Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for August 15, 2007

Water Diversions in the Marshes: Finally a Mainstream Issue

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Chris and Gill Hogendyk, with a bit of help from this blog, have been working hard to draw attention to the levy banks in the Macquarie Marshes starving the two nature reserves of water.

It seems the mainstream media have finally caught-on with an article in today’s Sydney Morning Herald entitled Cattlemen stealing water, irrigators say .

The piece by Daniel Lewis includes comment from Chris:

“Chris Hogendyk, the head of the irrigator group Macquarie River Food and Fibre, said the Gum Cowal-Terrigal branch of the marshes received less than 10 per cent of flood flows before 1980 but now got up to 30 per cent of what previously went to the nature reserves. There were once no large bird breeding colonies on the system, he said, but now there were several.

“The water should be going to the nature reserves, not onto private land. Once water enters the Gum Cowal-Terrigal system it is diverted and banked up across the floodplain by no less than 30 banks and channels.

“This water creates wonderful feed for fattening cattle, but kills the trees that are flooded. The resulting man-made wetlands are grazed bare.”

“Mr Hogendyk said rather than buying more water, the Government had to get rid of the banks and channels or buy the private land being flooded and set it aside for conservation.”

I understand that contrary to the Sydney Morning Herald article, Chris and Gill are keen for land to be purchased by The Australian Wildlife Conservancy or Bush Heritage – not government.

I am not sure that land needs to be purchased. But some of the levy banks need to be removed and some controls placed on grazing.

Bunny fence prompts land use study in Western Australia

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There’s an interesting article in The New York Times entitled ‘At Australia’s Bunny Fence, Variable Cloudiness Prompts Climate Study.’

“A fence built to prevent rabbits from entering the Australian outback has unintentionally allowed scientists to study the effects of land use on regional climates.

The rabbit-proof fence in Western Australia was completed in 1907 and stretches about 2,000 miles. It acts as a boundary separating native vegetation from farmland. Within the fence area, scientists have observed a strange phenomenon: above the native vegetation, the sky is rich in rain-producing clouds. But the sky on the farmland side is clear.

Researchers led by Tom Lyons of Murdoch University in Australia and Udaysankar S. Nair of the University of Alabama in Huntsville have come up with three possible explanations for this difference in cloudiness.

One theory is that the dark native vegetation absorbs and releases more heat into the atmosphere than the light-colored crops. These native plants release heat that combines with water vapor from the lower atmosphere, resulting in cloud formation.

Another hypothesis is that the warmer air on the native scrubland rises, creating a vacuum in the lower atmosphere that is then filled by cooler air from cropland across the fence. As a result, clouds form on the scrubland side.

A third idea is that a high concentration of aerosols — particles suspended in the atmosphere — on the agricultural side results in small water droplets and a decrease in the probability of rainfall. On the native landscape, the concentration of aerosols is lower, translating into larger droplets and more rainfall.

Within the last few decades, about 32 million acres of native vegetation have been converted to croplands west of the bunny fence. On the agricultural side of the fence, rainfall has been reduced by 20 percent since the 1970s.”

Can Whaling and Whale Watching Coexist? A Note from Ann Novek

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In the whaling countries, Norway, Japan and Iceland, whaling and whale watching exists side by side.

In Norway the whale watching industry is focused on sperm whales and killer whales and whale watching doesn’t happen near minke whale hunting grounds. In Japan as well, most whaling happens off shore, far away from coastal whale watching.

But in Iceland the killing of minke whales and the watching of minke whales occur in close proximity.

The Icelandic whale watching industry is unhappy and has commented:

“Whale watching in Iceland is being highly jeopardized, first by the resumption of the so-called “scientific” whaling in 2003 and now by the resumption of commercial whaling, announced and immediately performed in October 2006.

“161 minke whales have been caught for scientific purposes and their stomach contents analyzed to seek justification for the depleting fish stocks. However, at the last IWC meeting in June 2006, Iceland’s research was critized by the Scientific Commitee of the IWC for not being scientifically viable. The whales had been caught too close to shore, often within whale watching areas, and the study results are therefore insufficient.”

We have discussed here on Jennifer’s blog, what will happen with the Australian humpback whale watching industry, when Japan resumes humpback whaling this Austral summer for “scientific” reasons.

The whale watching industry is concerned the whales may become easier targets.

Comments from Australians include:

“Wally Franklin: The whales have become very used to these vessels and will come up to and roll over and present their underside and their belly to these vessels. Now are they going to do this, of course, to the Japanese harpooners in Antarctica?
That’s … we’re hoping they won’t.”

“Steve Dixon: Well if a season was added to the Hervey Bay calendar through whale watching and that industry suddenly becomes endangered, or the whales stop trusting the whale watchers, then it will have a severe economic impact on the whale city, because suddenly that fleet that goes out from July though to the end of September will suddenly find itself going out and looking at dolphins.”

So what will the impact of Japanese whaling be on the Australian humpback whaling industry?

My guess: The whale watchers may only experience the skittish animals that have been left – detracting from the whale watching adventure.

Cheers,
Ann Novek
Sweden