocene, an age where the planet is shaped by people. Professor Will Steffen is executive director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University. He argues that this new name should be adopted officially. He points out that changes in the fossil record are the chief marker of each geological age. He says that the Anthropocene will have a quite different fossil signature from the Holocene, the age which has prevailed for the past 10,000 years. The Anthropocene is characterised by mass extinctions, by changes in carbon and nitrogen and by other impacts of industry and agriculture. Professor Steffen argues that the period of mass consumption, which has accelerated the damaging impacts of the Anthropocene, entered an extreme phase after the Second World War. As humans face the challenge of global warming they have one, clear option - the need to transcend this period of materialism to discover new ways of living and new ways of searching for happiness and meaning.
For further discussion of the Anthropocene see http://www.economist.com/node/18741749
Audio Listen to: The Anthropocene In this report: Michael Cathcart speaks with Professor Will Steffen, executive director of the ANU Climate Change Institute (My transcript….mb)
MC: Well the human impact on the planet is now so transformative that some scientists are saying we’ve entered a new geological era, the Anthropocene. A leading advocate of this idea is Professor Will Stephan who is the executive director of the ANU’s Climate Change Institute. Welcome to the program. The Anthropocene – what does that mean?
PWS: Well it’s a geological sounding term that signifies that we have perhaps left the current epoch which is called the Holocene and gone into a new one, a term that is suggesting the human imprint is now so pervasive that we are actually moving the earth into a new geological epoch, the age of humans, a time in which humans have indeed become a geological force.
MC: So the term was coined first in 2000 by the atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzon – what motivated him to suggest this? Now it’s being formally considered as a new epoch in earth history. The Holocene’s been going for 12,000 years…. So what will characterise the Anthropocene in geological time?
PWS: That’s a fascinating question that geologists are thrashing about at the moment. We’re all concerned about climate change, and of course it is one of the biggest features of the Anthropocene. Looking at records in earth’s sedimentary layers, one thing we’re going to be able to clearly see from around 1945 or so, are the radioactive materials that are associated with atomic explosions – now that radioactivity didn’t appear before so it will be quite a clear marker. (made a joke about seeing a layer of SUV’s…. quite a prominent marker!)_But one of the changes they will look for are the changes in biodiversity – if you go back to eras in history like the end of the dinosaurs – that marked the end of one era and the beginning of another – its often punctuated by changes in the biota, so they will see that we have really started a very large extinction event, that started several hundred years ago but was really gathering pace about this century and the next. So they’ll see changes in the flora and fauna in the pollen record, they’ll see it in the sediments of the ocean, the marine biota and so on, so they’ll see quite a sharp transition in the fossil record to what the Earth was like. (maybe see some very persistent plastic compounds ,..) They’ll also see in some way a very vast increase in carbon compounds.
MC: Well, I’m a water man – I was a water historian in a past life – so I’d be barracking for the time when we first started to dam water.
PWS: We’re actually mobilising more sediment, through agriculture, and at the same time we’re stopping that flowing in the rivers by putting dams across. Agricultural imprint in general – people have been clearing land for agriculture for thousands of years but that really took off with the industrial revolution and the earlier agriculture was constrained by the fact that we had to use muscle power, either our own or animal, to do the clearing so there was a limit to our populations by how much you could clear. But that really took off with the advent of fossil fuels, when clearing really took off – that’s why we can see a lot more materials eroding and going into waterways and so on – it has contributed to extra CO2 in the atmosphere but not nearly as much as fossil fuel burning. But yes that is one of the markers of the Anthropocene.
MC: When we take one of those core samples that tells us about the stratigraphy of the earth, does that tell us anything about the nitrogen cycle?
PWS: Normally we don’t see the nitrogen cycle – that’s changing quite a bit, but it does tend to be fairly reactive compounds, so whether we’ll see a good marker there were not sure – phosphorous may be a better marker, it’s a more inert compound. Phosphorous is an interesting one because it doesn’t have a very large atmospheric component, unlike carbon and nitrogen which spend a long time in the atmosphere. Of course the main use for phosphorous is in fertilisers to help us grow food and we resource that from phosphate rock. What is interesting there is that we’ve probably increased the flow 3 or 4 times of nitrogen from the land into the ocean, of course stopping along the way in paddocks, the excess nitrogen washing out to sea. What we may see in the Anthropocene is scarcity of some of these materials. There’s a vigorous debate whether we will see peak phosphorous in the near future – it’s a pretty frightening prospect because we actually do need this to maintain production of food, and indeed increase it for a projected population of 9 or 10 billion, so it may be a sleeper issue – everyone talks about peak oil which is also a big issue.
MC: Now the previous era had no moral implications – clearly this era will have a politic built into it, a moral imperative to the story you’ve told, which is of endangering the planet, isn’t it… is there anything to celebrate?
PWS: We can look at this in a couple of ways; one is to try to take the politics out a little bit and bring it right back to the science. We know the Holocene, the last nearly 12 thousand years, is the only time in Earth’s history that humans have been able to develop agriculture, develop cities and the civilisation that we enjoy today, so we know this is what we call the ‘safe operating space for humanity’ (and that’s a scientific rather than a political statement). Now, is there an upside? Well, people who study the land part of the biosphere say that some new types of biomes, sometimes called anthropogenic biomes, which are heavily modified by humans, are in a way a stable land structure system and that we benefit greatly from growing food, for having all sorts of other ecosystem services provided for us. Others say, no, we are degrading ecosystem services, so there is a debate on whether human modification of the land surface has been overall a good thing or a bad thing (WHAT???You’ve just told us biodiversity is crashing like never before with unknown consequences, so how can human modification be anything other than an overall unmitigated DISASTER?) and whether we can make it into a good thing into the future. But one thing I think we’re all concerned about is human influence triggering some sort of geological processes that we can influence but by no means control – climate is one of them and when you look at aspects of climate, like the big polar ice sheets, that activating them in a way they could be irreversibly lost – once they start melting and disintegrating we can’t slow them down and stop them, they’ve got their own momentum – those sorts of things get pretty scary.
So these are now still scientific statements - the politics comes in in terms of, well what do we do about it, how do we react to it, should we try to say well, we are going into a new geological epoch, should we just simply ride this wave and learn how to live in a world that’s much warmer, much less biodiversity, or is this simply too big a risk compared to the world we live in now, the world we’ve developed in. These are fundamental, philosophical, ethical questions that would definitely spill over into politics.
MC: Well the question for me is, is there something we’ve seen in the Anthropocene that we’ve seen already, that holds the key to getting this right?
PWS: That’s a really, really good question. Now we ask this question mainly in terms of the climate issue and that’s looking for analogues, for something that may be looking like a similar period in the past, and its not easy to find this – we can certainly find periods in the past where the Earth has been warmer, CO2 and other greenhouse gases have been much higher, but the problem is humans haven’t been on it. So we’re a fairly recent creature – we’re a creature of what’s called the Late Quaternary, indeed for the last 200,000 years for fully modern humans, and hominids only a few million years before that. And CO2 is never that high during that entire period. The other thing of course, and this is even a bigger question than the way the carbon changes, is that we do not know how much biodiversity we can lose before the wheels really start falling off, how the ecosystems really operate. It’s a bit like pulling rivets out of an airplane – you can pull a few out and its probably alright, but you don’t know when you’re going to pull those critical rivets out. And we’re losing diversity at a great rate and we simply don’t know what that means for the functioning of the planet. So we’ve got some big questions out there that it’s hard to find analogues for in the past. So in a way we’re sailing into Terra Incognita here – this is a new situation for planet Earth.
MC: You talk about planetary boundaries.. what do you mean by that?
PWS: Well, what we have is a group of scientists looking at this question and we did actually make a value judgment that people may question, and that value judgment was, well, we know the Holocene is the only time in Earth’s history that humans can really thrive in; that’s where we built up agriculture our civilisation and so on, so if we say we want to maintain the earth in a Holocene-like condition, what would be the boundaries we shouldn’t go past.
MC: Now can I interrupt you there – were there humans on the Earth before the Holocene?
PWS: Fully modern humans have been on the earth about 200,000 years and hominids a few million years before that…
MC: Right so there is an assumption that there is something in the Earth during the Holocene, that unleashes the capacity of humans to embark on the journey that we call civilisation.
PWS: Well certainly we know that for most of the time before that, the Earth has been in an ice age. Humans were around in a short inter-glacial period (sometimes called the Emian?) about 125,000 years ago. However, humans were only in Africa at that time – they were not on any other continent at all. So when humans started to radiate out, to migrate out of Africa, roughly about 85,000 years ago, the Earth was entering an Ice Age, and if you look at the record of Earth’s climate in the past during ice ages, first of all its obviously colder as the name indicates. CO2 is also much lower which means plants aren’t growing so well. It tends to be drier, probably windier… basically, a more erratic, harder climate to live in. So the hypothesis is, it was simply not possible for humans to develop agriculture during that period. It took us to get out of that period into the next warm period (Holocene) which appears to be a relatively stable period of Earth’s climate when you look at the times humans have been on it. So the hypothesis is, with higher CO2, about 280 during most of the Holocene, warmer conditions, wetter conditions and a more stable climate it gave humans that breathing space that allowed them to develop agriculture and then build up into villages and cities and so on. So that’s the hypothesis we use when we say planetary boundaries – its that sort of state we would like to keep the Earth in.
MC: Oh I see, so the Earth has taught us a lesson as to when we as people thrive best…
PWS: Well the idea is that we’re going into an unknown world. Some may argue that as long as climate change for example is restrained to modest increases, we can indeed live in that world. Of course others say that even a 2 degree rise over the pre-industrial level of temperature may be difficult because of all the various impacts and so on. Certainly when you go to 4 or 5 degrees there are very, very few scientists who think that humans could cope very well at all with that. So the idea of planetary boundaries is not just of climate – but look at other factors like ocean acidity, biodiversity, the amount of forested land cover, and so on and say: Are there boundaries that define a Holocene-like state of the Earth that we KNOW humans can thrive in, intrinsic characteristics of the Earth that don’t depend on humans, but ones that we need to respect to keep the planet in a condition that we can live in and thrive in?
MC: …and mechanisms we might need to re-instate because we’ve disrupted them…
PWS: Certainly we need to pull back. Now we’ve estimated that out of the nine earth system processes that we’ve attempted to at least put preliminary boundaries around, that we’ve transgressed three of them. People would be surprised … climate is one of them – its NOT the biggest one – the biggest one actually is biological diversity – huge uncertainty around that but most people who understand suggest that we’re losing biodiversity at far too great a rate – and it certainly is not sustainable and has added a lot of problems in terms of our ecosystems. The second one is indeed the nitrogen cycle, that we’ve just discussed, and the third one is climate change. The climate system is definitely moving into a warmer state and what that entails still more research needs to be done on that.
MC: So really the big question is this current age, this age of mass consumption and rabid technological innovation is some kind of wild party we’ve all enjoyed before we embark on a new over-heated age of poverty and conflict. Or is there some kind of logic of progress that’s also built into the Anthropocene, some counter balancing principles such as the ones you’ve described that will allow something like progress to continue?
PWS: Yes – one of the things that we discovered when we actually looked back to the advent of the Anthropocene, pre-industrial, was a HUGE burst of human activity after the second world war, something we call the great acceleration. MOST of the impact you see on the environment has actually occurred since about 1950 – it’s a very recent phenomenon, so there is indeed a very big burst. Now there are a lot of possible pathways forward. Obviously the doomsday one is a collapse scenario, but many people are talking about this post WW2 as just a phase before we move onto a phase where we de-couple human wellbeing from material consumption of different technologies. Indeed if you look at the climate change issue the movement towards renewable or non-CO2 emitting energies is an example of de-coupling an important part of the economy from the environmental impact it has. And so the idea here is that we de-couple a lot of the ways we do things, the way we make things, the way we transport ourselves and so on, from some of the deleterious environmental impacts and move on to a world where we value wellbeing of humans (& surely all life!!!) more than a very simple material wealth.
MC: Part of the problem you face, or part of the challenge you face in trying to convince a skeptical society about the importance of climate change as an issue, is that there are many people who see market growth and high consumption as actually part of the natural order. Whereas your argument is that the planet and its mechanisms are the things that we need to respect, so there’s two different versions of what is natural and they are at war with each other.
PWS: There’s no doubt that what is natural to the planet as a whole – that’s something that science can provide, some insights on how the Earth operates because it has laws, physical laws – we go back to basic physics – there are laws that operate independent of humans so what we’re trying to say in terms of planetary boundaries is that there are intrinsic problems with this piece of earth that we need to be mindful of and not transgress if we want to have an environment we can live in and thrive in. So if people’s conceptual framework about where they fit in with the Earth is different to that then we may indeed have a problem. But I think that the other thing is that the modern economy talks about the value of goods and services, not just goods and goods, so there are a lot of services that are becoming increasingly important in modern economies which consume a lot less materials and resources. So I think again that this idea that this high growth pathway in terms of only material growth – that’s something a lot of economists are already talking about in terms of balancing out wellbeing services and so on as a growing part of the economy. So I think there are some very interesting possible ways forward and some of the ways we think about can be compatible in the ways of enhancing wellbeing and allows us to live more in synergy with the way the earth system actually operates.
Geological Society of London
I think we’ve got an uphill battle but the evidence is really strong that we gone into a new epoch - a mind-boggling hypothesis.
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Dr. Jane Smart
Director of Biodiversity Conservation for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
Director of Biodiversity Conservation for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
Reporter
Gregg Borschmann, producer
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According to Professor Jeffrey Sachs we have entered a new phase The Anthropocene. Human beings for the first time have taken hold not only of the economy and of population dynamics but also of the planet's physical systems. As Sachs http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bigideas/stories/2007/1924346.htm - 20 May 2007
Some scientists argue that the world is entering a new geological age. They call it the Anthropocene, an age http://www.abc.net.au/rural/telegraph/content/2011/s3267606.htm - 12 Jul 2011
| download audio Eight years ago, world governments set themselves the ambitious target of significantly slowing the world's biodiversity losses by 2010. An official assessment by the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity earlier this year confirmed that the goal would not be met. The report warned that the extinction crisis was 'as worrying as ever'. In an acknowledgment of the problem, world leaders are gathering at the United Nations for a high level meeting on biodiversity
The truth, surely, is that what we may ultimately come to do is destroy the particular type of planetary environment that sustains us and life as we know it. If that happens, then of course our species would die off (alas taking many other species with it); but in the grim, final analysis, the ‘whole system’ of the planet – the interacting geosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere & magnetosphere - would self-correct the problem via its many, unknowable synergies.
The Earth can be a stern as well as bountiful Mother, and were we to disappear she has many eons to restore herself. So our concern for the ‘environment’ can best be seen as an awareness that we need the way the Earth is in its present state for our survival. (argument recently reinforced - see The Anthropocene) It is our fate, not the fate of the planet, which is in question. We have to save ourselves. We need ‘stewardship’ for our own species. Rather than thinking of healing the Earth, we should be looking to the Earth to heal us – we are the disease and healing us is the way to save the Earth’s environment as we need it to be.
It is essential that we not only continue, but that we redouble our efforts with practical material activities aimed at ameliorating the symptoms of ecological distress, such as recycling, controlling our consumption of resources, encouraging ever more environmentally friendly and economical manufacturing and transportation systems, repairing the environmental damage, and above all, pressing for constantly increasing ecological awareness on the part of our corporate, financial and governmental institutions. But none of this effort will reach the ‘critical mass’ necessary to turn our dangerous situation around fully unless we heal the underlying sickness – our relationship with the planet, our worldview, and that requires changing and expanding our consciousness.
Reason alone will not be able to achieve this. Ecological facts and figures cannot sufficiently motivate us for the psychological transformation that has to come about … we have to feel the need for it.
(He postulates that a loss of ‘primary peoples’ indigenous cultures is at the basis of the current ecological crisis – he refers extensively to Australian Aborigines. )
Amazingly prescient, this book (RE-VISIONING THE EARTH – A Guide to Opening the Healing Channels Between Mind and Nature by Paul Devereux) was written over 15 years ago – and we few who understand the bigger picture, who TRULY CARE about saving our endangered biodiversity, who have been fighting and fighting for SO LONG (Bob Irwin, Pat O’Brien, Jill Redwood & Alanna Moore spring instantly to mind) to save last fragments, are STILL banging our heads against the brick walls of government departments who continue to do VIRTUALLY NOTHING to stop the decline, even less than nothing, in many cases just continuing with wiping out our last precious fragments of intact biodiversity WHOLESALE, as on the Burnett river and at Bulahdelah to mention just two of hundreds of instances of this planetary-destruction by governments. We may be the problem, but we are also the cure - if we just changed our way of thinking and started to care for all precious life on Earth. In terms of the ‘Environment’, you governments must follow the expert advice of scientists, as Anna Bligh purport to, and the Land’s Indigenous custodians, who are leading the way to ecological restoration, not ignore them when it suits you.
Logging overseen by the state government agency Forests NSW is being investigated by the environment department for apparently damaging areas inhabited by koalas, sugar gliders and giant barred frogs. An independent team of zoologists and botanists visited the site of recent logging, near Evans Head in northern NSW, and found trees that should have been protected had been cut down, and no sign that parts of the logging area had been properly marked out beforehand to protect endangered species. The team, with the support of the environment group North East Forest Alliance, is alleging that Forests NSW has been "routinely and comprehensively breaching licence requirements across the region". Their report is now being investigated by the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water.
Forests NSW is already under investigation for breaches of licence conditions at a separate logging site about 30 kilometres from Doubleduke state forest, the scene of the latest logging. It was fined $1200 [pathetic!] by the department in May for a separate series of licence breaches in the same district, but the relatively small sum angered environment groups campaigning for more oversight. "In our view, this is a major act of environmental vandalism," Dailan Pugh, a spokesman for the North East Forest Alliance, said. "They are logging in endangered ecological communities and there is a systematic avoidance of the proper requirements. "We're also concerned about the example this is setting for the wider community. If you have got state agencies flouting the laws, how can you expect everyone else to follow them?"
The environment department said it had "conducted a proactive audit of Forests NSW harvesting operations" in a different logging area in the same forest early this month. It is now assessing the more recent damage. "In response to the allegations, [the department has] conducted a site inspection, and investigation of the matter is ongoing," a spokesman said. The department requires Forests NSW to meet its licence conditions, including the marking up of all trees that need to be left alone to protect vulnerable native animals, but the licence does not require the department to check every logging area. Under the long-established licence conditions, logging in state forests requires surveys for protected species and buffer zones established around their habitat.
The report compiled by researchers working with the North East Forest Alliance, to be released today, recorded widespread damage to native animal habitat and alleged 20 breaches of the threatened species licence in Doubleduke state forest. It also alleges that road building, logging and burning operations within the endangered ecological community breached the National Parks and Wildlife Act. The bushland area is known to support yellow-bellied gliders, marsupials that depend on the sweet sap that oozes from some eucalypt trees to survive. Sap feed trees were observed in the logging area. Koalas, powerful owls, barking owls and brush-tailed phascogales - a small, carnivorous marsupial that is considered vulnerable to extinction - have also been reported in the bush in and around the logging area. *ABC10
Dailan Pugh is a renowned artist & environmental activist from NE Forest Alliance: dailan@tpg.com.au
Hymenachne is the latest in a long list of weeds that could potentially impact farmers on the Fraser Coast and Biosecurity Queensland has warned canefarmers to watch their fields closely over the next few months. The long weed is invasive and is known to take over canefields, swampy areas or areas that flood frequently. It is a green grass with long leaf blades which can grow in water up to 2m deep. Ed Comment; Hymenachne, currently is one of over 400 foreign grasses that were introduced to Queensland illegally in the '80's and '90's by the Queensland DPI as a potential cattle stockfood for ponded pastures. It has now widely displaced native water plants throughout tropical and sub-tropical Queensland, and is now considered a noxious weed. As the native water plants are displaced by Hymenachne, so is the wildlife also displaced that depends on them.
Koalas
It is the battle of the bulldozer versus a national icon. At stake is the survival of dwindling numbers of koalas, tens of thousands of jobs and Queensland's fragile economy. Property developers say a push to list koalas as endangered will threaten an industry which employs 11 per cent of the state's workforce. But conservation groups claim koalas are staring down the barrel of extinction unless urgent action is taken. The Urban Development Institute of Australia has told a Senate inquiry that further protection of koalas was premature and would cost much-needed jobs. UDIA Queensland chief executive Brian Stewart said while it was important to protect koalas, decisions had to be made on "sound science" and not "emotion". "This is not the time to be tinkering with a well thought out, comprehensive state policy," Mr Stewart said. "The industry desperately needs a level of certainty." The Property Council of Australia said koalas were adequately protected. But koala groups are sounding the alarm, pointing to a recent picture of a koala clinging to a bulldozed tree at Worongary on the Gold Coast as evidence greater protection was needed.
The Redland-based Koala Action Group said new roads and housing estates had had a dramatic affect on koala numbers in the area. More than 200 were killed by cars every year in southeast Queensland. The KAG's submission said the State Government was "cramming in" residents and "two major arterial roads have been upgraded to four lanes ... this has to be one of the main causes of the catastrophic decline in koala numbers". And disease was as much a risk to koalas as road traffic, the Australia Zoo Wildlife Warriors' submission said. When veterinarians tested 37 koalas from the Brendale area, almost half had chlamydiosis - a killer disease. Al Mucci, general manager of life sciences at Dreamworld, said the koala was as iconic as the giant panda and had to be saved at all costs. "The koala is unmistakenly Australian," he said. "This makes koala conservation an imperative of more than just biological and cultural concern, but an issue of national identity, international image and reputation." The UQ Koala Ecology Group said listing koalas as endangered would at least provide a "speed bump in the road to extinction". *Courier Mail
Ed Comment; We understand that few wildlife groups expect the Inquiry to actually recommend appropriate protection for the koalas, and at the end of the day its the politicians that make the important decisions about protection anyway. (MORE'S THE PITY ....m)(Update 1.8.11 – Inquiry found that logging and fire were the biggest threats to koalas … duh)
Cockatoos
There is an online petition to save the beautiful sulphur crested cockatoos from Government sanctioned culling in inner Sydney: http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/stop-cockatoo-culls-in-potts-point.html
A few residents in Potts Point have applied to NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service to get permits to kill sulphur crested cockatoos, either with poison and / or guns. The cockatoos are a protected native species, hence the need for a permit to kill them. Culling simply doesn’t work!' it degrades an already fragile urban ecosystem and is quite simply, an irrational act of cruelty and violence in the name of property protection. There are many cruelty-free options available to the property owners of this area to repel cockatoos which may be causing damage to their properties.
A simple Internet search on humane cockatoo control in urban areas provides links to companies that supply engineering controls for cockatoos, including ultrasonic devices, kites and other visual deterrents, low voltage shock tape, birdspikes and noise deterrents. You can also send a letter or email directly to The Hon. Robyn Moore, Minister for Environment and Heritage, and Ms Sally Barnes, Director of NSW National Parks and Wildlife. Please pass the petition link and information on to your friends, families and colleagues at the work. Petitions and letters to the Minister and Director have recently worked to get culling permits banned in Broadway earlier this year, so there's a strong precedent for this kind of action.
For more information about this dire situation, go to http://www.altmedia.net.au/cuckatoos-to-be-culled-in-potts-point/38067 We can save these beautiful wild creatures with such simple actions and clear intentions. Let's act now to ensure that the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service reject all applications for killing these gorgeous native birds, and to encourage NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service officers instead encourage and teach residents of urban areas how to repel the birds in humane, non-lethal ways.
A few residents in Potts Point have applied to NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service to get permits to kill sulphur crested cockatoos, either with poison and / or guns. The cockatoos are a protected native species, hence the need for a permit to kill them. Culling simply doesn’t work!' it degrades an already fragile urban ecosystem and is quite simply, an irrational act of cruelty and violence in the name of property protection. There are many cruelty-free options available to the property owners of this area to repel cockatoos which may be causing damage to their properties.
A simple Internet search on humane cockatoo control in urban areas provides links to companies that supply engineering controls for cockatoos, including ultrasonic devices, kites and other visual deterrents, low voltage shock tape, birdspikes and noise deterrents. You can also send a letter or email directly to The Hon. Robyn Moore, Minister for Environment and Heritage, and Ms Sally Barnes, Director of NSW National Parks and Wildlife. Please pass the petition link and information on to your friends, families and colleagues at the work. Petitions and letters to the Minister and Director have recently worked to get culling permits banned in Broadway earlier this year, so there's a strong precedent for this kind of action.
For more information about this dire situation, go to http://www.altmedia.net.au/cuckatoos-to-be-culled-in-potts-point/38067 We can save these beautiful wild creatures with such simple actions and clear intentions. Let's act now to ensure that the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service reject all applications for killing these gorgeous native birds, and to encourage NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service officers instead encourage and teach residents of urban areas how to repel the birds in humane, non-lethal ways.
Call for More Habitat
Coolum animal rights activist Jaylene Musgrave has launched a campaign appealing to Sunshine Coast developers to rethink the increase in land clearing from Noosa to Bribie Island. According to the director of Farm Animal Rescue Australia and Sunshine Coast Koala Wildlife Rescue, land on the Sunshine Coast is being rapidly cleared to make way for development. Vegan Warriors, of which Ms Musgrave is a part of, is concerned the clearing will reduce the natural habitat for Coast wildlife. Ms Musgrave has met with the council and the Greens to discuss buy-back alternatives with "no luck”. "There has been no action taken on suggestions to buy back land from developers,” she said. "I have been meeting with (them) to discuss options on incorporating wildlife areas within land marked for clearing, but have had no response. "If we don’t start demanding action, we will be looking at concrete jungles where once many native animals lived.” She said the pressure on animal carers and the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital was enormous. "There are nearly 90 koalas being cared for at the hospital at any given time and endless surgery to roos and other native wildlife. "The reality is, what we love so dearly about our region, is inevitably disappearing forever.” Ms Musgrave said she held grave concerns for the future of Australian fauna. "Native marsupials struggle to survive with all the odds stacked against them – drought, loss of habitat, encroachment of civilisation, illegal and legal culling by farmers, roadside deaths as well as culling in state forests, parks, reserves, national parks,” she said. "And of course threat from the kangaroo industry which kills close to four million roos nationwide annually to supply meat for export and pet food. "Let’s start making some noise and give our native animals a voice.” *CoolumNews
[xxiv] (One of the things I pay attention to is the property for sale segments in newspapers that come with an aerial photo of the land – I’ve found a great many developments planned for vast swathes of intact forests! Below are currently two of the worst ones that I am pursuing:
>Coastal Development Site – ‘Pristine foreshores’ at Sussex Inlet Southern NSW – 1044 hectares of dense, intact BIODIVERSE forests slated for destruction to develop a ‘foreshore township’. The tenders closed on the 8th July and I have no doubt a sale will have gone through by now. The people to ask are: Scott Baxter on 0412 485 555 (scott.baxter@raywhite.com) and Troy Turner on 041 877 007 (troy.turner@raywhite.com) WILL THE NSW AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS ALLOW THIS SEEMINGLY ILLEGAL DESTRUCTION OF WHAT MAY VERY WELL BE ENDANGERED HABITAT?
>Ripley Valley 375 Hectares of dense, intact, BIODIVERSE forest slated for 2900 residential dwellings, 3 shopping centres and a primary school, with 37 Hectares of ‘open space’. This one is calling for expressions of interest to close on the 13th September. The people to ask about THIS potential illegal clearing of biodiverse habitat, are: Mark Creevey on 0408 92 (mark.creevey@raywhite.com) and Tony Williams on 0411 82 544 (tony.williams@raywhite.com)
