Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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WTO Rejects GM Moratorium

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I missed the big news of two days ago, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has issued a preliminary report (which I have not yet read) indicating that the European Union (EU) moratoriums on GM food crops constitute a breach of WTO trade rules.

You can read about it at ABC Online, click here also at AgBioWorld, click here, and Agribusiness Freedom, click here.

But perhaps the best commentary came from a friend in the US who emailed me:

“The WTO has rejected the anti-scientific claims that EU governments are using to defend their populist policies. This was a decision about scientific evidence with trade implications, not about trade where there is scientific uncertainty. Even the EU’s own scientists have argued that the scientific evidence strongly supports the safety of these crops.

Otherwise, the anti-GM types are essentially trying (and probably successfully) to paint this as a purely technical decision driven by and supporting WTO policies favoring globalization and oppressing local rule.

In every case where anti-GM claims have met the hard rules of evidence of a high level court rather than the rumour mongering of public opinion (or the odd local judge), they have lost, whether for Percy Schmeiser, the New Zealand Royal Commission, or now the WTO.

Greenpeace, FOE and others have had their days in court, and lost.

This is a record equaled in modern times perhaps only by those other popular forces of anti-scientific irrationality, the advocates of creationism/intelligent design.”

Sydneysiders Prefer Water from Hidden Source

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I was amazed at the level of opposition to the planned desalination plant in Sydney, but even more amazed to find there is praise some support from Sydneysiders for the idea that water should come instead from an underground aquifer.

Read all about it in the Sydney Morning Herald, click here.

There are other options of course, including new dams and water recycling.

Does anyone know of a good study/report comparing the, at least, four options for water for Sydney?

Greenpeace CEO Moves to RSPCA

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Yesterday, the RSPCA announced the appointment of a new CEO,

Chief executive officer of Greenpeace, Peter Mullins, becomes chief executive officer of the RSPCA national body.

… Mr Mullins said community education would continue to be a key area for the RSPCA’s work, but that he was particularly keen to explore new partnerships with animal industry peak bodies, local, state and the federal governments.

Mr Mullins also outlined a number of areas of concerns for the RSPCA, including effective implementation of the new Australian Animal Welfare Strategy.

“Long-term priorities, including pet identification and desexing, egg production methods and the live export of animals for slaughter, will also remain at the forefront of our work,” said Mr Mullins.

Mr Mullins currently lives in rural NSW and runs a Devon cattle stud in conjunction with his wife Margie.

He said, “Like many Australians, I have spent most of my life surrounded by animals that I care deeply about.

“I believe our national character is reflected in the way we treat the animals that share our lives.”

When Mullins was appointed CEO of Greenpeace in 2000 the media release stated,

“Mullins takes over the helm of Greenpeace with a membership base that has grown by 29,000 supporters to a total of 94,000 in the last 12 months, an increase of 45%. Launching the organisation’s annual report Inside Greenpeace today, Mullins said he looked forward to the challenge of leading Australia’s preeminent environmental group.

I wonder why membership grew so quickly over the 1999-2000 period and how it is tracking now.

Proof the World is Getting Warmer?

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I am always amazed at how many people are quick to report cause and effect when a couple of variables show a correlation.

I was emailed this image, with a note that it represents proof the world is getting warmer!

proof world warmer ver blog.JPG

What can we conclude from this information?

And I am reminded of something evolutionary biologist, Michael Ghiselin, wrote in 1974, that I read in about 1994:

“Man’s brain, like the rest of him, may be looked upon as a bundle of adaptations. But what it is adapted to has never been self-evident. We are anything but a mechanism set up to perceive the truth for its own sake.

Rather, we have evolved a nervous system that acts in the interest of our gonads, and one attuned to the demands of reproductive competition. If fools are more prolific than wise men, then to that degree folly will be favored by selection. And if ignorance aids in obtaining a mate, then men and women will tend to be ignorant.

In order for so imperfect an instrument as a human brain to perceive the world as it really is, a great deal of self discipline must be imposed.”

What the Farm Lobby Had Wanted: Salt Threat Grossly Exaggerated (Part 3)

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Continuing my blog posts on salt …

Mick Keogh, from The Australian Farm Institute, wrote in the Australian Financial Review that,

“Dryland salinity is a challenge that Australian farmers must continue to deal with, and cannot ignore. However, successful future management will require …that all involved reject the crisis mentality, and instead become coolly objective about appropriate responses, which in many cases may be to ‘do nothing’.”

This was certainly not the approach that the National Farmers Federation (NFF) was advocating a few years ago. A few months before the detail of the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality was announced,with the promise of $1.4 billion in funding, the NFF and the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) made a claim for $65 billion!

At that time, the bogus dryland salinity audit, claiming 17 million hectares of farmland would be lost to salt, had not been released, but the NFF and member organisations knew its release was imminent.

This is what Wendy Craik, on behalf of the NFF, had to say to the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineers in November 2000:

“NFF’s membership was significantly encouraged to hear the Prime Minister himself acknowledge that compensation and incentives were necessary and key components of any implementation strategy for the National Salinity and Water Quality Action Plan.

Whilst we represent very different interests and viewpoints, NFF and ACF are under no illusions about the difficult choices we will face over the next decades. The sheer magnitude of the [environmental] threats facing us if we do nothing was a driving force behind the establishment of our alliance.

NFF and ACF – having identified the problem and put a figure on that cost, have proposed a five-point plan centred on:

1. a 10 year bipartisan commitment to tackling degradation;
2. national leadership by the Commonwealth Government;
3. a new scale of strategic investment;
4. strong private sector engagement; and
5. the active involvement of all Australians.

The future will be about repair and change to ensure agricultural production is sustainable and our natural heritage is conserved.

So how does the Salinity and Water Quality Action Plan, rate against the NFF/ACF proposal?

Bipartisan Commitment: We believe there has been acknowledgement by all sides of politics that the issues are so severe and pose such a threat to our resource base that action must be taken.

National Leadership: NFF and ACF warmly welcomed the leadership demonstrated by the Prime Minister in putting the plan to COAG and the commitment by COAG to its implementation. The significance of this commitment by COAG must not be underestimated, it is the first time that every leader of a Government in Australia has agreed to play its’ part in an integrated solution to an environmental issue.

A new scale of investment: It is fair to say the Action Plan is not of the magnitude of investment which NFF and ACF demonstrated was required. We believe the Action Plan offers the groundwork from which a long-term, sustained commitment of significant resources must be made.

Our estimate is that, over 10 years, the public contribution required to achieve sustainability targets will be at least $3.35 billion a year, together with an ongoing maintenance program of $320 million a year.

In terms of government expenditure, this represents $3.7 billion per year, over the next decade.

Given that we spend $43 billion per year on the health of the Australian population, is $3.7 billion too much to spend on the health of our country?

NFF believes that all levels of government should commit to increased and significant levels of financial resourcing to deal with dryland salinity.

This will need to be delivered in the form of a variety of incentives and direct investment.

And it will need to be delivered by working with land managers and communities in the transition to new production and natural resource management systems that will combat the degrading processes.

Strong Private sector engagement: Achieving sustainability targets in rural landscapes will require major management and land use changes over the next 10 to 20 years.

We estimate this will require an investment in the order of $65 billion over the next decade. Of which we estimate about $37 billion should come from government.”

The metropolitan media ran with the $65 billion figure for sometime along with interviews from leading conservationists and farmers … both communicating the same message that agriculture had destroyed the Murray Darling Basin, and the Australian landscape more generally, etcetera, etcetera.

At that time I was working for the Queensland sugar industry and I could not believe the damage NFF was doing to the reputation of Australian farmers … my protests fell on deaf ears. The focus was on securing money from the Action Plan, no one seemed to care too much about the long term implications of ‘crying wolf’ and so effectively.

…………….
Postscript

I received a couple of phone calls from bureaucrats yesterday about my recent blog posts on salt. There is concern that problems still exist and that John Passioura’s paper “From Propaganda to Practicalities – the progressive evolution of the salinity debate” is not a completely accurate assessment of the situation. I am always keen to post the alternative perspective as a guest post, but someone needs to be prepared to articulate the case and put their name to it.

And while John Quiggin avoided comment at my post, he did start his own blog post on the issue, click here. Quiggin’s Federation Scholarship at the University of Queensland is on the topic of sustainability and the Murray Darling Basin, so I am surprised there not more interest in what the models have, and have not, accurately predicted by way of water quality and dryland salinity.

Michael Duffy on Property Rights

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Michael Duffy wrote about ‘property rights’ in his regular column for the Sydney Morning Herald on 7th January 2006.

Michael Duffy began:

I’ve been surprised in the past year by how many stories I’ve come across that have involved property rights. It’s a subject I’ve always regarded – to the extent I did regard it – as dusty, indeed boring. Yet from the devaluing of thousands of Sydney homes in the name of heritage preservation, to arguments over Aboriginal land rights, to major problems with foreign aid and tsunami relief in Indonesia, flawed property rights have emerged as a common thread.

He did include some comment about property rights and vegetation management, an issue that has come up in comments following my recent blog post on salt.

Michael Duffy wrote:

The rural equivalent of heritage is native vegetation legislation. Again it sounds innocuous, even noble in its intentions, but its effect on the many individuals involved has been devastating. It is now illegal for a farmer to remove even a branch from a (native) tree. As long-term land use flexibility is essential to many farms, this has had huge financial consequences.

One example: a study by the University of New England estimates that in Moree Plains Shire, land values have been reduced by 20 per cent on average. Incomes on many farms have plummeted.

As with heritage listings, there is no compensation to those whose assets have been attacked. This has been criticised by the Productivity Commission, in a report into native vegetation laws some years ago, and in its draft report Conservation of Australia’s Historic Heritage Places, released last month. The commission’s chairman, Gary Banks, says: “It’s important in regulation to look at the costs and who should bear them. Both native vegetation and heritage are wider community values, but these laws intrude on the property rights of individuals.”

State governments have decided they can appease environmental and heritage lobby groups with solutions Banks tactfully describes as “off budget” (that is, daylight robbery).

Michael Duffy goes on to suggest that people should be compensated when their property rights are reduced by government, and concludes,

Property rights have been inherent in Western society for so long we have forgotten how important they are. This is causing a lot of harm for a lot of people. It’s time we re-acquainted ourselves with the poetry of property.

A good book on the subject is ‘The Mystery of Capital’ by Hernando de Soto. It was given to me a few years ago – but I must admit I haven’t read it cover to cover. The chapters I did read where a bit tedious, but informative.

By-the-way, I will be on Michael Duffy’s radio national program Counterpoint this afternoon at 4pm, talking about my review of Jared Diamond’s chapter on Australia in his book ‘Collapse’.