IMPORTANCE OF SCIENCE-BASED DECISIONS

Barcaldine’s Tree of Knowledge in western Queensland became famous as an important meeting place during the Great Shearers’ Strike of 1891. Because of its role in the formation of the union movement and the foundation of the Australian Labor Party, it was heritage listed in 2006.  Shortly afterwards it was poisoned and died.

In thinking about the Tree of Knowledge a friend who recently visited Barcaldine commented on attitudes towards knowledge and fact in today’s world.

On one level we see so-called “alternative facts” promoted as reality over actual facts. Factual news reports are dismissed as “fake news” not because they are false but because these reports do not suit a particular person or group. So we have a new version of political spin and propaganda.

While the “alternative facts” and “fake news” are largely associated with the US, there is concern that this labelling of inconvenient truth or knowledge in this dismissive fashion could become common here and elsewhere around the world. 

Currently much more worrying in Australia is a growing refusal to accept scientific knowledge in the formation of policy at a political level.  This is particularly disturbing for those concerned with protecting the natural world for current and future generations of humans and other life forms.  

There are numerous recent examples of how scientific knowledge about how best to protect the natural world is being ignored by government departments and politicians.   These bureaucrats and politicians are captive to short-term economic plans or vested interests.

Federal decisions which ignored scientific knowledge and advice have included the reduction in marine park protection to allow fishing over a much greater area and the plan to reduce the  environmental water recovery target  in the Murray-Darling Basin in the interests of irrigators. 

In NSW the changes to biodiversity laws and to management of native vegetation despite scientific advice, are already seeing increased land-clearing and habitat loss which is threatening the survival of vulnerable species such as the koala.

Our political leaders often claim they make decisions based on the best science but this seems to happen very rarely. It’s time this changed.

            - Leonie Blain

 This article was originally published in the VOICES FOR THE EARTH column in The Daily Examiner on August 6, 2018. 

FOREST LOSS A CONCERN FOR WORLD WILDLIFE FUND

According to a recent report on forests by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) there are eleven deforestation hotspots in the world including the Amazon, Borneo, Sumatra, the Congo Basin and East Africa. At current rates of deforestation 80% of global forests could be lost by 2030.

Eastern Australia is one of these hotspots.  About 70% of the forests of eastern Australia have already been cleared or disturbed and only 18% of forests are under some form of protection.  Forest loss in Australia is primarily the result of clearing for agriculture/grazing and mining as well as unsustainable logging.

According to the report between three million and six million hectares of rainforest and temperate forest could be lost mainly across NSW and Queensland between 2010 and 2030.

In relation to Queensland, WWF pointed out that the watering down of environmental protections by the former LNP (Liberal-National Party) government led to a sharp rise in land clearing, with 275,000 hectares cleared in the past financial year - a tripling of vegetation loss since 2010.

The NSW government plans to amend land clearing protections – a promise made several days before the March 28 election.  This means a watering down of protection which does not appear to be consistent with a $100 million pledge to protect the state’s threatened plants and animals.

Dermot O’Gorman, chief executive of WWF Australia, says WWF is deeply concerned about NSW. He says the existing laws have been shown to have been effective in saving hundreds of thousands of animals and that effective protection of biodiversity needs to be continued.

  

“Maintaining forest protections is vital at a state level.  We’ve lost the large majority of the eastern Australia forest, which means the remaining forests are even more important to maintain,” Mr O’Gorman said.

“If business as usual continues, we will see more Australian species disappear, as well as the continuing decline of our water, topsoil and local and regional climate.”

The NSW Government needs to think very carefully before it waters down laws which are helping to protect the health of the natural world which provides important services to humanity.

-          Leonie Blain

This post was originally published in the VOICES FOR THE EARTH column in The Daily Examiner on May 11, 2015.

WHO TOOK THE CONSERVATIVES OUT OF CONSERVATION?

 ‘Who took conservatives out of conservation?’ is a headline in the latest issue of Habitat Australia, the magazine published by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF).

It’s a question that’s close to the ACF’s heart. This organisation was established in the mid-1960s at the behest of the Duke of Edinburgh with a grant from the Menzies Government and with Sir Garfield Barwick (Chief Justice of the High Court and previously a minister under Menzies) as president — it was conservative to the core.

The Abbott-Truss Government’s hostility to the environment has been surprising in its breadth. Their targets haven’t just been the carbon tax, renewable energy and curbing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, but also the Tasmanian Wilderness and Great Barrier Reef World Heritage areas, the network of Commonwealth marine reserves, the National Water Commission and the ‘green tape’ of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).

It wasn’t always so with Coalition governments.

The EPBC Act was drafted and passed by the Howard Government. Howard proposed the national representative system of marine protected areas in 1998 and set up the National Water Commission in 2004.

The Tasmanian Wilderness and Great Barrier Reef were nominated for World Heritage listing by the Fraser Government, which also ended sand mining on Fraser Island and whale hunting in Australian waters.

At the state level, the original and current National Parks and Wildlife Acts were passed by the Askin Government in NSW which, in 1970, also brought in the Clean Waters Act and the Pollution Control Act.

Nick Greiner brought in the Protection of the Environment Administration Act 1991 which set up the legislative framework for ecologically sustainable development (including the precautionary principle) and replaced Askin’s State Pollution Control Commission with the Environmental Protection Authority.

Care for the environment — and willingness to introduce laws and regulations to protect it — has never been the exclusive territory of left-leaning governments. It is puzzling why the current crop of Liberal-National governments is now disowning and dismantling the legacy of their conservative forebears.

-          J Cavanaugh

THE FEDERAL ELECTION AND THE ENVIRONMENT - THE MAJOR PARTIES

The major parties - Australian Labor Party and the Liberal-National Party Coalition -  in the campaign leading to the federal election on September 7 have largely avoided discussion of the environment.  Should we then we assume that the natural environment, on which we humans all rely for the services it provides, is doing well? Or is it simply a case of "it's all too hard"?

Despite the lack of general discussion on the environment, the major parties have policies which will impact on the environment.

 

For example both major parties have announced that they intend to encourage mining development. 

Do they want to see more coal mines?  Is this wise – both from an environmental and economic aspect?  We should be phasing out the use of coal as a fuel because of its carbon emissions and the other pollutants it produces.  It is quite obvious that, while they are still burning huge quantities of coal, countries such as China, which buy our coal, are steadily moving to cleaner energy sources.

We should also be very cautious about investing in the infrastucture to support coal-mining and its export.  Spending billions on port development could well be an enormous waste of money given that coal is approaching its use-by date. 

Does their desire to see more mines mean both the ALP and the Coalition would be pushing for the expansion of gas mining in the mistaken belief that it is much more "greenhouse-friendly" than coal?   The Northern Rivers could well be one of the areas affected if this is the case.  While in the Page electorate both Janelle Saffin and her major challenger Kevin Hogan have declared they are opposed to gas mining in their electorate, it is unlikely that their views will be considered important if their party decides it wants gas mining expedited here.

On climate change in general both parties could do much more.  "Direct Action", the Coalition replacement for the carbon tax which they intend to scrap, is vague and there are serious doubts about whether it can achieve the emissions reduction to which the party committed. There are also questions about the cost of this policy.  The ALP, with its focus during the election campaign on reducing electricity costs, would seem to have lost the plot about the reason for taxing emissions. 

A draft of the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change leaked recently stated that the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions "at or above current rates" are that the world is likely to become 5 degrees hotter.  Moreover there is a 95% likelihood that human greenhouse gas emissions are driving the rise in extreme weather events now being observed around the world. This means that there should be a sense of urgency about effective action on emissions reduction.  Neither major party indicates that this major environmental problem is in any way urgent.

Other policies which have not been discussed above and which have environmental implications include transport, biodiversity protection, fuel subsidies, renewable energy and environmental law. 

Ignoring the natural environment and its many problems will not make those problems go away. Future governments will be forced into action whether they like it or not.