Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Foxes Responsible for Extinctions

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“To those counting extinctions, watch the impact of the deliberate introduction of foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and subsequent failures to control them in Tasmania for a species extinction or two over the next couple of human generations.

This was the last significant safety zone for Australia’s unique small mammals and will surely allow some wonderful peer reviwed papers that describe the decline as we sit back and watch it happen. We are about to see the final stages of the march to extinction of a vast array of unique animals,” wrote Linton Staples* at an earlier blog post on mammalian extinctions.

According to the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service:

“The European red fox (Vulpes vulpes) was introduced to mainland Australia as early as the 1850’s. Since that time the fox has inflicted enormous impacts on the native wildlife of Australia, being implicated in the extinction of many native animals. Indeed, Australia’s apalling record of mammal extinctions in the last 200 years – the worst in the world – is in no small part due to the fox.

…The fox represents the single most devastating threat to Tasmania’s native mammals and birds. This island State is recognised as a national and international fauna haven due to the lack of foxes, but should the species become established here all of Tasmania’s native land animals would be at risk.

Threatened and high conservation significance species at risk [if the fox establishes in Tasmania] would include:

eastern barred bandicoot
Tasmanian bettong
long nosed potoroo
eastern quoll
southern brown bandicoot
long tailed mouse
velvet furred rat
New Holland mouse
hooded plover
little tern
fairy tern
ground parrot
ground thrush
painted button quail
great crested grebe
green and gold bell frog
tussock skink
glossy grass skink.

The Tasmanian pademelon and Tasmanian bettong, both of which thrive in Tasmania, are now extinct on the mainland because of the fox. The mainland eastern barred bandicoot has been reduced to a mere 200 surviving individuals because of the fox. The young of unique species such as the Tasmanian devil, spotted tail quoll that are left unattended in dens are highly vulnerable to fox predation.

More widespread species like ducks, shorebirds, ground nesting birds, blue tongue lizards, mountain dragons, skinks and frogs are all highly at risk.”

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* Linton is the Managing Director of Animal Control Technologies which sells FOXOFF® fox bait.

Why We Argue Over AGW: Walter Starck

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I was sent the following note from Walter Starck:

“The Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) debate is not about a paradigm shift or even about a basic theory. No one is arguing that CO2 does not absorb IR or that burning fossil fuel does not add CO2 to the atmosphere. In essence the AGW debate is about whether increasing CO2 by a few hundredths of one percent of the atmosphere will have catastrophic consequences on global climate. AGW proponents claim scientific certainty that it will and cite as proof a 0.6 degree C increase in average global temperature over the past century, a putative increase in extreme weather events and predictions of ongoing future warming based on computer models of global climate. Skeptics find significant uncertainty in the amount, causes and consequences of any warming and in the accuracy of the models. They point to major doubts regarding the amount and cause of recent warming, past extremes that equal or exceed recent ones, benefits of CO2 enrichment plus numerous simplifications, guesses and omissions in the models as well as wide discrepancies between them.

No amount or strength of argument seems likely to resolve this debate before reality irrefutably intrudes. Barring a major global recession anthropogenic CO2 emissions will continue to increase for at least the next few decades and the truth or fantasy of AGW will become increasingly apparent.

On the skeptic side a good case has been put forward for an important role in solar variability on climate via an effect on cloud cover. This theory fits well with past climatic fluctuations and most importantly, it predicts future ones. Of these, the most significant is the Landscheidt Minimum around 2030 which should be comparable to the LIA.

Whether anthropogenic CO2 is forcing global climate toward catastrophic warming or solar cycles are the dominant control should become strongly indicative in the next decade and near conclusive over the following one. For skeptics to win this debate by superior evidence and argumentation would probably take longer than letting reality settle it. The more important role for skeptics is to provide an opposing balance against hysteria and to define what is to be learned from the whole affair. This is unlikely to come from true believers no matter what the actual outcome.

AGW proponents on the whole seem to be afflicted with a desire for certainty and intolerance of any suggestion of doubt while skeptics seem more concerned about dogmatism and false claims of certainty than they are of the possible reality of AGW. This difference in perspective reflects a fundamental divergence in the very essence of the scientific enterprise. Is it primarily a belief , a sphere of activity and a career or is it a particular philosophical approach to understanding based on empirical evidence, logical consistency and verifiability? Is the higher aim to provide authority for belief or to keep it open to question and better understanding? Is there a deficiency in scientific training that produces highly trained technicians but not the doctors of philosophy their degrees proclaim?

Also inherent in this divergence of perspective is the attitude to risk. Is it something to avoided at all costs (as enshrined in the precautionary principle) or something to be accepted or rejected on the basis of evaluation?

In the case of AGW it increasingly seems that such underlying issues may well be more important than the actual debate itself.

Walter Starck“

Journalist Ross Coulthart Legitimises Farmer Woody Weed Concerns

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Not so many years ago Australian farmers where forced to clear their land of trees, it was a condition of many leases. Some areas were over-cleared particularly in Western Australia.

Over the last 10 years the pendulum has swung in completely the other direction, with legislation now essentially outlawing tree clearing on both leasehold and freehold land.

In Queensland and NSW the new legislation has been driven, at least in part, by relentless campaigning from the Wilderness Society. As their name suggests, this environment group believes in ‘wilderness’ and is against the active management of landscapes. Yet, to quote, Deborah Bird Rose :

“A definition of wilderness which excludes the active presence of humanity may suit contemporary people’s longing for places of peace, natural beauty, and spiritual presence, uncontaminated by their own culture. But definitions which claim that these landscapes are ‘natural’ miss the whole point. Here on this continent, there is no place where the feet of Aboriginal humanity have not preceded those of the settler. Nor is there any place where the country was not once fashioned and kept productive by Aboriginal people’s land management practices.”

The reality is that before white pastoralists moved into western NSW and Queensland the country was “kept productive” by aboriginals and their firesticks. They burnt the land which favoured some grasses and limited the establishment of what many pastoralists now refer to as “woody weeds” including species of native cypress pine and acacia.

Current land management practices compounded by government regulations, policies and expectations, have resulted in large areas of western Queensland and NSW being over run by invasive native scrub, also known as ‘woody weeds’, and this is having a negative economic and environmental impact in many areas.

While the rural press has run hard on the issue it has been ignored by the mainstream media. It has perhaps been assumed that farmers have exaggerated the ‘woody weed’ issue because they want to keep clearing trees until there are none left? Interestingly when I tried to get a piece published by the Courier Mail some years ago, I was told that my suggestion that there were more trees regrowing than being cleared in Queensland was offensive.

But, at last a respectable metropolitan journalist has discovered the issue. This morning Channel Nine’s Sunday Program ran ‘The Great Land-Clearing Myth’ as their cover story. Ross Coulthart made the comment:

ROSS COULTHART: Another reason to be skeptical about the Wilderness Society’s alarming land clearing figures — they don’t include regrowth in their estimate of 100,000 hectares of clearing because no-one is measuring it.

WILDERNESS SOCIETY CAMPAIGNER: That figure doesn’t include regrowth.

ROSS COULTHART: You say a lot of people say to us if you took the regrowth of native vegetation into account the amount of regrowth would far exceed the clearing.

WILDERNESS SOCIETY CAMPAINGER: Sure but the native bush can’t regenerate at the moment as fast as it’s being cleared.

In fact last time I looked native bush was regenerating faster than it was being cleared. That’s not to say that there is not a need for some restrictions on broad scale tree clearing or that woody weed regrowth is equivalent to high value remnant scrub. But until this morning it seemed not a single respectable journalist would explore the issue – there was not honest discussion in the mainstream metropolitan media.

Earlier this year Ross Coulthart went further than anyone has ever gone in exposing the politics of salinity in Australia. This morning he legitimised many landholder’s concerns about woody weed regrowth and perhaps opened the door to a discussion that needs to be had.

You can read the full transcript here: http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/cover_stories/article_2039.asp .

Waste to Diesel: How Soon?

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A Washington-based company called Green Power claims it can turn household waste and medical waste into diesel for US$0.52-0.58/gallon.

According to FarmOnline the company thrilled spectators with a demonstration in Washington on 26th July witnessed by government officials, oil refinery, corporate and other representatives using a process called catalytic depolymerization.

Is this a new or improved technology or just a variation of what is already happening in Philadelphia where Changing World Technologies (CWT) have a pilot plant?

What are the limitations and opportunties from this technology?

What Do You Think About Treated Sewage Effluent in Water Supplies?

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At the weekend 62 percent of Toowoomba residents voted against drinking treated sewage effluent. Just yesterday the Local Government Association of Queensland put out a press release suggesting Toowoomba is not typical of the rest of Queensland – or at least not typical of South East Queensland.

The association sponsored a survey which including 700 South East Queensland residents and 60 percent of them said they supported the use of treated sewage effluent to supplement the town water supply.

Across Queensland they found 57 percent of people in support of the concept with support strongest in males and lowest amongst those over 65 years.

These results correspond somewhat with a survey done by Graham Young and John Black last year as part of their regular gig on local ABC radio called ‘What the People Want’.

Nearly 500 people were survey for the ABC radio program.

Graham Young and John Black begin their report with comment that: “If there is one thing that Premier Peter Beattie could do that is less popular than making Brisbanites drink recycled sewage, it is to force them to add fluoride to their water”.

How about that! And I was given fluoride tablets as a child.

Anyway, Graham Young and John Black found that pretty much everyone agrees (96 percent) with recycling water for garden and industrial use, but only 48 percent agree when the recycling is for drinking water. 35 percent disapproved of recycling sewage as drinking water with a percent undecided or without an opinion or not wishing to answer.

The full report with lots and lots of table can be read by clicking here.

A few days ago they put up a new poll and emailed me. They are keen to know how you feel about this issue.

If you go to their questionnaire by clicking here or copying and pasting http://whatthepeoplewant.net/questionnaire-021-water-recycling.asp into your browser address bar, you can tell them.

ABC Should Apologize For Misleading Viewers on Forestry: Cinders

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The Australian Communications and Media Authority has found that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) breached the ABC’s own Code of Practice 2002 by failing to make every reasonable effort to ensure that a Four Corners program about the forestry industry in Tasmania was impartial. ACMA also found the ABC failed to make every reasonable effort to ensure that the factual content of the program was accurate.

Following is some comment from Cinders, a reader of this blog and member of Timber Communities Australia:

“The ABC broadcast a summary of the finding at the conclusion of Monday’s Four Corners program but failed to apologise for the inaccurate and biased program of February 2004.

No apology was forthcoming when the ABC’s own Independent Complaints Review Panel (ICRP) found the same program inaccurate, misleading and seriously lacking in balance and fairness.

Whilst the forest industry feels vindicated by the ACMA findings, when will the ABC actually publish facts about Tasmanian forestry such as 45% of its native forest being reserved and managed for conservation, that it has a million hectares of old growth locked up as well as 97% of its high quality wilderness? That its native forest harvesting has been assessed as ecologically sustainable and complies with all Australian and State laws and is internationally accredited.

E-journal Crikey has raised another dilemma for the ABC: What to do with its Eureka award for outstanding journalism that it received for three environmental programs including ‘Lords of the Forests’?

Can the ABC continue to advertise Four Corners and its journalist as Eureka award winners in the light of this damming report?

The ACMA also needs to review its procedures. This finding comes two years and five months after the program was first shown.

Despite having extensive powers to investigate and hold hearings under Section 168 of the Broadcasting Service Act, it chose to only assess the written submissions of the ABC and the complainants. In fact it provided only the ABC with a copy of its preliminary findings, denying the complainants of opportunity to dispute findings.

Four Corners claims to be Australia’s premier television current affairs program. It has been part of the national story since August 1961, with consistently high standards of journalism and film-making earning international recognition and an array of Walkleys, Logies and other national awards. The program claims that its current team of reporters maintains a proud tradition of investigative journalism and rigorous analysis.

Can these claims and its place in TV journalism be maintained if it fails to apologise and issue a retraction over this discredited program?

Hopefully the ABC will return the Eureka Award to the Australian Museum and the $10,000 to the Australian taxpayers who sponsored the award.

Cinders.”

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Christian Kerr from Crikey summarized the case against the ABC in a piece published by the IPA titled ‘ABC’s Paralysis on Bias’ in March 2005.