Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for March 14, 2006

Commonwealth Games Mascot Not an Endangered Species

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Karak cartoon.jpg

The Commonwealth Games will begin tomorrow in Melbourne with an endangered subspecies as its mascot.

While the fine print in some of the promotional material explains that Karak belongs to a subspecies of red-tailed black cockatoo, the general impression is that the entire species is close to extinction with fewer than 1,000 red-tailed black cockatoos surviving in the whole of Australia.

The official Games website states:

“With fewer than 1,000 South-Eastern Red-Tailed Black Cockatoos in the wild, the Games has extended a lifeline to the species by adopting it as the mascot ‘Karak’.

As a result of the growing awareness of the species’ decreasing numbers, government and private industries have offered funds and resources to create a breeding programme to save the cockatoo.” (Emphasis added)

In reality the cockatoo is not uncommon across much of northern, western and north eastern Australian.

According to The Australian Parrot Society it is only the small and isolated population of Red-tailed Black Cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus banksii graptogyne) which occurs in south-western Victoria and adjacent parts of the south-east of South Australia that is considered vulnerable to extinction. There are about 1,000 of these birds, hence the official script.

Not that confusion about the proliferation of the species is uncommon – copies of letters dating back to 1997 have been posted at the society’s website complaining that the Queensland Department of Environment had issued permits to farmers to shoot the cockatoos because the birds were causing crop damage.

The Commonwealth Games, like the Olympic Games, is about the best, the strongest, the most competitive. Why choose the most threatened subspecies of Red-tailed cockatoo as the games mascot?

As a nation, as a people, we seem to have to focus on environmental disasters, even at a time when we are celebrating achievement.

In adopting an endangered subspecies as a mascot and pretending it represents the entire species, government has announced an additional funding allocation of $1.3 million for the cockatoo.

At the launch the federal government Ministers, probably unknowingly, reinforced the impression the entire species is endangered with some of the following quotes from the media release:

“Australian Ministers for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Peter McGauran, and the Environment and Heritage Senator Ian Campbell, said the work was vital to the future survival of the species. (emphasis added)

“With less than 1,000 of these birds remaining in the wild, this important work will safeguard one of our unique species – now recognised around the world thanks to Karak, the symbol of the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games,” Minister McGauran said.

… Victorian Minister for the Environment John Thwaites said the main threats to the cockatoo’s long-term survival were the loss of the large hollow trees that provide nesting opportunities, the clearing of buloke trees and extensive hot fires in stringybark forests.”

This is part 5 of a series of blog posts on Species Vulnerable to Extinction, beginning here.

Emissions Trading Just Another Tax: Ray Evans

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Last month The Lavoisier Society published a document titled ‘Nine Lies About Global Warming’ in which Ray Evans draws a comparison between the issuing of taxi licenses and carbon trading. He writes:

“A number of economists have climbed onto the global warming bandwagon in order to promote so-called market mechanisms to reduce carbon emissions. Emissions trading is a popular proposal. All of these schemes are variants on the market for taxi-cab licences. Every major city in Australia has a regime of taxi licensing in which the number of taxis allowed to operate is limited by State regulation. This creates a scarcity factor which increases the value of the taxi licence, and these licences are traded for sums in the order of $250,000. If the regulation requiring taxi drivers to have a licence for their taxi was abolished (as happened in New Zealand) the value of the licence would be zero.

These licences constitute a tax which has to be paid by taxi users. Emission licences for power stations or petrol refineries would operate in the same way. What is not known is how great the tax on carbon emissions would have to be to ensure that electricity users would reduce their consumption by the desired amount. In the first instance, large electricity users such as aluminium smelters and fertilizer plants would relocate to other countries. The Australian motor car industry, already under threat from international competition, would close. And the ripple effect would spread out through the Australian economy causing unemployment first in one industry and then in another. The impact of such price increases and consequent economic dislocation would have political consequences. No [Australian] government which introduced such a regime of carbon taxation would survive an election, but the damage that would be wrought in the meantime would be long-lasting.”

Of course the European Union has introduced a system of emissions trading and at least some European governments have survived. I don’t know how many, or how many industries have moved to other countries?

In September last year a glass factory in Valencia, Spain, was closed at least temporarily, because it did not have a valid permit to emit greenhouse gases. Spain is apparently not doing so well in terms of meeting its emissions targets under Kyoto with emissions about 50 percent above levels in 1990.

There was an interesting article in yesterday’s Financial Times explaining that in Britain, under the mandatory emission’s trading scheme, companies are issued with allowances for each tonne of carbon dioxide they may emit. But that Britain hasn’t determined its overall plan for the 2008-2012 period, so I guess glass factories in Britain won’t yet be able to plan for the period 2008-2012.

The European Union Commission is apparently already in dispute with the British government over its attempt to raise the amount of carbon dioxide British businesses can emit under the first phase of the scheme which runs from 2005-2008.

Would this be equivalent to Tony Blair wanting to increasing the number of taxi licences?