Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for September 2005

Mountain Cattlemen Defiant

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There was movement at the station for the word had passed around that the mountain cattlemen will graze their cattle in the Alpine National Park this summer. The move, announced at a rally in Bendigo today, is in defiance of new Victorian legislation banning the 170 year tradition.

I have previously blogged on the ban on cattlemen in the high country at https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/000668.html and also https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/000635.html .

Deaths Due to Climate-Related Disasters

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With all the concern about global warming resulting in more deaths due to climate-related disasters, I thought I would see if I could find some statistics on the subject.

Since 1988 the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) has been maintaining an Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT). EM-DAT was created with the initial support of the WHO (World Health Organisation) and the Belgian Government, see http://www.em-dat.net/who.htm .

Following is a graph from this site showing total number of deaths due to disasters from 1900 to 2004,
View image (75kbs).

Many would have anticipated that the graph would trend in the opposite direction.

There is a graph on page 5 of a booklet titled ‘Climate change and sustainable development’ based on this and other information that shows death rate per year and death rate (per thousand) from 1920 to 2003 due specifically to climate-related disasters. The trend is also one of reducing global deaths and death rates, see
http://www.policynetwork.net/uploaded/pdf/cc_sd_final.pdf (750 kbs).

It is predicted in the booklet that “All indicators suggest that similar reductions in deaths from natural disasters will continue as societies become more technologically and economically sophisticated.”

As Lowe as it Gets (Part 1)

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I was sent a copy of Ian Lowe’s soon to be launched book ‘A big fix’ subtitled ‘Radical solutions for Australia’s environmental crisis’ (Black Inc 2005).

I started reading the book yesterday at the beach. It is full of popular mythology dressed up as scientific fact without footnotes or references … and Lowe starts the first sentence, of the first paragraph, of the first chapter, “I am a scientist”.

He then goes on to employ the rules of propaganda every effectively, particularly rules 1,3 and 4, see https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/000579.html .

On page 13 he writes, “There is a great scientific tradition of scepticism, generally a good thing because it keeps us honest and forces us to justify our conclusions.” But then goes on to suggest climate skeptics “… try to win their arguments, sometimes by actually lying, but more often by making statements that are facually correct but misleading.”

He shows himself to be expert at the same including with the statement also at the bottom of page 13, “it is now indisputable that the global climate is changing.”
As though it was ever in dispute that the history of the earth has been, and always will be, one of climate change.

While suggesting skepticism has its place, Lowe provides no example of a contrarian view worthy of consideration and evaluation. Rather he suggests that climate change global warming skeptics who number perhaps 5 (in the whole wide world!) are given a voice because the commercial media loves controversy.

And if you were wondering how many scientists “support the accepted view” – according to Lowe it is about 10,000 (pg 13).

French Farmers Put Big Crack in EU’s Anti-GM Facade

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My first post on GM foods at this web-log was on 8th June and the first comment was from Stephen Dawson, he wrote:

In 1903 the first heavier-than-air machine achieved flight. A decade later aircraft were still custom-built, dangerous and had hardly any load-carrying capability. Now for five per cent of the average Australian income one can fly to London and back, being fed hot food and watching in-flight movies.

It would be a very brave, or silly, person who insists that GM techniques should be stopped because of some inchoate fear. GM will happen. It will yield unimagined new products and possibilities. If preserving land or other resources are signalled through the market to be high priorities, GM will help hugely. Not this year, maybe not in the next decade, but eventually for certain.

And, yes, GM food will happen. It may even become widespread. Other GM techniques and products will be developed. Because there is no way to stop it. Pandora’s box has been opened and its contents cannot be stuffed back inside. GM techniques will just get cheaper. And if one country, or a dozen, bans it, then it will just happen elsewhere.

While the European Union has imported tonnes of GM soy as animal feed for years, they have otherwise professed to being anti-GM and have banned the technology. Indeed a reason for not growing GM in Australia has been fear that we will be shut out of European markets.

Low and behold, French Farmers are now about to plant GM maize! Read the Reuter’s story here:

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2005-09-06T165944Z_01_MOL661056_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-FOOD-FRANCE-GMOS-DC.XML

Published yesterday it is titled ‘French farmers head for gene maize harvest’ and begins:

French farmers are days away from starting work on a maize harvest that includes the first documented evidence of genetically modified (GMO) grain, the country’s AGPM maize growers’ association said on Tuesday.

The AGPM said 500 hectares of authorised GMO maize had been planted, more than half of which was destined for commercial outlets and would be sold to the animal feed industry in Spain.

Ethanol: Fuel of the Future?

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Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has announced a ‘National Fuel Ethanol’ program with plans to mandate ethanol blend E10 for vehicles and in this way reduce dependence on imported oil saving an estimated $1.8 billion. The ethanol will be made from sugarcane, corn, grain, sorghum, wheat and other agricultural crops, according to today’s Farm Online.

‘Fuel-injected feed fear’ was the headline on the front page of The Land newspaper on 25th August. Following the headline was a story suggesting beef lotfeeders, dairy, pig and poultry producers are expecting feed grain prices to increase as a consequence of Australia’s “fast expanding ethanol fuel lobby”. The article continued … A report by Canberra-based Centre for International Economics (CIE) puts present ethanol production (in Australia) at 130 to 140 million litres and lists 14 proposed ethanol plants, more than 80 of which would use grain as the base ingredient.

Is ethanol a “fuel of the future” as suggested by Arroyo. How will feedlots compete?

Animals Really Threatened with Extinction

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There was a story on ABC Television’s Foreign Correspondent last night (that I didn’t see) about an organization trying to save ‘near extinct’ wildlife in Cambodia’s national parks including tigers, monkeys, sun bears, deer, and elephants. According to the website, poaching for Asia’s million-dollar trade in exotic wildlife is part of the problem with wildlife traders protected by government and the military.

I was alerted to the story by Graeme McIveen, a friend who has a long standing interested in wildlife conservation. He sent me an email that included comment:

“We have involvement with a project in Iran that is close to a nature reserve for Asian cheetah – I didn’t even know there was such an animal – one estimate is a total population of around 60 of an animal that once ranged across much of Asia Minor, but no one really knows.”

And I had previously read that the Liberian Iberian lynx was the world’s most endangered cat with only 100 animals in Spain and Portugal – numbers down from about 100,000 at the turn of the 19th century.

And just a few weeks ago I read that the Australian kangaroo is facing extinction including that,

“The collapse in kangaroo numbers was inevitable once a combination of rampant exploitation and drought came together …The world’s largest wildlife massacre is being justified on the basis of so-called ‘scientific management’ programmes …”

This story does not accord with the piece at Farm Online today claiming roo numbers are up, demand for roo meat is up, there are just not enough roo shooters.

How does someone living in Japan, for example, work out whether they should donate to save the Iranian cheetah, the Cambodian sun bear or the Australian kangaroo? … while perhaps enjoying a meal of Minke whale.

The Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) has raised millions of dollars for koala conservation and even successfully campaigned to have koalas listed in the United States as an endangered species in Australia.

The political and fund-raising success of the group has been aided by its claiming that there are less than 100,000 koalas remaining, with numbers on the decline.

Yet, as I detailed in my article for the June issue of the IPA Review, by simply counting up a few of the know koala populations it is evident that there would be well over 100,000 koalas in Australia. There are about 59,000 in the mulga-lands of southwest Queensland, 25,000 in southeast Queensland, 8,200 in North Coast NSW, 27,000 on Kangaroo Island South Australia. This quick count does not include Victorian Koala populations with a Monash University researcher suggesting in 1998 that the Victorian koala population could total one million (that was before the January 2003 bushfires).

I concluded in the IPA article that the lack of information and honest reporting on Koala numbers perhaps reflects a broader issue for conservation. It is the koala as victim, the koala as a species in decline, which attracts funding, and thus power and influence for organisations like the AKF. There is no incentive to report that koala populations might be doing OK.

There really is a need for someone, or some organization, to start compiling basic statistics on icon species from the sun bear to the koala.

There might be ‘lies, damn lies and then there are statistics’ but statistics tend to lie less than newspaper headlines.

PS I have read somewhere that sun bears caught in Cambodian National Park could be sold as pets, or have their paws amputated and made into soup, and/or be kept alive in a small cage with a tube inserted into them extracting bile for traditional medicines.

Update 8.30am Thursday 8th

I have received some offline comment quering roo numbers – I probably should have provided the following link in the post:

http://www.kangaroo-industry.asn.au/morinfo/BACKGR1.HTM

There is an annual census of roo numbers in Australia with information at:

http://www.deh.gov.au/biodiversity/trade-use/wild-harvest/kangaroo/stats.html .

I was hoping for general feedback on the problem of what to do about those who ‘cry wolf’ as this can result in real and pressing problems not being addressed. For example, we worry about koalas when there is really a crisis with African elephants? Also we worry about landclearing impacts on koalas when most mortality has been the result of feral bushfires? Also, how does one find reliable information on, for example, sun bear population numbers?