Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Win for Bob Brown, Loss for Forests

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Yesterday the Federal Court in Hobart ruled that logging operations in the Wielangta forest in south-east Tasmania breach an agreement between the Australian and Tasmanian governments and that the logging company does not have an exemption under relevant environment protection laws.

Senator Brown had argued in court that forestry operations endangered a rare beetle, the swift parrot and the wedge-tailed eagle.

Since the ruling Senator Brown has suggested that all logging operations in Tasmania are a threat to rare and endangered species and that the ruling should be the catalyst for an immediate review of all logging operations in Australia.

Also, according to Senator Brown’s website:

“The Judge pointed out that the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act requires more than avoiding harm – it requires that logging plans help the rare species populations to recover.

Here are paragraphs 281 and 282 of Judge Marshall’s 301 paragraph ruling:

281 I do not consider that the State has protected the eagle by applying relevant management prescriptions. Management prescriptions have helped to slow the eagle’s extinction but have not protected it in the sense of either maintaining existing numbers or restoring the species to pre-threatened levels.

Will the State protect the three species by applying relevant management prescriptions?

282 It is unlikely the State can, by management prescriptions, protect the eagle. As to the beetle and the parrot, the State must urge Forestry Tasmania to take a far more protective stance in respect of these species by relevant management prescriptions before it can be said it will protect them. On the evidence before the Court, given Forestry Tasmania’s satisfaction with current arrangements, I consider that protection by management prescriptions in the future is unlikely.”

Cinders, a regular contributor at this blog, sent me the following note:

“The Federal Court has found that forestry operations in the Wielangta forest area have not been carried out in accordance with the Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) by reference to clause 68.

Clause 68 of the Tasmanian RFA states that: The State agrees to protect the Priority Species listed in Attachment 2 (Part A) through the CAR Reserve System or by applying relevant management prescriptions.

The state government has created a reserve system of 2.7 million hectares including 97% of high quality wilderness, 45% of the State’s Native forest and over 1 million hectares, yet the judge ruled that this reserve system was not adequate to protect three threatened species listed in attachment 2 (Part A) of the Tasmanian RFA.

He also found that management prescription introduced by the state through its experts in the Department of the Environment, funded with millions of dollars from taxpayers, and also through Forestry Tasmania’s management systems and forest practice planning systems were inadequate to protect the species.

I would argue that the “protection” failed last week when wildfire consumed the proposed harvesting coupe and much of the surrounding forest!

Despite the Court appointed expert stating “that the forestry operations in Wielangta in coupes 17E and 19D and the proposed forestry operations in Wielangta in coupes other than 17E and 19D are not likely to have a significant impact on the eagle, having regard to its endangered status and all other threats to the eagle.”

The judge perferred to use legal precedent and interpretation to determine that there would be significant impact.

The upshot of all this legal arguement in a forest that is not pristine but has been heavily harvested in the past is to now create uncertainty for timber workers and their families in the week before Christmas.

In a Media release issued yesterday, Barry Chipman, State Manager of Timber Communities Australia said:

“This is a lousy Christmas present to the families of forest workers and dependent businesses.”

“The federal court’s decision not only endangers the RFA but the jobs of over 10,000 timber workers in Tasmania.”

The full judgment can be found at http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/federal_ct/2006/1729.html .

Cinders.

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I have previously written about the Wielangta forest here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/001746.html

No Anthropogenic Signal in Tropical Cyclone Record: An Inconvenient Truth (Part 5)

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As 2006 draws to a close it is interesting to ponder the big issues and events from the past year.

Along with the drought, bushfires, extinction of the baiji, 2006 will perhaps be remembered as the year of climate change hysteria.

I think the movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ in which failed US Presidential hopeful Al Gore described carbon dioxide as the enemy, and then constructing a story as simplistic, horrific, technically flawed* and politically naïve as that CIA dossier on those weapons of mass destruction, was a significant contributor to the hysteria.

Indeed, while support for the notion that carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels is the cause of all climate catastrophe was building, that movie more than anything else, seemed to galvanize support for the theory.

In the movie, Al Gore presented hurricane Katrina as an example of how global warming from the burning of fossil fuels has resulted in an increase in the number and intensity of hurricanes. Disturbing images of New Orleans after Katrina were shown with comment that this is “something new for America” and “how in God’s name could this happen here in the US” and the scientists warned us.

In the movie Al Gore was also big on the idea that all reputable scientists agree. That there is an overwhelming consensus on this and other climate change issues.

Yet most cyclone specialists, including Chris Landsea, have repeatedly stated that there is no evidence for or against the existence of a detectable anthropogenic signal in the tropical cyclone climate record. The cyclone record includes typhoons and hurricanes.

But Al Gore ignored this inconvenient truth, and the popular press have maintained the deception.

Furthermore, there is no general trend of increasing cyclone number or intensity.

As the year comes to an end it is depressing that the popular press, so enamored with the idea of a man-made global warming climate catastrophe, continue to ignore the experts and the data.

Recently the following ‘Consensus Statements’ on tropical cyclones and climate change was developed, discussed and endorsed at the World Meteorological Organization’s International Workshop on Tropical Cyclones**, but I didn’t read or hear about it on ‘my ABC’.

The experts concluded that the recent increase in impacts from tropical cyclones (including hurricanes) has largely been caused by rising concentrations of population and infrastructure in coastal regions.

Consensus Statements

1. Though there is evidence both for and against the existence of a detectable anthropogenic signal in the tropical cyclone climate record to date, no firm conclusion can be made on this point.

2. No individual tropical cyclone can be directly attributed to climate change.

3. The recent increase in societal impact from tropical cyclones has largely been caused by rising concentrations of population and infrastructure in coastal regions.

4. Tropical cyclone wind-speed monitoring has changed dramatically over the last few decades, leading to difficulties in determining accurate trends.

5. There is an observed multi-decadal variability of tropical cyclones in some regions whose causes, whether natural, anthropogenic or a combination, are currently being debated. This variability makes detecting any long-term trends in tropical cyclone activity difficult.

6. It is likely that some increase in tropical cyclone peak wind-speed and rainfall will occur if the climate continues to warm. Model studies and theory project a 3-5% increase in wind-speed per degree Celsius increase of tropical sea surface temperatures.

7. There is an inconsistency between the small changes in wind-speed projected by theory and modeling versus large changes reported by some observational studies.

8. Although recent climate model simulations project a decrease or no change in global tropical cyclone numbers in a warmer climate, there is low confidence in this projection. In addition, it is unknown how tropical cyclone tracks or areas of impact will change in the future.

9. Large regional variations exist in methods used to monitor tropical cyclones. Also, most regions have no measurements by instrumented aircraft. These significant limitations will continue to make detection of trends difficult.

10. If the projected rise in sea level due to global warming occurs, then the vulnerability to tropical cyclone storm surge flooding would increase.

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* Technical flaws in the movie are documented in ‘A Skeptic’s Guide to An Inconvenient Truth’ by Marlo Lewis at
http://www.cei.org/gencon/030,05478.cfm.
Also I’ve written bits and pieces on ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ with links at my website here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/faq.php?id=15&category=18 .

** The Workshop was held in San Jose, Costa Rica, in November 2006. It was invitation-only bringing together 125 researchers and practitioners from 34 countries in the field of tropical cyclone forecasting.

*** Sections underlined where added at 8.30am on 19th following comment from Luke.

Running on Wine

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Earlier this year I read that the European Commission had given the green light to farmers in France and Italy to once again convert their surplus wine into bioethanol.

The farmers get a subsidy for distillation of the surplus wine. I guess they also got a subsidy for growing it?

Meanwhile there has been some recent discussion at this blog about world grain stocks being dangerously low because of increasing convertion of grain to biofuels. There has also been discussion about the Queensland government building a dam so farmers can grow grapes.

There seems no limit to human ingenuity and folly when it comes to farming?

Ecology is a Branch of Biology: A Note from Haldun

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Hi Jennifer,

In the academic world we speak of the “natural,” the “mathematical,” the “social,” the “engineering,” and the other sciences.

The natural sciences deal mostly with the humanly dicovered laws/rules of nature while the mathematical sciences are associated with “human” made laws/rules and their applications.

Engineering science deals mainly with how knowledge gained from the mathematical and natural sciences can be applied with judgment to devise ways to utilize, economically, the materials and forces of nature for the benefit of human kind (ABET 1980). Engineering science courses usually lead to engineering design in which we make use of the laws of nature and avoid their negative consequences.

Historically, the natural sciences branched first to physics, chemistry, biology. Later, biology and natural geography gave birth to ecology. Presently, at the basic level we have the natural sciences branching into physics, chemistry, biology and ecology with all their known sub-branches.

Ecology, very briefly, is the natural science that treats the relationships of the living (biota) among themselves and among the non-biotic environment.

Thanks to pioneers like Eugene Odum, Edward Kormondy, and Fikret Berkes we can use the “system” approach to study and quantify ecosystems, especially in terms of energy requirements.

Thanks to discoveries in genetics and the evolutionary processes alonside with the latest findings in ecology, we can predict natural human behavioral patterns as well as future requirements.

We can also predict environmental damage although it is a relatively slow process.

In contemporary ecology humans are classified as within the top “omnivore” subclass of the consumer class of biota (producer>consumer>decomposer). Human ecology should be the subject belonging to the natural sciences under the division of ecology.

The fact that human habitats are mainly outside the natural forest areas does not mean that the laws of the jungles do not apply within the cities.

Finally, a clear distinction should be made between ecology and enviromental sciences. The former, as discussed above, is a natural science while the latter is very close to an engineering science.

Haldun.

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This is an edited version of a comment posted earlier today by Haldun on an old blog post entitled ‘Ecology is Not a Branch of Biology’. I definately have a preference for the natural sciences.

The Burnett River Tortoise: A Note from Russell

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Hi Jennifer,

Any Australians looking for an example of an endangered or vulnerable freshwater species to focus a campaign on might look no further than the Burnett River tortoise.

This species is under threat due to changes in flow regimes on the Burnett, as it lives primarily in riffle habitats and these are disappearing as a consequence of damming the river.

The species was the subject of some controversy during the Paradise Dam proposal and construction. The dam proponents escaped the endangered species label for this tortoise by pointing out it also occurs in the Fitzroy and the Mary and so how could it be endangered if the Dam was built on the Burnett? Of course there was little discussion of the impact of existing and proposed modifications of habitat for this species on those two other river systems. But as one of the leading engineers for the consulting company that prepared the Enironmental Impact Assessment (and the director of their environmental group) said to me at the time:

…what is the fate of a tortoise, compared to the need to provide table grapes to Brisbane?

What indeed, I had to ask myself? After all, it is nothing more than a rather ugly looking reptile.

What possible moral or ethical dilemma could there be in making a decision not to proceed with a development simply because it might extinguish a species that had moved itself foolishly up an adaptive peak?

Clearly those who eventually made the decision to proceed were motivated by a much loftier sense of duty; the need to provide grapes to Brisbane.

I might also point out they were so motivated by that lofty moral position they had no qualms about changing what I had written in the Environmental Impact Assessment to tone down the quite legitimate concerns about the future of that species.

My point in raising this example, is that some here seem to imply that the fate of the Baiji might have been different if it had been Australians that were making the local decisions.

My personal experience suggests there would be no difference.

Russell.

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This is a slightly edited version of a comment first posted by Russell at the very long thread that began with a blog post entitled ‘The Loss of the Baiji’.

The Loss of the Baiji

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It seems the most endangered mammal on earth, a species of freshwater dolphin from the Yangtze River in China, is now extinct. That’s the conclusion from a group of specialists who recently spent six weeks searching for the dolphin, also known as the baiji, along the Yangtze.

The extinction of the baiji has taken place at a time of unprecedented interest and concern for their large relative, the minke whale. We have know for some time that there are probably over a million minke whales, but perhaps no more than a dozen baiji. Yet so much money has been spent campaigning to “save the minke whale”. Where are our priorities when it comes to conservation? I wrote on this issue in the last IPA Review in a piece entitled, “The Loss of the Baiji’.

baiji whistle.jpg

This picture is from www.baiji.org.

Click here and you can listen to a recording of the baiji’s whistle.

So beautiful.