Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Steve Irwin’s Legacy to Conservation

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The death of Steve Irwin is being reported as the biggest story to have come out of Australia in the last 25 years. According to Jeff Wall writing for On Line Opinion in a piece entitled ‘Steve Irwin- Even larger in death than life’: The Los Angeles Times, for example, reported the story extensively … and the story has been the most viewed on its website. Every major USA newspaper has given his death prominence.

The Crocodile Hunter died yesterday while filming: struck in the chest by a sting-ray.

Here is comment from me at the blog of BBC broadcast journalist Chris Vallance:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/podsandblogs/2006/09/irwins_death_sparks_conservati.shtml .

I have also written a piece for On Line Opinion entitled Steve Irwin’s ‘Legacy to Conservation’.

Steve Irwin Killed by Sting-ray

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The Crocodile Man, Steve Irwin, is dead. According to News Ltd he was killed in a freak accident in Far North Queensland by a sting-ray barb that went through his chest as he swam off Low Isle.

Steve Irwin was 44 years old and leaves his wife Terri and young children Bob and Bindi.

Travis made comment at an earlier thread at this blog that:

“Whilst Steve Irwin’s tactics can be over the top to say the least, he has also done a lot to highlight the diversity and wonder in the world of reptiles, something that has been long overdue in this country.”

Skiing on Poo: Comment from Roger Kalla

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Roger Kalla, a member of this blog community, has just had a piece published on water recycling, including for snow making, at OLO. It includes comment that:

“Up in the Victorian Alps there is truly “no business like snow business”. It literally forms the semi-solid foundation on which the whole thriving multimillion dollar tourism economy rests. But it is a slippery slope in years of snow drought. Any skiing in the future in ski resorts like Mt Buller is increasingly likely to be done on recycled sewerage containing artificially added bacteria or bacterial products.

Most skiers and visitors to the snow fields surely don’t mind. The snow looks real, feels real, and probably tastes real. However for the environmental sensitive skier there perhaps should be warnings on the slopes pointing out that the snow is artificial and an ingredient list of the “snow” enclosed on the lift ticket.”

Read the full article by clicking here.

Don Burke Talks About the Australian Environment Foundation

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Don Burke and Walter Starck with be on ABC radio national’s Counterpoint program with Michael Duffy this afternoon at 4pm talking about the Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) and fishing.

If you live in Australia you can listen to the program on:
Adelaide 729AM | Brisbane 792AM | Canberra 846AM Darwin 657AM |
Gold Coast 90.1FM | Hobart 585AM Melbourne 621AM | Newcastle 1512AM
Perth 810AM | Sydney 576AM and via satellite to over 220 regional centres

After the program there should be a transcript and podcast available here:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/ .

Both Don and Walter will be at the first AEF conference in Brisbane on 23rd September:
http://www.aefweb.info/display/conference2006.html .

The deadline for registrations has been extended until 15th September.

Latest NSW Farmers Campaign: Get Off Our Backs

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I have some sympathy for the farmers of Nyngan and Cobar in New South Wales and the newly formed Regional Community Survival Group in their struggle to manage invasive woody weeds. I have posted some information from this group, including a note on the recent blockade.

I have less sympathy for NSW Farmers Association and their new campaign “Get Off Our Backs”. The NSW Farmers Association never stood up to the Wentworth Group and they went along with the Greenpeace anti-GM canola campaign.

I detail my thoughts on the issue in my latest column in The Land:

“I hope NSW Farmers Association’s new campaign intended to improve the image of farmers with the slogan “Get off our backs” resonates in Sydney. But I doubt it.

The association’s website explains that the community “has been misled on green issues for too long. It’s time for the truth.”

So what is the truth?

The way a lot of people see it, just a year ago NSW Farmers was asking for drought aid.

Remember the 2000-strong drought rally in Parkes? It generated lots of interest in Sydney with stories about desperate farmers, dust and hungry animals.

Unfortunately, through the years these stories have reinforced a perception that many Australian farmers are environmental vandals flogging a dry landscape.

If farmers want governments off their back, they must realise Australia is a land of drought and flooding rains and not keeping claiming exceptional circumstances.

There is some concern at the moment about the Wilderness Society and its “Can’t find a billabong ‘cos they’ve bulldozed the Coolabah trees” campaign.

But in terms of long-term damage to the reputation of Australian farmers this campaign pales into insignificance next to the National Farmers Federation (NFF) campaign of 2000-2001. Back then NFF executive director, Wendy Craik, pleaded for a massive $65 billion to stop the spread of dryland salinity and repair 200 years of damage from claimed unsustainable European farming practices.

Not a month goes by now without a newspaper headline telling how bad it is in the bush.

On federal budget night, Federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, announced another $500 million for the Murray River to reduce salinity levels — the centre-piece of the Government’s commitment to saving the Australian environment.

I was hoping some farm leader might have seized the initiative and issued a media releasing explaining that salt levels in the Murray are at historic lows and they don’t need to be artificially pushed any lower, but instead there was silence.

Last week I read how water levels in the Murray River are the lowest since records began more than 100 years ago.

But the article was confusing low water inflows with low water levels, the journalist apparently unaware that the Murray River ran dry in 1914.

In this drought, South Australian irrigators are receiving 80 percent of their water entitlements thanks to the dams and weirs upstream in NSW and Victoria, and the river is full of water all the way to South Australia.

The latest false claims about the Murray’s record low water levels also gave the ABC another opportunity to suggest agriculture is in trouble and lament yet another catastrophe in rural Australia.

If NSW farmers are going to have long-term success with their campaign, “Get off our backs”, then farm leaders need to try harder to correct such misinformation.

City dwellers would be surprised at how much they’ve been misled by the environment lobby (not to mention how many more trees there are now than at the time of European settlement), but more farmers will need to take more responsibility for their own businesses come drought or flood.

It’s no good telling people to leave you alone if they honestly believe, or have been hoodwinked into believing, you are wrecking the environment.“

Where has all the Marsh Water Gone?

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It has been suggested that before irrigation runoff into the Macquarie Marshes was 460,000 megalitres and that this has been reduced to 395,000ml by irrigation.

But Ian Mott has argued that pre-settlement runoff into the marshes would have been much less than 460,000ml and most likely less than 395,000ml because much of the upper catchment was once forested. Because it has since been cleared for pasture, runoff would have substantially increased.

Yet the opposite appears to be the case.

In an earlier thread Chris Hogendyk expained that: “Inflows to Burrendong (on the catchment of the Macquarie) for the 68 months from December 2000 to July 2006 was approximately 1700 GL which is the same as the driest similar period on record that occurred from December 1934 to July 1940. The next driest period was December 1903 to July 1909 that received approximately 1950 GL.

“The first data set are actual observations whilst the latter two are modelled. Out of interest, for every 10 megalitres that is captured by the dam, 4 megalitres come into the system as down stream tributaries.”

Interestingly rainfall history as plotted by Warwick Hughes suggests that it was drier during the late 1930s.

trangie05blog.GIF

bathmudg05 blog.GIF

This is Warwicks comment on the charts: “These show you some rainfall history for the region from the Bureau of Metereology high quality rain dataset and you can see the obvious cycles in all charts.

“Trangie data is the closest HQ station to the Macquarie Marshes and it shows that in the recent past conditions were similar to dry times times in the 1990’s and 1980’s, if you go back to the 1960’s rainfall was obviously less and even lower in the late 1930’s thru 40’s and earlier again WWI years into the 1920’s look the driest of all.

“The other graphic, also of HQ data, from Mudgee and Bathurst, could be a fair proxy for long term trends higher in the catchment.”

So it has been dry, but not that dry, and with fewer trees, why have inflows been so low lately?