Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Eating Whales

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I lived in Africa from 1985 to 1992 and I worked for a period in Kenya with a fellow who grew up along the shores of Lake Victoria.

The first time David saw the ocean was when we traveled together from Nairobi to Mombassa and then on to Malindi doing field survey work.

To commemorate David’s first trip to the coast I suggested we have lunch at a resort just north of Mombassa.

We walked into the buffet lunch, come seafood smorgasbord, and David was incredulous.

“You don’t eat those things,” he said laughing and pointing at the huge bowl of prawns.

They live in the mud and feed-on the crap at the bottom of the lake he went on to explain. He was referring to yabbies.

Diet is cultural. I lived in Madagascar for some years and there was a proverb that went something along the lines, “If you haven’t eaten rice with your meal, you haven’t eaten.”

So should the Japanese be allowed to eat whales?

In today’s The Australian, Federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell is reported saying:

The world’s humpback whale population had been reduced by 97per cent by commercial whaling. In the 20 years since commercial whaling had been banned, numbers had still only increased to 25 per cent of the original population. “Now is not the time to start hunting them again”.

So he is running the argument that the Japanese should not be hunting whales because numbers are low. But then the piece in the newspaper went on,

Senator Campbell said he hoped to end the whale kills that Japan conducts in the name of science and was shocked and saddened by recently broadcast images of whale-cooking classes in Japan.

“Anyone who sees a giant and highly-intelligent creature getting harpooned – having a grenade set off inside its head or inside its stomach and if it doesn’t get killed within 20 or 30 minutes they stick an electronic lance in it – if somebody doesn’t get emotional about that there’s something wrong with them.”

In a land-based context there is an argument that sustainable harvesting programs focused on native species can enhance conservation. Bob Beale and Mike Archer writing in the Australian Financial Review (23-28th December 2004) argued that mallee fowl and giant bustard would not be “facing oblivion if we served them up for Christmas dinner instead of Asian chicken and North American turkey”.

Should every thinking environmentalist be vegetarian?

Nuclear & Forest Update, & a Request

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1. Nuclear – update

Some outrage followed Bob Carr’s suggestion we should debate nuclear power as an energy option.

The Australian today has a piece by Amanda Hodge that includes:

“It’s an attempt to make the argument a coal versus nuclear debate to soften people’s resistance to another coal-fired power station, when the debate should be about coal versus renewable options,” one observer says. Clive Hamilton from the Australia Institute agrees.
As executive director of the independent think tank, Hamilton is a keen observer of social and environmental public policy and says Carr’s record on the environment is mixed. While he has gained significant ground on the traditional “green” environmental issues, such as forests and national parks, he has had little success on the “brown” issues: industrial environmental concerns, such as air pollution and climate change.

The Australian also has an opinion piece on the virtues of nuclear energy by Leslie Kemeny with the comment that:

For many countries the reliability, safety, economy and greenhouse gas-free operation of nuclear plants has made nuclear energy inevitable. Unfortunately for Australia, which supplies 13 countries with uranium fuel, the technology has not been properly considered.

The paradox of a nation endowed with more than 40 per cent of the world’s economically recoverable uranium fuel but which strenuously resists its use in its domestic energy policies bemuses the global community. This is especially true of countries such as France and Japan, who manage to minimise their own greenhouse emissions through the use of Australian uranium.

And also an opinion piece by Bill Kininmonth that begins:

AS Australia develops policies for its diverse energy resources there is a need to ensure that the policies are based on sound economics, technologies and science.

Unfortunately, it is representation of the science of climate change where there is most uncertainty, including a fair degree of misrepresentation.

2. Pilliga-Goonoo – Update

According to Farm Online:

The NSW Government has offered timber mills in north-western NSW access to a further 15,000 hectares of high quality cypress forest.

This is a result of protests against its decision to lock up 350,000 ha of the Brigalow Belt South Bioregion.

I wrote about these forests, and environmentalism as a faith, for Online Opinion for World Environment Day. My piece included the comment:

We live in a secular society and value evidence. Yet it is the naive and romantic concept of nature that very often underpins public policy decision making on environmental issues in Australia. For example, when the NSW government announced a ban on logging in the Pilliga-Goonoo forests it described the decision as achieving “permanent conservation” of these iconic forests. In reality without active management there can be no conservation of these forests. The forests are less than 150-years-old and have grown-up with a timber industry that has tended the cypress and Eucalyptus creating tall trees and also habitat for iconic species such as koalas and barking owls.

3. Information Request

Jennifer, I need information on the transpiration rate of native grass and the depth that native grass would draw water from. Regards Gary

AEF Launched on World Environment Day

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New environmental organisation the AEF was launched today in Tenterfield. For more information see the website www.aefweb.info.

I was at the launch. While the official proceedings lasted perhaps 40 minutes the audience was so intrigued by the issues raised it more-or-less refused to move on to the next venue for food, tea and coffee. So the event dragged on for perhaps another hour as AEF spokesperson Kersten Gentle stood amongst a crowd in the same venue where Henry Parkes gave his famous federation speech and answered question after question mostly from local landholders.

I understand that Michael Duffy is interviewing Kersten on radio national at 4pm tomorrow, Monday 6th June 2005.

Access to Better Information: My Wish for World Environment Day

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Tomorrow is World Environment Day. Perhaps a time to reflect on what has been achieved in terms of environmental protection including controls on pollution? A lot of time and money has been invested in improving water quality in our rivers and streams – is water quality improving?

If I were to nominate specific areas of environmental need, high on my list would be better monitoring programs including easy access to data from these monitoring programs so we can understand how things are trending over time – on water quality, the state of our National Parks, Murray Cod numbers, Koala numbers.

For example, what about daily information on water quality in rivers and streams being publicly available?

Couldn’t this most basic of information be reported daily in our newspapers and online – perhaps in the same way information is reported on commodity prices?

Bob Carr Calls for Debate on Nuclear

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According to ABC Online, New South Wales Premier Bob Carr has called for a debate on the benefits and risks of nuclear power as an alternative energy source.

“The world’s got to debate whether uranium-derived power is more dangerous than coal,” he said.

“Coal is looking very dangerous – there ought to be a debate.”

Mr Carr says a new energy source needs to be found because alternative power sources such as wind, solar and hydrogen are not yet viable options.

“You could have a wind farm across all of outback New South Wales,” he said. “It’d kill every kookaburra but it wouldn’t provide the base-load [power] we need.”

Talking Veg Tomorrow in Both Blackall & Canberra

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The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meets tomorrow (Friday) in Canberra. On the agenda is the need for an intergovernmental agreement on native vegetation.

This follows on from the findings of an August 2004 Productivity Commission Report on ‘The Impacts of Vegetation Management and Biodiversity Regulations’ which concluded that much of the legislation enacted to protect native vegetation has actually become an impediment to native vegetation protection.

A report by James Whelan and Kristen Lyons titled ‘Rethinking deliberative governance: dissecting the Queensland landclearing campaign’ gives some insight into what drove the campaigning in Queensland that drove the legislation in Queensland. (It would be great if the Queensland Conservation Council made the entire report accessible from their website as it is a fascinating read.) And I quote from their report:

Firstly, it (the legislation) represents a significant shift in Queensland, and indeed Australian history, by establishing a framework for the regulation of land use on both leasehold and freehold land. This represents a significant departure from dominant ideologies that accept private landowners retain sovereignty over land management.

Secondly, it indicates conditional support for regional governance processes by conservationists. In this case they were unwilling to support those with limited or flawed terms of reference despite acknowledging the potential for collaborative natural resource management to foster civil society, social capital and democratic legitimacy of land management decisions. These outcomes are important prerequisites for the implementation of regulation. However, the macro settings for these consultative processes attracted strident critique from the conservation movement. Regional processes, were identified as a “business as usual” approach to land use, which established a narrow framework for policy setting that limited the possibility of achieving significant positive conservation outcomes. Many ENGOs were consequently highly critical of these so-called collaborative models, and refused to participate.

The third insight to emerge from this landclearing campaign related to concerned the powerful impact of community action and political contestation by ENGOs. Rather than relying on partnership models of governance which may have been conducive to local ownership of management decisions and enhance social capital, the landclearing campaign was resolved through conflict and contestation. Rather than directing energies into collaborating within a flawed framework, and risk being captured by a process with a narrow and restricted agenda, ENGOs engaged in a diverse range of campaign strategies to pressure government to govern. Importantly, the landclearing case demonstrates the determination of the conservation movement to hold government accountable for responsible natural resource management, rather than deferring to problematic consultative processes. In conclusion, the success of this campaign suggests that the emphasis placed on a narrowly defined set of social capital indicators in prevailing natural resource management arrangements may overlook the broader range of political and social strategies that can effect social change.

Some western Queensland landholders will meet tomorrow to consider their options, their campaign, to get the legislation changed. They believe that in its current form it is impractical, and concurr with the Productivity Commission report that it is also an impediment to environmental protection. I will be a speaker at the meeting to be held at 2.00pm in the Memorial Sports Club, Blackall. BBQ and drinks to follow. All welcome.