Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Noongars Knew Best (Part 2)

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On 17th June I posted an essay from David Ward, WA, titled ‘Noongars Knew Best‘ about aboriginal management of the dry forests of the SW of Western Australia.

In this new post, which is a powerpoint presentation from David, four scenarios for bushfire management are explored.

The powerpoint is 850kbs and may only work if you save it first … Download file.

David emailed the powerpoint with a note welcoming feedback/comment/debate.

Interestingly ABC Online reported on Friday that the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service was planning a large scale hazard reduction burn at Berowra Valley Regional Park and in adjoining land west of Hornsby and Hornsby Heights. The four-day burn-off was aimed to “lessen the intensity of wild fires in summer”.

Some Real Data on Organics Please

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I have been repeatedly referred to the ‘New Farm’ website as a source of quality information on organic farming systems.

But I can’t find any actual data at this site and my request for specific data seems to have just got me receiving their newsletter.

I note the site says:

One of the key features of the FST is its scale –small enough to follow rigorous scientific procedures for experimental design but large enough to be worked with regular equipment and to generate results readily applicable to normal farm operations. The level field of mostly shale-y, somewhat compacted silt loam is broken into eight blocks, or replications, with each block containing three plots, 60 ft wide by 300 ft long, and each plot divided lengthwise into three subplots. Eight replications of each of the three cropping systems are randomized across the blocks; while the subplots allow each rotation to be started simultaneously at three points, so the effects of annual weather variations are distributed across different phases of the cropping cycle. Datasets from the FST include weather records; energy and labor inputs; corn, soybean, wheat, and forage yields; weed, crop, and cover crop biomass figures; nutrient analyses of crops and cover crops; soil carbon and nitrogen levels; soil percolation rates; nitrate, phosphate, and pesticide leachate data; soil biodiversity surveys; and economic return evaluations.

Results from the FST have been reported in dozens of scientific papers over the years, and include this core finding: corn and soybean yields are the same across the three systems. Although corn yields were about a third lower in the organic systems during the first four years of the study, in subsequent years the organic systems actually outperformed the conventional system under droughty conditions.

Can someone give me a link or reference to a few of these scientific papers and/or how do I get to see the data from these trials?

Pain for Litte Gain?

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Today’s Courier Mail (pg 57) has a piece titled ‘Rainfall hits five-year low’ explaining how little rain has fallen in Brisbane while noting that the Gold Coast was deluged in June.

It goes on to explain that the Gold Coast City Council wants to lift some of its water restrictions but that Brisbane’s Lord Major is complaining this would jeopardize the increased water restrictions he has planned for Brisbane.

Given the Gold Coast and Brisbane draw their water from different dams, why can’t they have different levels of water restrictions?

The Queensland Premier has been talking up how bad it could be for Brisbane. He was reported in The Australian last week refering to absolute worst case scenarios including that modelling has shown that without rain and without water restrictions, Brisbane would be without water by December 2006. The water restrictions currently being promoted by Brisbane City Council would apparently push this date to February 2007. It hardly seems worth all the pain?

Link to New Orleans

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New Orlean’s daily newspaper The Times-Picayune is now publishing out of Baton Rouge including onto the internet, see http://www.nola.com/ .

This newspaper has a weblog: http://www.nola.com/weblogs/nola/.

Senator Andrew Bartlett’s blog has a post about the situation in New Orleans and links to some bloggers writing from, and about, the situation in New Orleans:

I noted the comment after his post:

“They say that every society is only three meals away from revolution. Deprive a culture of food for three meals, and you’ll have anarchy”.

Intelligent Design

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E-journal Online Opinion published a piece today titled Evolutionary science isn’t a closed book about the pros and cons of teaching Intelligent Design (ID) in schools and universities.

I read about the concept of ID in the August 15 issue of Time magazine.

It seemed to me to be just a rehash of the creationists argument that because we have such magnificent adaptations, e.g. the human eye, we must have been created by god (… for some ID believers, designed by an alien).

According to the article in Time magazine there has been lots of outrage because President Bush suggested “lessons in evolution include a discussion of Intelligent Design.”

The piece at OLO includes,

The battle lines are rigid. The US science establishment is adamant that ID casts doubt on well-established science, using specious evidence and faulty logic. The attempted incursion into the classroom is not to be tolerated. End of story. Add to this the legal campaign to maintain an iron wall of separation between church and state, and you have a belligerent “them” and “us”.

For their part, the ID leaders are a different breed from evangelical creationists who insist on a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis and Bible Belt morality. They hold PhDs in biology and mathematics from leading universities; some are tenured professors. Their organisational base, the Discovery Institute, located in Seattle, Washington, makes effective use of online, print and DVD promotion. By such means the institute reaches any teacher or student curious enough to run a Google search. Those who look discover telling points scored against the standard position, at least for those at the beginner level, and this embarrassment partly accounts for the science establishment’s anger.

I actually agree with Bush in so much as contrasting belief in ID (and creation)with the theory of evolution is a good way of illustrating the difference between belief and faith versus evidence and science. Let the students learn the difference (between faith and science) and make up their own minds.

PS I really enjoyed discussion of Gould and Ethridge’s ‘punctuated equilibrium theory‘ when I was at university.

Energy for Aquaculture (Part 1)

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I have always been interested in the relative efficiencies of different food production sytems.

I wrote and posted the piece on fishing last night (Let them eat fish)while trying to come to terms with how much money the Australian government is spending to close down a perfectly sustainable fishery – all in response to environmental campaigning driven by a belief we should not fish Great Barrier Reef waters.

The Australian aquaculture industry’s share of the $2.2 billion Australian commercial fishery has been steadily increasing and now represents around 34 per cent,
http://www.abareconomics.com/research/fisheries/fisheries.html .

I guess the trend is to close down ‘wild fisheries’ and eat more from ‘aquaculture’. But is this efficient?

I have been shown around aquaculture facilities and they seem really energy intense. We are taking the pressure off wild populations in building these facilities I am told.

But where is the balance between sustainably harvesting wild populations and energy intense aquaculture?