Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for November 2006

How Many Trees Did Bob Carr Really Save? A Note from Cinders

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Hi Jennifer,

The former Premier of NSW, Bob Carr, has made the following claim in a Daily Telegraph Editorial:

“ONE of my first acts as premier in 1995 was to introduce controls on the clearing of native vegetation. It was controversial and it involved me in endless arguments.

But stopping broadacre land clearing in NSW (Queensland followed) is the only thing that has enabled Prime Minister John Howard to boast that Australia can meet its Kyoto targets.”

I have compared this claim with information compiled by the Australian Greenhouse Office and it doesn’t appear to stack up.

landuse change emissions.JPG

The table indicates that landuse change emissions have reduced dramatically from 1990 to now by about 70 percent. Much of this occurred prior to 1995, the date Mr. Carr claims that he acted. In fact the table shows an extremely small decrease from 1995 to 2003 for New South Wales. There was no significant change in Queensland from 1995 to 2002.

Mr Carr’s statement that stopping broad acre land clearing in NSW in 1995 is the only thing that allows Australia to meets its Kyoto targets is not supported by the available evidence.

In the same article Mr Carr claims:

“In 1800 much of North America, South America, Australia and Asia was covered by forest. But the explosion in the human population meant massive clearing. Australia lost an estimated two-thirds of its vegetation.”

These statements can be compared with the Department of Environment and Heritage Australian Native Vegetation Assessment 2001 that states:

“At a continental scale, approximately 13% of the total land has been cleared.”

This assessment estimates that about 50% of the continent was covered by forest and woodland. Indeed this was mostly woodland, with forest accounting for just over 44 million hectares or about 6% of the continent. In 2001 the Audit estimated that over 31 million hectares remained, that is 71% of the original extent. This is less than a third of the forest cleared not two thirds as claimed by Bob Carr.

Regards Cinders.

Scientific Facts Irrelevant: A Note from Eric Ness

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Hi Jennifer,

I’m sure you have heard the old saying that rules are made to be broken. In most instances this is a relatively harmless idea if you are talking about a group of middle school children who fail to follow the instructions of their English teacher—at worst you might get a bunch of kids who can’t write well. However, what happens if the custodians of law in a country start to follow the same maxim? Unfortunately, you might get the Buyat case.

A justice system can fail in many ways. For instance, if a real criminal is not prosecuted or a criminal gets away with a disproportionately lenient sentence. But what happens when you are talking about a justice system that deliberately targeted an innocent man with the single minded determination to basically destroy his life, in this situation you are not talking about a justice system at all. However, this seems to be the situation exemplified by my Dad’s ongoing legal battles in Indonesia.

A friend of mine once said that you start having human rights issues when you stop following the rule of law. In the same tone it becomes pointless to continue talking about scientific facts because they have been made irrelevant in the absence of rule of law. As the Buyat case has proceeded it has truly revealed the personality of the justice system and we find ourselves facing some of these concerns.

Please read the rest of the blog entry at:

http://richardness.org/blog/ruleoflaworlawlessnessofrulers.php

Thanks,
Eric

Possums Killing River Red Gums: A Note from Michael O’Brien

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Dear Jennifer,

I was reading your blogs criticising the misrepresentation of the facts surrounding the Murray river floodplains and death of river red gums. I own a property on the Murray river floodplains, downstream of Echuca. My property has river red gum wetlands that have quite naturally not recieved any flooding since 1995.

For the last 15 years my red gum wetland and many other red gum wetlands in the region have suffered massive decline in tree health and in some instances all of the trees have been killed. It is changing the look of the landscape and is quite obviously a regional catastrophe.

But what is the cause? Ask any of the experts and they insist it is “drought”, but in my district the average rain for the past 15 years has only been slightly below the long term average and in reality the redgums have probably had as much flooding as they ever did in dry periods.

Death by Possum2blog.JPG

The actual cause of the tree death is something much more cute and cuddly, common brush-tailed possum’s. Brush-tailed possums are abundant in these hollow redgums. At times I have spotted up to 15 mature possums in one tree. Each summer the trees grow a few leaves and then for the remainder of the year the possums strip them clean. The trees can only take about three years of this kind of constant bombardment before they die. From the 200 large trees within my wetland at least 75% have died in the last 10 years, and the remainder are in poor health.

Prior to European settlement in the area, the local Aboriginals heavilly utilized brush-tailed possums for food, clothing etcetera. So much so that one of the early pastoralists in the area referred to them as the “possum-eaters”.

As an experiment I possum guarded a number of random trees last November.

The following photograph I took this morning of one of the possum- guarded trees. The trees in the photograph were all in similar health at the time of guarding last November.

Possum attack is a widespread problem in the Murray flood plains now that possums are unable to be utilized and managed, and probably explains a lot of the premature death of red gums that people are witnessing in this natural dry period.

Regards,
Michael O’Brien

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Note from Jeff Yugovic, added 13th December, 2015

“Although my work is widely accepted by the general public and many practical conservationists, I am being ignored by academia and am regarded as a heretic by some ratbag ‘conservationists’.

My discussion paper is online and is updated periodically:

http://www.spiffa.org/do-ecosystems-need-top-predators.html ”

This paper quotes the above blog post.

Who’s “Utterly Wrong” on The Murray?

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In the December 2004 issue of Quadrant magazine I had an article published entitled ‘Why Save the Murray’. It began:

“I WAS SURPRISED when I learned that the Australian [newspaper] was running a “Saving the Murray” campaign. I realised that journalists often fail in their quest for the truth, but I assumed that they at least subscribed to the ideal. Campaigning – organised action to achieve a particular end – is the antithesis of honest reporting.

Environmentalism is now big business and big politics. It would therefore seem important that journalists at our national daily newspaper scrutinise the actions and the media releases from politicians, environmental activists and the growing industry and research lobby, particularly on an issue as important as the Murray River. Yet they were running a campaign.”

In the piece I went on to document the campaign, and how much of what the newspaper writes on the River is propaganda rather than news or considered opinion.

I knew it was a bad career move, so to speak, taking on the nation’s daily newspaper. But gee their editorial today, entitled ‘Weighing up Water‘ is a bit mean:

“IN 2001, The Australian launched a campaign to save the ailing Murray River. In daily reports during a 2200km journey along the nation’s mightiest waterway from Albury to its mouth at the Coorong, this newspaper’s Amanda Hodge catalogued its precarious plight as a result of salination, over-irrigation, and pollution…
The Australian’s Murray campaign was challenged by the conservative Institute of Public Affairs, which released a report showing the river’s condition had not deteriorated in 15 years. They were utterly wrong. Five years after Hodge’s journey and faced with the looming reality that the present drought may see the Murray run dry, John Howard and the premiers of the four southeastern states have finally agreed on a plan to overhaul the nation’s water management by fast-tracking both a system of interstate trading of water entitlements and water conservation projects.”

No. My report ‘ Myth and the Murray: Measuring the Real State of the River Environment’ was factually correct. Furthermore, it didn’t show “no deterioration”. It actually documented improvement!

In the report I also explained that while it is generally believed that irrigation diversions leave too little water in the river. In reality, as a consequence of the building of dams and weirs, the water level in the river is unnaturally high for much of the length of the river, most of the time.

Now in 2006 with record low inflows into the Murray, there is much hand wringing because the river might run dry. If this happens, the consequences will be devastating for many industries. But it won’t necessarily be devastating for the ecology of the river. Australian rivers naturally run dry during drought. What is most unnatural is to continue to push large quantities of water downstream during drought.

We’ll see if the Australian publishes the letter to the editor which I’ve just drafted and sent off now.

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Update 10th November, 2006

My letter was published today in The Australian and is available online:

Facts, not exaggeration

YOUR editorial (“Weighing up water”, 9/11) claims that a report by the Institute of Public Affairs was “utterly wrong” to conclude that the condition of the Murray River had not deteriorated in 15 years. Actually, all the evidence does support the IPA’s findings.

Our 2003 report showed that salt levels had halved at key sites, Murray cod and sliver perch numbers were on the increase and that while there were many stressed red gums in South Australia, forests in NSW and Victoria were generally healthy and supported large populations of water birds.

The report also explained that it’s generally believed that irrigation diversions leave too little water in the river. In reality, as a consequence of the building of dams and weirs, the water level in the river was unnaturally high for much of the length of the river, most of the time.

Now, in 2006, with record low inflows into the Murray, there is much hand-wringing because the river might run dry. If this happens, the consequences will be devastating for many industries. But it won’t necessarily be devastating for the ecology of the river. Australian rivers naturally run dry during drought. What is most unnatural is to continue to push large quantities of water downstream during drought.

Sensible water policy needs to be based on facts, not exaggeration.

Dr Jennifer Marohasy
Senior fellow, Institute of Public Affairs
Melbourne

Mine Your Own Business, But Don’t Miss the Movie

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MYOB_header.gif

Mine Your Own Business is a powerful film about the hopes of people living in poverty and about misguided environmentalism.

Directed by former Financial Times journalist Phelim McAleer, Mine Your Own Business exposes the motivations of those attempting to stop economic development in the name of the environment.

The Institute of Public Affairs will be screening Mine Your Own Business at the following locations

Melbourne, 20 November 2006
Arthur Streeton Auditorium, Sofitel Melbourne, 25 Collins Street.

Hobart, 21 November 2006
Old Woolstore Theatrette, 1 Macquarie Street.

Sydney, 22 November 2006
Dendy Opera Quays, Shop 9, 2 East Circular Quay.

Perth, 23 November 2006
Cinema Paradiso, 164 James St, Northbridge.

Screenings at all venues begin at 6pm. The film will be followed by a discussion with Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney. $10 donations welcome. Payment can be made at the door.

To register contact Georgina Hamilton on 03 9600 4744 or ghamilton@ipa.org.au

For more information on the film click here: http://www.mineyourownbusiness.org/index.htm
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Update 10th November

Following comments (see below) quering the motivations of Phelim McAleer in making the movie I’m updating this blog post with profiles of the films directors and producers:

Ann McElhinney

Ann McElhinney is a Fellow of the Moving Picture Institute, a not for profit dedicated to advancing liberty through the medium of film (thempi.org). She is also is a journalist, broadcaster and producer and joint managing director of New Bera Media, an independent documentary production company.

Ann McElhinney directed and produced “Mine Your Own Business” (2006).She is a co-producer and presenter of “The Search for Tristan’s Mum” (2005) an hour long documentary for RTE. The documentary
featured the case of Tristan Dowse, who was adopted by an Irish couple at birth and then abandoned in an Indonesian orphanage two years later. Tristan’s plight provoked a wave of sympathy and outrage in Ireland and “The Search for Tristan’s Mum” followed journalist Ann McElhinney in a search to find his natural mother in Indonesia.

As a result of McElhinney’s undercover investigations into Tristan’s case where she posed as a woman hoping to adopt she revealed an illegal baby selling ring. Further investigations by the Indonesian police saw the leaders
of the ring sentenced to nine and eight years in prison.

“The Search for Tristan’s Mum” was selected by fellow industry professionals from across the globe and showcased at Input 2006 in Taiwan in May 2006.

McElhinney was an Assistant Producer on the BBC Spotlight documentary “Romanian Twins” (2004) and featured
in CBC’s “Return to Sender” (2005) as the investigative reporter who discovered the story of Alexandra
Austin. McElhinney also worked with CBC as an associate producer and researcher on “Return to Sender”. Previously McElhinney worked as a journalist with the BBC, Irish Times, RTE, Sunday Times and Sunday Tribune.

She has regularly contributed reports and analysis for RTE’s Six One News, Morning Ireland and World Report and has been a regular contributor to Orla Barry’s show on Newstalk 106 and Today FM’s The Last Word show.

Phelim McAleer

Phelim McAleer is a Fellow of the Moving Picture Institute, a New York-based non-profit that identifies
and nurtures promising filmmakers who are committed to protecting and sustaining a free and prosperous society (www.thempi.org). He is also the joint managing director of New Bera Media, an independent documentary production company. McAleer directed, produced and wrote “Mine Your Own Business” (2006) the world’s first anti-environmentalist documentary. The documentary hacks away at the cozy image of environmentalists as well-meaning, harmless activists. He was also an Associate

Producer, second unit director and researcher on the documentary “Return to Sender” which aired on Canada’s CBC in February 2005.

From 2000 to 2003 he was the Romania/Bulgaria Correspondent for the Financial Times. He has also written for The Economist from the region. Previously from 1998 to 2000, he worked for the UK Sunday Times in their Dublin office.

McAleer started his career as a journalist working for a local newspaper in Crossmaglen, Co. Armagh known as Bandit country for the ferocity of the IRA campaign in the area. He then moved to the Irish News in Belfast. At the Irish News, Northern Ireland’s largest selling daily newspaper worked as a journalist covering the Northern Ireland troubles and peace process before becoming night editor.

He devised and co-produced “The Search for Tristan’s Mum” which was broadcast on RTE 1, the Irish State television station, in 2005. It featured the case of Tristan Dowse, who was adopted by an Irish couple at birth and then abandoned in an Indonesian orphanage two years later.

The Search for Tristan’s Mum was selected for and shown at Input 2006, a showcase for the best programs
from national public broadcasters from around the world, the programs was selected by fellow industry professionals and showcased at Input 2006 in Taiwan in May.

He has been a regular contributor to RTE and BBC radio and television.

Coffee Cats & Clouded Leopards

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I was fascinated to read last Friday in the Courier-Mail that the Herveys Range Heritage Tea Rooms in North Queensland have started selling $50 a cup Kopi Luwak coffee.

The coffee is expensive because the coffee beans are retrieved from the poo of the luwak, or common palm civet, Paradoxurus hermaphroditus. These cat-like creatures are apparently found in the jungles of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi in Indonesia.

The luwak eat ripe coffee berries but the inner bean is not digested, and can be retrieved from the animal’s poo while the stomach enzymes add to the coffee’s flavor.

I gave up drinking coffee when I gave up smoking cigarettes about 18 years ago, so I will probably never know whether this poo brew is worth the effort and expense. But I thought it was a great potential example of conservation through sustainable use as promoted by Michael Archer at the AEF conference.

I was a bit keen to see more pictures of coffee cats in the wild and get a picture for this blog, so I emailed Richard Ness in the hope he might have some photographs from the many camera traps he has had set in Indonesian jungle. [Remember that magnificent picture of the Sumatran tiger.]

Anyway instead of a Kopi Luwak, he has sent me this magnificent picture of a Macan dahan or clouded leopard, Neofelis nebulosa.

macan dahan, blog.JPG

While the coffee cats are apparently quite common, this species, like the Sumatran tiger, is threatened by hunting for body parts including for meat, fur, teeth as well as bones.

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Thanks Richard Ness for the great photograph of the clouded leopard. If you have a picture of an endangered animal that you would like to share with other readers of this blog, please send it to jennifermarohasy@jennifermarohasy.com .