Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Counting Whales & Conservation Priorities

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Have you ever wondered how scientists count whales and how accurate their population estimates are?

The June issue of ‘Significance’ a journal focused on statistics has an article by Philip Hammond, a former Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Committee (IWC), explaining some of the techniques for estimating population numbers and it includes comment that:

“The minke whale is the most abundant species of baleen whale, with a world population of hundreds of thousands, maybe as much as a million. In recent years most whales killed for commercial purposes have been minkes. In the North Atlantic about 600 a year have been taken by Norway under objection to the moratorium and about 30 to 40 by Iceland under special permit. Japan annually takes about 450 minke whales in the Southern Ocean and about 150 in the North Pacific under special permit. These catches are small relative to the estimated numbers of whales and are unlikely to have an adverse impact on populations.

The number of blue whales in the world, however, is only a few thousand. In the Southern Ocean an estimated 400 to 1400 remain from a population that probably once numbered about 750 000. Blue whales have been protected since the 1960s but they have very low rates of increase and it will be a long time before we know whether or not they will recover from the devastating exploitation of the 20th century.”

So what is limiting the recovery of blue whale numbers?

I’ve been told that minke whales compete with blue whales and that high minke whale population numbers could be impacting on the recovery of blue whales?[1] If this is the case, could harvesting of minke whales by the Japanese in the Antarctic help recovery of the depressed blue whale population?

After posting this note, I received an email from a reader with comment that: If blue whales are failing to recover it may be because of the various problems associated with small population size. …The contention that Blue Whale recovery in the Antarctic is being inhibited by prey competition from Minke Whales has little basis in existing data. …although the Blue Whale’s dependence upon a single food source (krill) is somewhat offset by the latter’s great abundance, this stenophagy would make the species more vulnerable in the event of a major decline in prey. [2]

Ann Novek recently sent me a note explaining that: “There are no direct actions against Norwegian whaling anymore from Greenpeace’s side, the new tactic is dialogue. Norwegian whaling has silenced a lot since the turbulent 90’s.”[3]

According to Norwegian Greenpeace activist Truls Gulowsen speaking three years ago, last year’s a quota of 600 minke whales posed no threat to minke whales in the north east Atlantic. He has also suggested that campaigns against whaling can distract from the real threats to the coast, including overfishing and the risk of oil industry pollution.

What are the most significant threats to the world’s whales? Which whale species really need ‘saving’ and how can they be best ‘saved’?

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[1] I’ve not seen the supporting studies/literature. If you have links/references please post as a comment or send to jennifermarohasy@jennifermarohasy.com
[2] From Clapham, P.J., Young, S.B. & Brownell, R.L. Jr. 1999. Baleen whales: conservation issues and the status of the most endangered populations. Mammal Review 29: 35-60. http://whale.wheelock.edu/archives/ask01/att-0020/01-blue.rtf
[3] Thanks to Ann for sending the note with information and links including: ‘Norway’s Disputed Whaling Season Opens’ Monday April 18, 2005, By DOUG MELLGREN, Associated Press Writer, OSLO, Norway, &
‘Redde verdenshavene’ (Save the Oceans) and ‘Hvalfangst’ ( Whaling) at http://www.greenpeace.org/norway/campaigns/hav/hvalfangst (Only in Norwegian), & Truls Gulowsen’s statement “that a quota of 600 minke whales poses no threat to the minke whale population” from the magasine Folkevett at
http://www.folkevett.no/index.php?back=1&artikkelid=1079 ( only in Norwegian).

More Tuna Than Agreed?

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The Australian Fisheries Management Authority’s managing director, Richard McLoughlin, claims Japan has been exceeding its quota of southern bluefin tuna for the last 20 years and not just by a few fish. In an article in today’s Sydney Morning Herald entiled ‘Revealed: how Japan caught and hid $2b worth of rare tuna’ he claims they have been catching 3 times their quota.*

But last time I read-up on the issue, it was apparent Japan never agreed to operate within the quote that it had been allocated. This is what I wrote at this blog on 1st June last year:

“I was concerned to learn that the Southern bluefin tuna fishery is shared with Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan, Korea and New Zealand. The total global catch peaked in 1961 at 81,605 tonnes and was then in general decline for three decades. Since 1990 the total catch has ranged from between 13,231 tonnes (1994) to 19,588 tonnes (1999). Stock assessments suggest that the parental biomass is low but stable and unlikely to recover to target levels unless all countries agree to abide by national allocations as determined by the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna. While Australia apparently operates within its allocation, Japan has not agreed to operate within its allocation, and Indonesia does not recognise the Commission.”

The Sydney Morning Herald article does not appear to have been properly research and it doesn’t look like the Japanese were given an opportunity to tell their side of the story? Furthermore, is it appropriate for Mr McLoughlin to describe the Japanese action as ‘fraud’ if they never agreed to a quota?

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*According to the Sydney Morning Herald article: Mr McLoughlin was speaking at an ANU seminar in a speech recorded and posted on the internet and the official findings of an inquiry into the issue were presented at an international meeting in Canberra in July, but kept confidential. I’ve had a quick look for the speech on the internet but couldn’t find it. If you can, please post the url as a comment or send me an email jennifermarohasy@jennifermarohasy.com.

The Smartest Guys in the Room?

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Graham Young posted the following comment last night at an earlier blog post on climate change:

“Good to see we’ve moved on to the Hockey Stick. I find it interesting that while Enron’s auditor, Arthur Andersen, is virtually no more, because of its lack of oversight in “refereeing” (to borrow a scientific term to cover an accounting situation) the accounts of the company; and Enron’s highest executives were sent to jail, nothing much has happened to Mann et al, or their referees. Yet the Mann et al analysis has a lot in common with Enron.

While the original mathematical error was probably accidental, the perpetuation of it couldn’t have been, once the McIntyre and MacKittrick analysis had been released. Enron was a company that once made real profits, but got into modelling the future and counting the results of its models as profits, which it then reported as real, despite the evidence. In the real world, rather than the real climate world, that is called fraud.

Worse, Mann et al set up their blog to, amongst other things, essentially defame their critics. Likewise, Kenneth Lay et al did their level best to defame and discredit their critics.

The climate community seem to just regard this issue as just a bit of a dust-up (including many of the contributors to this blog’s comment box). In fact, it is far more serious than that, and the fact that reasonable people can have that attitude points to the serious crisis that there appears to be in some parts, at least, of the scientific community.

What has gone on here is criminal. Public monies have been directed in ways that they shouldn’t have been on the basis of this graph. The attempt to cover-up the problems is fraud. It’s about time that someone took legal action, assuming there is a law which makes this possible. If the law hasn’t envisaged this particular issue and neglected it, then one should be enacted to take accounts of these facts.

Of course, the irony is that the graph couldn’t have been correct in the first place as it didn’t take account of the medieval warm period, which we know from observation to have been much warmer than now. So why did so many otherwise intelligent people go along for the ride?

And don’t anyone tell me that the medieval warm period was a localised effect. If that was the case, where were the much colder counterbalancing areas in the reconstruction?”

Energy from Sandalwood: Aaron Edmonds

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I recieved the following note from Aaron Edmonds, 2002 Nuffield Scholar and Farmer:

“Agriculture has evolved to the assumption that oil and gas will always be cheap. Large amounts of energy are used in food production making agriculture the third largest energy consuming sector globally. Most people would be aware of the diesel fuel requirement to power the machinery used in crop production. What they would not be aware of is that diesel use is only a small component of the total energy demand in this process. In fact it is in the manufacture of fertilizers used to fuel crop growth where the largest energy liability occurs. To put it into perspective, it takes the energy from roughly one litre of oil to produce one kilogram of urea, the most widely used nitrogen fertilizer. Not to mention the petrochemicals and energy required for herbicide and pesticide manufacture. Agriculture will continue to incur fertilizer, pesticide and fuel cost increases proportional to rises in oil and gas prices. Quite clearly as energy concerns begin to emerge, agriculture must reduce its dependency on energy.

There are three areas in which total energy demand can be significantly reduced in Australian broadacre agriculture and not surprisingly these also bring sustainability gains almost as an added bonus. Sustainability it seems in the true sense of the word, simply means turning agriculture from a net energy user to a significant net energy producer!

Firstly it is highly desirable that crops be perennial in their growth habit. This means they survive from one year to the next and only need planting once. This saves on the need for heavy agricultural equipment and the diesel currently needed to sow common staple food crops like wheat, rice and corn on a yearly basis. The environmental gains from a perennial plant are a large root system preventing soil erosion, enabling use of subsoil moisture to prevent salinity and allowing deep access to leached fertilizers and nutrients. Perennial plants are also far more competitive with weeds.

Secondly there must be a legume base to the crop production system. Legumes are plants that enable nitrogen to be biologically fixed around their root systems and hence have no need for man made fertilizers to satisfy nutrition. Some common legumes include soybeans, peas, beans, chickpeas and lentils. The energy savings in legume based systems from requiring no nitrogen fertilizer are enormous. All natural plant ecosystems have a legume base within them which are the drivers of fertility.

Thirdly, in conventional agriculture, herbicides, fungicides and pesticides are required to control pests and diseases. These are produced with complex and energy expensive industrial processes quite often using petrochemical precursors. As our crops have been bred to focus almost completely on yield and not on traits that allow them to tolerate and compete with pests and weeds, man has insured productivity is linked to the high use of chemical inputs. This effectively means that the energy required for pest and disease control in the plant is ultimately sourced from fossil fuels. Whereas wild plants and wild relatives of our commercialized crops have developed unique means to survive pests and compete with other species.

Ironically it is a native plant that has not been exposed to modern man’s short sighted breeding efforts that offers Australian farmers the ability to greatly reduce energy dependency in food production. Australian sandalwood (Santalum spicatum) is a unique native tree crop highly adapted to Australia’s harsh conditions. The tree produces nuts that are high in oil (60%) and protein (18%) with the kernel oil being largely monounsaturated (55%) – the healthiest of oils. It requires no nitrogen fertilizer inputs as it is hemi-parasitic. It hosts on the root systems of native legumes such as Acacia’s sourcing nitrogen needs that are biologically fixed. The sandalwood nut will be an important oilseed crop in the future.

Trials for this dryland tree crop are underway at Aaron Edmonds’ farming property east of Calingiri in the Western Australian Wheatbelt. He has been making selections from local trees for large seededness and has varieties whose nuts are as large as a 20c piece. Four year old trees in his plantings are yielding well in excess of 1kg per tree, with this yield set to increase as the trees grow bigger. A planting density of 600 trees per hectare in a 350mm rainfall zone, could lead to a yield on a per hectare basis of around 600kg. The major energy cost in this system being weed control and harvesting, still significantly well below that of wheat production.

Plantings will continue on the Edmonds property who are quite probably becoming the world’s first broadacre producers to achieve significant energy efficiencies in food production. 50 hectares are earmarked for 2006 on top of the 30 hectares already established. Poorer soil types such as sands over gravel and areas prone to frost are being targeted first. These are the areas where energy investments in the form of fertilizer and herbicides are generally the highest risk.

Such oilseed crops as the sandalwood are essential to the future farm landscape, allowing farmers to profit rather than pain from the energy market and also to achieve energy self sufficiency in food production. Aaron’s vision is to see significantly more plantings of this amazing production system throughout the Wheatbelt.”

Victorian Government Sponsors Conference on Banned Technology

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Melbourne hosted an international agricultural biotechnology conference earlier in the week. I was expecting to read more about it in the mainstream media including how ridiculous it is that the Victorian Government is principal sponsor for a conference promoting a technology it has banned!

That’s right, moratoriums banning the commercial production of GM food crops were introduced into Victoria a couple of years ago.

I wrote a piece at the time for the Herald Sun entitled ‘Bracks Sowing GM Seeds of Doubt’.

Anyways, I’ve been surprised to hear so little about the three-day international event on the controversial emerging technology featured in a State that has banned it.

David Tribe posted comment at his blog about a session on the Australian Wheat Board and its view on GM bread.

Professor Jennifer Thomson from the University of Cape Town wrote a piece for The Australian entitled ‘Use Biotechnology to Feed the Poor’ with a summary of the GM crops currently being developed in Africa, by Africans:

“In South Africa, GM crops that are being cultivated include herbicide-resistant maize and soybean, as well as insect-resistant cotton and maize.

…The cotton and maize are being grown by many small-scale farmers who are experiencing great increases in yields. In addition, with insect-resistant cotton and maize, they are saving money by decreasing their use of insecticides — definitely an environmental improvement.

Other crops in the pipeline include maize resistant to the African endemic maize streak virus and cassava resistant to the African cassava mosaic virus. MSV is rampant in many African countries, and a few years ago Uganda nearly lost its entire crop of cassava to ACMV, which is spreading rapidly towards Nigeria, one of Africa’s most important producers of the crop.

Another trait that is being developed in important African crops is drought tolerance. The lack of water is surely one of the greatest problems facing agriculture in Africa.”

When will the Victorian government lift the moratorium on GM food crops?

Queensland’s First Desalination Plant

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The Queensland Government and the Gold Coast City Council have just signed-off on a deal to build a desalination plant – the first for Queensland.

It is expected to be completed by the end of November2008 and provide 125 megalitres a day. That’s a substantial 46 gigalitres a year.

This is perhaps the first significant water infrastructure project for south east Queensland to be approved since the Wivenhoe Dam which was completed in 1985?

I mention some of the history of water infrastructure development for this region in a piece I wrote for the Courier- Mail published yesterday. I also suggested the desalination plant be fast-tracked.