Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for June 15, 2006

Whales Eat Fish & Aussies Threaten Neighbours

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There is never anything very subtle or civil in Australia’s approach to whaling. As a rich nation with politicians used to pandering to ‘Greens’ we are quite prepared to threaten and cajole to make our point on this issue which is simply that it is wrong to kill whales.

As a nation we never bother to explain why we believe it is wrong to kill whales or really attempt to understand why Japan, Iceland and Norway see things a bit differently.

Our media simply reports the rantings of our Environment Minister. Just today he was reported in our national daily newspaper, The Australian, telling the world that:

“countries that supported Japan would be outed and shamed”, and

Pacific Island nations that support whaling should expect tourist boycotts, and

Japan’s plan to expand its scientific program to include humpback was a “disgraceful tactic”.

There was no comment from the Japanese government in the article. I am sure it would have been forthcoming if only the journalist had asked.

Japan’s position is rarely reported in the Australian media and there is rarely any analysis of why Australia and Japan hold such different positions.

I’ve ponder why Japan, Norway and Iceland are so determined to continue whaling. On the eve of the 58th Annual Meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) I will float one idea.

Japan and Iceland, in particular, are nations that have traditionally looked to the sea for their food. They are nations with research institutions that study whales and how many fish they eat. They have scientists who recognise that whales are potentially competition for food.

Consider the following statistics from the chapter by Tsutoma Tamura in ‘Responsible Fisheries in the Marine Ecosystem’ published by CABI in 2003:

“Total annual prey consumption by the cetaceans of the world (whales, porpoises and dolphins) was estimated to be at least 249-434 million tonnes … fish consumption by cetaceans in the southern hemisphere including the Indian Ocean was estimated to be 18-23 million tonnes and equated to 66-120 percent of the commercial fisheries catches in 1996. In the North Pacific, fish consumption was estimated to be 21-31 million tonnes, equivalent to 67-99 percent of commercial fisheries catches in 1996. In the North Atlantic, the fish consumption by cetaceans was 15-25 million tonnes, equivalent to 87-144 percent of commercial fisheries catches in 1996.

There was probably direct competition between cetaceans and commercial fisheries in the North Pacific and the North Atlantic.”

Here’s part of one of the many tables from the same report:

fish total model 1.JPG

The numbers refer to millions of tonne per year based on estimates of daily prey consumption from average body weight (method 1). This is the most conservative of the three methods for estimating “prey consumption”.

I am not suggesting that Japan or Iceland should be able to slaughter whales because they eat fish nor that the main reason that Iceland and Japan undertake ‘scientific’ whaling is because they see whales as competition for fish.

But let’s try and understand the potential impact that whales have within marine ecosystems and lets also try and understand how this might influence how some of our neighbours and some of our friends see whales.

Farmers Challenge Minister to Explain Tree Laws

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A new group has formed in western New South Wales (Australia) out of frustration with the states vegetation management regulations. Vegetation management is code for restrictions on tree clearing, and trees tend to include what that the locals refer to as “invasive scrub”. Following is the groups second ever media release:

“Farming families and business people from western NSW are challenging the Minister for Natural Resources and Primary Industries, Ian Macdonald, to explain the laws that govern the control of invasive scrub.

“The regulations for controlling invasive scrub are a bureaucratic nightmare that will result in more country being invaded and destroyed by weeds and farmers being forced off the land,” said a spokesman for the NSW Regional Community Survival Group, Doug Menzies.

The Regional Community Survival Group is made up of farmers and local business people from western NSW who are fed up with bureaucratic red tape that is preventing farmers from rehabilitating land infested with invasive scrub.

Invasive scrub is the term used to describe native shrubs and woody weeds that have infested formerly open woodlands and grasslands of western NSW. Infestations of woody weeds are smothering out native grasslands leaving a desert-like landscape devoid of natural grass cover.

“If the Minister can make any practical sense of his own regulations I would be bloody surprised. Farming communities of western NSW are demanding that the Minister answer the following simple questions about the regulations,” Mr Menzies said:

1. Why aren’t farmers allowed to rehabilitate 100 per cent of an area that has been degraded by infestations of woody weeds? In environmental terms, what’s the rationale in leaving 20 per cent of an area that is being degraded by woody weeds?

Under the regulations, land rehabilitation is ‘capped’ at 80 per cent of the degraded area. This is analogous to a surgeon only removing 80 per cent of a tumour!

2. How can farmers practically clear a paddock with large machinery if they are forced to leave woody weeds of varying stem/trunk diameters?

Ridiculously, for western NSW alone, there are over 70 ‘rules’ that govern the retention of scrub species at various stem/trunk diameters. For example, in the Western Catchment Management Authority area farmers have to retain: 6 Wilga plants per hectare that have a trunk diameter (at breast height) of between 0 to 5cm, 7 Wilga plants per hectare that have a trunk diameter of between 5 to 10cm, and 7 Wilga plants per hectare that have a trunk diameter of between 10 and 20cm. Finally, Wilga plants with a trunk diameter of over 20cm must be retained.

3. It is estimated that 20 million hectares (an area the size of Nebraska) of western NSW is either already infested or highly susceptible to woody weeds. How does the Minister envisage the measurement of millions of woody weeds over this area? Will he redeploy accountants from NSW Treasury to do the job?

4. How does the Minister expect farmers to clear woody weeds and control future regrowth when the regulations are so complex and prescriptive that cultivation and short-term cropping becomes impractical and uneconomical?

5. If a farmer wants to clear woody weeds, then this can only be done 20 per cent at a time (and only up to a maximum of 80 per cent of the degraded area!). To make matters worse, you can’t start the next 20 per cent until the cleared area is ¾ covered in native grasses. This could take years to achieve. Cultivation and short-term cropping are crucial steps in restoring native grasslands to a degraded landscape because these activities suppress woody weed regrowth. Does the Minister understand that cultivation and cropping play a vital role in the rehabilitation process?

“This is bureaucracy running rampant in an area that they know nothing about; that is, farming.

“Rural communities of western NSW look forward to the Minister’s answers to these simple questions,” concluded Mr Menzies.”

A similiar group formed in Queensland a few years ago also out of frustration with restrictions on tree clearing. This group called Property Rights Australia has championed the cause of Ashley McKay a softly spoken cattleman who has refused to plead guilty to illegally clearing cypress pine. I’ve written about Ashley at this blog, you can find a copy of the post here https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/000971.html .

Dead But Won’t Lie Down: Vincent Grey Comments on Tuvulu

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“Everybody knows about Tuvulu, It is becoming inundated by the rising sea level because of global warming. The New Zealand Government has recognised the plight of the embattled inhabitants by offering special deals for immigration. So have the Australians. It forms a regular topic at meetings of the Pacific Forum and beyond, and there cannot possibly be any disagreement on the matter.”

writes Vincent Grey today.

And he continues:

“A couple of years’ ago I was interviewed by the Dunedin-based Natural History Unit as part of documentary for the National Geographic Channel. I had over an hour to give my views on greenhouse warming, which I expected would appear in an internationally distributed documentary. They sent me a copy of the final doco “to enjoy”. I found that it was all about how Tuvulu is faced with imminent disaster, with a “moaning Minnie” lady persistently bemoaning the loss of her homeland from a comfortable flat in Brisbane. My contribution had been almost eliminated.

But Tuvulu reminds me of a comic song I used to sing of Gracie Fields called “He’s dead but he won’t lie down”. Tuvulu persistently refuses to subside.

A tide gauge to measure sea level has been in existence at Tuvulu since 1977, run by the University of Hawaii It showed a negligible increase of only 0.07 mm per year over two decades It fell three millimeters between 1995 and 1999. The complete record can still be seen on John Daly’s website, www.john-daly.com.

Obviously this could not be tolerated, so the gauge was closed in 1999 and a new, more modern tide gauge was set up by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s National Tidal Center by Flinders University at Adelaide. But Tuvulu refuses to submit to political pressure.The sea level has actually fallen .since then

Tuvulu cannot be allowed to get away with it. So Greenpeace employed Dr John Hunter. a climatologist of the University of Tasmania, who obligingly “adjusted” the Tuvulu readings upwards to comply with changes in ENSO and those found for the island of Hawaii and, miraculously, he found a sea level rise of “around” 1.2 mm a year.which, also miraculously, agrees with the IPCC global figure.

Since all this seems biased, or politically influenced, Dr John Church of the CSIRO at Hobart, Tasmania, a Lead Author of the IPCC Chapter on “Sea Level”, plus his colleague Dr Neil White, have sought to reverse actual measured trends by “combining records from tide gauges from all over the world with satellite altimeter data to assess regional variation”. Unsurprisingly, and equally miraculously, they reach the same conclusion as Greenpeace and the IPCC. All this has to be imposed on poor little Tuvulu to “prove” global warming.and speed emigration.

The IPCC Chapter on Sea Level is one of the more dishonest. It practices two important deceptions. First, it completely fails to mention the fact that many tide gauges are situated close to cities where the land is subsiding because of erection of heavy buildings, or removal of ground water, oil and minerals. . It so happens that the island of Hawaii is one of the more heavily populated Pacific islands where the sea level is “rising” because the land is “falling” Another reason for upwards bias is Port Adelaide, Australia, where they decided to increase the water level in the harbour to allow for larger ships, They dredged and built a bar on the harbour. Unsurprisingly, the level rose on the tide-gauge. Corrections for these upwards biases in tide-gauge measurements have never been permitted to be discussed by the IPCC.

The other deception of the IPCC Sea Level Chapter is in statistics. The sea level averages are so inaccurate that they have to supply only one standard deviation as a measure of inaccuracy, instead of the otherwise universal use of two standard deviations. One standard deviation gives only a one in three chance that the measurement lies outside the limits. Two standard deviations puts it up to one in twenty. If you use the proper figures you find that the accuracy sometimes permits a less than one in twenty chance of a sea level fall. That must never be allowed

This whole melancholy story is told in an article in ‘Science’ 2006 Volume 312, pages 734 to 736, It seems that the Greenpeace organisation is now occupying the role of the late Trofim Lysenko in their ability to reverse the findings of scientific research.

Vincent Gray
Wellington, New Zealand

‘It’s not the things you don’t know that fool you. It’s the things you do know that aint so’ Josh Billings”