Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for November 2006

How was the 2006 Hurricane Season?

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Following Hurricane Katrina and Al Gore’s movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ many have come to expect an increase in the number and intensity of hurricanes hitting the US coast each year as the so-called “climate crisis” intensifies.

According to the US National Climatic Data Center, over the 10 years to the end of 2005, seasonal activity in the North Atlantic basin was 13 named storms, 7.7 hurricanes and 3.6 major hurricanes representing an increase over the average of the preceding 25 years (1970-1994) of 8.6 named storms, 5 hurricanes and 1.5 major hurricanes.

Today, the 30th November marks the official end of the 2006 hurricane season in the US and this year, according to a recent press release from the National Center for Public Policy Research, the number of hurricanes was 38 percent below the number originally forecast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The number of hurricanes that qualified as “major” – category 3 or above – fell 50 percent below NOAA forecasts and not a single hurricane made landfall.

“If we can’t depend on hurricane forecasts made one to six months ahead of time, how can we expect to depend on predictions about the behavior of hurricanes decades from now,” asked David Ridenour, Vice President of The National Center for Public Policy Research. “Those who claim that rising global temperatures would definitely lead to more intense hurricanes appear to be relying upon political science, not climate science.”

The 2006 summary at the US National Climatic Data Center simply states that the Atlantic season has been much quieter than had been initially forecast.

All good news.

Thinning Forests To Increase Water Yield

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“Despite being portrayed as a villain, timber harvesting in the form of thinning can substantially counteract the impact of fire regrowth on water yield. The benefits of regrowth thinning have been widely studied throughout Australia. In Melbourne’s catchments, strip-thinning trials have shown that up to 2.5 million litres a year of additional run-off can be generated from each hectare of thinned regrowth. A program of thinning the 1939 regrowth could add billions of litres of water to our storages.

Western Australia has been quicker to take advantage of thinning as a water management tool. Earlier this year, a $20 million, 12-year thinning program was initiated in a substantial segment of Perth’s catchment following four years of exhaustive public and stakeholder consultation. Every 1,000 hectares thinned is expected to deliver an additional one billion litres of run-off into the Wungong Dam a year.”

This is an extract from an opinion piece by Mark Poynter first published in The Age and just republished by On Line Opinion, entitled ‘Fired-up Forests, Have More Impact Than the Loggers‘. Read the full article here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5213

New Coal Mine Not Given Go Ahead As It Will Produce GHG Emissions

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On Monday I read in The Australian that the NSW Land and Environment Court ruled Centennial Coal had failed to adequately consider the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from its proposed Anvil Hill coal mine in the Upper Hunter and so the approval it got from government for its environmental assessment is void. So at least for the moment the new coal mine is not going ahead. It has taken a couple of days for me to digest this information. The judgment is radical, if not surprising, and perhaps worth considering in some detail.

According to the judgment: “The area of land which constitutes Anvil Hill has a deposit of approximately 150 million tonnes of thermal coal. The proposed open cut mine will produce up to 10.5 million tonnes of coal per annum. The mine is intended to operate for 21 years. The intended use of this coal is for burning as fuel in power stations in New South Wales and overseas. There is an existing contract for sale of coal to Macquarie Generation, which operates the Bayswater and Liddell power stations. About half the coal is intended for export for use as fuel in power stations to produce electricity generally in Japan. There is no dispute that burning of coal will release substantial quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.”

At issue was whether the Director-General from the Department of Planning was legally bound to require greenhouse gas impacts of burning coal by third parties in environmental assessment of new coal mines … whether ecologically sustainable development principles were taken into account.

In deciding that the environmental assessment lodged by mining company Centennial Coal in respect of the Avil Hill Project was inadequate and therefore that the approval from the relevant government department was “void and without effect”, the Judge commented that:

“Burning coal to produce GHG [Greenhouse Gas] emissions in NSW will be conducted in activities subject to regulation under the EP&A Act. Overseas burning of the coal is also likely to be subject to overseas regulation. The release of GHG from power plants is likely to be subject to increasing regulation nationally and internationally. Technologies relating to GHG are developing and may change over the next two decades.”

“…The fact that an assessment of GHG emissions alone was required demonstrates that regard was intended to be had to the future impacts of GHG. The problem of climate change/global warming is an increasing problem which is recognised by the Director-General in taking into account the environmental concern about GHG emissions by requiring an analysis of these and that must include the effect on future generations.

“… ESD [Ecologically Sustainable Development] requires that there be integration of environmental and economic considerations in decision making about projects. The Director-General required GHG to be assessed in the environmental assessment and therefore clearly intended that it be taken into account.

“…The Applicant argued that while the decision is a subjective one reached by the Director-General it nevertheless raises a legal question. The Applicant’s counsel argued that the Director-General had to ask himself two questions in relation to the environmental assessment, (i) did the environmental assessment comply with the EAR [Environmental Assessment Regulation] and (ii) if not, can it be said that it generally complies with those requirements. As the environmental assessment provided did not contain a detailed analysis of GHG in conformity with the EAR it was clear that the Director-General did not ask himself the first question and he therefore fell into legal error.

“…Given the quite appropriate recognition by the Director-General that burning the thermal coal from the Anvil Hill Project will cause the release of substantial GHG in the environment which will contribute to climate change/global warming which, I surmise, is having and/or will have impacts on the Australian and consequently NSW environment it would appear that Bignold J’s test of causation based on a real and sufficient link is met. While the Director-General argued that the use of the coal as fuel occurred only through voluntary, independent human action, that alone does not break the necessary link to impacts arising from this activity given that the impact is climate change/global warming to which this contributes. In submissions the parties provided various scenarios where this approach would lead to unsatisfactory outcomes such as, in the Director-General’s submissions, the need to assess the GHG emissions from the use of ships built in a shipyard which use fossil fuels. Ultimately, it is an issue of fact and degree to be considered in each case, which has been recognised in cases such as Minister for Environment and Heritage v Queensland Conservation Council Inc and Another (2004) 139 FCR 24, by the Full Court at [53].

“…The Applicant’s Points of Claim challenge the Director-General’s opinion that the environmental assessment prepared by Centennial was adequate because he failed to take into account ESD principles, particularly the precautionary principle and the principle of intergenerational equity. … the precautionary principle—namely, that if there are threats of serious or irreversible environmental damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation.

“… If the DG had adopted a sceptical approach to the climate change issue, and had declined to require the EA to address this (or to address downstream GHG emissions) because of this scepticism, and if in so doing he had failed to consider the precautionary principle, then there may be basis for legal complaint. That is not this case.

“…I also conclude that the Director-General failed to take into account the precautionary principle when he decided that the environmental assessment of Centennial was adequate, as already found in relation to intergenerational equity at par 126. This was a failure to comply with a legal requirement.”

Read the full judgment here: http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/lecjudgments/2006nswlec.nsf/61f584670edbfba2ca2570d40081f438/dc4df619de3b3f02ca257228001de798?OpenDocument

I reckon, based on the tangle of legislation currently in place in Australia, that the judgement was inevitable. A real problem into the future is that governments (from both sides of politics) have enacted legislation based on environmental campaigning that is unreasonable. They have enacted legislation that is at core about stopping development including through use of the precautionary principle, rather than weighing up the costs and benefits of resource use.

Fishers Snagged: Not Farmed, Then Not Organic

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According to an article in yesterday’s New York Times the market for organic foods continues to grow with sales reaching US$13.8 billion in 2005 compared with US$3.6 billion in 1997.

But there’s not much ‘organic seafood’ about because of problems with definitions and also what fish eat.

Now I would have thought a wild Atlantic salmon would automatically qualify as organic. But according to the US Agriculture Department to be organic you need to be farmed: read the full story here including that: “Environmentalists rightly argue that many farm-raised fish live in cramped nets in conditions that can pollute the water, and that calling them organic is a perversion of the label. Those who catch and sell wild fish say that their products should be called organic and worry that if they are not, fish farmers will gain a huge leg up.”

All The Best To Richard Ness

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Last week the US President, George Bush, visited Indonesia to discuss amongst other things “investment”.

No doubt some radical environmentalists along with some Islamic fundamentalists don’t want foreign investment in Indonesia. Like the activists in the new documentary ‘Mine Your Own Business’ they would perhaps like the many Indonesians still living a subsistence existence to remain “happy peasants”.

Activists are also behind the campaign to jail Richard Ness.

There are miners who have done the wrong thing and impacted the Indonesian environment. Just last week, more deaths were reported from the mud flow in East Java associated with gas exploration by Santos.

But to quote Andrew Wilson, president director of Australia’s BHP Billiton-Indonesia, in the case of Richard Ness,

“This is Indonesia at its worst in terms of picking the wrong guy and saying: you are a criminal. You couldn’t get a person who has given more back to Indonesia. He’s community oriented. He looks for the long-term good rather than taking short cuts.”

Then last week, following the visit by George Bush, the US Ambassador B. Lynn Pascoe was reported in the Jakarta Post to have commented:

“A lack of legal certainty remained a major problem for Indonesia in attracting foreign investment, pointing to the prosecution of Newmont Minahasa Raya president director Richard Ness, an American, who is facing three years imprisonment if convicted in a North Sulawesi court of causing pollution, as setting a bad example.

“What we want is Indonesia to become a competitive place … one thing you don’t do … is bring court cases against somebody where you don’t have any evidence. This is exactly what has happened in the Ness case.”

I recently summarized the case against Richard Ness in a piece for On Line Opinion entitled ‘The Campaign To Stop Mining’:

“New York Times journalist Jane Perlez championed the case for the activists in a feature “Spurred by Illness, Indonesians Lash Out at US Mining Giant” in which she suggested the waters of Buyat Bay had been polluted by the gold mine with villagers developing “strange rashes and bumps”.

The article relied heavily on an interview with a member of a team of public health doctors flown in to investigate. Dr Jane Pangemanan was quoted claiming symptoms exhibited by the local villagers were consistent with mercury and arsenic poisoning.

Another key accusation in the New York Times article is that Newmont Mining was illegally and inappropriately disposing of the mines tailings into Buyat Bay and a police report showed mercury contamination.

…The same day the New York Times published its feature, the World Health Organisation published a detailed technical report (pdf 4.01MB) which concluded that Buyat Bay was not contaminated by mercury or cyanide and that levels of mercury among villagers were not high enough to cause poisoning and that the health effect of mercury and cyanide poisoning were not observed among Buyat Bay villagers.

This was the first of several reports, including a detailed report by Australia’s CSIRO and another by the Indonesian Ministry of Environment, which directly contradicted the Indonesian police report and found the bay to be unpolluted.

Of the six executives initially incarcerated, only the president of Newmont Mining in Indonesia, Richard Ness, was eventually charged. His son, Eric Ness, established a website dedicated to the trial, and in October last year reported that under cross examination, Dr Jane Pangemanan denied she ever told the New York Times that the illnesses observed in the villagers were caused by arsenic or mercury poisoning.”

On 10th November as part of the post trial phase the prosecution asked the court impose a three-year jail term on Richard Ness.

Richard Ness has responded with comment that,

“These ridiculous recommendations by the JPU make a complete mockery of the legal system. It seems like whoever wrote these charges never sat in the courtroom, or does not understand the substance of the overriding evidence that Buyat Bay is not polluted. For one, the prosecutors charged us for not filing environmental reports since 2002 while in fact, their own witness from the Ministry of Environment, Sigit Reliantoro, testified that he evaluated completed sets of reports up to 2004.

“With such unfair, unsubstantiated claims against innocent parties, this is yet another roadblock to the government’s efforts to attract much needed investments back to the country, investments that will create jobs and improve the quality of life. I have lived in this country for 30 years, love its people and have adopted many of its ways but this is a profound travesty and a disappointment to all who hope for a society based on the rule of law.”

It seemed incredible to me that the case is proceeding at all. Then again, as Phelim McAleer documents in ‘Mine Your Own Business’, unsubstantiated accusations from environmentalists can appear compelling. Their claims may be false, but they command the moral high ground. Yet sadly in the end, by hindering or stopping development and investment, they contribute to a vicious cycle that condemns the world’s poorest to a life of subsistence.

Richard Ness will be back in court next week on Tuesday 5 th December. The final judgment is likely to be handed down some time in January.

This trial is about more than the destiny of one man, it represents the struggle between development and poverty – the struggle between opportunity and radical environmentalism.

I have never met Richard Ness. But I have got to know him a little through this blog and through his son Eric who has a blog dedicated to his Dad’s trial.

Like many readers of this blog, Richard has a keen interest in the environment and like some of us is a collector of wildlife photographs.

On behalf of the many readers and contributors to this blog, I wish Richard Ness all the best for next Tuesday.

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“Using an old cream separator with local villagers to try see if we could increase the production of coconut oil,” Richard Ness, Buyat Bay in Indonesia.

Farming in Nigeria: A Note from Russell

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In the following note from Russell, which was originally posted as a comment on a thread about how biotechnology benefits American farmers, he tells us something about farming in Nigeria and how white farmers from Zimbabwe are being invited to settle in Nigeria:

“Several comments refer to the link between agricultural subsidies and the impoverishment of African farmers.

Here in Nigeria (which has 20 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s population) the two biggest causes of most farmers impoverishment in my opinion are a lack of access to capital, and a reluctance to embrace new technologies. These are two sides of the same coin as farmers have to be risk averse if they have no capital to risk on new approaches.

The cost of a bad yield here is starvation.

Much of the area farmed lies in the Guinea savannah and Sahel zones and rainfall varies in onset, duration and yield from year to year. Each year many farming communities go through a very lean period at the end of the dry season when last years stored crops run out. Off farm income is critical during this period.

Examination of farming practices demonstrates a risk minimisation strategy based upon a long history of subsistence farming within an unpredictable environment. A nice summary is given in Kathleen Bakers book “Indigenous Land Management in West Africa”.

Here in Nigeria the Banks are typically not interested in farmers as a market for loans as they perceive them (rightly) as high risk, and so it is virtually impossible for a farmer to get credit from a bank, and would farmers want credit, with interest rates ranging from 23-28 percednt?

A recent program instigated by the Kwara Sate governor which has invited Zimbabwean farmers to take up land in Kwara State has seen a small cohort of technologically saavy, capital rich white farmers take up the option of farming here.

Even these guys have not been able to get credit locally, but the most interesting aspect of their arrival has been the comments from local farmers over the high cropping densities and the monoculture plantings.

Local farmers consider the approach to be crazy, and from their capital poor perspective it is. However, it is also clear that many of the local farming practices are so deeply inculculated in the local culture that many potential forms of innovation are frowned upon. This may actually be a worthwhile risk minimisation strategy because if a farmer fails it is the other members of the family/clan/village who will have to help.

While there are wealthy landowners here who have the means to farm intensively on a much larger scale, the opportunity from cessation of EU and other subsidies might not have an immediate, or large impact on the greater mass of subsistence farmers without access to the capital required for them to enter the cotton market for example.

In fact the immediate effect of a rise in the price of cotton in this country where the wealthy have the power and influence and the poor have access to land which is not adequately protected by the land tenure system might be to push many subsistence farmers off the land and to lower the amount of land used for local food production.
Of course the economists would say this will create new opportunities, but a look at where the wealthy and powerful Nigerians invest their mostly stolen wealth (oil) reveals it goes overseas.

Against this background, which I suggest is a common feature of subsistence farmers everywhere in the savannah zones of the developing world, I am not sure I can agree with the sentiment that it is EU and US subsidies which keep the African farmer impoverished. Similarly, while I consider that GM foods can (and should) have a useful role in an African context, I am not sure that global acceptance of GM foods would also necessarily lead to a better world for African farmers.“