Forest Media 31 March 2023
Hi, I started doing regular media summaries in late 2019. The format has changed over time. My coverage significantly improved when NCC gave me access to their daily media monitoring results – I thank them for it. I find it interesting to keep up with what’s happening in NSW and around the world, though it takes a large part of my time. I wanted to keep going untill after the election, though will now be calling it quits, instead focusing on occasional articles.
New South Wales
The North East Forest Alliance welcomed the election of the Minns Labor government with their promise to create a Great Koala National Park, and called for a moratorium on logging within the park proposal until the promised assessment is complete. The Bellingen Environment Centre also did a media release calling for an immediate moratorium, saying the unions and industry have no role in what should be a scientific review.
The Echo also has a longer article talking about the need to protect forests to mitigate climate heating, issues around Doubleduke, including the EPAs statement that their requirement to protect the gully of the giants has lapsed - and the only way to reinstate it is if the Forestry Corporation agrees, and the request for a moratorium on the GKNP.
Along with NBN, ABC radio has an interview with Penny Sharpe about the Grear Koala National Park, where she reaffirms her commitment to it, rules out a moratorium (again), that it needs to be worked out with unions and industry, and mentions corridors linking existing reserves (a worrying theme). As in the ABC interview, the Coffs Coast Advocate has an article claiming the vote for the National’s Singh in Coffs Harbour shows the community does not support the Great Koala National Park.
The Australian Forest Products Association has urged the new State Government to address the state’s looming timber supply challenges as a priority and the Australian Forest Contractors Association to protect forest workers from workplace harassment and trespass, while praising the previous government.
News of the Area covers the story about Mark Graham being visited by the riot squad at 10 pm at night, claiming they were enforcing bail conditions, though Mark’s bail conditions were not to enter State forests, not to stay at home.
Save Bulga Forest welcomed the change of the status of the two compartments the focus of their campaign since 20 December has been changed to “suspended”, showing the Forestry Corporation, having been able to log for only 2 days, have backed off for the time being as a result of community pressure, resulting in the camp being closed and a focus on the Government to permanently protect it.
The Forestry Corporation are obviously feeling brave since the ALP ruled out putting any part of the Great Koala NP under moratorium, or they are looking for some other Koala habitat to log, on the 29 March they approved compartments 6 and 7 of Braemar SF for logging. These are the compartments where we found an exceptional density of Koalas in 2019, with most Koalas killed in the 2019 fires, though a remnant population is still there, and most of their feed trees survived the fires - so they can rebuild. This is part of NEFA's Sandy Creek Koala Park - that the ALP committed to protect (in a smaller form) 2 elections ago, but has since dropped it.
The Echo wrote a belated article on the $15,000 fine for breaches in a PNF operation in Kyogle Shire, and the bigger problem this uncovered with 133 approved PNF operations unlawful because they did not obtain consent from Council – a 13 year problem, Council recently wrote to the 133 PNF operators telling them their logging is unlawful and they require DAs.
NSW Election:
Many forest protectors were delighted that the National Party forestry fiefdom was finally overthrown, particularly as the new Labor government at least has a commitment to protecting “a” Great Koala National Park, and maybe Koalas elsewhere. The initial results suggested they would easily achieve a majority in the Lower House, as counting proceeded it became apparent that they would likely be a minority Government, one or two seats short of a majority, with there likely to be nine independents and three Greens they have multiple choices for getting support – though they still need to get it through the Upper House. The progressive vote in the Upper House also went backwards as counting proceeded, and now seems destined to be a finely balanced house with 21 Labor and progressives and 21 Coalition and conservatives, with the final balance depending on who takes on the role of president. Irrespective, with 4 Greens and (hopefully) 2 progressives, Labor is going to have strong reliance on their vote. Many of the Liberal seats picked up late in the process gave the moderates a lead within their party.
As noted by the Guardian, there are some common themes among the independents: gambling reform, including advertising of betting services; reforms to the planning system to ensure consideration of climate change impacts; prohibitions on conversion practices and other LGBTQ+ issues; reforms to land clearing; expanding koala protections; and other environmental reforms.
Wollondilly was the only electorate to be lost to a “teal”, Judy Hannan, leading the defeated Liberal member Nathaniel Smith to accuse the NSW Liberal Party of failing to protect one of its most ardent right-wing warriors.
Australia
With an average deforestation of 416,840 hectares of forests per year between 2015-2020, Australia ranks fifth in the world, and the only developed country on the list, the good news is that our deforestation is down from the pre-2000 rate. An article by Dr David Shearman argues that land clearing, even by bits and pieces, and logging of native forests, has to stop. He particularly focuses on South Australia.
A new report card on Australia’s environment for 2022 identifies the wet La Nina years have been a boon for our rivers, wetlands, waterbirds and vegetation, except in the Top End in the Northern Territory, southern inland Western Australia and western Tasmania which missed out, and those millions of fish. The ocean around Australia was the warmest on record and the Great Barrier Reef suffered its fourth bleaching in 7 years. The combination of habitat destruction, invasive species and climate change took a big toll. The 2019/20 wildfires were primarily responsible for 30 species being added to the official list of threatened species, increasing it to 1,973 species, with abundances of threatened species declining about 3% a year.
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has introduced the Nature Repair Market Bill to parliament aimed at establishing the market-based scheme, her green Wall Street, creating financial credits for landowners who restore and protect important habitat, leading to the creation of biodiversity offsets whereby developers can pay for destroying habitat - likely a repeat of the failed NSW biodiversity offsets and failed carbon offsets. The Nationals claimed that it is their previous bill, developers welcomed it, and conservation groups condemned it – there is likely to be a Senate inquiry.
The Greens have criticised some environment groups, notably ACF, for undermining their negotiations with the ALP over the safeguard mechanism, accusing some groups of being too interested in “access to government and perceived influence”.
The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) claims The Greens amendments to the National Reconstruction Fund to remove native forest harvesting eligibility from the National Reconstruction Fund “was a stunt with no practical effect”, welcoming the Albanese Government’s explicit guarantee that projects involving the processing of native forestry products will be eligible for funding.
VicForests is appealing the 2022 Supreme Court decision that the company failed to adequately survey and protect the endangered greater glider and yellow-bellied gliders in its operations, which led them to halt logging in East Gippsland and the Central Highlands while they developed new survey techniques to comply with the court orders, claiming a lack of procedural fairness and a shifting of regulatory definitions. Vicforests are trialing drones to undertake the court ordered surveys for Southern Greater Glider and Yellow-bellied Gliders.
Species
Bangalow Koalas are celebrating planting of their 250,000th tree, halfway to their goal of 500,000 trees by 2025.
The Deteriorating Problem
The IPCC Synthesis Report was considerably watered down in the process of achieving unanimous buy-in from delegates of all 195 nations involved, particularly relating to the environmental costs of burning fossil fuels and consuming meat, while inflating the claimed benefits of capture carbon and storage technologies.
Scientists warn that business as usual will cause sustained melting of Antarctic ice, likely resulting in the rate of circulation of deep ocean currents in the southern hemisphere slowing down by 40 per cent by 2050, causing deoxygenation of waters at the bottom of the ocean, a reduction of nutrients in upwellings, the monsoon to the north of Australia becoming much drier, more rainfall north of the equator, and less rainfall south of the equator.
Due to record-high temperatures in 2022, 500 wildfires burnt 306,000 hectares in Spain, and following a winter drought and unseasonal hot temperatures, an early fire has burnt over 4,000 hectares and forced 1,500 people to flee their homes, leading to concerns that this could be another bad year as climate heating leads to mega fires.
As fires increase so too does the aerial application of the pretty pink ammonium phosphate-based retardant, in California the Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology have waged a decade long legal battle against its use near streams because of its significant impacts on aquatic ecosystems, particularly fish, also questioning its effectiveness in most conditions, creating a panicked reaction from many, resulting in lawfare.
Turning it Around
NASA researchers have used satellite images and an artificial intelligence algorithm to count 9.9 billion trees and measure how much carbon they store across 10 million square kilometers.in the semiarid Sahel, a belt of land stretching across Northern Africa, from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, with the method ready to be deployed elsewhere in the near future.
If you are interested in what’s happening regarding forests in Europe, North America or India regarding global promises to end forest loss, Deforestation Inc. reporters checked and found authorities were failing on a number of key forest protection measures. Their earlier revelations that one of North America’s largest pulp and paper manufacturers, Paper Excellence, that now controls nearly 54 million acres of Canadian forests, is linked to entities in Indonesia and China has created controversy in Canada. Deforestation Inc also have a lengthy article about voluntary timber certification, highlighting how shoddy the processes are, focusing on KPMGs role in developing voluntary standards and their vouching for an Indonesian company with a supply chain beset by deforestation allegations and a project in Canada that led to an Indigenous forest’s “death by a thousand cuts”.
More than 28 million credits have been sold for the Cordillera Azul National Park project in Peru, which aimed to stop deforestation, yet tree loss has more than doubled, according to satellite analysis tree canopy loss jumped from an average of 262 hectares (650 acres) per year in the five years before the project launched to an average of 572 hectares (1,400 acres) per year from 2009 to 2021, in addition to this the worth of the project was greatly overstated.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Great Koala National Park:
… time for a moratorium:
The North East Forest Alliance welcomed the election of the Minns Labor government with their promise to create a Great Koala National Park, and called for a moratorium on logging within the park proposal until the promised assessment is complete. The Bellingen Environment Centre also did a media release calling for an immediate moratorium, saying the unions and industry have no role in what should be a scientific review.
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/03/nefa-welcomes-the-election-of-a-new-government/
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2023/03/27/great-koala-national-park-finally-becomes-a-reality/
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-31-march-2023
The Echo also has a longer article talking about the need to protect forests to mitigate climate heating, issues around Doubleduke, including the EPAs statement that their requirement to protect the gully of the giants has lapsed - and the only way to reinstate it is if the Forestry Corporation agrees, and the request for a moratorium on the GKNP.
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/03/call-for-labor-government-to-reinstate-logging-moratorium-now/
… no moratorium:
Along with NBN, ABC radio has an interview with Penny Sharpe about the Grear Koala National Park, where she reaffirms her commitment to it, rules out a moratorium (again), that it needs to be worked out with unions and industry, and mentions corridors linking existing reserves (a worrying theme).
https://www.abc.net.au/coffscoast/programs/breakfast/gknp-sharp/102153176
… no mandate:
As in the ABC interview, the Coffs Coast Advocate has an article claiming the vote for the National’s Singh in Coffs Harbour shows the community does not support the Great Koala National Park.
… loggers praise the past and seek to make a better future:
The Australian Forest Products Association has urged the new State Government to address the state’s looming timber supply challenges as a priority and the Australian Forest Contractors Association to protect forest workers from workplace harassment and trespass, while praising the previous government.
AFPA NSW … “However, we remain concerned about the impact of Labor’s commitment to create a Great Koala National Park on the future of thousands of timber jobs and the supply of essential timber products across NSW.
“NSW Labor has committed to work with the timber industry and to do due diligence on the implementation of a Great Koala National Park. We urge the Minns Government to listen to the science, which shows that the state’s sustainable, regenerative native forestry operations have no impact on koala numbers while contributing $2.9 billion annually to the state economy.”
“AFCA has enjoyed a positive and constructive relationship with the NSW Coalition over a number of years, and especially wishes to thank Minister Saunders and his office,” she said.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/labor-elected-in-nsw-and-a-great-koala-national-park/
Intimidating dissenters:
News of the Area covers the story about Mark Graham being visited by the riot squad at 10 pm at night, claiming they were enforcing bail conditions, though Mark’s bail conditions were not to enter State forests, not to stay at home.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-31-march-2023
Bulga suspended:
Save Bulga Forest welcomed the change of the status of the two compartments the focus of their campaign since 20 December has been changed to “suspended”, showing the Forestry Corporation, having been able to log for only 2 days, have backed off for the time being as a result of community pressure, resulting in the camp being closed and a focus on the Government to permanently protect it.
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/03/bulga-forest-logging-suspended/
Sandy Creek Koala Park:
The Forestry Corporation are obviously feeling brave since the ALP ruled out putting any part of the Great Koala NP under moratorium, or they are looking for some other Koala habitat to log, on the 29 March they approved compartments 6 and 7 of Braemar SF for logging. These are the compartments where we found an exceptional density of Koalas in 2019, with most Koalas killed in the 2019 fires, though a remnant population is still there, and most of their feed trees survived the fires - so they can rebuild. This is part of NEFA's Sandy Creek Koala Park - that the ALP committed to protect (in a smaller form) 2 elections ago, but has since dropped it.
133 illegal logging operations in Kyogle Shire:
The Echo wrote a belated article on the $15,000 fine for breaches in a PNF operation in Kyogle Shire, and the bigger problem this uncovered with 133 approved PNF operations unlawful because they did not obtain consent from Council – a 13 year problem, Council recently wrote to the 133 PNF operators telling them their logging is unlawful and they require DAs.
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/03/15000-fine-and-warnings-over-illegal-logging-in-kyogle-shire/
NSW Election
Many forest protectors were delighted that the National Party forestry fiefdom was finally overthrown, particularly as the new Labor government at least has a commitment to protecting “a” Great Koala National Park, and maybe Koalas elsewhere. The initial results suggested they would easily achieve a majority in the Lower House, as counting proceeded it became apparent that they would likely be a minority Government, one or two seats short of a majority, with there likely to be nine independents and three Greens they have multiple choices for getting support – though they still need to get it through the Upper House. The progressive vote in the Upper House also went backwards as counting proceeded, and now seems destined to be a finely balanced house with 21 Labor and progressives and 21 Coalition and conservatives, with the final balance depending on who takes on the role of president. Irrespective, with 4 Greens and (hopefully) 2 progressives, Labor is going to have strong reliance on their vote. Many of the Liberal seats picked up late in the process gave the moderates a lead within their party.
Current lower house primary votes are 37.1% Labor (up 3.8%), 35.5% Coalition (down 6.1%), 9.5% Greens (down 0.1%), 1.7% One Nation (up 0.6%), 1.5% Shooters (down 1.9%) and 14.7% for all Others (up 3.7%). Others includes 9.0% for independents (up 4.3%).
… reason for hope:
As noted by the Guardian, there are some common themes among the independents: gambling reform, including advertising of betting services; reforms to the planning system to ensure consideration of climate change impacts; prohibitions on conversion practices and other LGBTQ+ issues; reforms to land clearing; expanding koala protections; and other environmental reforms.
Infighting in Liberals:
Wollondilly was the only electorate to be lost to a “teal”, Judy Hannan, leading the defeated Liberal member Nathaniel Smith to accuse the NSW Liberal Party of failing to protect one of its most ardent right-wing warriors.
[Nathaniel Smith] “Matt Kean was the number one complaint at polling booths from conservative voters, saying he’s too woke. And they went straight to One Nation.”
Hannan, who says she is not a teal but espouses the values of other Climate 200-backed candidates, has said she was a classic example of the female candidate the Liberal Party had lost to the independent movement.
“I probably should have been [a Liberal],” she told the Herald last week.
AUSTRALIA
Australia needs to do better to be world leaders:
With an average deforestation of 416,840 hectares of forests per year between 2015-2020, Australia ranks fifth in the world, and the only developed country on the list, the good news is that our deforestation is down from the pre-2000 rate.
From 2001 to 2021, Australia lost 8.73Mha of tree cover, equivalent to a 21 per cent decrease in tree cover since 2000, and 2.40Gt of CO?e emissions, according to Global Forest Watch
You can view the full report here.
While Australia’s deforestation rate is concerning, the 2015-2020 figures represent a 33 per cent reduction on the 626,200 hectares that was cleared between 1990 and 2000. Globally, this is the fourth biggest decrease in deforestation rates over the period.
An article by Dr David Shearman argues that land clearing, even by bits and pieces, and logging of native forests, has to stop. He particularly focuses on South Australia.
We carry only a small share of the world’s responsibility for reducing greenhouse emissions, but we are totally responsible for protecting our own natural environment by stopping many damaging practices, foremost land clearing, which continues throughout the entire country.
In terms of health and the environment, this logging is bleeding requiring urgent application of a tourniquet.
https://johnmenadue.com/land-clearing-an-environmental-and-human-health-disaster-that-must-stop/
Wins and losses for 2022:
A new report card on Australia’s environment for 2022 identifies the wet La Nina years have been a boon for our rivers, wetlands, waterbirds and vegetation, except in the Top End in the Northern Territory, southern inland Western Australia and western Tasmania which missed out, and those millions of fish. The ocean around Australia was the warmest on record and the Great Barrier Reef suffered its fourth bleaching in 7 years. The combination of habitat destruction, invasive species and climate change took a big toll. The 2019/20 wildfires were primarily responsible for 30 species being added to the official list of threatened species, increasing it to 1,973 species, with abundances of threatened species declining about 3% a year.
Australia’s emissions are not falling anywhere near fast enough. They were almost the same in 2022 as in the previous year. And our national emissions remain among the highest in the world per person.
Decisive action is needed. Slowing down habitat destruction, invasive species and climate change is key to preserving our natural resources and species for future generations.
https://www.ausenv.online/aer/vegetation/index.html
Offsetting environmental destruction:
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has introduced the Nature Repair Market Bill to parliament aimed at establishing the market-based scheme, her green Wall Street, creating financial credits for landowners who restore and protect important habitat, leading to the creation of biodiversity offsets whereby developers can pay for destroying habitat - likely a repeat of the failed NSW biodiversity offsets and failed carbon offsets. The Nationals claimed that it is their previous bill, developers welcomed it, and conservation groups condemned it – there is likely to be a Senate inquiry.
Greens environment spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young said her party would not support the bill in its current form.
“Nothing in this bill will save Australia’s koalas from extinction. Until we have laws that protect critical habitat and stop native forest logging, no amount of market spin will save nature,” she said. “The inclusion of offsets as part of a market intended to repair nature is a red flag. What is to stop this from becoming a free pass for industry to continue destroying the environment?”
Negotiation tactics:
The Greens have criticised some environment groups, notably ACF, for undermining their negotiations with the ALP over the safeguard mechanism, accusing some groups of being too interested in “access to government and perceived influence”.
McKim said some green groups were afraid to criticise the government “in case they lose access or suffer brand damage”. He singled out the Australian Conservation Foundation, which he said had “pulled the rug out from under us at a critical stage” by calling on MPs to “strengthen and pass” the safeguard legislation and then keep working to stop new coal and gas in this term of parliament.
Funding wood manufacturing:
The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) claims The Greens amendments to the National Reconstruction Fund to remove native forest harvesting eligibility from the National Reconstruction Fund “was a stunt with no practical effect”, welcoming the Albanese Government’s explicit guarantee that projects involving the processing of native forestry products will be eligible for funding.
VicForests is appealing:
VicForests is appealing the 2022 Supreme Court decision that the company failed to adequately survey and protect the endangered greater glider and yellow-bellied gliders in its operations, which led them to halt logging in East Gippsland and the Central Highlands while they developed new survey techniques to comply with the court orders, claiming a lack of procedural fairness and a shifting of regulatory definitions.
Senior Counsel for VicForests Rachel Doyle argued the terms of the initial trial launched by environmental group Environment East Gippsland had shifted during proceedings and the decision lacked fairness.
"The trial would have been different or could have been different, had VicForests been on notice at first instance of the approach that Your Honour intended to take," she said.
https://www.dailyliberal.com.au/story/8133486/vicforests-fights-supreme-court-logging-decision/
Vicforests are trialing drones to undertake the court ordered surveys for Southern Greater Glider and Yellow-bellied Gliders.
SPECIES
Halfway there:
Bangalow Koalas are celebrating planting of their 250,000th tree, halfway to their goal of 500,000 trees by 2025.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Reducing climate impacts, the easy way:
The IPCC Synthesis Report was considerably watered down in the process of achieving unanimous buy-in from delegates of all 195 nations involved, particularly relating to the environmental costs of burning fossil fuels and consuming meat, while inflating the claimed benefits of capture carbon and storage technologies.
In fact, corporate influence over global climate efforts is so well documented at this point that the IPCC authors wanted to include references to it in the final report summary released last week, Thomas wrote in his report for Distilled. “In a leaked draft, scientists cited studies showing the impact of lobbying. They included ‘vested interests’ as one of the ‘factors limiting ambitious transformation,’” he said. “But it appears that those very vested interests deleted this text too. The final report makes no mention of the role that lobbying plays in preventing climate action.”
Slowing currents to have major impacts:
Scientists warn that business as usual will cause sustained melting of Antarctic ice, likely resulting in the rate of circulation of deep ocean currents in the southern hemisphere slowing down by 40 per cent by 2050, causing deoxygenation of waters at the bottom of the ocean, a reduction of nutrients in upwellings, the monsoon to the north of Australia becoming much drier, more rainfall north of the equator, and less rainfall south of the equator.
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/antarctic-ice-melt-could-disrupt-the-world-s-oceans-study
The mega fire era:
Due to record-high temperatures in 2022, 500 wildfires burnt 306,000 hectares in Spain, and following a winter drought and unseasonal hot temperatures, an early fire has burnt over 4,000 hectares and forced 1,500 people to flee their homes, leading to concerns that this could be another bad year as climate heating leads to mega fires.
If the country faces “another summer in which temperatures don't fall below 35C for 20 days and it doesn't rain for four months, the vegetation will be liable to go up in flames” with the first lightning bolt, warns wildfire expert Pablo Martin Pinto.
“We are moving from the era of big forest fires to mega forest fires in Spain,” says the Valladolid University professor, warning that such vast blazes were “here to stay”.
Retarding fire, water and earth:
As fires increase so too does the aerial application of the pretty pink ammonium phosphate-based retardant, in California the Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology have waged a decade long legal battle against its use near streams because of its significant impacts on aquatic ecosystems, particularly fish, also questioning its effectiveness in most conditions, creating a panicked reaction from many, resulting in lawfare.
https://phys.org/news/2023-03-lawsuit-jeopardizes-crucial-wildfire-retardant.html
TURNING IT AROUND
Making every tree count:
NASA researchers have used satellite images and an artificial intelligence algorithm to count 9.9 billion trees and measure how much carbon they store across 10 million square kilometers.in the semiarid Sahel, a belt of land stretching across Northern Africa, from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, with the method ready to be deployed elsewhere in the near future.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/03/230301120828.htm
Ending forest loss:
If you are interested in what’s happening regarding forests in Europe, North America or India regarding global promises to end forest loss, Deforestation Inc. reporters checked and found authorities were failing on a number of key forest protection measures.
Revelations that one of North America’s largest pulp and paper manufacturers, Paper Excellence, that now controls nearly 54 million acres of Canadian forests, is linked to entities in Indonesia and China has created controversy in Canada.
Deforestation Inc also have a lengthy article about voluntary timber certification, highlighting how shoddy the processes are, focusing on KPMGs role in developing voluntary standards and their vouching for an Indonesian company with a supply chain beset by deforestation allegations and a project in Canada that led to an Indigenous forest’s “death by a thousand cuts”.
Another failed carbon offset project:
More than 28 million credits have been sold for the Cordillera Azul National Park project in Peru, which aimed to stop deforestation, yet tree loss has more than doubled, according to satellite analysis tree canopy loss jumped from an average of 262 hectares (650 acres) per year in the five years before the project launched to an average of 572 hectares (1,400 acres) per year from 2009 to 2021, in addition to this the worth of the project was greatly overstated.
Forest Media 24 March 2023
Tomorrow is D-day where we find out whether we have another 4 years of the National’s savage attacks on our forests and iconic Koalas, or possibly a minority Labor Government, giving the Greens and independents the balance of power where they can force decisions favourable to ending logging of public forests and protecting Koalas. We will soon know. Keep an eye on the Upper House as it appears likely to be a cliff hanger that could go either way.
I wait with baited breath …
New South Wales
To mark International Day for Forests, NEFA announced it has mailed out one of two leaflets to 75,000 residents of Manly, Pittwater and North Shore urging them to vote for a future with koalas, by putting the Liberals last. Meanwhile a Koala made homeless by logging in Yarratt State Forest moved into one of the Norfolk Island Pines on the Manly beachfront, before moving to a fig tree outside a polling booth to bring his plight to our current Environment Minister (and voters).
The protest at Doubleduke had a run, with 70 protectors, and a couple of horses, blocked by a plethora of police. The EPA say they are investigating complaints, though have inspected the operation twice before and not found any.
Friendly Jordies has another video A Dangerous Man, this time focussing on the harassment of Mark Graham by loggers, Forestry, EPA and police. It was apparently effective, as in retribution the riot squad visited his home at 10pm at night to make sure he wasn’t up to nefarious activities, claiming it was to make sure he was complying with bail conditions, presumably making sure he wasn’t out in a State forest somewhere. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VXLP7p5HFw
News of the Area has four letters to the editor lamenting ongoing logging, Koalas decline and the harassment of Mark Graham, as well as an add organised by FEA (which NEFA contributed to). NCC have released a short video calling for protection of native forests and a transition to ‘sustainable’ plantations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGQ8YcIZUMA
A new study found that more than half of the forests and woodland in NSW that existed before European invasion are now gone and more than a third of what’s left is degraded, and since 2000, 435,000 hectares had been degraded through logging operations, affecting 244 threatened species – 104 of which are federally listed as endangered or critically endangered.
The Hill End fire on the New South Wales Central Tablelands burnt 18,000 hectares, destroyed eight homes, killed hundreds of livestock, and had a massive impact on hollow-bearing trees and native animals, though a small colony of disease-free koalas near Hill End were spared and wombats seemed to escape the worst.
The Australian Rural and Regional News has published a nuanced letter from Forestry Australia to the ALP regarding the Great Koala National Park, not actually opposing the park but arguing for the assessment to conducted carefully and holistically, for logging to be part of a landscape-wide approach to active management and not to lock up many areas of regrowth and planted eucalypt trees.
NSW Election
The Sydney Morning Herald reports the Coalition and Labor are now neck-and-neck on 38 per cent after the Coalition’s primary vote jumped six points in the past three weeks while Labor’s remained steady. Perrottet also edged ahead personally, leading Opposition Leader Chris Minns as preferred premier by 40 to 34 per cent. Nevertheless they suggest Labor is on track to return to power, but will probably need the backing of crossbench MPs to form a minority government. The election will likely come down to western Sydney, with a Teal wave in northern Sydney less likely than federally.
Greens NSW are confident Labor will want their support in forming a minority government and their price includes the end of coal and gas in the state, scrapping the public sector wages cap, introduction of cashless gaming cards, introduction of rent controls and a ban on unfair evictions, the end of native forest logging, introduction of nurse-to-patient ratios, pay rises for public sector workers, anti-protest laws to be repealed and a community-led Truth and Treaty process.
The Manly Daily has a series of statement of candidates for the seats of Manly and Pittwater, while a number of candidates mention protecting the environment, Joeline Hackman running as an independent for Manly is the only one who mentioned Koalas and ending logging “I want to ensure there is no new gas exploration off our coastline and we must protect our koala habitat, by bringing an end to native logging”. Another report has the Pittwater independent Jacqui Scrubby (who some tip as the most likely of the Teals to succeed) suggesting that NSW follow VIC and WA in committing to end native forest logging in order to protect biodiversity and koala habitats. She is critical of subsidies for the industry and the Liberal’s Koala Strategy as “they don’t need money, they need habitat.” It also has The Greens Hilary Green as supporting ending native forest logging, Labor’s Jeff Quinn as “supports scaling back, but not stopping, native forest logging”, and Liberal’s Rory Amon as supporting logging. The Guardian doesn’t include Pittwater as a seat to watch, though includes two other seats the Teals are running in, Lane Cove and Wollondilly, it also flags Minn’s seat of Kogarah, and Murray as being a three way between the ex-Shooters member, their new candidate and the Nationals.
Port Macquarie is seeing a contest between the Liberal’s Koala loving and National’s defector Leslie Williams, and the climate change denier and newly converted National’s Mayor Peta Pinson, though it seems unlikely their division will allow Labor to get up between them.
The Minerals Council is said to be behind the release of questionable polling showing Matt Kean faced a 16% swing against him, with most of the vote shifting to One Nation and the Liberal Democrats, though they refuse to release key details such as polling size or the questions asked.
Labor will boost Landcare funding to a record $59 million over the next four years to support the 60,000 volunteers, 3000 local groups and 84 full time coordinators across NSW. And promised $2 million for the Port Stephens Koala Hospital.
Australia
Forest defenders have returned to the ancient forest of Tasmanian Central Highlands where logging continues.
Dr Sophie Scamps MP for the Federal north shore seat of Mackellar gave a detailed and strong speech in parliament calling for an end to logging of native forests.
The Saturday Paper has an article about the mess the Victorian logging phase-out is in, highlighting the Parliamentary Budget Office recently calculated that ending native forest logging in 2023 would save Victoria $205 million over the next decade, the rorted old-growth definition and logging of patches they said they would protect, the auditor-general finding last October that VicForests was not being effectively regulated, the closure of the Maryvale paper mill despite the massive exporting of plantation eucalypts, and the vast quantities of plantation timber being exported rather than processed locally.
The felling of trees illegally for firewood is an increasing problem in Victorian parks, some for personal use though with many large-scale commercial poachers, last year the Conservation Regulator laid 625 charges and issued 85 infringement notices for firewood offences in Victoria.
In a Western Australia study Associate Professor Zylstra found prescribed burning has undermined natural processes to create a more fire-prone landscape by causing mass thickening of vegetation beneath the main forest canopy, increasing fire risk, whereas a natural forest cycle would see these short-lived ‘coloniser’ shrubs disappear and the understorey become more sparsely vegetated over time, also identifying why regrowth is more fireprone: “Taller plants ‘self-prune’ or shed their lower branches and, after some decades, grow beyond the reach of many flames. Instead of acting as fuel, they slow the wind beneath them and become ‘overstorey shelter’.”
As the deadline for stopping logging of WA’s public native forests looms, the Forest Products Commission (FPC) has launched a campaign calling for forestry operators, from around Australia, who may be available to undertake commercial harvesting, ecological thinning, or log haulage, focussed on thinning for ecological health within native forests, increased utilisation of fibre from mining operations, and the harvesting of sharefarms.
For International Day of Forests 2023, the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) Joel Fitzgibbon issued a media release extolling logging as the solution to climate change, claiming we need plantations and regrowth to sequester carbon – forgetting all the carbon released when those big old trees are logged.
The Queensland Labor government are being accused of “abrogating” their responsibility to protect forests by exempting wind farms from the Vegetation Management Act and the Nature Conservation Act, resulting in forests being clearfelled – Skynews liked the story – presumably because its an attack on both wind power and the ALP.
Species
Scientists have named 626 Australian species new to science in the last calendar year, including seven new subspecies, with several of the newly-named species already under threat, including the tube-web spider, a mountain frog, superb myrtles, orchids and a subspecies of white-footed dunnart that are facing pressure from bushfires, feral species and climate change.
The Hunter Community Environment Alliance has continued their campaign for the Barrington to Hawkesbury Climate Corridor proposal, with a report from Paul Winn on the climate change impacts on 74 threatened flora species finding 64 (or 86 per cent) are likely to suffer significant contractions, with 38 (or 51 per cent) having no suitable habitat within the next 50 years under a worst case climate scenario.
Research commissioned by the Sydney Basin Koala Network found in just one generation of koalas, the number of fatalities from vehicle strikes around Sydney’s basin has doubled and in some places quintupled, coinciding with both urban expansion and koala population growth in that area. Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) have attacked NSW’s State Vegetation Type Mapping (SVTM) as inaccurate and severely under mapping primary koala habitat, thereby falsely highlighting areas where koalas cannot survive, potentially paving the way for devastating habitat clearing. Researchers are finding good numbers of koalas in the Blue Mountains, and are claiming they will be a climate refugia for Koalas of increasing importance in the future due to its deep gullies and old growth trees which provide a lot of shade and cooling.
Richard Kingford recognises the reason for the unprecedent fish kill at Menindee is low oxygen but emphasises it is caused by too much upstream diversion reducing river flows, and the barrier stopping them escaping into the Menindee Lakes, stating “it is a not a natural disaster. It is man-made”.
Ahead of a South Australian parliamentary inquiry into duck shooting, video has been released of hunters walking around with injured birds and a seagull being shot, while the shooters say there’s definitely not an issue there.
The Conversation has an article on the spreading threat of Myrtle Rust, focussing on the emerging threat to Lord Howe Island.
The Deteriorating Problem
The latest IPCC Synthesis Report was released, painting a dire picture of the consequences of proceeding down our current path, with global heating likely to pass 1.5oC by the early 2030s and go on climbing, potentially reaching 4.4oC by 2100 under a worse case scenario, with associated ecosystem collapse under all scenarios, it reinforces that forests are potentially part of the solution “Some options, such as conservation of high-carbon ecosystems (e.g., peatlands, wetlands, rangelands, mangroves and forests), deliver immediate benefits, while others, such as restoration of high-carbon ecosystems, take decades to deliver measurable results”, and “Maintaining the resilience of biodiversity and ecosystem services at a global scale depends on effective and equitable conservation of approximately 30% to 50% of Earth’s land, freshwater and ocean areas, including currently near-natural ecosystems (high confidence). Conservation, protection and restoration of terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and ocean ecosystems, together with targeted management to adapt to unavoidable impacts of climate change reduces the vulnerability of biodiversity and ecosystem services to climate change (high confidence)”.
As many animals are retreating to higher elevations as the climate heats, we are expanding our impacts on mountainous forests, a study found 78m hectares (7%) of mountain forest have been lost across the world in the past two decades due to logging, agriculture and wildfires, sharply increasing after 2010 as once relatively inaccessible steep land is increasingly exploited, with Asia, South America, Africa, Europe and Australia all badly affected.
The growing period of hardwood forests in eastern North America has increased by an average of one month over the past century as temperatures have steadily risen, a new study has found.
Logging has reawakened a series of ancient landslides in British Columbia's Cariboo region, costing hundreds of millions in federal disaster assistance funds and prompting warnings that the millions spent will be wasted if the cause isn’t recognised.
Turning it Around
Doctors for the Environment Australia (DEA) and WWF Australia have released a report ‘Trees: The forgotten heroes for our health’ that outlines the growing evidence connecting trees and forests to human health and well-being, including how trees cool our communities, minimise the effects of climate change, help protect us from infectious diseases and boost our mental health.
Purchases of carbon credits quadrupled in 2021 to $2 billion, attracting lots of carpetbaggers reaping the profits, short-changing indigenous owners, and failing to deliver claimed benefits, with South Pole, the world’s leading purveyor of offsets, now facing allegations that it exaggerated climate claims around its forest-protection projects, skimmed profits and left lots of companies with devalued carbon credits. In another study researchers assessed almost 300 carbon offset projects, responsible for 11% of all carbon offsets ever issued, that aimed to improve forest management and include offsets practices like waiting to harvest trees when they’re older, limiting the number of trees that can be cut per hectare, or minimizing the environmental impact of logging infrastructure such as roads, finding they had been generated against a baseline of aggressive harvesting practices that didn’t align with past practices in the area, meaning developers could have been paid to avoid harvesting that wouldn’t have happened anyway.
A review focuses on the importance of forest soils for storing carbon, especially fungi and bacteria, describing the impact of global change on the forest ecosystem and its microbiome and proposing potential approaches to control the adverse effects of global change on forest stability - you need to pay for access, though there are similar papers accessible on line.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
To mark International Day for Forests, NEFA announced it has mailed out one of two leaflets to 75,000 residents of Manly, Pittwater and North Shore urging them to vote for a future with koalas, by putting the Liberals last.
"The Liberals have proved that they will not stand up for Koalas against their junior partners the Nationals, allowing them to triple land clearing and remove constraints on logging Koala homes," said NE Forests campaigner Sean O'Shannessy.
"After the June 2020 Koala inquiry found that without urgent government intervention to protect habitat, the koala will become extinct in New South Wales before 2050, the Nationals instigated the Koala Wars and successfully forced the Liberals to capitulate on Koala protections.
"It was exciting to see over a hundred people rallying in Manly for koalas and an end to this koala killer government. When a hundred people march on your electorate office chanting ‘James Griffin, Minister for Extinction’ you would have to be worried that the gig is up.
Meanwhile a Koala made homeless by logging in Yarratt State Forest moved into one of the Norfolk Island Pines on the Manly beachfront, before moving to a fig tree outside a polling booth to bring his plight to our current Environment Minister (and voters).
“I’ve come to the home of the NSW Environment Minister James Griffin. He says he cares about koalas and has a plan and a strategy. But I judge him on his actions not his words.
“In my forest hundreds of hectares of high quality koala habitat has been destroyed. And it is continuing as I sit here.
“Minister Griffin agreed to renew Wood Contracts at the same levels they were set at 20 years ago, his own experts advising against it.
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/03/homeless-koala-house-hunting-in-manly/
More on Doubleduke:
The protest at Doubleduke had a run, with 70 protectors, and a couple of horses, blocked by a plethora of police. The EPA say they are investigating complaints, though have inspected the operation twice before and not found any.
The confrontation with police was peaceful. A few protesters tried to get closer to Doubleduke by going through the roadside woods but they were stopped by police.
“The EPA is currently assessing these complaints and will undertake further compliance inspections in the forest,” the spokesperson said.
“The EPA will take appropriate regulatory action should any non-compliance be identified.”
The EPA has inspected forestry operations in Doubleduke State Forest in late 2022 and again in January this year to monitor and enforce compliance with the Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approval. No non-compliance issues were identified, the EPA said.
https://indynr.com/cops-stop-logging-protest-from-entering-forest/
Police Harassment:
Friendly Jordies has another video A Dangerous Man, this time focussing on the harassment of Mark Graham by loggers, Forestry, EPA and police. It was apparently effective, as in retribution the riot squad visited his home at 10pm at night to make sure he wasn’t up to nefarious activities, claiming it was to make sure he was complying with bail conditions, presumably making sure he wasn’t out in a State forest somewhere. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VXLP7p5HFw
News of the Area has four letters to the editor lamenting ongoing logging, Koalas decline and the harassment of Mark Graham, as well as an add organised by FEA (which NEFA contributed to).
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-24-march-2023
NCC have released a short video calling for protection of native forests and a transition to ‘sustainable’ plantations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGQ8YcIZUMA
Just stop the extinction vortex that is logging:
A new study found that more than half of the forests and woodland in NSW that existed before European invasion are now gone and more than a third of what’s left is degraded, and since 2000, 435,000 hectares had been degraded through logging operations, affecting 244 threatened species – 104 of which are federally listed as endangered or critically endangered.
Many species that depended on forests were now being sucked into “an extinction vortex” because of logging, one of the study’s authors, the University of Queensland’s Prof James Watson, said.
During the current state election campaign, neither of the two major parties has released plans to address rates of land clearing. Unlike in Western Australia and Victoria, there are no plans to end native forest logging in the state.
Authors of the research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, said the state was “locking in extinction through legislative inadequacies” because regional forestry agreements were allowing critical habitat to be logged while being exempt from the main federal environmental protection law.
Dr Michelle Ward, a conservation scientist at WWF-Australia … said it was often claimed that logging had minimal impact, but this didn’t account for the habitat already destroyed.
NSW needed to stop logging native forests and move to sourcing wood from plantations, she said.
Watson said species that depended on forests had “suffered terribly” from land clearing and fires.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.02.22.529603v1.abstract
Incinerating homes and inhabitants:
The Hill End fire on the New South Wales Central Tablelands burnt 18,000 hectares, destroyed eight homes, killed hundreds of livestock, and had a massive impact on hollow-bearing trees and native animals, though a small colony of disease-free koalas near Hill End were spared and wombats seemed to escape the worst.
Don’t stop all logging:
The Australian Rural and Regional News has published a nuanced letter from Forestry Australia to the ALP regarding the Great Koala National Park, not actually opposing the park but arguing for the assessment to conducted carefully and holistically, for logging to be part of a landscape-wide approach to active management and not to lock up many areas of regrowth and planted eucalypt trees.
The koala is an iconic wildlife species and an important part of Australia’s biodiversity and, accordingly, Forestry Australia’s members consider that that the proposed assessment process to create a new Great Koala National Park must be conducted carefully and holistically.
Further, we note the existing State Forests located between Kempsey and Grafton include many areas of regrowth and planted eucalypt trees, that provide the resources necessary to sustain some of Australia’s most sophisticated remaining value-adding hardwood timber processors and transmission pole producers.
NSW Election
The Sydney Morning Herald reports the Coalition and Labor are now neck-and-neck on 38 per cent after the Coalition’s primary vote jumped six points in the past three weeks while Labor’s remained steady. Perrottet also edged ahead personally, leading Opposition Leader Chris Minns as preferred premier by 40 to 34 per cent. Nevertheless they suggest Labor is on track to return to power, but will probably need the backing of crossbench MPs to form a minority government. The election will likely come down to western Sydney, with a Teal wave in northern Sydney less likely than federally.
No explicit two party estimate was given, but the SMH article talks about a 4.5% swing to Labor from the 2019 election, implying a 52.5-47.5 lead for Labor; this would be a 3.5% gain for the Coalition since the late February Resolve poll.
Greening the ALP:
Greens NSW are confident Labor will want their support in forming a minority government and their price includes the end of coal and gas in the state, scrapping the public sector wages cap, introduction of cashless gaming cards, introduction of rent controls and a ban on unfair evictions, the end of native forest logging, introduction of nurse-to-patient ratios, pay rises for public sector workers, anti-protest laws to be repealed and a community-led Truth and Treaty process.
A close call:
Several seats in western Sydney are shaping as tight contests. With roughly one-third of total votes cast at the election to be lodged in Sydney’s west, there is no path to victory for the Coalition or Labor without the region’s support.
Stokes’ seat of Pittwater is among a clutch of northern Sydney electorates facing challenges by independent candidates. However, a repeat of the federal “teal wave” is unlikely, given the optional flow of preferences, and mitigating budget measures from Treasurer Matt Kean with a focus on women and sustainability.
This is an unusual election. Conventional analysis – and the bookies – suggest a Labor win, likely in minority government. But the Coalition are rolling the dice in narrowly targeted areas and on atypical issues.
North Sydney:
The Manly Daily has a series of statement of candidates for the seats of Manly and Pittwater, while a number of candidates mention protecting the environment, Joeline Hackman running as an independent for Manly is the only one who mentioned Koalas and ending logging “I want to ensure there is no new gas exploration off our coastline and we must protect our koala habitat, by bringing an end to native logging”.
Another report has the Pittwater independent Jacqui Scrubby (who some tip as the most likely of the Teals to succeed) suggesting that NSW follow VIC and WA in committing to end native forest logging in order to protect biodiversity and koala habitats. She is critical of subsidies for the industry and the Liberal’s Koala Strategy as “they don’t need money, they need habitat.” It also has The Greens Hilary Green as supporting ending native forest logging, Labor’s Jeff Quinn as “supports scaling back, but not stopping, native forest logging”, and Liberal’s Rory Amon as supporting logging.
The Guardian doesn’t include Pittwater as a seat to watch, though includes two other seats the Teals are running in, Lane Cove and Wollondilly, it also flags Minn’s seat of Kogarah, and Murray as being a three way between the ex-Shooters member, their new candidate and the Nationals.
Port Macquarie 3 way:
Port Macquarie is seeing a contest between the Liberal’s Koala loving and National’s defector Leslie Williams, and the climate change denier and newly converted National’s Mayor Peta Pinson, though it seems unlikely their division will allow Labor to get up between them.
Ms Williams said she ultimately left the party because its policies, particularly in relation to koala protection, no longer aligned with her community, given Port Macquarie has one of the largest koala populations in NSW.
The koala wars erupted in 2020 over proposed planning regulations to protect the animals, including increasing the number of protected tree species that opponents said would restrict farmers from felling trees on their own land.
Fresh battles over koala policy have arisen since then, including over the related debate on the future of the native forest timber industry.
"This community is very clear about its position … and I wasn't going to stand by and not really express their views when it came to koala protection and the protection of the koala habitat in our local community," Ms Williams said.
Minerals Council claim Kean not liked:
The Minerals Council is said to be behind the release of questionable polling showing Matt Kean faced a 16% swing against him, with most of the vote shifting to One Nation and the Liberal Democrats, though they refuse to release key details such as polling size or the questions asked.
Kean rejected the reported polling. “If a fake polling campaign is the price I have to pay for keeping energy prices down, it’s a price I’m willing to pay,” he told Guardian Australia.
In Leppington, the polling found net favourability of the Liberal premier, Dominic Perrottet, as minus-four compared with the Labor opposition leader, Chris Minns, at plus-six. Kean, who is also the deputy Liberal leader, was described as having a net rating of minus-39. No other politicians’ ratings were cited.
Caring for Landcare:
Labor will boost Landcare funding to a record $59 million over the next four years to support the 60,000 volunteers, 3000 local groups and 84 full time coordinators across NSW. And promised $2 million for the Port Stephens Koala Hospital.
https://www.netimes.com.au/2023/03/21/labor-commit-to-funding-boost-for-landcare/
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/labor-commits-2-million-for-port-stephens-koala-hospital
AUSTRALIA
Defending the high ground:
Forest defenders have returned to the ancient forest of Tasmanian Central Highlands where logging continues.
We are back in this forest where old and rare communities of white bark Eucalyptus viminalis trees are being logged by forestry Tasmania. We were defending them a week ago, and it is terrifying to witness how much destruction has happened in only one week. Tasmania’s ancient native forests are being chipped at an industrial scale despite the IPCC report warning that forests must be left standing,” said Dr. Colette Harmsen.
https://tasmaniantimes.com/2023/03/central-highlands-logging-protest-continues/
Independent support:
Dr Sophie Scamps MP for the Federal north shore seat of Mackellar gave a detailed and strong speech in parliament calling for an end to logging of native forests.
https://www.sophiescamps.com.au/native_land_forestry
The Victorian mess:
The Saturday Paper has an article about the mess the Victorian logging phase-out is in, highlighting the Parliamentary Budget Office recently calculated that ending native forest logging in 2023 would save Victoria $205 million over the next decade, the rorted old-growth definition and logging of patches they said they would protect, the auditor-general finding last October that VicForests was not being effectively regulated, the closure of the Maryvale paper mill despite the massive exporting of plantation eucalypts, and the vast quantities of plantation timber being exported rather than processed locally.
Given that Australia has one of the longest histories of plantation timber in the world, and that timber is of adequate quality for paper production and building materials, and is usually more economical than logging in native forests, we should be turning to our plantations to help us transition to a more sustainable timber industry. But here is another problem. Victoria grows about 3.9 million tonnes of eucalypt pulp logs to make paper and woodchips every year yet 2.9 million tonnes go to China and Japan, export markets that date back to the 1970s. According to Professor David Lindenmayer, “Diverting 10 per cent of that plantation timber would alleviate the timber and paper crisis in Victoria. We could process just a quarter of that for our own needs, and you would have more jobs in the forest industry than you have now.”
This problem gets even knottier, because it’s considered easier for growers to put timber on a ship in Portland and send it around the world than to truck it 700 kilometres across Victoria. The growers receive better prices on their export product than they would on timber sold locally.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/environment/2023/03/18/the-cost-native-forest-logging#mtr
Logging in parks:
The felling of trees illegally for firewood is an increasing problem in Victorian parks, some for personal use though with many large-scale commercial poachers, last year the Conservation Regulator laid 625 charges and issued 85 infringement notices for firewood offences in Victoria.
Ground-dwelling animals likes bush stone curlews and lace monitors (tree goannas) are declining in the [Goulburn River] national park, while the once prominent Murray Darling carpet python has all but disappeared.
While those taking wood for personal use tend to be frustrated but co-operative when confronted by enforcement officers, Mr Mercier says commercial thieves can be aggressive or try to escape, fearing the seizure of their saws, trailers and vehicles.
Many perpetrators have existing criminal records, Mr Chant says, and magistrates aren’t holding back when handing out penalties of almost $10,000 and jail time if the matter goes to court.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/vic/2023/03/18/firewood-thieves-pillaging-vic-forests/
Burning increases burning:
In a Western Australia study Associate Professor Zylstra found prescribed burning has undermined natural processes to create a more fire-prone landscape by causing mass thickening of vegetation beneath the main forest canopy, increasing fire risk, whereas a natural forest cycle would see these short-lived ‘coloniser’ shrubs disappear and the understorey become more sparsely vegetated over time, also identifying why regrowth is more fireprone: “Taller plants ‘self-prune’ or shed their lower branches and, after some decades, grow beyond the reach of many flames. Instead of acting as fuel, they slow the wind beneath them and become ‘overstorey shelter’.”
Associate Professor Zylstra said the findings explained a recent analysis of state departmental fire records for forest management, which found that prescribed burned forests of the South West have experienced up to seven times more bushfire than forests with no prescribed burning.
We know long-unburnt mountain forests in south-east Australia are far less fire-prone than more recently burnt areas. And forests in south-west Australia have the lowest fire risk when they’ve not been subjected to prescribed burning.
So what did we find? As the understorey of red tingle forest ages and thins, the lower branches of taller plants “self-prune” – in other words, they shed dead leaves and twigs.
When this litter is on the ground, it begins to decay and poses a lower fire risk than if it were still suspended.
The lower branches of taller plants, once self-pruned, are then less likely to ignite as fuel. Instead, they act as “overstorey shelter” that reduces wind speed and fire severity. In this way, mature forests control fire rather than drive it.
Our study showed that, due to this calming effect, fires in mature red tingle forests could be extinguished by firefighters most of the time.
By contrast, our study showed that prescribed burning in red tingle forests creates dense regrowth, which burns severely during bushfires. In such cases, our study showed firefighters are often unable to extinguish the flames and must resort to backburning - a risky fire suppression technique.
One thing is clear: if we still want forests in our flammable country, we must stop burning their defences away.
WA WTF:
As the deadline for stopping logging of WA’s public native forests looms, the Forest Products Commission (FPC) has launched a campaign calling for forestry operators, from around Australia, who may be available to undertake commercial harvesting, ecological thinning, or log haulage, focussed on thinning for ecological health within native forests, increased utilisation of fibre from mining operations, and the harvesting of sharefarms.
https://www.wa.gov.au/government/announcements/campaign-launched-attract-new-forestry-operators
Logging the solution to climate:
For International Day of Forests 2023, the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) Joel Fitzgibbon issued a media release extolling logging as the solution to climate change, claiming we need plantations and regrowth to sequester carbon – forgetting all the carbon released when those big old trees are logged.
“Australia needs climate solutions to meet our emission reduction targets and forest industries should be a key part of the mix. Growing more timber trees in plantations and native forests locks up carbon while increasing our future local supply of sustainable timber and wood fibre. This also enhances Australia’s sovereign capability while creating sustainable jobs for thousands of people, many in rural and regional areas.
https://www.miragenews.com/forest-industries-urged-to-combat-climate-change-970782/
Clearing for wind:
The Queensland Labor government are being accused of “abrogating” their responsibility to protect forests by exempting wind farms from the Vegetation Management Act and the Nature Conservation Act, resulting in forests being clearfelled.
SPECIES
626 new Australian species:
Scientists have named 626 Australian species new to science in the last calendar year, including seven new subspecies, with several of the newly-named species already under threat, including the tube-web spider, a mountain frog, superb myrtles, orchids and a subspecies of white-footed dunnart that are facing pressure from bushfires, feral species and climate change.
Threatened plants contracting:
The Hunter Community Environment Alliance has continued their campaign for the Barrington to Hawkesbury Climate Corridor proposal, with a report from Paul Winn on the climate change impacts on 74 threatened flora species finding 64 (or 86 per cent) are likely to suffer significant contractions, with 38 (or 51 per cent) having no suitable habitat within the next 50 years under a worst case climate scenario.
State Labor has indicated that it supports the report's five recommendations with the exception of a moratorium on further land clearing.
Running down Koalas:
Research commissioned by the Sydney Basin Koala Network found in just one generation of koalas, the number of fatalities from vehicle strikes around Sydney’s basin has doubled and in some places quintupled, coinciding with both urban expansion and koala population growth in that area.
The vehicle-strike research was conducted by ecological consultants Biolink, which found the “dramatic increase” in vehicle strikes around southwest Sydney coincided with both urban expansion and koala population growth in that area.
[WIRES} “The most obvious thing we need to do is preserve their habitat,” she said. “So we need to stop clearing and actively create more habitat. Without food and shelter then extinction can happen.”
Mis-mapping Koala habitat:
Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) have attacked NSW’s State Vegetation Type Mapping (SVTM) as inaccurate and severely under mapping primary koala habitat, thereby falsely highlighting areas where koalas cannot survive, potentially paving the way for devastating habitat clearing.
AKF analysed Port Stephens Local Government Area (LGA), where there is pressure for koalas to be listed as critically endangered due to the drastic decline in Koala numbers. AKF found the new vegetation mapping downgraded their primary habitat by an alarming 80% compared to the Koala Habitat Atlas.
https://www.miragenews.com/experts-warn-of-koala-election-risk-due-to-969519/
Koala refugia:
Researchers are finding good numbers of koalas in the Blue Mountains, and are claiming they will be a climate refugia for Koalas of increasing importance in the future due to its deep gullies and old growth trees which provide a lot of shade and cooling.
The dying Darling:
Richard Kingford recognises the reason for the unprecedent fish kill at Menindee is low oxygen but emphasises it is caused by too much upstream diversion reducing river flows, and the barrier stopping them escaping into the Menindee Lakes, stating “it is a not a natural disaster. It is man-made”.
But two events like this in five years speaks to a deeper cause. The Darling River – known as the Baaka by Barkandji Traditional Owners – is very sick. Too much of its water is siphoned off for agriculture. Our native fish are hardy. They’re used to extremes. But this is too much, even for them.
But our panel also examined the long-term changes to the river. We found the long-term cause for the river’s decline was simple: too much water was being diverted upstream.
It wasn’t just climate change – it was irrigation. We warned it could happen again. Now it has
This is what’s known as a blackwater event (in reality, more greeny-brown). As the floodwaters moved downstream and the Darling’s flow decreased, millions of fish fled the floodplains and found themselves crammed back in the narrow river channel where they were hit by plummeting oxygen levels.
Yes, fish kills have always occurred but not at this scale. The fundamental reason the fish of the Darling keep dying is because there is not enough water allowed to flow.
Ducking for cover:
Ahead of a South Australian parliamentary inquiry into duck shooting, video has been released of hunters walking around with injured birds and a seagull being shot, while the shooters say there’s definitely not an issue there.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-23/rspca-beachport-duck-hunting-video-ahead-of-inquiry/102130602
Rustic forests:
The Conversation has an article on the spreading threat of Myrtle Rust, focussing on the emerging threat to Lord Howe Island.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Now or never for the earth:
The latest IPCC Synthesis Report was released, painting a dire picture of the consequences of proceeding down our current path, with global heating likely to pass 1.5oC by the early 2030s and go on climbing, potentially reaching 4.4oC by 2100 under a worse case scenario, with associated ecosystem collapse under all scenarios, it reinforces that forests are potentially part of the solution “Some options, such as conservation of high-carbon ecosystems (e.g., peatlands, wetlands, rangelands, mangroves and forests), deliver immediate benefits, while others, such as restoration of high-carbon ecosystems, take decades to deliver measurable results”, and “Maintaining the resilience of biodiversity and ecosystem services at a global scale depends on effective and equitable conservation of approximately 30% to 50% of Earth’s land, freshwater and ocean areas, including currently near-natural ecosystems (high confidence). Conservation, protection and restoration of terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and ocean ecosystems, together with targeted management to adapt to unavoidable impacts of climate change reduces the vulnerability of biodiversity and ecosystem services to climate change (high confidence)”.
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/
Forget new coal and gas; the emissions from existing fossil fuel projects, alone, could be enough to blow the remaining global carbon budget by the end of the decade if they carry on unabated.
Rather, with the huge – and cheap and ready – contributions that renewables, energy efficiency and electrification can make to reductions in both carbon and methane emissions, we should be going full steam ahead in the other direction.
Professor Malte Meinshausen from The University of Melbourne, and a member of the report’s core writing team, says the assessment provides an indication of 60% greenhouse gas emission reductions below 2019 levels by 2035, and for CO2, 65%.
For 2030, the goal is for a 43% reduction in greenhouse gas, 48% for CO2, and for methane, roughly a 30% reduction by 2030.
Finally, we need to protect and expand our natural carbon sinks, such as forests, and then deploy carbon capture and storage technology at scale to harvest the warming agent from the atmosphere.
Intergenerational inequities are also likely. A child born now is likely to suffer, on average, several times as many climate extreme events in their lifetime as their grandparents did.
Over the past week in Interlaken, Switzerland, several hundred representatives from most of the world’s governments scrutinised the IPCC report’s 35-page summary. The scrutiny happens sentence by sentence, often word by word, and number by number. Sometimes it’s subject to intense debate.
We were both involved in this process. The role of the reports’ authors and IPCC bureau members is to stay true to the underlying science and chart a way between different governments’ preferences. It is a unique process for scientific documents.
Moving people off flood-prone areas and returning these areas to more natural systems can reduce flood risk, increase biodiversity and store carbon dioxide in plants and soil.
The high immoral ground:
As many animals are retreating to higher elevations as the climate heats, we are expanding our impacts on mountainous forests, a study found 78m hectares (7%) of mountain forest have been lost across the world in the past two decades due to logging, agriculture and wildfires, sharply increasing after 2010 as once relatively inaccessible steep land is increasingly exploited, with Asia, South America, Africa, Europe and Australia all badly affected.
Zhenzhong Zeng from Southern University of Science and Technology, one of the paper’s authors, said: “What needs our attention is that mountain forest loss has encroached on areas of known high conservation value to terrestrial biodiversity, especially in the tropics. Various types of agriculture expansion and forestry activities are key drivers there.”
The paper found that creating protected areas within biodiversity hotspots lowered the rate of loss. “Increasing the area of protection in mountains should be central to preserving montane forests and biodiversity in the future,” it said.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64900743
Growing longer:
The growing period of hardwood forests in eastern North America has increased by an average of one month over the past century as temperatures have steadily risen, a new study has found.
https://www.labmanager.com/news/forest-growing-season-in-eastern-us-has-increased-by-a-month-30016
Wakening sleeping giants:
Logging has reawakened a series of ancient landslides in British Columbia's Cariboo region, costing hundreds of millions in federal disaster assistance funds and prompting warnings that the millions spent will be wasted if the cause isn’t recognised.
The slides and flooding in spring of 2020 and 2021 washed out roadways surrounding Quesnel, where geotechnical studies have also linked ongoing land movement beneath hundreds of homes with historic, slow-moving landslides.
But University of B.C. forestry professor Younes Alila says forest loss due to extensive logging, as well as mountain pine beetle infestation and wildfires, is playing a key role in the hydrological disruptions behind the slides.
Alila said he's concerned money being spent on rebuilding roads will be wasted if officials and engineers don't account for that.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/logging-forest-loss-may-awakened-080000212.html
TURNING IT AROUND
Healthy trees:
Doctors for the Environment Australia (DEA) and WWF Australia have released a report ‘Trees: The forgotten heroes for our health’ that outlines the growing evidence connecting trees and forests to human health and well-being, including how trees cool our communities, minimise the effects of climate change, help protect us from infectious diseases and boost our mental health.
Trees feed us, shelter us from heat, and filter our water and air. They can help reduce stress and lessen depression, anxiety and other mood disorders.
Tree climbing helps children develop strength, spatial awareness, creativity, imagination and self-confidence. Trees encourage people of all ages to exercise.
Intact ecosystems of trees can help prevent some infectious diseases from emerging in humans.
Globally, the loss of trees through deforestation and land use change has increased our exposure to wild animals and the risk of zoonotic diseases, which jump from animals to humans. Up to 70% of emerging infectious diseases worldwide are zoonotic.
Trees fill nature’s medicine chest. Over one-third of all medicines we use today are derived from nature. Who knows how many more remedies are waiting to be discovered in our forests?
We need trees as homes for a wide range of pollinators that help us secure a bountiful and diverse food supply.
We know climate change is one of the greatest threats we currently face and that it’s vital we rapidly transition away from fossil fuels to greener renewable energy solutions. Trees can play a helping hand in mitigating the climate crisis by absorbing and storing carbon dioxide in their trunks and roots,
Trees are critical for supplying, purifying, and protecting freshwater. Trees act like sponges that absorb water when it is plentiful and release it over time, recharging groundwater supplies.
https://dea.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/WWF_DEA_Trees-Health-Report_FINAL_030323.pdf
https://johnmenadue.com/environment-trees-good-plastics-bad-why-dont-governments-turn-it-around/
No end to rorted offsets:
Purchases of carbon credits quadrupled in 2021 to $2 billion, attracting lots of carpetbaggers reaping the profits, short-changing indigenous owners, and failing to deliver claimed benefits, with South Pole, the world’s leading purveyor of offsets, now facing allegations that it exaggerated climate claims around its forest-protection projects, skimmed profits and left lots of companies with devalued carbon credits.
But the claims underpinning South Pole’s success have been losing ground like the ice underfoot that day two summers ago. The company’s biggest moneymaker is a mega-project in Zimbabwe called Kariba, which South Pole claimed has prevented the annihilation of a forest nearly the size of Puerto Rico. That’s South Pole’s business model: help finance projects that can credibly counteract rising levels of greenhouse gas, such as by stopping deforestation, and then sell the resulting credit to corporate clients who want to compensate for their own planet-warming pollution.
Yet according to several outside experts and South Pole’s own analysis, the firm and its partner ended up vastly overestimating the extent of the preservation by Kariba. As a result, Gucci, Nestle, McKinsey and other South Pole clients have — unwittingly — overstated their own progress in combating climate change, because the Kariba credits they bought haven’t generated enough real atmospheric benefit. (South Pole says the credits are legitimate and will still benefit the climate.)
Companies have bought 23 million credits from Kariba, enough to offset more than half of Switzerland’s annual emissions.
But the original prediction of mass deforestation was wildly overstated. The companies generated — and sold — credits for saving trees that, it turns out, weren’t under threat.
In November, Elias Ayrey, chief scientist at carbon ratings firm Renoster, estimated Kariba claimed 30-times more carbon credits than it deserved. Sylvera and Calyx Global, another ratings firm, put the factor at five to eight.
Sylvera estimates that South Pole and CGI would have to operate Kariba for another 25 years to fulfill the credits it’s already generated.
Researchers assessed almost 300 carbon offset projects, responsible for 11% of all carbon offsets ever issued, that aimed to improve forest management and include offsets practices like waiting to harvest trees when they’re older, limiting the number of trees that can be cut per hectare, or minimizing the environmental impact of logging infrastructure such as roads, finding they had been generated against a baseline of aggressive harvesting practices that didn’t align with past practices in the area, meaning developers could have been paid to avoid harvesting that wouldn’t have happened anyway.
An investigation by Bloomberg published in 2022 also found that almost 40% of the offsets purchased in 2021 came from renewable energy projects that didn’t actually avoid emissions. The reality many researchers have found, shows that project developers were often able to generate credits even when no changes in emissions from their actions were made. That issue is urgent and needs to be addressed respectively.
https://carbonherald.com/new-study-shows-further-shortcomings-with-forestry-carbon-offset-projects/
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2023.958879/full
The importance of soil:
A review focuses on the importance of forest soils for storing carbon, especially fungi and bacteria, describing the impact of global change on the forest ecosystem and its microbiome and proposing potential approaches to control the adverse effects of global change on forest stability - you need to pay for access, though there are similar papers accessible on line.
Forests influence climate and mitigate global change through the storage of carbon in soils. In turn, these complex ecosystems face important challenges, including increases in carbon dioxide, warming, drought and fire, pest outbreaks and nitrogen deposition. The response of forests to these changes is largely mediated by microorganisms, especially fungi and bacteria. … The future of forests depends mostly on the performance and balance of fungal symbiotic guilds, saprotrophic fungi and bacteria, and fungal plant pathogens. Drought severely weakens forest resilience, as it triggers adverse processes such as pathogen outbreaks and fires that impact the microbial and forest performance for carbon storage and nutrient turnover.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-023-00876-4
Forest Media 17 March 2023
New South Wales
On Thursday forest protectors walked into closed forests in Yarratt SF, and Doubleduke SF, claiming they have been closed to the public by the Forestry Corporation to hide the destruction that is occurring at taxpayer expense. Brooman State Forest Conservation Group and Friends of the Forest (Mogo), Knitting Nannas in the M.U.D (Milton Ulladulla District) and Manyana Matters Environmental Association had a solidarity action in Bateman’s Bay. There was a good turnout at all locations, with 70 protestors at Doubleduke met by 7 police cars.
On Monday Sean O’Shanessy locked on to the front gate, with a tree-sit attached, to give the Forestry Corporation a taste of their own medicine by shutting access to their headquarters in Pennant Hills. Sean was cut off and let go, the person in the tree-sit came down after their line to the gate was cut, and let go. It got good coverage on Channel 7 in Sydney, but no other mainstream media.
On Saturday Save Bulga Forest dropped a giant fluoro and red banner Save Native Forest across the cliff face of the iconic Ellenborough Falls as a reminder that the water flowing over the waterfall comes from the Bulga forest and that with each truck full of logs taken from the forest the water reservoir that the forests provide, diminishes. NBN had a good story on it. Last Friday, after 2 months of continuous occupation, Lola’s tree-sit in Bulga State Forest was dismantled by the Forestry Corporation when she had to descend to attend a medical appointment. The Daily Telegraph has an article about the court appearances of those arrested at Bulga, the burning Blinky Bill and a motion by Greens councillor Lauren Edwards to Thursdays Port Macquarie-Hastings Council to lobby authorities to halt logging in Bulga.
The News of the Area story about formation of an Orara East action group (covered last week) is online.
There are two new videos doing the rounds, please watch them and get the message out. David Bradbury has prepared a 34m video focussed on the Bulga action, though wide-ranging, “Gondwana Going, Going...Gone?” https://youtu.be/XSm_KxJ2U9Y
Friendly Jordies has prepared the 30m “Valley of Death” based on a visit to Wild Cattle Creek with Mark Graham – more serious than his last on Wedding Bells – while released on March 15 it had 490,000 views when I looked on March 17. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fogLmItSZns
Deanna "Violet" Coco was last year handed a 15-month sentence with a non-parole period of eight months for blocking a lane of the Cahill Expressway for 30 minutes, though on appeal the jail sentence was overturned and she was placed on a 12-month conditional release order, despite the police lying and the prosecution describing her as a "danger to the community".
We thought we had killed it with the change to Federal legislation to stop wood from native forests being eligible for tradeable Large-scale Generation Certificates, but the proposed restart of the Redbank Power Station using 850,000 tonnes of forests to generate electricity has been resurrected as a State Significant Development. Renew Economy has a good background article.
The Sydney Morning Herald has an in-depth article about the coalition’s conservation record, starting with Kean’s deal with the Nationals over Koalas to get their support for renewable energy, declining Koala populations, the National’s act to protect feral horses and their rising numbers, the threefold increase in land clearing, the recent increases in reserves still leaving NSW the second worse in Australia (a quarter of Tasmania’s), which many attribute ‘to horse-trading between Liberals and Nationals’.
Sue Higginson says that being involved in protests in the 1990s shaped the direction of her life, and wants the draconian anti-protest laws repealed for non-violent protestors to give others the chances in life she had.
NSW election
Polls continue to give Labor the lead, though the swings needed for Labor to gain seats indicate its likely to be a close election, with a hung lower house giving minor parties and independents the balance of power, and a power split between left and right parties in the upper house.
Juice Media have a fun brief overview (including forests), giving all the reasons why you should vote for the coalition https://www.thejuicemedia.com/
The ABC has a podcast Matters of State on regional issues that mentions the Koala wars and Leslie Williams defection and Geof Provest’s threat to cross the floor, and the brumby and land use issues, talks about the split between coastal and inland Nationals.
The Bob Brown Foundation hosted a rally in Manly on Sunday to protest the incessant logging and mindless destruction of koala forest habitat under the LNP government over the past twelve years, with speeches by Susie Russell and Sean O’Shannessey, including a march through Manly to James Griffin’s office – though I couldn’t find any mainstream media coverage.
The NSW Greens have outlined seven demands it will make if it ends up holding the balance of power in the NSW parliament after the March 25 state election, including repeal the anti-protest laws and end logging of public native forests.
The Guardian has an article about the crucial environmental issues ahead of the next Government, highlighting, that neither of the major parties are intending to do anything about rampant landclearing (which they are unlikely to be able to continue to ignore), the plight of Koalas (Labor with a Great Koala NP and the coalition $195 million), the failed biodiversity offsets scheme (which Labor says if will fix and the coalition reform), logging of public native forests (which the coalition is proud of and Labor silent on), and the burgeoning emissions from new coal mines (which both support).
News of the Area has Coffs Harbour candidates responses to ‘The environment/Great Koala National Park’, with the ALP’s Mr Judge saying ‘It can be the single greatest environmental and economic boost for Coffs in decades’, the Nationals Mr Singh extolling the government propaganda including that logging has no impacts on Koalas, Independent Dr Townley supporting phasing out logging of native forests, in a mixed response The Greens Mr Nott says the Greens support the GKNP while saying he supports sustainable logging but ‘cannot support logging public forests at an economic loss’ and ‘builders struggle to find local timbers’, with candidates Ms Ellison and Ms Cully also supporting the GKNP.
The Echo put a number of questions to candidates for the seat of Ballina, including (1) should we stop logging of native forests, and (2) should Forestry be held accountable for logging Koala habitat, The Greens simply answered yes and ‘They should be forced to stop’, the Nationals no and ‘I support penalties commensurate with the law being broken’, Labor was more equivocal, recognising forests value for carbon, stating they are ‘committed to creating a Great Koala National Park around Coffs Harbour and at the same time ensure there are no job losses’, supporting a transition to plantations, tourism facilities in new reserves, involvement of all stakeholders in reaching decisions about forest management, and ‘Labor will act to protect Koalas and Koala habitat’(apparently by increasing fines).
The Shooters Fishers and Farmers want to change zoning laws and give farmers freedom to do what they want.
Australia
The Albanese Labor Government is seeking feedback on the principles that will guide which areas could be formally recognised for their contribution to achieving the 30% by 2030 goal, saying they already have 22% protected (mostly desert) but still need to protect an additional 60 million hectares which they intend making up using “other effective area-based conservation measures” (OECMs) - though there is a worry that they could include multiple-use areas (productive landscapes), time to demand they don’t include areas used for logging, that targets be met on a regional basis (with a forest bias as climatic refugia) and that they now protect public native forests. To have your say on OECMs, visit: https://consult.dcceew.gov.au/consult-draft-principles-for-oecms-in-australia
Cosmos has an article about the shambles that Victoria’s phase-out of logging public native forests has become, with VicForests losing $54.2 million last year, unable to meet commitments to customers, blaming the multitude of court cases forcing them to protect habitat of threatened species, accusations of illegal logging, closure of the Maryvale paper plant, and a 2020 assessment that found stopping logging immediately would save taxpayers $192 million.
In south-west Australia, Alcoa has long-term approval to clear jarrah forest for bauxite mining, though all they need to do to claim it is rehabilitated is do some landscaping and some seeding, leaving large areas in a parlous state, with 27,860 hectares of jarrah forest cleared none has rehabilitation completed.
Species
Wild populations of Orange-bellied Parrots are being sustained by captive breeding and release holding extinction at bay as the natural birth rate is too low to compensate for the high death rates of juveniles, though until the threats to their survival in the wild are addressed their population can only survive by regular releases.
Australian Ethical says it has sold its $11m in shareholdings in Lendlease after it failed to provide “critical information” about the width of planned koala corridors at stage two of its Gilead housing development, claiming it is one of the first funds managers in Australia to divest from a company because of concern for an endangered species.
The Growling Grass Frog has not been recorded at Winton Wetlands, in northern Victoria, for more than 50 years, so 30 frogs captured in the wild are being returned to the now rehabilitated wetland, with Chytrid fungus the biggest threat.
Six kangaroos were mowed down and left to die by hoons at Long Beach in Batemans Bay, coming after 14 'roos were killed in October, 2021 in the same area, with one joey surviving the incident.
Researchers have analysed the whiskers of Tasmanian Devils to determine what they eat, finding that in farmland they mostly fed on Tasmanian Pademelon roadkill (which exposes them to becoming roadkill), and in logged forests they also had relatively restricted diets, while in oldgrowth rainforest they had varied diets. Their concentration onto large carcasses in disturbed environments increases the risk of spreading devil facial tumour disease, that has wiped out 68% of their population.
Researchers recommend that learning to live with Dingoes, through guardian animals, deterrents, predator proof paddocks etc, can have benefits for graziers by reducing the competition for pasture from wild herbivores such as kangaroos and goats, as well as killing or scaring off foxes and feral cats – to my mind, the sooner we return dingoes to control ferals the better.
Its horrific, once again millions of dead Bony Bream carpet the surface of the Darling River at Menindee, with an increasing number of golden perch and even a few Murray cod, poor water quality is a likely cause again, possibly deoxygenated flood waters from floodplains.
A new plastic-induced fibrosis in seabirds has been termed plasticosis, which results in scarred digestive tracts affecting their ability to digest food and making them more vulnerable to infection and parasites.
A new plastic-induced fibrosis in seabirds has been termed plasticosis, which results in scarred digestive tracts affecting their ability to digest food and making them more vulnerable to infection and parasites.
Lord Howe Island’s parks have been closed to visitors after an outbreak of the fungus Myrtle Rust, that attacks plants of the myrtaceae family, was found to have spread across most of the park preserve, with the hope that they may be able to eradicate it, like they did in 2016.
Out of roughly 21,000 native Australian vascular plant species 3,715 (or 18%) do not have a single field photograph in major databases, the less charismatic small herbs, plants with tiny or dull flowers, or groups such as grasses or sedges tend to miss out, particularly in remote areas. Many could go extinct without any record of what they looked like alive.
The Deteriorating Problem
An assessment of satellite data found extreme dry and wet events have been increasing since 2002, but the most intense events have been occurring more frequently since 2015 with increased temperatures, proving the increase in extremes due to climate heating.
For the Mediterranean Basin, South and Central Asia, East Africa and the west coasts of North and Central America, the land might be reaching a tipping point in terms of its ability to host significantly forested land and absorb significant amounts of carbon, with extensive forests at risk of turning into scrubland and other ecosystems that don’t act as carbon sinks, causing a “spiraling” effect.
A global rainforest study has found deforestation and forests lost or damaged due to human and environmental change, such as fire and logging, are fast outstripping current rates of forest regrowth, though regrowth can still sequester significant carbon volumes.
Turning it Around
Ian Dunlop argues that we are in a desperate race to avoid locking in a pathway to human extinction due to climate heating, which dwarfs threats from China, Russia or the US, arguing for brutal honesty on the threats, support for the Greens policy of no new fossil fuels, and unprecedented global co-operation.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Refusing to be locked out:
On Thursday forest protectors walked into closed forests in Yarratt SF, and Doubleduke SF, claiming they have been closed to the public by the Forestry Corporation to hide the destruction that is occurring at taxpayer expense. Brooman State Forest Conservation Group and Friends of the Forest (Mogo), Knitting Nannas in the M.U.D (Milton Ulladulla District) and Manyana Matters Environmental Association had a solidarity action in Bateman’s Bay. There was a good turnout at all locations, with 70 protestors at Doubleduke met by 7 police cars.
Locking Forestry Corporation out:
On Monday Sean O’Shanessy locked on to the front gate, with a tree-sit attached, to give the Forestry Corporation a taste of their own medicine by shutting access to their headquarters in Pennant Hills. Sean was cut off and let go, the person in the tree-sit came down after their line to the gate was cut, and let go. It got good coverage on Channel 7 in Sydney, but no other mainstream media.
"The NSW government of Domenic Perrottet allows the Forestry Corporation to operate like a dictatorship. They are secretive and intolerant of dissent. They run a sophisticated propaganda machine aimed at greenwashing the devastation they create in our public forests.
"This rogue Government owned corporation routinely ignores increasingly urgent calls from communities around the state for an end to native forest logging and protection of our increasingly threatened wildlife.
“We are in the midst of a climate emergency and extinction crisis. Forests help stabilise our climate, both by absorbing carbon, regulating water supplies, and cooling the land. Every truckload of logs ripped out of our native forests threatens the possibility of a safe future.
GOOGLE DRIVE LINK TO TO IMAGES & VIDEO
Water and forests:
On Saturday Save Bulga Forest dropped a giant fluoro and red banner Save Native Forest across the cliff face of the iconic Ellenborough Falls as a reminder that the water flowing over the waterfall comes from the Bulga forest and that with each truck full of logs taken from the forest the water reservoir that the forests provide, diminishes. NBN had a good story on it. Last Friday, after 2 months of continuous occupation, Lola’s tree-sit in Bulga State Forest was dismantled by the Forestry Corporation when she had to descend to attend a medical appointment.
The Daily Telegraph has an article about the court appearances of those arrested at Bulga, the burning Blinky Bill and a motion by Greens councillor Lauren Edwards to Thursdays Port Macquarie-Hastings Council to lobby authorities to halt logging in Bulga.
The News of the Area story about formation of an Orara East action group (covered last week) is online:
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/orara-east-group-stand-against-industrial-logging-of-native-forest
Forest videos:
There are two new videos doing the rounds, please watch them and get the message out. David Bradbury has prepared a 34m video focussed on the Bulga action, though wide-ranging, “Gondwana Going, Going...Gone?” https://youtu.be/XSm_KxJ2U9Y
Friendly Jordies has prepared the 30m “Valley of Death” based on a visit to Wild Cattle Creek with Mark Graham – more serious than his last on Wedding Bells – while released on March 15 it had 490,000 views when I looked on March 17. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fogLmItSZns
Justice prevails despite false police evidence:
Deanna "Violet" Coco was last year handed a 15-month sentence with a non-parole period of eight months for blocking a lane of the Cahill Expressway for 30 minutes, though on appeal the jail sentence was overturned and she was placed on a 12-month conditional release order, despite the police lying and the prosecution describing her as a "danger to the community".
Judge Williams rejected the Crown's suggestion Ms Coco was a "danger to the community" and had "no insight into her offending".
The court heard Ms Coco was sentenced on a "false factual basis" after a set of police facts claimed an ambulance under lights and sirens was prevented from attending an emergency due to the incident.
But that claim has since been retracted and Judge Williams asked how it found its way into the matter.
Mr Glover, who has been a firefighter for some 40 years and was at risk of being terminated due to his conviction, was also placed on a 12-month conditional release order and his conviction was set aside.
Redbank rises again:
We thought we had killed it with the change to Federal legislation to stop wood from native forests being eligible for tradeable Large-scale Generation Certificates, but the proposed restart of the Redbank Power Station using 850,000 tonnes of forests to generate electricity has been resurrected as a State Significant Development. Renew Economy has a good background article.
Verdant Earth Technologies Limited (the Applicant) has acquired the power station and is seeking approval to restart and operate the plant using waste wood residues as a sustainable fuel to produce near net zero CO2 emissions and enable the power station to produce “green” electricity. Secondly, it is proposed that pilot trials using alternative fuels will be conducted to support the operations of the power station (the Proposal)
The Proposal would use up to 850,000 tonnes of waste wood residues as a supplementary fuel for conversion into electricity. A key aspect of the Proposal is to operate the power station on sustainable waste wood residues comprising a mix of available legally sourced native and plantation forestry residues, sawmill residues and uncontaminated wood wastes.
https://pp.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/major-projects/projects/restart-redbank-power-station
The problem is, woody biomass – particularly that derived from native forest logging – is quickly losing its green sheen, if it ever had one.
As it stands, burning woody biomass for power does emit carbon dioxide and does involve cutting down forests, which means removing carbon sinks, destroying biodiversity and releasing more CO2 into the atmosphere.
“We call on all political parties to immediately rule out this ridiculous proposal to waste taxpayers’ money to bulldoze our forests and create millions of tonnes of emissions,” said the group’s CEO Jacqui Mumford.
Horse-trading:
The Sydney Morning Herald has an in-depth article about the coalition’s conservation record, starting with Kean’s deal with the Nationals over Koalas to get their support for renewable energy, declining Koala populations, the National’s act to protect feral horses and their rising numbers, the threefold increase in land clearing, the recent increases in reserves still leaving NSW the second worse in Australia (a quarter of Tasmania’s), which many attribute ‘to horse-trading between Liberals and Nationals’.
Modelling predicts that only 496 of the 991 terrestrial species listed as threatened are predicted to survive in 100 years’ time.
[Mummford] “What we have heard from people close to negotiations between [the Nationals] and the Liberals is that they were very transactional in nature, that there were plenty of Liberal ministers who want to do more to protect natural resources, but that they always had to bring a deal to the table.
“I think if you look at the timing of the koala wars and the energy package that Kean got over the line, the timing of that suggests that perhaps there was a deal done.”
When Labor leader Chris Minns launched his party’s campaign last Sunday his speech did not include the word “environment” – a point noted by Griffin.
Unlike the government, Labor supports the creation of a Great Koala National Park on the state’s North Coast, but is in lockstep with the government over maintaining native forest logging opposed by conservationists.
The benefits of protesting:
Sue Higginson says that being involved in protests in the 1990s shaped the direction of her life, and wants the draconian anti-protest laws repealed for non-violent protestors to give others the chances in life she had.
"Engaging at the pointy end of the democratic process and exercising my right to have a voice through non-violent and peaceful civil disobedience empowered me to become a lawyer and fight for community justice in the legal system and now to fight for justice in the parliament."
During the early 90s, Ms Higginson spent months protesting at Chaelundi State Forest, now Chaelundi National Park, in northern NSW.
Aged about 21, she blockaded the area with the North East Forest Alliance to challenge the NSW Forestry Commission's attempts to log thousands of hectares of old-growth forest.
After the 1991 protest, the NSW government adopted its first threatened species legislation, the National Party forests minister was demoted and the Liberal premier and environment minister resigned after corruption hearings.
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/03/greens-will-see-anti-protest-laws-repealed/
NSW election:
Polls continue to give Labor the lead, though the swings needed for Labor to gain seats indicate its likely to be a close election, with a hung lower house giving minor parties and independents the balance of power, and a power split between left and right parties in the upper house.
The Coalition won the 2019 election by a 52-48% statewide margin, so the polls taken in late February that gave Labor between 52% and 53% of the statewide, two-party vote imply a 4-5% swing to Labor from 2019.
On current polling, Labor is unlikely to make the gains it needs to secure its own majority, so there’s a strong likelihood of a hung parliament.
The NSW upper house has 42 members, with 21 up for election
Right-wing parties (the Coalition, One Nation, Shooters and Christian Democrats) currently have a 22-20 upper house majority over left-wing parties (Labor, the Greens and Animal Justice).
With Labor’s current modest lead in the statewide lower house polls, the left is most likely to win 11 of the 21 seats up for election. That would give the left a one-seat gain, but the upper house would be tied at a 21-21 left-right split.
Juice Media have a fun brief overview (including forests), giving all the reasons why you should vote for the coalition https://www.thejuicemedia.com/
The ABC has a podcast Matters of State on regional issues that mentions the Koala wars and Leslie Williams defection and Geof Provest’s threat to cross the floor, and the brumby and land use issues, talks about the split between coastal and inland Nationals.
At 15.50 -19.30
Manly protest:
The Bob Brown Foundation hosted a rally in Manly on Sunday to protest the incessant logging and mindless destruction of koala forest habitat under the LNP government over the past twelve years, with speeches by Susie Russell and Sean O’Shannessey, including a march through Manly to James Griffin’s office – though I couldn’t find any mainstream media coverage.
https://www.facebook.com/Bob.Brown.Foundation
https://www.facebook.com/savebulgaforest
Greens balance of power demands:
The NSW Greens have outlined seven demands it will make if it ends up holding the balance of power in the NSW parliament after the March 25 state election, including repeal the anti-protest laws and end logging of public native forests.
Top of the list is no new coal and gas projects, meaning the end of Santos’ planned coal seam gas project in Narrabri and a pipeline across the Hunter.
“We cannot afford new coal and gas. It’s deadly, it’s dangerous and it will cost us the earth,” federal Greens leader Adam Bandt told the party faithful in Sydney on Saturday.
“Breathtaking” anti-protest laws that lock up grandmothers and students “while the coal and gas companies are given public money to mine, burn and frack our future” would also be on the chopping block, Mr Bandt said.
The party also wants rent controls and a ban on unfair evictions, the start of a community-led treaty process, hospital-wide nurse-to-patient ratios and real wage increases for the public sector.
The women-dominated party expects to retain its three lower house seats, and gets back to a quartet in the upper house.
Lynda-June Coe, a Wiradjuri and Badu Island teacher and activist sitting at No.3 on the upper house ticket, would likely face a battle for the 21st and last seat with Mark Latham-led One Nation, Ms Faehrmann said.
https://michaelwest.com.au/nsw-greens-put-up-a-list-of-balance-of-power-demands/
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/nsw/2023/03/11/nsw-greens-ultimatum-to-minns/
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-11/greens-seek-balance-of-power-after-nsw-election/102084236
https://www.denipt.com.au/national/bandt-to-help-launch-nsw-greens-election-demands/
In any balance of power situation after polling day on March 25th the Greens will fight for real and meaningful action to:
- Ensure no new coal or gas
- Ban unfair evictions and control rents
- Start a community-led Truth and Treaty process
- Repeal the anti-protest laws
- Mandate ratios for nurses & midwives, scrap the public sector wage cap and deliver real wage increases
- End logging of public native forests
- Introduce a mandatory cashless gambling card
Decades of logging have left native forests on the brink, destroying precious habitats for threatened species like koalas. The Greens will move to end native forest logging and protect koala habitat.
https://greens.org.au/nsw/news/media-release/greens-launch-plan-hold-balance-power
The forgotten environment:
The Guardian has an article about the crucial environmental issues ahead of the next Government, highlighting, that neither of the major parties are intending to do anything about rampant landclearing (which they are unlikely to be able to continue to ignore), the plight of Koalas (Labor with a Great Koala NP and the coalition $195 million), the failed biodiversity offsets scheme (which Labor says if will fix and the coalition reform), logging of public native forests (which the coalition is proud of and Labor silent on), and the burgeoning emissions from new coal mines (which both support).
It gets only limited attention in the Sydney media, but there is a significant fight in regional NSW over the ongoing clearing of primary native forest relied on by koalas and other species. About 14,000 hectares of state forest is logged each year.
Protests against logging have intensified in parts of the mid-north and north coasts. Campaigners contrast the situation with Western Australia and Victoria, which have promised to end native forest logging in 2024 and 2030 respectively. In NSW, the Greens have proposed spending $300m on supporting industry and workers through an immediate transition out of native forest logging, but the major parties have not committed to a change.
Coffs Harbour Candidates:
News of the Area has Coffs Harbour candidates responses to ‘The environment/Great Koala National Park’, with the ALP’s Mr Judge saying ‘It can be the single greatest environmental and economic boost for Coffs in decades’, the Nationals Mr Singh extolling the government propaganda including that logging has no impacts on Koalas, Independent Dr Townley supporting phasing out logging of native forests, in a mixed response The Greens Mr Nott says the Greens support the GKNP while saying he supports sustainable logging but ‘cannot support logging public forests at an economic loss’ and ‘builders struggle to find local timbers’, with candidates Ms Ellison and Ms Cully also supporting the GKNP.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-17-march-2023
Ballina candidates:
The Echo put a number of questions to candidates for the seat of Ballina, including (1) should we stop logging of native forests, and (2) should Forestry be held accountable for logging Koala habitat, The Greens simply answered yes and ‘They should be forced to stop’, the Nationals no and ‘I support penalties commensurate with the law being broken’, Labor was more equivocal, recognising forests value for carbon, stating they are ‘committed to creating a Great Koala National Park around Coffs Harbour and at the same time ensure there are no job losses’, supporting a transition to plantations, tourism facilities in new reserves, involvement of all stakeholders in reaching decisions about forest management, and ‘Labor will act to protect Koalas and Koala habitat’(apparently by increasing fines).
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/03/nsw-election-candidate-qa/
Taking aim at environmental zones:
The Shooters Fishers and Farmers want to change zoning laws and give farmers freedom to do what they want.
Kate Richardson (Shooters, Fishers and Farmers): "The SFF has always had the policy that farmers and landholders should be able to manage their properties to reduce the fuel load, reducing the chance of fire on their property. This can be achieved through changes to NSW zoning laws and reducing the red tape involved in this decision-making process.
AUSTRALIA
Achieving 30x30 using OECMs:
The Albanese Labor Government is seeking feedback on the principles that will guide which areas could be formally recognised for their contribution to achieving the 30% by 2030 goal, saying they already have 22% protected (mostly desert) but still need to protect an additional 60 million hectares which they intend making up using “other effective area-based conservation measures” (OECMs) - though there is a worry that they could include multiple-use areas (productive landscapes), time to demand they don’t include areas used for logging, that targets be met on a regional basis (with a forest bias as climatic refugia) and that they now protect public native forests. To have your say on OECMs, visit: https://consult.dcceew.gov.au/consult-draft-principles-for-oecms-in-australia
Other effective area-based conservation measures are defined by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity as:
A geographically defined area other than a Protected Area, which is governed and managed in ways that achieve positive and sustained long-term outcomes for the in-situ conservation of biodiversity, with associated ecosystem functions and services and where applicable, cultural, spiritual, socio-economic, and other locally relevant values.
Once finalised, the new framework will guide landholders on how to meet requirements to achieve OECM recognition.
“We have set an ambitious national target to protect and conserve 30 per cent of our land by 2030. And we are on our way with 22 per cent of Australia’s landmass now protected.
“That means that we still need to protect or conserve an additional 60 million hectares, roughly 9 times the size of Tasmania. High quality conservation areas or other effective area-based conservation measures can help us get there.
. .. OECM recognition should be considered for areas that do not meet the protected area definition, or where formal protected area designation is not possible or supported. For example:
…
- Where the primary purpose is not biodiversity conservation, but the land is managed for biodiversity conservation as a secondary or ancillary purpose, e.g. urban parklands.
- Where connectivity can be achieved between existing protected areas, but the connecting land has a primary purpose not compatible with protection.
Sustainable use that is consistent with conservation outcomes is allowable. Sustainable use is defined under the CBD as the use of components of biological diversity in a way and at a rate that does not lead to the long-term decline of biological diversity, thereby maintaining its potential to meet the needs and aspirations of present and future generations (CBD Article 2).
Recognising that biodiversity conservation does not have to be a primary management objective for OECMs, management arrangements for a site may not relate only to biodiversity conservation. Where the primary objective of a site’s management is not biodiversity conservation, but it is a secondary objective, site management arrangements should include, at a minimum, a section on biodiversity conservation that outlines the conservation objectives for the site, actions to adaptively manage it, and relevant jurisdictional land management requirements.
The collapsing phase out:
Cosmos has an article about the shambles that Victoria’s phase-out of logging public native forests has become, with VicForests losing $54.2 million last year, unable to meet commitments to customers, blaming the multitude of court cases forcing them to protect habitat of threatened species, accusations of illegal logging, closure of the Maryvale paper plant, and a 2020 assessment that found stopping logging immediately would save taxpayers $192 million.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/phasing-out-native-logging-victoria/
Forest mining:
In south-west Australia, Alcoa has long-term approval to clear jarrah forest for bauxite mining, though all they need to do to claim it is rehabilitated is do some landscaping and some seeding, leaving large areas in a parlous state, with 27,860 hectares of jarrah forest cleared none has rehabilitation completed.
SPECIES
Propping up populations to avoid extinction:
Wild populations of Orange-bellied Parrots are being sustained by captive breeding and release holding extinction at bay as the natural birth rate is too low to compensate for the high death rates of juveniles, though until the threats to their survival in the wild are addressed their population can only survive by regular releases.
Inability to mitigate threats may result in lost opportunities for released animals to learn crucial behaviours such as migration or song, and ultimately, the decline of wild populations.
Given the global popularity and visibility of captive breeding programs, it is easy to be lulled into a false sense of security that they are a quick fix for the extinction crisis. However, identifying the threats to wild populations early is crucial because re-establishing “extinct in the wild” species from captivity is extremely difficult, albeit not impossible.
Koala divesting:
Australian Ethical says it has sold its $11m in shareholdings in Lendlease after it failed to provide “critical information” about the width of planned koala corridors at stage two of its Gilead housing development, claiming it is one of the first funds managers in Australia to divest from a company because of concern for an endangered species.
“For over four years we have used our shareholdings in Lendlease to encourage it to strengthen koala protections, but Australian Ethical cannot continue to support a company that appears to be failing to take biodiversity protection seriously,” Australian Ethical spokesperson Amanda Richman said.
Returning the growling:
The Growling Grass Frog has not been recorded at Winton Wetlands, in northern Victoria, for more than 50 years, so 30 frogs captured in the wild are being returned to the now rehabilitated wetland, with Chytrid fungus the biggest threat.
Chytrid fungus is a waterborne fungal pathogen that frogs can pick up through water or direct contact with each other.
"Once it gets into a site, chytrid just continues to spread throughout the populations until the frogs either decline or learn to live with it," Dr West said.
Hoons killing roos:
Six kangaroos were mowed down and left to die by hoons at Long Beach in Batemans Bay, coming after 14 'roos were killed in October, 2021 in the same area, with one joey surviving the incident.
By a whisker:
Researchers have analysed the whiskers of Tasmanian Devils to determine what they eat, finding that in farmland they mostly fed on Tasmanian Pademelon roadkill (which exposes them to becoming roadkill), and in logged forests they also had relatively restricted diets, while in oldgrowth rainforest they had varied diets. Their concentration onto large carcasses in disturbed environments increases the risk of spreading devil facial tumour disease, that has wiped out 68% of their population.
However, the results were different for devil populations in old-growth rainforest habitats which have never been logged. There, devil diets were diverse. Larger devils tended to eat mammals such as Tasmanian pademelons and brushtail possums, and smaller devils consumed birds such as green rosellas.
Over the past 25 years the disease – an aggressive, transmittable parasitic cancer is – has caused Tasmania’s devil population to fall by 68%. And this year the disease was detected for the first time in Tasmania’s north-west, from the same population as many devils in our study.
Only in old-growth rainforests did devils have a diverse diet that lived up to their reputation as opportunists. The results suggest conserving these wild landscapes is vital to protecting Tasmanian devils.
Call for a truce in Dingo wars:
Researchers recommend that learning to live with Dingoes, through guardian animals, deterrents, predator proof paddocks etc, can have benefits for graziers by reducing the competition for pasture from wild herbivores such as kangaroos and goats, as well as killing or scaring off foxes and feral cats – to my mind, the sooner we return dingoes to control ferals the better.
Our research on this area has led to a new Australian guide. This approach relies on a variety of effective non-lethal tools and practices to protect livestock three main ways:
- humans or guardian animals such as dogs and donkeys watch over and defend livestock from dingoes, as well as using fencing to create a physical barrier
- using knowledge about dingo biology and behaviour to find better deterrents, such as the use of lights, sounds or smells
- stronger land management and livestock husbandry to increase the productive capacity of pastures and livestock resilience.
This is not hypothetical. Graziers and landholders already using predator-smart tools and strategies report many benefits. They include:
- fewer animals injured or killed by dingoes
- less time spent stalking and killing dingoes
- lower total grazing pressure from feral grazers such as goats
- boosting pasture growth and livestock profitability.
Landholders for Dingoes promotes the work of landholders who are coexisting with dingoes.
It’s time to modernise Australia’s approach to dingoes. This approach offers a potential win-win for farmers and dingoes, as well as significant gains for nature.
Fucked:
Its horrific, once again millions of dead Bony Bream carpet the surface of the Darling River at Menindee, with an increasing number of golden perch and even a few Murray cod, poor water quality is a likely cause again, possibly deoxygenated flood waters from floodplains.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-17/menindee-fish-kill-pictures-show-mass-deaths-in-nsw/102110570
The curse of plasticosis:
A new plastic-induced fibrosis in seabirds has been termed plasticosis, which results in scarred digestive tracts affecting their ability to digest food and making them more vulnerable to infection and parasites.
Plastic pollution is becoming so prevalent that the scarring was widespread across different ages of birds, according to the study, published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials.
Young birds were found to have the disease, and it is thought chicks were being fed the plastic pollution by parents accidentally bringing it back in food.
They found that the more plastic a bird had ingested, the more scarring it had. The disease can lead to the gradual breakdown of tubular glands in the proventriculus. Losing these glands can cause the birds to become more vulnerable to infection and parasites and affect their ability to digest food and absorb some vitamins.
Myrtle rust spreads to Lord Howe Island:
Lord Howe Island’s parks have been closed to visitors after an outbreak of the fungus Myrtle Rust, that attacks plants of the myrtaceae family, was found to have spread across most of the park preserve, with the hope that they may be able to eradicate it, like they did in 2016.
Plant photos needed:
Out of roughly 21,000 native Australian vascular plant species 3,715 (or 18%) do not have a single field photograph in major databases, the less charismatic small herbs, plants with tiny or dull flowers, or groups such as grasses or sedges tend to miss out, particularly in remote areas. Many could go extinct without any record of what they looked like alive.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Heating extremes:
An assessment of satellite data found extreme dry and wet events have been increasing since 2002, but the most intense events have been occurring more frequently since 2015 with increased temperatures, proving the increase in extremes due to climate heating.
Intense drought and heavy rainfall events occurred more often in the last eight years — the hottest years on record — than in the previous decade, according to a new study released in Nature Water on Monday. Warmer global temperatures are increasing the extent, duration, and severity of these extremes, the authors found, and are having more of an effect than natural climate patterns.
“These findings not only verify model predictions, but also the ‘dry gets drier, wet gets wetter,’ hypothesis,” groundwater scientist Melissa Rohde wrote in a separate review article that appeared in Nature on Monday.
“As the world warms, it’s fair to say that we may expect to see more frequent, more intense droughts and wet events,” said Rodell. “Here, we have the evidence that’s already happening.”
Collapsing forests:
For the Mediterranean Basin, South and Central Asia, East Africa and the west coasts of North and Central America, the land might be reaching a tipping point in terms of its ability to host significantly forested land and absorb significant amounts of carbon, with extensive forests at risk of turning into scrubland and other ecosystems that don’t act as carbon sinks, causing a “spiraling” effect.
Across the globe, landscapes are showing signs of losing their ability to absorb the amount of carbon they once could, according to a study called “Diagnosing destabilization risk in global land carbon sinks,” published in Nature last month. That would pose serious obstacles to the fight against climate change, as carbon storage in forests, peatlands and other ecosystems is key to keeping the global temperature below 1.5° Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit).
Researchers noted that certain parts of the world, such as the Amazon and central and northern Europe, are less likely to see this destabilizing effect. In fact, their capacity for carbon storage has increased in recent years, they said. Nevertheless, they stressed that the countless landscapes across the globe that are at risk of losing carbon storage capacity need to be addressed.
“We need to take care of our land better and not let all the trees get cut down and converted to cropland,” McGuire said. “Trees can hold a lot more carbon than crops or grasslands.”
Stop cutting it down and let it grow back:
A global rainforest study has found deforestation and forests lost or damaged due to human and environmental change, such as fire and logging, are fast outstripping current rates of forest regrowth, though regrowth can still sequester significant carbon volumes.
Although the results demonstrate the important carbon value of conserving recovering forests across the tropics, the total amount of carbon being taken up in aboveground forest growth was only enough to counterbalance around a quarter (26%) of the current carbon emissions from tropical deforestation and degradation.
Co-author Dr Jo House, Reader in Environmental Science and Policy at the University of Bristol, who has authored many international assessments on climate change and forests, said: "Countries have repeatedly made pledges to reduce deforestation and forest degradation and restore deforested areas.
"This is the most cost-effective and immediately available way to remove carbon from the atmosphere, alongside many co-benefits such as biodiversity, flood control and protection of indigenous peoples' livelihoods. Yet targets are repeatedly missed due a lack of serious international co-ordinated support and political will. Our research demonstrates that time is running out."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/03/230315132407.htm
TURNING IT AROUND
Avoiding the existential threat:
Ian Dunlop argues that we are in a desperate race to avoid locking in a pathway to human extinction due to climate heating, which dwarfs threats from China, Russia or the US, arguing for brutal honesty on the threats, support for the Greens policy of no new fossil fuels, and unprecedented global co-operation.
The science has long indicated that, to avoid locking in far worse irreversible climatic tipping points, the current fashion for achieving net zero emissions by 2050 (NZE 2050) is totally inadequate. The objective must be to reach zero emissions as close to 2030 as possible (ZE 2030).
In addition to rapid emission reduction, atmospheric carbon concentrations must be drawn down from the present level of 420 ppm CO2, toward a more stable level below 350 ppm CO2. A task not even mentioned in the Australian debate.
We are in a desperate race to avoid locking in a pathway to human extinction. This requires brutal honesty on the threats we face.
https://johnmenadue.com/negotiating-with-the-laws-of-physics-is-not-good-climate-policy/
Forest Media 10 March 2023
New South Wales
On Thursday a tree sit was rigged from machinery to halt logging advancing through an old growth valley in Doubleduke State Forest. They were unable to get Valerie Thompson out of her tree sit on Thursday, so it continued on Friday. The local ABC had a great interview from Valerie in her tree sit, but then a waffly interview with logging advocate Professor Jerry Vanclay from Southern Cross University saying forests can recover from fire and logging, the action made it onto ABC national news. Andrew George who held up logging in a tree-sit in Doubleduke State Forest for five hours in February, was fined $3,200 in court on Monday, charged with interfering with timber harvesting equipment, carrying on activity in a forestry area that poses a risk to safety, entering a forestry area without permission if prohibited by a displayed notice, and contravening direction to leave a forestry area given by an authorized officer.
Forest actions extend to Shallow Crossing State Forest in the south-east as young indigenous woman Takesa Frank (who initiated the petition to stop native forest logging) occupied a tree sit in a bid to halt logging operations. Protectors later came under attack for leaving the tree-sit and rubbish behind after they were evicted from the forest – as if they had a choice.
Mark Graham, who was arrested in Ellis State Forest and bailed on the condition that he not enter any State forest, appealed the condition in Coffs Harbour court last week, with 50 supporters outside the court and testimonials from a bevy of prominent people who rely on his expertise, the prosecution spuriously argued he needs a scientific licence to enter State forests and the case was adjourned for 2 weeks. A group of 60 residents have formed an action group to protect Orara East State Forest near Coffs Harbour to protect the unburnt refugia for threatened species, including resident Koalas, with concern of logging increasing fire risk, erosion and lantana.
Juliet Lamont, and her daughter Luca, arrested in Yarratt State Forest on January 30 for tree sits, appeared in Taree Court on Wednesday, accompanied by supporters outside and Extinction Rebellion’s animatronic burnt Koala, they pleaded not guilty and the case will be heard at a later date. Prime TV gave the story good coverage. Sydney Criminal Lawyers have an interview with Knitting Nanna Dominique Jacobs about bringing logging in the Bulga Forest to an end, the reasons she’s challenging the Perrottet government’s harsh protest laws, and why it’s important to continue fighting for humanity and planet.
Timberbiz is promoting an online petition by Forest and Wood Communities for people to show their support for sustainable forestry, regional communities and local timber production, citing their PR claims, with 1,502 claimed to have signed on so far. Pentarch Pty Ltd has apparently changed its name to Vertrex Pty Ltd.
NSW Election
A poll for The Sydney Morning Herald, conducted February 22-26 from a sample of 803, gave Labor 38% of the primary vote (up one since January), the Coalition 32% (down two), the Greens 11% (down one), independents 13% (up one) and others 7% (up two), which an analysist though would equate as 56-44 to Labor, a one-point gain for them since January. Another poll gave Labor a 53-47 lead, and another gave Labor a 52.5-47.5 lead.
The ABC has an in-depth NSW election guide by Anthony Green, with an overview and a assessments of every seat. Tweed, with a margin of 5%, is identified as a decider seat. Other north-coast seats to watch are Lismore (Saffin expected to hold), and Port Macquarie (where there will be a contest between the Nationals and Liberals). On the south coast seats to watch are Bega (Labor expected to hold), Kiama (where the disgraced Liberal member turned independent, Labor may win), and Monaro (where Labor has a chance). The Singleton Argus says thanks to a redistribution, the Upper Hunter has a wafer thin margin of 0.5%, making the seat the Coalition's second most marginal seat in the state, identifying newcomer Labor's Peree Watson as a major threat to National’s Mr Layzell being re-elected for a second term, with the Hunter Gas Pipeline a major issue.
The Echo asked all of the candidates in the running for the Seat of Lismore the same set of questions, with The Greens Adam Guise strongly advocating ending logging of public native forests, and the Nationals Alex Rubin strongly advocating for the Dunoon Dam and a crackdown on drugs. The Echo also has profiles of the electorates of Richmond, Ballina, Lismore and Clarence.
Shredding protections for koalas in a bid to reinvigorate the logging industry will be a key priority of the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party (SFF) members if elected on March 25, with the party’s NSW leader declaring: “We don’t believe koala are as endangered as what the major parties are implying” and that they “oppose the Great Koala National Park … it’ll effectively be the death knell of the timber industry”.
Labor’s commitment to protecting public land between Glenfield and Appin as the new Georges River Koala National Park, has been welcomed by conservation groups as saving ‘the koalas in that important area of bushland faster and better’ than what the coalition is proposing – I am surprised this wasn’t done years ago. Chris Minns has put out a statement ‘Saving Koalas from Extinction’ to ‘help save koalas from extinction by protecting key habitats and restoring environmental protections torn up by the Liberals and Nationals over the past 12 years’, emphasising their plans for a review of the Great Koala National Park and to identify and protect wildlife corridors on Sydney water land to link the Heathcote National Park, the Royal National Park and Dharawal National Park. New South Wales Labor has promised to fix the state’s “broken” environmental offsets system if it wins government in March, saying current policies are causing decline of endangered ecosystems instead of avoiding more damage, and they want them to be a last resort.
Peta Pinson, National’s candidate for Port Macquarie expressed her views on climate change at a Meet the Candidates at Laurieton, blaming it on changes in the earth’s solar orbit, and nothing to do with fossil fuels.
Australia
The Albanese government has agreed to the Greens’ demands to ban the $15 billion national reconstruction fund from direct investment in coal, gas and native logging projects, which led to outrage from logging and gas supporters, though Industry minister, Ed Husic said there may be other avenues to fund them.
The Greens have introduced a bill to the Senate to repeal the Regional Forest Agreements Act which grants logging operations an exemption from national environmental laws, also requiring annual statements on how logging is affecting Australia’s progress towards the government’s zero extinctions target, and its commitment to protect 30% of the country’s land areas by 2030.
An article in The Conversation argues the glaring problem with Labor’s safeguard mechanism is that there is still no requirement for polluters to actually cut their emissions as they can choose to buy unlimited carbon credits or offsets to meet their obligations instead, maintaining that carbon stored in soils and trees remains part of the active carbon cycle, while releasing carbon buried for millions of years adds to active carbon.
David Lindenmayer reviewed Victoria’s Immediate Protection Areas (the first areas protected for the transition out of logging), finding they are too small and often established in forests already burned and/or logged, concluding ‘Some areas even appeared to have been chosen because they were no longer needed for logging’. After having lost $52.4 million last year, VicForests was forced to compensate contractors more than $12 million and logging companies $25 million because it could not supply timber, and sent the bill to the Victorian government to pay, blaming court orders preventing timber harvesting until surveys for endangered species had been completed left them with nowhere to log.
The Wilderness Society Tasmania has written to Minister for Tourism and Minister for (Forest) Resources about logging due to take place at Maydena asking that the Government acts to halt the imminent logging of the rainforest next to the Maydena Bike Park and at Junee Cave, two of the town’s premier tourism destinations.
Australia exported $1.3 billion worth of woodchips in 2022, and the company Midway is encouraged that Indonesia has a declining domestic supply of wood while they're expanding their pulp-mill capacity, creating more market opportunities, particularly for their plans to clear 30,000 ha of plantations on Tiwi Island by 2030, with replanting aided by the new carbon credit rules.
John Menadue has an article in Pearls and Irritations commenting on David Lindenmayer’s article about the loss of trees and giant trees in particular, the fight to stop water from Springbrook being sold in 32 million plastic bottles every year, the Doom Loop and the loss of up to 10% of insect species in the last 150 years.
From 13-26 March, WWF are presenting the Earth Hour Film Festival, including The Seeds of Vandana Shiva, The Lake of Scars, Black Cockatoo Crisis, The New Joneses, Regenerating Australia, and Cry of the Forests.
Species
The Sydney Morning Herald has an article about Kosciusko’s critically endangered 10cm Stocky Galaxis, restricted to reaches of streams above waterfalls that introduced trout can’t climb, and in its refuges threatened by horses and the potential of the larger Climbing Galaxias to be introduced by Snowy 2.0.
The Canberra Times has an article focussed on a flying fox colony that roosts in Melbourne’s Yarra Bend Park, discussing their importance as pollinators, their vulnerability to heat stress, attempts to cull them, and Fly By Night’s shelter taking hundreds into care each year, mostly after being caught in tree netting, barbed wire and power lines.
Victorian environmental groups have accused the government of failing to perform due diligence before approving planned burns in Strathbogie Ranges in northern Victoria, known to be home to an unusually large population of the nationally endangered Southern Greater Glider, worried that hundreds could be killed.
Multilevel societies are where individuals belong to family groups, which belong to clans, which belong to tribes, like many traditional human societies, as well as many other species, including Fairy Wrens. To test the bonds for fairy wrens, researchers played distress calls and tested reactions from each hierarchy, with family members responding most fervently and willing to take risks, other members of the community less so and unwilling to take risks, and strangers not at all.
The building of a feral-proof exclusion fence to cordon off the 50,000-hectare Wilsons Promontory sanctuary has led to scientists to call for it to be ‘rewilded’ with apex predators such as dingoes, Tasmanian devils, spotted-tailed quolls and eastern quolls to control populations of native species and restore ecological balance, even calling for dingoes to be introduced to control the ferals before the project is completed.
Attempts to remove brumbies from the river red gum forests in the Barmah-Millewa forest, on both sides of the Murray River are being met with strong local opposition, most are in the Barmah National Park, on the Victorian side of the border, where the plan is to reduce them from 540 in 2020 to 100 by 2023, with the end goal of removing all brumbies, though locals say the floods may have already achieved this.
The Deteriorating Problem
In a familiar story, police (backed by local politicians) have moved to forcibly remove the blockades put up by indigenous Penan groups in Sarawak to attempt to discourage the loggers who have been laying illegal waste to some of the regions last remaining virgin forests and ‘protected’ Belian species.
The 2019/20 wildfires took out 1% of the atmosphere’s ozone (damage that will take a decade to fix), the smoke transported substances containing chlorine into the stratosphere where it destroys ozone molecule by molecule, meaning the ozone layer will be slowly degraded as wildfires increase in frequency and intensity due to climate heating.
Killing thousands and displacing tens of millions, flash floods can be more devastating in drylands than in wetter areas because parched soils repel water rather than allowing it to soak in, drylands experience less than half (47%) of deadly flash floods globally, yet saw almost three-quarters (74%) of related deaths, the frequency of sudden inundations is skyrocketing due to the warming atmosphere holding more water, with the proportion of the world’s land area classed as arid or semi-arid projected to increase as the world warms — from 41% in 2000 to 48% by 2025.
A long-running drought in the Horn of Africa is expected to continue for the next three months as forecasters predict dry weather during this year’s March-to-May rainy season, likely creating the worst drought on record, expected to result in a famine worse than that in 2011 when 260,000 people in the region died of starvation.
Another study confirms the importance of tropical forests in recycling rainfall back into the atmosphere to generate region wide increases in rainfall, showing that clearing rainforest decreases regional rainfalls, finding that at a scale of 200 km a 1 percentage point of forest loss reduced precipitation by 0.25 ± 0.1 mm per month.
Climate heating has left a fifth of the conifer forests that blanket California's Sierra Nevada stranded in habitats that no longer suit them, with researchers finding that over the past 90 years they had shifted about 112 feet higher in elevation, though their climatically suitable habitat has shifted about 600 feet higher, leaving behind mature trees but no youngsters, meaning that if the mature trees are logged or killed in an extreme event the forest can’t grow back, an expanding zombie forest.
Turning it Around
In America a start-up Living Carbon, raised $21 million earlier this year to plant 5 million genetically modified poplar trees, which they say grow 50% faster and capture 27% more carbon than before, so that they can use them to generate carbon credits (and then log them). And this is only the start.
As part of its Deforestation Inc. reporting, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism has uncovered dozens of forestry product companies that publicly promoted their green credentials to consumers and investors, all the while parts of their operations were linked to questionable suppliers or facing allegations of environmental wrongdoing, providing three case studies.
Researchers have designed an algorithm that uses a smartphone LiDAR sensor to estimate trunk diameter automatically from a single image in realistic field conditions, the researchers plan to make their app publicly available for Android phones later this spring.
All across Scandinavia, some pre-schools are ensuring kids get regular time outdoors where children play in the woods and learn to appreciate nature, some bussing them in from urban areas, and come rain, sleet or snow, young children nap outside even in mid-winter.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Trouble in Doubleduke:
On Thursday a tree sit was rigged from machinery to halt logging advancing through an old growth valley in Doubleduke State Forest. They were unable to get Valerie Thompson out of her tree sit on Thursday, so it continued on Friday. The local ABC had a great interview from Valerie in her tree sit, but then a waffly interview with logging advocate Professor Jerry Vanclay from Southern Cross University saying forests can recover from fire and logging, the action made it onto ABC national news.
Spokesperson Naomi Shine says “We all want these magnificent old trees to continue to exist in this native forest that is right on our doorstep – along with the diversity of wildlife they are home to. Saving these towering trees also supports climate stability on which all life depends. It is time to end native forest logging for good.”
Ecologist Anastasia Guise says “Doubleduke is a rare and important native forest that is home to all three great owls – the Powerful Owl, Masked Owl and Barking Owl, as well as a range of other vulnerable species such as our iconic koala. It is also a hotspot for the vulnerable Yellow-bellied glider, spotted in this forest less than a week ago.”
[Tree sitter Valerie Thompson said on Friday] “At the moment it’s not looking good. We had hoped that the Forestry Corporation would leave these giants, but we’ve seen one on a log truck and another in the log dump.
“I felt compelled to do something, hoping against hope that as a result of my helping to bring this travesty to public attention someone in authority might be prepared to negotiate. I understand a formal complaint is being submitted today about Forestry’s breaches and calling for an immediate Stop Work Order. I’d be happy to free the machines if they’ll let the old trees live in peace.
Andrew George who held up logging in a tree-sit in Doubleduke State Forest for five hours in early February, was fined $3,200 in court on Monday, charged with interfering with timber harvesting equipment, carrying on activity in a forestry area that poses a risk to safety, entering a forestry area without permission if prohibited by a displayed notice, and contravening direction to leave a forestry area given by an authorized officer.
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/03/man-in-court-over-nonviolent-action-halting-logging/
Stopping Crossing:
Forest actions extend to Shallow Crossing State Forest in the south-east as young indigenous woman Takesa Frank (who initiated the petition to stop native forest logging) occupied a tree sit in a bid to halt logging operations. Protectors later came under attack for leaving the tree-sit and rubbish behind after they were evicted from the forest – as if they had a choice.
[Sue Higginson] “The ongoing conflicts in our forests across the state are a result of government inaction and a policy to destroy our most precious natural resources. Community members shouldn’t have to take matters into their own hands like this, but unfortunately they are left with no choice.
[Takesa Frank] “My family fought the fires to protect our home and the neighbouring Shallow Crossing State Forest. My family knows this forest. We hear the Powerful Owl calling at night. We see endangered Gang - Gangs raising their young, in the hollows of big old trees. My sister and I learned to swim in the Clyde River and played through the forest as kids. Takesa said.
https://www.suehigginson.org/shallow_crossing_state_forest
Punitive bail conditions:
Mark Graham, who was arrested in Ellis State Forest and bailed on the condition that he not enter any State forest, appealed the condition in Coffs Harbour court last week, with 50 supporters outside the court and testimonials from a bevy of prominent people who rely on his expertise, the prosecution spuriously argued he needs a scientific licence to enter State forests and the case was adjourned for 2 weeks.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-10-march-2023
Orara East getting organised:
A group of 60 residents have formed an action group to protect Orara East State Forest near Coffs Harbour to protect the unburnt refugia for threatened species, including resident Koalas, with concern of logging increasing fire risk, erosion and lantana.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-10-march-2023
Burning Koalas:
Juliet Lamont, and her daughter Luca, arrested in Yarratt State Forest on January 30 for tree sits, appeared in Taree Court on Wednesday, accompanied by supporters outside and Extinction Rebellion’s animatronic burnt Koala, they pleaded not guilty and the case will be heard at a later date. Prime TV gave the story good coverage.
Juliet Lamont. … ‘It is unbelievable that the NSW Government can talk about doubling koala numbers and spending millions on their recovery when what they are really doing is greenwashing. Koalas don’t eat money. They have their favourite trees and they live in colonies. Unless we identify and protect those colonies, koalas won’t survive in the wild. It’s as simple as that.
Why protest?
Sydney Criminal Lawyers have an interview with Knitting Nanna Dominique Jacobs about bringing logging in the Bulga Forest to an end, the reasons she’s challenging the Perrottet government’s harsh protest laws, and why it’s important to continue fighting for humanity and planet.
Firstly, and very simply, to address the climate emergency we are told that we must stop deforestation and any new fossil fuel projects.
Can you believe that we are destroying forests and it’s costing us to do this? I’m a wildlife carer. I know that life is tough out there for our animals.
The climate movement has failed to acknowledge the vital role of forests in carbon capture and storage, as well as providing shade and coolth and water.
Saving logging:
Timberbiz is promoting an online petition by Forest and Wood Communities for people to show their support for sustainable forestry, regional communities and local timber production, citing their PR claims, with 1,502 claimed to have signed on so far.
“This issue has become a key election platform for political opportunists, but we can show the Government that our vital timber sector and the timber communities it supports are more important than unnecessarily locking up more bush.”
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/sign-the-petition-to-save-timber-communities-and-sustainable-forestry/
Pentarch Pty Ltd has apparently changed its name to Vertrex Pty Ltd.
NSW Election
A poll for The Sydney Morning Herald, conducted February 22-26 from a sample of 803, gave Labor 38% of the primary vote (up one since January), the Coalition 32% (down two), the Greens 11% (down one), independents 13% (up one) and others 7% (up two), which an analysist though would equate as 56-44 to Labor, a one-point gain for them since January. Another poll gave Labor a 53-47 lead, and another gave Labor a 52.5-47.5 lead.
The ABC has an in-depth NSW election guide by Anthony Green, with an overview and a assessments of every seat. Tweed, with a margin of 5%, is identified as a decider seat. Other north-coast seats to watch are Lismore (Saffin expected to hold), and Port Macquarie (where there will be a contest between the Nationals and Liberals). On the south coast seats to watch are Bega (Labor expected to hold), Kiama (where the disgraced Liberal member turned independent, Labor may win), and Monaro (where Labor has a chance).
https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/nsw/2023/guide/preview
The Singleton Argus says thanks to a redistribution, the Upper Hunter has a wafer thin margin of 0.5%, making the seat the Coalition's second most marginal seat in the state, identifying newcomer Labor's Peree Watson as a major threat to National’s Mr Layzell being re-elected for a second term, with the Hunter Gas Pipeline a major issue.
The Hunter Gas Pipeline, acquired by gas producer Santos in August 2022, was mentioned in the May 2021 by-election but this election for affected landholders from the Upper Hunter right through to Maitland it is major election issue.
The Echo asked all of the candidates in the running for the Seat of Lismore the same set of questions, with The Greens Adam Guise strongly advocating ending logging of public native forests, and the Nationals Alex Rubin strongly advocating for the Dunoon Dam and a crackdown on drugs.
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/03/election-2023-lismore-qa-local-and-state-issues/
The Echo also has profiles of the electorates of Richmond, Ballina, Lismore and Clarence.
https://www.echo.net.au/category/elections/nsw-elections/
Shooters take aim at Koalas:
Shredding protections for koalas in a bid to reinvigorate the logging industry will be a key priority of the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party (SFF) members if elected on March 25, with the party’s NSW leader declaring: “We don’t believe koala are as endangered as what the major parties are implying” and that they “oppose the Great Koala National Park … it’ll effectively be the death knell of the timber industry”.
Top of that list is slashing away at koala protection policies brought in by the NSW government, with Mr Borsak also saying the party opposes a national park specifically formed to protect koalas on the north coast near Coffs Harbour.
“We oppose the Great Koala National Park … it’ll effectively be the death knell of the timber industry,” he said.
Mr Borsak said forests used for logging provided safer habitats for koalas as they were actively managed, unlike national parks.
Another Koala park:
Labor’s commitment to protecting public land between Glenfield and Appin as the new Georges River Koala National Park, has been welcomed by conservation groups as saving ‘the koalas in that important area of bushland faster and better’ than what the coalition is proposing – I am surprised this wasn’t done years ago.
Chris Minns has put out a statement ‘Saving Koalas from Extinction’ to ‘help save koalas from extinction by protecting key habitats and restoring environmental protections torn up by the Liberals and Nationals over the past 12 years’, emphasising their plans for a review of the Great Koala National Park and to identify and protect wildlife corridors on Sydney water land to link the Heathcote National Park, the Royal National Park and Dharawal National Park.
Labor will also use partnerships, planning, cooperation, and the levers of government to:
- Complete the National Parks and Wildlife Service ‘National Parks Establishment Plan’ to identify key habitat and wildlife corridors, and expand protected areas into the future.
- Convene a koala summit with all key stakeholders to review and refocus the NSW Koala Strategy to ensure it is a legitimate recovery plan for koala populations across NSW.
- Ensure the statutory review of the Biodiversity Conservation Act strengthens environmental protections, stops run away land clearing, and fixes the biodiversity offset scheme.
- Work cooperatively with landowners (public agencies, First Nations, Councils, farmers and other private land holders) to develop ways to protect key habitat through partnerships & investment on all types of land.
- Work cooperatively with the Commonwealth Government to meet the objectives of the Threatened Species Action Plan 2022-2032 and the 30% protected areas by 2030 commitment to meet the goal of no new extinctions.
https://www.chrisminns.com.au/savingkoalasfromextinction
Fixing offsetting:
New South Wales Labor has promised to fix the state’s “broken” environmental offsets system if it wins government in March, saying current policies are causing decline of endangered ecosystems instead of avoiding more damage, and they want them to be a last resort.
Sharpe said she wanted to ensure the right standards for maintaining and improving habitat were in place and planned to address the practice of “double-dipping”, where lands already set aside for conservation purposes are traded again as offsets.
Another National’s climate denier:
Peta Pinson, National’s candidate for Port Macquarie expressed her views on climate change at a Meet the Candidates at Laurieton, blaming it on changes in the earth’s solar orbit, and nothing to do with fossil fuels.
NASA admits that climate change occurs because of changes in the earth’s solar orbit and not because of SUVs and fossil fuels… fraud… I’m not convinced because there is alternate information … net zero to cost up to 130,000 jobs … I can’t buy into something there is an alternate viewpoint on
45.36 m in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn-dKjztjM0
AUSTRALIA
Denying funding for gas and logging:
The Albanese government has agreed to the Greens’ demands to ban the $15 billion national reconstruction fund from direct investment in coal, gas and native logging projects, which led to outrage from logging and gas supporters, though Industry minister, Ed Husic said there may be other avenues to fund them.
Allman-Payne said the Coalition “tried to use public money to fund coal and gas through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and they were unable to do so because of the guardrails that the Greens and Labor put in place”.
JLN senator, Tammy Tyrrell, responded furiously to the deal, arguing it breached a commitment by Anthony Albanese in May 2022 to support native forest harvesting.
“Giving in to the Greens’ demands is a smack in the face to Tasmanians,” Tyrrell said.
Industry minister, Ed Husic … noted that there “may be other vehicles that support” the list of investments now prohibited in the NRF, that is in coal, gas and native-forests logging.
Repealing RFAs:
The Greens have introduced a bill to the Senate to repeal the Regional Forest Agreements Act which grants logging operations an exemption from national environmental laws, also requiring annual statements on how logging is affecting Australia’s progress towards the government’s zero extinctions target, and its commitment to protect 30% of the country’s land areas by 2030.
[Janet Rice] the Regional Forest Agreements have allowed for decades of reckless destruction of native forests across Australia, pushed native wildlife to the brink of extinction, endangered our water supplies, heightened bushfire risk, and made the climate crisis worse.
If passed, this bill will end the destructive logging of Australia’s precious native forests, by repealing the Regional Forest Agreements and closing the loopholes used by the logging industry to skirt our national environment laws.
Fossil carbon adds to active carbon:
An article in The Conversation argues the glaring problem with Labor’s safeguard mechanism is that there is still no requirement for polluters to actually cut their emissions as they can choose to buy unlimited carbon credits or offsets to meet their obligations instead, maintaining that carbon stored in soils and trees remains part of the active carbon cycle, while releasing carbon buried for millions of years adds to active carbon.
When we burn fossil fuels, we release carbon locked away for millions of years (hence “fossil” fuels), pumping vast new volumes of carbon into the active carbon cycle.
They cannot solve the central problem which is that every year, we add another 33 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels.
Reserving stuffed forest:
David Lindenmayer reviewed Victoria’s Immediate Protection Areas (the first areas protected for the transition out of logging), finding they are too small and often established in forests already burned and/or logged, concluding ‘Some areas even appeared to have been chosen because they were no longer needed for logging’.
The number of sites occupied by species teetering on the edge of extinction, such as Leadbeater’s Possum, has fallen by half in the last 25 years. Logging is a major driver of its decline.
As important as the size of the areas of land protected is what lives on it, and the ecosystem services it provides. To prevent extinctions in Australia, some ecosystems will need total protection of every fragment remaining, especially those under significant threat where key species are in marked decline.
Victorian’s pay for not logging:
After having lost $52.4 million last year, VicForests was forced to compensate contractors more than $12 million and logging companies $25 million because it could not supply timber, and sent the bill to the Victorian government to pay, blaming court orders preventing timber harvesting until surveys for endangered species had been completed left them with nowhere to log.
Logging or tourism:
The Wilderness Society Tasmania has written to Minister for Tourism and Minister for (Forest) Resources about logging due to take place at Maydena asking that the Government acts to halt the imminent logging of the rainforest next to the Maydena Bike Park and at Junee Cave, two of the town’s premier tourism destinations.
https://tasmaniantimes.com/2023/03/tws-call-for-halt-to-maydena-logging/
Woodchipping booming:
Australia exported $1.3 billion worth of woodchips in 2022, and the company Midway is encouraged that Indonesia has a declining domestic supply of wood while they're expanding their pulp-mill capacity, creating more market opportunities, particularly for their plans to clear 30,000 ha of plantations on Tiwi Island by 2030, with replanting aided by the new carbon credit rules.
More about the Doom Loop:
John Menadue has an article in Pearls and Irritations commenting on David Lindenmayer’s article about the loss of trees and giant trees in particular, the fight to stop water from Springbrook being sold in 32 million plastic bottles every year, the Doom Loop and the loss of up to 10% of insect species in the last 150 years.
https://johnmenadue.com/environment-does-bad-news-about-the-environment-create-doom-loops/
Earth Hour Film Festival:
From 13-26 March, WWF are presenting the Earth Hour Film Festival, including The Seeds of Vandana Shiva, The Lake of Scars, Black Cockatoo Crisis, The New Joneses, Regenerating Australia, and Cry of the Forests.
https://documentaryaustralia.com.au/earth-hour/?mc_cid=36d8b84d31&mc_eid=f89b379131
SPECIES
Guardians of the Galaxis:
The Sydney Morning Herald has an article about Kosciusko’s critically endangered 10cm Stocky Galaxis, restricted to reaches of streams above waterfalls that introduced trout can’t climb, and in its refuges threatened by horses and the potential of the larger Climbing Galaxias to be introduced by Snowy 2.0.
Night bees:
The Canberra Times has an article focussed on a flying fox colony that roosts in Melbourne’s Yarra Bend Park, discussing their importance as pollinators, their vulnerability to heat stress, attempts to cull them, and Fly By Night’s shelter taking hundreds into care each year, mostly after being caught in tree netting, barbed wire and power lines.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8108345/bees-of-the-night-crucial-for-australias-forests/
Burning gliders:
Victorian environmental groups have accused the government of failing to perform due diligence before approving planned burns in Strathbogie Ranges in northern Victoria, known to be home to an unusually large population of the nationally endangered Southern Greater Glider, worried that hundreds could be killed.
Multilevel societies:
Multilevel societies are where individuals belong to family groups, which belong to clans, which belong to tribes, like many traditional human societies, as well as many other species, including Fairy Wrens. To test the bonds for fairy wrens, researchers played distress calls and tested reactions from each hierarchy, with family members responding most fervently and willing to take risks, other members of the community less so and unwilling to take risks, and strangers not at all.
Predators needed for rewilding:
The building of a feral-proof exclusion fence to cordon off the 50,000-hectare Wilsons Promontory sanctuary has led to scientists to call for it to be ‘rewilded’ with apex predators such as dingoes, Tasmanian devils, spotted-tailed quolls and eastern quolls to control populations of native species and restore ecological balance, even calling for dingoes to be introduced to control the ferals before the project is completed.
“There is strong scientific evidence from Australia and elsewhere to indicate that the planned eradication of all introduced predators from Wilsons Promontory would profoundly harm overall biodiversity unless pre-European predators, including dingoes, are returned to maintain predator pressure,” the letter states.
They suggest dingoes could be reintroduced to control animals like kangaroo and wallabies, Tasmanian devils to control wallabies, spot-tailed quoll to control possums, and eastern quoll to reduce rat and rabbit populations.
“Parks Victoria could potentially save a lot of time, money and killing of animals if they were to reintroduce dingoes up front and not wait for the eradication of introduced species, which could take years,” said Yugovic.
Another front in the brumby battle:
Attempts to remove brumbies from the river red gum forests in the Barmah-Millewa forest, on both sides of the Murray River are being met with strong local opposition, most are in the Barmah National Park, on the Victorian side of the border, where the plan is to reduce them from 540 in 2020 to 100 by 2023, with the end goal of removing all brumbies, though locals say the floods may have already achieved this.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
A familiar tale:
Police (backed by local politicians) have moved to forcibly remove the blockades put up by indigenous Penan groups in Sarawak to attempt to discourage the loggers who have been laying illegal waste to some of the regions last remaining virgin forests and ‘protected’ Belian species.
Such has been the Hii and Lau familys’ contribution to mankind and their present to our maker. However, like obese bed-ridden gluttons, it is clear that these companies and their directors can never be satiated, exercise restraint or abide by the proper way of doing things.
If there are still living things that can be killed and turned to cash they desperately want to be the ones to do it.
They will push and grab and employ every device to force their way in to snatch from those indigenous folk who have so little with which to protect their lands.
In their pockets, the GPS government and political masters kept fed for decades by the same tycoon companies.
Burning the Ozone Layer
The 2019/20 wildfires took out 1% of the atmosphere’s ozone (damage that will take a decade to fix), the smoke transported substances containing chlorine into the stratosphere where it destroys ozone molecule by molecule, meaning the ozone layer will be slowly degraded as wildfires increase in frequency and intensity due to climate heating.
It means the ozone layer will be slowly degraded by wildfire smoke. Fires burn in both northern and southern hemispheres, and their smoke is swept around the globe by natural processes. That means we’re likely to see falling ozone concentrations in new places rather than just around the South Pole. Affected areas would include the mid-latitudes around the equator, where billions of people live.
… Bushfire smoke could undo the good work of the Montreal Protocol.
In retrospect, achieving this protocol seems relatively straightforward: ban one class of chemicals. To stop bushfire smoke eating away at our ozone umbrella means reversing climate change. And that is something we are struggling to do.
Flashy floods:
Killing thousands and displacing tens of millions, flash floods can be more devastating in drylands than in wetter areas because parched soils repel water rather than allowing it to soak in, drylands experience less than half (47%) of deadly flash floods globally, yet saw almost three-quarters (74%) of related deaths, the frequency of sudden inundations is skyrocketing due to the warming atmosphere holding more water, with the proportion of the world’s land area classed as arid or semi-arid projected to increase as the world warms — from 41% in 2000 to 48% by 2025.
Last year, around two-thirds of Pakistan was affected by widespread flash flooding, with more than 1,500 people killed and around 33 million made homeless. Almost 2,000 people died in flash floods across Africa, and parts of the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Yemen were inundated with water.
For example, protection measures might encourage more development in flood-prone areas — as was the case in Columbia, South Carolina, which experienced extensive damage from a flash flood in 2015. And dams and levees built to hold back small floods could offer a false sense of security from rare, extreme inundations7, including one that flooded the Atacama region in South America in 2015. Failure of one protection element, such as a reservoir, can send flood waters cascading downstream, as was narrowly averted at California’s Oroville Dam in 2017. The environmental impacts need to be understood, such as those resulting from stopping the silt and sediment that fertilize the floodplain.
In flood-prone areas, governments should develop plans for temporary and even permanent resettlement. Elevated roads, evacuation routes and emergency shelters must be designed, such as those used in Indonesia for tsunamis and in the United States for hurricanes. In the longer term, as climate-change impacts accelerate, managed retreat might be required8. For example, the Chinese government has relocated more than 600,000 people from flash-flood zones in the arid mountains of southern Shaanxi province over the past decade.
Record drought expected in Horn of Africa:
A long-running drought in the Horn of Africa is expected to continue for the next three months as forecasters predict dry weather during this year’s March-to-May rainy season, likely creating the worst drought on record, expected to result in a famine worse than that in 2011 when 260,000 people in the region died of starvation.
“The Horn of Africa may soon see its worst drought on record, ,” reports New Scientist. “This would be the sixth consecutive failed rainy season in parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia since the end of 2020.”
“This would be the sixth consecutive failed rainy season in parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia since the end of 2020.”
So far, “the severe drought, along with conflict and ongoing economic pressures, has displaced more than a million people, and led to a hunger crisis for more than 20 million others,” the UK-based publication adds.
“This drought is slowly killing everything,” Mahmoud Geedi Ciroobay, a nomadic pastoralist from Kalsheikh, Somaliland, told Oxfam International. First it took the land and the pastures; then it took the animals, which became weaker and eventually died. Soon, it will take the people, he said.
“Communities are experiencing the severe impacts of the climate crisis in many forms such as severe drought. And conversely, in some areas, flooding, changing weather patterns, and its impacts are undermining food production and traditional livelihoods.”
Forests 4 rainfall:
Another study confirms the importance of tropical forests in recycling rainfall back into the atmosphere to generate region wide increases in rainfall, showing that clearing rainforest decreases regional rainfalls, finding that at a scale of 200 km a 1 percentage point of forest loss reduced precipitation by 0.25 ± 0.1 mm per month.
In the Amazon and Congo river basins, somewhere between a quarter and a half of all rainfall comes from moisture pumped from the forest itself. This recycling of moisture helps to maintain the large amounts of rainfall tropical forests need.
Our work suggests that so much tropical forest has been cleared globally over the past two decades that the tropical forest heartbeat has started to slow, resulting in less rainfall in the surrounding regions. We estimate that if tropical forests continue to be cleared, rainfall could decrease by an additional 10% by 2100 over the most heavily deforested regions. If enough forests are cleared and rainfall declines too much, a tipping point could be reached where there is not enough rain to sustain the remaining forests.
Conservation is often perceived as a trade-off, but the local and regional climate benefits of healthy forests can reduce heat stress, boost crop yields and maintain stable water flows to predictably generate hydroelectricity. It can make more economic sense to protect forests rather than clear them.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05690-1
Zombie forests:
Climate heating has left a fifth of the conifer forests that blanket California's Sierra Nevada stranded in habitats that no longer suit them, with researchers finding that over the past 90 years they had shifted about 112 feet higher in elevation, though their climatically suitable habitat has shifted about 600 feet higher, leaving behind mature trees but no youngsters, meaning that if the mature trees are logged or killed in an extreme event the forest can’t grow back, an expanding zombie forest.
Mature trees are able to survive even after their local climate has shifted, but the species is not likely to grow back in these areas after a major disturbance, like a catastrophic wildfire, logging event or period of extreme drought. Instead, the study found, the forest is more likely to be replaced by smaller, shrublike vegetation that is adapted to warmer, drier conditions.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/06/climate/california-zombie-forests.html
TURNING IT AROUND
Mass release of genetically modified trees:
In America a start-up Living Carbon, raised $21 million earlier this year to plant 5 million genetically modified poplar trees, which they say grow 50% faster and capture 27% more carbon than before, so that they can use them to generate carbon credits (and then log them). And this is only the start.
https://qz.com/living-carbon-genetically-modified-trees-climate-change-1850163716
Deforestation Inc.:
As part of its Deforestation Inc. reporting, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism has uncovered dozens of forestry product companies that publicly promoted their green credentials to consumers and investors, all the while parts of their operations were linked to questionable suppliers or facing allegations of environmental wrongdoing, providing three case studies.
https://www.icij.org/investigations/deforestation-inc/green-claims-case-studies/
Using phones to measure trees:
Researchers have designed an algorithm that uses a smartphone LiDAR sensor to estimate trunk diameter automatically from a single image in realistic field conditions, the researchers plan to make their app publicly available for Android phones later this spring.
Amelia Holcomb, Linzhe Tong, and Srinivasan Keshav. ‘Robust Single-Image Tree Diameter Estimation with Mobile Phones.’ Remote Sensing (2023). DOI: 10.3390/rs15030772
Prepping environmental appreciation:
All across Scandinavia, some pre-schools are ensuring kids get regular time outdoors where children play in the woods and learn to appreciate nature, some bussing them in from urban areas, and come rain, sleet or snow, young children nap outside even in mid-winter.
The educators all agree: young children who spend their days outside have better self-confidence and are sick less often.
In the 1920s, an Icelandic doctor recommended that babies sleep outdoors to strengthen their immune systems, a practice now common across the Nordic countries and which the medical community has never contradicted.
"They get a lot of fresh air, (so) they sleep longer, they sleep better," said Johanna Karlsson, the head of the "Ur & Skur" (Come Rain or Shine) preschool, unbothered by the day's temperature of five degrees Celsius (41 Fahrenheit).
Forest Media 3 March 2023
A tree sit, capturing machines tied by ropes to a tree platform, was established in Ballengarra State Forest south of Kempsey, with the sitter soil scientist Tim Evans stating “We can't afford to lose more biodiversity, these forests represent diminishing ecosystems that are crucial for our survival. Without these forests we have no hope of restoring a functional, safe climate”. He held up logging for 9 hours before being arrested. The tree sit in Bulga State Forest has been in place now for over 50 days.
NBN has a comprehensive story on the growing momentum to stop logging of public native forests, focussing on Bulga State Forest and MidCoast Council’s support for protecting it. Ex-forester Kevin Carter, now with the Bulahdelah Chamber of Commerce and Tourism, has called on the MidCoast Council to reconsider their unanimous motion that Council advocate to permanently cease all logging in Compartments 41 and 43 of the Bulga Forest, and transition out of logging public native forests, claiming towns such as Bulahdelah would be devastated, and that forests have shown time and time again that they can regenerate to their former glory.
On World Wildlife Day a homeless Greater Glider, Quoll, Masked Owl, Yellow-bellied Glider, Pygmy Possum, Glossy Black Cockatoo and Koala moved into a Taree park and unsuccessfully pleaded with authorities to help find crisis accommodation given their forest homes were destroyed by giant logging machines, sent in by the NSW Government.
Rojech PTY LTD has been fined $15,000 for breaching the Private Native Forestry (PNF) Code of Practice for logging trees in a Riparian Exclusion Zone of an unmarked drainage line near the entrance to the Border Ranges National Park, north of Kyogle – the site of an action by Kyogle Environment Group last year. The Landholder has also been issued with a Formal Warning for not adequately ensuing that the PNF operator complied with the Code of Practice. The fact that the whole operation was illegal because it hadn’t obtained consent from Council slipped EPA’s minds.
The Bob Brown Foundation is hosting a rally calling for an end to native forest logging in NSW at the Uniting Church in the Sydney CBD on Sunday 19 March at 5 pm, with MC Wendy Harmer, Dr Bob Brown, candidates committed to ending logging in the next term of government and forest activists.
Sue Arnold has a story describing the degrading logging system in NSW, worries that NSW native forests are heading for a potential ecological collapse, while complaining mainstream media is censoring a major NSW election issue as industrial logging of NSW native forests continues to gather dust in political closets.
Australian Marine Conservation Society, National Parks Association of NSW, Surfrider Foundation, Nature Coast Marine Group, Clarence Environment Centre, Dive Industry Association of Australia and Ocean Youth are calling for an end to land clearing in NSW, saying it too heavily impacts our coast and marine environment.
Ernst & Young’s Report, commissioned by the Commonwealth- funded North East NSW and South East NSW Regional Forestry Hubs, claims the hardwood timber industry is of critical importance to the Northern NSW economy, contributing $1.8 billion in revenue, adding $700 million to NSW GDP and employing 5,700 people in the region – it is a shoddy report and gives very different figures from their 2019 report which claimed that stopping public native forest logging in north-east NSW would result in direct regional losses of 566 jobs (inflated to 1,395 jobs with multipliers), loss of $570 M in output and $224 M in value adding, with their noting “the forestry industry is not a major generator of output or employer in the [region] when looking at the whole economy (1% of total output and jobs)". Timberbiz uses the new report, citing Timber NSW CEO, Maree McCaskill as claiming the Great Koala Park is unnecessary as only 10% of publicly owned forests on the north coast of NSW are available for logging, no “scientific research shows that koala populations in North East NSW State Forests are stable and are not being impacted by timber harvesting”, logging is “critical to forest health and minimising bushfire risk”, “plans to ‘transition’ timber supplies from native forests to plantation timber are a fantasy”, and “One job loss in a rural area has the impact of 100 job losses in the cities, impacting schools, local services and small businesses”.
Farmers, scientists and other community members across NSW have criticised the state’s Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) for ignoring reports of damage to crops and vegetation from agricultural chemicals drifting on the wind, with the Community Overspray Groups saying they don’t know whether its “indifference, ignorance or just plain negligence, but they are not fulfilling their role”.
The NSW Government has announced it has purchased seven properties totalling 3100 hectares from Tenterfield to Cooma to be added to national parks to safeguard koalas, bringing the total purchased since 2018 to 10,765 ha - meanwhile they have left the Koala SEPP intended to protect Koalas on private lands in tatters. The NSW Government has also announced a new 437,400 hectare national park addition in the far north west of NSW, encompassing a significant portion of the Bulloo Overflow flood plain, an addition to the Narriearra Caryapund Swamp National Park and nearby Sturt National Park, taking their total area to about 1 million hectares, and increasing reserves to 10.2 per cent of the state, -still far short of the 30% goal by 2030. Though farmers are whingeing about Government competition for properties – in what has to be the most marginal grazing country in the State, and deteriorating rapidly in response to climate heating. The Nature Conservation Council assessed that of the lands added to the national parks estate by the Coalition over the past 11 years, only 3.1% are in areas of significant koala habitat, renewing their calls for protection of public native forests, including all core koala habitat, and to stop clearing it.
The Government has announced an $8 million program of targeted surveys using animal camera traps, acoustic monitoring and vegetation surveys in national park areas to monitor threatened species, such as koalas, powerful owls and Wollemi pines. A different set of surveys will track populations of feral animals and weeds and generate fire management metrics.
Currently the Liberal-Nationals have 47 seats, Labor 37, Greens 3 and crossbenchers 6 seats. A redistribution of electoral boundaries has improved Labor’s chances, still requiring a 6% swing to win an outright majority. A Newspoll, conducted February 20-23 gave Labor a 52-48 lead, a two-point gain for the Coalition since a September NSW Newspoll. This represents a 4% swing which one analyst suggests would give Labor 43 seats and the Coalition 40, resulting in a hung parliament. The two most marginal seats in NSW are identified as opposition Leader Chris Minns’ seat of Kogarah in the south and Liberal-held East Hills in the south-west down to 0.1 per cent. Climate 200-backed candidate for Pittwater, Jacqui Scruby is neck and neck with Liberal candidate Rory Amon on a two-party-preferred vote of 48 to 52, according to The Australian Financial Review Freshwater NSW Poll, due to support from Green voters, though the Liberal may get up with Labor preferences.
In a meet the candidates forum on 28 February for the Clarence electorate, Labor’s candidate Leon Ankersmit assured the audience that the Great Koala National Park they are proposing is up to around 140,000 ha, of which 110,000-120,000 is already protected, just intending to protect some 20-30,000 ha as Koala corridors and links – a bit short of the 175,000 ha of State Forests in the proposal. As politicians seek to assure voters that they won’t privatise any more public assets, Labor is reported as saying that if elected it would fund future infrastructure projects from the dividends of state-owned corporations such as Essential Energy and the Forestry Corporation – more likely they would have to sell assets to fund the Forestry Corporation.
The NSW Greens have released their policy for expansion of the protected area network in NSW to 30% of the state by 2030, accelerating Native Title claims over Crown Land areas and resource First Nations land management programs, ending inappropriate development and infrastructure in or adjacent to national parks and the protected area network, and increasing funding for park management.
Animal Justice Party held a rally outside the office of Tweed National’s MP Geoff Provest on World Wildlife Day to highlight that this election will decide the fate of koalas, that koalas simply can’t afford another term of this LNP government and urging people to please vote for koalas this election.
NCC had their leaders forum, with Sue Higginson, and much of the crowd, in favour of stopping the logging of native forests and transitioning the industry's roughly 1000 workers to other jobs, and Mr Griffin saying his government was working to increase timber plantations but said there needed to be discussion with affected communities "I met with the CFMMEU... on the South Coast. They do want to have this conversation. But we need to have a pragmatic real one that looks at the detail of how a transition would take place", while backing the Environment Protection Authority in governing what occurs in state forests – its unfortunate they don’t.
Wagga Wagga MP Joe McGirr says his condition of support for the next Government rests on the abolition of the so-called “Barilaro Brumbies Bill” and a significant reduction of the 18,000-strong population in the alpine region, which would probably require ground shooting.
Australia
Australia will host to the 30th session of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Asia-Pacific Forestry Commission (APFC) on 2-6 October in Sydney, with the theme ‘Sustainable forests for a sustainable future’, followed by a meeting of the Montreal Process Working Group on 6-7 October.
As the global mountain biking spotlight focuses on Maydena in southern lutruwita/Tasmania for the prestigious Enduro World Series, the Tasmanian Government is about to start logging the local native forest next to it.
The Western Australia Forest Alliance referred two of Alcoa’s plans to mine jarrah forests in Perth’s water supply catchment to the WA Environment Protection Authority, asking for them to be reviewed, particularly in light of state government agencies fear they will endanger Perth’s water supply.
The ABC has a story about genuine farm forestry (unlike in NSW where native forest logging is now being called farm forestry), where planting increased tree cover by some 16%, trees were managed by pruning lower branches, there was no reduction in lamb and wool production, and 35 years later they are now reaping the rewards.
The ABC have a radio story on the fight between eco tourism developers and conservationists over national parks intensifying, focussing on Queensland’s Great Sandy region, with concerns the public will be shut out of more pristine areas by ecotourism developments.
Species
An article in The Conversation argues against the proposal to remove species from threatened species lists that are breeding-up in fenced safe havens but still declining in the wild, as it removes the need to protect and recover wild populations while leaving fenced populations vulnerable to catastrophic losses.
Saving our Species Year in Review 2021–22 identifies that there are 947 species, 111 ecological communities and 49 populations at risk in NSW, and highlights what they consider to be their successes for the expenditure of $42,386,088 last financial year, claiming that 258 species are on track to survive the next 100 years, their case studies include a number of releases of captive bred species - though they don’t report on their survival.
A review of the status of Red Goshawk concluded “The Red” had completely disappeared from more than a third (34%) of its range, being almost certainly extinct in New South Wales and the southern half of Queensland, and in decline over another third of its range, with its last strongholds in northern Australia under increasing threat, prompting calls for it to be up-listed to nationally endangered.
It was bad enough to find that Whitehaven Coal are sponsors of the Gunnedah Koala tourism venture (as reported last week). Port Maquarie Koala Hospital has long had a questionable relationship with the Forestry Corporation, now their Guulabaa Tourism Precinct in Cowarra State Forest has shown the depth of this relationship with construction of The Hub, commenced with a sod turn event by Leslie Williams in February 2023, with funding of $2.3 million from the NSW Government’s Bushfire Local Economic Recovery Package, combined with $2.1 million from the Forestry Corporation of NSW and the North Coast Timber industry, and now $250,000 from the NSW Government’s Creative Capital program. The Hub will link Koala Conservation Australia/Port Macquarie Koala Hospital’s Wild Koala breeding facility, Bunyah Local Aboriginal Land Council café and gallery, Wildnets Adventure and Hello Koala’s. The Hub will showcase locally grown hardwood timbers, and promote the Forestry Corporation and their logging supporters Big River Group, Coffs Harbour Hardwoods, Machin’s Sawmilling, Hayden Timbers, Hurfords, Pentarch Forestry and Weathertex.- all those millions donated during the bushfires, and our taxes, are being used to promote logging Koala homes.
University of the Sunshine Coast researchers and Quandamooka land custodians have hailed a two-year collaboration to assess the effects of cultural burning on Koalas on Minjerribah/North Stradbroke Island a success, in that there were no measured negative impacts on the densities or stress levels of the genetically unique koalas after the first burn in July 2021, across 130 hectares. – not unexpected (doing nothing would have had no effect either), though the real test is whether the forest is less prone to burning in a wildfire.
The Saturday Paper has a proposal for a koala strike, a ban on ministers entering zoos and animal parks for photo opportunities for as long as the Albanese government continues to approve fossil fuel projects, as it should not benefit from the positive feelings people have towards the animals and environments it is destroying. – maybe it should be for while they allow clearing and logging of Koala habitat, though Koalas are notoriously apathetic and unwilling to stand up for themselves.
Conservation projects in the Nambucca Valley, Dorrigo Plateau, Coffs Harbour and North Bellingen have been given a share of the $507,215 in funding for Koalas from the Federal Government. MidCoast Council has secured over $1 million from the NSW Government for their Koala Safe Spaces Program (also funded by their environmental levy) to undertake surveys and establish “safe spaces” for koalas. The Perth Mint has issued Australian Koala Silver Bullion Coins, with the queen on one side and Koalas on the other, the 1 kilo coin is worth $30 and the 1 ounce coin $1 – loose change could get very heavy.
The federal environment department has begun public consultation after it was asked to reconsider the construction of Brisbane’s multi-billion dollar Coomera Connector over concerns for endangered koala populations, after a group argued that "substantial new information about the impacts of the proposed action" and a "substantial change in circumstances that was not foreseen at the time of the decision" warranted a reconsideration of the project.
The Conversation has an article highlighting the social structure and habits of some of Australia’s more than 1,650 native bee species. With another referring to the Marvel character Ant Man, discusses the strength and abilities of ants, their super-strength, speed, farming practices, and their ability to create supercolonies all governed by “swarm intelligence” rather than a ruler.
It's not just NRL teams, wild eels are being exposed to Cocaine as it becomes increasingly common in some streams, when European eels were exposed to the same amounts found in some rivers for 50 days it was found to accumulate in their bodies, making them hyperactive, affecting their muscles and hormones.
The Deteriorating Problem
Direct (scope 1) emissions from Australia’s oil and gas sector – mostly from facilities that are covered by the safeguard mechanism – have increased by 7.8% in the latest reporting period, according to new data from the Clean Energy Regulator, largely due to methane venting from increased production. Lock The Gate Alliance says eight coalmining applications to extend or modify existing mines represents "the largest coal expansion since the Paris Agreement in 2016", claiming NSW had approved 26 coal and gas projects since the Paris Agreement came into force in November 2016, with combined emissions of 4.4 billion tonnes.
The Boreal forests in the north of Russia, Canada and America constitute one of the most extensive biomes on Earth, dominated by pine, spruce and fir trees, they are suffering under climate change, they typically account for 10 percent of global fire carbon dioxide emissions, though beset by expanding wildfires over the past two decades, in the severe droughts of 2021 they contributed 23 percent, equivalent to 1.76 billion tons of CO2, about the same as fossil fuel emissions from Japan.
The Guardian has an article about the areas worst-hit by Cyclone Gabrielle in New Zealand, one story is of a family appreciating the clear blue sky the day after, only to see a tsunami of mud and logs rushing towards them and through their house, as a flood dam of logging debris burst, a scenario repeated more often as bared hillsides and logging slash (from pine plantations) wash away in intense rainfall events, and the industry remains in denial.
Turning it Around
Forests cover 31% of the earth’s land area, a third are primary forest, they contain half of the terrestrial carbon, they are home to 80% of amphibians, 75% birds, and 68% mammals, and 10 million hectares are wiped out each year.
British Columbia’s forestry industry is shrinking both in scale and importance to B.C.’s overall economy, with the biggest impacts of sawmill and pulp mill curtailments and closures felt in smaller cities and towns as the combination of weak demand and impacts of longer-term forces affecting timber availability have triggered yet another cascade of mill closures – maybe they should now save what’s left of their oldgrowth.
Tiny forests in urban areas, often the size of a tennis court, are rapidly growing at a rate of 50 a year in the UK, based on dense planting of diverse species, planted by volunteers who collect data on plant and animal life, urban cooling and carbon capture.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Ballengarra latest front in the forest wars:
A tree sit, capturing machines tied by ropes to a tree platform, was established in Ballengarra State Forest south of Kempsey, with the sitter soil scientist Tim Evans stating “We can't afford to lose more biodiversity, these forests represent diminishing ecosystems that are crucial for our survival. Without these forests we have no hope of restoring a functional, safe climate”. He held up logging for 9 hours before being arrested. The tree sit in Bulga State Forest has been in place now for over 50 days.
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/ballengarra-tree-sit-stops-logging
NBN has a comprehensive story on the growing momentum to stop logging of public native forests, focussing on Bulga State Forest and MidCoast Council’s support for protecting it.
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2023/02/25/support-growing-for-save-the-bulga-forest-movement/
Ex-forester Kevin Carter, now with the Bulahdelah Chamber of Commerce and Tourism, has called on the MidCoast Council to reconsider their unanimous motion that Council advocate to permanently cease all logging in Compartments 41 and 43 of the Bulga Forest, and transition out of logging public native forests, claiming towns such as Bulahdelah would be devastated, and that forests have shown time and time again that they can regenerate to their former glory.
“This has serious implications for timber towns such as Bulahdelah where about 30 percent of the population are involved directly and indirectly with the hardwood timber industry,” Mr Carter told News Of The Area.
“It would have a devastating effect on our and other towns in this industry should these ideas continue as employment opportunities for such a large number of displaced would be very difficult to fill.”
With some areas having been logged up to four times over many decades and the devastating effects of recent bushfires, the forests have demonstrated that over time they can regenerate to their former glory.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/advocating-for-a-sustainable-future-in-forestry
https://www.greatlakesadvocate.com.au/story/8100514/chamber-challenges-council-motion/
Homeless animals snubbed:
On World Wildlife Day a homeless Greater Glider, Quoll, Masked Owl, Yellow-bellied Glider, Pygmy Possum, Glossy Black Cockatoo and Koala moved into a Taree park and unsuccessfully pleaded with authorities to help find crisis accommodation given their forest homes were destroyed by giant logging machines, sent in by the NSW Government.
Prime TV covered it
Fined for logging world heritage entrance:
Rojech PTY LTD has been fined $15,000 for breaching the Private Native Forestry (PNF) Code of Practice for logging trees in a Riparian Exclusion Zone of an unmarked drainage line near the entrance to the Border Ranges National Park, north of Kyogle – the site of an action by Kyogle Environment Group last year. The Landholder has also been issued with a Formal Warning for not adequately ensuing that the PNF operator complied with the Code of Practice. The fact that the whole operation was illegal because it hadn’t obtained consent from Council slipped EPA’s minds.
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1631206035175387136
Forest Rally in Sydney:
The Bob Brown Foundation is hosting a rally calling for an end to native forest logging in NSW at the Uniting Church in the Sydney CBD on Sunday 19 March at 5 pm, with MC Wendy Harmer, Dr Bob Brown, candidates committed to ending logging in the next term of government and forest activists.
Ignoring the forestry rort:
Sue Arnold has a story describing the degrading logging system in NSW, worries that NSW native forests are heading for a potential ecological collapse, while complaining mainstream media is censoring a major NSW election issue as industrial logging of NSW native forests continues to gather dust in political closets.
Time to end land clearing to protect marine parks:
Australian Marine Conservation Society, National Parks Association of NSW, Surfrider Foundation, Nature Coast Marine Group, Clarence Environment Centre, Dive Industry Association of Australia and Ocean Youth are calling for an end to land clearing in NSW, saying it too heavily impacts our coast and marine environment.
Forestry inflation:
Ernst & Young’s Report, commissioned by the Commonwealth- funded North East NSW and South East NSW Regional Forestry Hubs, claims the hardwood timber industry is of critical importance to the Northern NSW economy, contributing $1.8 billion in revenue, adding $700 million to NSW GDP and employing 5,700 people in the region – it is a shoddy report and gives very different figures from their 2019 report which claimed that stopping public native forest logging in north-east NSW would result in direct regional losses of 566 jobs (inflated to 1,395 jobs with multipliers), loss of $570 M in output and $224 M in value adding, with their noting “the forestry industry is not a major generator of output or employer in the [region] when looking at the whole economy (1% of total output and jobs)".
https://arr.news/2023/02/27/economic-contribution-study-of-the-nsw-hardwood-timber-industry/
Timberbiz uses the report, citing Timber NSW CEO, Maree McCaskill as claiming the Great Koala Park is unnecessary as only 10% of publicly owned forests on the north coast of NSW are available for logging, no “scientific research shows that koala populations in North East NSW State Forests are stable and are not being impacted by timber harvesting”, logging is “critical to forest health and minimising bushfire risk”, “plans to ‘transition’ timber supplies from native forests to plantation timber are a fantasy”, and “One job loss in a rural area has the impact of 100 job losses in the cities, impacting schools, local services and small businesses”.
While NE NSW Forestry Hub modelling identified cleared land in the North East that could support the growth of hardwood plantations, only a small fraction of this land is likely to be available. It cannot hope to replace supply from the 782,000 hectares of native State Forests in the region. Even given available land, any transition would take 40-60 years and be financially unfeasible.”
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/great-koala-park-is-unnecessary-but-timber-and-jobs-are-needed/
Ignoring the drift:
Farmers, scientists and other community members across NSW have criticised the state’s Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) for ignoring reports of damage to crops and vegetation from agricultural chemicals drifting on the wind, with the Community Overspray Groups saying they don’t know whether its “indifference, ignorance or just plain negligence, but they are not fulfilling their role”.
A group of scientists chaired by ANU adjunct professor Richard Thackway visited parts of the central west last year and determined that there was enough evidence to warrant investigation into the links between large-scale vegetation stress and agricultural chemicals.
"The group [of scientists] has widely observed symptoms of chemical drift on non-target vegetation over the past few decades and the degradation of vegetation does not appear to be occurring from natural causes," the statement said.
"What we know from monitoring [in Queensland] is that pretty much all waters that drain from agricultural land in Australia are contaminated with residues of products applied as pesticides," Dr Landos said.
Reservations about reservations:
… buying private land for Koalas while they log public land:
The NSW Government has announced it has purchased seven properties totalling 3100 hectares from Tenterfield to Cooma to be added to national parks to safeguard koalas, bringing the total purchased since 2018 to 10,765 ha - meanwhile they have left the Koala SEPP intended to protect Koalas on private lands in tatters.
- 280 hectares next to Captains Creek Nature Reserve, 59 km north-east of Tenterfield
- 388 hectares next to Mount Hyland Nature Reserve, south-west of Dorrigo
- 3 hectares of bushland next to Queens Lake Nature Reserve, around 20 km from Port Macquarie
- 380 hectares next to Morton National Park, 38km south-east of Goulburn
- 424 hectares next to Kybeyan Nature Reserve, around 35 km from Cooma
- 525 hectares between Wadbilliga and Kybeyan, 60 km east of Cooma
- 83 hectares connecting two areas of Dangelong Nature Reserve, about 25 km east of Cooma.
https://www.miragenews.com/thousands-more-hectares-of-koala-habitat-955073/
https://afndaily.com.au/2023/03/01/thousands-more-hectares-of-koala-habitat-protected-forever/
https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/news/thousands-more-hectares-of-koala-habitat-protected-forever?
… the biggest national park on the most marginal land:
The NSW Government has announced a new 437,400 hectare national park addition in the far north west of NSW, encompassing a significant portion of the Bulloo Overflow flood plain, an addition to the Narriearra Caryapund Swamp National Park and nearby Sturt National Park, taking their total area to about 1 million hectares, and increasing reserves to 10.2 per cent of the state, still far short of the 30% goal by 2030. Though farmers are whingeing about Government competition for properties – in what has to be the most marginal grazing country in the State, and deteriorating rapidly in response to climate heating.
With so many stations purchased in recent years, local grazing families are questioning the potential impact on their long-term livelihoods.
Pastoralists Association of West Darling president Terry Smith said while a national park would be good for tourism, he held reservations about the project.
"It makes it pretty hard for farming families that want to expand to set their kids up, if they've got to continually go up against the state government with their deep pockets."
The Nature Conservation Council assessed that of the lands added to the national parks estate by the Coalition over the past 11 years, only 3.1% are in areas of significant koala habitat, renewing their calls for protection of public native forests, including all core koala habitat, and to stop clearing it.
“One of our most iconic species is being subjected to native forest logging and out of control land clearing, and the National Parks estate can’t save it unless something big changes.
“Koalas now face extinction in our lifetimes without urgent action. Yet their habitat has virtually no protection from the logging and clearing that is driving this decline.
“We need a new deal for nature, a new deal for koalas in NSW. The Government can’t keep logging and clearing the vast majority of the best koala habitat and expect to double the number of koalas.” said Ms Mumford.
This NSW election, the Nature Conservation Council of NSW is calling on candidates to:
- Stop logging public native forests and shift to plantations.
- Convert state forests to reserves by 2024 and conserve all core koala habitat on publicly owned land, including the creation of the Great Koala National Park
- Ban the clearing of koala habitat, and overhaul land clearing laws and the biodiversity offset scheme.
https://www.miragenews.com/koalas-need-homes-with-np-expansions-956335/
Monitoring parks:
The Government has announced an $8 million program of targeted surveys using animal camera traps, acoustic monitoring and vegetation surveys in national park areas to monitor threatened species, such as koalas, powerful owls and Wollemi pines. A different set of surveys will track populations of feral animals and weeds and generate fire management metrics.
The surveillance network alone will involve more than 2400 camera traps, 1200 acoustic devices and 1200 bird surveys. Vegetation surveys and soil samples will provide additional data on the health of park habitats.
For more information on the programs, visit National Park Performance Scorecards pagelaunch on the Environment NSW website.
https://www.nsw.gov.au/media-releases/nsw-national-parks-healthy-survey
NSW election:
Currently the Liberal-Nationals has 47 seats, Labor 37, Greens 3 and crossbenchers 6 seats. A redistribution of electoral boundaries has improved Labor’s chances, still requiring a 6% swing to win an outright majority. A Newspoll, conducted February 20-23 gave Labor a 52-48 lead, a two-point gain for the Coalition since a September NSW Newspoll. This represents a 4% swing which one analyst suggests would give Labor 43 seats and the Coalition 40, resulting in a hung parliament. The two most marginal seats in NSW are identified as opposition Leader Chris Minns’ seat of Kogarah in the south and Liberal-held East Hills in the south-west down to 0.1 per cent.
Climate 200-backed candidate for Pittwater, Jacqui Scruby is neck and neck with Liberal candidate Rory Amon on a two-party-preferred vote of 48 to 52, according to The Australian Financial Review Freshwater NSW Poll, due to support from Green voters, though the Liberal may get up with Labor preferences.
https://www.afr.com/politics/teals-close-to-wresting-battleground-seat-from-libs-20230227-p5cnu9
… Labor’s diminishing Lesser Koala National Park
In a meet the candidates forum on 28 February for the Clarence electorate, Labor’s candidate Leon Ankersmit assured the audience that the Great Koala National Park they are proposing is up to around 140,000 ha, of which 110,000-120,000 is already protected, just intending to protect some 20-30,000 ha as Koala corridors and links – a bit short of the 175,000 ha of State Forests in the proposal.
About 31m in
https://www.youtube.com/live/AHP5nd8VpFg?feature=share
… Labor to use Forestry Corporation profits to fund infrastructure:
As politicians seek to assure voters that they won’t privatise any more public assets, Labor is reported as saying that if elected it would fund future infrastructure projects from the dividends of state-owned corporations such as Essential Energy and the Forestry Corporation – more likely they would have to sell assets to fund the Forestry Corporation.
… a Greener state:
The NSW Greens have released their policy for expansion of the protected area network in NSW to 30% of the state by 2030, accelerating Native Title claims over Crown Land areas and resource First Nations land management programs, ending inappropriate development and infrastructure in or adjacent to national parks and the protected area network, and increasing funding for park management.
… vote for Koalas:
Animal Justice Party held a rally outside the office of Tweed National’s MP Geoff Provest on World Wildlife Day to highlight that this election will decide the fate of koalas, that koalas simply can’t afford another term of this LNP government and urging people to please vote for koalas this election.
Habitat loss, including unregulated land clearing, logging and the climate emergency is killing koalas. An estimated 8,000 koalas were killed in NSW in the Black Summer Fires, yet Forestry NSW are decimating what is left of our burnt-out public forests with industrialized logging, even in forests included in the proposed Great Koala National Park.’
Ms Hearder says that how people vote in this election will determine the government priority given to koalas and their fate. ‘We must protect their homes and prevent any more winding back of legal protections, as we saw during the “Koala Wars”. If we can’t save koalas, one of the most loved animals on the planet the rest of our wildlife doesn’t stand a chance.
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/03/an-election-to-decide-the-fate-of-koalas/
… Griffin supports transitioning out of SE public native forests?:
NCC had their leaders forum, with Sue Higginson, and much of the crowd, in favour of stopping the logging of native forests and transitioning the industry's roughly 1000 workers to other jobs, and Mr Griffin saying his government was working to increase timber plantations but said there needed to be discussion with affected communities "I met with the CFMMEU... on the South Coast. They do want to have this conversation. But we need to have a pragmatic real one that looks at the detail of how a transition would take place", while backing the Environment Protection Authority in governing what occurs in state forests – its unfortunate they don’t.
https://www.sheppnews.com.au/national/koalas-and-brumbies-environment-candidates-face-off/
https://www.goulburnpost.com.au/story/8105388/koalas-and-brumbies-environment-candidates-face-off/
About 28m Griffin talks about transitioning in the south-east.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-jOVX-MqaA
… getting rid of brumbies bill:
Wagga Wagga MP Joe McGirr says his condition of support for the next Government rests on the abolition of the so-called “Barilaro Brumbies Bill” and a significant reduction of the 18,000-strong population in the alpine region, which would probably require ground shooting.
AUSTRALIA
You may want to put this in your diaries:
Australia will host to the 30th session of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Asia-Pacific Forestry Commission (APFC) on 2-6 October in Sydney, with the theme ‘Sustainable forests for a sustainable future’, followed by a meeting of the Montreal Process Working Group on 6-7 October.
https://www.nationaltribune.com.au/australia-to-host-international-forestry-forum/
https://www.miragenews.com/australia-to-host-international-forestry-forum-956231/
Logging and bikes:
As the global mountain biking spotlight focuses on Maydena in southern lutruwita/Tasmania for the prestigious Enduro World Series, the Tasmanian Government is about to start logging the local native forest next to it.
“Maydena is the gateway to the legendary Styx giant tree area, where some forests are protected from logging. The Maydena area gets more value from tourism, carbon sequestration and ecosystem services than it does from logging them at a loss,” said Ms Hardinge.
https://tasmaniantimes.com/2023/03/maydena-enduro-threatened-by-forest-destruction/
Challenge to forest mining:
The Western Australia Forest Alliance referred two of Alcoa’s plans to mine jarrah forests in Perth’s water supply catchment to the WA Environment Protection Authority, asking for them to be reviewed, particularly in light of state government agencies fear they will endanger Perth’s water supply.
The rare move brings into the open a battle between Alcoa’s need to keep its three alumina refineries supplied with 28 million tonnes of bauxite a year, and growing concerns about the northern jarrah forest ecosystem that the United Nation in 2022 rated as in danger of collapse due to hotter, drier conditions and greater fire risk.
Forest Alliance convenor Jess Beckerling said the risks from Alcoa’s mining warranted a full and transparent assessment of its cumulative impact.
In early February, this masthead revealed state government advisers feared Alcoa’s mining near Serpentine Dam risked driving sediment containing chemical pollutants and disease-causing pathogens into the dam if heavy rain occurred, which would cause the water to be undrinkable for months or even years.
Contamination of the dam that supplied 18 per cent of Perth’s water in 2022 could require construction of a water treatment facility costing up to $2.6 billion.
Genuine farm forestry:
The ABC has a story about genuine farm forestry (unlike in NSW where native forest logging is now being called farm forestry), where planting increased tree cover by some 16%, trees were managed by pruning lower branches, there was no reduction in lamb and wool production, and 35 years later they are now reaping the rewards.
He has grown and milled much of the timber being used to build his architect-designed house, including a 35-year-old mountain ash eucalypt with a girth of more than 80 centimetres.
"The creek lines and the drainage lines, the salt-affected areas, [we] planted those out as well, planted out the water-logged areas, the remnant vegetation areas," Andrew Stewart said.
"We're still producing the same amount of agricultural production as in prime lambs and wool now with 18 to 20 per cent tree cover compared to when we had 3 per cent tree cover," Mr Stewart said.
Developing parks:
The ABC have a radio story on the fight between eco tourism developers and conservationists over national parks intensifying, focussing on Queensland’s Great Sandy region, with concerns the public will be shut out of more pristine areas by ecotourism developments.
SPECIES
Safe Havens give false sense of security:
An article in The Conversation argues against the proposal to remove species from threatened species lists that are breeding-up in fenced safe havens but still declining in the wild, as it removes the need to protect and recover wild populations while leaving fenced populations vulnerable to catastrophic losses.
If you want to see some of Australia’s most charismatic threatened mammals such as bilbies, boodies and stick-nest rats, chances are you’ll have to go to a zoo – or a safe haven.
Safe havens are not the same as the wild. When we try to reintroduce animals outside the fences, they disappear down the maws of cats and foxes.
Yes, they fend off extinctions. But safe havens require ongoing management, which is expensive, challenging and rarely guaranteed long term. We should not rely on them to take species off the threatened list
There are worrying signs these islands ringed by fence or sea are not entirely sustainable. Many species within safe havens breed frantically, sending their populations skyward to unsustainable levels before a severe population crash. Ideally, they would be controlled by native predators, but the havens are too small to allow this. We’ve seen this play out with burrowing bettongs at one of our safe havens, Arid Recovery, in South Australia.
Some species struggle even inside fenced havens. The stick-nest rat has failed to establish in at least four havens.
Havens are exactly that – a desperate measure to stop extinction. We should keep species on the threatened list even if they have management-dependent haven populations. This will protect wild populations and drive innovation and interest in how we can best control feral predators and other threats.
We cannot simply put our threatened mammals behind fences and consider the job done.
Saving Our Species:
Saving our Species Year in Review 2021–22 identifies that there are 947 species, 111 ecological communities and 49 populations at risk in NSW, and highlights what they consider to be their successes for the expenditure of $42,386,088 last financial year, claiming that 258 species are on track to survive the next 100 years, their case studies include a number of releases of captive bred species - though they don’t report on their survival.
Red Goshawk disappearing:
A review of the status of Red Goshawk concluded “The Red” had completely disappeared from more than a third (34%) of its range, being almost certainly extinct in New South Wales and the southern half of Queensland, and in decline over another third of its range, with its last strongholds in northern Australia under increasing threat, prompting calls for it to be up-listed to nationally endangered.
While the destruction of habitat through land clearing, which is still rampant in both New South Wales and Queensland, is a key reason for this loss, other factors must be at play.
We know that degraded forests, like those that are logged or suffer from inappropriate fire regimes, lose many of their species, particularly those higher up the food chain.
However, this doesn’t aptly describe the loss of red goshawk from seemingly large areas of intact habitat, such as Shoalwater Bay or Conondale National Park.
We must not repeat past mistakes and allow habitat in the tropical north to be fragmented, rendering the landscape unable to support native predators like the red goshawk. This means rigorously assessing developments and implementing protections commensurate with the large areas that The Red requires.
Using Koala’s misery to promote logging:
It was bad enough to find that Whitehaven Coal are sponsors of the Gunnedah Koala tourism venture (as reported last week). Port Maquarie Koala Hospital has long had a questionable relationship with the Forestry Corporation, now their Guulabaa Tourism Precinct in Cowarra State Forest has shown the depth of this relationship with construction of The Hub, commenced with a sod turn event by Leslie Williams in February 2023, with funding of $2.3 million from the NSW Government’s Bushfire Local Economic Recovery Package, combined with $2.1 million from the Forestry Corporation of NSW and the North Coast Timber industry, and now $250,000 from the NSW Government’s Creative Capital program. The Hub will link Koala Conservation Australia/Port Macquarie Koala Hospital’s Wild Koala breeding facility, Bunyah Local Aboriginal Land Council café and gallery, Wildnets Adventure and Hello Koala’s. The Hub will showcase locally grown hardwood timbers, and promote the Forestry Corporation and their logging supporters Big River Group, Coffs Harbour Hardwoods, Machin’s Sawmilling, Hayden Timbers, Hurfords, Pentarch Forestry and Weathertex.- all those millions donated during the bushfires, and our taxes, are being used to promote logging Koala homes.
Kathy Lyons, Senior Manager Forest Stewardship, Forestry Corporation of NSW, noted that The Hub would showcase beautiful, locally grown hardwood timbers, and highlighted the important role that Forestry Corporation and the North Coast Timber Industry plays in the community.
“Our state forests have been sustainably managed for over 100 years and the importance of local timber as a carbon friendly building product continues to grow,” Ms Lyons said.
“Supporting a sustainable, renewable, climate-friendly future is something that’s important to our organisation and to the communities within which we both live and work.”
“It’s great to see our local timber partners - Big River Group, Coffs Harbour Hardwoods, Machin’s Sawmilling, Hayden Timbers, Hurfords, Pentarch Forestry and Weathertex - supporting projects that are integral to building local visitor economies and sustainable tourism. It’s where we want to be,” Ms Lyons said.
“This is exactly the kind of project the Bushfire Local Economic Recovery Package is designed to deliver, and I look forward to seeing the official opening of this completed tourism precinct in the coming year,” Mrs Williams said.
https://www.lesliewilliams.com.au/the-hub-takes-shape-at-guulabaa
Cultural burning claimed a success:
University of the Sunshine Coast researchers and Quandamooka land custodians have hailed a two-year collaboration to assess the effects of cultural burning on Koalas on Minjerribah/North Stradbroke Island a success, in that there were no measured negative impacts on the densities or stress levels of the genetically unique koalas after the first burn in July 2021, across 130 hectares. – not unexpected (doing nothing would have had no effect either), though the real test is whether the forest is less prone to burning in a wildfire.
https://phys.org/news/2023-02-cultural-koalas.html
Such fire activity encouraged the regeneration of suitable native plants. On the other hand, they controlled species like banksias and wattle to reduce the risk of fire reaching the canopy where koalas lived.
Koala strike:
The Saturday Paper has a proposal for a koala strike, a ban on ministers entering zoos and animal parks for photo opportunities for as long as the Albanese government continues to approve fossil fuel projects, as it should not benefit from the positive feelings people have towards the animals and environments it is destroying. – maybe it should be for while they allow clearing and logging of Koala habitat, though Koalas are notoriously apathetic and unwilling to stand up for themselves.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/editorial/2023/02/25/the-koala-strike
… the value of Koalas:
Conservation projects in the Nambucca Valley, Dorrigo Plateau, Coffs Harbour and North Bellingen have been given a share of the $507,215 in funding for Koalas from the Federal Government.
- $199,200 for the 'Jaliigirr Koala Conservation Action in the Coffs Harbour & Bellingen ARKS' project delivered by Jaliigirr Biodiversity Alliance Inc.
- $160,153 for the 'Dorrigo Plateau Corridor Digital Mapping and Koala Restoration' project delivered by Dorrigo Community Nursery Inc.
- $147,862 for the 'Nambucca Valley Koala Conservation' project delivered by Nambucca Landcare Co-Ordinating Committee.
MidCoast Council has secured over $1 million from the NSW Government for their Koala Safe Spaces Program (also funded by their environmental levy) to undertake surveys and establish “safe spaces” for koalas.
https://www.miragenews.com/koala-conservation-in-spotlight-958967/
… worth their weight in silver:
The Perth Mint has issued Australian Koala Silver Bullion Coins, with the queen on one side and Koalas on the other, the 1 kilo coin is worth $30 and the 1 ounce coin $1 – loose change could get very heavy.
https://coinweek.com/bullion-report/perth-mint-issues-2023-australian-koala-silver-bullion-coins/
… reconsidering connector disconnecting:
The federal environment department has begun public consultation after it was asked to reconsider the construction of Brisbane’s multi-billion dollar Coomera Connector over concerns for endangered koala populations, after a group argued that "substantial new information about the impacts of the proposed action" and a "substantial change in circumstances that was not foreseen at the time of the decision" warranted a reconsideration of the project.
Native bees:
The Conversation has an article highlighting the social structure and habits of some of Australia’s more than 1,650 native bee species.
Super ants:
With another referring to the Marvel character Ant Man, discusses the strength and abilities of ants, their super-strength, speed, farming practices, and their ability to create supercolonies all governed by “swarm intelligence” rather than a ruler.
Drug addled eels:
It’s not just NRL teams, wild eels are being exposed to Cocaine as it becomes increasingly common in some streams, when European eels were exposed to the same amounts found in some rivers for 50 days it was found to accumulate in their bodies, making them hyperactive, affecting their muscles and hormones.
They found the drug accumulates in the brain, muscles, gills, skin, and other tissues of the eels. The muscle of the fish also showed swelling and even breakdowns, and the hormones that regulate their physiology changed. These problems were even around after an enforced 10-day rehab period in which the researchers removed the eels from water with cocaine.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29879672/
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Foot on the gas:
Direct (scope 1) emissions from Australia’s oil and gas sector – mostly from facilities that are covered by the safeguard mechanism – have increased by 7.8% in the latest reporting period, according to new data from the Clean Energy Regulator, largely due to methane venting from increased production.
https://www.acf.org.au/new-data-oil-gas-emissions-still-on-the-rise
Lock The Gate Alliance says eight coalmining applications to extend or modify existing mines represents "the largest coal expansion since the Paris Agreement in 2016", claiming NSW had approved 26 coal and gas projects since the Paris Agreement came into force in November 2016, with combined emissions of 4.4 billion tonnes.
Boreal burning:
The Boreal forests in the north of Russia, Canada and America constitute one of the most extensive biomes on Earth, dominated by pine, spruce and fir trees, they are suffering under climate change, typically account for 10 percent of global fire carbon dioxide emissions, though beset by expanding wildfires over the past two decades, in the severe droughts of 2021 they contributed 23 percent, equivalent to 1.76 billion tons of CO2, about the same as fossil fuel emissions from Japan.
"Boreal forests could be a time bomb of carbon, and the recent increases in wildfire emissions we see make me worry the clock is ticking," said Steven Davis, one of the authors of the study published in the journal Science.
https://www.barrons.com/news/boreal-forest-fires-a-time-bomb-of-carbon-emissions-48bed2aa
"This warming that's massing in the Arctic and boreal regions is going to continue," said Steve Davis, a climate scientist at the University of California, Irvine. "So we're what we're worried about is that it's not actually an anomaly. It's like the new normal. And there's going to be a lot of these boreal forests burning in the coming years."
https://phys.org/news/2023-03-carbon-emissions-boreal-forest-rose.html
Damned plantations:
The Guardian has an article about the areas worst-hit by Cyclone Gabrielle in New Zealand, one story is of a family appreciating the clear blue sky the day after, only to see a tsunami of mud and logs rushing towards them and through their house, as a flood dam of logging debris burst, a scenario repeated more often as bared hillsides and logging slash (from pine plantations) wash away in intense rainfall events, and the industry remains in denial.
TURNING IT AROUND
Celebrating forests:
Forests cover 31% of the earth’s land area, a third are primary forest, they contain half of the terrestrial carbon, they are home to 80% of amphibians, 75% birds, and 68% mammals, and 10 million hectares are wiped out each year.
Forests cover almost a third, or 31 percent, of the global land area, according to a 2022 report by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
More than one-third is primary forest, which the FAO defines as being "naturally regenerated forests of native species, where there are no visible indications of human activities and the ecological processes are not significantly disturbed".
Four-fifths of the world's amphibian species live in forests, as do three-quarters of bird species, 68 percent of mammal species and many of the 60,000 kinds of trees found on Earth.
Three-quarters of the fungi species, two-thirds of the plant species and nearly half (45 percent) of the animal species considered vulnerable, endangered or extinct are found in forests.
They contain 662 billion tonnes of carbon, more than half of all the carbon found in soil and vegetation.
The forestry sector pumped more than $1.52 trillion into the world economy in 2015, directly and indirectly.
10 million hectares of forests were wiped out each year between 2015 and 2020.
https://phys.org/news/2023-02-world-forests-figures.html
Canadian logging collapsing:
British Columbia’s forestry industry is shrinking both in scale and importance to B.C.’s overall economy, with the biggest impacts of sawmill and pulp mill curtailments and closures felt in smaller cities and towns as the combination of weak demand and impacts of longer-term forces affecting timber availability have triggered yet another cascade of mill closures – maybe they should now save what’s left of their oldgrowth.
https://biv.com/article/2023/02/small-town-bc-hit-hard-forestry-downturn
Tiny is big:
Tiny forests in urban areas, often the size of a tennis court, are rapidly growing at a rate of 50 a year in the UK, based on dense planting of diverse species, planted by volunteers who collect data on plant and animal life, urban cooling and carbon capture.
Earthwatch has already surpassed its original target of 150 forests in the UK within three years. Now, it’s planning to establish 500 across the UK and Europe by 2030.
Hartley says the scheme has captured the imagination in a way large-scale tree-planting in rural areas rarely does. The lifeblood of each tiny forest is its volunteers.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/1740185/tiny-forests-new-scheme-miniature-woods
Forest Media 24 February 2023
New South Wales
On Wednesday the first 3 of those arrested in Bulga State Forest appeared in the Taree Courthouse, with threats of demonstrations of celebration of their actions and their cause outside the courthouse. About 30 protesters gathered on Wednesday morning to voice their support for those arrested over a recent attempt to block logging in the Bulga State Forest, all 3 pleaded guilty to the offences of entering a prohibited forest and putting themselves in an unsafe situation, each receiving no conviction and a nine month good behaviour period.
The Echo ran with my media release calling the EPA’s removal of a logging exclusion over an oldgrowth forest identified as a fire refuge in Doubleduke State Forest in 2020, a dereliction of duty, and calling for it to be urgently reinstated. The Echo also has an article about the Save Banyabba Koalas forest protection camp being moved on four times after originally setting up legally in Tabbimobile and then Doubleduke State Forests.
NBN has a story on logging of the Great Koala National Park and the ALP promise, with the NPA calling for a moratorium on logging of native forests within the proposed Great Koala National Park.
It’s a miracle, Grandpa has been saved by the bypass, for months Transport NSW have been saying that redesigning the Coffs Harbour bypass to avoid the 0.5ha Grandpa’s Scrub would cost $50 million and delay the bypass project prohibitively, though now miraculously they have redesigned the bypass to bypass Grandpa without any increased costs and delays.
Sue Arnold has a comprehensive article about the evidence that NSW’s forests are in deep trouble, citing the NSW Government’s own reports that they suppress and ignore, and the concerns raised by the 31 national and international scientists who requested the EPA undertake a comprehensive investigation of the cascading impacts of the 2019-2020 fires on CIFOA forests.
The Perrottet government has been accused of double dipping by using land that has already been bought with public funds and put aside for conservation to offset yet more clearing of endangered bushland for new housing developments in western Sydney.
The Daily Telegraph has an article on independents asks, with only one featuring koalas, with popular Northern Beaches Mayor Michael Regan, who has nominated as an independent for the seat of Wakehurst, including as his key issues the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council proposal for a 450 house development over bushland at Lizard Rock, as well as measures to protect endangered koala habitats “because clearly the current policy is not working”.
Australia
It’s a bit like boasting, David Lindenmayer has an article about the largest trees in Australia, and not unsurprisingly the tallest and fattest are mostly Mountain Ash in Tasmania and Victoria, though our figs rank as the fattest (albeit a bit bony) with a white fig in northern New South Wales with a 31m circumference and a Moreton Bay fig coming in number 2 at 29m. It is a reminder of why big trees are awesome and irreplaceable.
Hugh Possingham has an article in The Conversation arguing for private conservation reserves (and even multiple use “reserves”), identifying that Australia has the second-largest percentage of land managed privately for conservation in the world, with NGOs such as The Nature Conservancy, Australian Wildlife Conservancy, Bush Heritage Australia and Trust for Nature owning about 50,000 square kilometres.
Australian Regional and Rural News has a diatribe attacking the Victorian Andrews Government for phasing out logging, featuring the CFMEU’s Michael O’Conner.
Species
The story reported last week that 29 Australian species that were close to extinction are recovering, with 15 species warranting removal from threatened species lists, is still doing the rounds, while many of these have only recovered in feral proof enclosures rather than in the wild, I repeat the story because of the quote by Dr Woinarski : "There have not been any recoveries of threatened species affected by broadscale land clearing, forestry, climate change and changed fire regimes – Australia is not yet managing those threats adequately, and they represent formidable challenges."
Renewable energy is a growing threat to Koalas, of the 140 proposals being considered by the Commonwealth that could threaten koala habitat, 29 are renewable energy projects, alongside 50 coal and gas projects and 37 property developments. The Sky shock jock Paul Murray loved this, as suddenly its not broadscale land-clearing (for agriculture, mining and urban development) logging or bushfires that are threats to Koalas, but rather renewable energy trying to displace fossil fuels. Tanya Plibersek wants praise for the Australian Government handing out more than $76 million through the Saving Koalas Fund for the conservation and protection of koalas - while on the other hand she wants us to ignore some of her approvals, and the thousands of hectares of Koala habitat logged each year under Regional Forest Agreements.
Gunnedah Koala Sanctuary, come tourist theme park, has just received a boost with $2 million in funding from Whitehaven Coal, making it a joint venture with the NSW Government ($20.1 M), Gunnedah Shire Council ($1.5 M and land) and Whitehaven Coal – maybe they could have bought out the Wood Supply Agreements instead.
Since they got rid of the rats on Lord Howe Island in 2019, populations of the Lord Howe Island woodhen have increased from 250 to over 1,100 birds in the latest survey, with seabirds returning to the island for breeding and “extinct” invertebrates coming alive. The Forestry Corporation reports that their latest results from a wildlife monitoring program have revealed small mammals are recovering strongly in Eden State forests following the Black Summer bushfires, reporting most of the small ground mammals have returned to 100% of their previous sites, with the exception of Southern Brown Bandicoots which have only reached 75 per cent site occupancy, though the success story is Bush Rats increasing 46 fold in two years - or maybe they just like having their photos taken.
In the Australian Alps Brushtail possums and ravens are the most common scavengers recorded, with ravens mostly scavenging in spring, and possums in winter - responsible for 81% of all recorded scavenging of Kangaroo carcasses.
There are estimated to be over 5 million pet cats in Australia, with a third of these contained and 3.5 million left to pillage, killing an average of 40 reptiles, 38 birds and 32 native mammals each per year, with a survey of NSW Councils showing a need for state legislation to allow them to establish cat-free areas, limit cat numbers and require cat containment.
Another mass fish kill is underway at Menindee, with thousands of fish, predominantly carp and bony herring, affected, along with a small number of Murray cod and yabbies, this time caused by the mass of carp that bred up in the floods being concentrated as flood waters recede and consuming all the oxygen.
The Deteriorating Problem
Chatham House has released a report 1.5OC-Dead or Alive warning of a climate “doom loop” where Governments are increasingly being diverted into spending money and resources dealing with the consequences of climate heating, leaving little to address its causes, and in worse cases increasing coal, gas, and oil exploitation to pay for adaptation, creating a self-perpetuating cycle.
La Nina has caused a drought since 2019 that is devastating parts of Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Bolivia, which is being worsened by climate change and the clearing of the Amazon, with the rising temperatures increasing the evaporation of what little water there is, worsening a natural water shortage and adding to crop destruction. The Paraná River, one of the main commercial waterways in South America, which goes through Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina and provides water to 40 million people, has reached its lowest level in nearly 80 years due to a prolonged drought in Brazil that scientists attribute to climate change.
A new study incorporating satellite data on biomass in tropical forests with experimental data about the effects of temperature and precipitation suggests that forests may lose substantial amounts of carbon by the end of the 21st century, with low continued carbon emissions, tropical forests, especially those in the southern Amazon, could lose 6.8 - 12% of their aboveground carbon, with higher emissions it could be 13.3 - 20.1%. Another study found the world’s forests are losing their ability to absorb carbon due to increasingly ‘unstable’ conditions caused by humans, with dramatic changes becoming more likely in some regions across Earth, with less carbon consistently absorbed by the ‘land carbon sink’ provided by trees, soil and plants. Given land ecosystems currently remove around a third of our emissions, as their capacity diminishes, the more we need to cut emissions. Another research team in Missouri found that when forests reach their ecosystem wilting point, after 2-4 weeks of extreme drought, they are less able to function properly, which includes their ability to absorb carbon dioxide.
In New Zealand they are blaming logged pine forests on steep slopes for destroying critical public infrastructure; washing away or burying highly productive agricultural and horticultural land; knocking over houses, fences and sheds; upending people’s lives and dreams; and killing people. Leading many to call for establishing more native forest. The government has announced a ministerial inquiry into forestry slash and land use with Forestry Minister Stuart Nash saying things have to change.
Turning it Around
An American company Funga is intending on producing carbon credits by introducing fungi to forests to improve tree growth and help sequester carbon, based on the claim that reintroducing wild soil microbial biodiversity can speed up plant growth by about 64%.
Next year’s launch of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Biomass satellite will map above-ground forest biomass, which ESA defines as the dry weight of live organic matter above the soil, including stem, stump, branches, seeds and foliage from its 666-kilometer polar (dawn-to-dusk) orbit, giving us the most detailed assessment yet of the globe’s forests.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Courting court:
On Wednesday the first 3 of those arrested in Bulga State Forest appeared in the Taree Courthouse, with threats of demonstrations of celebration of their actions and their cause outside the courthouse.
[Linda Gill] “At the time, the suffragettes were beaten, abused, imprisoned and treated brutally by the establishment fighting to maintain its privilege.
“Well these forest defenders, who are being criminalised by a system that is propping up private profits by destroying public assets, will be remembered the same way.
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/02/forest-defenders-to-be-celebrated-at-courthouse/
About 30 protesters gathered on Wednesday morning to voice their support for those arrested over a recent attempt to block logging in the Bulga State Forest, all 3 pleaded guilty to the offences of entering a prohibited forest and putting themselves in an unsafe situation, each receiving no conviction and a nine month good behaviour period.
Magistrate Allison Hawkins took into account their good character and the fact that the offences occurred on forestry land and had not been an inconvenience to the general public.
[Aaron Crowe] ‘If you care about our forests and all the animals that call them home then now’s the time, the forest needs you! If we don’t stop them, they will sell every last tree that the fire didn’t get in order to fill their quota and you can kiss the greater glider, the koala, and many other national treasures goodbye.’
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/02/bulga-state-forest-logging-protestors-get-good-behaviour-bonds/
Protect fire and climate refugia:
The Echo ran with my media release calling the EPA’s removal of a logging exclusion over an oldgrowth forest identified as a fire refuge in Doubleduke State Forest in 2020, a dereliction of duty, and calling for it to be urgently reinstated.
The Echo also has an article about the Save Banyabba Koalas forest protection camp being moved on four times after originally setting up legally in Tabbimobile and then Doubleduke State Forests.
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/02/forest-defenders-merry-go-round-of-camp-sites/
Great Koala story:
NBN has a story on logging of the Great Koala National Park and the ALP promise, with the NPA calling for a moratorium on logging of native forests within the proposed Great Koala National Park.
Grandpa’s bypass successful:
It’s a miracle, Grandpa has been saved by the bypass, for months Transport NSW have been saying that redesigning the Coffs Harbour bypass to avoid the 0.5ha Grandpa’s Scrub would cost $50 million and delay the bypass project prohibitively, though now miraculously they have redesigned the bypass to bypass Grandpa without any increased costs and delays.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-24-february-2023
Feigned political ignorance:
Sue Arnold has a comprehensive article about the evidence that NSW’s forests are in deep trouble, citing the NSW Government’s own reports that they suppress and ignore, and the concerns raised by the 31 national and international scientists who requested the EPA undertake a comprehensive investigation of the cascading impacts of the 2019-2020 fires on CIFOA forests.
The cascading impacts of the 2019-2020 bushfires have been firmly tucked into the deepest political closet at both the state and federal levels. Reports indicating the need for urgent action are buried.
Yet major protests, sit-ins, tree sits and an extraordinary level of community opposition to logging is happening on the mid, far-north and south coasts forests. The history of protests both at the scientific, community and government level are impossible to ignore.
NSW native forest logging is carried out under the provisions of the Coastal Integrated Forestry Approval Operation (CIFOA) which sets out the conditions and protocols designed to protect forest flora and fauna.
No recognition of the catastrophic fires has been made in the CIFOA, nor is climate change adequately recognised or provided for under the conditions and protocols.
Recently, 31 national and international scientists requested Tony Chappel, CEO of the NSW Environment Protection Agency to undertake a comprehensive investigation of the cascading impacts of the 2019-2020 fires on CIFOA forests. Climate change was identified in the scientific submission as the key driver of the fires. Submission concerns are echoed in the FMIP report.
Caught double-dipping offsets again:
The Perrottet government has been accused of double dipping by using land that has already been bought with public funds and put aside for conservation to offset yet more clearing of endangered bushland for new housing developments in western Sydney.
Political promises:
The Daily Telegraph has an article on independents asks, with only one featuring koalas, with popular Northern Beaches Mayor Michael Regan, who has nominated as an independent for the seat of Wakehurst, including as his key issues the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council proposal for a 450 house development over bushland at Lizard Rock, as well as measures to protect endangered koala habitats “because clearly the current policy is not working”.
AUSTRALIA
Theirs may be taller, though ours are fatter:
It’s a bit like boasting, David Lindenmayer has an article about the largest trees in Australia, and not unsurprisingly the tallest and fattest are mostly Mountain Ash in Tasmania and Victoria, though our figs rank as the fattest (albeit a bit bony) with a white fig in northern New South Wales with a 31m circumference and a Moreton Bay fig coming in number 2 at 29m. It is a reminder of why big trees are awesome and irreplaceable.
Our newly published paper documents the tallest and the biggest circumference trees across the continent, and the biggest trees in each state and territory.
The loss of large old trees can have major impacts on ecosystems. These trees store huge amounts of carbon. Stands of old-growth trees produce significantly more water than catchments dominated by young trees.
Large old trees also provide habitat for many species of other plants and animals, such as the leadbeater’s possum and greater glider. The hollows that develop in large old trees are especially important in Australia. More than 300 species of vertebrates depend on these hollows – a greater proportion than anywhere else on Earth.
Large old trees are at risk from wildfires, disease, logging and climate change. Even though such trees are now only rarely cut down in logging operations, logging in the surrounding landscape makes them more vulnerable to collapse from wind damage. Climate change, and especially long droughts, also can increase the chance of large old trees dying. This is because of the stress of pumping water all the way to the canopy.
The many important ecological and cultural roles played by large old trees mean we must work far harder to protect the ones that survive. One of the important protection strategies will be to create larger buffers in areas of forest.
We also need to think about growing the next cohorts of large old trees. It is not possible to become a big tree without being a small one first. We need to make sure younger stands of trees are protected so they can become new generations of giants in the centuries to come.
Privatising parks:
Hugh Possingham has an article in The Conversation arguing for private conservation reserves (and even multiple use “reserves”), identifying that Australia has the second-largest percentage of land managed privately for conservation in the world, with NGOs such as The Nature Conservancy, Australian Wildlife Conservancy, Bush Heritage Australia and Trust for Nature owning about 50,000 square kilometres.
Bad Andy:
Australian Regional and Rural News has a diatribe attacking the Victorian Andrews Government for phasing out logging, featuring the CFMEU’s Michael O’Conner.
Michael O’Conner of the CEMEU wrote:
“Federal Labor’s task of convincing blue-collar workers and communities they will be looked after is threatened by the approach of the Andrews Government toward timber workers and their communities because these workers are being thrown on the scrap heap. When Daniel Andrews announced that his government would halve the Victorian native forest industry from 2024 and shut it down completely by 2030, it was a hammer blow which blindsided thousands of Victorian timber workers, their families and communities, and shocked and devastated an entire industry.”
https://arr.news/2023/02/23/native-forestry-set-for-the-chop/
SPECIES
Some good news, but not for forest species:
The story reported last week that 29 Australian species that were close to extinction are recovering, with 15 species warranting removal from threatened species lists, is still doing the rounds, while many of these have only recovered in feral proof enclosures rather than in the wild, I repeat the story because of the quote by Dr Woinarski : "There have not been any recoveries of threatened species affected by broadscale land clearing, forestry, climate change and changed fire regimes – Australia is not yet managing those threats adequately, and they represent formidable challenges."
Renewable energy is clearly a threat to Koalas:
Renewable energy is a growing threat to Koalas, of the 140 proposals being considered by the Commonwealth that could threaten koala habitat, 29 are renewable energy projects, alongside 50 coal and gas projects and 37 property developments.
The projects registered with the department that would threaten koala habitat would remove habitat trees for site development and access roads as well as potentially fragment the species’ natural range, which has already been decimated.
The Sky shock jock Paul Murray loved this, as suddenly its not broadscale land-clearing (for agriculture, mining and urban development) logging or bushfires that are threats to Koalas, but rather renewable energy trying to displace fossil fuels.
“Guess what might be one heck of a threat to koalas – it ain’t bushfires … we learn today that renewable energy projects are a significant threat to koalas.
Look at this hand:
Tanya Plibersek wants praise for the Australian Government handing out more than $76 million through the Saving Koalas Fund for the conservation and protection of koalas - while on the other hand she wants us to ignore some of her approvals, and the thousands of hectares of Koala habitat logged each year under Regional Forest Agreements.
https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/plibersek/media-releases/koala-ty-care-aussie-icons
Gunnedah Koala’s have coal backing:
Gunnedah Koala Sanctuary, come tourist theme park, has just received a boost with $2 million in funding from Whitehaven Coal, making it a joint venture with the NSW Government ($20.1 M), Gunnedah Shire Council ($1.5 M and land) and Whitehaven Coal – maybe they could have bought out the Wood Supply Agreements instead.
Whitehaven's $2 million contribution builds on $8 million from the NSW Government under the Regional Tourism Activation Fund. The sanctuary was also awarded $5.62 million through the NSW Government's Resources for Regions program and $6.48 million from its Regional Communities Development Fund, while the Gunnedah Shire Council has provided the land and contributed around $1.5 million to the project to date. Construction began in late 2022.
No rats:
Since they got rid of the rats on Lord Howe Island in 2019, populations of the Lord Howe Island woodhen have increased from 250 to over 1,100 birds in the latest survey, with seabirds returning to the island for breeding and “extinct” invertebrates coming alive.
"The masked booby is breeding on the main island for the first time since the rodents were there," Mr Fleming said.
The Lord Howe wood-feeding cockroach, presumed extinct on the main island, has meanwhile been rediscovered at a site in the north of the island.
Experts have also rediscovered four species of snail previously thought to be extinct.
[Mr Fleming] "So really Lord Howe, which has always been spectacular, is now coming alive again, with all of these rare and endemic species found nowhere else in the world.
Lots and lots of rats:
The Forestry Corporation reports that their latest results from a wildlife monitoring program have revealed small mammals are recovering strongly in Eden State forests following the Black Summer bushfires, reporting most of the small ground mammals have returned to 100% of their previous sites, with the exception of Southern Brown Bandicoots which have only reached 75 per cent site occupancy, though the success story is Bush Rats increasing 46 fold in two years - or maybe they just like having their photos taken.
“More startling is the number of Bush Rat camera images, increasing 46 fold in two years, from 571 in 2020 to 26,492 images in spring 2022, suggesting a remarkable increase in abundance,” Dr Bilney said.
Carnivorous possums:
In the Australian Alps Brushtail possums and ravens are the most common scavengers recorded, with ravens mostly scavenging in spring, and possums in winter - responsible for 81% of all recorded scavenging of Kangaroo carcasses.
Carnivorous cats:
There are estimated to be over 5 million pet cats in Australia, with a third of these contained and 3.5 million left to pillage, killing an average of 40 reptiles, 38 birds and 32 native mammals each per year, with a survey of NSW Councils showing a need for state legislation to allow them to establish cat-free areas, limit cat numbers and require cat containment.
Concern about the impacts of roaming cats has led almost one-third of councils to introduce cat-free areas, cat curfews and containment requirements at all or some places in their local government area. Where adequately policed, these measures appear to be working.
… In NSW, Tweed Shire has designated some recently built and future suburbs, which are next to bushland with high conservation value, as cat-free.
Local councils in WA and NSW complained most often about this situation. They want changes to state laws to make it easier for them to set and police local rules about cat containment or cat prohibition.
Many cats don’t bring home what they kill, or bring back only a very small proportion (15% on average), so their owners aren’t aware of the majority of the wildlife toll. Radio-tracking studies have shown a large proportion of cats are out on adventures when their owners thought they were inside.
On average, each roaming, hunting pet cat in Australia kills 40 native reptiles, 38 native birds and 32 native mammals per year.
Our suburbs are now home to around 55 cats per square kilometre. That adds up to about 6,000 native animals killed per square kilometre per year in our suburbs alone. The national wildlife death toll from pet cats is well over 300 million native animals per year.
Carp population boom killing carp:
Another mass fish kill is underway at Menindee, with thousands of fish, predominantly carp and bony herring, affected, along with a small number of Murray cod and yabbies, this time caused by the mass of carp that bred up in the floods being concentrated as flood waters recede and consuming all the oxygen.
“Now this will be like a domino effect because the more carp die, the worse the water quality will get and then more die. You’ll start to get deoxygenation because the carp start to rot and when they start to rot that sucks the oxygen out of the water.”
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Welcome to the doom loop:
Chatham House has released a report 1.5OC-Dead or Alive warning of a climate “doom loop” where Governments are increasingly being diverted into spending money and resources dealing with the consequences of climate heating, leaving little to address its causes, and in worse cases increasing coal, gas, and oil exploitation to pay for adaptation, creating a self-perpetuating cycle.
The historical failure to sufficiently tackle the climate and ecological crisis
could create consequences that challenge the ability of societies to tackle the root
causes of this crisis. The vast changes needed to limit global heating and restore
nature must be achieved in ever shorter periods of time. Continued investments in
fossil fuels create more vested interests who oppose change. Meanwhile, societies
are being called upon to respond to the relentless, damaging symptoms of the
crisis. These challenges could increasingly distract from efforts to realise rapid
decarbonisation and nature restoration.
This is a doom loop: the consequences of the crisis and the failure to address it
draw focus and resources from tackling its causes, leading to higher temperatures
and ecological loss, which then create more severe consequences, diverting even
more attention and resources, and so on. We describe this as a ‘strategic risk’ to
our collective ability to realise a transformation of societies that ultimately avoids
catastrophic climate and ecological change.
Narratives where it is assumed 1.5°C is lost have a political impact on what happens
next, potentially encouraging or discouraging action to realise transformational
change. The shock of thinking the goal is lost might, for instance, inspire greater
pressure on leaders to deliver deep changes. Alternatively, it could be viewed as
proof that such change is unrealistic or even undesirable. In general, the growing
chance of breaching 1.5°C and the challenges of realising transformational
change can be exploited by vested interests to argue for technologies that are
underdeveloped, unproven and potentially dangerous to sustain the status
quo. Meanwhile, proven and deliverable changes such as large-scale demand
management, which also have vast co-benefits for health and the wider
environment, are marginalised or ignored.
https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?e=6624c72df8&u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=bf591dd399
https://www.ippr.org/files/2023-02/1676546139_1.5c-dead-or-alive-feb23.pdf
South America’s turn:
La Nina has caused a drought since 2019 that is devastating parts of Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Bolivia, which is being worsened by climate change and the clearing of the Amazon, with the rising temperatures increasing the evaporation of what little water there is, worsening a natural water shortage and adding to crop destruction. The Paraná River, one of the main commercial waterways in South America, which goes through Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina and provides water to 40 million people, has reached its lowest level in nearly 80 years due to a prolonged drought in Brazil that scientists attribute to climate change.
Destabilising forests and climate:
A new study incorporating satellite data on biomass in tropical forests with experimental data about the effects of temperature and precipitation suggests that forests may lose substantial amounts of carbon by the end of the 21st century, with low continued carbon emissions, tropical forests, especially those in the southern Amazon, could lose 6.8 - 12% of their aboveground carbon, with higher emissions it could be 13.3 - 20.1%.
“If you constantly get sick, your immune system would be shattered,” making you more susceptible to getting sick again, Saatchi said. “That really impacts your health, and this is something that we worry a lot [about] with these tropical forests.”
This study provides yet more evidence, he said, that underlines the need to protect tropical forests from degradation and destruction, which in turn increases their resilience when faced with worsening climate change.
“It basically means that we need to start quickly to reduce the temperature and keep our forests healthy,” Saatchi added, “because these [forests] are the ones that regulate the climate much better.”
https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/carbon-uptake-in-tropical-forests-withers-in-drier-future-study/
Another study found the world’s forests are losing their ability to absorb carbon due to increasingly ‘unstable’ conditions caused by humans, with dramatic changes becoming more likely in some regions across Earth, with less carbon consistently absorbed by the ‘land carbon sink’ provided by trees, soil and plants. Given land ecosystems currently remove around a third of our emissions, as their capacity diminishes, the more we need to cut emissions.
Dr McGuire said,
Ecosystems on land currently absorb almost one-third of the carbon emissions created by humans. If they start to absorb less carbon, the earth’s natural ability to curb climate change diminishes. This means we may need to cut human-made carbon emissions even faster than we had previously thought.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05725-1
Another research team in Missouri found that when forests reach their ecosystem wilting point, after 2-4 weeks of extreme drought, they are less able to function properly, which includes their ability to absorb carbon dioxide.
https://phys.org/news/2023-02-threshold-triggers-drought-response-forests.html
https://www.futurity.org/forests-droughts-response-2878752/
A pine disaster:
In New Zealand they are blaming logged pine forests on steep slopes for destroying critical public infrastructure; washing away or burying highly productive agricultural and horticultural land; knocking over houses, fences and sheds; upending people’s lives and dreams; and killing people. Leading many to call for establishing more native forest.
Landslides in harvested sites pick up the material and carry it downstream, causing significant damage. All the evidence from Cyclone Gabrielle shows that much of the damage was caused by radiata pine slash.
Sediment and slash from exotic tree harvesting sites were established as major factors in the damage that occurred during the June 2018 Tolaga Bay storm in recent court cases taken by Gisborne District Council.
The government has announced a ministerial inquiry into forestry slash and land use with Forestry Minister Stuart Nash saying things have to change.
TURNING IT AROUND
Crediting fungi:
An American company Funga is intending on producing carbon credits by introducing fungi to forests to improve tree growth and help sequester carbon, based on the claim that reintroducing wild soil microbial biodiversity can speed up plant growth by about 64%.
https://carboncredits.com/startup-funga-uses-fungi-carbon-capture-forests/
Coming soon:
Next year’s launch of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Biomass satellite will map above-ground forest biomass, which ESA defines as the dry weight of live organic matter above the soil, including stem, stump, branches, seeds and foliage from its 666-kilometer polar (dawn-to-dusk) orbit, giving us the most detailed assessment yet of the globe’s forests.
Recent research in the tropics shows that natural forests hold 40 times more carbon than forests that are the result of tree farming, the authors of a 2019 paper appearing in the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change write. Planet-wide, forests also remove the lion’s share of atmospheric carbon emitted by human consumption of burning fossil fuels, the authors note.
Forest Media 17 February 2023
The current heatwave, particularly in western NSW with all those rain fed fuels now curing, is a taste of what we can expect now that La Nina is over.
New South Wales
On Tuesday a community camp to end native forest logging was established near Doubleduke State Forest calling on everyone concerned about our endangered species, climate and economy to join them in bearing witness and alerting fellow citizens to the rip off of our assets in progress in our forests. In a heavy handed move, the closure was vastly extended to include the camp, and six police vehicles were sent to shut down the Save Banyabba Koalas forest protection camp in Tabbimobile State Forest, this morning. The camp has been moved nearby.
Mark Graham’s claims that logging in the region’s catchments is the cause of the poor quality water in the Nymboida, not fires, with the regrowth reducing future yields, had an airing on NBN with his videos of clearfelling on the Dorrigo plateau.
The News of the Area article on Moonpar logging is now online. The February issue of The Nimbin Goodtimes has a great article by Susie on the Bulga blockade, extending to the bigger issue of stopping logging of public forests. As well as an article by Sue Higginson focussing on the Yarratt State Forest blockade. The Great Lakes Advocate ran the MidCoast Council supporting protecting Bulga and phasing out native forest logging.
The Guardian has an article about NSW forests, identifying that with no clear commitments, the gap between community expectations and actions of state MPs will be a major election flashpoint, citing NEFA, while focussing on the Government’s claims that we need the timber and the industry is well regulated.
Sanger’s assessment that stopping logging of native forests in NSW could yield as much as $2.7 billion in avoided carbon emissions between 2023 and 2050 (as reported last week) is garnering a bit more attention. She has combined her assessments in Tasmania, Victoria and NSW to identify the total tonnage as 11.2 million tonnes of carbon released by logging native forests each year, equivalent to the annual emissions of 2.6 million cars and greater than the annual emissions of Australia’s domestic aviation industry. - two things to be aware of, the first is that this is for both public and private forests, the second is that its only for avoided emissions (the volumes released by logging) and does not account for the massive volumes that will be sequestered by the recovering forests over that time.
The Eden Magnet has a story about The Green’s policy to end logging of public native forests, with Sue Higginson commenting on logging in the Eden area as "a war zone", seeing “logging operations taking place in a forest that just cannot accommodate it”, while the industry ignores the woodchipping, claiming the logging is for outdoor furniture, cladding, staircases and flooring. The paper is inviting comments in a poll – have your say.
The Forestry Corporation is monitoring 300 sites in State forests along the east coast under the new Coastal integrated forestry operations approvals framework, to be measured in spring and autumn each year using sound recorders, ultrasonic sound recorders and cameras, claiming strong recovery after the fires.
The Greens have joined the calls for urgent intervention from the NSW Planning Secretary Michael Cassel to prevent the clearing of 40 hectares of Leard State Forest, including the Whitebox Critically Endangered Ecological Community, in the state’s northwest by Whitehaven Coal’s Maules Creek Open Cut Coal Mine.
With support of the Aboriginal Wollumbin Consultative Group, the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has proposed a new walk in the Wollumbin National Park up to the rim of the inner caldera, with a master plan on public exhibition until 27 February. This was originally put forward as an alternative for closing the summit walk, though they aren’t saying that.
Australia
Production of white pulp and graphic paper at Opal Australian Paper's Maryvale mill in Victoria's Latrobe Valley has permanently ceased (though will continue production of packaging products), blaming the logging disputes, meaning an end to production in Australia, a reprieve for native forests, and a reduction in workers from 1,000 to 800 – despite massive volumes of hardwood plantation timber being exported the mill never bothered to make the transition.
The Federal Greens’ Senator Janet Rice has called on state and federal Labor governments to commit to ending native forest logging immediately and ensure a just transition for forestry workers, following the announcement that white paper production at the Maryvale paper mill is set to close, after failing to transition to plantations, leading to the comment “Native forest logging is a dying industry and there’s no way around it”.
As Western Australia continues its transition out of public native forest logging the third mill in a month has closed, Whiteland Milling in Busselton, leaving more than 30 workers out of a job. Though the Government is yet to decide who gets all the bonus trees from clearing for bauxite mining. Companies who convert hardwood sawdust and offcuts into mulch for gardens, farms and playgrounds are running out of supplies, it is being portrayed as a crisis, except that they can use pine.
The Forest Practices Authority estimates a 158,129-hectare – or 4.9 per cent – cumulative loss of native forest in Tasmania between 1996 and 2022, with 14,000 hectares of forest and woodland cleared between 2010 and 2019 (which is small compared to Queensland’s 544,360 ha and NSW’s 153,510ha), and penalties for unapproved land clearing often just seen as "the cost of doing business" for private landowners.
Species
The Conversation has an article about the recovery of 29 Australian species that were close to extinction, with 15 species warranting removal from threatened species lists, though many of these have only recovered in feral proof enclosures, rather than in the wild, though the Cassowary has recovered because of increased reserves and restrictions on land clearing, Gouldian Finch by changed land management (incl. removing livestock), and Humpbacked Whales by stopping hunting, the big losers are species affected by logging and fish affected by stream degradation and diversions, but all is not yet lost.
The NSW Government has announced $2.8 million in funding to treat the spread of the deadly disease wombat mange affecting six per cent of wombats in NSW, mange is caused by mites that burrow into a wombat’s skin, causing itching and sores that can become infected, leaving wombats weak, malnourished and dehydrated.
Local Land Services (LLS) NSW has released a video titled “What has happened to the koalas around Gunnedah?” on which experts and others explain how they have witnessed a “massive decline” in koala numbers over the past decade. The article mentions the Great Koala NP. The Dungog Chronical has an article about the need local councils to develop comprehensive koala plans of management in the Cessnock and Lake Macquarie areas, referring to the recent reports by the Sydney Basin Koala Network and EDO, and Government commitments for $3 million to the Port Stephens Koala Sanctuary, $450,000 for the MidCoast LGA and Port Stephens LGA to develop koala habitat maps, $600,000 to support habitat restoration works, and over $1.5 million for road-strike mitigation. Newcastle Weekly has a different focus, reporting that Koalas in Cessnock and Lake Macquarie are in imminent danger of extinction and it is legislative loopholes that are to blame, with the Sydney Basin Koala Network calling on candidates to commit to Koala protection. A million dollar 5 km Koala exclusion fence along Picton Road is in disrepair, leading to concerns from locals that it is putting Koalas at risk.
Seeing and tasting (the air) are the main ways snakes sense their environment, and it has long been claimed they can’t hear, only detecting vibrations through the ground, though new research found they can hear through the air (it may be somewhat muffled), particularly if you scream.
For the NSW election the Animal Justice Party is proposing $50m funding to establish and resource an Independent Commissioner for Wildlife to specifically advocate for the protection of wild animals, by implementing systemic change by prioritising animal habitat over development and intervening in planning and development applications to enforce habitat protection.
The flush of floodwater has seeped into wetlands and triggered one of the most widespread bird breeding events in decades, though birds are still recovering from past losses and in some locations their nests have been inundated by floodwaters. More than 350 birds, mostly ducks, were found dead, and others injured and sick, at Bells Swamp Nature Reserve near Bendigo, with testing under way, Birdlife Australia believes the most likely cause is avian botulism.
A booming population of feral horses is being relocated from a south-east Queensland forest, with authorities citing the increasing risk of car strikes to both horses and people.
The Conversation has an article about tree weeds, identifying some of the worst as Monterey pine, Camphor laurel, Desert Ash, Jacarandas, Willow, and the native Cootamundra wattle and Sweet pittosporum when outside their range, urging people to look before they plant.
The Deteriorating Problem
A group of 35 scientists conducted a new study that measures the extent and intensity of degradation in all Amazonian countries, finding 1 million square miles, 38% of what remains of the Amazon Forest — that is, what has not been deforested yet — suffers from some type of degradation caused by human action.
Turning it Around
Under Labor’s proposal for carbon offsets, businesses would be able to meet emissions limits by buying an unlimited number of carbon credits as offsets (each credit represents a tonne of carbon dioxide reduced or avoided somewhere else) as an alternative to cutting their own greenhouse gases, would likely greenlight new coal and gas developments and lead to a rise in emissions according to a new report, finding ‘every carbon credit used to offset one tonne of CO2 from liquified natural gas production in Australia led to about 8.4 tonnes of CO2 going into the atmosphere, … In the case of coal, every Australian carbon credit used to offset a tonne of emissions from coalmining was associated with between 58 and 67 tonnes of CO2’.
4 corners had an expose on a variety of Australian Government accredited rorted carbon offsets programs, this time in New Guinea. The company NIHT Inc started as a logging company, apparently deciding to cash in on carbon credits, selling more than 1.3 million carbon credits for an average of $US4 ($5.78) each, though land owners in New Ireland only received about 200 kina ($80) each, and some decided to sell the logging rights. With no due diligence process, major accreditation companies approved it and big companies bought the credits, and now the offset area is being logged. Other companies, such as Kanaka Management Services and Mayur Resources, are similarly signing up landholders for carbon credits who don’t understand what it’s about, and limited understanding of the documents they sign.
Solving climate change is a bit of a free-for-all, with solar geoengineering, a field that seeks to scatter or reflect solar rays before they hit the Earth another of those “solutions” that excuses us from having to deal with the problem, typically focussed on increasing air pollution with sulfur dioxide, the latest brainwave is to mine the moon to create a dust cloud to envelop the world. An article in the Conversation considers the launching some 10 million tonnes of Moon dust into space each year as unfeasible in the short term, and other earth-based “solar geoengineering” measures fraught with potential side-effects, concluding we are better off focusing on replacing fossil fuels. Companies are already exploiting opportunities, in 2022 the start-up company Make Sunsets launched balloons into the stratosphere to release sulfur dioxide to make the atmosphere more reflective, aiming to grab attention for the technique and sell ‘cooling credits’ for future balloon flights. While most climate scientists think solar geoengineering a bad idea, often with unintended consequences, one argues it still needs rigorous study
A group of over 1000 volunteers in the Dutch city of Leeuwarden has created a “walking forest,” a mobile forest made up of 1000 trees planted in wheelbarrows that can be moved around the city.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Doubling down in Doubleduke
On Tuesday a community camp to end native forest logging was established near Doubleduke State Forest calling on everyone concerned about our endangered species, climate and economy to join them in bearing witness and alerting fellow citizens to the rip off of our assets in progress in our forests. In a heavy handed move, the closure was vastly extended to include the camp, and six police vehicles were sent to shut down the Save Banyabba Koalas forest protection camp in Tabbimobile State Forest, this morning. The camp has been moved nearby.
Community representatives from conservation organisations from Grafton, Kyogle, Lismore, Nimbin and Malanganee took time out of their busy lives to help establish the watch camp on Glencoe Rd next to Doubleduke State Forest yesterday.
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/02/doubling-down-at-doubleduke-state-forest/
Logging is the problem in the Nymboida catchment, not fires:
Mark Graham’s claims that logging in the region’s catchments is the cause of the poor quality water in the Nymboida, not fires, with the regrowth reducing future yields, had an airing on NBN with his videos of clearfelling on the Dorrigo plateau.
The News of the Area article on Moonpar logging is now online.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/locals-and-activists-dismayed-by-moonpar-state-forest-logging
The February issue of The Nimbin Goodtimes has a great article by Susie on the Bulga blockade, extending to the bigger issue of stopping logging of public forests.
https://www.nimbingoodtimes.com/archive/pages2023/feb/NGT-0223-2-9.pdf
As well as an article by Sue Higginson focussing on the Yarratt State Forest blockade.
https://www.nimbingoodtimes.com/archive/pages2023/feb/NGT-0223-10-17.pdf
The Great Lakes Advocate ran the MidCoast Council supporting protecting Bulga and phasing out native forest logging.
Forestry under the spotlight:
The Guardian has an article about NSW forests, identifying that with no clear commitments, the gap between community expectations and actions of state MPs will be a major election flashpoint, while focussing on the Government’s claims that we need the timber and the industry is well regulated.
Russell says there is a “frustration and desperation” about the inaction over the future of native forest logging on public land.
“We are six weeks out from an election, and the major parties are offering nothing,” she says.
Independents targeting Sydney seats, including Pittwater – the seat held by outgoing senior Coalition minister Rob Stokes – are also calling for an end to native forest logging and new protections.
Saunders says he is proud of the Coalition’s record on forestry – “not just for the employment, tourism and economic benefits the industry provides, but also for the strict environmental protections we have in place to guide operations now and well into the future.”
Dailan Pugh … “It’s not just the koala, it’s a whole raft of species. I think people are aware our threatened species laws are fairly dismal and protection of habitat is the best way forward,” he says.
Benefits of stopping logging:
Sanger’s assessment that stopping logging of native forests in NSW could yield as much as $2.7 billion in avoided carbon emissions between 2023 and 2050 (as reported last week) is garnering a bit more attention. She has combined her assessments in Tasmania, Victoria and NSW to identify the total tonnage as 11.2 million tonnes of carbon released by logging native forests each year, equivalent to the annual emissions of 2.6 million cars and greater than the annual emissions of Australia’s domestic aviation industry. - two things to be aware of, the first is that this is for both public and private forests, the second is that its only for avoided emissions (the volumes released by logging) and does not account for the massive volumes that will be sequestered by the recovering forests over that time.
She found that in NSW sequestering carbon in native trees rather than logging them could yield as much as $2.7 billion in carbon mitigation benefits between 2023 and 2050.
In Victoria that financial benefit comes to $3.1 billion and in Tasmania it’s $2.6 billion, for a combined $8.4 billion across the three states.
Last year, the right-leaning Blueprint Institute suggested that if Victoria halted wet forest native logging it could reap $59 million in benefits from tourism, water supply and carbon credits alone this decade, and it costs taxpayers more to keep the industry running than it gives back in jobs and profits.
Plantations were far more sustainable and profitable and were the source of 85 per cent of Australia’s timber, Professor Brendan Mackey from Griffith University told AAP.
“The native forest logging is really a legacy of how we used to do things,” Professor Mackey said.
“We don’t need to log native forests anymore because we have a very good plantation estate.”
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2023/02/13/logging-nsw-native-forests/
https://www.standard.net.au/story/8083841/call-to-end-outdated-logging-of-nsw-native-forests/
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/new-report-shows-forestry-carbon-emissions-higher-than-expected
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-17-february-2023
Recent reports have found that native forest logging in south-eastern Australia emits 11.2 million tonnes of carbon each year. That’s equivalent to the annual emissions of 2.6 million cars and is greater than the annual emissions of Australia’s domestic aviation industry.
The Eden Magnet has a story about The Green’s policy to end logging of public native forests, with Sue Higginson commenting on logging in the Eden area as "a war zone", seeing “logging operations taking place in a forest that just cannot accommodate it”, while the industry ignores the woodchipping, claiming the logging is for outdoor furniture, cladding, staircases and flooring. The paper is inviting comments in a poll – have your say.
[Sue Higginson] "I feel like what I saw was a bit of a war zone and that the damage that we are doing is too much - the forest environment and that landscape will not cope."
Mr Rutherford said all Eden sawmill's products were used in higher end applications such as outdoor furniture and cladding.
https://www.edenmagnet.com.au/story/8086202/native-logging-war-zone-needs-to-end-say-greens/
Forestry Corporation monitoring:
The Forestry Corporation is monitoring 300 sites in State forests along the east coast under the new Coastal integrated forestry operations approvals framework, to be measured in spring and autumn each year using sound recorders, ultrasonic sound recorders and cameras, claiming strong recovery after the fires.
"Early observations are showing a strong recovery after the extended period of severe weather conditions - last spring was boom time for our flora and fauna," Mr Drury said.
More clearing of Leard State Forest:
The Greens have joined the calls for urgent intervention from the NSW Planning Secretary Michael Cassel to prevent the clearing of 40 hectares of Leard State Forest, including the Whitebox Critically Endangered Ecological Community, in the state’s northwest by Whitehaven Coal’s Maules Creek Open Cut Coal Mine.
https://www.miragenews.com/greens-urge-protection-of-leard-state-forest-40-948681/
Alternative Wollumbin walk:
With support of the Aboriginal Wollumbin Consultative Group, the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has proposed a new walk in the Wollumbin National Park up to the rim of the inner caldera, with a master plan on public exhibition until 27 February. This was originally put forward as an alternative for closing the summit walk, though they aren’t saying that.
The Caldera Walk Master Plan is on exhibition from 13 February until 27 February 2023 and is available here: https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/caldera
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/02/have-your-say-on-new-proposed-caldera-rim-walk/
AUSTRALIA
Time for paperless offices:
Production of white pulp and graphic paper at Opal Australian Paper's Maryvale mill in Victoria's Latrobe Valley has permanently ceased (though will continue production of packaging products), blaming the logging disputes, meaning an end to production in Australia, a reprieve for native forests, and a reduction in workers from 1,000 to 800 – despite massive volumes of hardwood plantation timber being exported the mill never bothered to make the transition.
"Despite our best endeavours, Opal has been unable to source viable alternative wood supplies to replace the shortfall from VicForests," Opal said in a statement on Wednesday.
Opal's Japanese parent company Nippon Paper Group announced the closure of the mill, which opened in 1937 and is one of the region's largest employers.
The Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union blamed the early end of white paper production in Australia on the Victorian government's mismanagement of the sector and Opal's "bumbling" approach.
The Victorian Forest Alliance said the mill had driven the decline of threatened species for decades and a 30-year contract with Nippon to supply woodchips from Victorian native forests until 2030 was never going to be sustainable.
https://www.sheppnews.com.au/national/axe-falls-on-australias-last-white-paper-manufacturer-2/
In a statement on its website, Nippon said the company would withdraw from “graphic paper”, ie white paper, but would continue making paperboard, kraft paper, corrugated board and folding cartons in Australia and New Zealand.
Court rulings have prohibited the agency from logging native coupes without adequate wildlife surveying, which VicForests says has effectively blocked the supply of native hardwood timbers.
In the past financial year, VicForests recorded an unprecedented $52.4 million financial loss, which it blamed on the cost of court cases. The figure is significantly higher than the previous year’s loss of $4.7 million.
Time to stop it:
The Federal Greens’ Senator Janet Rice has called on state and federal Labor governments to commit to ending native forest logging immediately and ensure a just transition for forestry workers, following the announcement that white paper production at the Maryvale paper mill is set to close, after failing to transition to plantations, leading to the comment “Native forest logging is a dying industry and there’s no way around it”.
https://www.miragenews.com/greens-push-labor-to-halt-native-forest-logging-947858/
West Australia on track:
As Western Australia continues its transition out of public native forest logging the third mill in a month has closed, Whiteland Milling in Busselton, leaving more than 30 workers out of a job. Though the Government is yet to decide who gets all the bonus trees from clearing for bauxite mining.
"If they thought things were getting a bit tough, they should've maybe just cut back a fraction on the quotas and kept it going for another 10 years which would've given more time to plant more pine trees to help the industry."
… oh no, there is a shortage of hardwood mulch:
Companies who convert hardwood sawdust and offcuts into mulch for gardens, farms and playgrounds are running out of supplies, it is being portrayed as a crisis, except that they can use pine.
"I think we'll be alright, we just need to adapt."
He said people would turn to softwood timber, from plantations, to fill the gap.
"It's a very good mulch too for most applications."
Seeing Tasmania clearly:
The Forest Practices Authority estimates a 158,129-hectare – or 4.9 per cent – cumulative loss of native forest in Tasmania between 1996 and 2022, with 14,000 hectares of forest and woodland cleared between 2010 and 2019 (which is small compared to Queensland’s 544,360 ha and NSW’s 153,510ha), and penalties for unapproved land clearing often just seen as "the cost of doing business" for private landowners.
"People these days know that clearing trees is going to be under some kind of regulatory approval process, so I find it a little bit disingenuous if people say, 'oh I didn't know I wasn't allowed to do it'," [Peter Volker, retired Tasmania's chief forest practices officer] said.
"Over the decade between 2010 and 2019, in Tasmania, it's estimated that over 14,000 hectares of forest and woodland was cleared. Most of that was not done under licence.
Dr Cresswell said Australia ranked poorly internationally in preventing illegal native forest clearing, and Tasmania was among the worst states.
"People think of the clearing of the Amazon as being the worst sort of clearing you can have in the world, actually Australia ranks worse," he said.
SPECIES
All is not lost:
The Conversation has an article about the recovery of 29 Australian species that were close to extinction, with 15 species warranting removal from threatened species lists, though many of these have only recovered in feral proof enclosures, rather than in the wild, though the Cassowary has recovered because of increased reserves and restrictions on land clearing, Gouldian Finch by changed land management (incl. removing livestock), and Humpbacked Whales by stopping hunting, the big losers are species affected by logging and fish affected by stream degradation and diversions, but all is not lost.
Australia’s natural world is in deep trouble. Many of our species are getting rarer. Some are now perilously close to extinction, while entire ecosystems face collapse.
… Australia’s threatened bird species declined in abundance by an average of 44% from 2000 to 2016.
There has also been little success for the many species mostly affected by timber harvesting, broad-scale land clearing, fire and climate change.
Yes, the natural world is falling apart around us. But we do not have to passively accept such collapse. We can stop at least some of these losses. We can make a difference.
Mite-y wombats:
The NSW Government has announced $2.8 million in funding to treat the spread of the deadly disease wombat mange affecting six per cent of wombats in NSW, mange is caused by mites that burrow into a wombat’s skin, causing itching and sores that can become infected, leaving wombats weak, malnourished and dehydrated.
https://afndaily.com.au/2023/02/11/mite-y-funding-to-stop-the-spread-of-deadly-wombat-disease/
What are we gonna do about Koalas?:
Local Land Services (LLS) NSW has released a video titled “What has happened to the koalas around Gunnedah?” on which experts and others explain how they have witnessed a “massive decline” in koala numbers over the past decade. The article mentions the Great Koala NP.
[Mr Krockenberger] said current studies indicate that of the 20 female koalas that should be breeding – just one is currently doing so. The remainder is not because of chlamydia infection decimating koala populations.
It is thought that with stressed and dehydrated animals, this may be influencing the rate of infections of chlamydia and therefore further population declines.
Native wildlife rescuer and carer, Martine Moran, from Gunnedah … “I never thought I would be in the midst of the extinction of a species such as the koala - I am horrified about it,”.
Gunnedah landholder Doug Frend … “The koalas are fighting for their survival,” he said. “It is extremely grim - it doesn’t look good.”
https://www.gunnedahtimes.com.au/news/koalas-fight-for-survival-pollies-promise-protection
The Dungog Chronical has an article about the need local councils to develop comprehensive koala plans of management in the Cessnock and Lake Macquarie areas, referring to the recent reports by the Sydney Basin Koala Network and EDO, and Government commitments for $3 million to the Port Stephens Koala Sanctuary, $450,000 for the MidCoast LGA and Port Stephens LGA to develop koala habitat maps, $600,000 to support habitat restoration works, and over $1.5 million for road-strike mitigation.
"Safeguards are failing; important legal safeguards aimed at safeguarding threatened species from hight-impact development, are poorly implemented or under-utilised."
SBKN has called on local councils to develop comprehensive koala plans of management, to be supported by NSW government legislation.
Newcastle Weekly has a different focus, reporting that Koalas in Cessnock and Lake Macquarie are in imminent danger of extinction and it is legislative loopholes that are to blame, with the Sydney Basin Koala Network calling on candidates to commit to Koala protection.
CEO Leanne Taylor … “Last financial year WIRES received 617 calls from across NSW regarding koalas and more than half of these (337) were for koalas in the Sydney Basin area.
“As their habitat and invaluable corridors continue to be destroyed, despite being reclassified as Endangered, it’s a now or never situation.”
Mr Angel … “There are alarm bells going off across the region. Koala numbers in the Sydney Basin overall have declined by an estimated 22% in the past 20 years and NSW legislation and policy has continued to allow their decline.
“Areas with the most significant koala populations are not being protected from development and other threats, despite their looming extinction.”
https://newcastleweekly.com.au/regions-koalas-facing-extinction-says-conservation-group/
A million dollar 5 km Koala exclusion fence along Picton Road is in disrepair, leading to concerns from locals that it is putting Koalas at risk.
They can hear when you scream:
Seeing and tasting (the air) are the main ways snakes sense their environment, and it has long been claimed they can’t hear, only detecting vibrations through the ground, though new research found they can hear through the air (it may be somewhat muffled), particularly if you scream.
https://theconversation.com/snakes-can-hear-you-scream-new-research-reveals-199958?utm
AJP want Commissioner for Wildlife:
For the NSW election the Animal Justice Party is proposing $50m funding to establish and resource an Independent Commissioner for Wildlife to specifically advocate for the protection of wild animals, by implementing systemic change by prioritising animal habitat over development and intervening in planning and development applications to enforce habitat protection.
https://nsw.animaljusticeparty.org/independent_commissioner_for_wildlife
Flooding a bonanza:
The flush of floodwater has seeped into wetlands and triggered one of the most widespread bird breeding events in decades, though birds are still recovering from past losses and in some locations their nests have been inundated by floodwaters.
… not for all:
More than 350 birds, mostly ducks, were found dead, and others injured and sick, at Bells Swamp Nature Reserve near Bendigo, with testing under way, Birdlife Australia believes the most likely cause is avian botulism.
Another feral horse outbreak:
A booming population of feral horses is being relocated from a south-east Queensland forest, with authorities citing the increasing risk of car strikes to both horses and people.
Annually, the wild animals cause "multiple" road accidents in the area, Ms Hunt said.
"Eventually, someone will lose their life in a collision with a feral horse and that's not a situation that we can accept."
Two brumbies were hit by vehicles in the past fortnight.
Tree Weeds:
The Conversation has an article about tree weeds, identifying some of the worst as Monterey pine, Camphor laurel, Desert Ash, Jacarandas, Willow, and the native Cootamundra wattle and Sweet pittosporum when outside their range, urging people to look before they plant.
So next time you’re looking to plant a new tree in your garden, look into whether the species is OK for the area. You could also consider joining a local group involved in caring for parks and reserves and help remove any weedy trees.
https://theconversation.com/trees-can-be-weeds-too-heres-why-thats-a-problem-182599?utm
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
It’s more than clearing:
A group of 35 scientists conducted a new study that measures the extent and intensity of degradation in all Amazonian countries, finding 1 million square miles, 38% of what remains of the Amazon Forest — that is, what has not been deforested yet — suffers from some type of degradation caused by human action.
The authors point out that degradation is being driven by four main disturbances: forest fires, timber extraction, extreme droughts — intensified by human-induced climate change — and edge effects (impact of open areas on adjacent forests).
“We compared estimates from a range of studies, and show that deforestation and degradation emission are actually very similar. Although deforestation is obviously more severe, degradation affects a much larger area,” says Barlow.
While degraded areas emit enormous amounts of greenhouse gases, they are not included in national emissions inventories. “These are not official numbers, but there are many emissions in these areas,” Nobre points out.
One of the points raised by the researchers in the article is precisely the higher frequency of extreme droughts in the Amazon, mainly in its southern and central regions. During almost two decades covered by the study, four of these events of greater magnitude were recorded.
Increasingly frequent, long and intense, these “megadroughts” induce the expansion of fire, which spreads rapidly across the forest floor and causes the death of thousands of trees.
https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abp8622
TURNING IT AROUND
Offsetting a cover-up:
Under Labor’s proposal for carbon offsets, businesses would be able to meet emissions limits by buying an unlimited number of carbon credits as offsets (each credit represents a tonne of carbon dioxide reduced or avoided somewhere else) as an alternative to cutting their own greenhouse gases, would likely greenlight new coal and gas developments and lead to a rise in emissions according to a new report, finding ‘every carbon credit used to offset one tonne of CO2 from liquified natural gas production in Australia led to about 8.4 tonnes of CO2 going into the atmosphere, … In the case of coal, every Australian carbon credit used to offset a tonne of emissions from coalmining was associated with between 58 and 67 tonnes of CO2’.
The report by Climate Analytics found land-based offsets – created through projects including tree planting and forest regeneration – had fundamental scientific problems that meant they would not deliver what was promised of them.
A government-ordered review of Australian carbon credits led by the former chief scientist Prof Ian Chubb last month did not accept allegations the crediting system lacked integrity, but recommended significant changes in how the scheme is managed. Climate Analytics said the review had “effectively ignored well-grounded criticism on its key methodologies from prominent experts and scientists”.
Its analysis found most land-based offsets failed to deliver genuine, new or permanent emissions reductions. It said the problems were exacerbated when offsets were used to justify more fossil fuel mining, as that ultimately resulted in far more CO2 being released into the atmosphere than was stored in vegetation when the credits were created.
In global terms, it calculated that every carbon credit used to offset one tonne of CO2 from liquified natural gas production in Australia led to about 8.4 tonnes of CO2 going into the atmosphere, once the gas was sold and burned overseas. In the case of coal, every Australian carbon credit used to offset a tonne of emissions from coalmining was associated with between 58 and 67 tonnes of CO2.
Yet another rorted carbon trading scheme:
4 corners had an expose on a variety of Australian Government accredited rorted carbon offsets programs, this time in New Guinea. The company NIHT Inc started as a logging company, apparently deciding to cash in on carbon credits, selling more than 1.3 million carbon credits for an average of $US4 ($5.78) each, though land owners in New Ireland only received about 200 kina ($80) each, and some decided to sell the logging rights. With no due diligence process, major accreditation companies approved it and big companies bought the credits, and now the offset area is being logged. Other companies, such as Kanaka Management Services and Mayur Resources, are similarly signing up landholders for carbon credits who don’t understand what it’s about, and limited understanding of the documents they sign.
The Sydney Opera House, Planet Ark, Nespresso, the law firms Gilbert + Tobin, and Corrs Chambers Westgarth, and Active Super are among its clients.
They’ve been buying carbon credits from the NIHT project to offset their greenhouse gas emissions. And the pitch is attractive, with NIHT promising to stop “exploitative commercial timber harvesting in the project area” and to “alleviate the impact of poverty”.
The company now concedes logging has been happening since 2020.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-13/carbon-colonialism/101968870 46m
Dusting the moon:
Solving climate change is a bit of a free-for-all, with solar geoengineering, a field that seeks to scatter or reflect solar rays before they hit the Earth another of those “solutions” that excuses us from having to deal with the problem, typically focussed on increasing air pollution with sulfur dioxide, the latest brainwave is to mine the moon to create a dust cloud to envelop the world.
Last month, Mexico banned the controversial earth-based experimentation by startup Make Sunsets, which had been experimenting with releasing sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere above Baja California as an experimental means of reflecting heat.
“And efforts to offset carbon dioxide-caused warming with sunlight reduction would yield a very different climate, perhaps one unlike any seen before in Earth’s history, with massive shifts in atmospheric circulation and rainfall patterns and possible worsening of droughts,” Mann added.
Then there is the possibility that more and more solar dimming will be required as the Earth continues to heat.
“Some proponents insist we can always stop if we don’t like the result,” he continued. “Well yes, we can stop. Just like if you’re being kept alive by a ventilator with no hope of a cure, you can turn it off.”
He argued that there is a far simpler solution: reduce or eliminate the reliance on fossil fuels.
An article in the Conversation considers the launching some 10 million tonnes of Moon dust into space each year as unfeasible in the short term, and other earth-based “solar geoengineering” measures fraught with potential side-effects, concluding we are better off focusing on replacing fossil fuels.
Proposed measures to cool Earth by reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the surface are often called “solar geoengineering” or “solar radiation management”.
The most-discussed method involves injecting a thin layer of aerosol particles into Earth’s upper atmosphere.
However, tinkering with the atmosphere in this way is likely to affect rainfall and drought patterns, and may have other unintended consequences such as damage to the ozone layer.
… we are better off focusing on replacing fossil fuels. The solutions to climate change are right in front of us, not in the stars.
https://theconversation.com/can-clouds-of-moon-dust-combat-climate-change-199592?utm
Companies are already exploiting opportunities, in 2022 the start-up company Make Sunsets launched balloons into the stratosphere to release sulfur dioxide to make the atmosphere more reflective, aiming to grab attention for the technique and sell ‘cooling credits’ for future balloon flights. While most climate scientists think solar geoengineering a bad idea, often with unintended consequences, one argues it still needs rigorous study.
As a climate scientist who studies the regional effects and policy implications of solar geoengineering, I find these facts disconcerting. If we start geoengineering instead of mitigating emissions, other effects of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — notably ocean acidification — would still happen. And without appropriate governance, elite interests could control the technique’s use and ignore the consequences for vulnerable people.
A walking forest:
A group of over 1000 volunteers in the Dutch city of Leeuwarden has created a “walking forest,” a mobile forest made up of 1000 trees planted in wheelbarrows that can be moved around the city.
https://theogm.com/2023/02/16/the-walking-forest-how-1000-volunteers-created-a-mobile-greener-city/
Forest Media 10 February 2023
New South Wales
Three people were arrested and forestry operations halted as protesters launched simultaneous actions against State forest logging in northern New South Wales, one was in a tree-sit in Doubleduke State Forest and two were locked onto the gates of Pentarch Forestry's Heron Creek sawmill. Doubleduke also had a run on north-coast ABC.
The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers have attacked the Bulga protestors for intimidating, harassing and threatening workers, claiming one contractor was told their machinery would be “burnt to the ground”, and vowing to reintroduce their draconian bill to protect loggers from “from environmental activists who disrupt forestry operators with aggressive and violent behaviour that risks the safety of those who work on the site”.- maybe they need to be taken on for defamation.
On Wednesday Midcoast Council unanimously supported a motion put forward by Greens Councillor Dheera Smith, calling for a just transition from native forest logging to ecologically sustainably managed plantations and farm forestry, and also called on the State Government to incorporate part of the Bulga Forest into the Birawal-Bulga National Park, and to write to various politicians from both major parties calling on them to develop a transition plan.
The Greens NSW have announced their plan to end native forest logging immediately and transition to a 100% sustainable plantation timber industry, with a $300 million transition package for workers and $323 million for land acquisition and plantation establishment. The report commissioned by The Greens, NSW FOREST CARBON: An Effective Climate Change Solution has been released, it emphasis the need to retain forests as carbon sinks, though focusses on the logging emissions that can be avoided, finding ‘greenhouse gas emissions from native forest logging in New South Wales is approximately 3.6 million tonnes of carbon (CO2e) per year’ and by stopping logging ‘we could prevent 76 million tonnes of carbon (CO2e) from entering the atmosphere by 2050. This could provide close to $2.7 billion in benefit to help mitigate climate change.’
News of the Area has an article about the Forestry Corporation’s latest attack on a critical part of the Great Koala National Park, this time the best quality remaining Koala habitats in Moonpar State Forest on the Dorrigo Plateau. It has another about a raft of ecologists writing to the Government about the need for the Coffs bypass to bypass the small 0.5 ha, but unique stand of subtropical rainforest known as Grandpa’s Scrub. And another about the second episode in the 3 part series Australia’s Wild Odessey which focusses on the movement of water across the landscape, with the second episode featuring the forests west of Coffs Harbour and the transportation of water inland by forests, with expert commentary by Mark Graham and Uncle Micklo – well worth a look. (also see the article on biotic pumps and aerial rivers under Turning It Around)
Following a rejection by the Northern Rivers Planning Panel, and a pending court appeal, the current company that owns the controversial Iron Gates site, Goldcoral Pty Ltd has now been placed into administration, the same developer Graeme Ingles put Iron Gates Pty Ltd into liquidation more than 20 years ago, without undertaking the 21 Remediation Orders imposed by the Land and Environment Court. Locals are concerned that Council will have to foot the bill in the ongoing court case. The L&EC Court Conciliation meeting with a LEC Commissioner is to be held at Evans Head on 9 March as scheduled by the Court.
Thirty-one national and international experts have slammed the NSW government for failing to measure the impact of the 2019 Black Summer bushfires and continuing to log native forests at the same rate as before, signing a request for a review of the Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approval by the NSW Environmental Protection Agency.
Australia
Illegal logging has surged in ACT parks and reserves as loggers wreak havoc, particularly for commercial firewood, with other outbreaks in parks and reserves around Shepparton in Victoria, and in NSW. An early morning sting involving police, park rangers and timber workers has led to seven people being charged over alleged illegal firewood gathering in a reserve in southern Tasmania.
Species
Tanya Plibersek dusts off a Morrisson Government proposal to establish a scheme to incentivise investment in nature restoration by creating tradable certificates for projects that protect and restore biodiversity, as the touted “green Wall Street”, amidst concerns of governance issues, projected lack of demand, and that it will become a biodiversity offset market. The exposure draft is open for comment.
The Sydney Basin Koala Network has commissioned two reports, one into the Koala populations and one into their legal protection, leading to concerns that Koalas are gone from the Shoalhaven, south-west of Nowra, as there has not been a koala sighting since the 2019/20 black summer bushfires, including in recent surveys.
The NSW Greens have proposed an immediate moratorium on the destruction of koala habitat, urgently creating the Great Koala National Park, prohibiting the destruction of koala habitat for urban development, mining or agriculture on public or private land by 2025, and the creation of a "Koala Super Highway" as part of their pre-election plan to save the species.
Numbers of the north Queensland subspecies of the spotted-tail quoll, Dasyurus maculatus gracilis, which has 6 populations isolated at high elevations, have dwindled from previous estimates of 500 quolls to critically endangered levels now estimated as 221 adult quolls.
For the first time 15,000 dingo baits have been aerially dropped over 300,000 hectares central and northern Flinders Ranges in a twice annual program, that used to just target foxes.
Despite increasing spending, we are losing the fight against ferals as our environment deteriorates and wildlife disappear. The ACT independent senator David Pocock on Wednesday tabled a motion for an inquiry to be conducted by the Environment and Communications References Committee into how existing federal powers could override state governments to protect the national heritage-listed Australian Alps from brumbies.
Around Kingscliff High School up to 50 birds, of many kinds, have been found poisoned or bludgeoned by feral humans, with those found alive with irreparable injuries.
In a breach of a cane toad containment zone around NSW's far north coast, 51 cane toads were found at Mandalong and Lake Macquarie on NSW's Central Coast, the last outbreak was in 2010 when 650 cane toads were found in Sydney’s south.
The Deteriorating Problem
Although intact forest landscapes (IFLs) made up 20% of the world’s remaining tropical forest in 2020, they stored 40% of all the carbon held in these habitats. Since 2000, the global extent of IFLs has shrunk by 7.2%, a loss of 1.5 million km² – more than quadruple the area of Germany, with a third of this related to export of wood, energy, and mining products.
A week into the disaster, fires had razed more than 309,000 hectares in drought-stricken Chile, killing 24, injuring 2,180 and destroying 1,180 homes, with worse weather expected.
As they get stressed by droughts and heatwaves fir trees are now dying at a record rates in Canada's Pacific Northwest as the weakened trees come under attack by pine beetles. The largest pine beetle epidemic recorded happened in the 1990s and 2000s in B.C when more than 18 million hectares of forest were impacted, resulting in the loss of 53 per cent of merchantable pine volume by 2012. It is the same in America’s south west as the dry and hot conditions resulted in large sections of Central and Northern California experiencing exceptional and extreme drought, weakening the trees and making them more susceptible to bark beetles, resulting in the Forest Service recording about 2.6 million acres of dead trees, or the equivalent of about 36.3 million dead trees, in a survey of 39.6 million acres.
Turning it Around
Mongabay has an extensive article, with interviews, about a new film Rivers Above the Canopy, that explains the biotic pump concept in the context of the Amazon, basically transpiration by trees takes water from the ground and releases it to the atmosphere, in the process transferring heat and moisture to the atmosphere, cooling the land surface and creating rainfall and aerial rivers, while creating an area of low pressure that sucks in more moisture laden clouds. As we clear and log forests we disrupt this process with far reaching consequences.
The Sydney Morning Herald has an article identifying the 4 big issues for 2023 as the risk of rapidly rising temperatures as we transition into a possible El Nino, renewable energy, dealing with our extinction crisis (notably by fixing RFAs), and electric cars, noting ‘How urgently we respond to the climate and environment crises this decade will be hugely consequential for millennia to come’.
In Atlanta, Georgia a fight to save an urban forest and stop construction of a $90 million police training facility took a tragic turn when police violently cleared campers and tree-sitters from the forest, shooting one protestor 12 times and killing him. Protesters arrested have been charged with misdemeanors such as trespassing, though in mid-December six activists were charged with domestic terrorism.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Logging protests ramp up:
Three people were arrested and forestry operations halted as protesters launched simultaneous actions against State forest logging in northern New South Wales, one was in a tree-sit in Doubleduke State Forest and two were locked onto the gates of Pentarch Forestry's Heron Creek sawmill. Doubleduke also had a run on north-coast ABC.
"We've lobbied, we've written letters, we've written reports [and] we've surveyed for koalas," said protester Naomi Shine.
"How far do you have to go to protect the wildlife?"
"Doubleduke State Forest is a regrowth forest which has been harvested for timber and regrown multiple times over the past 100 years," the [Forestry Corporation NSW] spokesperson said.
The back gate of the facility was removed with Ms Baker still attached with a D-lock around her neck.
Juliet Lamont, an activist who was participating in the sawmill protest, said she found it "disturbing" and "abhorrent" the way police moved Ms Baker.
A protester at Doubleduke has been suspended in a tree-sit 25 m above three industrial logging machines. Protests have also stopped logging in the Manning and in the mid North coast.
Tree-sitter Andrew George, an engineer from Lismore says the appropriate response to people trying to chop down our forests is to stop them. ‘Our forests are essential to climate resilience and biodiversity yet their destruction in NSW is being actively subsidised by the taxpayer.
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/02/protesters-stop-logging-at-doubleduke/
… all guns blazing:
The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers have attacked the Bulga protestors for intimidating, harassing and threatening workers, claiming one contractor was told their machinery would be “burnt to the ground”, and vowing to reintroduce their draconian bill to protect loggers from “from environmental activists who disrupt forestry operators with aggressive and violent behaviour that risks the safety of those who work on the site”.- maybe they need to be taken on for defamation.
“Peaceful protest is essential in a democracy. However, there is nothing peaceful about the protests currently happening in the Bulga State Forest,” said Mr Banasiak.
“I am inundated with desperate calls for help from forestry workers who are intimidated, harassed and threatened by many of these protesters at their work site.
“Putting the safety of forestry workers at risk to win votes in an election is truly despicable behaviour by The Greens, although I am not surprised, I am appalled that a Member of the Legislative Council would encourage illegal behaviour,” said Mr Banasiak.
https://www.miragenews.com/sff-pledges-to-shield-forestry-workers-from-944866/
Time to stop it:
On Wednesday Midcoast Council unanimously supported a motion put forward by Greens Councillor Dheera Smith, calling for a just transition from native forest logging to ecologically sustainably managed plantations and farm forestry, and also called on the State Government to incorporate part of the Bulga Forest into the Birawal-Bulga National Park, and to write to various politicians, from both major parties calling on them to develop a transition plan.
Media Release by Susie Russel, Save Bulga Forest, February 8, 2023
Councillors unanimously supported a notice of motion to advocate to NSW Forestry and National Parks for a cease to logging in compartments 41 and 43 of the Bulga Forest and transition these compartments to National Parks, and advocate to the NSW Government to develop a plan for the transition of Forestry’s native forest sector to ecologically sustainable plantations.
Council will now make representations to a range of Members of Parliament, State Ministers and Shadow Ministers. Council notes the concerns of many MidCoast residents for better management of State Forests to support nature-based tourism, recreation, threatened species habitat protection and carbon sequestration.
The Greens NSW have announced their plan to end native forest logging immediately and transition to a 100% sustainable plantation timber industry, with a $300 million transition package for workers and $323 million for land acquisition and plantation establishment.
Greens MP and spokesperson for the environment and agriculture, Sue Higginson, said “Logging of public native forests is coming to an end in NSW, the only question left is whether it will be a planned transition or if it will catastrophically crash and leave forests and communities devastated and abandoned.
“The recovery of forests for habitat and climate mitigation needs to begin immediately, that’s why our plan calls for an immediate end to public native forest logging. NSW forests cannot afford a long phase out period because the cumulative damage from decades of exploitation has pushed them to the brink,
https://www.miragenews.com/greens-announce-plan-to-end-native-forest-944153/
https://www.beagleweekly.com.au/post/greens-announce-plan-to-end-native-forest-logging-in-nsw
… stopping logging saves $2.7 billion worth of carbon emissions by 2050:
The report commissioned by The Greens, NSW FOREST CARBON: An Effective Climate Change Solution has been released, it emphasis the need to retain forests as carbon sinks, though focusses on the logging emissions that can be avoided, finding ‘greenhouse gas emissions from native forest logging in New South Wales is approximately 3.6 million tonnes of carbon (CO2e) per year’ and by stopping logging ‘we could prevent 76 million tonnes of carbon (CO2e) from entering the atmosphere by 2050. This could provide close to $2.7 billion in benefit to help mitigate climate change.’
We need to take immediate action on climate change. Protecting New South Wales’ forests is a low-cost and effective way to reduce emissions. By ending native forest logging immediately, forests can continue to grow and draw down a significant amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it long-term. Protecting New South Wales’ native forests is real action on climate change.
Research conducted for this report found that greenhouse gas emissions from native forest logging in New South Wales is approximately 3.6 million tonnes of carbon (CO2e) per year. This shows that native forest logging in New South Wales is a significant source of emissions. It has the same annual emissions as 840,000 medium sized cars or is close to four and a half times the annual emissions of New South Wales’ domestic aviation.
This figure is based on ‘short-term’ and ‘long-term’ emissions. Around 64% of a forest’s carbon is released within a few years of logging. Most of the wood removed from New South Wales’ forests goes into single-use products such as paper, which have a short lifespan. As much as 40% of the forest’s biomass is incinerated, which immediately emits carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxides in to the atmosphere.
Protecting New South Wales’ native forests is a real climate solution. If native forests currently managed for logging were protected, we could prevent 76 million tonnes of carbon (CO2e) from entering the atmosphere by 2050. This could provide close to $2.7 billion in benefit to help mitigate climate change.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1GdsrCyOiFAUzw_qQr44HzNvyw91NNYet
Moonpar under assault:
News of the Area has an article about the Forestry Corporation’s latest attack on a critical part of the Great Koala National Park, this time the best quality remaining Koala habitats in Moonpar State Forest on the Dorrigo Plateau.
[Mark Graham] The scientific evidence is clear, industrial logging operations are sending our Koalas to extinction, along with other globally significant forest fauna including Greater Gliders, Yellow-bellied Gliders and Glossy Black Cockatoos. All these species previously had the biggest strongholds in NSW within the globally significant tall Eucalypt forests of the Dorrigo Plateau. The fires of Black Spring, particularly the Bees Nest and Liberation Trail mega-fires wiped out many populations and sent these species much closer to extinction, with the Glossy Black Cockatoo alone declining by about 90% and continuing to do so. The NSW Government is intentionally targeting old growth, mature and intact public native forests for industrial logging, these forests only burnt lightly and small areas are unburnt; they represent the last refuges for these remarkable forest fauna species.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-10-february-2023
Helping Grandpa:
News of the Area has an article about a raft of ecologists writing to the Government about the need for the Coffs bypass to bypass the small 0.5 ha, but unique stand of subtropical rainforest known as Grandpa’s Scrub.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-10-february-2023
Forests redistribute water inland:
News of the Area has an article about the second episode in the 3 part series Australia’s Wild Odessey which focusses on the movement of water across the landscape, with the second episode featuring the forests west of Coffs Harbour and the transportation of water inland by forests, with expert commentary by Mark Graham and Uncle Micklo – well worth a look.
(also see the article on biotic pumps and aerial rivers under Turning It Around)
https://iview.abc.net.au/show/australia-s-wild-odyssey
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-10-february-2023
Administering Iron Gates:
Following a rejection by the Northern Rivers Planning Panel, and a pending court appeal, the current company that owns the controversial Iron Gates site, Goldcoral Pty Ltd has now been placed into administration, the same developer Graeme Ingles put Iron Gates Pty Ltd into liquidation more than 20 years ago, without undertaking the 21 Remediation Orders imposed by the Land and Environment Court.
Al Oshlack …‘As far as I’m concerned this charade over the Iron Gates development shows the director of Goldcoral has no sense of propriety and total disregard of the community.
‘This developer has defied Court orders to remediate his [$2M] illegal work then had the gall to set up a new company [Goldcoral] to try and get it reapproved.
Locals are concerned that Council will have to foot the bill in the ongoing court case. The L&EC Court Conciliation meeting with a LEC Commissioner is to be held at Evans Head on 9 March as scheduled by the Court.
Heavies weigh in:
Thirty-one national and international experts have slammed the NSW government for failing to measure the impact of the 2019 Black Summer bushfires and continuing to log native forests at the same rate as before, signing a request for a review of the Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approval by the NSW Environmental Protection Agency.
The scale of the fires and the breadth of vegetation types affected has implications for biodiversity conservation both in Australia and globally. A Planning Department report estimated soil loss was predominantly in National Parks and State Forests, reducing the “so-called ecological carrying capacity” by more than a third in burnt areas.
Professor Paul Ehrlich, the president of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University,, says that “Forests are a crucial part of the natural capital on which human civilisation survives. Australia has a tradition of destroying that capital, not only its great stands of trees, its unique array of mammals, but the other elements of its life-support systems, including marine and mineral resources.”
AUSTRALIA
Illegal logging
Illegal logging has surged in ACT parks and reserves as loggers wreak havoc, particularly for commercial firewood, with other outbreaks in parks and reserves around Shepparton in Victoria, and in NSW.
An early morning sting involving police, park rangers and timber workers has led to seven people being charged over alleged illegal firewood gathering in a reserve in southern Tasmania.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-09/tasmania-police-nab-alleged-firewood-thieves/101950774
SPECIES
Have your say on “green Wall Street”
Tanya Plibersek dusts off a Morrisson Government proposal to establish a scheme to incentivise investment in nature restoration by creating tradable certificates for projects that protect and restore biodiversity, as the touted “green Wall Street”, amidst concerns of governance issues, projected lack of demand, and that it will become a biodiversity offset market. The exposure draft is open for comment.
An exposure draft, published shortly before Christmas, is similarly worded to legislation proposed by the previous government and would establish governance arrangements for the scheme.
Koalas going:
The Sydney Basin Koala Network has commissioned two reports, one into the Koala populations and one into their legal protection, leading to concerns that Koalas are gone from the Shoalhaven, south-west of Nowra, as there has not been a koala sighting since the 2019/20 black summer bushfires, including in recent surveys.
Jeff Angel from the Sydney Basin Koala Network …"We've lost Pittwater, we've lost the Central Coast, we're looking like we're losing Shoalhaven, and the only really growing koala colony is the one around Campbelltown Wollondilly and it is being assaulted by urban development," he said.
Bionet Ecologist Amanda Lane …"They burned about 60 per cent of the koala habitat in the Shoalhaven just during those few months of fires and we would assume as a result of that there has not been a sighting of a koala since in that area, which is really heartbreaking."
Environmental Defenders Office special counsel Cerin Loane said current laws intended to protect critically endangered koalas simply were not up to scratch and could all too easily be overruled.
"The problem with many of our laws is, at the end of the day, they don't say no to development or activities on koala habitat."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-08/koala-extinctions-report-bushfires-shoalhaven/101945036
https://www.queanbeyanage.com.au/story/8078374/nsw-planning-laws-failing-to-protect-koalas-report/
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2023/02/08/calls-for-more-reforms-to-koala-policy-in-nsw/
However, the new legal analysis confirms there’s an opportunity to create immediate impact and halt the decline of koala populations across the state by:
- Ensuring laws apply to all koala habitat by adopting consistent, comprehensive mapping across NSW as a matter of urgency, to identify key areas for conservation so koala populations can recover and grow.
- Urgently reforming state laws to deliver certain protection and strong safeguards for koalas in all environmental, planning and land clearing legislation.
https://www.ecovoice.com.au/legislative-loopholes-driving-koalas-to-extinction/
Greening Koalas:
The NSW Greens have proposed an immediate moratorium on the destruction of koala habitat, urgently creating the Great Koala National Park, prohibiting the destruction of koala habitat for urban development, mining or agriculture on public or private land by 2025, and the creation of a "Koala Super Highway" as part of their pre-election plan to save the species.
Quolls crash:
Numbers of the north Queensland subspecies of the spotted-tail quoll, Dasyurus maculatus gracilis, which has 6 populations isolated at high elevations, have dwindled from previous estimates of 500 quolls to critically endangered levels now estimated as 221 adult quolls.
The study was published in the journal Austral Ecology.
SA poisoning dingoes:
For the first time 15,000 dingo baits have been aerially dropped over 300,000 hectares central and northern Flinders Ranges in a twice annual program, that used to just target foxes.
Rise of the ferals:
Despite increasing spending, we are losing the fight against ferals as our environment deteriorates and wildlife disappear.
There are billions of feral animals in Australia, and among the worst offenders are rabbits, cane toads, cats and carp. While the management of these pests is often done without too much community concern, there is one feral animal that has divided communities. Brumbies. The management of brumbies has become so controversial that NPWS staff suffer constant harassment for doing their work. Over the past few years, this has escalated to online stalking and even a threat of firebombing.
The ACT independent senator David Pocock on Wednesday tabled a motion for an inquiry to be conducted by the Environment and Communications References Committee into how existing federal powers could override state governments to protect the national heritage-listed Australian Alps from brumbies.
Parks Victoria surveys found horse numbers in the alps doubled in the five-year period from 2014 to 2019, from about 2300 to 5000 horses. While up to 200 horses have been removed annually from the Alpine National Park since 2008, numbers have not declined.
A spokesperson for NSW Environment Minister James Griffin said the state was dealing with its wild horse populations in line with its management plan, which was developed after public consultation and approved in 2021.
Feral humans on rampage:
Around Kingscliff High School up to 50 birds, of many kinds, have been found poisoned or bludgeoned by feral humans, with those found alive with irreparable injuries.
“None of those collected alive have survived,” said Corrina Lever, from Tweed Valley Wildlife Carers. “Most of the birds had sustained irreparable injuries and those that were alive were euthanised.
“Almost all of the birds have displayed symptoms of being poisoned, either accidentally or deliberately,” the letter reads. “Several carcasses have been sent off for toxicological testing to identify the poison. NPWS is awaiting the results.
“Many of the birds also had fractured spines or other broken bones consistent with being hit by a stick or club.”
Feral toads on the march:
In a breach of a cane toad containment zone around NSW's far north coast, 51 cane toads were found at Mandalong and Lake Macquarie on NSW's Central Coast, the last outbreak was in 2010 when 650 cane toads were found in Sydney’s south.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-06/51-cane-toads-uncovered-mandalong-nsw-outbreak-dpi/101911622
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Shrinking Intact Forest Landscapes:
Although intact forest landscapes (IFLs) made up 20% of the world’s remaining tropical forest in 2020, they stored 40% of all the carbon held in these habitats. Since 2000, the global extent of IFLs has shrunk by 7.2%, a loss of 1.5 million km² – more than quadruple the area of Germany, with a third of this related to export of wood, energy, and mining products.
Increasing global demand for these commodities, which are often exported through globe-spanning supply chains, explains much of the ongoing removal, degradation and fragmentation of intact forests in a handful of countries including Brazil, Canada, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Russia.
But even the intrusion of logging and mining into relatively small areas can degrade and fragment a forest, greatly damaging the ecosystem’s health and accelerating its destruction by making it easier for people to access what remains.
Chile is latest front in climate wars:
A week into the disaster, fires had razed more than 309,000 hectares in drought-stricken Chile, killing 24, injuring 2,180 and destroying 1,180 homes, with worse weather expected.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230208-battle-rages-against-chile-forest-fires-one-week-in
Stressed trees attacked:
As they get stressed by droughts and heatwaves fir trees are now dying at a record rates in Canada's Pacific Northwest as the weakened trees come under attack by pine beetles. The largest pine beetle epidemic recorded happened in the 1990s and 2000s in B.C when more than 18 million hectares of forest were impacted, resulting in the loss of 53 per cent of merchantable pine volume by 2012.
It is the same in America’s south west as the dry and hot conditions resulted in large sections of Central and Northern California experiencing exceptional and extreme drought, weakening the trees and making them more susceptible to bark beetles, resulting in the Forest Service recording about 2.6 million acres of dead trees, or the equivalent of about 36.3 million dead trees, in a survey of 39.6 million acres.
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2023/02/california-lost-36-million-trees-to-drought-last-year/
TURNING IT AROUND
Biotic pumps and aerial rivers:
Mongabay has an extensive article, with interviews, about a new film Rivers Above the Canopy, that explains the biotic pump concept in the context of the Amazon, basically transpiration by trees takes water from the ground and releases it to the atmosphere, in the process transferring heat and moisture to the atmosphere, cooling the land surface and creating rainfall and aerial rivers, while creating an area of low pressure that sucks in more moisture laden clouds. As we clear and log forests we disrupt this process with far reaching consequences.
The biotic pump concept highlights the extent to which natural forests drive moisture-laden air currents, thereby governing wind and rain. This adds a level of urgency to the zero-deforestation pledge made by Brazil’s new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The theory calls attention to the dynamics of evaporation and condensation: water becoming gas (vapor) and then returning to liquid form. A forest dense with trees evaporates, or transpirates, prodigious quantities of moisture; Nobre likens the Amazon’s trees to geysers. This moisture rises from the canopy and eventually cools and condenses. When water changes from a gas to a liquid, it occupies less space. This creates a low-pressure zone so that moist air is pulled in, a kind of suction. The mechanism explains how regions far from the ocean get precipitation.
Making needed changes:
The Sydney Morning Herald has an article identifying the 4 big issues for 2023 as the risk of rapidly rising temperatures as we transition into a possible El Nino, renewable energy, dealing with our extinction crisis (notably by fixing RFAs), and electric cars, noting ‘How urgently we respond to the climate and environment crises this decade will be hugely consequential for millennia to come’.
Worldwide, climate scientists have been shocked at the rapid pace that global warming projections have unfolded, Dr Bradshaw says, adding the earth is entering a period of severe consequences for past inaction on climate change. “Decisive action this decade will make the difference between a survivable future and our worst fears,” says Bradshaw.
“We’re going to watch whether they can rein in regional forest agreements [which allow states to override national environment laws] and properly resource the new enforcement agency,” says Wintle. “This will mean success or failure on this good, but ambitious, no extinctions promise.”
Dealing with forest protectors the American way:
In Atlanta, Georgia a fight to save an urban forest and stop construction of a $90 million police training facility took a tragic turn when police violently cleared campers and tree-sitters from the forest, shooting one protestor 12 times and killing him. Protesters arrested have been charged with misdemeanors such as trespassing, though in mid-December six activists were charged with domestic terrorism.
This is exactly what we feared – that the state’s repression tactics would get so extreme that they would kill someone just for dissenting and that’s exactly what has happened. And then they will try to suppress further dissent by trying to scare people that they will cage them and imprison them for essentially the entirety of their lives, because domestic terrorism charges come with up to 35 years in prison and that is ludicrous. Even the people that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 were not charged with domestic terrorism.
Forest Media 3 February 2023
Hi, just basic media this week.
New South Wales
Logging protests shifted to Yarratt State Forest, the only unburnt forest in the Taree Management Area, in which the Forestry Corporation started logging high quality Koala habitat in 2021, straight after NRC called for a stop to all logging in the Taree MA for 3 years. Mother and daughter Juliet and Luca Lamont suspended themselves on tree sits attached to machinery, keeping the loggers out until late in the afternoon.
News of the Area has an article about locals objecting to the proposed logging of plantations in Orara East State Forest, of the 200 plus ha Tim Cadman says 10 ha is native forest. News of the Area also has an article about the NSW Government increasing funding for Mountain Biking, as part of their $30m Adventure Cycling Strategy, including in Wedding Bells State Forest, which was welcomed by the Woolgoolga Mountain Bike Club.
Member for Gosford Liesl Tesch says Labor’s commitment of $80M to create an iconic Great Koala National Park gives “Voters have a clear choice – vote for a party that has been caught up in koala wars or vote for a party that will commit to real action saving the koalas,”
As part of their pre-election PR, Minister for Environment James Griffin has announced 6 projects are receiving one million dollars in funding through the Environmental Research Grants Program, including radiotracking endangered Hastings River Mice, manipulating plant odour to protect threatened plants from animal predation, using machine learning to identify wildlife acoustically, using traces of eDNA from mosquitoes for fauna surveys, understand how alpine vegetation communities in NSW might adapt to increasing climatic extremes, and understand the impact of climate change on the threatened seagrass Posidonia australis.
Australia
With logging of some of south-east Queensland’s State forests due to be stopped by 2024, controversy over continued logging of forests proposed for protection next year continues, with Yabba State Forest inland from the Sunshine Coast the latest flashpoint.
The Australian Workers Union and Mining and Energy Union have attacked conservation and clean-energy groups trying to block fossil fuel companies from accessing carbon offsets under Labor’s tougher safeguard mechanism, warning that heavy industries could “collapse” – presumably if they can’t plant trees as they mine.
With our climate crisis deepening, climatologists are worried we could be headed for an extreme El Nino, one issue is that Australia is spending about 7 per cent of the approximately $1.6 billion per year needed to halt species loss, with the big question being whether the Commonwealth will reign in Regional Forest Agreements.
Species
In a letter to the editor Lindy Stacker from Bangalow Koalas joins the Koalas in clapping the retirement of Nationals MP for Clarence, Mr Gulaptis, the prime instigator of the NSW ‘Koala Wars’. With an election looming the Government is pumping out Koala stories, the latest is Wingecarribee Shire Council have secured $1 million in State Government funding for Koalas: $600,000 over the next four years for Southern Highlands Koala Conservation Project, $150,000 to improve koala habitat and corridor mapping, $165,000 for Variable Message Signs and $100,000 for koala habitat restoration on private land. James Griffin has also announced more than $1.3 million in eight research projects as part of the $190 million NSW Koala Strategy, helping to fill knowledge gaps in disease management, climate change and the use of tree species for food and habitat. For all his efforts he doesn’t seem to have many media bites.
An urban population of Koalas living in Clevelan have become the latest aids in an ongoing battle against Walker Corporation’s Toondah Harbour proposal to destroy 42 hectares of Ramsar-listed wetland providing habitat to numerous migratory shore birds.
A project to boost populations of Australian bitterns in some 3,500 hectares of privately-owned rice fields by restricting herbicides, fox and cat controls, and pumping water into rice fields early to encourage breeding, is being claimed as a success, though with funding drying up and an El Nino lurking, farmers are considering marketing bittern-friendly rice at a premium to pay for the water needed.
The NSW government has ruled out aerial shooting of brumbies in the Kosciuszko National Park, despite a recommendation from an internal report and calls from environmental groups to resume the practice as brumbies continue to multiply. With herds of over 200,000, Australia’s north is over-run with water buffalo, which are destroying wetlands and belching a lot, with each buffalo belching more than 50 tonnes of CO₂ in a lifetime, leading to calls for carbon credits for killing them.
The Deteriorating Problem
Researchers have found that its not just increases in mean temperatures that are the problem for species survival, but rather increases in extreme temperatures, where the hottest days become significantly hotter, with 2 in 5 land vertebrates potentially exposed to extreme temperatures by the end of the century. Climatically suitable habitat for many species is already shrinking and moving, meaning that reserve priorities need to also shift.
Turning it Around
An American study recommends protecting all mature trees, as well as oldgrowth, for their carbon storage and sequestration, considering that all trees over 80 years old should be protected.
Around half of Australia’s GDP has a moderate to very high direct dependence on ecosystem services provided by nature. A survey of ten super funds and ten retail banks about their responses to nature-related risks found only 20% of super funds and 10% of banks had attempted to assess how exposed they were, leading to calls for the Australian government to introduce mandatory nature risk reporting.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Yarratt the latest front:
Logging protests shifted to Yarratt State Forest, the only unburnt forest in the Taree Management Area, in which the Forestry Corporation started logging high quality Koala habitat in 2021, straight after NRC called for a stop to all logging in the Taree MA for 3 years. Mother and daughter Juliet and Luca Lamont suspended themselves on tree sits attached to machinery, keeping the loggers out until late in the afternoon.
“The government’s own experts recommended that logging in the Taree area be stopped for three years. Instead, the NSW Forestry Corporation went straight in, obliterated half of it and have now started on the other half. That’s radical. Destroying endangered koala habitat is radical,” Lamont said.
Luca Lamont said: “I’m 24 years old and I’m here with my mother to highlight the facts about the harm that forestry is causing and to call them out. Even though the actual experience of getting arrested and the consequences aren’t things I am looking forward to, I feel that doing nothing is far worse than the horror of the reality that we are all facing in this catastrophic climate emergency.”
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/mother-and-daughter-stop-logging-yarratt-forest
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/01/mother-and-daughter-stop-logging-in-yarratt-forest/
Greens MP and spokesperson for the environment, Sue Higginson, joined the forest protectors this morning at the site of the action. She said, “it’s unfathomable what is happening here, I am on the battlefield of the Liberal National Coalition Governments Koala Wars. The Government is running its own protection racket, allowing Forestry Corporation to trash the forests and destroy koala habitat against its own rules. If it wasn’t for these brave forest protectors the Government would be out here again today destroying more koala habitat against their own expert advice,
https://www.suehigginson.org/_battlefields_of_the_government_koala_wars
Plantations contested:
News of the Area has an article about locals objecting to the proposed logging of plantations in Orara East State Forest, of the 200 plus ha Tim Cadman says 10 ha is native forest.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-3-february-2023
Forestry Adventures:
News of the Area has an article about the NSW Government increasing funding for Mountain Biking, as part of their $30m Adventure Cycling Strategy, including in Wedding Bells State Forest, which was welcomed by the Woolgoolga Mountain Bike Club.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-3-february-2023
Support for GKNP:
Member for Gosford Liesl Tesch says Labor’s commitment of $80M to create an iconic Great Koala National Park gives “Voters have a clear choice – vote for a party that has been caught up in koala wars or vote for a party that will commit to real action saving the koalas,”
https://coastcommunitynews.com.au/central-coast/news/2023/01/labor-pledge-to-protect-koalas/
Boosting environmental cred:
Minister for Environment James Griffin has announced 6 projects are receiving one million dollars in funding through the Environmental Research Grants Program, including radiotracking endangered Hastings River Mice, manipulating plant odour to protect threatened plants from animal predation, using machine learning to identify wildlife acoustically, using traces of eDNA from mosquitoes for fauna surveys, understand how alpine vegetation communities in NSW might adapt to increasing climatic extremes, and understand the impact of climate change on the threatened seagrass Posidonia australis.
https://www.nsw.gov.au/media-releases/threatened-species-funding-boost
AUSTRALIA
Queensland’s dilemma:
With logging of some of south-east Queensland’s State forests due to be stopped by 2024, controversy over continued logging of forests proposed for protection next year continues, with Yabba State Forest inland from the Sunshine Coast the latest flashpoint.
Offsetting coal mining:
The Australian Workers Union and Mining and Energy Union have attacked conservation and clean-energy groups trying to block fossil fuel companies from accessing carbon offsets under Labor’s tougher safeguard mechanism, warning that heavy industries could “collapse”.
El Nino another blow:
With our climate crisis deepening, climatologists are worried we could be headed for an extreme El Nino, one issue is that Australia is spending about 7 per cent of the approximately $1.6 billion per year needed to halt species loss, with the big question being whether the Commonwealth will reign in Regional Forest Agreements.
“That has got many of us pretty worried,” says Dr Simon Bradshaw, a researcher at the Climate Council. “There’s a staggering amount of heat built up in the ocean, which is primed for an El Nino, and the possibility it would send global temperatures into unchartered territory.”
Worldwide, climate scientists have been shocked at the rapid pace that global warming projections have unfolded, Dr Bradshaw says, adding the earth is entering a period of severe consequences for past inaction on climate change. “Decisive action this decade will make the difference between a survivable future and our worst fears,” says Bradshaw.
“We’re going to watch whether they can rein in regional forest agreements [which allow states to override national environment laws] and properly resource the new enforcement agency,” says [Professor Brendan Wintle]. “This will mean success or failure on this good, but ambitious, no extinctions promise.”
SPECIES
One down:
In a letter to the editor Lindy Stacker from Bangalow Koalas joins the Koalas in clapping the retirement of Nationals MP for Clarence, Mr Gulaptis, the prime instigator of the NSW ‘Koala Wars’.
But the deputy premier, working for the Devil (Blinky Bill told me this) overruled the Environment Protection Agency to allow industrial-scale logging, and directed funds from the bushfire recovery grants to the timber industry. Some $38 million of the $177 million went into forestry ‘projects’. But wait, there’s more; then there was a further $46 million Mr Barilaro awarded to the forestry corporation for ‘bushfire recovery measures’… koalas got a big fat nothing.
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/01/whos-extinct-now/
… largeness flows:
With an election looming the Government is pumping out Koala stories, the latest is Wingecarribee Shire Council have secured $1 million in State Government funding for Koalas: $600,000 over the next four years for Southern Highlands Koala Conservation Project, $150,000 to improve koala habitat and corridor mapping, $165,000 for Variable Message Signs and $100,000 for koala habitat restoration on private land.
We can’t underestimate the importance of protecting our koalas. The Southern Highlands is home to 10% of the total number of koalas remaining in the wild State-wide, and we’ve toward maintaining that precious, local population.
James Griffin has also announced more than $1.3 million in eight research projects as part of the $190 million NSW Koala Strategy, helping to fill knowledge gaps in disease management, climate change and the use of tree species for food and habitat.
https://www.nsw.gov.au/media-releases/koala-research-funding
Urban Koalas save wetlands:
An urban population of Koalas living in Clevelan have become the latest aids in an ongoing battle against Walker Corporation’s Toondah Harbour proposal to destroy 42 hectares of Ramsar-listed wetland providing habitat to numerous migratory shore birds.
https://www.acf.org.au/toondah-harbour-koalas-future-in-doubt
A bittern harvest:
A project to boost populations of Australian bitterns in some 3,500 hectares of privately-owned rice fields by restricting herbicides, fox and cat controls, and pumping water into rice fields early to encourage breeding, is being claimed as a success, though with funding drying up and an El Nino lurking, farmers are considering marketing bittern-friendly rice at a premium to pay for the water needed.
Burgeoning Brumbies:
The NSW government has ruled out aerial shooting of brumbies in the Kosciuszko National Park, despite a recommendation from an internal report and calls from environmental groups to resume the practice as brumbies continue to multiply.
Crediting mass slaughter:
With herds of over 200,000, Australia’s north is over-run with water buffalo, which are destroying wetlands and belching a lot, with each buffalo belching more than 50 tonnes of CO₂ in a lifetime, leading to calls for carbon credits for killing them.
The world’s largest wild population of water buffalo now roam Australia. As does the largest wild herd of camels. We have millions of feral goats and deer. For these introduced species, Australia is a paradise. Plenty of vegetation, and not many predators, other than dingoes, crocodiles and humans.
A water buffalo belches an average of 76 kilograms of methane each year. That’s the equivalent of 2.1 tonnes of CO₂. Over a 25-year lifespan, that’s the equivalent of more than 50 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
We examined the feral buffalo population around the South Alligator River in Kakadu National Park, and simulated different culling scenarios. We found effective control would drastically reduce emissions, abating up to 913,000 tonnes of CO₂-e over 20 years. That would make aerial culling very profitable. The net income from these avoided emissions would be more than $26 million in credits – after taking out the cost of culling.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Too hot for some:
Researchers have found that its not just increases in mean temperatures that are the problem for species survival, but rather increases in extreme temperatures, where the hottest days become significantly hotter, with 2 in 5 land vertebrates potentially exposed to extreme temperatures by the end of the century. Climatically suitable habitat for many species is already shrinking and moving, meaning that reserve priorities need to also shift.
- In a business-as-usual carbon emissions scenario — humanity’s current trajectory — two in five land vertebrates could be exposed to temperatures equal to, or exceeding, the hottest temperatures of the past decades across at least half of their range by 2099. If warming could be kept well below 2°C (3.6°F), that number drops to 6%, according to a new study.
- More than one in eight mammal species have already lost part of their former geographical range. In many cases, this means those species no longer have access to some (or sometimes any) of their core habitat, making it much more difficult to survive in a warming world.
The results, recently published in Nature, suggest that if warming could be kept well below 2°C (3.6°F) by 2100, as agreed to at the 2015 Paris climate summit, then only around 6% of the vertebrate species analyzed would experience extreme temperatures across at least half their range by 2099. “Unfortunately,” says study co-author Uri Roll, “we are still dead course on the business-as-usual model” — of 4.4°C (7.9°F) warming by 2099 — “which means at least 40% of land vertebrates are at risk.”
The tropics too could take a major hit: under the business-as-usual scenario, much of South America, including the Amazon Basin, could become extremely hot for at least 100 days a year, putting extensive pressure on many species already threatened by human activities.
Likewise, many animals living on Pacific islands, where ranges tend to be tiny and moving away is exceedingly difficult, could be subjected to extreme temperatures of high intensity, frequency and duration across much or all of their range.
The new Nature study by Mirali and colleagues found that some species in their current ranges may experience extreme temperatures all year long by 2099.
TURNING IT AROUND
Its not just about rot, maturity also counts:
An American study recommends protecting all mature trees, as well as oldgrowth, for their carbon storage and sequestration, considering that all trees over 80 years old should be protected.
Large trees in older forests that hold significant amounts of carbon located within U.S. national forests are vulnerable to logging, according to a new study published Jan. 6 in the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change.
But long-lived forests, even if they’ve been logged too recently to meet the strict definition of old growth, provide many of the same benefits.
But their analysis also revealed that one- to two-thirds of that carbon stock on U.S. Forest Service land is at risk because it is held by large trees in mature forests that aren’t protected and potentially at risk of being logged.
“We hear all the time, at least from federal agencies, that they’re not logging large trees,” DellaSala said, “but no one’s been able to define what ‘large’ is.”
To make things simple, they suggest protecting all trees that are 80 years or older.
“These older forests are our best nature-based climate solution,” he said. “They buy us time, they give us hope, they give us a chance to turn the corner.”
Valuing disappearing services:
Around half of Australia’s GDP has a moderate to very high direct dependence on ecosystem services provided by nature. A survey of ten super funds and ten retail banks about their responses to nature-related risks found only 20% of super funds and 10% of banks had attempted to assess how exposed they were, leading to calls for the Australian government to introduce mandatory nature risk reporting.
That’s set to change. The private sector is waking up to nature’s value (and the risks of losing it). The world’s biodiversity rescue plan agreed to last year could help motivate governments and businesses to clean up their investments by directing more money to protect nature and less towards bankrolling extinction.
Fully half of the world’s total economic activity – around A$61 trillion – is moderately or highly dependent on nature and its services.
In Australia, that figure is very similar: around half of our GDP – $896 billion – has a moderate to very high direct dependence on ecosystem services provided by nature.
… The tireless pollination work of honeybees, for instance, is valued at $14 billion a year. Or take Australia’s wheatbelt, where poor soil health is now costing farmers almost $2 billion a year in lost income.
… Risky nature credit markets aren’t going to cut the mustard.
You don’t have to sit back and wait. Why not ask your super fund and bank what nature-related risks they are exposing your money to?
Forest Media 27 January 2023
Sorry about missing last week’s Forest Media, I had a deadline on a major project I was struggling to meet. I may also have trouble next week.
New South Wales
Labor has promised the NPA that should they win the election, their assessment of the Great Koala National Park will have a budget of $80 million, be undertaken in an open and transparent process with all stakeholders, cover the full 176,000 ha of State Forests, and undertake a new socio-economic study, though they won’t agree to a moratorium while the assessment is undertaken. Teal challengers facing off against moderate Coalition MPs in Manly, North Shore, and Pittwater have expressed their support for the Great Koala National Park, whereas Perrottet dismissed Labor’s plan. Amidst claims and counter claims between the ALP and the Environment Minister, chair of the Australian Koala Foundation Deborah Tabart said politicians need to offer action, not pledges, and the World Wide Fund Australia’s conservation scientist Dr Stuart Blanch compared the attitude around koala habitat protection to commercial whaling,
In a worryingly measured response, the Australian Forest Contractors Association (AFCA) says the opposition’s plan if elected to Government in the March State election to establish a Great Koala National Park will mean increased uncertainty in the forestry sector and potentially a mass exit of skilled labour. It seems that both AFCA and CFMEU have expectations that the ALP’s review won’t be too bad for them. Though maybe it’s not all bad, as dumped ALP MP Tania Mihailuk said, when swapping to One Nation, that the ALP want to ban the forestry industry in NSW.
The public exclusion from Bagawa State Forest has been extended from December to June, allowing logging to proceed and creating eco-anxiety in neighbours. News of the Area followed this up with a lengthy story about eco-anxiety.
WWF-Australia are seeking applicants for a full-time (or part-time to 0.8FTE) Forestry Transition Manager “to help shift Australia from a global deforestation nation, to a Reforestation Nation, and hasten the national completion of the forestry-to-plantations transition. New South Wales transition opportunities will be a dominant focus, with an expectation to respond to other strategic opportunities around forestry and forest management in other states (e.g., Queensland, Victoria) and federally”. Applicants can apply via http://www.wwf.org.au/about_us/work_with_wwf/.
A memorial was held for 96 year old Alex Floyd OAM, who in recent years is best known for his role in creating the North Coast Regional Botanic Garden in Coffs Harbour, though for many of us involved in rainforest conservation in the 1970s and 80s he is best remembered for his reports on individual rainforests, tree identification keys, and invaluable advice and help. The attempts to have the Coffs Harbour Bypass bypass Grandpa’s Scrub continues, with botanist Rob Kooyman attesting to its importance as ‘the last of the Lowland Coffs Harbour White Booyong subtropical type at true lowland elevations’.
A 21 year old male pleaded guilty to malicious damage to camping areas in Chichester State Forest and paid $2835 in compensation
The NSW Greens have released their report ‘Concreting our Coast’ highlighting 17 coastal case studies ‘where inappropriate developments are going ahead, and gives evidence showing the cumulative picture of just how much of our state’s coast is at risk’, along with 9 principles to save our coasts.
In what has become a political issue, over 300 people attended a protest rally on Sunday, 22 January, to oppose proposals for tourist accommodation in lighthouse keepers’ cottages at Barrenjoey Headland, Palm Beach. To the outrage of conservationists, proposals to grant leases in the Gardens of Stone state conservation area to two companies, which are subsidiaries of the ASX-listed Experience Co, for "Four of the five areas identified as supported accommodation nodes on the multi-day walk" and "the development and operation of a multi-activity adventure, which includes zip-lines, via ferrata and suspension bridges" were listed on the NSW Department of Planning and Environment website for public comment from December 21 until January 18. Protestors climbed Wollumbin (Mt. Warning) on Australia Day to protest the wishes of the Aboriginal Wollumbin Consultative Group to ban public access to the mountain due to its sacred place in local Indigenous culture, with the support of renegade Elizabeth Boyd.
A Public Service Association organiser says the announcement of 250 jobs announced for NPWS before Christmas is nothing more than "smoke and mirrors", falling short of the 300 plus workers made redundant in 2018, complaining that staff who have been chronically over-worked in recent years, particularly as since 2019 600,000 hectares have been added to the parks estate, mostly in the western districts.
Following consultation, the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) has released its Climate Change Policy and Action Plan 2023-26, and they still intend doing nothing about forestry. Despite the multiple issues I raised that they ignored, and 108 submissions from individuals and 52 submissions from community groups (including environmental groups), they claimed 89%, supported their position, despite their only acknowledgement of forestry being that 20 individuals and 15 groups “Requests ban/phase out of native forestry and/or reduction of logging” (by my reckoning that’s 22% who clearly didn’t support their do-nothing approach).
For the looming NSW election, polling shows Labor ahead, as Liberals face threats from independents and Teals in their north-shore stongholds, with the nomination of Northern Beaches mayor Michael Regan as an independent for the seat of Wakehurst a serious threat to their stranglehold on a clutch of northern Sydney seats.
Australia
Human Rights Watch began the year with the release of its World Report 2023, in which it critiqued the disproportionate punishment of the NSW anti-protest regime, highlighting the draconian punishment handed down to Violet Coco. Australian Greens Senator David Shoebridge announced right before Christmas that he’ll be delivering a bill this year that enshrines the right to protest in federal law.
Alcoa has canned plans to export unprocessed bauxite by increasing clearing Western Australia’s Northern Jarrah Forest, and will instead go on clearing to supply the 36 million tonnes of bauxite a year used by its three West Australian alumina refineries. A small victory in the campaign to stop clearing Jarrah forests, now that logging is being stopped.
Species
A review of 517 projects referred under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to the Federal government between 2000 and 2015, found 365 were deemed “not significant” by the serving minister under the law, and 152 were judged to be a “controlled action”, though their designation made no actual difference to the amount of habitat destroyed, due to vague terms, ambiguous criteria, subjective decisions, reliance on companies’ consultants, and social and economic factors placed above environmental impacts. And more than 90% of clearing isn’t even referred to the Commonwealth.
The NPWS is now fencing in two declining Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby colonies in Warrumbungle National Park and Nattai National Park to keep out feral predators as parks continue to become more like open range zoos.
Emus were common in Tasmania until being hunted to extinction by the mid-1800s, now researches want to re-introduce them and restore their ecosystem services, particularly their ability to disperse seeds in a warming world. Birdlife Australia's NSW woodland bird program manager Mick Roderick reports seeing an unusually large flock of 310 Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos at Urunga, noting they seem to be moving more into urban areas after food, though still need those large tree hollows to nest in. Euan Ritchie has an article in the Conversation promoting 15 lesser known Australian species as potential mascots for Brisbane 2032 Olympic games, in an effort to increase knowledge of some of our other species.
In some Australian rivers more than 90 per cent of all fish are carp and extreme carp spawning is taking place as a result of flooding across the country, leading to renewed calls for release of carp herpes virus to control them. Their control would also be enhanced by restoring natural flows by removing weir pools and floodplain structures. Populations of feral deer are rapidly expanding, increasing from about 50,000 in 1980 to more than 2 million now, with an estimate they would cost the Victorian economy between $1.5 billion and $2.2 billion over the next 30 years, leading to a draft national feral deer plan. While the 2021 Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan is to reduce brumby numbers in Kosciuszko National Park to 3,000 by 2027, their numbers have jumped by more than 30 per cent in the past two years to 18,814.
The Deteriorating Problem
Some say that with predictions for “just” a 3 degree warming by the end of this century the worst scenarios are over, claiming its “still dangerous, but not hellish”. Though others warn there could be enough “warming in the pipeline” to generate 7° to 10°C of global heating, once all climate feedbacks, including the “long-term” ones, have played out. Yet others expect the target of 1.5°C could slip out of reach as early as 2028 as later this year a resurgent “El Niño will cause global temperatures to rise “off the chart” and deliver unprecedented heat waves”. In his opinion, Bill Gates considers there is “no chance” of limiting warming to 1.5C, and “very unlikely” it could be kept to 2C, but that “to stay below 2.5C would be pretty fantastic”.
In July 2022, the European Union responded to the war in Ukraine by banning the import of Russian woody biomass used to make energy, so South Korea drastically upped its Russian woody biomass imports, though Russian biomass appears to still be making its way to European powerplants through other countries. The real winner has been Enviva, the world’s largest woody biomass producer, which operates chiefly in the Southeast U.S.A.
Turning it Around
Eco-anxiety is a growing problem, with 75 per cent of 16 to 25-year-olds in 10 countries surveyed for a study published in 2021 in UK medical journal The Lancet having described the future as “frightening”, with 25% in Australia extremely worried, 28% vey worried, 29% moderately worried, 10% a little worried, and 6% not worried at all. The positive from this is that eco-anxiety ‘coupled with a realistic sense of hope can be “really powerful” in getting people engaged’. A new survey of 25,000 people - conducted across 25 countries by research firm Elabe and water, waste and energy management company Veolia – reveals 30 per cent of the world's inhabitants feel distressed about the future, ‘often’ think about climate change and are considering giving up long term goals like having children.
Scaling up Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) is an urgent priority, as are efforts to rapidly
reduce emissions, if we are to meet the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. Scenarios
for limiting warming to well below 2°C involve removing hundreds of billions of tonnes of
carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere over the course of the century. A study estimates that the current global rate of CDR is around 2 billion tonnes per year, on land this comes from afforestation, reforestation and management of existing forests. About 0.1% of carbon removal — around 2.3 million tonnes per year — is performed by the new technologies this study focusses on. To limit global warming to less than 2 °C above pre-industrial temperatures, the report estimates that by 2030, the world will need to remove a further 0.96 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, compared with 2020. By 2050, this will have to rise even more, to around 4.8 billion tonnes above 2020 levels. As it stands, governments worldwide have proposed an increase of only between 0.1 billion and 0.65 billion tonnes of CDR per year by 2030 and 1.5 billion to 2.3 billion tonnes per year by 2050.
The oceans store around 50 times more carbon than the atmosphere and about 20 times more carbon than every plant and plot of soil on land combined, the problem is that as the oceans take up more carbon they are becoming more acidic, dissolving the calcium carbonate structures of a multitude of species. Liming the oceans on a large scale is being considered as a means of ocean alkalinity enhancement, now the latest is to increase their carbon storage by using crushed olivine, an abundant volcanic mineral, delivered by a fleet of ships.
In the USA the coastal temperate rainforests of Oregon are important carbon storage facilities and provide 80% of the state’s drinking water, with a recent study combining data on drinking water sources, biodiversity, carbon storage and forest resilience to determine which forests are the highest priority for conservation.
Research by The Guardian and others into Verra, the world’s leading carbon standard, used by companies such as Gucci, Salesforce, BHP, Shell, Disney, easyJet, Leon and the band Pearl Jam to “offset” their emissions, has found that, based on analysis of a significant percentage of the projects, more than 90% of their rainforest offset credits – among the most commonly used by companies – are likely to be “phantom credits” and do not represent genuine carbon reductions. A claimed 94.9m (tonnes) in carbon credits resulted in 5.5m in real emissions reductions. In Australia, carbon farming is set to take-off with a $4.5 billion carbon credit Australian government boost, though as soil carbon is very variable and with only one sample per 10-15 ha taken, the current methods for measuring how much carbon can be trapped in the soil are flawed, so we may be faced with another dodgy scheme that uses up billions of dollars and does little to help.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Great Koala National Park:
Labor has promised the NPA that should they win the election, their assessment of the Great Koala National Park will have a budget of $80 million, be undertaken in an open and transparent process with all stakeholders, cover the full 176,000 ha of State Forests, and undertake a new socio-economic study, though they won’t agree to a moratorium while the assessment is undertaken.
Teal challengers facing off against moderate Coalition MPs in Manly, North Shore, and Pittwater have expressed their support for the Great Koala National Park, whereas Perrottet dismissed Labor’s plan.
But despite koalas being listed as an endangered species last year, Perrottet dismissed Labor’s plan, criticising the opposition for re-announcing a policy it previously took to the 2019 election and saying the government had made significant investments in the expansion of national parks in the state.
“I believe we’ve done more than ever than any government before us when it comes to the expansion and enhancement of national parks,” he said.
https://www.armidaleexpress.com.au/story/8053432/nsw-labor-eyes-80m-koala-national-park/
https://www.denipt.com.au/national/nsw-labor-eyes-80m-koala-national-park-2/
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-27-january-2023
Amidst claims and counter claims between the ALP and the Environment Minister, chair of the Australian Koala Foundation Deborah Tabart said politicians need to offer action, not pledges, and the World Wide Fund Australia’s conservation scientist Dr Stuart Blanch compared the attitude around koala habitat protection to commercial whaling,
“Up to 1978, Australia was commercially harvesting whales. Now we make heaps more money out of whale tourism. We need that switch,” he said.
… loggers ‘doth protest too much’:
In a worryingly measured response, the Australian Forest Contractors Association (AFCA) says the Opposition’s plan if elected to Government in the March State election to establish a Great Koala National Park will mean increased uncertainty in the forestry sector and potentially a mass exit of skilled labour. It seems that both AFCA and CFMEU have expectations that the ALP’s review won’t be too bad for them.
Ms Porteous has called for NSW Labor to ensure it conducts its consultation in a balanced, transparent, and fair way if it truly wishes to make a difference in the endangered classification of this iconic animal.
“The industry supports the science. We encourage Labor to be thorough in its engagement process and not to fall into the trap of confusing ‘land-clearing activities’ with well managed forests,” she said.
The CFMEU Manufacturing division has warned that closing 176 ha of working forests will send NSW timber manufacturing offshore.
The union’s Alison Rudman said the proposal would not achieve any environmental improvements.
Though maybe they are not all bad, as dumped ALP MP Tania Mihailuk said, when swapping to One Nation, that the ALP want to ban the forestry industry in NSW.
The Labor Party “doesn’t represent” workers’ views in the forestry industry, according to independent MP Tania Mihailuk.
“They want to ban the forestry industry in NSW, they want to ban coal in NSW,” she told Sky News host Gary Hardgrave.
“I was a lone voice in that shadow ministry cabinet often.”
Bagawa closure extended:
The public exclusion from Bagawa State Forest has been extended from December to June, allowing logging to proceed and creating eco-anxiety in neighbours.
“To be informed and care for my environment is something I choose to do and to have a direct neighbour that causes habitat loss, helps create extinction of endangered species, creates an environment that will exacerbate bushfires, erosion and weed infestation, well that just makes me anxious.
“It’s eco anxiety and it’s a real thing,” said Jodie.
“I know there are positive and negative things going on around the world and normally I’m a glass half full type of woman, but now I lay awake at night worrying.”
The American Psychology Association (APA) describes eco-anxiety as ‘the chronic fear of environmental cataclysm that comes from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change and the associated concern for one’s future and that of next generations’.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/bagawa-state-forest-closure-extended-for-continued-logging
News of the Area followed this up with a lengthy story about eco-anxiety.
[Dr Brymer] “The organisations which are taking the trees down and destroying biodiversity don’t take into consideration what it’s doing to individual’s mental health.
“People are coming from the place of ‘I love this area, this is where I grew up. And now you’re destroying it.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-27-january-2023
Forestry Transition Manager wanted:
WWF-Australia are seeking applicants for a full-time (or part-time to 0.8FTE) Forestry Transition Manager “to help shift Australia from a global deforestation nation, to a Reforestation Nation, and hasten the national completion of the forestry-to-plantations transition. New South Wales transition opportunities will be a dominant focus, with an expectation to respond to other strategic opportunities around forestry and forest management in other states (e.g., Queensland, Victoria) and federally”. Applicants can apply via http://www.wwf.org.au/about_us/work_with_wwf/.
Rainforest legend dies:
A memorial was held for 96 year old Alex Floyd OAM, who in recent years is best known for his role in creating the North Coast Regional Botanic Garden in Coffs Harbour, though for many of us involved in rainforest conservation in the 1970s and 80s he is best remembered for his reports on individual rainforests, tree identification keys, and invaluable advice and help.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-27-january-2023
Grandpa needs bypass:
The attempts to have the Coffs Harbour Bypass bypass Grandpa’s Scrub continues, with botanist Rob Kooyman attesting to its importance as ‘the last of the Lowland Coffs Harbour White Booyong subtropical type at true lowland elevations’.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-27-january-2023
Malicious forestry damage:
A 21 year old male pleaded guilty to malicious damage to camping areas in Chichester State Forest and paid $2835 in compensation.
Concreting coasts:
The NSW Greens have released their report ‘Concreting our Coast’ highlighting 17 coastal case studies ‘where inappropriate developments are going ahead, and gives evidence showing the cumulative picture of just how much of our state’s coast is at risk’, along with 9 principles to save our coasts.
The 40-page report ‘Concreting our Coast’ was produced by my team in consultation with communities across the state. It shows case study after case study where inappropriate developments are going ahead, and gives evidence showing the cumulative picture of just how much of our state’s coast is at risk.
Alongside the report, we’ve also launched a Framework of Principles to Save our Coast. These 9 principles have been developed by affected community groups and call on all political parties to commit to them to stop the destruction.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19vyS8vPbi86gQVrxYbjOthxNteO2FA0u/view
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-27-january-2023
Protesting lighthouse tourism:
In what has become a political issue, over 300 people attended a protest rally on Sunday, 22 January, to oppose proposals for tourist accommodation in lighthouse keepers’ cottages at Barrenjoey Headland, Palm Beach.
https://www.northernbeachesadvocate.com.au/2023/01/25/protestors-gain-concessions/
Gardens of Stone adventure park:
To the outrage of conservationists, proposals to grant leases in the Gardens of Stone state conservation area to two companies, which are subsidiaries of the ASX-listed Experience Co, for "Four of the five areas identified as supported accommodation nodes on the multi-day walk" and "the development and operation of a multi-activity adventure, which includes zip-lines, via ferrata and suspension bridges" were listed on the NSW Department of Planning and Environment website for public comment from December 21 until January 18.
"This is a reverse process where instead of having a development application so that people can comment on the proposals, we're having a lease being issued and being invited to comment on a lease," Mr Muir said.
"But [we] have almost no information to comment on."
Wollumbin warning:
Protestors climbed Wollumbin (Mt. Warning) on Australia Day to protest the wishes of the Aboriginal Wollumbin Consultative Group to ban public access to the mountain due to its sacred place in local Indigenous culture, with the support of renegade Elizabeth Boyd.
In a statement, a group spokesman said they had been given the blessing of local Indigenous custodian Elizabeth Davis Boyd from the Ngarkwal people, who made headlines earlier this month when she broke down in tears at a public rally sharing her pain at the ongoing drama surrounding access to the beloved site.
Adrian Hoffman of the Reopen Mount Warning lobby group told climbers they would continue to fight for the trail to be reopened to the public.
Claiming credit for returning some of what was lost:
A Public Service Association organiser says the announcement of 250 jobs announced for NPWS before Christmas is nothing more than "smoke and mirrors", falling short of the 300 plus workers made redundant in 2018, complaining that staff who have been chronically over-worked in recent years, particularly as since 2019, 600,000 hectares have been added to the parks estate, mostly in the western districts.
https://www.theland.com.au/story/8052363/npws-jobs-just-smoke-mirrors-says-psa/
EPA plan to do nothing about forestry in relation to climate change:
Following consultation, the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) has released its Climate Change Policy and Action Plan 2023-26, they still intend doing nothing about forestry. Despite the multiple issues I raised that they ignored, and 108 submissions from individuals and 52 submissions from community groups (including environmental groups), they claimed 89%, supported their position, despite their only acknowledgement of forestry being that 20 individuals and 15 groups “Requests ban/phase out of native forestry and/or reduction of logging” (by my reckoning that’s 22% who clearly didn’t support their do-nothing approach).
https://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/your-environment/climate-change/policy-and-action-plan.
https://yoursay.epa.nsw.gov.au/climate-change-policy-and-action-plan.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-27-january-2023
NSW Election:
Polling shows Labor ahead, as Liberals face threats from independents and Teals in their north-shore stongholds, with the nomination of Northern Beaches mayor Michael Regan as an independent for the seat of Wakehurst a serious threat to their stranglehold on a clutch of northern Sydney seats.
The latest Resolve Strategic polling for the Herald shows Labor ahead with a primary vote of 37 per cent, while the Coalition’s primary vote is on 34 per cent, down from the 42 per cent secured when Gladys Berejiklian won in 2019.
However, one-third of voters prefer Perrottet as premier over Minns, who is just behind on 29 per cent.
AUSTRALIA
Right to protest:
Human Rights Watch began the year with the release of its World Report 2023, in which it critiqued the disproportionate punishment the NSW anti-protest regime, highlighting the draconian punishment handed down to Violet Coco. Australian Greens Senator David Shoebridge announced right before Christmas that he’ll be delivering a bill this year that enshrines the right to protest in federal law.
Stopping clearing jarrah forests for unprocessed exports:
Alcoa has canned plans to export unprocessed bauxite by increasing clearing Western Australia’s Northern Jarrah Forest, and will instead go on clearing to supply the 36 million tonnes of bauxite a year used by its three West Australian alumina refineries. A small victory in the campaign to stop clearing Jarrah forests, now that logging is being stopped.
SPECIES
Shuffling species into extinction:
A review of 517 projects referred under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to the government between 2000 and 2015, found 365 were deemed “not significant” by the serving minister under the law, and 152 were judged to be a “controlled action”, though their designation made no actual difference to the amount of habitat destroyed, due to vague terms, ambiguous criteria, subjective decisions, reliance on companies’ consultants, and social and economic factors placed above environmental impacts. And more than 90% of clearing isn’t even referred to the Commonwealth.
Some species were disproportionately hit. Of the habitat lost by endangered tiger quolls from projects in the study, 82% was from projects the government decided were not significant enough to need further assessment. For vulnerable grey-headed flying foxes, 72% was lost from “non-significant” projects.
“The system designed to classify development projects according to their environmental impact is more or less worthless,” said Natalya Maitz, who led the study at the University of Queensland.
Maitz said they found there was no statistically significant difference between threatened habitat destroyed, regardless of the minister’s decision.
Locking them up for their own good:
The NPWS is now fencing in two declining Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby colonies in Warrumbungle National Park and Nattai National Park to keep out feral predators as parks continue to become more like open range zoos.
https://psnews.com.au/2023/01/24/emergency-action-to-save-dying-wallabies/?state=aps
Rewilding Emus:
Emus were common in Tasmania until being hunted to extinction by the mid-1800s, now researches want to re-introduce them and restore their ecosystem services, particularly their ability to disperse seeds in a warming world.
Getting Cocky:
Birdlife Australia's NSW woodland bird program manager Mick Roderick reports seeing an unusually large flock of 310 Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos at Urunga, noting they seem to be moving more into urban areas after food, though still need those large tree hollows to nest in.
"They need enormously large hollows … a similar sized hollow to an owl," he said.
"So, if we do start losing more of our hollow-bearing trees they could easily decline very quickly."
A mascot for Brisbane 2032:
Euan Ritchie has an article in the Conversation promoting 15 lesser known Australian species as potential mascots for Brisbane 2032 Olympic games, in an effort to increase knowledge of some of our other species.
Carping on:
In some Australian rivers more than 90 per cent of all fish are carp and extreme carp spawning is taking place as a result of flooding across the country, leading to renewed calls for release of carp herpes virus to control them. Their control would also be enhanced by restoring natural flows by removing weir pools and floodplain structures.
The impacts of carp are like a house of horrors for our rivers. They cause massive degradation of aquatic plants, riverbanks and riverbeds when they feed. They alter the habitat critical for small native fish, such as southern pygmy perch. And they can make the bed of many rivers look like the surface of golf balls – denuded and dimpled, devoid of any habitat.
Mathematical modelling suggests the carp virus could cause a 40-60% knockdown for at least ten years, which may help tip the balance in favour of native fish.
Dear deer:
Populations of feral deer are rapidly expanding, increasing from about 50,000 in 1980 to more than 2 million now, with an estimate they would cost the Victorian economy between $1.5 billion and $2.2 billion over the next 30 years, leading to a draft national feral deer plan.
In just two decades, much of this creek and the surrounding Sherbrooke Forest have been damaged by the area’s soaring population of feral sambar and fallow deer.
They wallow in waterways, chew through young vegetation and rub and ringbark native trees with their antlers. As a result, the trees die and the canopy of this cool temperate rainforest is opened up to damaging sunlight.
The exploding numbers of deer across Australia – approximately a ten-fold increase over 20 years – has prompted a new draft national feral deer plan.
Brumbies increasing:
While the 2021 Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan is to reduce brumby numbers in Kosciuszko National Park to 3,000 by 2027, their numbers have jumped by more than 30 per cent in the past two years to 18,814.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
It could be worse:
Some say that with predictions for “just” a 3 degree warming by the end of this century the worst scenarios are over, claiming its “still dangerous, but not hellish”. Though others warn there could be enough “warming in the pipeline” to generate 7° to 10°C of global heating, once all climate feedbacks, including the “long-term” ones, have played out. Yet others expect the target of 1.5°C could slip out of reach as early as 2028 as later this year a resurgent “El Niño will cause global temperatures to rise “off the chart” and deliver unprecedented heat waves”.
Later this year, El Niño will cause global temperatures to rise “off the chart” and deliver unprecedented heat waves, scientists have warned. “It’s very likely that the next big El Niño could take us over 1.5°C,” Prof. Adam Scaife, the head of long-range prediction at the United Kingdom Met Office, told the Guardian.
“The probability of having the first year at 1.5°C in the next five-year period is now about 50:50.”
Just how big the next El Niño will be remains uncertain. “Many seasonal forecast models are suggesting the arrival of moderate El Niño conditions from summer 2023,” said Andrew Turner, professor of monsoon systems at the University of Reading. Early summer will bring greater certainty about what lies ahead, with the picture becoming much clearer by June.
Even a “moderate” El Niño will bring misery to hundreds of millions, with parts of Asia and Australia left parched and sweltering while other regions, like the Yangtze basin in China, are hammered by torrential rains. More drought will be in the cards for the already dangerously dry Amazon, for Southern Africa, and also for India, where El Niño tends to suppress monsoon rainfall.
In his opinion, Bill Gates considers there is “no chance” of limiting warming to 1.5C, and “very unlikely” it could be kept to 2C, but that “to stay below 2.5C would be pretty fantastic”.
Biomass war profits:
In July 2022, the European Union responded to the war in Ukraine by banning the import of Russian woody biomass used to make energy, so South Korea drastically upped its Russian woody biomass imports, though Russian biomass appears to still be making its way to European powerplants through other countries. The real winner has been Enviva, the world’s largest woody biomass producer, which operates chiefly in the Southeast U.S.A.
TURNING IT AROUND
Eco-anxiety growing:
Eco-anxiety is a growing problem, with 75 per cent of 16 to 25-year-olds in 10 countries surveyed for a study published in 2021 in UK medical journal The Lancet having described the future as “frightening”, with 25% in Australia extremely worried, 28% vey worried, 29% moderately worried, 10% a little worried, and 6% not worried at all. The positive from this is that eco-anxiety ‘coupled with a realistic sense of hope can be “really powerful” in getting people engaged’.
Eco-anxiety need not necessarily be seen as an entirely negative thing to experience because, he said, because research indicates that eco-anxiety coupled with a realistic sense of hope can be “really powerful” in getting people engaged.
Researchers have dubbed this galvanising emotion “practical eco-anxiety” and have said that it can help to alleviate severely pessimistic feelings.
“What’s particularly interesting is that this combination of eco-anxiety and hope seems to push people towards more communal forms of activism,” Mr Kurth said.
A new survey of 25,000 people - conducted across 25 countries by research firm Elabe and water, waste and energy management company Veolia – reveals 30 per cent of the world's inhabitants feel distressed about the future, ‘often’ think about climate change and are considering giving up long term goals like having children.
But it’s not all doom and gloom as it also reveals growing support for climate action.
75 per cent of the world's inhabitants now believe that climate change is being caused by humans.
This large majority believes in collective action to reduce its implications: 55 per cent think that we need to change the way we live, alongside implementing technological solutions.
The Netherlands, Finland, the USA, Nigeria, Australia, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have the highest percentage of deniers.
Past time to protect forests rather than turning them into biochar:
Scaling up Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) is an urgent priority, as are efforts to rapidly reduce emissions, if we are to meet the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. Scenarios for limiting warming to well below 2°C involve removing hundreds of billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere over the course of the century. A study estimates that the current global rate of CDR is around 2 billion tonnes per year, on land this comes from afforestation, reforestation and management of existing forests. About 0.1% of carbon removal — around 2.3 million tonnes per year — is performed by the new technologies this study focusses on. To limit global warming to less than 2 °C above pre-industrial temperatures, the report estimates that by 2030, the world will need to remove a further 0.96 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, compared with 2020. By 2050, this will have to rise even more, to around 4.8 billion tonnes above 2020 levels. As it stands, governments worldwide have proposed an increase of only between 0.1 billion and 0.65 billion tonnes of CDR per year by 2030 and 1.5 billion to 2.3 billion tonnes per year by 2050.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00180-4?utm
… others focus on ocean sequestration;
The oceans store around 50 times more carbon than the atmosphere and about 20 times more carbon than every plant and plot of soil on land combined, the problem is that as the oceans take up more carbon they are becoming more acidic, dissolving the calcium carbonate structures of a multitude of species. Liming the oceans on a large scale is being considered as a means of ocean alkalinity enhancement, now the latest is to increase their carbon storage by using crushed olivine, an abundant volcanic mineral, delivered by a fleet of ships.
Prioritising reservation:
In the USA the coastal temperate rainforests of Oregon are important carbon storage facilities and provide 80% of the state’s drinking water, with a recent study combining data on drinking water sources, biodiversity, carbon storage and forest resilience to determine which forests are the highest priority for conservation.
A recent study published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change is the first to determine which forests are the highest priority for conservation by analyzing data on drinking water sources, biodiversity, carbon storage and forest resilience.
Phantom Offsets:
Research by The Guardian and others into Verra, the world’s leading carbon standard, used by companies such as Gucci, Salesforce, BHP, Shell, Disney, easyJet, Leon and the band Pearl Jam to “offset” their emissions, has found that, based on analysis of a significant percentage of the projects, more than 90% of their rainforest offset credits – among the most commonly used by companies – are likely to be “phantom credits” and do not represent genuine carbon reductions. A claimed 94.9m (tonnes) in carbon credits resulted in 5.5m in real emissions reductions.
Farming carbon:
Carbon farming is set to take-off with a $4.5 billion carbon credit Australian government boost, though as soil carbon is very variable and only one sample per 10-15 ha is taken, the current methods for measuring how much carbon can be trapped in the soil are flawed, so we may be faced with another dodgy scheme that uses up billions of dollars and does little to help.
But so far, only a single farmer, Niels Olsen in West Gippsland, has earned any carbon credits for his soil.
Olsen, who invented a seed planter to mulch and aerate the soil as it plants seeds, said his latest soil tests show each hectare of his 100-hectare farm is pulling 26 tonnes of CO2-equivalent out of the atmosphere each year. At today’s carbon credit spot price of about $33 per tonne, that’s more than $850 a hectare.
“The soil carbon method is flawed,” said Professor Andrew Macintosh, inaugural chairman of the federal government’s Emissions Reduction Fund assurance committee.
Forest Media 13 January 2023
New South Wales
When loggers attempted to resume logging Bulga State Forest this year they were met by dozens of protectors, including a young forest protector on a tripod (Isla Lamont), accompanied by Sue Higginson. A grandmother in her 60s on a tree-sit is resolved to remain as long as possible while logging has been forced to move to a nearby plantation in the area. For more information visit Save Bulga Forest. The police singled out Susie Russell for arrest for briefly entering the closed forest to give encouragement to Lamont, and gave her bail conditions prohibiting her from entering into any part of the Bulga Forest. Lamont was also arrested. Their revised tactic was to get the local Labor candidate to visit, and focus on lobbying visitors to the falls campsite. There was a great story on NBN. Then action extended to Lorne State Forest which was blocked by a forest protector on a tree platform suspended over the road.
The notice of an application to register the Widjabal Wia-bal ILUA includes (under State agency) the clause “in relation to Bungabbee State Forest before that land is transferred to Widjabal Wia-bal Gurrumbil Aboriginal Corporation”. This is indeed happening, it appears it will be transferred to the Corporation as freehold though what they intend to do with it is unknown. Another loss for the Forestry Corporation.
The NRC summary report on the deterioration of our forests had a run in the Guardian, emphasising the benefits the state’s forests provide are degrading and will continue to degrade, could become net carbon emitters in coming decades and undermining attempts to achieve net zero emissions without “major intervention”, leading to more calls to stop landclearing and commercial logging of native forests.
The Federal Government is to fast track regional plans early this year to ‘help protect, restore, and manage the environment’ and ‘enable better and faster decision-making under Australia’s national environment law’. In northern NSW these include: the Northern Rivers to support the relocation of the Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation and reconstruction operations for flood affected areas, the Central Coast as an area experiencing urban development growth and pressure on biodiversity and the Hunter-Central Coast Renewable Energy Zone to support the delivery of the required transmission network infrastructure to support new renewable energy generation and storage. Once these plans are in place it is assumed they will apply to all developments, not just for the reasons given, so we will have our work cut out to make them adequate.
Grandpa’s Scrub, last remaining stand of original critically endangered White Booyong Lowland Rainforest in the Coffs Creek basin is currently destined to be destroyed for the Coffs Harbour bypass, sparking local protests and controversy over being able to “offset” such destruction by protecting rainforests elsewhere. News of the Area has letters from Mark Graham detailing records of Koalas in the Kalang Headwaters to counter a claim by a farmer that there are none there, and Warren Tindall about overlogging driving Koalas and the Greater Glider to extinction.
Forestry Corporation of NSW is recruiting a team of planners, coordinators, engineers, ecologists and cultural heritage experts to implement the $60 million NSW Government-funded Forest Infrastructure Repair Program.
Australia
The Chubb review of Australia’s controversial carbon credit system has dismissed claims the scheme lacks integrity and is not delivering real cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, while recommending significant changes to how it is managed, leaving Andrew Macintosh and colleagues who had criticised the system “disappointed and confused”. Cosmos has an explainer about carbon credits and the touted Green Wallstreet biodiversity trading scheme.
Cotton growers are moving from the drought ravished south to the northern savannah woodlands where they are clearing massive tracts for new farms, sometimes illegally as the Northern Territory Government turns a blind eye. Federal senators and environmental groups are calling for an urgent inquiry into land clearing in the Northern Territory, with senator Sarah Hanson-Young writing to Tanya Plibersek asking for an inquiry into this unauthorised land clearing, backed by senator David Pocock.
Western Australia is committed to protecting 30% of its lands by 2030, but their head of national parks management says it would be difficult for the state to meet this goal, despite already having about 23.3 per cent of the state registered in the national reserve system – what is NSW going to do with only 9% protected?
Species
A market where koala credits, along with other species, are traded is central to the federal Labor government's plan for halting Australia's extinction crisis, though businesses are claiming that for market forces to work it needs to be profitable therefore requiring regulation to force companies to buy the credits and/or lots of Government money.
The federal Environment Department is assessing 140 proposals with the potential to have a detrimental impact on koalas, on which Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek will be the final decision maker, in a test of the government’s pledge to halt the decimation of native species. Dr Leigh is promoting the higher, cooler and wetter forests of the Blue Mountains world heritage area as a potential climatic refuge for Koalas, despite being devastated by the 2019-20 bushfires.
The Deteriorating Problem
As floodwaters continued down the Murray, focus shifted to record floods in the Kimberley region, with the Fitzroy River peaking at a record height of 15.8 metres, almost 2m above the previous record in what has become a vast inland sea, at Fitzroy Crossing. Europe is experiencing an insane record heatwave as winter turns to summer. Meanwhile researchers find 68% of the world’s glaciers could be gone this century, increasing sea-levels and depriving millions of a reliable water supply.
A study concludes the earth’s water cycle is clearly changing, the air is getting hotter and drier, which means droughts and risky fire conditions are developing faster and more frequently. For Australia, warning of a switch to an El Niño halfway through this year which may see a return to heatwaves and bushfires, flash droughts, and the start of another multi-year drought.
Turning it Around
Extinction Rebellion’s founding branch in the U.K. has announced that it would “prioritize attendance over arrest and relationships over roadblocks” this year by halting disruptive protest tactics at least through spring, in light of evidence of public disapproval, though other groups intend to continue. But in Australia XR said it had no intention of toning down its tactics, with activists from around the country organising a series of actions to disrupt the Santos sponsored bicycle race Tour Down Under. Doctors for Environment Australia have weighed in against allowing Santos’ sponsorship of the Tour Down Under. Then two women from XR were arrested in Adelaide's CBD after gluing themselves to a pile of bicycles in a street for half an hour.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Bulga blockade continues:
When loggers attempted to resume logging Bulga State Forest this year they were met by dozens of protectors, including a young forest protector on a tripod (Isla Lamont), accompanied by Sue Higginson. A grandmother in her 60s on a tree-sit is resolved to remain as long as possible while logging has been forced to move to a nearby plantation in the area. For more information visit Save Bulga Forest.
[Lamont] ‘If not me then who?’
‘If I have children I want them to have the chance to see Greater Gliders, Sooty Owls, Spotted-tailed quolls and Koalas.’
The group has set up a forest support camp at the Ellenborough Falls campground to provide food and care for all those who come to help with their efforts.
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/01/forest-protectors-determined-to-save-bulga/
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/resistance-logging-continues-bulga-state-forest
The police singled out Susie Russell for arrest for briefly entering the closed forest to give encouragement to Lamont, and gave her bail conditions prohibiting her from entering into any part of the Bulga Forest. Lamont was also arrested.
‘I have no doubt I was arrested in order to try and limit my involvement in the campaign. It has however, made my resolve stronger.’
‘I have watched the forests of my region being steadily degraded over three decades. In the 1990’s a spotlighting trip through these forests would reveal dozens of Greater Gliders. Now we are lucky to see one. There is nothing ecologically sustainable about this logging. It is smash and grab and runs at a loss. These forests will take centuries to recover.
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/01/veteran-forest-campaigner-says-she-was-targeted-by-police/
[Forestry Corporation] "Late last year a crew was operating in two native regrowth compartments," the statement said.
"This work ceased at the end of the year. The crew is now working in a plantation within the forest. The protest today was at the native regrowth site and so harvesting has continued in the plantation."
In terms of the Forestry Corporation's financial performance, the past two financial years have been heavily impacted by fire and floods, she said.
"The assertion that native forest harvesting runs at a loss is incorrect," the statement said.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/science/environment/2023/01/09/arrests-logging-protest-nsw-forest/
Their revised tactic was to get the local Labor candidate to visit, and focus on lobbying visitors to the falls campsite. There was a great story on NBN.
https://www.echo.net.au/2023/01/labor-candidate-visits-bulga-state-forest-protection-camp/
… and another starts:
Then action extended to Lorne State Forest which was blocked by a forest protector on a tree platform suspended over the road.
[Jane McIntyre] “Inspired by the action of the Elands community standing up for the Bulga Forest, we reached out for some assistance to enable us to do the same, and make a public statement that we will no longer stand idly by and watch the daily destruction.
“We know that a majority of people in NSW, think that the ongoing logging of our publicly owned forests is sheer madness. The time is now. It has to stop."
Forestry Corporation NSW suspended operations at Lorne State Forest following the protest.
Mid North Coast Police District Inspector Stuart Campbell said protestors have been compliant and no arrests have been made at this stage.
Determining Bungabbee’s future:
The notice of an application to register the Widjabal Wia-bal ILUA includes (under State agency) the clause “in relation to Bungabbee State Forest before that land is transferred to Widjabal Wia-bal Gurrumbil Aboriginal Corporation”. This is indeed happening, it appears it will be transferred to the Corporation as freehold though what they intend to do with it is unknown. Another loss for the Forestry Corporation.
Northern River’s Times 12 January 2023
Our deteriorating forests:
The NRC summary report on the deterioration of our forests had a run in the Guardian, emphasising the benefits the state’s forests provide are degrading and will continue to degrade, could become net carbon emitters in coming decades and undermining attempts to achieve net zero emissions without “major intervention”, leading to more calls to stop landclearing and commercial logging of native forests.
The report, published in December, urges the government to avoid “business-as-usual management approaches and reactive policy decision making”, saying this would lead to “sub-optimal outcomes at best, or ecosystem and industry collapse under worst case scenarios”.
It states that streamflow in NSW forests, particularly on the south coast, had been declining for 30 years and ongoing reductions would have “major implications for future water security in NSW”.
Andrew Macintosh, an environmental law and policy professor at the Australian National University … “If the government wanted to improve the condition of forests, the best thing you could do is stop remnant clearing and large-scale commercial harvesting of native forests,” he said.
Jacqui Scruby, an independent running for the seat of Pittwater, said it “doesn’t make sense to be setting emissions reduction targets and then subsidising native forest logging”.
Regional plans become the issue of 2023:
The Federal Government is to fast track regional plans early this year to ‘help protect, restore, and manage the environment’ and ‘enable better and faster decision-making under Australia’s national environment law’. In northern NSW these include: the Northern Rivers to support the relocation of the Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation and reconstruction operations for flood affected areas, the Central Coast as an area experiencing urban development growth and pressure on biodiversity and the Hunter-Central Coast Renewable Energy Zone to support the delivery of the required transmission network infrastructure to support new renewable energy generation and storage. Once these plans are in place it is assumed they will apply to all developments, not just for the reasons given, so we will have our work cut out to make them adequate.
“Having the necessary approvals in place from the get-go will provide certainty to landholders on the biodiversity value of their land and result in more homes being built faster, in the right places, without sacrificing essential conservation considerations,” Mr Roberts said.
“The Regional Plans identified for joint-development will also enable work to fast-track the recovery of our flood-affected communities in the Northern Rivers, and allow NSW to continue its trajectory as a leader in Australia’s transition to renewable energy, helping to expedite transmission and energy storage projects, such as the Hunter-Central Coast Renewable Energy Zone, and rare earth mining in far south west NSW to source the minerals needed for energy transition infrastructure.”
Offsetting grandpa’s scrub upsetting:
Grandpa’s Scrub, last remaining stand of original critically endangered White Booyong Lowland Rainforest in the Coffs Creek basin is currently destined to be destroyed for the Coffs Harbour bypass, sparking local protests and controversy over being able to “offset” such destruction by protecting rainforests elsewhere.
[Sue Higginson] “Once something is critically endangered it means it is literally on the brink of extinction, that it cannot withstand any more loss or destruction and it needs a recovery program.
“Secondly, any offsetting must be like for like, meaning you can only destroy the same biodiversity that you are protecting on the offset site.
“I understand that the rainforest the Government has purchased is totally different to the White Booyong Lowland Rainforest proposed to be destroyed.”
… so is industrial logging:
News of the Area has letters from Mark Graham detailing records of Koalas in the Kalang Headwaters to counter a claim by a farmer that there are none there, and Warren Tindall about overlogging driving Koalas and the Greater Glider to extinction.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-30-december-2022
Spending our taxes:
Forestry Corporation of NSW is recruiting a team of planners, coordinators, engineers, ecologists and cultural heritage experts to implement the $60 million NSW Government-funded Forest Infrastructure Repair Program.
AUSTRALIA
Carbon scheme creditable:
The Chubb review of Australia’s controversial carbon credit system has dismissed claims the scheme lacks integrity and is not delivering real cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, while recommending significant changes to how it is managed, leaving Andrew Macintosh and colleagues who had criticised the system “disappointed and confused”.
But the report released on Monday rejected detailed allegations by a team of academics led by Prof Andrew Macintosh, an environment law professor at the Australian National University and former head of the emissions reduction assurance committee, that failures in the system mean more than 70% of carbon credits approved might not represent new or real cuts in emissions.
In a press conference with Bowen on Monday, Chubb said the scheme was “not as broken as has been suggested”. He said it was a “human-designed process, implemented by human beings, and it will be a bit frayed at the edges”, but the system was “basically sound” with safeguards in place.
Macintosh said the team of academics that alleged problems with the scheme were “disappointed and confused” by the review as the panel recommended sweeping governance changes while also arguing the carbon credit system was “apparently working fine”. “It’s illogical,” he said.
The report sparked an angry reaction from Professor Andrew Macintosh, the whistleblower academic whose work triggered the review, who argues hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money has been spent on worthless carbon credits via offset projects that do not deliver any actual carbon sequestration.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-09/australian-carbon-credit-units-review-report/101836478
These changes include putting an end to the much-criticised “avoided deforestation” methodology which had allowed landholders to claim credits by promising not to cut down trees that they might not have intended to cut down in the first place.
That’s good. It was a silly idea.
It also called for landfill gas project credits to become stricter over time and for tougher oversight of the regeneration of forests by humans to ensure it achieves the permanently storing carbon.
The Climate Council said the review did not address the biggest issue, which was allowing big emitters to continue polluting as usual rather than making real progress in avoiding and reducing emissions by purchasing ACCUs.
It noted that instead of carbon offsets being used only as a last resort for the small share of emissions that cannot be avoided through process, technology and other operational changes, paying for ACCUs has become the first and only thing many businesses are doing about their harmful emissions.
… privatising conservation:
Cosmos has an explainer about carbon credits and the touted Green Wallstreet biodiversity trading scheme.
Presently, there are dozens of ways entities can generate carbon credits for purchase, but three quarters of projects currently generating credits are in either avoided deforestation, human-induced regeneration of native forest and landfill gas.
In August, the government announced a biodiversity certificates scheme that would recognise “landholders who restore or manage local habitat”, granting credits that can be on-sold to others wishing to contribute to nature restoration.
However this is a voluntary scheme – at least at the moment – so unlike the safeguard mechanism, which requires credits to offset excess emissions, a destroyer of vegetation isn’t forced to buy a biodiversity credit. The jury is still out on how such a scheme would work for nature and endangered species protection.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/carbon-credits-safeguard-mechanism/
Northern savannah woodlands the latest frontier:
Cotton growers are moving from the drought ravished south to the northern savannah woodlands where they are clearing massive tracts for new farms, sometimes illegally as the Northern Territory Government turns a blind eye.
Deep in the Northern Territory outback, stations — some double the land size of London — are being bought for millions and converted at a rapid rate to make way for a lucrative industry: cotton.
Paul Burke, the chief executive of the NT Farmers Association, has been spearheading the expansion of the industry in the north.
He says it’s a silver bullet crop that could rocket to a $200 million economy within the decade, helping small family farmers diversify from the cattle status quo, which has driven the Territory up until now.
But environmental groups say this alleged unlawful activity speaks of a culture of cowboy antics in a jurisdiction with limited environmental oversight and “a piecemeal set of laws”.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-11/land-cleared-for-cotton-farming-northern-territory/101651092
Federal senators and environmental groups are calling for an urgent inquiry into land clearing in the Northern Territory, with senator Sarah Hanson-Young writing to Tanya Plibersek asking for an inquiry into this unauthorised land clearing, backed by senator David Pocock.
At a press conference in Darwin on Wednesday, NT Environment Minister Lauren Moss praised the government's environment regulations as "world class" and said less than 1 per cent of the Territory had been cleared, listing pests, fire and weeds as far greater threats to the ecosystem.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-12/nt-government-land-clearing-cotton-inquiry/101847612
30x30:
Western Australia is committed to protecting 30% of its lands by 2030, but their head of national parks management says it would be difficult for the state to meet this goal, despite already having about 23.3 per cent of the state registered in the national reserve system – what is NSW going to do with only 9% protected?
"There is opportunity for us to be exploring how we work with private landholders, pastoral lessees, other Aboriginal lands, to put in place management frameworks that would meet that international obligation that Australia is signing up to.
"It doesn't all have to be in national parks and reserves."
SPECIES
The value of Koalas:
A market where koala credits, along with other species, are traded is central to the federal Labor government's plan for halting Australia's extinction crisis, though businesses are claiming that for market forces to work it needs to be profitable therefore requiring regulation to force companies to buy the credits and/or lots of Government money.
"At the moment, the price for the koala credit is about $400," explained Megan Evans, an environmental policy researcher at the University of New South Wales.
A credit is the compensation a developer would need to pay in New South Wales for killing a koala's habitat — known as a "biodiversity offset".
And you could have bought one of those credits for $250 in 2020, making a 60 per cent return in a few years.
Death of a 140 cuts:
The federal Environment Department is assessing 140 proposals with the potential to have a detrimental impact on koalas, on which Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek will be the final decision maker, in a test of the government’s pledge to halt the decimation of native species.
Koala refuges:
Dr Leigh is promoting the higher, cooler and wetter forests of the Blue Mountains world heritage area as a potential climatic refuge for Koalas, despite being devastated by the 2019-20 bushfires.
In 2018, the group reported that Blue Mountains koala populations were the most genetically diverse recorded.
Then in 2022, Dr Leigh and her team came across a new colony of koalas in the Blue Mountains that were free of chlamydia.
She describes the region as a climate refuge for koalas, somewhere that is unaffected by changes in the climate, like rising temperatures, extreme drought and heat waves.
"A climate refuge is an area that's got enough variation in it, or something different about it, that it can buck that trend.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-30/saving-the-koalas-blue-mountains-extinction/101775152
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Insane weather:
As floodwaters continued down the Murray, focus shifted to record floods in the Kimberley region, with the Fitzroy River peaking at a record height of 15.8 metres, almost 2m above the previous record in what has become a vast inland sea, at Fitzroy Crossing. Europe is experiencing an insane record heatwave as winter turns to summer. Meanwhile researchers find 68% of the world’s glaciers could be gone this century, increasing sea-levels and depriving millions of a reliable water supply.
Europe is experiencing a record-shattering warm spell, with meteorologists calling the current heat wave “totally insane” and “the most extreme event ever seen in European climatology.” On New Year’s Day, at least seven nations experienced their warmest January weather on record, with some cities in Spain and France sweating as temperatures rose to over 75 degrees Fahrenheit.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/01/05/warm-winter-effects-europe-us/
Researchers found 49% of glaciers would disappear under the most optimistic scenario of 1.5C of warming. However, if global heating continued under the current scenario of 2.7C of warming, losses would be more significant, with 68% of glaciers disappearing, according to the paper, published in Science. There would be almost no glaciers left in central Europe, western Canada and the US by the end of the next century if this happened.
This will significantly contribute to sea level rise, threaten the supply of water of up to 2 billion people, and increase the risk of natural hazards such as flooding. The study looked at all glacial land ice except for Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.
Flash droughts to follow flash floods?:
A study concludes the earth’s water cycle is clearly changing, the air is getting hotter and drier, which means droughts and risky fire conditions are developing faster and more frequently. For Australia, warning of a switch to an El Niño halfway through this year which may see a return to heatwaves and bushfires, flash droughts, and the start of another multi-year drought.
In 2022, La Niña combined with warm waters in the northern Indian Ocean to bring widespread flooding in a band stretching from Iran to New Zealand, and almost everywhere in between.
The most devastating floods occurred in Pakistan, where about 8 million people were driven out of their homes by massive flooding along the Indus River. Australia also experienced several severe flood events throughout the year – mostly in the east, but also in Western Australia’s Kimberly region at the very end of the year and into 2023.
As is typical for La Niña, the rain was much less plentiful on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. A multi-year drought in the western United States and central South America saw lakes fall to historic lows.
The monsoon regions from India to Northern Australia are getting wetter. Parts of the Americas and Africa are getting drier, including the western United States, which experienced its 23rd year of drought in 2022.
In 2022, intense heatwaves in Europe and China led to so-called “flash droughts”. These occur when warm, dry air causes the rapid evaporation of water from soils and inland water systems.
TURNING IT AROUND
XR UK to stop being extreme:
Extinction Rebellion’s founding branch in the U.K. has announced that it would “prioritize attendance over arrest and relationships over roadblocks” this year by halting disruptive protest tactics at least through spring, in light of evidence of public disapproval, though other groups intend to continue.
But last year’s wave of climate protests, held at famous art galleries, popular sports events and in the middle of major transportation hubs, have appeared to strike a nerve for many people, with even some of the climate movement’s most prominent figures calling the demonstrations counterproductive.
Recent polls conducted in the U.K., the U.S. and Germany, where many of last year’s disruptive protests occurred, suggest that the majority of the people in those countries disapprove of the climate activists’ tactics, even if they agree with their cause. One poll found that just 21 percent of U.K. residents approve of disruptive climate protests, with 64 percent disapproving. Another found 14 percent of German residents approve, with 83 percent disapproving. Similarly, a U.S. poll showed an approval rating of 13 percent from its respondents, with 46 percent saying the disruptive tactics “decrease their support for efforts to address climate change.”
… “We’ve listened to the public,” van de Geer told the morning talk show’s hosts. “They say over and over again, ‘We support what you stand for but we don’t like how you do it.’”
The protests have also triggered a wave of new anti-protest laws in several Western countries, levying stiffer penalties against demonstrators for trespassing, disrupting traffic and business operations, or for generally being a public nuisance. It’s a global trend that has concerned many civil rights experts.
https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?e=6624c72df8&u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=e16fe7fd64
… but not in Australia:
But in Australia XR said it had no intention of toning down its tactics, with activists from around the country organising a series of actions to disrupt the Santos sponsored bicycle race Tour Down Under.
[Jane Morton] “The only thing you can do that will give people an idea that it really is that serious is to do something that is really quite unusual – and be willing to, say, go to jail, because then it does get people thinking: ‘is it more serious than what we’re being taught?’ And it is.”
Some prominent researchers believe the radical flank effect can be negative. Professor Michael Mann, one of the world’s leading climate scientists and advocates and director of the Penn Centre for Science, Sustainability and the Media said radical action can cost the movement support.
Morton remains unmoved by Mann’s argument. She says the world is in crisis, and by softening the message scientists like Mann risk misleading the public about the scope of threat.
Doctors for Environment Australia have weighed in against allowing Santos’ sponsorship of the Tour Down Under.
Despite this, the council ratepayers of Adelaide gave $125,000 to this year's Santos Tour Down Under.
While Adelaide Council and the state government support fossil fuel events, others are dropping Santos like a hot potato. The Australian Open ended its sponsorship agreement last year, as did the Darwin Festival and a kids science road show.
So why is South Australia still allowing a fossil fuel company to leverage a key sporting event to promote its brand?
https://www.juneesoutherncross.com.au/story/8044953/when-will-we-ban-fossil-fuel-advertising/
Then two women from XR were arrested in Adelaide's CBD after gluing themselves to a pile of bicycles in a street for half an hour.
South Australian Tourism Minister Zoe Bettison … "I think people are free to share their concerns; the disruptions is what is outraging me," she said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-12/protest-against-santos-sponsoring-tour-down-under/101850098
Forest Media 23 December 2022
It’s been an interesting year. I think the groundswell to stop logging public native forests has gathered an unstoppable momentum, though overcoming the ALP inertia remains a challenge. As forests and their inhabitants deteriorate under the heating climate, their protection can’t come soon enough. While burning forests for electricity struggles on, we achieved a major victory when the Feds ruled out burning native forest wood waste as counting toward the Renewable Energy Target, hopefully the looming threat of Verdant Earth restarting Redbank with wood has been seen off. We are holding the line, but the threats are increasing.
This will be my last forest media for a couple of weeks.
Have an enjoyable Christmas, you need to be refreshed to do what you can to make forests a bigger State Election issue by March. If we all pile-on we can end this now.
Dailan
New South Wales
Locals from the Bulga Plateau have vowed to resist attempts by the State owned logging corporation to continue the carnage in Bulga State Forest north -west of Taree, erecting a bamboo tripod to block the access road on Monday and a tree-platform supported by ropes attached to other trees that were intended to be cut down on Wednesday. The tripod stopped logging for a few hours, with the protector arrested. The tree sit by Santa was more effective stopping logging for 2 days. Locals are calling on people to come down, learn skills and support from January 3 onwards, ready for attempts to resume logging on Jan 9. The Forestry Corporation said they respect people’s right to protest, just not near them. The Shooters and Fishers want more draconian punishments while Justin Field supports the protest.
Emma Dorge, who suspended herself from a pole over the side of a Port Botany freight bridge and blocked access to incoming and outgoing trains for three hours, was handed a one year conditional release order for obstructing the rail line and was fined $110 for refusing to comply with police direction and $220 for remaining on enclosed land without lawful excuse.
The Natural Resources Commission five webinars presenting findings from the NSW Forest Monitoring and Improvement Program, covering forest health, biodiversity, carbon, forest catchments and future forest scenarios are now available on the Commission’s website by following the link – forest ecosystems are collapsing but it has nothing to do with logging??
The NSW and federal governments will begin consultation on its regional assessment plans (traffic light system) with businesses, green groups, communities, First Nations and technical experts on an initial four regions: the Northern Rivers, Central Coast, Hunter Valley renewable energy zone and the Far Western NSW mineral sands deposits near the South Australian border. This will be the first test of the new regional assessments and its yet to be seen what areas will be included in the no-go areas, possibly just national parks.
The Widjabul Wia-bal people have been granted non-exclusive native title rights to an area of approximately 1,559kms, which stretches across the Lismore, Ballina, Byron, Kyogle, Tweed and Richmond Valley local government areas, giving them limited rights to undertake cultural activities on publicly owned land, though not on private land. Against the wishes of the Gomeroi people, the National Native Title Tribunal has ruled in favour of a $3 billion gas development in northern NSW that will allow Santos to drill more than 850 coal seam gas wells in the native Pilliga Forest over the next 25 years, in the process releasing almost 130 million tonnes of Greenhouse gasses.
Despite this and all that coal, NSW expects to reach its goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 50% by 2030, so is upping the ante with a new goal of a 70 per cent reduction by 2035.
Australia
The federal government’s decision to restore the exclusion of electricity generated from burning native forest wood waste from eligibility under the Renewable Energy Target, meaning any electricity it generates cannot be used to create tradeable Large-scale Generation Certificates (see last week’s forest media), has gained world-wide coverage and become a precedent others want to emulate.
The ABC has a lengthy article about the 20th Anniversary of the successful direct action campaign by a “motley crew” of around 100 active “Enviro-commandos” from the Otway Ranges Environment Network resulted in legislation to create the Great Otway National Park and end native forest logging on public land in the Otway Ranges. The Greens will push to enshrine the right to protest in federal law which would override existing state laws.
Species
Flying foxes desperate for food due to logging and the 2019-20 bushfires removing nectar trees, are moving into towns on the New England Tablelands in search of food, driving locals batty.
News of the Area has a repeat article (Forest Media 9 December) about the campaign to protect the Great Koala National Park, again mentioning the e-petition that is on the NSW Legislative Assembly website: https://www.koalapark.org.au/petition. Jeff Angel argues for the Koala Green Belt around Sydney to allow the migration of koalas to areas still recovering from bushfires and to colonise suitable undamaged forest, as the Government pursues fast tracking habitat clearance in its Cumberland Plain Conservation Plan. The first sod has been turned at the $23.6 million Gunnedah Koala Sanctuary, a taxpayer funded Koala theme park.
Hatchlings of the Endangered Manning River Turtle that lives only in the middle and upper reaches of the Manning River catchment, have been spotted for the first time in 4 years.
Bogong moths are making a tentative comeback after their numbers crashed by 99.5% due to the years of drought that resulted in the 2019-20 wildfires, each spring billions of Bogong moths used to migrate from their breeding grounds in southern Queensland, north-western New South Wales and Victoria to caves in the Snowy Mountains where they were a key pillar of the ecosystem, particularly for Mountain Pygmy Possums.
The Deteriorating Problem
At this period of celebration, the good news is that it a supercomputer predicts we are only going to lose 27%, or maybe 34%, of the world’s vertebrate species this century, in part due to co-extinction as the loss of one species has cascading impacts on others that rely on it for food, pollination and other necessities. A pretty impressive achievement for one human’s lifetime, but it could be worse (and it may be), though it doesn’t need to be this bad if we act with the urgency required.
Turning it Around
The 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biodiversity, or COP15, reached a final agreement including protecting 30% of the planet for nature by the end of the decade, reforming $500bn of environmentally damaging subsidies, and taking urgent action on extinctions. The (draft) Kunming-Montreal Global biodiversity framework has 23 targets, including:
Ensure that by 2030 at least 30 per cent of areas of degraded terrestrial, inland water, and coastal and marine ecosystems are under effective restoration, in order to enhance biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, ecological integrity and connectivity.
Ensure and enable that by 2030 at least 30 per cent of terrestrial, inland water, and of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, are effectively conserved and managed through ecologically representative, well-connected and equitably governed systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, recognizing indigenous and traditional territories, where applicable, and integrated into wider landscapes, seascapes and the ocean, while ensuring that any sustainable use, where appropriate in such areas, is fully consistent with conservation outcomes, recognizing and respecting the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, including over their traditional territories.
At one stage representatives from developing countries, including the 54 members of the African group, seven South and Latin American countries, and other large countries, including India and Indonesia, walked out of COP 15, over concerns that talks about how those efforts should be funded are lagging behind those on how much land and water should be set aside. In the end a number of countries, notably the Democratic Republic of Congo, did not support the outcome. Though neither did USA. There was a commitment for US$30 billion per year to flow from wealthy to poorer countries by 2030, but this was not legally binding and scant in detail. The Greens criticised the Australian Government for failing to offer any new money for conservation measures at COP 15, particularly given evidence that funding in Australia needs to be dramatically increased to save more species.
There are concerns that the growing efforts by State, federal and international governments to commodify nature by monetising individual components under the moniker of “nature positive”, which attempts to put “a price on nature”, is a threat in itself as it attempts to incorporate nature into the economic trading system that is destroying it.
The Greens and Senator Pocock have called for an end to native forest logging in accordance with the COP 15 agreement, though the CFMEU are claiming they have an assurance from the Prime Minister that logging of native forests will continue.
An article in Eos argues for the need to identify and protect forest refugia, the oases that evade wildfires by quirks of topography, moisture, or the unpredictable wind and weather conditions during a fire, given their importance for repopulating burnt forests, though as megafires become more intense even long-term refugia are threatened
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Bulga goes off:
Locals from the Bulga Plateau have vowed to resist attempts by the State owned logging corporation to continue the carnage in Bulga State Forest north -west of Taree, erecting a bamboo tripod to block the access road on Monday and a tree-platform supported by ropes
attached to other trees that were to be cut down on Wednesday had logging continued. The tripod stopped logging for a few hours, with the protector arrested. The tree sit by Santa was more effective stopping logging for 2 days. Locals are calling on people to come down, learn skills and support from January 3 onwards, ready for attempts to resume logging on Jan 9.
“This logging is totally unsustainable” said long-time local forest campaigner, Susie Russell.
“Logging has been systematically eating away at this special place for decades. The community of NSW, the real owner of these forests, is the poorer. We lose the diversity of plants and animals that should be living here and that haven’t recovered from the 2019/20 fires.
“We lose the huge volume of stored carbon in the trees and the soil at a time we need to stop emissions. We lose the integrity of the upper catchment, which as we face wild weather and extreme rainfall is key to slowing floods. (The area is at the very top of the Hastings catchment).
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/12/bulga-plateau-locals-blockade-forest/
The Forestry Corporation said they respect people’s right to protest, just not near them. The Shooters and Fishers want more draconian punishments while Justin Field supports the protest.
[tripod] Operations were halted for several hours until Police Rescue arrived to remove a man from the platform at the top of the tripod and dismantle the structure.
The man was arrested and later charged.
North East Forest Alliance spokesperson Susie Russell, who lives on the Bulga Plateau, said the community was protesting to put urgent pressure on the Forestry Corporation of NSW and the state government to end native forest logging.
"The community feels angry and quite distressed," she said.
A Forestry Corporation spokesperson said it respected the community's right to protest but urged community members to "do this outside of active harvesting operations, which are closed worksites".
Inquiry chairperson and Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party MLC Mark Banasiak said a greater investment in hardwood timber plantations was a priority before the state could consider a transition away from native forestry.
"With the support of the timber industry, I've moved a bill … to try and stop some of these more violent and dangerous protests that are happening."
Independent MLC Justin Field, a committee member in the inquiry, said he supported protesters and understood their frustration.
The fine is fine:
Emma Dorge, who suspended herself from a pole over the side of a Port Botany freight bridge and blocked access to incoming and outgoing trains for three hours, was handed a one year conditional release order for obstructing the rail line and was fined $110 for refusing to comply with police direction and $220 for remaining on enclosed land without lawful excuse.
NRC propaganda online:
The Natural Resources Commission five webinars presenting findings from the NSW Forest Monitoring and Improvement Program, covering forest health, biodiversity, carbon, forest catchments and future forest scenarios are now available on the Commission’s website by following the link – forest ecosystems are collapsing but it has nothing to do with logging??
https://www.nrc.nsw.gov.au/fmip-dialogue
Making an example of north-east NSW:
The NSW and federal governments will begin consultation on its regional plans (traffic light system) with businesses, green groups, communities, First Nations and technical experts on an initial four regions: the Northern Rivers, Central Coast, Hunter Valley renewable energy zone and the Far Western NSW mineral sands deposits near the South Australian border. This will be the first test of the new regional assessments and its yet to be seen what areas will be included in the no-go areas, possibly just national parks.
Widjabul Wia-bal people granted native title:
The Widjabul Wia-bal people have been granted non-exclusive native title rights to an area of approximately 1,559kms, which stretches across the Lismore, Ballina, Byron, Kyogle, Tweed and Richmond Valley local government areas, giving them limited rights to undertake cultural activities on publicly owned land, though not on private land.
These activities include:
- The right to access, move about and traverse.
- The right to camp and erect temporary shelters but not to permanently camp or occupy.
- The right to hunt and fish for non-commercial purposes.
- The right to access and use natural water resources for non-commercial purposes.
- The right to gather, share and exchange natural resources for non-commercial purposes.
- The right to conduct and participate in ceremonial, ritual and spiritual activities.
- The right to maintain and protect places of importance under traditional laws and customs.
- The right to transmit traditional knowledge to members of the native title claim group
- The right to hold meetings.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/12/change-gonna-come-widjabul-wia-bal-finally-granted-native-title/
National Native Title Tribunal over-rides objections from native title holders:
Against the wishes of the Gomeroi people, the National Native Title Tribunal has ruled in favour of a $3 billion gas development in northern NSW that will allow Santos to drill more than 850 coal seam gas wells in the native Pilliga Forest over the next 25 years, in the process releasing almost 130 million tonnes of Greenhouse gasses.
But on Tuesday, the tribunal – which manages native title applications and is not comprised of Aboriginal Australians – determined the group had failed to prove the gas project would have “grave and irreversible consequences for the Gomeroi people’s culture, lands and waters and would contribute to climate change”.
Tribunal president and judge John Dowsett said in his decision that Santos had negotiated in good faith and the benefits the Narrabri-Pilliga gas project would provide to the region and wider country significantly outweighed the Gomeroi people’s concerns.
Gomeroi man Raymond Weatherall … “We’re trying to uphold our cultural integrity. The proposed infrastructure [for the wells] seeks to destroy our cultural heritage and spiritual connection to our Country,” he said on Tuesday.
The gas field is expected to contribute almost 130 million tonnes to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions over the life of the project, according to the Climate Council.
NSW goes for 70% emissions cut by 2035:
NSW expects to reach its goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 50% by 2030, so is upping the ante with a new goal of a 70 per cent reduction by 2035.
[Matt Kean] “Many communities across the country have spent the last few years choking on the dust of drought or on the smoke of bushfires. Now, many of those same communities have seen their homes and businesses inundated with one-in-a-thousand-year floods, three times in the space of nine months,” he said.
“As any of those families who have lost their homes to fire or flood, or their livelihoods to drought will tell you this fight against climate change is one that we cannot afford to lose.
“Our action on climate change will determine the prosperity of our children and define the way we are remembered by our grandchildren.”
AUSTRALIA
We’re the envy of the world (at least in the biomass resistance):
The federal government’s decision to restore the exclusion of electricity generated from burning native forest wood waste from eligibility under the Renewable Energy Target, meaning any electricity it generates cannot be used to create tradeable Large-scale Generation Certificates (see last week’s forest media), has gained world-wide coverage and become a precedent others want to emulate.
On December 15, Australia became the first major economy worldwide to reverse itself on its renewable classification for woody biomass burned to make energy. Under the nation’s new policy, wood harvested from native forests and burned to produce energy cannot be classified as a renewable energy source.
The impact of this regulatory change is perhaps most significant for the setback it may pose to the biomass industry globally, hindering the multibillion-dollar wood pellet industry from getting started Down Under at a time when pellet production is rising in the U.S. Southeast and British Columbia in order to supply growing demand to the EU, UK and Asia.
“Two big power stations in Queensland were on the verge of converting from coal to biomass,” Young told Mongabay in an interview from Montreal, where she was attending the United Nations COP15 biodiversity conference. “There are [coal] plants in Victoria and New South Wales that were looking to convert. They were talking with Drax [the world’s largest consumer of wood pellets for energy based in the United Kingdom] about how to make it happen. All this was about to start.”
But without the renewable designation, biomass development in Australia is all but dead in the water.
The government decision is a small but significant blow to the wood pellet industry’s plans for nonstop global expansion. In 2011, industry advocates noted that although Australia’s biomass industry was “slow to develop,” it had potential. “Wood waste” was deemed one of the country’s “most underutilized resources” and would likely remain so without government subsidies — which never materialized.
Forest advocates in Europe, who hope for the kind of success their counterparts in Australia have had, continue to press their case in Brussels so long as EU negotiations over biomass regulations are still ongoing.
Celebrating OREN’s end to logging in Otways:
The ABC has a lengthy article about the 20th Anniversary of the successful direct action campaign by a “motley crew” of around 100 active “Enviro-commandos” from the Otway Ranges Environment Network resulted in legislation to create the Great Otway National Park and end native forest logging on public land in the Otway Ranges.
As Roger sees it, there were three key pillars to the campaign — community support, an ability and willingness to engage with those in power, and a strategy of non-violent direct action.
From the late 1990s, protesters came and went, spending days, weeks and sometimes months occupying coupes during the Otways logging season, which usually ran from November to April.
Non-violent direct action was seen as a strategic part of a broader anti-logging campaign, something the government couldn’t ignore — “the loaded gun on the table”, as one activist put it.
Making protest lawful:
The Greens will push to enshrine the right to protest in federal law which would override existing state laws.
[David Shoebridge] "The right to non-violent protest is essential in any free society but we see politicians across the country increasingly using their positions of power to crack down on protests that threaten the fossil fuel and logging industries."
"Young protesters standing up for the right to a liveable planet are being hit with criminal penalties while the owners of corporations that pollute water, destroy land and damage sacred sites face no sanction," he said.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-11556805/Push-national-protest-protection-laws.html
SPECIES
Tableland towns going batty:
Flying foxes desperate for food due to logging and the 2019-20 bushfires removing nectar trees, are moving into towns on the New England Tablelands in search of food, driving locals batty.
Listed as vulnerable by the NSW government in 2001, the grey-headed flying fox usually frequents rainforests and woodlands, where its foraging results in pollination and seed dispersal for native trees. But loss of habitat due to land clearing and bushfires has caused camps to appear in new areas such as Tenterfield.
A project in 2019 which mapped the flying fox’s range showed a significant migration into central NSW since its range was previously recorded in 2008. In that time, camps have settled near residential areas in Inverell, Tamworth and Armidale.
Great Koala Park:
News of the Area has a repeat article (Forest Media 9 December) about the campaign to protect the Great Koala National Park, again mentioning the e-petition that is on the NSW Legislative Assembly website: https://www.koalapark.org.au/petition.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-23-december-2022
… Green Belt:
Jeff Angel argues for the Koala Green Belt around Sydney to allow the migration of koalas to areas still recovering from bushfires and to colonise suitable undamaged forest, as the Government pursues fast tracking habitat clearance in its Cumberland Plain Conservation Plan.
The Sydney Basin – stretching from Newcastle to the Blue Mountains down to Nowra – is bedevilled by threats from urban sprawl, mining and continued logging of native forest. Governments release koala protection plans, but still the trees – vital as food and shelter – are chainsawed and bushland bulldozed. In recent years NSW has experienced the “koala wars” as the National Party attacked environment protection laws, seeking to ensure the supremacy of development certain to whittle away the homes of koalas and the many other species which share our remnant natural areas. Can we ever stop death to our wildlife by a thousand cuts?
The debate about koala corridors has been fraught, with developers and planning bureaucrats trying to minimise their width and downplay their importance. The NSW Chief Scientist has been called in and recommended the preservation of six corridors in the Macarthur region with an average 390 to 425 metres wide. Development interests played games with “average” so that some parts were quite narrow, seriously devaluing the utility of the few they would allow.
https://thefifthestate.com.au/columns/spinifex/koala-colony-challenges-sydney/
… and Sanctuary
The first sod has been turned at the $23.6 million Gunnedah Koala Sanctuary, a taxpayer funded Koala theme park.
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2022/12/21/first-sod-turned-at-gunnedahs-koala-sanctuary/
Turtles hatching:
Hatchlings of the Endangered Manning River Turtle that lives only in the middle and upper reaches of the Manning River catchment, have been spotted for the first time in 4 years.
Mr Gollan, a HLLS senior land services officer, said a team of ecologists recorded the first sighting of Manning River turtle hatchlings in recent weeks.
"Foxes and pigs are a key threat to freshwater turtle nests, and to adults when they leave the water to lay their eggs," he said.
"With favourable conditions following bushfires, feral pigs have experienced a massive spike in a number of priority reaches of turtle habitats."
Efforts were also underway to have the Manning River turtle listed as endangered federally, as well as its current NSW endangered listing.
Bogong rebounding:
Bogong moths are making a tentative comeback after their numbers crashed by 99.5% due to the years of drought that resulted in the 2019-20 wildfires, each spring billions of Bogong moths used to migrate from their breeding grounds in southern Queensland, north-western New South Wales and Victoria to caves in the Snowy Mountains where they were a key pillar of the ecosystem, particularly for Mountain Pygmy Possums.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
The Deteriorating Problem
At this period of celebration, the good news is that it a supercomputer predicts we are only going to lose 27%, or maybe 34%, of the world’s vertebrate species this century, in part due co-extinction as the loss of one species has cascading impacts on others that rely on it for food, pollination and other necessities. A pretty impressive achievement for one human’s lifetime, but it could be worse (and it may be), though it doesn’t need to be this bad if we act with the urgency required.
The simulation conducted on one of Europe's most powerful supercomputers also found that one extinction caused a cascade of extinctions that have been coined "co-extinctions".
The tool found that under the worst climate change prediction, 34 per cent more species would become extinct than would be predicted when not considering co-extinctions.
The modelling found the areas of the world with the most biodiversity now — such as South America, Africa and Australia — would suffer the most from the effects of climate change and land use changes.
Our new research shows 10% of land animals could disappear from particular geographic areas by 2050, and almost 30% by 2100. This is more than double previous predictions. It means children born today who live to their 70s will witness literally thousands of animals disappear in their lifetime, from lizards and frogs to iconic mammals such as elephants and koalas.
But if we manage to dramatically reduce carbon emissions globally, we could save thousands of species from local extinction this century alone.
Every species depends on others in some way. So when a species dies out, the repercussions can ripple through an ecosystem.
Research suggests co-extinction was a main driver of past extinctions, including the five previous mass extinction events going back many hundreds of millions of years.
For example, if we manage to achieve a lower carbon-emissions pathway that limits global warming to less than 3℃ by the end of this century, we could limit biodiversity loss to “only” 13%. This would translate into saving thousands of species from disappearing.
TURNING IT AROUND
COP 15
The 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biodiversity, or COP15, reached a final agreement included protecting 30% of the planet for nature by the end of the decade, reforming $500bn of environmentally damaging subsidies, and taking urgent action on extinctions.
Nevertheless, the feeling among scientists is optimistic. They welcome a historic agreement, which at times felt nigh-on impossible to achieve. It has created, for the first time, biodiversity targets on par with the momentous 2015 Paris climate agreement, which set a crucial goal to to limit global warming to 1.5–2 °C above pre-industrial levels.
https://us17.campaign-archive.com/?e=9b93cf58d2&u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=3baa4cf847
The (draft) Kunming-Montreal Global biodiversity framework has 23 targets, including:
Ensure that by 2030 at least 30 per cent of areas of degraded terrestrial, inland water, and coastal and marine ecosystems are under effective restoration, in order to enhance biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, ecological integrity and connectivity.
Ensure and enable that by 2030 at least 30 per cent of terrestrial, inland water, and of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, are effectively conserved and managed through ecologically representative, well-connected and equitably governed systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, recognizing indigenous and traditional territories, where applicable, and integrated into wider landscapes, seascapes and the ocean, while ensuring that any sustainable use, where appropriate in such areas, is fully consistent with conservation outcomes, recognizing and respecting the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, including over their traditional territories.
https://www.cbd.int/doc/c/e6d3/cd1d/daf663719a03902a9b116c34/cop-15-l-25-en.pdf
But time is of the essence. If we let our planet sink into the depths of the sixth mass extinction, generations to come will not see the end of it. It will take tens of millions of years to recover.
Governments have consistently failed to meet targets set for nature in previous global meetings. So we must now develop mechanisms to hold governments accountable and to collectively undertake the serious work ahead, to ensure we protect and recover our biodiversity.
Countries attending the COP 15 summit in Montreal have adopted a 2030 deadline to protect 30% of the world’s lands, oceans, coasts, and inland waters, cut subsidies that harm nature by US$500 billion, reduce the loss of areas of high biodiversity importance to near zero, and cut food waste in half, in what some participants and observers have been calling a “Paris moment” for nature.
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) pledges $200 billion in domestic and international biodiversity funding from public and private sources, including at least $20 billion per year by 2025 and $30 billion per year by 2030 in “international financial flows from developed to developing countries,” the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) secretariat said in an overnight release.
… walkout:
At one stage representatives from developing countries, including the 54 members of the African group, seven South and Latin American countries, and other large countries, including India and Indonesia, have walked out the global biodiversity and nature summit, COP 15, over concerns that talks about how those efforts should be funded are lagging behind those on how much land and water should be set aside. In the end a number of countries, notably the Democratic Republic of Congo, did not support the outcome. Though neither did USA.
There was a commitment for US$30 billion per year to flow from wealthy to poorer countries by 2030, but this was not legally binding and scant in detail.
The Greens criticised the Australian Government for failing to offer any new money for conservation measures at COP 15, particularly given evidence that funding in Australia needs to be dramatically increased to save more species.
Plibersek told the ABC’s AM program on Monday that the government increased funding for the environment in the October budget and “we are determined not only to increase government funding but to make it easier for others to invest in repairing nature as well”.
She said work to restore and protect nature was becoming as “important for businesses as reducing their carbon pollution”, and pointed to a recent report by the consulting firm PwC, which estimated a nature market could be worth $137bn by 2050.
Cashing in on biodiversity:
There are concerns that the growing efforts by State, federal and international governments to commodify nature by monetising individual components under the moniker of “nature positive”, which attempts to put “a price on nature”, is a threat in itself as it attempts to incorporate nature into the economic trading system that is destroying it.
Now, as the nations are meeting in Montreal for the Cop15 talks on biological diversity, 119 scientists and other experts have published an open letter warning against what they call “a neoliberal agenda hidden behind cheerful and meaningless keywords”.
In a context in which we don’t even know how many unique species exist on the planet (estimates range from 5.3 million to 1 trillion, with only 1.6 million of them identified and named), the author Adrienne Buller describes as an extraordinary fantasy the notion that “the biosphere can be readily segmented and ‘unbundled’ into discrete units which can subsequently be individually valued, speculated upon, and exchanged, abstracted entirely from the specifics of time and place.”
It’s a point also made in the open letter, which insists:
The monetary values being produced do not represent the value of nature’s ecological functions, not even a proxy. Yet misleading figures are not better than nothing but worse than nothing, as they can lead to wrong policy decisions with irreversible consequences. The monetary valuation of nature’s ecological functions can also give a dangerous and misleading illusion of substitutability between critical ecosystemic functions, where one assumes incorrectly that as long as the total monetary value remains stable, nature is in good shape.”
Think of Tanya Plibersek’s pledge to create in Australia a “Green Wall Street” based on the trading of “nature credits”. To many people, entrusting fragile and irreplaceable ecosystems to international commerce seems bizarre.
As George Monbiot once put it, by integrating the environment into the world market, “you are effectively pushing the natural world even further into the system that is eating it alive.”
That means recognising that genuine environmental solutions depend on the decommodification of nature, not its opposite.
The Greens and Senator Pocock have called for an end to native forest logging in accordance with the agreement, though the CFMEU are claiming they have an assurance from the Prime Minister that logging of native forests will continue.
[Hanson-Young] “The spotlight will now be on Australia to protect koala habitat. That means the protection of our native forests, that’s going to be front and centre.”
Pocock said the government’s reform agenda would take time but it should act now to end native forest logging, including the development of plans to help workers transition to new industries.
“Environmental laws should be updated now to remove any exemption to their application to Regional Forest Agreements,” he said.
Michael O’Connor, national secretary of the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union, said he expected the government to support native forest logging into the future.
“We have an assurance from the prime minister that he supports the industry and timber workers’ jobs, and we know the PM is a person who keeps his word,” O’Connor said.
Prioritising protecting refugia:
An article in Eos argues for the need to identify and protect forest refugia, the oases that evade wildfires by quirks of topography, moisture, or the unpredictable wind and weather conditions during a fire, given their importance for repopulating burnt forests, though as megafires become more intense even long-term refugia are threatened.
https://eos.org/features/last-tree-standing
Forest Media 16 December 2022
New South Wales
An unrepentant Violet Coco says why she had no choice but to block one lane of the Sydney Harbour Bridge to focus attention on the climate crisis, and appeals for donations to her legal fund. She successfully appealed and was released on bail – the favourable publicity surrounding her case has demonstrated the benefits of “extreme” actions. Meanwhile NSW Labor leader supports draconian punishments. In the Legislative Council (upper house), Byron-based Nationals MLC and failed local candidate, Ben Franklin, spoke extensively in favour of the bill on March 31. National’s Ballina candidate Joshua Booyens doesn’t think it’s a significant issue. Others are awaiting prosecution, amidst fears of what the consequences will be. An organiser of the planning meeting in Colo spent 4 weeks in prison after being refused bail. Meanwhile other states are also increasing penalties for protesting, and throwing the book at those that do.
The EPA’s prosecution of the Forestry Corporation for felling 4 hollow-bearing trees in Mogo SF in March 2020, in contravention of the “site-specific operating conditions” issued following the widespread fires, which included the protection of all hollow-bearing trees, has been delayed due to technical issues (the pdf names were too long).
The Forestry Corporation’s 2021-22 Sustainability Report shows that total wood harvested jumped from 272,499 cubic metres in 2020-21 to 477,460 cubic metres in 2021-22, an increase of 175 per cent, leading to NCC complaining it shows a complete disregard for native wildlife, with Agriculture Minister Dugald Saunders saying it’s just a return to business as usual after the fires. The NSW Government released its pathetic response to the Inquiry into the long-term sustainability and future of the timber and forest products industry, “noting” (ignoring) those recommendations that were halfway reasonable, while emphasing how important logging and loggers are.
The NRC have released their summary report ‘Insights for NSW forest outcomes and management’ which identifies that our forests are degrading and in a precarious state in danger of collapse - though of course they don’t acknowledge logging’s contribution and wouldn’t dream of suggesting it ends. The Forestry Corporation of New South Wales has withdrawn its proposal to buy Hume Forests’ plantations after facing objections from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission on the grounds it would likely substantially lessen competition in the supply of softwood logs.
On Friday, the state government will launch its “natural capital” statement of intent, which includes plans to develop land stewardship as a new type of investment to better conserve the environment. One of the first steps in implementing the plan will be for the government to ensure natural capital is embedded in planning and development decisions, including how to account for the value of nature on the state’s balance sheet.
Another story on the Barrington to Hawkesbury Climate Corridors Alliance proposal for a moratorium on land clearing and logging across 810,000ha between Barrington Tops and the Hawkesbury River.
Efforts to reopen the Aboriginal men’s site atop Wollumbin (Mt Warning) for access continue, with Tweed Mayor Chris Cherry mooting group hikes led by Indigenous guides or a phase out period.
The two remaining lower-house members of the NSW Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party have resigned to contest the state election as independents, creating confusion on the far right.
Australia
Yea, the Albanese Government has acted on over 2900 submissions to restore the exclusion of electricity generated from burning native forest wood waste from eligibility under the Renewable Energy Target, meaning any electricity it generates cannot be used to create tradeable Large-scale Generation Certificates. - a severe blow, maybe a death blow, for the Redbank Power Station - It still leaves sawmill “wastes” as allowed.
There are further assessments of what the proposed Federal biodiversity system will mean, basically we will have to wait and see, though biodiversity credits have no credibility, leading Adam Morton to observe “It is tempting to argue conservation would be better served by a simple combination of substantial funding and sharp regulation”. How explicit the national standards are is yet to be seen, and how they will be applied to Regional Forest Agreements – we have a long wait while habitat continues to be destroyed.
Time to sell Squirrel Gliders as their spot price has dropped from $450 to $425, with Southern Myotis performing worse dropping from over $1,500 to $895. Koalas are risky with highly variable prices, though opportunities exist for astute investors with the spot price tripling from June to August to $600, steady performers are Brush-tailed Phascogale, Rufous Bettong and coastal Emus. While the Forestry Corporation destroys Rusty Plum around Coffs with abandon, they may want to reconsider as their spot price is currently $1,351 – they could make a motza. The Federal Government’s entry into the market and increased listings will create more opportunities for high returns. These schemes facilitate a net loss of habitat, and are rife with corruption, but as logging and clearing proceed spot prices can only increase, and new opportunities will be created as more species are listed.
Zylstra has another paper decrying our reliance on erroneous concepts of fuel-reduction burning to reduce wildfire risk, emphasising the impacts of such a flawed strategy on wildlife while promoting his alternative approach.
As part of the Palaszczuk Government’s election commitment to transfer 20,000 hectares of state forest to Queensland’s protected areas, they have announced a number of state forests will be conserved earlier (including the controversial Ferny Forest), with $262.5 million announced to expand and create new national parks.
Western Australia’s draft Forest Management Plan has come under attack from bushwalking group HikeWest for failing to include sufficient of the northern Jarrah forests in reserves, with only 15% included in reserves protected from bauxite mining.
Species
The Mountain Mist Frog was once found across two-thirds of the wet-tropics, but after not being seen for 25 years is now recognised as extinct, likely due to chytrid fungus and rising temperatures. Saving our Species provide 12 examples of their efforts to breed, translocate and survey for threatened species, though they don’t provide assessments of the effectiveness of their wild releases.
Victorian authorities have euthanised more than a quarter (28) of koalas health-checked at a national park in the state’s southwest, after they were found to have health issues and be unviable, which is attributed to “overpopulation” at the site. This follows a similar operation in May that euthanised 30 koalas. The Stress Lab reviewed the effectiveness of an off-the-shelf stress test, and found it worked for Koalas.
Alarm is growing over perilously low dissolved-oxygen in floodwaters across large sections of the Murray River where fish are “probably just about all dead”, and worse to come. Communities are installing aerators to increase oxygen levels - though it’s just a band-aid solution. And Murray-river turtles are being washed out to sea.
The Deteriorating Problem
Accounting for changes in carbon storage in the forest area, as well as CO2 emissions from the burning of harvested wood, makes burning forests for electricity even more polluting. The governments of Ontario and Canada are investing more than $11.3 million to expand CHAR Technologies’ facility in Thorold to produce “renewable” natural gas (RNG) and biocarbon (a coal substitute) – creating the largest facility of its kind in Canada, and the only RNG facility in the country to exclusively use woody biomass
Drought-stricken Oregon saw a historic die-off of fir trees in 2022 that left hillsides once lush with green conifers dotted with patches of red, dead trees, totalling about 1.1 million acres of forest, the most damage recorded in a single season since surveys began 75 years ago.
Turning it Around
The City of Sydney has developed a plan to expand canopy cover and make urban areas cooler and calmer. In Finland they greened up pre-schools by planting grass and shrubs, and putting in gardens, which increased T-cells and other important immune markers in the kids blood within 28 days – another example of the benefits of nature.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Why its time to stand up:
An unrepentant Violet Coco says why she had no choice but to block one lane of the Sydney Harbour Bridge to focus attention on the climate crisis, and appeals for donations to her legal fund. She successfully appealed and was released on bail – the favourable publicity surrounding her case has demonstrated the benefits of “extreme” actions. Meanwhile NSW Labor leader supports draconian punishments.
In 2021, I spoke personally with esteemed climate scientist and academic, Professor Will Steffen, who told me this: “Massive floods, fires and heatwaves are sending us a clear message. On our present trajectory, we risk heading into a collapse of our globalised civilisation and a precipitous drop in human population — put simply, hell on earth. But we can avoid this disastrous future if we change the way we think, live our lives and interact with the rest of the living world.”
You can read the original version of this statement and donate to Violet’s legal fund here.
https://chuffed.org/project/95028-get-violet-out-of-prison
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/12/climate-activist-violet-coco-released-on-bail/
… Labor supports draconian punishments:
In his December 5 response to the sentencing of the environmental protester Deanna ‘Violet’ Coco to fifteen months in jail and a refusal of bail pending her appeal, Minns again showed whose side he was on. He was really a Liberal. He agreed with Premier Perrotet who found the young woman’s jail sentence ‘pleasing.’
To justify his defence of draconian laws, he exaggerates. ‘You’re talking about a situation where mass protests are shutting down half the city…They were shutting down the city in a comprehensive, staged and strategic way.’ Mass protests? Half a city shut down?
https://johnmenadue.com/nsw-labor-leader-chris-minns-his-punitive-policies-his-absence-of-courage/
… as do Nationals:
In the Legislative Council (upper house), Byron-based Nationals MLC and failed local candidate, Ben Franklin, spoke extensively in favour of the bill on March 31. National’s Ballina candidate Joshua Booyens doesn’t think it’s a significant issue.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/12/your-right-to-protest-where-do-your-local-politicians-stand/
… authoritarian fossil fuel regime:
Others are awaiting prosecution, amidst fears of what the consequences will be. An organiser of the planning meeting in Colo spent 4 weeks in prison after being refused bail. Meanwhile other states are also increasing penalties for protesting, and throwing the book at those that do.
The arrests followed the establishment by NSW police of Strike Force Guard, which in June raided a property in Colo to “prevent, investigate and disrupt unauthorised protests”. It led to the arrests of seven people, including 27-year-old Tim Neville.
Neville was accused of being a leader of the group, and spent nearly four weeks in prison after being refused bail.
On Wednesday a small group of people sitting in the public gallery in the Queensland parliament suddenly unfurled banners with slogans such as “end fossil fuels now” and chanted repeatedly “stop coal, stop gas” for a period of about three minutes.
Nine people have since been charged, and are accused of disturbing the legislature.
Justice delayed:
The EPA’s prosecution of the Forestry Corporation for felling 4 hollow-bearing trees in Mogo SF in March 2020, in contravention of the “site-specific operating conditions” issued following the widespread fires, which included the protection of all hollow-bearing trees, has been delayed due to technical issues (the pdf names were too long).
Destruction as normal:
The Forestry Corporation’s 2021-22 Sustainability Report shows that total wood harvested jumped from 272,499 cubic metres in 2020-21 to 477,460 cubic metres in 2021-22, an increase of 175 per cent, leading to NCC complaining it shows a complete disregard for native wildlife, with Agriculture Minister Dugald Saunders saying it’s just a return to business as usual after the fires.
https://www.oberonreview.com.au/story/8016539/nsw-native-forest-logging-up-175-per-cent/
https://www.southernriverinanews.com.au/national/nsw-native-forest-logging-up-175-per-cent/
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-16-december-2022
Business as normal:
The NSW Government released its pathetic response to the Inquiry into the long-term sustainability and future of the timber and forest products industry, “noting” (ignoring) those recommendations that were halfway reasonable, while emphasing how important logging and loggers are.
The NSW Government has supported all industries … For forestry workers this support has included over $210 million spent across a range of tailored support measures specifically targeting forestry-related industries.
The complete cessation of harvesting from public native forests is not supported by the NSW Government given the severe economic consequences for regional industries and employment, as well as the potential carbon and environmental impacts associated with importing timber from jurisdictions with lesser environmental protections.
NSW Local Land Services will publish information on harvest activities in each PNF Code region on an annual basis, commencing in 2023.
Supported: That the NSW Government does not consider the establishment of the Great Koala National Park until an independent, comprehensive study is conducted to assesses the full impact of the proposal, including its environmental, economic and social impacts across all affected industries
NSW forests collapsing:
The NRC have released their summary report ‘Insights for NSW forest outcomes and management’ which identifies that our forests are degrading and in a precarious state in danger of collapse - though of course they don’t acknowledge logging’s contribution and wouldn’t dream of suggesting it ends.
NSW forests whether they be national parks, state forests, Aboriginal land, private land or Crown land are under sustained threats, putting at risk many of the services and values they provide….
NSW forests are dynamic systems that provide essential environmental, social, economic and cultural services for the people of NSW across a range of tenures. These services are degrading, and without major intervention they will continue to degrade. The unprecedented bushfires of 2019-2020 will not remain an outlier. The research community had predicted the likelihood of such an event and the scientific consensus is that similar scale events will become increasingly frequent in the future.
FMIP research indicates future climate and disturbance regime scenarios will have adverse impacts on NSW forests, affecting forest carbon, soil organic carbon, soil alkalinity, streamflow quantity, surface water quality and forest productivity. Many forest dependent flora and fauna species are predicted to lose significant proportions of their habitat. As a result, one FMIP study found the potential occupancy of 70 percent of assessed fauna species will decline by 2070 under future climate change predictions.
Critically, there is a risk that higher frequency and intensity of disturbances will trigger ongoing cycles of decline in key areas such as forest regeneration and soil organic carbon by reducing the capacity for, or likelihood of, full recovery after each event. In this case, forests will become a net carbon emitter in the coming decades, undermining key Government commitments to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Other Government commitments for biodiversity and sustainable production outcomes will also be under pressure.
NSW regions like the Australian Alps and South Coast, that have significant areas dedicated to the reserve system, are anticipated to be at highest risk from projected changes in climate and fire regimes. Other forest ecosystems such as temperate and sub-tropical rainforests are also under increasing risk.
https://www.nrc.nsw.gov.au/Insights%20report%20-%20Nov%202022.pdf?downloadable=1
The NRC made six recommendations to Government: To prepare overarching cross-tenure strategy for NSW forests towards 2050; Establish dedicated funding for the strategy, research, and rapid response capability; Accelerate Aboriginal self-determination and co-management of NSW forests; Incorporate the latest climate science and forest data into the upcoming review of the Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approval; Update the NSW Forestry Industry Roadmap; and Continue long-term independent research and monitoring.
The Commission’s 11 -page Report can be downloaded at this PS News link.
https://psnews.com.au/2022/12/13/nrc-report-finds-nsw-forests-threatened/?state=aps
Forestry Corporation uncompetitive:
The Forestry Corporation of New South Wales has withdrawn its proposal to buy Hume Forests’ plantations after facing objections from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission on the grounds it would likely substantially lessen competition in the supply of softwood logs.
The asset was expected to fetch a price of close to $200m, judging from analyst estimates.
More biodiversity trading:
On Friday, the state government will launch its “natural capital” statement of intent, which includes plans to develop land stewardship as a new type of investment to better conserve the environment. One of the first steps in implementing the plan will be for the government to ensure natural capital is embedded in planning and development decisions, including how to account for the value of nature on the state’s balance sheet.
But some environmentalists have raised concerns about this approach. WWF’s acting head of healthy land and seascapes Tim Cronin says the creation of markets to protect the environment was welcomed, but it needed to be done carefully.
Cronin says, for example, the focus of the forestry industry is on timber and the monetary value that can be made. But the industry fails to recognise the other ecosystem values involved, including waterways, carbon, and flood prevention benefits the trees offer. “If we are to better internalise the economic systems and decision-making, it will completely change the economics of logging,” he said.
Hunter climate corridors:
Another story on the Barrington to Hawkesbury Climate Corridors Alliance proposal for a moratorium on land clearing and logging across 810,000ha between Barrington Tops and the Hawkesbury River.
The Barrington Tops to Hawkesbury Climate Corridors report is available from Hunter Community Environment Centre, hcec.org.au
Wollumbin access:
Efforts to reopen the Aboriginal men’s site atop Wollumbin (Mt Warning) for access continue, with Tweed Mayor Chris Cherry mooting group hikes led by Indigenous guides or a phase out period.
Shooting themselves in the foot:
The two remaining lower-house members of the NSW Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party have resigned to contest the state election as independents, creating confusion on the far right.
https://www.theland.com.au/story/8016698/shooters-hit-with-high-profile-resignations/
AUSTRALIA
Stopping burning native forests for electricity:
Yea, the Albanese Government has acted on over 2900 submissions to restore the exclusion of electricity generated from burning native forest wood waste from eligibility under the Renewable Energy Target, meaning any electricity it generates cannot be used to create tradeable Large-scale Generation Certificates. - a severe blow, maybe a death blow, for the Redbank Power Station - It still leaves sawmill “wastes” as allowed.
The climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, said the change was in step with “strong and longstanding community views” raised in a consultation process that received more than 2,900 submissions. He said the government had put in place “transitional arrangements” for one Western Australian facility that had registered to use timber as an energy source.
“We have listened to the community and acted to address their concerns,” he said.
The Australian Forest Products Association said the government had “bowed to pressure from anti-forestry groups”. “Australia should not close the door to a dispatchable renewable energy source that is widely used around the world at a time when we need more renewable energy sources,” the association’s chief executive, Ross Hampton, said.
More on Federal biodiversity system:
There are further assessments of what the proposed Federal biodiversity system will mean, basically we will have to wait and see, though biodiversity credits have no credibility, leading Adam Morton to observe “It is tempting to argue conservation would be better served by a simple combination of substantial funding and sharp regulation”. How explicit the national standards are is yet to be seen, and how they will be applied to Regional Forest Agreements – we have a long wait while habitat continues to be destroyed.
And while the government’s reforms have been broadly welcomed by the business sector, it can expect opposition to its plan to extend standards to regional forestry agreements.
These agreements are currently exempt from the EPBC Act. In 2009, the Rudd Labor government dismissed a recommendation to review this exemption.
The Albanese government, very cautiously, says it will “begin a process” of applying the new national standards to regional forest agreements, in consultation with stakeholders.
Sell Squirrel Glider, buy Rufous Bettong, be wary of Koala fluctuations, but lookout for bargains as new species are listed:
Time to sell Squirrel Gliders as their spot price has dropped from $450 to $425, with Southern Myotis performing worse dropping from over $1,500 to $895. Koalas are risky with highly variable prices, though opportunities exist for astute investors with the spot price tripling from June to August to $600, steady performers are Brush-tailed Phascogale, Rufous Bettong and coastal Emus. While the Forestry Corporation destroys Rusty Plum around Coffs with abandon, they may want to reconsider as their spot price is currently $1,351 – they could make a motza. The Federal Government’s entry into the market and increased listings will create more opportunities for high returns. These schemes facilitate a net loss of habitat, and are rife with corruption, but as logging and clearing proceed spot prices can only increase, and new opportunities will be created as more species are listed.
These are real market values, reflecting performance and trading activity in a way that’s visually similar to any financial exchange. But these spot prices and trade volumes do not apply to the animals themselves, rather to the habitats and ecosystems that they occupy. They’re listed on the Biodiversity Credits Market Sales Dashboard, run by the New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment.
In Australia, the environmental markets that have been established for water, carbon and biodiversity have all proved counterproductive. And media investigations into the NSW biodiversity scheme have revealed extensive corruption. The Australia Institute found that land clearing in NSW has increased because of Australia’s carbon market. The water market is a “case study in everything that can go wrong when our policy response to protecting a natural resource is to commodify it”, says Maryanne Slattery, principal of the water consultancy specialists, Slattery & Johnson.
Under Labor, it seems the biggest risk to Australia’s environment is that it will keep its promise – of leaving the protection of our most fragile ecosystems to the private sector.
Burning wildlife:
Zylstra has another paper decrying our reliance on erroneous concepts of fuel-reduction burning to reduce wildfire risk, emphasising the impacts of such a flawed strategy on wildlife while promoting his alternative approach.
In 2018, a prescribed burn by local authorities was conducted in the Warrungup Spring reserve. Despite burning slowly as planned, it killed 17 of the 22 [endangered western ringtail] possums Dixon was monitoring.
As depicted in the image below, the supposedly low-intensity fire would have heated the air above it to more than 500℃. This would burn the respiratory tracts of possums inside the hollow in just a few minutes.
Bad fire science is killing our threatened species, but alternatives are available. These approaches reinforce, rather than disrupt, natural ecological controls on forest fire. They include traditional Indigenous fire knowledge, and modern techniques to minimise the extent of dense regrowth in the landscape.
By cooperating with nature to minimise fire risk, we can protect species that have persisted through aeons.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aec.13264
Protecting State forests:
As part of the Palaszczuk Government’s election commitment to transfer 20,000 hectares of state forest to Queensland’s protected areas, they have announced a number of state forests will be conserved earlier (including the controversial Ferny Forest), with $262.5 million announced to expand and create new national parks.
https://arr.news/2022/12/14/state-forests-to-be-protected-scanlon/
Jarrah mining:
Western Australia’s draft Forest Management Plan has come under attack from bushwalking group HikeWest for failing to include sufficient of the northern Jarrah forests in reserves, with only 15% included in reserves protected from bauxite mining.
SPECIES
Misty eyed:
The Mountain Mist Frog was once found across two-thirds of the wet-tropics, but after not being seen for 25 years is now recognised as extinct, likely due to chytrid fungus and rising temperatures.
Saving our Species:
Saving our Species provide 12 examples of their efforts to breed, translocate and survey for threatened species, though they don’t provide assessments of the effectiveness of their wild releases.
https://inspiringnsw.org.au/2022/12/14/12-wins-for-conservation-in-2022/
Killing Koalas to save them:
Victorian authorities have euthanised more than a quarter (28) of koalas health-checked at a national park in the state’s southwest, after they were found to have health issues and be unviable, which is attributed to “overpopulation” at the site. This follows a similar operation in May that euthanised 30 koalas.
… stress testing Koalas:
The Stress Lab reviewed the effectiveness of an off-the-shelf stress test, and found it worked for Koalas.
Data from NSW in 2020 showed over 15% of rescued koalas were either euthanised or died in care over a 29 year period. Meanwhile, a 2016 study found over 60% of koalas were euthanised or died in care in southeast Queensland between 2009 and 2014. Only a small proportion are released back to the wild.
Suffocating fish:
Alarm is growing over perilously low dissolved-oxygen in floodwaters across large sections of the Murray River where fish are “probably just about all dead”, and worse to come. Communities are installing aerators to increase oxygen levels - though it’s just a band-aid solution.
“It’s really alarming,” Wright said. “I have seen low oxygen but not this sort of a trend, and even a few weeks ago I would have said the fish were in serious, dire straits.”
Wright has sampled and tested the water quality of rivers for 35 years. He said 0.5mg/L is “like us as humans trying to hold our breath for a few hours”.
“These levels are so low,” he said. “The insect life living in rivers that the fish eat would be killed from this. So the fish, the invertebrates, we’re talking about a breakdown of the food chain.”
And Murray-river turtles are being washed out to sea.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-13/floodwaters-push-murray-river-turtles-onto-sa-beach/101753086
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Counting biomass losses:
Accounting for changes in carbon storage in the forest area, as well as CO2 emissions from the burning of harvested wood, makes burning forests for electricity even more polluting.
The problem is that the methodology currently used by REDII for judging greenhouse gas balances is far too narrow to provide an accurate answer and, as such, often gives the wrong answer, encouraging the harvesting of forest wood instead of the protection of forests (which would better serve the EU’s climate goals).
But if we plug in a carbon storage loss of 0.62 tonnes of CO2 m-³, we find that wood harvesting for energy will actually serve to raise emissions 13% over a fossil fuel equivalent. If we plug in the mean level of carbon storage lost in Germany (of 1.15 tonnes of CO2 m-³) into the equations, we find that firewood and wood chips, when sourced from primary woody biomass, actually more than double the emissions associated with burning them as a substitute for fossil energy (see details in Hennenberg et al. 2022 and Fehrenbach et al. 2022).
A new use of forests:
The governments of Ontario and Canada are investing more than $11.3 million to expand CHAR Technologies’ facility in Thorold to produce “renewable” natural gas (RNG) and biocarbon (a coal substitute) – creating the largest facility of its kind in Canada, and the only RNG facility in the country to exclusively use woody biomass
“This new facility will produce clean alternative fuels and increase sustainability in the forest sector through new and emerging uses of renewable forest biomass,” said Graydon Smith, Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry. “Our investment in CHAR Technologies is an investment in Ontario, which will boost productivity, create jobs and support a thriving forest economy that communities throughout the province depend on.”
The great die-off:
Drought-stricken Oregon saw a historic die-off of fir trees in 2022 that left hillsides once lush with green conifers dotted with patches of red, dead trees, totalling about 1.1 million acres of forest, the most damage recorded in a single season since surveys began 75 years ago.
TURNING IT AROUND
Expanding urban forests as rural forests decline:
The City of Sydney has developed a plan to expand canopy cover and make urban areas cooler and calmer.
“We know how important urban forests are to the liveability of our city. Trees cool our homes, streets and parks, build resilience and improve mental and physical wellbeing,” Lord Mayor Clover Moore said.
“We’ve planted more than 16,000 street trees since 2004 because we see trees and other urban greenery as essential infrastructure – as important as roads and broadband internet.
“We’re in the middle of a climate crisis and we’re already experiencing its impacts. More shade in more corners of the city will help us to combat the urban heat island effect and better place Sydney to mitigate some of the worst impacts of extreme heatwaves. Effective and extensive canopy cover can reduce temperatures on the ground by up to 10 degrees.”
https://www.miragenews.com/growing-sydneys-sprawling-urban-forest-914310/
Getting down and dirty:
In Finland they greened up pre-schools by planting grass and shrubs, and putting in gardens, which increased T-cells and other important immune markers in the kids blood within 28 days – another example of the benefits of nature.
Compared to other city kids who play in standard urban daycares with yards of pavement, tile, and gravel, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds at these greened-up daycare centers in Finland showed increased T-cells and other important immune markers in their blood within 28 days.
"We also found that the intestinal microbiota of children who received greenery was similar to the intestinal microbiota of children visiting the forest every day," explained environmental scientist Marja Roslund from the University of Helsinki in 2020, when the research was published.
Research shows getting outside is also good for a child's eyesight, and being in nature as a kid is linked to better mental health. Some recent studies have even shown green spaces are linked to structural changes in the brains of children.
Bonding with nature as a kid is also good for the future of our planet's ecosystems. Studies show kids who spend time outdoors are more likely to want to become environmentalists as adults, and in a rapidly changing world, that's more important than ever.
The study was published in Science Advances.
https://www.sciencealert.com/daycares-in-finland-built-a-forest-and-it-changed-kids-immune-systems
Forest Media 9 December 2022
New South Wales
Environment activist Violet (Deanna) CoCo was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment in the Downing Centre Magistrates Court in Sydney for peacefully blocking one lane of traffic on the Sydney Harbour Bridge for approximately 25 minutes with three other Fireproof Australia campaigners, to let people know that we’re in a climate emergency that requires urgent action. Premier Perrottet welcomed the sentence, stating “If protesters want to put our way of life at risk, then they should have the book thrown at them and that’s pleasing to see”, with NSW Labor leader Chris Minns echoing his support. In response, activists and concerned citizens of Lismore and Northern Rivers will rally at 10 am on Saturday 10 December in Peace Park in Lismore on International Human Rights Day.
News of the Area has a story about the grassroots campaign for a Great Koala National Park, including about the e-petition that is on the NSW Legislative Assembly website: https://www.koalapark.org.au/petition. The December Nimbin Goodtimes has an article by Sue Higginson about the killing of the Koala-killing Bill II, urging people to use the State election to vote for forests. They also have an article about the legal challenge to logging in Cherry Tree SF.
An alliance of local and national environment groups have called for a moratorium on land clearing across 810,000 hectares between Barrington Tops and Hawkesbury River, documented in the Barrington to Hawkesbury Climate Corridors Alliance report, which combines habitat suitability modelling and NSW government climate corridor mapping to identify 22 wildlife corridors essential for the survival of threatened species in face of climate change.
Australia
There were a variety of articles with background on the Samuel’s review and what the Commonwealth needs to do for threatened species, leading up to Thursday’s announcement. The decision was announced on Thursday, for forests it basically involves applying National Environmental Standards (which are yet to be developed to existing RFAs), with no contemporary review of “evergreen” RFAs, and reliance on conservation advices (many of which ignore logging) to guide protection for threatened species. Some think that having to deal with threatened species in RFA’s will make a big difference, though the Australian Forest Products Association welcomed Pliberseck’s commitment to RFAs and “the Federal Government’s rejection of the bulk of Samuel’s recommendations around RFAs”. It is basically pursing the previous government’s agenda of doing more regional agreements, with red areas (mostly MNES) for protection, orange areas requiring assessments, and green areas for development. There are many environmental platitudes, though the devil is in the details which we are yet to see. These are some highlights of their PR:
- The Government will work with stakeholders and relevant jurisdictions towards applying National Environmental Standards to Regional Forest Agreements to support their ongoing operation together with stronger environmental protection. The timing and form of this requirement will be subject to further consultation with stakeholders. Consultation will consider future management and funding opportunities under voluntary environmental markets.
- National Environmental Standards to improve environmental protections and guide decision-making by setting clear, demonstrable outcomes for regulated activities under the new Act. The standard for Matters of National Environmental Significance will be developed first, requiring projects and plans to: (a) avoid unacceptable and unsustainable impacts on matters of national environmental significance, (b) deliver net positive outcomes for Matters of National Environmental Significance.
- establishing an independent Environment Protection Agency (EPA) to ensure compliance and enforcement
- Regional Planning Initiative designed to pre-identify areas for protection, restoration and sustainable development.
- a new Data Division will improve the availability, access and quality of environmental information
- reform offset arrangements to ensure they deliver gains for the environment and reduce delays for project developers, where a proponent is unable to find or secure ‘like for like’ offsets, the proponent will be able to make a conservation payment. They will establish a nature repair market to make it easier for businesses and individuals to invest in nature.
- streamline existing processes under the EPBC Act, including by removing prescriptive processes and underutilised assessment pathways, improving flexibility, adaptability and assurance of strategic assessments and improving wildlife trade permitting practices.
- No right to limited merits review of decisions, as they may prevent projects from proceeding in a timely manner, as matters are held up by courts, which can lead to unreasonable and unfair costs for proponents. Members of the public will continue to be able to bring legal claims against decisions of the EPA or the minister for errors of law.
- First Nations participation in improved management of Australia’s land, fresh waters and sea, including new cultural heritage protection laws, new National Environmental Standard for First Nations Engagement and Participation in Decision-Making, and more control over Commonwealth National Parks
- embedding climate considerations in all roles and functions of government, including information on climate-exposed habitats, species and places.
A Biodiversity Council, a scientist-led thinktank based at the University of Melbourne, is being established along the lines of the Climate Council to raise awareness of the biodiversity crisis, with the aim of being a “strong and trusted voice for biodiversity” backed by science, including First People’s knowledge. It was launched by the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek.
The Australian Forest Products Association has praised Prime Minister Albanese for his strong support for the logging industry, commitments to removing regulatory barriers in the Emissions Reduction Fund so they can claim carbon credits, removing the water rule which limits plantations to regions where they will not affect water supply, and the gift of $300 million allocated to them in budget. They are just like the Coalition.
An urgent injunction has been upheld against logging by the Tasmanian Government, and its logging agency, Forestry Tasmania, at Mt Tongatabu through the Tasmanian Supreme Court.
A new report says “Queensland outpaces all other Australian jurisdictions combined in annual bulldozing of forests primarily for beef, and it’s the primary reason why eastern Australia is listed as a global deforestation front,” with about a quarter of the deforestation occurring in ecosystems deemed endangered due to past clearing, and likely habitat of 388 plants and animals, including endangered koalas.
A heatwave across much of northern Australia reached emergency levels this week, as communities across northern Australia struggled through a week of sweltering conditions, with Mt Isa recording 43oC, Birdsville 45.6C, Marble Bar had four consecutive days above 45C, and the west Kimberly and Pilbara regions are expected to reach 47C to 48C on Sunday and Monday. The heatwave stirred up violent storms in south-east Queensland, with Sexton residents - northwest of Gympie - reporting hailstones as wide as 10cm. Meanwhile there was a cold snap in the south, with snow-showers in Victoria. La Niña is weakening, allowing for hotter conditions, and it may be a bad season for cyclones. As the world heats the atmosphere can hold more water, leading to more extreme floods, and with extreme rainfalls already increased by 13–24%, another rise of 0.4oC already locked in, and far more to come, flash floods are going to get a lot worse.
The Teals are not primarily Liberal defectors, a new Australian National University study found that of those who voted teal, 31% had voted Labor in 2019, 24% for the Greens and just 18% for the Coalition (23% voted other.)
Species
It may come as a shock, but the Greater Glider has leapfrogged from not being listed as threatened in NSW to Endangered due to climate change, bushfires and native logging severely reducing its population and habitat,
A YouGov study of 1000+ metro and regional NSW residents for the Sydney Basin Koala Network found that less than a third of residents (31%) aware that koalas live in neighbouring bushland in close proximity to busy residential areas in the Sydney Basin, but over four-in-five (84%) NSW citizens say that koala habitats should be protected from development (including housing, mining, logging, and more). The Sydney Basin Koala Network is seeking to raise awareness of Koalas in the Illawarra, complaining that most people are unaware that Koalas live on the Illawarra escarpment and its neighbouring catchments because “There’s been no surveys, no studies of koalas there, there’s been nothing”. The Total Environment Centre is calling for protections limiting major development including enforcing a new 400m wide koala green belt around Sydney.
A contentious wind farm proposed for Tasmania's north-western tip has been given the green light from the state's environment watchdog, but under the condition it doesn't operate for five months of the year because it is a migration area for the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot, though the proponents are hopefully of getting this restriction reduced.
Three parties have been charged with more than 250 animal cruelty offences after hundreds of koalas were found either dead, dehydrated or starving at a private property in Cape Bridgewater in 2020, with the first to be tried fined $20,000 - just like our forestry, the contractor said if he saw a koala in a tree he would spare it, and cut it down later once the Koala had left. Australian Ethical is threatening to sell its $11 million worth of Lendlease shares because migration corridors are insufficient to protect one of the few chlamydia-free koala populations in Australia in Lendlease’s proposed housing development at Mount Gilead near Campbelltown on Sydney’s outskirts.
The extreme floods are a boon for waterbirds and red gums, but many animals, such as kangaroos and wombats, are being flooded out and their grasses killed, de-oxygenated "blackwater" has killed large numbers of native fish, including iconic species such as the Murray Cod, and the sediments washed out to sea are suffocating seagrasses and killing Dugongs, and possibly turtles. The problem is that the effects of the series of extreme events from droughts and fires to floods will have compounding impacts imperilling many species.
The University of Sydney and Invertebrates Australia are asking for citizen scientists to participate in a project to find out where all the Christmas beetles have gone, as populations have apparently crashed.
The Deteriorating Problem
European forests are increasingly suffering from the effects of global heating as stressed trees succumb to droughts and insect attack, with a recent study measuring tree rings found European beech, Germany's most important native forest tree species, is suffering from increasing drought stress during summer, particularly on drier sites and sandy soils.
Turning it Around
A study found that while extreme protest tactics can raise awareness they decreased popular support for a given cause because they reduced feelings of identification with the movement.
The Cop15 biodiversity summit will be held in Montreal from December 7-19 to work on a new framework agreement, theoretically to end biodiversity decline by halting extinctions, protecting 30% of the earth’s land and seas for conservation by 2030, and making sure business accounts for the impacts it has on nature by making nature-related financial disclosures. In an article in Nature, Sandra Diaz describes scientists efforts to have COP 15 take meaningful action on biodiversity, expressing dismay at how explicit targets in the initial draft were wound back or “bracketed” for debate, commenting “Now, to avert failure, we exhort the governments gathering in Montreal to be brave, long-sighted and open-hearted, and to produce a visionary, ambitious biodiversity framework, grounded in knowledge. … If not now, when?” An international alliance is calling for the protection of primary forests, with over a hundred groups signing on, including NEFA.
In the build-up to COP 15, more than 650 scientists wrote to world leaders urging them to stop burning trees to make energy because it destroys valuable habitats for wildlife, is more polluting than coal, is not ‘carbon neutral’, and undermines international climate and nature targets, arguing “The best thing for the climate and biodiversity is to leave forests standing – and biomass energy does the opposite,”
Enviva is the largest maker of wood pellets burned for energy in the world, claiming it only uses wood waste, “tops, limbs, thinnings, and/or low-value smaller trees”, though a whistleblower in North Carolina says that increased European demand is leading to clearfelling with “100% whole trees in our pellets” and that limbs and debris were “left laying on the ground; they don’t want that stuff.” As the European Union seeks to soon finalize its revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED), forest advocates urge last minute changes to significantly cut the use of woody biomass for energy and make deep reductions in EU subsidies to the wood pellet industry, if RED is approved as drafted, bioenergy use is projected to double between 2015 and 2050.
In Canada eight environmental groups have filed a complaint with Canada’s Competition Bureau alleging the industry’s Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) forestry certification standard has made “false and misleading” claims in an effort to greenwash the country’s lumber and wood products.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Suppressing dissent:
Environment activist Violet (Deanna) CoCo was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment in the Downing Centre Magistrates Court in Sydney for peacefully blocking one lane of traffic on the Sydney Harbour Bridge for approximately 25 minutes with three other Fireproof Australia campaigners, to let people know that we’re in a climate emergency that requires urgent action.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/12/protests-against-violet-cocos-15-months-imprisonment/
Premier Perrottet welcomed the sentence, stating “If protesters want to put our way of life at risk, then they should have the book thrown at them and that’s pleasing to see”, with NSW Labor leader Chris Minns echoing his support.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/nsw/2022/12/05/deanna-coco-bridge-jail/
This was political blather slathered upon self-evident nonsense. The clear threat to our way of life, as everyone in this incinerated and inundated state knows, is climate change, not traffic snarls on the Harbour Bridge.
Protest action that does not inconvenience people is not protest action. Protest is the grit in our democratic process. It is inconvenient by design and necessity. Perrottet celebrating the incarceration of a peaceful young woman who had been advocating for the greater good was unworthy of a leader whose public presence is normally marked by more grace.
Here, another overpaid moron perpetuates the uniquely pig-ignorant political brainworm that dictates the worst "suffering" that can happen in 2022 is to have some cars blocked by a greenie for a bit.
The Saturday Paper piece by Mike Seccombe, ‘The end of direct action’, considers the death of democratic tolerance for civil disobedience in Australia. What has happened to Coco is the end product of several years of legislating against action like hers.
Australia once held what is regularly cited among environmentalists as the world’s first eco-blockade: the defence of Terania Creek’s rainforest in northern NSW against planned logging.
… If even non-violence is treated with such shock and awe, if even non-violence is being rendered so utterly impossible, it is time to think beyond it.
In response, activists and concerned citizens of Lismore and Northern Rivers will rally at 10 am on Saturday 10 December in Peace Park in Lismore on International Human Rights Day.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/12/rally-for-the-right-to-protest-on-dec-10/
Great Koalas:
News of the Area has a story about the grassroots campaign for a Great Koala National Park (GKNP), including about the e-petition that is on the NSW Legislative Assembly website: https://www.koalapark.org.au/petition.
[Paula Flack] “The GKNP will generate enormous economic activity in the region, with far more jobs being created than exist currently in native forest logging, so it makes no sense to not create it.”
She said the campaign is not about locking up forests but about protecting them to be enjoyed sustainably for public recreation into the future.
Information about support, merchandise, videos and more is at koalapark.org.au.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/the-campaign-to-create-a-great-koala-national-park-ramps-up
Killing Koala killing:
The December Nimbin Goodtimes has an article by Sue Higginson about the killing of the Koala-killing Bill II, urging people to use the State election to vote for forests. They also have an article about the legal challenge to logging in Cherry Tree SF.
Nimbin Goodtimes December 2022
Hunter corridors:
An alliance of local and national environment groups have called for a moratorium on land clearing across 810,000 hectares between Barrington Tops and Hawkesbury River, documented in the Barrington to Hawkesbury Climate Corridors Alliance report, which combines habitat suitability modelling and NSW government climate corridor mapping to identify 22 wildlife corridors essential for the survival of threatened species in face of climate change.
AUSTRALIA
Federal environment announcement:
There were a variety of articles with background on the Samuel’s review and what the Commonwealth needs to do for threatened species, leading up to Thursday’s announcement.
https://www.inverelltimes.com.au/story/8010216/australias-flawed-laws-for-nature/
The decision was announced on Thursday, for forests it basically involves applying National Environmental Standards (which are yet to be developed to existing RFAs), with no contemporary review of “evergreen” RFAs, and reliance on conservation advices (many of which ignore logging) to guide protection for threatened species. Some think that having to deal with threatened species in RFA’s will make a big difference, though the Australian Forest Products Association welcomed Pliberseck’s commitment to RFAs and “the Federal Government’s rejection of the bulk of Samuel’s recommendations around RFAs”. It is basically pursing the previous government’s agenda of doing more regional agreements, with red areas (mostly MNES) for protection, orange areas requiring assessments, and green areas for development. There are many environmental platitudes, though the devil is in the details which we are yet to see. These are some highlights of their PR:
- The Government will work with stakeholders and relevant jurisdictions towards applying National Environmental Standards to Regional Forest Agreements to support their ongoing operation together with stronger environmental protection. The timing and form of this requirement will be subject to further consultation with stakeholders. Consultation will consider future management and funding opportunities under voluntary environmental markets.
- National Environmental Standards to improve environmental protections and guide decision-making by setting clear, demonstrable outcomes for regulated activities under the new Act. The standard for Matters of National Environmental Significance will be developed first, requiring projects and plans to: (a) avoid unacceptable and unsustainable impacts on matters of national environmental significance, (b) deliver net positive outcomes for Matters of National Environmental Significance.
- establishing an independent Environment Protection Agency (EPA) to ensure compliance and enforcement
- Regional Planning Initiative designed to pre-identify areas for protection, restoration and sustainable development.
- a new Data Division will improve the availability, access and quality of environmental information
- reform offset arrangements to ensure they deliver gains for the environment and reduce delays for project developers, where a proponent is unable to find or secure ‘like for like’ offsets, the proponent will be able to make a conservation payment. They will establish a nature repair market to make it easier for businesses and individuals to invest in nature.
- streamline existing processes under the EPBC Act, including by removing prescriptive processes and underutilised assessment pathways, improving flexibility, adaptability and assurance of strategic assessments and improving wildlife trade permitting practices.
- No right to limited merits review of decisions, as they may prevent projects from proceeding in a timely manner, as matters are held up by courts, which can lead to unreasonable and unfair costs for proponents. Members of the public will continue to be able to bring legal claims against decisions of the EPA or the minister for errors of law.
- First Nations participation in improved management of Australia’s land, fresh waters and sea, including new cultural heritage protection laws, new National Environmental Standard for First Nations Engagement and Participation in Decision-Making, more control over Commonwealth National Parks
- embedding climate considerations in all roles and functions of government, including information on climate-exposed habitats, species and places.
https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/epbc/epbc-act-reform
Under the changes, the government flagged loggers could be forced to comply with new national standards, which would likely make native forestry logging impossible in many parts of the country.
But exactly how and when that would happen remains unclear, with the government saying it will work with states and other stakeholders "towards" making those changes, and noting the "form" of the change is yet to be determined.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-08/australia-environment-laws-federal-epa/101744044
The Federal Government’s commitment to retain Australia’s Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) is an endorsement of Australia’s sustainable forest practices and will be welcomed by forest industry workers around the country, Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) Chief Executive Officer Ross Hampton said.
Ross Hampton said forest industries welcomed the Federal Government’s rejection of the bulk of Samuel’s recommendations around RFAs, which would have significantly undermined the continued operation of the hardwood timber industry and the national supply of many essential products.
“We are pleased that Minister Plibersek has reiterated the position of the former Coalition Government in recommitting to the continued operation of RFAs.
Environmental groups cautiously welcomed sweeping reforms to federal environment laws that would create a new national Environmental Protection Agency which has greater oversight over development proposals and emissions.
But many criticised Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek for failing to include a so-called climate trigger law that could halt developments due to their potential climate impact.
https://www.acf.org.au/encouraging-start-to-nature-law-reform
Critically, national standards will be applied to Australia’s failing Regional Forest Agreements which allow state logging operators to destroy endangered species habitat without Commonwealth scrutiny. These gaps have forced species including Leadbeater’s possum, greater gliders, swift parrots towards extinction.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/game-changer-plan-to-save-australia-koalas-extinction-013959027.html
[Greens environment spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young] “There is nothing in this package to save our iconic koala. There is nothing in this package to protect our native forests.
“There is no climate trigger, indeed there is very little to address the impact of the climate crisis on the environment at all. The Minister also retains far too much power to influence environmental approvals with no truly independent cop-on-the-beat.”
As biodiversity conservation experts, we find the plan to be promising. … But some uncertainty remains, and there is also a lot of important detail still to be worked through.
But this defence has failed, time and again. In just one example, the extinction threat facing the iconic koala has become worse, not better, since it was “protected” under the EPBC Act.
Crucially, these standards will apply to “regional forest agreements”. These agreements are controversial because they effectively exempt forest logging from scrutiny under the EPBC Act. However, the timeline for imposing the standards on regional forest agreements is uncertain, and currently “subject to further consultation with stakeholders”.
Biodiversity Council:
A Biodiversity Council, a scientist-led thinktank based at the University of Melbourne, is being established along the lines of the Climate Council to raise awareness of the biodiversity crisis, with the aim of being a “strong and trusted voice for biodiversity” backed by science, including First People’s knowledge. It was launched by the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek.
Loggers love Albo:
The Australian Forest Products Association has praised Prime Minister Albanese for his strong support for the logging industry, commitments to removing regulatory barriers in the Emissions Reduction Fund so they can claim carbon credits and removing the water rule which limits plantations to regions where they will not affect water supply, and the gift of $300 million allocated to them in budget. They are just like the Coalition.
Speaking at the Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) Members Dinner in Canberra recently, Mr Albanese congratulated AFPA and the National Farmers Federation (NFF) for leading a joint agriculture and forestry delegation to the climate talks just concluded in Egypt.
He was adamant that Australia’s signing of the Forest and Climate Leaders Partnership (FCLP) at COP27, initiated by the UK, was completely consistent with supporting climate smart forestry such as is practiced in Australia:
The chair of AFPA, Diana Gibbs, thanked Mr Albanese and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Senator, Murray Watt, for their support of forestry and its role in delivering climate goals, timber for our homes, regional jobs and sovereign capability.
“I was very pleased to have the opportunity to thank them both for the more than $300 million in election commitments which have been delivered in the budget,” she said.
https://www.gippslandtimes.com.au/news/2022/12/08/albo-backs-sustainable-forestry/
Tasmanian logging halted:
An urgent injunction has been upheld against logging by the Tasmanian Government, and its logging agency, Forestry Tasmania, at Mt Tongatabu through the Tasmanian Supreme Court.
Tom Allen for the Wilderness Society (Tasmania) … “It is because of the weak and failing logging regulations in this state that more local communities will have logging suddenly sprung on them and face the prospect of their precious local forest being destroyed. This prospect is unacceptable when it comes to the public’s community rights and it’s unacceptable in the context of the worsening climate and biodiversity crises. The lack of Commonwealth Government oversight is allowing this scandalously poor self-regulation to happen.
https://tasmaniantimes.com/2022/12/mt-tongatabu-logging-injunction-upheld/
Clearly obscene:
A new report says “Queensland outpaces all other Australian jurisdictions combined in annual bulldozing of forests primarily for beef, and it’s the primary reason why eastern Australia is listed as a global deforestation front,” with about a quarter of the deforestation occurring in ecosystems deemed endangered due to past clearing, and likely habitat of 388 plants and animals, including endangered koalas.
The Wilderness Society’s Hannah Schuch called for supermarkets and fast food chains to commit to sourcing beef from producers who don’t contribute to deforestation.
Extreme temperatures across northern Australia.
A heatwave across much of northern Australia reached emergency levels this week, as communities across northern Australia struggled through a week of sweltering conditions, with Mt Isa recording 43oC, Birdsville 45.6C, Marble Bar had four consecutive days above 45C, and the west Kimberly and Pilbara regions are expected to reach 47C to 48C on Sunday and Monday. The heatwave stirred up violent storms in south-east Queensland, with Sexton residents - northwest of Gympie - reporting hailstones as wide as 10cm. Meanwhile there was a cold snap in the south, with snow-showers in Victoria.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-06/nt-heatwave-emergency-northern-australia/101739196
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11518635/Nasty-storms-giant-hail-smash-state.html
Human-caused climate change is also bringing more frequent and intense heatwaves to the continent and pretty much the whole world. We have increased the odds of having extreme heat events in Australia through humanity’s ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions. This means we must be prepared for more heat regardless of what’s going on with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation or other climate influences.
https://www.miragenews.com/extreme-heat-in-midst-of-big-wet-for-northern-911341/
… and extreme rainfalls set to increase:
As the world heats the atmosphere can hold more water, leading to more extreme floods, and with extreme rainfalls already increased by 13–24%, another rise of 0.4oC already locked in, and far more to come, flash floods are going to get a lot worse.
It is estimated that for every degree of warming there is a seven per cent increase of water in the atmosphere.
‘Unfortunately extreme rain and flooding will continue to get worse for decades to come as we have at least another 0.4 degrees of global warming locked in that is likely to be reached by 2030 – in the next ten years.
Daily rainfall associated with thunderstorms has increased 13–24 per cent between 1979–2016, particularly in northern Australia (Dowdy 2020).
‘The most intense precipitation events observed today are likely to almost double in occurrence for each degree of further global warming,’ explained Brendan.
The full webinar is available on the Farmers for Climate Action website: https://farmersforclimateaction.org.au/portfolio/how-climate-change-is-driving-more-frequent-and-intense-floods.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/12/why-a-warming-climate-creates-more-devastating-rain-impacts/
When you mix red and green you get teal:
The Teals are not primarily Liberal defectors, a new Australian National University study found that of those who voted teal, 31% had voted Labor in 2019, 24% for the Greens and just 18% for the Coalition (23% voted other.)
SPECIES
Greater Glider Endangered in NSW:
It may come as a shock, but the Greater Glider has leapfrogged from not being listed as threatened in NSW to Endangered due to climate change, bushfires and native logging severely reducing its population and habitat,
WWF Australia conservation scientist Stuart Blanch said … This trend would continue until stronger action was taken to stop deforestation and native logging – two of the biggest drivers in habitat destruction. He added there also needed to be greater incentives for farmers to protect forests, providing an economic alternative to logging.
David Lindenmayer said scientists have known this was the most likely outcome for the mammal for the past ten years, but inadequate plans to end native forestry and poor environmental laws have led to its demise.
NSW Agriculture Minister Dugald Saunders said … “Importantly, in every tree harvesting operation, strict conditions are applied that were developed by expert scientific panels to protect the habitat of species such as the Greater Glider.”
Saunders did not comment on whether an end to native forest logging would be considered for NSW. Victoria and Western Australia have already set end dates.
https://www.miragenews.com/endangered-listing-of-southern-greater-gliders-907664/
The sensitivity of Southern Greater Gliders to timber harvesting has been well documented. Although some habitat across the species’ range is found in conservation reserves (Smith and Smith 2018; Wagner et al. 2020), prime habitat coincides largely with areas suitable for timber harvesting (Braithwaite 1984). There is a progressive decline in numbers of hollow bearing trees in some production forests, as harvesting rotations become shorter and dead stags collapse, and hollow bearing trees are not being replaced due to lack of recruitment (Ross 1999; Ball et al. 1999; Lindenmayer et al. 2011; Lindenmayer et al. 2012). Recovery of subpopulations following timber harvesting is slow. Populations in southeast NSW had not recovered eight years after timber harvesting in sites retaining 62%, 52% and 21% of the original tree basal area (Kavanagh and Webb 1998). In the regrowth Mountain Ash forests (Central Highlands) of Victoria, Southern Greater Gliders were absent post-timber harvesting until the regenerating forests were >38 years old (Macfarlane 1988). Timber harvesting continues to put pressure on remaining Southern Greater Glider habitat. However, Forestry regulations in NSW contain a range of mitigation measures intended to address the risks including the establishment of wildlife habitat clumps, tree retention clumps, hollow tree, future hollow tree protection and large areas set aside as protection area (EPA 2018). ‘Loss of hollow-bearing trees’ is listed as a Key Threatening Process under the Act.
Koala ignorance:
A YouGov study of 1000+ metro and regional NSW residents for the Sydney Basin Koala Network found that less than a third of residents (31%) aware that koalas live in neighbouring bushland in close proximity to busy residential areas in the Sydney Basin, but over four-in-five (84%) NSW citizens say that koala habitats should be protected from development (including housing, mining, logging, and more).
- Over four-in-five (84%) NSW citizens say that koala habitats should be protected from development (including housing, mining, logging, and more). Just one-in-ten (10%) support the use of koala habitat
- Asked about their views on the amount of native forest conserved for koala habitats, two-thirds (64%) say that it is ‘too little’ – this is especially pronounced for respondents outside the Sydney Basin region (70%, compared with 62% for Sydney Basin respondents).
- Three-in-five (62%) say that property developers, logging and mining companies are given “too much” power over land use in natural forest.
https://www.ecovoice.com.au/new-voice-to-fight-for-koala-protection-sydney-basin-koala-network/
The Sydney Basin Koala Network is seeking to raise awareness of Koalas in the Illawarra, complaining that most people are unaware that Koalas live on the Illawarra escarpment and its neighbouring catchments because “There’s been no surveys, no studies of koalas there, there’s been nothing”.
https://www.theillawarraflame.com.au/science--nature/koalas-on-our-coast-need-your-help
The Total Environment Centre is calling for protections limiting major development including enforcing a new 400m koala green belt around Sydney.
https://www.denipt.com.au/national/sydney-needs-koala-belt-in-planning-future-2/
The cost of Koala killing:
Three parties have been charged with more than 250 animal cruelty offences after hundreds of koalas were found either dead, dehydrated or starving at a private property in Cape Bridgewater in 2020, with the first to be tried fined $20,000 - just like our forestry, the contractor said if he saw a koala in a tree he would spare it, and cut it down later once the Koala had left.
"To the end, regrettably, some 227 koalas were located alive, 40-odd were euthanised because of poor body condition and dehydration, and 21 were deceased," he said.
"[The director, Ken Hutchinson] would have been cognisant to what was going on around them and that the the reduction of the habitat would have led to the recognition it was insufficient for the population to survive adequately."
"If it were not for intervention in February 2020 the population of koalas would have starved to death within two months," Ms Locke said.
Australian Ethical is threatening to sell its $11 million worth of Lendlease shares because migration corridors are insufficient to protect one of the few chlamydia-free koala populations in Australia in Lendlease’s proposed housing development at Mount Gilead near Campbelltown on Sydney’s outskirts.
A new threat to Orange-bellied Parrot:
A contentious wind farm proposed for Tasmania's north-western tip has been given the green light from the state's environment watchdog, but under the condition it doesn't operate for five months of the year because it is a migration area for the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot, though the proponents are hopefully of getting this restriction reduced.
[The Proponent] "The wind turbines aren't so lucrative that we could get away with only running them for half the time so that, in its current form, would be problematic for us and we'll need to consider our options going forward."
He conceded it could impact the viability of the project, but wasn't yet sure how much.
"The condition can be removed by the board subject to the provision of suitable evidence so it could be possible to provide such evidence," he said.
[BirdLife Tasmania] "You cannot have a wind farm with 120-plus turbines in the middle of wetlands that are important for migratory shore birds, resident shore birds, orange-bellied parrots, eagles.
"You're going to kill birds. There's no doubt that this wind farm will kill birds."
[Christine Milne] "There's absolutely no doubt this company will appeal the decision of the Tasmanian EPA, and there is no doubt the EPA will go to water. There's also no doubt the federal government will go to water."
Compounding extremes:
The extreme floods are a boon for waterbirds and red gums, but many animals, such as kangaroos and wombats, are being flooded out and their grasses killed, de-oxygenated "blackwater" has killed large numbers of native fish, including iconic species such as the Murray cod, and the sediments washed out to sea are suffocating seagrasses and killing Dugongs and possibly turtles. The problem is that the effects of the series of extreme events from droughts and fires to floods will have compounding impacts imperilling many species.
We expect blackwater events in floods, but if you keep having drought, flood, drought, flood, then ultimately your ecosystems get degraded if there's not enough time in between those events to repair," Professor Bergstrom says.
"If you keep having rapid or multiple events, it's basically chipping away at the backbones of your ecosystem."
Professor Bergstrom says this leads to weaknesses in the system and, ultimately, tipping points.
"And you may not notice them … people may not see the process of collapse because there's just a little bit here and a little bit there and then all of a sudden, bang, how did that happen."
Christmas loss:
The University of Sydney and Invertebrates Australia are asking for citizen scientists to participate in a project to find out where all the Christmas beetles have gone, as populations have apparently crashed.
A citizen science project run by the University of Sydney and Invertebrates Australia aims to find out population trends and what's behind the anecdotal decline.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-08/christmas-beetle-mystery-citizen-science/101744318
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
European forests in decline:
European forests are increasingly suffering from the effects of global heating as stressed trees succumb to droughts and insect attack, with a recent study measuring tree rings finding European beech, Germany's most important native forest tree species, is suffering from increasing drought stress during summer, particularly on drier sites and sandy soils.
https://phys.org/news/2022-12-climate-forests-northern-germany-team.html
TURNING IT AROUND
Extreme alienation:
A study found that while extreme protest tactics can raise awareness they decreased popular support for a given cause because they reduced feelings of identification with the movement.
Social movements are critical agents of change that vary greatly in both tactics and popular support. Prior work shows that extreme protest tactics – actions that are highly counter-normative, disruptive, or harmful to others, including inflammatory rhetoric, blocking traffic, and damaging property – are effective for gaining publicity. However, we find across three experiments that extreme protest tactics decreased popular support for a given cause because they reduced feelings of identification with the movement. Though this effect obtained in tests of popular responses to extreme tactics used by animal rights, Black Lives Matter, and anti-Trump protests (Studies 1-3), we found that self-identified political activists were willing to use extreme tactics because they believed them to be effective for recruiting popular support (Studies 4a & 4b). The activist’s dilemma – wherein tactics that raise awareness also tend to reduce popular support – highlights a key challenge faced by social movements struggling to affect progressive change.
To raise awareness and “get the message out,” it is strategic to engage in extreme behaviors that will attract widespread attention and media coverage. However, such behaviors typically reduce movement credibility to the broader public, undermining efforts to recruit and mobilize popular support by alienating potential supporters.
… In addition, though we have emphasized that the same tactics that draw attention can often undermine support for a cause, some scholars have emphasized “agenda-setting” effects of social movements, arguing that the most viable path to social change is longer-term, by placing an issue in the consciousness of politicians and the public
Thus, while on face our findings appear to paint a dim picture of a social movement’s strategic options, we believe instead they highlight the high stakes associated with the planning of protest actions. History shows social movements can successfully affect social change. Future movements are most likely to follow in their footsteps when they strategically consider the perspective of the general public and how to win its favor.
https://pacscenter.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/SSRN-id2911177.pdf
All eyes on COP 15:
The Cop15 biodiversity summit will be held in Montreal from December 7-19 to work on a new framework agreement, theoretically to end biodiversity decline by halting extinctions, protecting 30% of the earth’s land and seas for conservation by 2030, and making sure business accounts for the impacts it has on nature by making nature-related financial disclosures.
The Greens environment spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young, … said Australia would have “no credibility” on protecting biodiversity if native forest logging and clearing of critical habitat for the koala continued.
“The minister is set to announce the government’s response to the Samuel review in the midst of the Cop,” she said.
Australian Conservation Foundation CEO Kelly O'Shanassy …says it simply won't be possible to fix the nature crisis without a Paris-style pact to mobilise global ambition and hold nations to account.
"One million species across the world are threatened with extinction, 75 per cent of land environments and 66 per cent of marine environments have been significantly affected by humans,'' she says.
"And this is the statistic that freaks me out ... 96 per cent of the mass of all mammals on Earth are humans and the animals we grow to eat. Every other mammal is the other four per cent."
https://www.juneesoutherncross.com.au/story/8006811/australia-urged-to-lead-at-nature-summit/
The GBF consists of 21 individual targets and 10 milestones to achieve by the end of this decade. Broadly, these targets aim to reduce threats to biodiversity, enact a more sustainable relationship with the environment and get the world’s governments, private sector and, in general, people, to coexist with nature better.
One target – protecting 30 percent of the world’s land and sea areas – is expected to be a hotly contested topic. Even Australia, which has committed to this target, has a poor record in terms of land protection. A 2022 report from Australian Conservation Foundation investigators found over 200,000 hectares of land occupied by threatened species had been cleared for approval in the last decade. Most of those approvals took place in the last five years.
Australia is also considered fourth in the world for animal extinctions by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and eighth for all species.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/australia-to-attend-cop15-aimed-at-reversing-extinction-crisis/
In an article in Nature Sandra Diaz describes scientists efforts to have COP 15 take meaningful action on biodiversity, expressing dismay at how explicit targets in the initial draft were wound back or “bracketed” for debate, commenting “Now, to avert failure, we exhort the governments gathering in Montreal to be brave, long-sighted and open-hearted, and to produce a visionary, ambitious biodiversity framework, grounded in knowledge. … If not now, when?”
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04154-w
Nature is on the brink. Of 20 decadal targets to preserve nature that were set in Aichi, Japan, in 2010, not a single one had been fully met by 2020.
… protect primary forests:
An international alliance is calling for the protection of primary forests, with over a hundred groups signing on, including NEFA.
A new international alliance is calling on world leaders to include explicit protection for primary forests as part of the Global Biodiversity Framework being negotiated at the UN’s biodiversity meetings (COP15) in Montreal this week.
Primary forests protect by far the most terrestrial species (over two-thirds of all terrestrial species) and the largest terrestrial carbon stocks and also provide many other ecosystem services. Their protection is therefore essential to mitigate multiple overlapping crises from climate change to extinctions to freshwater access to pandemics. Only about 27 percent of the world’s forests are primary forests, and they are being destroyed at very high rates – at least 4.5 million hectares a year over the last thirty years (139 million hectares since 1990), though official statistics greatly underestimate the full extent of the loss.
https://www.oneearth.org/new-alliance-calls-for-a-global-agreement-to-protect-primary-forests/
… stop burning forests for electricity:
In the build-up to COP 15, more than 650 scientists wrote to world leaders urging them to stop burning trees to make energy because it destroys valuable habitats for wildlife, is more polluting than coal, is not ‘carbon neutral’, and undermines international climate and nature targets, arguing “The best thing for the climate and biodiversity is to leave forests standing – and biomass energy does the opposite,”
Prof Alexandre Antonelli, a lead author of the letter and director of science at Kew Gardens, said: “Ensuring energy security is a major societal challenge, but the answer is not to burn our precious forests. Calling this ‘green energy’ is misleading and risks accelerating the global biodiversity crisis.”
By 2030, bioenergy is expected to account for a third of “low-carbon” energy, according to a report by the International Energy Agency.
Prof William Moomaw … “Clearcutting for forest bioenergy is degrading the south-east US coastal forests, a global biodiversity hotspot, the Baltic states in Europe, boreal forests in Canada, and illegally cutting protected forest ecosystems in the Carpathians of eastern Europe. These are all home to irreplaceable rare plant species, mammals, and migratory and residential birds.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEjlAymvr1c
Clearfelling for electricity half a world away:
Enviva is the largest maker of wood pellets burned for energy in the world, claiming it only uses wood waste, “tops, limbs, thinnings, and/or low-value smaller trees”, though a whistleblower in North Carolina says that increased European demand is leading to clearfelling with “100% whole trees in our pellets” and that limbs and debris were “left laying on the ground; they don’t want that stuff.”
[Whistleblower] “We take giant, whole trees. We don’t care where they come from. The notion of sustainably managed forests is nonsense. We can’t get wood into the mills fast enough.”
“The company says that we use mostly waste like branches, treetops and debris to make pellets,” the whistleblower told me. “What a joke. We use 100% whole trees in our pellets. We hardly use any waste. Pellet density is critical. You get that from whole trees, not junk.”
Driving to work, he told me, he would sometimes follow behind trucks loaded with whole trees, “some longer than my house,” heading to his Enviva plant. On harvest sites, he also noticed that limbs and debris — from which Enviva claims its pellets are mostly sourced — were “left laying on the ground; they don’t want that stuff.”
Just before the recent United Nations COP27 climate summit in Egypt, the World Resources Institute (WRI) released a groundbreaking study that underlined the crucial role intact forests play in combating the climate crisis — a role that goes beyond how they absorb carbon as they grow, or release carbon when cleared or burned.
… ramping up demand:
As the European Union seeks to soon finalize its revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED), forest advocates urge last minute changes to significantly cut the use of woody biomass for energy and make deep reductions in EU subsidies to the wood pellet industry, if RED is approved as drafted, bioenergy use is projected to double between 2015 and 2050.
In the EU today, 60% of energy classified as renewable comes from burning woody biomass instead of coal. EU policy, which designates biomass as carbon neutral, enables countries to not count biomass emissions at the smokestack, resulting in dubious carbon accounting. A host of studies have found that burning biomass is more carbon intensive than coal per unit of energy.
“The simplest solution is for the EU to stop treating biomass from energy crops and wood harvests as carbon neutral,” Searchinger wrote, adding that “The European Parliament adopted an amendment [in September] to freeze the quantity of woody biomass that counts as ‘low carbon’ at each EU country’s 2020 level of use.”
If that rule within the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) survives the current trilogue — negotiations between the European Parliament, Council and Commission — “it could limit the damage” to standing forests, Searchinger said.
Unfortunately, although other parts of the plan should reduce emissions, the broad rules assigning climate benefits to bioenergy will undermine carbon storage and biodiversity both in Europe and globally, by expanding Europe’s outsourcing of agricultural production to other countries. By treating biomass as ‘carbon neutral’, the rules create incentives to harvest wood and to divert cropland to energy crops, regardless of the consequences for land-based carbon storage.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04133-1
Canadian forestry certification misleading:
In Canada eight environmental groups have filed a complaint with Canada’s Competition Bureau alleging the industry’s Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) forestry certification standard has made “false and misleading” claims in an effort to greenwash the country’s lumber and wood products.
Forest Media 2 December 2022
New South Wales
News of the Area reports Sue Higginson complaining about the $9 million dollars we paid last year for the unprofitable and irresponsible destruction of our public native forests. The South East Region Conservation Alliance put out a press release complaining that Allied Natural Wood Enterprises (ANWE), owner of the Eden woodchip mill has just reported a staggering profit of over $60 million for 2021/22, while the Forestry Corporation lost $9 million.
In a press release, a coalition of 10 forest conservation groups in the Coffs Harbour region attacked the Forestry Corporation’s sham consultation process, making it clear that they in no way want to condone the continued industrial logging of public native forests and the massive financial losses that taxpayers continue to incur.
Australia
There is a website extolling the virtues of Tasmania’s 100ha Grove of Giants (see Forest Media 4 November 2022) and requesting people sign an Open Letter Calling for the Protection of the Huon Valley’s Grove of Giants.
The Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council has released its bushfire seasonal outlook for summer 2022, suggesting above-normal fire potential in central western and southern WA, central Australia, southern Queensland and inland NSW due to increased fuel loads due to significant rainfall, with the east coastal forests in NSW and Victoria with below normal fire potential due to due to increased fuel moisture.
New Forests has launched the Australia New Zealand Landscapes and Forestry Fund (ANZLAFF) targeting A$600m (€392m) to invest across forest, land and agriculture markets in Australia and New Zealand, aimed at buying agricultural land with the potential to put it into forestry, while using carbon sequestration and emissions reduction opportunities.
The recent Victorian court decision to require surveys and increased habitat retention for Greater Glider and Yellow-bellied Glider is accused by The Australian of causing a looming pallet shortage in the new year, described as a “pallet-gate” crisis, though some manufacturers are seeking certified timber pallets – there is a surfeit of pine.
A new national Biosecurity Collaboration Agreement will establish a National Forest Pest Surveillance Program to improve the early detection of exotic forest pests and the likelihood of their eradication.
Dr Tony Bartlette argues against David Lindenmayer’s recommendation of keeping forests fire-free for 50 years to restore their natural resilience to fire, instead arguing for more fuel-reduction burns.
While counting in the Victorian elections are continuing, it is clear that the Andrews government has overwhelming control in the lower house (with 4 Greens), while of the 40 seats in the upper house, Labor and Liberal are likely to have 15 each, with 3 Greens. 3 Legalise Cannabis and 1 Animal Justice holding the balance of power.
Species
Federal planning for threatened species is a shambles, with 372 (89%) recovery plans (for 575 species) expiring next year, making it likely that many will be abandoned as late last year the then Environment Minister was faced with close to 200 plans overdue so scrapped recovery plan requirements for 176 species and habitats. We wait for the response to the Samuel Review next week.
The mountain frogs (Philoria kundagungan and Philoria richmondensis), which live in the wet forest ranges around the NSW/Queensland border, are being eliminated from lower altitudes as the world warms, possibly losing half their habitat with just 1.5oC warming and over 90% with 3o warming, and then there are the increasing pigs rooting through their homes. More species targeted for captivity as their habitat disappears.
A Tasmanian farmer is complaining because Sustainable Timber Tasmania started logging “high-density habitat” for the critically endangered swift parrot adjacent to his property, despite assuring him they were "unlikely" to log.
As the Southern Emu Wren is being considered for uplisting from vulnerable to endangered nationally, a proposal for a rocket launching site over critical habitat on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula has raised concerns it could contribute to its extinction.
Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital is expanding, purchasing the Raptor Rehabilitation Centre located at Fitzroy Falls, a facility for recovery and, where possible, release of injured raptors.
There is no shortage of Koala news. A study in south-east Queensland supports that, although primary forests should remain a priority for conservation, secondary forests have a great potential for koala conservation, with the reservation that mitigating anthropogenic threats and promoting resilience might need further consideration. New research shows Koala retrovirus, a mysterious AIDS-like virus that appears to weaken Koala's immune system, is far more prevalent in NSW and Queensland koalas compared to southern populations, leading to suggestions koala relocations in the north are limited to avoid introducing new virus subtypes into healthy populations. Danielle Clode has an interview in Forbes about Koala habitat, saying they need 200-400 of the particular species they prefer and asking why are the forests, and koala habitat, still disappearing?
Sue Higginson responded to baiting by Australian Rural and Regional News, in response to Brad Law’s “outlandish” claims that logging has no impact, and burning little impact, on Koalas, citing other experts, saying “the only voices suggesting that all is well for our Koalas, or that destroying their habitat is ok, are coming from the extractive logging industry and supporters”. The Greens have called on the New South Wales government to abandon any plans they have for koala translocations into the Royal National Park south of Sydney and other locations around the state.
Friends of the Koala said 42 koalas have been killed or injured since July, with a number of young taken into care, leading to them urging drivers to slow down and watch out. The ABC has an interview with Australian Koala Foundation's Deborah Tabart about a site in Gwydir Shire in NSW unveiled as the first location of what's called the "Koala Kiss Project", a project to restore habitat linkages. Employing their own ranger and opening a Save the Koala shop in Warialda.
World Animal Protection have called for an end to the profitable activity of koala cuddling in zoos and theme parks due to animal cruelty concerns and changing public attitudes. The NSW government will provide $5.624 million to cover cost blowouts for Gunnedah’s Koala theme park, bringing the total NSW Government investment to $12.1m, as the airport is expanded to cope with the expected influx of foreign visitors. Residents have celebrated Sydney Water's decision not to proceed with a planned housing subdivision at Woronora Heights on a wildlife corridor where koalas have been sighted.
NRMA Insurance released its Wildlife Road Safety Report revealing there were more than 900 animal collisions that caused injuries, ranging from minor through to fatal crashes, on New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory roads between 2015-2020, with 116 accidents reported in 2020 due to animal collisions including 30 serious injury crashes.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics found saltmarsh ecosystems are protecting more than 88,000 homes from storm surges and sequestered about 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2021 – a benefit that will come under increasing threat as seas rise.
The Deteriorating Problem
A UN delegation has once again recommended the Great Barrier Reef be added to the World Heritage 'in danger' list, and urged "ambitious, rapid and sustained" action on climate change to protect the site, in light of increasing coral bleaching due to global heating, a 26% increase in acidity retarding recovery, sediment runoff and gill-netting. Last year the Environment Minister Ms Ley convinced UNESCO's World Heritage Committee to over-rule the IUCN's scientific advice. The new minister, Tanya Plibersek, also wants to avoid having the reef “singled out” in this way.
Humanity is using nature 1.8 times faster than our planet’s biocapacity can regenerate, that’s equivalent to using the resources of 1.8 Earths, though if everyone lived like Australian residents we would need 4.5 Earths, not as high as Qatar at 9 Earths, but far higher than Yemen who only require 0.3 Earths.
A study of oxygen isotopes in tree rings has built a 700-year record of droughts in southwest China, finding before global warming started in the mid-nineteenth century, droughts were very similar to each other, but over the past 50 years there have been bigger and more-frequent droughts.
The Conversation has an article on the increasing fire risk as the planet heats (reported on last week), with fire risk linked to vapour pressure deficit (VPD), and the number of days per year above critical flammability thresholds increasing to at least 15-30 extra days per year depending on the emission scenario, with the Amazon increasing by 90-150 days.
In Canadian British Columbia, over a year ago the Government mapped 2.6 million hectares of old-growth forests identified as "rare, at-risk, and irreplaceable." and asked 204 First Nations to decide whether they supported the deferral of logging in those areas for an initial two-year period, with only 75 First Nations so-far agreeing, oldgrowth continues to be clearfelled. The B.C. Ministry of Forests continues to approve clearfelling of oldgrowth that is critical habitat for an imperilled Columbia North caribou.
Turning it Around
California has one of the world’s largest carbon offset programs, with tens of millions of dollars flowing through offset projects, though satellite tracking of carbon levels and logging activity in California forests found that carbon isn’t increasing in the state’s 37 offset project sites any more than in other areas, and timber companies aren’t logging less than they did before, resulting in a lack of real climate benefit over the 10 years of the program so far.
An article in Nature considers incoming policies will cause the European Union to harvest more wood, shift one-fifth of cropland to bioenergy and outsource deforestation. The fundamental problem is that by treating biomass as ‘carbon neutral’, the rules create incentives to harvest wood and to divert cropland to energy crops, regardless of the consequences for land-based carbon storage.
A study in subtropical forest found both species and genetic diversity promote forest productivity “by increasing the ability of trees to maximize the use of resources while reducing damage caused by herbivores and competition from soil fungi,"
Research on the regrowth of Panamanian rainforests have found that seed dispersal by birds and mammals are key to restoring diversity, arguing that reestablishing the animal-plant interactions that underpin ecosystem function should be accounted for in restoration projects.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Compounding losses:
News of the Area reports Sue Higginson complaining about the $9 million dollars we paid last year for the unprofitable and irresponsible destruction of our public native forests.
“Frontier Economics has also shown us that the transition to 100 percent plantations could cost as little as $30 million per year over ten years.
Ms Higginson said, “Forestry Corporation can justify it however they like, but where else is a public asset able to be sold off and still cost the public $9 million?
The South East Region Conservation Alliance put out a press release complaining that Allied Natural Wood Enterprises (ANWE), owner of the Eden woodchip mill has just reported a staggering profit of over $60 million for 2021/22, while the Forestry Corporation lost $9 million.
“To make such a massive profit from the destruction of forests still struggling to recover from bushfires exacerbated by decades of woodchipping is hard to take,” Ms Swift said.
The Eden chipmill continues to be the driver of all native forest logging on the South Coast, with some operations in the Eden Region yielding 100% woodchips.
The profit has been boosted by tens of millions of taxpayer dollars in subsidies, especially after the bushfires.
In a press release, a coalition of 10 forest conservation groups in the Coffs Harbour region attacked the Forestry Corporation’s sham consultation process, making it clear that they in no way want to condone the continued industrial logging of public native forests and the massive financial losses that taxpayers continue to incur.
“FCNSW can attempt to run as many sham online “consultation” or “engagement” processes as it wants, but nothing can change the facts. The facts are that this corporation has no social licence and absolutely fails to serve the public interest, that our Koalas are being rapidly sent to extinction by their logging of preferred habitats, that our water security is being lost because of their logging of our native forests, that our carbon reserves are being destroyed and our chances of limiting future temperature increases to 1.5C are being lost. We refuse to continue to foot the bill for this unnecessary destruction of our life support systems” said Cath Eaglesham of the Bellingen Environment Centre.
AUSTRALIA
Saving the giants:
There is a website extolling the virtues of Tasmania’s 100ha Grove of Giants (see Forest Media 4 November 2022) and requesting people sign an Open Letter Calling for the Protection of the Huon Valley’s Grove of Giants.
https://www.thetreeprojects.com/groveofgiants?
Less fire risk in coastal forests:
The Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council has released its bushfire seasonal outlook for summer 2022, suggesting above-normal fire potential in central western and southern WA, central Australia, southern Queensland and inland NSW due to increased fuel loads due to significant rainfall, with the east coastal forests in NSW and Victoria with below normal fire potential due to due to increased fuel moisture.
Forestry investment:
New Forests has launched the Australia New Zealand Landscapes and Forestry Fund (ANZLAFF) targeting A$600m (€392m) to invest across forest, land and agriculture markets in Australia and New Zealand, aimed at buying agricultural land with the potential to put it into forestry, while using carbon sequestration and emissions reduction opportunities.
Gliders pallet-gate:
The recent Victorian court decision to require surveys and increased habitat retention for Greater Glider and Yellow-bellied Glider is accused by The Australian of causing a looming pallet shortage in the new year, described as a “pallet-gate” crisis, though some manufacturers are seeking certified timber pallets – there is a surfeit of pine.
A spokeswoman for Brambles … “For 2023, plans are in place to mitigate any supply issues that might affect new pallet procurement. We have reliable access to certified timber from a range of sources both locally and from overseas and, over the past year, have brought on board several new pallet manufacturers to supply to CHEP.”
Forest pests:
A new national Biosecurity Collaboration Agreement will establish a National Forest Pest Surveillance Program to improve the early detection of exotic forest pests and the likelihood of their eradication.
https://www.miragenews.com/national-surveillance-partnership-to-protect-905703/
Fiery debate:
Dr Tony Bartlette argues against David Lindenmayer’s recommendation of keeping forests fire-free for 50 years to restore their natural resilience to fire, instead arguing for more fuel-reduction burns.
Balance of power:
While counting in the Victorian elections are continuing, it is clear that the Andrews government has overwhelming control in the lower house (with 4 Greens), while of the 40 seats in the upper house, Labor and Liberal are likely to have 15 each, with 3 Greens. 3 Legalise Cannabis and 1 Animal Justice holding the balance of power.
The ABC’s summary page for the upper house, based on using its upper house calculator, has Labor on 15 of the 40 seats, the Coalition 15, the Greens three, Legalise Cannabis three and one each for Animal Justice, the Shooters, Labour DLP and One Nation. This calculator assumes all votes are above the line; about 10% were below the line.
SPECIES
Time is running out for threatened species:
Federal planning for threatened species is a shambles, with 372 (89%) recovery plans (for 575 species) expiring next year, making it likely that many will be abandoned as late last year the then Environment Minister was faced with close to 200 plans overdue so scrapped recovery plan requirements for 176 species and habitats. We wait for the response to the Samuel Review next week.
Frogs running out of mountains:
The mountain frogs (Philoria kundagungan and Philoria richmondensis), which live in the wet forest ranges around the NSW/Queensland border, are being eliminated from lower altitudes as the world warms, possibly losing half their habitat with just 1.5oC warming and over 90% with 3o warming, and then there are the increasing pigs rooting through their homes.
‘Under the worst-case scenario of three degrees of warming, up to 91 per cent of their ecological niche will be lost within a relatively short time,’ says lead author and Southern Cross University PhD researcher Liam Bolitho.
‘Even under current projections of warming by 1.5 degrees celsius, we expect that these frogs will not survive in half of their current mountain habitats.
Wildfires in 2019/2020 impacted large areas of mountain frog habitat that had previously not been affected by fires.
‘We have little doubt that these events are linked to climate change. Post-fire monitoring has revealed ongoing declines and localised extinctions as well as the emergence of an additional threat – feral pigs. Pigs can completely destroy the habitat of these frogs within a very short period,’ Dr Newell said.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/12/climate-change-a-threat-to-local-gondwana-rainforest-mountain-frogs/
More species targeted for captivity as their habitat disappears.
Southern Cross University senior lecturer and project lead, David Newell, said six of the seven species of mountain frogs lived solely in the cool, upland mountain rainforests within the Gondwana World Heritage-listed national parks around the New South Wales/Queensland border.
Southern Cross University has been working with WWF Australia and a number of government agencies to breed the frogs in captivity to help bolster remaining populations.
Pulling a swifty:
A Tasmanian farmer is complaining because Sustainable Timber Tasmania started logging “high-density habitat” for the critically endangered swift parrot adjacent to his property, despite assuring him they were "unlikely" to log.
Forestry Watch used this metric to find that two of the coupe's sections were high-density habitat and one was medium.
One section had 10 trees per hectare greater than 1 metre in diameter at breast height, and a further 10 per hectare with recorded nesting hollows.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-30/tasmanian-farmer-wages-battle-over-logging-plan/101716526
Blasting the Southern Emu Wren into extinction:
As the Southern Emu Wren is being considered for uplisting from vulnerable to endangered nationally, a proposal for a rocket launching site over critical habitat on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula has raised concerns it could contribute to its extinction.
Growing rehabilitation business:
Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital is expanding, purchasing the Raptor Rehabilitation Centre located at Fitzroy Falls, a facility for recovery and, where possible, release of injured raptors.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-28/raptor-rehabilitation-centre-injured-birds-of-prey/101683638
Tracking Koalas:
A study in south-east Queensland supports that, although primary forests should remain a priority for conservation, secondary forests have a great potential for koala conservation, with the reservation that mitigating anthropogenic threats and promoting resilience might need further consideration.
Overall koala occurrence was negatively associated with secondary eucalyptus forests compared to primary forests, while there was no effect of total forest area present at any scale. However, we found interactive effects between secondary forest and (1) distance from the closest major road at the smallest landscape scale (250 m radii) and (2) water area at the larger landscape scales (500 m, 1500 m radii). This suggests that occurrence of koalas in secondary forests are predicted to increase when the distance to major roads, and the water area, increase. While protecting primary eucalyptus forests should always be a prioritisation for the conservation of koalas, our results emphasize the important role that secondary eucalyptus forests can play in conservation, as long as these are carefully considered in the landscape context to maximise restoration investments.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10531-022-02493-8
… Koala worries:
New research shows Koala retrovirus, a mysterious AIDS-like virus that appears to weaken Koala's immune system, is far more prevalent in NSW and Queensland koalas compared to southern populations, leading to suggestions koala relocations in the north are limited to avoid introducing new virus subtypes into healthy populations.
https://www.southernriverinanews.com.au/national/koala-virus-worse-for-northern-populations/
… clearing Koalas:
Danielle Clode has an interview in Forbes about Koala habitat, saying they need 200-400 of the particular species they prefer and asking why are the forests, and koala habitat, still disappearing?
Koalas need a lot of eucalypt trees to survive – around 200-400 of the particular species they prefer. A koala may need one hectare (about the size of an average sports field) if they live in lush forests or up to 300 hectares (the size of New York’s Central Park) if they live in dry inland forest. Koalas are fussy eaters because eucalypts contain a lot of toxins, which differs by species, individual tree, environmental conditions, and even different leaves on the same tree at different times.
And the few remaining forests are still under threat. There are a lot of exemptions for native forest protection, including for mining, forestry and agriculture. Forestry often promotes tree species that are too toxic for koalas to eat. Australia is one of the few developed nations listed as a global deforestation hotspot – mainly through continued land clearance in New South Wales and Queensland – the two states where koalas (unsurprisingly) are endangered.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2022/11/30/how-we-can-preserve-koala-habitats/?sh=724aface6227
… Koala wars:
Sue Higginson responded to baiting by Australian Rural and Regional News, in response to Brad Law’s “outlandish” claims that logging has no impact, and burning little impact, on Koalas, citing other experts, saying “the only voices suggesting that all is well for our Koalas, or that destroying their habitat is ok, are coming from the extractive logging industry and supporters”.
… moving Koalas:
The Greens have called on the New South Wales government to abandon any plans they have for koala translocations into the Royal National Park south of Sydney and other locations around the state.
The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage said its translocation program was in the early stages.
"Translocating koalas to improve health, abundance and genetic diversity is one conservation tool among a suite of tools that the NSW Koala Strategy includes," a spokesperson said.
"The translocation program is in the early stages of a state-wide suitability assessment, with translocation sites yet to be selected."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-02/koala-translocation-policy-questioned/101726936
… Koala casualties:
Friends of the Koala said 42 koalas have been killed or injured since July, with a number of young taken into care, leading to them urging drivers to slow down and watch out.
… kissing Koalas:
The ABC has an interview with Australian Koala Foundation's Deborah Tabart about a site in Gwydir Shire in NSW unveiled as the first location of what's called the "Koala Kiss Project", a project to restore habitat linkages. Employing their own ranger and opening a Save the Koala shop in Warialda.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-28/new-plan-to-better-protect-koala-habitat/101706828
… cuddling Koalas:
World Animal Protection have called for an end to the profitable activity of koala cuddling in zoos and theme parks due to animal cruelty concerns and changing public attitudes.
https://7news.com.au/video/news/animal-activists-call-for-ban-on-koala-cuddles-bc-6316272554112
… Koala money:
The NSW government will provide $5.624 million to cover cost blowouts for Gunnedah’s Koala theme park, bringing the total NSW Government investment to $12.1m, as the airport is expanded to cope with the expected influx of foreign visitors.
The NSW Nationals in the state government’s Resources for Region Round 9 has delivered for Gunnedah’s proposed Koala sanctuary with $5.624 million locked in to ensure work can begin on Stage 2 of the project.
Nationals Member for Tamworth Kevin Anderson said this funding is on top of the NSW Government’s $6.48 million investment from the Regional Communities Development Fund in 2018, bringing the total NSW Government investment to $12.1m.
https://www.nationaltribune.com.au/nats-deliver-for-gunnedah-koala-sanctuary/
… housing Koalas:
Residents have celebrated Sydney Water's decision not to proceed with a planned housing subdivision at Woronora Heights on a wildlife corridor where koalas have been sighted.
https://www.theleader.com.au/story/7974573/down-comes-the-da-sign/
Road toll:
NRMA Insurance released its Wildlife Road Safety Report revealing there were more than 900 animal collisions that caused injuries, ranging from minor through to fatal crashes, on New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory roads between 2015-2020, with 116 accidents reported in 2020 due to animal collisions including 30 serious injury crashes.
NRMA Spokesperson Peter Khoury said:
“It’s estimated that 10 million animals die on Australian roads every year[ii] and what people might not know is that approximately 3% of crashes in regional areas are the result of impact collisions with wildlife.”
Beyond vehicle damage, NRMA data analysis suggests societal costs of road trauma as a result of animal collisions are approximately $7 billion per year.
2015-2020 Centre for Road Safety Wildlife Collision Data: Reports and publications - Statistics - NSW Centre for Road Safety
Benefiting from saltmarsh:
The Australian Bureau of Statistics found saltmarsh ecosystems are protecting more than 88,000 homes from storm surges and sequestered about 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2021 – a benefit that will come under increasing threat as seas rise.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
A UN delegation has once again recommended the Great Barrier Reef be added to the World Heritage 'in danger' list, and urged "ambitious, rapid and sustained" action on climate change to protect the site, in light of increasing coral bleaching due to global heating, a 26% increase in acidity retarding recovery, sediment runoff and gill-netting. Last year the Environment Minister Ms Ley convinced UNESCO's World Heritage Committee to over-rule the IUCN's scientific advice. The new minister, Tanya Plibersek, also wants to avoid having the reef “singled out” in this way.
Given the report was written before those changes occurred, and the government is relatively new, Richard Leck from WWF-Australia said the In Danger listing should be deferred until 2024.
If you dive the reef for the first time this year, you might wonder if there really is a problem. After all, there are still fish and coral. When I first dove on the reef more than 35 years ago, it was in much better condition. What you see now may seem okay – but it’s a pale shadow of what it could or should be. It’s death by a thousand cuts.
We’re never going to restore the reef to its pre-European conditions. But unless we take real action, future generations will wonder how and why we failed them so badly. We don’t need to wait for the World Heritage Committee to make in-danger listing to know the reef is in real trouble.
Consuming multiple earths:
Humanity is using nature 1.8 times faster than our planet’s biocapacity can regenerate, that’s equivalent to using the resources of 1.8 Earths, though if everyone lived like Australian residents we would need 4.5 Earths, not as high as Qatar at 9 Earths, but far higher than Yemen who only require 0.3 Earths.
https://www.overshootday.org/how-many-earths-or-countries-do-we-need/
Amplifying droughts:
A study of oxygen isotopes in tree rings has built a 700-year record of droughts in southwest China, finding before global warming started in the mid-nineteenth century, droughts were very similar to each other, but over the past 50 years there have been bigger and more-frequent droughts.
More on increasing fire risk:
The Conversation has an article on the increasing fire risk as the planet heats (reported on last week), with fire risk linked to vapour pressure deficit (VPD), and the number of days per year above critical flammability thresholds increasing to at least 15-30 extra days per year depending on the emission scenario, with the Amazon increasing by 90-150 days.
Importantly, warmer air can hold more water, which means VPD increases. We refer to the air being “thirsty” when the gap between full and empty air becomes bigger, meaning there’s a greater demand (thirst) for the water to come out of living and dead plant material, drying it out.
For example, in boreal forests (predominantly northern European and American coniferous forests), this threshold is 0.7-1.4 kilopascals (a unit of pressure). In subtropical and tropical forests such as the Amazon, the threshold rises dramatically to 1.5-4.0 kilopascals. This means the air must be a lot thirstier to spark fire in the tropical forests of Borneo and Sumatra than in the spruce, pine and larch of Canada.
We can also expect increasing harms to human health from wildfire smoke. It is estimated that around the world, more than 330,000 people die each year from smoke inhalation. This number could increase notably by the turn of the century, particularly in the most populated areas of South Asia and East Africa.
Canada’s disappearing oldgrowth:
In Canadian British Columbia, over a year ago the Government mapped 2.6 million hectares of old-growth forests identified as "rare, at-risk, and irreplaceable." and asked 204 First Nations to decide whether they supported the deferral of logging in those areas for an initial two-year period, with only 75 First Nations so-far agreeing, oldgrowth continues to be clearfelled.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/old-growth-logging-still-happening-in-bc-1.6666047
The B.C. Ministry of Forests continues to approve clearfelling of oldgrowth that is critical habitat for an imperilled Columbia North caribou.
https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-logging-endangered-caribou-habitat/
TURNING IT AROUND
Carbon offsets make no difference:
California has one of the world’s largest carbon offset programs, with tens of millions of dollars flowing through offset projects, though satellite tracking of carbon levels and logging activity in California forests found that carbon isn’t increasing in the state’s 37 offset project sites any more than in other areas, and timber companies aren’t logging less than they did before, resulting in a lack of real climate benefit over the 10 years of the program so far.
Our study used satellite data to track carbon levels, tree harvesting rates and tree species in forest offset projects compared with other similar forests in California.
From this broad view, we identified three problems indicating a lack of climate benefit:
- Carbon isn’t being added to these projects faster than before the projects began or faster than in non-offset areas.
- Many of the projects are owned and operated by large timber companies, which manage to meet requirements for offset credits by keeping carbon above the minimum baseline level. However, these lands have been heavily harvested and continue to be harvested.
- In some regions, projects are being put on lands with lower-value tree species that aren’t at risk from logging. For example, at one large timber company in the redwood forests of northwestern California, the offset project is only 4% redwood, compared with 25% redwood on the rest of the company’s property. Instead, the offset project’s area is overgrown with tanoak, which is not marketable timber and doesn’t need to be protected from logging.
Without improvements to the current system, we may be underestimating our net emissions, contributing to the profits of large emitters and landowners and distracting from the real solutions of transitioning to a clean-energy economy.
Accounting for biomass carbon emissions:
An article in Nature considers incoming policies will cause the European Union to harvest more wood, shift one-fifth of cropland to bioenergy and outsource deforestation. The fundamental problem is that by treating biomass as ‘carbon neutral’, the rules create incentives to harvest wood and to divert cropland to energy crops, regardless of the consequences for land-based carbon storage.
Diversity benefits restoration:
A study in subtropical forest found both species and genetic diversity promote forest productivity “by increasing the ability of trees to maximize the use of resources while reducing damage caused by herbivores and competition from soil fungi,"
The team's investigations showed that trees grown in forests with multiple tree species were more productive than those grown in single-species (or monoculture) forests. Forests with four different tree species had less diversity in soil fungi than monoculture forests, reducing the need for the trees to compete with fungi for resources. There was also less pressure from herbivores than in monoculture forests.
Xiaojuan Liu, associate professor at the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing. "Our results suggest that scientists leading reforestation projects should include multiple species of trees and genetically diverse individual trees within each species to ensure healthier forests."
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-forests-benefit-tree-species-variety.html
Wildlife aid restoration:
Research on the regrowth of Panamanian rainforests have found that seed dispersal by birds and mammals are key to restoring diversity, arguing that re-establishing the animal-plant interactions that underpin ecosystem function should be accounted for in restoration projects.
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-animals-key-world-forests-long-term.html
https://newatlas.com/environment/animals-seeds-forest-regeneration/
Forest Media 25 November 2022
New South Wales
Justice Sandra Duggan in the Land and Environment Court has directed the Court will hear two challenges by Wudjebal/Wahlubal Elder David Mundine to the logging approvals over 800 hectares of critical habitat in the Cherry Tree State Forest, forcing the Forestry Corporation to give undertakings to the Court in lieu of an injunction to cease all logging operations in Cherry Tree SF until the case is heard. The case is challenging the validity of the harvesting plan in relation to implementing ESFM. The judgement makes it clear that the Harvest and Haul Plans are statutory instruments and therefore open to legal challenge (though this has to be within 3 months of the plan being made). It only gives leave for one expert witness to be called, to address whether the Plan is able to achieve the principles of ecologically sustainable forest management as defined in section 69L(2) of the Forestry Act 2012 (NSW), the argument being it is not a valid plan unless it does.
Mid-north Coast conservation groups are boycotting Forestry Corporation’s consultation process on forest management, on the grounds that it is inadequate, flawed and not a genuine process, and is chiefly aimed at ticking the box to meet their Australian Forestry Standard Certification requirements.
The Monthly has a good article about the loss of majestic River Red Gum trees on an industrial scale, including in protected areas, as old dead trees and live old-growth redgums are increasingly being felled for an illegal firewood trade.
Construction has begun on a 67-kilometre Great Southern Walk, a five-day, four-night journey from Sydney's Kamay Botany Bay National Park, along the coastline of Royal National Park, then down to Bulli Tops in the Illawarra Escarpment State Conservation Area. New camping and accommodation facilities, will allow people to stay in cabins or "glamping" sites at the end of each day's hike.
The Climate 200 group have supported Joeline Hackman for the state seat of Manly against Environment minister James Griffin as their first endorsed target of for the March state election. Climate 200 are considering up to 7-10 seats, though because of optional preferential voting and spending caps, and the NSW Government being more progressive, a replication of the federal results will be hard. Sue Arnold writes that Dominic Perrottet's claim to "have the strongest record on environment anywhere in the country" doesn't stack up against his dismal failure to protect koala habitat in NSW. Bega ALP MP Michael Holland did a long interview with ABC SE Regional Breakfast about forestry, leaving forest campaigners dismayed by his support for forestry, and his apparent lack of awareness about export woodchipping and exporting of pine logs.
The push from the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council to clear bushland to build 450 homes, a community cultural centre, recreation facilities and neighbourhood shop on a 71 ha site at Lizard Rock in Belrose, progressed under new planning rules championed by Planning Minister Anthony Roberts, is raising the ire of local residents, local Liberal members and Council, making it an election issue in Liberal heartland, while also leading to claims of “prejudice and discrimination”.
Closing the walking track up to the significant men’s site atop Mount Wollumbin at the behest of the Aboriginal Wollumbin Consultative Group (with male and female representatives) is being attacked by a group of Aboriginal women as contravening their customary law right, women’s rights, human rights and cultural responsibilities.
The 18 winning and highly commended entries, out of 6,000 across eight categories in the 2022 POEM FOREST competition (from Kindergarten to Year 12) have been announced, with a tree planted for every entry received in the POEM FOREST within the Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan.
Australia
A study by the Australian Academy of Science, requested by the independent Chubb review, examined strengths and limitations of four methods used to generate Australian carbon credit units by reducing or avoiding emissions, finding that that they have flaws that potentially undermine investor and community confidence in credits.
In Queensland, more than 6,800 square kilometres of land was cleared in 2018/19, according to the latest state government data, with a report prepared for ACF identifying about 4,212sq km likely to be threatened species habitat, identified as matters of national environmental significance (MNES) habitat, was cleared for pasture without Federal government approval. Its also happening in the urban interface as core Koala habitat is approved for clearing with offsets. In response the Federal Government said its response to the Samuel Review will be delivered by the end of the year, and a key component of the response will be outlining the next steps to deliver a national EPA, a tough cop on the beat, resourced and empowered to enforce Australia's national environmental laws.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found that the ABC breached accuracy rules in stories about Victoria’s native forest industry by misrepresenting that the Office of the Conservation Regulator (OCR) in Victoria had found logging breaches by VicForests had put Melbourne’s drinking water at risk, during three radio broadcasts
The Andrews government recently set aside Special Protection Zones (SPZs) in native forests across the state for protection of the endangered greater glider, though the Victorian Forest Alliance found 17 areas were logged within the past 24 months before being protected, leading them to question “Why is the government protecting recently logged areas, and still destroying prime greater glider habitat?”.
The Governments Major Event Review of the 2019-20 Victorian bushfires examined the impacts, identifying a number of improvements which could be made to land and fire management practices, including expanding active and adaptive management, increasing collaboration with Traditional Owners and expanding the range of forest industries – more burning and logging is just what the forests need.
This election the issue of native forest logging has never been more prominent in Victoria, with the Greens advocating an immediate end to logging of public native forests, Labor sticking by their 2030 phase out, and Liberals wanting logging for ever more. The Reason Party and 2 Teal independents also want logging ended.
Species
A NSW parliamentary inquiry into biodiversity offsets has slammed the scheme as doing more harm than good, allows too much flexibility for threatened species to be “traded away for cash” and should be reformed to ensure offsetting is “genuinely used as a last resort only”, making 19 recommendations including establishing clear thresholds for when offsets should not be permitted for the most threatened ecosystems and species, with NCC calling for an immediate moratorium.
A world-wide review identifies that animals bred in captivity can experience significant physical, health and behavioural changes that may disadvantage their survival chances once released into the wild. Some of the findings are: “the erosion of and divergence from wild behaviours can occur quickly in captivity”, such as vocalisations (ie Regent Honeyeater), migratory movements (ie Monarch Butterflies), social interactions, cognitive abilities (ie Northern Quoll), and anti-predator behaviour (ie Northern Quoll); “There is abundant evidence of morphological change in captivity relative to wild conspecifics with respect to body and organ size, shape and skeletomuscular structure”, such as wing structure and size (ie Orange-bellied Parrot, Zebra Finch), and skull changes (weaker bite strength, smaller brains); and positive and negative changes in “the health of animals as well as underlying aspects of their physiology”, such as elevated stress, higher prevalence of certain diseases, loss of immunity to natural diseases (ie Orange-bellied Parrot) and parasites, oral health, gut microbiomes, wild food preferences, and physical strength.
A Superb Lyrebird in Sydney’s Taronga Zoo recently became famous for imitating alarm sirens and evacuation calls, while David Attenborough recently featured one that could imitate a camera click, what they have in common is that being raised in captivity they have lost the song culture they learn from their peers. A similar problem occurred with captive reared Regent Honeyeaters, where males lost their call appeal to females. 50 Taronga zoo-bred Regent Honeyeaters have been released in the Lower Hunter Valley, this time after being schooled in calling by captive wild-caught males. 39 will be monitored for up to 10 weeks.
In North Queensland paralysis ticks are killing mother Spectacled Flying Foxes resulting in pups being taken into care in significant numbers, a consequence of loss of canopy nectar resources forcing feeding closer to the ground in Tobacco Bush where the ticks are. Many of the species found only in the cooler upland rainforests of Queensland’s Wet Tropics are being eliminated from lower altitudes, as rising temperatures and heatwaves increasingly restrict them to the mountain tops, with four species of ringtail possums (Lemuroid Ringtail, Green Ringtail, Herbert River Ringtail and Daintree River Ringtail) now identified at risk of being wiped out from their mountain refuges in less than three decades as climate heating progresses, and extreme heatwaves become more frequent.
The Australian Rural and Regional News presents synopsises of an array of their articles on Koalas, relying heavily on DPI Forestry’s Brad Law’s claims that logging has no impacts on Koalas and Vic Jurskis’s claims that the bushfires had no impacts on Koalas (based on NRC statements) and that rather than declining, Koala’s are irruptive due to the increase in regrowth forests. I find this reasoned attack on Koala concerns (along with an array of other issues), under the guise of balanced journalism, based upon Government propaganda and the extreme views of Jurskis, which most journalists ignore, an interesting approach. Another of ARRN’s campaigns has been to try to discredit Zylstra’s burning studies, after engaging for a while, Zylstra has now had enough stating “Reasoned discussion would engage with those arguments, not simply repeat itself as if I had said nothing”.
Sixteen Victorian advocacy groups formed the Koala Leaders Unite alliance to urge the next Victorian government to immediately improve protection for koalas, with a list of 10 key commitments, topped by "immediately cease all native forest logging". Total Environment Centre is supporting the new Sydney Basin Koala Network, with funding from WIRES, which will focus “on bringing the "critical" issue of the Sydney basin's koala protection to the forefront of the political agenda at the state and federal level”. Port Stephens Koala Sanctuary is offering koala lovers the opportunity to purchase a ‘Koala Crusader’ annual pass, for which you receive various ‘goodies’ including a pledge certificate, plush Koala, baseball cap, lapel pin, sticker and writing pen, as well as a 10% discount. ABC has a one hour podcast on Koalas, apparently focused on the Blue Mountains.
The Conversation has an article questioning the benefits of feeding wildlife, particularly after disasters, such as the bushfires, and is asking for people who have fed wildlife to respond to a survey.
Given that 97% of animals are invertebrates, and they play crucial roles in ecosystems, entomologists consider they should be a key component of rewilding, Researchers took invertebrates, mostly mites, ticks, ants, beetles and springtails in leaf litter, from paired national parks, and reintroduced them to six revegetated sites isolated by farmland, finding beetles were most likely to survive and thrive in their new habitat,
Fish deaths in the lower Murray-Darling system are rapidly increasing as rotting vegetation depletes oxygen levels, with the blackwater event expected to last 2-3 months and worsen as waters warm, with some farmers claiming water set aside for the environment has worsened the situation - without recognising that their conversion of floodplain vegetation is the primary cause.
The Deteriorating Problem
The World Meteorological Organization’s provisional State of the Global Climate in 2022 report identifies the past eight years are on track to be the eight warmest on record, fuelled by ever-rising greenhouse gas concentrations and accumulated heat. Extreme heatwaves, drought and devastating flooding have affected millions and cost billions this year, glaciers are undergoing a “record-shattering melt”, the rate of sea level rise has doubled in the past 30 years (rising by nearly 10 mm since January 2020), annual increase in methane concentration was the highest on record, and the lower 1.5°C of the Paris Agreement is barely within reach.
We are world leaders, as the latest BOM/CSIRO State of Climate report shows we have already almost reached 1.5oC warming. 2019 remains Australia’s warmest year on record, and we experienced the consequences. Going up are average temperatures by 1.47 ± 0.24 °C, very hot days, ocean temperatures by >1°C, sea levels, ocean acidification, extreme fire weather, rainfall across the north, and extreme rainfall events. Going down are autumn/winter rainfall in south-west (15-19%) and south-east (10%), streamflows (except far north-west), numbers of cyclones, and snow. Its no surprise the world is warming, seas rising, ice melting, fires worsening, floods worsening and ecosystems collapsing.
The Washington Post has an in-depth article on the death of the Amazon, with rainfall decreasing in dry seasons, river flows declining, burning increasing, and ecosystems transitioning to drier states, some scientists are concerned that a series of tipping points have been triggered which herald the demise of the greatest rainforest on earth. The article focusses on water shortage effects on people, once use to plenty.
Unprecedented fire activity and severity has been occurring around the world, which researchers have linked to exceedance of thresholds in atmospheric water demand (vapour pressure deficit), being a reliable predictor of dead fuel moisture content and increased tree mortality, finding that climate change is projected to lead to widespread increases in risk, with at least 30 additional days above critical thresholds for fire activity in forest biomes on every continent by 2100 under rising emissions scenarios, with the Amazon hardest hit.
Turning it Around
Weeks of the world’s nations, and fossil fuel companies, negotiating at COP 27 have left many profoundly disappointed as we continue “on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.” The best that can be said is that we didn’t go backwards, and that there was an in-principle agreement to create a new funding facility by which rich nations would pay poor ones for damage caused by climate catastrophes (yet to be funded). The principal concerns were that there was no commitment to phase out or reduce oil and gas, with a “surprise last-minute addition” by Egypt that “‘low-emission’ energy should be part of the world’s response to rising seas and searing heat waves”, meaning accelerated development of gas.
For the first time ever at a climate summit, the final text of this month’s COP27 included a “forests” section and a reference to “nature-based solutions,” being welcomed by some as providing a financial incentive for forest protection, though creating concerns from others that it could encourage dubious carbon accounting and offsetting. Representatives of the world’s three forest giants – Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo – have signed a cooperation agreement in Jakarta calling for more funding to help protect half of the world’s rainforests. The Conversation has a discussion emphasising how essential it is to remove atmospheric carbon, dismissing planting trees because of fire risk and instead promoting air scrubbing (“direct air capture and storage”) and burning biomass (“bioenergy, carbon capture and storage”).
ANU’s Disaster Solutions are developing potential solutions “to stop bushfires, storms and floods in their tracks”; nature-based solutions for flood risk, floating houses to rise with floodwaters, quicker automated fire detection and suppression, using shockwave generators to disrupt hailstone formation, and cloud seeding to reduce hailstone size (ripe for conspiracies).
COP15, a United Nations conference that will set the 2030 targets to ensure nature is in a better place than it is now, starts in Montréal, Canada, on December 7, Tanya Pliberseck will attend, but with Federal oversight of biodiversity a shambles the task ahead for us is immense.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Legal challenge to logging in Cherry Tree SF proceeding:
Justice Sandra Duggan in the Land and Environment Court has directed the Court will hear two challenges by Wudjebal/Wahlubal Elder David Mundine to the logging approvals over 800 hectares of critical habitat in the Cherry Tree State Forest, forcing the Forestry Corporation to give undertakings to the Court in lieu of an injunction to cease all logging operations in Cherry Tree SF until the case is heard. The case is challenging the validity of the harvesting plan in relation to implementing ESFM.
In a media release Al Oshlack from the Indigenous Justice Advocacy Network reports:
Mr Mundine, a lead Native Tile Applicant for the Western Bundjalung is claiming he has been denied procedural fairness by Forestry failing to consult with Traditional Owners as required under the Native Title agreement.
The Court has ordered that Mr Mundine can adduce expert evidence for the case that the Harvest Plan for Cherry Tree will not deliver Ecological Sustainable Forest Management as required under section 67L of the Forestry Act.
The precedent case is set down for 5 days commencing the 5th of April, 2023 and is already causing controversy as it will impact on all logging approvals in the State.
The judgement makes it clear that the Harvest and Haul Plans are statutory instruments and therefore open to legal challenge (though this has to be within 3 months of the plan being made). It only gives leave for one expert witness to be called, to address whether the Plan is able to achieve the principles of ecologically sustainable forest management as defined in section 69L(2) of the Forestry Act 2012 (NSW), the argument being it is not a valid plan unless it does.
https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/184ac6d34695a611236ffea0
Boycotting sham consultation:
Mid-north Coast conservation groups are boycotting Forestry Corporation’s consultation process on forest management, on the grounds that it is inadequate, flawed and not a genuine process, and is chiefly aimed at ticking the box to meet their Australian Forestry Standard Certification requirements.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-25-november-2022
Vanishing red gums:
The Monthly has a good article about the loss of majestic River Red Gum trees on an industrial scale, including in protected areas, as old dead trees and live old-growth redgums are increasingly being felled for an illegal firewood trade.
Greg Chant, a conservation regulator with the Victorian government, told me that when the illegal timber market first became an issue, thieves focused on trees that had already died. Skeleton trees. Those trees still provided habitat and had cultural meaning, so it’s a loss, but there was worse to come. “Now only the big old ones are left,” Chant said. “Soon there’ll be nothing left.”
The rangers tell me that 80 per cent of the thefts are commercial, which means that the timber is stolen by fly-by-night big collectors to be sold for firewood. ...
… He describes turning up to an area that had been hit during the night and seeing sugar gliders coming out of a tree that once stood 30 metres high, koalas sitting among the ruins and sea eagle nests on the ground. ...
… People are usually arrested, pay their fines, and then head back out to the forest for another load of wood.
… Wells tells me that at least 200 habitat trees a year disappear, alongside thousands of other, younger trees. Hume considers the loss of habitat trees as the worst aspect of the entire illegal timber industry. “These trees are where the totemic species live,” he says. …
Great Southern Walk:
Construction has begun on a 67-kilometre Great Southern Walk, a five-day, four-night journey from Sydney's Kamay Botany Bay National Park, along the coastline of Royal National Park, then down to Bulli Tops in the Illawarra Escarpment State Conservation Area. New camping and accommodation facilities, will allow people to stay in cabins or "glamping" sites at the end of each day's hike.
Getting their ducks in a row:
The Climate 200 group have supported Joeline Hackman for the state seat of Manly against Environment minister James Griffin as their first endorsed target of for the March state election. Climate 200 are considering up to 7-10 seats, though because of optional preferential voting and spending caps, and the NSW Government being more progressive, a replication of the federal results will be hard.
Despite her website already adopting a teal colour scheme, development-focused independent Vaucluse candidate Karen Freyer is also still only in talks with Climate 200.
Sue Arnold writes that Dominic Perrottet's claim to "have the strongest record on environment anywhere in the country" doesn't stack up against his dismal failure to protect koala habitat in NSW.
ALP a worry:
Bega ALP MP Michael Holland did a long interview with ABC SE Regional Breakfast about forestry, leaving forest campaigners dismayed by his support for forestry, and his apparent lack of awareness about export woodchipping and exporting of pine logs.
https://www.abc.net.au/southeastnsw/programs/breakfast/breakfast/14105090
starting at approx 1.18.44 and ending 1.21.35.
Clearing Aboriginal land for housing creates political furore:
The push from the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council to clear bushland to build 450 homes, a community cultural centre, recreation facilities and neighbourhood shop on a 71 ha site at Lizard Rock in Belrose, progressed under new planning rules championed by Planning Minister Anthony Roberts, is raising the ire of local residents, local Liberal members and Council, making it an election issue in Liberal heartland, while also leading to claims of “prejudice and discrimination”.
A warning on Aboriginal women’s rights:
Closing the walking track up to the significant men’s site atop Mount Wollumbin at the behest of the Aboriginal Wollumbin Consultative Group (with male and female representatives) is being attacked by a group of Aboriginal women as contravening their customary law right, women’s rights, human rights and cultural responsibilities.
“A group of men appears to be extinguishing the ancestral women’s lore by claiming everything in Mount Warning National Park is exclusively male and Bundjalung,” Ms Wheildon said.
Elder Elizabeth Davis Boyd, whose totemic tribal name is “Eelemarni”, hit out at the government’s plans – saying she would not even be allowed to visit her own mother’s memorial in the park if they are enacted.
A poem as lovely as a tree:
The 18 winning and highly commended entries, out of 6,000 across eight categories in the 2022 POEM FOREST competition (from Kindergarten to Year 12) have been announced, with a tree planted for every entry received in the POEM FOREST within the Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan.
https://www.artshub.com.au/news/news/a-poem-for-a-tree-poem-forest-2594354/
AUSTRALIA
Sham carbon credits:
A study by the Australian Academy of Science, requested by the independent Chubb review, examined strengths and limitations of four methods used to generate Australian carbon credit units by reducing or avoiding emissions, finding that that they have flaws that potentially undermine investor and community confidence in credits.
Andrew Macintosh, an Australian National University professor and former head of the government’s emissions reduction assurance committee who warned much of the carbon market was a waste of taxpayer funds, said the report findings “support our position that the carbon market has significant integrity problems that are in need of urgent attention”.
“In simple terms, proponents will get credits for growing trees that would have grown anyway,” Macintosh said.
The report also recommended such projects be limited to “areas with higher rainfall and showing clearer signals of human activity”, findings in line with his group’s views.
Similarly, landfill operators were claiming credits for cutting methane emissions that were often already earning large-scale generation credits for electricity production.
Clearing on:
In Queensland, more than 6,800 square kilometres of land was cleared in 2018/19, according to the latest state government data, with a report prepared for ACF identifying about 4,212sq km likely to be threatened species habitat, identified as matters of national environmental significance (MNES) habitat, was cleared for pasture without Federal government approval.
https://www.portstephensexaminer.com.au/story/7990501/habitat-destruction-lacks-oversight-in-qld/
Its also happening in the urban interface as core Koala habitat is approved for clearing with offsets.
What they found was shocking. In just a year, over 400,000 hectares of habitat for threatened species and ecological communities was cleared in Queensland—without approval or assessment from the federal regulator, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. Under Australia’s national environment law—the EPBC Act—that land clearing should have been referred to the regulator for approval. Instead no approvals were sought or granted, and habitat destruction continued unabated.
In response the Federal Government said its response to the Samuel Review will be delivered by the end of the year, and a key component of the response will be outlining the next steps to deliver a national EPA, a tough cop on the beat, resourced and empowered to enforce Australia's national environmental laws.
ABC misleading:
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found that the ABC breached accuracy rules in stories about Victoria’s native forest industry by misrepresenting that the Office of the Conservation Regulator (OCR) in Victoria had found logging breaches by VicForests had put Melbourne’s drinking water at risk, during three radio broadcasts.
Logging protected areas:
The Andrews government recently set aside Special Protection Zones (SPZs) in native forests across the state for protection of the endangered greater glider, though the Victorian Forest Alliance found 17 areas were logged within the past 24 months before being protected, leading them to question “Why is the government protecting recently logged areas, and still destroying prime greater glider habitat?”.
More logging and burning solution to Victorian fires:
The Governments Major Event Review of the 2019-20 Victorian bushfires examined the impacts, identifying a number of improvements which could be made to land and fire management practices, including expanding active and adaptive management, increasing collaboration with Traditional Owners and expanding the range of forest industries – more burning and logging is just what the forests need.
Forestry Australia member Dr Tony Bartlett ASFM (Australian Fire Service Medal), who was part of the review’s panel, said the report showed that old growth and fire sensitive forests would be lost if the if the extent and frequency of severe bushfires were not reduced.
“We also need to support the expansion of a range of forest industries to drive jobs and economic benefits to rural and regional communities, which serves the added benefit of having knowledgeable and trained crews on the ground when fires do occur.”
https://www.miragenews.com/major-event-review-of-2019-20-victorian-902427/
Voting for Victorian forests:
This election the issue of native forest logging has never been more prominent in Victoria, with the Greens advocating an immediate end to logging of public native forests, Labor sticking by their 2030 phase out, and Liberals wanting logging for ever more. The Reason Party and 2 Teal independents also want logging ended.
This year, the issue of native forest logging has never been more prominent. Victoria’s Supreme Court recently found state-owned logging agency, VicForests, failed to follow the law and protect endangered possum species. There have also been media reports about the agency logging protected forests and the carbon emissions that logging produces.
The community outcry has Labor rattled. The party has been leafleting inner-city suburbs like Northcote about an end to native logging (though the official closure date of 2030 only features on the back).
The political fallout over native forest logging is a “running sore” for Labor, Strangio says. “All the controversies surrounding continued logging and the behaviour of VicForests might cost them in places like Richmond and Northcote.”
In contrast, the Liberals’ policy is to extend logging indefinitely. The Greens want it to cease immediately.
The poll, prepared for the Victorian National Parks Association, found 36% of Victorians say their vote would be influenced by policy announcements regarding saving threatened species and stopping extinction.
The Victorian government’s own surveys have highlighted the enormous number of people who value nature. And research this year for the Australian Conservation Foundation found 95% of Australians agree it’s important to protect nature for future generations.
Despite the weight of public concern, Victoria is failing its wildlife. Last year the Victorian Auditor General’s Office handed down a damning report on biodiversity protection. It concluded that about a third of Victoria’s land-based plants, animals and ecological communities face extinction, their continued decline will likely have dire consequences for the state, and funding to protect them is grossly inadequate.
The Liberal-Nationals have pledged to immediately reverse both of the Andrews government’s 2019 decisions to end old-growth forest logging and to phase-out native forest logging by 2030. This would take us backwards in terms of biodiversity protection.
Labor and the Coalition have both been silent on reforms to land clearing in the lead up to this election.
SPECIES
Offsetting biodiversity:
A NSW parliamentary inquiry into biodiversity offsets has slammed the scheme as doing more harm than good, allows too much flexibility for threatened species to be “traded away for cash” and should be reformed to ensure offsetting is “genuinely used as a last resort only”, making 19 recommendations including establishing clear thresholds for when offsets should not be permitted for the most threatened ecosystems and species, with NCC calling for an immediate moratorium.
“No one came to us saying it was working well,” [chair of the inquiry, Greens MP Sue Higginson] said. “It is likely that the scheme has enabled biodiversity loss [rather] than achieved its objective of no net loss.”
Environmental Defenders Office head of policy and law reform Rachel Walmsley said the scheme did more harm than good.
“Our laws must recognise that some things are too precious and vulnerable to ever be offset. Since those laws came into force, land clearing rates have skyrocket and remain dangerously high. Plants and animals continue to be added to the list of threatened species every year.”
"The scheme's design allows too much flexibility to trade off threatened species in exchange for cash, without guarantee that genuinely equivalent offsets will ever be found," Greens MP and committee chair Sue Higginson said.
Allegations of insider trading and collusion with the scheme were not surprising considering the limited transparency regarding actual ecological outcomes, she said.
[Nature Conservation Council chief executive Jacqui Mumford] called on the government to impose an immediate moratorium on all new offset trades and rule out allowing offsets to enable the destruction of high value conservation habitat.
https://www.denipt.com.au/national/damning-review-of-nsw-biodiversity-scheme-2/
Captive modifications:
A world-wide review identifies that animals bred in captivity can experience significant physical, health and behavioural changes that may disadvantage their survival chances once released into the wild. Some of the findings are: “the erosion of and divergence from wild behaviours can occur quickly in captivity”, such as vocalisations (ie Regent Honeyeater), migratory movements (ie Monarch Butterflies), social interactions, cognitive abilities (ie Northern Quoll), and anti-predator behaviour (ie Northern Quoll); “There is abundant evidence of morphological change in captivity relative to wild conspecifics with respect to body and organ size, shape and skeletomuscular structure”, such as wing structure and size (ie Orange-bellied Parrot, Zebra Finch), and skull changes (weaker bite strength, smaller brains); and positive and negative changes in “the health of animals as well as underlying aspects of their physiology”, such as elevated stress, higher prevalence of certain diseases, loss of immunity to natural diseases (ie Orange-bellied Parrot) and parasites, oral health, gut microbiomes, wild food preferences, and physical strength.
- There is evidence across a range of taxa that animal phenotypes can change as a result of captivity.
- These effects vary from obvious deviations from (often poorly defined) wild phenotypes, to subtle changes that may go undetected.
- Captive-breeding programs should attempt to identify the multiple ways that captivity can affect animal phenotypes, because the phenotypic quality of animals bred for release is as important to conservation success as their quantity.
- Failure to detect, prevent or correct phenotypic changes arising from captive life can result in mortality of individuals and failure of expensive conservation programs.
- Adaptive management approaches that explicitly consider the links between different elements of captive-breeding programs and fitness in the wild post-release are essential to mitigating the phenotypic costs of captivity.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/brv.12913?af=R
“If we could avoid having to do a breeding program in the first place, we would,” Pitcher said. “The most successful and cost-effective method is to do early intervention so that a species never gets to the point where [it needs] reintroducing.”
Dr Marissa Parrott, a reproductive biologist at Zoos Victoria said captive breeding was now an essential tool.
“The IUCN [International Union for Conservation of Nature] recommends more than 2,000 species globally will need captive-breeding programs to not become extinct,” she said.
A Superb Lyrebird in Sydney’s Taronga Zoo recently became famous for imitating alarm sirens and evacuation calls, while David Attenborough recently featured one that could imitate a camera click, what they have in common is that being raised in captivity they have lost the song culture they learn from their peers.
A similar problem occurred with captive reared Regent Honeyeaters, where males lost their call appeal to females. 50 Taronga zoo-bred Regent Honeyeaters have been released in the Lower Hunter Valley, this time after being schooled in calling by captive wild-caught males. 39 will be monitored for up to 10 weeks.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-11448503/Release-rare-honeyeaters-NSW.html
Taronga Zoo has revolutionised the way it raises the critically endangered birds, based on research that shows zoo-bred males sing differently from their wild counterparts, potentially slashing their chances to survive and breed.
“We tutor our birds in their wild song,” Taronga’s manager of conservation programs Andrew Elphinstone said. “We’re trying to develop a really strong New South Wales-style song culture in the birds we’re releasing.
Taronga has bred 600 regent honeyeaters since their conservation program began in 2000, but their honeyeaters were singing an altered mash-up of trills, clicks and mimicked calls of other inhabitants of the zoo such as friarbirds.
Paralysing Flying foxes:
In North Queensland paralysis ticks are killing mother Spectacled Flying Foxes resulting in pups being taken into care in significant numbers, a consequence of loss of canopy nectar resources forcing feeding closer to the ground in Tobacco Bush where the ticks are.
"You have to consider these flying foxes are normally feeding up high," she said.
"If there's plenty of food up there, they won't come down low to feed on this weed species that brings them into contact with the ticks, which are normally in that first metre above ground."
Ongoing wet weather down the east coast of Australia has led to fears of a spike in tick numbers this summer, with some vets reporting shortages of vital tick anti-toxin serum
McLean said in addition to ticks, the species are prone to heat stress events, which can lead to mass die-offs
https://tolgabathospital.org/tick-paralysis/
Ringtails running out of room:
Many of the species found only in the cooler upland rainforests of Queensland’s Wet Tropics are being eliminated from lower altitudes, as rising temperatures and heatwaves increasingly restrict them to the mountain tops, with four species of ringtail possums (Lemuroid Ringtail, Green Ringtail, Herbert River Ringtail and Daintree River Ringtail) now identified at risk of being wiped out from their mountain refuges in less than three decades as climate heating progresses, and extreme heatwaves become more frequent.
Populations at lower elevations have been declining to basically “local extinction” as possums that evolved in cool rainforests are forced into higher altitudes, James Cook University Professor Stephen Williams says.
“Somewhere between 2010 and 2014 … things just started to get too bad, and the combination of increasing temperatures and increasing frequency and intensity of heatwaves have just caused this exponential decline,” Prof Williams said.
In heatwave years, analysis suggests there is likely both an increase in the death rate and a decline in reproduction rates.
The impact of climate change isn’t confined to possums, and most of the unique birds that live in the rainforest have declined by between 30 to 50 per cent of their total population, and as well as pushed up to higher elevations.
https://www.aap.com.au/news/extinction-threat-for-wet-tropic-possums/
Reasoned attack on Koalas not reasonable:
The Australian Rural and Regional News presents synopsises of an array of their articles on Koalas, relying heavily on DPI Forestry’s Brad Law’s claims that logging has no impacts on Koalas and Vic Jurskis’s claims that the bushfires had no impacts on Koalas (based on NRC statements) and that rather than declining, Koala’s are irruptive due to the increase in regrowth forests. I find this reasoned attack on Koala concerns (along with an array of other issues), under the guise of balanced journalism, based upon Government propaganda and the extreme views of Jurskis, which most journalists ignore, an interesting approach.
Another of ARRN’s campaigns has been to try to discredit Zylstra’s burning studies, after engaging for a while, Zylstra has now had enough stating “Reasoned discussion would engage with those arguments, not simply repeat itself as if I had said nothing”.
We reported that according to Departmental records, bushfires were seven times more likely in areas of forest that still had the dense understorey that had been germinated by prescribed burns than they were in other areas where the understorey had self-thinned because it had been left alone.
The confusing thing is that when fires occur in NSW, pressure is placed on National Parks to burn more, but rates of burning decrease elsewhere. As a result, the rate of burning in NSW overall has fallen, while the rate in National Parks such as the Blue Mtns has risen dramatically – as shown by Mr Rutherford’s data. The biggest fire that ignited in that World Heritage Area (Gospers Mtn) started in a 100,000ha patch burned 5 years earlier. Analysis by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC after the event found that the bushfire was more severe in that 5-year-old area than it was in the long-unburned, self-thinned forest. This is hard reality, and we either adjust to it or fade into irrelevance.
More about Koalas:
Sixteen Victorian advocacy groups formed the Koala Leaders Unite alliance to urge the next Victorian government to immediately improve protection for koalas, with a list of 10 key commitments, topped by "immediately cease all native forest logging".
Total Environment Centre is supporting the new Sydney Basin Koala Network, with funding from WIRES, which will focus “on bringing the "critical" issue of the Sydney basin's koala protection to the forefront of the political agenda at the state and federal level”.
https://www.oberonreview.com.au/story/7993884/wildlife-advocacy-group-joins-koala-wars/
Port Stephens Koala Sanctuary is offering koala lovers the opportunity to purchase a ‘Koala Crusader’ annual pass, for which you receive various ‘goodies’ including a pledge certificate, plush Koala, baseball cap, lapel pin, sticker and writing pen, as well as a 10% discount.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/koala-sanctuary-calls-for-local-koala-crusaders
ABC has a one hour podcast on Koalas, apparently focused on the Blue Mountains.
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/saving-the-koala/14105618
To feed or not to feed:
The Conversation has an article questioning the benefits of feeding wildlife, particularly after disasters, such as the bushfires, and is asking for people who have fed wildlife to respond to a survey.
Here, the scientific consensus suggests feeding is a net negative. While it can help individual animals survive and thrive, it has wider flow-on effects.
It can increase disease by drawing unusual numbers of animals close together.
It can also disturb the natural balance of predator-prey systems, altering ecosystems and drawing invasive species. If you always put seed out, for instance, you may draw beautiful native birds to your backyard – but you may also draw mynah birds, feral pigeons and predators.
This is where you could help. If you were involved in giving food, water or shelter to wildlife during or after the Black Summer fires, we’d love to hear about your experience through our anonymous survey.
Spineless rewilding:
Given that 97% of animals are invertebrates, and they play crucial roles in ecosystems, entomologists consider they should be a key component of rewilding, Researchers took invertebrates, mostly mites, ticks, ants, beetles and springtails in leaf litter, from paired national parks, and reintroduced them to six revegetated sites isolated by farmland, finding beetles were most likely to survive and thrive in their new habitat,
Meanwhile, invertebrates are often overlooked. But our new research shows rewilding with invertebrates – insects, worms, spiders and the like – can go a long way in bringing our degraded landscapes back to life.
But invertebrate species are declining at shocking rates around the world, especially as climate change worsens. They also need our help to re-colonise new areas.
Understanding why some groups are more likely to survive leaf litter transplants than others is a vital step in the development of invertebrate rewilding. Nonetheless, our results show the relatively simple act of moving leaf litter can lead to comparatively large increases in species richness in a short time.
From droughts to floods, the fish continue to die:
Fish deaths in the lower Murray-Darling system are rapidly increasing as rotting vegetation depletes oxygen levels, with the blackwater event expected to last 2-3 months and worsen as waters warm, with some farmers claiming water set aside for the environment has worsened the situation - without recognising that their conversion of floodplain vegetation is the primary cause.
Jarod Lyon from Victoria's Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning said oxygen levels in the water would likely drop further.
"The further you move into summer, the faster that microbial bacterial action occurs and that speeds up the rate at which the oxygen was taken out of the water," he said.
"I think, as a fish ecologist and someone who's worked in the river restoration game for a long time, I know myself and my colleagues are really, really worried about this situation, really upset."
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Profound consequences:
The World Meteorological Organization’s provisional State of the Global Climate in 2022 report identifies the past eight years are on track to be the eight warmest on record, fuelled by ever-rising greenhouse gas concentrations and accumulated heat. Extreme heatwaves, drought and devastating flooding have affected millions and cost billions this year, glaciers are undergoing a “record-shattering melt”, the rate of sea level rise has doubled in the past 30 years (rising by nearly 10 mm since January 2020), annual increase in methane concentration was the highest on record, and the lower 1.5°C of the Paris Agreement is barely within reach.
https://johnmenadue.com/environment-1-5-is-still-alive-just-but-the-icu-is-yet-to-be-built/
We are world leaders, as the latest BOM/CSIRO State of Climate report shows we have already almost reached 1.5oC warming. 2019 remains Australia’s warmest year on record, and we experienced the consequences. Going up are average temperatures by 1.47 ± 0.24 °C, very hot days, ocean temperatures by >1°C, sea levels, ocean acidification, extreme fire weather, rainfall across the north, and extreme rainfall events. Going down are autumn/winter rainfall in south-west (15-19%) and south-east (10%), streamflows (except far north-west), numbers of cyclones, and snow. Its no surprise the world is warming, seas rising, ice melting, fires worsening, floods worsening and ecosystems collapsing.
https://www.csiro.au/en/research/environmental-impacts/climate-change/state-of-the-climate
Australia must take this report seriously and start to prepare for a world of increased droughts, bushfires, heatwaves, acid oceans, rising sea levels and flash floods.
Given these pressures, it is vital Australia looks for the most cost effective and evidence-based solutions, rather than the current haphazard politicised approach.
While the urgency for action has never been more pressing, we still hold the future in our hands - the choices we make today will decide our future for generations to come. Every 0.1℃ of warming we can avoid will make a big difference.
Tipping over:
The Washington Post has an in-depth article on the death of the Amazon, with rainfall decreasing in dry seasons, river flows declining, burning increasing, and ecosystems transitioning to drier states, some scientists are concerned that a series of tipping points have been triggered which herald the demise of the greatest rainforest on earth. The article focusses on water shortage effects on people, once use to plenty.
More than three-quarters of the rainforest, research indicates, is showing signs of lost resilience. In fire-scorched areas of the Rio Negro floodplains, one research group noted a “drastic ecosystem shift” that has reduced jungle to savanna. In the southeastern Amazon, which has been assaulted by rapacious cattle ranching, trees are dying off and being pushed aside by species better acclimated to drier climes. In the southwestern Amazon, fast-growing bamboo is overtaking lands ravaged by fire and drought. And in the devastated transitional forests of Mato Grosso state, researchers believe a local tipping point is imminent.
The stakes are highest in the forest itself, where millions of people are for the first time reckoning with a hotter, smokier and drier Amazon. Strange sights are being reported: Wells that have gone dry. Streams that have vanished. The arrival of the maned wolf, a species native to South American savannas. Even a scourge familiar elsewhere in Brazil but not here: thirst.
“We stand exactly in a moment of destiny: The tipping point is here,” Brazilian climatologist Carlos Nobre and American ecologist Thomas Lovejoy wrote in Science Advances in 2019. “It is now.”
Some say the biome that rises from the fires will be a degraded, open-canopy forest. Others say it will remain closed, but deformed. But perhaps the most likely outcome is far more drastic — the destroyed forest giving way to an expansive grassland.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/amazon-brazil-tipping-point/
World on Fire:
Unprecedented fire activity and severity has been occurring around the world, which researchers have linked to exceedance of thresholds in atmospheric water demand (vapour pressure deficit), being a reliable predictor of dead fuel moisture content and increased tree mortality, finding that climate change is projected to lead to widespread increases in risk, with at least 30 additional days above critical thresholds for fire activity in forest biomes on every continent by 2100 under rising emissions scenarios, with the Amazon hardest hit.
Levels of fire activity and severity that are unprecedented in the instrumental record have recently been observed in forested regions around the world. Using a large sample of daily fire events and hourly climate data, here we show that fire activity in all global forest biomes responds strongly and predictably to exceedance of thresholds in atmospheric water demand, as measured by maximum daily vapour pressure deficit. The climatology of vapour pressure deficit can therefore be reliably used to predict forest fire risk under projected future climates. We find that climate change is projected to lead to widespread increases in risk, with at least 30 additional days above critical thresholds for fire activity in forest biomes on every continent by 2100 under rising emissions scenarios. Escalating forest fire risk threatens catastrophic carbon losses in the Amazon and major population health impacts from wildfire smoke in south Asia and east Africa.
There is already evidence that recent increases in fire may have tipped the Amazon from a net carbon sink to a net carbon source54. Increasing wildfire at the scale described here could interact with other sources of dieback such as drought and deforestation to further undermine the role that the Amazon plays within the carbon cycle and regional climate, as a contributor to human welfare and as a unique feature of the biosphere. Likewise boreal forests, another biome for which we project increases in fire activity, have also been identified as tipping elements53. Our findings highlight the risks posed by conditions of increasing atmospheric moisture demand to forest-based efforts to enhance terrestrial carbon storage such as reforestation, offsetting and improved forest management55.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-34966-3
TURNING IT AROUND
Pedal to the metal:
Weeks of the world’s nations, and fossil fuel companies, negotiating at COP 27 have left many profoundly disappointed as we continue “on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.” The best that can be said is that we didn’t go backwards, and that there was an in-principle agreement to create a new funding facility by which rich nations would pay poor ones for damage caused by climate catastrophes (yet to be funded). The principal concerns were that there was no commitment to phase out or reduce oil and gas, with a “surprise last-minute addition” by Egypt that “‘low-emission’ energy should be part of the world’s response to rising seas and searing heat waves”, meaning accelerated development of gas.
In the end, exhausted delegates signed off on an inadequate agreement, but largely avoided the backsliding that looked possible over fraught days of negotiations.
The establishment of a fund for loss and damage is clearly an important outcome of COP27, even with details yet to be fleshed out.
https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2022/11/what-you-need-to-know-about-cop27/
Language calling for a phase out of fossil fuels was jettisoned from the final text, while new wording was added calling for accelerated development of “low-emission” energy systems, which many fear will be used to justify further natural gas development.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03807-0
… nature-based solutions on the agenda:
For the first time ever at a climate summit, the final text of this month’s COP27 included a “forests” section and a reference to “nature-based solutions,” being welcomed by some as providing a financial incentive for forest protection, though creating concerns from others that it could encourage dubious carbon accounting and offsetting.
The REDD+ framework was originally designed to evaluate, quantify, and support avoided emissions via the preservation, rather than the exploitation, of carbon-storing ecosystems including forests. The COP27 text could allow developing nations to sell vetted sovereign carbon credits, making it more profitable to keep ecosystems intact rather than disrupting them for timber, minerals or agriculture.
Ultimately, the nod to REDD+ made it into the final COP27 text, as did a significant footnote stipulating that not only countries, but also private companies, could buy sovereign carbon credits.
Carbon markets are ultimately a form of offsetting, say some critics, which can allow bad actors to pay their way to net zero, never reducing their own high emissions, while buying credits for reductions elsewhere. The voluntary carbon markets that already exist are contributing to “net-zero greenwashing” by countries and companies due to a lack “standards, regulations and rigor,” a report commissioned by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said this month.
Representatives of the world’s three forest giants – Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo – have signed a cooperation agreement in Jakarta calling for more funding to help protect half of the world’s rainforests.
The Conversation has a discussion emphasising how essential it is to remove atmospheric carbon, dismissing planting trees because of fire risk and instead promoting air scrubbing (“direct air capture and storage”) and burning biomass (“bioenergy, carbon capture and storage”).
Proponents argue carbon removal is required at a massive scale to avoid dangerous warming. But the practice is fraught. Successfully stripping carbon from the atmosphere at the scale our planet requires is a deeply uncertain prospect.
The IPCC said in a report this year that large-scale deployment of carbon dioxide removal was “unavoidable” if the world is to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Consider trees. While forests store a lot of carbon, if they burn then the carbon goes straight back into the atmosphere. What’s more, there’s not enough land for forests to deliver negative emissions on the scales we require to limit global warming.
As a result, some experts and civil society groups are calling for more complex methods of carbon removal. Two widely discussed examples include “direct air capture and storage” (use fans to force air through carbon-capturing filers) and “bioenergy, carbon capture and storage” (grow forests, burn them for electricity, capture and store the carbon).
ANU’s Disaster Solutions are developing potential solutions “to stop bushfires, storms and floods in their tracks”; nature-based solutions for flood risk, floating houses to rise with floodwaters, quicker automated fire detection and suppression, using shockwave generators to disrupt hailstone formation, and cloud seeding to reduce hailstone size (ripe for conspiracies).
COP 27 failed, now its on to COP 15:
COP15, a United Nations conference that will set the 2030 targets to ensure nature is in a better place than it is now, starts in Montréal, Canada, on December 7, Tanya Pliberseck will attend, but with Federal oversight of biodiversity a shambles the task ahead for us is immense.
Australia is currently at the top of the world leader board when it comes to mammal extinctions. It's not a gold medal we wear proudly.
Australia is one of 17 megadiverse countries, which means our species are unique and found nowhere else on Earth. Once they are gone, they are gone. The damage is irreversible.
Species that define Australia, like the koala and the gang-gang cockatoo, are at threat of extinction because we keep knocking down the trees they need to breed in and feed in.
If we don't take immediate action to manage these pressures, it will mean more extinctions and a continued decline of the environmental capital on which all Australians depend.
https://www.macleayargus.com.au/story/7991564/the-other-cop-you-need-to-know-about/
Forest Media 18 November 2022
New South Wales
On Monday morning the Government’s private native forestry bill, aimed at removing protection for core Koala habitat, gained attention, with Climate 200 regarding it as an election gift, the ALP opposing it, and speculation that Liberals Felicity Wilson and Leslie Williams, and Nationals Geoff Provest, could cross the floor or abstain. By Monday afternoon Fred Nile had declared he wouldn’t support the bill, killing its chances of getting through the upper house, Liberals Felicity Wilson and Leslie Williams, and Nationals Geoff Provest, firmed up their commitments to vote it down, and to cap it off millionaire Geoff Cousins threatened to run an advertising campaign targeting the premier. It was the living dead, the Premier had to bury it for the second time, to rise again in the next government. Catherine Cusack accused the Liberals "screwing up" on the issue of protecting koalas and that the Nationals deserved to be "removed from power" because of it.
Sue Arnold argues NSW Premier Perrottet has shown complete ignorance towards the plight of endangered koalas, and has diminished his chances of re-election next year by reigniting the Koala wars. Dailan Pugh thanks Geoff Provest for following Catherine Cusack’s lead and threatening to cross the floor over the same draconian legislation, though warns that it is likely to rise from the dead for the third time if Perrottet is re-elected.
On the same day Koalla-killing Bill II was withdrawn, in an apparently politically co-ordinated move Kyogle Council voted to scrap the dual approval process for native forestry on private land, leaving approvals entirely in the hands of Local Land Services (LLS). It transpired that while Council requires consent, none of the 133 current PNF operations have ever applied. In an ABC north-coast radio interview Andrew Hurford said they have been working on these legislative changes for at least 6 years, and promised them for 2 years, maintaining logging is good for Koalas. He claimed he wasn’t aware of the necessity to get council approval until recently, while the industry pretended that in Kyogle “200 applications are awaiting approval”.
On Tuesday, in Olney State Forest, west of Morisset, a person used a suspended tree sit over the access road to block forestry from entering.
The Forestry Corporation only lost $9 million last financial year through logging public native forests, as well as getting massive subsidies for roads, transport, bushfire recovery and community service obligations, leading some to question why we still do it. The South East Timber Association have commissioned their own economic report to counter the ANU/Frontier Economics report that found stopping logging in south-east NSW would produce a net economic benefit to the state of approximately $60 million, while also reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by almost 1 million tonnes per year over the period 2022-2041, compared to logging, instead claiming it would cost -$252.43 million. Echo Voice focusses on the Frontiers Economics report on transitioning out of NSW’s public native forests, concluding “now is the time”.
The Sydney Review of Books has a lengthy article on Kate Holden’s The Winter Road, that traces a history of relationships to the Australian soil to explore how in 2014, Ian Turnbull, an 80-year old farmer with several properties to his name, came to murder Glen Turner, an environmental officer trying to protect the brigalow.
Country mayors and MPs are calling for the Biodiversity Offsets Scheme to be dumped, claiming it strangles development and jobs in regional NSW, making some developments cost prohibitive. Hornsby Shire Council recently voted to lobby the NSW Government for “standards to ensure native wildlife found on development sites are given the best possible chance of survival”, though on a similar motion, The Hills Shire Council quashed an attempt to introduce enforceable and consistent standards for the handling and management of wildlife on development sites.
One of the largest ever flood responses in NSW’s history was under way on Tuesday morning, with 17 flood warnings in place and eight major warnings affecting 25 locations. Spring 2022 is on track to be the wettest on record for south-east Australia. With catchments sodden, flooding is happening rapidly. As Forbes was cut in half, deputy mayor, Chris Roylance, said it “will be the biggest we’ve ever seen”. Condobolin was entirely isolated as it suffered its biggest recorded flood. As the atmosphere warms it can hold more water, supercharging atmospheric rivers, requiring a rethink of floods. With the floods come the mosquitos, big ones, small ones, benign ones, and plagues of disease ridden biting ones, attacking livestock, with water persisting long after the rains so will they.
Australia
When the Victorian Government made its announcement that logging would be phased out by 2030, they announced that “90,000 hectares of Victoria’s remaining rare and precious old growth forest...will be protected immediately”, what they didn’t say was that they would allow Vicforests to review the mapped oldgrowth to decide whether it qualified, and mostly they decided it didn’t, as exemplified by a coupe aptly called Duped which had mapped oldgrowth that they were logging at the time and continued to log. Now the Flora and Fauna Research Collective (FFRC) has a legal case currently before the Victorian Supreme Court claiming enough is enough.
A study of Victoria’s Central Highlands by right-leaning Blueprint Institute finds preserving trees generates more in tourism, water supply benefits, and carbon credits than cutting them down, protecting them now would generate $487 million in benefits, with a net profit of $59 million between 2022/23 and 2030.
Victorian federal teal independent for Kooyong MP Monique Ryan, supported by Zoe Daniel, moved for an end to the RFA exemption for logging from EPBC Act, particularly to address climate change. They have been joined by NSW Teals Mackellar MP Sophie Scamps and Warringah MP Zali Steggall.
Mining company Magnetic South cleared 218 hectares of land at Dingo in central Queensland, 130 kilometres west of Rockhampton, without requiring approval for either the clearing or their mine, adjoining land that protects the only significant population of the bridled nailtail wallaby.
Species
As well as coronaviruses, flying foxes are hosts to a variety of diseases which can spread directly or indirectly to humans, such as rabies, Nipah and Hendra, which can have limited impacts on the bats due to their supercharged immune systems. Researchers have found that it is winter nectar shortages that force flying foxes into urban areas and closer contacts with people, thereby increasing the risk of disease spill-overs, notably increasing the risk of Hendra virus, their solution being more plantings of nectar feed trees in rural areas (away from horses) – I think the best first step is to stop cutting down mature nectar feed trees, as the older trees flower more prolifically and regularly.
The Conversation has an article about the plight of urban wildlife in deluges, pointing out that prolonged rain may confine microbats to their roosts, and sometimes starve, while in deluges Brush Turkey mounds can become saturated and their eggs drown, meanwhile exotic cockroaches can revel in the humidity inside your house.
The Green’s Forestry Amendment (Koala Habitats) Bill 2022, which was introduced on 9 November, makes “it a requirement of an integrated forestry operations approval that forestry operations are not carried out in koala habitats”, continues to garner attention, though won’t be voted on until after the election.
A reminder that Satin Bowerbirds like the blue-rings from milk and cream bottle tops and can get them stuck around their necks, it helps to snip them – some years ago some school kids ran a campaign and got Norco to stop using blue, though corporate memories are short.
ABC have an article about the insect relationships of Tasmanian orchids and sundews, with some orchids mimicking the scent and visual appearance of wasps to fool them into trying to mate, and sundews having the dilemma of avoiding eating their pollinators.
Researchers have concluded that the 2015 die-off of nearly 10 percent of mangrove forest along northern Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria was a result of extreme low tides associated with a 18.6 year moon wobble cycle, amplified by El Niño, that creates regular, sustained periods of unusually high or low tides n certain places.
The Deteriorating Problem
This year, the world is projected to emit 40.6 billion tonnes of CO₂ from all human activities, leaving 380 billion tonnes of CO₂ as the remaining carbon budget for a 50% chance the planet will limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5℃, at current rates there is a 50% chance the planet will reach the 1.5℃ global average temperature rise in just nine years. Ocean and forest sinks continue to take up around half of our emissions. While discounted by claimed reforestation, deforestation remains a significant driver.
A bevy of scientists express profound concern for the future of many species of insects that are declining rapidly across many parts of the biosphere primarily due to habitat loss and fragmentation, chemical and organic pollution, invasive species and other human-mediated changes to the environment, which are now being amplified by climate change, notably extreme events, threatening an insect apocalypse.
As another example of mismatching resulting from species responding at different rates to climate heating, in north America, deciduous trees are leafing-out earlier while understorey wildflowers are not flowering earlier, resulting in more shade and less sunlight for photosynthesis which could lead to wildflower declines.
A new report has shown at least 27% of undisturbed rainforests in the Congo Basin present in 2020 will disappear by 2050 if the rate of deforestation and forest degradation continues at current rates.
The Boreal forest which encircles the arctic and stretches across Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and Alaska has in recent times been weakened by forest fires, the melting of permafrost, an insect infestation, warming temperatures and drifting trees, as the tipping point approaches. Across Europe’s northern forests clearcutting of older, natural forest appears to be widespread but oldgrowth hasn’t been mapped, a Swedish study found that almost a quarter of the few remaining forests of this type were lost between 2003 and 2019, and are expected to be cut-out in the 2070s. As Alaska warms twice as fast as the rest of the U.S., once frozen land is now thawed out and up for grabs as boreal forests are carved up, sold off and cleared for agriculture in an Alaskan land rush.
Turning it Around
The big issue of COP 27 is whether the big polluting countries who have caused climate heating should be compensating the poorer developing countries who are bearing the disastrous consequences. Australia, as the highest per capita polluter, and one of the top 20 polluters, is responsible for $200 million worth of damage to other countries. Developed countries have pledged just over $250 million for a global fund for “loss and damage” to help developing countries adapt to climate change, though the recent commitments fall drastically short of the $200 billion in annual funding for “climate reparations” that the U.N. says is needed this decade alone to adequately address the issue. Meanwhile rich countries and companies’ efforts to address the problems with carbon credits and offsets, rather than real emissions reductions, are plagued with poor management and regulation, while delaying meaningful action. Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen thinks the world is unlikely to come to an agreement over contentious calls for wealthy nations to pay loss and damage compensation for climate impacts on developing countries.
An analysis blamed the slow progress at COP27 in part on continuing misinformation by right-wing media, singling out Fox News as the principal organisation misleading millions of Americans. Others consider the 600 fossil fuel delegates at the meeting as a significant problem.
The U.S. Center at the COP27 climate talks hosted a panel Monday focused on ending global deforestation by 2030, with some panelists expressing concern that high carbon mature and oldgrowth forests continue to be logged, some stressed and overheated forests could soon emit more carbon than they store, and some argued we need to move beyond failed market-based carbon offsets and start actual protection. In welcome news, Brazil's new president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced he would seek an end to the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest by 2030. Fashion accounts for about 10 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions, leading to an announcement by 33 brands, printers and producers, timed to coincide with COP27, they will purchase over half a million tonnes of non-forest alternative fibres for clothing and packaging to help reduce global emissions.
As talks at COP27 enter the final stretch, government ministers and negotiators from nearly 200 countries are scrambling to build consensus on an array of issues critical to tackling the climate emergency based on a 20-page first draft released on Thursday that has left some profoundly disappointed as we continue “on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.” Principal concerns are the failure of wealthy nations to agree to pay loss and damage compensation for climate impacts on developing countries, or mention taking action on oil and gas due to over 600 fossil fuel industry delegates.
Some think the debate over whether humans can physically survive climate change is misguided, we should be looking ahead with more interest to next month’s COP15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the treaty aimed at saving the planet’s wild species, because we are sustained by a disintegrating intricate living system.
In New Zealand the conflict between graziers and carbon farmers grows as more pasture is bought-up by overseas investors and converted to trees, with graziers now pooling their resources buy farms approved for carbon forests.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Koala Killing Bill Killed:
On Monday morning the Government’s private native forestry bill, aimed at removing protection for core Koala habitat, gained attention, with Climate 200 regarding it as an election gift, the ALP opposing it, and speculation that Liberals Felicity Wilson and Leslie Williams, and Nationals Geoff Provest, could cross the floor or abstain.
Climate 200 founder Simon Holmes a Court described revisiting the koala wars as a “gift” for the teal movement in NSW, which would seize on the NSW government’s position in northern Sydney seats.
“Dominic Perrottet has handed the movement a gift through deciding to flood a UNESCO site with many significant Aboriginal sites, reopening the koala wars and putting Angus Taylor’s gas man in the Premier’s office.”
However, several senior government sources said other at-risk Liberals, including North Shore MP Felicity Wilson and Port Macquarie MP Leslie Williams, are considering crossing the floor or abstaining. Nationals MP for Tweed Geoff Provest could also abstain.
By Monday afternoon Fred Nile had declared he wouldn’t support the bill, killing its chances of getting through the upper house, Liberals Felicity Wilson and Leslie Williams, and Nationals Geoff Provest, firmed up their commitments to vote it down, and to cap it off millionaire Geoff Cousins threatened to run an advertising campaign targeting the premier. It was the living dead, the Premier had to bury it for the second time, to rise again in the next government. Catherine Cusack accused the Liberals "screwing up" on the issue of protecting koalas and that the Nationals deserved to be "removed from power" because of it.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/nsw-government-faces-defeat-in-koala-wars-as-mp-fred-nile-refuses-to-back-bill-20221114-p5by3c.htmlhttps://www.perthnow.com.au/politics/nsw-koala-wars-bill-quickly-ditched-c-8858998https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/7981782/nsw-koala-wars-bill-quickly-ditched/https://www.irrigator.com.au/story/7981782/nsw-koala-wars-bill-quickly-ditched/?cs=12https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/nsw-government-pulls-forestry-bill-after-it-threatened-to-reignite-koala-wars-rift/vi-AA146Ofv?category=foryouhttps://www.newsofthearea.com.au/nationals-retreat-in-koala-warshttps://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-18-november-2022
The legislation was dumped after significant internal agitation from within the Coalition, including from Nationals MP Geoff Provest and Liberals Shayne Mallard and Felicity Wilson, who were threatening to cross the floor.
“We need to be hyper cautious of any policy that could put koalas at future risk of extinction,” Wilson told Guardian Australia an hour before the bill was pulled.
In a Facebook post on Monday, Provest wrote: “We have worked so hard in the Tweed, doubling protected areas and building our first ever koala hospital. If the government insists on putting this legislation to parliament, it will not get my vote.”
The Greens said almost 2,000 emails calling for the legislation to be scrapped had been sent to government MPs – including the treasurer, Matt Kean, Griffen, Provest and Wilson – in less than 24 hours.
But Mr Provest disputed that.
"I haven't been advised once that there has been a problem with the dual consent," the Tweed MP said.
"So I don't know why we are touching something where there's not been a problem before."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-14/nsw-government-abandons-forestry-koala-laws/101653090
Reverend Fred Nile publicly announced his opposition to the government’s private native forestry bill on Monday evening, meaning the reform would be dead on arrival if it successfully navigated the Legislative Assembly.
Moderate MPs were incensed the Nationals brought on the bill the final sitting week of the year, saying it could prove political kryptonite for them as they try to fend off a challenge from teal independents.
But after Reverend Nile declared his intention to vote against the reform, multiple MPs confirmed that the bill had been culled, sparing the party a potentially toxic debate.
Another Liberal MP said the bill was the No 1 election priority for Nationals leader Paul Toole, but there appeared little rationale for the push, saying it did not seem to be a major vote winner for the junior Coalition partner, and risked already under-pressure coastal seats.
Former upper house MP Catherine Cusack, who stepped down from Parliament earlier this year, said the Coalition was "screwing up" on the issue of protecting koalas and that the Nationals deserved to be "removed from power" because of it.
"I find the entire lazy exploitative relationship between Liberals and Nationals is not to be trusted," she said. "They keep screwing up on this issue, angering koala advocates. The Liberals' pattern of allowing Nationals to accelerate destruction of habitat in exchange for peace and discipline in the Coalition is, in my opinion, going to prove costly.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/11/15/catherine-cusack-ex-mp-koala-wars-coalition-pay/
Sue Arnold argues NSW Premier Perrottet has shown complete ignorance towards the plight of endangered koalas, and has diminished his chances of re-election next year by reigniting the Koala wars.
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/perrottets-koala-death-wish,16973
Dailan Pugh thanks Geoff Provest for following Catherine Cusack’s lead and threatening to cross the floor over the same draconian legislation, though warns that it is likely to rise from the dead for the third time if Perrottet is re-elected.
‘Mr Provest told the Government he was not prepared to support the bill. The Government withdrew the bill,’ a spoklespeson for Mr Provest told The Echo.
‘This is the second time that these same proposed legislative changes have been defeated by a member of the Government, last time it was Catherine Cusack crossing the floor to defeat the Local Land Services Amendment (Miscellaneous) Bill,’ said North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) spokesperson Dailan Pugh.
‘The PNF bill was not just an attack on koalas in an attempt to allow logging everywhere, it is also an attempt to remove community’s rights to be informed and have a say in what happens in their areas,’ explained Mr Pugh.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/11/tweed-mp-saves-koalas-from-logging-for-now/
The Perrottet Government seeks to distract the community with the pretence of doubling koala numbers and tree plantings, as they seek to systematically remove protections for occupied koala habitat and community rights to protect them.
… Kyogle council’s machinations:
On the same day Koalla-killing Bill II was withdrawn, in an apparently politically co-ordinated move Kyogle Council voted to scrap the dual approval process for native forestry on private land, leaving approvals entirely in the hands of Local Land Services (LLS). It transpired that while Council requires consent, none of the 133 current PNF operations have ever applied. In an ABC north-coast radio interview Andrew Hurford said they have been working on these legislative changes for at least 6 years, and promised them for 2 years, maintaining logging is good for Koalas. He claimed he wasn’t aware of the necessity to get council approval until recently, while the industry pretended that in Kyogle “200 applications are awaiting approval”.
The meeting heard there were 133 private native forestry (PNF) plans in place across the Kyogle Shire which have been approved by the LLS but have not been put forward to the council.
A staff report said the council would struggle to approve any PNF plans, because it could not approve proposals that would have an adverse effect on the environment.
Timber NSW chairman Andrew Hurford thinks the debate has become too political.
"You can get an approval to clear your land from LLS and councils are not involved in that discussion — but you try to manage your land for sustainable forestry and suddenly councils have say."
On Friday, the NSW Farmers said landholders seeking to harvest timber on their properties need to go through a duplicated approvals process at a state and local government level, reducing supply of hardwoods, delaying rebuilding efforts, and driving construction costs higher when people can least afford it.
The state's peak body of shires and councils, Local Government NSW said councils were being sidelined,
https://www.flownews24.com.au/post/nsw-native-forestry-bill-mauled-by-political-drop-bears
A last minute decision to ditch key farm forestry legislation has placed state government investment into the sector at risk, says the timber industry.
"We're frustrated. The bill was a big deal. Government has promised us for six years that it would unwind the Green tape; remove the need for duplicate approval."
The fact that local government is ill-prepared to handle PNF approval has been highlighted in the Kyogle Council area where more than 200 applications are awaiting approval.
Mr Dobbins said the 65pc of councils state wide who require a DA (25pc on the north coast) could continue to demand landholders carry out a koala survey at a cost of between $20,000 and $40,000 for 100ha.
NSW Farmers CEO Pete Arkle … “That’s why it’s so crazy that some of these councils – particularly those dominated by environmental politics – are desperate to cling to control of timber approvals.
“Cutting some of this senseless red tape is one common-sense way the government can improve timber supply, and in turn ease the burden on local councils whose staff already have their hands full with development applications and road repairs.”
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/nsw-farmers-say-sidelining-councils-should-be-welcomed-by-them/
Olney ignites:
On Tuesday, in Olney State Forest, west of Morisset, a person used a suspended tree sit over the access road to block forestry from entering.
“There has been strong community opposition to the logging of Olney forest. We are now taking direct action to physically block this destruction. Action like this is an effective means to fight for this forest, for our lives, and for the planet.” Said Brad Long spokesperson for Forest Defence NSW.
“Native forest logging is in direct conflict with the interests of our communities and with a liveable planet. Logging projects like this turn public native forest into private wealth. Collectively, we can resist this destruction with direct action.”
The person taking action this morning said, “Direct action is the most effective thing I can do to give my own and future generations a fighting chance, We will continue to put our bodies on the line to end native forest logging.”
Forest Defence media release.
FOOTAGE: https://gmail.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=00a0d314cc7612e6410b236da&id=3c96eb5084&e=47ee9b0076
Another $9 million down the drain:
The Forestry Corporation only lost $9 million last financial year through logging public native forests, as well as getting massive subsidies for roads, transport, bushfire recovery and community service obligations, leading some to question why we still do it.
Greens MP and spokesperson for the Environment Sue Higginson says the hardwood division conducts logging operations in public native forests and is directly driving the climate and extinction crises.
‘The people of NSW have lost another $9 million dollars to the unprofitable and irresponsible destruction of our public native forests,’ said Ms Higginson.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/11/costs-of-native-forest-logging-to-nsw-residents-revealed/
Is it more profitable than it appears?:
The South East Timber Association have commissioned their own economic report to counter the ANU/Frontier Economics report that found stopping logging in south-east NSW would produce a net economic benefit to the state of approximately $60 million, while also reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by almost 1 million tonnes per year over the period 2022-2041, compared to logging, instead claiming it would cost -$252.43 million.
South East Timber Association (SETA) secretary, Peter Rutherford said “this week, a review of the ANU cost-benefit analysis, commissioned by SETA, confirmed the ANU/Macintosh report had a number of serious flaws.
Mr Rutherford stated “the flaws identified in the report totally undermine the alleged economic benefits of closing the native forest industry in southern NSW. Rather than a net present value (NPV) of $61.96 million over 30 years, closure of the industry would result in a negative NPV of -$252.43 million.”
Mr Rutherford went on to say, “coincidently, last week, WWF Australia have released a Frontier Economics report, advocating for the closure of the whole of the NSW native forest industry.”
“SETA has simple advice to any politician or decision maker, who think they should use the report. Don’t!”
Its not worth it:
Echo Voice focuses on the Frontiers Economics report on transitioning out of NSW’s public native forests, concluding “now is the time”.
Murder most foul:
The Sydney Review of Books has a lengthy article on Kate Holden’s The Winter Road, that traces a history of relationships to the Australian soil to explore how in 2014, Ian Turnbull, an 80-year old farmer with several properties to his name, came to murder Glen Turner, an environmental officer trying to protect the brigalow.
https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/review/winter-road-holden/
Biodiversity offsets upsetting:
Country mayors and MPs are calling for the Biodiversity Offsets Scheme to be dumped, claiming it strangles development and jobs in regional NSW, making some developments cost prohibitive.
In one case Bourke Shire Council created $48,000 commercial blocks to help businesses tackle unemployment.
The project was shelved when the Biodiversity Offset was set at a whopping $480,000 per block.
Moree Environmental Scientist Peter Taylor … “An investor wanted to buy 17 acres of grassy scrub on the edge of town for $400,000 was told it would mean he had to pay between $4 and $6 million in biodiversity offsets. So the college and all the jobs it would have provided did not go ahead.”
Looking after wildlife affected by development:
Hornsby Shire Council recently voted to lobby the NSW Government for “standards to ensure native wildlife found on development sites are given the best possible chance of survival”, though on a similar motion, The Hills Shire Council quashed an attempt to introduce enforceable and consistent standards for the handling and management of wildlife on development sites.
“Our native animals do not deserve to be buried alive, or mulched up, or crushed to death, or just moved and left to die slowly because Codes of Practice are not being applied and because a Fauna Management Plan is not a requirement,” Ms Emmett told the Councillors.
She said wildlife rescuers and vets were witnessing the “complete disregard for our native wildlife on so many development sites”.
Relentless flooding:
One of the largest ever flood responses in NSW’s history was under way on Tuesday morning, with 17 flood warnings in place and eight major warnings affecting 25 locations. Spring 2022 is on track to be the wettest on record for south-east Australia. With catchments sodden, flooding is happening rapidly. As Forbes was cut in half, deputy mayor, Chris Roylance, said it “will be the biggest we’ve ever seen”. Condobolin was entirely isolated as it suffered its biggest recorded flood. As the atmosphere warms it can hold more water, supercharging atmospheric rivers, requiring a rethink of floods.
About 100 Australian defence force personnel have been deployed to help in rescue operations with 12 New Zealand volunteers arriving, along with 14 aircraft supporting and rescuing residents and another four helping with logistics and transport.
The SES commissioner, Carlene York, described the response “as one of the biggest operations … across NSW in its history”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzS5hLydVw4
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-11/spring-tracking-to-become-the-wettest-on-record/101641378
Flooding in Condobolin has surpassed the record-setting flood of 1952 - and may yet rise further in coming days.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-18/condobolin-is-expecting-its-worst-flood-on-record/101670726
We will also have to redraw flood maps more often, as climate change brings more extreme weather. As climate change progresses, the atmosphere can hold more water. This supercharges atmospheric rivers – huge torrents of water carried above our heads.
Many of this year’s floods, by contrast, have come from heavy rain falling on lower catchment areas, with repeated soaking priming the area for near-instant floods. That’s partly why cities like Forbes have been taken by surprise, with the worst floods in decades.
With the floods come the mosquitos, big ones, small ones, benign ones, and plagues of disease ridden biting ones, attacking livestock, with water persisting long after the rains so will they.
AUSTRALIA
Defining oldgrowth out of existence:
When the Victorian Government made its announcement that logging would be phased out by 2030, they announced that “90,000 hectares of Victoria’s remaining rare and precious old growth forest...will be protected immediately”, what they didn’t say was that they would allow Vicforests to review the mapped oldgrowth to decide whether it qualified, and mostly they decided it didn’t, as exemplified by a coupe aptly called Duped which had mapped oldgrowth that they were logging at the time and continued to log. Now the Flora and Fauna Research Collective (FFRC) has a legal case currently before the Victorian Supreme Court claiming enough is enough.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-13/our-vanishing-old-growth-forests/101641964
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-13/old-growth-forests-still-being-logged-despite-bans/101648702
Victorian forests worth more standing:
A study of Victoria’s Central Highlands by right-leaning Blueprint Institute finds preserving trees generates more in tourism, water supply benefits, and carbon credits than cutting them down, protecting them now would generate $487 million in benefits, with a net profit of $59 million between 2022/23 and 2030.
The Labor government has said it is spending $200 million to keep the industry alive until 2030, but Mr Cross says subsidies, which were not counted in Blueprint’s figures, were really about protecting 500 to 600 jobs, “which are overwhelmingly CFMEU members”.
“The thing that has really baffled us from analysing the central highlands as a case study is that for a long period of time it’s been a completely loss-making, government subsidised industry that can’t compete against plantation forests.”
Blueprint estimates that halting native wet forest logging in one of the world’s most “biodiverse environments” would generate $487 million in benefits, offset by $428 million in costs to create a net present value of $59 million between 2022/23 and 2030.
“The native logging industry is propped up by government to protect an ever-decreasing number of jobs and placate misguided pressure from vested interests,” the report’s authors state.
“Economic protectionism is damaging and regressive at the best of times. This is amplified exponentially when it results in severe environmental degradation.
Teals want RFA’s repealed:
Victorian federal teal independent for Kooyong MP Monique Ryan, supported by Zoe Daniel, moved for an end to the RFA exemption for logging from EPBC Act, particularly to address climate change.
https://twitter.com/Mon4Kooyong/status/1589888923521912832
They have been joined by NSW Teals Mackellar MP Sophie Scamps and Warringah MP Zali Steggall.
“The carve-out of state logging from the EPBC Act over the last couple of decades is the reason why, 20 years on, the common glider is no longer common, but is now endangered,” Scamps said.
She said climate change and environment protection, including native forestry, are the top two issues in Mackellar, on Sydney’s northern beaches, and her community is demanding change.
“Having the government negotiating with the forestry industry on logging is akin to it negotiating with the tobacco industry on health.”
Queensland’s broken laws:
Mining company Magnetic South cleared 218 hectares of land at Dingo in central Queensland, 130 kilometres west of Rockhampton, without requiring approval for either the clearing or their mine, adjoining land that protects the only significant population of the bridled nailtail wallaby.
"The firebreak and regrowth clearing is for our cattle operation on those properties and not at all within the boundaries of the national park," Mr Xu said.
Mr Dudley said the fact the company was able to clear the land without a permit was "difficult to conceive".
Environmental Defenders Office managing lawyer Andrew Kwan said at a state level, the Department of Environment and Science (DES) had not been requiring a complete EIS assessment for new coal projects producing under 2 million-tonnes-per-year.
This particular mine, Gemini, it's almost progressed to production without an environmental impact statement and without even a referral to the Commonwealth," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-15/magnetic-south-mine-clears-land-near-national-park/101598670
SPECIES
Clearing and logging force bats into farms and urban areas, creating annoyance and disease risks:
As well as coronaviruses, flying foxes are hosts to a variety of diseases which can spread directly or indirectly to humans, such as rabies, Nipah and Hendra, which can have limited impacts on the bats due to their supercharged immune systems. Researchers have found that it is winter nectar shortages that force flying foxes into urban areas and closer contacts with people, thereby increasing the risk of disease spill-overs, notably increasing the risk of Hendra virus, their solution being more plantings of nectar feed trees in rural areas (away from horses) – I think the best first step is to stop cutting down mature nectar feed trees, as the older trees flower more prolifically and regularly.
We found one surprisingly simple answer in our new research on flying foxes in Australia: protect and restore native bat habitat to boost natural protection.
When we destroy native forests, we force nectar-eating flying foxes into survival mode. They shift from primarily nomadic animals following eucalypt flowering and forming large roosts to less mobile animals living in a large number of small roosts near agricultural land where they may come in contact with horses.
Now we know how habitat destruction and spillover are linked, we can act. Protecting the eucalyptus species flying foxes rely on will reduce the risk of the virus spreading to horses and then humans. The data we gathered also makes it possible to predict times of heightened Hendra virus risk – up to two years in advance.
Our models confirmed strong El Niño events caused nectar shortages for flying foxes, splintering their large nomadic populations into many small populations in urban and agricultural areas.
Importantly, the models showed a strong link between food shortages and clusters of Hendra virus spillovers from these new roosts in the following year.
This means by tracking drought conditions and food shortages for flying foxes, we can get crucial early warning of riskier times for Hendra virus – up to two years in advance.
We found Hendra virus never jumped from flying foxes to horses when there was abundant winter nectar.
Protecting and restoring bat habitat and replanting key tree species well away from horse paddocks will boost bat health – and keep us safer.
Dr Alison Peel … “It’s fair to say that our models show that when there is a [flying fox] food shortage then no winter flowering in the following year, there’s about a 90 per cent probability of there being a cluster of Hendra virus spillovers (three or more),” she said.
“On the other hand, if there’s a food shortage, then abundant winter flowering, then there is about a 90 per cent probability of there being no cluster.”
That impact was lessened even in droughts if the bats had a large natural environment in which to source food.
We propose that the loss of winter flowering habitat and consequent decline in the abundance of winter nectar contributes to the persistence of bats in agricultural and urban areas … The consequences of more bats in areas with human settlements include not only increased risk of viral spillover from bats to horses to humans, but also increased conflict with humans.
Our data suggest that increasingly rare winter flowering pulses reduce the risk of spillover. Bats reverted to nomadism and left agricultural and urban areas during pulses of winter flowering in remnant native forest, and spillovers did not occur during these flowering pulses (Fig. 2C). We propose these pulses of flowering may mitigate zoonotic risk by drawing large numbers of bats (Supplementary Information 1132) away from feeding in agricultural areas and therefore decreasing contact between bats and horses. … the loss of native forest that supports large aggregations of nomadic bats appears to be fundamental to the cascade of events that lead to spillover. An extensive program of ecological protection and restoration of winter-flowering forests (ecological countermeasures) could be a sustainable, long-term strategy to reduce spillover and protect the health of livestock and humans.
Spare a thought for our urban poor:
The Conversation has an article about the plight of urban wildlife in deluges, pointing out that prolonged rain may confine microbats to their roosts, and sometimes starve, while in deluges Brush Turkey mounds can become saturated and their eggs drown, meanwhile exotic cockroaches can revel in the humidity inside your house.
Koala Bill:
The Green’s Forestry Amendment (Koala Habitats) Bill 2022, which was introduced on 9 November, makes “it a requirement of an integrated forestry operations approval that forestry operations are not carried out in koala habitats”, continues to garner attention, though won’t be voted on until after the election.
NSW Greens MP and spokesperson for the environment Sue Higginson said “This bill is a signal to the Government that this is an essential step to saving koalas from extinction and is as simple as an amendment to the Forestry Act. We could save money, protect jobs and stimulate the economy while also taking immediate action to slow the extinction crisis in NSW,
Strangling bowerbirds:
A reminder that Satin Bowerbirds like the blue-rings from milk and cream bottle tops and can get them stuck around their necks, it helps to snip them – some years ago some school kids ran a campaign and got Norco to stop using blue, though corporate memories are short.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-18-november-2022
Fooling insects:
ABC have an article about the insect relationships of Tasmanian orchids and sundews, with some orchids mimicking the scent and visual appearance of wasps to fool them into trying to mate, and sundews having the dilemma of avoiding eating their pollinators.
Male wasps buzzing around the forest, looking for an eligible female among the leaf litter, often use her scent to discover her.
Unfortunately for the male, the bird orchids have evolved to produce just that scent. Not only that, but they also have a series of raised dark bumps on their petals that look like a female wasp.
Botanist Laura Skates explains that Australia is a "hot spot" for carnivorous plants, with about 250 flesh-eating plants calling the continent home out of an estimated 800 species worldwide.
Wobbling moon killing mangroves:
Researchers have concluded that the 2015 die-off of nearly 10 percent of mangrove forest along northern Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria was a result of extreme low tides associated with a 18.6 year moon wobble cycle, amplified by El Niño, that creates regular, sustained periods of unusually high or low tides n certain places.
They also want to study how sea-level rise driven by climate change will alter this natural ecological pattern. A moderate rise might mitigate some of the tidal drop, helping to preserve mangrove forests, but an extreme rise could drown the trees at the cycle’s highest tidal point. “We might be able to anticipate when—or if—we’ll start to see some big problems in terms of mangroves coping,” Saintilan says.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-moon-devastated-a-mangrove-forest/
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Budget deficit:
This year, the world is projected to emit 40.6 billion tonnes of CO₂ from all human activities, leaving 380 billion tonnes of CO₂ as the remaining carbon budget for a 50% chance the planet will limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5℃, at current rates there is a 50% chance the planet will reach the 1.5℃ global average temperature rise in just nine years. Ocean and forest sinks continue to take up around half of our emissions. While discounted by claimed reforestation, deforestation remains a significant driver.
Another major source of global CO₂ emissions is land-use change – the net balance between deforestation and reforestation. We project 3.9 billion tonnes of CO₂ will be released overall this year (though we should note that data uncertainties are higher for land-use change emissions than for fossil CO₂ emissions).
While land-use change emissions remain high, we’ve seen a slight decline over the past two decades largely due to increased reforestation. Rates of deforestation worldwide, however, are still high.
Together, fossil fuel and land-use change are responsible for 40.6 billion tonnes of CO₂.
Ocean and land act as CO₂ sinks. The ocean absorbs CO₂ as it dissolves in seawater. On land, plants absorb CO₂ and build it into their trunks, branches, leaves and soils.
This makes ocean and land sinks a crucial part of regulating the global climate. Our data shows that on average, land and ocean sinks remove about half of all CO₂ emissions from human activities, acting like a 50% discount on climate change.
Despite this help from nature, the concentration of atmospheric CO₂ continues to climb. In 2022 it’ll reach a projected average of 417.2 parts per million. This is 51% above pre-industrial levels and higher than any time in the past 800,000 years.
Insect apocalypse:
A bevy of scientists express profound concern for the future of many species of insects that are declining rapidly across many parts of the biosphere primarily due to habitat loss and fragmentation, chemical and organic pollution, invasive species and other human-mediated changes to the environment, which are now being amplified by climate change, notably extreme events, threatening an insect apocalypse.
In a new scientific review, a team of 70 scientists from 19 countries warned that if no steps are taken to shield insects from the consequences of climate change, it will "drastically reduce our ability to build a sustainable future based on healthy, functional ecosystems."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/11/221107110028.htm
A growing body of empirical literature is showing that many populations of insects are declining rapidly across many parts of the biosphere, although patterns vary geographically and among different taxa or functional groups … These
declines are considered to be of profound concern, with terms like an emerging “insect apocalypse” being increasingly used by the media and even some scientists to describe this phenomenon (Goulson, 2019; Jarvis, 2018).
Observed trends in the demographics of many taxa—including important functional groups like pollinators, nutrient cyclers, and natural enemies, as well as in the abundance of crop, forest, and urban pests—is currently considered serious enough to merit profound concern …
Given that climate change continues unabated and climatic extremes in particular pose an immediate, short-term threat to insects, with long-term consequences for ecosystems, it is essential to also consider the importance of managing and restoring habitats that make them as “climate-proof” as possible and enable insects to find refuges in which they can “ride out” extreme climatic events. At larger scales, corridors should be maintained that enable insects to disperse over time to more climatically suitable habitats. Most importantly, there are means of safeguarding insect populations for posterity, and we need to take the initiative to implement them.
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecm.1553
Out of sync, out of luck:
As another example of mismatching resulting from species responding at different rates to climate heating, in north America, deciduous trees are leafing-out earlier while understorey wildflowers are not flowering earlier, resulting in more shade and less sunlight for photosynthesis which could lead to wildflower declines.
A new study found that deciduous trees and shrubs are advancing their leaf out timing with warming temperatures faster than native wildflowers are across eastern North America. This mismatch may lead to declines in native wildflowers as they receive less sunlight for photosynthesis in the spring.
The authors provide suggestions for land managers and wildflower enthusiasts, who may consider steps such as thinning overhead tree and shrub canopy, removing non-native species, and planting rare wildflowers further north to conserve native wildflower populations.
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-warmer-temperatures-linked-mismatch-forest.html
Congo loss accelerating;
A new report has shown at least 27% of undisturbed rainforests in the Congo Basin present in 2020 will disappear by 2050 if the rate of deforestation and forest degradation continues at current rates.
There was an estimated 200 million hectares of evergreen and semi-deciduous forests in Central Africa, including Angola and Uganda, in January 2020 – with 184.7 million hectares showing no signs of disturbance, according to a report on the state of Congo Basin forests produced by the Observatory for Central Africa Forests (OFAC). Unfortunately, the rate of loss of intact forests has since then accelerated, with no fewer than 18 million hectares of forests disappearing so far.
Boreal decline:
The Boreal forest which encircles the arctic and stretches across Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and Alaska has in recent times been weakened by forest fires, the melting of permafrost, an insect infestation, warming temperatures and drifting trees, as the tipping point approaches.
As per AFP experts have categorically warned that “the forest is encroaching on the tundra, and the prairies are slowly taking the place of the trees.”
With the rising temperatures “drunken trees” have become a common phenomenon; trees are tilted sideways due to the melting permafrost. Eventually, the soil will completely erode and the fauna will tumble down.
Scientists as per AFP say that for now there’s still hope for the ecosystem's continued resilience, even as they ponder whether the forest’s “tipping point”, a threshold after which emissions will be inevitable and changes to the ecosystem irreversible is approaching.
… Europe’s disappearing oldgrowth:
Across Europe’s northern forests clearcutting of older, natural forest appears to be widespread but oldgrowth hasn’t been mapped, a Swedish study found that almost a quarter of the few remaining forests of this type were lost between 2003 and 2019, and are expected to be cut-out in the 2070s.
We cannot afford to lose more of the world’s old growth forests to humanitys’ insatiable appetite for resources. Old growth forests play a key role in biodiversity conservation and planetary stability in the face of rapid climate change”, says Pep Canadell, Director for the Global Carbon Project CSIRO in Australia.
Clearcutting of older, natural forest appears to be widespread across most northern countries, but there has been little monitoring of the distribution and extent of this practice, mainly because there are no official maps of the location and extent of the forests and that natural boreal forest is difficult to distinguish in satellite images.
… Alaskan land rush:
As Alaska warms twice as fast as the rest of the U.S., once frozen land is now thawed out and up for grabs as boreal forests are carved up, sold off and cleared for agriculture in an Alaskan land rush.
"I see climate change in Alaska as an opportunity to bring in more crops, to develop more land," said Erik Johnson, who oversees the Nenana-Totchaket Agricultural Project for the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alaska-farmland-climate-change-boreal-forest/
TURNING IT AROUND
COP 27
The big issue of COP 27 is whether the big polluting countries who have caused climate heating should be compensating the poorer developing countries who are bearing the disastrous consequences. Australia, as the highest per capita polluter, and one of the top 20 polluters, is responsible for $200 million worth of damage to other countries.
This is the human side of a contentious issue that will likely dominate climate negotiations in Egypt this month. It’s about big bucks, justice, blame and taking responsibility. Extreme weather is worsening as the world warms, with a study calculating that human-caused climate change increased Pakistan’s flood-causing rain by up to 50%.
While Pakistan was flooding, six energy companies — ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell,BP, Saudi Aramco and Total Energies — made $97.49 billion in profits from July to September.
Developed countries have pledged just over $250 million for a global fund for “loss and damage” to help developing countries adapt to climate change, though the recent commitments fall drastically short of the $200 billion in annual funding for “climate reparations” that the U.N. says is needed this decade alone to adequately address the issue. Meanwhile rich countries and companies efforts to address the problems with carbon credits and offsets, rather than real emissions reductions, are plagued with poor management and regulation, while delaying meaningful action.
But carbon markets, along with other voluntary market-based solutions that rely on incentives, not regulation, to reduce emission, have long been a source of controversy in the climate community. It’s not surprising, then, that the U.S. announcement this week was met by fierce backlash from environmental advocates who say carbon markets rarely deliver the climate benefits they promise, suffer from poor management and regulation and delay meaningful efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by promising to address the issue in the future. Rather, advocates say, that money should be spent on proven climate solutions, such as building new renewable energy sources.
Take California, for example, which runs one of the world’s largest carbon markets. Instead of reducing their own emissions, companies participating in the state’s carbon market—including major conglomerates like Microsoft—have poured billions of dollars into projects that planted trees. But even though an estimated 153,000 acres of forests that were part of the state’s carbon market burned in wildfires last summer, the companies can still claim those forests for credits in the program.
“The absence of standards, regulations and rigor in voluntary carbon market credits is deeply concerning,” Gutteres said in a speech Tuesday. “Shadow markets for carbon credits cannot undermine genuine emission reduction efforts, including in the short term. Targets must be reached through real emissions cuts.”
https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?e=6624c72df8&u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=cef6774d19
Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen thinks the world is unlikely to come to an agreement over contentious calls for wealthy nations to pay loss and damage compensation for climate impacts on developing countries.
… the fox in the hen house:
An analysis blamed the slow progress at COP27 in part on continuing misinformation by right-wing media, singling out Fox News as the principal organisation misleading millions of Americans. Others consider the 600 fossil fuel delegates at the meeting as a significant problem.
Specifically, 59 percent of Fox News consumers believe that a significant number of scientists disagree on the cause of climate change, compared to just 35 percent of the broader U.S. sample. Additionally, 56 percent of Fox viewers think renewable energy is more expensive than energy from fossil fuels, compared to 34 percent of the bigger sample. And 60 percent of respondents who watch Fox say that renewables are unreliable energy sources, compared to 32 percent of the American sample as a whole.
Regular Fox viewers were also far more likely to believe that natural gas is needed to reduce climate-warming emissions, with 57 percent of those respondents agreeing with that premise, compared to 38 percent of overall U.S. respondents.
[King] “The final thing I wanted to mention is a renewed energy and investment in fossil fuel greenwashing, being pushed very heavily by the fossil fuel lobby, which we’ve seen here at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh,” she said, noting the record number of fossil fuel lobbyists and other representatives at the climate conference. “In particular, the African gas lobby has been very vocal in making the suggestion that net zero transitions are a form of neocolonialism or Western imperialism, and that maintaining the use of fossil fuels is essential to human rights.”
There are the recent reports out by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, as well as from the University of Exeter, showing that fossil fuel companies are spending millions of dollars to run as many as 850 ads a day and getting tens of millions of views “that aim to confuse the public about what are viable climate solutions going forward,” she said.
https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?e=6624c72df8&u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=f24d0305e5
The U.S. Center at the COP27 climate talks hosted a panel Monday focused on ending global deforestation by 2030, with some panelists expressing concern that high carbon mature and oldgrowth forests continue to be logged, some stressed and overheated forests could soon emit more carbon than they store, and some argued we need to move beyond failed market-based carbon offsets and start actual protection.
In 2021, just the tropics lost about 43,000 square miles of forest cover, an area the size of Tennessee, said panelist Craig Hanson, executive vice president for programs at the World Resources Institute. Additionally, in the U.S. wildfires burned across an Indiana-size swath of land, about 35,000 square miles, including some forests being used as carbon offsets by major U.S. corporations. Wildfires in Siberia that year burned up another 72,000 square miles, an area a bit larger than Oklahoma. Altogether, wildfires emitted 6,450 megatons of carbon dioxide in 2021, about equal to total European Union CO2 emissions from fossil fuels that year.
If world leaders want to take their forest pledges seriously, Su said, it’s time to move beyond market-based mechanisms, and beyond using forests as carbon offsets.
“That is a scheme that has never worked to achieve deep decarbonisation,” she said. “The best thing that we can do is ditch these market mechanisms, to stop talking about commodification of forests, and start actual protection. What we’re asking for from a domestic standpoint is, President Biden, if you want to live up to your global pledge, start at home.”
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15112022/cop27-deforestation-united-states-logging/
… saving the Amazon:
In welcome news, Brazil's new president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced he would seek an end to the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest by 2030.
Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has told cheering crowds at the UN climate conference in Egypt that he would crack down on illegal deforestation in the Amazon, reinitiate ties with countries that finance forest protection efforts and push to host an upcoming world climate summit in the rainforest.
https://www.trtworld.com/life/brazil-s-lula-pledges-to-defeat-all-crimes-in-amazon-forest-62613
Data released by a Brazilian research institute showed that about 13,000 square kilometers of the Amazon was lost from August 2020 to July 2021.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20221117_15/
… making forests unfashionable:
Fashion accounts for about 10 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions, leading to an announcement by 33 brands, printers and producers, timed to coincide with COP27, will purchase over half a million tonnes of non-forest alternative fibres for clothing and packaging to help reduce global emissions.
Retailers agreed to purchase 550,000 tonnes of alternative fibres – made from waste textiles and agricultural residues instead of forest fibres. Every tonne of clothing produced using these alternative fibres will save between four and 15 tonnes of carbon per tonne of product, NGO Canopy, which convened the group, said.
Over 3.2 billion trees are cut down each year to produce fibre for packaging and clothing. Moving to low-carbon alternatives could help the industry to avoid almost a giga-tonne of CO2 emissions between now and 2030, Canopy said.
https://insideretail.asia/2022/11/15/retailers-accelerate-shift-to-forest-friendly-fibres-at-cop27/
… pedal to the metal on the highway to climate hell:
As talks at COP27 enter the final stretch, government ministers and negotiators from nearly 200 countries are scrambling to build consensus on an array of issues critical to tackling the climate emergency based on a 20-page first draft released on Thursday that has left some profoundly disappointed as we continue “on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.” Principal concerns are the failure of wealthy nations to agree to pay loss and damage compensation for climate impacts on developing countries, or mention taking action on oil and gas due to over 600 fossil fuel industry delegates.
The U.N. climate agency on Thursday published a 20-page first draft of a hoped-for final agreement. It is highly likely to be reworked in the coming days as climate envoys in Egypt’s Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh strive to reach an overarching deal before Friday’s deadline.
“As climate impacts and injustice accelerate, lives, livelihoods, cultures and even whole countries are lost, the latest draft cover note from the COP27 Presidency pushes the pedal to the metal on the highway to climate hell,” Yeb Saño, executive director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, said in a statement.
Berman said via Twitter that the document fails to mention oil and gas, does not mention fossil fuel expansion and warned that while “phase down unabated coal” is in, the term “unabated” was “a loophole big enough to drive a drill rig through.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/17/cop27-draft-deal-critcized-for-paving-the-way-to-climate-hell.html
COP 15 more important than COP 27:
Some think the debate over whether humans can physically survive climate change is misguided, we should be looking ahead with more interest to next month’s COP15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the treaty aimed at saving the planet’s wild species, because we are sustained by a disintegrating intricate living system.
Under likely warming scenarios, virtually all the globe’s coral reefs (which feed and otherwise benefit a billion people) will be gone. Parts of the Amazon will flip into degraded grasslands, putting one in ten of the planet’s species at risk and draining the biggest tropical carbon sink. Billions of migratory birds will lose boreal forest breeding habitat. Already, bizarre biological tragedies are unfolding; hot Queensland beaches are yielding all-female hatches of green sea turtles …
The biodiversity crisis is arguably a good deal further along than the climate crisis—and fully linked to it. And still, some of us are asking whether our world, some decades hence, equipped with sea walls, cooling centers, and windmills, may still function as a terrarium for humans. This is a morally vapid question. It ignores the fact that the planet is an intricate living system of which humans are a part.
Black sheep:
In New Zealand the conflict between graziers and carbon farmers grows as more pasture is bought-up by overseas investors and converted to trees, with graziers now pooling their resources buy farms approved for carbon forests.
With more than 175,000ha of whole farms sold for afforestation since 2017, the country could expect a decline of around 1 million stock units of sheep and beef, the report said.
But a group of farmers is raising $45 million to keep a large central North Island station out of foreign hands and save it from potentially being planted as a carbon forest.
Leader of Forever Farming NZ, Mike Barham, said if the bid was successful the 5000ha Mangaohane Station in the central North Island would continue as a livestock station.
Forest Media 11 November 2022
New South Wales
The Sydney Moring Herald has a lengthy article about the Koala conference, focussing on a trip to Ellis State Forest with Mark Graham as the introduction in which the destruction is writ large, while also focusing on Koala’s decline, the Great Koala National Park, and the Frontier Economic’s report about the costs and benefits of stopping logging of public forests.
The infamous “Koala Wars” of 2020 have been resurrected, as the Liberals follow thru on their promise to the Nationals to stop core Koala habitat on private lands being protected from logging. The Perrottet Government introduced the Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Private Native Forestry) Bill 2022 that proposes to allow existing logging prohibitions in LEP zones and State Environmental Planning Policies (SEPPs) to stand, though no new LEP or SEPP will be allowed to impose any new prohibitions on carrying out forestry operations. Council LEP’s that currently require consent for logging will no longer apply. PNF plans will be extended from 15 years to 30 years. The bill may be debated as early as next week so a concerted effort is required to stop it. There has already been a strong reaction. Independent MP Alex Greenwich is campaigning on it, and the independent candidate for Vaucluse, Karen Freyer, said “Stopping logging in native forests is one of my top campaign issues.” The ABC reports Catherine Cusack says it is “a broken promise”, and Sean O’Shannessy gets a run for NEFA. Labor have condemned the bill, a North Shore Liberal MP, Felicity Wilson, said we shouldn’t be logging native forests, and even the Environment Minister declined to support it. We are reminded that Leslie Williams, Member for Port Macquarie, left the Nationals for the Liberals over this issue, and Sue Higginson says that many Liberals are uncomfortable with this bill.
Local Government NSW has slammed the State Government’s latest attempts to strip councils of the ability to regulate private logging, as it “undermines the crucial role councils play in the regulation of private forestry operations”. The NSW Local Government conference carried a motion ‘That, Local Government NSW advocates for the ending of logging in NSW Native Forests’.
The Greens, Sue Higginson, introduced a bill to amend forestry laws to stop logging of koala habitat on State forests. Its unlikely to be debated this term. NBN covered Sue’s bill and combined it with WWF’s proposal to transition out of logging public forests. Voices for the Earth considers the writing is on the wall, due to a strong mood for change within the community, to see an end to the logging of public native forests.
Sydney philanthropists Andrew and Jane Clifford bought a 4,000 ha property in the Hunter Valley next to Ghin-Doo-Ee national park that is to be managed for conservation by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy. A Hunter developer is touting a 860-hectare property, Mount Malumla, next to Barrington Tops National Park that was purchased as an environmental offset, part of 20,000 hectares of biodiversity land, mainly next to national parks and in environmental corridors, that the company owns, saying the property has 10 koalas and may now be sold to the NSW government under its $193 million koala strategy.
The NSW Government is touting completion of its $30 million program to plant one million new trees by 2022 across Greater Sydney, though they have come under attack from Labor for permitting developers to cut down established trees and clear urban bushland.
Seat-by-seat polling by Climate 200 suggests the NSW Coalition is in danger of losing several electorates to teal independents at the March election, with the primary vote of Environment Minister James Griffin perilously low at 31 per cent, leaving him in considerable risk of losing his seat of Manly on Sydney’s northern beaches.
Australia
VicForests has called on timber contractors to halt harvesting in many areas, primarily because of the need to comply with last Friday’s Supreme Court ruling that more thorough pre-logging surveys are needed to identify the distribution of Greater Glider and Yellow-bellied Glider, they are also complaining that the judge’s preference to retain 3ha around a possum sighting and retain 60 per cent of the trees in the rest of the coupe would make logging of many areas unviable.
Species
The Weekly Times has an article about Friends of the Koala identifying habitat loss as the principal threat, including logging, leading to lost Koalas and disease, emphasizing both their rescue efforts and replanting of corridors and habitat.
The Queensland Government has released its environment report for the $2.1 billion Coomera Connector, a major highway bisecting a Koala colony, which the Coomera Conservation Group considers will mark a "final cut" for koalas living in Gold Coast urban areas, with 68 ha of Koala habitat to be cleared and about 35 koalas out of the 58 identified who may need to be relocated, and two properties (totaling 800ha) purchased as “offsets”.
An 11-year-old boy's campaign to save the habitat of the vulnerable glossy black cockatoo at Sunrise Beach, near Noosa, to make way for a Uniting Church aged care and residential village, has had 65,000 people sign his online petition and was featured on the 7.30 report.
A study found of the 1,889 species of world palms with enough data to investigate, more than half (56%) may be threatened with extinction, primarily because of habitat destruction from agricultural and urban expansion.
The Deteriorating Problem
Over the past 2 decades the intensity of rapid rain bursts in Sydney has increased by 40%, increasing the risk of flash flooding, and overwhelming of stormwater systems.
Why is it that 45 years since climate change became widely known that there has there been so little action in response, some attribute it to the “fossil fuel hegemony”, a coalition of corporate and political actors with interests aligned around carbon-dependent economic growth, that maintain “endless economic growth fuelled by fossil energy is so fundamental and commonsensical it cannot be questioned”.
In the next couple of weeks the human population on earth will reach 8 billion, an exponential increase from 2 billion in 1928 (considered by some to be the earth’s carrying capacity at advanced living standards), a problem that Julian Cribb describes as “the unmentionable – but inescapable – elephant in the room of the human future”.
Turning it Around
A U.N. report says promises by companies, banks and cities to achieve net-zero emissions often amount to little more than greenwashing, their recommendations including that “Non‑state actors cannot claim to be net zero while continuing to build or invest in new fossil fuel supply” and “Non-state actors cannot buy cheap credits that often lack integrity instead of immediately cutting their own emissions across their value chain”. The Environmental Defenders Office filed a complaint to Australia’s consumer watchdog and corporate regulator late last month alleging Shell Australia has misled the public about its plans to achieve net-zero by 2050 on its website and social media, one of many examples, with the Federal Government one of the worst offenders
Australia’s carbon credit system for projects meant to regenerate Australia’s outback forests to store carbon dioxide have been awarded millions of carbon credits, despite new research finding that in many of them forest cover has dramatically declined, resulting in increased emissions..
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Time to stop logging:
The Sydney Moring Herald has a lengthy article about the Koala conference, focussing on a trip to Ellis State Forest with Mark Graham as the introduction in which the destruction is writ large, while also focusing on Koala’s decline, the Great Koala National Park, and the Frontier Economic’s report about the costs and benefits of stopping logging of public forests.
This coupe has been logged just days before. But for a handful of giant trees marked with fluorescent pink spray paint to identify them as potential habitat trees to be protected, everything is gone.
The ground is undulating drying soil compacted by the treads of mechanised logging harvesters and skidders. It resembles a construction site before a concrete slab is poured, but for the occasional mounds of leaf litter and forest trash.
There was a time when regulations dictated that trees marked for preservation be protected by five-metre buffer zones, not just to protect the big trees but to maintain an understory around them. That regulation was scrapped in 2018 and Graham shows us the scars where machinery has ripped through the bark at the base of the preserved trees.
The report estimates the phase-out would cost the government about $302 million over 10 years for a support package that would include worker redundancies and retraining, buy-backs of wood supply contracts, and support for diversifying regional economies.
But it would save the government hundreds of millions in payments it makes to sustain the state-owned forestry company, Forestry Corp NSW, the report says. It lists as examples an estimated $180 million in “regular structural adjustment and event-related payments” since 2010, as well as so-called Community Service Obligation payments that the industry must pay to use state-owned resources, estimated at around $160 million over the past decade.
It also notes a recent one-off payment from the government to Forestry Corp of $105 million in the form of “stimulus, equity and dividend relief”.
Logging core Koala habitat:
The infamous “Koala Wars” of 2020 have been resurrected, as the Liberals follow thru on their promise to the Nationals to stop core Koala habitat on private lands being protected from logging. The Perrottet Government introduced the Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Private Native Forestry) Bill 2022 that proposes to allow existing logging prohibitions in LEP zones and State Environmental Planning Policies (SEPPs) to stand, though no new LEP or SEPP will be allowed to impose any new prohibitions on carrying out forestry operations. Council LEP’s that currently require consent for logging will no longer apply. PNF plans will be extended from 15 years to 30 years. The bill may be debated as early as next week so a concerted effort is required to stop it. There has already been a strong reaction.
Independent upper house MP Justin Field says the bill reduces regulation on about 689,300 hectares of forestry, concentrated in northern NSW, and undermines claims by moderate Liberals the government is taking the protection of koalas seriously.
"It's crazy for Premier (Dominic) Perrottet and the so-called moderate Liberals to capitulate again to the Nationals on koala protections so close to an election," he said.
https://www.singletonargus.com.au/story/7975739/nsw-govt-logging-bill-crazy-politics-mp/?cs=7
https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/7975739/nsw-govt-logging-bill-crazy-politics-mp/?cs=9397
https://www.cessnockadvertiser.com.au/story/7975739/nsw-govt-logging-bill-crazy-politics-mp/
https://www.thewire.org.au/story/nsw-government-proposes-logging-deregulation/
Independent MP Alex Greenwich is campaigning on it, and the independent candidate for Vaucluse, Karen Freyer, said “Stopping logging in native forests is one of my top campaign issues.”
But the independent MP Alex Greenwich warned that there would be campaigns on the issue in the lead up to the election.
“I have been speaking to independent candidates … and the impact of deforestation and the need to transition to a more plantation-based model will be a major issue,” he said.
The independent candidate for Vaucluse, Karen Freyer, said it was “another example of the Nationals dictating Liberal party policy”.
“I’d also be very concerned if I was a moderate Liberal, questioning if the Liberals are taking protection of koalas seriously,” she told Guardian Australia.
“Stopping logging in native forests is one of my top campaign issues.”
The ABC reports Catherine Cusack says it is “a broken promise”, and Sean O’Shannessy gets a run for NEFA.
[Catherine Cusack] "I consider it dishonourable, a broken promise by them not to do this," she said.
"This is similar to legislation that was introduced in 2020, which I crossed the floor to refer to an inquiry.
"At that time the government completely scrapped the legislation and told us that it would not go down this track and it would not return to parliament with legislation like that again.
Labor have condemned the bill, a North Shore Liberal MP, Felicity Wilson, said we shouldn’t be logging native forests, and even the Environment Minister declined to support it.
On Thursday, Labor told Guardian Australia it would not support the changes, citing ecological concerns and a lack of community consultation.
Asked three times during question time about the bill – and once explicitly if he supported it – Griffin would not answer and instead spruiked the government’s environmental record.
The North Shore Liberal MP, Felicity Wilson, used a private member’s statement on Thursday evening to raise “deep concerns” about the future native forests and wildlife, including koalas.
She said the state should “transition the native forestry industry towards sustainable plantations”.
We are reminded that Leslie Williams, Member for Port Macquarie, left the Nationals for the Liberals over this issue, and that many Liberals are uncomfortable with this bill.
Leslie Williams, Member for Port Macquarie, was forced to leave The Nationals and apply for Liberal Party membership after she decided that the threats from John Barilaro to “blow up” the coalition was a bridge too far.
[Sue Higginson] “The minister has blundered into the trap of assuming that The Nationals will be blindly followed on natural resource policy with the Liberals tripping along in their wake. To his detriment, there are many Liberals members who are genuinely concerned about the ongoing destruction of the environment and koala habitat.
“This legislation is set to be debated next week and the coalition government should be prepared for an internally driven hurricane of dissension as moderate liberals revolt against the shortsighted and destructive ideas of the NSW Nationals.
“Premier Dominic Perrottet should read the writing on the wall and recognise that his Government is walking on a precipice on the verge of the 2023 election, that people want the environment and koalas protected and that refuelling the koala wars may well be a deadly move for koalas and his Government”.
… Local Government not happy:
Local Government NSW has slammed the State Government’s latest attempts to strip councils of the ability to regulate private logging, as it “undermines the crucial role councils play in the regulation of private forestry operations”.
LGNSW President Darriea Turley … “It will have devastating impacts on important native habitats, particularly for koalas and many of the state’s other threatened species.
“In addition, it removes the ability of councils to consider the broader impacts of forestry operations on their communities, such as noise, traffic, amenity and infrastructure impacts.
“This also includes the impact private logging has on a road network that is on the verge of collapse after devastating floods this year.
“Councils need to know where forestry is being approved in relation to other planning approvals to ensure impacts on the community are minimised.
https://www.miragenews.com/state-government-weakening-environment-891841/
… and wants logging stopped:
The NSW Local Government conference carried a motion ‘That, Local Government NSW advocates for the ending of logging in NSW Native Forests’.
This motion was moved by the Mayor of Shoalhaven, Amanda Finley, who reserved her right of reply, after an industry supporter suggested that if we ceased native forest logging, we would be depending on the rainforest timbers of the Pacific and Asia, Dominic King, Bellingen Council, and Greg Clancy, Clarence, both spoke in favour of the motion which was carried.
How about ending logging of Koala habitat:
The Greens, Sue Higginson, introduced a bill to amend forestry laws to stop logging of koala habitat on State forests. Its unlikely to be debated this term.
https://www.triplem.com.au/story/greens-introduce-bill-to-prohibit-logging-in-koala-habitats-208289
NBN covered Sue’s bill and combined it with WWF’s proposal to transition out of logging public forests.
The writing is on the wall:
Voices for the Earth considers the writing is on the wall, due to a strong mood for change within the community, to see an end to the logging of public native forests.
Eurobodalla Shire was the first to request an end to logging in state forests, with a just transition to 100% sustainable plantation forestry, followed earlier this month by the Bellingen Shire Council. Both councils identified logging as being incompatible with the district’s nature-based tourism industry, and the urgent need to combat climate change and protect rapidly declining biodiversity.
Shortly thereafter, the Clarence Valley Council’s Biodiversity Advisory Committee put forward a similar motion for Council’s consideration, adding that logging is incompatible with efforts to improve water quality across the valley, particularly in the region’s drinking water catchment.
https://clarencevalleynews.com.au/voices-for-the-earth-43/
Private conservation:
Sydney philanthropists Andrew and Jane Clifford bought a 4,000 ha property in the Hunter Valley next to Ghin-Doo-Ee national park that is to be managed for conservation by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy.
… selling offsets:
A Hunter developer is touting a 860-hectare property, Mount Malumla, next to Barrington Tops National Park that was purchased as an environmental offset, part of 20,000 hectares of biodiversity land, mainly next to national parks and in environmental corridors, that the company owns, saying the property has 10 koalas and may now be sold to the NSW government under its $193 million koala strategy.
The site could be sold to the NSW government under its $193 million koala strategy, which aims to protect 22,000 hectares of koala habitat.
Biodiversity Land's portfolio has so far provided environmental offsets for projects including Bengalla mine, Integra Coal, PWC T4 terminal, Huntlee and various other residential land developments in the Hunter.
Million planted while mature trees cut down:
The NSW Government is touting completion of its $30 million program to plant one million new trees by 2022 across Greater Sydney, though they have come under attack from Labor for permitting developers to cut down established trees and clear urban bushland.
Labor’s environment spokeswoman Penny Sharpe … “After 12 years, the government’s approach has been to allow the chopping down of established trees and clearing of urban bushland rather than finding ways to genuinely try to maintain what is already there,” .
Sydney researchers have warned more than 90 per cent of tree species in Australia’s two biggest cities are at risk from climate change.
Blues in danger from teals:
Seat-by-seat polling by Climate 200 suggests the NSW Coalition is in danger of losing several electorates to teal independents at the March election, with the primary vote of Environment Minister James Griffin perilously low at 31 per cent, leaving him in considerable risk of losing his seat of Manly on Sydney’s northern beaches.
AUSTRALIA
Victorian logging grinds to a halt:
VicForests has called on timber contractors to halt harvesting in many areas, primarily because of the need to comply with last Friday’s Supreme Court ruling that more thorough pre-logging surveys are needed to identify the distribution of Greater Glider and Yellow-bellied Glider, they are also complaining that the judge’s preference to retain 3ha around a possum sighting and retain 60 per cent of the trees in the rest of the coupe would make logging of many areas unviable.
MWM Logging operator Andy Westaway said most coupes would no longer be viable if only 40 per cent of trees could be cut.
East Gippsland harvest and haulage contractor Rob Brunt said the ruling marked “the end of the industry”.
“It will make most coupes impossible to harvest,” Mr Brunt said.
As for resurveying Mr Brunt said “by the time VicForests gets them done I won’t have a business left. It’s just not workable.”
Central Highlands harvest and haulage contractor Brett Robin said “we may as well pack up and go home”.
SPECIES
Koala losing habitat:
The Weekly Times has an article about Friends of the Koala identifying habitat loss as the principal threat, including logging, leading to lost Koalas and disease, emphasising both their rescue efforts and replanting of corridors and habitat.
Nearly all rescues are because of habitat destruction.
Friends of the Koala veterinarian Jodie Wakeman said property development, fires and floods had left the Northern Rivers koalas with nowhere to go – forcing them into suburban areas where it was more likely cars would hit them or dogs could attack.
The disruption to koala colonies because of a lack of habitat has also aggravated the diseases koalas in the region are suffering.
“Since the nursery started in 1990, we have distributed 336,500 koala food trees and approximately 600,000 various trees, shrubs, ground covers and grasses,” nursery manager Mark Wilson said.
Friends of the Koala president Aliison Kelly … “We need to strengthen our laws around habitat removal. We need to seriously look at the native forest logging,”.
Coomera disconnect:
The Queensland Government has released its environment report for the $2.1 billion Coomera Connector, a major highway bisecting a Koala colony, which the Coomera Conservation Group considers will mark a "final cut" for koalas living in Gold Coast urban areas, with 68 ha of Koala habitat to be cleared and about 35 koalas out of the 58 identified who may need to be relocated, and two properties (totalling 800ha) purchased as “offsets”.
Putting the gloss on glossies:
An 11-year-old boy's campaign to save the habitat of the vulnerable glossy black cockatoo at Sunrise Beach, near Noosa, to make way for a Uniting Church aged care and residential village, has had 65,000 people sign his online petition and was featured on the 7.30 report.
Palms declining:
A study found of the 1,889 species of world palms with enough data to investigate, more than half (56%) may be threatened with extinction, primarily because of habitat destruction from agricultural and urban expansion.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Rain bursts intensifying:
Over the past 2 decades the intensity of rapid rain bursts in Sydney has increased by 40%, increasing the risk of flash flooding, and overwhelming of stormwater systems.
Our research has found an alarming increase of at least 40% in the rate at which rain falls in the most intense rapid rain bursts in Sydney over the past two decades. This rapid increase in peak rainfall intensity has never been reported elsewhere, but may be happening in other parts of the world.
Our findings, published today in Science, have major implications for the city’s preparedness for flash flooding. More intense downpours are likely to overwhelm stormwater systems that were designed for past conditions.
It’s concerning because flood control infrastructure has been designed according to rainfall observed years ago. This change in rain bursts hasn’t been considered properly in design standards for structures such as drains, channels, detention basins and coastal flood defences.
It’s the fossil fuel hegemony:
Why is it that 45 years since climate change became widely known that there has there been so little action in response, some attribute it to the “fossil fuel hegemony”, a coalition of corporate and political actors with interests aligned around carbon-dependent economic growth, that maintain “endless economic growth fuelled by fossil energy is so fundamental and commonsensical it cannot be questioned”.
As social scientists, this is both horrifying and fascinating to observe. How is it that a technologically advanced society could choose to destroy itself by failing to act to avert a climate catastrophe?
The answer, we argue, rests on a prevailing assumption organised by corporate and political elites: that endless economic growth fuelled by fossil energy is so fundamental and commonsensical it cannot be questioned.
We term this all-consuming ideology the “fossil fuel hegemony”. It asserts that corporate capitalism based on fossil energy is a natural state of being, one that’s beyond challenge.
For instance, a range of recent studies have explored the “fossil fuel hegemony” in countries such as Australia, Canada and the US. These studies argue such hegemony comprises a coalition of corporate and political actors with interests aligned around carbon-dependent economic growth. This leads to limited progress on legislation to reduce carbon emissions.
The hegemony has also extended to corporate-political activity seeding doubt about climate science, lobbying against emissions reduction and renewable energy, and the capture of political parties by interests aligned with fossil fuels.
It’s the exploding population bomb:
In the next couple of weeks the human population on earth will reach 8 billion, an exponential increase from 2 billion in 1928 (considered by some to be the earth’s carrying capacity at advanced living standards), a problem that Julian Cribb describes as “the unmentionable – but inescapable – elephant in the room of the human future”.
The proof of this is all around us, in our faces and on the news, every single day: wild floods, heat waves, fierce droughts, raging wildfires, dust storms sweeping topsoil off our farms, dying rivers and lakes, melting glaciers, staggering losses of birds, animals, fish, insects and other life, shrinking forests and spreading deserts, polluted water, oceans, food and air, declining oxygen levels, hunger and starvation, the spread of formerly unknown diseases, the mass migration of 350 million people a year, the uncontrolled rise of dangerous new technologies, and the insidious worldwide spread of misinformation and delusion about it all.
Those who advocate a larger population, for either the planet or country, are calling for disaster. Whether they admit it or not, in the same breath they are advocating:
– Rising scarcity of resources such as water, soil, timber, fish and certain minerals, leading to a greater risk of war.
– Accelerated climate change
– Worse pollution, environmental degradation and extinction of species,
– Higher food prices for all; greater risk of famines.
– More child deaths and greater human suffering.
– Increased risk of pandemic diseases; poorer levels of population health.
– An increase in mass population movements, potentially reaching 1 billion a year.
– Increased risk of megacity collapse and government failure.
– Increased risk of worldwide economic and civilisational collapse
– Housing, food and other basic goods that are unaffordable to the young or the poor.
https://johnmenadue.com/8-billionth-human-has-the-population-bomb-exploded/
TURNING IT AROUND
Greenwashing spin:
A U.N. report says promises by companies, banks and cities to achieve net-zero emissions often amount to little more than greenwashing, their recommendations including that “Non‑state actors cannot claim to be net zero while continuing to build or invest in new fossil fuel supply” and “Non-state actors cannot buy cheap credits that often
lack integrity instead of immediately cutting their own emissions across their value chain”.
https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/high-level_expert_group_n7b.pdf
… Australia leading the pack:
The Environmental Defenders Office filed a complaint to Australia’s consumer watchdog and corporate regulator late last month alleging Shell Australia has misled the public about its plans to achieve net-zero by 2050 on its website and social media, one of many examples, with the Federal Government one of the worst offenders.
Senior researcher with the institute Polly Hemming says the federal government’s own record with greenwashing is poor.
“In real terms emissions from fossil fuels in Australia really haven’t declined and we have a pipeline of over 100 new gas and coal projects in development,” she said. “And greenwash is enabled by the fact that we have no credible regulatory framework that requires the private sector to comprehensively report or reduce emissions in Australia. The private sector is technically not breaking any rules when it makes claims that you or I might find misleading because there are none.”
Australia’s carbon credit system for projects meant to regenerate Australia’s outback forests to store carbon dioxide have been awarded millions of carbon credits, despite new research finding that in many of them forest cover has dramatically declined, resulting in increased emissions.
The analysis by six academics, including the former carbon credit scheme integrity chair Prof Andrew Macintosh, has been presented to a review of the system commissioned by the climate change minister, Chris Bowen.
The team examined 169 projects that together received about 24m credits between 2015 and 2021. They said 92 projects in NSW received 13.6m carbon credits, but the combined area of forest and sparse woody vegetation cover in the affected areas was more than 10,000 hectares less than when the projects were first registered. In Queensland, they said, 73 projects were found to have received 9.9m carbon credits while forest cover went backwards by more than 50,000 hectares.
Forest Media 4 November 2022
New South Wales
The Vanishing Koala conference was a success, with some interesting scientific and community and organisation presentations, and good food provided by the legendary Trees not Bombs crew. The ALP were a bit underwhelming with Penny Sharpe saying they are yet to develop a Koala plan, though they will reinstate a national parks establishment plan, and within that the top priority is the Great Koala National Park. WWF launched a costing for ending logging of public native forests. The Gumbaynggirr Good Koala Country Plan received a lot of media attention with the emphasis “it is not just about koala conservation. It is about making sure our culture lives on.", though its not yet available.
The Koala Conference Organising Committee, including Catherine Cusack, WWF, The Nature Conservation Council, the NSW National Parks Association and North East Forest Alliance, will this week send a statement to all MPs outlining a suite of policy asks, including an immediate stop to logging in koala habitat, a plan to create the Great Koala National Park and stronger rules and more funding to protect koala habitat on private land. The day before the conference open letter signed by 65 Coffs Coast businesses in support of the proposal for creating The Great Koala National Park (GKNP) was presented to Catherine Cusack. The Koala Family Picnic in the North Coast Regional Botanic Garden following the conference saw people gather to hear more about how koalas and show their support for the Great Koala National Park.
A Frontier Economics report prepared for WWF and released at The Vanishing Koala conference, identifies that ending logging NSW’s public native forests would cost $302 million for a generous government-funded structural adjustment package, including for the 1,000 affected workers, with this cost greatly outweighed by a range of positive economic and environmental benefits.
The Uniting Church’s Forest Advocacy Ministry story from some time ago had another run, with its goals to achieve a rapid end to industrial native forest logging in NSW, increase the involvement of Christians in efforts for forest protection, and to acknowledge, encourage and support spiritual connection with Earth.
Evacuation orders are being issued for hundreds of residents in Gunnedah, Wagga Wagga and Forbes in New South Wales as river levels rise once again, with some experiencing their fourth flood peak in two months, dams are releasing water, though similar flood peaks were experienced 10-20 years ago, with Forbes anticipating flood levels not seen in 70 years. A one-in-twenty year polar blast of freezing air from Antarctica brought cold weather to south-east Australia and snowfalls to the Alps.
Australia
The Conversation has an article highlighting that this year is the 40th anniversary of the direct-action campaign to stop the building of Tasmania’s Franklin River dam, highlighting the draconian anti-protest laws that have recently been enacted around Australia, and the threat they pose to people’s democratic rights to protest as more groups are forced into abandoning direct action.
A study done for the Victorian Forest Alliance found native forest logging in Victoria emits at least three million tonnes of carbon emissions each year, equivalent to 700,000 medium-sized cars, with up to 14 million tonnes of carbon emissions preventable if the logging of native forests were to end immediately instead of in 2030. If protected, Victoria’s forests could absorb around 90 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere by 2050 - this is equivalent to $3.1 billion in carbon sequestration services.
Justice Melinda Richards of Victoria’s supreme court has ordered VicForests to carry out full surveys of areas for greater gliders and yellow-bellied gliders before logging, and to include buffers around habitats, after finding that logging presented “a threat of serious and irreversible harm to both the greater glider and the yellow-bellied glider as a species”. Victorian timber processors may lose more wood supply after the state government announced a halving of the native timber supplied by VicForests by 2024 under the Victorian Forestry Plan.
In Tasmania people go hunting for giant trees, last year finding a 500 year old 80m tall Blue Gum, named Lathamus Keep, the biggest left of its kind, precariously situated in a logging coupe that has about 150 trees with diameters over 4 metres, leading to its being labelled the Grove of Giants, as part of a campaign to save the grove, Lathamus Keep has now been photographed in its entirety, top to toe. An awesome tree.
The Newcastle Herald has an article about Aboriginal communities being disproportionally affected by natural disasters, arguing First Nations knowledge could have blunted the force of the 2019-20 wildfires by burning Country at the right time and frequently, with Firesticks Alliance expanding rapidly in the past three years.
Species
As a harbinger of more major fish kills in the Murray-Darling, hundreds of Murray crayfish are abandoning the toxic water in the southern Riverina as levels of dissolved oxygen in floodwaters plummet due to the rapid breakdown of submerged organic matter (particularly pasture) sucking oxygen out of the water, creating hypoxic blackwater. At least 540 native fish have been relocated from flood-affected waters in central and northern Victoria, by community members and ecologists. Not long ago fish were dying due to too little water, now its because of too much in the compromised system. Though anglers are champing at the bit to get back to fishing.
At the Australian Geographic Society Awards, President of Bangalow Koalas Linda Sparrow was awarded Conservationist of the Year for the group’s creating a wildlife corridor by planting 215,160 trees on 63 properties across four shires in northern NSW, with a goal to increase this to 500,000 trees. Sutherland Shire Council will urge Sydney Water to reconsider its proposed plans for a housing subdivision on a wildlife corridor at Woronora Heights "to preserve wildlife and koala habitat that passes through the proposed subdivision".
The new phase of the National Koala Monitoring Program has seen CSIRO allocated $10million over 4 years to deliver a robust estimate of the national koala population, by collecting koala sightings “using consistent methods across the country and build survey know-how with citizen scientists”. It kicked off in the Northern Murray Darling catchment, Queensland earlier this month.
The Newcastle Herald has a wide ranging story about our extinction crisis, focussing on platypuses range shrinking by at least 22 per cent over 30 years (with an additional 14 to 18 per cent decline in areas affected by the 2019/20 fires), issues such as the extinction lag time as declines are masked by long lived species and the loss of tree-hollows, though primarily blaming hundreds of thousands of hectares of land that is cleared every year, mostly in Queensland and NSW, now being compounded by climate heating.
Australian Museum is holding its 2022 FrogID Week from 11 – 20 November and is calling for citizen scientists to take part in Australia’s biggest frog count, inviting people to download the free app and register now.
The debate about shooting feral animals continues, with some considering "It's barbaric. It's the most horrific thing" and others maintaining claiming "We need to do something to get rid of all of these introduced species”.
Turning it Around
Officials from nearly 200 nations are gathering in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt, for the 27th United Nations climate change conference (COP27) which will go on for two weeks of what has been described as blah blah. Here we go again, COP 27 is starting amidst low expectations, CO2 emissions continue to rise as oil and gas companies make obscene profits, doubling to an unprecedented US$4 trillion, meanwhile record heatwaves and floods ravish countries and communities, as reefs and kids succumb to rising temperatures in increasing numbers, and tipping points threaten to cruel our chances of turning it around. Australia remains a laggard and Anthony Albanese will be missing in action.
The University of Melbourne Land Gap Report has calculated for countries to meet their Paris Agreement pledges they would collectively need 633 million hectares of tree plantings and 551 million hectares to restore degraded lands and primary forests, concluding taking up so much land to plant more trees is unrealistic and would swallow land desperately needed for food production and ecology, while also being used as a distraction from the urgent need to reduce emissions. They identify that primary forests are an order of magnitude more effective than plantations for storing carbon, making them the best option for slowing global climate change.
In his book Elderflora historian Jared Farmer chronicles the complex roles ancient trees have played in the modern world, in an article in the New York Times he laments the loss of the world’s ancient trees, those thousands of years old, as they succumb to droughts, their attendant wildfires, and the increased attacks of insects and diseases on the weakened trees, stating “This is a great diminution: fewer megaflora (massive trees), fewer elderflora (ancient trees), fewer old-growth forests, fewer ancient species, fewer species overall”.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
The Vanishing is over:
The Vanishing Koala conference was a success, with some interesting scientific and community and organisation presentations, and good food provided by the legendary Trees not Bombs crew. The ALP were a bit underwhelming with Penny Sharpe saying they are yet to develop a Koala plan, though they will reinstate a national parks establishment plan, and within that the top priority is the Great Koala National Park. WWF launched a costing for ending logging of public native forests. The Gumbaynggirr Good Koala Country Plan received a lot of media attention with the emphasis “it is not just about koala conservation. It is about making sure our culture lives on.", though its not yet available.
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2022/10/30/nsw-koala-conference-wraps-up-in-coffs-harbour/
[Steve Philips] "The greater part of the [koala] populations are on this slippery slope to extinction and that is what we should be focusing on," Dr Phillips said.
"I hope this doesn't sound cynical — I get sick to death of hearing people blathering on about what's wrong … while nothing is happening to reverse [it]."
Ms Cusack said she would like the state government to stop funding and subsidising the timber industry as well as stronger protection for native forestry.
"This election is really seen as the last chance to make those policy improvements," she said.
World Wildlife Fund Australia's Stuart Blanch, one of the speakers, said the state's rhetoric on increasing the number of koalas needed to match actions by curbing logging of native habitat.
"NSW is at a crossroads in working out what it does with forests, what it does with koalas and other forest wildlife and ...what we do with cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/7961386/nsw-koalas-could-vanish-by-2050-advocates/
[Catherine Cusack] "We need convincing new policies that prohibit the destruction of forests and trees that koalas are relying on to survive. We are at the brink.
"This is a choice - voters need to understand the looming koala extinction is preventable. That choice will be made by voters next March," she said.
She said a simple answer is a "ban on logging trees in which koalas live".
If koalas aren't saved in NSW, she said it will be "a taxpayer-funded extinction event".
She said logging of koala habitat on public and private land is "taxpayer subsidised" and koala habitat was being destroyed for "cringeworthy reasons".
Ms Faehrmann said that the government's goal to double koala numbers by 2050 was "a hollow promise for a headline".
"It's just greenwashing because they're not doing anything to protect koala habitat - it's still being logged and bulldozed every day.
Port Stephens MP Kate Washington said the situation for the koala is dire.
"The coming election presents an important chance for change. If elected, a Labor government will act as quickly as possible to protect koala habitat."
https://www.portnews.com.au/story/7961999/nsw-election-looms-as-last-chance-for-our-koalas/
https://www.sconeadvocate.com.au/story/7961999/nsw-election-looms-as-last-chance-for-our-koalas/
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7961358/nsw-koalas-could-be-extinct-by-2050/
… Koala asks:
The Koala Conference Organising Committee, including Catherine Cusack, WWF, The Nature Conservation Council, the NSW National Parks Association and North East Forest Alliance, will this week send a statement to all MPs outlining a suite of policy asks, including an immediate stop to logging in koala habitat, a plan to create the Great Koala National Park and stronger rules and more funding to protect koala habitat on private land.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/just-do-it-campaign-for-great-koala-national-park-gathers-pace
…. Koala tourism:
The day before the conference open letter signed by 65 Coffs Coast businesses in support of the proposal for creating The Great Koala National Park (GKNP) was presented to Catherine Cusack.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/businesses-support-the-great-koala-national-park
… a Koala picnic:
The Koala Family Picnic in the North Coast Regional Botanic Garden following the conference saw people gather to hear more about how koalas and show their support for the Great Koala National Park.
Making Money by Stopping Logging
A Frontier Economics report prepared for WWF and released at The Vanishing Koala conference, identifies that ending logging NSW’s public native forests would cost $302 million for a generous government-funded structural adjustment package, including for the 1,000 affected workers, with this cost greatly outweighed by a range of positive economic and environmental benefits.
‘The report makes it clear that we would be far better off economically if we stopped logging public forests,’ explained North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) spokesperson Dailan Pugh.
‘By stopping logging of public native forests we can re-direct the immense public subsidies into assisting affected workers and communities transition, while realising real economic and environmental benefits from avoiding CO2 emissions, increasing carbon storage, increasing tourism, increasing water yields and restoring habitats of threatened species, such as the koala,’ said Mr Pugh.
NEFA are calling for a commitment from the NSW Government to ‘immediately commit to a truly independent cost-benefit assessment of the logging of public native forests, with the principal aim of building on the work of Frontier Economics in developing a fair and equitable structural adjustment package for affected workers and communities.
‘If they continue to refuse to, we call upon the NSW Labor Party to commit to immediately undertaking such a review should they win government at the next election.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/11/call-for-support-to-transition-1000-jobs-in-nsw-logging-industry/
Frontier Economic’s report ‘Transition support for the NSW native forest sector’
For god’s sake:
The Uniting Church’s Forest Advocacy Ministry story from some time ago had another run, with its goals to achieve a rapid end to industrial native forest logging in NSW, increase the involvement of Christians in efforts for forest protection, and to acknowledge, encourage and support spiritual connection with Earth.
Flood not of biblical proportions:
Evacuation orders are being issued for hundreds of residents in Gunnedah, Wagga Wagga and Forbes in New South Wales as river levels rise once again, with some experiencing their fourth flood peak in two months, dams are releasing water, though most flood peaks were experienced decades ago, with Forbes anticipating flood levels not seen in 70 years. A one-in-twenty year polar blast of freezing air from Antarctica brought cold weather and snowfalls to the Alps.
AUSTRALIA
Authoritarian suppression of Direct Action:
The Conversation has an article highlighting that this year is the 40th anniversary of the direct-action campaign to stop the building of Tasmania’s Franklin River dam, highlighting the draconian anti-protest laws that have recently been enacted around Australia, and the threat they pose to people’s democratic rights to protest as more groups are forced into abandoning direct action.
Those events are now being recounted in the documentary Franklin, screening throughout the country.
A citizen trying to emulate the Franklin dam protesters today would likely pay a very high price. This silencing of dissent means an important tool for environmental advocacy is closed – and both nature and democracy will suffer.
NSW’s harsh approach prompted Amnesty International to launch a petition urging the state government to respect citizens’ right to protest.
Franklin celebrates the role of non-violent direct action as a tool for social change. It tells of a people exercising their rights and coming together to fight for environmental justice. Let’s hope those kinds of stories are not consigned to history.
Victorian logging emits 3 million tonnes of carbon each year:
A study done for the Victorian Forest Alliance found native forest logging in Victoria emits at least three million tonnes of carbon emissions each year, equivalent to 700,000 medium-sized cars, with up to 14 million tonnes of carbon emissions preventable if the logging of native forests were to end immediately instead of in 2030. If protected, Victoria’s forests could absorb around 90 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere by 2050 - this is equivalent to $3.1 billion in carbon sequestration services.
During logging, an estimated two-thirds of a forest's carbon is released within a few years while the remainder can take up to 50 years to be released.
About 60 per cent of the total biomass is left on the ground to be burnt as post-logging waste. From the 40 per cent that is sent away, most is woodchipped to make cardboard and packaging products that usually end up in landfill.
https://www.theleader.com.au/story/7968066/victoria-logging-emits-3m-tonnes-of-carbon/?cs=2265
https://www.northerndailyleader.com.au/story/7968066/victoria-logging-emits-3m-tonnes-of-carbon/
… logging a serious and irreversible harm:
Justice Melinda Richards of Victoria’s supreme court has ordered VicForests to carry out full surveys of areas for greater gliders and yellow-bellied gliders before logging, and to include buffers around habitats, after finding that logging presented “a threat of serious and irreversible harm to both the greater glider and the yellow-bellied glider as a species”.
Two conservation groups – Environment East Gippsland and Kinglake Friends of the Forest – brought cases against the state logger that were heard together. The court ordered VicForests should pay the court costs of the groups.
In the judgment, Richards said VicForests had not been applying a precautionary principle to conserving the gliders when planning and conducting logging.
She told the court VicForests logging in East Gippsland and Central Highlands presented “a threat of serious and irreversible harm to both the greater glider and the yellow-bellied glider as a species”.
The actions the logger did take to protect gliders that had been detected in logging coupes “are inadequate and in many cases unlikely to be effective”
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7969823/logging-agency-failing-to-protect-possums/
... cutbacks happening too fast for some:
Victorian timber processors may lose more wood supply after the state government announced a halving of the native timber supplied by VicForests by 2024 under the Victorian Forestry Plan.
Currently, VicForests is supplying 253,000 cubic metres of D+ saw logs per annum until 2023-24. According to the plan, this will reduce to 185,000m3 in 2024-25 and to 140,000m3 from 2025-26 until 2029-30, when all harvesting will cease.
https://arr.news/2022/11/04/industry-confidence-undermined-vfpa/
Big tree hunters:
In Tasmania people go hunting for giant trees, last year finding a 500 year old 80m tall Blue Gum, named Lathamus Keep, the biggest left of its kind, precariously situated in a logging coupe that has about 150 trees with diameters over 4 metres, leading to its being labelled the Grove of Giants, as part of a campaign to save the grove, Lathamus Keep has now been photographed in its entirety, top to toe. An awesome tree.
More burning needed to stop burning:
The Newcastle Herald has an article about Aboriginal communities being disproportionally affected by natural disasters, arguing First Nations knowledge could have blunted the force of the 2019-20 wildfires by burning Country at the right time and frequently, with Firesticks Alliance expanded rapidly in the past three years.
SPECIES
Fish drowning:
As a harbinger of more major fish kills in the Murray-Darling, hundreds of Murray crayfish are abandoning the toxic water in the southern Riverina as levels of dissolved oxygen in floodwaters plummet due to the rapid breakdown of submerged organic matter (particularly pasture) sucking oxygen out of the water, creating hypoxic blackwater. At least 540 native fish have been relocated from flood-affected waters in central and northern Victoria, by community members and ecologists. Not long ago fish were dying due to too little water, now its because of too much in the compromised system. Though anglers are champing at the bit to get back to fishing.
Linking Koalas:
At the Australian Geographic Society Awards, President of Bangalow Koalas Linda Sparrow was awarded Conservationist of the Year for the group’s creating a wildlife corridor by planting 215,160 trees on 63 properties across four shires in northern NSW, with a goal to increase this to 500,000 trees.
https://awol.com.au/australias-top-adventurers-conservationists/96898
Sutherland Shire Council will urge Sydney Water to reconsider its proposed plans for a housing subdivision on a wildlife corridor at Woronora Heights "to preserve wildlife and koala habitat that passes through the proposed subdivision".
https://www.theleader.com.au/story/7964009/councils-koalas-appeal/
Robust Koala numbers?:
The new phase of the National Koala Monitoring Program has seen CSIRO allocated $10million over 4 years to deliver a robust estimate of the national koala population, by collecting koala sightings “using consistent methods across the country and build survey know-how with citizen scientists”. It kicked off in the Northern Murray Darling catchment, Queensland earlier this month.
https://www.nationaltribune.com.au/csiro-announces-new-phase-of-national-koala-monitoring-program/
Clearing platypuses away:
The Newcastle Herald has a wide ranging story about our extinction crisis, focussing on platypuses range shrinking by at least 22 per cent over 30 years (with an additional 14 to 18 per cent decline in areas affected by the 2019/20 fires), issues such as the extinction lag time as declines are masked by long lived species and the loss of tree-hollows, though primarily blaming hundreds of thousands of hectares of land is cleared every year, mostly in Queensland and NSW, now being compounded by climate heating.
Landcare Tasmania chief executive Peter Stronach … "We're currently in what's known as an extinction lag period,"
Mr Stronach said past clearing and logging practices may yet come back to bite our wildlife.
"Insufficient tree hollows - again from past activities and continuing today through logging - the removal of paddock trees for [irrigation] pivots and other agricultural changes, pest species such as galahs and rainbow lorikeets, and the long time it takes to create hollows in a forest all contribute to the imbalance of biodiversity," he said.
FrogID week:
Australian Museum is holding its 2022 FrogID Week from 11 – 20 November and is calling for citizen scientists to take part in Australia’s biggest frog count, inviting people to download the free app and register now.
Our frogs are under threat from habitat loss, disease and climate change. Recording frog calls with the FrogID app will help provide our scientists with valuable data for the protection and conservation of frogs.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-4-november-2022
To shoot or not to shoot:
The debate about shooting feral animals continues, with some considering "It's barbaric. It's the most horrific thing" and others maintaining claiming "We need to do something to get rid of all of these introduced species”.
TURNING IT AROUND
Copping blah blah:
Officials from nearly 200 nations are gathering in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt, for the 27th United Nations climate change conference (COP27) which will go on for two weeks of what has been described as blah blah. Here we go again, COP 27 is starting amidst low expectations, CO2 emissions continue to rise as oil and gas companies make obscene profits, doubling to an unprecedented US$4 trillion, meanwhile record heatwaves and floods ravish countries and communities, as reefs and kids succumb to rising temperatures in increasing numbers, and tipping points threaten to cruel our chances of turning it around. Australia remains a laggard and Anthony Albanese will be missing in action.
Only concerted efforts from all nations will avoid destroying our most sensitive ecosystems, such as coral reefs. We should be doing everything we can to stop this by transitioning away from fossil fuels. Any new fossil fuel development is just making the problem worse and will cost humanity and the environment far more in future.
And yet, the International Energy Agency last week projected that the net income for oil and gas producers will double in 2022 “to an unprecedented US$4 trillion”, a $2 trillion windfall.
A report released today by the Climate Council shows the world is in the grip of a deepening climate crisis. Without more ambitious emission cuts this decade, we are headed for a full-blown catastrophe.
However, Australia’s new 2030 target – to cut emissions by 43% from 2005 levels – is still one of the weakest in the developed world. And dozens of major fossil fuel projects remain in the pipeline.
Australia recorded its equal-hottest day on record and its costliest flood disaster.
China endured its most intense heatwave. In Pakistan, extreme floods affected more than 30 million people and killed thousands.
Europe’s hottest summer on record smashed the record from just last year. The continent also suffered one of its worst ever droughts. UK temperatures topped 40℃ for the first time.
The western United States also recorded its worst heatwave.
In South Africa, record rainfall led to hundreds of deaths. Drought in East Africa has left millions at risk of starvation.
https://theconversation.com/this-is-what-australia-needs-to-bring-to-egypt-for-cop27-193531?utm_
Keeping what is left preferable to making new ones:
The University of Melbourne Land Gap Report has calculated for countries to meet their Paris Agreement pledges they would collectively need 633 million hectares of tree plantings and 551 million hectares to restore degraded lands and primary forests, concluding taking up so much land to plant more trees is unrealistic and would swallow land desperately needed for food production and ecology, while also being used as a distraction from the urgent need to reduce emissions. They identify that primary forests are an order of magnitude more effective than plantations for storing carbon, making them the best option for slowing global climate change.
Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) or carbon drawdown is the process of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Australia's former chief scientist Ian Chubb said the main way that could be achieved right now was through photosynthesis.
"The only mechanism that we know now that we can implement at scale that has the capacity to draw CO2 out of the atmosphere is photosynthesis," Professor Chubb said.
"And that means that we need more capacity, more plants available, and we need to stop cutting down plants, trees, vegetation."
“Land has a critical role to play in global efforts to keep the planet cool, but it's not a silver bullet solution,” said Kate Dooley, the lead author of The Land Gap Report and a researcher at the University of Melbourne. “This study reveals that countries’ climate pledges are dangerously over reliant on inequitable and unsustainable land-based measures to capture and store carbon. Clearly, countries are loading up on land pledges to avoid the hard work of steeply reducing emissions from fossil fuels, decarbonizing food systems and stopping the destruction of forests and other ecosystems.”
“Faced with a global land squeeze, we must think carefully about how we use each and every plot of land,” said Dooley. “Yet countries treat land like a limitless resource in their climate plans.Using a land area equivalent to half of current global croplands for tree planting simply won’t work, particularly when the evidence in front of us shows the fragility of tree planting to worsening climate impacts like fires and droughts.”
The report lays out how countries – as well as companies seeking to deliver on zero-carbon pledges – could reorient their climate plans towards these three goals.
- Focus on protecting and restoring forests. Forests already remove a third of the carbon emissions added to the atmosphere each year. Protecting standing forests should be the first priority. The study outlines the actions countries can take to achieve this, which include, among other measures, safeguarding all primary forests and including the full cost of logging in the price of wood.
“There are no shortcuts. We can’t continue cutting down standing forests if we hope to keep the planet cool. Primary forests are an order of magnitude more effective than plantations for storing carbon, making them the best option for slowing global climate change. Furthermore, protecting and restoring forests is essential for solving the overlapping biodiversity, climate change, social justice and zoonotic disease crises,” said Heather Keith, a report co-author and professor at Radford University.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/969176
Elderflora:
In his book Elderflora historian Jared Farmer chronicles the complex roles ancient trees have played in the modern world, in an article in the New York Times he laments the loss of the world’s ancient trees, those thousands of years old, as they succumb to droughts, their attendant wildfires, and the increased attacks of insects and diseases on the weakened trees, stating “This is a great diminution: fewer megaflora (massive trees), fewer elderflora (ancient trees), fewer old-growth forests, fewer ancient species, fewer species overall”.
Ancient trees provide services too, but really, they are gift givers. Of all their gifts, the greatest are temporal and ethical. They inspire long-term thinking and encourage us to be sapient. They engage our deepest faculties: to revere, analyze and meditate. If we can recognize how they call upon our ethical imperative to care for them, then we should slow down climate change now, and pay forward to people who will need a future planet with chronodiversity as well as biodiversity.
… some organizations and corporations scrambling to offset their emissions have single-mindedly pursued tree planting. But these initiatives have a spotty record. Protecting existing old-growth should take priority over generating new tree cover.
Among plants, there are ephemerals, annuals, biennials, perennials — and beyond them all a category I call “perdurables.” Perdurance is resilience over time. Humans can recultivate this attribute by caring for old trees and the old-to-be. Sustaining long-term relationships with long-lived plants is a rejection of The End, an affirmation that there will be — must be — tomorrow. That is a gift.
Forest Media 28 October 2022
New South Wales
The Sydney Morning Herald has republished a 1982 article on reactions to the Rainforest Decision, with the conservation movement saying “the Government is to be congratulated” and the loggers and the trade-union movement saying “it could place in jeopardy the jobs of many people in the limber industry.”
The Glenn Innes Examiner has another strong editorial calling for an end to native forest logging, highlighting the Forestry Corporation’s illegalities and costs, and growing community opposition, that the National Party ignore.
An Aboriginal Place Management Plan has been prepared to document Wollumbin's significant cultural heritage values and articulate the aspirations of Aboriginal communities about the long-term management of the site, documenting the decision of the Wollumbin Consultative Group that the walk to the top of Wollumbin (Mount Warning) “is not culturally appropriate or culturally safe” and should be immediately closed. NSW Environment Minister Mr Griffin supports the closure, emphasising a series of alternative walks are proposed, but not yet constructed: 38km Tweed Byron Hinterland Trail, 7.2 km Caldera Rim Walk, and 2.5km Mount Chowan Link. The master plan for the Tweed Byron Hinterland Trail is currently on exhibition and open for submissions. The Australian has an article attacking the decision of the Wollumbin Consultative Group to close the summit track, leading to claims by a purported “Indigenous leader and Wollumbin local” to question the consultative committee and local tourist operators to complain about the lack of access to national parks. Quadrant Magazine has an article by long-term campaigner against closure of Aboriginal sites.
As climate heating gains momentum, monthly and yearly rainfall records continue to be broken across NSW, with Sydney’s annual record already surpassed with months to go, and low-lying communities suffering from flood fatigue. There was chaos across south-east Australia, with multiple communities being evacuated, some on multiple occasions. Major flood levels in the twin-towns of Echuca and Moama on the Victoria-New South Wales border exceeded the 1993 record of 94.77 metres above sea level. The ABC has an informative article about the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), driven by the contraction and expansion of a band of high-altitude westerly winds surrounding Antarctica, such that when they contract closer to Antarctica in spring they drive an increased chance of rain across south-eastern Australia, called a positive SAM, which is also happening this year as the 3rd major contributor to our floods.
NSW Transport Minister David Elliott has announced he will quit state politics at the next election rather than contest a factional preselection battle with the NSW right, with NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard quickly following, bringing to 12 the number of coalition MPs jumping ship. Independent Vaucluse candidate Karen Freyer said environmental issues, including halting new fossil fuel projects in NSW, were a top concern, her policies including to end logging on publicly-owned land.
The state government is ramming through an ‘agritourism’ policy which effectively removes restrictions on tourism development on rural lands, with ‘exempt’ developments able to be carried out without the need for planning or building approval if it meets specified development standards and doesn’t require notification of Council or neighbours – something like PNF.
Australia
The Saturday Paper has a good article about the increasing restrictions on, and penalties for, protest actions, across Australia, by both Labor and Liberal, with Bob Brown lamenting the loss of the ability to protest while ACF maintain they can achieve results without protests.
Despite risks of prosecutions, on the night of October 2nd, 66 citizen scientists surveyed for endangered Greater Gliders in 12 coupes slated for logging across Victoria, locating 60 Greater Gliders and triggering court ordered protections for them. Even though the Victorian Labor Government promised to phase out logging of public forests by 2030, both The Greens and Teal independents (backed by Climate 200) have protecting forests now as major campaign issues.
An article in The Conversation emphasises that the federal budget was required to include a section on wellbeing, which aims to measure how well Australians are doing in life, including assessing the state of our natural places using a set of environmental indicators, with the authors arguing for application of the United Nation’s System of Environmental-Economic Accounting.
There are many takes on the environmental benefits and dis-benefits of the Federal budget, so the Government’s own propaganda seemed to be the best as to what we can expect, which is basically business as usual. The Federal Government’s budget is allocating money to dealing with climate change (including $263.7 million for Carbon Capture Use and Storage), the Great Barrier Reef gets $1.01b and Antarctica $804.4m, aside from this it is continuing $100 million funding for the existing Environment Restoration Fund for a further 3 years, and $181 million for a range of projects that seem to be primarily focused of fast tracking and simplifying approvals for developers. Given the success of the forestry Regional Forest Agreements, they now seem intent on rolling them out for mining. The Australian Conservation Foundation considers the Albanese government has started to turn around a decade of savage cuts to the environment budget, but it has a long way to go before nature protection and restoration is adequately funded. Others say we need to protect forests. The biodiversity “offsets” scheme is of concern as its unclear as to whether it is rewarding environmental stewardship or a trade off for destruction elsewhere, the former able to provide benefits while the later has been fraught with abuses, and at best results in a net decline. Rather than relying upon private investors to finance conservation, governments need to fund it themselves as its not much in a budgetary context.
The Opposition has slammed the restoration of $9.8 million over four years in Federal funding to the Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) and Environmental Justice Australia (EJA) for "empowering far-left activists" and inflicting "massive damage on our national economy". Australian Forest Products Association thought the budget was great with $100 million for the promised new National Institute for Forest Products Innovation, $8.6 million to extend Regional Forestry Hubs from 2024‑25 and to provide extension services, and $10 million for skills and training to equip the forest industries workforce with competencies, credentials, training and accreditations. It’s a worry that Timberbiz reports that the Federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Senator Murray Watt has recommitted the Federal government’s support for the sustainable management of the native timber industry.
The Australian Rural and Regional News has been running a series of articles in a debate between Philip Zylstra and Jack Bradshaw on the merits of controlled burning, with Zylstra re-iterating that in Western Australia bushfires have been seven times more likely on land previously burned than on land that they have not burned which he attributes to the dense understorey regrowth following burning, stating “the hard empirical evidence quite clearly shows that bushfires are much less likely in forests where the shrubs have been allowed to self-thin”. The advocates of increased fuel-reduction burning, Bushfire Front Inc (BFF), have now piled on to discredit Zylstra.
Species
National Geographic has an article quoting a range of scientists lamenting the Federal Government’s appalling record on species’ extinction and endangerment, the new Government’s underwhelming species action (extinction) plan, the lack of funding for threatened species and the ongoing habitat destruction.
Catherine Cusack reflects on her belief in loyalty to the Liberal Party, making her crossing the floor to refer the Koala Killing Bill for review a fraught decision, but her duty to koalas outweighed her willingness to support a corrupt political deal. To her credit she was the only coalition member to stand up for Koalas, which she is doing again with her efforts to get Koalas onto the political agenda for March with The Vanishing Koala conference. According to multiple media stories we will be enlightened by the lessons from South Australia’s koalas’ success to help protect our Koalas. From 12-3pm on Sunday, 30 October, members of the public are encouraged to attend a Koala Family Picnic in the North Coast Regional Botanic Garden to show their support for the proposed Great Koala National Park.
The Koala Friendly Carbon Farming Program pilot program is aimed at landholders with “at least 25 hectares that can be set aside for tree planting and show evidence of koalas nearby with a focus on reconnecting fragmented habitat”, where planting of “a bio-diverse koala and rainforest habitat” is undertaken free of charge, as is maintenance for the first three years, and the landholder will earn carbon credits over a 25-year period.
Eurobodalla Shire Council has become the first council in NSW to launch a virtual fence, with roadside posts set to emit sound and blue lights when they detect an approaching car, aimed at warning animals of the cars and reducing roadkills. It will be interesting to see how well they work, as initial tests weren’t that effective (see Forest Media 18 March 2022).
The endangered Manning River Turtle lives only in the middle and upper reaches of the Manning River catchment on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, after the fires eggs were taken into care and the hatchlings raised by Aussie Ark, with 10 two year olds now released back into the river, with another 10 planned for release, and a captive breeding program underway.
Since 2000 Bird Flu (AKA Avian influenza, particularly a strain called H5N1) has been rampaging throughout the northern hemisphere, while in the past outbreaks have been controlled by culling of domestic birds, this strain appears to have mutated as it has a sustained spread among wild birds, frequently crossing to (but not yet between) mammals.
Some American researchers believe there’s an opportunity to reduce the number of ticks by using prescribed fire as it reduces habitat quality by opening-up and drying out the forest, increases predators such as fire-ants, and reduces their small-mammalian hosts – though the solution could be worse than the problem.
In response to an anonymous complaint in September to 2GB host Ray Hadley that NPWS undertook aerial shooting of deer near to where guests were walking, NSW Environment Minister James Griffin immediately suspended the shooting of feral animals in national parks across NSW while undertaking a soon to be released review, much to the disgust of farming and conservation groups. This was soon after Hadley had successfully made Griffin agree to review the brumby plan after 11 feral horses were humanely shot (see Forest Media 16 September 2022).
The Deteriorating Problem
The UNEP report Emissions Gap Report 2022: The Closing Window – Climate crisis calls for rapid transformation of societies shows that updated national pledges since COP26 – held in 2021 in Glasgow, UK – make a negligible difference to predicted 2030 emissions and that we are far from the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C, preferably 1.5°C. Policies currently in place point to a 2.8°C temperature rise by the end of the century. Implementation of the current pledges will only reduce this to a 2.4-2.6°C temperature rise by the end of the century, for conditional and unconditional pledges respectively. With COP27 starting in Egypt next week it is clear that the time for multilateral action is now, the Emissions Gap Report 2022 finds that the world must cut emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 to avoid global catastrophe, yet annual emissions continue to grow, with increasing emissions masked by claimed sequestrations from vegetation, which are often dubious. Protecting forests will help buy time, though we need to do it now.
While it doesn’t get much attention, Africa has been ravaged by a series of extreme weather events. AP reports above-average rainfall and devastating flooding have affected 5 million people this year in 19 countries across West and Central Africa, killing hundreds and destroying crops, coming on top of West Africa’s worst food crisis in 10 years with more than 27 million hungry people. Carbon Brief’s in-depth analysis of African disaster records found that extreme weather events, including droughts, extreme heat, wildfires, floods, and cyclones, have killed at least 4,000 people and affected a further 19 million since the start of 2022.
A new UC Berkeley study quantifies that nearly a third of the conifer forests in California’s southern Sierra Nevada mountains have died from a combination of fire, drought and drought-related bark beetle infestations in the last decade, which is blamed on climate change impacts compounding the conversion of multi-aged forests to regrowth and a reduction in understorey burning.
Turning it Around
Countries are failing to meet international targets to stop global forest loss and degradation by 2030 according to a recent analysis, called the Forest Declaration Assessment, which found that the rate of global deforestation slowed by 6.3% in 2021, compared with the baseline average for 2018–20. But this “modest” progress falls short of the annual 10% cut needed to end deforestation by 2030. Forests are not just important for carbon sequestration, also cooling the planet through "evapotranspiration", stabilising regional rainfalls and temperatures, reducing flooding, stabilising soils, providing habitat, and foods and medicines.
The international day of action on big bad biomass was a success, with Australia featured prominently as kick-starting the day.
Forest canopies are the interface between the atmosphere and biosphere, home to half of land-based plants, insects, and animals, and responsible for maintaining stable microclimates beneath. Meg Lowman is obsessed by canopies (particularly oldgrowth ones) and aims through Mission Green to open their wonders up to the everyday person by constructing 10 canopy walkways in biodiversity hotspots around the world, with two already constructed.
It seems that forests are redundant, we can look after their inhabitants better in open-range zoos and seed/sperm banks, and now we can experience their health benefits using virtual reality, or at least a semblance of them.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Rainforest Decision remembered:
The Sydney Morning Herald has republished a 1982 article on reactions to the Rainforest Decision, with the conservation movement saying “the Government is to be congratulated” and the loggers and the trade-union movement saying “it could place in jeopardy the jobs of many people in the limber industry.”
Time to vote Nationals out:
The Glenn Innes Examiner has another strong editorial calling for an end to native forest logging, highlighting the Forestry Corporation’s illegalities and costs, and growing community opposition, that the National Party ignore.
How many times does the NSW Forestry Corporation need to be taken to court, found guilty of breaching NSW law, be fined hundreds of thousands of dollars, fines paid by NSW taxpayers (that's you and me), before questions get asked within the halls of government?
The National Party's commitment to rip it up and rip it out regardless, is costing the region and the state economically, socially and environmentally.
It is clear that the National Party are more than willing to sacrifice the community good on the altar of resource exploitation at all cost ... even at a loss.
Closing Wollumbin:
An Aboriginal Place Management Plan has been prepared to document Wollumbin's significant cultural heritage values and articulate the aspirations of Aboriginal communities about the long-term management of the site, documenting the decision of the Wollumbin Consultative Group that the walk to the top of Wollumbin (Mount Warning) “is not culturally appropriate or culturally safe” and should be immediately closed.
'Wollumbin is of the highest significance to the Aboriginal nations, particularly the Bundjalung nation in northern NSW, as a sacred ceremonial and cultural complex linked to traditional law and custom. Wollumbin is interconnected to a broader cultural and spiritual landscape that includes Creation, Dreaming stories and men's initiation rites of deep antiquity.
NSW Environment Minister Mr Griffin supports the closure, emphasising a series of alternative walks are proposed, but not yet constructed: 38km Tweed Byron Hinterland Trail, 7.2 km Caldera Rim Walk, and 2.5km Mount Chowan Link.
‘Wollumbin holds deep significance for the Bundjalung people and this step recognises the importance of protecting its cultural value,’ Mr Griffin said.
While the summit track at Wollumbin remains closed, there are alternative trails for visitors and hikers to choose from in the region, with new visitor infrastructure being developed as part of the largest investment in the history of national parks.
‘The $7.35 million Tweed Byron Hinterland Trail, for example, will be a stunning new 38km, four-day hiking trail, and cement the North Coast of NSW as a premier destination to visit.’
In addition, plans for two new walk experiences are being finalised:
- Caldera Rim Walk – a 2 kilometre walk with rainforest, caldera rim and mountain views
- Mount Chowan Link – a 2.5 kilometre walk linking the Tweed Byron Hinterland Trail and potentially the Northern Rivers Rail Trail.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/10/summit-track-for-wollumbin-mt-warning-remains-closed/
The master plan for the Tweed Byron Hinterland Trail is currently on exhibition and open for submissions.
The Australian has an article attacking the decision of the Wollumbin Consultative Group to close the summit track, leading to claims by a purported “Indigenous leader and Wollumbin local” to question the consultative committee and local tourist operators to complain about the lack of access to national parks. Quadrant Magazine has an article by long-term campaigner against closure of Aboriginal sites.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2022/10/the-grim-warning-of-mount-warning/
The sinking ship:
As climate heating gains momentum, monthly and yearly rainfall records continue to be broken across NSW, with Sydney’s annual record already surpassed with months to go, and low-lying communities suffering from flood fatigue.
Monthly records were also broken in March and July while Sydney's annual total is also at records levels reaching 2391mm, nearly double the long-term average of 1214mm.
The previous wettest year for Sydney was 1950 when 2194mm was recorded. Weather data has been collected at Observatory Hill since 1858 and in only four previous years has the yearly total exceeded 2000mm.
Sydney joins dozens of regional NSW towns which are also in the middle of their wettest October on record including Deniliquin, Balranold, Wilcannia, Bourke, Cobar, Griffith and Moree.
There was chaos across south-east Australia, with multiple communities being evacuated, some on multiple occasions. Major flood levels in the twin-towns of Echuca and Moama on the Victoria-New South Wales border exceeded the 1993 record of 94.77 metres above sea level.
The ABC has an informative article about the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), driven by the contraction and expansion of a band of high-altitude westerly winds surrounding Antarctica, such that when they contract closer to Antarctica in spring they drive an increased chance of rain across south-eastern Australia, called a positive SAM, which is also happening this year as the 3rd major contributor to our floods.
Deserting rats:
NSW Transport Minister David Elliott has announced he will quit state politics at the next election rather than contest a factional preselection battle with the NSW right, with NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard quickly following, bringing to 12 the number of coalition MPs jumping ship.
https://www.northernbeachesadvocate.com.au/2022/10/25/race-on-as-hazzard-steps-aside/
The Teals make their move:
Independent Vaucluse candidate Karen Freyer said environmental issues, including halting new fossil fuel projects in NSW, were a top concern, her policies including to end logging on publicly-owned land.
Farming tourists:
The state government is ramming through an ‘agritourism’ policy which effectively removes restrictions on tourism development on rural lands, with ‘exempt’ developments able to be carried out without the need for planning or building approval if it meets specified development standards and doesn’t require notification of Council or neighbours.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/10/state-govt-overrules-councils-to-push-agritourism-on-rural-land/
AUSTRALIA
The end of protests:
The Saturday Paper has a good article about the increasing restrictions on, and penalties for, protest actions, across Australia, Labor and Liberal, with Bob Brown lamenting the loss of the ability to protest while ACF maintain they can achieve results without protests.
“Now, if you stand in front of a tree in Tasmania full of wildlife that they want to knock down, you face a greater penalty than if you go into a neighbour’s house with a shotgun and terrorise them,” [Bob Brown] says
As of a couple of months ago, an individual protesting against the destruction of old-growth forests in Tasmania faces up to two years in prison and substantial fines. A community member who obstructs access to a workplace as part of a protest – such as by simply blocking traffic – could face 12 months in prison. Any organisation that supports them may be fined $45,000.
“The way the environmental movement has historically got its power has been through organised direct action, you know, things like the Franklin campaign.” Now, [Curmin] says, the major environmental groups have been “reduced to lobbyists”.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2022/10/22/the-end-direct-action#mtr
Greater forest protection:
Despite risks of prosecutions, on the night of October 2nd, 66 citizen scientists surveyed for endangered Greater Gliders in 12 coupes slated for logging across Victoria, locating 60 Greater Gliders and triggering court ordered protections for them.
Due to a current court case against state logging agency VicForests, run by community groups Kinglake Friends of the Forest, Environment East Gippsland, and Gippsland Environment Group, confirmed detections of Greater Gliders currently trigger the protection of the forest in which they are found.
Expert witness for the community groups, Professor Grant Wardell-Johnson stated in court that Greater Gliders in logging coupes are likely to be dead soon after the logging operation, in some cases from starvation or predation.1
Last month VicForests sought permission from the Supreme Court to log 4 areas of forest known to contain Greater Gliders. The court gave permission to log 3 of the 4 areas with 240m buffer zones established around each Greater Glider that had already been detected by citizen scientists.
Forests the election issue:
Despite the Victorian Labor Government promising to phase out logging of public forests by 2030, both The Greens and Teal independents backed by Climate 200 have protecting forests now as major campaign issues.
https://www.facebook.com/climate200/videos/943516456622009/?extid=NS-UNK-UNK-UNK-IOS_GK0T-GK1C
Balancing the budget:
An article in The Conversation emphasises that the federal budget was required to include a section on wellbeing, which aims to measure how well Australians are doing in life, including assessing the state of our natural places using a set of environmental indicators, with the authors arguing for application of the United Nation’s System of Environmental-Economic Accounting.
The United Nation’s System of Environmental-Economic Accounting offers a way forward
This UN-backed system was only completed in 2021, so real-world examples remain few. But one Victorian study shows the potential.
The accounts in the study showed the economic benefit of harvesting Central Highlands native forests for timber were far outweighed by the economic benefit of maintaining the forests for carbon storage and water supply. In other words, the forest is more valuable if you just leave it alone.
Ceasing harvesting would also bring major biodiversity gains. An assessment of all regional forest agreement areas in Victoria gave similar results.
Budget a worry for forests:
There are many takes on the environmental benefits and disbenefits of the Federal budget, so the Government’s own propaganda seemed to be the best as to what we can expect, which is basically business as usual. The Federal Government’s budget is allocating money to dealing with climate change (including $263.7 million for Carbon Capture Use and Storage), the Great Barrier Reef gets $1.01b and Antarctica $804.4m, aside from this it is continuing $100 million funding for the existing Environment Restoration Fund for a further 3 years, and $181 million for a range of projects that seem to be primarily focussed of fast tracking and simplifying approvals for developers. Given the success of the forestry Regional Forest Agreements, they now seem intent on rolling them out for mining.
$100 million to extend the existing Environment Restoration Fund for a further 3 years, starting in 2022–23 (which had already been identified) - the aim is “to protect Australia’s water, soil, plants and animals and support their productive and sustainable use”.
$62 million focussed on accelerated regional planning, delivering up to 10 regional plans in priority development regions.
$19 million to simplify and reform environmental offsets to deliver greater flexibility and certainty for business while encouraging investment in environmental protection and restoration.
$28 million additional investment over 12 months to sustain on-time environmental assessments and approvals under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
$52.5 million to slash green tape for industry, protect the environment and improve transparency in project approvals.
$10 million to finalise single touch environmental approval agreements, removing duplication between national and state-level environmental approvals.
$9.5 million to strengthen environmental compliance and enforcement functions, including increasing funding for an appropriate risk based approach to compliance and enforcement activities and supporting approval holders to comply with their obligations.
https://www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/env-overarching-infographic.pdf
The Australian Conservation Foundation considers the Albanese government has started to turn around a decade of savage cuts to the environment budget, but it has a long way to go before nature protection and restoration is adequately funded. Others say we need to protect forests.
Nature highlights
- $204m for Great Barrier Reef recovery, including ‘blue carbon’ projects to support ecosystem restoration.
- $670m over six years to protect Australia’s iconic species and landscapes, help conserve World Heritage listed properties and wetlands and expand funding for Indigenous Protected Areas.
- $90m for Landcare rangers.
- $91.1 million for clean-up and restoration of urban river and water areas, local species protection.
https://www.acf.org.au/october-2022-budget-night
So what climate measures should the government be taking?
Many of the policies at its disposal would require new legislation and would not necessarily appear in the budget. They include ending logging of old-growth forest to reduce forestry emissions, and changes to the safeguard mechanism.
The biodiversity “offsets” scheme is of concern as its unclear as to whether it is rewarding environmental stewardship or a trade off for destruction elsewhere, the former able to provide benefits while the later has been fraught with abuses, and at best results in a net decline. Rather than relying upon private investors to finance conservation, governments need to fund it themselves as its not much in a budgetary context.
A biodiversity market would see landholders granted certificates for restoring or managing local habitats. Landholders could then sell these certificates to, for instance, businesses.
But the effectiveness of such schemes overseas and in Australia can at best be described as mixed. Whether biodiversity markets can actually improve the dire trajectory of our native plants and animals depends heavily on two things:
- whether they reward environmental stewardship, which delivers overall benefits for biodiversity or
- whether they rely on the use of “offsets”, and the loss of biodiversity elsewhere, to generate market demand.
Unfortunately, the government is sending mixed messages on this critical issue.
“Biodiversity offset schemes” similarly offer financial incentives to land managers, but with a critical difference: on-ground work to benefit nature is used to offset, or compensate for, biodiversity losses elsewhere.
This means offsets don’t usually result in overall improvements to nature, but rather maintain existing declines.
The government hopes voluntary private sector demand will drive this biodiversity market. This is because the government says it cannot afford the A$1-2 billion a year needed to adequately protect Australia’s natural environments and reverse biodiversity decline.
This sounds like a lot, but let’s put $1 billion into perspective.
It’s about one-tenth of the public money spent every year subsiding fossil fuel extraction in this country. It’s about a fifth of the cost of cancelling the submarine contract with France.
And it’s about a 25th of the annual cost of the stage three tax cuts promised in this week’s federal budget.
But in practice, offsets have never been a good news story, with scheme failure, misapplication and abuse regularly making headlines. Including offsets in the mix might scare off buyers and sellers.
The Opposition has slammed the restoration of $9.8 million over four years in Federal funding to the Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) and Environmental Justice Australia (EJA) for "empowering far-left activists" and inflicting "massive damage on our national economy".
[Tanya Plibersek] “If you're up against a big company and they've got billions of dollars to throw at a project and you’re some poor little farmer who doesn't want their back paddock done up, perhaps you’ve got a right to the same level of justice.”
[shadow environment Jonno Duniam ] “The handing over of $9.8 million of taxpayers money to the EDO and EJA is clearly about Labor teaming up with the Greens and encouraging and empowering far-left activists – and it will inflict massive damage on our national economy.
Australian Forest Products Association thought the budget was great with $100 million for the promised new National Institute for Forest Products Innovation, $8.6 million to extend Regional Forestry Hubs from 2024‑25 and to provide extension services, and $10 million for skills and training to equip the forest industries workforce with competencies, credentials, training and accreditations.
https://www.miragenews.com/federal-budget-heralds-new-era-of-forest-881662/
Feds a worry:
It’s a worry that Timberbiz reports that the Federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Senator Murray Watt has recommitted the Federal government’s support for the sustainable management of the native timber industry.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/labor-declares-economic-importance-of-forestry-at-symposium/
Controlling fires:
The Australian Rural and Regional News has been running a series of articles in a debate between Philip Zylstra and Jack Bradshaw on the merits of controlled burning, with Zylstra re-iterating that in Western Australia bushfires have been seven times more likely on land previously burned than on land that they have not burned which he attributes to the dense understorey regrowth following burning, stating “the hard empirical evidence quite clearly shows that bushfires are much less likely in forests where the shrubs have been allowed to self-thin”.
The advocates of increased fuel-reduction burning, Bushfire Front Inc (BFF), have now piled on to discredit Zylstra.
SPECIES
Commonwealth extinction plan:
National Geographic has an article quoting a range of scientists lamenting the Federal Government’s appalling record on species’ extinction and endangerment, the new Government’s underwhelming species action (extinction) plan, the lack of funding for threatened species and the ongoing habitat destruction.
“Most ecologists and conservationists would say it’s nice to hear more positive ambition [from the new government] and there has been marginal improvement, but it’s marginal at best. There’s a lot of greenwashing going on,” Euan [Ritchie] says, citing ongoing federal approval for fossil fuel ventures and projects that destroy key species’ habitat. “It’s well and good to say you love wildlife and be photographed cuddling koalas, but if you’re still approving the destruction of their habitat, if you’re still committing to fossil fuel use…it’s very hard to see how those things are aligned with a zero-extinction ambition.”
“We lead the world in mammal extinctions, we’re one of the highest land-clearing countries in the world, we’re still opening up coal and gas mines and we’re still logging native forests – we’re still doing all sorts of really dumb, stupid things,” David [Lindenmayer] says. “I think unless something seriously changes in terms of investment then we’re going to be seen to be the frauds that we are.”
Resigning for the vanishing:
Catherine Cusack reflects on her belief in loyalty to the Liberal Party, making her crossing the floor to refer the Koala Killing Bill for review a fraught decision, but her duty to koalas outweighed her willingness to support a corrupt political deal. To her credit she was the only coalition member to stand up for Koalas, which she is doing again with her efforts to get Koalas onto the political agenda for March with The Vanishing Koala conference. According to multiple media stories we will be enlightened by the lessons from South Australia’s koalas’ success to help protect our Koalas.
Cusack says with the koalas, ‘the first time it came up, it was political deal between the Liberal and the National parties. It hadn’t been dealt with properly, either in Cabinet or in the party room.
‘Then I found out that the legislation that was being put into Parliament by the National Party minister didn’t even reflect the decision of the cabinet.
‘So the process was absolutely broken at every level. I’d been trying for weeks to get the legislation reviewed and improved. Promises were made – none of them were kept. So by the time it came into the House, I considered whole thing corrupt. It was not a normal Bill, on any level.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/10/vanishing-koalas-why-risk-their-extinction/
“They are so abundant that in recent years they have moved into the suburbs (of Adelaide), travelling along linear parks from the foothill forests into residential gardens and city parklands,” says Associate Professor Clode, who will MC the NSW State Koala Conference in Coffs Harbour this weekend.
At the Koala Conference, biologist and natural history author Associate Professor Clode will speak on habitat loss and bushfire recovery, covering some of the main points from her new book which draws on research on ecology, palaeontology, morphology and archaeology by several other Flinders scientists.
“What can we learn from the southern koalas’ success to help protect their northern cousins,” she asks.
https://www.ecovoice.com.au/southern-australias-koala-comeback-can-it-help-stave-off-extinction/
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-major-australia-koalas.html
https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/southern-australian-koalas-research/
From 12-3pm on Sunday, 30 October, members of the public are encouraged to attend a Koala Family Picnic in the North Coast Regional Botanic Garden to show their support for the proposed Great Koala National Park.
“Visitors will hear from visiting non-fiction author of ‘Koala – A life in Trees’, Danielle Clode, and dedicated koala advocate and former school teacher Dave Wood who will both explain why community support is needed to create the Great Koala National Park.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/picnic-to-support-great-koala-national-park
Free Koalas earn carbon credits:
The Koala Friendly Carbon Farming Program pilot program is aimed at landholders with “at least 25 hectares that can be set aside for tree planting and show evidence of koalas nearby with a focus on reconnecting fragmented habitat”, where planting of “a bio-diverse koala and rainforest habitat” is undertaken free of charge, as is maintenance for the first three years, and the landholder will earn carbon credits over a 25-year period.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-23/koala-friendly-carbon-farming-program-/101554146
Will virtual fences be effective:
Eurobodalla Shire Council has become the first council in NSW to launch a virtual fence, with roadside posts set to emit sound and blue lights when they detect an approaching car, aimed at warning animals of the cars and reducing roadkills. It will be interesting to see how well they work, as initial tests weren’t that effective (see Forest Media 18 March 2022).
Rewilding turtles:
The endangered Manning River Turtle lives only in the middle and upper reaches of the Manning River catchment on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, after the fires eggs were taken into care and the hatchlings raised by Aussie Ark, with 10 two year olds now being released back into the river, with another 10 planned for release, and a captive breeding programme underway.
Awarding feral-proofing:
The Australian Geographic Society has awarded John Wamsley the Lifetime of Conservation medallion for his outstanding contribution to conservation in Australia, most notable for his pioneering of feral-proof fenced “Earth Sanctuaries”.
Flying flu:
Since 2000 Bird Flu (AKA Avian influenza, particularly a strain called H5N1) has been rampaging throughout the northern hemisphere, while in the past outbreaks have been controlled by culling of domestic birds, this strain appears to have mutated as it has a sustained spread among wild birds, frequently crossing to (but not yet between) mammals.
Controlling ticks:
Some American researchers believe there’s an opportunity to reduce the number of ticks by using prescribed fire as it reduces habitat quality by opening-up and drying out the forest, increases predators such as fire-ants, and reduces their small-mammalian hosts – though the solution could be worse than the problem.
“Reductions in canopy and understory density and the creation of gap space from prescribed burning can increase sun exposure and wind speed and reduce evapotranspiration from plants, promoting hotter and drier conditions during the daytime and colder temperatures at night,” said Machtinger
… fire-driven habitat change is likely to increase the population of certain wildlife predators of ticks, such as red imported fire ants …
… reduced woody plant density and debris as a result of fire actually may decrease populations of some small mammal hosts of ticks by removing cover and making them more vulnerable to predation,” Machtinger said.
https://www.technologynetworks.com/immunology/news/fighting-tick-borne-disease-with-fire-366903
Setting ferals free:
In response to an anonymous complaint in September to 2GB host Ray Hadley that NPWS undertook aerial shooting of deer near to where guests were walking, NSW Environment Minister James Griffin immediately suspended the shooting of feral animals in national parks across NSW while undertaking a soon to be released review. This was soon after Hadley had successfully made Griffin agree to review the brumby plan after 11 feral horses were humanely shot (see Forest Media 16 September 2022).
[NSW Farmers] “We were flabbergasted to learn the government had put a stop to controlling feral animals in national parks,” he said. “Feral animal control is something all land managers – public and private – must do. Putting a stop to feral animal control is irresponsible as it will impact the public, nature and private landowners such as farmers.”
“All this ban does is give them safe haven to breed. It’s crazy. If the government is smart, it will resume feral animal control immediately.”
… More than 70,000 pigs, goats, deer, foxes, cats and rabbits have been removed from the state’s national parks in the past two years.
Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party MLC Mark Banasiak supports a review of aerial shooting for feral animals in national parks but only found out about the six-week-old ban this morning.
"I would suggest that the government obviously has to do this safety review but in the meantime why can't they maintain their ground shooting activities?"
South coast-based NSW Independent Justin Field believes a scare campaign from a "noisy bunch" opposed to aerial culling of feral horses has influenced the government.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-27/feral-animal-cull-halt-nsw-national-parks/101583396
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-11358815/Resume-culling-NSW-Farmers-Greens.html
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
We have until next week …:
The UNEP report Emissions Gap Report 2022: The Closing Window – Climate crisis calls for rapid transformation of societies shows that updated national pledges since COP26 – held in 2021 in Glasgow, UK – make a negligible difference to predicted 2030 emissions and that we are far from the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C, preferably 1.5°C. Policies currently in place point to a 2.8°C temperature rise by the end of the century. Implementation of the current pledges will only reduce this to a 2.4-2.6°C temperature rise by the end of the century, for conditional and unconditional pledges respectively. With COP27 starting in Egypt next week it is clear that the time for multilateral action is now, the Emissions Gap Report 2022 finds that the world must cut emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 to avoid global catastrophe, yet annual emissions continue to grow, with increasing emissions masked by claimed sequestrations from vegetation, which are often dubious. Protecting forests will help buy time, though we need to do it now.
To get on track for limiting global warming to 1.5°C, global annual GHG emissions must be reduced by 45 per cent compared with emissions projections under policies currently in place in just eight years, and they must continue to decline rapidly after 2030, to avoid exhausting the limited remaining atmospheric carbon budget.
Inger Andersen, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme:
The science from UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report and indeed science presented by our friends at the UNFCCC and the WMO earlier this week is resounding: we are sliding from climate crisis to climate disaster.
This report sends us a very clear message. If we are serious about climate change, we need to kick start a system-wide transformation, now. We need a root-and-branch redesign of the electricity sector, of the transport sector, of the building sector and of food systems. And we need to reform financial systems so that they can bankroll the transformations we cannot escape.
I know some people think this can’t be done over the next eight years. But we can’t just throw up our hands and say we failed before we have even really tried. We must try, because every fraction of a degree matters: to vulnerable communities, to those that are yet to be connected to the electricity grid, to species and ecosystems, and to every one of us.
https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2022
This analysis finds that new efforts to cut carbon would see global emissions fall by less than 1% by 2030, when according to scientists, reductions of 45% are needed to keep 1.5C in play.
Africa getting more extreme:
While it doesn’t get much attention, Africa has been ravaged by a series of extreme weather events. AP reports above-average rainfall and devastating flooding have affected 5 million people this year in 19 countries across West and Central Africa, killing hundreds and destroying crops, coming on top of West Africa’s worst food crisis in 10 years with more than 27 million hungry people.
https://apnews.com/article/floods-west-africa-chad-central-c3a5be6d0f262e5c4fa6f77126a8f6fc
Carbon Brief’s in-depth analysis of African disaster records found that extreme weather events, including droughts, extreme heat, wildfires, floods, and cyclones, have killed at least 4,000 people and affected a further 19 million since the start of 2022.
The investigation also shows that:
- Drought and famine have killed 2,500 people in Uganda and affected eight million in Ethiopia this year.
- More than 600 people have died in Nigeria’s worst floods in a decade. This includes 76 people who were killed when a boat carrying flood victims capsized.
- Southern African countries, including Madagascar and Mozambique, were battered by six severe storms this year, killing at least 890 people.
- Temperatures reached 48C in Tunisia in July, fanning the flames of extreme wildfires.
- Nearly two million people in Chad were affected by floods in August and October.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-africas-unreported-extreme-weather-in-2022-and-climate-change/
Degraded forests dying:
A new UC Berkeley study quantifies that nearly a third of the conifer forests in California’s southern Sierra Nevada mountains have died from a combination of fire, drought and drought-related bark beetle infestations in the last decade, which is blamed on climate change impacts compounding the conversion of multi-aged forests to regrowth and a reduction in understorey burning.
In early statehood, clear cutting practices of the logging industry left young, regrowing forests less ecologically resilient to wildfire and beetle infestation. For most of the 20th century and after, management of forests heavily relied on fire suppression to avoid destructive and deadly conflagrations. These practices, coupled with a warming climate, pose an “existential threat” to remaining mature forests, wrote study authors. Management must transition to prescribed burns and thinning lower parts of the forest to make natural fires less catastrophic, a perspective now widely held by subject experts.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article267885597.html
TURNING IT AROUND
Deforestation not slowing fast enough:
Countries are failing to meet international targets to stop global forest loss and degradation by 2030 according to a recent analysis, called the Forest Declaration Assessment, which found that the rate of global deforestation slowed by 6.3% in 2021, compared with the baseline average for 2018–20. But this “modest” progress falls short of the annual 10% cut needed to end deforestation by 2030.
“It’s a good start, but we are not on track,” Matson said at a press briefing, although she cautioned that the assessment looks at only one year’s worth of data. A clearer picture of deforestation trends will emerge in successive years, she added.
Forests are not just important for carbon sequestration, also cooling the planet through "evapotranspiration", stabilising regional rainfalls and temperatures, reducing flooding, stabilising soils, providing habitat, and foods and medicines,
Forests are the largest carbon sinks on land, removing approximately 7.6 billion metric tonnes of CO2 each year from the atmosphere, which is around one-and-a-half times the average annual emissions of the United States. Governments are taking action to protect these natural stores of CO2, with more than 140 countries pledging at last year's U.N. COP26 talks to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030, although a recent analysis found they are not on track.
Keeping tropical forests standing provides a 50% greater impact on lowering global temperatures then can be accounted for simply through their carbon-absorbing abilities, according to a new report by the World Resources Institute (WRI), a think tank. "Forests are even more important than we thought for stabilising the climate," said Frances Seymour, a WRI senior fellow who co-authored the report.
Tree canopies can intercept rainfall and slow it down in a storm, allowing up to 30% of the water to evaporate into the atmosphere without reaching the ground, according to Britain's Woodland Trust charity. Some cities are using urban forests to become more resilient to flooding, as trees provide more permeable land to absorb rainwater.
Big Bad Biomass:
The international day of action on big bad biomass was a success, with Australia featured prominently as kick-starting the day.
https://environmentalpaper.org/2022/07/idoa-22/
Crowning glory:
Forest canopies are the interface between the atmosphere and biosphere, home to half of land-based plants, insects, and animals, and responsible for maintaining stable microclimates beneath. Meg Lowman is obsessed by canopies (particularly oldgrowth ones) and aims through Mission Green to open their wonders up to the everyday person by constructing 10 canopy walkways in biodiversity hotspots around the world, with two already constructed.
Parker uses lidar, a laser sensor technology, to map the structure of canopies from a bird’s eye view.“Forests tend to get ‘bumpier’ as they get older – more full of holes and more detailed in how they’re organised vertically inside,” he says. “Those things tend to accommodate higher diversity of species, not just of trees but all the other organisms that rely on the trees.”
A staggering number of species live in the upper layers of forests. “We now believe that 50 per cent of land-based plants, insects, and animals live in our treetops,” says Lowman.
Still, progress in treetop science can be frustratingly slow. “Canopies have been described as the last biotic frontier,” says Majcher. “Millions of species live there, and we’ve accessed only a minute proportion of them.”
For species that dwell in the understorey, the canopy “creates a buffer to stresses in the environment” by acting as a “gatekeeper between the atmosphere and ground,” says Gotsch. The architecture and physiology of a canopy govern a forest’s microclimate, helping to keep it cooler than its surroundings by intercepting rainfall, slowing wind speed, and influencing the rate of evaporation and transpiration.
“This buffering effect is quite large,” says forest ecologist Pieter de Frenne from Belgium’s Ghent University. In a meta-analysis of more than 70 forest sites scattered across five continents, de Frenne discovered that daytime temperatures within a forest are on average 4C cooler than outside. That difference increases in hotter climes, sometimes by as much as 15C.
“That means that this thermal regulation, this protective sheltering layer of canopies becomes more important with climate change,” he says.
“We need to have the big trees most of all, and it’s my job to speak for them,” [Lowman] says.
https://www.eco-business.com/news/a-mission-to-conserve-forest-canopies/
Virtual forest bathing:
It seems that forests are redundant, we can look after their inhabitants better in open-range zoos and seed/sperm banks, and now we can experience their health benefits using virtual reality, or at least a semblance of them.
After analyzing 21 studies conducted at home and abroad, the state-run National Institute of Forest Science (NiFoS) concluded that experiencing forests in realistic digital content such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and holograms can bring psychological changes. Digital treatment was more effective in reducing negative emotions than increasing positive feelings. Those who were exposed to digital forest content for more than 10 minutes showed more consistent psychological effects.
"The result of this study proves that the convergence of digital technology and forests is effective in the restoration of mentality," NiFoS researcher Kim Gun-woo said in a statement on October 27. The institute will develop various forest-related digital content.
An earlier NiFoS study showed that walking in a forest is one of the most effective ways in handling depression and anxiety. Just walking or sitting in the forest to look at the scenery was found to relieve inflammatory reactions in the body and reduce stress.
https://www.ajudaily.com/view/20221027103156647
Forest Media 21 October 2022
New South Wales
As part of Friday’s International Day of Action on Big Bad Biomass, and to highlight the last day for submissions on the question of whether the Federal Government should exclude the burning of native forest biomass from the Renewable Energy Target, in NSW NEFA held a gathering outside Member for Richmond Justine Elliot’s office, No Electricity from Forests outside Herons Creek Mill on the Mid North Coast, Redbank Action Group (RAG) held a gathering outside Member for Hunter Dan Repacholi’s office, Bob Brown Foundation outside Member for Sydney Tanya Pliberseck’s office and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s office, South-east Forest Rescue outside Member for Eden-Monaro Kristy McBain’s office.
October 26 marks the 40th anniversary of the 1982 Rainforest Decision by the ALP government of Neville Wran, which resulted in 120,000ha of some of our most important rainforests and old-growth forests on public lands across North East NSW being protected from logging in national parks and flora reserves, an outcome that Dailan Pugh attributes to forest blockades at Terania Creek in 1979 and Mount Nardi in 1982. A big celebration will be held Saturday night, October 22, at the Nimbin Hall, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Nightcap Action Group’s direct actions on Mt. Nardi, which resulted in the cessation of logging and the creation of the Nightcap National Park.
Green Left Weekly has an article citing Michael Jones talking about forest actions Ellis SF, the inspiration of stopping logging in Nambucca SF, and the need to protect the Great Koala National Park. Friendly Jordies now has a You Tube video of Mark Graham being assaulted by Grensill Brothers, FC contractors, with the footage taken by a Forestry Corporation employee who made no attempt to stop the assault, and the police actually charged Mark with assault. When last seen it had over 180,000 views.
The Echo had another article on the parliamentary petition, this time focusing on my complaint that the four propositions were not considered individually and debated on their merits. I am misquoted. The Australian Forestry Contractors Association (AFCA) has a weak response to the forests petition, citing Chris Gulaptis that it was about “misconceptions, misinformation and unfounded beliefs”, and claiming the fires were the problem not them.
Justin Field confirms his retirement, advocating for a strong independent south coast candidate, as he considers it's highly likely that the crossbench will be in the balance of power after the next state election - he will be missed as a strong and effective environmental advocate, and leaves with our gratitude.
The NCC picnics were a success with picnics across NSW, though not much media. Around 40 volunteers from 11 separate environmental groups gathered in the Goulburn wetlands for the NCC picnic, which organisers said they found inspirational, though lamented the dearth of young blood.
The ACCC has outlined preliminary concerns with Forestry Corporation of New South Wales’ proposed acquisition of the assets of Hume Forests Ltd as it will give them a monopoly and reduce competition for pine in the Tumut/Tumbarumba and Bathurst/Oberon regions, and is inviting submissions.
The Department of Planning and Environment has issued a Stop Work Order over 235 ha of land at Doyalson following reports of unauthorised clearing in a conservation zone, on land sold by the Central Coast Council to developers to recover losses.
Australia
Extinction Rebellion deployed tripods, barrels and theatre to shut down part of the Melbourne CBD for three hours, as part of ongoing protests against logging by Vic Forests. Orbost used to be a vehemently pro-logging town, now in the East Gippsland Shire that unanimously passed a position paper for an end to clear-felling, protection of biodiversity, investment in nature-based tourism and recreation, protection of the unburnt, and a just transition for affected communities.
Western Australia’s draft Forest Management Plan 2024-2033 has been released for public comment, this is intended to implement the protection of 400,000 ha of public forests. and while it does promise an end to large scale commercial logging, it still intends to allow ecological thinning and approved mine site clearing for “products such as high value furniture, joinery, artisanal products, charcoal, and firewood”.
The theme of this week's 2 day Forestry Australia’s National Symposium at Albury is "reimagining forestry", with an emphasis on the role forestry can play in mitigating climate change and resulting flood and fire events, its good to know that contrary to all the evidence about logging increasing fire and carbon emissions, logging is going to be our saviour. Though one of the speakers talked about their experience with growing and milling timber on the family farm, highlighting problems with growing trees and selling products, but their current success.
In Victoria a Bairnsdale man has been convicted and fined $1500 after pleading guilty to two charges relating to illegal off-road driving in the Nunniong State Forest, after he broke through a gate and churned up a sensitive alpine area.
Species
Euan Ritchie points out that 38 native mammal species have been driven to extinction since colonisation, along with possibly 7 subspecies, with a further 52 mammal species classified as either Critically Endangered or Endangered, and 58 as Vulnerable, urgent action is required, but first we genuinely need to care, and generate the political will.
Australian taxonomists are garnering support to achieve the goal of documenting all Australian species by 2050, which is a big ask for insects, spiders and fungi, and a race against extinction. Australia has at least 404 mammal species, including 2 monotremes, 175 marsupials and 227 placentals, which includes 11 species (and numerous subspecies) that have only been discovered and formally named in the past decade, and there are still likely more out there waiting to be found, though we have so far made 39 extinct as our species’ populations plummet towards the great extinction.
NBN has a story about the Great Koala National Park, the (sold out) The Vanishing conference, and the need for political commitments for the upcoming election. Catherine Cusack believes that neither of the major parties have a credible rescue plan for Koalas and that collective action by citizens is the last line of defence.
Koalas introduced into Western Australia’s Yanchep National Park are in rapid decline, reduced from 8 to 4 in the national park’s enclosure since the 2019 Yanchep bushfire, and are now offering to house fire refugees from the eastern states.
Strzelecki koalas have long been recognised as more genetically diverse and distinct than other Victorian koala populations, though the Commonwealth rejected a submission to list the population as threatened saying more work was required to confirm it was “demographically separate from adjacent populations”. A free dog training ‘Leave It’ app has been developed by the Social Marketing @ Griffith, with funding from WIRES, will soon be available to help owners teach their pets to leave koalas and other wildlife alone. Danielle Clode describes her experience with Koalas in the Adelaide hills, their invasion of the city, and the recent wildfires in an article promoting her book: Koala: a Life in Trees.
Australia’s launching of global tourism campaign using a cartoon Kangaroo to lure tourists Down Under has raised the ire of animal welfare groups on World Kangaroo Day, as they campaign to stop the slaughter of kangaroos for meat and skins and the European Union is considering a ban on kangaroo meat and skin imports.
The Deteriorating Problem
Forests help counter global warming, but they are also threatened by it. In Europe, 500 000 hectares of forest were wiped out as a result of drought between 1987 and 2016 and many tree species struggled this past summer as much of Europe was hit by heat waves and a severe drought – thought to be the worst in 500 years. Researchers are focussing on developing improved models, for example large tall trees are considered to be particularly vulnerable during droughts, though this is not necessarily so as their roots go deeper, they can expand their water-conducting pipes, and their thicker trunks store more carbohydrates and water. In California the U.S. Forest Service estimated 62 million trees died in 2016, 9.5 million trees died last year, and scientists are concerned one more year of drought could lead to another mass die-off worse than in 2016. Forest deaths are increasing because drought stressed trees are weakened and less able to fight off boring beetles, beetles are increasingly active as winters warm, mistletoes deplete vital resources, collapsing dead trees provide more fuels and wildfires worsen.
Turning it Around
In sort-of welcome news, the Paris-based International Energy Agency claims CO2 pollution from fossil fuels will rise by about 300 million tonnes this year, which is “only a small fraction” of last year’s two-billion-tonne increase, and a lot less than expected in the midst of a global energy crisis brought on by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Big Bad Biomass:
As part of Friday’s International Day of Action on Big Bad Biomass, and to highlight the last day for submissions on the question of whether the Federal Government should exclude the burning of native forest biomass from the Renewable Energy Target, in NSW NEFA held a gathering outside Member for Richmond Justine Elliot’s office, No Electricity from Forests outside Herons Creek Mill on the Mid North Coast, Redbank Action Group (RAG) held a gathering outside Member for Hunter Dan Repacholi’s office, Bob Brown Foundation outside Member for Sydney Tanya Pliberseck’s office, and, South-east Forest Rescue outside Member for Eden-Monaro Kristy McBain’s office.
“With Verdant Earth Technologies’ proposal to burn the native forests of NSW right here in the Hunter at Redbank Power Station, supplied by the newly acquired Sweetmans sawmill at Millfield, there is no more important time to demand that the federal government rules out subsidizing this destruction,” said RAG spokesperson David Burgess.
“If approved, the Redbank / Sweetmans proposal would see the native forests of the Hunter and well beyond turned into one big woodchip farm,” said Millfield resident Llynda Nairn.
Saving rainforests:
October 26 marks the 40th anniversary of the 1982 Rainforest Decision by the ALP government of Neville Wran, which resulted in 120,000ha of some of our most important rainforests and old-growth forests on public lands across North East NSW being protected from logging in national parks and flora reserves, an outcome that Dailan Pugh attributes to forest blockades at Terania Creek in 1979 and Mount Nardi in 1982.
The decision was the culmination of over a decade of campaigning that primarily gained public recognition and support through forest blockades at Terania Creek in 1979 and Mount Nardi in 1982. It was those actions that focused public attention on rainforests, created the need for political resolution, and ultimately stopped rainforest logging in NSW. Forty years later climate heating necessitates a renewed effort to save our rainforests.
Most of our rainforests were cleared; those surviving haven’t yet recovered from 150 years of logging degradation. Their buffers are still being logged, and a new threat became apparent when over a third of NSW’s rainforests were burnt in the 2019–20 wildfires.
Unfortunately we can’t rest on our laurels, as we need to step up once again to save our rainforests, this time from intensifying droughts and wildfires caused by climate heating.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/10/saving-north-east-nsws-rainforests-40-years-on/
A big celebration will be held Saturday night, October 22, at the Nimbin Hall, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Nightcap Action Group’s direct actions on Mt. Nardi, which resulted in the cessation of logging and the creation of the Nightcap National Park.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/10/nightcap-action-group-celebrates-40th-anniversary/
Saving the Great Koala National Park:
Green Left Weekly has an article citing Michael Jones talking about forest actions Ellis SF, the inspiration of stopping logging in Nambucca SF, and the need to protect the Great Koala National Park.
[Sign the petition supporting the Great Koala National Park here.]
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/stopping-logging-ellis-state-forest
Loggers assaulting:
Friendly Jordies now has a You Tube video of Mark Graham being assaulted by Grensill Brothers, FC contractors, with the footage taken by a Forestry Corporation employee who made no attempt to stop the assault, and the police actually charged Mark with assault. When last seen it had over 180,000 views.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMQiXXCEoQ8
Forest petition lingers:
The Echo had another article on the parliamentary petition, this time focusing on my complaint that the four propositions were not considered individually and debated on their merits. I am misquoted.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/10/no-real-parliamentary-debate-on-logging-nsw-public-native-forests/
The Australian Forestry Contractors Association (AFCA) has a weak response to the forests petition, citing Chris Gulaptis that it was about “misconceptions, misinformation and unfounded beliefs”, and claiming the fires were the problem not them.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/debated-petition-on-native-forestry-flawed-says-afca/
Field of dreams:
Justin Field confirms his retirement, advocating for a strong independent south coast candidate, as he considers it's highly likely that the crossbench will be in the balance of power after the next state election - he will be missed as a strong and effective environmental advocate, and leaves with our gratitude.
"It has been a fast-moving train wreck, watching the way in which this government has allowed the destruction of nature in NSW," he told parliament.
"There is not one bright spot on the horizon when it comes to the protection of biodiversity from my perspective with this government."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-17/nsw-south-coast-mp-justin-field-retires/101540664
Wet dreams:
The NCC picnics were a success with picnics across NSW, though not much media. Around 40 volunteers from 11 separate environmental groups gathered in the Goulburn wetlands for the NCC picnic, which organisers said they found inspirational, though lamented the dearth of young blood.
Ms West said volunteers were an ageing population with few younger candidates looking to fill the void.
"Most of them are over 60 and many are now tipping into their 70s and 80s, but it is really nice that everyone who comes through the wetlands compliments us on the work that is done and how it has evolved," she said.
https://www.goulburnpost.com.au/story/7944885/nature-picnic-enjoyed-by-environmental-groups/
Pine monopoly:
The ACCC has outlined preliminary concerns with Forestry Corporation of New South Wales’ proposed acquisition of the assets of Hume Forests Ltd as it will give them a monopoly and reduce competition for pine in the Tumut/Tumbarumba and Bathurst/Oberon regions, and is inviting submissions.
“We are concerned that this acquisition is likely to lead to price increases or reductions in service levels for the supply of softwood logs in the Tumut/Tumbarumba and Bathurst/Oberon regions by removing a significant competitor to FCNSW,” ACCC Deputy Chair Mick Keogh said.
The ACCC invites submissions from interested parties in response to the statement of issues by 3 November 2022.
The ACCC’s final decision is scheduled for 27 January 2023. More information, including the statement of issues, is available at: Forestry Corporation of NSW – Hume Forests Ltd
https://www.miragenews.com/forestry-corporation-of-nsws-proposed-878482/
Stopping land clearing.
The Department of Planning and Environment has issued a Stop Work Order over 235 ha of land at Doyalson following reports of unauthorised clearing in a conservation zone, on land sold by the Central Coast Council to developers to recover losses.
AUSTRALIA
Shutting down Melbourne CBD to shut-down logging:
Extinction Rebellion deployed tripods, barrels and theatre to shut down part of the Melbourne CBD for three hours, as part of ongoing protests against logging by Vic Forests.
Two protesters on Queen Street were seen hanging from six-metre-high tripods in koala suits.
Around the corner on Bourke Street, two other activists had their hands in barrels which had been glued to the road.
One protester donned a mask of Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ face and proceeded to pretend to cut down a tree using a fake chainsaw.
Extinction Rebellion announced on the Facebook livestream they were going to “have a party” at the police station while waiting for arrested members to be released.
Melbourne's streets have descended into chaos as Extinction Rebellion protesters shut down a major intersection to protest tree-logging in Victoria's forests.
Over 100 protesters gathered on the Bourke and Queen Street intersection at about midday on Wednesday with one demonstrator arrested by police.
The activists later gathered outside the logging agency office and were heard chanting 'VicForests, lawless loggers' and 'Arrest the real climate criminals'.
A Victoria Police spokesperson said the demonstrations were mostly peaceful but had disrupted the flow of traffic and caused diversions.
https://www.rebelnews.com/climate_extremists_disrupt_melbourne_dressed_as_koalas
https://tdpelmedia.com/melbourne-koala-clad-extinction-rebellion-protestors-block-intersection
Now they have seen the light:
Orbost used to be a vehemently pro-logging town, now in East Gippsland Shire that unanimously passed a position paper for an end to clear-felling, protection of biodiversity, investment in nature-based tourism and recreation, protection of the unburnt, and a just transition for affected communities.
The shires of Strathbogie, Murrindindi, Yarra Ranges and South Gippsland have now passed motions to end logging, but are ignored, Thorpe says. “It’s horrifying going into clear-felled forests. You can’t hear anything: no insects, no birds. They say they’re regenerating but they’re slashed to smithereens.”
A 2016 PwC audit found each native forest industry job costs Victorians more than $5 million and brings at best 14 cents return for every dollar invested.
The logging you have when you don’t have logging:
Western Australia’s draft Forest Management Plan 2024-2033 has been released for public comment, this is intended to implement the protection of 400,000 ha of public forests. and while it does promise an end to large scale commercial logging, it still intends to allow ecological thinning and approved mine site clearing for “products such as high value furniture, joinery, artisanal products, charcoal, and firewood”.
Western Australians can now have their say on the draft Forest Management Plan 2024-2033,
“This does not mean an end to forest management activities – such as ecological thinning and approved mine site clearing – but an end to large scale commercial logging in our native forests.
“Native timber sourced from these activities will continue to be available for products such as high value furniture, joinery, artisanal products, charcoal, and firewood post 2023.
https://safetowork.com.au/historic-new-plan-to-protect-was-forests/
https://arr.news/2022/10/19/historic-new-plan-to-protect-was-forests-whitby-kelly/
https://www.begadistrictnews.com.au/story/7946580/wa-to-end-native-forest-logging/
Greenwashing forestry:
The theme of this week's 2 day Forestry Australia’s National Symposium at Albury is "reimagining forestry", with an emphasis on the role forestry can play in mitigating climate change and resulting flood and fire events, its good to know that contrary to all the evidence about logging increasing fire and carbon emissions, logging is going to be our saviour. Though one of the speakers talked about their experience with growing and milling timber on the family farm, highlighting problems with growing trees and selling products, but their current success.
“Prepared by Forestry Australia’s Forest Fire Management Committee and the Forest Fire Management Group, Turning the Goals of the National Bushfire Management Policy Statement into Objectives and Key Performance Indicators aims to guide improvements in bushfire management and provide consistent reporting nationally on achievements.
“The ultimate outcome is that Australian lives will be saved from bushfires, Australia’s environment will be better protected with enhanced ecosystem biodiversity, conservation and maintenance of soils and water catchments in a healthy state, and Australia shall be able to better address climate change impacts and reduce carbon emissions.”
https://www.miragenews.com/forestry-australia-symposium-day-2-879530/
Turning the Goals of the National Bushfire Management Policy Statement into Objectives and Key Performance Indicators aims to guide improvements in bushfire management and provide consistent reporting nationally on achievements.
Radiata Pine, however, has proven profitable - and yet only a few years ago the market was different and logs from nearby Niangala were being shipped by container to the lowest bidders in China.
…. New Zealand built Mahoe sawmill that efficiently cuts boards in one pass with two blades and allows the Taylors to produce up to eight cubic meters of sawn product per day with one or two operators. Current orders are being strapped green, bound in packs, and sent straight for treatment at Tamworth.
The contrast between value added sawn timber versus pulp is highlighted by the fact that two tonnes of pulp sold is equivalent to the purchase price of one nursery grown pine seedling whereas rough sawn pine prices are currently as high as $500 a cubic meter at the farm gate.
https://www.theland.com.au/story/7939324/timber-part-of-the-mix-in-this-diverse-farm-scape/
In Victoria a Bairnsdale man has been convicted and fined $1500 after pleading guilty to two charges relating to illegal off-road driving in the Nunniong State Forest, after he broke through a gate and churned up a sensitive alpine area.
SPECIES
Watching them disappear:
Euan Ritchie points out that 38 native mammal species have been driven to extinction since colonisation, along with possibly 7 subspecies, with a further 52 mammal species classified as either Critically Endangered or Endangered, and 58 as Vulnerable, urgent action is required, but first we genuinely need to care, and generate the political will.
Improving the prognosis for mammals is eminently achievable but conditional on political will. Broadly speaking, we must:
- minimise or remove their key threats
- align policies (such as energy sources, resource use, and biodiversity conservation)
- strengthen and enforce environmental laws
- listen to, learn from and work with First Nations peoples as part of healing Country
- invest what’s actually required – billions, not breadcrumbs.
The recently announced Threatened Species Action plan sets an ambitious objective of preventing new extinctions. Of the 110 species considered a “priority” to save, 21 are mammals. The plan, however, is not fit for purpose and is highly unlikely to succeed.
Political commitments appear wafer thin when the same politicians continue to approve the destruction of the homes critically endangered species depend upon.
The race to name them before they go:
Australian taxonomists are garnering support to achieve the goal of documenting all Australian species by 2050, which is a big ask for insects, spiders and fungi, and a race against extinction. Australia has at least 404 mammal species, including 2 monotremes, 175 marsupials and 227 placentals, which includes 11 species (and numerous subspecies) that have only been discovered and formally named in the past decade, and there are still likely more out there waiting to be found, though we have so far made 39 extinct as our species’ populations plummet towards the great extinction.
Vanishing Koalas:
NBN has a story about the Great Koala National Park, the (sold out) The Vanishing conference, and the need for political commitments for the upcoming election. Catherine Cusack believes that neither of the major parties have a credible rescue plan for Koalas and that collective action by citizens is the last line of defence.
“As a former MP who served in opposition and government, I saw up close how our political process is failing koalas”, Ms Cusack said.
“Yes, there has been significant media coverage of their decline, nice words and lots of sympathy – but we are yet to see a credible rescue plan from the major parties who will form Government after the March 2023 election”
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-21-october-2022
Koalas introduced into Western Australia’s Yanchep National Park are in rapid decline, reduced from 8 to 4 in the national park’s enclosure since the 2019 Yanchep bushfire, and are now offering to house fire refugees from the eastern states.
https://arr.news/2022/10/20/koala-numbers-fall-at-yanchep-national-park/
… not distinct enough:
Strzelecki koalas have long been recognised as more genetically diverse and distinct than other Victorian koala populations, though the Commonwealth rejected a submission to list the population as threatened saying more work was required to confirm it was “demographically separate from adjacent populations”
Environmentalists are concerned Strzelecki koalas are being impacted by the logging of the plantations where they live, and the clearing of land for agriculture.
… making Koalas less attractive:
A free dog training ‘Leave It’ app has been developed by the Social Marketing @ Griffith, with funding from WIRES, will soon be available to help owners teach their pets to leave koalas and other wildlife alone.
Dr Rundle-Thiele said the in-person program reduced koala deaths from dog attacks by 40 per cent, and they’re hoping to see further improvements from an app that’s available for owners to use anywhere, anytime, at their own convenience and free of charge.
https://news.griffith.edu.au/2022/10/21/getting-dogs-the-right-koalafications-with-new-app/
… invading Adelaide:
Danielle Clode describes her experience with Koalas in the Adelaide hills, their invasion of the city, and the recent wildfires in an article promoting her book: Koala: a Life in Trees.
Koala: a Life in Trees by Danielle Clode (Black Inc).
Attractive kangaroos:
Australia’s launching of global tourism campaign using a cartoon Kangaroo to lure tourists Down Under has raised the ire of animal welfare groups on World Kangaroo Day, as they campaign to stop the slaughter of kangaroos for meat and skins and the European Union is considering a ban on kangaroo meat and skin imports.
I highly doubt Tourism Australia thought choosing a cartoon kangaroo as its ambassador would create any waves. But the backlash from animal advocates and concerned Australians has forced Australia actor Rose Byrne, the voice of the computer-animated marsupial, to switch off her social media.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/10/hopping-mad-over-roo-ad-campaign/
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Declining health:
Forests help counter global warming, but they are also threatened by it. In Europe, 500 000 hectares of forest were wiped out as a result of drought between 1987 and 2016 and many tree species struggled this past summer as much of Europe was hit by heat waves and a severe drought – thought to be the worst in 500 years. Researchers are focussing on developing improved models, for example large tall trees are considered to be particularly vulnerable during droughts, though this is not necessarily so as their roots go deeper, they can expand their water-conducting pipes, and their thicker trunks store more carbohydrates and water.
During a drought, it is harder for trees to extract water from dry soil and draw it upwards. This increases the risk of water-transporting conduits sucking in air bubbles, which can block the flow (similar to embolisms in human blood vessels). If any bubbles occur, parts of a tree can be denied water and die.
In California the U.S. Forest Service estimated 62 million trees died in 2016, 9.5 million trees died last year, and scientists are concerned one more year of drought could lead to another mass die-off worse than in 2016. Forest deaths are increasing because drought stressed trees are weakened and less able to fight off boring beetles, beetles are increasingly active as winters warm, mistletoes deplete vital resources, collapsing dead trees provide more fuels and wildfires worsen.
A healthy tree produces sap, or a thicker compound called pitch, that pushes pests out. But trees weakened by years of drought are left defenseless against invasive beetles that bore into them like drills.
“They have a very low water pressure inside them,” Ewing explained. “Their roots are compromised. Everything is compromised. So they just cannot fight them off.”
TURNING IT AROUND
Slowing the growth:
In sort-of welcome news, the Paris-based International Energy Agency claims CO2 pollution from fossil fuels will rise by about 300 million tonnes this year, which is “only a small fraction” of last year’s two-billion-tonne increase, and a lot less than expected in the midst of a global energy crisis brought on by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The rise in emissions would have been closer to a billion tonnes if not for some of the key technologies at the heart of the energy transition. Renewable energy generation around the world is up by more than 700 terawatt-hours this year, with wind and solar photovoltaics leading the growth. And while coal emissions around the world are on track to grow by about 200 million tonnes, overall carbon pollution in the European Union is set to decline—and the continent is expected to install about 50 gigawatts of new renewable energy capacity next year.
… IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. “This means that CO2 emissions are growing far less quickly this year than some people feared—and that policy actions by governments are driving real structural changes in the energy economy. Those changes are set to accelerate thanks to the major clean energy policy plans that have advanced around the world in recent months.”
Forest Media 14 October 2022
Your chance to take action on Big Bad Biomass
Submissions on the Federal Government’s ‘Native forest biomass in the Renewable Energy Target’ consultation paper are open until the 21st of October. This is a window of opportunity to stop the Redbank power station (near Singleton) being restarted with 850,000 tonnes p.a. of north-east NSW’s forests, and many similar proposals around Australia to substitute native forests for coal while pretending there are no CO2 emissions. Please make a submission and encourage any groups you can to do likewise. Its most important to make submissions unique (so they are not dismissed as a single group sub) and state Electricity generated by burning wood from native forests must be prohibited from being eligible for Large-scale Generation Certificates (LGCs) under the Renewable Energy Target (RET).
https://www.nefa.org.au/biomass
https://consult.industry.gov.au/native-forest-biomass-in-the-ret
The International Day of Action on Big Biomass will take place on the 21st of October 2022 and you are invited to take part. It would seem that the Feds have organised their closing date for submissions to coincide? So this makes it a special day for us to act up, and show solidarity with campaigners world wide. NEFA are planning a number of actions targeting federal parliamentarians offices.
Link to the main international organising group https://environmentalpaper.org/2022/07/idoa-22/
Please list your own actions into this link main organising google doc
New South Wales
The petition to end logging of public native forests, stop burning native forests for electricity, and implement the NRC bushfire recommendations, was finally considered on Thursday, in the end it was just noted with none of the proposals voted on. While the parliamentary debate was a let-down, the public debate was worthwhile.
The debate was informative in that it showed the level of ignorance we are dealing with, Chris Gulaptis insisted on misrepresenting the importance of the industry “We must remember that the forestry sector is worth around $2.8 billion. It directly supports almost 20,000 jobs, 40 per cent of which are in regional New South Wales” (he failed to mention that <1,000 are employed in logging public native forests). Melinda Pavey seems to think native forests are plantations “agree with the proposition put by the member for Ballina, that the Government should only be doing this type of work on plantations, and it is. Those native forestry plantations have been logged for more than 100 years”. The Minister, Dougald Saunders, contributions to the debate included “logging does not occur in State forests; selective harvesting occurs in State forests” (he has not read the Forestry Act which states its all about logging), and “The sawlog part of a tree is not used for biomass production; it is the roots, the bark and the other parts that cannot be used for anything apart from chipping, burning or pulping” (he has not read the DPI report which states its all about pulplogs – straight bits of timber 2.1+ m long, 10+ cm diameter that they can carry on logging trucks). Green Left reports that the rally outside was attended by over a 100 people.
The loggers counter-petition for a safer work environment by increasing penalties for forest protestors to match Victoria’s draconian laws, while allowing organisations to be fined for actions of their members, has so far had 628 people sign on, and it closes on 7 November.
The EPA are prosecuting FCNSW in the Batemans Bay Local Court for felling four hollow-bearing trees in Mogo State Forest in 2020, when the Site Specific Operating Conditions required them to retain all such trees.
NEFA is outraged that its complaints about obvious and blatant damage to retained hollow-bearing and Koala feed trees in Wild Cattle Creek State Forest have been dismissed by the EPA on the grounds it does not constitute damage.
FriendlyJordies has done a YouTube ‘The Worst Crime I’ve Ever Seen’ with Mark Graham on breaches in Wedding Bells State Forest, when I last checked it was up to 156,804 views (and rising quickly) with 1,315 comments.
With the assistance of the EDO, two knitting nanas have launched a Constitutional challenge in the NSW Supreme Court to new anti-protest laws, to preserve the democratic freedoms of speech and assembly in NSW. Meanwhile some unions are seeking to have the ALP commit to over-turning the laws if elected, despite having voted for them.
The NCC’s first ever "Picnic for Nature" will be held this Sunday at 44 sites across the state, it has been garnering some publicity.
Australia
David Lindenmayer argues that it is only native forests that can remove carbon from the atmosphere at the scale and speed required, arguing that if we were to stop logging native forests, the avoided emissions alone are close to what is needed annually (15.5 Mt CO2) to achieve our 43 per cent reduction by 2030 target. Professor Brendan Mackey and Dr Heather Keith participated in the originating media release, with Keith emphasising that forests are worth more for carbon storage than logging.
The sooner the better. A campaign by the Maribyrnong Council to call for an early phase out of native timber forestry in Victoria has apparently been successful in getting the backing of other city councils (though the story is paywalled). A fresh row has erupted over the prohibition of native logging in Western Australia, with members of the forestry industry arguing state government documents prove there is no "scientific evidence" justifying the ban on logging. While the loggers winge, conservationists are celebrating the first anniversary of the decision to end logging of 400,000 ha of Western Australia’s public native forests.
As part of a worldwide trend of targeting famous artworks to focus attention on climate heating, two Extinction Rebellion protesters glued themselves to the 1951 Picasso painting Massacre in Korea at the National Gallery of Victoria, and were released without being charged.
In response to Queensland clearing 6,800 km2 of land in 2018-19, the Queensland Conservation Council, Australian Conservation Foundation, the Wilderness Society and WWF Australia have launched a campaign to halt deforestation to protect native species and reduce carbon emissions, while the Government still awaits the overdue report by the expert panel, led by chief scientist Professor Hugh Possingham, and the clearing continues.
Species
WWF have released their latest Living Planet Report, their key message is that we are living through both climate and biodiversity crises that must be tackled concurrently, the report showing
- an average 69% decrease in monitored wildlife populations since 1970.
- The Asia Pacific (including Australia) had an average decrease of only 55% while Latin America and the Caribbean decreased 94%.
- Monitored freshwater populations have seen an alarming decline of 83% since 1970
- The global abundance of oceanic sharks and rays has declined by 71% over the last 50 years, due primarily to an 18-fold increase in fishing pressure since 1970.
- Identifies six key threats – agriculture, hunting, logging, pollution, invasive species and climate change – to terrestrial vertebrates. Identifying the east coast of Australia as a hotspot ‘high-priority areas for risk mitigation’ for all taxonomic groups across all threat categories.
- Ecological Footprint accounts document that humanity overuses our planet by at least 75%, the equivalent to living off 1.75 Earths
It needs to be recognised that by 1970 many species had already been severely depleted, particularly in developed countries, so we are measuring from a depleted baseline.
The Federal Government’s ‘2022–2032 Threatened Species Action Plan: Towards Zero Extinctions’ is focussed on taking actions for 110 priority (6% out of over 1900 listed) threatened species and 20 places, encouraging biodiversity markets, establishing more predator-free “safe-havens” for fauna, seed banks for plants, and “insurance populations” of plants affected by Myrtle Rust. Clearing and logging are not mentioned, and forests only in passing. Relevant species to NSW forests include Red Goshawk, Regent Honeyeater, Swift Parrot, Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby, Koala, New Holland Mouse, Mountain Frog, Pink Underwing Moth, Bellinger River Snapping Turtle, Native Guava, and Smooth Davidson’s Plum, with the Blue Mountains and South East Coastal Ranges being the only priority places. There is a commitment to a national goal to protect and conserve 30 per cent of Australia’s land and 30 per cent of Australia’s oceans by 2030, though they say we are already over target for oceans, but they may look at actually increasing the area really protected in sanctuaries, and claim that for terrestrial areas we are at 22% (ignoring that most of this is IPAs with no funding) and therefore there is only 61 million hectares to go (and it doesn’t seem to matter that IPAs are mostly arid lands). It is ironic that at the same time the Commonwealth are saying they are only going to deal with 110 priority species, they announced new listing decisions for 20 threatened species and three threatened ecological communities, including for east coast forests:
- Critically Endangered: Ben Halls Gap Sphagnum Moss Cool Temperate Rainforest, (sth coast) Grey Deua Pomaderris
- Endangered: (nth coast) Oxleyan pygmy perch, Corokia whiteana, Bertya Clouds Creek, Johnson’s Cycad, Duck’s-head wasp-orchid (sth coast) Pomaderris gilmourii var. gilmourii, Pretty Beard Orchid.
- Vulnerable: Parma Wallaby
Some researchers consider the $225 million committed is less than the $1,700 million identified as needed per year to actually bring these threatened species back from oblivion, the plan only focuses on just 110 of the more than 2,000 federally listed species and ecosystems, there is no intent to address threatening processes such as logging and clearing, the 30% reserve target is to be made up by grossly underfunded Indigenous Protected Areas, they want to rely upon biodiversity trading, and there’s no legislation to back it up.
The Vanishing Koala Conference on Saturday, October 29 will see scientists, conservationists and wildlife carers gather at the Cavanbah Centre in Coffs Harbour to highlight the extinction risk facing koalas in NSW and policy solutions to protect koalas and their habitat. Sue Arnold considers the Federal Government’s Threatened Species Action Plan is short on details and fails to address the substantive issues driving Australia’s extinction crisis, of particular concern is its failure to deal with the ongoing destruction of koala habitat by industrial logging, major urbanisation projects and infrastructure.
Koala Conservation Australia (KCA) (Port Macquarie Koala Hospital) has been granted more funding through the NSW Koala Strategy, including a $600,000 regional partnership (including employment of a Koala Officer) and $500,000 habitat restoration project (to restore 250 hectares of local koala habitat?), with $150,000 also going to help local councils prevent vehicle strikes. The Port Stephens Koala Sanctuary, including the Port Stephens Koala Hospital, the Newcastle Airport Skywalk, the Sanctuary Story Walk, Fat Possum Café and deluxe 4 star glamping accommodation, has been named a finalist in the prestigious NSW Tourism Awards for 2022.
The Gold Coast suburb of Coomera, was home to 500 koalas in 2018 but they are experiencing a “death by a thousand cuts” as their habitat is rapidly being cleared and fragmented for shopping centres, highways and housing. Residents are opposing a proposal by Sydney Water for a subdivision of a 32,760 square metre bushland site in Woronora Heights (Sutherland Shire) for homes, claiming it is part of a wildlife corridor linking koala habitats.
The Secret Creek Sanctuary at Lithgow’s new custom-designed and built enclosure for Mountain Pygmy Possum is now in operation, with the intent of combining their captive-bred possums with wild-caught possums to breed a "super possum" adapted to climate change, before attempting to release their naive progeny into the warming wild. The Long-footed Potoroo has not been sighted in NSW since the 1990s, as an assessment of predator scats is undertaken to see if any survive, a 24 km long fence is being constructed to create the 2084 hectare Nungatta enclosure in the South East Forest National Park to enclose a captive population in a new “feral-free rewilding site”.
Concerns are growing for species, such as wombats, echidnas and snakes, that are most likely to have their homes flooded in current rain events, after footage emerged of a wombat digging its way into a flooded burrow. WIRES estimates that 90% of wombats have the debilitating skin disease ‘mange’, another pass-on from domestic animals, and are encouraging people to become 'community wombat warriors' to help treat the disease.
Scientists at Southern Cross University found that after initially being badly affected, Fleay's Barred Frogs in northern New South Wales and south-east Queensland, may have developed a natural immune response to the amphibian chytrid fungus, a disease that has so far wiped out 7 other Australian species. Meanwhile it has been another winter of mysterious deaths for many other frog species.
The Deteriorating Problem
The documentary ‘The Big Burn’ looks at the wood pellets industry in British Columbia, used to feed into Drax’s UK power stations, since this exposé British Columbian politicians have called for its licenses to be suspended and investors are dropping their shares. Gives an insight of their propaganda and what the industry want to do here.
Cyclones can open up forest canopies, drying the forest and promoting growth of grasses or bushes that also make good fuel, while also creating dead material which is fuel for fires – not dissimilar to logging.
Turning it Around
Since the 2011 Bonn Challenge set a goal of restoring some 860 million acres of forest globally by 2030 there have been billions of dollars spent on widespread replanting programs, though most of them have failed due to planting the wrong species in the wrong places, lack of follow-up action, and opposition from local communities, at the time governments and corporations promote the planting events for “greenwashing” though often ignore their failures, the consequence is that there are vast areas of expensive phantom forests supposed to be redressing our climate crisis. Now increasing fire frequencies are taking-out some of those that have been well managed. – our highest priority has to be to protect our existing natural forests. Comedian John Oliver delivers a brilliant expose of the rorted carbon offsets system.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has begun surveying the internet for companies making false claims about environmental action after a global investigation found as many as 40% may be fraudulent.
Tide detergent maker Procter & Gamble Co faces a challenge to its Chief Executive Jon Moeller as its chairman, as well as 2 board members, from environmental groups and ethical investors at its annual shareholder meeting, because of its reliance on virgin wood pulp to make paper products such as Charmin and Bounty.
An American environmental group filed a lawsuit against U.S. Forest Service officials alleging they polluted waterways during their campaigns against wildfires by inadvertently dropping large volumes of chemical flame retardant into streams, causing harm to some fish, frogs, crustaceans and other aquatic species.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Protecting public forests petition:
The petition to end logging of public native forests, stop burning native forests for electricity, and implement the NRC bushfire recommendations, was finally considered on Thursday, in the end it was just noted with none of the proposals voted on. While the parliamentary debate was a let-down, the public debate was worthwhile.
The debate was informative in that it showed the level of ignorance we are dealing with, Chris Gulaptis insisted on misrepresenting the importance of the industry “The proposal to create public native forests would have substantial negative impacts on the State's economy and finances. We must remember that the forestry sector is worth around $2.8 billion. It directly supports almost 20,000 jobs, 40 per cent of which are in regional New South Wales (he failed to mention that <1,000 are employed in logging public native forests). Melinda Pavey seems to think native forests are plantations “agree with the proposition put by the member for Ballina, that the Government should only be doing this type of work on plantations, and it is. Those native forestry plantations have been logged for more than 100 years”. The Minister, Dougald Saunders, contributions to the debate included “logging does not occur in State forests; selective harvesting occurs in State forests” (he has not read the Forestry Act which states its all about logging), and “The sawlog part of a tree is not used for biomass production; it is the roots, the bark and the other parts that cannot be used for anything apart from chipping, burning or pulping” (he has not read the DPI report which states its all about pulplogs – straight bits of timber 2.1+ m long, 10+ cm diameter that they can carry on logging trucks).
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/Hansard/Pages/HansardResult.aspx#/docid/HANSARD-1323879322-128109
If that doesn’t work, Hansard can be found at https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/hansard/pages/home.aspx?tab=Browse&s=1
The petition also comes after conflict between the Forestry Corporation and members of the community have escalated in recent months, with multiple arrests in Ellis State Forest on the mid north coast last month. In response Bellingen Shire Council, last month passed a resolution calling for the NSW Government to develop a plan for the just transition of the Forestry Corporation NSW native forest sector to ecologically sustainable plantations and farm forestry.
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/7939481/nsw-government-to-debate-native-forest-logging/
[Dailan Pugh] ‘Stopping logging is in the best interests of the state and workers, protection of flora and fauna, reduction in greenhouse emissions, reducing fire risk, and carbon sequestration. There are many reasons to do it but I’m not sure the ALP are ready to stop logging. We have hopes they will do something in the future.’
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/10/today-the-nsw-parliament-debates-stopping-logging-our-forests/
Greens MP Tamara Smith described logging native forests "a travesty that must be phased out".
"Public native forest logging is pushing iconic species towards extinction," she told parliament.
But Nationals MP Chris Gulaptis defended the timber industry saying the opposition should "stop villainising" it.
"The forestry sector is worth around $2.8 billion and directly supports almost 20,000 jobs of which 40 per cent are in regional NSW."
https://thewest.com.au/politics/nsw-debates-petition-to-end-forest-logging-c-8537281
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7941523/nsw-debates-petition-to-end-forest-logging/
https://www.perthnow.com.au/politics/nsw-debates-petition-to-end-forest-logging-c-8537283
Green Left reports that the rally outside was attended by over a 100 people.
“So much of our public native forest estate has been impacted by drought, fires and floods,” [Higginson] said. Native forests are “a vitally important line of defence against both the climate and the extinction crisis”.
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/rally-calls-native-forests-be-protected
North East Forest Alliance campaigner Sean O'Shannessy, who watched from the public gallery, observed that "The debate revealed a remarkable degree of common ground across the chamber with supportive comments from Liberal, ALP, Greens and Independant representatives. The only substantial dispute with the petiton came from the National Party. Minister Dugald Saunders denied that there was logging in State Forests. Clarence MP Chris Gulaptis heckled his Liberal Party colleague Shelly Hancock as she introduced and spoke for the petition on behalf of her constituents."
Counter petition
The loggers counter-petition for a safer work environment by increasing penalties for forest protestors to match Victoria’s draconian laws, while allowing organisations to be fined for actions of their members, has so far had 628 people sign on, and it closes on 7 November.
Forestry in court again:
The EPA are prosecuting FCNSW in the Batemans Bay Local Court for felling four hollow-bearing trees in Mogo State Forest in 2020, when the Site Specific Operating Conditions required them to retain all such trees.
Rotten regulation:
NEFA is outraged that its complaints about obvious and blatant damage to retained hollow-bearing and Koala feed trees in Wild Cattle Creek State Forest have been dismissed by the EPA on the grounds it does not constitute damage.
‘It is illegal to damage trees required to be retained, and this damage is blatantly obvious, yet the EPA claims it is not damage,’ NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said.
‘Something is fundamentally rotten with logging regulation.’
‘l was shocked that according to the EPA the severe bashing of retained trees by machines that knocks off extensive slabs of basal bark, the crushing and severing of main roots, nor the knocking out of tree crowns by felling trees on them, constitute damage.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/10/tree-damaging-complaints-dismissed-by-epa/
Wedding crimes:
FriendlyJordies has done a YouTube ‘The Worst Crime I’ve Ever Seen’ with Mark Graham on breaches in Wedding Bells State Forest, when I last checked it was up to 156,804 views (and rising quickly) with 1,315 comments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tBzperMySA
Nanas challenge to anti protest laws:
With the assistance of the EDO, two knitting nanas have launched a Constitutional challenge in the NSW Supreme Court to new anti-protest laws, to preserve the democratic freedoms of speech and assembly in NSW. Meanwhile some unions are seeking to have the ALP commit to over-turning the laws if elected, despite having voted for them.
“As mothers, wildlife carers and Knitting Nannas who use our freedom to protest to push for climate action while floods and bushfires destroy our communities around us, this attack on our democratic freedoms is a slap in the face,” Plaintiff, Knitting Nanna, mother and wildlife carer Dominique said.
“We will ask the Court to find that aspects of these new laws are unconstitutional. Australians like us shouldn’t have to risk imprisonment or bankruptcy to participate in our democracy, and the Government should not be taking away our democratic freedoms.”
The legal challenge comes as the union movement begins its own push to force NSW Labor to commit to reversing the laws if elected at the March state poll.
A motion put forward by the Australian Services Union before Labor’s state conference on the weekend calls for the party to repeal the bill and “never support any legislation” restricting peaceful protest in the state.
Picnics in the parks:
The NCC’s first ever "Picnic for Nature" will be held this Sunday at 44 sites across the state, it has been garnering some publicity.
https://monaropost.com.au/post-rail/picnic-for-nature
AUSTRALIA
Protecting forests the only way:
David Lindenmayer argues that it is only native forests that can remove carbon from the atmosphere at the scale and speed required, arguing that if we were to stop logging native forests, the avoided emissions alone are close to what is needed annually (15.5 Mt CO2) to achieve our 43 per cent reduction by 2030 target.
Beyond the climate change and carbon storage benefits of forest protection, there are many other reasons why native forests should no longer be logged. One of these is the elevated fire severity problems created by logging - which endangers people's lives and property. Forests are more flammable for up to 70 years after they are logged and regenerated, with the elevated fire severity created by logging adding to further carbon emissions.
Switching to a long-term carbon storage role for native forests will still require a major skilled workforce in rural and regional Australia. This workforce will be needed to manage carbon stocks, including regular measurements to quantify change in carbon storage levels over time. A skilled workforce also will be critical for fire protection. A workforce will be needed to facilitate replanting programs in extensive areas of former forest where regeneration has failed after repeated past wildfires, past logging operations, or a combination of both. Additional work will be needed to repair damage from soil erosion and stream sedimentation so that water catchments are protected, and to monitor the health of forests, for example to provide early detection of pest and disease outbreaks.
Professor Brendan Mackey and Dr Heather Keith participated in the originating media release, with Keith emphasising that forests are worth more for carbon storage than logging.
Leading researchers are calling for a cease to native forest logging if Australia wants to meet its net zero targets in coming decades.
The researchers, from The Australian National University (ANU) and Griffith University, say only native forests can remove carbon from the atmosphere at the rapid rate required.
“The economic value of native forests for carbon storage is greater than the value of forests for woodchips and paper production,” Dr Keith said.
“Failure to properly protect forests makes no environmental sense nor any economic sense in a carbon-constrained world where dealing with climate change is a must.”
https://www.miragenews.com/stopping-native-forest-logging-key-to-getting-874781/
The sooner the better:
A campaign by the Maribyrnong Council to call for an early phase out of native timber forestry in Victoria has apparently been successful in getting the backing of other city councils (though the story is paywalled).
Fighting to the end:
A fresh row has erupted over the prohibition of native logging in Western Australia, with members of the forestry industry arguing state government documents prove there is no "scientific evidence" justifying the ban on logging.
Mr Butcher said he was hoping the FOI documents would the reveal scientific data which shows the effect climate change and logging was having on the forests of Western Australia
While the loggers winge, conservationists are celebrating the first anniversary of the decision to end logging of 400,000 ha of Western Australia’s public native forests.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOEf6KcvpQs
The art of protesting:
As part of a worldwide trend of targeting famous artworks to focus attention on climate heating, two Extinction Rebellion protesters glued themselves to the 1951 Picasso painting Massacre in Korea at the National Gallery of Victoria, and were released without being charged.
Seeing clearly now:
In response to Queensland clearing 6,800 km2 of land in 2018-19, the Queensland Conservation Council, Australian Conservation Foundation, the Wilderness Society and WWF Australia have launched a campaign to halt deforestation to protect native species and reduce carbon emissions, while the Government still awaits the overdue report by the expert panel, led by chief scientist Professor Hugh Possingham, and the clearing continues.
https://www.juneesoutherncross.com.au/story/7937955/qld-green-groups-seek-new-forest-plan/
The Alliance is working to secure a future for Queensland to:
- Manage, regulate, and restore 100 million hectares of Queensland forests and woodlands to protect biodiversity and carbon stocks. This would see 58% of all land in Queensland once again forested.
- Sequester hundreds of millions tonnes of CO2 in land carbon, setting Queensland on an emissions reductions pathway consistent with our Paris commitment to keep warming to 1.5 degrees.
- Ensure 100% of QLD’s beef is deforestation-free.
SPECIES
Dying Planet:
WWF have released their latest Living Planet Report, their key message is that we are living through both climate and biodiversity crises that must be tackled concurrently, the report showing
- an average 69% decrease in monitored wildlife populations since 1970.
- The Asia Pacific (including Australia) had an average decrease of only 55% while Latin America and the Caribbean decreased 94%.
- Monitored freshwater populations have seen an alarming decline of 83% since 1970
- The global abundance of oceanic sharks and rays has declined by 71% over the last 50 years, due primarily to an 18-fold increase in fishing pressure since 1970.
- Identifies six key threats – agriculture, hunting, logging, pollution, invasive species and climate change – to terrestrial vertebrates. Identifying the east coast of Australia as a hotspot ‘high-priority areas for risk mitigation’ for all taxonomic groups across all threat categories.
- Ecological Footprint accounts document that humanity overuses our planet by at least 75%, the equivalent to living off 1.75 Earths
It needs to be recognised that by 1970 many species had already been severely depleted, particularly in developed countries, so we are measuring from a depleted baseline.
Forests are fundamental for regulating the Earth’s climate,
exchanging more carbon, water and energy with the atmosphere
than any other terrestrial ecosystem 1. Forests also affect rainfall
patterns and the severity of heatwaves, impacting the resilience of
agricultural systems and local communities 2
.
Forests store more carbon than all the Earth’s exploitable oil,
gas and coal 3,4, and between 2001 and 2019 forests absorbed
7.6 gigatonnes of CO₂ from the atmosphere every year 5 , or about
18% of all human-caused carbon emissions 6.
In addition to carbon, the physical structure of forests also
affects both the global and local climates. Forests absorb energy
from the sun because they are dark. This energy is used to move
vast quantities of water from the soil back into the atmosphere,
through a process called evapotranspiration, cooling the surface
temperature locally and globally. The roughness of forest canopies
contributes to the upward mixing of warm air into the atmosphere,
drawing away heat and redistributing essential moisture. These
biophysical processes stabilise weather as well as climate, limiting
maximum daily temperatures by up to several degrees, reducing
the intensity and duration of extreme heat and dry spells, and
maintaining rainfall seasonality 7 . The combined net effect of forests
cools the planet by about 0.5ºC 7.
https://livingplanet.panda.org/
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-13/wwf-report-wild-animal-population-down-69-per-cent/101531208
The phrase “shifting baseline syndrome” was coined in 1995 by fisheries scientist Daniel Pauly. It’s the concept that each generation perceives environmental decline against the “baseline” of nature they experienced early in their lives. It can mean younger people underestimate how much biodiversity has been lost because they were already born into a nature-depleted world.
You might’ve noticed a shift in your life; king parrots hounded from suburbs by Indian mynas, Christmas beetles becoming rare, and road trips no longer interrupted by thick mats of insect meal on the dashboard.
For each generation, the shift becomes less obvious.
Federal Government claims no more extinctions:
The Federal Government’s 2022–2032 Threatened Species Action Plan: Towards Zero Extinctions is focussed on taking actions for 110 priority (6%) threatened species and 20 places, encouraging biodiversity markets, establishing more predator-free “safe-havens” for fauna, seed banks for plants, and “insurance populations” of plants affected by Myrtle Rust. Clearing and logging are not mentioned, and forests only in passing.
The Federal Government has only identified 110 priority threatened species out of over 1900 listed species and 20 priority places. Relevant species to NSW forests include Red Goshawk, Regent Honeyeater, Swift Parrot, Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby, Koala, New Holland Mouse, Mountain Frog, Pink Underwing Moth, Bellinger River Snapping Turtle, Native Guava, and Smooth Davidson’s Plum, with the Blue Mountains and South East Coastal Ranges being the only priority places.
There is a commitment to a national goal to protect and conserve 30 per cent of Australia’s land and 30 per cent of Australia’s oceans by 2030, though they say we are already over target for ocens, though they may look at actually increasing the area really protected in sanctuaries, and claim that for terrestrial areas we are at 22% (ignoring that most of this is IPAs with no funding) and therefore there is only 61 million hectares to go (and it doesn’t seem to matter that these are mostly arid lands).
https://www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/threatened-species-action-plan-2022-2032.pdf
It is the first time a federal government has announced a zero extinctions target for the country’s plants and animals. The goal forms part of a 10-year plan to improve the trajectory of 110 species and 20 places, and protect an additional 50m hectares of land and sea area by 2027.
Basha Stasak, the nature program manager at the Australian Conservation Foundation, said stopping the ongoing destruction of habitat was key to reversing Australia’s “woeful” record on extinction.
It is ironic that at the same time the Commonwealth are saying they are only going to deal with 110 priority species, they announced new listing decisions for 20 threatened species and three threatened ecological communities, including for east coast forests:
- Critically Endangered: Ben Halls Gap Sphagnum Moss Cool Temperate Rainforest, (sth coast) Grey Deua Pomaderris
- Endangered: (nth coast) Oxleyan pygmy perch, Corokia whiteana, Bertya Clouds Creek, Johnson’s Cycad, Duck’s-head wasp-orchid (sth coast) Pomaderris gilmourii var. gilmourii, Pretty Beard Orchid.
- Vulnerable: Parma Wallaby
Some researchers consider the A$225 million committed is less than the $1,700 million identified as need per year to actually bring these threatened species back from oblivion, the plan only focuses on just 110 of the more than 2,000 federally listed species and ecosystems, there is no intent to address threatening processes such as logging and clearing, the 30% reserve target is to be made up by grossly underfunded Indigenous Protected Areas, they want to rely upon biodiversity trading, and there’s no legislation to back it up.
How much is enough? Estimates put it at A$1.7 billion per year. This is around one-seventh of the money Australian governments spent on fossil fuel subsidies last financial year. If there’s funding for that, there should be funding for wildlife.
Alignment of policies is vital. What’s the point of saving a rare finch from land clearing if you’re simultaneously opening up huge areas to fracking, polluting groundwater and adding yet more emissions to our overheated atmosphere? Despite Labor’s rhetoric on threatened species and climate change, they are still committed to more coal and gas.
Similarly, native vegetation clearing and habitat loss is barely mentioned in the threatened species plan. Yet these are leading causes of environmental degradation, as the 2021 State of the Environment Report makes clear.
Protecting 30% of Australia’s lands and oceans by 2030 sounds great. But protecting degraded farmland is not the same as protecting a biodiverse grassland or wetland. And establishing protected areas is not the same as effective management.
To get this right, the new areas must add to our existing conservation estates by adding species and ecological communities with little or no representation. They must help species move as they would have before European colonisation, by connecting protected areas separated by human settlement or farms. And there must be enough money to actually look after the land. There’s no point protecting ever-larger tracts of degraded, weed-infested, rabbit, deer, horse, pig, fox and cat-filled land.
If you liked it, you should have put a law around it. If the federal government is serious about ending extinctions, it should be enshrined in legislation. As it stands, “zero extinctions” is a promise with no clear way for us to see who is responsible or how the promise will be kept.
So far, the new government has announced inadequate funding, a non-binding strategy with an aspirational goal, and a seemingly rushed idea of a biodiversity market, dubbed “green Wall Street”, which made conservationists including the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists very concerned.
Vanishing Koalas:
The Vanishing Koala Conference on Saturday, October 29 will see scientists, conservationists and wildlife carers gather at the Cavanbah Centre in Coffs Harbour to highlight the extinction risk facing koalas in NSW and policy solutions to protect koalas and their habitat.
Tickets for the events can be found here NSWKoalaConference.eventbrite.com or register to watch remotely.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/10/the-vanishing-nsw-koala-conference/
… what about habitat:
Sue Arnold considers the Federal Government’s Threatened Species Action Plan is short on details and fails to address the substantive issues driving Australia’s extinction crisis, of particular concern is its failure to deal with the ongoing destruction of koala habitat by industrial logging, major urbanisation projects and infrastructure.
Given the millions and millions of taxpayer dollars allocated to the conservation of the koala and the extent of research into major threats, it is abundantly clear that the only successful way to protect remaining species is to legally protect habitat. Without legally protected habitat, there is no future for koalas.
The NSW Government’s spending of tens of millions on koala hospitals, open-range zoos and planting seedlings won’t stop koalas from becoming extinct in the wild unless they save and stabilise surviving koalas by protecting their existing homes, NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said.
The money rolls in:
Koala Conservation Australia (KCA) (Port Macquarie Koala Hospital) has been granted more funding through the NSW Koala Strategy, including a $600,000 regional partnership (including employment of a Koala Officer) and $500,000 habitat restoration project (to restore 250 hectares of local koala habitat?), with $150,000 also going to help local councils prevent vehicle strikes.
“The regional partnership funding for KCA will support the employment of a Koala Officer, which will help ensure that projects across Port Macquarie and Kempsey are incorporating local knowledge and being strategically delivered,” Mrs Williams said.
https://afndaily.com.au/2022/10/09/protecting-port-macquarie-and-kempsey-koalas/
… tourist attractions:
The Port Stephens Koala Sanctuary, including the Port Stephens Koala Hospital, the Newcastle Airport Skywalk, the Sanctuary Story Walk, Fat Possum Café and deluxe 4 star glamping accommodation, has been named a finalist in the prestigious NSW Tourism Awards for 2022.
https://www.miragenews.com/port-stephens-koala-sanctuary-finalist-in-2022-871928/
… bit by bit:
The Gold Coast suburb of Coomera, was home to 500 koalas in 2018 but they are experiencing a “death by a thousand cuts” as their habitat is rapidly being cleared and fragmented for shopping centres, highways and housing.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/aussie-suburb-thats-destroying-its-endangered-koala-habitat-045529742.html
… not this bit:
Residents are opposing a proposal by Sydney Water for a subdivision of a 32,760 square metre bushland site in Woronora Heights (Sutherland Shire) for homes, claiming it is part of a wildlife corridor linking koala habitats.
https://www.theleader.com.au/story/7933132/koala-campaign-ramps-up/
Breeding super possums:
The Secret Creek Sanctuary at Lithgow’s new custom-designed and built enclosure for Mountain Pygmy Possum is now in operation, with the intent of combining their captive-bred possums with wild-caught possums to breed a "super possum" adapted to climate change, before attempting to release their naive progeny into the warming wild.
Doctor Hayley Bates from the University of New South Wales said reduced snow cover, bushfires and the reduction of a major food source — the Bogong Moth — were all impacting the possum.
With wild colonies facing numerous threats, the captive-bred possums have moved into the new Lithgow facility to begin a breeding plan that hopes to future-proof the species.
As well as providing a backup population, scientists plan to bring wild populations into the enclosure and breed a "super possum" more suited to warmer climates.
Linda Broome said when the possums have successfully adapted to the warmer temperatures in Lithgow, they will look to create new wild populations of possums, outside of the fragile alpine environment.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-10/mountain-pygmy-possum-climate-change-protection/101453130
Dewilding:
The Long-footed Potoroo has not been sighted in NSW since the 1990s, as an assessment of predator scats is undertaken to see if any survive, a 24 km long fence is being constructed to create the 2084 hectare Nungatta enclosure in the South East Forest National Park to enclose a captive population in a new “feral-free rewilding site”.
But Labor’s environment spokeswoman Penny Sharpe said the program’s funding had been cut by 25 per cent. The target for the number of threatened species on track to be secured in the wild had also been lowered.
Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek last week said Australia’s extinction crisis will be halted by the Albanese government’s updated wildlife protection plan. But the Threatened Species Action Plan does not include new measures to reduce land clearing or native forest logging.
Sharpe said rewilding was an important part of saving threatened species: “However, Labor is concerned that the government is prioritising rewilding over the protection of habitat across all land tenures as the biodiversity crises get worse.”
Flooded homes:
Concerns are growing for species, such as wombats, echidnas and snakes, that are most likely to have their homes flooded in current rain events, after footage emerged of a wombat digging its way into a flooded burrow.
Managing Mange:
WIRES estimates that 90% of wombats have the debilitating skin disease ‘mange’, another pass-on from domestic animals, and are encouraging people to become 'community wombat warriors' to help treat the disease.
WIRES are calling on people around NSW to become 'community wombat warriors' with a new program that allows people to treat wombats suffering from mange in their local area after completing an online course.
[Dr Carver] "With Bravecto we're able to cure and reduce more severe disease in wombats across these locations. It's an effective treatment."
Dr Julie Old's citizen science project Womsat encourages people to document wombats in their local area, to collect data and aid their conservation.
Resistance wins battle, but war far from over:
Scientists at Southern Cross University found that after initially being badly affected, Fleay's Barred Frogs in northern New South Wales and south-east Queensland, may have developed a natural immune response to the amphibian chytrid fungus, a disease that has so far wiped out 7 other Australian species. Meanwhile it has been another winter of mysterious deaths for many other frog species.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-06/native-frog-species-fights-deadly-fungus-nsw-qld/101503242
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Big Bad Biomass
The documentary ‘The Big Burn’ looks at the wood pellets industry in British Columbia, used to feed into Drax’s UK power stations, since this exposé, British Columbian politicians have called for its licenses to be suspended and investors are dropping their shares. Gives an insight of their propaganda and what they want to do here.
The Fifth Estate (2022) ‘The Big Burn’, CBC News, 3 October. Available at: https://www.cbc.ca/news/fifthestate/the-big-burn-1.6603564
Cyclones and logging have a lot in common:
Cyclones can open up forest canopies, drying the forest and promoting growth of grasses or bushes that also make good fuel, while also creating dead material which is fuel for fires – not dissimilar to logging.
"When the wind from a cyclone blows, it damages trees, bringing down a lot of leaves, twigs, branches, and logs to the ground, which make great fuel for future fire," says Ibanez. "Wind also opens the canopy, bringing more light in the undergrowth, which can promote the growth of grasses or bushes that also make good fuel. Also, when the canopy is opened, it makes the undergrowth drier because the canopy usually shades it from the sun and locks in moisture."
"An important component of global change is that ecosystems do not face just one disturbance, but a mix of several disturbances, and the interaction between new disturbances can result in unexpected effects."
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-cyclone-vulnerable-forest.html
TURNING IT AROUND
The phantom menace:
Since the 2011 Bonn Challenge set a goal of restoring some 860 million acres of forest globally by 2030 there have been billions of dollars spent on widespread replanting programs, though most of them have failed due to planting the wrong species in the wrong places, lack of follow-up action, and opposition from local communities, at the time governments and corporations promote the planting events for “greenwashing” though often ignore their failures, the consequence is that there are vast areas of expensive phantom forests supposed to be redressing our climate crisis. Now increasing fire frequencies are taking-out some of those that have been well managed. – our highest priority has to be to protect our existing natural forests.
In fact, many forest ecologists say creating space to allow nature to do its thing is usually a better approach to restoring forests than planting. “Allowing nature to choose which species predominate … allows for local adaptation and higher functional diversity,” argues one advocate, Robin Chazdon of the University of Connecticut, in her book Second Growth. For mangroves, Wetlands International now recommends abandoning widespread planting and instead creating areas of slack water along coastlines, where mangroves can naturally reseed and grow.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/phantom-forests-tree-planting-climate-change
Upsetting offsets:
Comedian John Oliver delivers a brilliant expose of the rorted carbon offsets system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p8zAbFKpW0
Focus on greenwashing:
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has begun surveying the internet for companies making false claims about environmental action after a global investigation found as many as 40% may be fraudulent.
Polly Hemming, a senior researcher at the Australia Institute, said it was “very hard to see how Australian regulators can effectively tackle greenwashing if they can’t get to the root cause”.
“That is, other regulators or arms of government rubber-stamping dodgy offsets or misleading carbon neutral claims,” she said. “In Australia gas companies can literally say they are a carbon-neutral-certified organisation because they have offset the emissions from their offices.”
The turning tide:
Tide detergent maker Procter & Gamble Co faces a challenge to its Chief Executive Jon Moeller as its chairman, as well as 2 board members, from environmental groups and ethical investors at its annual shareholder meeting, because of its reliance on virgin wood pulp to make paper products such as Charmin and Bounty.
Retarding retardant:
An American environmental group filed a lawsuit against U.S. Forest Service officials alleging they polluted waterways during their campaigns against wildfires by inadvertently dropping large volumes of chemical flame retardant into streams, causing harm to some fish, frogs, crustaceans and other aquatic species.
“The Forest Service’s own research shows no evidence that retardant makes a meaningful difference,” the group's executive director, Andy Stahl, said. “Fires grow when the wind blows them up. Retardant does nothing except look good on CNN. In reality, it put pilots in danger and kills fish.”
The main ingredients in fire retardant are inorganic fertilizers and salts that can be harmful to some fish, frogs, crustaceans and other aquatic species. In one Oregon case, 22,000 fish were killed in Central Oregon’s Fall River in 2002 after a Forest Service plane accidently dropped more than a thousand pounds of retardant into the stream.
Forest Media 30 September 2022
PS: here will be no forest media from me next week.
Seize the chance to stop burning forests being classed as renewable energy:
As you may recall, the Greens secured a commitment from the Federal ALP to look into removing a Coalition loophole from the Renewable Energy Act, which allows the destruction and burning of native forests to be classified as renewable energy (to displace solar and wind power). This afternoon, the Federal Government’s ‘Native forest biomass in the Renewable Energy Target’ consultation paper was released and public submissions are open until the 21st of October. This is a window of opportunity to stop the Redbank power station (near Singleton) being restarted with 850,000 tonnes p.a. of north-east NSW’s forests, and many similar proposals around Australia to substitute native forests for coal while pretending there are no CO2 emissions. Please make a submission and encourage any groups you can to do likewise. Its most important to make submissions unique (so they are not dismissed as a single group sub) and state you oppose native forest biomass being eligible for Large-scale Generation Certificates (LGCs) through the Renewable Energy Target.
https://consult.industry.gov.au/native-forest-biomass-in-the-ret
New South Wales
To mark Save the Koala Day (Friday 30 September), the North East Forest Alliance appealed to the NSW Government to stop approving core Koala habitat for clearing and logging, if they have any genuine intent to stop Koalas becoming extinct in the wild by 2050. With logging resuming in Cherry Tree State Forest on the Richmond Range, Fridays4Forests NSW held a vigil in the forest on National Save the Koala Day to protest Forest Corp logging of koala homes, calling for the NSW government to put an end to the logging of public native forests and the creation of a reserve system that will stop the slide of our koalas to extinction. Other reactions to the day are under species.
There is a YouTube video of the Kalang Headwaters rally.
Friends of the Forest and the Brooman State Forest Conservation Group staged a campout protest against native forest logging near Batemans Bay, focusing on the NSW Natural Resources Commission’s recommendation that following the 2019-20 wildfires that 75 per cent of the state forest in the Batemans Bay Management Zone be protected to "allow forests to recover and protect environmental values". Manyana Matters and Brooman State Forest Conservation Group were part of a gathering outside Shoalhaven City Council to show their support for a motion for an end to native forest logging in NSW and to support a call for the creation of the Manyana Special Conservation Reserve. Unfortunately after lengthy debate, and pleas from loggers for their jobs, the motion failed, with only 3 councillors voting in favour.
With its $28 million dedicated to encouraging and promoting logging on private lands, and its new Private Native Forestry (a.k.a. Farm Forestry) Codes of Practice, the NSW Government is hoping there will be an increase in logging, as they aim for accreditation of their “sustainable” logging.
The New Bush Telegraph has an emotive article describing the clearing of bush in the Shoalhaven City Council area for urban development, focussing on the destruction of an old hollow-bearing Blackbutt - a reflection of what goes on in our public forests every day.
Australia
The Victorian Greens’ election policy is to bring forward the phasing out of logging of public native forests from 2030 to 2023 and offering logging workers and contractors to either take a transition package, or be redeployed into a special emergency and disaster response team, using their existing skills in earthmoving, heavy machinery and firefighting, and Victoria's Parliamentary Budget Office assessed it would save the state an estimated $205 million over the next decade.
ABC’s 7.30 report looks at an example of 3,700 hectares of tree clearing taking place in Queensland without any requirement for an assessment of its impact on threatened species, because it’s classed as 50 year old regrowth. Australia’s land use measured annually from June 2020 to June 2021 has seen dramatic shifts towards forestation, cropping and conservation, land for forestry saw the most significant percentage shift with 47.4pc increase over 12 months, followed by cropping at 20.7pc, conservation at 11.1pc, and grazing at a mild 2.2pc increase, while cattle decline exclusion fencing, sheep and goats increase.
The ABC has an article about some farmers on the Murray who started planting trees 30 years ago, and are now doing well out of sawing them up for timber and firewood, with the aim of producing timber indefinitely. The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) (now chaired by Diana Gibbs who used to be Forestry’s favourite economist) is excited by the opportunities for them from the Forests and Climate Leaders’ Partnership and the prospects of a massive government funded plantation expansion, with its first annual meeting to be held in Egypt at COP27 in November.
Species
Researchers assessed data from the past 30-odd years on the survival of birds in semi-arid landscapes near Grenfell and West Wyalong, finding that in hot summers with 30 days above 38℃ just 59% of birds survived, leading them to predict that with about 1℃ warming compared to pre-industrial levels annual survival will fall from 63% to 43%, and with the 3.7℃ warming we could experience later this century the survival rate drops to a shocking 11%. They also followed the fates of 40 breeding pairs of Jacky Winter, a small robin, living in semi-arid mallee woodland in South Australia between 2018 and 2021 to assess their reaction to heat stress, finding that at around 35℃ birds moved to the top of the highest trees where greater wind speeds cooled their bodies, and at around 40℃ they moved to the ground to shelter in tree-base hollows in the largest mallees and crevices, the only places that offered the needed thermal insulation, leading them to recommend as the key action “identifying and protecting thermal refuges such as tree hollows by, for example, managing fire to reduce the loss of large trees”.
A study analysed 670 wildlife images posted to Instagram by wildlife organisations and research group accounts, and recorded the number of “likes” the image received in proportion to each organisation’s follower count, finding “mammals were, indeed, more engaging than other species, but only by a tiny amount, with birds, reptiles, invertebrates, amphibians and fish all equally as engaging for Instagram users”, advocating for promotion of all species as research has found “when we put effort into promoting underrepresented species, we can improve their chances of receiving a public donation by 26%”.
Birdlife Australia is calling on citizen scientists to take part in Coffs Coast Glossy Count on Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 October to identify Glossy Black Cockatoos in Coffs Harbour, Bellingen and Clarence Valley.
The 42 minute documentary "Every Koala Counts" about Friends of the Koala and the fight to save koalas in NSW will premiere at Byron Bay International Film Festival on 22 October, and has been selected for the International Social Change Film Festival. Gunnedah's koala population used to be thriving but it's now in steep decline thanks, in part, to the ravages of chlamydia, so people are concerned that if Santos is allowed to generate seismic waves using thumper trucks that it could further stress Koalas and interfere with a chlamydia vaccination trial. Ten Koalas have been struck and killed by cars on the Mid North Coast this month.
The radio-tracking collaboration between DPI Forestry and the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital has finally been written up, its no surprise that it supports current forestry practices, though it is surprising that given it has been widely used to claim that Koalas have no tree size preference (ie NRC 2021: “Provided that the tree species composition within a stand is nutritionally suitable, koalas should be able to find food of adequate nutritional quality in a forest mosaic that includes regrowth dominated by trees as small as 10 cm DBH (noting the DPI GPS study showed koalas use the full range of tree sizes above eight centimetres)”), it now says they prefer trees 30-60cm (the paper is paywalled). Vic Jurskis, and his theory of Koalas erupting in response to regrowth (which is why they are being killed by cars), is having a field day with the propaganda being produced by Brad Law and being released by the Natural Resources Commission as part of their forest monitoring, notably their claim that the 2019-20 fires had no impact on Koalas: “This recent trend shows a stable meta-population over the last 5 years, including after fires burnt 30% of Koala habitat in 2019.” - these people, their pseudo-science, and misinterpretations, are dangerous.
Australian Koala Foundation had very widespread coverage for Save the Koala Day, citing that over the past two decades, koala populations have nearly halved because of urban expansion, loss of habitat, disease and climate change, and experts believe they remain under threat of extinction, with the AKF calling for a moratorium on habitats that are essential for breeding populations. Featherdale Wildlife Park's Chad Staples said habitat loss is one of the main reasons the koala population is struggling to survive, and urged people to take political action. Taronga Wildlife Hospital at Taronga Western Plains Zoo used Save the Koala Day to promote their new hospital that will open this summer. ACF identify five ways to save Koalas, adopting one (paying an organisation), finding out if they are in your area, watching a video about scats, planting trees and driving slower – nothing about stopping clearing and logging of their habitat. For their contribution the NSW Government, WWF and Climate Friendly Co announced that private landholders are being supported to restore 200 hectares of koala habitat in the Northern Rivers by planting 250,000 tree seedlings, going so far as to pretend it will also restore Greater Glider habitat. Though the Animal Justice Party complains it will take 30 years, that Koalas don’t have, for the trees to grow big enough for Koalas – and we will have to wait 200 years for those hollows Greater Gliders need to form
Researchers found that Noisy Miners become more aggressive to other native birds around cafes and in nectar rich gardens, where the extra sugar gives them more time to attack competitors and predators, leading to recommendations for planting less hybrid and exotic nectar-producing species, and more local endemics and dense small-flowered shrubs.
The finding of 19 cane toads around Lake Macquarie has raised concerns about the risk of a new outbreak.
“Radical feral horse-loving extremists” have threatened to ‘fire bomb’ the offices of the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, and issued death threats to staff, as retribution for the sanctioned humane culling of 11 feral horses in the Kosciuszko National Park.
The Deteriorating Problem
After devastating Haiti, Hurricane Ian became rapidly turbocharged as it moved over the climate heated waters of the gulf before making landfall in Florida, due to warming oceans there is a growing problem with the rapid intensification and magnitude of hurricanes (cyclones) catching communities by surprise, while they are also becoming slower and wetter meaning the magnitude of rainfall events are increasing, and the magnitude of storm surges are increasing as sea-levels rise (as with the unprecedented storm surge from Hurricane Fiona that devastated some communities in eastern Canada last week).
In the space of less than a week, the new ultra-conservative British Truss government has launched an all-out assault on nature, starting with a bill to expunge all remaining EU-derived regulations including numerous environmental protections for endangered species and wild nature, as well as creating ‘Investment Zones’ “in which taxes will be cut, planning rules relaxed and environmental regulations ripped up”.
Mongabay report that a study published in June analyzed samples from 1,000 sites along waterways in more than 100 nations, looking for 61 active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Their results suggest that concentrations of at least one API breached safe levels for aquatic life at nearly 40% of sites tested globally.
Turning it Around
In a Blockade Australia action, Lismore resident Mali Cooper, 22, stopped her car across the southbound entrance to the Sydney Harbour Tunnel, locked onto the steering wheel and bought traffic to a halt, under draconian laws she faced a fine of up to $22,000 or a two-year jail sentence, though Lismore magistrate Jeff Linden dismissed the charges on mental health grounds (a flood victim).
The UN human rights committee found Australia had breached Article 27 and 17 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights failed to protect Torres Strait Islanders against the impacts of climate change and violated their right to enjoy their culture, and to be free from arbitrary interference to privacy, family and home, by not taking measures such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions and upgrading seawalls on the islands
Fridays for Future rallies were held in New York, Jakarta, Tokyo, Rome, Berlin and Montreal to highlight their fears about the effects of global warming and demand more aid for poor countries hit by wild weather, with 20,000 people attending the rally in Berlin and 5,000 in Rome. Workers for Climate Action and School Strike for Climate held a rally at Sydney’s Town Hall against the Albanese government’s “inadequate” 2030 emissions reduction target and Labor’s support of new coal and gas projects. Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) had a rally of 150 in Brisbane focussing on new coal and gas projects.
Researchers from the Ohio State University have determined that most species of trees in the USA are growing faster due to CO2 fertilisation, making growing trees even more effective at reducing atmospheric CO2, though this does not account for the growing impact of climate heating on forests.
A push by 600,000 Spanish citizens resulted in their Senate voting in favour of granting the 1,600 km2 Mar Menor lagoon and the nearby Mediterranean coastline the status of personhood, codifying the lagoon’s right “to exist as an ecosystem and to evolve naturally” and recognizes its right to protection, conservation and restoration, and it will be legally represented by a group of caretakers made up of local officials, local citizens and scientists.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Save the Koala Day
To mark Save the Koala Day (Friday 30 September), the North East Forest Alliance appealed to the NSW Government to stop approving core Koala habitat for clearing and logging, if they have any genuine intent to stop Koalas becoming extinct in the wild by 2050.
With logging resuming in Cherry Tree State Forest on the Richmond Range, Fridays4Forests NSW held a vigil in the forest on National Save the Koala Day to protest Forest Corp logging of koala homes, calling for the NSW government to put an end to the logging of public native forests and the creation of a reserve system that will stop the slide of our koalas to extinction. Other reactions to the day are under species.
Cherry Tree: https://photos.app.goo.gl/YMDM7R7eS3UmTiPX6
There is a YouTube video of the Kalang Headwaters rally:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=4_YSsY5gAbk
The News of the Area story on native forest logging is now online
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/dismay-as-nsw-government-pushes-ahead-with-native-forest-logging
The end, not yet:
Friends of the Forest and the Brooman State Forest Conservation Group staged a campout protest against native forest logging near Batemans Bay, focusing on the NSW Natural Resources Commission’s recommendation that following the 2019-20 wildfires that 75 per cent of the state forest in the Batemans Bay Management Zone be protected to "allow forests to recover and protect environmental values".
Manyana Matters and Brooman State Forest Conservation Group were part of a gathering outside Shoalhaven City Council to show their support for a motion for an end to native forest logging in NSW and to support a call for the creation of the Manyana Special Conservation Reserve.
Unfortunately after lengthy debate, and pleas from loggers for their jobs, the motion failed, with only 3 councillors voting in favour.
At the council meeting, environmental activists from around the region filled the public gallery, along with members of the CFMEU representing workers in the local forestry sector.
Increasing logging:
With its $28 million dedicated to encouraging and promoting logging on private lands, and its new Private Native Forestry (a.k.a. Farm Forestry) Codes of Practice, the NSW Government is hoping there will be an increase in logging, as they aim for accreditation of their “sustainable” logging.
https://www.theland.com.au/story/7915985/timber-shortages-lead-to-new-farm-forestry-support/
A case in point:
The New Bush Telegraph has an emotive article describing the clearing of bush in the Shoalhaven City Council area for urban development, focussing on the destruction of an old hollow-bearing Blackbutt - a reflection of what goes on in our public forests every day.
https://newbushtelegraph.org.au/the-passing-of-a-matriarch/
AUSTRALIA
End Victorian logging by 2023, not 2030, and save $205M:
The Victorian Greens’ election policy is to bring forward the phasing out of logging of public native forests from 2030 to 2023 and offering logging workers and contractors to either take a transition package, or be redeployed into a special emergency and disaster response team, using their existing skills in earthmoving, heavy machinery and firefighting, and Victoria's Parliamentary Budget Office assessed it would save the state an estimated $205 million over the next decade.
https://www.miragenews.com/forestry-workers-would-form-emergency-response-862255/
Victoria's Parliamentary Budget Office has crunched the numbers on the Greens' new election policy to end native forest logging next year, instead of the 2030 deadline set by the Andrews government.
According to the PBO's costing, seen by AAP, the Greens policy would save Victoria $205m from 2022/23 to 2032/33.
A $101.3m estimated fall in revenue from abolishing VicForests on January 1 next year would be offset by $306.7m in projected savings from ending government grants to the state-owned business.
https://www.perthnow.com.au/politics/earlier-vic-logging-ban-would-save-205m-c-8364543
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7919460/earlier-vic-logging-ban-would-save-205m/
Extinction worsening:
ABC’s 7.30 report looks at an example of 3,700 hectares of tree clearing taking place in Queensland without any requirement for an assessment of its impact on threatened species, because it’s classed as 50 year old regrowth.
https://www.abc.net.au/7.30/questions-raised-over-queensland-land-clearing/14067990
Shifting agriculture:
Australia’s land use measured annually from June 2020 to June 2021 has seen dramatic shifts towards forestation, cropping and conservation, land for forestry saw the most significant percentage shift with 47.4pc increase over 12 months, followed by cropping at 20.7pc, conservation at 11.1pc, and grazing at a mild 2.2pc increase, while cattle decline exclusion fencing, sheep and goats increase.
In the last five years, thousands of kilometres of exclusion fencing have been erected in western NSW and western QLD. Before the drought, cattle had been predominately in these areas. Since the extreme drought conditions of 2019, cattle have been replaced by sheep and goats, which are more suitable for these marginal regions and easier to feed in droughts.
The ABC has an article about some farmers on the Murray who started planting trees 30 years ago, and are now doing well out of sawing them up for timber and firewood, with the aim of producing timber indefinitely.
Logging for climate:
The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) (now chaired by Diana Gibbs who used to be Forestry’s favourite economist) is excited by the opportunities for them from the Forests and Climate Leaders’ Partnership and the prospects of a massive government funded plantation expansion, with its first annual meeting to be held in Egypt at COP27 in November.
“If the world is to achieve its ambitious climate targets, there needs to be an expansion of the forest estate across the globe. This expansion will include biodiversity plantings, but also forests for sustainable harvest and replanting of trees for timber and other products.
https://www.miragenews.com/new-un-international-partnership-to-fight-861809/
SPECIES
Bye Bye Birdie:
Researchers assessed data from the past 30-odd years on the survival of birds in semi-arid landscapes near Grenfell and West Wyalong, finding that in hot summers with 30 days above 38℃ just 59% of birds survived, leading them to predict that with about 1℃ warming compared to pre-industrial levels annual survival will fall from 63% to 43%, and with the 3.7℃ warming we could experience later this century the survival rate drops to a shocking 11%.
Our studies show extremely high temperatures are already killing troubling numbers of birds in Australia’s arid and semi-arid regions. These regions comprise 70% of the Australian continent and 40% of the global landmass.
They also followed the fates of 40 breeding pairs of Jacky Winter, a small robin, living in semi-arid mallee woodland in South Australia between 2018 and 2021 to assess their reaction to heat stress, finding that at around 35℃ birds moved to the top of the highest trees where greater wind speeds cooled their bodies, and at around 40℃ they moved to the ground to shelter in tree-base hollows in the largest mallees and crevices, the only places that offered the needed thermal insulation, leading them to recommend as the key action “identifying and protecting thermal refuges such as tree hollows by, for example, managing fire to reduce the loss of large trees”.
We then examined what parts of the birds’ habitat offered the coolest place to shelter on extremely hot days. Hollows in tree bases were significantly cooler than all other locations we measured. The best of these cool hollows were rare and found only in the largest eucalypt mallees.
Even with their flexible behaviour, the ability of Jacky Winters to survive heatwaves was finite – and apparently dependent on whether large trees were available. Some 29% percent of adults we studied disappeared (and were presumed dead) within 24 hours of air temperatures reaching a record-breaking 49℃ in 2019.
Similarly, during two months of heatwaves in 2018, 20% of adults studied were lost, compared with only 6% in the two months prior.
Eggs and nestlings were even more susceptible to heat. All 41 egg clutches and 21 broods exposed to air temperatures above 42℃ died.
Survival probability declined strongly with increasing exposure to days >38°C and to a lesser extent to days <0°C, with temperature extremes explaining 43 and 13% of temporal variation in survival among years, respectively. Summer survival patterns were similar across avian guilds but only survival of nectarivores declined in winter. Our models predict that gains in winter survival will not offset reductions in summer survival. Annual survival is predicted to decline substantially by the end of the century: from .63 in 1986 to .43 in 2104 under an optimistic emission scenario and to .11 under a pessimistic scenario.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/geb.13591
Cute and cuddly get all the attention, but what do people like?
A study analysed 670 wildlife images posted to Instagram by wildlife organisations and research group accounts, and recorded the number of “likes” the image received in proportion to each organisation’s follower count, finding “mammals were, indeed, more engaging than other species, but only by a tiny amount, with birds, reptiles, invertebrates, amphibians and fish all equally as engaging for Instagram users”, advocating for promotion of all species as research has found “when we put effort into promoting underrepresented species, we can improve their chances of receiving a public donation by 26%”.
Our findings suggest the media and conservation organisations can promote endangered species across all walks of life – from lizards to bugs and fish to frogs – without compromising viewer engagement. This will increase our knowledge of the amazing diversity of animals that we share this planet with. In turn, this will lead to underrepresented species receiving more of the conservation support they need to survive.
Glossy PR:
Birdlife Australia is calling on citizen scientists to take part in Coffs Coast Glossy Count on Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 October to identify Glossy Black Cockatoos in the Coffs Harbour, Bellingen and the Clarence Valley.
Citizen scientists can register for the event and sign up for a workshop via the BirdLife website at bit.ly/glossyproject.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/join-the-coffs-coast-glossy-count-29-30-october-2022
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-30-september-2022
Koalas,
The 42 minute documentary "Every Koala Counts" about Friends of the Koala and the fight to save koalas in NSW will premiere at Byron Bay International Film Festival on 22 October, and has been selected for the International Social Change Film Festival.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA0b4pDlUA4
… more concern about thumpers:
Gunnedah's koala population used to be thriving but it's now in steep decline thanks, in part, to the ravages of chlamydia, so people are concerned that if Santos is allowed to generate seismic waves using thumper trucks that it could further stress Koalas and interfere with a chlamydia vaccination trial.
"It was like an ongoing earthquake - and I've been through an earthquake - but it didn't stop. The vibrations were coming up through the ground and the reverberation, we could feel it through our feet, right up into our heart," the Liverpool Plains farmer says.
"It was a very disconcerting feeling. We had stock that were absolutely terrified, horses that were not bred to jump but jumped out of the paddock, fleeing the experience."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-11243989/Seismic-Santos-tests-hurt-koala-trial.html
https://www.westernadvocate.com.au/story/7916790/seismic-santos-tests-may-hurt-koala-trial/
… more concern about cars:
Ten Koalas have been struck and killed by cars on the Mid North Coast this month.
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2022/09/27/increasing-concerns-over-the-number-of-koalas-struck-by-cars/
… no concern about logging:
The radio-tracking collaboration between DPI Forestry and the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital has finally been written up, its no surprise that it supports current forestry practices, though it is surprising that given it has been widely used to claim that Koalas have no tree size preference (ie NRC 2021: “Provided that the tree species composition within a stand is nutritionally suitable, koalas should be able to find food of adequate nutritional quality in a forest mosaic that includes regrowth dominated by trees as small as 10 cm DBH (noting the DPI GPS study showed koalas use the full range of tree sizes above eight centimetres)”), it now says they prefer trees 30-60cm (the paper is paywalled).
Key results: We tracked koalas to 429 day-trees and 70 night-trees during this time. Males and females displayed little difference in tree use. Blackbutt Eucalyptus pilularis and turpentine Syncarpia glomulifera were the most commonly used species during the day, but blackbutt was ranked with the highest preference relative to tree availability. Tallowwood Eucalyptus microcorys was by far the most commonly used tree at night. Koalas used a broad range of tree sizes during the day and night, but most often used medium-sized trees, with preferences for a diameter of 30–60 cm (slightly smaller at night). Koalas used all topographic positions in the landscape, but more than half of the trees used were in lower topographic areas (gullies and lower slopes). Areas mapped as having previous heavy timber harvesting were the most used forest category, followed by riparian exclusion zones.
https://www.publish.csiro.au/wr/WR22087
… or fires:
Vic Jurskis, and his theory of Koalas erupting in response to regrowth (which is why they are being killed by cars), is having a field day with the propaganda being produced by Brad Law and being released by the Natural Resources Commission as part of their forest monitoring, notably their claim that the 2019-20 fires had no impact on Koalas: “This recent trend shows a stable meta-population over the last 5 years, including after fires burnt 30% of Koala habitat in 2019.” - these people, their pseudo-science, and misinterpretations, are dangerous.
https://arr.news/2022/09/27/more-of-the-great-koala-scam-vic-jurskis/
Saving Koalas, or distracting from the real threats:
Australian Koala Foundation had very widespread coverage (only a fraction is identified below) for Save the Koala Day, citing that over the past two decades, koala populations have nearly halved because of urban expansion, loss of habitat, disease and climate change, and experts believe they remain under threat of extinction, with the AKF calling for a moratorium on habitats that are essential for breeding populations.
"Do I think that if we acted now and stopped cutting down the trees that they could recover? Yes I do. But I don't think the new minister has anywhere near the urgency that she needs, and that's why I'm calling for a moratorium on habitats that are essential for breeding populations."
https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/environment/koalas-at-risk-of-extinction-experts-warn-c-8400581
https://www.hawkesburygazette.com.au/story/7924232/koalas-at-risk-of-extinction-experts-warn/?cs=12
https://www.singletonargus.com.au/story/7924232/koalas-at-risk-of-extinction-experts-warn/
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7924232/koalas-at-risk-of-extinction-experts-warn/
https://www.katherinetimes.com.au/story/7924232/koalas-at-risk-of-extinction-experts-warn/?cs=356
https://www.greatlakesadvocate.com.au/story/7924232/koalas-at-risk-of-extinction-experts-warn/?cs=7
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/7924232/koalas-at-risk-of-extinction-experts-warn/
https://www.areanews.com.au/story/7924232/koalas-at-risk-of-extinction-experts-warn/?cs=9351
Featherdale Wildlife Park's Chad Staples said habitat loss is one of the main reasons the koala population is struggling to survive, and urged people to take political action
Taronga Wildlife Hospital at Taronga Western Plains Zoo used Save the Koala Day on Friday 30 September to promote their new hospital that will open this summer.
ACF identify five ways to save Koalas, adopting one (paying an organisation), finding out if they are in your area, watching a video about scats, planting trees and driving slower – nothing about stopping clearing and logging of their habitat.
https://www.wwf.org.au/news/blogs/5-ways-to-help-koalas-this-save-the-koala-day#gs.ddvchj
For their contribution the NSW Government, WWF and Climate Friendly Co announced that private landholders are being supported to restore 200 hectares of koala habitat in the Northern Rivers by planting 250,000 tree seedlings, going so far as to pretend it will also restore Greater Glider habitat. Though the Animal Justice Party complains it will take 30 years, that Koalas don’t have, for the trees to grow big enough for Koalas – and we will have to wait 200 years for those hollows Greater Gliders need to form
WWF-Australia Landscape Restoration Project Manager Tanya Pritchard said the project is addressing some of the major threats facing koalas.
“We can’t turn around the decline of east coast koalas without bold actions to tackle habitat loss and fragmentation,” Ms Pritchard said.
Climate Friendly Co-CEO Skye Glenday said … “Our partnership with landowners, WWF-Australia and the NSW Government will replenish important feeding and safe living areas for koalas and potentially attract other wildlife such as greater gliders, while building biodiversity and flood impact mitigation,” Ms Glenday said.
https://afndaily.com.au/2022/09/29/habitat-boost-for-northern-rivers-koalas/
http://www.china.org.cn/world/Off_the_Wire/2022-09/29/content_78444917.htm
Animal Justice Party Councillor for the City of Campbelltown Matt Stellino says the Environment Minister’s announcement is a distraction and a death sentence for koalas. ‘He hasn’t announced additional koala habitat: he’s announced the planting of seedlings. They won’t become koala habitat for 30 years. Koalas don’t have 30 years.
Sugar hits result in aggression:
Researchers found that Noisy Miners become more aggressive to other native birds around cafes and in nectar rich gardens, where the extra sugar gives them more time to attack competitors and predators, leading to recommendations for planting less hybrid and exotic nectar-producing species, and more local endemics and dense small-flowered shrubs.
Our study, published in the journal Emu - Austral Ornithology, found it wasn’t cafes with access to sugar-rich food that led to more miner aggression. In fact, gardens were where we recorded the highest amount of aggressive behaviour.
A secret cell:
The finding of 19 cane toads around Lake Macquarie has raised concerns about the risk of a new outbreak.
https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/7918855/more-cane-toads-caught-near-lake-macquarie/
Brumby wars escalate:
“Radical feral horse-loving extremists” have threatened to ‘fire bomb’ the offices of the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, and issued death threats to staff, as retribution for the sanctioned humane culling of 11 feral horses in the Kosciuszko National Park.
Police have been alerted after a handwritten letter was sent to National Parks staff at their Kosciuszko region office last week stating: “ … as a little act of retribution we plan to pay a visit … and firebomb your premises! Make sure you are all very careful over the next couple of weeks, we would hate you to get burnt”.
Messages posted on social media and seen by The Daily Telegraph include “shoot the dogs that did this”.
Other messages directed at staff included “maybe we can give them some ‘gut shots’ and see if they can deny that!”, after inaccurate claims brumbies had been killed by being shot in the stomach – which would have lead to a slow, painful death.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Cyclones rapidly growing worse:
After devastating Haiti, Hurricane Ian became rapidly turbocharged as it moved over the climate heated waters of the gulf before making landfall in Florida, due to warming oceans there is a growing problem with the rapid intensification and magnitude of hurricanes (cyclones) catching communities by surprise, while they are also becoming slower and wetter meaning the magnitude of rainfall events are increasing, and the magnitude of storm surges are increasing as sea-levels rise (as with the unprecedented storm surge from Hurricane Fiona that devastated some communities in eastern Canada last week).
Britain rapidly getting worse:
In the space of less than a week, the new ultra-conservative British Truss government has launched an all-out assault on nature, starting with a bill to expunge all remaining EU-derived regulations including numerous environmental protections for endangered species and wild nature, as well as creating ‘Investment Zones’ “in which taxes will be cut, planning rules relaxed and environmental regulations ripped up”.
https://guyshrubsole.substack.com/p/trusss-anti-environmentalism-has
The chemicals we excrete:
Mongabay report that a study published in June analyzed samples from 1,000 sites along waterways in more than 100 nations, looking for 61 active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Their results suggest that concentrations of at least one API breached safe levels for aquatic life at nearly 40% of sites tested globally.
TURNING IT AROUND
Legalising climate anxiety:
In a Blockade Australia action, Lismore resident Mali Cooper, 22, stopped her car across the southbound entrance to the Sydney Harbour Tunnel, locked onto the steering wheel and bought traffic to a halt, under draconian laws she faced a fine of up to $22,000 or a two-year jail sentence, though Lismore magistrate Jeff Linden dismissed the charges on mental health grounds.
Davis said he was pleased that the court “gave full consideration” to his client’s pre-existing anxiety disorder which “was profoundly impacted, exacerbated by the Lismore floods and her concerns about climate change to such a degree that it was clinically diagnosed after the Lismore floods as PTSD”
Mali Cooper has spent the last three months under harsh bail conditions of non-association with over 30 others, and ordered to report weekly to the Lismore police station, which was ironically shut due to flood-damage.
On social media, Blockade Australia said, ‘It is not a crime to attempt collective survival on earth. With every disaster, we need a stronger resistance to this planet-destroying system.’
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/09/lismore-activist-who-blocked-sydney-traffic-has-charges-dismissed/
The UN human rights committee found Australia had breached Article 27 and 17 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights failed to protect Torres Strait Islanders against the impacts of climate change and violated their right to enjoy their culture, and to be free from arbitrary interference to privacy, family and home, by not taking measures such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions and upgrading seawalls on the islands
ClientEarth lawyer Sophie Marjanac, who acted for the claimants, said the outcome set a number of precedents. Specifically, it’s the first time an international tribunal has found:
- a country has violated human rights law through inadequate climate policy
- a nation state is responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions under international human rights law
- peoples’ right to culture is at risk from climate impacts.
https://lsj.com.au/articles/un-win-for-torres-strait-islanders-on-climate-change-damage/
Students are back:
Fridays for Future rallies were held in New York, Jakarta, Tokyo, Rome, Berlin and Montreal to highlight their fears about the effects of global warming and demand more aid for poor countries hit by wild weather, with 20,000 people attending the rally in Berlin and 5,000 in Rome.
Workers for Climate Action and School Strike for Climate held a rally at Sydney’s Town Hall against the Albanese government’s “inadequate” 2030 emissions reduction target and Labor’s support of new coal and gas projects.
Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) had a rally of 150 in Brisbane focussing on new coal and gas projects.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/09/young-people-rally-for-a-climate-positive-budget/
CO2 fertilisation:
Researchers from the Ohio State University have determined that most species of trees in the USA are growing faster due to CO2 fertilisation, making growing trees even more effective at reducing atmospheric CO2, though this does not account for the growing impact of climate heating on forests.
"Carbon fertilization certainly makes it cheaper to plant trees, avoid deforestation, or do other activities related to trying to enhance the carbon sink in forests. We should be planting more trees and preserving older ones, because at the end of the day they're probably our best bet for mitigating climate change," Sohngen continued.
Over the period 1970 to 2015, CO2 concentrations increased by 75 ppm, and we find that this increase in CO2 stimulated an increase in wood volume in naturally regenerated 75-year-old forests in the United States by 12.3% (7.5 and 17.1%: 99% CI).
… This suggests that from 1970 to 2015, wood volume on natural Loblolly/Shortleaf stands increased by about 0.5 m3 ha−1 yr−1 due to elevated CO2, while volume increased by 0.8 m3 ha−1 yr−1 on planted stands.
Although the proportional effect of elevated CO2 appears to decline for older stands, the additional accumulation of volume in older stands due to elevated CO2 remains substantial nonetheless because older stands have more wood volume.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33196-x
Making nature personal:
A push by 600,000 Spanish citizens resulted in their Senate voting in favour of granting the 1,600 km2 Mar Menor lagoon and the nearby Mediterranean coastline the status of personhood, codifying the lagoon’s right “to exist as an ecosystem and to evolve naturally” and recognizes its right to protection, conservation and restoration, and it will be legally represented by a group of caretakers made up of local officials, local citizens and scientists.
Forest Media 23 September 2022
New South Wales
The NSW parliament debate on the 21,000 strong petition calling for an end to logging of public native forests, stopping burning them for electricity and implementing the NRC recommendations for burnt forests, has been rescheduled for 4pm 13th October. A rally out the front is being organised for 2:30pm: https://fb.me/e/5nWL3RSN0
NSW Greens MP Sue Higginson says the NSW Government’s response to the 21 thousand signatories on a petition to end native forest logging has failed to recognise the considered calls for a transition plan that makes economic and ecological sense, receiving great coverage in The Echo and The Northern Rivers Times this week. There was a protest march in Bellingen for the Kalang Headwaters, I saw a report on NBN (?) news mentioning 500 as participating, though I have been unable to find anything else. News of the Area has a long article combining the march in Bellingen (with no mention of numbers), the reaction to the petition from Minister Saunders and 10 major conservation groups (including NEFA and NCEC), and the reaction to the inquiry from Sue Higginson and Justin Field. Committed Christians, mostly from the Uniting Church, are working with forest defenders on developing a ministry to advocate for forests on the NSW North Coast after spending a few days exploring forests on Gumbaynggirr land.
In breaking news, forestry workers welcomed the government's rejection of native timber ban, mentioning they don’t try to rape and pillage. NSW parliamentarians from across the political spectrum joined to establish the inaugural Parliamentary Friends of Forestry group, co-chaired by Agriculture Minister Dugald Saunders and Shadow Minister for Natural Resources Tania Mihailuk.
An assessment of vegetation change and carbon storage in 130,000 years of sediments in Sydney’s Thirlmere Lake found that thanks to erosion the lake was able to capture and store large quantities of carbon, the vegetation fluctuated from forests and shrubs in the inter-glacials to grass and herbs during drier and colder glacial periods, with forest reducing erosion of sediments by nearly 10 times, though because of increased carbon in the forests overall carbon storage in lake sediments were increased.
Heavy rainfall and flooding events have rendered up to 30 per cent of the state’s national parks and walking trails inaccessible, with remediation works taking months to complete, and more rain on the way.
Australia
After the Morrisson Dark Ages, the Australian government has signed the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature endorsed by more than 90 countries committing them to reversing biodiversity loss by 2030. NCEC’s Susie Russell put out a press release welcoming political recognition of the biodiversity crisis.
Species
Cosmos Magazine has an article explaining what a species is, how they get listed as threatened, and what action is required (or not), emphasising that a response to the Samuel Review is expected by the end of the year.
As part of AKF’s Save the Koala Month, Hope 103.2 has an interview with Dr Kara Youngentob talking about the role of Koalas in forests, apparently boosting trees’ immune systems, and Deborah Tabart calling for support to call on the Australian Government to enact the AKF’s Koala Protection Act. People are being asked to take care driving and keep dogs under control, as at least 30 koalas have been reported to have been hit by cars or attacked by dogs across the Northern Rivers since mid-July.
University of Sydney are concerned that a vaccine trial they are undertaking on the Liverpool Plains may be compromised by Santos’ proposal for seismic testing in areas that 46 out of 50 koalas in the study lived, being most concerned about the potential for seismic shocks to induce a stress response. Ballarat Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation are calling for an immediate moratorium on the harvesting of blue-gum plantations across Victoria, to protect koalas, until a management plan is established.
Narrandera held its inaugural Koala Festival on Saturday to celebrate and raise awareness of Narrandera’s treasured free-ranging koala colony through koala-themed displays and activities. Southern New England Landcare and Friends of the Koala have been granted $750,000 and $630,000 respectively from the NSW Koala Strategy, as well as $420,000 from the Commonwealth’s Regional Bushfire Recovery for Multiregional Species and Strategic Projects Program, to employ dedicated Koala Officers, develop Regional Koala Conservation Strategies, fund localised private land projects. and support for the koala rehabilitation sector. In an Area of Regional Koala Significance (ARKS) in the Southern Tablelands and Snowy Monaro Local Land Services have been using wildlife audio recorders to record koalas, detecting them at 63 per cent of the recording sites, and helping landowners to plant close to 5,000 koala habitat and feed trees and established livestock exclusion fencing, pest animal control and weed management, as part of their Cold Country Koala project.
An estimated 60 per cent of the Greater Glider population in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area was estimated to have been lost in the 2019-20 fires, though in the less heavily burnt areas there are signs of recovery. A new children's book Drawing Australian Gliders, which brings together art and natural history, has been launched.
Solar backpacks are being attached to captive-reared plains wanderers to track their movements when released;
Warming of reptile and fish eggs has been found to make the juveniles and adults less tolerant of higher temperatures, meaning many species of cold-blooded animals will struggle to handle more heat as their habitat warms up, with young particularly vulnerable.
The Deteriorating Problem
A world-wide study of wood decay found that decay rates from microbes approximately doubled across sites for each 10℃ increase in mean annual temperature, with decay increasing further with rainfall, though the greatest increase in decay came from termites, in a region with temperatures of 30℃ termites will eat wood seven times faster than in a place with temperatures of 20℃, meaning that rather than carbon being stored in dead wood for often considerable periods it will be released into the atmosphere more rapidly, accelerating global warming.
Scientists warn that when 25% of the Amazon is cleared under current climate pressures that it will reach a tipping point beyond which it would begin to transition from lush tropical forest into a dry degraded savanna, while so far only 13.2%. has been cleared, the problem is that 31% of the eastern Amazon is gone which is critical as the western Amazon gets up to half of its rain from recycling of rainfall by the eastern rainforests, meaning that the western Amazon is more vulnerable to drought losses, accelerating progress towards irrevocable collapse.
The Trembling Giant, an Aspen tree with a single root system and a forest of stems covering over 43 ha, considered one of the heaviest, oldest, and largest organisms in the world, is being fragmented by fences and browsing by cattle and deer.
Turning it Around
Around the world thousands of hectares of trees planted as offsets for big polluters are being consumed by wildfires, releasing hundreds of thousands of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, with densely packed plantations particularly vulnerable to burning, and fire risk increasing as CO2 levels increase, the only solution is to stop polluting – and of course restoring the resilience of standing forests.
Central to the UK government’s net-zero pledge is an aim to plant 7,000 hectares of woodland a year by May 2024, but the drought has taken a huge toll, the stressed plantings are susceptible the oak processionary moth, ash dieback and chestnut blight, putting the UK plan at risk – out weakened forests too are at risk from Myrtle Rust and Bell Miner Associated Dieback.
Researchers found that tree species diversity could enhance drought resistance in nearly half the world’s forests, emphasising “the importance of restoring tree species diversity in helping forests resist frequent and intense droughts that may occur as a result of global warming”.
A study of a Mexican mangrove forest, found that like other trees they are good at absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it in soil, in the wet low oxygen and carbon-rich peat under mangrove forests they can keep carbon out of the atmosphere for millennia – the problem I see is that as the seas rise mangroves have to retreat inland (if they aren’t stopped by development) and their soils will wash away.
Users of a new digital platform from non-profit CTrees will be able to track in near-real-time the carbon stored and emitted in the world’s forests, it’s being touted as the first-ever open-source global system for calculating the amount of carbon in every tree on the planet, and is to be launched at COP27 this November.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Date for debate:
The NSW parliament debate on the 21,000 strong petition calling for an end to logging of public native forests, stopping burning them for electricity and implementing the NRC recommendations for burnt forests, has been rescheduled for 4pm 13th October. A rally out the front is being organised for 2:30pm: https://fb.me/e/5nWL3RSN0
Higginson attacks Saunders:
NSW Greens MP Sue Higginson says the NSW Government’s response to the 21 thousand signatories on a petition to end native forest logging has failed to recognise the considered calls for a transition plan that makes economic and ecological sense, receiving great coverage in The Echo and The Northern Rivers Times this week.
‘The legitimate concerns of many NSW residents have been completely disregarded by the Government in this response. It is clear that the Minister and this Government are not up for the job of taking us into the future.’
The Northern Rivers Times 22 September 2022
Marching for forests:
There was a protest march in Bellingen for the Kalang Headwaters, I saw a report on NBN news mentioning 500 as participating, though I have been unable to find anything else. News of the Area has a long article combining the march in Bellingen (with no mention of numbers), the reaction to the petition from Minister Saunders and 10 major conservation groups (including NEFA and NCEC), and the reaction to the inquiry from Sue Higginson and Justin Field.
Action to protest logging in native forests continues on the Coffs Coast, with a march in Bellingen last Saturday, September 17, to protest proposed logging of what activists say is over 1,500 hectares of prime native animal habitat near the Kalang headwaters.
NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said “The NSW Government’s callous disregard for our threatened species is why Koalas, and hollow-dependent species such as Greater Gliders, Yellow-bellied Gliders, Gang Gang Cockatoos and Glossy Black Cockatoos are becoming increasingly endangered.”
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-23-september-2022
The News of the Area Kalang story is online.
Christians for forests:
Committed Christians, mostly from the Uniting Church, are working with forest defenders on developing a ministry to advocate for forests on the NSW North Coast after spending a few days exploring forests on Gumbaynggirr land.
Jeff Kite, chair of the Forest Advocacy Ministry Implementation Committee of the Uniting Church said, “The weekend was a wonderful opportunity to listen to the concerns of First Nations Elders and forest defenders, and to see firsthand the magnificent native forests and headwater catchment areas of parts of the proposed Great Koala National Park.
Rev. Phil Dokmanovic from Bangalow-Byron Bay Uniting Church said, “Local people are standing up to protect the places that they love and on which we all depend.
Shocking news:
In breaking news, forestry workers welcomed the government's rejection of native timber ban, mentioning they don’t try to rape and pillage.
"Harvesting crews actually care way more about nature than most people believe," he said.
"We aren't trying to rape and pillage the earth."
https://www.braidwoodtimes.com.au/story/7912002/forestry-workers-welcome-decision-to-not-halt-native-operations/
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/online-petition-wont-sway-nsw-government-on-native-logging/
Friends in high places:
NSW parliamentarians from across the political spectrum joined yesterday to establish the inaugural Parliamentary Friends of Forestry group, co-chaired by Agriculture Minister Dugald Saunders and Shadow Minister for Natural Resources Tania Mihailuk.
Australian Forest Products Association NSW chief executive Victor Violante said the strong parliamentary support shown – with around 20 parliamentarians attending – was testament to how important and prevalent NSW forest industries were to the community.
https://www.timberandforestryenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Issue-725-smaller.pdf
Forests bad for erosion, good for carbon:
An assessment of vegetation change and carbon storage in 130,000 years of sediments in Sydney’s Thirlmere Lake found that thanks to erosion the lake was able to capture and store large quantities if carbon, the vegetation fluctuated from forests and shrubs in the inter-glacials to grass and herbs during drier and colder glacial periods, with forest reducing erosion of sediments by nearly 10 times, though because of increased carbon in the forests overall carbon storage in lake sediments were increased.
Research shows 20% more carbon was captured from the Earth’s atmosphere during this La-Niña event due to increasing plant growth. Australia contributed more than half of this.
The deeper the carbon is buried in the sediments of these reservoirs, the more efficiently it is locked away from the atmosphere. In contrast, the longer it remains on the slopes and in soils close to the surface, the more it decomposes, and carbon dioxide is released back into the atmosphere.
Future climate change may raise the risk of the Thirlmere Lakes drying out, which means the sediments will be exposed, which promotes decomposition. This means the previously stored carbon will be emitted back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921818122001898
Walking curtailed:
Heavy rainfall and flooding events have rendered up to 30 per cent of the state’s national parks and walking trails inaccessible, with remediation works taking months to complete, and more rain on the way.
AUSTRALIA
Pledge to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030:
After the Morrisson Dark Ages, the Australian government has signed the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature endorsed by more than 90 countries committing them to reversing biodiversity loss by 2030. NCEC’s Susie Russell put out a press release welcoming political recognition of the biodiversity crisis.
Countries that have endorsed the pledge have promised actions including stronger global effort to reduce deforestation, halting unsustainable fishing practices, eliminating environmentally harmful subsidies, and beginning the transition to sustainable food production systems and a circular economy during the next decade.
Albanese told the event in New York that Australia understood “the urgency of the environmental challenges facing our planet and we’re committed to being a leader in the global fight to solve them”.
He noted Australia’s important position as one of only a handful of megadiverse countries that comprised 10% of the Earth’s surface but were home to more than 70% of its species.
https://www.ecovoice.com.au/australias-pledge-for-nature-comes-at-a-crucial-time/
“At last! A Prime Minister who understands there is a biodiversity crisis and who is prepared to make a public global commitment to reversing biodiversity loss. If Anthony Albanese follows through on this commitment we should see revitalised and strong environmental laws and an end to Commonwealth support for the logging of native forests,” said North Coast Environment Council Vice-President Susie Russell.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/09/time-is-up-for-business-as-usual-on-biodiversity/
SPECIES
What is a threatened species?:
Cosmos Magazine has an article explaining what a species is, how they get listed as threatened, and what action is required (or not), emphasising that a response to the Samuel Review is expected by the end of the year.
Unfortunately, team Australia is a world-leader when it comes to species extinctions and endangerments. It has the eighth-highest number of total threatened species - animal, plants and fungi - in the world.
It is third for threatened animals, behind Indonesia and the United States, and fourth globally for total extinctions.
… there are three times as many plants than animals on Australia's threatened species registers, and they face many similar threats.
Under the current system, there's no guaranteed funding to a listed species nor, as is the case in other jurisdictions such as the US and Canada, is a line drawn around critical habitat to protect it.
Time to save Koalas:
As part of AKF’s Save the Koala Month, Hope 103.2 has an interview with Dr Kara Youngentob talking about the role of Koalas in forests, apparently boosting trees’ immune systems, and Deborah Tabart calling for support to call on the Australian Government to enact the AKF’s Koala Protection Act.
https://hope1032.com.au/stories/life/2022/koalas-are-in-trouble-but-you-can-help-protect-them/
… take care Koalas about:
People are being asked to take care driving and keep dogs under control, as at least 30 koalas have been reported to have been hit by cars or attacked by dogs across the Northern Rivers since mid-July.
Koalas are at their most mobile at this time of year as they actively search for mates and new habitat. However, as their habitat is small and fragmented, koalas are often forced to travel long distances on foot through urbanised areas, where they are at risk of being struck by a vehicle or attacked by a dog.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/09/want-to-save-the-koala-slow-down-and-keep-your-dogs-inside/
https://councilmagazine.com.au/unprecedented-number-of-koala-deaths-since-mid-july/
… shocking responses:
University of Sydney are concerned that a vaccine trial they are undertaking on the Liverpool Plains may be compromised by Santos’ proposal for seismic testing in areas that 46 out of 50 koalas in the study lived, being most concerned about the potential for seismic shocks to induce a stress response.
…saving plantations for Koalas:
Ballarat Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation are calling for an immediate moratorium on the harvesting of blue-gum plantations across Victoria, to protect koalas, until a management plan is established.
According to the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) there are nearly 47,000 koalas living on blue-gum plantations across the state.
A Victorian government spokesperson said: "We've strengthened the rules for protection of koalas in blue-gum plantations which sets mandatory minimum requirements for koala management during harvest operations."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-18/victoria-bluegum-plantation-koala-moratorium/101448486
… Koala assistance:
Narrandera held its inaugural Koala Festival on Saturday to celebrate and raise awareness of Narrandera’s treasured free-ranging koala colony through koala-themed displays and activities.
https://arr.news/2022/09/22/koala-festival-brings-in-the-crowds/
Southern New England Landcare and Friends of the Koala have been granted $750,000 and $630,000 respectively from the NSW Koala Strategy, as well as $420,000 from the Commonwealth’s Regional Bushfire Recovery for Multiregional Species and Strategic Projects Program, to employ dedicated Koala Officers, develop Regional Koala Conservation Strategies, fund localised private land projects. and support for the koala rehabilitation sector.
“Amplifying their local expertise with funding and support from the NSW Koala Strategy will assist koala populations to become more climate resilient and persist for generations to come,” [Department of Planning and Environment Director of Biodiversity Conservation Alison Schumacher] said.
https://www.miragenews.com/nsw-koala-strategy-investing-in-states-north-860766/
In an Area of Regional Koala Significance (ARKS) in the Southern Tablelands and Snowy Monaro Local Land Services have been using wildlife audio recorders to record koalas, detecting them at 63 per cent of the recording sites, and helping landowners to plant close to 5,000 koala habitat and feed trees and established livestock exclusion fencing, pest animal control and weed management, as part of their Cold Country Koala project.
Greater gliders down but not out:
An estimated 60 per cent of the Greater Glider population in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area was estimated to have been lost in the 2019-20 fires, though in the less heavily burnt areas there are signs of recovery.
They discovered signs that the native marsupial had shown "surprising resilience." This year, for the first time, their research showed Greater Glider numbers are increasing in parts of the bushland where some eucalypt foliage had remained unburnt. Recovery is underway.
However, Greater Gliders have disappeared from areas that burnt at high to extreme severity, where there was no live eucalypt foliage in the aftermath of the fires. There is still no sign of them re-colonising these areas.
A new children's book Drawing Australian Gliders, which brings together art and natural history, has been launched.
https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/7902792/books-gentle-plea-to-take-care-of-our-gliders/
Tracking wanderers:
Solar backpacks are being attached to captive-reared plains wanderers to track their movements when released;
Recent estimates suggest there are between 500 and 1,000 plains wanderers left in the wild. The Australian government declared the plains wanderer critically endangered in 2015.
Heating too rapid for the cold-blooded:
Warming of reptile and fish eggs has been found to make the juveniles and adults less tolerant of higher temperatures, meaning many species of cold-blooded animals will struggle to handle more heat as their habitat warms up, with young particularly vulnerable.
Overall, we found the heat tolerance of embryos and juvenile ectotherms increased very little in response to rising temperatures. For each degree of warming, the heat tolerance of young ectotherms only increased by an average 0.13℃.
These results show embryos are especially vulnerable to extreme heat. Instead of getting better at handling heat, warmer eggs tend to produce juveniles and adults less capable of withstanding a warmer future.
Overall, our findings suggest young cold-blooded animals are already struggling to cope with rising temperatures – and conditions during early life can have lifelong consequences.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Increasing hunger causing climate heating:
A world-wide study of wood decay found that decay rates from microbes approximately doubled across sites for each 10℃ increase in mean annual temperature, with decay increasing further with rainfall, though the greatest increase in decay came from termites, in a region with temperatures of 30℃ termites will eat wood seven times faster than in a place with temperatures of 20℃, meaning that rather than carbon being stored in dead wood for often considerable periods it will be released into the atmosphere more rapidly, accelerating global warming.
This will mean carbon cycling through the deadwood pool will get faster, returning carbon dioxide fixed by trees to the atmosphere, which could limit the storage of carbon in these ecosystems. Reducing the amount of carbon stored on land could then start a feedback loop to accelerate the pace of climate change.
We have long known human-caused climate change would favour a few winners but leave many losers. It would appear the humble termite is likely to be one such winner, about to experience a significant global expansion in its prime habitat.
When will the Amazon tip into savanna?:
Scientists warn that when 25% of the Amazon is cleared under current climate pressures that it will reach a tipping point beyond which it would begin to transition from lush tropical forest into a dry degraded savanna, while so far only 13.2%. has been cleared, the problem is that 31% of the eastern Amazon is gone which is critical as the western Amazon gets up to half of its rain from recycling of rainfall by the eastern rainforests, meaning that the western Amazon is more vulnerable to drought losses, accelerating progress towards irrevocable collapse.
“This finding is critical,” the report says, “because the tipping point will likely be triggered in the east.” Tree loss in the east is significant because moisture cycles through the forest from east to west, creating up to 50% of all rainfall across the Amazon.
Another recent study found that for every three trees that die due to drought in the Amazon Rainforest, a fourth tree, even if it’s not directly affected by drought, will also die. With fewer trees in the east to recycle moisture due to drought and deforestation, the rest of the Amazon becomes drier.
A study found that in the Amazon region deforestation for agriculture and fires more than doubled carbon emissions in 2019 and 2020, compared to the average of the previous eight years, which they attributed to a "collapse" in law enforcement in recent years encouraging forest clearing.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62999822
The Trembling Giant fragments:
The Trembling Giant, an Aspen tree with a single root system and a forest of stems covering over 43 ha, considered one of the heaviest, oldest, and largest organisms in the world, is being fragmented by fences and browsing by cattle and deer.
The research has been published in Conservation Science and Practice.
TURNING IT AROUND
Offsets are emitting:
Around the world thousands of hectares of trees planted as offsets for big polluters are being consumed by wildfires, releasing hundreds of thousands of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, with densely packed plantations particularly vulnerable to burning, and fire risk increasing as CO2 levels increase, the only solution is to stop polluting – and of course restoring the resilience of standing forests.
Meanwhile, wildfires increasingly threaten even those modest ambitions, says William Anderegg, a forest ecologist at the University of Utah. First, because the fires are made more likely – and more intense – as offset bakers try to increase carbon storage by packing in more trees, turning many forests into tinderboxes. And second, because of the impacts of climate change.
Central to the UK government’s net-zero pledge is an aim to plant 7,000 hectares of woodland a year by May 2024, but the drought has taken a huge toll, the stressed plantings are susceptible the oak processionary moth, ash dieback and chestnut blight, putting the UK plan at risk – out weakened forests too are at risk from Myrtle Rust and Bell Miner Associated Dieback.
The climate crisis is causing certain pests to thrive as well as making plants more susceptible to disease, as changing weather patterns make them weaker and so more likely to be affected by pests.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/21/drought-threatens-uk-mass-forestry-scheme-tree
Diversity resistance:
Researchers found that tree species diversity could enhance drought resistance in nearly half the world’s forests, emphasising “the importance of restoring tree species diversity in helping forests resist frequent and intense droughts that may occur as a result of global warming”.
They found that species-rich forests such as moist tropical broadleaf forests, which have an average of 65 tree species, showed the highest drought resistance. In contrast, species-poor forests such as xeric woodlands, which have only two or three tree species, showed the lowest drought resistance.
Moreover, the researchers mapped the global species-diversity effect on forest drought resistance. Based on their results, they predicted that higher species richness had a positive effect on drought resistance in nearly half of all global forests, with the largest effect in dry and drought-prone forests such as xeric woodlands or subtropical dry forests.
Their findings were published in Nature Geoscience on Sept. 19.
https://www.miragenews.com/tree-species-diversity-enhances-forest-drought-858667/
https://www.newswise.com/articles/tree-species-diversity-enhances-forest-drought-resistance
Are mangroves our saviours?:
A study of a Mexican mangrove forest, found that like other trees they are good at absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it in soil, in the wet low oxygen and carbon-rich peat under mangrove forests they can keep carbon out of the atmosphere for millennia – the problem I see is that as the seas rise mangroves have to retreat inland (if they aren’t stopped by development) and their soils will wash away.
A study published in Marine Ecology Progress Series has found that the carbon stored in peat under the mangrove forest is over 5,000 years old.
“If we let these forests keep functioning, they can retain the carbon they’ve sequestered out of our atmosphere, essentially permanently.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/mangrove-forest-carbon-sequestration/
Making every tree count:
Users of a new digital platform from nonprofit CTrees will be able to track in near-real-time the carbon stored and emitted in the world’s forests, it’s being touted as the first-ever open-source global system for calculating the amount of carbon in every tree on the planet, and is to be launched at COP27 this November.
However, because trees are so efficient at stashing away carbon dioxide, they release vast quantities of carbon back into the atmosphere when forests are degraded, felled or burned. Recent studies have shown that many forests are nearing a tipping point that compromises their ability to store carbon, with parts of Southeast Asia and the Amazon already net carbon emitters due to multiple human-induced stressors.
Forest Media 16 September 2022
New South Wales
Thursday was a busy day for forests. On Thursday morning the NSW Government released its response to the ePetition to end logging of public native forests, due to parliament, and thus the debate, being suspended because of the Queen’s death. It was the standard tripe saying how wonderful forestry is, while misrepresenting employment by including softwoods. On Thursday afternoon the report of the ‘Inquiry into the long term sustainability and future of the timber and forest products industry’ was released. It turned out to be better than expected, with recommendations such as “the NSW Government consider commissioning a cost benefit assessment of the native hardwood forestry sector to consider the most beneficial use of public native forests“ and “the NSW Government provide long term support to workers in the timber and forest products industry transitioning away from native forestry to other parts of the sector”. Some reports mixed the stories, while others focused on the Shooters and Fisher’s claims of a timber crisis (which failed to mention it was all about pine). While Saunders avoided it in his response to the ePetition, one of the recommendations of the Inquiry was for the leaked 2021 NRC report to be released and acted on, though the ABC thinks it demands a halt to native forestry by the end of 2022. In a widespread AAP story, The Shooters and Fishers focussed on the timber supply crisis, without mentioning the problem is pine, NCC called form more plantations and a transition, and Justin Field called for the Great Koala NP to be established despite the committee. NEFA welcomed the recommendation for a cost benefit assessment of the native hardwood forestry sector to consider the most beneficial use of public native forests because “There is no doubt that there are far greater financial and societal benefits to the community from protecting public forests for carbon sequestration, recreation, tourism, water supply, and habitat”.
Another forest protector stopped work in Ellis State Forest by using a 20m high tree-sit attached to machinery. The Nimbin Goodtimes ran the story by Susie Russell and me asking for a Stop Work Order on Ellis State Forest, protecting it as part of the Great Koala National Park, and the need for the EPA to police the damage to retained trees. In what could prove to be their downfall, the Forestry Corporation have started roading Orara East SF, 10 minutes from Coffs Harbour, much to the chagrin of local residents. With logging scheduled to start any day, News of the Area has a lengthy story citing Katherine Kelly about the risks of erosion and mass movement if the headwaters of the Kalang River are logged, citing the 1992 Oakes SF incident where 88,000 tonnes of soils were washed into the Kalang River before being stopped by a blockade.
Nimbin Goodtimes reports on a Friday for Forests action to protest logging on private land along the road 100m from the entrance to the Border Ranges National Park, reporting that subsequent EPA inspections identified alleged non-compliances and required erosion mitigation works.
Manyana Matters (from Manyana north of Ulladulla) continues to battle against residential development using an old approval in bushland, say their roots lie in anti-logging protests of the 90’s, and are part of the movement to end logging of public native forest. A video “Meet the faces behind the push to end native forest logging” with statements by Joslyn van der Moolen from Brooman State Forest Conservation Group and Bill Egar from Manyana Matters had widespread coverage. The Brooman State Forest Conservation Group is staging various activities to highlight its concerns about logging in the Brooman, Currowan and Shallow Crossing State Forests, including holding a Stop Logging Shoalhaven Big Canopy Campout.
Richard Poole, the businessman behind converting the disused Redbank Power Station near Singleton to burnt 850,000 tonnes of biomass p.a. says he has so far raised $80million, is waiting on approval of his DA and EIS, and has plans for more.
Once again a normally pristine creek in Royal National Park has been turned black, with thick black sludge floating on top, after US giant Peabody Energy spilled coal mining waste into it, Minister Griffin responded 'I have spoken directly with the company to express my deep concerns and my immediate focus is on ensuring that remediation occurs as an urgent priority'. Platypus releases are being delayed.
Australia
Our new leader, King Charles III, is being lauded across the media as a strong conservationist, though the consensus is that he will be more constrained as king.
Independent senator David Pocock and environment groups are demanding the $7 billion earmarked for regional dams, to placate the Nationals in return for allowing net zero, be transferred into conservation projects in the October budget.
There are fears new European Union regulations around deforestation-free products that would obligate companies to verify goods sold in the EU "have not been produced on deforested or degraded land anywhere in the world" will lock out many Australian beef producers from the European market.
The ABC has a podcast that talks about the immortality of trees, the increasing stress and death of trees due to declining rainfalls and worsening droughts, the irreplaceability of ancient trees, the increased volumes of carbon they sequester and store, the long-term storage of carbon in dead wood and its integration into soils, the need to retain forests for carbon sequestration and carbon storage.
Species
Volunteers are wanted to participate in the annual Aussie Bird Count, a project of Bird Life Australia that has been running since October 2014, where people are asked to record all the birds they see for blocks of 20 minutes at a time. One native bird that is doing too well is the Noisy Miner, taking over urban areas and degraded forests at an alarming rate, excluding a plethora of other native species.
September is the Australian Koala Foundation’s (AFK) “Save the Koala Month” intended to put the focus on this endangered species. Koala Action Gympie Region is one group to take up the theme, particularly as its peak breeding season so Koalas are on the move and vulnerable to dogs and cars. The Conversation has a discussion on the cognitive abilities of Koalas, discussing the relevance of brain size (marsupials match placental mammals for body size) and how we interpret intelligence, based on the book “Koalas, a life in the trees”. Climate Crisis Chronicles, Vol. 6, Racing against time to save the koalas, is an illustrated story about Ros Irwin’s (Friends of the Koala) experience with Koalas in the 2019-20 wildfires. NPWS are seeking volunteers to undertake their annual count of Koalas in Bongil Bongil National Park. News of the Area also has a letter complaining about Forestry Corporation being absent from a Coffs Harbour Koala workshop. Surendranie Cabral-de Mel, Ph.D. candidate, describes the importance of Koalas in the Australian ecosystem in a foreign language podcast.
Good to see the funds raised by the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital for bushfire survivors put to good use in their Guulabaa tourism precinct with their launch of Wildnets, a suspension playground replete with hammocks, treehouses, ball pits, slides, giant inflatable balls, and interactive toys, “So as you jump, play around and have fun you can also view adorable koalas nearby in their natural habitat”. Since its purpose-built hospital and rehabilitation facility opened in August 2020, the Port Stephens Koala Hospital has admitted 90 koalas and carried out more than 1,000 procedures, with an annual operating cost of approximately $750,000 per year. On National Threatened Species Day Transport NSW was ironically nominated for an award for its establishment of 130 ha of koala feed trees as compensation for its construction of the Pacific Highway through “regionally significant koala habitat supporting a well-known koala community”.
Bathurst Council is spending $260,000 to plant 3,500 native trees along the Macquarie Wambuul River to create roosting habitat for flying foxes to encourage them to move out of the town centre.
The NSW Government have propagated 3 species of threatened orchids and planted 6,000 out in suitable habitat across the Riverina landscape – at least they don’t need predator proof fences?
In south-west Australia a 77 year old alpaca farmer was savagely beaten to death by his 3 year old pet kangaroo, the first fatal attack by a kangaroo in 86 years, the kangaroo was shot dead.
2GB’s announcer Ray Hadley has gone on the attack against NPWS and James Griffin following complaints about the shooting of 11 horses in Kosciuszko National Park – the Brumby Pan requires reducing 14,380 horses to 3,000 horses by 30 June 2027. The brumby advocates who found them accuse the NPWS of falsifying the numbers of horses in the park, claiming there are only 10% of what NPWS have identified. Minister Griffin was quick to cave in and agree to review the brumby plan.
Representatives from WIRES and the RSPCA met with Eurobodalla Council staff to workshop better ways to raise community awareness of the risks posed by free-roaming cats – both to wildlife and themselves. The discovery of a single rat on the supply ship for Lord Howe Island caused it to go into quarantine for 7 days, deny the island of essential supplies, causing restaurants and the bakery to threaten to close, builders to complain, resulting in the RAAF flying in emergency supplies.
The Deteriorating Problem
The disastrous Pakistan floods resulting from a monsoon season intensified by climate change, killed 1,300 people, displaced 32 million people, destroyed 1.7 million homes and flooded a third of the country destroying crops, and accentuated the country’s financial crisis, leading to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres remarking “This is collective suicide. From Pakistan, I am issuing a global appeal: Stop the madness; end the war with nature; invest in renewable energy now.”
A new study found habitat loss and global heating are making extreme epidemics like COVID-19 three times more likely.
Not unsurprising researchers reinforced earlier findings that climate change sceptics are older, conservative and don’t value the environment, while their beliefs are entrenched they are a dying breed as the impacts of climate change manifest.
A study identified that between 2000 and 2019 intensive industrial mining activities in the tropics destroyed some 3,264 square kilometers of tropical forest, with Indonesia accounting for 58.2 percent.
With a third of the world’s tree species now threatened with extinction, scientists demonstrate how tree species extinction will lead to the loss of many other plants and animals and significantly alter the world's ecosystems, leading them to conclude “Although there is still much to learn about the biology, ecology and wonder of trees, we know how to conserve them. We also know that now is the time to act”. A new study suggests leaves in forest canopies are not able to cool themselves below the surrounding air temperature, likely meaning trees' ability to avoid damaging temperature increases, and to pull carbon from the atmosphere, will be compromised in a warmer, drier climate.
Biotechnology firm Living Carbon have genetically modified poplars (GM) into ‘supertrees’, by inserting genes from pumpkin and green algae, enabling them to grow 1.5 times faster and more rapidly take up CO2, intended to address the climate crisis.
Two years ago Canadian conservationists were elated when British Columbia’s government announced they were going to protect oldgrowth forests, and while they did protect the controversial Fairy Creek stand (after over 1,000 arrests) and some others, the moratorium over other high conservation value areas has yet to materialise as they continue to be clearcut. The Government fudges the figures by protecting poor unloggable areas, as well as leaving it up to first nation’s people to decide what to protect when they don’t have the resources to do the assessments, and in many cases depend on the revenue from logging.
Turning it Around
Conservationists urged EU parliamentarians to vote “yes” on September 13 to exclude most wood biomass from the European Commission’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED) to rebuild and preserve Europe’s forests as carbon sinks and as guardians of biodiversity. This had effect as on Wednesday, parliamentarians voted to phase down subsidies for “primary woody biomass”, namely healthy, standing trees logged for fuel, or fallen trees, and put a cap on the amount that can count as renewable energy. This is not the end, but it is seen as a first step,
Inside Climate News recognises the 2012 IPCC report as being clairvoyant as its all coming true, while also welcoming a new website launched by the Biden administration that allows Americans to see climate disasters unfolding in real time.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Thursday was a busy day for forests. On Thursday morning the NSW Government released its response to the ePetition to end logging of public native forests, due to parliament, and thus the debate, being suspended because of the Queen’s death. It was the standard tripe saying how wonderful forestry is, while misrepresenting employment by including softwoods. On Thursday afternoon the report of the ‘Inquiry into the long term sustainability and future of the timber and forest products industry’ was released. It turned out to be better than expected, with recommendations such as “the NSW Government consider commissioning a cost benefit assessment of the native hardwood forestry sector to consider the most beneficial use of public native forests“ and “the NSW Government provide long term support to workers in the timber and forest products industry transitioning away from native forestry to other parts of the sector”. Some reports mixed the stories, while others focused on the Shooters and Fisher’s claims of a timber crisis (which failed to mention it was all about pine).
Mr Saunders added there were "thousands of jobs dependent on the industry continuing", with 22,000 people employed by the state's forest and wood product industries.
The petition's author and former Greens candidate Takesa Frank said the government's response was "disheartening".
"A lot of it I would I have to disagree with, especially in terms of forestry being a sustainable forest management group," she said.
Greens NSW MP and spokesperson for the environment Sue Higginson said “The Government response to this petition has completely failed to address the looming and unavoidable end of public native forestry in NSW. The claims made by the Minister about the sustainability and lifespan for native forest logging are misleading and run completely contrary to community experience and independent science.
From a purely fiscal perspective NSW residents pay $441 per hectare of native forest that is logged, this added up to $20 million in 2021 alone. The likely cost of the native hardwood industry is much higher as the destruction of native forests has a significant effect on downstream water quality and the agricultural and fisheries industries.
“Around 1000 people are directly employed by the native forest logging industry in NSW, the petition is calling for a transition plan that allows for these people to remain in work while the industry transitions to a truly sustainable model.
While Saunders avoided it in his response to the ePetition, one of the recommendations of the Inquiry was for the leaked 2021 NRC report to be released and acted on, though the ABC thinks it demands a halt to native forestry by the end of 2022.
The Long Term Sustainability and Future of the Timber and Forest Products Industry inquiry also recommended the state government publicly release and respond to the findings of a leaked Natural Resources Commission's report that demanded a halt to native forestry by the end of 2022.
In a widespread AAP story, The Shooters and Fishers focussed on the timber supply crisis, without mentioning the problem is pine, NCC called form more plantations and a transition, and Justin Field called for the Great Koala NP to be established despite the committee claiming the economic assessment was inadequate because it did not account for all industry impacts, calling for an “independent and comprehensive” study.
https://www.southernriverinanews.com.au/national/why-nsw-is-heading-towards-timber-crisis/
https://www.wellingtontimes.com.au/story/7905105/why-nsw-is-heading-towards-timber-crisis/
Chief executive Jacqui Mumford said transitioning from native forestry to plantation logging would be a win for nature and industry.
"The need to protect native forests from industrial logging has never been greater, with koalas and many other forest species sliding towards extinction," she said.
Australian Forest Products Association NSW chief executive Victor Violante said the state couldn't afford to lose any more hardwood timber.
"It would result in significant cost and supply chain impacts for the housing construction sector and a range of other industries that rely on hardwood timber products," he said.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-11214787/Why-NSW-heading-timber-crisis.html
[Justin Field] “I would have liked to see a stronger call for an exit from public native forest logging all together, but I welcome the bipartisan support, including from the Nationals and Shooters, Fishers and Farmers member for a recommendation that the NSW Government provide long term support to workers in the timber and forest products industry transitioning away from native forestry to other parts of the sector.
“There needs to be an honest conversation with the community, including the timber industry, about a restructure of the sector to exit public native forest logging and transition the industry to plantations.
NEFA welcomed the recommendation for a cost benefit assessment of the native hardwood forestry sector to consider the most beneficial use of public native forests because “There is no doubt that there are far greater financial and societal benefits to the community from protecting public forests for carbon sequestration, recreation, tourism, water supply, and habitat”.
“NEFA also supports the recommendation that the NSW Government releases and acts on the suppressed June 2021 Natural Resources Commission’s urgent recommendations for fire affected forests, and reviews the logging rules for both public and private forests in light of the fires and the findings of the 2021 NSW and Commonwealth State of the Environment Reports.
“NEFA also welcomes the recognition that the current timber supply crisis is related to a shortage of pine, and supports the proposal that there needs to be a domestic reservation policy that requires timber to be processed into products domestically rather than being exported.
“We also support a renewed focus on plantation establishment provided it is for the domestic market, and assistance for workers transitioning away from native forestry to other parts of the industry” Mr. Pugh said.
Logging stopped in Ellis SF:
Another forest protector stopped work in Ellis State Forest by using a 20m high tree-sit attached to machinery.
A spokesperson for the action said, ‘We know the value of forests when they are left un-logged. We know that healthy eco-systems are imperative to our survival on this heating planet. We must fight for all remaining forest because we are fighting for our lives.
‘There is a groundswell of people ready to take these sorts of non-violent direct actions, pushing us ever closer to the ending of logging of these publicly owned native forests.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/09/another-tree-sitter-stops-logging-in-ellis-state-forest/
https://www.triplem.com.au/story/activist-stops-logging-work-at-ellis-state-forest-205841
The Nimbin Goodtimes ran the story by Susie Russell and me asking for a Stop Work Order on Ellis State Forest, protecting it as part of the Great Koala National Park, and the need for the EPA to police the damage to retained trees.
The Nimbin GoodTimes September 2022
And started in Orara East SF:
In what could prove to be their downfall, the Forestry Corporation have started roading Orara East SF, 10 minutes from Coffs Harbour, much to the chagrin of local residents.
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2022/09/15/bulldozers-arrive-at-orara-east-state-forest/
There is a video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlWHWZ_V378
And is due to start in the Kalang Headwaters:
With logging scheduled to start any day, News of the Area has a lengthy story citing Katherine Kelly about the risks of erosion and mass movement if the headwaters of the Kalang River are logged, citing the 1992 Oakes SF incident where 88,000 tonnes of soils were washed into the Kalang River before being stopped by a blockade.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-16-september-2022-99915
Opening the gateway:
Nimbin Goodtimes reports on a Friday for Forests action to protest logging on private land along the road 100m from the entrance to the Border Ranges National Park, reporting that subsequent EPA inspections identified alleged non-compliances and required erosion mitigation works.
The Nimbin GoodTimes September 2022
Manyana Matters
Manyana Matters (from Manyana north of Ulladulla) continues to battle against residential development using an old approval in bushland, say their roots lie in anti-logging protests of the 90’s, and are part of the movement to end logging of public native forest.
Activist group Manyana Matters have spearheaded a new type of civic protest in the face of bushfires and the Covid pandemic, as small, atomised groups throughout the state gear-up to fight to end native forest logging.
Manyana Matters was one of numerous grassroots organisations to lends its support to a petition to end native forest logging in NSW, which was due to be tabled in NSW parliament on September 15.
Currently, the organisation is continuing its fight against the Manyana Beach Estate, which while in limbo has not been scrapped.
A video “Meet the faces behind the push to end native forest logging” with statements by Joslyn van der Moolen from Brooman State Forest Conservation Group and Bill Egar from Manyana Matters had widespread coverage.
The Brooman State Forest Conservation Group is staging various activities to highlight its concerns about logging in the Brooman, Currowan and Shallow Crossing State Forests, including holding a Stop Logging Shoalhaven Big Canopy Campout.
See full details of the event here.
Starting a biomass chain:
Richard Poole, the businessman behind converting the disused Redbank Power Station near Singleton to burnt 850,000 tonnes of biomass p.a. says he has so far raised $80million, is waiting on approval of his DA and EIS, and has plans for more.
Verdant Earth Technologies chief executive Richard Poole told the Newcastle Herald several "high net worth Australian families" had recently invested in the company's biomass strategy.
"I've got my funding in place and we are ready to go. I'm just waiting on approvals and we are working towards that. We could literally be generating within six to eight months if I could get the approvals," Mr Poole, who spoke to the Herald from the US where he is visiting several biomass plants.
Mr Poole said Verdant had plans to establish more biomass generators in Australia in the near future.
"I think the idea of modern bioenergy and the idea that we can eventually grow our own (biomass) is a phenomenal solution and putting green hydrogen behind 24 generators is a significant uptick in terms of what we're planning," he said.
Creating a home for Platypus
Once again a normally pristine creek in Royal National Park has been turned black, with thick black sludge floating on top, after US giant Peabody Energy spilled coal mining waste into it, Minister Griffin responded 'I have spoken directly with the company to express my deep concerns and my immediate focus is on ensuring that remediation occurs as an urgent priority'. Platypus releases are being delayed.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-15/nsw-environment-minister-says-royal-national-park/14054740
AUSTRALIA
Crowning nature’s glory;
Our new leader, King Charles III, is being lauded across the media as a strong conservationist, though the consensus is that he will be more constrained as king.
The natural world is close to the heart of Britain’s new King Charles III. For decades, he’s campaigned on environmental issues such as sustainability, climate change and conservation – often championing causes well before they were mainstream concerns.
In fact, Charles was this week hailed as “possibly most significant environmentalist in history”. Upon his elevation to the throne, the new king is expected to be less outspoken on environmental issues. But his advocacy work have helped create a momentum that will continue regardless.
Stopping damnation:
Independent senator David Pocock and environment groups are demanding the $7 billion earmarked for regional dams, to placate the Nationals in return for allowing net zero, be transferred into conservation projects in the October budget.
With virtually all the funds still unspent, the federal government is being urged to reallocate Joyce’s dam fund to halt the “extinction crisis” that federal Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek said in July had been fuelled by a lack of funding under successive Coalition governments.
“The State of the Environment report revealed just how desperately urgent this task is. Meaningful reform takes money,” Pocock said.
The cost of deforestation:
There are fears new European Union regulations around deforestation-free products that would obligate companies to verify goods sold in the EU "have not been produced on deforested or degraded land anywhere in the world" will lock out many Australian beef producers from the European market.
An analysis by the Australian Conservation Foundation found there was a real chance under the new EU rule, Australia would be deemed a high risk country for beef products.
The importance of ancient trees:
The ABC has a podcast that talks about the immortality of trees, the increasing stress and death of trees due to declining rainfalls and worsening droughts, the irreplaceability of ancient trees, the increased volumes of carbon they sequester and store, the long-term storage of carbon in dead wood and its integration into soils, the need to retain forests for carbon sequestration and carbon storage.
SPECIES
Making birds count:
Volunteers are wanted to participate in the annual Aussie Bird Count, a project of Bird Life Australia that has been running since October 2014, where people are asked to record all the birds they see for blocks of 20 minutes at a time.
In 2021, Australians counted 4,936,509 birds; a wonderful effort by 106,707 people. The rainbow lorikeet remains our most prevalent bird followed by the noisy miner, the Australian magpie, the sulphur-crested cockatoo, the galah, the house sparrow, the welcome swallow, the silver gull and the Australian white ibis. The good news was invasive, introduced common or Indian myna was no longer in the top ten list.
https://www.weekendnotes.com/aussie-bird-count/
Making a noise about miners taking over:
One native bird that is doing too well is the Noisy Miner, taking over urban areas and degraded forests at an alarming rate, excluding a plethora of other native species.
Griffith University researcher Carly Campbell, who has studied native birds in Australia's urban landscapes, said noisy miner numbers in Brisbane alone had tripled since the 1970s.
"They are quite territorial birds, and because we've created these large grassy areas with one or two remaining trees, what that really does for them is it allows them to really protect their space," she said.
In 2014, the federal environment department listed noisy miners as a "key threatening process" due to their impacts on endangered and vulnerable native birds.
University of Queensland conservation researcher Hugh Possingham said noisy miners were now considered as much an environmental problem as foxes, cats and weeds.
"Removing them from those patches completely, as in shooting every one on that patch, didn't have any effect, because they immediately re-colonised," Dr Beggs said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-16/noisy-miners-are-a-problem-across-australia/101442572
Save the Koala Month:
September is the Australian Koala Foundation’s (AFK) “Save the Koala Month” intended to put the focus on this endangered species. Koala Action Gympie Region is one group to take up the theme, particularly as its peak breeding season so Koalas are on the move and vulnerable to dogs and cars.
“It coincides with the peak of koala breeding season, when our koalas are at most risk especially on the roads and also from dog attacks,” Michelle said.
“These few months are the time they (koalas) really need the community to help them come through dispersal and breeding season safely.”
The KAGR recommends to always slowing down when driving in peak koala activity times from dusk until early morning, to always call wildlife rescue about any sick, injured or even dead koalas and to keep your dogs safely locked up during the night to prevent attacks.
https://gympietoday.com.au/news/2022/09/10/koala-ty-awareness-for-this-month/
… are Koalas smart:
The Conversation has a discussion on the cognitive abilities of Koalas, discussing the relevance of brain size (marsupials match placental mammals for body size) and how we interpret intelligence, based on the book “Koalas, a life in the trees”.
“I’m sure we underestimate animal cognition, partly because we need to believe humans are vastly superior, and partly because we have language and can tell of our plans whereas animals can’t,” says Mike. But just because animals don’t have language doesn’t mean they lack the mental capacity that underlies our evolution of complex language.
We need to stop looking for reflections of ourselves in other animals. There’s more than one way to be “smart”. And accepting a lift from those students to get across the river was, however you look at it, a smart move indeed.
https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-koala-when-its-smart-to-be-slow-187003
… burning Koalas:
Climate Crisis Chronicles, Vol. 6, Racing against time to save the koalas, is an illustrated story about Ros Irwin’s (Friends of the Koala) experience with Koalas in the 2019-20 wildfires.
https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/climate-crisis-chronicles-vol-6/index.html
… making Koalas count:
NPWS are seeking volunteers to undertake their annual count of Koalas in Bongil Bongil National Park. News of the Area also has a letter complaining about Forestry Corporation being absent from a Coffs Harbour Koala workshop.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-16-september-2022-99915
… why we need Koalas:
Surendranie Cabral-de Mel, Ph.D. candidate, describes the importance of Koalas in the Australian ecosystem in a foreign language podcast.
… just what Koalas need:
Good to see the funds raised by the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital for bushfire survivors put to good use in their Guulabaa tourism precinct with their launch of Wildnets, a suspension playground replete with hammocks, treehouses, ball pits, slides, giant inflatable balls, and interactive toys, “So as you jump, play around and have fun you can also view adorable koalas nearby in their natural habitat”.
Ready to swing in hammocks, climb into treehouses and get lost in colourful ball pits? Do all this and more when Wildnets — Australia’s largest suspension playground opens in Port Macquarie next week. This happy hunting ground is filled with bouncy and creative fun for kids and adults alike. There’s slides, interactive toys, giant inflatable balls and much more to look forward to.
“Wildnets will offer visitors places to jump, slide, play and laugh in amongst the trees and help people to appreciate nature, the outdoors and wildlife including our unique koalas,” Sue Ashton, Chairperson of Koala Conservation Australia said.
https://secretsydney.com/wildnets-suspension-playground/
Since its purpose-built hospital and rehabilitation facility opened in August 2020, the Port Stephens Koala Hospital has admitted 90 koalas and carried out more than 1,000 procedures, with an annual operating cost of approximately $750,000 per year.
Port Stephens Koala Hospital has received a $100,000 boost, kickstarting its annual Save the Koala Month campaign.
https://newcastleweekly.com.au/save-the-koala-month-off-to-a-bear-y-good-start/
… rewarding habitat destruction:
On National Threatened Species Day Transport NSW was ironically nominated for an award for its establishment of 130 ha of koala feed trees as compensation for its construction of the Pacific Highway through “regionally significant koala habitat supporting a well-known koala community”.
The Northern Rivers Times September 15 2022.
Providing alternative accommodation:
Bathurst Council is spending $260,000 to plant 3,500 native trees along the Macquarie Wambuul River to create roosting habitat for flying foxes to encourage them to move out of the town centre.
Mayor Robert Taylor said the restoration work was the best and most cost-effective option to control the numbers in Bathurst's CBD and Machattie Park.
"They cause a bit of havoc so if we can do this restoration work it will get them to relocate along the Macquarie River," Cr Taylor said.
The Australian Conservation Foundation's Jess Abrahams wants us to change the way we think about them from being "a bit smelly and a bit noisy" to the fact they are "unique creatures who play an incredibly important role in nature".
"They were here first, we're the recent arrivals, we need to accommodate them because without them our forests and nature just wouldn't be healthy," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-16/bathurst-flying-foxes-get-new-home/101443720
Rewilding orchids:
The NSW Government have propagated 3 species of threatened orchids and planted 6,000 out in suitable habitat across the Riverina landscape – at least they don’t need predator proof fences?
“The NSW Government’s Saving our Species program found that there were fewer than 2,000 Sand-hill spider orchids, 1,300 Oaklands diuris and 650 crimson spider orchids left in the wild, meaning the future of those species were at risk,” he said.
“This project gives us enormous hope for the survival of these rare and beautiful species because their populations have been boosted with 6,000 additional healthy plants.”
Mr Griffin said the three orchids had been planted across public and private land on specially selected sites that had suitable soil conditions, pollinators and vegetation types to encourage growth.
https://psnews.com.au/2022/09/13/dpe-saves-dangered-orchids-from-extinction/?state=aps
Kangaroo killings:
In south-west Australia a 77 year old alpaca farmer was savagely beaten to death by his 3 year old pet kangaroo, the first fatal attack by a kangaroo in 86 years, the kangaroo was shot dead.
Brumby killings:
2GB’s announcer Ray Hadley has gone on the attack against NPWS and James Griffin following complaints about the shooting of 11 horses in Kosciuszko National Park – the Brumby Pan requires reducing 14,380 horses to 3,000 horses by 30 June 2027.
“I’ll drive you cuckoo right up until the election, demanding an answer as to whether National Parks and Wildlife had anything to do with the slaughter of these 11 horses, including mares in foal.”
https://www.2gb.com/ray-hadleys-steely-vow-to-minister-after-cruel-slaughter-of-brumbies/
The brumby advocates who found them accuse the NPWS of falsifying the numbers of horses in the park, claiming there are only 10% of what NPWS have identified. Minister Griffin was quick to cave in and agree to review the brumby plan.
[Ms Brown] 'National Parks and Wildlife Service and those involved with the removal of the brumbies state that there are 14,000 horses up there when in fact there are less than 1,500 now, maybe even less.
The act states that it, 'maintains the environmental values of the park by reducing the wild horse population from an estimated 14,380 horses to 3,000 horses by 30 June 2027. Under the plan, there will be no wild horses across 68 per cent of the park.'
National Party MP and former Member for Monaro Peter Cochran has lashed out at the killings, telling 2GB's Ray Hadley that no respect was shown to the animals.
'This was a professional ambush,' he said.
'I'm ashamed to be an Australian associated with people who would do it.'
[Minister Griffin] “In response to concerns raised by some members of the community, I have asked for an evaluation of the Plan’s implementation, with the assistance of RSPCA NSW.
https://www.2gb.com/minister-dodges-ray-hadley-as-accusations-fly-over-brumby-slaughter/
Cat killings:
Representatives from WIRES and the RSPCA met with Eurobodalla Council staff to workshop better ways to raise community awareness of the risks posed by free-roaming cats – both to wildlife and themselves.
“The toll on our native animals from cat attacks verges on unbelievable. Collectively, roaming cats kill around 390 million native animals and birds each year – they’ve played a leading role in many of the 34 mammal extinctions since colonisation.
WIRES Mid South Coast Branch possum and glider coordinator Shelley Clarke said in the previous week they had attended three animals – two ringtail possums and a feathertail glider – that died after cat attack.
Unlike other states and territories, Councils in NSW currently have no power to confine cats to their own property. At the 23 August Council meeting, councillors voted to advocate to the NSW Government and to their representative body – Local Government NSW – to introduce legislation empowering Councils to introduce containment policies.
https://www.beagleweekly.com.au/post/community-comes-together-on-cats-1
Rat closes Lord Howe Island:
The discovery of a single rat on the supply ship for Lord Howe Island caused it to go into quarantine for 7 days, deny the island of essential supplies, causing restaurants and the bakery to threaten to close, builders to complain, resulting in the RAAF flying in emergency supplies.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Stop the war with nature:
The disastrous Pakistan floods resulting from a monsoon season intensified by climate change, killed 1,300 people, displaced 32 million people, destroyed 1.7 million homes and flooded a third of the country destroying crops, and accentuated the country’s financial crisis, leading to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres remarking “This is collective suicide. From Pakistan, I am issuing a global appeal: Stop the madness; end the war with nature; invest in renewable energy now.”
“I have seen many humanitarian disasters in the world, but I have never seen climate carnage on the scale of the floods here in Pakistan,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said a weekend press conference in Karachi after touring the flooding that has resulted from the combination of melting glaciers and rainfall nearly six times the 30-year average.
“Emissions are rising as people die in floods and famines. And this is insanity,” Guterres said. “This is collective suicide. From Pakistan, I am issuing a global appeal: Stop the madness; end the war with nature; invest in renewable energy now.”
“There is an acute sense of despair in all corners of the country. In the immediate term, families are likely to go hungry as employment dries up and they cannot afford food," Shabnam Baloch, Pakistan director for the International Rescue Committee, said in Monday press release. "Meanwhile, we know that during times of crisis, women and girls are at an increased risk of violence, exploitation and abuse, as pressures mount for households to access an income and source food and essential household supplies."
More lockdowns coming:
A new study found habitat loss and global heating are making extreme epidemics like COVID-19 three times more likely.
The yearly probability of zoonotic diseases—conditions caused by germs spread from animals to people—“can increase up to threefold in the coming decades,” say the authors of a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Using data on the intensity of epidemics over the last 400 years, paired with “recent estimates of the rate of increase in disease emergence from zoonotic reservoirs associated with environmental change,” the researchers warned that “the probability of a person experiencing a pandemic like COVID-19 in one’s lifetime is around 38%,” reports ABC News. That estimate could double in the coming decades.
Climate skeptics being overwhelmed by reality:
Not unsurprising researchers reinforced earlier findings that climate change sceptics are older, conservative and don’t value the environment, while their beliefs are entrenched they are a dying breed as the impacts of climate change manifest.
Past research into climate change scepticism has focused on sociodemographics. It has found people are more likely to express scepticism if they are older, male, highly value individualistic beliefs and don’t value the environment.
These characteristics are generally entrenched. It means this information, while interesting, may be of little use when trying to increase public support for climate action.
Our latest study of Australian sceptics focused on potentially more malleable factors – including the thought processes of people who reject climate science messaging. Our findings suggest some people reject consensus science and generate other explanations due to mistrust in climate science and uncritical faith in “alternative science”.
Similar to previous research, our study found:
- older people were more likely to be sceptical of the reality of climate change
- conservatives were more likely to be sceptical of the reality, causes and impacts of climate change
- lower environmental values were strongly linked to all types of scepticism.
Climate change is upon us, and scepticism is rapidly becoming a topic for historians, not futurists.
Mining rainforest:
A study identified that between 2000 and 2019 intensive industrial mining activities in the tropics destroyed some 3,264 square kilometers of tropical forest, with Indonesia accounting for 58.2 percent.
https://grist.org/article/mining-is-necessary-for-a-clean-energy-future-it-also-destroys-forests/
Stop tree extinctions:
With a third of the world’s tree species now threatened with extinction, scientists demonstrate how tree species extinction will lead to the loss of many other plants and animals and significantly alter the world's ecosystems, leading them to conclude “Although there is still much to learn about the biology, ecology and wonder of trees, we know how to conserve them. We also know that now is the time to act”.
Trees are of exceptional ecological importance, playing a major functional role in the world's ecosystems, while also supporting many other plants, animals and fungi. Many tree species are also of direct value to people, providing a wide range of socio-economic benefits. Loss of tree diversity could lead to abrupt declines in biodiversity, ecosystem functions and services and ultimately ecosystem collapse. Here we provide an overview of the current knowledge regarding the number of tree species that are threatened with extinction, and the threats that affect them, based on results of the Global Tree Assessment. This evidence suggests that a third of the world's tree species are currently threatened with extinction, which represents a major ecological crisis. We then examine the potential implications of tree extinctions, in terms of the functioning of the biosphere and impacts on human well-being. Large-scale extinction of tree species will lead to major biodiversity losses in other species groups and substantially alter the cycling of carbon, water and nutrients in the world's ecosystems. Tree extinction will also undermine the livelihoods of the billions of people who currently depend on trees and the benefits they provide. This warning to humanity aims to raise awareness of the tree extinction crisis, which is a major environmental issue that requires urgent global attention. We also identify some priority actions that need to be taken to reduce the extinction risk of tree species and to avert the ecological and socio-economic catastrophe that will result from large-scale extinction of tree species.
Our message for humanity is to remember how trees enrich and support our lives, as they have throughout human history. Yet we need to acknowledge that these values are at risk if we fail to consider the impacts of our actions and to change our collective behaviour in relation to trees. Although there is still much to learn about the biology, ecology and wonder of trees, we know how to conserve them. We also know that now is the time to act.
https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ppp3.10314
Trees overheating:
A new study suggests leaves in forest canopies are not able to cool themselves below the surrounding air temperature, likely meaning trees' ability to avoid damaging temperature increases, and to pull carbon from the atmosphere, will be compromised in a warmer, drier climate.
Existing research suggests that many of the world’s forests are approaching their thermal limit for carbon uptake.
In warmer climates, forest leavers are already approaching or even surpassing thresholds to process carbon dioxide.
Because future climate warming is likely to lead to even greater forest temperatures, leaves’ carbon cycling process would be negatively impacted. Scientists say this could enhance the mortality risks of forests.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/09/220912152920.htm
The study underscores the importance and precarity of forests around the world, she said.
“Forests play such an important role not just as habitat for biodiversity but they play an important role in keeping our planet at livable temperatures,” Pau said. “We need to work to protect them.”
Creating monsters to consume carbon:
Biotechnology firm Living Carbon have genetically modified poplars (GM) into ‘supertrees’, by inserting genes from pumpkin and green algae, enabling them to grow 1.5 times faster and more rapidly take up CO2, intended to address the climate crisis.
Results are crucial given the rate of climate change and climbing CO2 levels in the atmosphere. The long breeding cycle of trees means genetic engineering can produce quicker results. But critics say there are risks to planting GM trees in the wild if they breed with other trees, or negatively affect other plant and animal species.
https://www.discovery.com/nature/supertrees-that-suck-up-more-carbon-could-be-forest-climate-fix
British Columbia’s oldgrowth continues to be clearcut:
Two years ago Canadian conservationists were elated when British Columbia’s government announced they were going to protect oldgrowth forests, and while they did protect the controversial Fairy Creek stand (after over 1,000 arrests) and some others, the moratorium over other high conservation value areas has yet to materialise as they continue to be clearcut. The Government fudges the figures by protecting poor unloggable areas, as well as leaving it up to first nation’s people to decide what to protect when they don’t have the resources to do the assessments, and in many cases depend on the revenue from logging.
TURNING IT AROUND
European biomass:
Conservationists urged EU parliamentarians to vote “yes” on September 13 to exclude most wood biomass from the European Commission’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED) to rebuild and preserve Europe’s forests as carbon sinks and as guardians of biodiversity.
The proposed amendment will take most forest biomass out of the RED as a form of renewable energy. People will still be able to burn wood, but it won’t be counted toward renewable energy targets. That shift would “liberate billions in subsidies each year for clean, zero-emissions renewable energy and energy efficiency measures that could help decrease energy poverty,” the two authors say.
“Unsurprisingly,” Wiezik and Kun say, the North American wood pellet industry and the Sweden-based World Bioenergy Association (WBA), “which represents over 50 national and international trade bodies for an industry worth US$8.7 billion, have been lobbying intensively” against the RED reforms.
On Wednesday, parliamentarians voted to phase down subsidies for “primary woody biomass”, namely healthy, standing trees logged for fuel, or fallen trees, and put a cap on the amount that can count as renewable energy. Trees cut down for fire protection or road safety reasons may continue to benefit from renewable energy subsidies, under the parliament’s proposals.
Voting on an amendment to the EU’s renewable energy directive, MEPs called to “phase down” the share of trees counted as renewable energy in EU targets. But they swerved setting any dates to reduce the burning of “primary wood”. They rejected calls for a complete phaseout of a form of energy generation that scientists have warned releases more carbon into the atmosphere than burning gas or coal.
Alex Mason, head of EU climate and energy policy at WWF, described the MEPs’ vote as a turning point: “For the first time, an EU institution has recognised that burning trees might not be the best way of getting off fossil fuels and stopping runaway climate change.”
Fenna Swart, director of the Clean Air Committee in the Netherlands, said the amendments were “at best a first step toward what is needed to limit the damage caused to forests in Europe and abroad” by the renewable energy directive’s “perverse” incentives. “We cannot afford to wait years before the phasedown goes into effect,” she said.
The European Parliament voted on Wednesday (14 September) to limit the amount of primary biomass that can be burned in power plants, raising concern among the bioenergy industry, which labelled the move “counterproductive” in the current energy crisis.
On Wednesday, lawmakers passed amendments that will effectively cap the amount of woody biomass that can be counted as part of the EU’s renewable energy targets – a move hailed by forest campaigners as “a first step towards phasing out primary woody biomass”.
In addition, the Parliament introduced a cap on the share of ‘primary woody biomass’ set as the average reached in 2017-2022. By 2030, the share of fuels derived from primary woody biomass would need to be phased down, although the percentage was not specified and will be defined later on, based on a cost-benefit analysis by the European Commission.
Told you so:
Inside Climate News recognises the 2012 IPCC report as being clairvoyant as its all coming true, while also welcoming a new website launched by the Biden administration that allows Americans to see climate disasters unfolding in real time.
In particular, the 2012 report warned governments to watch out for five specific disaster scenarios that have mostly come true in recent years regarding climate change making them more frequent and severe. They warned of increasingly destructive flash floods in less affluent regions, such as the deadly summer floods this year in Kentucky, Pakistan and China. They warned of longer and hotter heat waves in urban hubs, particularly in Europe, like the ones that broke all-time records in the United Kingdom in July. They warned of increased property damage from hurricanes in the U.S., like storms that have frequently pummeled the Gulf Coast and even killed dozens of people across the Northeast last year. And they warned of droughts causing famine in African countries, which experts say is now a serious threat in the Horn of Africa.
They also warned of small island nations losing land and possibly disappearing due to sea-level rise by the end of the century. And while that scenario is harder to illustrate through a definitive example just yet, scientists generally agree that the warning signs are there. This month, the massive glacier known as the Greenland Ice Sheet lost tens of billions of tons of ice, marking its most extensive melting rate on record for the month of September and prompting fresh warnings from scientists who said the glacier would contribute to at least 10 inches of sea level rise even if humans immediately stopped emitting greenhouse gases.
Last week, the Biden administration launched a new website that maps just how global warming is affecting different parts of the country, painting a nearly real-time picture of America’s climate threats and providing policymakers with data that can help them better prepare for extreme heat, drought, wildfire, as well as inland and coastal flooding. The new tool, for example, allows users to compare historical trends with climate projections roughly 10, 30 and 60 years from now.
As of today, the website shows more than 114 million Americans experiencing drought, nearly 40 million Americans under flood alerts and 300 wildfires actively burning across the country.
https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?e=6624c72df8&u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=50aad8c57b
Forest Media 9 September 2022
New South Wales
The ABC has a long article about forestry, focussing on Ellis State Forest, the loss of giant trees, and regulation (cites NEFA). In Estimates the Forestry Corporation attributed its fines of more than $500,000 in the Land and Environment Court for illegal logging to human error, claiming they had learnt their lesson, with Agriculture Minister Dugald Saunders saying human and technological error would no longer be acceptable excuses for the Forestry Corporation.
The Echo has an article about the upcoming (15 September) NSW lower house consideration of the 20,000 plus petition calling for an end to logging public native forests, stopping burning native forests for biomass and implementing the NRC recommendation to increase protection for hollow-bearing trees and recruits, citing NEFA’s complaints about logging of Koala habitat in Wild Cattle Creek SF, research in southern NSW that found logging increases fire threat, and the loss of birds in burnt rainforest.
September 7 was National Threatened Species Day, the anniversary of the death of the last captive Tasmanian tiger that died in Hobart Zoo of neglect, with NSW’s lists of threatened species now past 1,000 and the national list almost at 2,000 and rising rapidly it is apparent that many more are following the same trajectory – destruction of habitat, competition with introduced species, persecution, and for some rounding up survivors into zoos and then watching them die.
For National Threatened Species Day WWF released a report card on 1803 federally-listed threatened species, finding just 10 per cent had a current recovery plan, and only 8 per cent had dedicated federal funding, with1539 species (85 per cent) without a current recovery plan nor dedicated funding.
Bega Valley Shire Council highlighted it is home to 227 NSW-listed threatened plants and animal species, focussing on its efforts with shorebirds, Long-nosed Potoroo, and the current platy-project. Tweed Council will host a free session to detail the plight of the Tweed’s threatened species and the work being undertaken to conserve them on Friday 16 September from 5.30 pm at the Tweed Regional Museum in Murwillumbah. To coincide with National Biodiversity Month and National Threatened Species Day, Gloucester’s environment, biodiversity and threatened species will be the focus this month as part of the Gloucester Wild Festival. MidCoast Council has overseen a two-year study involving extensive field surveys to better understand the presence and distribution of Nabiac casuarina, dwarf heath casuarina, cryptic forest twiner and the giant dragonfly, and how they were impacted by the fires. For its contribution, Byron Shire Council, having done so well building a bypass through the one of the largest populations of the Critically Endangered Mitchell’s Rainforest Snail, is proposing clearing threatened species habitat on Council land for affordable housing.
To mark National Threatened Species Day, NEFA organised actions in Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour and Tweed Heads to highlight the effect of logging on them, and the need to stop logging public native forests, garnering some good coverage.
The Glen Innes Examiner highlights peaceful protest “has been critically important in achieving significant community gains” in the past while decrying the increasingly draconian laws being enacted to stop it. The loggers have started their own petition to the NSW Legislative Assembly calling for tougher penalties for forest protectors equivalent to Victoria’s anti-forest protest laws, and “Permit a statutory civil action to enforce trespass or damage to equipment or hinderance or obstruction to the operation of equipment in any approved forestry operation against an individual or organisation associated with or purported to be associated with the actions of the individual”.
Pentarch Forestry, manager of logging and operations of the Eden chipmill, has lost its FSC Controlled Wood certification, principally because the Due Diligence process, particularly at the loading facility in Eden, could not ensure the separation of native forest regrowth from genuine plantation hardwood chips.
The Australian reports that Verdant Earth Technologies attempt to raise $50m by listing on the Nasdaq failed because “The ASX said unless we got approval to burn biomass they wouldn’t accept our listing,”, though this hasn’t hindered them raising almost $80m toward restarting their coal-fired power station with “renewable” wood from native forests and “progress green hydrogen assets”, while they await approval – we helped thwart their attempts to use their existing Development Approval to burn biomass, though they are touting their new DA. The Northern Rivers Times reports that the Broadwater Sugar Mill (and possibly their co-generation plant) is back in operation.
Goulburn Mulwaree Council has recorded a significant increase in reports of illegal clearing activities over the past 12 months, reflecting increased concern and awareness from the community about illegal clearing and the destruction of natural habitats, with many substantiated, and fines issued.
The NSW EPA has released a draft Climate Change Policy and draft Climate Change Action Plan: 2022-2025 for consultation and is seeking your views. Their Climate Change Action Plan does mention forestry, though it is basically business as usual with the intent being to focus on broad monitoring rather than reviewing species-specific protection in light of the increasing information on how species will be affected and changing prescriptions now.
The Speaker of the NSW parliament, Jonathan O’Dea, is now one of eight Coalition MPs who have said they will not recontest the next election, with others expected to follow, including Infrastructure Minister Rob Stokes.
Australia
Aljazeera has video on The Forest Frontlines focussing on a blockade in the continuing struggle to save the Takayna/Tarkine, Australia’s largest temperate rainforest; 101 East.
The Greens and Pocock have been requesting a ban on native forest wood burning being counted as renewable energy in negotiations over the Climate Bill, backed by the Senate review, Chris Bowen has agreed to consider and is preparing a discussion paper. NCC criticised the Federal Government for not taking decisive action to protect forests and wildlife by ruling out the use of native forests for electricity generation. To reach the target of 43 per cent reductions on 2005 levels by 2030, Labor will allow big industrial polluters to buy carbon credits from the $4.5 billion Emissions Reduction Fund instead of reducing their emissions, leading Pocock to warn he will leverage his vote to drive reforms to stop “junk” carbon credits before a controversial emissions reduction scheme is entrenched in new legislation.
Despite promises to stop logging of 400,000 ha of Western Australian forests by 2024, conservationists are worried by what might be lost in the interim and wary of what might be proposed as they wait for the next ten-year forests' management plan to be released.
Sue Arnold takes exception to the failure of the jobs summit to either account for environmental values or the impacts of their increased immigration, labelling it a profound disappointment as once again “growth at any cost” remains the number one policy of our major political parties. Ian Lowe also equates more people to an increased environmental footprint and therefore impacts on our deteriorating environment. A video on Mongbay identifies that with the human population expected to reach 8 billion literally any day now, and nearly 10 billion people some time this century, some researchers suggest that the single biggest thing anyone can do to reduce our impact on the environment, and the climate, is to choose to have one less child, particularly wealthy people with large environmental footprints.
A proposal for “cultural thinning” by a Victorian Aboriginal group in Wombat State Forest, which is intended to be made into a national park, sounds like commercial logging, saying they want to undertake “forest gardening involve[ing] thinning, revegetation and regenerative practice to ensure the health of forests”, and that “cultural thinning would leave significant timber leftover, something Mr Carter said should not be wasted”.
Species
Scientists are trying to work out why Koala populations on the predator-free St Bee's Island, about 38km offshore from Mackay, fluctuate from around 100 animals to around 300 animals, which they think is linked to a number of cyclones and dry years. Port Macquarie Koala Hospital’s 8 million dollar Guulabaa Tourism Precinct is taking shape with the turning of the first sod for their enclosure for “wild koalas” they will be capturing from the wild, with the intent of releasing any young into areas with depleted Koalas – which their Forestry Corporation partners are busy creating.
The NSW Government is progressing with their seven feral-free “rewilding” sites intended to fence-off 65,000 hectares of national parks in NSW, while again touting the success of three established sites so far in the Pilliga State Conservation Area, Mallee Cliffs National Park and Sturt National Park, with 10 locally extinct species now thriving – meanwhile they continue to increase the decline of numerous other species as they clear and log their habitats
There are fears that platypus populations might have been wiped out by recent floods in greater Brisbane, sparking new calls for the species to be recognised as threatened in NSW and Queensland, though first they need more citizen science.
To offset the impacts of their lagoon openings, Central Coast Council is collecting and relocating tadpoles of the endangered Green and Golden Bell Frog from the Bareena wetland to ponds at North Avoca, which were constructed by Council to provide additional habitat for the threatened species.
Tanya Plibersek, is being urged to intervene to save a population of endangered Gouldian finches threatened by a defence housing development in savannah woodlands at Lee Point, in Darwin’s north.
The Deteriorating Problem
In Brazil the world’s largest producer of eucalyptus-based pulp and paper products has genetically engineered eucalypts to make them more resistant to glyphosate, so that they can use more of it to grow trees to burn for electricity, while calling it a nature-based solution to climate heating.
ABC has a good story about the folly of relying on Carbon Capture and Storage, covering the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis mentioned last week, the key point being that CSG is unreliable because each site has different geologies, as the new Australian government approved 10 new offshore areas for oil and gas exploration and two greenhouse gas storage facilities.
The American Meteorological Society have published: “State of the Climate in 2021”, telling us that 2021 was the sixth (or fifth) warmest year on record, as measured by global mean surface temperature, while La Niña conditions contributed to Australia’s coldest year since 2012, New Zealand and China each reported their warmest year on record. The Sydney Morning Herald has an article summarising some of the unprecedented extreme climate events destroying our planet, killing thousands and threatening billions, while linking them to climate change – the question is whether those with power are listening to the increasingly extreme weather warnings. Of the 32.1 million acres of forestland in California, approximately 2.1 million acres (6.6%) burned in wildfires in the 2002-2011 time period. In the following decade (2012-2021), that figure more than tripled to 7.9 million acres (24.7%). Copernicus atmosphere monitoring service has reported that more than 750,000 hectares of the EU and Great Britain have burned since the beginning of the year, causing record CO2 emissions, between the beginning of June and the end of August emitting 6.4 million tons of carbon.
As climate heating progresses so too does the number of lightning strikes, with the tallest trees sticking up from the canopy most likely to be directly hit, with up to 100 nearby plants exposed to the electrical current, causing some to die instantly, others to die slowly, and still others to carry on with business as usual. This will have an increasing effect on forest structure.
Turning it Around
With half of the worlds global CO2 emissions occurring since the first IPCC report 30 years ago, a growing number of scientists are speaking out and taking direct action on climate change due to frustration with the lack of political progress.
On the 21st of October 2022 the Environmental Paper Network's, “Forests, climate and biomass working group” is inviting all of its members and supporters to join them for another International Day of Action on Big Biomass! Members are invited to participate in whatever way they are able, wherever they are in the world, under the banner of an “International Day of Action on Big Biomass” and by sharing photos of our activities to the hashtag #BigBadBiomass. In the lead-up to the European parliament’s vote on a revised EU renewable energy directive, Greta Thunberg and others have written a comprehensive argument in The Guardian as to why they should remove forest biomass from the renewable energy directive, or lock in decades of increased carbon emissions, biodiversity loss and human rights violations.
An American study found that the cooler microclimate conditions provided by old- growth forest structures compared with surrounding open or younger forests helped buffer the effects of climate heating on some birds, concluding “microclimatic refugia provided by old-growth and complex forests may provide time to enable species to adapt to a warming climate”.
A paper in the Lancet uses COVID-19 as a case study to demonstrate how restoring ecosystems can help to combat the health and social problems associated with pandemics, Identifying that exposure to microscopic life (ie bacteria, algae) “primes” our immune systems, phytoncides given off by plants can boost our immune system and help us fight off viral infections, and recreating in natural environments improves our mental health, reduces blood pressure and stress, while protecting areas can avoid spillover events when a pathogen in a stressed native species jumps to humans. In England researchers are asking people to help them determine how different forest structure affects people’s wellbeing, by asking them to report whether the mental and physical benefits are enhanced more by wildlife-rich ancient woodlands than monocultural plantation forestry.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Giant killers:
The ABC has a long article about forestry, focussing on Ellis State Forest, the loss of giant trees, and regulation.
Ecologist Mark Graham, who documented operations in Ellis State Forest, said he was "gobsmacked" by the EPA's conclusions. "140cm in diameter is still a truly massive tree and hundreds of years old," he said. "Any tree over 100cm in diameter is of immense age and habitat value."
Mr Pugh is concerned such efforts will not repair the loss of habitat where trees in old-growth forests are logged or damaged. "These trees should be treated with reverence. They're not replaceable," he said.
In response to a question from Greens MP Sue Higginson about FCNSW's "pattern of non-compliance in relation to giant trees", Mr Saunders recognised there "had been some unfortunate mistakes along the way".
[Catherine Cusack] "Destruction of koala habitat is being funded by taxpayers who are also funding a koala plan that's trying to save koalas. It's completely illogical," she said. "It's not just another battle — this is Armageddon."
The News of the Area stories on Friends of Conglomerate and Friends of Bagawa are now online – with indications logging has been suspended in Bagawa:
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/friends-of-bagawa-stand-to-safeguard-state-forest-99355
To err is human:
In Estimates the Forestry Corporation attributed its fines of more than $500,000 in the Land and Environment Court for illegal logging to human error, claiming they had learnt their lesson, with Agriculture Minister Dugald Saunders saying human and technological error would no longer be acceptable excuses for the Forestry Corporation.
"Sometimes, unfortunately, due to human error, unintentional mistakes occur," Mr Chaudhary said.
"When you look at them, majority of them occur in an office environment where a map hasn't been updated, or something along those lines, and that has resulted in a contractor going into an exclusion zone."
"There's no excuse for not getting it right," Mr Saunders said.
The corporation has to follow guidelines while logging, including how many "hollow bearing trees" - which provide vital habitat for marsupials - it sets aside while felling.
There are about five million hollow bearing trees within the harvestable area on the NSW coast, and three to four times that in inland areas, according to Forestry Corporation modelling, Mr Chaudhary said.
https://www.southernhighlandnews.com.au/story/7889487/illegal-nsw-logging-result-of-human-error/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-11180043/Illegal-NSW-logging-result-human-error.html
D day for logging:
The Echo has an article about the upcoming (15 September) NSW lower house consideration of the 20,000 plus petition calling for an end to logging public native forests, stopping burning native forests for biomass and implementing the NRC recommendation to increase protection for hollow-bearing trees and recruits, citing NEFA’s complaints about logging of Koala habitat in Wild Cattle Creek SF, research in southern NSW that found logging increases fire threat, and the loss of birds in burnt rainforest.
https://www.echo.net.au/downloads/byron-echo/volume-37/ByronEcho3713.pdf
A day to commemorate the dead:
September 7 was National Threatened Species Day, the anniversary of the death of the last captive Tasmanian tiger that died in Hobart Zoo of neglect, with NSW’s lists of threatened species now past 1,000 and the national list almost at 2,000 and rising rapidly it is apparent that many more are following the same trajectory – destruction of habitat, competition with introduced species, persecution, and for some rounding up survivors into zoos and then watching them die.
For National Threatened Species Day WWF released a report card on 1803 federally-listed threatened species, finding just 10 per cent had a current recovery plan, and only 8 per cent had dedicated federal funding, with1539 species (85 per cent) without a current recovery plan nor dedicated funding.
The WWF report cards can be viewed at wwf.org.au/mybackyard.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-11186215/Fail-grade-Australia-saving-species.html
https://au.news.yahoo.com/why-australia-marks-national-threatened-230758966.html
Bega Valley Shire Council highlighted it is home to 227 NSW-listed threatened plants and animal species, focussing on its efforts with shorebirds, Long-nosed Potoroo, and the current platy-project.
Tweed Council will host a free session to detail the plight of the Tweed’s threatened species and the work being undertaken to conserve them on Friday 16 September from 5.30 pm at the Tweed Regional Museum in Murwillumbah.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/09/threatened-species-day-celebrated-in-the-tweed/
Northern Rivers Times 8 September 2022
Celebrating regional biodiversity:
To coincide with National Biodiversity Month and National Threatened Species Day, Gloucester’s environment, biodiversity and threatened species will be the focus this month as part of the Gloucester Wild Festival.
The festival celebrates the passionate conservationists, researchers, volunteers and experts in the Gloucester community and their work to protect the biodiversity of the area.
Events include twilight tours, koala workshops, habitat planting for koalas and grey-crowned babblers, a Frog ID workshop, bushwalking and more.
Visit, www.midcoast.nsw.gov.au/Environment/Environmental-Projects/Gloucester-Wild-Threatened-Species-Festival to find out more and book your place.
MidCoast Council has overseen a two-year study involving extensive field surveys to better understand the presence and distribution of Nabiac casuarina, dwarf heath casuarina, cryptic forest twiner and the giant dragonfly, and how they were impacted by the fires.
https://www.gloucesteradvocate.com.au/story/7890265/help-for-bushfire-affected-species/
For its contribution Byron Shire Council, having done so well building a bypass through the one of the largest populations of the Critically Endangered Mitchell’s Rainforest Snail, is proposing clearing threatened species habitat on Council land for affordable housing.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/09/another-affordable-housing-site-proposed-in-byron/
… lest we forget the forests:
To mark National Threatened Species Day, NEFA organised actions in Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour and Tweed Heads to highlight the effect of logging on them, and the need to stop logging public native forests, garnering some good coverage.
Locals from across three North Coast towns have gathered in protest, to mark National Threatened Species Day.
They’re calling on the Government to do more to protect our most vulnerable native animals
[City of Coffs Harbour Councillor Sally Townley] “The government’s own experts have recommended that we protect the last remnants of unburnt forest.
“But it is also ironic that the taxpayer is footing the bill for this uneconomic industry and we are watching vulnerable species being flushed down the drain.”
Bellingen Shire Councillor Dominic King … said we must protect the biodiversity in our forests, which belong to the public, not politicians.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/threatened-species-day-highlighted-as-australia-ranks-poorly-99570
‘We want the government to do better,’ said rally MC Scott Sledge from Northern Rivers Guardians.
‘We want the government to lift their game and provide better protection of koala habitat as it is a keystone species. If you protect koala habitat then it will protect other species and their habits that are critically endangered including the greater glider and the sooty owl.’
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/09/tweed-locals-call-for-action-on-endangered-species-day/
Outside the office of National’s MP Geoff Provest in Tweed Head, protesters heard from the North East Forest Alliance’s Sean O'Shannessy and Dailan Pugh.
“We will not stand by while koalas and greater gliders, and a huge range of other species, becomes extinct. We rely on those forests for our water, our climate, our fire protection and the economic value for tourism in this hotspot of biodiversity.”
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/protesters-demand-species-protection
The diminishing right to protest:
The Glen Innes Examiner highlights peaceful protest “has been critically important in achieving significant community gains” in the past while decrying the increasingly draconian laws being enacted to stop it.
My wife Julie and I are about to put our money where our mouth is, again, and head over to the coast to get involved in the protests against logging around Coffs Harbour.
The logging in question is focussed on state forests that would form part of the Great Koala National Park. They are critical koala habitat.
The right to protest is widely acknowledged, but is rarely protected.
Think about the Franklin Dam protests in Tasmania in the 1980s, the Bentley Blockade against Coal Seam Gas in the Northern Rivers in 2014, the North-East Forest Alliance protests in the Washpool and other forests in the 1980s and 90s, the Mary River Dam protests in Queensland and the countless other community-based protests in which ordinary people risked their physical safety and their liberty by standing up against industrial might and the state apparatus.
… do we want Victoria’s anti-protest laws?
The loggers have started their own petition to the NSW Legislative Assembly calling for tougher penalties for forest protectors equivalent to Victoria’s anti-forest protest laws, and “Permit a statutory civil action to enforce trespass or damage to equipment or hinderance or obstruction to the operation of equipment in any approved forestry operation against an individual or organisation associated with or purported to be associated with the actions of the individual”.
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/la/Pages/ePetition-details.aspx?q=570u3sESb6CBBUyJ7lGihg
De-certifying Eden woodchips:
Pentarch Forestry, manager of logging and operations of the Eden chipmill, has lost its FSC Controlled Wood certification, principally because the Due Diligence process, particularly at the loading facility in Eden, could not ensure the separation of native forest regrowth from genuine plantation hardwood chips.
In 2017 Pentarch obtained FSC Controlled Wood Certification for its Eden, Victorian and Burnie plantation operations. This must be regularly renewed in a recertification audit. A recent FSC audit found that its due diligence system was out of date, potentially enabling regrowth native forest and plantation woodchips to be mixed together, and threatened species assessments were not being done.
But while the suspended certification was for Pentarch’s plantation operations, by far the biggest part of the company’s production is in native forestry. A major benefit of having FSC certification is the right to display the respected international logo and other details on the recipient’s website and other materials. In this case, the certification for its plantation sector may have helped Pentarch to greenwash its native forest activities.
https://michaelwest.com.au/greenwashing-nsw-logging-behemoth-loses-certification/
https://www.beagleweekly.com.au/post/mogo-forest-floor-to-receive-a-makeover
Community concern about illegal clearing increasing:
Goulburn Mulwaree Council has recorded a significant increase in reports of illegal clearing activities over the past 12 months, reflecting increased concern and awareness from the community about illegal clearing and the destruction of natural habitats, with many substantiated and fines issued.
The destruction of natural habitats can have a devastating impact on threatened species such as Gang Gang Cockatoos, Glossy Black Cockatoos, Greater Gliders, Yellow-Bellied Gliders and Squirrel Gliders.
"There are also areas of koala habitat that have been destroyed due to unlawful clearing," Mr Martin said.
Investigations by council and other state government agencies have substantiated many of the complaints and several infringements have been issued to property owners and companies undertaking illegal activities on both public and private land.
Taking on the multi-millionaires:
The Australian reports that Verdant Earth Technologies attempt to raise $50m by listing on the Nasdaq failed because “The ASX said unless we got approval to burn biomass they wouldn’t accept our listing,”, though this hasn’t hindered them raising almost $80m toward restarting their coal-fired power station with “renewable” wood from native forests and “progress green hydrogen assets”, while they await approval – we helped thwart their attempts to use their existing Development Approval to burn biomass, though they are touting their new DA.
His work on the Redbank station has not been the only thing keeping Poole busy. The former banker has run a vociferous campaign to have findings of corrupt conduct, made against him in 2013 by the Independent Commission Against Corruption, expunged from the record. …
In its presentation, Verdant told investors it would cost an estimated $US42m ($62m) to restart the plant over a 10-month period and offered income both from the power it made and the potential tipping fees from taking in waste.
Verdant expects total revenue of more than $75m in its first year of operating the plant – having sold 1 million MWh. Total costs will come in at around $52m, it says. From the second year, it forecasts an additional $33m in revenues from taking tippings.
Broadwater is back:
The Northern Rivers Times reports that the Broadwater Sugar Mill (and possibly their co-generation plant) is back in operation.
Northern Rivers Times 8 September 2022
EPA Climate Change Policy open for comments:
The NSW EPA has released a draft Climate Change Policy and draft Climate Change Action Plan: 2022-2025 for consultation and is seeking your views. Their Climate Change Action Plan does mention forestry, though it is basically business as usual with the intent being to focus on broad monitoring rather than reviewing species-specific protection in light of the increasing information on how species will be affected and changing prescriptions now.
The draft EPA Climate Change Policy and Action Plan is available at https://yoursay.epa.nsw.gov.au/climate-change-policy-and-action-plan and comments are open until 3 November 2022.
Continuing action 11: Ensure climate risks are considered in native forestry via the Forest Monitoring and Improvement Program The EPA is responsible for the compliance and enforcement of native forestry operations; however, the NSW Government is responsible for the environmental regulations that apply. While native forests can act as long-term carbon storage and sequestration, the health of native forests and the biodiversity they support are both increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, particularly fire, pests and pathogens, drought, floods and higher-intensity rainfall.
The EPA is an active participant in the NSW Forest Monitoring and Improvement Program (FMIP), which is a requirement of the environmental rules that apply to native forestry – the Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals and the Private Native Forestry Codes of Practice. The FMIP undertakes broadscale forest monitoring and targeted research to provide evidence to the NSW Government that the NSW forest management framework is delivering ecologically sustainable forest management (ESFM) outcomes, including ensuring the ongoing effectiveness of native forest in contributing to carbon sequestration and its resilience to climate change consequences.
The EPA will continue to work with the NSW Natural Resources Commission, Regional NSW and the Forestry Corporation of NSW as part of the FMIP to ensure climate risks are identified and consequences are appropriately managed in the Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals and Private Native Forestry Codes of Practice
The NSW Draft CCPAP is a result of citizen action taken by Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action (BSCA) that resulted in the landmark win in the NSW Land and Environment Court (L&EC) that found that the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) has a duty to take serious action on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/09/nsw-draft-climate-change-policy-and-action-plan-open-for-comment/
“The big issue here is that an Australian government is moving to comprehensively cover [carbon dioxide] and equivalent emissions as a pollutant,” the new EPA chief executive, Tony Chappel, said.
“[The plan would] give regulatory teeth to its net zero commitment to ensure that the whole economy moves on that path efficiently and effectively.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-11191937/NSW-consider-carbon-pollutant.html
More deserters:
The Speaker of the NSW parliament, Jonathan O’Dea, is now one of eight Coalition MPs who have said they will not recontest the next election, with others expected to follow, including Infrastructure Minister Rob Stokes.
To govern in majority, Labor needs to pick up eight seats, which is a big task. It has its own internal demons to sort out, not least some tricky preselections involving sitting MPs.
AUSTRALIA
Saving the Tarkine:
Aljazeera has video on The Forest Frontlines focussing on a blockade in the continuing struggle to save the Takayna/Tarkine, Australia’s largest temperate rainforest; 101 East.
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/101-east/2022/9/8/the-battle-to-save-australias-ancient-forests
Feds cautious, but will consider:
The Greens and Pocock have been requesting a ban on native forest wood burning being counted as renewable energy in negotiations over the Climate Bill, backed by the Senate review, Chris Bowen has agreed to consider and is preparing a discussion paper.
More promisingly, Bowen also told reporters he was considering a recommendation by a Labor-led Senate Committee to rule out the use of native forest biomass for renewable energy generation. The Greens later confirmed this was a part of their negotiations with Labor to secure support for the Climate Bill.
In Australia, like in other parts of the world, generating power by burning woody biomass is favoured by incumbent fossil fuel companies keen to keep their assets generating power beyond the demise of coal.
But there is strong debate over whether using woody biomass is any better, in terms of emissions, than using coal – not to mention the potential environmental ramifications of chopping down and pulverising trees for an energy source.
[Bandt] “I welcome the Minister starting this consultation process, but with our environment under threat and the climate crisis increasing, the only logical conclusion is to stop burning native forests. The Greens and Labor opposed this practice under Tony Abbott and it needs to end now.”
https://reneweconomy.com.au/bowen-considers-forest-biomass-ban-as-labor-cuts-deals-on-climate-bill/
https://www.miragenews.com/greens-get-government-first-steps-on-native-849717/
NCC criticised the Federal Government for not taking decisive action to protect forests and wildlife by ruling out the use of native forests for electricity generation.
Northern Rivers Times 8 September 2022
I’m not sure where this comes from, but in response to Tom Connell, Political Host and Reporter at Sky News based in Canberra, Chris Bowen said he will be releasing a short consultation paper about the proposal to exclude burning forest biomass for electricity from being classed as renewable energy.
TOM CONNELL, HOST: And anything else we should know about? There was the native forest wood waste and whether or not it should be defined as renewable energy. So burning this, it's renewable technically, it's not traditional renewable that we think of perhaps.
CHRIS BOWEN: Yeah, this has been an issue which has come up, it was raised in the House of Representatives by the Greens as well. And it's been raised by Senator Pocock. I think there are legitimate issues to be concerned about here. But what I don't want to do is, you know, have an ad hoc decision, the way we do business in the Albanese Government is to do things carefully and with consultation, so I'll be releasing a short consultation paper about this. To be fair, the forest industry by and large looks for higher value return elsewhere than burning it for energy. But I do think there are legitimate issues about the carbon impacts. So I want to have a discussion paper, a brief process, let people have their say, and then I will make a decision after that.
… junking the junk:
To reach the target of 43 per cent reductions on 2005 levels by 2030, Labor will allow big industrial polluters to buy carbon credits from the $4.5 billion Emissions Reduction Fund instead of reducing their emissions, leading Pocock to warn he will leverage his vote to drive reforms to stop “junk” carbon credits before a controversial emissions reduction scheme is entrenched in new legislation.
“You can’t say the 43 per cent target has integrity if we’re creating questionable, or flat out junk credits,” he said.
The fund pays private projects to generate carbon credits, either by sequestering carbon from the atmosphere in vegetation, for example by growing trees, or by reducing their greenhouse footprint by switching to lower emissions technology, such as changing gas boilers to electric heat pumps.
Other companies can then buy those carbon credits instead of directly reducing their emissions.
Waiting for the end:
Despite promises to stop logging of 400,000 ha of Western Australian forests by 2024, conservationists are worried by what might be lost in the interim and wary of what might be proposed as they wait for the next ten-year forests' management plan to be released.
Accounting for the environment:
Sue Arnold takes exception to the failure of the jobs summit to either account for environmental values or the impacts of their increased immigration, labelling it a profound disappointment as once again “growth at any cost” remains the number one policy of our major political parties.
Failing to develop an economic value for biodiversity, ecosystems, clean air, rivers and healthy marine environments ensures any national balance sheet does not reflect the true costs of destruction for growth versus protection of the environment and sustainable development in tune with the ecological carrying capacity of this ancient continent.
The report found that ecosystems were rapidly deteriorating globally and species extinction rates are strongly correlated to both climate change and human footprint.
Taking steps to end the logging of native forests under the Regional Forest Agreements is obviously not on any Labor policy list. Industrial logging continues with ongoing unacceptable mortality of forest species as the industry is not required to abide by the environmental protection provisions of the EPBC Act.
Ian Lowe also equates more people to an increased environmental footprint and therefore impacts on our deteriorating environment.
The downsides of increasing migration, which will almost certainly worsen our environmental problems, weren’t mentioned. We can expect public debate about lifting migration to pre-pandemic levels. It’s essential for this debate to consider the whole picture: the economic, social and environmental issues.
Migration has environmental impacts because it increases our population, with proportional increases in resource use and waste products. Our population has grown by 50% since 1990, from 17 million to almost 26 million today. Our energy use has risen from 4,000 petajoules a year to 6,200, increasing our greenhouse gas emissions by around 50%.
The demands of the human population are causing, directly or indirectly, all of Australia’s serious environmental problems.
That growth has increased demand for resources such as water and energy as well as increasing impacts such as “urban heat, congestion, pollution and waste”. The demands of a growing population have led to land clearing, reduced green space, more pollution and the loss of biodiversity.
The fundamental need, though, is to upgrade our decision-making so environmental issues are always part of the calculus. Current thinking seems to presume the economy has over-riding importance and the environment just has to cope with the impacts.
A video on Mongbay identifies that with the human population expected to reach 8 billion literally any day now, and nearly 10 billion people some time this century, some researchers suggest that the single biggest thing anyone can do to reduce our impact on the environment, and the climate, is to choose to have one less child, particularly wealthy people with large environmental footprints.
Cultural thinning:
A proposal for “cultural thinning” by a Victorian Aboriginal group in Wombat State Forest, which is intended to be made into a national park, sounds like commercial logging, saying they want to undertake “forest gardening involve[ing] thinning, revegetation and regenerative practice to ensure the health of forests”, and that “cultural thinning would leave significant timber leftover, something Mr Carter said should not be wasted”.
SPECIES
Fluctuating Koalas:
Scientists are trying to work out why Koala populations on the predator-free St Bee's Island, about 38km offshore from Mackay, fluctuate from around 100 animals to around 300 animals, which they think is linked to a number of cyclones and dry years.
Dr Alastair Melzer said the bigger picture in Queensland was mixed.
"In the western edge of the animals' distribution, there has been significant localised extinctions generally associated with big droughts," he said.
"In hill and ranges areas of the region ... the populations are persisting.
"In some areas around Capricornia there's a suggestion that koala populations are resurging, but very slowly and at low density.
"In south-east Queensland ... the most abundant population ... they're under significant pressure because of the amount of urbanisation and the intensification of infrastructure that's going on."
Breeding wild Koalas:
Port Macquarie Koala Hospital’s 8 million dollar Guulabaa Tourism Precinct is taking shape with the turning of the first sod for their enclosure for “wild koalas” they will be capturing from the wild, with the intent of releasing any young into areas with depleted Koalas – which their Forestry Corporation partners are busy creating.
There's the painstaking job of finding and collecting genetically robust, disease-free breeders - no easy task given the chlamydia crisis that has devastated wild populations.
Areas with good habitat but few or no koalas must also be identified on NSW's mid-north coast to serve as future homes for the joeys that will be bred from next year.
As for the breeding itself, that will happen at a forested site in the Guulabaa Tourism Precinct that's taking shape in the Cowarra State Forest between Port Macquarie and Wauchope, on NSW's mid-north coast.
It's been largely funded with the $8 million that Australian and international donors gave to a Go Fund Me campaign set up in the wake of the devastating bushfires of 2019/20.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-11188073/Koala-breeding-no-girl-meets-boy-affair.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-11188073/Koala-breeding-no-girl-meets-boy-affair.html
“Rewilding” Government solution to their habitat destruction:
The NSW Government is progressing with their seven feral-free “rewilding” sites intended to fence-off 65,000 hectares of national parks in NSW, while touting the success of three established sites so far in the Pilliga State Conservation Area, Mallee Cliffs National Park and Sturt National Park, with 10 locally extinct species now thriving – meanwhile they continue to increase the decline of numerous other species as they clear and log their habitats
https://afndaily.com.au/2022/09/07/threatened-species-bouncing-backin-nsw-rewilding-sites/
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/science/2022/09/07/native-mammals-extinction-sturt-national-park/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-11188555/Native-mammals-extinction-NSW.html
Declining platypus:
There are fears that platypus populations might have been wiped out by recent floods in greater Brisbane, sparking new calls for the species to be recognised as threatened in NSW and Queensland, though first they need more citizen science.
They have issued a call to arms, enlisting citizen scientists to try to spot the cryptic creature and provide the raw data required to protect and manage its habitat.
Bino, whose research largely focuses on the NSW mid-north coast, said he feared silent extinctions have occurred. But the platypus, he said, is an elusive creature that lacks nationwide population monitoring.
A summary of her eDNA data handed to the Ipswich council last month indicated a “severe decline” in its platypus populations.
Of 21 sites sampled in the Ipswich local government area in June, none returned definitive traces of the platypus. Seven of the sites that returned negative results had previously returned traces of platypuses.
Relocating Green and Golden Bell Frog:
To offset the impacts of their lagoon openings, Central Coast Council is collecting and relocating tadpoles of the endangered Green and Golden Bell Frog from the Bareena wetland to ponds at North Avoca, which were constructed by Council to provide additional habitat for the threatened species.
https://www.greatlakesadvocate.com.au/story/7887049/help-for-bushfire-affected-species/
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/help-for-bush-fire-affected-species-on-the-midcoast-99438
Saving Gouldian Finches:
Tanya Plibersek, is being urged to intervene to save a population of endangered Gouldian finches threatened by a defence housing development in savannah woodlands at Lee Point, in Darwin’s north.
A campaign to halt the second phase of bulldozing has won backing from residents and citizen scientists after more than 100 of the colourful finches were spotted in bushland marked for imminent clearing.
Gouldian finches are native to northern Australia. Their numbers crashed in the 1990s and early 2000s due to changed fire regimes, cattle grazing and infection from air sac mites. The largest known population is found near Katherine.
As the birds recover, scientists believe they are returning to old habitat, including around Darwin.
“The department is aware that the next stage of this development is scheduled to commence in the coming weeks and is actively working with Defence Housing Australia to assess the implications for the project,” the spokesperson said.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Engineering better eucalypts to burn:
In Brazil the world’s largest producer of eucalyptus-based pulp and paper products has genetically engineered eucalypts to make them more resistant to glyphosate, so that they can use more of it to grow trees to burn for electricity, while calling it a nature-based solution to climate heating.
Glyphosate herbicide (Roundup) is routinely used to control weeds in monoculture plantations such as these. Over time the weeds develop tolerance for the glyphosate, which incidentally is regarded by the WHO as a probable cause of cancer, and increasing amounts need to be applied, which the eucalypts don’t much like. A Brazilian government biosecurity agency has now granted Suzano a licence to plant eucalypts that have been genetically modified to make them more resistant to glyphosate so that more of the herbicide can be used.
Suzano had a display at last year’s Glasgow COP meeting where it promoted its ‘nature-based solutions’ to fighting climate change. Suzano was pushing two dodgy arguments. First, that its plantations absorb carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the trees. Second, that they are replacing fossil fuels by burning biomass from their trees in electricity power stations. Suzano has the gall to market itself as a company that practices conservation and restoration while destroying native forests and the livelihoods of Indigenous peoples. Its Brazilian plantations cover an area about the size of twelve ACTs
New fossil fools:
ABC has a good story about the folly of relying on Carbon Capture and Storage, covering the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis mentioned last week, the key point being that CSG is unreliable because each site has different geologies, as the new Australian government approved 10 new offshore areas for oil and gas exploration and two greenhouse gas storage facilities.
Across Australia, 10 new offshore areas were last week approved for oil and gas exploration, as were permits for two new offshore greenhouse gas storage facilities.
Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King says carbon capture and storage has a "vital role to play to help Australia meet its net zero targets".
If large-scale production of the Beetaloo Basin goes ahead, government estimates show it could release 5 million to 39 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the Earth's atmosphere every year.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-04/carbon-capture-and-storage-doubts-amid-net-zero-aim/101389616
The question is whether we will listen to the weather:
… 2021 not as extreme as some:
The American Meteorological Society have published: “State of the Climate in 2021”, telling us that 2021 was the sixth (or fifth) warmest year on record, as measured by global mean surface temperature, while La Niña conditions contributed to Australia’s coldest year since 2012, New Zealand and China each reported their warmest year on record. Other notable trends were:
- CO2 concentration grew at the 5th highest rate since 1958, reaching 414.7 ppm, the highest since over 800,000 years ago.
- Many countries reached record temperatures, with California’s Death Valley equalling its 2020 record 54.4°C, making it the hottest place on earth, though some places also experienced record lows
- Across the northern hemisphere lakes are losing their winter ice, and growing season increasing, while Japanese Cherry Trees continue to bloom earlier
- Antarctica experienced its second longest-lived ozone hole on record (shorter only than 2020).
- glaciers lost mass for the 34th consecutive year, and permafrost temperatures continued to reach record highs at many localities
- Arctic sea ice volume continues to rapidly shrink
- global mean sea level was record high for the 10th consecutive year, reaching 97.0 mm above the 1993 average when satellite measurements began, an increase of 4.9 mm over 2020
- approximately 57% of the ocean surface experienced at least one marine heatwave in 2021
-
In August, 32% of global land areas were experiencing some level of drought, a new record high. A “mega-drought” continued in central Chile for the 12th consecutive year, becoming the longest drought in the historical record in the region. Drought intensified and expanded through most of the western United States and elsewhere along a large stretch of north eastern Siberia and the Far East region of Russia, which led to unprecedented wildfires. Most of the Middle East, from Türkiye to Pakistan, also saw an intensification of drought conditions. In parts of equatorial East Africa, the annual total rainfall was the lowest on record, leading to three consecutive failed rainy seasons that resulted in one of
the worst threats to food security in 35 years for more than 20 million people in the region - Meanwhile rainfall records were set in China and Europe, and the Rio Negro River at Manaus reached a record flood height,
https://ametsoc.net/sotc2021/Chapter%201-BAMS-SoC2021-final.pdf
Blunden, J. and T. Boyer, Eds., 2022: “State of the Climate in 2021”. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 103 (8), Si–S465, https://doi.org/10.1175/2022BAMSStateoftheClimate.1
The Sydney Morning Herald has an article summarising some of the unprecedented extreme climate events destroying our planet, killing thousands and threatening billions, while linking them to climate change – the question is whether those with power are listening to the increasingly extreme weather warnings.
“The Pakistani people are facing a monsoon on steroids — the relentless impact of epochal levels of rain and flooding,” said United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said this week, calling on the world to stop “sleepwalking towards the destruction of our planet by climate change”.
In China, rivers have run dry, crippling power generation, closing factories and shrinking crops. For more than 70 days straight this year, nearly a billion people suffered through a heatwave that saw sustained daily temperatures above 40 degrees across 17 provinces.
Crop yields have collapsed and river traffic has ground (literally) to a halt in Germany’s Rhine River, suspending the movement of coal barges. In France, parched rivers have hit agriculture, and water temperatures in some rivers are so high that they could not be used to cool nuclear reactors, restricting the output of the system that provides 70 per cent of the nation’s power.
Burning accelerating:
Of the 32.1 million acres of forestland in California, approximately 2.1 million acres (6.6%) burned in wildfires in the 2002-2011 time period. In the following decade (2012-2021), that figure more than tripled to 7.9 million acres (24.7%).
https://wildfiretoday.com/2022/09/05/california-forests-hit-hard-by-wildfires-in-the-last-decade/
… this year could be worse:
Copernicus atmosphere monitoring service has reported that more than 750,000 hectares of the EU and Great Britain have burned since the beginning of the year, causing record CO2 emissions, between the beginning of June and the end of August emitting 6.4 million tons of carbon.
https://globeecho.com/news/europe/germany/forest-fires-caused-significantly-more-emissions/
Taking out the tall poppies:
As climate heating progresses so too does the number the number of lightning strikes, with the tallest trees sticking up from the canopy most likely to be directly hit, with up to 100 nearby plants exposed to the electrical current, causing some to die instantly, others to die slowly, and still others to carry on with business as usual. This will have an increasing effect on forest structure.
https://phys.org/news/2022-09-lightning-tropical-forests.html
TURNING IT AROUND
Science in action:
With half of the worlds global CO2 emissions occurring since the first IPCC report 30 years ago, a growing number of scientists are speaking out and taking direct action on climate change due to frustration with the lack of political progress.
According to Professor Schlosberg, many scientists have become disillusioned with the legitimacy of the political process, and there's been a reckoning over the past 30 years — there's "not a clear pathway" from science to policy.
"For climate scientists in particular, there's been a realisation that they not only have to do the science, but they have to do the politics as well," he says.
Where science and political engagement still aren't getting through, he says "activism is the next step".
Removing biomass:
On the 21st of October 2022 the Environmental Paper Network's, “Forests, climate and biomass working group” is inviting all of its members and supporters to join us for another International Day of Action on Big Biomass! Members are invited to participate in whatever way they are able, wherever they are in the world. We will have unity in our diversity under the banner of an “International Day of Action on Big Biomass” and by sharing photos of our activities to the hashtag #BigBadBiomass.
In the lead-up to the European parliament’s vote on a revised EU renewable energy directive, Greta Thunberg and others have written a comprehensive argument in The Guardian as to why they should remove forest biomass from the renewable energy directive, or lock in decades of increased carbon emissions, biodiversity loss and human rights violations.
Next week the future of many of the world’s forests will be decided when members of the European parliament vote on a revised EU renewable energy directive. If the parliament fails to change the EU’s discredited and harmful renewables policy, European citizens’ tax money will continue to pay for forests around the globe to literally go up in smoke every day.
Increasing volumes of wood pellets and other wood fuels are being imported from outside the EU to satisfy Europe’s growing appetite for burning forests for energy. This is an appetite that the existing EU renewable energy directive incentivises. It does this by classifying forest biomass on paper as zero-carbon emissions when in reality, burning forest biomass will produce higher emissions than fossil fuels during the coming decisive decades.
In addition, and not instead of, we must remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Instead of trusting non-existent, unreliable and expensive carbon capture technologies, the best way to do that is to protect and restore more forests. If we continuously log forests, there will always be more carbon in the atmosphere than if the forest had remained unlogged.
Forest structure affect on birds:
An American study found that the cooler microclimate conditions provided by old- growth forest structures compared with surrounding open or younger forests helped buffer the effects of climate heating on some birds, concluding “microclimatic refugia provided by old-growth and complex forests may provide time to enable species to adapt to a warming climate”.
Climate change is contributing to biodiversity redistributions and species declines. However, cooler microclimate conditions provided by old- growth forest structures compared with surrounding open or younger forests have been hypothesized to pro-vide thermal refugia for species that are sensitive to climate warming and dampen the negative effects of warming on population trends of animals (i.e., the micro-climate buffering hypothesis). In addition to thermal refugia, the compositional and structural diversity of old- growth forest vegetation itself may provide resources to species that are less available in forests with simpler structure (i.e., the insurance hypothesis). We used 8 years of breeding bird abundance data from a forested watershed, accompanied with sub-canopy temperature data, and ground-and LiDAR-based vegetation data to test these hypotheses and identify factors influencing bird population changes from 2011 to 2018. After accounting for imperfect detection, we found that for 5 of 20 bird species analyzed, abundance trends tended to be less negative or neutral at sites with cooler microclimates, which supports the microclimate buffering hypothesis. Negative effects of warming on two species were also reduced in locations with greater forest compositional diversity supporting the insurance hypothesis. We provide the first empirical evidence that complex forest structure and vegetation diversity confer microclimatic advantages to some animal populations in the face of climate change. Conservation of old- growth forests, or their characteristics in managed forests, could help slow the negative effects of climate warming on some breeding bird populations via microclimate buffering and possibly insurance effects.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/gcb.16353
Forest affect on people’s health:
A paper in the Lancet uses COVID-19 as a case study to demonstrate how restoring ecosystems can help to combat the health and social problems associated with pandemics, Identifying that exposure to microscopic life (ie bacteria, algae) “primes” our immune systems, phytoncides given off by plants can boost our immune system and help us fight off viral infections, and recreating in natural environments improves our mental health, reduces blood pressure and stress. While protecting areas can avoid spillover events when a pathogen in a stressed native species jumps to humans.
Importantly, ecosystem restoration could also help to combat the health and socioeconomic issues that are associated with COVID-19, yet it is poorly integrated into current responses to the disease. Ecosystem restoration can be a core public health intervention and assist in COVID-19 recovery if it is closely integrated with socioeconomic, health, and environmental policies.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(22)00171-1/fulltext
Forest structure affect on people’s wellbeing:
In England researchers are asking people to help them determine how different forest structure affects people’s wellbeing, by asking them to report whether the mental and physical benefits are enhanced more by wildlife-rich ancient woodlands than monocultural plantation forestry.
My guide is Miles Richardson, professor of nature connectedness at the University of Derby, who hopes the data he gathers from the Treefest walks will discover how the age, size and shape of trees and woodlands benefit wellbeing.
The Treefest research walks are part of a £14.5m Future of the UK Treescapes programme, an interdisciplinary research quest involving multiple universities and investigating how to secure public benefits from forested landscapes.
But it appears the type of forest may be important too: intriguingly, several studies suggest that more biodiversity has a bigger boost on people’s mental health, while the recording of brain activity in response to forest density found a more relaxed state and reduced tension and fatigue in forests with a lower density of trees (from 30% to 50%) – suggesting that densely packed conifer plantations aren’t so restorative.
Forest Media 2 September 2022
New South Wales
On Monday a concerned community member locked on to the primary logging machine to stop NSW Forestry Corporation from logging the controversial Ellis State Forest, west of Coffs Harbour, stopping logging for 7 hours. On Tuesday someone else locked on. Timber NSW accused forest protectors of “vile trolling and stalking of forest workers”, calling for NSW to adopt the same draconian protest laws as Victoria and Tasmania. Friends of Conglomerate have consolidated the fight for the Great Koala National Park with an article in News of the Area with Dee Wanis stating that “local citizens are fed up with the industrial logging operations of Forestry Corporation”, and the EPA’s inability “to keep up with the opening up of areas for logging”, highlighting the rally to protect public native forests outside parliament house on the 15 September and a street parade in Bellingen on 17 September to highlight proposed logging of the Kalang headwaters. Another article reports on the formation of Friends of Bagawa, local residents who are concerned about the biodiversity, the futility of decades of Landcare when core areas are devastated, the impacts on surrounding farms, and the increased fire risk, while advocating the economic benefits of creating the Great Koala National Park.
The Audit Office’s damning report ‘Effectiveness of the Biodiversity Offsets Scheme’ intended to protect endangered animals and ecosystems garnered lots of attention, it is scathing of the scheme’s effectiveness, design, implementation, methodology, monitoring, and transparency, with developers paying for offsets for a slew of threatened species that don’t exist as “90% of demand cannot be matched to credit supply” and “around 30% of ecosystem credit demand, 16% of fauna species credit demand, and just one per cent of flora species credit demand, can be matched to the credit supply””.
The New South Wales government recently approved the Cumberland Plain conservation plan to build up to 73,000 houses in new suburbs in western Sydney continues to come under attack because it proposes clearing 1,754 hectares of native woodlands and grasslands and relies on promises for offsets that might not be delivered until decades into the future. Demolition of office buildings and the clearing of 1253 trees has begun for a 418-home “family friendly community” in Sydney’s West Pennant Hills for a development opposed by the community, rejected by Council, but fast tracked by the State Government post COVID. A proposal by the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council to build 450 homes on 71ha of Aboriginal bushland at Lizard Rock within the Sydney suburb of Belrose has generated strong opposition, though is one of 6 MLALC bushland sites being supported for development by Planning Minister Robert.
Celebrate community, nature and everything on the Central Coast at the Community Environment Network’s Love Trees, Love COSS two-day event at the University’s Central Coast Ourimbah Campus on Saturday, September 17.
The state’s longest serving Nationals Oxley MP Melinda Pavey has added her name to the growing list of government members bowing out of politics after the March election, culminating two decades in parliament.
Australia
The Senate supports the Albanese’s Government’s climate change legislation, though with reduced land-clearing and logging being primarily responsible for Australia’s emissions reductions to date, there was disappointment that the Labor-led senate committee only recommended further investigations into the proposal to remove wood from native forests being able to be burnt as renewable energy rather than acting on it now.
The federal government’s proposal for a bill that would recognise private landholders who restored and managed habitat by granting them biodiversity certificates that could then be sold to other parties, has led to concerns from some conservationists that it is continuing the coalition’s approach and could be another offsets scheme, while being warmly welcomed by farming groups. Tanya Plibersek told a G20 environment ministers' meeting in Bali that Australia hopes to create its own "Green Wall Street" by commodifying positive environmental work through "biodiversity/nature credits", where businesses from around the world can come to invest in environmental action. In light of the failures of the Commonwealth’s carbon offset program and NSW’s biodiversity offsets. a researcher warns of the dangers of biodiversity trading, and the need to have a rigorous system in place that results in a net gain.
Species
The Commonwealth has an extensive list of species proposed for inclusion in the EPBC Act lists of threatened species, with submissions on most already closed, though 8 NSW species are still open for comment. Its worth scrolling down to Listing Assessments closed for public comment to appreciate the range of species recently considered. Amongst those still open for submissions until 15 September are 3 frogs, including Philoria pughi (Pugh’s frog) being considered for listing as Endangered by the Federal Government, this is a key species for Gibraltar Range, Timbarra, Spirabo, Forestland and Girard State Forests (and me), logging is an identified threat, yet no action is proposed in regards to it. Philoria sphagnicola (sphagnum frog) is being considered for listing as Vulnerable, found in Riamukka, Enfield, Bulga, Comboyne, Bellangary, Mt Boss, Kippara, Carrai, Oakes, Buckra-bendinni, Rose’s Creek, Irishman, Wild Cattle Creek, Clouds Creek, Ellis, Marengo, Hyland, Chaelundi, Nana Creek, Orara East and Orara West State Forests, and has similar threats. Litoria daviesae (Davies’ tree frog) is being considered for listing as Vulnerable, found in a variety of State forests from Carrai down to Barrington Tops (including Bulga).
Golden-tipped Bats live in and adjacent to rainforest, roosting in the suspended nests of Yellow-throated Scrubwren and Brown Gerygone, and were thus severely impacted by the 2019-20 fires, being eliminated from heavily burnt forests and losing many of their nests in burnt forests, with significant population declines, though they survived well in rainforest refugia – though for how long as fires become more intense? The 2019/20 fires destroyed more than 90% of the smoky mouse’s habitat, with nine captive mice even dying from passive smoking, now gene sequencing is being used to aid conservation efforts.
Aussie Ark was delighted to find they have a Koala in the new 1,500-ha Mongo Valley sanctuary, in Upper Mongogarie south west of Casino, which they soon intend to fence off from its brethren in surrounding forests, the start of their new captive colony. The $2.55 million RSPCA Koala Ward at Werribee Open Range Zoo is now fully operational to treat sick and injured wildlife in Victoria’s western region as part of the response to the devastating 2019/20 Black Summer bushfires.
The mysterious death of over 15 Satin Bowerbirds in the Gold Coast hinterland has people worried it could indicate the use of illegal poisons or the outbreak of disease. The listing of the Glossy Black Cockatoo as vulnerable and mountain skink as endangered garnered some interest.
The botanic gardens is concerned that another wet year will make Myrtle Rust thrive, threatening to “knock population levels down” of native guava and scrub turpentine – much like bulldozers are doing now.
Our iconic River Red Gums are in trouble, on one hand the combination of river diversions and drought are depriving them of water, on the other the loss of trees from clearing and drought is causing the salt laden watertable to rise, meaning that they can only survive on the limited floodplains we water.
Worldwide more than 17,500 species of trees, nearly one-third of known trees, are threatened with extinction, with 2,800 of these critically endangered. An article in Nature outlines attempts to rescue some of the last survivors known of their kind, with some only known from a single tree in a botanical garden, with warnings that due to climate heating many won’t be able to survive in their natural habitat.
New research suggests flowering plants arose more than 300 million years ago – some 50 million years before the rise of the dinosaurs, with the Rhamnaceae family originating almost 260 million years ago.
The Deteriorating Problem
The smoke ejected into the stratosphere from the pyrocumulus storms caused by the 2019-20 wildfires warmed it by 0.7oC globally, causing the longest-lasting and among the largest and deepest ozone hole over Antarctica in decades.
Researchers have mapped the risks to forests in the 21st century globally, which shows that we can expect major problems into the future, though except for Victoria, on average our forests will survive far better than many, particularly southern boreal forests and those in western North America. Europe, south-east asia, and parts of the Amazon – but mind you if they all go we are in deep shit.
- Carbon loss - the risks relatively low north from Kempsey, but increasing to the south, becoming extreme in western Victoria and WA,
- Change in tree fraction is OK for the east coast but western Victoria and WA are not good
- Percent transition of ecoregions to another ecoregion with a warming of +2 C looks pretty bad for south-east mainland.
- Projected percent transition of climate ‘life-zones’ looks bad for the east coast, worse for Tasmania and Cape York
- Risk of loss in species richness looks pretty dire for the east coast south of Gladstone.
- Change in percent loss in stand replacing disturbances is pretty patchy.
The results of the study are available as dynamic online maps, while the data are very coarse you can zoom in on localities and toggle thru the layers here: https://wilkescenter.utah.edu/tools/globalforestclimaterisk/
Widespread flooding caused by “a serious climate catastrophe.” in Pakistan has caused over 1,000 deaths since mid-June, destroyed almost 300,000 homes, washed away villages and crops, and led to hundreds of thousands of people being evacuated. A climate scientist warns that the intensifying droughts and floods being experienced across the northern hemisphere, likely due to “Rossby waves”, have long been predicted, but are far worse, and there is worse to come.
A study found Greenland’s rapidly melting ice sheet has already committed to raising global sea level by at least 27 centimeters -- more than twice as much as previously forecast – due to zombie ice that is no longer being replenished by glaciers melting from climate change, likely by the end of this century.
Asia is increasingly turning to burning coal and biomass together to make electricity in efforts to reduce CO2 emissions on paper and reach energy targets - while they pursue the illusory reductions the threat to our forests grow as vultures circle the rising smokestacks looking for a quick buck.
Zimbabwe has begun moving more than 2,500 wild animals from a southern reserve to one in the country's north to rescue them from drought, as the ravages of climate change replace poaching as the biggest threat to wildlife.
Turning it Around
Climate scientists argue civil disobedience by scientists is both “ethical and necessary” considering “time is short to secure a liveable and sustainable future,” and inadequate government action has set the planet on “course for 3.2 °C of warming” by 2100, “with all the cascading and catastrophic consequences that this implies.”
A company is manufacturing composite wood products, designer hardwoods, of any dimension from forest residues, using 75% of the wood, and able to turn softwood into hardwood – the question is whether this is a cost effective environmentally sound alternative to fucking over native forests?
After 50 years the illusion that non-tree Carbon Capture and Storage will save us still persists despite a litany of failures, while excusing Governments from urgently needed real action, with another study by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis finding carbon capture and storage projects are far more likely to fail than to succeed, and nearly three-quarters of the carbon dioxide they manage to capture each year is sold off to fossil companies and used to extract more oil.
Chile is deciding on 4 September whether to adopt a raft of amendments to its constitution that will grant constitutional rights to nature, create an “ombudsman for nature” tasked with monitoring and enforcing them, allow citizens to bring environmental lawsuits, and rather than treating water as a commodity make it incomerciable or “unsellable”.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Locking on at Ellis:
On Monday a concerned community member locked on to the primary logging machine to stop NSW Forestry Corporation from logging the controversial Ellis State Forest, west of Coffs Harbour, stopping logging for 7 hours. On Tuesday someone else locked on.
Carly Flemming (31) a Bellingen Shire local, who is locked onto the harvester shares,
“I am devastated that those in power are choosing inaction in the face of an undeniable species extinction. They make a mockery out of all of us as they fund an unprofitable industry that is destroying precious koala habitat, ruining our waterways and fuelling the climate crisis."
Carly shares, “We need to see an end to native forest logging immediately. The local Forestry sector employs fewer people than the Bellingen IGA. Current contracts and obligations should be canceled, with impacted workers transitioning into more secure work.”
More information on upcoming local actions and events can be found at www.facebook.com/BellingenActivistNetwor
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/08/lock-on-in-ellis-state-forest-stop-logging/
Timber NSW accused forest protectors of “vile trolling and stalking of forest workers”, calling for NSW to adopt the same draconian protest laws as Victoria and Tasmania.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-2-september-2022-99270
The News of the Area story on damage to giant trees in Ellis is now online.
… aggregating the fight:
Friends of Conglomerate have consolidated the fight for the Great Koala National Park with an article in News of the Area with Dee Wanis stating that “local citizens are fed up with the industrial logging operations of Forestry Corporation”, and the EPA’s inability “to keep up with the opening up of areas for logging”, highlighting the rally to protect public native forests outside parliament house on the 15 September and a street parade in Bellingen on 17 September to highlight proposed logging of the Kalang headwaters. Another article reports on the formation of Friends of Bagawa, local residents who are concerned about the biodiversity, the futility of decades of Landcare when core areas are devastated, the impacts on surrounding farms, and the increased fire risk, while advocating the economic benefits of creating the Great Koala National Park.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-2-september-2022-99270
Damning biodiversity with pretend offsets:
The Audit Office’s damning report ‘Effectiveness of the Biodiversity Offsets Scheme’ intended to protect endangered animals and ecosystems garnered lots of attention, it is scathing of the scheme’s effectiveness, design, implementation, methodology, monitoring, and transparency, with developers paying for offsets for a slew of threatened species that don’t exist as “90% of demand cannot be matched to credit supply” and “around 30% of ecosystem credit demand, 16% of fauna species credit demand, and just one per cent of flora species credit demand, can be matched to the credit supply””.
The NSW Government's Biodiversity Outlook Report 2020 estimates that, without effective management, only 50% of species and 59% of ecological communities that are listed as threatened in New South Wales will still exist in 100 years. The NSW State of the Environment 2021 report identifies habitat destruction and native vegetation clearing as presenting the single greatest threat to biodiversity in the State.
The Department of Planning and Environment (DPE) has not effectively designed core elements of the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme. DPE did not establish a clear strategy to develop the biodiversity credit market or determine whether the Scheme’s operation and outcomes are consistent with the purposes of the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016.
The effectiveness of the Scheme's implementation by DPE and the Biodiversity Conservation Trust (BCT) has been limited. A market-based approach to biodiversity offsetting is central to the Scheme's operation but credit supply is lacking and poorly matched to growing demand: this includes a potential undersupply of in-demand credits for numerous endangered species. Key concerns around the Scheme’s integrity, transparency, and sustainability are also yet to be fully resolved. As such, there is a risk that biodiversity gains made through the Scheme will not be sufficient to offset losses resulting from the impacts of development, and that DPE will not be able to assess the Scheme’s overall effectiveness
The Scheme has been in place for five years, but the biodiversity credit market is not well developed. Most credit types have never been traded. Also, according to DPE data, around 90% of demand cannot be matched to credit supply – and there is likely to be a substantial credit undersupply for at least seven endangered flora species, three endangered fauna species, and eight threatened ecological communities. Credit demand is projected to grow – especially in relation to the NSW Government’s $112.7 billion four-year infrastructure pipeline
[Some] Key findings
DPE has not clearly articulated goals and performance measures for the Scheme and how these are expected to contribute to biodiversity outcomes in line with the Act
The market is not well developed, most credit types have never been traded and credit supply has been slow in the context of growing demand
There is potential for a substantial shortfall in the current supply of relevant credits, and a significant risk of future shortfalls including for vulnerable and threatened species
Potential BSA sites, those assessed under Scheme between August 2017 and February 2022, could generate around 360,000 ecosystem credits and almost 1.8 million species credits (noting that 1.6 million credits are for one species). But our analyses show that around 30% of ecosystem credit demand, 16% of fauna species credit demand, and just one per cent of flora species credit demand, can be matched to the credit supply from these assessments.
Further analysis was undertaken comparing endangered and vulnerable species and ecological communities, with a list produced by DPE of the ‘top 20’ credit mismatches. It shows that at least seven endangered and ten vulnerable flora species are likely to have a large credit undersupply as are at least three endangered and 15 vulnerable fauna species, including the swift parrot, eastern pygmy possum and bush stone-curlew.
The calculator used by developers to determine how much to pay to acquit their obligations is impacting credit price information and market development, and is yet to be replaced.
The Biodiversity Offsets Payment Calculator is considered unreliable by the BCT, DPE and other stakeholders, but remains the current, approved tool for developers to calculate how much to pay into the Biodiversity Conservation Fund to transfer their obligation to the BCT for acquittal.DPE’s and the BCT’s information to the market does not present a reliable and holistic picture of supply, demand and price to facilitate market development
The BCT has inadequate safeguards to mitigate the conflict between its role in facilitating credit supply and its role as market intermediary and market participant
DPE does not collate information on the discounting of offset obligations and lacks ready access to information to check that developers have correctly acquitted their obligations
DPE does not publish a complete register of credits and their transaction history, a statutory requirement under the Act, which creates transparency and integrity risks
DPE is yet to implement processes to ensure long-term funding for BSA sites, and there is no plan with the BCT to improve the management of passive sites—these issues present risks to biodiversity gains
DPE and the BCT are yet to take the necessary steps to ensure biodiversity outcomes at BSA sites are monitored and measured
A spokesperson for the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment said the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme was a world-leading, rigorous and transparent scheme that aimed to ensure ‘no net loss’ of biodiversity from development, and that the government was committed to improving the scheme.
Field says offset schemes lock in failure because much of what is left of NSW’s key ecosystems are now so vulnerable and valuable that they simply cannot be offset by protecting land elsewhere.
“There must be red lines,” he said. “The most threatened species and habitats should not be cleared or offset.”
The chief executive of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, Jacqui Mumford, said the report was “utterly damning” and highlighted “failure by almost every measure”.
“After this report, offsets must be only used as an absolute last resort,” she said. “Currently, they are handed out like lollies.”
The audit found the offset obligations the trust took on were increasing every year and there was a risk the fund would fall short of what was needed to buy the necessary offsets.
Greens MP and spokesperson for the environment Sue Higginson also described the report as “damning” and said it confirmed that government policy was contributing significantly to the current environmental crisis.
“This broken scheme has failed to adequately identify and provide like-for-like offsets for many developments in NSW creating a situation where threatened species and ecological communities will likely go extinct due to the lack of appropriate and available offset credits,” Higginson said.
https://www.southernriverinanews.com.au/national/nsw-biodiversity-scheme-fails-species/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-11159283/NSW-biodiversity-scheme-fails-species.html
https://psnews.com.au/2022/08/30/audit-finds-biodiversity-scheme-too-diverse/?state=aps
Offsetting still the rage:
The New South Wales government recently approved the Cumberland Plain conservation plan to build up to 73,000 houses in new suburbs in western Sydney continues to come under attack because it proposes clearing 1,754 hectares of native woodlands and grasslands and relies on promises for offsets that might not be delivered until decades into the future.
It proposes clearing 1,754 hectares of native woodlands and grasslands, including critically endangered Cumberland Plain woodland and shale sandstone transition forest.
The government proposes compensating for the environmental damage through a combination of new reserves, purchase of biodiversity credits and other measures such as revegetation to meet an offset requirement of 5,325 hectares.
The plan itself notes that some of the offset targets might be difficult to meet and that while early work to acquire the necessary land for the new parks is under way, the process of acquiring all of the necessary land and protecting it could take 15 to 20 years to complete.
Fast tracking habitat loss:
Demolition of office buildings and the clearing of 1253 trees has begun for a 418-home “family friendly community” in Sydney’s West Pennant Hills for a development opposed by the community, rejected by Council, but fast tracked by the State Government post COVID.
In 2019 the proposal to rezone the defunct IBM office complex for residential development was rejected by Hills Council. The community had hoped it would be turned into a park. Then in June 2020, the state government’s Planning System Acceleration Program, tasked with fast-tracking projects that “are shovel-ready, and that provide a public benefit”, pushed through the rezoning.
https://michaelwest.com.au/covid-recovery-projects-endanger-animals-and-environment/
A proposal by the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council to build 450 homes on 71ha of Aboriginal bushland at Lizard Rock within the Sydney suburb of Belrose has generated strong opposition, though is one of 6 MLALC bushland sites being supported for development by Planning Minister Robert.
In a NSW-first, the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council (MLALC) has proposed to build residential dwellings on Crown land in an attempt to preserve nearly 1000ha of other land Sydney-wide, The Sunday Telegraph reports.
The plan includes the development of 450 homes on 71ha of land within the Sydney suburb of Belrose, with MLALC CEO Nathan Moran saying it’s the best way to “generate an income to address (the community’s) needs”.
“We are the largest private owners of land in the Northern Beaches and Hornsby (local government areas), yet we have also become the largest ratepayers with the largest liabilities,” he said.
Tree love-in:
Celebrate community, nature and everything on the Central Coast at the Community Environment Network’s Love Trees, Love COSS two-day event at the University’s Central Coast Ourimbah Campus on Saturday, September 17.
“Bookings for stalls are coming in thick and fast so if you’re a community group or an environmental group that is interested in participating, contact CEN before September 1,” CEN Chief Executive Officer, Samantha Willis, said.
For more information and bookings go to www.cen.org.au/events.
https://coastcommunitynews.com.au/central-coast/news/2022/08/love-trees-love-coss/
A sinking ship?:
The state’s longest serving Nationals Oxley MP Melinda Pavey has added her name to the growing list of government members bowing out of politics after the March election, culminating two decades in parliament.
Pavey joins fellow Nationals MPs Stephen Bromhead and Chris Gulaptis, who will also not contest next year’s election.
Customer Service and Digital Minister Victor Dominello, Corrections Minister Geoff Lee, former attorney-general Gabrielle Upton and Riverstone MP Kevin Conolly have also announced their decision to bid farewell to Macquarie Street.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-28/nsw-nationals-mp-melinda-pavey-to-quit-politics/101380218
AUSTRALIA
Burning forests still renewable:
The Senate supports the Albanese’s Government’s climate change legislation, though with reduced land-clearing and logging being primarily responsible for Australia’s emissions reductions to date, there was disappointment that the Labor-led senate committee only recommended further investigations into the proposal to remove wood from native forests being able to be burnt as renewable energy rather than acting on it now.
A Labor-led committee has recommended the government consider changing a controversial law classifying electricity from burning native forest wood waste as renewable energy after the Senate votes for its climate change legislation.
The party’s leader, Adam Bandt, said the committee had supported the need for work on “stopping burning native forests for energy and establishing a transition authority for coal and gas workers”.
The use of wood left over from logging for power generation is opposed by conservation groups, which say it is an incentive to keep felling native forests.
The Greens’ forests spokesperson, Janet Rice, said the committee heard evidence that “shredded the false claim that native forest biomass should be classified as renewable energy”. She said the party would introduce amendments to reverse a Tony Abbott-era change that had allowed it.
National emissions were 21.6% below 2005 levels. Most of that fall was due to changes in the pace of land-clearing and the decline of the forestry industry.
In 2021, Verdant Earth Technologies bought the mothballed Redbank Power Station in the New South Wales Hunter region. It plans to recommission the 151 MW power station station, now called Verdant Power Station, to run purely on biomass sourced from local sawmill offshoot, Sweetman.
That same company, Sweetman, has also entered into a $15 million deal with Singapore’s CAC-H₂ to construct the Australia’s largest wood-fed hydrogen production plant.
Continuing on the hydrogen track, Patriot Hydrogen is putting biomass at the centre of its production plans. Its P2H units, as they’re named, are essentially modular, hydrogen producing kits which run on biomass, with the company boasting they can be powered up anywhere, anytime.
Commonwealth wants offsets too:
The federal government’s proposal for a bill that would recognise private landholders who restored and managed habitat by granting them biodiversity certificates that could then be sold to other parties, has led to concerns from some conservationists that it is continuing the coalition’s approach and could be another offsets scheme, while being warmly welcomed by farming groups.
But the Wilderness Society was scathing, saying the announcement was an “inexplicable” response to the crisis described in the recent State of the Environment Report and the Graeme Samuel review of environmental laws.
“This bill and the “regional plan” approach were both top of the Morrison government’s to-do list— yet were and are nowhere near the top of the to-do list to genuinely protect and restore nature.”
Similar to legislation introduced by the previous Coalition government, the scheme will give biodiversity certificates to landholders who restore or manage local habitat, which can then be sold to other parties – operating in a similar way to carbon credits. The markets will operate in parallel, both regulated by the Clean Energy Regulator.
Prime minister Anthony Albanese said the government will be consulting about the detailed rules and how credits will be measured and verified in the coming months.
https://www.beefcentral.com/carbon/fed-govt-announces-biodiversity-credit-scheme/
Tanya Plibersek told a G20 environment ministers' meeting in Bali that Australia hopes to create its own "Green Wall Street" by commodifying positive environmental work through "biodiversity/nature credits", where businesses from around the world can come to invest in environmental action.
In light of the failures of the Commonwealth’s carbon offset program and NSW’s biodiversity offsets. a researcher warns of the dangers of biodiversity trading, and the need to have a rigorous system in place that results in a net gain.
In fact, Labor’s proposed biodiversity market borrows heavily from the previous government’s approach. In brief, landholders would be able to buy and sell biodiversity certificates. A farmer seeking to clear land could buy a certificate created by another farmer who has restored native vegetation elsewhere.
The federal government should tread very carefully here. New South Wales’ environmental offset scheme has been slammed for failing to do what it was meant to do, and with the major problems in Australia’s carbon offset program.
If not designed well, schemes like this can very easily be gamed and fail to actually achieve their goals.
While both the Coalition and Labor governments want to claim credit for the invention of the scheme, similar biodiversity schemes have been introduced in other countries. The United Kingdom and Canada have matched market-based approaches with policies aimed at ensuring a biodiversity net gain. That is, any biodiversity loss through development must be offset with certificates that represent an even greater biodiversity gain. That is the theory at least.
Sceptical commentators claim environmental markets are a false solution to a serious ecological emergency. This is true, if we rely on the market approach in isolation.
SPECIES
Threatened species increasing:
The Commonwealth has an extensive list of species proposed for inclusion in the EPBC Act lists of threatened species, with submissions on most already closed, though 8 NSW species are still open for comment. Its worth scrolling down to Listing Assessments closed for public comment to appreciate the range of species recently considered.
… need to protect Pugh’s frog from logging:
Amongst those still open for submissions until 15 September are 3 frogs, including Philoria pughi (Pugh’s frog) being considered for listing as Endangered by the Federal Government, this is a key species for Gibraltar Range, Timbarra, Spirabo, Forestland and Girard State Forests (and me), logging is an identified threat, yet no action is proposed in regards to it.
Responses are to be provided in writing by 15 September 2022, either by email to:
[email protected]
In the past, large areas of the species’ habitat were lost as a result of agricultural development, forest clearing and timber harvesting, however most of the remaining forest habitat where Philoria pughi is distributed now falls within protected areas or state forest. Habitat degradation and fragmentation, nevertheless, continues due to ongoing timber harvesting, disturbances affecting hydrological processes, altered fire regimes, feral animals and weed invasion (Hines et al. 1999). The impacts of these disturbances on this species are unknown, but from the little knowledge of the ecology, including the species inability to move long distance, any increase in habitat loss and fragmentation is likely to be highly detrimental (Forero-Medina et al. 2011
Rainforests usually persist within a mosaic of fire-prone Eucalyptus forest within areas where potential fuel usually has a higher moisture content (Nolan et al. 2020). The recent extreme drought in eastern Australia however, had dried the fuel to the point where wildfires spread through these less fire-resilient rainforests. Upland native eucalypt forest often surrounds rainforest and provides a physical buffer to solar radiation and windthrow. The loss of this protective habitat due to fire may result in further drying of the rainforest (Hines et al. 2020; M. Mahony pers. comm. October 2021).
Fire overlap data estimates that 85% of P. pughi records were within the fire ground during the 2019–20 bushfires (DPIE 2020b) and initial estimates approximate that up to a maximum 91% of the species distribution was impacted to some extent by fire (with up to 18% severely burnt and 73% low-moderately burnt) (Legge et al. 2022).
Climate change is considered a significant threat to the persistence of P. pughi and is predicted to further isolate subpopulations and reduce the available suitable habitat at lower elevations. Their reliance on saturated areas such as bogs and soaks, as well as their limited dispersal ability, small, isolated populations and slow growth rates make Philoria species particularly sensitive to the impacts of climate change (Heard et al. 2020)
https://www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/cam-assessment-philoria-pughi.pdf
… as well as Sphagnum Frog and Davies’ Tree Frog:
Philoria sphagnicola (sphagnum frog) is being considered for listing as Vulnerable, found in Riamukka, Enfield, Bulga, Comboyne, Bellangary, Mt Boss, Kippara, Carrai, Oakes, Buckra-bendinni, Rose’s Creek, Irishman, Wild Cattle Creek, Clouds Creek, Ellis, Marengo, Hyland, Chaelundi, Nana Creek, Orara East and Orara West State Forests, and has similar threats.
Litoria daviesae (Davies’ tree frog) is being considered for listing as Vulnerable, found in a variety of State forests from Carrai down to Barrington Tops (including Bulga).
https://www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/cam-assessment-litoria-daviesae.pdf
https://www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/cam-assessment-philoria-sphagnicola.pdf
Golden-tipped Bats another fire victim:
Golden-tipped Bats live in and adjacent to rainforest, roosting in the suspended nests of Yellow-throated Scrubwren and Brown Gerygone, and were thus severely impacted by the 2019-20 fires, being eliminated from heavily burnt forests and losing many of their nests in burnt forests, with significant population declines, though they survived well in rainforest refugia – though for how long as fires become more intense?
Our study confirms expert predictions that rainforest-dependent golden-tipped bats would be hard hit. We found the fires caused a large reduction in suitable habitat.
The result? At sites where high intensity fire had raged, we found modelled occupancy fell sharply from 90% to 20%. Even a year later, badly burnt rainforest was no longer used by this species.
At burnt sites there were also few scrubwrens and gerygones, and almost none of their nests. On the plus side, in unburnt rainforest, we captured 66 golden-tipped bats, showing this elusive and poorly studied species persists in reasonable numbers.
Climate change poses a threat to rainforest-dependent wildlife in south-eastern Australia, by drying out soils, intensifying drought and increasing severe fire weather. Combined, these make it possible for unburnt rainforest to go up in flames.
Animals that rely on rainforests are not adapted to cope with fire. Increases in frequency of extreme fire events as the world warms will cause major disruption to the forests of south-eastern Australia.
Passive smoking bad for mice:
The 2019/20 fires destroyed more than 90% of the smoky mouse’s habitat, with nine captive mice even dying from passive smoking, now gene sequencing is being used to aid conservation efforts.
To support these ongoing conservation efforts, DNA Zoo at The University of Western Australia teamed up with Museums Victoria Senior Curator of Mammals Kevin Rowe to sequence a world-first full chromosome-length reference genome for the animal.
Capturing Koalas:
Aussie Ark was delighted to find they have a Koala in the new 1,500-ha Mongo Valley sanctuary, in Upper Mongogarie south west of Casino, which they soon intend to fence off from its brethren in surrounding forests, the start of their new captive colony.
It was believed koala’s didn’t call the home, but these images have proved otherwise, shocking conservationists.
The property owned and managed by Aussie Ark has captured snaps of a koala with a joey on its back after placing motion sensor camera’s around the park.
Another Koala hospital:
The $2.55 million RSPCA Koala Ward at Werribee Open Range Zoo is now fully operational to treat sick and injured wildlife in Victoria’s western region as part of the response to the devastating 2019/20 Black Summer bushfires.
https://fortemag.com.au/a-world-class-2-55m-koala-hospital-has-finally-opened-in-werribee/
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7877577/rspca-vic-and-zoos-vic-koala-ward-opening/
Bowing out:
The mysterious death of over 15 Satin Bowerbirds in the Gold Coast hinterland has people worried it could indicate the use of illegal poisons or the outbreak of disease.
[McDonald] “They were all healthy looking birds,” she said. “It’s horrible to see them dying like that, without knowing why”.
The decline:
The listing of the Glossy Black Cockatoo as vulnerable and mountain skink as endangered garnered some interest.
https://aboutregional.com.au/first-koalas-now-glossy-black-cockatoos-skinks-in-danger/
Knocking down Scrub Turpentine:
The botanic gardens is concerned that another wet year will make Myrtle Rust thrive, threatening to “knock population levels down” of native guava and scrub turpentine – much like bulldozers are doing now.
Chief botanist with the botanic gardens Dr Brett Summerall said there are 16 species – including the native guava and scrub turpentine on the North Coast – that are at serious risk of being wiped out forever by myrtle rust, a disease that thrives in warm weather and wet conditions.
“There is a lot of work happening to understand the disease and the genetics that are badly affected to find if there is any resistance, this is hard work that takes a long time and is expensive,” he said. “[A third La Nina] could knock population levels down, they are rarely fruiting or flowering, so they are really super susceptible, more so than other parts of plants.”
The elevated La Nina status follows a renewal of cooling in the tropical Pacific Ocean towards La Nina thresholds over recent weeks, as well as strengthened trade winds at La Nina levels. Pippard said the seven international models show the La Nina will be strongest between September and November.
Caught between the devil and the rising sea:
Our iconic River Red Gums are in trouble, on one hand the combination of river diversions and drought are depriving them of water, on the other the loss of trees from clearing and drought is causing the salt laden watertable to rise, meaning that they can only survive on the limited floodplains we water.
At the first sign of water stress, the trees become dormant, stop flowering, and shed their leaves. If they become highly stressed, they can die.
This is what happened during the millennium drought of 2001 to 2009.
But the top part of the soil has become saltier in areas where the water table has risen, says Todd Wallace, a water ecologist at the University of South Australia.
"The ground water in some areas is estimated to be 3 metres higher than it used to be," Dr Wallace says.
Trees that were teetering on the brink can make surprising recoveries with a little water.
It can take up to two years for the canopy to recover, and the tree starts flowering again. But there are no guarantees.
A third of trees Threatened:
Worldwide more than 17,500 species of trees, nearly one-third of known trees, are threatened with extinction, with 2,800 of these critically endangered. An article in Nature outlines attempts to rescue some of the last survivors known of their kind, with some only known from a single tree in a botanical garden, with warnings that due to climate heating many won’t be able to survive in their natural habitat.
In a 2021 report, they announced that they had found 58,497 tree species, of which 17,510 were threatened2. Since then, almost 2,800 of those have been labelled as critically endangered. Some 142 species are thought to be extinct in the wild (see ‘Trees under threat’). This year, a separate group of modellers estimated that a further 9,000 tree species are undiscovered3.
Mashimba is lucky in one respect: at least K. gigas produces seeds. Some trees produce none because their pollinators are gone; sometimes only one sex of a tree remains. For instance, most of the surviving specimens of the catkin yew (Amentotaxus argotaenia) in southern China are male. After a global search, a single female was discovered in the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
Some ecologists have deeper concerns. Bridgewater says that the efforts of conservationists and of restoration ecologists don’t factor in climate change.
“They all in the end assume that nothing is going to be changing,” he says. But many trees, and whole ecosystems, just won’t survive in their current ranges, he says.
“You could save every tree species but it will not be what people think — it will be in botanical gardens and larger managed conservation areas, and planting where it’s suitable for survival, not where it’s currently growing.”
“I don’t feel I am, as a humble human, here for a few decades on this planet, authorized to just cut off millions of years of evolutionary history,” says Vié. “Every species has a value.”
Flowering plants older than thought:
New research suggests flowering plants arose more than 300 million years ago – some 50 million years before the rise of the dinosaurs, with the Rhamnaceae family originating almost 260 million years ago.
Since Rhamnaceae is not even considered an old member of the flowering plants, this means flowering plants arose more than 300 million years ago – some 50 million years before the rise of the dinosaurs.
We have extensively studied the evolutionary fire history of banksias, which go back 65 million years, along with proteas, pines, wire rushes and the kangaroo paw family.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Australia destroying the ozone layer:
The smoke ejected into the stratosphere from the pyrocumulus storms caused by the 2019-20 wildfires warmed it by 0.7oC globally, causing the longest-lasting and among the largest and deepest ozone hole over Antarctica in decades.
But a sudden and unexpected warming of the global stratosphere was detected in the first few months of 2020 — reaching up to 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) around Australia and about 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.26 degrees Fahrenheit) globally. The researchers say it was the highest temperature recorded in the stratosphere since Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, sending aerosols from sulfate and smoke high into the air.
Lilly Damany-Pearce, a researcher at England’s University of Exeter who led the study, said that both the stratospheric warming and a sizable ozone hole that spread over most of the Antarctic continent in 2020 were likely to have been caused by the violent fire-induced thunderclouds, or “pyrocumulonimbus” events, which injected enormous plumes of smoke into the lower stratosphere.
She said smoke particles are about 50 times more efficient at absorbing sunlight than volcanic sulfate particles — because of the black soot in smoke aerosols.
The ozone hole that formed over Antarctica following the fires in 2020 was the longest-lasting and among the largest and deepest in decades, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
Forest risks mapped:
Researchers have mapped the risks to forests in the 21st century globally, which shows that we can expect major problems into the future, though except for Victoria, on average our forests will survive far better than many, particularly southern boreal forests and those in western North America. Europe, south-east asia, and parts of the Amazon – but mind you if they all go we are in deep shit.
- Carbon loss - the risks relatively low north from Kempsey, but increasing to the south, becoming extreme in western Victoria and WA,
- Change in tree fraction is OK for the east coast but western Victoria and WA are not good
- Percent transition of ecoregions to another ecoregion with a warming of +2 C looks pretty bad for south-east mainland.
- Projected percent transition of climate ‘life-zones’ looks bad for the east coast, worse for Tasmania and Cape York
- Risk of loss in species richness looks pretty dire for the east coast south of Gladstone.
- Change in percent loss in stand replacing disturbances is pretty patchy.
The results of the study are available as dynamic online maps, while the data are very coarse you can zoom in on localities and toggle thru the layers here: https://wilkescenter.utah.edu/tools/globalforestclimaterisk/
Earth’s forests harbor extensive biodiversity and are currently a major carbon sink. Forest conservation and restoration can help mitigate climate change; however, climate change could fundamentally imperil forests in many regions and undermine their ability to provide such mitigation. … We combine outputs from multiple mechanistic and empirical approaches to modeling carbon, biodiversity, and disturbance risks to conduct a synthetic climate risk analysis for Earth’s forests in the 21st century. Despite large uncertainty in most regions we find that some forests are consistently at higher risk, including southern boreal forests and those in western North America and parts of the Amazon.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp9723
https://innovationorigins.com/en/selected/climate-risk-map-shows-the-earths-forests-status/
Pakistan deluge:
Widespread flooding caused by “a serious climate catastrophe.” in Pakistan has caused over 1,000 deaths since mid-June, destroyed almost 300,000 homes, washed away villages and crops, and led to hundreds of thousands of people being evacuated.
“We are at the moment at the ground zero of the front line of extreme weather events, in an unrelenting cascade of heatwaves, forest fires, flash floods, multiple glacial lake outbursts, flood events and now the monster monsoon of the decade is wreaking non-stop havoc throughout the country,” [Sherry Rehman, a Pakistani senator and the country’s top climate official] said.
Flooding from the Swat River overnight affected northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where tens of thousands of people — especially in the Charsadda and Nowshehra districts — have been evacuated from their homes to relief camps set up in government buildings. Many have also taken shelter on roadsides, said Kamran Bangash, a spokesperson for the provincial government.
Bangash said some 180,000 people have been evacuated from Charsadda and 150,000 from Nowshehra district villages.
The unprecedented monsoon season has affected all four of the country’s provinces. Nearly 300,000 homes have been destroyed, numerous roads rendered impassable and electricity outages have been widespread, affecting millions of people.
Pakistani officials say the flooding that has hit across the country over the past weeks is like nothing they have seen before. It has been caused by unprecedented heavy and unrelenting monsoon rains, fueled they say by the world’s changing climate.
Bibi’s home village of Majooki, once home to 2,500 people, remains under waist-deep water. The rice and wheat that residents stored in their homes to meet the year’s need have been ruined. Hundreds of thousands of villages across Pakistan lost crops.
The floods’ devastation has hit Pakistan as it is already struggling to keep its crisis-stricken economy from collapse. The government is severely strapped for cash, and inflation has been spiraling. The International Monetary Fund gave a boost this week by releasing a long-awaited, $1.17 billion tranche of a bailout negotiated in 2019, but only after the government promised painful austerity measures.
Pakistan has received nearly 190 per cent more rain than the 30-year average in the quarter through August this year, totalling 390.7 mm. Sindh province, with a population of 50 million, was hardest hit, getting 466 per cent more rain than the 30-year average.
The World Health Organisation said over 6.4 million people were in dire need of humanitarian aid.
Flash floods have swept away homes, businesses, infrastructure and crops. The government says 33 million people, or 15 per cent of the 220 million population, have been affected.
Are Rossby waves responsible?:
A climate scientist warns that the intensifying droughts and floods being experienced across the northern hemisphere, likely due to “Rossby waves”, have long been predicted, but are far worse, and there is worse to come.
[As well as Pakistan’s floods] This Northern Hemisphere summer has seen extreme weather event after extreme weather event, from record-breaking drought in Western Europe, the United States and China, to flooding in Japan and South Korea.
It has also only been a few months since we saw temperatures reach 50℃ ahead of the monsoon rains in northern India and Pakistan.
Additionally, extreme weather events can occur at the same time over different places, because of large-scale atmospheric waves called “Rossby waves”, which are a naturally occurring phenomenon, like La Niña and El Niño.
Every heatwave in today’s climate has the fingerprint of climate change resulting from our greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed, rapid analyses have already demonstrated that the human effect on the climate greatly increased the likelihood of the extreme heat in India and Pakistan in May, and the record high UK temperatures in July.
Research also shows climate change is increasing the occurrence of simultaneous heatwaves in the Northern Hemisphere, mainly due to long-term warming.
It’s less clear whether the Rossby wave pattern that causes simultaneous heatwaves in different places is becoming more frequent.
We can expect more extreme weather events in the coming years as global greenhouse gas emissions continue at near-record rates.
Scientists have been predicting worsening extreme weather events - particularly heatwaves - for decades. Now, we are seeing this happen before our eyes.
Some heat extremes in recent years have been far beyond what we thought would happen after just over 1℃ of global warming, such as western North America’s record heat of last summer. But it’s hard to tell if our projections are under-forecasting extreme heat.
The rise of the zombies:
A study found Greenland’s rapidly melting ice sheet has already committed to raising global sea level by at least 27 centimeters -- more than twice as much as previously forecast – due to zombie ice that is no longer being replenished by glaciers melting from climate change, likely by the end of this century.
The researchers in the study said they couldn’t estimate the timing of the committed melting, yet in the last sentence they mention, “within this century,” without supporting it
The unavoidable ten inches in the study is more than twice as much sea level rise as scientists had previously expected from the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet. The study in the journal Nature Climate Change said it could reach as much as 30 inches (78 centimeters). By contrast, last year’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report projected a range of 2 to 5 inches (6 to 13 centimeters) for likely sea level rise from Greenland ice melt by the year 2100.
Asia turning to burning:
Asia is increasingly turning to burning coal and biomass together to make electricity in efforts to reduce CO2 emissions on paper and reach energy targets - while they pursue the illusory reductions the threat to our forests grow as vultures circle the rising smokestacks looking for a quick buck.
In South Korea, renewable energy credits given for biomass cofiring flooded the market and made other renewables like wind and solar less profitable. Although subsides for imported biomass for cofiring have decreased in recent years, increased domestic biomass production is likely to continue fueling cofiring projects.
In Japan, renewable energy subsidies initially prompted the construction of new cofired power plants. Currently, biomass cofiring is used to make coal plants seem less polluting in the near term as utilities prepare to cofire and eventually convert the nation’s coal fleet to ammonia, another “carbon-neutral” fuel.
In Indonesia, the government and state utility, encouraged by Japanese industry actors, plan to implement cofiring at 52 coal plants across the country by 2025. The initiative will require “nothing less than the creation of a large-scale biomass [production] industry,” according to experts.
Wildlife Migrating:
Zimbabwe has begun moving more than 2,500 wild animals from a southern reserve to one in the country's north to rescue them from drought, as the ravages of climate change replace poaching as the biggest threat to wildlife.
About 400 elephants, 2,000 impalas, 70 giraffes, 50 buffaloes, 50 wildebeest, 50 zebras, 50 elands, 10 lions and a pack of 10 wild dogs are among the animals being moved …
Across Africa, national parks that are home to myriad wildlife species such as lions, elephants and buffaloes are increasingly threatened by below-average rainfall and new infrastructure projects.
For example, a recent study conducted in South Africa's Kruger National Park linked extreme weather events to the loss of plants and animals unable to cope with the drastic conditions and lack of water due to longer dry spells and hotter temperatures.
TURNING IT AROUND
Rise of the scientists:
Climate scientists argue civil disobedience by scientists is both “ethical and necessary” considering “time is short to secure a liveable and sustainable future,” and inadequate government action has set the planet on “course for 3.2 °C of warming” by 2100, “with all the cascading and catastrophic consequences that this implies.”
In an article published Monday in the scientific journal Nature, a group of five climate scientists, joined by a political scientist who studies social movements, argued that it is both ethical and necessary for the broader science community to more forcefully advocate for “meaningful” policies that move society away from the burning of fossil fuels. Taking such action is justified, the group wrote, considering “time is short to secure a livable and sustainable future,” and inadequate government action has set the planet on “course for 3.2 °C of warming” by 2100, “with all the cascading and catastrophic consequences that this implies.”
“Civil disobedience by scientists has the potential to cut through the myriad complexities and confusion surrounding the climate crisis,” the climate researchers wrote in Monday’s article. “Scientists have tried to sound the alarm through other means, but years of delay and obfuscation by decision-makers mean that severe consequences are already unfolding around the world, with little time remaining to avoid even more far-reaching and long-lasting harm.”
This summer alone, climate activists have blocked rush hour traffic, deflated the tires of SUVs, interrupted Congressional baseball games and Formula One races. Some have even glued themselves to famous works of art, including Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna” and a copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” to name a few. And in every case, the activists said their stunts were drawing attention to the lack of progress by their governments to reduce climate-warming emissions, while continuing to fund new fossil fuel projects.
https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?e=6624c72df8&u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=9daa071963
Saving old trees:
A company is manufacturing composite wood products, designer hardwoods, of any dimension from forest residues, using 75% of the wood, and able to turn softwood into hardwood – the question is whether this is a cost effective environmentally sound alternative to fucking over native forests?
Our technology converts forest and plantation residues into new hardwoods with the look, feel and properties of 100- year old native trees.
Advanced Robotics and Smart Automation allow for efficient and fast manufacturing using local wood residues anywhere on earth. So our global technology platform can provide local solutions to local markets (“mass customisation”).
The process is similar to 3D-printing of wood, creating wood products in hours for which nature requires 100+ years of natural growing.
… And it’s all 100% natural. Nothing harmful inside.
https://3rt.com.au/3rt-technologies/
The Carbon Capture and Storage delusion:
After 50 years the illusion that non-tree Carbon Capture and Storage will save us still persists despite a litany of failures, while excusing Governments from urgently needed real action, with another study by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis finding carbon capture and storage projects are far more likely to fail than to succeed, and nearly three-quarters of the carbon dioxide they manage to capture each year is sold off to fossil companies and used to extract more oil.
One of the case studies in the 79-page IEEFA report [pdf] concludes that the troubled Boundary Dam CCS project in Saskatchewan has missed its carbon capture by about 50%. The 13 “flagship, large-scale” projects in the analysis account for about 55% of the world’s current carbon capture capacity, the institute says in a release.
Those 13 projects captured a grand total of 39 million tonnes of CO2 per year, the report found, about one-ten thousandth of the 36.3 billion tonnes that emitters spewed into the atmosphere in 2021.
“CCS technology has been going for 50 years and many projects have failed and continued to fail, with only a handful working,” said report co-author Bruce Robertson
Granting nature constitutional rights:
Chile is deciding on 4 September whether to adopt a raft of amendments to its constitution that will grant constitutional rights to nature, create an “ombudsman for nature” tasked with monitoring and enforcing them, allow citizens to bring environmental lawsuits, and rather than treating water as a commodity make it incomerciable or “unsellable”.
Chile may soon be the second country in the world to grant constitutional rights to nature, under astoundingly progressive reforms proposed by the government. If approved in the national referendum on 4 September, the new constitution would deliver profound changes to the country.
It’s no surprise that 50 of the 387 constitutional provisions concern the environment. Like Australia, Chile is facing mounting environmental pressures. This includes an escalating water crisis made significantly more challenging by the mining industry, long seen as a key pillar of the economy.
Over the last decade, both Ecuador and Bolivia have been at the global forefront of advocating for the “rights of nature” or “the rights of Mother Earth”. These rights have made it possible to bring cases on behalf of ecosystems into courts, and to challenge the extractive imperatives of state ministries.
Not only would Chile become the second nation after Ecuador to grant nature constitutional rights, they would also create an “ombudsman for nature” tasked with monitoring and enforcing them. According to the draft text, it would be the duty of the “state and society to protect and respect these rights”.
Citizens would also be empowered to bring environmental lawsuits, even before an environmental impact assessment has been approved. The monitoring of these rights would extend all the way down to the local level, decentralising environmental regulatory authority that has historically been concentrated in the capital of Santiago.
But perhaps even more significant are the proposals aiming to reverse another legacy of the Pinochet dictatorship: Chile’s decades-long privatisation of water.
Articles in the proposed constitution concerning water rights, the human rights of water, and the protection of glaciers and wetlands significantly roll back these trends. They declare that water is not a commodity but, instead, incomerciable or “unsellable”.
Australia has much to learn from this process. Most important, perhaps, is that despite the resistance of pro-market sectors, including the mining industry, sweeping and rapid transformations are indeed imaginable in the climate crisis. Other worlds are possible. Other forms of democratic practices are possible.
Forest Media 26 August 2022
New South Wales
The Project ran a story focused on Koalas and Wild Cattle Creek, they were suitably horrified that logging and clearing of koala habitat is happening on public lands and that taxpayers are footing the bill, they also showed the footage of Mark being assaulted. In preparing for their visit we found 68 hectares of mapped native forest, that was also identified as highest quality Koala habitat, was currently being called a plantation and was being clearfelled and planted with rows of blackbutt, later we found out that it had recently been reclassified as plantation on the basis that 50 years ago someone threw some seed around, we had to wait until after the program to go public. News of the Area included this in a broader story about the conversion of native forest within accredited plantations to plantations.
Following the EPA’s dismissal of claims that giant trees had been felled and damaged in Ellis State Forest, arborist Michael Sullings investigated, finding that one stump was above the giant tree threshold and that rather than being “superficial”, damage to giant trees was extensive, significant and appalling.
Some of the things to come out of NSW Estimates ENVIRONMENT AND HERITAGE hearing:
- the EPA stated there are four prosecutions on foot at the moment of the Forest Corporation,
- they have reallocated the 75% of “unexplained” clearing to “unallocated” (though have not reallocated past unexplained clearing),
- in relation to the 30% protection goal by 2030, when some recent additions are added the park estate will be around 7.8 million hectares, so that's 9.68 per cent of the State, with BCT managing in perpetuity conservation agreements over about 393,000 hectares, taking the total to 10.2 per cent of the State conserved.
- They are not opposed to the concept of the Great Koala National Park in principle, “but there is more work to be done”.
- About half the national park estate is baited for dingoes.
Two key documents were publicly released in Estimates, against the wishes of the Government who still claim them as Cabinet in Confidence. The NRC report (which we have had for a long time thanks to a leak) ‘Final report Coastal IFOA operations post 2019/20 wildfires June 2021’ which proposes constraints on logging for 3 years in various burnt forests (such as in the Taree MA where logging was meant to stop), and an urgent change to the CIFOA to restore 8 hollow-bearing trees per ha where they no longer exist, and retain 2 recruitment trees for each.
The Chief Scientist’s ‘Advice on koala protection in the proposed new Private Native Forestry Codes of Practice’, is a critique of an earlier draft of the PNF Code, so some aspects were changed (ie the minimum basal area reduction was increased from 10m2 ha to 14 m2 – though is still below the then existing minimum for higher site quality forest - and a new koala habitat model was derived – though it still emphasises how bad Forestry’s is), and it uncritically considers many claims, never-the-less many of the critiques are still relevant and damning particularly the lack of oversight of PNF plan preparation and variations, the risk of cumulative landscape scale impacts (including on corridors), and the increase in logging intensity (in the higher quality koala habitat) without a corresponding increase in protections for koalas. What I found most interesting are the maps of PNF approvals (a state secret) for most of north-east NSW in ‘Appendix 5 – Tree Heights in Koala Habitats of North East NSW’.
Another hearing to look forward to is Agriculture, Western New South Wales (Saunders) on Monday 5 September 2022 9.30 am – 5.30 pm, they are uploaded to YouTube so you can watch online.
Conservationists are celebrating the protection of the Blue Gum Forest in the Blue Mountains 90 years ago from logging, after bushwalkers got together to raise the money to pay off the lessee.
Gomeroi Elders are planning “Yugal Billigadhi (Songs of the Pilliga): Day of Music and Connection” at Yarrie Lake on the edge of the Pilliga State Forest on October 15 to showcase the beauty of the Pilliga State Forest and build the resistance to Santos’ proposed coal seam gas (CSG) drilling in the area. There are concerns that trees of cultural significance to Aboriginal people are still not given the protection they deserve, with the NSW Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Bill overdue.
The manager of the South East NSW Forestry Hub, Rob de Fégely, admits the industry’s drive for short term profits has contributed to “Australia running out of wood” and that native forestry are now a boutique industry, though part of his solution is to treat hardwood plantations as native forests and log the lot.
Nationals MP Chris Gulaptis, MP for Clarence, who is credited with having sparked the Koala Wars with false claims and misrepresentations, has announced his retirement at the next election.
Australia
The excellent ABC 2-part series Australia's Favourite Tree considered more contenders, this week including the north-coast’s Nightcap Oak, whose lineage can be traced back 100million years to Gondwana, with a population of just 100 in a 2km2 area, reduced by 10% in the 2019 fires. The experts identified the finalists as River Red Gum and Mountain Ash, with Mountain Ash narrowly winning. The 270,000 community voters had different thoughts, resoundingly giving the win to River Red Gum, followed by Snow Gum. Ghost Gum, Moreton Bay Fig and Mountain Ash in fifth place. There are quite a variety of tree stories on the ABC website.
The ABC has an in-depth story ‘Where giants live’ about the importance of Mountain Ash forest for water and wildlife, their degradation and risk of imminent collapse. The ABC has a podcast ‘If trees could talk … what do you think they'd say to us?’ featuring German forester Peter Wohlleben (The Hidden Life of Trees & The Heartbeat of Trees), plant biologist Daniel Chamovitz (What A Plant Knows); behavioural ecologist Monica Gagliano (Thus Spoke the Plant), and others. We have trouble identifying with them because they move too slowly and their brains are rooted (particularly when we drive over them with bulldozers). We need to recognise their individual rights, and stop butchering them and isolating them from their peers. This is one of a series of podcasts, such as Can trees talk and think.
A government-commissioned audit of VicForests found it illegally cleared 1,000 square metres of protected Leadbeater’s possum habitat and broke the law in 25 out of 30 logging areas, with VicForests saying it was "pleased" with the results, and David Lindenmayer saying the agency breaches laws in a "widespread" and "systemic" manner.
David Lindenmayer is everywhere, in the Canberra Times arguing the burning of forests for electricity will elevate carbon emissions, reduce forest ecological integrity, increase fire risks, and cause greater biodiversity loss.
Sydney's Powerhouse Museum hosted a discussion, titled "The Eucalyptus: Sentinels of a Changing Climate", identifying eucalypts are at both at risk from climate heating and a potential solution, while the increasing severity of droughts and fires could see entire species of the tree wiped out or even prompt ecological collapses.
The Labor Environment Action Network is pushing for the federal government to take the opportunity to create 18,600 skilled jobs as part of the Jobs and Skills Summit by creating a new forest protection employment plan, involving extending protection for Australia’s remaining native forests and starting a long-term effort to regenerate forests around the country, including building a globally significant carbon sink to harness carbon credit markets.
Controversy rages in the Daintree between Rainforest 4’s buyback of rainforest blocks and local residents who say they need more housing, though there does not seem to be much strategy in their purchases.
Species
The $15 million project to de-extinct the Thylacine was debunked by some scientists, so the proponents paid influencers and scientists to endorse their project as part of a PR campaign.
In an effort to remove the principal threat to Swift Parrots, Tasmanian and federal bureaucrats pushed for a recovery plan for the critically endangered Swift Parrot to be changed to remove and play down the scientific evidence that logging was the biggest threat to its survival. 300 Regent Honeyeaters, naive to the real world, have been released to bolster the 250 to 350 critically endangered Regent Honeyeaters estimated to remain in the wild – meanwhile we continue to cut down and bulldoze the mature eucalypts essential for their survival.
A new species of legless lizard, now identified as the Hunter Valley Delma (Delma vescolineata), discovered on a mine site has forced the NSW Independent Planning Commission to delay its determination on the Mount Pleasant mine expansion.
The Australian Wildlife Conservancy were surprised to find a Vulnerable Red-tailed Phascogale in their fenced Paruna Wildlife Sanctuary near Perth last week – though this raises questions on how the isolation of these individuals from others outside the fence has affected the viability of the wild population.
The Government’s Cumberland Plain Conservation Plan which they touted as their great plan to save western Sydney’s Koalas, has been damned by The Greens for hastening their demise. As part of an almost $1.7 million NSW Koala Strategy investment across the region, more than $600,000is being spent vaccinating the Campbelltown koala population against chlamydia, a disease they are renowned for not having. WTF – why put all those Koalas through that stress, when at best the “trial” can conclude they didn’t catch chlamydia. Despite massive cost blow outs, a contract has been awarded for construction of stage two of the new Gunnedah Koala Sanctuary.
A study has found that a wide variety of animals are attracted to feather boas, making them a good lure for camera traps. A wildlife rescuer has been reduced to tears after the nest of chicks she had been monitoring for almost a week were “intentionally crushed” after she publicised them on YouTube.
Up to 70 grey-headed flying foxes found dead in the Shoalhaven area earlier this year may have been poisoned, with the banned organochlorine pesticide, Dieldrin, confirmed in one flying fox. Commonly used “second generation” products used to kill rodents are harming animals such as owls, quolls, goannas and possums in increasing numbers, prompting the ACT government to announce it will investigate whether the products need to be more tightly regulated to mitigate their impact on the natural environment.
While rabbits were introduced with the first fleet and repeatedly thereafter, they were likely domestic breeds, a genetic analysis has found that most mainland Australian rabbits probably originated from a shipment of two dozen wild English rabbits that arrived near Melbourne on Christmas Day 1859, which then spread across the country at a rate of 100 kilometres a year, likely aided by people.
The Deteriorating Problem
China has issued its first national drought alert of the year as temperatures soar to record levels, rivers dry up, forest fires erupt and specialist teams are mobilised to protect crops from scorching temperatures.
We are not the only ones suffering alternating record droughts (and wildfires) followed by record floods, called weather whiplash, AP have a good article summarising similar alternating extremes around the world as climate heating gathers momentum, identifying 41 record-breaking events so far this year, each affecting over a million people or causing high deaths - eight floods, three storms, eight droughts, 18 heat waves and four cold waves.
As the Arctic warms, White spruce are marching north at the rapid rate (for a tree) of 2.5 miles per decade into the defrosting north, changing the climate and increasing the thawing of permafrost as they go – compounding our climate emergency.
A study considers that if we continue down the path to 3-5o heating it could result in the extinction of up to 90 percent of marine species by the end of this century, though limiting warming to below 2oC would cut the risk for about 98.2 percent of the analyzed species.
A statement signed “over 1,100 scientists and professionals” declaring that “there is,” in fact,“ no climate emergency” is spreading with the aid of the energised ‘Freedom’ groups and Liberal senator Alex Antic, it originated from Climate Intelligence Foundation (CLINTEL), backed by oil money and fossil fuel interest groups.
Turning it Around
The passage of America’s Inflation Reduction Act, which dedicates roughly $370 billion to addressing climate change, is projected to help the United States slash emissions to roughly 40 percent below 2005 levels over the next eight years, though between 10 and 20 percent of the additional emissions reductions are intended to come from Carbon Capture and Storage, an unproved technology that has so far failed to deliver despite billions of dollars in subsidies – again emphasising the proven technology of trees. An Australian climate scientist warns against the delusion of believing that somehow Carbon Capture and Storage is going to save us from ourselves, advocating for a need to recognise that we are fucked if we continue as we are, in order to be propelled into action.
A satellite is being assembled to be launched in late 2023 that can look past the leaf canopy of forests to map the woody parts below by analysing slices through the trees on repeat passes to build up a picture of how much woody material is present, with global maps intended to be produced every six months.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Logging and clearing Koala’s homes:
The Project ran a story focussed on Koalas and Wild Cattle Creek, they were suitably horrified that logging and clearing of koala habitat is happening on public lands and that taxpayers are footing the bill, they also showed the footage of Mark being assaulted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=w8LiyaMs0xU
In preparing for their visit we found 68 hectares of mapped native forest, that was also identified as highest quality Koala habitat, was currently being called a plantation and was being clearfelled and planted with rows of blackbutt, later we found out that it had recently been reclassified as plantation on the basis that 50 years ago someone threw some seed around, we had to wait until after the program to go public.
In response to the Chief Scientist’s 2016 recommendation that NSW “government agencies identify priority areas of land across tenures to target for koala conservation management and threat mitigation”, in 2017 the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) analysed Koala records “"to delineate highly significant local scale areas of koala occupancy currently known for protection".
[Dailan Pugh] “Across the whole of NSW, OEH identified 100,000 hectares of the most important koala habitat known as Koala Hubs, with 20,000 ha of these on State forests. Since then the Forestry Corporation have been allowed to log 1,000 ha of these identified priority Koala habitats.
“And now they are in the process of clearfelling another 68ha of identified high quality Koala habitat, of which 16ha is part of a Koala Hub, and converting it to a blackbutt plantation.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/08/clearfelling-koala-habitat-at-wild-cattle-creek/
Northern Rivers Times 25 August 2022
Echo 24 August 2022
News of the Area included this in a broader story about the conversion of native forest within accredited plantations to plantations.
[Dr Cadman] said there does not appear to be any way of ensuring that timber being classified as plantation timber does not include remnant native forest timbers from inside a plantation or native timber adjoining a plantation even though it is certified as such under an alternative certification scheme, the Australian Forestry Standard.
However, according to Dr Cadman, under the Plantation Act (1990), any regrowth can be classified as plantation, which means that any state forest that has been logged at any time in the past can be classified as plantation under the Act, even if it has grown back as an effective native forest.
Following the EPA’s dismissal of claims that giant trees had been felled and damaged in Ellis State Forest, arborist Michael Sullings investigated, finding that one stump was above the giant tree threshold and that rather than being “superficial”, damage to giant trees was extensive, significant and appalling.
Regarding the damage to trees that are intended for retention – which is not only limited to protected giant and habitat trees – I was appalled by what I saw. The damage to trees that are not intended for harvesting is extensive. There are many instances of evidence of where large machinery has been run into the trunks of trees, and over their structural roots, and many more instances of evidence of where large trees have been felled against trees that are meant to be protected.
Some of these instances – relating to giant and habitat trees – have been reported to the EPA, who then attended the site and determined that the damage was “superficial”. It is unknown what definition for superficial the EPA might be using, but it is certainly not one that has any relevance from an arboricultural perspective.
The visual damage to trees intended for retention – both from contact with machinery, and from contact from falling trees – is predominantly in the form of large areas of wounding to trunks and structural roots, from which large sections of bark have been removed and the underlying timber tissues have been damaged.
While the above damage is significant and concerning, the most concerning damage from an arboricultural perspective is the damage that has occurred to the soil within the root zones of trees intended for retention. This damage comes from the movement of heavy machinery, which compacts the soil, impairing the percolation of water and oxygen into the topsoil, and crushing structural and feeder roots.
In my personal opinion, it is at best, the result of an absolute lack of professionalism on the part of Forestry Corporation of NSW, and at worst, is the willful destruction of one our region’s – and our species’ – greatest assets.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-26-august-2022-98871
Bagawa logging story is now online:
Secret documents tabled:
Some of the things to come out of NSW Estimates ENVIRONMENT AND HERITAGE hearing:
- the EPA stated there are four prosecutions on foot at the moment of the Forest Corporation,
- they have reallocated the 75% of “unexplained” clearing to “unallocated” (though have not reallocated past unexplained clearing),
- in relation to the 30% protection goal by 2030, when some recent additions are added the park estate will be around 7.8 million hectares, so that's 9.68 per cent of the State, with BCT managing in perpetuity conservation agreements over about 393,000 hectares, taking the total to 10.2 per cent of the State conserved.
- They are not opposed to the concept of the Great Koala National Park in principle, “but there is more work to be done”.
- About half the national park estate is baited for dingoes.
Two key documents were publicly released in Estimates, against the wishes of the Government who still claim them as Cabinet in Confidence. The NRC report (which we have had for a long time thanks to a leak) ‘Final report Coastal IFOA operations post 2019/20 wildfires June 2021’ which proposes constraints on logging for 3 years in various burnt forests (such as in the Taree MA where logging was meant to stop), and an urgent change to the CIFOA to restore 8 hollow-bearing trees per ha where they no longer exist, and retain 2 recruitment trees for each.
The Chief Scientist’s ‘Advice on koala protection in the proposed new Private Native Forestry Codes of Practice’, is a critique of an earlier draft of the PNF Code, so some aspects were changed (ie the minimum basal area reduction was increased from 10m2 ha to 14 m2 – though is still below the then existing minimum for higher site quality forest - and a new koala habitat model was derived – though it still emphasises how bad Forestry’s is), and it uncritically considers many claims, never-the-less many of the critiques are still relevant and damning particularly the lack of oversight of PNF plan preparation and variations, the risk of cumulative landscape scale impacts (including on corridors), and the increase in logging intensity (in the higher quality koala habitat) without a corresponding increase in protections for koalas. What I found most interesting are the maps of PNF approvals (a state secret) for most of north-east NSW in ‘Appendix 5 – Tree Heights in Koala Habitats of North East NSW’.
There is insufficient evidence available to demonstrate that the protections offered by the koala prescriptions in the proposed PNF Codes are sufficient to ensure “robust protections for koalas”
When prescriptions are triggered, their mitigative impact is minor relative to the tree removal that would be allowable in koala habitat ….
The new Koala Strategy being developed for NSW will utilise ARKS to focus population expansion efforts, these regions will be even more important to protect in terms of the habitat and carrying capacity, to achieve the NSW goal of doubling koala numbers by 2050. Much of the land identified as an ARKS is located within areas of Northern NSW where forestry activity is subject to the largest intensity increase under the plans.
Recommendation 3: Median and mean values for basal area are both important and can help avoid offset logging-like outcomes, where a small area of forest is kept at a very high density, and the remainder is cut well below the average minimum residual basal area level presents a risk for habitat. A level such as 50% of land should remain at a basal area above the average minimum basal area level.
Recommendation 8: Forest management activity should not be done in a way that reduces the habitat suitability and value for koalas in the landscape. …
Recommendation 9: There is not sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the koala prescriptions as set out in the proposed PNF Codes will provide suitable protection for koalas given the increased intensity of harvesting allowed. …
Recommendation 12: LLS and EPA guidance, regulatory and compliance roles for PNF should be enhanced, …. Enhancing the role for ecologist and experts should occur. … to get a more outcomes-based approach strong guidance and input from LLS (informed by ecological experts) should be provided at the planning stage.
Another hearing to look forward to is Agriculture, Western New South Wales (Saunders) on Monday 5 September 2022 9.30 am – 5.30 pm, they are uploaded to YouTube so you can watch online.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLb7SKvfgKNwbDYESI0r3O27ouWaGNp9ku
Celebrating the Blue Gum Forest:
Conservationists are celebrating the protection of the Blue Gum Forest in the Blue Mountains 90 years ago from logging, after bushwalkers got together to raise the money to pay off the lessee.
Mr Macqueen said the success of the campaign to save the Blue Gum was "the catalyst in forming the NSW Federation of Bushwalking Clubs" which still exists today, albeit under the name of Bushwalking NSW.
"It basically gave the impetus to the modern conservation movement," he said. "The Nature Conservation Council and the National Parks Association, the roots of those organisations go back to the bushwalkers."
The free event is at the Wentworth Falls School of Arts at 6.30pm on Friday September 9.
Light refreshments will be available and registration is essential through the Society website www.bluemountains.org.au
Celebrating the Piliga:
Gomeroi Elders are planning “Yugal Billigadhi (Songs of the Pilliga): Day of Music and Connection” at Yarrie Lake on the edge of the Pilliga State Forest on October 15 to showcase the beauty of the Pilliga State Forest and build the resistance to Santos’ proposed coal seam gas (CSG) drilling in the area.
“Individual functions provided by the forest, such as carbon dioxide sequestration and discharge in the Great Artesian basin, are absolutely critical,” Aunty Suellyn said. “However, it is the forest as an organic whole which is what we need to protect.”
[Donate here to support the Pilliga Day of Music and follow Pilliga Defenders on Facebook.]
Culturally significant trees:
There are concerns that trees of cultural significance to Aboriginal people are still not given the protection they deserve, with the NSW Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Bill overdue.
A reform model was released in 2013, followed by the draft Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Bill in 2018 and a new draft in 2022.
University of NSW international cultural heritage law expert Lucas Lixinski says the draft NSW Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Bill includes intangible heritage such as songs and storytelling for the first time, but not in a way that would protect culturally significant trees.
Dr Lixinski says in the meantime, culturally significant trees slip through the cracks.
"You kind of have to make a case for why the tree's important that fits the legislation, as opposed to the legislation reflecting the actual cultural use of the tree," he says.
Time to treat plantations as native forests:
The manager of the South East NSW Forestry Hub, Rob de Fégely, admits the industry’s drive for short term profits has contributed to “Australia running out of wood” and that native forestry are now a boutique industry, though part of his solution is to treat hardwood plantations as native forests and log the lot.
"We are a net importer of building products and supply from overseas is difficult and environmentally damaging. Builders and industry are screaming for wood to build houses and the new mass timber construction buildings, such as Atlassian's plan for a glass and wood tower in the Sydney CBD," Mr de Fégely said.
He believes the big end of town has been, in part, responsible for the dire situation, driven by short-term profit motives and now Mr de Fégely wants to see landholders, farmers, landcare groups and councils more involved in the discussion and the solution.
Natural forests supply boutique products such as high strength (power poles, beams), decking, cladding and furniture.
"Preferencing plantations over native forests makes little sense - old plantations look and behave like natural forests; the debate should be how we manage trees and forest in our landscape.
Glad to see him go:
Nationals MP Chris Gulaptis, MP for Clarence, who is credited with having sparked the Koala Wars with false claims and misrepresentations, has announced his retirement at the next election.
The man who sparked the so-called koala wars, which almost tore apart the Coalition in New South Wales, has announced his intention to retire after more than a decade in state parliament.
He created chaos within the Coalition in 2020 when he threatened a move to the crossbench to protest against a new koala protection policy.
The situation escalated when the party's leader at the time, John Barilaro, declared he would move all the Nationals MPs to the crossbench unless the policy was changed.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-22/nsw-mp-chris-gulaptis-to-retire-clarence/101357160
https://clarencevalleynews.com.au/gulaptis-will-not-stand-for-re-election/
Northern Rivers Times 25 August 2022
AUSTRALIA
To some Mountain Ash is a winner:
The excellent ABC 2-part series Australia's Favourite Tree considered more contenders, this week including the north-coast’s Nightcap Oak, whose lineage can be traced back 100million years to Gondwana, with a population of just 100 in a 2km2 area, reduced by 10% in the 2019 fires. The experts identified the finalists as River Red Gum and Mountain Ash, with Mountain Ash narrowly winning.
https://iview.abc.net.au/show/australia-s-favourite-tree
The 270,000 community voters had different thoughts, resoundingly giving the win to River Red Gum, followed by Snow Gum, Ghost Gum, Moreton Bay Fig and Mountain Ash in fifth place. There are quite a variety of tree stories on the ABC website.
Mountain Ash collapsing:
The ABC has an in-depth story ‘Where giants live’ about the importance of Mountain Ash forest for water and wildlife, their degradation and risk of imminent collapse.
These forests are one Australian ecosystem that might collapse in the next decade under a warming world, according to an IPCC report released in March this year.
“When I first started working, about one in every three large old trees had a possum or a glider in it.
“Now the numbers are about one in every eight or every nine trees.”
“Now [Greater Glider] has declined by about 80 per cent in the past 20 years.”
Back in the 1980s, about 25,000 to 30,000 hectares of old-growth mountain ash forest stood in the area, Professor Lindenmayer says.
“Now it’s 1,886 ha. The abundance of big trees has really dropped through the floor.”
Either frequent burning or logging on their own is bad enough, Professor Lindenmayer says — but together, they spell disaster.
Professor Lindenmayer and his colleagues calculate the city loses 15 billion litres of water each year thanks to logging in the city’s most important drinking water catchment, the Thomson Catchment.
What do trees have to say?:
The ABC has a podcast ‘If trees could talk … what do you think they'd say to us?’ featuring German forester Peter Wohlleben (The Hidden Life of Trees & The Heartbeat of Trees), plant biologist Daniel Chamovitz (What A Plant Knows); behavioural ecologist Monica Gagliano (Thus Spoke the Plant), and others. We have trouble identifying with them because they move too slowly and their brains are rooted (particularly when we drive over them with bulldozers). We need to recognise their individual rights, and stop butchering them and isolating them from their peers.
This is one of a series of podcasts, such as Can trees talk and think.
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/can-trees-talk-and-think/10924624
The butchering continues:
A government-commissioned audit of VicForests found it illegally cleared 1,000 square metres of protected Leadbeater’s possum habitat and broke the law in 25 out of 30 logging areas, with VicForests saying it was "pleased" with the results, and David Lindenmayer saying the agency breaches laws in a "widespread" and "systemic" manner.
The audit focussed on 30 areas, logged in 2019 and 2020, which had the potential for breaches of rules around steep slopes, waterways and threatened species habitats. Because of that risk-based selection, the results cannot be generalised across VicForests' operations.
The assessment measured Vicforests' activities against 169 different legal requirements, and found that on average 6 per cent of those requirements were breached in each logging area, or "coupe".
We all lose:
David Lindenmayer is everywhere, in the Canberra Times arguing the burning of forests for electricity will elevate carbon emissions, reduce forest ecological integrity, increase fire risks, and cause greater biodiversity loss.
However, data from Europe shows that there has been a major increase in the intensification of logging in Europe over the past five to seven years and this could prevent many European nations reaching their emissions reduction targets under the Paris and Glasgow agreements.
The same process is now being pushed heavily by certain forest industry lobbyists and government agencies in several Australian states, including Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales.
The challenge of decarbonising Australia's energy sector can only be met by using non-carbon renewable energy sources - such as solar PV and wind - that, unlike burning coal and forest biomass, do not generate CO2 emissions.
If fossil fuels are replaced by biomass burning, even at modest levels, there will be perverse impacts, including elevated carbon emissions, reduced forest ecological integrity, increased fire risks, and greater biodiversity loss.
Biomass burning was included in the Renewable Energy Target by former environment minister Greg Hunt. That was a mistake and he was told so at the time. It is time to remove it under reformed legislation, so that we have a better chance of reaching the 43 per cent emissions reduction target.
Eucalypts threatened by global heating:
Sydney's Powerhouse Museum hosted a discussion, titled "The Eucalyptus: Sentinels of a Changing Climate", identifying eucalypts are at both at risk from climate heating and a potential solution, while the increasing severity of droughts and fires could see entire species of the tree wiped out or even prompt ecological collapses.
Belinda Medlyn, a professor at the University of Western Sydney who works on modeling how the trees will be impacted by climate change, said this seeming high-degree of resilience is masked by each species' adaptations.
"They're all over the country, but most of them have their own little niche. They have a small area that they need, which would tend to suggest that they are quite vulnerable to climate because they're really quite specialized."
In 2018 Medlyn started the Dead Tree Project, which seeks to view trends of how and the rates at which Australian trees are dying. The ongoing research has found that while droughts and fires are a natural part of Australia's ecosystem, their frequency and intensity could see entire species of the tree wiped out or even prompt ecological collapses.
One study from the University of Canberra found that in a worst case scenario, a three degree rise in temperature would see a 50 percent reduction of 90 percent of eucalyptus species. Beyond the trees' ability to sequester large amounts of carbon dioxide, they are also the basis on which Australian ecosystems thrive.
Creating jobs by repurposing native forests:
The Labor Environment Action Network is pushing for the federal government to take the opportunity to create 18,600 skilled jobs as part of the Jobs and Skills Summit by creating a new forest protection employment plan, involving extending protection for Australia’s remaining native forests and starting a long-term effort to regenerate forests around the country, including building a globally significant carbon sink to harness carbon credit markets.
LEAN national co-convener Felicity Wade said the plan would help the government reach its newly adopted emission reduction targets. Experts believe forests and land-use actions could deliver as much as 30 per cent of the emissions reductions needed to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees.
“Australia has unique advantages in building a globally significant carbon and biodiversity sink, and with it a sophisticated new industry. With a mix of private, public and community players delivering on the ground,” she said.
Analysis by the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists shows 99.8 per cent of Australia’s degraded terrestrial ecosystems could be restored to 30 per cent of pre-European levels, while maintaining food production.
Paid for by carbon farming revenue, the plan would cost $41.5 billion over 30 years, including $2.1 billion in year one.
Fighting over Daintree:
Controversy rages in the Daintree between Rainforest 4’s buyback of rainforest blocks and local residents who say they need more housing, though there does not seem to be much strategy in their purchases.
Local scepticism towards charity buybacks is rife after the director of a group called Australian Rainforest Foundation, Roger Phillips, was sentenced to jail in 2018 for misusing grant money to pay his company’s bills and buy himself a car.
Kelvin Davies, who worked alongside Phillips before he committed crimes, is now heading Rainforest 4 – the latest foundation promising to save the Daintree. It has partnered with Halfcut, founded by professional campaigner Jimmy Stanton-Cooke, which has seen donations more than tripling to $1.8 million, and wages increasing six-fold to $579,361 over the past financial year.
Pinson’s leading argument is that most locals live in harsh conditions with no mains power or running water because they care about protecting the environment. They feel they have been “demonised” by the charity which doctors images of bulldozers clearing rainforest to mislead donors, while deleting “valid questions” about their work online.
Leyden spends his days overseeing a team that manages invasive weeds, pigs, fire and endangered species. Quickly glancing at the map of properties purchased by Rainforest 4, he says a number do not look suitable for national parks.
SPECIES
Using influencers to promote de-extinction:
The $15 million project to de-extinct the Thylacine was debunked by some scientists, so the proponents paid influencers and scientists to endorse their project as part of a PR campaign.
“De-extinction is a fairytale science,” said Jeremy Austin from the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA.
As if that wasn’t strange enough, the company has also received funding from crypto and gaming companies Animoca Brands and Untamed Planet. Other investors include Paris Hilton and Chris Hemsworth.
Professor Kristofer M. Helgen, chief scientist and director of the Australian Museum Research Institute, said he is aware of people being paid to tweet about the project – some of whom have been asked to sign NDAs.
Removing the principal threat to Swift Parrots:
In an effort to remove the principal threat to Swift Parrots, Tasmanian and federal bureaucrats pushed for a recovery plan for the critically endangered Swift Parrot to be changed to remove and play down the scientific evidence that logging was the biggest threat to its survival.
Peer-reviewed studies have found it could be extinct in 10 years if no action was taken to improve its protection, and that forestry was the greatest threat to its survival.
A new recovery plan for the species was expected last year but is yet to be released. Documents published online include several drafts drawn up by a swift parrot recovery team, and responses from state and federal departments.
Its proposed changes included cutting a reference that said native forest logging and intensive native forest silviculture posed “the greatest threat to survival of the swift parrot population”.
Increasing Regent Honeyeaters while decreasing their food:
300 Regent Honeyeaters, naive to the real world, have been released to bolster the 250 to 350 critically endangered Regent Honeyeaters estimated to remain in the wild – meanwhile we continue to cut down and bulldoze the mature eucalypts essential for their survival.
Legless lizard delays mine expansion:
A new species, now identified as the Hunter Valley Delma (Delma vescolineata), discovered on a mine site has forced the NSW Independent Planning Commission to delay its determination on the Mount Pleasant mine expansion.
The Panel considers that it would be assisted by public submissions on the DPE letter and its attachments regarding the identification of the Legless Lizard. Public submissions may be made only on this new material and must be received via email ([email protected]) by 5pm Tuesday, August 30, 2022.
https://www.nvi.com.au/story/7874087/legless-lizard-holds-up-upper-hunter-mine-expansion/
A surprise captive:
The Australian Wildlife Conservancy were surprised to find a Vulnerable Red-tailed Phascogale in their fenced Paruna Wildlife Sanctuary near Perth last week – though this raises questions on how the isolation of these individuals from others outside the fence has affected the viability of the wild population.
Plan to eliminate Sydney’s Koalas:
The Government’s Cumberland Plain Conservation Plan which they touted as their great plan to save western Sydney’s Koalas, has been damned by The Greens for hastening their demise.
“This plan will not save Sydney’s koalas. It will facilitate the very urban expansion that is driving them to extinction,” said Cate Faehrmann
“The plan only protects one of the six koala crossings identified by the Chief Scientists Report. The 120km of exclusion fencing they propose will isolate and fragment koala colonies without appropriate crossings.
“The land set aside for koalas is not enough to ensure their population grows instead of continuing its steady decline.
“This plan will see the clearing of over 1500 hectares of Endangered Ecological Communities, including Cumberland Plain Woodland of which there is only 6400 hectares left.
https://www.miragenews.com/cumberland-plain-conservation-plan-will-not-838966/
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/nsw/2022/08/17/nsw-govt-unveils-sydney-koala-plan/
Saving Koalas by vaccinating against a disease they don’t have:
As part of an almost $1.7 million NSW Koala Strategy investment across the region, more than $600,000is being spent vaccinating the Campbelltown koala population against chlamydia, a disease they are renowned for not having. WTF – why put all those Koalas through that stress, when at best the “trial” can conclude they didn’t catch chlamydia.
https://www.miragenews.com/chlamydia-vaccine-trial-for-koalas-in-south-840188/
Gunnedah Koala theme park proceeds:
Despite massive cost blow outs, a contract has been awarded for construction of stage two of the new Gunnedah Koala Sanctuary.
https://www.gunnedahtimes.com.au/contract-awarded-for-gunnedah-koala-sanctuary-construction
Feather boas enticing:
A study has found that a wide variety of animals are attracted to feather boas, making them a good lure for camera traps.
It’s a cruel world:
A wildlife rescuer has been reduced to tears after the nest of chicks she had been monitoring for almost a week were “intentionally crushed” after she publicised them on YouTube.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/horror-act-drives-veteran-wildlife-carer-to-tears-065223192.html
Flying foxes poisoned:
Up to 70 grey-headed flying foxes found dead in the Shoalhaven area earlier this year may have been poisoned, with the banned organochlorine pesticide, Dieldrin, confirmed in one flying fox.
"At this stage we have not been able to identify any person responsible and we do not know if this was a deliberate or accidental poisoning," Mr Saxon said.
"This is a good reminder to check areas of your property where old pesticide or chemical stocks may be forgotten and dispose of them lawfully," Ms Wood said.
Need to ban the baits:
Commonly used “second generation” products used to kill rodents are harming animals such as owls, quolls, goannas and possums in increasing numbers, prompting the ACT government to announce it will investigate whether the products need to be more tightly regulated to mitigate their impact on the natural environment.
[Wildlife ACT volunteer Corin Pennock] Sometimes, the [possum] joeys themselves show signs of having been poisoned, by taking in the chemicals via their mother's milk.
[Melissa Snape] "There's two different types of anticoagulant poisons, first generation and second generation — the first generation ones didn't hang around in the body's tissue for as long, so they weren't as impactful ... but they also didn't work as well," she said.
"Now we're seeing a shift towards what's called second generation anticoagulants, and they're really problematic."
A study that we've been doing in the ACT, but also across Australia, has shown that of the 83 samples that we tested, more than 80 per cent of wildlife were being impacted," Dr Snape said.
Dr Snape said people trying to manage pests could choose safer alternatives, including snap-traps, electric traps or salt-based baits.
The right rabbits:
While rabbits were introduced with the first fleet and repeatedly thereafter, they were likely domestic breeds, a genetic analysis has found that most mainland Australian rabbits probably originated from a shipment of two dozen wild English rabbits that arrived near Melbourne on Christmas Day 1859, which then spread across the country at a rate of 100 kilometres a year, likely aided by people.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
China’s drought intensifies:
China has issued its first national drought alert of the year as temperatures soar to record levels, rivers dry up, forest fires erupt and specialist teams are mobilised to protect crops from scorching temperatures.
As many as 66 rivers across 34 counties in the southwestern region of Chongqing have dried up, state broadcaster CCTV said on Friday.
Rainfall in Chongqing this year is down 60% compared to the seasonal norm, and the soil in several districts is severely short of moisture, CCTV said, citing local government data.
The Chongqing region's infrastructure and emergency services have come under increasing strain, with firefighters on high alert as mountain and forest blazes erupted across the region. State media also reported an increase in cases of heatstroke.
The weather agency said in its daily bulletin that 4.5 million square kilometres of national territory had now experienced temperatures of 35 degrees Celsius or more over the past month - nearly half the country's total area - with more than 200 weather stations recording record highs.
Between the droughts are the deluges:
We are not the only ones suffering alternating record droughts (and wildfires) followed by record floods, called weather whiplash, AP have a good article summarising similar alternating extremes around the world as climate heating gathers momentum, identifying 41 record-breaking events so far this year, each affecting over a million people or causing high deaths - eight floods, three storms, eight droughts, 18 heat waves and four cold waves.
Parts of northern Texas, mired in a drought labeled as extreme and exceptional, are flooding under torrential rain. In a drought
The St. Louis area and 88% of Kentucky early in July were considered abnormally dry and then the skies opened up, the rain poured in biblical proportions, inch after inch, and deadly flooding devastated communities. The same thing happened in Yellowstone in June. Earlier this month, Death Valley, in a severe drought, got a near record amount of rainfall in one day, causing floods, and is still in a nasty drought.
China’s Yangtze River is drying up, a year after deadly flooding. China is baking under what is a record-long heat wave, already into its third month, with a preliminary report of an overnight low temperature only dipping down to 94.8 degrees (34.9 degrees Celsius) in the heavily populated city of Chongqing. And in western China flooding from a sudden downpour has killed more than a dozen people.
In the Horn of Africa in the midst of a devastating but oft-ignored famine and drought, nearby flash floods add to the humanitarian disaster unfolding. Europe, which suffered through unprecedented flooding last year, has baked with record heat compounded by a 500-year drought that is drying up rivers and threatening power supplies.
The scientists at World Weather Attribution, mostly volunteers who quickly examine extreme weather for a climate change fingerprint, have a strict criteria of events to investigate: they have to be record-breaking, cause a significant number of deaths, or impact at least 1 million people. So far this year they’ve been swamped. There have been 41 events — eight floods, three storms, eight droughts, 18 heat waves and four cold waves — that have reached that threshold point, said WWA official Julie Arrighi, associate director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center.
https://apnews.com/article/summer-weather-whiplash-6d6858c5b0b90e8ce7fd61d85d7610f4
Trees cause climate heating:
As the Arctic warms, White spruce are marching north at the rapid rate (for a tree) of 2.5 miles per decade into the defrosting north, changing the climate and increasing the thawing of permafrost as they go – compounding our climate emergency.
Writing this month in the journal Nature, Dial and his colleagues put hard numbers on what they discovered in the Alaskan tundra: White spruce, both as individuals and as a population, are growing exponentially there. The population is now moving north at a rate of 2.5 miles per decade, faster than any other conifer treeline that scientists have measured, in what should be one of the most inhospitable places on the planet for a tree.
The white spruce colonists are likely warming the Arctic landscape too. Normally, snow cover makes these northern lands reflect the sun’s energy back into space—in scientific parlance, the land’s “albedo” is high. But trees are darker, so they have a lower albedo and absorb heat, which warms the area. “The albedo effect is the big thing,” says Goetz. “They absorb a lot more energy.”
Thawing permafrost is the aspect of Arctic greening that concerns scientists the most. These frozen soils are loaded with dead organic matter that hasn’t fully decomposed, but will decay rapidly once it thaws. Microbes then begin munching on the material, spewing both carbon dioxide and methane, an extremely potent greenhouse gas. Permafrost is now thawing so fast that Arctic land is collapsing, gouging great big holes in the landscape.
Spare a thought for our oceans:
A study considers that if we continue down the path to 3-5o heating it could result in the extinction of up to 90 percent of marine species by the end of this century, though limiting warming to below 2oC would cut the risk for about 98.2 percent of the analyzed species.
Maintaining the status quo for greenhouse gas emissions could risk the extinction of up to 90 percent of marine species, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Coronavirus spreading climate change denial:
A statement signed “over 1,100 scientists and professionals” declaring that “there is,” in fact,“ no climate emergency” is spreading with the aid of the energised ‘Freedom’ groups and Liberal senator Alex Antic, it originated from Climate Intelligence Foundation (CLINTEL), backed by oil money and fossil fuel interest groups.
What he’s uncovered so far is that CLINTEL, and its co-founder Berkhout, have strong political, professional and financial connections to the fossil fuel industry and influential right-wing and libertarian think tanks, many of which are known for working tirelessly over the years to thwart climate action. Those include organizations like the Heartland Institute and the Cato Institute, both of which are funded by Koch Industry money and promote unobstructed free market ideals, including unfettered fossil fuel development.
What makes last week’s campaign different, DeMelle said, is that it appears to be coasting on momentum built in recent years over opposition to government restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus. As governments implemented lockdowns and other science-based strategies to slow infection and death rates, many of the same groups that see climate action as a threat to their bottom line viewed pandemic restrictions in a similar light, he said.
The same groups and public figures that spread narratives of government overreach and accused scientists of being politically motivated during the lockdowns are now “exploiting the pandemic to attack climate science from a new angle,” DeMelle told me.
https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?e=6624c72df8&u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=cb61119342
TURNING IT AROUND
Relying on Carbon Capture and Storage a sham:
The passage of America’s Inflation Reduction Act, which dedicates roughly $370 billion to addressing climate change, is projected to help the United States slash emissions to roughly 40 percent below 2005 levels over the next eight years, though between 10 and 20 percent of the additional emissions reductions are intended to come from Carbon Capture and Storage, an unproved technology that has so far failed to deliver despite billions of dollars in subsidies – again emphasising the proven technology of trees.
Given that the technologies are widely criticized for being inefficient, expensive and especially difficult to scale, however, the emissions reductions attributed to CCS could signify a notable flaw in the models’ projections and undercut the accuracy of their findings. Some critics also worry implementing the technologies could cost far more than the few billion dollars the federal government estimates it will spend on them through 2031.
It’s a point that Charles Harvey and Kurt House, who helped establish one of the nation’s first privately-funded CCS companies in 2008, reiterated in an opinion essay published in the New York Times on Tuesday, shortly after President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law.
Any public investment in those technologies is “a counterproductive waste of money,” the two wrote in the op-ed, pointing to more than a dozen CCS projects in the U.S. that aimed to scale up the technology and prove its financial viability but eventually failed due to prohibitive costs—despite receiving billions of dollars in federal subsidies.
https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?e=6624c72df8&u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=0977e9dcdb
An Australian climate scientist warns against the delusion of believing that somehow Carbon Capture and Storage is going to save us from ourselves, advocating for a need to recognise that we are fucked if we continue as we are, in order to be propelled into action.
But grief is not something to be pushed away: it is a sign of the depth of the attachment we feel for something, be it a loved one or the planet. If we don’t allow ourselves to grieve, we stop ourselves from emotionally processing the reality of our loss. It prevents us facing the need to change the way we live and respond to our new reality with an open heart.
As more psychologists begin engaging with this topic, they are telling us that being willing to acknowledge our personal and collective grief might be our only way out of the planetary mess we are in. When we are finally willing to accept feelings of intense loss – for ourselves, the planet, and every child’s future – we can use the intensity of our emotional response to finally propel us into action. We must have the heart and the courage to be moved by what we see.
Seeing the trees for the forest:
A satellite is being assembled to be launched in late 2023 that can look past the leaf canopy of forests to map the woody parts below by analysing slices through the trees on repeat passes to build up a picture of how much woody material is present, with global maps intended to be produced every six months.
It's a key component on the European Space Agency's Biomass mission, now under construction in the UK at aerospace manufacturer Airbus.
"This mission is about getting a much better handle on the role of forests, in either emitting carbon dioxide through destruction, or taking up carbon dioxide through growth," said Prof Shaun Quegan, the mission's principal scientist from the University of Sheffield.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62650129
Forest Media 19 August 2022
New South Wales
The finding in Ellis SF of 4 Giant Trees felled, as well as damage to 7 giant trees, 25 hollow-bearing "H" trees, and 19 koala feed trees – all marked as requiring protection – prompted NCEC and NEFA to join calls for the EPA to immediately investigate and stop work. The next day it was followed up with more breaches in active Koala habitat in Bagawa State Forest, another part of the Great Koala NP. Susie did a great interview on ABC, which numerous others value-added to with text messages. The Forestry Corporation have denied they are logging any koala habitat in Ellis, saying they haven’t seen any, they only log completely regrowth, and are independently audited by EPA. Abd there was a great protest outside the Coffs Harbour forestry office demanding the EPA stop work, which was covered by Prime and NBN. The NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) conducted an inspection, claiming the four giant trees didn’t qualify as they were under 140 cm diameter, and of the 7 damaged giant trees, 6 only had “superficial damage” and one had been blown over, they continue to investigate the damage to hollow-bearing and Koala feed trees.
News of the Area has a front page story “Logged Out” with neighbours complaining about logging being undertaken in high conservation value forest in another part of the proposed Great Koala National Park, Bagwa State Forest, just outside Coffs Harbour, where logging had started without the operational plan being put on the “plan portal” (as legally required) which was explained away as a “technical issue”. They also have another article about Ellis State Forest.
After some confusion, Eurobodalla Shire Council has passed motions supporting the end of public native forest logging in its region and the just transition to plantations, noting logging is incompatible with nature-based tourism enterprises, climate change mitigation and the protection of biodiversity, although not all councillors are on board with the move. Eurobodalla Council now has a motion to support advocacy via this year's Local Government NSW conference for a just transition away from native forest logging.
The property industry says NSW biodiversity laws have blocked 60 per cent of identified priority housing land in the Hunter, as the developer of a massive subdivision north of Raymond Terrace starts legal action after the Hunter Central Coast Regional Planning Panel rejected its concept plans for subdividing the first half of the huge 3500-lot Kings Hill housing estate in February on biodiversity grounds, including the removal of 152ha of Koala habitat.
Scientists and conservationists have “grave concerns” about the water quality of the Hacking River in Royal National Park after finding “chunks of coal, fine particles and a black river” emanating from Peabody’s Metropolitan Colliery, especially after a plan was announced to reintroduce platypus back into the Royal National Park.
Australia
The ABC has a two part series showcasing 8 trees (including a great segment with David Lindenmayer on Mountain Ash), with the aim of identifying Australia’s favourite tree. There is also a soundtrack from a Mountain Ash forest - Sounds in a forest of giants.
As part of the debate over the finer details of Labor’s landmark Climate Change Bill, conservationists are putting pressure on the Albanese government to rule out the use of native forest biomass for renewable energy generation, singling it out as a key threat to the credibility of the newly boosted emissions reduction target.
Research funded by WWF has estimated the total cost of restoring Australia’s native environment after the 2019/20 bushfires would be a staggering $73 billion a year for 30 years, though with $16 billion, a sizeable proportion could be rescued, with one of the actions being stopping native forest logging.
John Quiggin, Professor of Economics at the University of Queensland, criticises Labor for their lack of climate ambition as we were already on target for a 35% reduction in emissions by 2030, arguing they need to scrap and radically remodel the policies and institutions inherited from the Morrison Government, particularly by dumping the Emissions Reduction Fund and moving to end the logging of native forests.
The West Australian Forestry Minister Dave Kelly has announced three new grant programs to support economic development and job creation in South-West communities, ahead of the end of native forest logging in 2024.
Skyscrapers built of laminated timber, or timber/concrete/steel hybrids, are becoming more common, with current plans for 180-220 m high buildings, and a push to increase the use of laminated to replace steel and concrete in apartment buildings, hospitals, schools and shopping centres.
Species
A University of Melbourne research lab that has been working on the de-extinction of the Tasmanian tiger for the past 15 years has partnered with a US-based genetic engineering company to resurrect them, using DNA from Numbats and dunnarts as surrogate parents, with the aim of releasing them in predator proof enclosures within 10 years – others still hold to the illusion they are still extant. The fundamental issues are the money would be better spent on saving what is left (such as the Numbat), any resurrected animal will not have the genetic variation required to build a viable population - and it provides false hope that we can let species go extinct and recreate them later.
The Critically Endangered Smoky Mouse has been bred up in a captive breeding program, and is now being released in an area of the South East Forest National Park where intensive control of feral cats, including by aerial baiting (a worry) has been undertaken – I hope they can overcome their predator naivety. Trent Zimmerman, the former federal member for North Sydney, takes aim at feral cats, focussing on a need to massively expand the network of predator-free fenced conservation reserves and night time curfews for pet cats.
An older paper warns against the danger of breeding out anti-predator traits in predator-proof open-range zoos, making many species unable to survive in the big bad world outside their enclosures – rather than being termed rewilding it should be de-wilding, as such they should be considered as a last resort to save species from extinction, not a preferred approach compared to protecting their habitat and controlling threats within it.
The NSW government has released its Cumberland Plain Conservation Plan which it says will fast-track development in western Sydney while protecting koala habitats. The $2.1 billion new multi-lane Coomera Connector motorway will create a new north-south link for Brisbane’s increasingly congested traffic, but it will also run through some key koala habitats and increase habitat fragmentation. Koalas in Care have purchased a largely cleared property in Mondrook, near Taree, to create a koala conservation area, in part using $1.7 million in bushfire donations – seems a strange choice.
Concerns are increasing concerned over the fate of the critically endangered western ringtail possum after a video showed a possum being removed from a tree hollow in a tree bulldozed in the 70 hectares being cleared for the $1.25 Bunbury Outer Ring Road, Main Roads previously found three radio-collared possums dead in July.
As the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) gets ready to run its Platy-project in September - in which citizen-scientists will be asked to log any platypus sightings, they have released a map that shows the species' range and where platypuses have been sighted in the past.
A study has found that Kookaburras are declining in urban areas, being forced out by burgeoning Noisy Miners and habitat loss.
WIRES continues to come under sustained attack from disgruntled wildlife carers complaining of bullying and harassment both within the organisation’s branches and from the executive leadership.
The Deteriorating Problem
The east coast of Australia is likely to have it third wet summer in a row after the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) upgraded the likelihood of a La Nina occurring to 70 per cent, which is combining with a second negative Indian Ocean Dipole, to increase rains – but don’t worry as the year after could be a drought. Meanwhile, the Local Government Area of Cabonne has been declared a natural disaster state because of the immense flooding currently occurring along the Barwon Darling River system in the north-western NSW, taking the number of LGAs set to receive assistance via the jointly funded Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA) to 44.
Back in 2018 Europe suffered its worst drought for the last 500 years, and this year’s drought over half of Europe is getting worse, thousands of people are dying, rivers are drying, fish are dying, forests are burning, and crops are failing. Record areas of the EU have burned so far this year with 660,000 hectares burnt and rapidly increasing.
The mega-drought in western USA is taking its toll, with flows in the 1,450-mile-long Colorado River, that provides water to over 40 million people and more than five million acres of agriculture, reduced to unprecedented levels, with seven states that rely on the river for water required to come up with a way to cut about 25 percent of their use next year, and they don’t know how they can do it. Meanwhile a “flash drought” affecting much of Northeast USA, including every state in New England, has continued to intensify this summer, with fresh warnings of possible wildfires and water restrictions, with some experts worried they will become more frequent. Between the mega-droughts will come the mega-floods, with researchers finding the likelihood of a “megaflood” occurring in California has doubled due to climate change.
Forest fires supercharged by climate change are burning twice as much global tree cover as 20 years ago, with 2021 one of the worst years for forest fires since the turn of the century, causing 9.3 million hectares of tree cover loss globally, with 70% of tree loss in northern boreal forest, and many forests in danger of becoming carbon sources rather than sinks. And lets not forget landclearing, globally, according to a new study there was a net loss of 817,000 square kilometers in forest area between 1960 and 2019, that’s nearly 10% more than the size of Borneo, the world’s third-largest island.
If you though the Lismore floods were bad, spare a thought for the millions of villagers at risk of being displaced as their villages disappear due to rising seas and floods in Bangladesh, with nowhere to go.
Antarctic sea ice in July was the lowest on record since satellite monitoring began 44 years ago, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, following a record low extent in June, with temperatures in the Weddell Sea 3C to 7C above average.
Turning it Around
Around a thousand Hungarians protested for the second time in less than a week against an opening up of protected areas and loosening of logging regulations by the government amid increased demand for firewood due to surging gas and electricity prices.
David Suzuki writes that we need to recognise that the climate is connected to all systems that affect Earth and that they all help regulate the whole, citing Lovelock “humans must learn to live in partnership with the Earth, otherwise the rest of creation will, as part of Gaia, unconsciously move the Earth to a new state in which humans may no longer be welcome”.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Forestry continue their abuses:
The finding in Ellis SF of 4 Giant Trees felled, as well as damage to 7 giant trees, 25 hollow-bearing "H" trees, and 19 koala feed trees – all marked as requiring protection – prompted NCEC and NEFA to join calls for the EPA to immediately investigate and stop work. The next day it was followed up with more breaches in active Koala habitat in Bagawa State Forest, another part of the Great Koala NP.
Ms Russell said that if they do see a koala in a tree, they wait until it comes down and then take the tree. ‘There is absolutely no recognition that koalas have home trees and home ranges and favourite places. By destroying them, koalas become homeless, stressed and in many cases die. It’s like if someone drove a bulldozer through your house, and your supermarket and your community centre.
‘Homelessness is a very real crisis for forest animals.
North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) president Dailan Pugh said koalas have been waiting a long time for the EPA to progress breaches reported two years ago. ‘By the time the EPA work out they are dealing with serial offenders and start issuing Stop Work Orders, more giant trees will be gone forever and more koala trees will be sacrificed.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/08/alarming-footage-of-devastation-in-ellis-state-forest/
Susie did a great interview on ABC, which numerous others value-added to with text messages, starts @ 46.00 minutes and listen for 17 minutes to hear the later text messages. The Forestry Corporation have denied they are logging any koala habitat in Ellis, saying they haven’t seen any, they only log completely regrowth, and are independently audited by EPA.
https://www.abc.net.au/northcoast/programs/breakfast/breakfast/14014918
Abd there was a great protest outside the Coffs Harbour forestry office demanding the EPA stop work, which was covered by Prime and NBN.
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2022/08/17/protest-held-outside-forestry-corp-in-coffs-harbour/
https://www.7regional.com.au/news/7477370-forestry-protest
The NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) conducted an inspection, claiming the four giant trees didn’t qualify as they were under 140 cm diameter, and of the 7 damaged giant trees, 6 only had “superficial damage” and one had been blown over, they continue to investigate the damage to hollow-bearing and Koala feed trees.
News of the Area has a front page story “Logged Out” with neighbours complaining about logging being undertaken in high conservation value forest in another part of the proposed Great Koala National Park, Bagwa State Forest, just outside Coffs Harbour, where logging had started without the operational plan being put on the “plan portal” (as legally required) which was explained away as a “technical issue”. They also have another article about Ellis State Forest.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-19-august-2022-98409
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/more-illegal-logging-accusations-98321
Eurobodalla clearly wants logging of public forests stopped:
After some confusion, Eurobodalla Shire Council has passed motions supporting the end of public native forest logging in its region and the just transition to plantations, noting logging is incompatible with nature-based tourism enterprises, climate change mitigation and the protection of biodiversity, although not all councillors are on board with the move.
After the five-to-three vote on native forest logging, the council must now note logging in its state forests is incompatible with the shire and region’s investments in nature-based tourism enterprises, climate change mitigation and the protection of biodiversity.
Due to a six-to-two vote, the council will advocate to the NSW Government to urgently develop a plan for the just transition of the Forestry Corporation NSW native forest sector to ecologically sustainable plantations and farm forestry.
While Bellingen Shire Council passed a motion calling for a moratorium on logging in 2019, Cr Worthington was unsure how many other councils had made similar attempts such as hers that were unsuccessful.
Eurobodalla Council now has a motion to support advocacy via this year's Local Government NSW conference for a just transition away from native forest logging.
https://www.beagleweekly.com.au/post/on-the-agenda-for-council-meeting-aug-23rd
Biodiversity hindering housing:
The property industry says NSW biodiversity laws have blocked 60 per cent of identified priority housing land in the Hunter as the developer of a massive subdivision north of Raymond Terrace starts legal action after the Hunter Central Coast Regional Planning Panel rejected its concept plans for subdividing the first half of the huge 3500-lot Kings Hill housing estate in February on biodiversity grounds, including the removal of 152ha of Koala habitat.
But the planning panel deemed the proposal was likely to "significantly affect a threatened species, population or ecological community or its habitat" after the office of Environment and Heritage refused to grant its "concurrence" to the project.
The office's refusal said the proposal "involves the removal of 152 ha of koala habitat" in an area which housed at least 50 koalas.
Mr Rock said biodiversity laws were acting "contrary" to the government's housing strategies and NSW needed to find a better balance between environmental considerations and the need to house a growing population.
https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/7865842/states-biodiversity-housing-laws-contrary/
Rivers of coal:
Scientists and conservationists have “grave concerns” about the water quality of the Hacking River in Royal National Park after finding “chunks of coal, fine particles and a black river” emanating from Peabody’s Metropolitan Colliery, especially after a plan was announced to reintroduce platypus back into the Royal National Park.
AUSTRALIA
What’s your favourite tree:
The ABC has a two part series showcasing 8 trees (including a great segment with David Lindenmayer on Mountain Ash), with the aim of identifying Australia’s favourite tree.
https://iview.abc.net.au/show/australia-s-favourite-tree
There is also a soundtrack from a Mountain Ash forest - Sounds in a forest of giants.
Ruling out burning forests:
As part of the debate over the finer details of Labor’s landmark Climate Change Bill, conservationists are putting pressure on the Albanese government to rule out the use of native forest biomass for renewable energy generation, singling it out as a key threat to the credibility of the newly boosted emissions reduction target.
“The myth that logging is carbon neutral has been promoted through a carbon accounting sleight of hand that allows emissions from areas logged in any year to be netted out by sequestration in the entire forest estate,” says the submission, co-signed by the organisation’s chair, Bob Debus, a former NSW environment minister and attorney general.
“Allowing forests to grow old, known as ‘proforestation’, is the fastest and lowest risk pathway to increase sequestration in forests, given that they sequester more carbon, more securely in the last two thirds of their life than in the first third.”
Renewable energy industry body the Smart Energy Council is also on the record as not supporting biomass from native forests – “That’s not smart energy,” its website say,
https://reneweconomy.com.au/more-emissions-than-coal-pressure-mounts-to-rule-out-forest-biomass/
$73 billion a year for 30 years needed to restore fire damage:
Research funded by WWF has estimated the total cost of restoring Australia’s native environment after the 2019/20 bushfires would be a staggering $73 billion a year for 30 years, though with $16 billion, a sizeable proportion could be rescued, with one of the actions being stopping native forest logging.
Research funded by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Australian Research Council, published in Environmental Research Letters, has suggested a price tag for saving the 114 animal species most at risk after the fires.
“Restoring fire-damaged land could see up to 291 megatonnes of carbon dioxide sequestered,” says senior author Professor James Watson, also from UQ. (For context, Australia emits roughly 500 megatonnes of carbon dioxide, or equivalent, each year).
“That could make around $253 million per year in carbon market revenue,” says Watson.
“And invasive species such as weeds, deer and pigs also need urgent removal, along with replanting and stopping native forest logging.”
https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/climate/black-summer-bushfire-cost-conservation/
“Our research shows an annual investment of $16 billion could restore 65 per cent of fire-impacted species’ habitat,” Dr Michelle Ward, from the university’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said.
“Restoring 95 per cent would cost $73 billion per year.”
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2022/08/16/fire-recovery-to-cost-16-billion-a-year/
Forests part of the solution:
John Quiggin, Professor of Economics at the University of Queensland, criticises Labor for their lack of climate ambition as we were already on target for a 35% reduction in emissions by 2030, arguing they need to scrap and radically remodel the policies and institutions inherited from the Morrison Government, particularly by dumping the Emissions Reduction Fund and moving to end the logging of native forests.
A far more positive approach would be to end the destruction of native forests to supply pulp and paper mills. A long series of economic studies, going back to The Fight for the Forests in the early 1970s, have demonstrated that the logging of native forests is typically uneconomic even in narrow commercial terms, relying on implicit or explicit public subsidies.
Work by an Australian National University team has revealed that native forests would provide greater benefits from their ecosystem services of carbon sequestration, water yield, habitat provisioning and recreational amenity if harvesting for timber production ceased, thus allowing forests to continue growing to older ages.
West Australia transitioning:
The West Australian Forestry Minister Dave Kelly has announced three new grant programs to support economic development and job creation in South-West communities, ahead of the end of native forest logging in 2024.
The Industry and Community Development Programs are the third and final pillar of the Native Forestry Transition plan, funded by an additional $30 million announced in the 2022-23 State Budget. The third pillar in the $80 million Native Forestry Transition plan will help build strong, diverse regional economies and support the creation of local jobs.
The $15 million Small Business Development and Diversification program will provide grants of up to $400,000 to small businesses that have been impacted by the end of native forest logging to diversify or expand their business into new business streams. This funding is designed to assist secondary businesses that have a reliance on the native timber industry but do not have a direct contract with the Forest Products Commission.
New industry expansion and innovation in the region will be supported through a $10 million New Industry Development and Attraction program. The industry-led program will provide grants of up to $2 million, with matched funding, to accelerate new and existing business development, attract new industries and strengthen regional economies with diverse employment opportunities.
Funding of up to $100,000 will also be made available through the $5 million Community Development Small Grants program for projects that aim to stimulate regional economies and enhance the liveability of communities.
Timber skyscrapers:
Skyscrapers built of laminated timber, or timber/concrete/steel hybrids, are becoming more common, with current plans for 180-220 m high buildings, and a push to increase the use of laminated to replace steel and concrete in apartment buildings, hospitals, schools and shopping centres.
The Australian timber industry has embraced mass timber such as glue-laminated timber (glulam or GLT) for beams and columns, and cross-laminated timber (CLT) for panels. Mass timber is more homogeneous than sawn timber, resulting in higher strength, and allowing us to build taller than ever before.
… It lost its title to Ascent, an 86-metre, 25-storey, timber-concrete tower in the United States.
SPECIES
Resurrecting the dead:
A University of Melbourne research lab that has been working on the de-extinction of the Tasmanian tiger for the past 15 years has partnered with a US-based genetic engineering company to resurrect them, using DNA from Numbats and dunnarts as surrogate parents, with the aim of releasing them in predator proof enclosures within 10 years – others still hold to the illusion they are still extant. The fundamental issues are the money would be better spent on saving what is left (such as the Numbat), any resurrected animal will not have the genetic variation required to build a viable population, and it provides false hope that we can let species go extinct and recreate them later.
"When people say we are playing god, I say we do it all the time, we certainly played god when we exterminated the thylacine."
"You've got to be out there to see it and I think with a bit more investigation we can prove the thylacine is still out there," Mr Waters said.
[Parwinder Kaur Geneticist and Biotechnologist] But the big question our team faced was: shall we go after resurrecting the dead, or help numbats first? Numbats are now struggling and on the verge of extinction, with fewer than 1,000 numbats left in the wild and the species officially listed as endangered. The answer was simple: focus on what we have first.
In my opinion, focusing on de-extinction could compromise biodiversity conservation by diverting resources from preserving ecosystems and preventing newer extinctions.
[Corey Bradshaw Ecologist] While the scientific endeavour to demonstrate capacity to re-animate long-extinct species does have some merit, claiming that the approach will counter present-day extinction rates or could be used as a conservation tool is naïve.
Viable populations require thousands of genetically diverse individuals to be able to persist in the wild. There is simply no prospect for recreating a sufficient sample of genetically diverse individual thylacines that could survive and persist once released.
https://theconversation.com/should-we-bring-back-the-thylacine-we-asked-5-experts-188894?utm
Releasing innocents:
The Critically Endangered Smoky Mouse has been bred up in a captive breeding program, and is now being released in an area of the South East Forest National Park where intensive control of feral cats, including by aerial baiting (a worry) has been undertaken – I hope they can overcome their predator naivety.
But now the species’ total population is thought to number just a few hundred, contained in tiny populations scattered in remnant stands of forest and heath vegetation across New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT.
“We’ve been controlling feral cats in the forest there for the past 10 years by trapping and in the past two years the Department of Primary Industries has been working on an experimental study of aerial baiting for cats as well,” said Dr Linda Broome, a NSW Department of Planning and Conservation wildlife ecologist who specialises in small mammals.
“We are hoping that with the intensive trapping that we have been doing and the aerial baiting that we have now reduced cats enough to give these mice a chance, which is why we’ve tried releasing them now.”
https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2022/08/cats-away-now-the-mice-can-play/
The animals were bred in Priam Australia’s specialised 18-hectare captive research and breeding facility in Canberra, which replicates the habitat of the forest.
Mr Gallan said the trial program must be fully resourced for it to be successful, after the attempted reintroduction of the eastern quoll to the south coast had been a "qualified failure".
"It just goes to show the pressures on biodiversity in this region, which comes back to the impacts of land clearing, native forest logging and wildfire," Mr Gallan said.
[Mr Griffin] said the Nungatta region was the latest feral animal-free area in NSW, and more species have been earmarked for release there.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-16/endangered-smoky-mouse-released-wild-south-east-nsw/101338246
The feral crisis:
Trent Zimmerman, the former federal member for North Sydney, takes aim at feral cats, focussing on a need to massively expand the network of predator-free fenced conservation reserves and night time curfews for pet cats.
Their hunting prowess is truly staggering. The State of the Environment report found they kill up to 2.4 billion animals each year – mostly native species. That’s right – over 2 billion animals in a single year.
The impact of cats was the subject of a parliamentary committee inquiry I helped instigate in the last term of parliament. The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service told the committee that “for our mammal fauna, feral cats and foxes are identified as the greatest threat, along with changed fire regimes.”
We also heard that cats are a recognised threat to 74 mammal species, 40 bird species, 21 reptiles and 4 amphibian species.
De-wilding a threat:
An older paper warns against the danger of breeding out anti-predator traits in predator-proof open-range zoos, making many species unable to survive in the big bad world outside their enclosures – rather than being termed rewilding it should be de-wilding, as such they should be considered as a last resort to save species from extinction, not a preferred approach compared to protecting their habitat and controlling threats within it.
For many native species, the arrival of invasive predators sets up a race between the processes of adaptation and extinction, a race often won by extinction (Woinarski et al. 2015). Indeed, many native species have declined so precipitously that one of very few options has been to move them into havens (i.e., islands and fenced areas) free of invasive predators (Legge et al. 2018). This action helps threatened taxa persist because it removes the demographic burden of predation, but also blunts predator-imposed natural selection. The species may be saved; however, it appears that moving individuals to havens can also select for bold, hypercompetitive individuals, causing rapid evolutionary loss of antipredator traits (Jolly et al. 2018a,b). This trait loss can affect antipredator responses toward both invasive and native predators. If this maladaptive evolution is occur- ring in havens generally, it may dramatically undermine the value of predator-free conservation havens.
Recently, we documented the rapid loss of antipredator traits in an endangered population moved to an island haven (Jolly et al. 2018a,b). Northern quolls (Dasyurus hallucatus) moved to an offshore haven in 2003 had, by 2016, lost their response to a common natural predator (dingoes [Canis familiaris dingo]), rendering them ineffective for reintroduction programs (Jolly et al. 2018a,b). This trait loss, in <13 generations, was evolved: captive-reared mainland quolls respond to dingo scent, but captive-reared island quolls do not. The speed of this trait loss was surprising, but implies that there was strong selection acting to remove antipredator traits in a population conserved in isolation from its predators.
How would such selection arise? In the haven, because there was no top-down regulation by predators, the quoll population grew rapidly and overshot carrying capacity within 4 years (Griffiths et al. 2017). This population was then in a world in which predation vanished and intraspecific competition for resources was the dominant force of natural selection. Here, behaviors that might save an individual from predation (vigilance, shyness, and neophobia) are a clear disadvantage. In the absence of predators, an individual that restricts foraging time to protect against predators will be less competitive than an individual that does not adopt antipredator behavior.
In the long-term, without careful planning, safe havens may prove as significant a threat to endangered species as the threats they were intended to protect against. Integration of evolutionary theory into implementation of conservation havens is warranted to ensure that havens do not become expensive features of the conservation landscape into which threatened species are relegated in perpetuity.
Developing in Sydney’s koala habitat:
The NSW government has released its Cumberland Plain Conservation Plan which it says will fast-track development in western Sydney while protecting koala habitats.
That region encompasses the Blue Mountains, Camden, Campbelltown, Fairfield, Hawkesbury, Liverpool, Penrith and Wollondilly local government areas.
The government said the plan would accelerate construction of more than 73,000 homes across 11,000 hectares by providing biodiversity approvals up-front.
Measures include establishing koala corridors, restoring habitat, installing exclusion fencing and building two crossings on Appin Road in Sydney's southwest, the government said.
https://www.dailyliberal.com.au/story/7864411/nsw-plan-to-conserve-western-sydney-koalas/
https://www.liverpoolchampion.com.au/story/7864476/government-unveils-western-sydney-koala-plan/
https://afndaily.com.au/2022/08/17/cumberland-plain-conservation-plan-finalised/
https://www.southernriverinanews.com.au/national/nsw-plan-to-conserve-western-sydney-koalas/
Putting a motorway thru Brisbane’s koalas:
The $2.1 billion new multi-lane Coomera Connector motorway will create a new north-south link for Brisbane’s increasingly congested traffic, but it will also run through some key koala habitats and increase habitat fragmentation.
There are several different groups of koalas living along the Coomera Connector route between Ashmore in the south and Helensvale, next to the Coombabah Lakelands Conservation Area, in the north.
Ms Waterman said the gradual spread of urban development had cleared stretches of bushland that once connected these different populations.
It is estimated that almost three-quarters of koala habitat in south-east Queensland has been lost to land clearing since 1960.
Buying cleared land for Koalas:
Koalas in Care have purchased a largely cleared property in Mondrook, near Taree, to create a koala conservation area, in part using $1.7 million in bushfire donations – seems a strange choice.
Much of the 100 acre (40 hectare) property has been cleared by grazing at some time, and Paul estimates only 10 to 15 per cent of the land is timbered.
In a partnership with MidCoast Council's natural resources management, council has a two year commitment to assist KiC in planting trees for food and habitat, which will pay for contractors to undertake the planting work on the new property.
https://www.manningrivertimes.com.au/story/7865338/safe-haven-for-koalas-at-last/
The ringtail road toll grows:
Concerns are increasing concerned over the fate of the critically endangered western ringtail possum after a video showed a possum being removed from a tree hollow in a tree bulldozed in the 70 hectares being cleared for the $1.25 Bunbury Outer Ring Road, Main Roads previously found three radio-collared possums dead in July.
The possums number less than 8000 in the wild and only 10 per cent of their original range survives.
The native species are being displaced after Environment Minister Tayna Plibersek permitted the WA government to bulldoze 70 hectares to make way for the $1.25 Bunbury Outer Ring Road (BORR).
https://au.news.yahoo.com/welfare-fears-critically-endangered-possum-wa-video-emerges-081608043.html
Logging platypuses:
As the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) gets ready to run its Platy-project in September - in which citizen-scientists will be asked to log any platypus sightings, they have released a map that shows the species' range and where platypuses have been sighted in the past.
Bathurst's Professor David Goldney - who studied platypuses for years on Duckmaloi Weir, a tributary of the Fish River - wrote in the Western Advocate in early 2020 about how the extreme drought was affecting platypus populations.
"Knowledgeable locals are reporting dead and dying (starving) platypuses in many of the east-flowing rivers, including those that have ceased to flow," he wrote.
https://www.acf.org.au/platy-project
No laughing matter:
A study has found that Kookaburras are declining in urban areas, being forced out by burgeoning Noisy Miners and habitat loss.
Griffith University ecologist Carly Campbell said the study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Biological Conservation, used citizen science data to examine the prevalence and diversity of bird species across Greater Sydney, Greater Melbourne, Greater Perth and Greater Brisbane, which included the Gold Coast.
Urban expansion and densification present a threat to both urban bird biodiversity and bird conservation more broadly. Australian urban areas, including suburban and peri-urban areas, currently support moderate bird species richness, but the rapidly changing urban landscape threatens these communities.
… a small group of native urban exploiters are becoming more prevalent. Our results also show that many species perceived to be “iconic” or “common” are experiencing declines in prevalence in urban areas …
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320722002245
Wildlife carers under attack:
WIRES continues to come under sustained attack from disgruntled wildlife carers complaining of bullying and harassment both within the organisation’s branches and from the executive leadership.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
More NSW flooding disasters:
The east coast of Australia is likely to have it third wet summer in a row after the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) upgraded the likelihood of a La Nina occurring to 70 per cent, which is combining with a second negative Indian Ocean Dipole, to increase rains – but don’t worry as the year after could be a drought.
The average rainfall from December to March in La Nina years is 20 per cent higher than the long-term average.
BoM meteorologist Hugh McDowell said the last time Australia experienced three consecutive La Nina events was in 1998 to 2001. Since records began, this has happened in Australia only three times.
But the following year, the country has always been scorched by an El Nino event. This pattern could be possible next year.
Meanwhile, the Local Government Area of Cabonne has been declared a natural disaster state because of the immense flooding currently occurring along the Barwon Darling River system in the north-western NSW, taking the number of LGAs set to receive assistance via the jointly funded Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA) to 44.
European drought worse in 500 years:
Back in 2018 Europe suffered its worst drought for the last 500 years, and this year’s drought over half of Europe is getting worse, thousands of people are dying, rivers are drying, fish are dying, forests are burning, and crops are failing. Record areas of the EU have burned so far this year with 660,000 hectares burnt and rapidly increasing.
From dry and cracked reservoirs in Spain to falling water levels on major arteries like the Danube, the Rhine and the Po, an unprecedented drought is afflicting nearly half of the European continent. It is damaging farm economies, forcing water restrictions, causing wildfires and threatening aquatic species.
There has been no significant rainfall for almost two months in Western, Central and Southern Europe. And the dry period is expected to continue in what experts say could be the worst drought in 500 years.
Climate change is exacerbating conditions as hotter temperatures speed up evaporation, thirsty plants take in more moisture and reduced snowfall in the winter limits supplies of fresh water available for irrigation in the summer. Europe isn’t alone in the crisis, with drought conditions also reported in East Africa, the western United States and northern Mexico.
The French wildfires have already forced the evacuation of about 10,000 people and destroyed at least 16 houses.
The Po runs 652 kilometers (405 miles) from the northwestern city of Turin to Venice. It has dozens of tributary rivers but northern Italy hasn’t seen rainfall for months and this year’s snowfall was down by 70%. The drying up of the Po is also jeopardizing drinking water in Italy’s densely populated and highly industrialized districts.
It has been one of the driest summers on record in southern Britain, and the Met Office weather service said there is an “exceptional risk” of wildfires over the next few days.
In Switzerland, a drought and high temperatures have endangered fish populations and authorities have begun moving fish out of some creeks that were running dry.
The largest fire in Czech history broke out in the Bohemian Switzerland National Park in northern Czech Republic on July 24 and spilled over into Germany.
Ed Hawkins, a professor of climate science at Reading University in southeast England, told NBC News: "In the U.K., we’ve had a nine month period of extremely light rainfall — that’s a very long time to go without rain, even in our unpredictable climate.
"We can now expect to see drier summers and lack of rainfall mirroring southern Europe in the U.K., although southern Europe is going to get hotter as well."
A river in Lux, in eastern France near the city of Dijon, normally sees 2,100 gallons flow along it every second but has run dry. Fish cannot survive.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/europe-heatwave-drought-forest-fires-rivers-dry-rcna42783
https://www.lokmattimes.com/international/spain-continues-to-fight-severe-forest-fires
Spain and neighbouring Portugal are fighting large wildfires, while three firefighters have been killed and two others seriously injured in a forest fire in Morocco.
Wildfires so far this year have claimed 271,020 hectares of land in Spain, 84,827 hectares in Portugal, and more than 10,000 hectares in northern Morocco.
https://www.trtworld.com/europe/casualties-as-forest-fires-burn-in-spain-portugal-morocco-59832
Portugal has reported more than 1,000 deaths due to the current heatwave, with the health chief warning that the country must gear up to cope with the effects of the climate crisis as temperatures continue to rise.
https://www.trtworld.com/europe/portugal-reports-1-000-deaths-due-to-ongoing-heatwave-58980
At least 26 people have been killed and dozens more injured in forest fires that have devastated northern Algeria.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-62581108
Murray-Darling not the only dying river:
The mega-drought in western USA is taking its toll, with flows in the 1,450-mile-long Colorado River, that provides water to over 40 million people and more than five million acres of agriculture, reduced to unprecedented levels, with seven states that rely on the river for water required to come up with a way to cut about 25 percent of their use next year, and they don’t know how they can do it.
“It’s not a surprise, and it’s not yet the apocalypse, but we have to be clear-eyed that we’ve been gambling for at least the last 10 years. And so far, that bet’s not paying off,” [Felicia Marcus, a western water expert at Stanford University] says.
But climate change has upset that system. The Southwest is now in the most severe drought in at least the last 1,200 years made 40 percent worse by climate change than it otherwise would be
The river has lost about 20 percent of its flow since 2000. And the trend is expected to continue as the West “aridifies” further.
“This has basically been a hundred years coming, because we’ve always allocated more water on paper than there is in the river,” says Eric Kuhn, former General Manager of the Colorado River District.
Meanwhile a “flash drought” affecting much of Northeast USA, including every state in New England, has continued to intensify this summer, with fresh warnings of possible wildfires and water restrictions, with some experts worried they will become more frequent.
In fact, more than half of the United States was facing some level of drought this month, after an especially dry and hot July, the U.S. Drought Monitor said in another recent update. Record-breaking heat this summer, spanning the nation’s coasts—and mirroring similar extreme weather in Europe and Asia—contributed to a “flash drought” developing in parts of the Midwest, South and Northeast, including in states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Massachusetts.
By 2053, around 107 million Americans can expect to see temperatures above 125 degrees Fahrenheit during the hottest stretches of the year, more than 10 times the number expected currently, according to a study published Monday.
https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?e=6624c72df8&u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=4dddc1ddc6
Between the mega-droughts will come the mega-floods, with researchers finding the likelihood of a “megaflood” occurring in California has doubled due to climate change.
The researchers also noted that the state risks a $1 trillion disaster. In addition, parts of major cities such as Los Angeles and Sacramento would be underwater if the state endured the kind of flooding that took place during the Great Flood of 1862 in the current climate.
In the Sierra Nevada, storms that took place toward the end of the century would see between 200 percent and 400 percent more runoff because of higher precipitation.
The world’s forests are burning:
Forest fires supercharged by climate change are burning twice as much global tree cover as 20 years ago, with 2021 one of the worst years for forest fires since the turn of the century, causing 9.3 million hectares of tree cover loss globally, with 70% of tree loss in northern boreal forest, and many forests in danger of becoming carbon sources rather than sinks.
Climate change is likely a major driver in increasing fire activity. Extreme heat waves are already 5 times more likely today than they were 150 years ago and are expected to become even more frequent as the planet continues to warm. Warmer temperatures dry out the landscape and help create the perfect environment for larger, more frequent forest fires. This in turn leads to higher emissions from forest fires, further exacerbating climate change and contributing to more fires as part of a fire-climate feedback loop.
In addition to climate change, human activity in and around forests makes them more susceptible to wildfires and plays a role in driving higher levels of fire-related tree cover loss in the tropics. Improving forest resilience by ending deforestation and forest degradation is key to preventing future fires, as is limiting nearby burning that can easily escape into forests, particularly during periods of drought.
https://www.wri.org/insights/global-trends-forest-fires
James MacCarthy, analyst at the World Resources Institute and co-author of the report, told the Guardian: “This is very concerning. These findings should be a wake-up call to the world. Forests are our best line of defence against climate change, and should be at the top of our list [of priorities].”
He said the carbon released to the atmosphere by forest fires was creating a vicious circle of climate damage. “These forests can go from being carbon sinks to being sources of carbon in the atmosphere,” he said.
The amount of tree cover loss due to fire globally is increasing by about 4% a year, or about 230,000 additional hectares each year, about half of which is because of bigger fires in boreal regions.
About 72% of Australia’s tree cover loss between 2001 and 2021 was caused by fire, with extreme weather causing a significant increase in fires in 2019 and 2020.
These are fires that kill all or most of the forest's canopy and which cause long-term changes to forest structure and soil chemistry.
But the researchers said that forest loss from deforestation was making it more likely that forests would be lost to fire, as the practice leads to higher regional temperatures and drier vegetation.
They called on governments to improve forest resilience by ending deforestation and limiting local forest management practices that include controlled burning, which can easily burn out of control particularly during dry spells.
"Forests are one of the best defences we have against climate change," said McCarthy.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/983085-climate-change-driving-unprecedented-forest-fire-loss
… and being destroyed:
And lets not forget landclearing, globally, according to a new study there was a net loss of 817,000 square kilometers in forest area between 1960 and 2019, that’s nearly 10% more than the size of Borneo, the world’s third-largest island.
The authors say their analysis confirms forest transition theory. According to this idea, first introduced in the 1990s by geographer Alexander Mather, the bulk of forest loss occurs in “lower-income” countries as their economies grow, often as a result of harvesting marketable forest products like timber or clearing land for agriculture. Forests in “higher-income” countries tend to expand, as they did in general over the six-decade study period, suggesting a switch to other ways of generating revenue.
https://news.mongabay.com/2022/08/study-tracks-global-forest-decline-and-expansion-over-six-decades/
Climate refugees:
If you though the Lismore floods were bad, spare a thought for the millions of villagers at risk of being displaced as their villages disappear due to rising seas and floods in Bangladesh, with nowhere to go.
Millions are at risk of being displaced and becoming “climate refugees” because of sea level rise, river erosion, cyclonic storms and salty water creeping inland, scientists say. Bangladesh is expected to have about a third of South Asia’s internal climate refugees by 2050, according to a World Bank report published last year.
Antarctic ice retreating:
Antarctic sea ice in July was the lowest on record since satellite monitoring began 44 years ago, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, following a record low extent in June, with temperatures in the Weddell Sea 3C to 7C above average.
TURNING IT AROUND
Forests not firewood:
Around a thousand Hungarians protested for the second time in less than a week against an opening up of protected areas and loosening of logging regulations by the government amid increased demand for firewood due to surging gas and electricity prices.
After last week’s protest and after the WWF collected over 100,000 signatures in an online petition to reverse what it called a decree on “forest destruction,” the Cabinet walked back some of the changes, exempting nature reserves from the regulations.
Seeing forests and trees:
David Suzuki writes that we need to recognise that the climate is connected to all systems that affect Earth and that they all help regulate the whole, citing Lovelock “humans must learn to live in partnership with the Earth, otherwise the rest of creation will, as part of Gaia, unconsciously move the Earth to a new state in which humans may no longer be welcome”.
For Lovelock, separating the climate and forest biodiversity crises “is as much of a mistake as the error made by universities when they teach chemistry in a different class from biology and physics. It is impossible to understand these subjects in isolation because they are interconnected”.
But mainstream forest ecology has only recently started seeing the forest and the trees. Reductionist, capitalist thinking made many see forests as little more than stands of valuable timber—with a few “weed” species in the way—each individual tree worth more cut into boards or pulped into chips than an interdependent life form playing its role in a forest ecosystem.
Our major crises stem largely from ways of thinking that are limited to parts and immediacy, that fail to see how the whole is affected by and affects everything that interacts with and within it. The climate and biodiversity crises, growing mainstream recognition of the importance of Indigenous knowledge, and increasing understanding of ecosystem interconnectedness all point to the necessity of embracing and acting on this increasing awareness quickly if we want to avoid catastrophe.
https://www.straight.com/news/david-suzuki-theres-hope-in-seeing-forest-and-trees
Forest Media 12 August 2022
New South Wales
On Tuesday about 40 local community members invaded a logging operation in Ellis State Forest to halt the Forestry Corporation logging giant oldgrowth Blue Gum, Tallowwood and Brush Box trees, measuring the stump of a giant Brush Box as over 150cm diameter (the cutting limit is 140cm) and calling for the EPA to issue a Stop Work Order. NBN ran a sympathetic story, while on Prime, Forestry accused the protectors of being the ones breaking the rules, not them. Strangely the EPA was reported as saying that the tree didn’t “appear to meet the criteria of being a giant tree. And in this case can be legally logged”, without apparently investigating the complaint, leading NCEC to call upon the EPA to issue an immediate correction re its position. They are now saying they will investigate it.
NBN also has a story about Karangi resident’s concerns over proposed logging of Orara East State Forest near Coffs Harbour. The mid north coast ABC ran with NEFA’s complaint of finding 7 Koala feed trees and 13 hollow-bearing trees in compartment 40 of Wild Cattle Creek State Forest that were marked for retention, yet had been bashed by machinery or had trees dropped upon them.
The Rainforest Information Centre has expressed its deep condolences to the family and close friends of Olivia Newton-John, honouring the work she did for threatened species, in particular her role as a Koala in RIC’s classic On the Brink.(well worth a look).
The ePetition "End Public Native Forest Logging" has closed for signatures and has been presented in the Legislative Assembly by Mrs Shelley Hancock. As the ePetition received more than 20,000 signatures, it will also be debated in the Legislative Assembly at 4pm on 15/09/2022 – NEFA are encouraging people to contact their local members and ask them to support the petition (see last forest media). You can watch the debate on the webcast at https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/pages/la-webcast-page.aspx. Radio 2EC has an interview with newly elected Bega Labor MP Dr Holland expanding on his position where he recognises the need for forest products and jobs, saying phasing out logging is not outside the realm of the ALP platform, though at best will consider a long-term transition by 2030. He does not support the burning of native forests for electricity.
Eurobodalla Shire Council’s debate about stopping logging of public native forests descended into farce, leading The Beagle to state “The pedantic, the pussy footing, the snivelling, the snide remarks made what seemed a reasonable idea so difficult that, having watched it, I still have no idea what they finally agreed to with all the amendments” – though in the end they did apparently vote for creation of a transition plan.
As part of its efforts to increase logging of private lands for the industry, the NSW Government has announced $1.5 million for a new “monitoring” program to overcome “barriers farmers may encounter when engaging in farm forestry operations”, which will complement a range of other education, training and incentive initiatives under the $28 million farm forestry package.
Midcoast 2 Tops Landcare are inviting landholders to take part in the Koala Paddock Tree Regeneration Project which aims to fence and regenerate paddock trees to facilitate habitat connectivity in the Mid Coast region, with the focus on Koalas. The Border Ranges Richmond Valley Landcare Network is offering support for the development of plans to rehabilitate landslips where they threaten Threatened Ecological Communities, though so far there is no funding for implementation.
Australia
The ABC has an article about the origin of tree-huggers and their relevance to today, detailing the 1730 murdering of 363 Bishnoi people in India who hugged trees to stop them being cut down, then the Chipko ("to cling") movement of which resulted in forest actions in 1973/4 in northern India, again led by women. Predating Terania Creek, with Bob Brown saying this was an inspiration for Franklin blockaders.
Forestry in the Northern Territory has grown to become a $115 million per annum industry employing roughly 170 full-time equivalent staff, leading to the industry forming the Forestry Industry Association of the Northern Territory (FIANT) in 2020, and now employing its first staff member as a policy officer tasked with growing the industry. In the name of carbon abatement Aboriginal groups (and others) are earning “carbon credits” by burning the northern Australian savannah early in the season to avoid more intense late season burns, using traditional practices such as dropping incendiaries from airplanes, with registered projects now covering some 25% of Australia’s 1.2 million km² of tropical savannas. Researchers have found that this has resulted in an increase in the annual number of severely polluted days in Darwin, with the increase in particulate pollution from the fuel reduction burns affecting resident’s health, while also promoting the spread of native and non-native grasses which are highly flammable in the early dry season and likely harming biodiversity – so why do we want to emulate Monsoon burning regimes in NSW?
The clearing of 71.5 hectares of native vegetation and forest, including habitat of the critically endangered western ringtail possum, for the Bunbury Outer Ring Road bypass will go ahead after a federal court challenge to stop works was knocked back.
In return for supporting the federal government’s climate change bill, senators including David Pocock of the ACT and Jacqui Lambie of Tasmania want to halt changes to the $4.5 billion Emission Reduction Fund that allow Australian Carbon Credit Units for rural projects that develop new plantations or plant new trees to replace timber cleared from existing plantations. Not unsurprising the loggers launched a PR campaign promoting the necessity of getting carbon credits to establish plantations so they can make money from cutting them down while ending climate heating, and citing the new federal Forestry Minister as backing them.
Species
For the first time in 32 years, the broad-toothed rat, which is listed as vulnerable to extinction, has been found at Wilsons Promontory National Park, as Parks Victoria plan a 10-kilometre boundary fence that will cordon off the Prom (and the rat) from the mainland (and any hinterland populations).
In recognition of the ongoing consequences of the bushfires, the south-eastern glossy black cockatoo was designated as nationally Vulnerable after an estimated 38 per cent of its range was affected by the fires, and the subalpine mountain skink as nationally Endangered, after 32 per cent of its mountain refuges were burnt – though in the forests it is logging as usual, with recruitment hollow-bearing trees cut down and forest oaks trampled. Its not all bad news, there are reports of booming populations of northern brown bandicoots around Dunbogan and Camden Haven, and elsewhere, after 2019-20 bushfires, which is attributed to the regrowth of a dense understorey and potentially a decline in cats and foxes because of the fires.
ABC TV (and online) has a story about sightings of koalas near the Blue Mountains in NSW, and hope a disease-free colony is recovering after the black summer bushfires. Ms Plibersek officially opened Port Stephens Koala Hospital with delivery of $3 million of federal funding to help fund the creation of “a bio bank of frozen koala sperm”, so that “if numbers continue to plummet, Taronga Conservation Society will have an ever-expanding bio bank for future breeding programs" – great to know that as we continue to destroy Koala habitat at least we are saving lots of their sperm. And a local philanthropist donated $1-million to the Port Stephens Koala Hospital on the same day.
Flying foxes are moving to Victoria to escape the warming north, only to suffer mass mortalities in heatwaves, leading to sprinkler systems being installed to cool camps, with costs as high as $180,000 each, and calls for more to be installed, while bush foods remain in short supply because of the fires.
Since it’s assisted migration to Australia in 2010 Myrtle Rust rapidly spread across the country, finding susceptible hosts it saps their energy and kills off the growing tips creating a repeated cycle of growth and dieback until eventually the plant runs out of reserves and declines. It is taking a growing toll on Australian species, with sixteen so far identified doomed to extinction, and many more populations and species under threat, populations of some species are resisting, though a new more virulent fungus is being bred on overseas eucalypt plantations.
Gondwanan (Southern) seed ferns gave rise to the southern conifers, such as Huon, Hoop, Bunya and Wollemi pines, 200million years ago, and later to flowering plants, giving our pines a separate lineage to northern conifers.
Campbelltown Council has unanimously resolved to ban the use of 1080 baits on their lands because of the threat to native animals and domestic pets, and to ask Government agencies, in particular National Parks, to cease their use of 1080 on all land in the Campbelltown area. Birdlife Australia is petitioning Bunnings to remove second generation rat baits claiming birdlife is being lost due to second hand poisoning.
The Australian has a lengthy article about the spread of varroa mite and attempts to control it, some are critical of the beekeeper responsible for the Nana Glen outbreak for not reporting he moved his bees there earlier, while blueberry growers are among the numerous farmers worried their crops may not be pollinated.
As the feral deer menace spreads, Lake Macquarie City Council is funding a University of Technology Sydney project, using wildlife camera traps and scat surveys to determine what deer species are present and where they might be thriving.
The Deteriorating Problem
The ice shelves around Antarctica hold back the terrestrial glaciers and slow their flow into the oceans, where they melt and raise sea-levels, though the ice shelves are disintegrating at an accelerating rate allowing the glaciers to speed up and increase the rate of sea-level rises. Poles apart, a new study has confirmed that the arctic is warming four times faster than the global average, and far faster than models predict, as concerns increase that Arctic amplification will set in as reducing ice reduces reflection of solar heat, melting permafrost releases copious CO2 and methane, and as Greenland’s ice mountains melt they get lower and warm more (- at least it opens the area up for more oil wells).
Meanwhile the arctic tundra is being invaded by the dark boreal hordes marching north at 4 km a decade to conquer the tundra, bringing with them more warming as they further reduce reflective snow. Though they are not so successful further south as the sustained climate attacks have left the ranks of the boreal hordes in disarray, with many unable to cope as the stresses increase. And further south there is yet more confirmation the mighty Amazon rainforests, where not converted to cow paddocks, are teetering on the brink of becoming grassy savannas - good news for cows.
Three prominent climate scientists warn that net-zero carbon emissions are a con used to allow us to go on using fossil fuels and deforesting while pretending that at some future time we can remove all that carbon from the atmosphere, when clearly the vast plantings required are unrealistic (and most of those being done are for short-rotation energy crops) while carbon capture and storage schemes are a sham. Its all been about allowing business as usual, as fossil fuel emissions continue to soar, meaning we now have less than 9 years of emissions at current rates left before we have to achieve absolute zero (as if) to keep temperature rises below 1.5oC. Others say that 1.5oC is no longer possible and 3o warming is inevitable.
In the IPCC process the scientists collate all the relevant data on climate heating before condensing it into a draft 50 page Summary for Policymakers, which the world’s governments (with corporate lobbyists looking over their shoulders) rewrite line by line to make it politically acceptable, with Australia a major editor. This process results in major alterations to the scientific advice, such as on minor issues like the need to stop new coal or gas plants and close down existing ones within a decade.
In America climate heating disasters are increasing, along with the social-economic costs and insurance premiums, causing some people to migrate away from danger only to be replaced by naive newcomers.
As the European energy crisis, caused by the war on Ukraine, deepens, the Hungarian government made an emergency decree to ease the way for the clearcutting of native tree species in protected forests for heating, while also relaxing other restrictions on loggers.
Turning it Around
There are heartening records of coral cover increasing on the Great Barrier Reef, though experts warn that this is mostly of fast growing “weedy” species that are particularly vulnerable to collapse, and that they may mask an ongoing underlying loss of species and reduction in long-lived species.
With 161 votes in favour, and eight abstentions, the UN General Assembly adopted a historic resolution declaring access to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, a universal human right.
In America (like Canada) they are still debating how to define oldgrowth forest and how much to protect, particularly since President Biden declared large old trees worthy of protection to help mitigate climate heating, and required an inventory to identify mature and oldgrowth forests on federal lands, though conservation groups are concerned ongoing logging threatens 240,000 acres of mature and old-growth trees (out of 250 million acres federal land) – I am glad we had that debate 35 years ago.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Mad about Ellis:
On Tuesday about 40 local community members invaded a logging operation in Ellis State Forest to halt the Forestry Corporation logging giant oldgrowth Blue Gum, Tallowwood and Brush Box trees, measuring the stump of a giant Brush Box as over 150cm diameter (the cutting limit is 140cm) and calling for the EPA to issue a Stop Work Order. NBN ran a sympathetic story, while on Prime, Forestry accused the protectors of being the ones breaking the rules, not them.
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2022/08/10/calls-for-an-urgent-stop-work-order-at-ellis-state-forest/
https://twitter.com/7NEWSCoast/status/1557278603670622209?s=20&t=iHAXnAODBI9hR8gA5Iaw9w
Strangely the EPA was reported as saying that the tree didn’t “appear to meet the criteria of being a giant tree. And in this case can be legally logged”, without apparently investigating the complaint, leading NCEC to call upon the EPA to issue an immediate correction re its position. They are now saying they will investigate it.
[Susie Russel] “Does this decision making prior to any investigation apply to other aspects of the EPA’s work?
“The EPA needs to take it’s name seriously. What is happening in Ellis State Forest appears to be serial breaches by serial offenders. These large trees will not be replaced, not even in the lifetimes of our great, great grandchildren.
… and Karangi:
NBN also has a story about Karangi resident’s concerns over proposed logging of Orara East State Forest near Coffs Harbour.
More breaches in Wild Cattle Creek:
The mid north coast ABC ran with NEFA’s complaint of finding 7 Koala feed trees and 13 hollow-bearing trees in compartment 40 of Wild Cattle Creek State Forest that were marked for retention, yet had been bashed by machinery or had trees dropped upon them.
[Dailan Pugh] “This is not an isolated case, the Forestry Corporation were fined $285,600 in June for logging into a Koala High Use Area, rainforest and a rainforest buffer 4 km to the west, and last month the EPA announced they are prosecuting the Forestry Corporation for logging six Giant Trees and seven Hollow-bearing Trees 5 km to the south.
“All this illegal logging is occurring in what is some of the best Koala habitat in Australia, proposed as part of the Great Koala National Park.
“In 2017 the Office of Environment and Heritage identified compartment 40 as a Koala Hub, one of 567 priority areas across the whole of NSW for protection as a highly significant area of koala occupancy.
“Despite this, within this Koala Hub most of the larger Koala feed trees were allowed to be logged, and many of the few token trees they were legally obliged to protect were extensively damaged.
“We were relieved to find that at least one Koala has survived within the area …
https://www.nefa.org.au/audits
Vale Olivia:
The Rainforest Information Centre has expressed its deep condolences to the family and close friends of Olivia Newton-John, honouring the work she did for threatened species, in particular her role as a Koala in RIC’s classic On the Brink.(well worth a look)
We remember her as a staunch warrior for the rights of nature. She believed passionately in wanting the destruction of our forests to stop. She loved and appreciated koalas, and was worried about their future. She supported civil disobedience to try and stop the destruction.
The film also featured Jack Thompson, and the three Davids – Attenborough, Suzuki and Bellamy. Four iconic animals On the Brink of Extinction decide to try and save their forests homes. Tiger Quoll, Masked Owl, Yellow-bellied Glider and Koala. Olivia was the Koala’s voice. Jack Thompson was Tiger Quoll.
http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/video/otb_v.html
https://www.rainforestinformationcentre.org/vale_olivia
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/08/a-voice-for-koalas-vale-olivia-newton-john/
What will parliament do?:
The ePetition "End Public Native Forest Logging" has closed for signatures and has been presented in the Legislative Assembly by Mrs Shelley Hancock. As the ePetition received more than 20,000 signatures, it will also be debated in the Legislative Assembly at 4pm on 15/09/2022 – NEFA are encouraging people to contact their local members and ask them to support the petition (see last forest media).
You can watch the debate on the webcast at https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/pages/la-webcast-page.aspx
Radio 2EC has an interview with newly elected Bega Labor MP Dr Holland expanding on his position where he recognises the need for forest products and jobs, saying phasing out logging is not outside the realm of the ALP platform, though at best will consider a long-term transition by 2030. He does not support the burning of native forests for electricity.
What did Eurobodalla do?:
Eurobodalla Shire Council’s debate about stopping logging of public native forests descended into farce, leading The Beagle to state “The pedantic, the pussy footing, the snivelling, the snide remarks made what seemed a reasonable idea so difficult that, having watched it, I still have no idea what they finally agreed to with all the amendments” – though in the end they did apparently vote for creation of a transition plan.
Eurobodalla Shire councillors have voted to advocate for creation of a plan to transition away from native forest logging in the shire.
Overcoming logging barriers:
As part of its efforts to increase logging of private lands the NSW Government has announced $1.5 million for a new “monitoring” program to overcome “barriers farmers may encounter when engaging in farm forestry operations”, which will complement a range of other education, training and incentive initiatives under the $28 million farm forestry package.
https://www.theland.com.au/story/7855096/farm-forestry-gets-15m-for-research/
Making connections:
Midcoast 2 Tops Landcare are inviting landholders to take part in the Koala Paddock Tree Regeneration Project which aims to fence and regenerate paddock trees to facilitate habitat connectivity in the Mid Coast region, with the focus on Koalas.
Sadly, many isolated paddock trees are dying, due to age, drought, disease and pests, as well as compaction and competition from agriculture.
The aim of the project will be to collect data on regrowth, create small patches of bushland to act as a safe refuge for koalas and other animals, improve existing wildlife corridors, and ultimately grow trees which will replace the once isolated paddock trees when they die.
Once the patch of bush is mature and the fence removed, it will improve shade and shelter for livestock, and store carbon.
https://www.manningrivertimes.com.au/story/7855458/got-paddock-trees-you-can-help-koalas/
Avoiding further slippage:
The Border Ranges Richmond Valley Landcare Network is offering support for the development of plans to rehabilitate landslips where they threaten Threatened Ecological Communities, though so far there is no funding for implementation.
Northern Rivers Times August 11 2022
AUSTRALIA
Tree-hugging’s deep roots:
The ABC has an article about the origin of tree-huggers and their relevance to today, detailing the 1730 murdering of 363 Bishnoi people in India who hugged trees to stop them being cut down, then the Chipko ("to cling") movement of which resulted in forest actions in 1973/4 in northern India, again led by women. Predating Terania Creek, with Bob Brown saying this was an inspiration for Franklin blockaders.
The assault on Monsoon Woodlands:
Forestry in the Northern Territory has grown to become a $115 million per annum industry employing roughly 170 full-time equivalent staff, leading to the industry forming the Forestry Industry Association of the Northern Territory (FIANT) in 2020, and now employing its first staff member as a policy officer tasked with growing the industry.
… abating health rather than climate heating:
In the name of carbon abatement Aboriginal groups (and others) are earning “carbon credits” by burning the northern Australian savannah early in the season to avoid more intense late season burns, using traditional practices such as dropping incendiaries from airplanes, with registered projects now covering some 25% of Australia’s 1.2 million km² of tropical savannas. Researchers have found that this has resulted in an increase in the annual number of severely polluted days in Darwin, with the increase in particulate pollution from the fuel reduction burns affecting resident’s health, while also promoting the spread of native and non-native grasses which are highly flammable in the early dry season and likely harming biodiversity – so why do we want to emulate Monsoon burning regimes in NSW?
The results showed air quality worsened in Darwin in the early dry season (particularly in June and July), with an increase in the annual number of severely polluted days.
Native and non-native grasses which are highly flammable in the early dry season have been expanding on frequently burned savannas. Higher temperatures may be drying fuel out earlier in the dry season. These factors may make early dry season fires as extensive and intense as savannas burnt later in the season.
… our results clearly demonstrate Darwin’s already significant air quality problem is worsening, rather than improving, in association with increased early dry season burning.
Other factors should be considered too. For example, savanna burning in Australia may risk harming biodiversity.
But the Emissions Reduction Fund is a blunt tool which doesn’t consider these hidden costs and other nuances.
Ring roading Western Ringtails:
The clearing of 71.5 hectares of native vegetation and forest, including habitat of the critically endangered western ringtail possum, for the Bunbury Outer Ring Road bypass will go ahead after a federal court challenge to stop works was knocked back.
Advice from the WA Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions to the state’s Environmental Protection Authority over 2021 said it would be difficult to ascertain whether the Gelorup possum population, which consists of about 72 animals, would survive displacement.
Stopping the plantation carbon rort:
In return for supporting the federal government’s climate change bill, senators including David Pocock of the ACT and Jacqui Lambie of Tasmania want to halt changes to the $4.5 billion Emission Reduction Fund that allow Australian Carbon Credit Units for rural projects that develop new plantations or plant new trees to replace timber cleared from existing plantations.
https://consult.industry.gov.au/2021-plantation-forestry-method
Not unsurprising the loggers launched a PR campaign promoting the necessity of getting carbon credits to establish plantations so they can make money from cutting them down while ending climate heating, and citing the new federal Forestry Minister as backing them.
Forest industry participation in the carbon market is being hailed as essential for the Federal Government to achieve its ambitious emissions reduction targets.
“Of course, the forestry industry has a huge role to play in our emissions reduction task. If we get the right investment framework and the right regulation we can create the carbon sinks that we’ll need to help remove carbon from our atmosphere,” Miinister Watt said..
https://www.3aw.com.au/podcast/forest-industry-crucial-to-cutting-carbon/
https://www.miragenews.com/forest-industries-have-huge-role-to-play-in-833809/
https://www.2gb.com/podcast/forest-industry-crucial-to-cutting-carbon/
SPECIES
The rat is back:
For the first time in 32 years, the broad-toothed rat, which is listed as vulnerable to extinction, has been found at Wilsons Promontory National Park, as Parks Victoria plan a 10-kilometre boundary fence that will cordon off the Prom (and the rat) from the mainland (and any hinterland populations).
Parks Victoria staff have increased pest and weed control five-fold at the Prom, and hope to rediscover or reintroduce other animals that haven’t been spotted for a long time, such as the eastern pygmy possum and the white-footed dunnart.
There have been some recent sightings of very rare ground parrots, while the red-necked pademelon – which has not been seen at the Prom for 100 years – could be reintroduced.
Cockies declining:
In recognition of the ongoing consequences of the bushfires, the south-eastern glossy black cockatoo was designated as nationally Vulnerable after an estimated 38 per cent of its range was affected by the fires, and the subalpine mountain skink as nationally Endangered, after 32 per cent of its mountain refuges were burnt – though in the forests it is logging as usual, with recruitment hollow-bearing trees cut down and forest oaks trampled.
While the Commonwealth is able to list species under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC), state logging operations are largely not directly affected by the legislation.
With public concern about environmental damage increasing, the states have responded by increasing penalties for protesters causing disruption to the logging and fossil fuel industries.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/two-more-aussie-species-added-to-extinction-threat-list-020957970.html
[Ms Plibersek] also promised a new independent environment protection agency to enforce tougher new laws, and has flagged the creation of a new biodiversity credits scheme that would pay Australians to repair and nurture the habitat on their properties.
The government has also promised to set up a Saving Native Species Program to boost protection for species like the cockatoo and the lizard.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-11093923/Plibersek-lists-species-fires.html
Some are doing well after the fires:
Its not all bad news, there are reports of booming populations of northern brown bandicoots around Dunbogan and Camden Haven, and elsewhere, after 2019-20 bushfires, which is attributed to the regrowth of a dense understorey and potentially a decline in cats and foxes because of the fires.
Professor Dickman said monitoring elsewhere in NSW had shown predators were not bouncing back as quickly after the 2019-20 fires.
"In some areas, like the Blue Mountains, there's been a lot of monitoring happening after the big fires. Fox and cat activity hasn't seemed to be as extensive after the fires as we might have expected," he said.
"The east coast bandicoots are doing pretty well in general, including the northern brown bandicoot and common long-nosed bandicoot, and the southern brown bandicoot, which is not doing quite so well, but is still about in reasonable numbers from Sydney and south into Victoria and South Australia," he said.
Rising from the ashes:
ABC TV has a story about sightings of koalas near the Blue Mountains in NSW, and hope a disease-free colony is recovering after the black summer bushfires.
Freezing Koalas to save them:
Ms Plibersek officially opened Port Stephens Koala Hospital with delivery of $3 million of federal funding to help fund the creation of “a bio bank of frozen koala sperm”, so that “if numbers continue to plummet, Taronga Conservation Society will have an ever-expanding bio bank for future breeding programs" – great to know that as we continue to destroy Koala habitat at least we are saving lots of their sperm.
https://www.portstephensexaminer.com.au/story/7857735/koalas-get-3m-to-chew-on/
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2022/08/11/port-stephens-koala-hospital-opens/
https://www.miragenews.com/minister-officially-opens-koala-hospital-835040/
And a local philanthropist donated $1-million to the Port Stephens Koala Hospital on the same day.
Victoria may be cool, but not all the time:
Flying foxes are moving to Victoria to escape the warming north, only to suffer mass mortalities in heatwaves, leading to sprinkler systems being installed to cool camps, with costs as high as $180,000 each, and calls for more to be installed, while bush foods remain in short supply because of the fires.
Ms Roberts said the community installed its own sprinkler system for the main Bairnsdale colony after the "absolutely catastrophic" 2019 heat event.
"We were running pumps out of the river, managing a heat event here, and we lost around 300 bats, but we could have lost 3,000," she said.
La Trobe University Professor of Ecology Andrew Bennett said rising temperatures and limited food had forced flying foxes to move further south from Queensland and establish permanent colonies in Victoria.
"We've got millions of hectares of forest that's been burned, and that's going to affect the flowering of eucalypts," he said.
Our rusting forests:
Since it’s assisted migration to Australia in 2010 Myrtle Rust rapidly spread across the country, finding susceptible hosts it saps their energy and kills off the growing tips creating a repeated cycle of growth and dieback until eventually the plant runs out of reserves and declines. It is taking a growing toll on Australian species, with sixteen so far identified doomed to extinction, and many more populations and species under threat, populations of some species are resisting, though a new more virulent fungus is being bred on overseas eucalypt plantations.
A recent survey of rainforests in Eastern Australia predicted a "plant extinction event of unprecedented magnitude" due to myrtle rust.
"Sixteen species are doomed with extinction within a generation," says co-author of the survey, Rod Fensham, a plant ecologist from the University of Queensland.
Among the most at risk were the thready-bark myrtle (Gossia inophloia) and native guava (Rhodomyrtus psidioides).
And a further 20 species could be at risk.
Dr Pegg has also seen the devastating effects of myrtle rust on the east coast, and not just in rainforests.
"There are thousands of dead trees in some sites that we've looked at."
He points to one forest at Tullebudgera not far from the Gold Coast, where there were 3,400 dead trees per hectare.
But Dr Pegg says only 15 to 35 per cent of paperbark seedlings in New South Wales study sites have shown natural resistance to the fungus.
In fact, last year, Brazilian scientists reported the evolution of a new "highly aggressive" fungus that was attacking eucalypt plantations in that country, which had been bred to be resistant.
Our ancient roots:
Gondwanan (Southern) seed ferns gave rise to the southern conifers, such as Huon, Hoop, Bunya and Wollemi pines, 200million years ago, and later to flowering plants, giving our pines a separate lineage to northern conifers.
A little detective work reveals that southern conifers evolved in Gondwana, and long ago separated from coniferous relatives in the northern hemisphere.
They appeared around 200 million years ago, before the first flowering plants evolved, sharing land with the dinosaurs. …
One group of southern seed ferns constituted what’s now called the Glossopteris flora, which was of Gondwanan origin. From this diverse group of Glossopterids, flowering plants in all their variety evolved.
It’s likely southern conifers also evolved from these southern seed ferns. …
1080 opposed:
Campbelltown Council has unanimously resolved to ban the use of 1080 baits on their lands because of the threat to native animals and domestic pets, and to ask Government agencies, in particular National Parks, to cease their use of 1080 on all land in the Campbelltown area.
… and rat baits:
Birdlife Australia is petitioning Bunnings to remove second generation rat baits claiming birdlife is being lost due to second hand poisoning.
https://www.abc.net.au/adelaide/programs/afternoons/rat-poison/101325040
Varroa mite or might not be eliminated:
The Australian has a lengthy article about the spread of varroa mite and attempts to control it, some are critical of the beekeeper responsible for the Nana Glen outbreak for not reporting he moved his bees there earlier, while blueberry growers are among the numerous farmers worried their crops may not be pollinated.
Vial is in the red zone – all hives within a 10km radius of any known varroa infestation will be destroyed. Beyond that is a 25km surveillance zone and then a 50km notification zone, which now extends over much of the Hunter Valley, south to Sydney and north almost to Taree. There is a total ban on bee movements from these zones. There’s another zone around Gunnedah, infested from a movement of bees from the Newcastle area prior to the lockdown. Another infestation was recently discovered at Nana Glen, in the hills above Coffs Harbour.
Crops such as almonds need about six hives per hectare for effective pollination and these hives are trucked in, as they are for a host of other crops including sunflowers, avocados, berries, macadamias, peaches, limes, apples, canola… The peak pollination season for many of these crops is now upon us. No bees, no crop.
But Le Feuvre is confident they can arrest the spread of the mite and hopefully eradicate it. “Every single infestation we’ve identified outside the Newcastle area is directly linked to a movement from Newcastle… We have just got to concentrate on that tracing so we can identify every possible avenue of where it may have spread.”
Deer dear:
As the feral deer menace spreads, Lake Macquarie City Council is funding a University of Technology Sydney project, using wildlife camera traps and scat surveys to determine what deer species are present and where they might be thriving.
Deer populations exploded in the wild, with the six feral species of rusa, red, sambar, chital, hog and fallow believed to be in their millions.
Environmental degradation caused by feral deer trampling and feeding in native habitats has been listed as a key threatening process in NSW.
https://newcastleweekly.com.au/oh-deer-we-may-have-a-problem/
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Our disintegrating world:
The ice shelves around Antarctica hold back the terrestrial glaciers and slow their flow into the oceans, where they melt and raise sea-levels, though the ice shelves are disintegrating at an accelerating rate allowing the glaciers to speed up and increase the rate of sea-level rises.
Unfortunately, Antarctica’s ice shelves are not what they were. In research published today in Nature, we show these ice shelves have significantly reduced in area over the last 25 years due to more and more icebergs breaking off. Overall, the net loss of ice is about 6,000 billion tonnes since 1997.
We know one cause of ice shelf retreat is the thinning of ice shelves, which is largely caused by relatively warm seawater eroding the base of these shelves.
We also know iceberg calving increases whenever Antarctica’s protective ring of sea ice weakens. This year, Antarctica saw the lowest sea ice extent ever recorded since measurements began in the 1970s. We’ve also seen entire ice shelves collapse when warmer air temperatures create surface meltwater that can cut through hundreds of metres of ice shelf.
… poles apart, but with a lot in common:
A new study has confirmed that the arctic is warming four times faster than the global average, and far faster than models predict, as concerns increase that Arctic amplification will set in as reducing ice reduces reflection of solar heat, melting permafrost releases copious CO2 and methane, and as Greenland’s ice mountains melt they get lower and warm more – oh well, at least it opens the area up for more oil wells.
A new study shows that the Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the rest of the world over the past 43 years. This means the Arctic is on average around 3℃ warmer than it was in 1980.
Forests feeling the heat:
Meanwhile the arctic tundra is being invaded by the dark boreal hordes marching north at 4 km a decade to conquer the tundra, bringing with them more warming as they further reduce reflective snow. Though they are not so successful further south as the sustained climate attacks have left the ranks of the boreal hordes in disarray, with many unable to cope as the stresses increase. And further south there is yet more confirmation the mighty Amazon rainforests, where not converted to cow paddocks, are teetering on the brink of becoming grassy savannas - good news for cows.
The scientists’ new research paper, published in Nature, estimates the spruce are advancing north at a rate of around 4km a decade …
“The trees basically hopped over the mountains into the tundra. Going by climate models, this wasn’t supposed to happen for a hundred years or more. And yet it’s happening now.”
Farther south, separate research has found a transformation is under way at the boundary between the boreal and temperate forests, with species of spruce and fir increasingly unable to cope with the hotter conditions. Scientists estimate that even small amounts of further heating, caused by human activity, could cause up to a 50% die-off of traditional boreal forest trees in certain places, with many other trees becoming stunted in their growth.
The impact of the climate crisis is also being felt in the heart of the Amazon, a further study has underlined. Scientists have raised concerns that the huge rainforest ecosystem is in danger of tipping into a new, altered state, eventually becoming a savannah, and the new research found that a lack of phosphorus in the Amazon’s soils could have “major implications” for its resilience to global heating.
“Present-day southern boreal forest may reach a tipping point with even modest climate warming, resulting in a major compositional shift with potential adverse impacts on the health and diversity of regional forests,” he added.
The resulting consequences could have sweeping impacts on forests’ ability to produce timber, host other plant and animal biodiversity and reduce flooding and carbon in the air.
https://www.miragenews.com/even-modest-warming-could-cause-major-changes-834843/
Climate fools:
Three prominent climate scientists warn that net-zero carbon emissions are a con used to allow us to go on using fossil fuels and deforesting while pretending that at some future time we can remove all that carbon from the atmosphere, when clearly the vast plantings required are unrealistic (and most of those being done are for short-rotation energy crops) while carbon capture and storage schemes are a sham. Its all been about allowing business as usual, as fossil fuel emissions continue to soar, meaning we now have less than 9 years of emissions at current rates left before we have to achieve absolute zero (as if) to keep temperature rises below 1.5oC. Others say that 3o warming is inevitable.
We have arrived at the painful realisation that the idea of net zero has licensed a recklessly cavalier “burn now, pay later” approach which has seen carbon emissions continue to soar. It has also hastened the destruction of the natural world by increasing deforestation today, and greatly increases the risk of further devastation in the future.
Around the time they were first developed, efforts were being made to secure US action on the climate by allowing it to count carbon sinks of the country’s forests. The US argued that if it managed its forests well, it would be able to store a large amount of carbon in trees and soil which should be subtracted from its obligations to limit the burning of coal, oil and gas. In the end, the US largely got its way. Ironically, the concessions were all in vain, since the US senate never ratified the agreement.
Postulating a future with more trees could in effect offset the burning of coal, oil and gas now. As models could easily churn out numbers that saw atmospheric carbon dioxide go as low as one wanted, ever more sophisticated scenarios could be explored which reduced the perceived urgency to reduce fossil fuel use. By including carbon sinks in climate-economic models, a Pandora’s box had been opened.
It’s here we find the genesis of today’s net zero policies.
So it was that Bioenergy Carbon Capture and Storage, or BECCS, rapidly emerged as the new saviour technology. By burning “replaceable” biomass such as wood, crops, and agricultural waste instead of coal in power stations, and then capturing the carbon dioxide from the power station chimney and storing it underground, BECCS could produce electricity at the same time as removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. That’s because as biomass such as trees grow, they suck in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. By planting trees and other bioenergy crops and storing carbon dioxide released when they are burnt, more carbon could be removed from the atmosphere.
Across the scenarios produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) with a 66% or better chance of limiting temperature increase to 1.5°C, BECCS would need to remove 12 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. BECCS at this scale would require massive planting schemes for trees and bioenergy crops.
The Earth certainly needs more trees. Humanity has cut down some three trillion since we first started farming some 13,000 years ago. But rather than allow ecosystems to recover from human impacts and forests to regrow, BECCS generally refers to dedicated industrial-scale plantations regularly harvested for bioenergy rather than carbon stored away in forest trunks, roots and soils.
It should now be getting clear where the journey is heading. As the mirage of each magical technical solution disappears, another equally unworkable alternative pops up to take its place. The next is already on the horizon – and it’s even more ghastly. Once we realise net zero will not happen in time or even at all, geoengineering – the deliberate and large scale intervention in the Earth’s climate system – will probably be invoked as the solution to limit temperature increases.
Current net zero policies will not keep warming to within 1.5°C because they were never intended to. They were and still are driven by a need to protect business as usual, not the climate. If we want to keep people safe then large and sustained cuts to carbon emissions need to happen now. That is the very simple acid test that must be applied to all climate policies. The time for wishful thinking is over.
https://theconversation.com/climate-scientists-concept-of-net-zero-is-a-dangerous-trap-157368
"The whole concept is being exploited by companies who don't want to take any meaningful action and who see a cheap way out of their responsibility by just purchasing these carbon credits," he says.
Last year, a former chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Robert Watson, broke ranks to denounce net zero as a fraud – a "dangerous trap".
Another net zero sceptic is Jannes Stoppel, from Greenpeace Germany.
Like Dr Dyke, he's sceptical of any technological fix. And while he supports efforts to plant more trees and strengthen forests, he cautions against overestimating nature's capacity to solve what is a human-generated problem.
"We are currently still on course for around 3 degrees Celsius by the end of this century.
Scientific editing:
In the IPCC process the scientists collate all the relevant data on climate heating before condensing it into a draft 50 page Summary for Policymakers, which the world’s governments (with corporate lobbyists looking over their shoulders) rewrite line by line to make it politically acceptable, with Australia a major editor. This process results in major alterations to the scientific advice, such as on minor issues like the need to stop new coal or gas plants and close down existing ones within a decade.
A key finding of the scientific consensus report was that no net addition to current coal or gas plants could be built and that existing ones needed to be closed down within a decade if the below 1.5°C target was to be met. Not only was this eliminated in the governmental consensus SPM, but the SPM was rewritten to state that coal-fired plants could be increased, given possibilities for carbon capture and sequestration.
https://monthlyreview.org/2022/06/01/mr-074-02-2022-06_0/
https://johnmenadue.com/environment-un-declares-right-to-a-healthy-environment/
The costs are growing:
In America climate heating disasters are increasing, along with the social-economic costs and insurance premiums, causing some people to migrate away from danger only to be replaced by naive newcomers.
“They are not slowing down,” Adam Smith, the U.S. government’s lead scientist for analyzing billion-dollar disasters, told The Washington Post. “The frequency and the cost of U.S. weather and climate disasters is increasing.”
The U.S. has seen an annual average of 7.7 disasters that cause at least $1 billion in damage over the past four decades, Smith added, but in the last five years alone that average has leaped to 18 events every year—with 2020 and 2021 seeing the highest number of billion-dollar climate disasters on record, at 22 and 20, respectively.
And it’s not just the cost of rebuilding homes and replacing damaged and lost goods. Insuring homes is also getting increasingly expensive, to the point where some people are moving from areas simply because the built-in costs of owning homes there have become too burdensome.
It’s a call to action that could be seen all the more urgent as the U.S. continues its summer of deadly and destructive disasters. That includes last week’s Kentucky floods that killed at least 37 people, the ongoing blazes in California that have claimed several lives and burned down yet another town this week and another wildfire in Montana that, as of Wednesday, had torched four homes to the ground and threatened to displace another 150 residents.
https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?e=6624c72df8&u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=d1390d5d78
Heating trumps heating:
As the European energy crisis, caused by the war on Ukraine, deepens, the Hungarian government made an emergency decree to ease the way for the clearcutting of native tree species in protected forests for heating, while also relaxing other restrictions on loggers.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/hungary-to-log-native-forests-to-keep-warm/
TURNING IT AROUND
Barrier Reef is greater:
There are heartening records of coral cover increasing on the Great Barrier Reef, though experts warn that this is mostly of fast growing “weedy” species that are particularly vulnerable to collapse, and that they may mask an ongoing underlying loss of species and reduction in long-lived species.
The latest report provides a robust and valuable synopsis of how coral cover has changed at 87 reefs across three sectors (north, central and south) over the past 36 years.
Overall, the long-term monitoring team found coral cover has increased on most reefs. The level of coral cover on reefs near Cape Grenville and Princess Charlotte Bay in the northern sector has bounced back from bleaching, with two reefs having more than 75% cover.
In the central sector, where coral cover has historically been lower than in the north and south, coral cover is now at a region-wide high, at 33%.
The southern sector has a dynamic coral cover record. In the late 1980s coral cover surpassed 40… yet, coral cover in this area is still relatively high at 34%.
Based on the coral cover data, it’s tempting to be optimistic. But given more frequent and severe heatwaves and cyclones are predicted in the future, it’s wise to be cautious about the reef’s perceived recovery or resilience.
Access to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, a universal human right:
With 161 votes in favour, and eight abstentions, the UN General Assembly adopted a historic resolution declaring access to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, a universal human right.
The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, welcomed the 'historic' decision and said the landmark development demonstrates that Member States can come together in the collective fight against the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.
“The resolution will help reduce environmental injustices, close protection gaps and empower people, especially those that are in vulnerable situations, including environmental human rights defenders, children, youth, women and indigenous peoples”, he said in a statement released by his Spokesperson’s Office.
The declaration is not legally binding – countries can vote to support a declaration of rights while not actually supporting those rights in practice. The language is also vague, leaving to interpretation just what a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is.
Some experts argue that the “triple planetary crisis” of human-driven climate change, widespread biodiversity loss and unmitigated pollution now threaten to surpass the planetary boundaries necessary to live safely on Earth.
These threats can undermine the right to life, dignity and health, as can air pollution, contaminated water and pollution from plastics and chemicals. That is why advocates argued for the U.N. to declare a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
U.N. declarations of human rights are aspirational norms that seek to ensure a more just and equitable world. Even though declarations like this one are not legally binding, they can be vital tools people can use to pressure governments and private companies to protect or improve human well-being.
What oldgrowth?:
In America (like Canada) they are still debating how to define oldgrowth forest and how much to protect, particularly since President Biden declared large old trees worthy of protection to help mitigate climate heating, and required an inventory to identify mature and oldgrowth forests on federal lands, though conservation groups are concerned ongoing logging threatens 240,000 acres of mature and old-growth trees (out of 250 million acres federal land) – I am glad we had that debate 35 years ago.
On Earth Day, President Biden signed an executive order declaring the nation’s oldest and largest trees worthy of federal protection. His order directed the creation of a national inventory of mature and old-growth forests on federal land, recognizing they are an essential climate solution. The results of this survey are due by Earth Day 2023.
Part of the problem is that no conclusive definitions of “mature” and “old-growth” have ever been agreed upon. However, forests start to develop old-growth characteristics at around 80 years of age: fallen trees, fungi, cascading food-networks of microorganisms. The soil develops a micro-climate of moisture for seeds from mature trees to drop and grow, creating a multi-aged forest.
… We’re calling for protecting trees 80 years old and older, our next generation old-growth forests.
We will keep the pressure on our President and federal agencies to stop cutting our biggest, oldest trees from federal lands. Until then we must do everything we can right in our own backyards.
https://grist.org/fix/opinion/old-growth-forests-threatened-save-trees-climate/
Forest Media 5 August 2022
New South Wales
The petition to end native forest logging has passed the 20,000 signatures mark which forces a debate in the lower house of the NSW Parliament, scheduled for 15 September, unfortunately we cannot expect the Government to act on it, never-the-less it gives us an opportunity to capitalise on it. Labor seems to be sitting on the fence, but won’t support the petition. If Parliament won’t maybe Council will, Eurobodalla Shire Councillor Alison Worthington has given notice that she will move that Council supports an end to native forest logging in Eurobodalla Shire.
Friends of Karangi Forest are objecting to imminent logging of compartment 11 in Orara East State Forest, just 5 km from the centre of Coffs Harbour, citing the presence of Koalas and asking for a comprehensive ecological assessment. News of the Area also covered last Friday’s celebration at Cloud’s Creek.
Gaagal Wanggaan National Park on the NSW mid-north coast has been expanded with the addition of the 212 hectare Bald Hill private property, a site of significant cultural importance to Gumbaynggirr people.
Ballina Council has voted to pursue environmental zoning for a controversial property adjoining Burns Point Ferry Road and River Street in West Ballina proposed for 150-300 houses, since the court declared it ‘unsuitable for urban development because of endangered ecological communities’.
“Cultural burns” are booming across the Gunnedah region with multiple agencies getting on board with the newly founded Gomeroi Cultural Burn Network.
Local Land Services and Ethical Fields have launched an Environmental Markets Leadership Program, to help landholders identify, market and benefit from their natural assets. Department of Planning and Environment (DPE) have released a new Trees Near Me NSW app designed to help people identify which native species naturally occur in their vicinity for tree planting – though it may have other uses.
The Forestry Corporation is tipped to spend close to $200 million buying about 19,000 of freehold land from Hume Forests, with a net pine plantation area of about 14,000 hectares, located between the Tumut-Tumbarumba and Bathurst-Oberon regions of NSW. 150 Forestry Corporation staff were awarded the National Emergency Medal for their efforts in fighting the 2019-20 wildfires.
A draft management plan to guide tourism growth in Orange, Blayney and Cabonne that touts a skyway and redevelopment of the Canobolas summit, a Mount Canobolas Aboriginal heritage centre, walking and cycling trails, water-based activities and a destination playground, has raised the ire of some residents. 4x4 Australia has an in-depth article describing the attractions of Bundjalung National Park that laments the tracks and beach north from Iluka to Black Rock can’t be driven.
Australia
More of the same as feds try to wash their hands of responsibility for threatened species. In response to environmentalists accusing state agency VicForests of logging an area identified as greater glider habitat near Orbost in East Gippsland, less than a month after federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek declared it endangered, she has said it is a state responsibility.
While Government forestry agencies haemorrhage public money on their native forestry operations, run down carbon and biodiversity, and leaving behind vast swathes of degraded lands, it’s reassuring to know that at least the loggers make lots of money. At least demonstrators will have to pay, Victorian Labour’s act to increase penalties for forest protestors up to 12 months jail and more than $21,000 fines has been passed, despite opposition by the Maritime Union of Australia, the United Workers Union and Australian Services Union labelling it as an undemocratic bill that will lead to further erosion of workers’ rights. And it will make loggers safe from violent greenies.
Species
A new study assessed whether five highway underpasses under the Oxley Highway at Port Macquarie and seven under the Pacific Highway south of Grafton. help animals safely cross roads, finding they are well used and that predation at entrances may not be a major problem.
A new petition started by Save Sydney’s Koalas calls on NSW Legislative Assembly to 1. Declare an Upper Georges River Koala National Park, 2. Stop the rezoning of Stage 2 of the Gilead development and review the approval of Stage 1 , 3. Build five effective Koala crossings on Appin Road and 4. Implement minimum 450m wide Koala corridors across the rivers and creeks of Macarthur.
Professor Timms was recently made a Queensland Great for his development of a vaccine against chlamydia in koalas, which he now wants to develop into a vaccine available to all vets. The Tweed Coast Koala Research Hub in Pottsville has been officially opened, with the aim to vaccinate as many kolas as possible as part of a chlamydia vaccine research program. Port Stephens Examiner has an article about the local demise of Koalas and the willingness of the Port Stephens Koala Hospital to help injured Koalas. As part of its Koalaways program the Gloucester Environment Group (GEG) is holding a public forum at Barrington Hall about partnering with local landholders to plant koala friendly trees.
A study used expert elicitation to model the effectiveness of 6 management actions on the future of Koalas in three regional landscapes – Coastal, Hinterland, and Riverine – in the Ballina, Lismore, Byron and Tweed LGAs, finding that if nothing is done Koalas will continue to decline in the 3 landscapes, most dramatically in riverine areas, identifying that neither habitat protection nor habitat restoration alone were sufficient to redress decline and additional actions were required with varying effectiveness in each landscape.
As extensive Victorian Blue Gum plantations established in the 1990s mature, there are concerns that mass clearfelling will result in mass starvation and mass culling of the Koalas who now live in them.
The Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority has received almost $250,000 from the Federal Government to expand the abundance of nectar resources for Swift Parrots by revegetating sites with locally Indigenous trees and shrubs – meanwhile mature nectar trees in logging areas continue to be felled.
Citizen scientists are being asked to record their platypus observations in September. If you haven’t already you can RSVP to the online launch of the month of action on Thursday 1 September at 6.30pm AEST.
A world map of ant diversity has been published, not unsurprisingly it identifies our east coast forests as being world centres of ant diversity and rare ants.
A disgruntled member of the WIRES board has resigned in frustration claiming it failed to properly deploy the record $100 million in donations it received in the wake of the Black Summer bushfires.
Who would have thought it, as mice make a comeback, CSIRO found doubling the dose of zinc phosphide in mouse baits kills more mice, so we can expect more of everything to be killed. Wedge-tailed eagles and other protected species are at risk of being paralysed by lead poisoning in Victoria, with humans also at risk, as lead levels in ducks were found to be "well above" food safety standards at four Victorian duck-hunting waterways, meanwhile illegal lead ammunition is still being used to shoot ducks.
Tweed and Byron shires are alarmed as sightings of feral deer increase, calling on people to report any they see, while elsewhere in the state other burgeoning feral populations are of more concern, with farmers most concerned with pigs and dingoes/dogs – and I understand that ground mammals and birds are particularly concerned about foxes and the booming cat populations eating them. ABC Nightlife has a recording of a 48m segment on feral animals in response to the State of Environment Report. Amidst threats and intimidation, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service removed 334 horses from Kosciuszko National Park between February and June this year, which is well below their breeding rate.
The Deteriorating Problem
There is no flood relief in sight, with our current wet phase set to continue into next year, as we experience our second negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) as well as La Niña event in a row, the same weather pattern as occurred last year.
While the West Antarctic ice sheet is known to be melting and contributing to sea-level rise, researchers have found that waters around the East Antarctic ice sheet are similarly warming, threatening accelerating sea-level rises and survival of krill.
Fires are breaking out across the drought ravaged western USA states of California, Montana, and Idaho, killing people, burning homes and threatening towns. Meanwhile further east in Kentucky at least 37 people have died as houses were washed away and residents stranded on roofs, in what the governor called "one of the worst, most devastating flooding events in Kentucky's history.", and now it’s going to get excessively hot and humid.
The Sydney Morning Herald’s economics editor Ross Gittins has an article highlighting warnings from the State of Environment Report that we will have an unlivable economy if environmental action isn’t taken.
New research found world wide forest declined by 81.7 million hectares since 1960, though only because most loss was offset by regrowth, with population growth resulting in a 60% decrease in forest area per capita.
Turning it Around
Forest loss accounts for 20% of all the world's carbon dioxide emissions, now forest and carbon loss can be monitored in real time from the International Space Station, enabling timely responses to illegal logging.
California’s multi-billion-dollar carbon offset program allows polluters to purchase ‘carbon credits’ from forest owners to offset their emissions, as offsets need to be maintained for 100 years a “buffer pool” is built into the system to account for carbon losses due to droughts, fires, and disease over the next 100 years, regrettably after just 10 years almost all the buffer pool has been used, meaning that any losses over the next 90 years will directly release the offset carbon.
A study assessed visitors psychological experiences and responses from a visit to Mount Barney Lodge in Queensland’s Scenic Rim region, finding 78% of respondents experienced sadness, anger, anxiety and other grieving emotions in response to current pressures on the Earth’s life supporting systems, though found their immersion in nature healing.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
The petition to end native forest logging has passed the 20,000 signatures mark which forces a debate in the lower house of the NSW Parliament, scheduled for 15 September, unfortunately we cannot expect the Government to act on it, never-the-less it gives us an opportunity to capitalise on it.
The petition calls for:
- Develop a plan to transition the native forestry industry to 100% sustainable plantations by 2024.
- In the interim, place a moratorium on public native forest logging until the regulatory framework reflects the recommendations of the leaked NRC report.
- Immediately protect high-conservation value forests through gazettal in the National Parks estate.
- Ban use of native forest materials as biomass fuel.
Organiser Takesa Frank said that after an eleventh-hour surge in signatories, which nearly doubled in a week, she was confident the petition would receive support when it’s put before parliament by South Coast member Shelley Hancock on September 15.
NCC forest campaign manager Wilson Harris was less optimistic of the petition’s chances of generating policy change once it’s tabled, but said it would nonetheless start meaningful debate among politicians and the public.
[Brooman State Forest Conservation Group, Takesa Frank] "I am a proud Aboriginal woman living on Yuin country on the South Coast. In my culture we have deep care and respect for our environment from our oceans and lakes to our forests. Under current NSW policies, we are destroying our country and environment, especially our native forests," she said.
Labor won’t support
Labor seems to be sitting on the fence, but won’t support the petition.
State Labor MP for Bega Michael Holland said it was unlikely the ALP would have an official position on phasing out the native forest logging industry before the state election in March 2023.
Dr Holland said Labor was still waiting on the release of the full report that was leaked from the state government's Natural Resources Commission (NRC).
"There is a role for timber production in forests.
"[What is required is] the determination of what we do with our native forests.
"Whatever forest resources are used has to be managed on environmentally sound and sustainable yield, and for multiple uses."
If Parliament won’t maybe Council will:
Eurobodalla Shire Councillor Alison Worthington has given notice that she will move that Council supports an end to native forest logging in Eurobodalla Shire.
FKF objects to logging:
Friends of Karangi Forest are objecting to imminent logging of compartment 11 in Orara East State Forest, just 5 km from the centre of Coffs Harbour, citing the presence of Koalas and asking for a comprehensive ecological assessment.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-5-august-2022-98006
A Cloud over logging:
News of the Area covered last Friday’s celebration at Cloud’s Creek.
An alliance of almost 50 local residents, concerned ecologists, forest lovers and advocates for the protection of the North Coast’s globally significant biodiversity gathered last week to celebrate the amazing Greater Glider and the Dunggirr (koala) in Clouds Creek State Forest.
Mr Graham said, “We are demanding the protection of these globally significant tall Eucalypt forests and demand that the EPA issue stop-work orders to stop the ongoing and escalating crimes being committed by FCNSW”.
Mr Graham said, “We’re going to meet this with music, dance and love”.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/celebration-of-forests-to-prevent-logging-at-clouds-creek-97989
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-5-august-2022-98006
Gaagal Wanggaan expansion:
Gaagal Wanggaan National Park on the NSW mid-north coast has been expanded with the addition of the 212 hectare Bald Hill private property, a site of significant cultural importance to Gumbaynggirr people.
https://afndaily.com.au/2022/07/31/more-biodiversity-protected-in-national-park-expansion/
Reprieve for Endangered Ecological Communities:
Ballina Council has voted to pursue environmental zoning for a controversial property adjoining Burns Point Ferry Road and River Street in West Ballina proposed for 150-300 houses, since the court declared it ‘unsuitable for urban development because of endangered ecological communities’.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/08/contested-land-in-west-ballina-to-be-protected/
Cultural burns spread:
“Cultural burns” are booming across the Gunnedah region with multiple agencies getting on board with the newly founded Gomeroi Cultural Burn Network.
https://www.nvi.com.au/story/7846474/culture-burns-bright-more-cultural-burn-workshops-on-the-way/
Helping landholders market environmental services:
Local Land Services and Ethical Fields have launched an Environmental Markets Leadership Program, to help landholders identify, market and benefit from their natural assets.
The program supports land managers and farmers to break down and simplify the world of environmental markets by identifying the environmental services they generate on their land and defining ways to create income and other benefits from these services.
The Environmental Markets Leadership Program team is now taking registrations from interested land managers and farmers across NSW. For more information or to register your interest, visit www.emlp.com.au/nsw-emlp.
https://seedstockcentral.com.au/2022/08/01/environmental-markets-now-more-accessible-to-farmers/
Trees Near Me:
Department of Planning and Environment (DPE) have released a new Trees Near Me NSW app designed to help people identify which native species naturally occur in their vicinity for tree planting – though it may have other uses.
He said the Trees Near Me NSW app was free to download from Google Play and Apple app store.
https://psnews.com.au/2022/08/02/new-trees-app-tells-which-are-where/?state=aps
Expanding Plantations:
The Forestry Corporation is tipped to spend close to $200 million buying about 19,000 of freehold land from Hume Forests, with a net pine plantation area of about 14,000 hectares, located between the Tumut-Tumbarumba and Bathurst-Oberon regions of NSW.
Forestry recognised for fire fighting:
150 Forestry Corporation staff were awarded the National Emergency Medal for their efforts in fighting the 2019-20 wildfires.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-5-august-2022-98006
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/forestry-corporation-staff-recognised-for-fighting-fires-98041
Redeveloping Mount Canobolas:
A draft management plan to guide tourism growth in Orange, Blayney and Cabonne that touts a skyway and redevelopment of the Canobolas summit, a Mount Canobolas Aboriginal heritage centre, walking and cycling trails, water-based activities and a destination playground, has raised the ire of some residents.
Bundjalung is great except you can’t drive thru it:
4x4 Australia has an in-depth article describing the attractions of Bundjalung National Park that laments the tracks and beach north from Iluka to Black Rock can’t be driven.
… I was met with a very locked gate and signage stating ‘No Entry’
A few years ago it was possible to drive along the beach right up to the Black Rocks camping area, but that’s been closed due to coffee rock on the beach being too unstable to drive across.
The frustrating part was seeing nearly 40km of thick bush all locked up beside the highway.
https://www.whichcar.com.au/explore/explore-nsw/bundjalung-national-park-nsw
AUSTRALIA
Protection of Greater Gliders not a federal responsibility:
More of the same as feds try to wash their hands of responsibility for threatened species. In response to environmentalists accusing state agency VicForests of logging an area identified as greater glider habitat near Orbost in East Gippsland, less than a month after federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek declared it endangered, she has said it is a state responsibility.
“The current areas set aside for greater gliders are inadequate, especially after the black summer bushfires,” said Tuffy Morwitzer from the Goongerah Environment Centre. “The minister can easily rectify this by stopping native forest logging in prime greater glider habitat and make those areas permanent reserves.”
Asked about the logging of glider habitat in East Gippsland, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said …
“States are responsible for evaluating the new Conservation Advice for the Greater Glider to determine if their forestry management systems are suitable. I expect all states to do this as a priority.”
Profitable for some?
While Government forestry agencies haemorrhage public money on their native forestry operations, run down carbon and biodiversity, and leaving behind vast swathes of degraded lands, its reassuring to know that at least the loggers make lots of money.
The last time VicForests made a profit from the sale of Victoria’s native forests was in 2016, booking just over $2 million. Since then, VicForests’ losses have quadrupled from $5 to nearly $20 million in the past four years with the costs of logging operations exceeding the sale of forest products by greater margins each succeeding year.
Yet timber is clearly a profitable business. Searches of the financial statements of Allied Natural Wood Exports, which buys wood from VicForests, show revenues growing from $19 million in 2016 to over $65 million in the company’s latest financial statement from 2019, with close to $20 million cash profit coming through the door.
VicForests’ balance sheet is only helped by “other income from Victorian government entities”, which this year exceeded $18 million. These payments are largely grants for VicForests’ role in the Leadbeater’s possum recovery program … which VicForests actively flouts. This transfer of wealth from the public to the forestry industry doesn’t even achieve the protection of threatened species which it claims.
https://michaelwest.com.au/vicforests-whats-the-scam/
At least demonstrators will have to pay more for protesting:
Victorian Labour’s act to increase penalties for forest protestors up to 12 months jail and more than $21,000 fines has been passed, despite opposition by the Maritime Union of Australia, the United Workers Union and Australian Services Union labelling it as an undemocratic bill that will lead to further erosion of workers’ rights. At least it will make loggers safe from violent greenies.
The Sustainable Forests Timber Amendment (Timber Harvesting Safety Zones) Bill 2022 is set to be debated in Victoria's upper house, and potentially put to a vote, on Thursday evening.
The Victorian branches of the Maritime Union of Australia, the United Workers Union and Australian Services Union wrote to the state government on Tuesday in an 11th hour bid to withdraw the "undemocratic" bill.
"The bill wrongly locates workplace risk in the democratic right to protest," reads the letter to Premier Daniel Andrews, Agriculture Minister Gayle Tierney and Workplace Safety Minister Ingrid Stitt.
"Any stripping away of the right to protest eventually finds its way to further limiting workplace action. Already Australia has some of the most restrictive laws around industrial action in the world.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7848249/anti-protest-vic-forest-bill-set-to-pass/
The bill was supported by Labor, the Liberals and the majority of the crossbench, and will see protesters faced with up to $21,000 dollars in fines or 12 months in jail for protesting logging in our native forests.
We’ve seen environmental groups, lawyers, human rights experts and even unions come out against this bill, because they recognise the threat it poses to the right to protest and the threat posed by climate change.
https://www.miragenews.com/grim-day-for-native-forests-as-major-parties-831571/
https://www.gleninnesexaminer.com.au/story/7848249/victoria-anti-protest-forest-bill-passes/?cs=12
The Sustainable Forests Timber Amendment (Timber Harvesting Safety Zones) Bill 2022 passed Victoria's upper house on Thursday evening, with the final vote count 30 to five after Labor and the coalition joined forces.
It will now return to the lower house to be rubber-stamped, before going to Victorian Governor Linda Dessau for royal assent and becoming law.
https://www.perthnow.com.au/politics/anti-protest-vic-forest-bill-set-to-pass-c-7759044
To prevent repeated safety risks across multiple Timber Harvesting Safety Zones, Authorised Officers will be able to issue Banning Notices when there are reasonable grounds to believe that a person has committed or will commit a specified offence. The notices will aim to stop individuals from repeatedly engaging in dangerous activities in Timber Harvesting Safety Zones and other forestry coupe areas.
Authorised Officers will be given additional powers to search containers, bags and vehicles for prohibited items.
Minister for Agriculture Gayle Tierney …“Forestry workers deserve to be safe at work and that’s why we have strengthened these laws to make it clear that we don’t tolerate people putting workers at risk while they are on the job.”
https://www.miragenews.com/legislation-to-protect-forestry-workers-passed-832236/
SPECIES
The underground highway:
A new study assessed whether five highway underpasses under the Oxley Highway at Port Macquarie and seven under the Pacific Highway south of Grafton. help animals safely cross roads, finding they are well used and that predation at entrances may not be a major problem.
Our new research explores whether highway underpasses help animals safely cross roads. We wanted to know if animals actually use underpasses – and if they had hidden dangers by funnelling animals through a confined space, making it easier for predators.
What we found was quite astounding. Vastly more animals than we expected were using the underpass. We detected over 4,800 medium-large mammals and goannas, while smaller species such as snakes and rodents also used the underpasses but were less reliably detected by our cameras.
Species such as eastern grey kangaroos, swamp wallabies, red-necked wallabies, red-necked pademelons and lace monitors crossed some underpasses more than once a week. Rufous bettongs and echidnas crossed individual underpasses every two to four weeks. These crossing rates suggest animals use underpasses to forage on both sides of the freeways.
We were particularly interested in whether the endangered koala would use the underpasses. They did, occasionally. We found they were not avoiding the underpasses, because they were detected infrequently in the adjoining forest.
These observations suggest potential prey may be avoiding the underpasses when foxes are about.
https://theconversation.com/good-news-highway-underpasses-for-wildlife-actually-work-187434?utm_
https://www.thetimes.com.au/world/16083-highway-underpasses-for-wildlife-actually-work
Save Sydney’s Koalas:
A new petition started by Save Sydney’s Koalas calls on NSW Legislative Assembly to 1. Declare an Upper Georges River Koala National Park, 2. Stop the rezoning of Stage 2 of the Gilead development and review the approval of Stage 1 , 3. Build five effective Koala crossings on Appin Road and 4. Implement minimum 450m wide Koala corridors across the rivers and creeks of Macarthur.
Vaccinating Koalas, should they have choice:
Professor Timms was recently made a Queensland Great for his development of a vaccine against chlamydia in koalas, which he now wants to develop into a vaccine available to all vets.
"We're making life more stressful for koalas. We're taking their trees away and there's thousands and thousands of koalas affected by that activity every year."
"They all used to be connected in big groups but now they're all separated, because we keep building roads and housing estates and we divide them into smaller and smaller groups. So where they used to be 100 koalas in a group it becomes 50 and then 20 and then they disappear altogether.
https://www.examiner.com.au/story/7841461/peters-mission-to-save-our-koalas/?cs=9916
The Tweed Coast Koala Research Hub in Pottsville has been officially opened, with the aim to vaccinate as many kolas as possible as part of a chlamydia vaccine research program.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/08/tweed-research-hub-battling-chlamydia-for-koalas/
Helping Koalas:
Port Stephens Examiner has an article about the local demise of Koalas and the willingness of the Port Stephens Koala Hospital to help injured Koalas.
Ron Land, president of the Port Stephens Koala Hospital, said the biggest contributor to koala deaths and admissions into the hospital at One Mile were due to chlamydia, car strikes and dog attacks.
Mr Land said on the Tomaree and Tilligerry peninsulas the number of koalas was "perilous".
"You've got to measure everything here [at the sanctuary] against the number of koalas we think are still in the wild - that's between 250 and 350, down from 800 only 10 years ago," he said.
Koalaways promo:
As part of its Koalaways program the Gloucester Environment Group (GEG) is holding a public forum at Barrington Hall about partnering with local landholders to plant koala friendly trees.
https://www.gloucesteradvocate.com.au/story/7843644/koala-habitat-workshop-at-barrington-hall/
Predicting Koala’s fate in Northern Rivers:
A study used expert elicitation to model the effectiveness of 6 management actions on the future of Koalas in three regional landscapes – Coastal, Hinterland, and Riverine – in the Ballina, Lismore, Byron and Tweed LGAs, finding that if nothing is done Koalas will continue to decline in the 3 landscapes, most dramatically in riverine areas, identifying that neither habitat protection nor habitat restoration alone were sufficient to redress decline and additional actions were required with varying effectiveness in each landscape.
The six management actions fall into two categories, namely reducing mortality factors, e.g. death rates, through wild dog/dingo management, domestic dog management, vehicle strikes, i.e. roadkill, injury and disease management; and increasing population growth potential through protecting and restoring habitat. Although habitat protection and/or habitat restoration alone were not predicted to be sufficient to reverse the decline of koala populations in any landscape, any changes in habitat area will result in changes in the potential stability, viability, and maximum size of the koala population. Our model predicts that a combination of habitat management and any other individual action would likely reverse the decline of the koala populations, with the exception of one combination in the Coastal landscape (habitat restoration, habitat protection, and either wild or domestic dog management). In addition, the potential to stabilise or increase the koala populations by 2039 using a single action to reduce mortality in any landscape was increased by protecting and restoring habitat. This makes logical sense because populations would be expected to decline if habitat is decreased, but have potential to expand where habitat is protected and ultimately increased or enhanced through restoration programs. If managers seek to reverse the decline in koala numbers through the improvement of a single, mortality-related management action in the Coastal landscape, they will therefore also need to protect and restore habitat.
This study has confirmed that multiple actions are required to manage threats to koalas in north-east NSW, and that the contribution of each action varies from place to place. We predict ongoing losses of the koala populations if no changes are undertaken, as well as various rates of recovery when different combinations of management actions are implemented effectively
https://www.publish.csiro.au/wr/pdf/WR22038
An overabundance of Koalas
As extensive Victorian Blue Gum plantations established in the 1990s mature, there are concerns that mass clearfelling will result in mass starvation and mass culling of the Koalas who now live in them.
A 2020 estimate suggested 46,917 of the marsupials made their homes in blue gum plantations across the state which are now ready to be harvested.
While the government spokesperson said rules for the protection of koalas in plantations have been “strengthened” with “mandatory minimum requirements” during harvests, local wildlife carers tell a different story.
One rescuer, who spoke to Yahoo News Australia on the condition of anonymity said problems with displaced koalas are increasing.
“I can’t express how bad it is, what’s going on here, and it’s just getting worse,” they said.
Harvesters planning to disturb koalas in plantations currently have to apply for authorisation to do so, and prepare a management plan that meets standards set by DELWP to minimise risks to the animals.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/victorias-koalas-face-perfect-storm-of-mass-destruction-085730971.html
Giving with one hand, taking with the other:
The Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority has received almost $250,000 from the Federal Government to expand the abundance of nectar resources for Swift Parrots by revegetating sites with locally Indigenous trees and shrubs – meanwhile mature nectar trees in logging areas continue to be felled.
https://www.southernriverinanews.com.au/news/swift-action-funded-to-save-parrot/
A focus on platypus:
Citizen scientists are being asked to record their platypus observations in September.
A survey is currently underway in the Manning River catchment on the state's north coast - an area which has been devastated by severe drought, the Black Summer bushfires and flooding.
Two male platypuses have been retrieved to date.
The biggest threats to platypus are extreme weather exacerbated by a changing climate, deforestation, polluted waterways and invasive species. Degraded waterways prevent the platypus from forming burrows.
Citizen scientists can record their platypus observations on a dedicated portal throughout September.
"This project allows the general public to participate in active conservation and monitoring of platypuses," Dr Bino said.
"You can report observations or create community events."
The relatively limited data on its rate of decline is hindering a push to have the platypus listed as a threatened species Australia-wide.
Currently, the platypus is listed as vulnerable in Victoria and endangered in South Australia.
"We are trying to understand how platypuses are faring in eastern Australia and how they are coping with sequences of extreme events … starting with extreme drought in 2019, then extreme fires, then two very wet years with some places recording the worst flooding in recorded history," Dr Bino said.
"So, get down to your local creek, spend some time in nature and try and spot a platypus, register and record your sighting on our platy-project map, and let us know.
"We are seeing once common species like koalas go from common to vulnerable to endangered in just a decade, and we have similar concerns for the platypus.
"The destruction of their habitat and the effects of climate change are really having a toll on this species."
If you haven’t already you can RSVP to the online launch of the month of action on Thursday 1 September at 6.30pm AEST.
A centre of ant diversity:
A world map of ant diversity has been published, not unsurprisingly it identifies our east coast forests as being world centres of ant diversity and rare ants.
Published today in Science Advances, this world-first map of ant diversity also acts as a “treasure map”, highlighting likely regions rich in undiscovered species.
We found it was a low percentage – only 15% of the top 10% of ant rarity centres had some sort of legal protection, such as a national park or reserve, which is less than existing protection for vertebrates.
WIRES expenditure of bushfire funds under attack again:
A disgruntled member of the WIRES board has resigned in frustration claiming it failed to properly deploy the record $100 million in donations it received in the wake of the Black Summer bushfires.
A second member of the state council who asked not to be named said that despite the huge pool of donations to the head office, the branches remained starved of funds and claims for reimbursement of expenses were delayed or ignored, and that there was growing dissatisfaction with WIRES chief executive Leanne Taylor.
Financial documents filed in January show WIRES received donations of $102,478,085, including $90,432,238 raised for a bushfire emergency fund, in the combined financial years of 2020 and 2021. Before the fires the organisation routinely managed revenues of around $3 million.
At the end of the 2021 financial year, the fund was sitting on a balance of $87,226,248, just over $1.5 million less than it held in mid-2020.
More effective killing:
Who would have thought it, as mice make a comeback, CSIRO found doubling the dose of zinc phosphide in mouse baits kills more mice, so we can expect more of everything to be killed.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-11073985/New-baits-needed-kill-mice-CSIRO.html
Deadly ducks:
Wedge-tailed eagles and other protected species are at risk of being paralysed by lead poisoning in Victoria, with humans also at risk, as lead levels in ducks were found to be "well above" food safety standards at four Victorian duck-hunting waterways, meanwhile illegal lead ammunition is still being used to shoot ducks.
The use of lead bullets for duck hunting is illegal in Victoria and has been since 2001 with the Game Management Authority stating, "lead is a toxic substance that can harm humans, wildlife and the environment".
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-03/victoria-duck-hunting-lead-poisoning/101292288
The feral takeover:
Tweed and Byron shires are alarmed as sightings of feral deer increase, calling on people to report any they see, while elsewhere in the state other burgeoning feral populations are of more concern, with farmers most concerned with pigs and dingoes/dogs – and I understand that ground mammals and birds are particularly concerned about foxes and the booming cat populations eating them.
‘Deer are renowned for jumping out from roadsides and bounding across roads. Some feral deer weigh up to 240kg – almost as much as a Harley Davidson motorbike – and 3 times the weight of a male red kangaroo! That’s not something you want to see on the road in front of you, especially in the dark.
‘The Northern Rivers is one of the few areas left on the eastern seaboard of Australia where deer have not yet become established and we need to pull together and do everything we can to keep it that way.’
Report all sightings at www.feralscan.org.au/deerscan or phone Local Land Services on 1300 795 299. For more information go to: www.feraldeeralert.com.au or tweed.nsw.gov.au/deer.
NSW Farmers Western Division Council chair Gerard Glover said there were a lot of feral cats appearing on cameras that had been set up across the region, and the expansion of deer into new areas would create headaches for motorists, but pigs and dogs remained the main concern for farmers.
‘Cats and foxes typically prey on small native animals, which is a big concern, while deer present a new danger for people driving on country roads,’ Mr Glover said.
‘Far and away though the pigs and the dogs are the most destructive, tearing up paddocks and fences, and attacking livestock.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/08/deer-pigs-dogs-cats-feral-animals-causing-serious-damage/
ABC Nightlife has a recording of a 48m segment on feral animals in response to the State of Environment Report.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/nightlife/invasive-species-destroying-our-environment/14005346
Breeding feral horses:
Amidst threats and intimidation, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service removed 334 horses from Kosciuszko National Park between February and June this year, which is well below their breeding rate.
“This is an important start, but if we are to protect the environmental values of Kosciuszko, we need to increase feral horse removal efforts significantly,” Invasive Species Council Conservation Director James Trezise said.
“With more than 14,000 horses in the park and the population growing by about 20 per cent every year, this rate of removal is nowhere near what’s needed to keep up with breeding rates.
“This means that the feral horse population in Kosciuszko is continuing to grow which has dire implications for native wildlife and ecosystems in the park.
https://tumbarumbatimes.com.au/news/334-horses-removed-from-kosciuszko/
https://monaropost.com.au/news/brumby-management-plan-report
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
No flood relief:
Droughts can wait a while, as our current wet phase is set to continue into next year, as we experience our second negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) as well as La Niña event in a row, the same weather pattern as occurred last year.
This is only the second time a negative IOD has occurred back-to-back since reliable records began in 1960.
“This has coincided with back-to-back La Niña events as well,” Domensino said. “Australia, at the moment, is stuck in this prolonged period of wet phase climate drivers – the broadscale patterns that influence our weather.”
The outlook for eastern NSW and eastern Queensland, which have been inundated with recent rains, is for above-average rain in the coming months, both because of the IOD and the La Niña weather pattern.
As the north-west cloud bands drift across the continent, most of the rain will fall on the western side of the Great Dividing Range, a different weather pattern to that which has caused flooding in Sydney and other regions over the past eight months.
East Antarctica melting:
While the West Antarctic ice sheet is known to be melting and contributing to sea-level rise, researchers have found that waters around the East Antarctic ice sheet are similarly warming, threatening accelerating sea-level rises and survival of krill.
The research, published today in Nature Climate Change, shows changing water circulation in the Southern Ocean may be compromising the stability of the East Antarctic ice sheet. The ice sheet, about the size of the United States, is the largest in the world.
We hope our results will inspire global efforts to limit global warming below 1.5℃. To achieve this, global greenhouse gas emissions need to fall by around 43% by 2030 and to near zero by 2050.
Brave new world:
Fires are breaking out across the drought ravaged western USA states of California, Montana, and Idaho, killing people, burning homes and threatening towns.
https://apnews.com/article/wildfires-fires-forests-california-yreka-43ad455ead17ade1278a8c08adf15a68
Meanwhile further east in Kentucky at least 37 people have died as houses were washed away and residents stranded on roofs, in what the governor called "one of the worst, most devastating flooding events in Kentucky's history.", and now its going to get excessively hot and humid.
No jobs on a dead planet:
The Sydney Morning Herald’s economics editor Ross Gittins has an article highlighting warnings from the State of Environment Report that we will have an unlivable economy if environmental action isn’t taken.
A wounded environment has started punching back – and will soon lead to an unlivable economy if action isn’t taken.
As we get more prosperous, the population grows, our towns and cities get bigger and we clear more forest to build more houses, roads, highways and bridges. We pull more fish from the sea. We move around a lot. And we power it all by digging up fossil fuels and burning them.
As the population’s grown and consumption per person has multiplied, we’ve done more and more damage to the environment. But here’s the trick: we’ve hit the environment so hard, it’s started punching back.
That’s why the most important economic event of recent times is not the latest rise in interest rates, it’s last month’s State of the Environment report – whose release was delayed until we found a government with the courage to break the bad news.
As forests decline there are less to go around:
New research found world wide forest declined by 81.7 million hectares since 1960, though only because most loss was offset by regrowth, with population growth resulting in a 60% decrease in forest area per capita.
The research, lead by Ronald Estoque from the Center for Biodiversity and Climate Change, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (FFPRI) and published in Environmental Research Letters, found a total forest decline by 81.7 million hectares since 1960.
According to the study, global gross forest loss over the time period (1960 to 2019) reached 437.3 million hectares, which outweighed the total gross forest gain of 355.6 million hectares during that time.
This forest loss combined with an increasing population from around 3 billion people in 1960 to 7.7 billion people in 2019 has led to a 60% decrease in forest area per capita. Loss of this scale will impact millions of people, the study explained.
https://www.ecowatch.com/global-forest-decline.html
https://www.eurasiareview.com/02082022-global-forest-area-per-capita-has-decreased-by-over-60/
TURNING IT AROUND
Monitoring forest loss out of this world:
Forest loss accounts for 20% of all the world's carbon dioxide emissions, now forest and carbon loss can be monitored in real time from the International Space Station, enabling timely responses to illegal logging.
To help him track and record all of this, he now uses the latest version of a free piece of software called the Integrated Management Effectiveness Tool.
Some 10 million hectares (25 million acres) of the world's forests are lost every year, according to the United Nations.
This deforestation accounts for 20% of all the world's carbon dioxide emissions, according to the World Wildlife Fund, which adds that "by reducing forest loss, we can reduce carbon emissions and fight climate change".
This increased focus on managing forests has given rise to new digital tools to gather, sort and use data better.
One of these is the FAO's own Framework for Ecosystem Monitoring (Ferm) website. The site was launched last year, and uses satellite imagery to highlight changes to forests around the world. The maps and data are accessible to any internet users, be they a scientist, government official, business, or member of the public.
The tech itself is certainly very sci-fi turned real life. "We shoot laser beams at trees from the International Space Station," says Laura Duncanson, who helps to lead the Gedi project from the Univesrity of Marylands's Department of Geographical Sciences.
"We use the use the reflected energy to map forests in 3D, including their height, canopy density, and carbon content," adds Dr Duncanson, who is a leading expert in remote sensing. "This is an exciting new technology because for decades we have been able to observe deforestation from space, but now with Gedi we can assign the carbon emissions associated with forest loss [for greater accuracy]."
He adds: "Basically, now, with all these publicly available satellites combined, we can get a full snapshot of the Earth every four to five days."
https://au.news.yahoo.com/space-tech-helping-tackle-deforestation-230052792.html
Offsets for Carbon offsets running out:
California’s multi-billion-dollar carbon offset program allows polluters to purchase ‘carbon credits’ from forest owners to offset their emissions, as offsets need to be maintained for 100 years a “buffer pool” is built into the system to account for carbon losses due to droughts, fires, and disease over the next 100 years, regrettably after just 10 years almost all the buffer pool has been used, meaning that any losses over the next 90 years will directly release the offset carbon.
Researchers have found that California’s forest carbon buffer pool, designed to ensure the durability of the state’s multi-billion-dollar carbon offset program, is severely undercapitalized. The results show that, within the offset program’s first 10 years, estimated carbon losses from wildfires have depleted at least 95% of the contributions set aside to protect against all fire risks over 100 years. This means that the buffer pool is unable to guarantee that credited forest carbon remains out of the atmosphere for at least 100 years. The results, published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, illustrate that the program, one of the world’s largest, is likely not meeting its set requirements.
As California law requires a storage duration of at least 100 years, the California Air Resources Board, which implements the state’s primary climate law, has developed a self-insurance mechanism called a buffer pool.
“Individual projects affiliated with the program contribute a share of the credits they earn to the buffer pool, which then stands ready to absorb any losses when trees in participating forests die and release their carbon back to the atmosphere. So long as there are credits in the buffer pool, the program is properly insured against future risks to forest health,” continued Cullenward.
“In just 10 years, wildfires have exhausted protections designed to last for a century. It is incredibly unlikely that the program will be able to withstand the wildfires of the next 90 years, particularly given the role of the climate crisis in exacerbating fire risks,” said co-author Dr Oriana Chegwidden, of CarbonPlan.
“More and more companies and governments are using ‘nature-based’ offsets to market consumer-facing claims. While there are many good reasons to invest in forest health and conservation, forest carbon offsets don’t deliver climate benefits that justify ongoing fossil CO2 emissions,” said Cullenward.
https://www.miragenews.com/worrying-finding-in-californias-multi-billion-832078/
https://www.ft.com/content/d54d5526-6f56-4c01-8207-7fa7e532fa09
Using nature to offset nature distress:
A study assessed visitors psychological experiences and responses from a visit to Mount Barney Lodge in Queensland’s Scenic Rim region, finding 78% of respondents experienced sadness, anger, anxiety and other grieving emotions in response to current pressures on the Earth’s life supporting systems, though found their immersion in nature healing.
Our latest research examined an eco-tourism enterprise in Australia. There, visitors’ emotional states were often connected to nature’s cycles of decay and regeneration. As nature renews, so does human hope.
As our climate changes, humans will inhabit and know the world differently. Our findings suggest nature is both the trigger for, and answer to, the grief that will increasingly be with us.
One reflected on how they “have laid awake at night thinking about all the biodiversity loss [and] climate change and wept” and another said they felt “so sad for the animals” in the face of bushfires or urban sprawl.
There is increasing evidence of nature’s ability to help people sit with and process complex emotional states – improving their mood, and becoming happier and more satisfied with life.
Participants explained how “being in nature is important to mental wellbeing”, is “healing and rejuvenating” and “always gives me a sense of spiritual coherence and connection with the natural world”.
Our findings suggest immersing ourselves in nature more frequently will help us process emotions linked to ecological and climate breakdown – and thus find hope.
Eco-tourism sites promote opportunities for what’s known as eutierria – a powerful state that arises when one experiences a sense of oneness and symbiosis with Earth and her life-supporting systems.
Through this powerful state, it’s possible for one to undertake the courageous acts needed to advocate on behalf of nature. This is essential for the transformations Earth desperately needs.
This reiterates that nature plays a dualistic role in our wellbeing [8 ,25 ]. Despite being the source of our great suffering when the reciprocal communion is broken, it may also be the one thing we must turn to for healing and rejuvenation [ 24]. In these ways, these results support the need for programs that promote nature connectedness, although other strategies that help people to manage emotional responses will be necessary due to the mental health risks of connecting with a natural environment that is degrading [8]
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/13/7948/htm#B9-sustainability-14-07948
Forest Media 29 July 2022
New South Wales
Only 4 days left for the petition to the NSW parliament to end the logging of NSW’s public forests wraps up, it is currently over 16,500 but needs to reach 20,000 by 11:59pm on August 2nd to be debated. So please promote it.
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/la/Pages/ePetition-details.aspx?q=quge-8rdRlyn4PTcuMj_PA
Friday for Forests are busy. On Friday 29th July forest protectors from the Kyogle Environment Group gathered to document industrial style logging on private land stretching for a kilometre along the road just a short walk from the World Heritage listed Border Ranges National Park, calling for a halt to the logging while a proper assessment of the damage done is made by the EPA. Also on Friday protectors gathered to celebrate the amazing Greater Glider and the Dunggirr (Koala) in a place of forest death at Clouds Creek State Forest where the forest is currently being industrially logged.
The articles on the Wild Cattle Creek prosecutions, Koalas and Kalang Headwaters in the paper edition of News of the Area are now online.
Environmental regulators filed a record 195 criminal cases in the NSW Land and Environment Court in 2021, a sharp increase over the past five years, which the Environmental Defenders Office attributed to the establishment of the Natural Resources Access Regulator in 2017.
The Shellharbour community is celebrating Killalea being handed to the NPWS, following a long campaign to stop Reflections Holiday Park’s plans for a function centre and eco-cabins. Though their celebrations may be premature. The ABC has a lengthy article about people’s concerns with the provision of up-market huts and tourist facilities in national parks, focussing on the Light to Light walk in Ben Boyd National Park and mentioning the proposed Dorrigo National Park walk, both of which the NPWS say they will manage, though others consider they will be progressively privatised as they have in Tasmania, degrading the natural values they visit for.
New South Wales landholders and community members are being encouraged to apply for new board positions on Local Land Services by August 30.
Australia
The State of the Environment report has brought our extinction and climate crises to the fore, with many articles focussing the extinction risk, including the need to stop landclearing and logging. The Times bases its review upon the hypothetical proposition of someone wanting to develop a penguin farm near Alice Springs and needing federal approval, identifying the need for better legislation, more spending on threatened species, more rigorous offsets and mandatory monitoring. There is a call for greater investment in landcare to address the environmental crisis. The Sydney Morning Herald has articles describing our disgraceful litany of extinctions and lack of meaningful commitment to saving the increasing numbers of threatened species, with forests mentioned as an issue, and an emphasis on the need for action by the federal government. Peter Hartcher has an article focussing on the state of the environment and the challenges for the federal government to turn our biodiversity and climate crises around.
Dr Hanna urges people to recognise that their health depends on the environment’s health, citing the example of the millennium drought drying the Murray River’s Lower Lakes exposing acidic soils, while the mouth of the Murray River closed and parts of the Coorong became too salty for many native plants and animals to survive, resulting in tourists vanishing along with the water, towns ending up like ghost towns, and property values going caput.
Professor James Watson from the University of Queensland five easy ways Labor can get started now, while it works on its longer-term environmental reforms: restoring degraded farming land with native vegetation, dealing with land clearing, phase out logging of native forests, properly fund protected areas and boost threatened species recovery efforts. The Labor Environmental Action Network is pushing for more ambition from Labor, particularly consideration of greenhouse gas emissions when development proposals are assessed, the incorporation of a climate trigger into creation of an independent environment commission, and a serious review of carbon markets, including to ensure biodiversity was protected. They focussed on landclearing and logging as being of particular concern.
Like the previous Government Plibersek promised to protect 30% of Australia’s land and waters by 2030 joining 100 other countries that have signed onto this “30 by 30” target. At present, around 22% of Australia’s land mass is protected in our national reserve system, the problem is that most of these “reserves” are private or Indigenous Protected Areas, with management largely unfunded by Government requiring commercial partnerships – what this article misses is that this target should be (but isn’t) for strictly protected reserves on a bioregional and habitat basis and that it should be a minimum, increasing with habitat values, rather than allowing arid lands to make up shortfalls in biodiverse coastal forests.
The Bob Brown Foundation’s (BBF) Federal Court challenge to a decision made by former environment minister Sussan Ley to allow Chinese state-owned miner MMG to commence preliminary work on a mining waste dam in Tasmania’s takayna / Tarkine rainforests was upheld by Justice Mark Moshinsky finding that the precautionary principle hadn’t been applied as the potential impact on the Tasmania Masked Owl was not considered
In Western Australia ministerial consent for exploration and mining activity in nature reserves, conservation parks and state forests has been granted on 33 occasions in the past five years for a variety of resources from gas to battery metals, with numerous current applications for exploration leases.
Following Pentarch Group’s acquisition of the Boral Timber portfolio of building products and materials in 2021 it has now completed the rebranding of its products, as it talks up export woodchipping.
The Department of Planning and Environment is backing Planet Ark’s National Tree Day (31 July), where people are encouraged to plant trees - meanwhile Planet Ark are running adds encouraging people to use more timber from already mature trees. Despite Planet Ark, some realise the need to save existing trees.
To celebrate National Science Week (August 13-21) the ABC has identified a list of 33 beautiful, iconic, unusual, and useful trees and is asking you to vote for your favourite.
Species
Koala theme parks are all the rage. In 2019 the Queensland Government gave Dreamworld $2.7m to build the Future Lab wildlife research centre for Koalas, and then allowed them to repurpose the funding to build the Steel Taipan attraction – a fun ride for Koalas. Gunnedah Shire Council’s plans for the 50-acre koala theme park on the town’s western approaches, including a wildlife centre and koala hospital, koala sanctuary, playground, mini golf, zipline, safari huts, and a petting zoo, have hit a snag with a costs blowout of $6.2 million despite already receiving $6.48 million of taxpayers funds.
Aussie Ark has been granted $248,000 from the Australian government for a captive breeding facility for New Holland mouse onsite at the Australian Reptile Park in Somersby. And they keep growing, now there is a proposal to create a mega-sanctuary, incorporating almost all of the existing National Parks west of the M1 on the Central Coast stretching all the way to the Blue Mountains.
A study using radio-tracking collars followed 20 hand-reared possums up to 40 days after release, finding only eight (40%) survived until the end of the study, while nine (45%) were killed by foxes or had to be returned to rehabilitation, and three possums had unknown fates, as they lost radio signal. The deaths were caused by foxes, mostly within 3 days, which was attributed to hand-reared animals not having learned predator avoidance behaviours.
Residential conflicts expand. Cathie Bravo, a long-term resident at Lake Cathie has been evicted and had half of his home demolished for new homes, solving one housing crisis while amplifying another for koalas, causing angst in the community. Bega's Littlewoods Estate is being developed next to a flying fox camp and will increase conflicts between resident humans and Grey-headed Flying Foxes, leading to calls for a buffer zone and Flying Fox Management Plan, as the developers just want to get on with it.
Artificial light at night is a growing problem, disrupting many species lifecycles, affecting their health and reducing their habitat – light pollution is not just about stargazing, this article shines a light on the issue of how it affects some species, but fails to consider is the mass deaths of insects attracted to light at night as houses spread into the bush.
The new detection of Varroa Mite was made near Nana Glen, north-west of Coffs Harbour, exactly a month after the deadly honeybee parasite was first discovered on Australian soil and bringing the total number of infected sites to 43, leading to establishment of a new quarantine zone – and likely the baiting of both feral and native bees.
Looking After Our Kosciuszko Orphans (LAOKO) are reporting increased roadkills, particularly wombats, due to people flocking to the snow-fields.
The deer rutting season from June through to September is causing problems as deer roam widely, causing car accidents in the Illawara and trampling a 70 year old man at Port Macquarie.
The Deteriorating Problem
Its all getting a bit extreme. July’s unprecedented European heatwave continues as temperature records are beaten (often by wide margins), wildfires blaze across the Mediterranean, air-pollution worsens, and people succumb, as Australia is warned that we can expect worse as climate change takes its toll. Two studies using select climate models found that extreme rainfall events are going to get more frequent and intense than generally accepted, one finding it’s possible that there will be a twofold increase in the volume of extreme rainfall in the 21st century compared to what previous studies estimate, and another finding that extreme rainfall will occur about 30 percent more often by the end of the century, compared to how often it happens right now, under a medium-emissions scenario.
A new CSIRO report finds extreme and unprecedented weather events are increasing in their frequency and scale of impact, with current climate forecasts predicting that we are likely to experience extreme weather conditions that exceed the bounds of historical norms and concurrent climate hazards are likely to compound the overall climate risk for sectors and regions, with heatwaves likely to be more than 85% more frequent and last up to a month if global temperatures rise between 1.5°C and 3°C. The natural environment gets a brief mention.
The new State of the Environment report rates Australian soils as “poor” and “deteriorating” as we disrupt and kill their biomes with pesticides and fertilisers, now researchers are asking for soil samples to map Australia’s networks of soil fungi – maybe some forest samples will help.
In the Courier Mail Dr Christa Pudmenzky identifies how forests are important and explains why they are suffering and dying because of climate change, attributing it to the drying air. But there are other things that make trees thirsty. Due to a severe El Niño event, in the summer of 2015-16 sea levels in the Gulf of Carpentaria dropped 40cm for 6 months, with 40 million mangroves over 76 square kilometers dying of thirst, and they are unlikely to recover as climate change impacts increase.
Two massive wildfires have torn through California’s Sierra Navada mountains over the last 15 years, burning with such intensity through so large an area that the conifer forest will likely be unable to regenerate on its own, experts say.
An American study identified carbon stored in forests in the Upper Midwest over the past 10,000 years, finding that rather than having stable pre-European carbon stores, forests had steadily gained almost a billion tons of carbon (doubling their storage) for 8,000 years before Euro-American settlers began clearing large swaths of forest, then in the span of just 150 years, almost all of that gain disappeared into the atmosphere.
Turning it Around
The US Forest Service has announced it is taking emergency action to save giant sequoias in national parks from the threat of wildfires by speeding up a plan that calls for cutting smaller trees and vegetation and using prescribed fires, much to the chagrin of some environmentalists.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Your help needed to end logging of public forests:
Only 4 days left for the petition to the NSW parliament to end the logging of NSW’s public forests wraps up, it is currently over 16,500 but needs to reach 20,000 by 11:59pm on August 2nd to be debated. So please promote it.
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/la/Pages/ePetition-details.aspx?q=quge-8rdRlyn4PTcuMj_PA
Friday for Forests are busy:
On Friday 29th July forest protectors from the Kyogle Environment Group gathered to document industrial style logging on private land stretching for a kilometre along the road just a short walk from the World Heritage listed Border Ranges National Park, calling for a halt to the logging while a proper assessment of the damage done is made by the EPA.
Also on Friday protectors gathered to celebrate the amazing Greater Glider and the Dunggirr (Koala) in a place of forest death at Clouds Creek State Forest where the forest is currently being industrially logged.
In these badly burnt forests, the Forestry Corporation (FCNSW) has recently destroyed strongholds of these species with their horrific industrial logging regimes, illegally destroying hollow-bearing and marked habitat trees, collapsing the forests that these sensitive forest fauna need and consigning both of these Endangered and precipitously declining species to extinction within these previous nationally significant strongholds.
Focus on Koalas:
The articles on the Wild Cattle Creek prosecutions, Koalas and Kalang Headwaters in the paper edition of News of the Area are now online.
“These breaches put a spotlight on just how unsustainable, environmentally destructive and damaging logging in public native forests has become” said NPA Conservation Officer Danielle Ryan.
“It’s past time for the NSW government to stop destroying our public native forests.”
NPA President, Dr Grahame Douglas, said, “The NSW Government must act now to protect the north coast koalas and establish the Great Koala National Park near Coffs Harbour immediately.”
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/forestry-corporation-prosecuted-again-for-habitat-breaches-97348
“Claims by elected representatives that they are benefiting and even doubling our Koala population are blatantly untrue and green-washing, these claims being totally disproven by scientists appointed by their own government,” said Kath Kelly, the Kalang River Forest Alliance.
She said, “In the Kalang Headwaters, citizen scientists have identified significant healthy breeding koala populations across all areas of native forest currently targeted for industrial-scale logging by Forestry Corporation.
Dalian Pugh, from the North East Forest Alliance, said, “It is a tragedy that this was allowed to occur within an area identified as some of the most important koala habitat in Australia, because the NSW and Commonwealth “Governments changed the logging rules in 2018 to remove the need for pre-logging koala surveys and allow koala high-use areas to be logged,” Mr Pugh said.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/conservationists-doubt-governments-claims-to-double-koalas-97352
Environmental prosecutions up:
Environmental regulators filed a record 195 criminal cases in the NSW Land and Environment Court in 2021, a sharp increase over the past five years, which the Environmental Defenders Office attributed to the establishment of the Natural Resources Access Regulator in 2017.
Finalisations doubled over the five years, from 75 in 2017 to 151 in 2021. However, the figures also reveal the court’s growing backlog; 343 cases were still pending by the end of 2021, compared with 67 at the close of 2017.
With the United Nations Biodiversity Conference COP15 coming up in December, Griffin is keen to discuss how federal and state and territory governments can partner to improve the protected area network and private land conservation, as well as opportunities to boost private investment in environmental outcomes.
Last year the Environmental Defenders Office won a case on behalf of Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action that resulted in the Land and Environment Court ordering the EPA “to develop environmental quality objectives, guidelines and policies to ensure environment protection from climate change”.
The ruling was in August last year and the EPA was expected to produce a draft policy by mid-year but this has now been pushed back to later in the year.
NPWS takeover of Reflections:
The Shellharbour community is celebrating Killalea being handed to the NPWS, following a long campaign to stop Reflections Holiday Park’s plans for a function centre and eco-cabins. Though their celebrations may be premature.
NPWS takeover by commercialism:
The ABC has a lengthy article about people’s concerns with the provision of up-market huts and tourist facilities in national parks, focussing on the Light to Light walk in Ben Boyd National Park and mentioning the proposed Dorrigo National Park walk, both of which the NPWS say they will manage, though others consider they will be progressively privatised as they have in Tasmania, degrading the natural values they visit for.
[The light to Light walk] isn't the only hut-to-hut style multi-day walk in development in Australia's national parks.
Some, like the recently announced Dorrigo National Park walk in NSW, are being rolled out by state governments.
Others, like the proposed luxury huts along the South Coast Track in Tasmania, and the Australian Walking Company's recently approved Kangaroo Island Lodge Walk in South Australia, are being set up by commercial interests.
Want to join LLS?:
New South Wales landholders and community members are being encouraged to apply for new board positions on Local Land Services by August 30.
For more information on the role and responsibilities of a board member, visit www.lls.nsw.gov.au/board-recruitment.
https://www.sheepcentral.com/new-lls-board-member-candidates-sought-in-nsw/
AUSTRALIA
Extinction mania:
The State of the Environment report has brought our extinction and climate crises to the fore, with many articles focussing the extinction risk, including the need to stop landclearing and logging.
… we are in the midst of Earth’s sixth mass extinction event.
Ecosystems from the tropics to Antarctica, including the Great Barrier Reef, are showing signs of collapse.
Far too few recognise the need to combat climate change, environmental destruction, and extinction in an integrated way
Protecting forests, either on land or underwater, helps to capture and store carbon thereby helping to fight climate change. It also provides homes for countless species. …
Another key ingredient for change is investment. The more countries invest in conservation, the better their conservation outcomes will be. …
https://www.openforum.com.au/the-koala-in-the-coal-mine/
The Times bases its review upon the hypothetical proposition of someone wanting to develop a penguin farm near Alice Springs and needing federal approval, identifying the need for better legislation, more spending on threatened species, more rigorous offsets and mandatory monitoring.
Weak endangered species protection Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek this week signalled reform of Australia’s key environment law, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. As an independent review[3] in 2020 by Graeme Samuel showed, the law has done a woeful job of preventing actions that harm threatened species, such as land clearing.
Australia is a true laggard on environmental spending. Current expenditure is just 15% of what’s needed[4] to avoid extinctions and recover threatened species.
… Offsets must be properly assessed, rigorously verified and robustly monitored to ensure they deliver.
… Mandatory monitoring of projects should be conducted independently – and by people who know how to design and implement such programs.
There is a call for greater investment in landcare to address the environmental crisis.
The Sydney Morning Herald has articles describing our disgraceful litany of extinctions and lack of meaningful commitment to saving the increasing numbers of threatened species, with forests mentioned as an issue, and an emphasis on the need for action by the federal government.
This week the federal government’s publication of the five-yearly State of the Environment report confirmed what scientists already knew – that not only has Australia failed to act fast enough on climate change, arrest its logging or properly husband its precious water resources, we are still killing off our unique fauna at a horrifying rate.
Worse, experts predict that over the coming two decades the northern hopping-mouse, the rock-rat, the Christmas Island flying fox, and the black-footed tree-rat could all go extinct.
This is what frustrates Professor Brendan Wintle, a global leader in conservation ecology based at the University of Melbourne. While in some countries the listing of an animal as threatened marks tends to mark a turnaround in its numbers, in Australia it is often simply a milestone on that animal’s march to extinction.
Tanya Plibersek this week said she would implement the findings of the Samuel Review. A key finding was that the state government’s native forest logging rules do not comply with federal law and urgent reform was needed to impose national standards. …
Asked what she is doing to uphold federal laws, Plibersek said state logging regimes will be reviewed in “coming years” and she will hold “important conversations” with the states.
Peter Hartcher has an article focussing on the state of the environment and the challenges for the federal government to turn our biodiversity and climate crises around.
Plibersek pointed to the plight of the Koala: “When we destroy these habitats – and when we don’t destroy them elsewhere – endangered creatures lose their homes, And that has consequences. ….
But she makes the point that the fundamental fix is above and beyond saving individual animals, plants or places. Its to change systems. It’s the entire ecosystem that’s collapsing, and that can only be countered with change to human systems.
Extinction crisis a threat to us:
Dr Hanna urges people to recognise that their health depends on the environment’s health, citing the example of the millennium drought drying the Murray River’s Lower Lakes exposing acidic soils, while the mouth of the Murray River closed and parts of the Coorong became too salty for many native plants and animals to survive, resulting in tourists vanishing along with the water, towns ending up like ghost towns, and property values going caput.
"If we trash the planet, it's suicide ... and the writing is on the wall," says the chair of the environmental health working group for the World Federation of Public Health Association.
"People talk about the canary in the coal mine. Well, how many animals have to go extinct before we realise 'oh goodness gracious me, we're an animal too'. If we keep doing this then ultimately we'll be next."
It seems obvious to state that human health depends on planetary health but Dr Hanna says it's difficult to get people thinking that way.
As grim as such scenarios are, Dr Hanna wants Australians to turn their minds to the interconnected web of life and says there's no room for the little-old-me syndrome.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-11042681/Environment-shock-warning-humans.html
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/science/2022/07/24/1distressed-environment-gets-worse/
Time for federal action:
Professor James Watson from the University of Queensland five easy ways Labor can get started now, while it works on its longer-term environmental reforms: restoring degraded farming land with native vegetation, dealing with land clearing, phase out logging of native forests, properly fund protected areas and boost threatened species recovery efforts.
Logging our few remaining native forests is a bad idea. It destroys threatened species habitat, making these species more endangered. It worsens fire risk, endangering people’s lives. It threatens our water supplies. Native logging also accelerates climate change because old-growth intact forests store much more carbon than pine plantations.
Logging native forests no longer makes economic sense, given the enormous losses being run up by state forestry enterprises. There’s enough timber in plantations to provide the resources Australia needs.
The easy win? Phase out logging. Work with industry and set a clear time frame to exit native forest logging through revised and accelerated Regional Forest Agreements.
The Labor Environmental Action Network is pushing for more ambition from Labor, particularly consideration of greenhouse gas emissions when development proposals are assessed, the incorporation of a climate trigger into creation of an independent environment commission, and a serious review of carbon markets, including to ensure biodiversity was protected. They focussed on landclearing and logging as being of particular concern.
Wade said part of that needed to address the pace of land-clearing, which scientists say is pushing species towards extinction. …
The report said 7.7m hectares of land used by threatened species, an area larger than Tasmania, was cleared of vegetation or substantially degraded between 2000 and 2017. Nearly all of it – 93% – was for developments or logging that were not referred to the federal minister for consideration under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Native forest logging is exempt from national environment laws under regional forestry agreements between the states and Canberra.
“Until we can get under control the fact that we still see our native vegetation as something to be logged, burned and shipped off we will continue to see the disintegration of our native animals,” Wade said.
30x30 what?:
Like the previous Government Plibersek promised to protect 30% of Australia’s land and waters by 2030 joining 100 other countries that have signed onto this “30 by 30” target. At present, around 22% of Australia’s land mass is protected in our national reserve system, the problem is that most of these “reserves” are private or Indigenous Protected Areas, with management largely unfunded by Government requiring commercial partnerships – what this article misses is that this target should be (but isn’t) for strictly protected reserves on a bioregional and habitat basis and that it should be a minimum, increasing with habitat values, rather than allowing arid lands to make up shortfalls in biodiverse coastal forests.
On land, the government has been very hands-off. Progress has been driven by non-government organisations, Indigenous communities and individuals. New types of protected area, offering different levels of protection, have emerged. The Australian Wildlife Conservancy now protects or manages almost 13 million hectares – about twice the size of Tasmania. Bush Heritage Australia protects more than 11 million hectares. While these organisations do not always own the land, they have become influential players in conservation.
Partnerships between Traditional Owners and the federal government have produced 81 Indigenous Protected Areas, mainly on native title land. These cover 85 million hectares – fully 50% of our entire protected land estate. Independent ranger groups are also managing Country outside the Indigenous Protected Area system.
In total, public protected areas like national parks have only contributed to around 5% of the expansion of terrestrial protected area since 1996. Non-governmental organisation land purchases, Indigenous Protected Areas and individual private landholders have facilitated 95% of this growth.
So how did non-government organisations become such large players? After the national reserve system was set up, the federal government provided money for NGOs to buy land for conservation, if they could secure some private funding. Protected lands expanded rapidly before the scheme ended in 2012.
Unfortunately, federal funding did not cover the cost of managing these new protected areas. Support for Traditional Owners to manage Indigenous Protected Areas has continued, albeit on erratic short-term cycles and very minimally, to the tune of a few cents per hectare per year.
What does this mean? In short, corporate partnerships and market-based approaches once seen as incompatible with conservation are now a necessity to address the long-term shortfall of government support.
Tarkine reprieve as protestors vindicated:
The Bob Brown Foundation’s (BBF) Federal Court challenge to a decision made by former environment minister Sussan Ley to allow Chinese state-owned miner MMG to commence preliminary work on a mining waste dam in Tasmania’s takayna / Tarkine rainforests was upheld by Justice Mark Moshinsky finding that the precautionary principle hadn’t been applied as the potential impact on the Tasmania Masked Owl was not considered
The BBF says the decision is one of the most significant in environmental law since the inception of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act in 1999.
“This decision tells miners, loggers and other big project proponents that they can no longer profit from the uncertainty that follows a lack of quality scientific investigation,” Bob Brown Foundation’s campaign manager Jenny Weber said.
“The consequence of this decision for MMG’s mine in northwest Tasmania is significant. MMG must cease work, and the new minister, Tanya Plibersek, will need to start the assessment afresh to consider the Tasmania Masked Owl.
[Bob Brown] “In fact, she overlooked the impact of the loss of forest on the threatened Tasmanian Masked Owl altogether. Her delegate did not bring the ‘active intellectual process’ required in applying the precautionary principle. The minister, totally responsible for the delegate’s decision, failed in her obligation.”
Brown has called for the Commonwealth to compensate what he describes as roughly 100 'forest defenders' who were arrested for peacefully protesting MMG’s wrecking operations.
MMG, which owns the Rosebery mine, has also agreed to remove its machinery from the site, which under the orders, it must do on August 1.
Under the court orders, MMG must remove the machinery “at a walking pace having regard to the need to cause minimal disturbance”, and Bob Brown Foundation members must also keep a reasonable distance from MMG staff and equipment and not obstruct them.
The Bob Brown Foundation called on Ms Plibersek to “clear the deck” to protect the Tarkine.
Mining trumps reserves in WA:
In Western Australia ministerial consent for exploration and mining activity in nature reserves, conservation parks and state forests has been granted on 33 occasions in the past five years for a variety of resources from gas to battery metals, with numerous current applications for exploration leases.
There are environmental concerns in WA over Rio Tinto’s exploration leases which cover parts of the 250-kilometre long Northern Jarrah Forest, which the International Panel on Climate Change says is in danger of ecological collapse on a warming planet, that itself sits within Australia’s only global biodiversity hotspot out of 25 in the world.
Environmentalists are clear in their concerns and protested Rio Tinto’s applications to explore the Northern Jarrah Forest — home to many unique and threatened species such as quokkas, black cockatoos, woylies and numbats — on Friday outside the central law courts in Perth.
Pentarch completes rebranding of Boral timber:
Following Pentarch Group’s acquisition of the Boral Timber portfolio of building products and materials in 2021 it has now completed the rebranding of its products, as it talks up export woodchipping.
Pentarch Forestry also incorporates broader specialist services to forest owners, including forest management, harvesting and haulage, and optimising forestry returns by accessing the domestic and export markets with bulk woodchip, and hardwood and softwood log offerings
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/pentarch-forestrys-new-chapter-for-australian-hardwood-products/
Plant trees while they are cut down:
The Department of Planning and Environment is backing Planet Ark’s National Tree Day (31 July), where people are encouraged to plant trees - meanwhile Planet Ark are running adds encouraging people to use more timber from already mature trees. Despite Planet Ark, some realise the need to save existing trees.
“More trees mean more privacy, more shade and cleaner air.”
Further information on local National Tree Day events can be accessed on the Planet Ark website at this PS News link.
https://psnews.com.au/2022/07/26/tree-day-events-pop-up-across-nsw/?state=aps
Replacing native vegetation is more important than ever, considering the damming findings of the recently released State of the Environment report which records the dire state of our native biodiversity, mostly through land clearing.
Because of this wildlife corridors and remnant stands of vital habitat are disappearing nationwide.
Continued loss of native vegetation will continue to seriously impact our native species, and in urban areas affect ourselves, as diminished natural environment will jeopardise the capacity of our towns to be resilient, liveable and sustainable in the face of climate change.
Pick a favourite:
To celebrate National Science Week (August 13-21) the ABC has identified a list of 33 beautiful, iconic, unusual, and useful trees and is asking you to vote for your favourite.
SPECIES
Koala’s rollercoaster ride:
In 2019 the Queensland Government gave Dreamworld $2.7m to build the Future Lab wildlife research centre for Koalas, and then allowed them to repurpose the funding to build the Steel Taipan attraction – a fun ride for Koalas.
Koalas costly:
Gunnedah Shire Council’s plans for the 50-acre koala theme park on the town’s western approaches, including a wildlife centre and koala hospital, koala sanctuary, playground, mini golf, zipline, safari huts, and a petting zoo, have hit a snag with a costs blowout of $6.2 million despite already receiving $6.48 million of taxpayers funds.
Other attractions in the koala sanctuary will include a nature playground, animal enclosures, a wildlife sanctuary walk, a caretaker’s residence, picnic areas, a cultural heritage display and demonstration area, bush-themed mini-golf and zipline, caravan sites and safari tent accommodation.
The Gunnedah Koala Sanctuary project secured $6.48 million through the NSW government’s Regional Social Benefit Infrastructure Fund.
https://www.gunnedahtimes.com.au/news/gunnedahs-koala-sanctuary-hits-62m-snag
New Holland mouse joins the captives:
Aussie Ark has been granted $248,000 from the Australian government for a captive breeding facility for New Holland mouse onsite at the Australian Reptile Park in Somersby.
There are grand plans for even larger enclosures:
And they keep growing, now there is a proposal to create a mega-sanctuary, incorporating almost all of the existing National Parks west of the M1 on the Central Coast stretching all the way to the Blue Mountains.
In the light of the recent reports into wildlife extinction in Australia, Pearl Beach resident Dr Van Davy has forwarded a proposal to create a so-called ‘Mega-Sanctuary’ across large parts of the Central Coast to incoming Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek and NSW Treasurer Matt Kean.
In Dr Davy’s submission, he discusses the recent decision by the Victorian Government to build a mega sanctuary of 60,000 hectares at the Wilson’s Promontory National Park.
Naivety can be deadly:
A study using radio-tracking collars followed 20 hand-reared possums up to 40 days after release, finding only eight (40%) survived until the end of the study, while nine (45%) were killed by foxes or had to be returned to rehabilitation, and three possums had unknown fates, as they lost radio signal. The deaths were caused by foxes, mostly within 3 days, which was attributed to hand-reared animals not having learned predator avoidance behaviours.
We hope studies such as ours can improve guidelines for wildlife rescue, rehabilitation and release. To improve survival rates, scientists, government agencies and wildlife volunteers must develop evidence-based and species-specific protocols to give every rehabilitated animal the best chance at living a life in the wild.
Old resident has home demolished:
Cathie Bravo, a long-term resident at Lake Cathie has been evicted and had half of his home demolished for new homes, solving one housing crisis while amplifying another for koalas, causing angst in the community.
https://www.camdencourier.com.au/story/7837820/heartbreaking-and-shameful-lake-cathie-land-cleared/
https://www.portnews.com.au/story/7837820/heartbreaking-and-shameful-lake-cathie-land-cleared/
Creating conflicts with flying foxes:
Bega's Littlewoods Estate is being developed next to a flying fox camp and will increase conflicts between resident humans and Grey-headed Flying Foxes, leading to calls for a buffer zone and Flying Fox Management Plan, as the developers just want to get on with it.
Shining the light on species may kill them:
Artificial light at night is a growing problem, disrupting many species lifecycles, affecting their health and reducing their habitat – light pollution is not just about stargazing, this article shines a light on the issue of how it affects some species, but fails to consider is the mass deaths of insects attracted to light at night as houses spread into the bush.
At its core, artificial light at night (such as from street lights) masks natural light cycles. Its presence blurs the transition from day to night and can dampen the natural cycle of the Moon. Increasingly, we are realising this has dramatic physiological and behavioural consequences, including altering hormones associated with day-night cycles of some species and their seasonal reproduction, and changing the timing of daily activities such as sleeping, foraging or mating.
The increasing intensity and spread of artificial light at night (estimates suggest 2-6% per year) makes it one of the fastest-growing global pollutants. Its presence has been linked to changes in the structure of animal communities and declines in biodiversity.
Each year it is estimated millions of birds are harmed or killed because they are trapped in the beams of bright urban lights. They are disoriented and slam into brightly lit structures, or are drawn away from their natural migration pathways into urban environments with limited resources and food, and more predators.
Other animals, such as bats and small mammals, shy away from lights or may avoid them altogether. This effectively reduces the habitats and resources available for them to live and reproduce. For these species, street lighting is a form of habitat destruction, where a light rather than a road (or perhaps both) cuts through the darkness required for their natural habitat. Unlike humans, who can return to their home and block out the lights, wildlife may have no option but to leave.
Research with insects and spiders suggests exposure to light at night can affect immune function and health and alter their growth, development and number of offspring.
More native bee poisoning:
The new detection of Varroa Mite was made near Nana Glen, north-west of Coffs Harbour, exactly a month after the deadly honeybee parasite was first discovered on Australian soil and bringing the total number of infected sites to 43, leading to establishment of a new quarantine zone – and likely the baiting of both feral and native bees.
Bumper snow season killing animals:
Looking After Our Kosciuszko Orphans (LAOKO) are reporting increased roadkills, particularly wombats, due to people flocking to the snow-fields.
LAOKO noticed it was often kangaroos, followed by wombats and then birds, that were likely to be hit by cars.
But this year has been a little different
"It's really sad to see so many more wombats being killed this year," Ms Guarracino said.
Deer not so dear:
The deer rutting season from June through to September is causing problems as deer roam widely, causing car accidents in the Illawara and trampling a 70 year old man at Port Macquarie.
John Norton awoke to a strange noise and his porch light on just after 12am.
"I went around the corner of my home and here was this big male deer," he told Australian Community Media.
"He put his head down like he was going to chase me and I just rolled over and he basically stomped on me."
"I'm very lucky ... emotionally it was very scary. The deer was massive."
https://www.portnews.com.au/story/7832562/man-trampled-by-massive-deer-outside-port-macquarie-home/
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Extreme temperatures:
July’s unprecedented European heatwave continues as temperature records are beaten (often by wide margins), wildfires blaze across the Mediterranean, air-pollution worsens, and people succumb, as Australia is warned that we can expect worse as climate change takes its toll.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/07/as-europe-burns-australia-needs-to-prepare-for-50c-say-experts/
Extreme rainfall:
Two studies using select climate models found that extreme rainfall events are going to get more frequent and intense than generally accepted, one finding it’s possible that there will be a twofold increase in the volume of extreme rainfall in the 21st century compared to what previous studies estimate, and another finding that extreme rainfall will occur about 30 percent more often by the end of the century, compared to how often it happens right now, under a medium-emissions scenario.
Extreme report:
A new CSIRO report finds extreme and unprecedented weather events are increasing in their frequency and scale of impact, with current climate forecasts predicting that we are likely to experience extreme weather conditions that exceed the bounds of historical norms and concurrent climate hazards are likely to compound the overall climate risk for sectors and regions, with heatwaves likely to be more than 85% more frequent and last up to a month if global temperatures rise between 1.5°C and 3°C. The natural environment gets a brief mention.
The world’s natural ecosystems have declined by 47% relative to their natural baselines and 25% of living species are at risk of extinction.74 Coral reefs are one of the ecosystem types under greatest pressure. The worldwide area of live coral has halved since the year 195075. In terrestrial habitats the intensification of agriculture has led to biodiversity losses and reduced biodiversity-based ecological services (e.g. pollination, pest management, water retention).76-78 It has traditionally been difficult to quantify the return on investment in conservation, but a recent analysis found conservation spending across 109 countries from 1996 to 2008 reduced the rate of biodiversity loss by 29%.79
https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/data/Our-Future-World
[Insurance Council of Australia chief executive Andrew Hall] The big picture is we need to change development planning to factor in more extreme weather events, he said.
"That needs to happen urgently. Even if land planning is reformed in the near future and quickly, we've still got more than a century of poor land planning decisions to go back and fix up."
Heatwaves in Australia could be more than 85% more frequent and last up to a month if global temperatures rise between 1.5°C and 3°C.
While the global economy shrunk by 3.2% in 2020, global military spend reached an all-time high of A$2.9 trillion.
The root of the problem:
The new State of the Environment report rates Australian soils as “poor” and “deteriorating” as we disrupt and kill their biomes with pesticides and fertilisers, now researchers are asking for soil samples to map Australia’s networks of soil fungi – maybe some forest samples will help.
Soil fungi can boost plant uptake of key resources like phosphorus and water and can even improve how plants resist pests. These fungi are also critical to the cycling of nutrients and carbon in our environment, and the networks they form give structure to soil. These relationships go back much further than humans do. Plants and fungi have been cooperating for hundreds of millions of years.
The problem is, relying on pesticides and fertilisers is not sustainable. Many pesticides are under increasing restrictions or bans, and phosphorus fertiliser will only become more expensive as we deplete global phosphate reserves. Critically, their excessive use negatively impacts soil biology and the environment.
To overcome this challenge, we have launched Dig Up Dirt, a new nationwide research project designed to let us take stock of our beneficial soil fungi.
Farmers, land managers and citizen scientists can send us soil samples to allow us to map Australia’s networks of soil fungi. The data we collect will also be fed into the international efforts to map fungi globally.
Australia’s drying, dying forests:
In the Courier Mail Dr Christa Pudmenzky identifies how forests are important and explains why they are suffering and dying because of climate change, attributing it to the drying air.
Trees provide food and shelter for wildlife, clean our air, minimise erosion and help stabilise the soil which is particularly important during high-rainfall events.
They have also been instrumental in helping to slow down climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide.
However, while trees help offset some of human-induced warming, they're also equally vulnerable to it.
In Australia, trees are dying at an accelerated rate.
While there are multiple climate-related factors that contribute to this acceleration, the primary culprit is an increasingly dry environment – both in the sky and on land.
A warmer atmosphere means more water is drawn out of plants, resulting in trees losing more than they can absorb through their roots.
This eventually leads to water stress and sometimes death.
Mangroves a casualty of these times:
Due to a severe El Niño event, in the summer of 2015-16 sea levels in the Gulf of Carpentaria dropped 40cm for 6 months, with 40 million mangroves over 76 square kilometers dying of thirst, and they are unlikely to recover as climate change impacts increase.
In the summer of 2015-2016, some 40 million mangroves shrivelled up and died across the wild Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Australia, after extremely dry weather from a severe El Niño event saw coastal water plunge 40 centimetres.
The low water level lasted about six months, and the mangroves died of thirst. Seven years later, they have yet to recover. My new research, published today, is the first to realise the full scale of this catastrophe, and understand why it occurred.
This event, I discovered, is the world’s worst incidence of climate-related mangrove tree deaths in recorded history. Over 76 square kilometres of mangroves were killed, releasing nearly one million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere.
Losing mangroves in the Gulf released more than 850,000 tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, across both mass dieback events. That’s similar to 1,000 jumbo jets flying return from Sydney to Paris.
California’s forests collapsing:
Two massive wildfires have torn through California’s Sierra Navada mountains over the last 15 years, burning with such intensity through so large an area that the conifer forest will likely be unable to regenerate on its own, experts say.
“The concern is the amount of conifer forest that we’ve lost won’t recover,” said Ryan Bauer, fuels and prescribed fire program manager for the Plumas National Forest. “The patches of high-severity fire are so big that there’s not a seed source near enough to get conifer forest reestablished naturally in these large patch sizes.”
At the heart of the Moonlight fire was private timber land, whose owners tend to remove the largest, most fire-resilient trees and leave behind smaller trees and brush, Bauer said. That resulted in a buildup of surface fuels that also may have helped drive high-intensity fire, he said.
Researchers at Princeton University and UC Berkeley recently analyzed 154 fires that burned nearly 2.4 million acres in California from 1985 to 2019 and found that the odds of fires burning at high severity on private industrial land were 1.8 times greater than on public lands. That might be due to the prevailing land management practice of cultivating dense, even-aged plantations that create continuous high fuel loads, they hypothesized.
The effects are uniquely ecologically devastating for a mountain range that stores half of California’s forest carbon and provides more than 60% of the state’s developed water supply, according to the Sierra Nevada Conservancy.
These landscapes also become more susceptible to future conflagrations as dense, fire-killed timber falls to the ground and brush grows over top and dries out, creating a flammable mix that releases massive amounts of energy when it burns, Bauer said. Forest Service studies have shown that areas that burn at high severity are statistically more likely to reburn at high severity. Each time that happens, the surviving green patches grow smaller. The result is a feedback loop that becomes increasingly difficult to interrupt.
Pre-European forests better carbon accumulators than thought:
An American study identified carbon stored in forests in the Upper Midwest over the past 10,000 years, finding that rather than having stable pre-European carbon stores, forests had steadily gained almost a billion tons of carbon (doubling their storage) for 8,000 years before Euro-American settlers began clearing large swaths of forest, then in the span of just 150 years, almost all of that gain disappeared into the atmosphere.
In a study recently published in the journal Science, Ann Raiho and other PalEON members mapped biomass changes in the Upper Midwest …
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk3126
TURNING IT AROUND
Is the solution worse?:
The US Forest Service has announced it is taking emergency action to save giant sequoias in national parks from the threat of wildfires by speeding up a plan that calls for cutting smaller trees and vegetation and using prescribed fires, much to the chagrin of some environmentalists.
Some environmental groups have criticised forest thinning as an excuse for commercial logging.
Ara Marderosian, executive director of the Sequoia ForestKeeper group, called the announcement a "well-orchestrated PR campaign".
He said it failed to consider how logging could exacerbate wildfires and added it might increase carbon emissions that would worsen the climate crisis.
Forest Media 22 July 2022
New South Wales
The petition to protect NSW forests gets more attention, there’s still time to sign … see the petition here.
In the lead up to Tanya Plibersek’s delivery of the long-awaited State of the Environment report, a story about logging in NSW and Victoria included an interview with Mark Graham and Paula Flack commenting on the absurdity of spending money on Koalas and Greater Gliders at the same time the Forestry Corporation are logging their habitat, while Forestry say it’s only light logging. Prime News has a story showing intensive logging in Clouds Creek SF, with Mark Graham complaining about the illegal logging of a hollow-bearing tree and giant tree, though Forestry claim they were blown over. News of the Area has an article about the logging of Koala habitat in the Kalang headwaters making a mockery of the Government’s commitment to double Koala numbers (mentions NEFA). And an article citing the National Parks Association about the latest Wild Cattle Creek prosecution and the need to protect the Great Koala National Park and stop logging public forests.
The prosecution of the Forestry Corporation of NSW for the second time this year, for felling giant and hollow-bearing trees in Wild Cattle Creek State Forest, continues to gain attention.
A man was sentenced to 12 months in jail, to be eligible for parole in five months, for starting a 2019 fire that burnt 1,000 hectares at Nundle, he started the fire to cover up that he had stollen 200 litres of diesel from a logging excavator near Hanging Rock.
Public comment on the NPWS’s Draft Review of Environmental factors for the 51 kilometre Illawarra Escarpment Mountain bike network has closed with complaints it will have significant environmental impacts, going through every single patch of that subtropical rainforest, and affect urban areas.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet will introduce sweeping new laws around lobbying, requiring all third-party and in-house lobbyists to register with the new lobbying regulator and all MPs – not just ministers – will be required by law to disclose their diaries each month.
Australia
The Fairfax media have republished and article on Victoria’s Goolengook anti-logging protest that was first published in The Age on July 21, 1997.
The release of Australia’s State of Environment report this week received widespread media coverage, causing shock and outrage, and putting our extinction crisis front and centre, warning “Environmental degradation is now considered a threat to humanity, which could bring about societal collapses with long-lasting and severe consequences”. I have not tried to cover all the extensive media, but have included some highlights.
- Since 2016, 202 animal and plant species have been listed as threatened, an 8% increase, bringing the total to 1,918 species.
- Within 20 years, another seven Australian mammals and ten Australian birds will be extinct unless management is greatly improved.
- Only 16% (13 of 84) of Australia’s nationally listed threatened ecological communities meet a 30% minimum protection standard in the national reserve system.
- Australia has more foreign plant species than natives.
- Since just 1990, more than 6.1 million hectares of mature forest have been cleared - From 2015 to 2019, nearly 290,000 hectares of primary forest were cleared and a further 343,000 hectares of secondary forest
- 19 Australian ecosystems are showing signs of collapse or near collapse
- The number of threatened ecological communities listed under the EPBC Act has risen by 20 per vent over the past 5 years, with 88 now listed, of which 41 are Critically Endangered, 44 are Endangered and 2 are Vulnerable.
- Almost half the country is now used for grazing and the areas committed to forestry and cropping having increased.
- Australia has the third largest cumulative loss of soil organic carbon in the world behind China and the US - slight increases in below‑ground carbon stocks have been detected under forests.
- Of the 450 gigalitres of water for the environment promised under the Murray-Darling Basin plan, only 2 gigalitres have been delivered
- Native fish populations have declined by more than 90% in the past 150 years, a trend that appears to be continuing
- Up to 78 per cent of Australia's coastal saltmarshes have been lost since European colonisation and they continue to deteriorate
- Marine heatwaves have caused mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef in 2016, 2017, 2020 – and again this year.
- Rocky reefs stretching south from Brisbane around the continent to Perth are judged to be in “poor and deteriorating condition”
- Ocean acidification – caused by absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – is nearing a tipping point that will cause the decline of juvenile coral
- Australia’s native forests are among the richest biomes on Earth. Australia has 134 million hectares (ha) of forest, covering 17% of Australia’s land area
The Australian acknowledges the problems, though employs the tactic of distracting from the big problems. There is a belief that listening to Aboriginal people, after spending 200 years suppressing their culture, will solve our problems. In her speech Plibersek was not ready to give details, though gave some in principle commitments, including to protect 30% of land and 30% of oceans by 2030, and mentioned the 5 year review of RFAs.
Australian Georaphic has a lengthy article about the disgrace of rampant landclearing, as well as efforts at restoration. The article is current but seems a bit dated.
Following the release of the Victorian Regional Forest Agreements (RFA) – Major Event Review of the 2019- 2020 bushfires, the peak national organisation representing over 1,000 forest scientists and professionals have called for active and adaptive forest management to be implemented as a matter of urgency.
David Lindenmayer makes a plea to the Victorian government to immediately stop salvage logging, with a focus on the Wombat forest, because logged forests always burn at greater severity than intact forests. The Saturday Paper has an article focussing on Zylstra’s research that has found that control burning increases forest flammability because it promotes dense growth of fire weeds, and that contrary to the prescribed burning mentality what is needed to reduce fire risk is leaving forests alone for the fire weeds to self-thin and allow the forest to regain their natural resilience.
Rio Tinto's bid to explore for minerals in Western Australia's jarrah forest is being met with strong opposition in the Warden's Court, with local community and conservation groups calling for the forest to be protected.
The Gold Coast City Council is still pursuing its proposal to build a $170-million cableway in the World Heritage-listed Springbrook National Park though is facing strong reluctance from the State.
Species
Ecologists fear the widespread loss of native mistletoe observed at 2,000 sites across south-eastern Australia due to drought could leave nectar-feeding birds even more vulnerable.
NBN has a story about the threat to Koalas in urban areas (includes NEFA). National Geographic has a detailed article about Koalas, focussing on the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, mentioning their raising of $7 million after the bushfires and their plans to visit the USA and attract funds of $100 million for the koala hospital to be able to buy large tracts of land in Australia of prime koala habitat. Bangalow Koalas are devastated by the deaths of two healthy female Koalas, with their joeys, by car strikes. A collaborative Griffith University project claims to have resulted in 83 per cent less koala deaths from car strikes and doubled the number of koala sightings in a campaign across the Logan City Council area in the 2021/22 koala movement season, and now hopes to expand.
Researchers found that on the Liverpool Plains Koalas like big farm trees in paddocks because of the added nitrogen from fertilisers and because they like larger trees for shelter. In south-east Queensland Vitrinite’s proposed Vulcan South project proposes to produce 1.95m tonnes of coal every year, just below the 2m tonne threshold that would require the company to prepare an EIS, despite more than 1,000 hectares of koala habitat – as well as 70 hectares of greater glider habitat – being cleared.
A researcher is seeking interviewees in the Myall Lakes region (including visitors) to explore the diverse relationships present between people, wildlife, and the landscape, to understand the complex narrative or human-dingo coexistence in the region.
A mallee eucalypt in urban Sydney has been identified as a new species.
Shooting of feral pigs has resumed in Kakadu after a three year hiatus following a helicopter crash. With 6,000 culled, as research shows impacts of ungulates.
The Help Wildlife Near Me app has been created specifically for the Blue Mountains to help provide people with the right tools during emergencies to help wildlife and link them with information on agencies and groups around them, and to help the numbers of koalas recover. The Woolly Wildlife Warriors are a loose group based in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney who crochet pouches, nests, and "palaces" for injured wildlife.
The Deteriorating Problem
The explosion of heatwaves around the world is extraordinary, it reads like a novel as records are broken, thousands die from heat, and fires erupt across the countryside. South-western Europe has been hammered as heatwaves result in numerous places experiencing record temperatures of 40-47OC as thousands of hectares of forests burn across the region, people are being killed in fires, heatwaves and by collapsing glaciers. Between March and May, heatwaves battered more than a billion people in India and Pakistan, accelerating forest fires in India, causing crop failures, and contributing to the collapse of a glacier.
China too is now suffering heatwaves. The mega drought in the US West continues to break temperature records, intensify fires, and shrivel lakes, with the largest US reservoir shrunken to a record low due to the demands of 40 million people in seven states who are sucking the Colorado River dry. Chile is now into the 13th year of a historical drought, with very low levels of rainfall and high temperatures that melt away the snow pack in the Andes, once an important water reserve, leaving the Peñuelas reservoir in central Chile, which once used to be the main water source for Valparaiso, a metropolitan area with nearly 1 million residents, almost dry. The extreme heatwave in Europe, and their increasing frequency around the world, is a warning of what’s in store for Australia unless we redress the climate emergency.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Time is running out for the petition to save NSW Forests:
The petition to protect NSW forests gets more attention, there’s still time to sign … see the petition here.
https://www.batemansbaypost.com.au/story/7823421/key-month-looms-for-environmentally-based-petition/
A cloud over logging:
In the lead up to Tanya Plibersek’s delivery of the long-awaited State of the Environment report, a story about logging in NSW and Victoria included an interview with Mark Graham and Paula Flack commenting on the absurdity of spending money on Koalas and Greater Gliders at the same time the Forestry Corporation are logging their habitat, while Forestry say it’s only light logging.
[Mark Graham] “There are kilometres of forest being industrially logged right now, in this incredibly significant landscape, all of it burnt,” he says. “It’s multiplying the harm of the fires.”
“We are seeing, right now, the industrial logging of major expanses of these forests where we know that greater gliders, koalas, yellow-bellied gliders and all of these other species occur.
[Senior planning manager Dean Kearney] “For Clouds Creek, it’s anticipated to be quite a light, selective harvesting. It’s just removing trees that are commercially mature and have high quality products in them,” he says.
“This is an ongoing active management of regrowth forests that does produce timber and does allow koalas to persist in that landscape.”
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/science/environment/2022/07/16/logging-koalas-endangered-species/
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7822112/spotlight-on-logging-as-marsupials-wane/
https://www.juneesoutherncross.com.au/story/7822112/spotlight-on-logging-as-marsupials-wane/
Prime News has a story showing intensive logging in Clouds Creek SF, with Mark Graham complaining about the illegal logging of a hollow-bearing tree and giant tree, though Forestry claim they were blown over.
https://www.prime7.com.au/news/7476898-logging-allegations
News of the Area has an article about the logging of Koala habitat in the Kalang headwaters making a mockery of the Government’s commitment to double Koala numbers (mentions NEFA). And an article citing the National Parks Association about the latest Wild Cattle Creek prosecution and the need to protect the Great Koala National Park and stop logging public forests.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/coffs-coast-news-of-the-area-22-july-2022-97325
Prosecutions good news:
The prosecution of the Forestry Corporation of NSW for the second time this year, for felling giant and hollow-bearing trees in Wild Cattle Creek State Forest, continues to gain attention.
https://clarencevalleynews.com.au/epa-prosecutes-forestry-corporation-again/
The Northern Rivers Times 21 July 2022
One area of increasing concern about habitat degradation and biodiversity loss is our publicly owned state forests.
Speaking of logging breaches in the Wild Cattle Creek State Forest, NEFA President Dailan Pugh said, “With forest animals becoming increasingly endangered, logging of the habitat of Yellow-bellied Gliders, Greater Gliders and Koalas must stop right now if we want to save them.
“Last year it cost taxpayers $20 million to log public native forests, with an additional $10 million paid in transport subsidies and $60 million in road upgrades for loggers. It is time to stop paying to log public native forests as they are worth far more to the community for habitat, carbon sequestration, tourism and water,” he said.
https://clarencevalleynews.com.au/voices-for-the-earth-37/
Burning logging machinery:
A man was sentenced to 12 months in jail, to be eligible for parole in five months, for starting a 2019 fire that burnt 1,000 hectares at Nundle, he started the fire to cover up that he had stollen 200 litres of diesel from a logging excavator near Hanging Rock.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-19/nundle-state-forest-fire-starter-jailed/101251564
Concerns over Mountain Bikes
Public comment on the NPWS’s Draft Review of Environmental factors for the 51 kilometre Illawarra Escarpment Mountain bike network has closed with complaints it will have significant environmental impacts, going through every single patch of that subtropical rainforest, and affect urban areas.
Need to register to lobby:
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet will introduce sweeping new laws around lobbying, requiring all third-party and in-house lobbyists to register with the new lobbying regulator and all MPs – not just ministers – will be required by law to disclose their diaries each month.
AUSTRALIA
Nostalgia for protestors:
The Fairfax media have republished and article on Victoria’s Goolengook anti-logging protest that was first published in The Age on July 21, 1997.
Australia’s State of Environment shocking:
The release of Australia’s State of Environment report this week received widespread media coverage, causing shock and outrage, and putting our extinction crisis front and centre, warning “Environmental degradation is now considered a threat to humanity, which could bring about societal collapses with long-lasting and severe consequences”. I have not tried to cover all the extensive media, but have included some highlights.
- Since 2016, 202 animal and plant species have been listed as threatened, an 8% increase, bringing the total to 1,918 species.
- Within 20 years, another seven Australian mammals and ten Australian birds will be extinct unless management is greatly improved.
- Only 16% (13 of 84) of Australia’s nationally listed threatened ecological communities meet a 30% minimum protection standard in the national reserve system.
- Australia has more foreign plant species than natives.
- Since just 1990, more than 6.1 million hectares of mature forest have been cleared - From 2015 to 2019, nearly 290,000 hectares of primary forest were cleared and a further 343,000 hectares of secondary forest
- 19 Australian ecosystems are showing signs of collapse or near collapse
- The number of threatened ecological communities listed under the EPBC Act has risen by 20 per vent over the past 5 years, with 88 now listed, of which 41 are Critically Endangered, 44 are Endangered and 2 are Vulnerable.
- Almost half the country is now used for grazing and the areas committed to forestry and cropping having increased.
- Australia has the third largest cumulative loss of soil organic carbon in the world behind China and the US - slight increases in below‑ground carbon stocks have been detected under forests.
- Of the 450 gigalitres of water for the environment promised under the Murray-Darling Basin plan, only 2 gigalitres have been delivered
- Native fish populations have declined by more than 90% in the past 150 years, a trend that appears to be continuing
- Up to 78 per cent of Australia's coastal saltmarshes have been lost since European colonisation and they continue to deteriorate
- Marine heatwaves have caused mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef in 2016, 2017, 2020 – and again this year.
- Rocky reefs stretching south from Brisbane around the continent to Perth are judged to be in “poor and deteriorating condition”
- Ocean acidification – caused by absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – is nearing a tipping point that will cause the decline of juvenile coral
- Australia’s native forests are among the richest biomes on Earth. Australia has 134 million hectares (ha) of forest, covering 17% of Australia’s land area
"Environmental degradation is now considered a threat to humanity, which could bring about societal collapses with long-lasting and severe consequences," the report said.
Professor Johnston said not enough had been done to prevent decline through protected areas nor were environmental laws strongly enforced, so Australia now needed to invest in more-expensive and speculative environmental solutions.
"We're actually going to the 'rescue' end of the situation, where you have to breed species and re-release," she said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-19/state-of-australian-environment-report/101247794
Nationally, land clearing remains high. Extensive areas were cleared in Queensland and New South Wales over the last five years. Clearing native vegetation is a major cause of habitat loss and fragmentation, and has been implicated in the national listing of most Australia’s threatened species.
Many Australian ecosystems have evolved to rebound from extreme “natural” events such as bushfires. But the frequency, intensity, and compounding nature of recent events are greater than they’ve experienced throughout their recent evolutionary history.
Indeed, ecological theory suggests frequently disturbed ecosystems will shift to a “weedy” state, where only the species that live fast and reproduce quickly will thrive.
As well as climate stresses, habitat loss and degradation remain the main threats to land-based species in Australia, impacting nearly 70% of threatened species.
Only 16% (13 of 84) of Australia’s nationally listed threatened ecological communities meet a 30% minimum protection standard in the national reserve system.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/grim-findings-from-australias-latest-environment-health-check/
https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2022/07/19/state-of-the-environment--the-findings.html
It is further evidence that as a society Australia is more willing to catalogue the destruction of what is left of its natural heritage than it is to preserve it.
Whole ecosystems are collapsing together, the report shows.
In others, forests have been logged further shrinking the habitats of endangered species, leaving them more vulnerable to introduced species, particularly the fox and cat.
“Multiple pressures create cumulative impacts that amplify threats,” the overview notes, warning of “abrupt changes” in ecological systems.
Last year, I contributed to the first global United Nations assessment of wildfire. We found the worldwide risk of devastating fires could increase by up to 57% by the end of the century, primarily because of climate change.
Most of Australia is likely to burn even more. That’s bad news for places such as Australia’s ancient Gondwana rainforests. Historically, these have rarely, if ever, burned. Yet more than 50% was impacted in the 2019-2020 fires.
These rainforests harbour the highest concentrations of threatened species in subtropical southeast Queensland and northern NSW. To recover, they need hundreds of years without fire.
Prof Euan Ritchie, from the Centre for Integrative Ecology at Deakin University, said the report was authoritative, long overdue and confirmed “Australia’s utter failure of environmental and conservation stewardship”.
But he said it was not too late to change the trajectory. “If we act now and strengthen and enforce environmental laws, provide far greater investment to aid the protection and recovery of the environment and threatened species, and better engage with communities, we stand to gain substantial social, cultural, economic and environmental benefits,” he said.
With Australia failing to halt species decline and with our biodiversity management systems broken, now is the time to establish a new national information system led by an independent agency to manage our nation’s biodiversity data.
Only through the establishment of such an agency will we actually understand and be able to choose steps to slow down or reverse biodiversity loss in Australia’s environment.
The Australian acknowledges the problems, though employs the tactic of distracting from the big problems.
Cutting greenhouse gas emissions alone in Australia will not change the weather or the forecast impacts on sea levels or coral reef health from warmer ocean temperatures. But promoting soil health, masterplanning landscapes to include wildlife corridors, tackling feral pests in national parks, state forests and private estates, and encouraging long-term rehabilitation of degraded lands will have a lasting beneficial impact on biodiversity.
…with a Senate controlled by the Greens. There are dangers ahead.
There is a belief that listening to Aboriginal people, after spending 200 years suppressing their culture, will solve our problems.
Minister for Environment Tanya Plibersek opened a speech addressing the report at the National Press Club on Tuesday by pledging to hear the lessons of Indigenous people.
"First Nations peoples have the oldest continuing cultures on earth and are the world's most successful environmental custodians," she said.
"They have managed land and sea country for 65,000 years. As Minister for the Environment and Water, I'm committed to learning from their remarkable example."
[Report] "Continuing to expand the role of Indigenous land and sea management ... will be fundamental to improvements in the state of the environment."
In her speech Plibersek was not ready to give details, though gave some in principle commitments, including to protect 30% of land and 30% of oceans by 2030, and mentioned the 5 year review of RFAs.
Plibersek’s speech contained a couple of new announcements, and a reiteration of previous policy pledges. As well as committing to a response to the Samuel review by the end of the year, these include:
- setting clear environmental standards with explicit targets
- fundamental reform of national environmental laws and a new national level Environmental Protection Agency to enforce them
- expanding Australia’s national estate to protect 30% of land and 30% of oceans by 2030
- producing better and more shareable environmental data to better track progress and decline
- including environmental indicators in the government’s new “wellbeing budget”
- supporting investment into blue carbon projects, such as restoring mangroves and seagrasses
- doubling the number of Indigenous rangers to 3,800 this decade and increasing funding for Indigenous protected areas.
- enshrining a higher national emissions reduction target into law.
The next five-yearly review of the Regional Forest Agreements – made between federal and state governments – offer an important opportunity. These agreements broadly exempt logging operations from federal environmental law.
The Albanese government has emerged from a near decade in opposition without a plan that is ready to roll to tackle the slow train wreck that is Australia’s extinction crisis.
A key finding was that state governments’ native forest logging rules do not comply with federal law and urgent reform is needed to impose national standards.
When asked what she is doing to uphold federal laws, Plibersek said state logging regimes will be reviewed in “coming years” and she will hold “important conversions” with the states.
The Albanese Government is facing widespread calls for greater action on climate change and conservation, but Labor has urged the crossbench not to wait for perfection and “see this opportunity slip”.
Environmental groups and ACT independent senator David Pocock were on Tuesday morning demanding immediate action in response to the damning State of the Environment report.
ACT independent senator David Pocock, a passionate conservationist, described the environmental decline as a "national crisis".
"Responding to these findings will be a mammoth task but it is absolutely essential. We cannot delay any longer," Senator Pocock said.
Our lives will not be easy if we continue eating away at the ecosystems that prop us up. It is no exaggeration to say societal collapse is a possible outcome.
The long-delayed report shows the sobering consequences of wilful disregard for environmental protection and focusing on natural resource exploitation. Burning fossil fuels causes climate change and ocean acidification. Land clearing destroys existing ecosystems. Intensive agriculture reduces biodiversity.
Humans can only withstand heat up until a point. After that, exposure to extreme heat leads to damage to tissues and organs, and, eventually damage and death. The same goes for the livestock we rely on, which are at risk of serious health threats from heat. Heat hits weight gain, milk production and reproductive success.
In short, we can no longer pretend we live in a world walled off from nature. Damaging nature damages humans. Think of the cartoon trope where a character cuts off the tree branch they’re sitting on.
We have created these problems collectively. To avoid social upheaval, we have to repair the damage – together.
The answer is clear:
Australian Georaphic has a lengthy article about the disgrace of rampant landclearing, as well as efforts at restoration. The article is current but seems a bit dated.
By the time of the first European colonisation here, little more than two centuries ago, mainland Australia was mostly desert and arid habitats with only an estimated 30 per cent covered by forests and woodlands.
Today, that’s been almost halved, due to the broadscale clearing of trees partly to make way for urban and industrial development, but mostly for agriculture. …
And yet, in recent years, deforestation has been proceeding in some parts of Australia at rates claimed to be among the highest on the planet. It prompted Chris and more than 300 of his colleagues across the nation to release a joint declaration in March through the Ecological Society of Australia calling for stronger laws that would restrict the clearing of stands of native trees.
The consequences of clearing forests and woodlands on the level that’s been occurring in Queensland and NSW are huge. The most direct effect is a large-scale loss of native flora and fauna. According to a report released late last year by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), forest clearing kills millions of native animals a year in Australia. The report, on which Chris Dickman collaborated, estimated that 87 million animals, including more than 9 million mammals, would have died in NSW during the 17 years to 2015 due to the clearing of 5180sq.km of native bushland.
Tied in with species’ loss are more widely felt impacts, including a suite of local ecological services that disappear with the trees. One is flood mitigation and there’s evidence the impact of the floods that hit towns in north Queensland, including Townsville, earlier this year, was worse than it should have been due to forest clearing.
Locally, there can be reduced rainfall when large stands of trees are removed. …
Need for active and adaptive forest management:
Following the release of the Victorian Regional Forest Agreements (RFA) – Major Event Review of the 2019- 2020 bushfires, the peak national organisation representing over 1,000 forest scientists and professionals have called for active and adaptive forest management to be implemented as a matter of urgency.
Stop making fires worse:
David Lindenmayer makes a plea to the Victorian government to immediately stop salvage logging, with a focus on the Wombat forest, because logged forests always burn at greater severity than intact forests.
This internationally accepted science also applies to salvage logging, like that happening today in wind-damaged areas in the Wombat State Forest, west of Melbourne. The state government, in allowing VicForests to perform this salvaging, is increasing the likelihood and severity of bushfires.
First, logging removes solid tree trunks but leaves behind branches, tree heads, bark and other debris. These remaining fine and medium fuels add to fire risk. Second, logging dries forest soils for up to 80 years after cutting. Third, important moisture-maintaining plants like tree ferns are almost completely lost from logged forest. Fourth, forests that are logged and regenerated are much hotter and subject to more extreme conditions than intact forests. Fifth, the dense understorey plants in young logged forest can create “ladder” fuels that drive surface fires into the canopy.
The science is clear – logged forests add significantly to the fire burden in Victoria and NSW.
The Saturday Paper has an article focussing on Zylstra’s research that has found that control burning increases forest flammability because it promotes dense growth of fire weeds, and that contrary to the prescribed burning mentality what is needed to reduce fire risk is leaving forests alone for the fire weeds to self-thin and allow the forest to regain their natural resilience.
Some fire scientists hope this amplifies the alarm they have sounded for years: that the most widely accepted prevention tool – hazard-reduction burning – is rarely helping and often making things worse.
“We’ve been undermining the natural processes that made forest resistant to fire,” says fire behaviour scientist Philip Zylstra, an adjunct associate professor at both Curtin University and the University of Wollongong. “We’ve kind of been breaking the system.”
“We have a mindset that we have to step in and change the country to what we want. It means that anybody who says ‘no, no, just leave it alone’, even if they’ve got evidence on their side, gets ignored.”
David Lindenmayer and colleagues at ANU have designed an integrated system to reduce fire risk by leaving the forests to age and self-thin, while attacking bushfires early, using satellite technology to pinpoint outbreaks and drones to assess and then drop water on them.
Mining forests:
Rio Tinto's bid to explore for minerals in Western Australia's jarrah forest is being met with strong opposition in the Warden's Court, with local community and conservation groups calling for the forest to be protected.
"We've got Alcoa … we've got Rio Tinto now looking at 10 new tenements … two very close to Dwellingup, and then we've got South 32 as well," she said.
"We really need to stand up as a community and say, 'The forest is more valuable left standing'."
The court today heard there were 1,500 separate objections to the 10 tenements.
Dane Chandler, appearing for Rio Tinto, told the court there were 136 individual objectors, many of whom submitted multiple objections for different applications.
Pursuing a cableway into the rainforest:
The Gold Coast City Council is still pursuing its proposal to build a $170-million cableway in the World Heritage-listed Springbrook National Park though is facing strong reluctance from the State.
SPECIES
Nectarvores in more trouble:
Ecologists fear the widespread loss of native mistletoe observed at 2,000 sites across south-eastern Australia due to drought could leave nectar-feeding birds even more vulnerable.
"(We) found that during the height of the drought, when it was not just really dry, but critically also quite warm at night, almost all mistletoes died," Professor Watson said.
He said the critically-endangered regent honeyeater was among the most vulnerable nectar-feeding birds.
Mr Dooley said woodland bird populations were declining across south-east Australia due to historical and ongoing land clearing.
"If we keep pushing the lever of climate change just a little further, things are going to start succumbing," he said.
Koalas once again dominant:
NBN has a story about the threat to Koalas in urban areas (includes NEFA).
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2022/07/19/koalas-once-again-in-the-spotlight/
National Geographic has a detailed article about Koalas, focussing on the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, mentioning their raising of $7 million after the bushfires and their plans to visit the USA and attract funds of $100 million for the koala hospital to be able to buy large tracts of land in Australia of prime koala habitat.
Bangalow Koalas are devastated by the deaths of two healthy female Koalas, with their joeys, by car strikes.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/07/two-koalas-and-their-joeys-dead-from-car-strikes-slow-down/
A collaborative Griffith University project claims to have resulted in 83 per cent less koala deaths from car strikes and doubled the number of koala sightings in a campaign across the Logan City Council area in the 2021/22 koala movement season, and now hopes to expand.
https://www.nationaltribune.com.au/griffith-not-leaving-koalas-futures-to-chance/
… Koalas like big trees:
Researchers found that on the Liverpool Plains Koalas like big farm trees in paddocks because of the added nitrogen from fertilisers and because they like larger trees for shelter.
Certain Eucalyptus trees on farms have added nitrogen due to the fertile soil. Despite dangers, koalas will travel from bushland to reach these trees and feed on their nutritious leaves. Farmers should pay heed to this, the University of Sydney researchers say.
The researchers GPS- tracked 23 koalas within an agricultural landscape on the Liverpool Plains near Gunnedah, northwest NSW, to determine why they would return to the same trees or groups of trees.
They found koalas spent more time in trees with high leaf nitrogen, as well as in large trees, which they used for shelter. Their results are published in Behavioural Ecology.
https://www.nationaltribune.com.au/that-lone-craggy-gum-tree-on-farm-it-s-lifeline-for-koalas/
… mining Koalas:
In south-east Queensland Vitrinite’s proposed Vulcan South project proposes to produce 1.95m tonnes of coal every year, just below the 2m tonne threshold that would require the company to prepare an EIS, despite more than 1,000 hectares of koala habitat – as well as 70 hectares of greater glider habitat – being cleared.
Urban eucalypt a new species:
A mallee eucalypt in urban Sydney has been identified as a new species.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-21/new-eucalypt-species-sydney-botanic-gardens/101255680
The ungulate threat:
Shooting of feral pigs has resumed in Kakadu after a three year hiatus following a helicopter crash. With 6,000 culled, as research shows impacts of ungulates.
Research by Charles Sturt University has found that feral cattle, horses and buffalo – known as ungulates – cause significant damage to waterholes in northern Australia.
"Bird diversity was significantly lower as the dry season progressed at waterholes accessible to ungulates, compared to fenced waterholes.
"Overall, this research indicates that even at low densities feral ungulates have significant negative impacts on native flora and fauna communities around savanna waterholes in northern Australia."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2022-07-20/kakadu-national-park-shoots-6000-feral-pigs/101248252
Dingo interactions:
A researcher is seeking interviewees in the Myall Lakes region (including visitors) to explore the diverse relationships present between people, wildlife, and the landscape, to understand the complex narrative or human-dingo coexistence in the region.
The research is looking for people who fit the following criteria.
● Persons aged eighteen years or older.
● Members and referrals of organisations involved in dingo management in the Myall Lakes (National Parks NSW Officers, Indigenous Land Management Officers, MidCoast Council Officers).
● Members and referrals of local interest groups in the Myall Lakes (Indigenous and citizen community groups, media, local walking groups, local bush regeneration groups, recreational fishing groups, chambers of commerce, progress and tourism, industry groups, outdoor social clubs and Myall Lakes residents).
● Tourists to the Myall Lakes National Parks areas.
To get involved, please contact Penney Wood on 0434 393 127 or at [email protected].
Virtual help:
The Help Wildlife Near Me app has been created specifically for the Blue Mountains to help provide people with the right tools during emergencies to help wildlife and link them with information on agencies and groups around them, and to help the numbers of koalas recover.
Crocheting pseudo-hollows:
The Woolly Wildlife Warriors are a loose group based in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney who crochet pouches, nests, and "palaces" for injured wildlife.
https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/7822198/warriors-build-palaces-for-injured-wildlife/
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
What climate change?
The explosion of heatwaves around the world is extraordinary, it reads like a novel as records are broken, thousands die from heat, and fires erupt across the countryside. South-western Europe has been hammered as heatwaves result in numerous places experiencing record temperatures of 40-47OC as thousands of hectares of forests burn across the region, people are being killed in fires, heatwaves and by collapsing glaciers.
It is the second heatwave engulfing parts of southwest Europe in weeks as scientists blame climate change and predict more frequent and intense episodes of extreme weather.
In the United Kingdom, government ministers were to hold crisis talks after the state meteorological agency issued a first-ever "red" warning for extreme heat, cautioning there is a "risk to life".
https://www.ibtimes.com/forest-fires-rage-scorching-southwest-europe-3576156
Scientists blame human-caused climate change for the increased frequency of extreme weather such as heatwaves, which have also hit parts of China and the United States in recent days.
"Greenhouse gas emissions, from burning fossil fuels like coal, gas and oil, are making heatwaves hotter, longer-lasting and more frequent."
Between March and May, heatwaves battered more than a billion people in India and Pakistan, accelerating forest fires in India, causing crop failures, and contributing to the collapse of a glacier.
Tens of millions of people in Europe are suffering through the continent’s worst heatwave, which shattered records and sparked fires across the south before striking France, Germany and the United Kingdom where a red extreme heat warning has been declared.
Between March and May, heatwaves battered more than a billion people in India and Pakistan, accelerating forest fires in India and contributing to the collapse of a glacier, causing flooding in Pakistan.
Across the region, crop yields fell by between 10 and 35 per cent, …
China too is now suffering heatwaves. The mega drought in the US West continues to break temperature records, intensify fires, and shrivel lakes, with the largest US reservoir shrunken to a record low due to the demands of 40 million people in seven states who are sucking the Colorado River dry.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-17/lake-mead-nevada-drought-water-levels-drop-further/101229988
Both China and the United States are also dealing with their own scorching heat waves this week. For two weeks, persistent extreme heat has buckled roads and strained area hospitals across much of southern China, with soaring temperatures expected to last through August and exceed 107 degrees later this week. And some 40 million Americans are now under heat alerts from California to New York as potentially record-breaking temperatures threaten much of the nation. In fact, the heat has been so excessive in Texas that officials have twice asked residents and businesses to cut back on their power consumption, fearing the surge in air conditioning use would collapse the electrical grid.
The situation has prompted world leaders and top climate advocates to issue dire warnings of rapidly deteriorating ecosystems while castigating countries for their failure to transition the world away from fossil fuels—the primary cause of human-induced global warming—despite global pledges to do so under the Paris Agreement.
https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?e=6624c72df8&u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=24806fbd4a
Chile is now into the 13th year of a historical drought, with very low levels of rainfall and high temperatures that melt away the snow pack in the Andes, once an important water reserve, leaving the Peñuelas reservoir in central Chile, which once used to be the main water source for Valparaiso, a metropolitan area with nearly 1 million residents, almost dry.
Projections by scientists from the University of Chile say the nation will have 30% less water over the next 30 years, so what is currently a drought may become the new normal.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-25/chilean-lake-turns-to-desert-climate-change/101175540
The extreme heatwave in Europe, and their increasing frequency around the world, is a warning of what’s in store for Australia unless we redress the climate emergency.
Globally, the number of days over 50℃ has doubled since the 1980s. Such temperatures are still rare in Australia. But as climate change worsens, more extremely hot days will occur across the continent.
Australia has warmed by around 1.4℃ since 1910, well ahead of the global average of 1.1℃. Even if warming is kept below 2℃, Sydney and Melbourne are expected to see 50℃ days in coming years.
The UK heatwave is just the latest reminder of what’s in store for Australia and the world as the climate changes. Last year, a severe heatwave in western North America led to temperatures approaching 50℃ in Canada and broke records in parts of the Pacific Northwest.
Finally, rapid emissions reduction is needed to limit further global warming. Until we reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions globally, the planet will continue to warm. We have the time and tools to avert an even worse planetary catastrophe, but we must act now.
Forest Media 15 July 2022
New South Wales
The current ePetition before the state parliament to end native forest logging in New South Wales has so far only 7,200 signatories. If we can get to 20,000 signatures by the start of August it has to be debated in the lower house. If you haven't already signed it please do so and encourage friends and family as well. NSW residents only.
During the Girard State Forest protest against industrial logging in a wildlife corridor Benjamin Pierssene suspended himself on a bed base about 30 metres above the ground, and while police called Police Rescue they were unable to attend due to the remote location, meaning logging was stopped all day and Pierssene wasn’t able to be arrested until he came down at 8pm, in court the magistrate criticised him for being “totally non compliant, non cooperative” with police when fining him $500 for each of 3 offences.
The EPA has launched another prosecution of the Forestry Corporation for breaches in Wild Cattle Creek SF, this time for cutting down 6 giant and 7 hollow-bearing trees, and leaving debris around one, though NEFA is concerned that no action is being taken for the damage to hollow-bearing and Koala feed trees they reported, while arguing that the forest is of outstanding importance for Koalas and should never have been allowed to be logged – though the media were more interested in the potential for $18 million in fines.
As the schedule for logging to commence in the headwaters nears, the Kalang River Forest Alliance is stepping up its campaign by emphasising that logging the extremely steep landscape of the Kalang Headwaters will cause more landslips, erosion and pollution of the Kalang River, which is denied by local member Mr Singh.
Having just issued new Wood Supply Agreements to loggers, the Forestry Corporation says the natural disaster situation is out of their control and has triggered a force majeure, which relieves them from carrying out contractual obligations. It appears that rather than claiming the wood is not there, they are now saying the forest is too wet for them to access, rationing what timber they can access.
A study of fuel moisture and within forest Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) at 119 sites in coastal forests in south-eastern Australia reaffirmed that changes in vegetation associated with logging increase the risk of fire for at least 60 years, concluding “These findings provide evidence that recent logging, and to a lesser extent recent wildfire, increase the risk of wildfire in fire prone forests”.
NSW Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann has been touring the south coast, including visiting the 20ha block intended to be cleared for housing at Manyana, and Mogo State forest to meet with concerned community members and to see first hand the impact that logging has had on the local habitat. She also visited the mid-north coast, including the site of the proposed Ingenia seniors 250 dwellings Scotts Head.
The Forestry Corporation reports that as bushfire replacements, 3 million trees are being planted across 2,400 hectares south of Oberon in the Vulcan State Forest and on Mount Canobolas near Orange as heavy rainfall creates the ideal conditions for growth, while the building industry is complaining that the reduced supply of pine has resulted in a 40 per cent increase in the cost of timber.
More than 70 per cent of Upper Hunter residents who responded to a Hunter Renewal poll said mine rehabilitation should include replanting woodland and forest corridors that have been cleared for coal mining in the Hunter.
Australia
The Guardian has an article by Richard Dennis who recognises the overwhelming importance of trees in capturing and storing carbon (as well as providing habitat and filtering water), and questions why the Commonwealth is paying billions to landholders to plant trees and protect forests while State Governments subsidise their logging and allow their clearing.
The Queensland government is inquiring into why it is allowing the clearing of 560,000 hectares of woody vegetation a year, almost 10 times more land than NSW and Victoria combined, so it can consider what it may do to reduce its extent "without compromising economic productivity".
Andrew Macintosh again takes issue with the 30% of carbon credits issued under the Emissions Reduction Fund for “human-induced regeneration of a permanent even-aged native forest” because proponents are being issued credits for growing trees that were already there when the projects started and because there is no evidence that reducing grazing has increased tree growth. Australia’s biggest emitters are being urged to snap up the carbon credits before the Federal Government inquiry tightens the rules.
Species
Cosmos magazine has an evocative story about Leadbeaters Possum who live in family groups whose “histories are connected to patches of land”, and they like their forests just right in “the “Goldilocks zone” – young trees to feed in, old trees to sleep in”.
Conditions have been just right for the Goldilocks bird. High rainfall in Terrick Terrick National Park, west of Echuca in Victoria, is just right, causing a surge in native grass growth and invertebrate activity, leading to a major breeding boom for Plains Wanderers, with the highest numbers since 2010 found.
The listing of Greater Gliders as Endangered is still garnering attention, with logging and clearing primarily responsible Lindenmayer and others are calling for it to end, while yet others warn there are lots of other species in dire straits that aren’t so cute. Meanwhile they are being cited as a reason to stop mega mountain bike trails within the Mount Canobolas State Conservation Area.
News of the Area focuses on NCC’s reporting of landclearing statistics that 75 hectares of wildlife habitat is bulldozed or logged every day in NSW, almost twice the average annual rate recorded before the Coalition Government’s change of nature laws in 2016, and concerns by Ian Morphett of the Myall Koala & Environment Group that Koalas continue to decline as their habitat is cleared. The Australian Koala Foundation is gaining more publicity over its federal “Koala Protection Act” that would place caveats on land clearing and development across up to 1.5 million square kilometres of forest identified as Koala habitat. Lismore councillors lost their recission motion to overturn Council’s June 23 decision to refuse the DA involving clearing of Koala feed trees at 226 Invercauld Road.
The finding of a spotted-tailed quoll in a garage in Orange in the New South Wales Central West has raised hopes that a population may still persist in the area.
For the second winter in a row, native frogs have been found dead or dying across Australia particularly throughout New South Wales, while chytrid fungus is involved scientists are baffled as to what else is affecting them.
A highly contagious disease known as Spironucleosis is believed responsible for the death of dozens of king parrots on the NSW South Coast, leading WIRES to warn against feeding stations or bird baths that encourage congregations and facilitate spread. Symptoms include emaciation and wasting, weakness, inability to fly and often a staggering walk, with recovery taking up to eight weeks with a lot of TLC and medication.
The introduction of 150 Mitchell’s hopping mouse into a 9,500 hectare fenced area in Mallee Cliffs National Park, in the state’s south-west, is the NSW Government’s latest conservation announcement.
For over ten years, NPWS has been trying to attract Gould’s petrels to Broughton Island (near Port Stephens) for breeding, involving the use of artificial nest boxes and a loudspeaker playing petrel calls, resulting in the first chick hatching in 2020. Now they have launched their first augmented reality (AR) experience, accessed via the NPWS app on a mobile device, that tells the story of the endangered Gould’s petrel, and can be accesses on the Tomaree Head Summit walk or from the comfort of your home.
Native bees are not directly affected by varroa mite, but as part of their eradication campaign the NSW Department of Primary Industry and placing baits of ‘Fipronil’ in control areas to attract Honey Bees that will take the poison back to hives and thereby kill both managed and feral bee hives – they will also attract and kill native bees.
The Animal Justice Party introduced a bill to the NSW Parliament earlier this year that would bring an end to the culling of kangaroos, but the Pastoralists' Association of West Darling believes shooting Kangaroos is necessary to stop kangaroos from suffering cruel deaths from hunger in droughts, while incidentally increasing profitability – maybe we need to return dingos to manage populations.
Cane toads have virtually completed their conquest of the Kimberley and now their armies are amassing for their assault on the Pilbra, so researchers have come-up with virToad enabling you to play against these alien menaces from the comfort of your home.
The cattle industry is extremely concerned that the highly contagious foot and mouth disease, which was detected in Indonesia in May and spread to Bali last week, could now be spread to Australia by the 1.3 million Australians who visit Bali each year, and are calling for disinfectant footbaths to be immediately introduced at airports – this is perceived as a threat because it’s close to Australia unlike the numerous more distant countries with foot and mouth that tourists return from each year.
The deputy mayor wants Wagga council to lobby the NSW government to make changes to the NSW Companion Animals Act 1988 so council can introduce cat curfews, among other management measures.
The Deteriorating Problem
It has generally been assumed the Arctic is warming at two to three times the global average, though recent studies indicate it is accelerating and is now warming at four times the global average, with one study suggesting part of the arctic is warming five to seven times faster than the global average.
Europe continues to suffer droughts and heatwaves as forest fires erupt in multiple countries. Meanwhile another wildfire is threatening California’s ancient giant sequoia trees, leading scientists to worry whether forests in the region may have reached a climate tipping point, with increasingly intense wildfires reinforcing deepening drought conditions in a dangerous feedback loop
Researchers have found that tropical, arid and temperate forests are experiencing a significant decline in resilience (unlike boreal forests) and their capacity to withstand disturbances, and that approximately 23% of intact undisturbed forests have already reached a critical threshold and are experiencing a further degradation in resilience.
More spin as American wood pellet manufacturer Enviva is celebrating nearly 55 years of “National Forest Week”, with their CEO stating “I am humbled to be leading a company for the last 18 years that is dedicated to displacing coal, growing more trees, and fighting climate change”.
Turning it Around
A UN report by Ipbes, approved by representatives of 139 countries, has found that a market-based focus on short-term profits and economic growth has led to bad decisions that have reduced people’s wellbeing and contributed to climate and nature crises, with a “good quality of life” requiring taking into account all the benefits nature provides to humans. The previous Ipbes report on people’s use of wild species has come under attack from scientists for being unduly optimistic while under stating the harm that exploiting wildlife is doing.
In April President Biden directed his administration to devise ways to preserve older forests as part of the government’s efforts to combat climate change, issuing an order to define and inventory all mature and old growth forests on federal land, so now the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management issued a notice seeking public input for a “universal definition framework” to identify older forests needing protection.
Researchers have written a comic that looks at the ways low-income families have had to adapt to climate change in five countries across three continents, aimed at high school students, but will also appeal to university students and the broader public.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Girard protestor fined:
During the Girard State Forest protest against industrial logging in a wildlife corridor Benjamin Pierssene suspended himself on a bed base about 30 metres above the ground, and while police called Police Rescue they were unable to attend due to the remote location, meaning logging was stopped all day and Pierssene wasn’t able to be arrested until he came down at 8pm, in court the magistrate criticised him for being “totally non compliant, non cooperative” with police when fining him $500 for each of 3 offences.
Magistrate Jeff Linden acknowledged “there was always a right to protest in a lawful manner” but said Pierssene’s actions were not that.
The magistrate said Pierssene placed himself in danger while being “totally non compliant, non cooperative” with police.
Given that, he convicted Pierssene for entering and remaining in a contravention of a displayed notice, failure to leave an area on request of an authorised officer, and erecting an obstruction in a forestry area.
He was also fined $500 for each charge
Wild about Wild Cattle Creek, again:
The EPA has launched another prosecution of the Forestry Corporation for breaches in Wild Cattle Creek SF, this time for cutting down 6 giant and 7 hollow-bearing trees, and leaving debris around one, though NEFA is concerned that no action is being taken for the damage to hollow-bearing and Koala feed trees they reported, while arguing that the forest is of outstanding importance for Koalas and should never have been allowed to be logged – though the media were more interested in the potential for $18 million in fines.
The NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) has launched its second prosecution this year against Forestry Corporation of NSW (FCNSW) for allegedly failing to retain habitat for local wildlife, by felling giant and hollow-bearing trees in Wild Cattle Creek State Forest, near Coffs Harbour.
The Authority alleges nine breaches occurred as a result of forestry operations in 2020 including the failure of FCNSW to retain six giant trees and seven hollow bearing trees.
In addition, the EPA alleges FCNSW failed to ensure harvesting debris did not accumulate within five metres of the base of a retained tree. Such debris can be a fire hazard.
Each breach carries a maximum penalty of $2,000,000.
https://www.miragenews.com/epa-launches-another-fcnsw-prosecution-for-817604/
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/nsw-epa-starts-another-prosecution-against-forestry-corp/
Enough is enough, logging of public forests has to stop, NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said.
“It is reprehensible that the in this day and age that the Forestry Corporation are still cutting down these massive awe-inspiring trees, the height of 10 storey buildings and 300-500 years old, that provide the large hollows that many of our iconic animals depend upon for dens and nests.
“It is a tragedy that this was allowed to occur within an area identified as some of the most important Koala habitat in Australia, because the NSW and Commonwealth Governments changed the logging rules in 2018 to remove the need for pre-logging Koala surveys and allow Koala High Use Areas to be logged” Mr. Pugh said.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/07/stop-logging-fragile-public-forests-says-nefa/
https://www.echo.net.au/downloads/byron-echo/volume-37/ByronEcho3705.pdf
[NCC] “We have the intolerable situation where the public is not only forced to subsidise the destruction of our native forests by propping up the loss-making operations of Forestry Corporation, we are also now paying this rogue corporation’s fines. This must end.
“Forestry Corp is behaving like an outlaw organisation, not a government agency entrusted with managing two million hectares of public forests.
https://www.miragenews.com/forestry-corporation-faces-18-million-in-fines-818124/
The corporation had hired more staff in compliance, planning and monitoring roles, and continually reviewed its systems, processes and training, the spokesperson said.
Agriculture Minister Dugald Saunders told AAP he had made his expectations clear to the corporation.
"It is my strong expectation they recognise the importance of complying with the strict environmental regulations that apply to their operation," he said.
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/7818405/18m-fines-sought-for-felled-koala-trees/
https://www.merimbulanewsweekly.com.au/story/7818405/18m-fines-sought-for-felled-koala-trees/
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/nsw/2022/07/13/epa-prosecutes-forestry-seeking-18m-fines/
https://thewest.com.au/news/environment/epa-prosecutes-forestry-seeking-18m-fines-c-7505964
Roading eroding Kalang:
As the schedule for logging to commence in the headwaters nears, the Kalang River Forest Alliance is stepping up its campaign by emphasising that logging the extremely steep landscape of the Kalang Headwaters will cause more landslips, erosion and pollution of the Kalang River, which is denied by local member Mr Singh.
“Bulldozing done by the Forestry Corporation (FCNSW) in response to the Andersons Creek fire in late 2019 has shown us how vulnerable this landscape is, with massive erosion, sediment pollution of the Kalang River and extensive destabilisation of this landscape caused by these works.”
“Recent flood events have caused major landslips and mass movement in areas of historical logging disturbance,” Ms Kelly said.
“There are strict rules and regulations to protect the environment backed by a rigorous enforcement regime,” Mr Singh said.
Fire or rain keeps the loggers away:
Having just issued new Wood Supply Agreements to loggers, the Forestry Corporation says the natural disaster situation is out of their control and has triggered a force majeure, which relieves them from carrying out contractual obligations. It appears that rather than claiming the wood is not there, they are now saying the forest is too wet for them to access, rationing what timber they can access.
Family company general manager Donna Layton says the impost has to be worn by everyone because the cause is beyond human control.
"Since 2019 when the damage was done by fires we haven't been able to access those lands. The forests we came to rely on are simply not accessible," she said.
[CEO of Timber NSW Maree McCaskill] "There is more government support for Private Native Forestry but should state forest supply go the way of Victoria and Western Australia, then PNF might only supply 30pc to 35pc of demand.
Loggers allow the fire in:
A study of fuel moisture and within forest Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) at 119 sites in coastal forests in south-eastern Australia reaffirmed that changes in vegetation associated with logging increase the risk of fire for at least 60 years, concluding “These findings provide evidence that recent logging, and to a lesser extent recent wildfire, increase the risk of wildfire in fire prone forests”.
Temperature, vapour pressure deficit, windspeed and forest FFDI all decreased with time since logging, while relative humidity and fuel moisture content increased. Windspeeds also decreased with time since wildfire. These effects continued for at least 60 years after disturbance. Over the duration of our study, fuel was available to burn (below 16% fuel moisture content) 1.4 times more often in recently logged sites (zero years since logging) compared to sites that had not been logged for 71 years. Recently logged sites were also predicted to have a high Fire Danger Rating (FFDI = 12–24) on 24 days, compared to just two days at sites last logged 71 years ago. Our findings indicate that the changes in vegetation associated with logging and to a lesser extent wildfire, increase the risk of fire. …
We observed differences in sub-canopy microclimatic conditions associated with disturbance history across 119 sites in fire prone forests in south-eastern Australia. Recently disturbed sites had microclimates that are expected to increase the risk of wildfire compared to longer undisturbed sites. These effects were almost entirely associated with logging history, rather than wildfire history. These findings provide evidence that recent logging, and to a lesser extent recent wildfire, increase the risk of wildfire in fire prone forests. Given the importance of climatic conditions in driving fire activity, land managers must carefully manage microclimatic variation caused by logging and wildfire to mitigate fire risk.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3999103
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168192322002659?via%3Dihub
Independent NSW MP Justin Field said, “This research demonstrates that logging increases fire risk and that risk has increased in recent decades with more intensive industrial logging.
“It adds to a growing body of evidence that logging increases the risk and severity of fires in our forests by opening up the canopy, drying out the forest floor and creating ladder fuels bringing fires up into the forest crown.”
Green visitor:
NSW Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann has been touring the south coast, including visiting the 20ha block intended to be cleared for housing at Manyana, and Mogo State forest to meet with concerned community members and to see first hand the impact that logging has had on the local habitat.
She also visited the mid-north coast, including the site of the proposed Ingenia seniors 250 dwellings Scotts Head.
Ms Faehrmann said, “NSW coastal villages and the bushland environments which make them so special are facing death by a thousand cuts.
“Thousands of hectares of threatened species, and habitat clearing fuelling the extinction crisis and changing the face of our coastline forever,” she said.
Pines being replenished:
The Forestry Corporation reports that as bushfire replacements, 3 million trees are being planted across 2,400 hectares south of Oberon in the Vulcan State Forest and on Mount Canobolas near Orange as heavy rainfall creates the ideal conditions for growth, while the building industry is complaining that the reduced supply of pine has resulted in a 40 per cent increase in the cost of timber.
Prior to the Black Summer fires, one in every four homes built in NSW used timber sourced from local plantations.
NSW Master Builders Association executive director Brian Seidler said the reduced supply had translated into a 40 per cent increase in the cost of timber.
"If you are building a $500,000 home, single level, we estimate roughly that the timber prior to the fires was valued at $60,000," he said.
"That same supply of framing material on a house is now nearly $100,000. So it has gone up substantially."
Restoring the Hunter:
More than 70 per cent of Upper Hunter residents who responded to a Hunter Renewal poll said mine rehabilitation should include replanting woodland and forest corridors that have been cleared for coal mining in the Hunter.
AUSTRALIA
Giving with one hand, taking with the other:
The Guardian has an article by Richard Dennis who recognises the overwhelming importance of trees in capturing and storing carbon (as well as providing habitat and filtering water), and questions why the Commonwealth is paying billions to landholders to plant trees and protect forests while State Governments subsidise their logging and allow their clearing.
… the federal government spends billions paying some landholders to grow more trees, state governments perversely continue to subsidise the logging of native forests. I’m not sure that’s what people mean by the circular economy.
While successive governments have spent billions subsidising research into carbon capture and storage (CCS), the really inconvenient truth is the most effective CCS technology is the humble tree. It’s low cost, low risk and ready to roll. …
The economics of tackling the climate crisis aren’t complicated, we simply need to do less of the things that increase emissions and more of the things that reduce them. While a carbon tax is obviously a good idea, in the meantime we need to scrap the subsidies that encourage native forest logging and extracting even more fossil fuels.
Queensland wondering why it is clearing so much:
The Queensland government is inquiring into why it is allowing the clearing of 560,000 hectares of woody vegetation a year, almost 10 times more land than NSW and Victoria combined, so it can consider what it may do to reduce its extent "without compromising economic productivity".
Almost 560,000 hectares of woody vegetation were lost to agriculture, forestry and infrastructure in Queensland in 2018-19, according to a government report.
In contrast, about 51,400 hectares were cleared in NSW and 10,380 hectares were cleared in Victoria in 2020.
Queensland Chief Scientist Professor Hugh Possingham says the panel will advise the government how to protect biodiversity "without compromising economic productivity".
"We're working to better understand where and why native vegetation is being cleared and the different types of clearing in Queensland," Prof Possingham said in a statement.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-11008597/Qld-govt-launches-land-clearing-probe.html
https://www.juneesoutherncross.com.au/story/7818705/qld-govt-launches-land-clearing-probe/
The carbon rort:
Andrew Macintosh again takes issue with the 30% of carbon credits issued under the Emissions Reduction Fund for “human-induced regeneration of a permanent even-aged native forest” because proponents are being issued credits for growing trees that were already there when the projects started and because there is no evidence that reducing grazing has increased tree growth. Australia’s biggest emitters are being urged to snap up the carbon credits before the Federal Government inquiry tightens the rules.
Our new analysis suggests the vast majority of carbon storage credited under this method either has not occurred, or would have occurred anyway.
But most projects have been located in parts of Australia’s arid and semi-arid rangelands where native vegetation has never been cleared (because it is not economic to do so).
Almost all current projects seek to regenerate forests by reducing grazing pressure. For this to make sense, grazing would need to be responsible for dramatically reducing the prevalence of trees in the rangelands. It would also have to be possible to regenerate these “lost” forests by reducing grazing pressure. Neither of these are true.
In fact, every year, between 200,000 and 400,000 hectares of land cleared for grazing is re-cleared. This demonstrates that grazing is rarely sufficient on its own to stop regrowth without mechanical or chemical interventions to kill trees.
One of Labor’s key plans to deliver its climate change promises faces a major challenge as a review kicks off into the $4.5 billion Emissions Reduction Fund, with experts warning the scheme set up under the former government has been selling credits for worthless carbon reduction projects.
Macintosh estimated the “vast majority” of the 30 million credits for what’s known as human-induced regeneration, which currently sell for $35 a tonne, had not captured any extra carbon than without the credits.
Australia’s biggest emitters are being urged to snap up the carbon credits they need to achieve their net-zero goals just as the market for Australian Carbon Credit Units is set to tighten further – potentially raising prices – thanks to more rigorous scrutiny and tougher emissions caps.
https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/beware-fake-forests-big-emitters-warned-on-offsets-rush-20220715-p5b1ul
SPECIES
Leadbeaters not beaten:
Cosmos magazine has an evocative story about Leadbeaters Possum who live in family groups whose “histories are connected to patches of land”, and they like their forests just right in “the “Goldilocks zone” – young trees to feed in, old trees to sleep in”.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/leadbeaters-possum-forest-fairy/
Just right for Goldilocks bird:
Conditions have been just right for the Goldilocks bird. High rainfall in Terrick Terrick National Park, west of Echuca in Victoria, has caused a surge in native grass growth and invertebrate activity, leading to a major breeding boom for Plains Wanderers, with the highest numbers since 2010 found.
Greater Gliders not gone yet:
The listing of Greater Gliders as Endangered is still garnering attention, with logging and clearing primarily responsible Lindenmayer and others are calling for it to end, while yet others warn there are lots of other species in dire straits that aren’t so cute. Meanwhile they are being cited as a reason to stop mega mountain bike trails within the Mount Canobolas State Conservation Area.
“All these various threats and factors interacting in different ways ultimately increase the risk of extinction,” says Luke Emerson, a researcher at Deakin University’s Centre for Integrative Ecology who specialises in the ecology of arboreal marsupials like the glider.
“Rising temperatures, increasing fire severity, shorter fire intervals, logging on top of that, conversion and fragmentation of habitat… all these things are interacting to put greater pressure on arboreal marsupials.
[Dr Marissa Parrot] “Animals like the greater glider are beautiful, and they’re fluffy, and they can really grab people’s attention,” she says. “It’s great that they’re getting that attention, but we also have many species no one’s ever heard of, like the pookila (New Holland mouse), and the bogong moth, which is also a tiny little animal, but an amazing species.
That’s why moving the forestry industry to an entirely plantation-based sector is a critical solution Lindenmayer believes needs to be implemented, and soon.
“It’s time to exit native forest logging,” he says. “The Western Australians have done this: on the 31st of December 2023, [WA] will no longer be logging native forests.
“Victoria needs to do that at the same time, so does New South Wales. It’s really important that we tackle that issue, which renders huge areas of forest unsuitable for animals like greater gliders, either permanently or for periods of up to 200 years.”
https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/greater-glider-now-endangered/
Greater gliders were once abundant along Australia’s east coast. However, 200 years of forest clearing and logging has steadily reduced their habitat and numbers. This legacy of disturbance has amplified the impact of recent bushfires on remaining forest and glider populations.
For those who have stood on bare ground in recently logged or burnt forest, you know the silence of a once thriving ecosystem is chilling. The sense of loss is overwhelming.
Cutting down forests, however, is a threat that could be stopped immediately.
It’s clear the EPBC Act is ineffective[19] at protecting forest-dwelling species. One reason is due to so-called “regional forest agreements[20]” established in the mid-1990s as a compromise between warring[21] environmentalists and the forestry industry.
At best, nest boxes are a localised stopgap. At worst, they can be completely ineffective, and can even be used to greenwash environmentally destructive projects or delay appropriate action.
Western Australia has already committed to end native forestry by 2024. The Victorian and NSW governments must do better, and end native forest logging immediately, or see more greater gliders, koalas and other endangered forest mammals perish.
Dr Andrew Rawson, president of the Canobolas Conservation Alliance and Cabonne councillor points out that "Mount Canobolas is one of the very few locations in our region where greater gliders occur. It is essential that we protect their mountain habitat from any activity that could cause further disturbance".
This can be achieved by ensuring that Orange and Cabonne Councils do not permit inappropriate development such as mega mountain bike trails within the Mount Canobolas State Conservation Area.
Koala’s homes need protection:
News of the Area focuses on NCC’s reporting of landclearing statistics that 75 hectares of wildlife habitat is bulldozed or logged every day in NSW, almost twice the average annual rate recorded before the Coalition Government’s change of nature laws in 2016, and concerns by Ian Morphett of the Myall Koala & Environment Group that Koalas continue to decline as their habitat is cleared.
The Australian Koala Foundation is gaining more publicity over its federal “Koala Protection Act” that would place caveats on land clearing and development across up to 1.5 million square kilometres of forest identified as Koala habitat.
Koala recission motion lost:
Lismore councillors lost their rescission motion to overturn Council’s June 23 decision to refuse the DA involving clearing of Koala feed trees at 226 Invercauld Road.
Sean O’Shannessy from the North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) wanted Council to know that endangering the environment was not a good look, …
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/07/goonellabah-koalas-win-after-rescission-lost/
Orange quoll:
The finding of a spotted-tailed quoll in a garage in Orange in the New South Wales Central West has raised hopes that a population may still persist in the area.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-09/spotted-tailed-quoll-orange-only-14000-remain/101213326
Frogs dying:
For the second winter in a row, native frogs have been found dead or dying across Australia particularly throughout New South Wales, while chytrid fungus is involved scientists are baffled as to what else is affecting them.
"Certainly, if a frog is going to die, it will happen once it gets cold because their immune system really slows down," Dr Rowley said.
She said green tree frogs especially were struggling on the Mid North Coast of NSW, which was a "hotspot" last year.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-12/mystery-frog-deaths-return-for-second-winter-season/101198904
King Parrots dying to be fed:
A highly contagious disease known as Spironucleosis is believed responsible for the death of dozens of king parrots on the NSW South Coast, leading WIRES to warn against feeding stations or bird baths that encourage congregations and facilitate spread. Symptoms include emaciation and wasting, weakness, inability to fly and often a staggering walk, with recovery taking up to eight weeks with a lot of TLC and medication.
https://aboutregional.com.au/disease-killing-south-coast-king-parrots-how-you-can-help-save-them/
Hopping into enclosures:
The introduction of 150 Mitchell’s hopping mouse into a 9,500 hectare fenced area in Mallee Cliffs National Park, in the state’s south-west, is the NSW Government’s latest conservation announcement.
NPWS’s augmented reality:
For over ten years, NPWS has been trying to attract Gould’s petrels to Broughton Island (near Port Stephens) for breeding, involving the use of artificial nest boxes and a loudspeaker playing petrel calls, resulting in the first chick hatching in 2020. Now they have launched their first augmented reality (AR) experience, accessed via the NPWS app on a mobile device, that tells the story of the endangered Gould’s petrel, and can be accesses on the Tomaree Head Summit walk or from the comfort of your home.
Native bees to be eradicated in poisoning campaign:
Native bees are not directly affected by varroa mite, but as part of their eradication campaign the NSW Department of Primary Industry and placing baits of ‘Fipronil’ in control areas to attract Honey Bees that will take the poison back to hives and thereby kill both managed and feral bee hives – they will also attract and kill native bees.
Dan Smailes, Sydney Native Bees, is offering help to anyone that may need help to move their native bee hive or an identified wild native bee hive to safety.
You could protect it too, either by closing up the nest entrance with metal gauze while eradication work is underway.
Dan can be contacted by message to 0404 604 569.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/native-bees-at-risk-from-varroa-mite-eradication-plan-96562
Killing Kangaroos better that letting them die:
The Animal Justice Party introduced a bill to the NSW Parliament earlier this year that would bring an end to the culling of kangaroos, but the Pastoralists' Association of West Darling believes shooting Kangaroos is necessary to stop kangaroos from suffering cruel deaths from hunger in droughts, while incidentally increasing profitability – maybe we need to return dingos to manage populations.
Virtually fighting alien toads:
Cane toads have virtually completed their conquest of the Kimberley and now their armies are amassing for their assault on the Pilbra, so researchers have come-up with virToad enabling you to play against these alien menaces from the comfort of your home.
A paper just published describes a computer simulation program we developed to help test cane toad management in the virtual world before strategies are rolled out in real life.
The cane toad is the ultimate invader, spreading up to 50 kilometres a year and breeding explosively.
By playing around with different strategies, and understanding the effort needed to implement them, virToad allows conservation managers to calculate whether they have the people and budget to deploy a plan on the ground.
Foot in mouth a worry for politicians:
The cattle industry is extremely concerned that the highly contagious foot and mouth disease, which was detected in Indonesia in May and spread to Bali last week, could now be spread to Australia by the 1.3 million Australians who visit Bali each year, and are calling for disinfectant footbaths to be immediately introduced at airports – this is perceived as a threat because it’s close to Australia unlike the numerous more distant countries with foot and mouth that tourists return from each year.
https://www.aap.com.au/news/fmd-at-the-closest-its-ever-been-to-aust/
Curtailing cats:
The deputy mayor wants Wagga council to lobby the NSW government to make changes to the NSW Companion Animals Act 1988 so council can introduce cat curfews, among other management measures.
Cr McKinnon said that without change at a state level, it is very difficult for local councils to implement laws for cat owners, so she wants Wagga council to take the matter to the NSW local government association.
[Cat Protection Society of NSW] "There are things they can do within existing legislation, like creating wildlife protection areas ... put money into parenting with us to give low income residents access to really affordable desexing and microchipping," she said.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Arctic out-performing models:
It has generally been assumed the Arctic is warming at two to three times the global average, though recent studies indicate it is accelerating and is now warming at four times the global average, with one study suggesting part of the arctic is warming five to seven times faster than the global average.
https://www.eenews.net/articles/rate-of-arctic-warming-faster-than-previously-thought/
Are forests collapsing?:
Europe continues to suffer droughts and heatwaves as forest fires erupt in multiple countries. Meanwhile another wildfire is threatening California’s ancient giant sequoia trees, leading scientists to worry whether forests in the region may have reached a climate tipping point, with increasingly intense wildfires reinforcing deepening drought conditions in a dangerous feedback loop
But that has changed in the last decade, as drought, wildfires and insect infestation—all exacerbated by climate change—have contributed to the deaths of a surprisingly high number of giant sequoias in their native habitat along the western slope of California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range. In fact, in the last two years alone, increasingly severe wildfires have killed as many as one-fifth of the estimated 75,000 sequoias living in those groves, shocking forestry experts who say such deaths point to a grim milestone for the climate crisis. Slow fires that once stayed on the ground are now more frequently racing through the treetops as crown fires.
Last year, wildfires in the United States, Turkey and parts of Siberia emitted an estimated 1.76 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the equivalent of more than a quarter of the annual carbon emissions of the U.S., according to scientists with the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. And as rising greenhouse gas emissions push temperatures higher, it’s exacerbating the drought conditions that have helped fuel the West’s intense fires, which then release carbon dioxide, soot and other climate-warming pollutants into the atmosphere in a self-perpetuating cycle.
“If you had asked me as recently as the middle of 2014, ‘Do you see the effects of a changing climate on giant sequoias?’ I would have said no,” Stephenson said. Now “with giant sequoias, it feels like a threshold has been reached and we’re seeing changes of the sort we haven’t seen before.”
https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?e=6624c72df8&u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=eef74acc40
Researchers have found that tropical, arid and temperate forests are experiencing a significant decline in resilience (unlike boreal forests) and their capacity to withstand disturbances, and that approximately 23% of intact undisturbed forests have already reached a critical threshold and are experiencing a further degradation in resilience.
Forest ecosystems depend on their capacity to withstand and recover from natural and anthropogenic perturbations (that is, their resilience)1. Experimental evidence of sudden increases in tree mortality is raising concerns about variation in forest resilience2, yet little is known about how it is evolving in response to climate change. Here we integrate satellite-based vegetation indices with machine learning to show how forest resilience, quantified in terms of critical slowing down indicators3,4,5, has changed during the period 2000–2020. We show that tropical, arid and temperate forests are experiencing a significant decline in resilience, probably related to increased water limitations and climate variability. By contrast, boreal forests show divergent local patterns with an average increasing trend in resilience, probably benefiting from warming and CO2 fertilization, which may outweigh the adverse effects of climate change. These patterns emerge consistently in both managed and intact forests, corroborating the existence of common large-scale climate drivers. Reductions in resilience are statistically linked to abrupt declines in forest primary productivity, occurring in response to slow drifting towards a critical resilience threshold. Approximately 23% of intact undisturbed forests, corresponding to 3.32 Pg C of gross primary productivity, have already reached a critical threshold and are experiencing a further degradation in resilience. Together, these signals reveal a widespread decline in the capacity of forests to withstand perturbation that should be accounted for in the design of land-based mitigation and adaptation plans.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04959-9
National Biomass week:
American wood pellet manufacturer Enviva is celebrating nearly 55 years of “National Forest Week”, with their CEO stating “I am humbled to be leading a company for the last 18 years that is dedicated to displacing coal, growing more trees, and fighting climate change”.
Although Enviva does not own any forests, we play an important role in helping U.S. forests thrive and grow. For instance, Enviva produces sustainably sourced wood pellets using an array of sustainable practices that protect environmentally sensitive areas and conserve working forests. … sustainably sourced wood bioenergy is recognized by leading scientific authorities around the world as an effective, renewable energy solution to mitigate the effects of climate change.
https://biomassmagazine.com/articles/19148/enviva-celebrates-national-forest-week/
TURNING IT AROUND
Environment has values:
A UN report by Ipbes, approved by representatives of 139 countries, has found that a market-based focus on short-term profits and economic growth has led to bad decisions that have reduced people’s wellbeing and contributed to climate and nature crises, with a “good quality of life” requiring taking into account all the benefits nature provides to humans.
This means properly valuing the spiritual, cultural and emotional values that nature brings to humans, according to the report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (Ipbes)….
The review highlights four general perspectives that should be taken into account; “living from nature” which refers to its ability to provide us with our needs like food and material goods; “living with nature”, which is the right of non-human life to thrive; “living in nature” which refers to people’s right to a sense of place and identity, and finally, “living as nature”, which treats the world as a spiritual part of being human.
Ipbes, which is the equivalent of the IPCC for biodiversity, was set up to provide governments across the world with scientific advice on how to protect nature. Last week, it released another report that found wild species support half the world’s population but their future use is threatened by overexploitation.
There are more than 50 ways to value the environment, but most research and policymaking focuses on just a handful of methods. These include counting species and evaluating the cost of replacing a service provided by nature. Yet assessing nature in purely monetary terms can also be harmful to people and the environment, according to the world’s largest assessment of environmental valuation.
There is strong evidence that valuing nature on the basis of market prices is contributing to the present biodiversity crisis, said Unai Pascual, an economist at the Basque Centre for Climate Change in Leioa, Spain, at the launch in Bonn. “Many other values are ignored in favour of short-term profit and economic growth,” added Pascual, who co-chaired the assessment.
… The value of sacred sites does not need to be turned into dollars, or euros, said IPBES co-author Sander Jacobs, an ecologist at the Research Institute of Nature and Forests in Brussels, at the report’s launch.
The previous Ipbes report on people’s use of wild species has come under attack from scientists for being unduly optimistic while under stating the harm that exploiting wildlife is doing.
Billions of people worldwide rely on around 50,000 species of wild plants and animals for food, energy, medicines and income, according to a major intergovernmental report prepared by dozens of scientists. Although the report finds that overexploitation is a threat to some species, it also highlights many examples of wild species being used sustainably, and recommends ways to support and replicate those methods.
But independent scientists say that the assessment falls short in its assessment of people’s uses of wild species. They point to significant gaps in the evidence underpinning the assessment. It “underestimates the harm that exploitation of wildlife does to nature and it exaggerates the benefits”, says biologist Daniela Freyer, co-founder of the conservation organization Pro Wildlife in Munich, Germany.
… It will follow a 2019 IPBES report, which found that exploitation of wildlife is one of the largest drivers of biodiversity loss. The latest report builds on that finding and sought to offer a more optimistic message, says Marla Emery, a co-chair of the assessment.
Defining oldgrowth:
In April President Biden directed his administration to devise ways to preserve older forests as part of the government’s efforts to combat climate change, issuing an order to define and inventory all mature and old growth forests on federal land, so now the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management issued a notice seeking public input for a “universal definition framework” to identify older forests needing protection.
There’s disagreement over which trees to count. Environmentalists have said millions of acres of public lands should qualify. The timber industry and its allies have cautioned against a broad definition over concerns that could put new areas off limits to logging.
The Forest Service manages 209,000 square miles (541,000 square kilometers) of forested land, including about 87,500 square miles (226,000 square kilometers) where trees are older than 100 years.
https://mynorthwest.com/3562042/us-solicits-help-as-it-defines-old-growth-and-mature-forests/
Making climate change comical:
Researchers have written a comic that looks at the ways low-income families have had to adapt to climate change in five countries across three continents, aimed at high school students, but will also appeal to university students and the broader public.
Parents, teachers and students can download the comic for free here and here.
Forest Media 8 July 2022
New South Wales
The Kalang River Forest Alliance (KRFA) say they are highly alarmed about Forestry Corporation plans to start logging in Oakes State Forest in the Kalang Headwaters, arguing they shouldn’t be logging habitat of the Rufous Scrub-bird.
The dismissing of charges against the Cherry Tree 4 is still attracting attention, as noted by their lawyer “civil disobedience is what activists are forced to do when the Government prioritises protecting vested interests over the protection of our planet”.
While people may argue whether the actions of Blockade Australia in attempting to disrupt Sydney are productive or not, there is no doubt that the reports of police actions, 23 arrests between Monday and Wednesday, and political reactions are focussing attention on the urgency of the issue. This is exemplified by papers such as the Glenn Innes Examiner sticking up for Blockade Australia, concluding “Governments must listen to people and address their concerns rather than seek to silence them”.
A remembrance and celebration of the Nightcap Action Group’s 1982 successful actions to stop rainforest logging around Mount Nardi, leading to the creation of the Nightcap National Park and the 1982 ‘Rainforest Decision’, is being planned for October, with assistance sought. After serving some 20,000 meals and innumerable coffees, Trees not Bombs has packed up, the Echo commenting “no doubt that the café will leave a hole in the heart of Lismore”. The Knitting Nannas Against Gas and greed (K.N.A.G) recently celebrated their 10th Nannaversary with a knit-in in Lismore, joined by nannas from Grafton, Sydney, Bellingen and Kyogle.
At a Grafton Farmers for Climate Action meeting SCU soil scientist, Dr Grant, reported he found that 10 days after the Lismore flood 5% of the floodwater was soil, leading him to estimate that eroded soil may have added 2m to flood heights at their peak, as he emphasised the value of soil carbon for increasing water retention and the folly of clearing forests in river catchments.
The Forestry Corporation’s fine of $230,000 for "breaching its approval and carrying out unlawful forestry activities in an exclusion zone" in the Dampier State Forest, along with its other logging fines, including for the Koala exclusion area in Wild Cattle Creek, continue to attract a lot of media attention. Last week’s Northern Rivers Times focussed on an interview with Sue Higginson about the Wild Cattle Creek breaches and the Forestry Corporation’s proven reckless attitude towards compliance with its environmental obligations, concluding logging our public forests no longer stacks up.
The NSW Government has commenced consultation on the development of a new model for Aboriginal joint management of NSW national parks, which could see title to the entire estate transferred to Aboriginal owners over a 15 to 20 year period, under a new model where the public will have continued access to national parks, and transfers of title would be subject to a long-term leaseback of land at nominal rent to Government. The consultation process has been announced and is expected to take 18 months.
Rocky Knob, a 9.6 hectare section of the Burraghihnbihng (Hexham Wetlands), was traditionally used as a hunting and gathering place of the Pambalong Clan of the Awabakal People and one of the few undisturbed Aboriginal burial grounds that still exist, has now become the first site in Newcastle to be protected with an Aboriginal Place declaration.
Over 3,500 natives have been planted in a project to create new wildlife corridors in the Eurobodalla.
Australia
Two of the world’s biggest bauxite miners are seeking to clear a combined 13,672 hectares of trees and native vegetation in Western Australia’s Northern Jarrah Forest to mine shallow reserves that lie only a few metres under the surface.
Bob Brown Foundation has expressed outrage at Forestry Tasmania’s newly released three-year logging plans which identify 15,534 hectares of native forests for logging, describing it as “the worst we have ever seen”. The trailer for the movie Franklin, which recounts the campaign to stop the Franklin River being dammed, has been released.
The University of the Sunshine Coast has an exhibition of works that visualises the calls of different species on Kabi Kabi Country using cymatics, the science of visualising acoustic energy or sound, that brings together painting, objects, moving image and sound.
Species
The biggest news-story of the week was the Greater Glider being listed by the Federal Government as Endangered because of “an overall rate of population decline exceeding 50 percent over a 21-year (three generation) period, including population reduction and habitat destruction following the 2019–20 bushfires”, the Scientific Committee further noting “cumulative impacts of the 2019-20 bushfires, ongoing prescribed burning, timber harvesting and climate change will continue to put pressure on remaining greater glider habitat. Fire-logging interactions likely increase risks to greater glider populations”. The new Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek made the announcement, downplaying the role of forestry, while Prof David Lindenmayer called for urgent and serious action, and NEFA called for the Commonwealth to amend the North East NSW Regional Forest Agreement to require pre-logging surveys for koalas, greater gliders, and yellow-bellied gliders, and protection of their homes.
Kinglake Friends of the Forest along with Environment East Gippsland have brought a case against VicForests in the Supreme Court for logging Greater Glider habitat, arguing there should be surveys for Greater Gliders and 18ha exclusion zones around records, with a court hearing scheduled for 7 March and a final hearing for May they are seeking to raise $50,000 through chuffed.
Researchers identify inappropriate fire regimes as threatening 88% of Australia’s threatened mammals – too much, too hot or not enough.
Bushfires and floods have destroyed many of the hollows Glossy Black-cockatoos call home, along with the casuarina trees they exclusively feed upon, so Glossies Northern Rivers were excited when they found a pair at Bogangar near Casuarina Beach in the Tweed Shire after months of fruitless searches across 21,000 square kilometres. It is now being considered for listing as nationally threatened.
With Endangered Australasian Bitterns reduced to around 1300 individuals the National Landcare Program is funding 'Boosting the Bunyip Bird Yield' project, which is offering incentives to rice growers to provide additional and improved habitat on farms for the species.
The Lachlan River system has been in flood for more than has been seen in the last 30 to 40 years, leading to mass breeding events for colonial species such as pelicans and Straw-necked Ibis, though numbers are not what they used to be, and another drought is just around the corner.
Wildlife carers and organisations are urging people to look out for and help rescue displaced wildlife impacted by the floods, with burrowing animals such as wombats and echidnas expected to be the most heavily impacted as their homes are filled with floodwaters and mud, while some groups appeal for donations.
A study of bird feathers by the Hunter Environment Centre found alarming levels of arsenic, lead, selenium, and mercury in up to a dozen different species of birds among those frequenting waterways close to coal-fired power stations in the Hunter and Central Tablelands. Concentrations of metals found in 65 per cent of the feathers collected from the three contaminated lakes (Lake Liddell, Lake Macquarie, Lake Wallace) were above identified adverse health and reproduction thresholds for birds. It is also concerning that the intended control sites of Port Stephens and Myall Lakes also contained concentrations of mercury and lead above health threshold levels. The Australian Electricity Commission, which represents power generators, said the environment centre's report lacked scientific credibility, though experts disagreed.
Concerns have been raised that in Tasmania millions of native animals, including wallabies, green rosellas, cockatoos and wombats have been killed under property protection permits which allow landowners to kill wildlife to prevent damage to crops, stock or infrastructure.
Varroa mites got into New Zealand bees over 22 years ago, with their spread aided by feral and unregistered hives, the consequences have been that hives require more maintenance and chemical controls, making it a lot more expensive and challenging for beekeepers, while lowering crop pollination. As at 6pm Thursday, 1,693 hives have been euthanised at 34 infested premises between the NSW central and mid-north coasts as well as at Narrabri in the state’s northwest, representing over 17 million bees. While most beekeepers consider it best to try to eliminate the mite in Australia, if unsuccessful the long-term consequences of eradication efforts will be massive. Though there will be more nectar available for native species this year, and getting rid of feral hives will have long-term benefits.
An American study of small forest mammals by the University of Maine recognises that species have different responses, with some being aggressive and others more relaxed, though they also tested for the personality differences within species in order to assess how an individual’s boldness, shyness, aggressiveness, and curiosity affect their activities and thereby how they influence the structure of the ecosystem – it’s not just about saving species, it’s also about saving those individuals with the most appropriate personalities to shape future ecosystems.
The Deteriorating Problem
While we are now being over-whelmed by floods, we can expect an increase in, and worsening of, the droughts and fires of 2019-20 in the near future. A study found the frequency of days with extreme fire weather globally increased an average of 54 per cent from 1979-2019, particularly pronounced in western North America, Amazonia and the Mediterranean, while in Australia the increase was 56 per cent. And it is getting worse.
A global study of the frequency of drought days (FDD) under climate change (during the low-flow season) identifies much of southern Australia will experience significant increases in drought days by the mid-21st century (2036–2065), with the timing of the first onset of consecutive exceedance for equal to or more than five years compared to the historical maximum value for Australia not until after 2070 (regardless of the emissions scenario).
As expected, in a 6-3 majority the US Supreme Court has limited the regulatory tools that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can use to curb greenhouse-gas emissions by prohibiting the EPA from crafting broad regulations to drive the US power industry away from coal and towards cleaner energy sources, such as wind and solar.
The Brazilian Amazon lost 3,750 square kilometers of jungle since the beginning of the year, the worst numbers for this 6 month period since record-keeping began in 2016, and is experiencing the worst fires since 2007.
Turning it Around
Much is being made of a recent “scientific” paper that adopts “constrained restoration options” to “conclude that additional carbon sequestration via nature restoration is unlikely to be done quickly enough to notably reduce the global peak temperatures expected in the next few decades. Land restoration is an important option for tackling climate change but cannot compensate for delays in reducing fossil fuel emissions”. Though their constraints are strangely based on the premise that only planting trees in agricultural contexts will have immediate impacts, while they assume there will be a 20 year lag before secondary forests left to regenerate will suddenly start sequestering additional carbon. They also ignore tree plantations and make strange assumptions about how much area will be subject to the various treatments – as evidenced by the comments on the article in the Conversation it is dangerous propaganda.
Many of the world’s largest companies with net-zero commitments have made little, tangible progress against tropical deforestation, according to a recent report from a U.N. climate change task force.
Forests are old. Plants first arrived on land about 470 million years ago, trees with large woody roots and woody branches with leaves, and forests, evolved nearly 390 million years ago.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
KRFA alarmed:
The Kalang River Forest Alliance (KRFA) say they are highly alarmed about Forestry Corporation plans to start logging in Oakes State Forest in the Kalang Headwaters, arguing they shouldn’t be logging habitat of the Rufous Scrub-bird.
In order to address both the extinction crisis and the climate crisis, Mr Bellchambers has called on Environment Minister James Griffin to immediately act to protect the entire Kalang Headwaters and the broader proposed Headwaters Nature Reserve from logging.
Cherry Tree 4 continue to garner attention:
The dismissing of charges against the Cherry Tree 4 is still attracting attention, as noted by their lawyer “civil disobedience is what activists are forced to do when the Government prioritises protecting vested interests over the protection of our planet”.
https://www.nimbingoodtimes.com/archive/pages2022/jul/NGT-0722-10-17.pdf
Northern Rivers Times June 30 2022
Blockade attention:
While people may argue whether the actions of Blockade Australia in attempting to disrupt Sydney are productive or not, there is no doubt that the reports of police actions, 23 arrests between Monday and Wednesday, and political reactions are focussing attention on the urgency of the issue. This is exemplified by papers such as the Glenn Innes Examiner sticking up for Blockade Australia, concluding “Governments must listen to people and address their concerns rather than seek to silence them”.
Extreme claims have recently been made by the state government, and their supporters in the media, of the impact on traffic by climate protesters blocking the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
I wonder how many of those making these claims are struck by a feeling of irony when they see the images on the daily news bulletins of the impact on traffic from the climate change induced flooding events happening almost monthly in parts of NSW.
Do they really expect people to stand by and do nothing when state government instrumentalities, like Forestry NSW, ignore state laws and environmental protection requirements, or while governments give approvals to coal and gas developments that fuel the fire of climate change?
What is the response of government? Rather than listen to concerns and address, the issues they impose a heavy-handed police response and criminalise protest through greater penalties on those who seek to raise concerns and disrupt the destruction. This must change. Governments must listen to people and address their concerns rather than seek to silence them.
https://www.gleninnesexaminer.com.au/story/7807377/governments-must-listen-to-the-people/
A statement signed by 40 civil society organisations and released by the Human Rights Law Centre “expressed alarm” at the initial police surveillance and raid of Blockade Australia.
“The extensive covert surveillance and pre-emptive policing sets a disturbing precedent for protest rights,” the statement said.
“They want worried citizens to wave placards uselessly from the footpath while they drive their log trucks, coal trucks and gas rigs up the highways to more riches and planetary ruin,” [Bob Brown] said in a statement released by the Human Rights Law Centre.
“As life on Earth is pulverised by global heating, habitat destruction and species extinctions, the exploiters know they can’t win the debate, so they aim to put environmentalists out of action through vilification, legal sanctions and unprecedented punishment.”
https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2022/07/threats-to-right-to-protest-signal-continuation-of-war-on-charities/
40 years on from Nightcap 2:
A remembrance and celebration of the Nightcap Action Group’s 1982 successful actions to stop rainforest logging around Mount Nardi, leading to the creation of the Nightcap National Park and the 1982 ‘Rainforest Decision’, is being planned for October, with assistance sought.
Sophia 0428 685 690
https://www.nimbingoodtimes.com/archive/pages2022/jul/NGT-0722-10-17.pdf
Trees not Bombs:
After serving some 20,000 meals and innumerable coffees, Trees not Bombs has packed up, the Echo commenting “no doubt that the café will leave a hole in the heart of Lismore”.
[Susie Russell] The forests need more now – we’ve got a state election coming up and the future of the forest is at stake. It’s really important that people understand that we haven’t got much time left, because our forests are being trashed at a really rapid rate. We need more time and resources. And hopefully, the Trees Not Bombs will resurrect at a forest blockade near you.’
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/07/trees-not-bombs-gone-but-not-forgotten/
https://www.nimbingoodtimes.com/archive/pages2022/jul/NGT-0722-10-17.pdf
Knitting Nannas celebrate 10th birthday:
The Knitting Nannas Against Gas and greed (K.N.A.G) recently celebrated their 10th Nannaversary with a knit-in in Lismore, joined by nannas from Grafton, Sydney, Bellingen and Kyogle.
Nanna Clare says that during the past 10 years Nannas have had many an adventure with friends and foes in our battle against CSG mining in the Northern Rivers and further afield. ‘At one stage we had 40 plus Nanna loops across Australia and overseas.
‘We have been yelled at, told to get a clucking job and/or to get our tits out, we have been driven at and hit by utes, and sworn at by Honourable Members of Parliament.
‘Nannas have been arrested, charged and locked up. They have attached themselves to very big trucks, smaller trucks, gates and Devices.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/07/the-tenth-nannaversary-of-the-knitting-nannas/
Erosion increases flooding:
At a Grafton Farmers for Climate Action meeting SCU soil scientist, Dr Grant, reported he found that 10 days after the Lismore flood 5% of the floodwater was soil, leading him to estimate that eroded soil may have added 2m to flood heights at their peak, as he emphasised the value of soil carbon for increasing water retention and the folly of clearing forests in river catchments.
Northern Rivers Times July 7 2022
Forestry Corporation’s criminality intriguing:
The Forestry Corporation fine of $230,000 for "breaching its approval and carrying out unlawful forestry activities in an exclusion zone" in the Dampier State Forest, along with its other logging fines, including for the Koala exclusion area in Wild Cattle Creek, continue to attract a lot of media attention.
https://monaropost.com.au/grassroots/forestry-corp-fined-530-000-for-logging-operations
https://aboutregional.com.au/forestry-corp-handed-230000-fine-for-bat-related-breaches-near-bodalla/
Northern Rivers Times July 7 2022,
https://www.nimbingoodtimes.com/archive/pages2022/jul/NGT-0722-10-17.pdf
Last week’s Northern Rivers Times focussed on an interview with Sue Higginson about the Wild Cattle Creek breaches and the Forestry Corporation’s proven reckless attitude towards compliance with its environmental obligations, concluding logging our public forests no longer stacks up.
Northern Rivers Times June 30 2022.
Parks handback:
The NSW Government has commenced consultation on the development of a new model for Aboriginal joint management of NSW national parks, which could see title to the entire estate transferred to Aboriginal owners over a 15 to 20 year period, under a new model where the public will have continued access to national parks, and transfers of title would be subject to a long-term leaseback of land at nominal rent to Government.
“Already, more than 30 per cent of the NSW national parks estate is covered by joint management, but Aboriginal people currently hold title or native title to just over four per cent of it,” Mr Griffin said.
A proposed model that involves enhancing Aboriginal employment and business opportunities will be released for public comment with a final model being considered by Government after extensive consultation.
https://afndaily.com.au/2022/07/03/aboriginal-joint-management-of-national-parks-to-expand/
The consultation process has been announced and is expected to take 18 months.
In developing a new joint management model, the NSW Government is committed to:
- providing ongoing public access to the national park estate in a manner that showcases our natural and cultural heritage and positions New South Wales as a world leader in nature-based tourism
- implementing effective fire management across the estate, consistent with existing statutory obligations, including under the Rural Fires Act 1997 and our hazard reduction commitments
- implementing feral animal, weed control, threatened species protection and other on-ground land management, which protects natural and cultural values in a manner consistent with NSW national parks being one of the world's leading protected area estates.
The proposed new model will be developed in consultation with Aboriginal communities and native title holders, as well as with other stakeholders who use and value our national parks, including conservation groups, tourism bodies, local government and recreational users.
Part of Hexham Wetlands protected:
Rocky Knob, a 9.6 hectare section of the Burraghihnbihng (Hexham Wetlands), was traditionally used as a hunting and gathering place of the Pambalong Clan of the Awabakal People and one of the few undisturbed Aboriginal burial grounds that still exist, has now become the first site in Newcastle to be protected with an Aboriginal Place declaration.
https://newcastleweekly.com.au/rocky-knob-declared-newcastles-first-official-aboriginal-place/
Planting corridor:
Over 3,500 natives have been planted in a project to create new wildlife corridors in the Eurobodalla.
A project delivered in partnership with Local Land Services (LLS), Coastwatchers and EcoCrews is helping to restore habitat for native animals including the Great Glider, which is listed as a threatened species, with the creation of wildlife corridors.
AUSTRALIA
Mining Jarrah:
Two of the world’s biggest bauxite miners are seeking to clear a combined 13,672 hectares of trees and native vegetation in Western Australia’s Northern Jarrah Forest to mine shallow reserves that lie only a few metres under the surface.
“The Northern Jarrah Forest was identified as one of a handful of Australian ecosystems most at risk of climate collapse in the latest report by the UN’s panel of experts on climate change,” [Jess Beckerling] said.
“To do more damage – as this proposal would clearly do – would be an unforgivable act of self-sabotage for our state and set conservation efforts back decades.”
Logging plans the worst:
Bob Brown Foundation has expressed outrage at Forestry Tasmania’s newly released three-year logging plans which identify 15,534 hectares of native forests for logging, describing it as “the worst we have ever seen”.
Logging is planned for the World Heritage value ancient rainforests in Tasmania’s takayna / Tarkine, 500-year-old eucalyptus trees, habitat for the critically endangered swift parrots, and some of the oldest forests in the central highlands, near Tasmania’s popular Cradle Mountain and Lake St Clair World Heritage Areas, are targeted.
https://tasmaniantimes.com/2022/07/on-forestry/
Franklin be dammed:
The trailer for the movie Franklin, which recounts the campaign to stop the Franklin River being dammed, has been released.
https://if.com.au/franklin-trailer/
Visualising wildlife calls:
The University of the Sunshine Coast has an exhibition of works that visualises the calls of different species on Kabi Kabi Country using cymatics, the science of visualising acoustic energy or sound, that brings together painting, objects, moving image and sound.
Beeyali is a creative research project currently featuring in the Djagan Yaman exhibition as part of NAIDOC Week. The project began in Queensland to visualise the calls of wildlife using the science of visualising sound. …
… The work is being presented at EVA London this week and is currently on show in Djagan Yaman, Davis’ first solo exhibition in the USC Art Gallery.
SPECIES
Greater Glider under greater threat:
The Greater Glider has now been listed by the Federal Government as Endangered because of “an overall rate of population decline exceeding 50 percent over a 21-year (three generation) period, including population reduction and habitat destruction following the 2019–20 bushfires”, the Scientific Committee further noting “cumulative impacts of the 2019-20 bushfires, ongoing prescribed burning, timber harvesting and climate change will continue to put pressure on remaining greater glider habitat. Fire-logging interactions likely increase risks to greater glider populations”.
Conservation Advice for Petauroides volans (greater glider (southern and central))
The new Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek made the announcement, downplaying the role of forestry, while Prof David Lindenmayer called for urgent and serious action, and NEFA called for the Commonwealth to amend the North East NSW Regional Forest Agreement to require pre-logging surveys for koalas, greater gliders, and yellow-bellied gliders, and protection of their homes.
Prof David Lindenmayer, an ecologist at Australian National University who has extensively studied greater gliders, said while the government’s move to raise the threat level for the gliders was welcome, it had to come with urgent action.
“These are just words unless they are met with some serious action,” he said. “This shows we have been asleep at the wheel in terms of management for the last 40 years.”
The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, said the new listing would “ensure prioritisation of recovery actions to protect this iconic species”.
“The states implement prescriptions to provide for habitat protection of the greater glider in the relatively small areas of native forest that is harvested,” she said.
“The commonwealth is continuing to play a leadership role and support the coordination of conservation outcomes across the greater gliders’ range.”
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/federal/extinction-looms-for-australia-s-equivalent-of-the-panda-20220705-p5az95.html
Greater glider habitat continues to be logged by state-owned operations in Victoria and NSW under regional forest agreements which are largely exempt from the EPBC protections.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/greater-gliders-listed-endangered-across-australia-084608229.html
Mr Pugh says the Commonwealth should no longer allow the NSW Government to clear and log the remaining refuges for koalas, greater gliders, and yellow-bellied gliders if it wants to avoid their extinction.
‘The new federal Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek, needs to intervene by changing the North East NSW Regional Forest Agreement to restore the requirement for pre-logging surveys to identify where nationally listed threatened species survive, and ensure that clearing and logging is prohibited in their homes.
‘To save our species, we first need to identify where they live, protect their homes and then start restoring their habitat.’
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/07/commonwealth-needs-to-step-in-to-save-endangered-wildlife/
A $1.69 million government rescue package is already in place which includes the installation of artificial tree hollows and targeted revegetation, but the conservation group WWF-Australia said the endangered listing is one step closer to extinction and must be followed by urgent legislative action to protect their forest home.
"Greater gliders are susceptible to bushfires as they rely on mature trees with hollows to survive. This is particularly devastating as natural hollows, their homes, can take up to 100 years to form," Ms Plibersek said.
and dozens more
Greater gliders feed almost exclusively on eucalyptus leaves and buds. It is estimated the gliders lost around 35 per cent of their habitat in the Black Summer bushfires. If they did not get burnt, they appeared to die from starvation or dehydration.
“The NSW Government could remove possibly the most immediate threat to our forests and to the greater glider simply by phasing out native forest logging once and for all.” [Mr. Gambian said]
“I think there is a future for native forest logging done in a boutique way, with high value products from private native forests,” [Mr. Field] said.
“Large hollow bearing trees which are used by the gliders should be protected by law,” he said.
“We need a plan for generating the next generation of large hollow bearing trees. They’re a critical ecological resource, and the government is just not taking it seriously.”
Greater Gliders legal case:
Kinglake Friends of the Forest along with Environment East Gippsland have brought a case against VicForests in the Supreme Court for logging Greater Glider habitat, arguing there should be surveys for Greater Gliders and 18ha exclusion zones around records, with a court hearing scheduled for 7 March and a final hearing for May they are seeking to raise $50,000 through chuffed.
https://chuffed.org/project/greater-gliders-need-your-help
Inappropriate fire threatens 88% of threatened mammals:
Researchers identify inappropriate fire regimes as threatening 88% of threatened mammals – too much, too hot or not enough.
In a new paper, we reveal how “inappropriate” fire patterns put 88% of Australia’s threatened land mammals at greater risk of extinction – from ground-dwelling bandicoots to tree-climbing possums and high-flying microbats.
To start, we identified whether land mammals of conservation concern – those listed as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable – were at risk from fire-related threats. We found that fire threatens 88% of these mammals.
Intense and severe fires usually generate a lot of heat and smoke, which can kill animals immediately or shortly afterwards. Such deaths are probably the cause of a decline in koala populations after intense and severe bushfires in temperate forests, as well as the western ringtail possum and numbat.
Animals may also die in the weeks and months after a fire due to a lack of food and shelter – especially when large and extensive fires destroy habitat over a wide area.
This was likely the case for a species of antechinus – a small mammal reliant on vegetation cover. …
In tropical savannas, frequent and intense fires affect reproduction of northern quolls, by reducing nesting resources and killing young in the pouch.
And some animals can suffer due to a lack of fire. For example, declines in some populations of northern bettongs may be due to long periods without fire which led to a decline in the grasses they eat.
Losing their gloss:
Bushfires and floods have destroyed many of the hollows Glossy Black-cockatoos call home, along with the casuarina trees they exclusively feed upon, so Glossies Northern Rivers were excited when they found a pair at Bogangar near Casuarina Beach in the Tweed Shire after months of fruitless searches across 21,000 square kilometres. It is now being considered for listing as nationally threatened.
But there is reason for optimism, with conservationists building artificial hollows and closely monitoring the birds, [Dr Valentine] said.
"It would be a shame if we didn't do everything in our power, on our watch, to help protect and conserve these birds."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-10982539/Rare-cockatoo-spotted-northern-NSW.html
A federal environment department spokesperson said the eastern glossy black cockatoo was not listed as a threatened species under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, but a listing assessment had been undertaken and would be considered by the minister in coming weeks.
A bitter harvest:
With Endangered Australasian Bitterns reduced to around 1300 individuals the National Landcare Program is funding 'Boosting the Bunyip Bird Yield' project, which is offering incentives to rice growers to provide additional and improved habitat on farms for the species.
https://www.areanews.com.au/story/7809057/new-guide-to-saving-endangered-bitterns/
Birds breeding:
The Lachlan River system has been in flood for more than has been seen in the last 30 to 40 years, leading to mass breeding events for colonial species such as pelicans and Straw-necked Ibis, though numbers are not what they used to be, and another drought is just around the corner.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-03/nsw-lachlan-river-wet-rains-drought-warning/101176022
Flooded homes:
Wildlife carers and organisations are urging people to look out for and help rescue displaced wildlife impacted by the floods, with burrowing animals such as wombats and echidnas expected to be the most heavily impacted as their homes are filled with floodwaters and mud, while some groups appeal for donations.
People can help rescue wildlife by downloading the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) Wildlife Rescue App before heading out onto the roads.
Flooding in NSW has left animals stressed and injured, with wallabies hit by cars, turtles washed away, possums and birds left waterlogged and baby marsupials likely drowned, wildlife workers say.
Dr Vengetas said while it was too early to know the full impact on wildlife populations, there were ways people can help. Both WWF and Aussie Ark have flood fundraisers to support their work.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-10989821/Wildlife-stressed-injured-NSW-floods.html
Poisoning birds:
A study of bird feathers by the Hunter Environment Centre found alarming levels of arsenic, lead, selenium, and mercury in up to a dozen different species of birds among those frequenting waterways close to coal-fired power stations in the Hunter and Central Tablelands. Concentrations of metals found in 65 per cent of the feathers collected from the three contaminated lakes (Lake Liddell, Lake Macquarie, Lake Wallace) were above identified adverse health and reproduction thresholds for birds. It is also concerning that the intended control sites of Port Stephens and Myall Lakes also contained concentrations of mercury and lead above health threshold levels.
"Lead, for example, affects their brain so that they forget where their nests are and lose their nests and their shells can get damaged," [Mr Winn] said. The birds' embryos also did not survive if lead levels were too high.
The bio-accumulation of heavy metals in wild life has never really been studied, he said, and that is not taken into account in the water quality guidelines that have been developed in Australia. In NSW, very little in the way of mitigation has occurred, he said.
The Australian Electricity Commission, which represents power generators, said the environment centre's report lacked scientific credibility, though experts disagreed.
But Larissa Schneider, an environmental scientist at the Australian National University specialising in heavy metal pollution, said it would be wrong to dismiss the Hunter Community Environment Centre's "frontline work".
Dr Schneider's published works have found coal ash responsible for elevated selenium in marine organisms in Lake Macquarie.
She also used sediment core samples to show a sharp increase in heavy metal pollution with the commissioning of the power stations.
Killing pesky natives:
Concerns have been raised that in Tasmania millions of native animals, including wallabies, green rosellas, cockatoos and wombats have been killed under property protection permits which allow landowners to kill wildlife to prevent damage to crops, stock or infrastructure.
New data, supplied in answers to questions on notice, shows 859,304 native animals were killed in 2021 alone and an additional 53,352 were culled up to 6 June this year.
The total climbs to about 2.8m when data for 2020 and 2019 is included.
It includes 1,176,002 Bennetts wallabies; 1,088,117 rufous wallabies; 530,487 brushtail possums; and 168 common wombats that were recorded as having been culled in the period from 2019 to 6 June this year.
Varroa mites:
Varroa mites got into New Zealand over 22 years ago, with their spread aided by feral and unregistered hives, the consequences have been that hives require more maintenance and chemical controls, making it a lot more expensive and challenging for beekeepers, while lowering crop pollination. While most beekeepers consider it best to try to eliminate the mite in Australia, if unsuccessful the long-term consequences of eradication efforts will be massive. Though there will be more nectar available for native species this year, and getting rid of feral hives will have long-term benefits.
Major impacts have included lower crop yields, increased reliance on fertilisers to offset the effects of reduced pollination, and bigger bills for farmers who pay for hives to be brought in to pollinate their crops.
A national survey of New Zealand beekeepers running since 2015 also points to a persistent and increasing trend of colony losses each winter.
In 2021, the loss rate was more than 13 per cent – or around 110,000 colonies.
https://www.aap.com.au/news/nz-mite-lessons-for-australias-bee-sector/
But, [Dr Tobias Smith] says, in the years to come there may be one silver lining to the introduction of mites on Australian shores.
“Varroa mites will reduce numbers of feral honey bee colonies in our landscapes and therefore may benefit both native bees and managed European honey bees through reduced competition for flowers,” Smith says.
And then there was a new outbreak at Narrabri, bringing the total number of infested premises to 24, though DPI still think they can eliminate it.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/varroa-mite-emergency-order-extended-to-include-port-stephens-96188
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/nsw/2022/07/07/more-than-15-million-bees-dead-nsw/
As at 6pm Thursday, 1,693 hives have been euthanised at 34 infested premises between the NSW central and mid-north coasts as well as at Narrabri in the state’s northwest, representing over 17 million bees.
https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/about-us/media-centre/releases/2022/general/nsw-dpi-varroa-mite-update
How personalities affect ecosystems:
An American study of small forest mammals by the University of Maine recognises that species have different responses, with some being aggressive and others more relaxed, though they also test for the personality differences within species in order to assess how an individual’s boldness, shyness, aggressiveness, and curiosity affect their activities and thereby how they influence the structure of the ecosystem – it’s not just about saving species, it’s also about saving those individuals with the most appropriate personalities who shape future ecosystems.
What one mouse does with a seed will be different from what another mouse does. A bold mouse might cache seeds, willing to take the risk of being out in the open for longer periods. More outgoing animals run a greater risk of being caught by a predator, however, while more risk-averse ones are less likely to be eaten. That’s where Mortelliti’s small animal personality study comes in.
“What we want to know is how their personalities — boldness, shyness, aggressiveness, curiosity — affect forest regeneration,” Mortelliti said. “Is it all bolder animals that are caching seeds? What about the shy ones, that might escape predation? All of this affects the composition of forests.”
https://www.bangordailynews.com/2022/07/07/news/bangor/how-a-mouse-can-change-a-forest-joam40zk0w/
Through a large-scale field experiment conducted on small mammal seed dispersers, we show that an individual's personality affects its choice of seeds, as well as how distant and where seeds are cached. We also show that anthropogenic habitat modifications shift the distribution of personalities within a population, by increasing the proportion of bold, active, and anxious individuals and in-turn affecting the potential survival and dispersal of seeds. We demonstrate that preserving diverse personality types within a population is critical for maintaining the key ecosystem function of seed dispersal.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ele.13324
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fee.2418
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Burning longer:
While we are now being over-whelmed by floods, we can expect an increase in, and worsening of, the droughts and fires of 2019-20 in the near future. A study found the frequency of days with extreme fire weather globally increased an average of 54 per cent from 1979-2019, particularly pronounced in western North America, Amazonia and the Mediterranean, while in Australia the increase was 56 per cent. And it is getting worse.
The results of the report show that the fire season length across Australia has increased by 27 additional days over the last 41 years (1979-2019).
Under future climate change scenarios, an increase in global mean temperatures from 1.5C to 4C by 2100 could result in the fire season length extending from 11 to 36 additional days (11 per cent to 37 per cent) compared to current conditions.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/07/extreme-fire-weather-days-in-australia-have-doubled/
Northern Rivers Times July 7 2022
Droughting longer:
A global study of the frequency of drought days (FDD) under climate change (during the low-flow season) identifies much of southern Australia will experience significant increases in drought days by the mid-21st century (2036–2065), with the timing of the first onset of consecutive exceedance for equal to or more than five years compared to the historical maximum value for Australia not until after 2070 (regardless of the emissions scenario).
Overall, large FDD increases are projected in several drought intensification hotspot regions, including the Mediterranean, Western and Central Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, the United States, Central and southern South America, West to South Africa, and Australia. The time series of the regional average FDDs in these regions show that the drought condition frequencies have already increased compared to those recorded in the historical period and are projected to continue to increase … These increases also apply to the high-flow season in the hotspot regions; hence, crucially, abnormal low-flow conditions are expected to increase throughout the year …
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-30729-2.pdf
Supreme power:
As expected, in a 6-3 majority the US Supreme Court has limited the regulatory tools that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can use to curb greenhouse-gas emissions by prohibiting the EPA from crafting broad regulations to drive the US power industry away from coal and towards cleaner energy sources, such as wind and solar.
Amazon attacks growing:
The Brazilian Amazon lost 3,750 square kilometers of jungle since the beginning of the year, the worst numbers for this 6 month period since record-keeping began in 2016, and is experiencing the worst fires since 2007.
https://www.spacedaily.com/afp/220701175959.6rj75nym.html
TURNING IT AROUND
Misrepresenting benefits of stopping logging:
Much is being made of a recent “scientific” paper that adopts “constrained restoration options” to “conclude that additional carbon sequestration via nature restoration is unlikely to be done quickly enough to notably reduce the global peak temperatures expected in the next few decades. Land restoration is an important option for tackling climate change but cannot compensate for delays in reducing fossil fuel emissions”. Though their constraints are strangely based on the premise that only planting trees in agricultural contexts will have immediate impacts, while they assume there will be a 20 year lag before secondary forests left to regenerate will suddenly start sequestering additional carbon. They also ignore tree plantations and make strange assumptions about how much area will be subject to the various treatments – as evidenced by the comments on the article in the Conversation it is dangerous propaganda.
All talk and no action:
Many of the world’s largest companies with net-zero commitments have made little, tangible progress against tropical deforestation, according to a recent report from a U.N. climate change task force.
Many companies with net-zero commitments have made little, tangible progress against tropical deforestation, according to a recent report from the U.N. Climate Change High-Level Climate Champions, a taskforce responsible for developing stronger climate policy for the private sector.
Approximately a third of carbon emissions released each year are absorbed by forests, the report said. Their protection and restoration could result in as much as 18% emission cuts by 2030. Nevertheless, deforestation rates increased by 12% between 2019 and 2022, suggesting that companies are only taking some of the action required of them. Others aren’t making deforestation commitments at all.
“There is still a significant number of companies that haven’t set a single deforestation policy,” said Emma Thomson, the Forest 500 lead at Global Canopy, one of the co-authors of the report. “And even though we’re seeing many other companies set net-zero targets, they just aren’t being backed up by effective and ambitious deforestation commitments.”
Old forests:
Plants first arrived on land about 470 million years ago, trees with large woody roots and woody branches with leaves, and forests evolved nearly 390 million years ago.
https://www.livescience.com/when-did-first-forests-emerge
Forest Media 1 July 2022
New South Wales
Forestry Corporation have been fined $230,000 ($45,000 to be paid to Bat Society) after the Land and Environment Court convicted them of logging 23 trees in an unmarked 40m exclusion zone around a mineshaft used as a roost by Eastern Horseshoe Bats, breaching its approval and carrying out unlawful forestry activities in an exclusion zone, in Dampier State Forest near Bodalla. The EPA puts the offences down to “mapping errors”, though as the roost was identified and marked on the digital harvesting plan, the problem was that the Forestry Corporation failed to mark the boundary in the field and the contractor failed to use his GPS.
South Coast conservationists say Forestry Corporation’s $15,000 fine for illegally logging hollow-bearing trees in South Brooman State Forest does not go far enough, they want the logging to end. About Regional focusses on the prosecution for logging unburnt/lightly-burnt refugia in Yambulla State Forest. News of the Area reports on Wild Cattle Creek, focussing on Koalas.
At the behest of Byron Council, Mullumbimby Local Court has fined a resident $60k for clearing 9 trees ranging in height from 15 metres to 25 metres, $10k for unauthorised building work, and $5k for Council costs.
Results for the NSW 2020 Statewide Landcover and Tree Study show that 51,400 hectares of woody vegetation was lost, slightly less than the previous year’s total of 54,500 hectares. This excludes fire-affected areas, which have the potential to regenerate.
- There was a 44%decrease in the rate of vegetation loss due to agricultural activity from 23,400 ha in 2019 to 13,000 ha in 2020
- Annual woody vegetation harvesting for forestry in 2020 was 30,000 ha, an increase of 6,500 ha (28%) compared to 2019, this increased harvesting occurred on state forest with the rate increased by 51% when compared to 2019, though native forest harvesting decreased while plantation (pine and hardwood) increased.
- The rate of woody vegetation loss due to infrastructure increased to 8,450 ha in 2020 from 7,580 ha in 2019.
In March 2020 the walk to the summit of Wollumbin (Mt. Warning) was temporarily closed, which has now been extended for a fifth time, until October 31, enabling those who don’t want access denied to anywhere (including Uluru) to continue their campaign - Wollumbin is a site of immense spiritual significance to a variety of traditional owners who want it closed to visitors, yet the Government has failed to make the final call, and develop the identified alternative walks in the area.
Australia
An article in the Conversation argues that disruptive protests such as those by Blockade Australia are effective, with the downside being that politicians are driven to denigrate protestors while NSW, Victoria and Tasmania have/are all introducing draconian legislation to punish climate and forest protestors, arguing that politicians would be better to listen to the messages rather than punishing the messengers. An independent Tasmanian MLC is complaining that the mining company MMG was allowed to listen to briefings provided by environmental and civil groups on Tasmania’s anti-protest legislation, whereas the industry briefings were in secret, a final vote will be held when the Legislative Council returns in mid-August, with its passage depending on a single vote.
Greens senator Larissa Waters is supporting the campaign led by Save Ferny Forest to stop logging of the forest on the Sunshine Coast before it is due to become a national park in 2024. Victoria’s Conservation Regulator is assessing a number of allegations of non-compliance with timber harvesting laws in the Wombat State Forest as opposition to logging of the identified national park continues.
ABC did a factcheck on Tasmanian Liberal’s claims that young forests are superior in their ability to offset carbon emissions and that old-growth forests are actually net carbon emitters, finding these claims are incorrect, as oldgrowth forests continue to sequester carbon and store vastly more, with older trees sequestering more carbon than young ones.
Our taxes and the Australian Forest Products Association have jointly funded some pretty crappy 360-degree virtual reality (VR) videos in an attempt to capture the hearts and minds of school children and promote clearfell logging.
The Northern Territory Tiwi Plantations Corporation has begun a three year, $4.6 million project to grow a 30,000 hectare forestry estate for export, though there is mention of Midway Limited, existing plantations of 4,900 ha, logging underway and ships being loaded.
Concerns are growing as the practice of constructing cairns of rocks in natural areas grows, with natural habitats changed and scenery increasingly disrupted by rock stacking, with the practice likened to a destructive form of graffiti.
In Victoria, around Warburton, the Council is proposing an intensive network of 180 kilometres of mountain bike trails through bushland, raising expectations of a major increase in tourism, and opposition due to construction of metre wide trails through the Yarra Ranges National Park on Mount Donna Buang, rural residential bush blocks surrounded by trails, long-term rental properties being converted to holiday rentals for mountain bikers, and increased bushfire risk.
Species
ABC’s Background Briefing has a 37.5 min podcast ‘Will any koalas be left in Australia's east by 2050?’ which reports on a range of the issues affecting Koalas – NEFA gets a brief run. EDO have released a legal update that examines what the NSW uplisting of Koalas to Endangered means for decision-making and whether this will be enough to save our koalas from extinction – not from the loggers.
Environment Minister James Griffin has announced $600,000 for the Coffs Harbour and District Local Aboriginal Land Council (Gumbaynggirr community) to integrate traditional ecological knowledge into koala conservation, to support habitat restoration, cultural burning in key koala locations, Aboriginal research projects and the development of cultural training for Aboriginal Rangers. Koala Clancy Foundation is seeking $373,000 to plant 30,000 trees between Bannockburn and Inverleigh over three years with the aim of aiding the region’s koala habitat. Wildlife Recovery Australia “builds and operates mobile wildlife hospitals alongside predator-proof sanctuaries,” is another competitor in the increasingly lucrative wildlife recovery industry, it has its own TV show and is now offering Wildlife Rescue Kits to purchase online through Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital for $69.
A researcher argues that while the varroa mite will be costly to the bee industry, its establishment in Australia is just a matter of time, so its important to take a cost/benefit approach by recognising it as an effective biocontrol for feral honeybees in Australia’s natural environment.
North Coast Local Land Services are warning motorists to keep a lookout for active deer during the breeding season from June through to September, with data showing there are about 15 vehicle collisions with deer in the region each year.
The Deteriorating Problem
North American claim to have the oldest living trees is now under threat, the oldest documented living trees are bristlecone pines, reaching 4,853 years old based on tree-ring data, with the oldest giant sequoia only reaching 3,266 years. Now these records are threatened by Chilean researchers who have included counting tree rings with computer modelling to estimate a Patagonian cypress tree, also called an alerce, is at least 5,000 years old, with claims tree-rings on an intact stump show it lived for about 4,100 years. Unfortunately 19% of California’s giant sequoias have been burnt out in 2 years, and droughts and bark beetles are taking their toll on bristlecone pines.
(While these stems may be the oldest single stems, many Australian trees are clonal, meaning they resprout from their roots, with a stand of a single huon pine in Tasmania estimated to be over 10,500 years old (with the oldest stem around 2,000 years), another Tasmanian, Kings Holly (Lomatia tasmanica) can no longer set seed and instead one plant has been cloning itself for at least 43,600 years, and possibly up to 135,000 years, and closer to home the Peach Myrtle in Nightcap has been described as immortal. Yet Huon Pines and Peach Myrtle are also succumbing to fire).
Turning it Around
British Columbia’s ‘Save Old Growth’ have announced they will stop their months of causing major traffic disruptions, which resulted in confrontations with frustrated drivers, demonstrators being dragged off the roadway, a protester shattering a hip falling from a damaged structure, and a threatened class-action. Other actions include dumping manure outside the Premier’s office, interrupting an international soccer match, and being hospitalized from hunger strikes.
Some conservation scientists are warning that a global deal to protect the environment, due to be finalized at the UN biodiversity summit in Montreal in December, is under threat after negotiations stalled during international talks in Nairobi last week. They are calling on global leaders to rescue the talks — and biodiversity — from the brink. Others are more hopeful that, although progress has been slow, a deal will be struck by the end of the year.
The United States Supreme Court is widely expected to turn its ideological wrecking ball on the country’s greenhouse gas emission controls, leading a group of climate scientists and advocates to petition the EPA to regulate greenhouse gasses under the Toxic Substances Control Act rather than the Clean Air Act (the focus of a current Supreme Court case).
Peter Sainsbury cites a new study that warns that we need to reduce all greenhouse gases, not just CO2, and account for the increased warming from a reduction in sulphates, to have a chance of limiting heating to 1.5 or 2oC – more reasons to use trees to remove CO2.
Praised as guardians of tropical forests, indigenous peoples have accused governments and NGOs of failing to follow up billion-dollar pledges made at November’s COP26 UN climate summit to enlist their help to halt forest losses by 2030, including by granting them more money and control over ancestral lands.
Live Science has a good no-nonsense article about the benefits of forest bathing, summarising its Japanese origins, some of the research showing its beneficial affects and how to practice it. Bustle also considers its multiple benefits.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
More breaches:
Forestry Corporation of NSW (FCNSW) have been fined $230,000 ($45,000 to be paid to Bat Society) after the Land and Environment Court convicted FCNSW for logging 23 trees in an unmarked 40m exclusion zone around a mineshaft used as a roost by Eastern Horseshoe Bats, breaching its approval and carrying out unlawful forestry activities in an exclusion zone, in Dampier State Forest near Bodalla.
- The Prosecutor also submitted, although the actual harm to the bats was minor (albeit the risk of harm was not to be so categorised in the Prosecutor’s submission), there were two other elements of actual harm that require to be considered. The first of these was that 23 trees were cut down from an area where tree‑harvesting was not permitted. In addition, the failure to abide by the terms of the Corporation’s licence also effected harm to the integrity of the regulatory system which operated to protect the environment during forestry operations.
- In this regard, I am satisfied that, although the actual harm was (as agreed) minor, the combination of the risk of harm and the damage to the integrity of the regulatory system established through the licensing regime to which the Corporation was subjected (and which it breached) means that, contrary to Mr Hemmings’ submissions, it is not appropriate to regard all of these “harm” matters, when bundled up, to be regarded as being at the low end of the low range as submitted by Mr Hemmings. How the overall assessment of the objective elements of the Corporation’s offending conduct is to be characterised is dealt with in a later section of this decision.
… This past record of lower level infringements demonstrates, I am satisfied, that, in the past, the Corporation cannot be regarded as having been a good corporate citizen. However, having regard to the extent of the Corporation’s activities, as described by Mr Chaudhary as set out above, I am satisfied that this aspect should not weigh heavily against the Corporation. Indeed, given the matters later set out as extracted from Mr Chaudhary’s affidavit concerning the steps that the Corporation is taking to avoid future transgressions (coupled with the orders for further training that the parties have agreed to is also later discussed) means I am satisfied that the Corporation is seeking to change its ways.
- As a consequence of these moderations of starting penalty to reflect the fact that the Corporation’s offending arose out of a single course of conduct, the total overall penalty to be imposed on the Corporation is $230,000 (before deduction of the contribution to the Bat Society project).
https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/18164bdfee25398416c600f7
The EPA puts the offences down to “mapping errors”, though as the roost was identified and marked on the digital harvesting plan, the problem was that the Forestry Corporation failed to mark the boundary in the field and the contractor failed to use his GPS.
This follows FCNSW’s convictions earlier this month for four breaches at Wild Cattle Creek State Forest and a $15,000 fine for allegedly breaching conditions in South Brooman State Forest. Together, fines and costs from these incidents have cost FCNSW more than $530,000.
FCNSW has also been ordered to undertake an audit of its field mapping and marking activities including understanding the level of experience and competency required to comply with the law. Any recommendations arising from the audit around training must be followed.
The Court also ordered FCNSW to pay the EPA’s investigation costs of $8,000.
https://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/news/media-releases/2022/epamedia220629
Nick Hopkins from the Coastwatchers Association Inc … "Forestry seems to be unable to operate without repeatedly breaching its license to log our forests."
"If it was a private corporation that was proven to be unable to operate compliantly with its licence, it would've lost its licences years ago," he said.
… breaches backlash continues:
South Coast conservationists say Forestry Corporation’s $15,000 fine for illegally logging hollow-bearing trees in South Brooman State Forest does not go far enough, they want the logging to end.
NSW independent MP Justin Field was also disappointed.
"It's woefully inadequate because Forestry Corporation are serial offenders," he said.
Ms Frank said the big goal was to end native logging in NSW.
Greens NSW MP and spokesperson for forests Sue Higginson said the campaign around the South Brooman State Forest was consistent with many around NSW since the 2019/20 bushfires.
“The fires changed everything and we have well and truly reached the time that we must stop logging our public native forest estate,” she said.
About Regional focusses on the prosecution for logging unburnt/lightly-burnt refugia in Yambulla State Forest.
News of the Area reports on Wild Cattle Creek, focusing on Koalas.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/forestry-corporation-fined-over-logging-at-wild-cattle-creek-95419
$60,000 fine for clearing nine trees
At the behest of Byron Council, Mullumbimby Local Court has fined a resident $60k for clearing 9 trees ranging in height from 15 metres to 25 metres, $10k for unauthorised building work, and $5k for Council costs.
Ralph James, Legal Counsel, said that the court found that the impact of the clearing, and the construction of an informal shower and toilet area, had a negative impact on the natural environment and that the clearing of native vegetation and earthworks modified the site which impacted native habitats and drainage
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/06/byron-shire-resident-fined-60000-for-tree-clearing/
Forestry take clear lead:
Results for the NSW 2020 Statewide Landcover and Tree Study show that 51,400 hectares of woody vegetation was lost. Woody vegetation loss was slightly less than the previous year’s total of 54,500 hectares. This excludes fire-affected areas, which have the potential to regenerate.
- There was a 44%decrease in the rate of vegetation loss due to agricultural activity from 23,400 ha in 2019 to 13,000 ha in 2020
- Annual woody vegetation harvesting for forestry in 2020 was 30,000 ha, an increase of 6,500 ha (28%) compared to 2019, this increased harvesting occurred on state forest with the rate increased by 51% when compared to 2019, though native forest harvesting decreased while plantation (pine and hardwood) increased.
- The rate of woody vegetation loss due to infrastructure increased to 8,450 ha in 2020 from 7,580 ha in 2019.
“There is little point throwing hundreds of millions at the land sector for natural capital and carbon sequestration when nothing is being done about the thousands of hectares of potentially illegal land clearing,” [Justin Field] said.
Nature Conservation Council chief executive Chris Gambian added that native forests in the state could absorb about 44 tonnes of carbon dioxide per hectare annually. He said the 2020 figures for clearing could have killed up to 4.6 million animals.
“After the government weakened land clearing laws in 2017, deforestation rates doubled and have remained at these dangerously high levels ever since,” he said. “These figures, and the rising number of threatened species, shows the laws completely fail to deliver on that promise.
Wollumbin closure stumbles on:
In March 2020 the walk to the summit of Wollumbin (Mt. Warning) was temporarily closed, which has now been extended for a fifth time, until October 31, enabling those who don’t want access denied to anywhere (including Uluru) to continue their campaign - Wollumbin is a site of immense spiritual significance to a variety of traditional owners who want it closed to visitors, yet the Government has failed to make the final call, and develop the identified alternative walks in the area.
AUSTRALIA
Denigration and draconian laws the downside to protests:
An article in the Conversation argues that disruptive protests such as those by Blockade Australia are effective, with the downside being that politicians are driven to denigrate protestors while NSW, Victoria and Tasmania have/are all introducing draconian legislation to punish climate and forest protestors, arguing that politicians would be better to listen to the messages rather than punishing the messengers.
Disruptive protests like these make an impact. They form the iconic images of social movements that have delivered many of the rights and freedoms we enjoy today.
They attract extensive media coverage that propel issues onto the national agenda. And, despite media coverage to the contrary, research suggests they don’t reduce public support for climate action.
But disruptive protest also consistently generates one negative response: attempts to criminalise it.
But yet again in 2022, the freedom to protest in Tasmania is under threat. The Police Offences Amendment (Workplace Protection) Bill 2022 proposes fines of up to $21,625 and 18 months jail for peaceful protest.
Activities such as handing out flyers, holding a placard or sharing a petition could fall within the offences.
Tasmania is not an outlier. After the Port of Botany and Sydney climate blockades in March this year, NSW passed the Roads and Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill 2022.
Almost 40 civil society groups called to scrap the bill, which used vague and broad wording to expand offences with up to two years in jail and a $22,000 fine.
Similarly, the Andrews government in Victoria is introducing the Sustainable Forests Timber Amendment (Timber Harvesting Safety Zones) Bill 2022, which raises penalties on anti-logging protest offences to $21,000 or 12 months imprisonment.
[Adani] also reportedly bankrupted senior spokesperson Adrian Burragubba in 2019, sued one climate activist for intimidation, conspiracy and breaches of contract, surveilled his family, and is pursuing him for $600 million (now reduced to $17m) in damages.
Courts have used anti-protest legislation to instead highlight the importance of peaceful protest as a legitimate form of political communication. They have struck down legislation, released activists from remand, overturned unreasonable bail conditions and reduced excessive fines.
And in general, research shows the public does not support repressive protest policing.
The majority of Australians support more ambitious climate action. Many agree with Blockade Australia’s statement that “urgent broad-scale change” is necessary to address the climate crisis.
Politicians may be better served by focusing their efforts on this message, rather than attacking the messengers.
.. anti-protestor legislation:
An independent Tasmanian MLC is complaining that the mining company MMG was allowed to listen to briefings provided by environmental and civil groups on Tasmania’s anti-protest legislation, whereas the industry briefings were in secret, a final vote will be held when the Legislative Council returns in mid-August, with its passage depending on a single vote.
Ferny Forest protest continues:
Greens senator Larissa Waters is supporting the campaign led by Save Ferny Forest to stop logging of the forest on the Sunshine Coast before it is due to become a national park in 2024.
As reported by Sunshine Coast News, the community, led by the Save Ferny Forest group, has been maintaining momentum against the harvesting with protests at the site on Steve Irwin Way every Friday afternoon and an online petition.
“Furthermore, the First Nations owners of this land, the Gubbi Gubbi people, have requested the immediate cessation of these plans to log Ferny Forest due to its immense cultural significance and heritage,” [Senator Waters] stated.
https://www.sunshinecoastnews.com.au/2022/06/29/ferny-forest-logging-larissa-waters/
Wombat muddling on:
Victoria’s Conservation Regulator is assessing a number of allegations of non-compliance with timber harvesting laws in the Wombat State Forest as opposition to logging of the identified national park continues.
Pants on fire:
ABC did a factcheck on Tasmanian Liberal’s claims that young forests are superior in their ability to offset carbon emissions and that old-growth forests are actually net carbon emitters, finding these claims are incorrect, as oldgrowth forests continue to sequester carbon and store vastly more, with older trees sequestering more carbon than young ones.
Belinda Medlyn, a professor at the University of Western Sydney who studies how forests respond to atmospheric carbon dioxide, told CheckMate she could say "unequivocally" that "old-growth forests are not carbon emitters".
"There is zero evidence to show that forests start to emit [CO2] as they age, and considerable evidence to show that they may continue to take [it] up," she said, adding that when it came to which forests were more effective carbon sinks, people often confused the rate of sequestration with the total amount stored.
Professor Mackey and Dr Keith pointed to a host of studies (e.g. here, here, here and here) which showed that, compared to primary and old-growth forests, "the long-term average carbon stock of regrowth harvested forests is 30-70 per cent lower".
And the evidence shows it is the oldest trees that do much of the heavy lifting — with the largest 1 per cent accounting for half the total carbon stored in above-ground living forest biomass.
Capturing kids with VR:
Our taxes and the Australian Forest Products Association have jointly funded some pretty crappy 360-degree virtual reality (VR) videos in an attempt to capture the hearts and minds of school children and promote clearfell logging.
ForestLearning’s hugely successful ForestVR™ technology has expanded with ten new engaging, immersive and educational 360-degree virtual reality (VR) video experiences able to be viewed on any school technology such as iPads, laptops, smart boards or VR headsets.
Students can also discover how forest science is used every day to sustainably manage and regenerate these environments for today and all generations to come for a range of outcomes. Students will be introduced to managers of these forests to learn about protective processes related to the environment, biodiversity, recreation, Indigenous Australian cultural practices and heritage. In addition, forest managers will share details on how these multi-use forests help provide sustainably managed wood products.
Tiwi exports:
The Northern Territory Tiwi Plantations Corporation has begun a three year, $4.6 million project to grow a 30,000 hectare forestry estate for export, though there is mention of Midway Limited, existing plantations of 4,900 ha, logging underway and ships being loaded.
https://www.nit.com.au/tiwi-led-forestry-project-aims-to-grow-30000-hectare-forestry-estate/
Rocking graffiti:
Concerns are growing as the practice of constructing cairns of rocks in natural areas grows, with natural habitats changed and scenery increasingly disrupted by rock stacking, with the practice likened to a destructive form of graffiti.
Careful what you wish for:
In Victoria, around Warburton, the Council is proposing an intensive network of 180 kilometres of mountain bike trails through bushland, raising expectations of a major increase in tourism, and opposition due to construction of metre wide trails through the Yarra Ranges National Park on Mount Donna Buang, rural residential bush blocks surrounded by trails, long-term rental properties being converted to holiday rentals for mountain bikers, and increased bushfire risk.
Opposition to the project has been so fierce the council was prompted to complete an exhaustive Environmental Effects Statement and take part in four weeks of public hearings earlier this year.
More than 2,700 individuals or organisations made submissions.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-26/mountain-bike-plan-tensions-on-melbournes-fringe/101183868
SPECIES
Stuffing Koalas:
ABC’s Background Briefing has a 37.5 min podcast ‘Will any koalas be left in Australia's east by 2050?’ which reports on a range of the issues affecting Koalas – NEFA gets a brief run.
… Endangered in danger:
EDO have released a legal update that examines what the NSW uplisting of Koalas to Endangered means for decision-making and whether this will be enough to save our koalas from extinction – not from the loggers.
There are no direct implications of uplisting the koala from vulnerable to endangered on the rules regulating forestry operations in NSW (for example, Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals (IFOAs) or the Private Native Forestry Code of Practice). This is because the rules apply uniformly to threatened species (whether vulnerable or endangered), and specific protections for koalas are not affected by a change in the conservation status of the koala.
However, in light of the uplisting of the koala from vulnerable to endangered, we recommend that koala protections are strengthened under forestry rules. This could include making koala habitat off limits to forestry. This could be done, for example, by the relevant Minister/s amending relevant IFOAs in accordance with the Forestry Act 2012 (NSW) and the Private Native Forestry Code of Practice in accordance with Part 5B of the Local Land Services Act 2013 (LLS Act).
https://www.edo.org.au/2022/06/27/nsw-follows-suit-and-lists-koalas-as-endangered/
Gumbaynggirr Koala culture:
Environment Minister James Griffin has announced $600,000 for the Coffs Harbour and District Local Aboriginal Land Council (Gumbaynggirr community) to integrate traditional ecological knowledge into koala conservation, to support habitat restoration, cultural burning in key koala locations, Aboriginal research projects and the development of cultural training for Aboriginal Rangers.
“The traditional custodians of this land intrinsically understand how to care for their Country,” he said.
“Coffs Harbour is leading the way when it comes to protecting the future of this iconic species and I am proud that we are continuing to support local Aboriginal knowledge in our conservation efforts,” said Mr Singh.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/600000-investment-in-local-aboriginal-koala-conservation-95887
Koala Clancy Foundation is seeking $373,000 to plant 30,000 trees between Bannockburn and Inverleigh over three years with the aim of aiding the region’s koala habitat.
https://timesnewsgroup.com.au/goldenplains/news/koala-group-expands-efforts/
Wildlife Rescue industry:
Wildlife Recovery Australia “builds and operates mobile wildlife hospitals alongside predator-proof sanctuaries,” is another competitor in the increasingly lucrative wildlife recovery industry, it has its own TV show and is now offering Wildlife Rescue Kits to purchase online through Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital for $69.
Varroa mite be good:
A researcher argues that while the varroa mite will be costly to the bee industry, its establishment in Australia is just a matter of time, so its important to take a cost/benefit approach by recognising it as an effective biocontrol for feral honeybees in Australia’s natural environment.
Feral European honeybee populations are recognised as a key threatening process to Australia’s native biodiversity, with impacts felt across the country. Feral bees are abundant and efficient pollinators, and compete with native birds, insects and mammals (such as pygmy possums) for nectar from flowers.
Honeybees avoid, or only partially pollinate, some native plants. This means a high concentration of honeybees could shift the make-up of native vegetation in a region. They also pollinate invasive weeds such as gorse, lantana and scotch broom, which are particularly expensive to control in the wake of bushfires.
When the varroa mite breached New Zealand, feral honeybees declined by about 90% within a few years.
Encounters with deer can be dear:
North Coast Local Land Services are warning motorists to keep a lookout for active deer during the breeding season from June through to September, with data showing there are about 15 vehicle collisions with deer in the region each year.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Oldgrowth trees:
North American claim to have the oldest living trees is now under threat, the oldest documented living trees are bristlecone pines, reaching 4,853 years old based on tree-ring data, with the oldest giant sequoia only reaching 3,266 years. Now these records are threatened by Chilean researchers who have included counting tree rings with computer modelling to estimate a Patagonian cypress tree, also called an alerce, is at least 5,000 years old, with claims tree-rings on an intact stump show it lived for about 4,100 years.
Wildfires worsened by our fossil fuel emissions have wiped out up to 19 percent of California’s giant sequoias in just the last two years.
Hotter droughts and bark beetles are for the first time in recorded history killing bristlecones, according to a recent study published in the scientific journal Forest Ecology and Management.
While these stems may be the oldest single stems, many Australian trees are clonal, meaning they resprout from their roots, with a stand of huon pine in Tasmania estimated to be over 10,500 years old (with the oldest stem around 2,000 years), another Tasmanian, Kings Holly (Lomatia tasmanica) can no longer set seed and instead one plant has been cloning itself for at least 43,600 years, and possibly up to 135,000 years, and closer to home the Peach Myrtle in Nightcap has been described as immortal.
TURNING IT AROUND
Protesting Canada’s oldgrowth:
British Columbia’s ‘Save Old Growth’ have announced they will stop their months of causing major traffic disruptions, which resulted in confrontations with frustrated drivers, demonstrators being dragged off the roadway, a protester shattering a hip falling from a damaged structure, and a threatened class-action. Other actions include dumping manure outside the Premier’s office, interrupting an international soccer match, and being hospitalized from hunger strikes.
Biodiversity threatened as talks falter:
Some conservation scientists are warning that a global deal to protect the environment, due to be finalized at the UN biodiversity summit in Montreal in December, is under threat after negotiations stalled during international talks in Nairobi last week. They are calling on global leaders to rescue the talks — and biodiversity — from the brink. Others are more hopeful that, although progress has been slow, a deal will be struck by the end of the year.
The framework consists of 4 broad goals, including reining in species extinction, and 21 targets — most of them quantitative — such as protecting at least 30% of the world’s land and seas. Without a deal, estimates say, one million plant and animal species could go extinct in the next few decades because of climate change, disease and human actions, among other triggers.
Regulating CO2 as a toxic substance:
The United States Supreme Court is widely expected to turn its ideological wrecking ball on the country’s greenhouse gas emission controls, leading a group of climate scientists and advocates to petition the EPA to regulate greenhouse gasses under the Toxic Substances Control Act rather than the Clean Air Act (the focus of a current Supreme Court case).
More reason for trees:
Peter Sainsbury cites a new study that warns that we need to reduce all greenhouse gases, not just CO2, and account for the increased warming from a reduction in sulphates, to have a chance of limiting heating to 1.5 or 2oC – more reasons to use trees to remove CO2.
a new study shows that focusing only on reducing CO2 over the next 25 years is great for reducing warming, in the longer term but may lead to increased warming in the short term and could lead to warming exceeding 2 degrees by 2050. But if we combine mitigation of CO2 emissions with mitigation of SCLP emissions, especially methane and another greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide (N2O), global warming will be slowed more quickly than decarbonisation alone and breaching 2 degrees can be avoided. Indeed, strong attention to the CO2 and non-CO2 gases over the next 20 years could reduce the rate of warming between 2030 and 2050 by 50 per cent. The study authors conclude that comprehensive CO2 and targeted non-CO2 mitigation strategies are needed to tackle both near-term and long-term warming. Each approach is necessary, neither is sufficient on its own.
https://johnmenadue.com/environment-can-capitalism-deliver-the-future-we-want/
Unmet promises to indigenous peoples to protect forests:
Praised as guardians of tropical forests, indigenous peoples have accused governments and NGOs of failing to follow up billion-dollar pledges made at November’s COP26 UN climate summit to enlist their help to halt forest losses by 2030, including by granting them more money and control over ancestral lands.
In recent years, many studies have shown that granting land rights to indigenous peoples is a particularly cost-effective approach to combat climate change and protect biodiversity.
Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the air to grow, making them natural buffers against global warming.
But tropical primary rainforests are being lost at a rate of 10 football pitches a minute, according to Global Forest Watch - a platform that provides data and monitors forests.
https://www.eco-business.com/news/indigenous-peoples-warn-of-global-delay-on-forest-protection-push/
Forest bathing benefits:
Live Science has a good no-nonsense article about the benefits of forest bathing, summarising its Japanese origins, some of the research showing its beneficial affects and how to practice it. Bustle also considers its multiple benefits.
So far, research has shown that forest bathing can improve several aspects of a person's health. For example, research published in February 2021 in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (opens in new tab) showed a decrease in systolic blood pressure after 12 healthy volunteers practiced forest bathing for a two-hour stint. In a research article published in October 2018 in the journal Frontiers in Public Health (opens in new tab), scientists showed improvements in heart rate variability — a measure of cardiovascular health — in 485 male participants while walking in a forest for just 15 minutes.
Research published in February 2018 in the journal Biomedical and Environmental Sciences (opens in new tab), found reduced biomarkers of chronic heart failure, inflammation and oxidative stress in elderly chronic heart failure patients after they participated in two four-day forest bathing trips. Researchers also found that a five-day forest trip improved immune system health, as indicated by an increase in natural killer cells, which are part of the body's defence against cancer, they reported in March 2018 in the journal Oncotarget (opens in new tab).
https://www.livescience.com/forest-bathing
https://www.bustle.com/wellness/what-is-forest-bathing-benefits
Forest Media 24 June 2022
New South Wales
All charges were dismissed in Kyogle Court today Friday 24 June for the four forest protectors arrested in November for defending Cherry Tree State Forest from logging. Malveena Martyn, Naomi Shine, Ian Gaillard and Dee Mould, collectively known as the "Cherry Tree Four" who had their final day in court after over six months of legal action were relieved and proud to have had their efforts exonerated by the court.
After the court imposed $285,600 in fines and costs for the Forestry Corporation for harming Koalas, rainforest and a rainforest buffer in Wild Cattle Creek State Forest, the EPA announced they are prosecuting the Forestry Corporation for illegally logging 53 trees in a lightly burnt and an unburnt refugia in the Yambulla State Forest after the Black Summer Bushfires, and then the EPA issued a Penalty Infringement Notice and fine for logging an unidentified number of hollow-bearing trees when logging resumed after a Stop Work Order was issued for logging hollow-bearing trees in South Brooman State Forest. The NCC called for an independent review of the Forestry Corporation given they had been prosecuted and fined three times in the past six days for alleged illegal logging operations in koala habitat and fire-affected forests. The Wire has audio of an interview with Chris Gambian.
The Mandarin, aimed at Australian public sector leaders and executives, has covered the $285,600 fine for the Forestry Corporation for harming Koalas - without mentioning rainforests. The Northern Rivers Times ran the EPA’s press release about the Wild Cattle Creek breaches. The Echo ran with conservationists’ responses (including NEFA), including the impact on rainforests.
The Clarence Valley News has an article calling for an end to logging of public native forests for biodiversity, carbon sequestration and economics.
In an example of cracking down on protestors, after armed undercover police dressed in camouflage refused to identify themselves and claimed to have been “pushed and shoved” at a Blockade Australia camp they claimed they were “fearing for their lives” and called for urgent assistance from 100 police from all over the Sydney Metropolitan Area including PolAir, the Public Order and Riot Squad, Raptor Squad and Operations Support Group and set up a crime scene, arresting 7 people. Blockade Australia deny they were violent or slashed tyres.
#Fridays4Forests action outside parliament house received more coverage, it was to demonstrate that people will vote for our forests and against any party that fails to protect our koalas forests, our water catchments, and our climate.
In its pre-budget cash splash, the NSW Government announced it is committing $56.4 million to construction of a new Arc Rainforest Centre and a hanging boardwalk in Dorrigo National Park, and construction of a 46 km Dorrigo Escarpment Great Walk involving three suspension bridges, new camping areas, and four walkers’ hut precincts – which they say will be managed by NPWS.
Also that farmers will get windfalls, under a $206 million program farmers will access up to $135,000 if they voluntarily opt in to the scheme to reduce their carbon emissions and protect biodiversity under a green accreditation scheme. At the same time the Government is trying to increase logging of private forests by giving $28 million to “facilitate and expand” Farm Forestry (Private Native Forestry), including gaining certification.
Australia
As Governments ramp up penalties for protestors, Extinction Rebellion brought out 'Blinky' the burning koala to protest against Victoria’s proposed tougher punishments (12 months jail time, $21,000 fines) for those who interrupt logging sites. Meanwhile, the Tasmanian upper house passed changes to the Police Offences Act, mainly the offence of trespass, to significantly increase penalties for protestors (of any kind), with fines for a person obstructing a business doubled up to $8,650 or up to 12 months jail, causing "a serious risk" to the safety of themselves or someone else goes up to $12,975 or 18 months jail (do it again and its up to $21,625 or two-and-a-half years jail), and public nuisance, increases from $519 to $1,730. These have yet to go through the formality of being passed by the lower house.
A report ‘Tasmania’s Forest Carbon: From Emissions Disaster to Climate Solution’ by forest ecologist Jennifer Sanger, in collaboration with The Wilderness Society and the Tasmanian Climate Collective, has found greenhouse gas emissions from native forest logging are equivalent to about 4.65 million tonnes of carbon each year, making it the state's highest emitting industry, while if native forest logging was ended 75 million tonnes of carbon could be absorbed by the state's production forests by 2050. Of course Forestry Australia refuted claims that native forest harvesting in Tasmania has impacted negatively on the climate.
Controversy over logging in Wombat State Forest in Victoria continues, with the forest slated for conversion to a national park, it’s being logged under the pretence of “forest recovery” and “salvage logging”, conservationists are outraged and traditional owners divided. The finding of a population of Greater Gliders in Wombat State Forest in a Victorian National Parks Association survey has intensified efforts to stop the logging.
Tanya Plibersek says the damning 5 year national environmental report card suppressed by the former Coalition government, tells an “alarming story” of decline, native species extinction and cultural heritage loss, will be released on July 19, though is making cautious progress in her new role.
Aljazeera has an interview with former Threatened Species Commissioner Gregory Andrews who has warned Australia’s biodiversity is the “worst it’s ever been” and more needs to be done if Australia is to save its unique flora and fauna, such as addressing climate change, stopping logging of native forests, and stopping land clearing.
The World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia has welcomed the Queensland Government’s budget commitment of $262.5 million, including $200 million for property purchases, for expanding Queensland’s national parks and protected areas.
The Guardian has an article about the growing number of commercial developments in national parks across Australia, including a proposal to construct hut accommodation along the Light to Light Walk, south of Eden, with further developments proposed for the Great Southern Walk and Gardens of Stone.
Species
Koalas again dominate the media. Simon Reeve has produced a film called “Koalas the Hard Truths” which looks in documentary fashion at the plight of koalas and the humans who care for them, with its first screening at Parliament House on June 22 for NSW politicians and members of the public. The Guardian has an article about the decline of Koalas, identifying habitat loss as the primary threat and that the IFAW petition calling for the status of koalas to be uplisted to endangered garnered more than 250,000 signatures globally. The ABC has a podcast on the combination of retro virus and chlamydia on koalas, both of which may be aggravated by stress – such as chopping and bulldozing their trees. The Australian Koala Foundation has sent their Koala Protection Act to the new environment minister Tanya Plibersek in the hope of getting interest in national laws to stop cutting down koala feed trees, though they are not optimistic. The Clarence Valley News has a story about the defeat of the Great Koala National Park Bill after the ALP voted it down. Lismore voted in June to request a more Koala friendly design for a housing development in Goonellabah after the council’s ecologist had found the designs submitted put the local koala population at risk of extinction, with Koala feed trees proposed for removal and a road in an ecologically protected zone, though a recent meeting created confusion with a decision to defer the matter until July instead of requesting a Koala friendly design. As the 20 year anniversary of the Port Stephens Comprehensive Koala Plan of Management nears closer, Port Stephens Council has secured $845,000 from the NSW Government to construct fencing and an underpass at their worst Koala black spot. Until 15 July expressions of interest are sought for Koala Conservation and Protection – Community Grants – Round 1 which provides grants from $50,000 to up to $200,000 for small-scale community projects and local activities that support the recovery and protection of the Koala. Forestry Corporation of NSW has delivered 25,000 koala food tree seedlings to the Friends of the Koala and Bangalow Koalas to establish habitat on private land – it’s interesting that they regard Blackbutt as a feed tree.
If it’s not Koalas, its genes. A genetic study has found that insurance populations of the endangered Tasmanian devil, in zoos and on Maria Island off the east coast of Tasmania, are as genetically diverse as wild populations. A genetic study of the small Endangered Northern Rivers emu population has confirmed that they are genetically distinct from other populations from which they have been isolated for centuries, though their low genetic variation has led to proposals to introduce emus from elsewhere. With fewer than 3,000 Pookila mice thought to be left in the wild in Victoria they have become the latest target of a captive breeding program aimed at improving their genetics.
The Deteriorating Problem
Due to changes in high-altitude winds (jet stream) resulting from climate change, in both the northern and southern hemispheres, the paths of the weather systems that bring rain in the middle latitudes have been moving away from the equator and towards the poles, causing a decrease in the number of low-pressure systems bringing rain and the drop in rainfall during April and May in southeast Australia, which combine with the air over parts of inland southeast Australia becoming significantly drier since the 1990s and areas of strongly rotating air moving further east and south (over the Tasman Sea) resulting in a significant decrease in late autumn rainfall in southeast Australia.
An ongoing La Niña event that has contributed to flooding in eastern Australia and exacerbated droughts in the United States and East Africa could persist into 2023, according to the latest forecasts. A ‘triple dip’ La Niña — lasting three years in a row — has happened only twice since 1950. Some researchers are warning that climate change could make La Niña-like conditions more likely in future, contrary to current climate models.
Pearls and Irritations has an article by David Shearman welcoming action on climate change but lamenting the rapid demise of biodiversity and its ecological services not being addressed and acted on, particularly the elephant in the room that unlimited population and economic growth is possible on a finite planet.
The world’s first biodiversity-adjusted sovereign credit ratings show how ecological destruction affects public finances across 26 countries, these downgrades would increase the annual interest payment on debt by up to US$53 billion a year, leaving many developing nations at significant risk of sovereign debt default (in effect, bankruptcy), with the assessment only covering fisheries, timber and pollinators.
A study in Boreal forests found that increasing soil nutrition by fertilisation makes trees more hostile to their fungal partners, restructuring the root-associated fungal community from being dominated by specialist myccorhyzal fungal species that are highly dependent on the carbon-containing sugars from the trees to more versatile species.
American national parks are being increasingly affected by fire, flood, melting ice sheets, rising seas and heat waves, as climate change gathers momentum, threatening some of their core values.
Turning it Around
The next meeting of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will now run from 5 to 17 December in Montreal in Canada, with the aim of finalising COP15.
A study reported in Nature concludes that companies use of renewable energy certificates (RECs) to report reductions in emissions from purchased electricity purchases are unlikely to lead to additional renewable energy production, leading to an inflated estimate of the effectiveness of mitigation efforts.
38 scientists have written a public letter to EU governments and the European Parliament over concerns around the Bioenergy Provisions of the Fit for 55 Plan, warning that promoting biomass leads to additional wood harvest for bioenergy that is likely to increase global warming for decades to centuries, while increasing the extensive use of agricultural land for bioenergy.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Cherry Tree charges dismissed:
All charges were dismissed in Kyogle Court today Friday 24 June for the four forest protectors arrested in November for defending Cherry Tree State Forest from logging. Malveena Martyn, Naomi Shine, Ian Gaillard and Dee Mould, collectively known as the "Cherry Tree Four" who had their final day in court after over six months of legal action were relieved and proud to have had their efforts exonerated by the court.
[Lawyer Eddie Lloyd] "In submissions today, the Magistrate accepted that we were living in a climate crisis and agreed that these climate change warriors were just trying to protect endangered & threatened species from death by Forestry Corp logging in Cherry Tree State Forest. All charges were dismissed.
Once more into the breach:
After the court imposed $285,600 in fines and costs for the Forestry Corporation for harming Koalas, rainforest and a rainforest buffer in Wild Cattle Creek State Forest, the EPA announced they are prosecuting the Forestry Corporation for illegally logging 53 trees in a lightly burnt and an unburnt refugia in the Yambulla State Forest after the Black Summer Bushfires, and then the EPA issued a Penalty Infringement Notice and fine for logging an unidentified number of hollow-bearing trees when logging resumed after a Stop Work Order was issued for logging hollow-bearing trees in South Brooman State Forest.
Forestry Corporation of NSW (FCNSW) has been fined $15,000 for allegedly failing to comply with a post bushfire condition imposed to protect critical habitat in a forest near Batemans Bay.
The Site Specific Operating Condition required FCNSW to permanently retain all hollow bearing trees. Hollow bearing trees are important to many native animals in the forest, including threatened species that are dependent on these trees for their survival.
EPA Acting Executive Director Regulatory Operations Regional Greg Sheehy said these conditions were aimed at protecting our environment from further harm after the forest was damaged by fires.
“The requirement to retain all hollow bearing trees was clear and it’s concerning that better systems were not put in place to ensure compliance.
In July 2020 the EPA issued FCNSW with a Stop Work Order to stop the harvesting of trees in part of the forest for 40 days, after an inspection found hollow bearing trees that were either damaged or felled.
The penalty followed the resumption of logging in that area, after FCNSW were required to put in place additional checks to ensure they met the conditions.
$15,000 is the largest fine the EPA is able to issue under the legislation.
The NCC called for an independent review of the Forestry Corporation given they had been prosecuted and fined three times in the past six days for alleged illegal logging operations in koala habitat and fire-affected forests.
[Chris Gambian] “Where is the responsible minister, Dugald Saunders, during all this? He should publicly condemn the reckless and lawless behaviour of this agency, but we haven’t heard a peep out of him.
“The government must establish a comprehensive independent review of Forestry Corporation to ensure it acts lawfully and sustainably.
https://www.miragenews.com/epa-pings-forestry-corp-third-time-in-six-days-806305/
The EPA have announced they are prosecuting the Forestry Corporation for illegally logging 53 trees in a lightly burnt and an unburnt refugia (Category 1 Environmentally Significant Area), which they failed to mark the boundary of, in the Yambulla State Forest after the Black Summer Bushfires.
James Tremain linked the Yambulla breaches with the Wild Cattle Breaches, citing NCC’s call for a comprehensive independent review of Forestry Corporation to ensure it acts lawfully and sustainably.
[Chis Gambian] On Friday, Forestry Corp [FCNSW] was fined for wiping out significant koala habitat. On Monday, they are being prosecuted for logging forests that were ruled out of bounds after the fires. What more evidence does the Government need before it orders a comprehensive independent review of Forestry Corporation to ensure it acts lawfully and sustainably?
The Wire has audio of an interview with Chris Gambian.
https://www.thewire.org.au/story/trees-chopped-so-nsw-government-fines-itself/
The Mandarin, aimed at Australian public sector leaders and executives, has covered the $285,600 fine for the Forestry Corporation for harming Koalas - without mentioning rainforests.
The Northern Rivers Times ran the EPA’s press release about the Wild Cattle Creek breaches.
Northern Rivers Times June 23 2022
The Echo ran with conservationists’ responses (including NEFA), including the impact on rainforests.
Echo June 22 2022
Time to stop logging:
The Clarence Valley News has an article calling for an end to logging of public native forests for biodiversity, carbon sequestration and economics.
https://clarencevalleynews.com.au/voices-for-the-earth-35/
Getting heavy on protestors:
In an example of cracking down on protestors, after armed undercover police dressed in camouflage refused to identify themselves and claimed to have been “pushed and shoved” at a Blockade Australia camp they claimed they were “fearing for their lives” and called for urgent assistance from 100 police from all over the Sydney Metropolitan Area including PolAir, the Public Order and Riot Squad, Raptor Squad and Operations Support Group and set up a crime scene, arresting 7 people. Blockade Australia deny they were violent or slashed tyres.
People on the property, some of them members of climate activist group Blockade Australia, say earlier that morning they stumbled across two armed individuals near their camp, dressed in camouflage gear and who refused to identify themselves.
The two men, according to witnesses, jumped into an unmarked car and sped off, hitting two people in the process, but did not immediately get away.
Police say the officers were surrounded by activists as they sheltered in their car, their tyres were damaged and they "feared for their lives".
Mr Rolles denies any suggestion that the vehicle's tyres were slashed, or tyre valves were removed.
The group also denies any use of violence.
"The police claim made on [Sunday] that officers experienced fear or felt threatened is disingenuous," the group's statement said.
More coverage of Fridays4Forests:
#Fridays4Forests action outside parliament house received more coverage, it was to demonstrate that people will vote for our forests and against any party that fails to protect our koalas forests, our water catchments, and our climate.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/06/fridays4forests-take-koala-and-forest-protection-to-sydney/
Dorrigo visitor facilities:
The NSW Government is committing $56.4 million in the budget to construction of a new Arc Rainforest Centre and a hanging boardwalk in Dorrigo National Park, and construction of a 46 km Dorrigo Escarpment Great Walk involving three suspension bridges, new camping areas, and four walkers’ hut precincts – which they say will be managed by NPWS.
National park management and visitation generates $18 billion in economic activity annually and supports over 74,000 jobs, with 75 per cent of economic benefit occurring in regional areas.
https://www.sydneytimes.net.au/magnificent-new-multiday-walk-puts-nsw-on-global-ecotourism-map/
For more information, visit https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/topics/parks-reserves-and-protected-areas/park-management/community-engagement/walking-tracks-and-trails-in-national-parks/dorrigo-great-walk
Rewarding “sustainable” farming:
Under a $206 million program to be revealed in Tuesday’s state budget, farmers will access up to $135,000 if they voluntarily opt in to the scheme to reduce their carbon emissions and protect biodiversity under a green accreditation scheme.
This on top of the $106.7 million over three years for the Biodiversity Credits Supply Fund that will reward landholders who generate and boost the supply of biodiversity offset credits.
The budget will also see $598 million invested over the next 10 years into the National Parks and Wildlife Service, which will see critical infrastructure and fleet upgrades and 250 permanent jobs generated, 200 of which will be firefighters.
This will be part of further investments into NSW’s parks, that will boost the economy through tourism. Such as $56.4 million over four years into a new Arc Rainforest Centre and Dorrigo Escarpment Great Walk in the Dorrigo National Park.
Northern Rivers Times June 23 2022
At the same time the Government is trying to increase logging of private forests by giving $28 million to “facilitate and expand” Farm Forestry (Private Native Forestry), including gaining certification.
This investment will also fund a pilot certification scheme to support landholders seeking certification for their timber products under the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification standards. This will increase market access, improve social licence and incentivise the production of sustainable timber in Australia.
https://www.nsw.gov.au/media-releases/record-28-million-boost-for-farm-forestry
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/28m-farm-forestry-package-for-nsw/
https://monaropost.com.au/grassroots/boost-for-farm-forestry
Northern Rivers Times June 23 2022
AUSTRALIA
Protesting protest laws:
Extinction Rebellion brought out 'Blinky' the burning koala to protest against Victoria’s proposed tougher punishments (12 months jail time, $21,000 fines) for those who interrupt logging sites.
Tasmania following suit:
The Tasmanian upper house passed changes to the Police Offences Act, mainly the offence of trespass, to significantly increase penalties for protestors (of any kind), with fines for a person obstructing a business doubled up to $8,650 or up to 12 months jail, causing "a serious risk" to the safety of themselves or someone else goes up to $12,975 or 18 months jail (do it again and its up to $21,625 or two-and-a-half years jail), and public nuisance, increases from $519 to $1,730. These have yet to go through the formality of being passed by the lower house.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-24/anti-protest-laws-a-step-closer-in-tasmania/101173690
Forests part of the solution:
A report ‘Tasmania’s Forest Carbon: From Emissions Disaster to Climate Solution’ by forest ecologist Jennifer Sanger, in collaboration with The Wilderness Society and the Tasmanian Climate Collective, has found greenhouse gas emissions from native forest logging are equivalent to about 4.65 million tonnes of carbon each year, making it the state's highest emitting industry, while if native forest logging was ended 75 million tonnes of carbon could be absorbed by the state's production forests by 2050.
Dr Sanger's report, which has not been formally peer-reviewed, argues almost two-thirds of the carbon from a logged native forest is released into the atmosphere within two years — 30 per cent from slash burning, 10 per cent in mill waste, and 24 per cent from paper products with a short life span.
Some of the forest carbon has a much longer life span — 30 per cent is woody debris left onsite which breaks down over 50 years, while five per cent is stored long-term as engineered timber, and one per cent as sawn timber.
Dr Sanger said if Tasmania followed Victoria and Western Australia's lead and ended native forest logging, 75 million tonnes of carbon could be absorbed by the state's production forests by 2050.
https://www.thetreeprojects.com/forestcarbon
Forestry Australia has refuted claims that native forest harvesting in Tasmania has impacted negatively on the climate.
“With young trees absorbing more carbon and old trees storing more carbon, a diverse multi-age managed forest provides a holistic solution to climate change.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/forestry-australia-refutes-claims-native-forestry-harms-climate/
Logging Victorian parks in waiting:
Controversy over logging in Wombat State Forest in Victoria continues, with the forest slated for conversion to a national park, its being logged under the pretence of “forest recovery” and “salvage logging”, conservationists are outraged and traditional owners divided.
Last month, as bushwalkers ascended Babbington Hill, on Dja Dja Wurrung Country north-west of Melbourne, they were shocked by what they encountered. Hectares of Wombat State Forest had been razed. A vital ecosystem of trees had vanished, leaving no understorey of ferns and sedges, no rare fungi. Debris sat in piles on the denuded forest floor, cut through with compressed tyre tracks.
Months earlier, the Andrews government had approved the area for national park status. This would give it protection from logging. But a convoy of heavy machinery – a bulldozer, two Traxcavators, a log hauler, 30-tonne CAT trucks and a Tigercat harvester – had moved in before the protective status took effect
… diminishing Greater Gliders:
The finding of a population of Greater Gliders in Wombat State Forest in a Victorian National Parks Association survey has intensified efforts to stop the logging.
“Many threatened species including the greater glider depend on large hollow-bearing trees for nesting,” says Blake. “Logging operations remove trees, which if undisturbed, would formulate the next generation of hollow-bearing trees in the landscape. Ultimately logging promotes severe long-term declines of species like the greater glider, it isolates and fragments animal populations, and risks localised extinctions of our threatened fauna.”
“VicForests are attempting to fulfil native timber shortfalls with Wombat Forest habitat, mainly because the supply of timber from forest areas in the east of Victoria has been cut due to landscape scale fires in 2019/2020, community legal actions, and the over commitment of dwindling native timber resources by the government,” says Jordan. “Securing protection of the habitat of some of Victoria’s most threatened plant and animal life within Wombat Forest can’t come soon enough.”
https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2022/06/greater-gliders-left-out-on-a-limb/
Cautious action on environment:
Tanya Plibersek says the damning 5 year national environmental report card suppressed by the former Coalition government, tells an “alarming story” of decline, native species extinction and cultural heritage loss, will be released on July 19, though is making cautious progress in her new role.
“[It] tells a very alarming story about environmental decline in Australia, and about lost cultural heritage, including shocking events like the Juukan Gorge destruction,” she said. “It tells a damning story of neglect by the previous government, and we’ve got a lot of work to do to fix that up
She would formally respond to a review of the EPBC Act, completed in the previous term of parliament by former consumer watchdog chief Graeme Samuel, after speaking with Samuel and consulting with environment, business and First Nations groups and state, territory and local governments.
Ms Plibersek – who is the longest serving woman in the House of Representatives – said while she wasn’t expecting to be shifted to the new portfolio, she was “delighted” to be serving as Environment and Water Minister and would remain in parliament “for the long haul”.
“We saw at the last election that the environment is a huge issue for a lot of Australian voters and (we need to) make sure that we tackle the big outstanding issues, the things that have gotten worse over the last decade, not better,” she said in a wide-ranging interview.
“We need to make sure we are explaining to Australia that we can have both – we can actually have a strong, growing economy and better protect our environment,” she said. “We also need to make sure we’re not allowing the perfect to become the enemy of the good. We want to progress.
“I’m going to take my time and do proper consultation to make sure we’re talking to stakeholders and bringing them with us. I don’t want to start putting timeframes on it just yet,” Plibersek said in an interview.
More action needed to save our species:
Aljazeera has an interview with former Threatened Species Commissioner Gregory Andrews who has warned Australia’s biodiversity is the “worst it’s ever been” and more needs to be done if Australia is to save its unique flora and fauna, such as addressing climate change, stopping logging of native forests, and stopping land clearing.
The second is habitat degradation… We’ve already degraded, deforested and reduced the habitat of our wildlife significantly for farming and agriculture and urban development. If we want to keep our wildlife… we need to stop logging native forests, and we need to stop land clearing.
Labor definitely has stronger policy platforms, but not strong enough to prevent extinction and protect nature to the extent that’s needed.
Funding is really important, but it’s been used as a ‘greenwashing’ exercise by governments, and particularly by the former government. Whenever they were asked, for example, about a particular species, they would just say “Oh, we’ve provided $50 million for koalas.” … Funding alone won’t fix the problem, we also need to deal with climate change and habitat degradation, and have stronger institutions.
For example, with koalas, we’re providing funding to plant more trees, but we’re chopping down the trees in the first place …
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/15/australias-first-threatened-species-commissioner
Queensland park expansion welcomed:
The World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia has welcomed the Queensland Government’s budget commitment of $262.5 million, including $200 million for property purchases, for expanding Queensland’s national parks and protected areas.
“Queensland has the least developed network of protected areas of any state or territory in Australia, despite being home to amazing wildlife and ecosystems that support more than 1,000 threatened species.
“The 2020 national assessment of protected areas found only 8.71% of Queensland is within protected or conserved areas. This figure pales in comparison to the 42.3% in Tasmania, 24.9% in the Northern Territory and 23.3% in Western Australia.
“Today’s funding is a massive step in the right direction. It will move the Queensland Government closer to achieving its protected area target of 17%.
Privatising parks:
The Guardian has an article about the growing number of commercial developments in national parks across Australia, including a proposal to construct hut accommodation along the Light to Light Walk, south of Eden, with further developments proposed for the Great Southern Walk and Gardens of Stone.
Along with the Light to Light Walk, NSW has proposed cabins and “glamping” sites for the Great Southern Walk near Sydney, as well as the construction of Australia’s longest zipline and accommodation at the Gardens of Stone walk near Lithgow.
It’s Tasmania, though, that is the most advanced in this space, with 138 commercial leases granted to tourism providers in national parks and reserves. Thirty of these, including private accommodation sites, complement the state’s extensive public hut network.
Buckley says there are fewer than 250 individual examples of private tourism accommodation or infrastructure in public protected areas in the entire world.
“These kinds of developments proposed … I don’t think they’re good for conservation, I don’t think it’s good for equitable public access to parks and I don’t think it’s good for the tourism industry.”
SPECIES
Koalas again dominate the media … with a documentary launched:
Simon Reeve has produced a film called “Koalas the Hard Truths” which looks in documentary fashion at the plight of koalas and the humans who care for them, with its first screening at Parliament House on June 22 for NSW politicians and members of the public.
https://southwestvoice.com.au/koalas-film/
… worldwide Koala concern:
The Guardian has an article about the decline of Koalas, identifying habitat loss as the primary threat and that the IFAW petition calling for the status of koalas to be uplisted to endangered garnered more than 250,000 signatures globally.
… disease ridden Koalas:
The ABC has a podcast on the combination of retro virus and chlamydia on koalas, both of which may be aggravated by stress – such as chopping and bulldozing their trees.
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/what-the-duck/koalaaids/13928290
… a plea for national Koala laws:
The Australian Koala Foundation has sent their Koala Protection Act to the new environment minister Tanya Plibersek in the hope of getting interest in national laws to stop cutting down koala feed trees, though they are not optimistic.
The foundation's chair, Deborah Tabart, said she had lobbied 14 federal environment ministers over 33 years for change, to the point where her group drafted its own legislation to give to the government.
Ms Tabart sent new Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek a copy of the proposed changes last week, but was not overly confident much would change.
"To be frank, I think it scares both sides of politics because it really gets to the nub of the issue," Ms Tabart said.
"The act automatically says, 'If this is koala habitat then you can't touch it' — and the only way you can touch it is if you prove that your activity is benign, which I think if you are a responsible industry you could do."
https://www.laprensalatina.com/australian-activists-urge-govt-to-adopt-koala-protection-act/
… continuing coverage of defeat of Great Koala National Park:
The Clarence Valley News has a story about the defeat of the Great Koala National Park Bill after the ALP voted it down.
https://clarencevalleynews.com.au/politics-wins-over-koalas-great-koala-national-park-bill-defeated/
… Lismore dithering over Koala killing:
Lismore voted in June to request a more Koala friendly design for a housing development in Goonellabah after the council’s ecologist had found the designs submitted put the local koala population at risk of extinction, with Koala feed trees proposed for removal and a road in an ecologically protected zone, though a recent meeting created confusion with a decision to defer the matter until July instead of requesting a Koala friendly design.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/06/lismore-council-flirts-with-koala-killer-status/
… Koala grants:
Until 15 July expressions of interest are sought for Koala Conservation and Protection – Community Grants – Round 1 which provides grants from $50,000 to up to $200,000 for small-scale community projects and local activities that support the recovery and protection of the Koala.
… fixing a black spot:
As the 20 year anniversary of the Port Stephens Comprehensive Koala Plan of Management nears closer, Port Stephens Council has secured $845,000 from the NSW Government to construct fencing and an underpass at their worst Koala black spot.
https://www.miragenews.com/koala-funding-marks-20-years-of-conservation-in-803857/
https://insidelocalgovernment.com.au/port-stephens-expands-koala-polan/
… Forestry getting more PR:
Forestry Corporation of NSW has delivered 25,000 koala food tree seedlings to the Friends of the Koala and Bangalow Koalas to establish habitat on private land – it’s interesting that they regard Blackbutt as a feed tree.
The mix of koala-preferred species this year includes Forest Red Gum, Tallowwood, Swamp Mahogany, Grey Gum, Dunn’s White Gum and Black Butt. These will be distributed between Friends of the Koala Lismore and Bangalow Koalas to areas of highest priority across current and future projects.
The seedlings were grown at Forestry Corporation’s Grafton nursery, which last year produced 3.2 million seedlings for plantation reestablishment. This year the Grafton nursery is on track to deliver 3.5 million seedlings for forest reestablishment in support of sustainable timber production.
Captive Tasmanian Devils genetically diverse:
A genetic study has found that insurance populations of the endangered Tasmanian devil, in zoos and on Maria Island off the east coast of Tasmania, are as genetically diverse as wild populations.
At their height, Tasmanian devils – which are only found in their namesake state – were found at densities of 1.3 devils per km2. Populations across most of the state have declined by an estimated 80 percent since 1996 due to a contagious cancer, devil facial tumour disease (DFTD). The disease is not the only issue facing devils: they are also threatened by roadkill, habitat destruction, and climate changes. Although there have been no local extinctions as a result of DFTD, populations remain sparse.
Making Endangered Emus genetically diverse:
A genetic study of the small Endangered Northern Rivers emu population has confirmed that they are genetically distinct from other populations from which they have been isolated for centuries, though their low genetic variation has led to proposals to introduce emus from elsewhere.
https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2022/06/nsw-north-coast-emus-in-dire-need-of-a-saviour/
And now Pookila mice:
With fewer than 3,000 Pookila mice thought to be left in the wild in Victoria they have become the latest target of a captive breeding program aimed at improving their genetics.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-21/pookila-mouse-captive-breeding-program-begins/101169946
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Why south-east Australia is drying:
Due to changes in high-altitude winds (jet stream) resulting from climate change, in both the northern and southern hemispheres, the paths of the weather systems that bring rain in the middle latitudes have been moving away from the equator and towards the poles, causing a decrease in the number of low-pressure systems bringing rain and the drop in rainfall during April and May in southeast Australia, which combine with the air over parts of inland southeast Australia becoming significantly drier since the 1990s and areas of strongly rotating air moving further east and south (over the Tasman Sea) resulting in a significant decrease in late autumn rainfall in southeast Australia.
The drought periods since 1997 have killed huge numbers of river fish, reduced the viability of broad acre and pastoral farming and other economic industries, and reduced river flows and sustainable access to water in many areas. In a future warming climate, these drought periods are expected to continue.
… while La Niña may be becoming more frequent:
An ongoing La Niña event that has contributed to flooding in eastern Australia and exacerbated droughts in the United States and East Africa could persist into 2023, according to the latest forecasts. A ‘triple dip’ La Niña — lasting three years in a row — has happened only twice since 1950. Some researchers are warning that climate change could make La Niña-like conditions more likely in future, contrary to current climate models.
Population and economic growth the problem:
Pearls and Irritations has an article by David Shearman welcoming action on climate change but lamenting the rapid demise of biodiversity and its ecological services not being addressed and acted on, particularly the elephant in the room that unlimited population and economic growth is possible on a finite planet.
Our western societies live under the illusion that unlimited economic growth is possible on a finite planet; until we understand this fallacy, there is little hope that the planet can sustain us.
As noted more than 50 years ago by the pioneer of Evolutionary Biology, E.O. Wilson “We are in a bottleneck of overpopulation and wasteful consumption that could push half of Earth’s species to extinction in this century.” “The raging monster upon the land is population growth” We have ignored the recommendations of the Earth Charter (2000) and failed to produce a population policy in Australia.
Within the community the environmental organisations have a considerable following and many achievements for example in preventing biodiversity loss through action on iconic and threatened species. However the increasing number of extinctions represents the tip of the iceberg of thousands of other species moving to extinction. Their organisational mission should also surely relate to educating on the fundamental causes, population and economic growth; in general these are absent from their platforms.
https://johnmenadue.com/ecological-services-sustainable-future/
Cost of ecological destruction:
The world’s first biodiversity-adjusted sovereign credit ratings show how ecological destruction affects public finances across 26 countries, these downgrades would increase the annual interest payment on debt by up to US$53 billion a year, leaving many developing nations at significant risk of sovereign debt default (in effect, bankruptcy), with the assessment only covering fisheries, timber and pollinators.
The world’s first biodiversity-adjusted sovereign credit ratings show how ecological destruction affects public finances – driving downgrades, debt crises and soaring borrowing costs, according to a team of economists led by the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, University of Cambridge.
Loss of plant and animal species may already be set to cause major sovereign downgrades, with China and Indonesia on course to drop two notches as early as 2030 under a business-as-usual scenario.
If parts of the world see a “partial ecosystems collapse” of fisheries, tropical timber production and wild pollination – as simulated by the World Bank – then more than half the 26 nations studied would face downgrades, with India falling four notches and China plummeting by six on the 20-notch scale.
Across the 26 countries, these downgrades would increase the annual interest payment on debt by up to US$53 billion a year, leaving many developing nations at significant risk of sovereign debt default – in effect, bankruptcy.
“As nature loss reduces economic performance, it will become harder for countries to service their debt, straining government budgets and forcing them to raise taxes, cut spending, or increase inflation. This will have grim consequences for ordinary people.”
The report is published today by the Finance for Biodiversity Initiative, and will be discussed at a public webinar in September 2022.*
“Economies reliant on ecosystems face a choice: pay now, by investing in nature, or pay later through higher borrowing costs and spiraling debt,” said study co-author Dr Matt Burke, Senior Lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University.
“The ‘pay now’ option generates long-term returns for people, business and nature. The ‘pay later’ option has significant downside risks, with little or no upside.”
“Developing countries are already saddled with crippling debt burdens driven by Covid-19 and soaring prices, and loss of nature will push these nations closer to the edge,” said co-author Dr Patrycja Klusak, affiliated researcher at Cambridge’s Bennett Institute and Associate Professor at the University of East Anglia.
Read the report: Nature Loss and Sovereign Credit Ratings
https://www.bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk/blog/biodiversity-loss-sovereign-credit-ratings/
Fertilisation breaks down fungal symbiosis with trees:
A study in Boreal forests found that increasing soil nutrition by fertilisation makes trees more hostile to their fungal partners, restructuring the root-associated fungal community from being dominated by specialist myccorhyzal fungal species that are highly dependent on the carbon-containing sugars from the trees to more versatile species.
The researchers from Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umeå University and Science for Life Laboratory compared a forest that was fertilized continuously over 25 years with a non-fertilized forest. They analyzed the gene activity in tree roots and in more than 350 fungal species over the course of a growing season and revealed that the fertilized trees changed their communication strategy and became more hostile to their fungal partners. As a result, the fungal community shifted from being dominated by specialist to more versatile species.
"In nutrient-poor boreal forests, trees are reliant on root-associated myccorhyzal fungi for their nutrient supply and maintain this partnership through the exchange of valuable sugars," says Simon Law, first author of the study and former postdoc in Vaughan Hurry's group at Umeå Plant Science Center. "Soil fertilization disrupts this sensitive trading relationship, causing trees to divert these sugars to their own growth and defense, with profound implications for the fungal community."
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-fertilization-reshapes-tree-fungi-relationship-boreal.html
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2118852119
American national parks threatened:
American national parks are being increasingly affected by fire, flood, melting ice sheets, rising seas and heat waves, as climate change gathers momentum, threatening some of their core values.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/us/yellowstone-national-park-floods.html?unlocked_
TURNING IT AROUND
The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity to meet again in December:
The next meeting of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will now run from 5 to 17 December in Montreal in Canada, with the aim of finalising COP15.
Renewable Energy Certificates more greenwashing:
A study reported in Nature concludes that companies use of renewable energy certificates (RECs) to report reductions in emissions from purchased electricity purchases are unlikely to lead to additional renewable energy production, leading to an inflated estimate of the effectiveness of mitigation efforts.
Current greenhouse gas accounting standards allow companies to use renewable energy certificates (RECs) to report reductions in emissions from purchased electricity (scope 2) as progress towards meeting their science-based targets. However, previous analyses suggest that corporate REC purchases are unlikely to lead to additional renewable energy production. Here we show that the widespread use of RECs by companies with science-based targets has led to an inflated estimate of the effectiveness of mitigation efforts. When removing the emission reductions claimed through RECs, companies’ combined 2015–2019 scope 2 emission trajectories are no longer aligned with the 1.5 °C goal, and only barely with the well below 2 °C goal of the Paris Agreement. If this trend continues, 42% of committed scope 2 emission reductions will not result in real-world mitigation. Our findings suggest a need to revise accounting guidelines to require companies to report only real emission reductions as progress towards meeting their science-based targets.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01379-5
Scientists fight against European bioenergy:
38 scientists have written a public letter to EU governments and the European Parliament over concerns around the Bioenergy Provisions of the Fit for 55 Plan, warning that promoting biomass leads to additional wood harvest for bioenergy that is likely to increase global warming for decades to centuries, while increasing the extensive use of agricultural land for bioenergy.
Unfortunately, the bioenergy provisions of the Fit for 55 plan, by treating biomass as “carbon neutral,” encourage Europe not just to burn waste biomass but to harvest and burn more wood from forests and to devote millions of hectares of agricultural land to bioenergy. Doing so would increase Europe’s global carbon footprint substantially. Although burning biomass releases even more carbon than burning fossil fuels, the greenhouse gas rules in these proposed laws ignore this loss of carbon. As a result, those who burn biomass are credited with reducing carbon emissions regardless of these emissions, of reduced carbon storage from increased wood harvest, and of the carbon lost in native habitats as farmland expands globally to replace foregone food production in Europe. As hundreds of scientists have previously cautioned the European Parliament, this approach leads to additional wood harvest for bioenergy that is likely to increase global warming for decades to centuries even if forests are harvested “sustainably” and allowed to grow back.
Forest Media 17 June 2022
New South Wales
The Land and Environment Court imposed fines and costs totalling $285,600 on the Forestry Corporation for illegally logging a Koala High Use Area, rainforest and a rainforest buffer in Wild Cattle Creek State Forest. Justice Robson found the removal of 4 feed trees and construction of logging tracks within a Koala High Use Area would “beyond reasonable doubt… likely to have had an adverse impact” causing “actual harm”, and the logging of 2 trees in a Warm Temperate Rainforest buffer “resulted in ecological impacts and environmental harm … which exacerbates the potential for bushfire penetration into the warm temperate rainforest”. This led to a media flurry, with conservationists call for Koala habitat to be protected.
ASIC contacted the NCC to advise that following preliminary enquiries it had decided to refer Hunter-based Sweetman Renewables’ claim it had signed a $90 million contract to supply woodchips to the Japanese energy company Sinanen as part of its fundraising campaign, to a specialist team from Australia's Corporate Watchdog to consider allegations that engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct. Sinanen denied the deal and described the claim as "deplorable". Sweetmans were intending to supply Redbank with woodchips, with media coverage of Redbank’s court loss continuing.
The announcement of a $1.2 billion investment by the NSW govt in renewable energy was welcomed by the North Coast Environment Council’s Vice-President Susie Russell, provided it does not come at the expense of nature, identifying the need to immediately rule out wood-fired power stations as a renewable energy source, and ensure native vegetation is not cleared for windfarms, pumped-hydro or power lines.
“Fridays4Forest” had its first gathering outside NSW Parliament House to highlight the plight of koalas and native forests. News of the Area has an article about the extension of the Wood Supply Agreements, citing Justin Field and NCC. The Echo has an article citing NEFA.
The 2022-23 NSW Budget will deliver a major boost to fire management in national parks through a $598 million investment, delivering 250 permanent jobs and critical infrastructure upgrades. Treasurer Matt Kean has committed $32.9 million in Tuesday's budget to deliver a biosecurity regime to protect the Lord Howe Island from rats and other invasive species. The NSW government has reached an $8.9 million deal with Bush Heritage Australia and South Endeavour Trust to make annual payments through the Biodiversity Conservation Trust to fund conservation works on two properties they own in the Paroo River catchment.
Jerry Vanclay argues for relocating Lismore out of harms way, though identifies reforestation of catchments above Lismore (and deforestation below Lismore) as the most effective way of mitigating flood damage.
Across NSW, Regional Landcare Networks have been funded to develop networking, education and communication activities with private landholders as part of the Partnering in Private Land Conservation Program, which aims to work collaboratively to build understanding and skills regarding biodiversity, educate private landholders on conservation efforts, and increase participation in private land conservation. Founder the Dunbogan Bush Care Group on the Mid North Coast, Sue Baker, has been awarded an OAM for her rehabilitation of degraded bushland.
Australia
Mona has an installation by Fiona Hall and AJ King ‘Exodust – Crying Country’ showing the devastation wrought on forests by logging and post-logging burns.
Alinta CEO Jeff Dimery is off to Europe to investigate using biomass to replace brown coal to burn in the Loy Yang B power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley.
The Queensland Government is equivocating over its commitment to end native forest logging on public land throughout the South East Queensland Planning Area by 2024, with the Queensland Conservation Council providing a report identifying 68,543 hectares across 19 state forests for protection.
A new report by Dr Sanger, in collaboration with The Wilderness Society and the Tasmanian Climate Collective, has found greenhouse gas emissions from Tasmania’s native forest logging are equivalent to about 4.65 million tonnes of carbon each year, making it the state's highest emitting industry, whereas if they stop logging 75 million tonnes of carbon could be absorbed by the state's production forests by 2050.
Environment Groups are calling on the Federal Government for urgent action on their promised environmental reforms, including the creation of an Environmental Protection Agency, a National Water Commission, and an overhaul of federal environmental protection laws by issuing a full response to the Samuel Review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Former Cabinet Minister and long serving Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon has joined the Australian Forest Products Association board as an independent non-executive director, which will facilitate their access to the new Government.
In a soon to be published interview, Queensland Chief Scientist Hugh Possingham is very annoyed with his fellow scientists as well as environmentalist and conservationists – and some of us are annoyed with him for his naïve recommendations on private land conservation in NSW.
Species
A study of the critically endangered southern bent-wing bat, whose populations are centred around 3 maternity caves, found that they will be near extinct within 36 years, with declines of up to 97%, due to clearing of natural vegetation, drying of wetlands and increasing droughts due to climate heating. Heatwaves can cause the death of animals en masse, and can weaken the survivors with long-term consequences. A study of Purple-crowned Fairy Wrens found that heatwaves can damage the DNA of nestling young, meaning they age earlier, die younger and produce less offspring.
Last winter, thousands of dead and dying frogs were found across Australia, and it seems to be happening again, with the amphibian chytrid fungus a likely contributor.
The finding of eight endangered Dunnarts in the stomachs of feral cats after the fires on Kangaroo Island has worried researchers that they are targeting the survivors in fire refuges, leading them to establish a feral cat exclusion area, and increase their effort to eradicate cats from the island. Leeton residents have called for great responsibility by cat owners and the local council to limit the impact of freely roaming cats, citing new Canberra rules to keep cats indoors or in enclosures at all times.
It is estimated the Tasmania's native animal roadkill of marsupials, birds and reptiles reaches 500,000 annually, with calls for greater mitigation measures. Meanwhile conditions placed on the Riley Creek mine in the Tarkine wilderness to prevent vehicles from operating between dusk and dawn to reduce roadkill of species such as the Tassie Devil and quolls, were quietly lifted by the EPA with no public consultation, with legal action threatened.
Sue Arnold calls on the new Commonwealth Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to take meaningful action for Koalas, starting with requesting the Auditor General undertake an audit of taxpayer-funded grants for koalas by the Morrison Government given the lack of visible results ensuring their ongoing survival. CNA (Channel News Asia) has a lengthy article about the compounding threats faced by Koalas, focussing on south-east Queensland. The Victorian Conservation Regulator is investigating after 13 koalas were found dead from unknown causes in a blue gum plantation near Hamilton, no logging was happening.
About 120 Greater Glider nest boxes, with improved insulation, have been installed in fire-affected forests in NSW’s Tallaganda National Park, and another 120 in East Gippsland, in response to a third of their habitat being burnt and a housing crisis caused by the loss of mature hollow trees.
In a questionable move, Aussie Ark is proposing to translocate captive Koalas into their fenced predator-proof 1500-hectare Mongo Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in the Northern Rivers region, with the claim that the protected enclosure will ‘rewild’ them. As part of The Wild Deserts project a group of golden bandicoots have been transferred from the Matuwa Kurrara Kurrara Indigenous Protected Area in the central Western Australian desert to the Stuart National Park feral animal exclusion area in far-west New South Wales.
A combined wild dog 1080 aerial baiting program between the Local Lands Services and the National Parks and Wildlife Service is distributing 165,000 baits over national parks, state forests and private properties in an area ranging from Niangala through to Glen Innes, Tenterfield, Emmaville and Nullamanna districts on the Northern Tablelands.
The Deteriorating Problem
Sixty five million people in the western USA are facing “severe to extreme drought” conditions as the worst megadrought in a millennium continues to decimate river flows, spawn intense fires, kill people and result in record temperatures, which will get worse as the world heats.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Forestry Corporation fined $285,600:
The Land and Environment Court imposed fines and costs totalling $285,600 on the Forestry Corporation for illegally logging a Koala High Use Area, rainforest and a rainforest buffer in Wild Cattle Creek State Forest. For the removal of 4 feed trees and construction of logging tracks within a Koala High Use Area, Justice Robson states:
“I find beyond reasonable doubt that the felling of the large Eucalyptus trees and the construction or operation of snig tracks were highly likely to have had an adverse impact by reducing the size and the quality of the habitat available to the breeding female and offspring. As such, I accept the position adopted by the prosecutor and find that there has been actual harm.”
“… I accept Dr Crowther’s evidence that the harm is related to the size of the removed trees, their significance for food and shelter, and the fact that koalas often revisit trees within their home range”.
For logging 3 trees in mapped rainforest and 2 trees in a 20m exclusion zone around it, Justice Robson stated:
I find in accordance with Dr Kooyman’s evidence that the exclusion zone was dominated by warm temperate rainforest (as Mr Peake conceded), and I consider that the removal of the two trees and the disturbance of an area at least of 120m² resulted in ecological impacts and environmental harm. I accept Dr Kooyman’s evidence that this would have a deleterious effect on the rainforest in that it causes disruption, opens the edges of the forest, causes changes in microclimates and causes drying, which exacerbates the potential for bushfire penetration into the warm temperate rainforest (Bentley at [174]-[175]).
https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/18145ef040e3b57a3d583217
[Mark Graham] "It's confirmation of what we've known for a long while, which is that the Forestry Corporation systematically and flagrantly breaches the few safeguards that it operates under," he said.
The Nature Conservation Council is calling on the government to conduct a comprehensive independent review of the Forestry Corporation to ensure it acts lawfully and sustainably.
In a statement, a FCNSW spokesperson said they acknowledge the organisation had made some mapping and marking errors during an operation in Wild Cattle Creek State Forest in 2018.
Nature Conservation Council of NSW chief executive Chris Gambian said the corporation was a repeat offender that had been fined six times since April 2020 for various breaches,
“Fines, no matter how large, can never replace critical koala habitat destroyed by (the) forestry corporation,” he said, adding that the government should establish a review of the corporation.
Greens MLC and former environmental lawyer Sue Higginson called the forestry corporation a serial offender, adding it should no longer be controlling public native forest estates.
“(The) Forestry Corporation has proved it can not be trusted and its cavalier attitude to threatened species and their habitats must end,” she said.
The fine was also welcomes by the North East Forest Alliance, which urged the government to reinstate no-logging buffer zones around rainforests.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/science/environment/2022/06/16/logging-koala-habitat-did-harm/
https://www.juneesoutherncross.com.au/story/7783582/logging-in-koala-habitat-did-actual-harm/
https://www.beagleweekly.com.au/post/more-fines-for-forestry-corporation-nsw
https://www.lithgowmercury.com.au/story/7783582/logging-in-koala-habitat-did-actual-harm/?cs=9676
https://www.portnews.com.au/story/7783582/logging-in-koala-habitat-did-actual-harm/?cs=12
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7783582/logging-in-koala-habitat-did-actual-harm/?cs=14264
https://www.theadvocate.com.au/story/7783582/logging-in-koala-habitat-did-actual-harm/
EPA Executive Director Regulatory Operations Carmen Dwyer said this is a clear message to the forestry industry.
"Strict operating rules are in place to protect precious wildlife, such as the Koala Exclusion Zones, which are a critical part of preserving the habitat of koalas to ensure their survival in this forest," he said.
"Disregarding the rules and harvesting trees in these areas can put animals under increased stress."
FCNSW Fines
May 2022 – $138,000 – Wild Cattle Creek State Forest
Apr 2022 – $45,000 – Mogo State Forest
Feb 2021 – $15,000 – Olney State Forest
Feb 2021 – $30,000 – Ballengarra State Forest
Mar 2021 – $33,000 – Boyne, Bodalla and Mogo State Forest
Apr 2020 – $31,100 – Tantawangalo and Bago State Forest
https://www.miragenews.com/fines-will-never-replace-critical-koala-habitat-801984/
[Dailan Pugh] “To log the highest quality Koala habitat is no longer an offence so the Forestry Corporation can continue to cause actual harm to Koalas unchecked.
“The evidence is clear that Koala habitat must be protected from logging, the Ministers for Forestry and Environment must immediately restore the need to look before they log and protect Koala High Use Areas.
“With a third of NSW’s rainforests burnt in the 2019-2020 wildfires, this finding emphasises the need to exclude logging from wide buffers around all rainforests (not just warm temperate rainforest) to reduce the threat of their being burnt in future fires.
Were Sweetmans misleading investors?
ASIC contacted the NCC on June 2 to advise that following preliminary enquiries it had decided to refer Hunter-based Sweetman Renewables’ claim it had signed a $90 million contract to supply woodchips to the Japanese energy company Sinanen as part of its fundraising campaign, to a specialist team from Australia's Corporate Watchdog to consider allegations that engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct. Sinanen denied the deal and described the claim as "deplorable".
Sweetmans were intending to supply Redbank with woodchips, with media coverage of Redbank’s court loss continuing.
Nature Conservation Council Chief Executive Chris Gambian said: "The court's decision is very welcome but this project still poses a very live threat to native forests and wildlife.
"Biomass from native forest timber has no social license in NSW, and never will. The community campaign against this proposal will be relentless - we will not rest until this proposal is withdrawn."
https://www.singletonargus.com.au/story/7777617/redbank-appeal-dismissed/
Renewables must not cost the earth:
The announcement of a $1.2 billion investment by the NSW govt in renewable energy was welcomed by the North Coast Environment Council’s Vice-President Susie Russell, provided it does not come at the expense of nature, identifying the need to immediately rule out wood-fired power stations as a renewable energy source, and ensure native vegetation is not cleared for windfarms, pumped-hydro or power lines.
There is no point saving the climate if we have sacrificed nature to get there.
“The government must also specify that the components of the projects that receive government funding are fully recyclable in a form that can be reused. No more burying wind turbine blades in landfill or shredding solar panels. If they are to benefit from public funding then they must not create another environmental problem when it is time to replace them.
https://clarencevalleynews.com.au/renewables-must-not-come-at-natures-expense/
Friday for forests goes to Sydney:
“Fridays4Forest” had its first gathering outside NSW Parliament House to highlight the plight of koalas and native forests.
North East Forests campaigner Sean O’Shannessy said the government’s mismanagement of the logging industry and development “has put our koalas at risk of imminent extinction”.
“We are living in a climate crisis and we are seeing more extremes every day causing destruction to our way of life.
“Our forests are the lungs of our earth. They hold the ground together in a flood and cool the ground in a heat wave.”
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/fridays4forests-protest-comes-nsw-parliament
Reaction to extending Wood Supply Agreements continues:
News of the Area has an article about the extension of the Wood Supply Agreements, citing Justin Field and NCC.
The Echo has an article citing NEFA.
‘Extending Wood Supply Agreements at pre-fire levels is clearly unsustainable in multiple ways and an act of gross irresponsibility’ Mr. Pugh said.
Echo June 15 2022
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/06/nsw-government-irresponsible-in-extending-logging/
More funding for fire fighting on national parks:
The 2022-23 NSW Budget will deliver a major boost to fire management in national parks through a $598 million investment, delivering 250 permanent jobs and critical infrastructure upgrades.
[Mr Griffin] “This will ensure NPWS can increase hazard reduction activity, strengthen remote area firefighting capability, and is supported to continue its critical work protecting communities and the environment from the threat of bushfires.”
The funding boost will deliver:
- 250 permanent jobs from July 2023, including 200 firefighters and 50 roles to meet new statutory requirements for protecting Assets of Intergenerational Significance (AIS) across the national parks estate
- $27.7 million over four years to upgrade the radio network
- $4.5 million over four years for safety upgrades to the NPWS fleet
“With more than 200 Assets of Intergenerational Significance already declared, this dedicated funding will deliver fire management, feral animal control and other measures needed to protect the most important natural and cultural assets in our national parks estate,” Mr Griffin said.
For more information on the Strategy, visit https://www.climatechange.environment.nsw.gov.au/nsw-climate-change-adaptation-strategy.
More funds for Lord Howe Island:
Treasurer Matt Kean has committed $32.9 million in Tuesday's budget to deliver a biosecurity regime to protect the Lord Howe Island from rats and other invasive species.
Before a $15.5 million aerial-baiting rodent control program was introduced to the island in 2019, large rat populations had pushed multiple plant species to near-extinction.
The pest control program had already led to a doubling of the population of Lord Howe Woodhens and supported the regeneration of other native animal and plant species.
The funding will upgrade rat-prevention infrastructure and support quarantine programs including detector dogs and other methods used to inspect boats and planes arriving at Lord Howe.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-10924535/33m-Lord-Howe-Island-biosecurity.html
Funding conservation on private properties:
The NSW government has reached an $8.9 million deal with Bush Heritage Australia and South Endeavour Trust to make annual payments through the Biodiversity Conservation Trust to fund conservation works on two properties they own in the Paroo River catchment.
The government’s Biodiversity Conservation Trust has 2180 conservation agreements with private landowners to protect 2.3 million hectares of land, a commitment of $160 million so far.
“Without private conservation, we are not going to be able to overcome the extinction crisis that we’re facing,” Higginson said.
“We are losing species, we’re losing ecosystems or ecosystems are becoming diminished and they’re deteriorating, and the public land conservation network can only achieve so much.”
Higginson, who negotiated conservation agreements for landowners in her former career as an environmental lawyer, said in-perpetuity agreements were preferable but called for more transparency about where public funds were going.
Trees best flood mitigation:
Jerry Vanclay argues for relocating Lismore out of harms way, though identifies reforestation of catchments above Lismore (and deforestation below Lismore) as the most effective way of mitigating flood damage.
What would work is restoring vegetation on the floodplains above Lismore, and clear vegetation on the floodplains below Lismore. Why? Because vegetation can make a five-fold difference in water velocity. If we reforest floodplains to the north through projects like tree plantations for koalas, horticulture and rainforest restoration, we would slow the floods significantly. If we clear more areas on the floodplains below Lismore, we would also speed up the clearance of floodwaters from the river. These two methods combined would lower the height of the flood peak. These interventions are also tolerant of imprecise assumptions and extreme situations, and are not prone to sudden failure.
Landowner education:
Across NSW, Regional Landcare Networks have been funded to develop networking, education and communication activities with private landholders as part of the Partnering in Private Land Conservation Program, which aims to work collaboratively to build understanding and skills regarding biodiversity, educate private landholders on conservation efforts, and increase participation in private land conservation.
Key objectives of the project include:
- Building understanding and capacity between the BCT and local Landcare groups to complement each other's knowledge and skills and plan how to work together.
- Building biodiversity conservation knowledge with landholders through communication and education initiatives. This will be delivered through grant funding to eligible groups who wish to participate.
- Increase the participation of landholders in private land conservation programs.
https://www.forbesadvocate.com.au/story/7781146/landcare-have-a-look-at-conservation/
Gong for bushcare:
Founder the Dunbogan Bush Care Group on the Mid North Coast, Sue Baker, has been awarded an OAM for her rehabilitation of degraded bushland.
AUSTRALIA
Artful interpretation:
Mona has an installation by Fiona Hall and AJ King ‘Exodust – Crying Country’ showing the devastation wrought on forests by logging and post-logging burns.
Over three weeks, they gathered the burnt soil, Eucalyptus regnans stumps and branches, and lakri (man ferns), bringing them to the gallery and piecing the wrecked country back together. It’s a multisensorial recreation of the trauma that the forestry industry continues to wreak across lutruwita: first by the logging, and then by the high intensity burns that are ignited to devour the aftermath.
“These trees had suffered significantly over multiple generations, from the time white men first stepped on that country,” King says. “So for us to be on this country that had been just desecrated, not just once but consistently – burnt in ways that permanently scarred the landscape – we felt that pain every day we went down there.”
Hall, who moved to Tasmania seven years ago, says “forest genocide is in the Tasmanian psyche”.
“A lot of visitors from elsewhere may be aware of the logging, but not of the post-logging burning; the funeral pyre that happens after the logging. It’s like rubbing salt into a wound.”
Burning biomass in Victoria:
Alinta CEO Jeff Dimery is off to Europe to investigate using biomass to replace brown coal to burn in the Loy Yang B power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley.
“We have to have an alternative. Some might say nuclear and I sort of say well, good luck to you, people. That’s, you know, pie in the sky. But there are other alternative fuels like biomass that have been successfully integrated overseas.”
RE asked if it was a similar proposal to that of Drax in the UK, the best known of the coal generators that have turned to biomass, albeit with much questioning about whether it has an impact on actually cutting emissions, and on forests in the US, where much of its feedstock is sought.
Queensland equivocating over policy to end logging public forests by 2024:
A report by the Queensland Conservation Council was provided to the Queensland Government in support of policy commitments to end native forest logging on public land throughout the region by 2024, it identifies 68,543 hectares across 19 state forests in the South East Queensland Planning Area for protection.
Tasmanian native forests can make a difference to climate heating:
A new report by Dr Sanger, in collaboration with The Wilderness Society and the Tasmanian Climate Collective, has found greenhouse gas emissions from Tasmania’s native forest logging are equivalent to about 4.65 million tonnes of carbon each year, making it the state's highest emitting industry, whereas if they stop logging 75 million tonnes of carbon could be absorbed by the state's production forests by 2050.
Dr Sanger's report, which has not been formally peer-reviewed, argues almost two-thirds of the carbon from a logged native forest is released into the atmosphere within two years — 30 per cent from slash burning, 10 per cent in mill waste, and 24 per cent from paper products with a short life span.
Dr Sanger said if Tasmania followed Victoria and Western Australia's lead and ended native forest logging, 75 million tonnes of carbon could be absorbed by the state's production forests by 2050.
She said that would be equivalent to taking every car off the road in Australia for a year, shutting down Australia's dirtiest power plant, Yallourn, eight years early, or converting 236,000 homes to solar.
"If we protected our forests, especially the forests that are re-growing from previous logging, they're drawing down significant amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, and if we protect them that means the carbon is going to be stored long-term," Dr Sanger said.
Environmental action requested:
Environment Groups are calling on the Federal Government for urgent action on their promised environmental reforms, including the creation of an Environmental Protection Agency, a National Water Commission, and an overhaul of federal environmental protection laws by issuing a full response to the Samuel Review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
Plibersek said one of the “big messages” from the federal election was that Australians want to see more action on the environment and climate change.
“I’ve only just got my feet under the desk, but I’ll say this: the environment is back under Labor - we are going to do some great things.
“When the prime minister offered me this portfolio, he said the environment and water will be top priorities for our government – what a refreshing change after a decade of the Liberal party not giving a stuff about either,” she said.
Gaining clout with ALP:
Former Cabinet Minister and long serving Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon has joined the Australian Forest Products Association board as an independent non-executive director, which will facilitate their access to the new Government.
AFPA chairman Greg McCormack said.
“Joel brings to our organisation two extremely important attributes. He is a passionate supporter of forest industries right around Australia and understands intimately how we can assist the new Albanese Government deliver both greater climate change initiatives and more timber for our builders and renovators.”
Mr McCormack said that Mr Fitzgibbon’s experience in both strategic vision and policy development would provide valuable input for the AFPA Board and in dealings with all levels of the Government and the Public Service in the delivery of the $300 million in new initiatives Labor committed to during the election.
“As a respected figure in Australian politics, his expertise will be an invaluable addition to the depth of knowledge on the Board at a time we are engaging with the new Parliament, striving to deliver on policy commitment,” Mr McCormack said.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/former-labor-cabinet-minister-fitzgibbon-joins-afpa-board/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-10917671/Ex-Labor-MP-joins-forest-industry-board.html
https://www.gloucesteradvocate.com.au/story/7780905/ex-labor-mp-joins-forest-industry-board/
Possingham lambasts conservationists:
In a soon to be published interview, Queensland Chief Scientist Hugh Possingham is very annoyed with his fellow scientists as well as environmentalist and conservationists – and some of us are annoyed with him for his naïve recommendations on private land conservation in NSW.
They are too conservative, don’t debate respectfully, are too obsessed with growing their own organisations and can’t compromise a bit.
SPECIES
Microbat threatened by clearing and climate:
A study of the critically endangered southern bent-wing bat, whose populations are centred around 3 maternity caves, found that they will be near extinct within 36 years, with declines of up to 97%, due to clearing of natural vegetation, drying of wetlands and increasing droughts due to climate heating.
Our new research has found the critically endangered southern bent-wing bat is continuing to decline. Its populations are centred on just three “maternity” caves in southeast South Australia and southwest Victoria, where the bats give birth and raise their young.
Unfortunately, 90% of natural vegetation in the southern bent-wing bat’s range has been cleared and most of the region’s wetlands have either been drained and converted to agricultural land, or are drying out due to a combination of groundwater extraction and a drying climate.
Climate heating threatening birds survival:
Heatwaves can cause the death of animals en masse, and can weaken the survivors with long-term consequences. A study of Purple-crowned Fairy Wrens found that heatwaves can damage the DNA of nestling young, meaning they age earlier, die younger and produce less offspring.
Our study, published today, describes how exposure to hot and dry conditions can damage the DNA of nestling birds in their first few days of life. This can mean they age earlier, die younger and produce less offspring.
Nestlings exposed to hot, dry conditions during their first days of life had shorter telomeres. This suggests surviving heat stress may shorten their protective DNA buffer and make the birds age more quickly. Indeed, our previous research demonstrated nestlings with shorter telomeres tend to die younger, and subsequently have fewer offspring.
Keeping cool is also costly for parent birds. Like us, birds often seek out shade and become less active in extreme heat. Instead of sweating, they open their beaks to pant and spread their wings to cool off.
But these behaviours leave a parent bird with less time to forage, defend the nest or feed offspring – activities required for the population to survive. We are investigating whether this exacerbates the effects of telomere shortening.
[Professor Peters] “I would say that in terms of the sensitivity of the telomeres to stress, mammals certainly are also known to do that, humans as well,” she told Yahoo News Australia.
“We can be born with shorter telomeres if our mother had a very hard time in pregnancy.
“Mammals of course, are a little bit more buffered because they do quite a lot of the growing, more of the growing inside the mother.
“But there's nothing that makes me want to say: No, this wouldn't happen in mammals, it's unique to birds.”
https://au.news.yahoo.com/climate-change-causing-endangered-aussie-birds-die-early-044945587.html
Frogs dying out:
Last winter, thousands of dead and dying frogs were found across Australia, and it seems to be happening again, with the amphibian chytrid fungus a likely contributor.
Right from the very first frog deaths last year, our number one suspect has been the amphibian chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis). This pathogen is a known frog killer, responsible for causing frog population declines and species extinctions around the world, including in Australia.
The fungus attacks the skin of frogs, which is their Achilles heel – frogs use their skin to breathe, drink and control electrolytes. Deaths of frogs due to this pathogen are often at cooler temperatures.
Our testing has revealed the amphibian chytrid fungus is certainly involved in this mass death event. Most of the hundreds of dead frogs tested so far have tested positive for the pathogen.
To help us understand the scale and cause of any frog deaths this winter, please send any reports of sick or dead frogs to the Australian Museum’s citizen science project FrogID via [email protected].
Please include your location and, if possible, photos of the frog(s).
Cats threaten animals survival:
The finding of eight endangered Dunnarts in the stomachs of feral cats after the fires on Kangaroo Island has worried researchers that they are targeting the survivors in fire refuges, leading them to establish a feral cat exclusion area, and increase their effort to eradicate cats from the island.
A study of the stomach contents of cats trapped on the island in the months following the fires found the remains of eight dunnarts from the 86 cats sampled, according to a study published in Scientific Reports today.
"We have to see that as a screenshot basically, because from the mouth of the cat to the other end takes about 24 hours," Dr Lignereux said.
"So eight dunnarts in seven cats doesn't sound like a lot, but it's a massive pressure."
A total of 263 different prey items were found in the cats' stomachs altogether, including an endangered southern brown bandicoot.
"The cats that are already there, they're just killing the last remaining dunnart in the refuge areas after the fire."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-06-17/feral-cats-killing-kangaroo-island-dunnarts/101156628
Leeton residents have called for great responsibility by cat owners and the local council to limit the impact of freely roaming cats, citing new Canberra rules to keep cats indoors or in enclosures at all times.
From July 1 2022, new cats in all Canberra suburbs must be kept in doors or enclosures at all times to reduce their impact on native species and the environment.
Owners will also have to leash and accompany their cats when outside.
https://www.irrigator.com.au/story/7783020/calls-to-control-our-cats/
Vehicles need curfews too:
It is estimated the Tasmania's native animal roadkill of marsupials, birds and reptiles reaches 500,000 annually, with calls for greater mitigation measures. Meanwhile conditions placed on the Riley Creek mine in the Tarkine wilderness to prevent vehicles from operating between dusk and dawn to reduce roadkill of species such as the Tassie Devil and quolls, were quietly lifted by the EPA with no public consultation, with legal action threatened.
"We see more calls every single year than we've seen the year before. And unfortunately, that number shows no sign of going backwards," Greg says.
It's not just the number of wildlife dying that is startling, but the suffering they endure.
"What they don't realise is how hearty our animals are. So these animals can survive for weeks in that condition," says Greg.
Commonwealth asked to act on Koalas:
Sue Arnold calls on the new Commonwealth Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to take meaningful action for Koalas, starting with requesting the Auditor General undertake an audit of taxpayer-funded grants for koalas by the Morrison Government given the lack of visible results ensuring their ongoing survival.
However, in the political framework of major parties, it would appear the koala is useful for promotion and propaganda purposes but a significant barrier to urban development and the ongoing wipe-out of native forests and coastal forest ecosystems to supply the timber, building and woodchip industries.
Both the L-NP and Labor voted against the creation of the [Great Koala] park. The vote was 30-7. A complete reversal of Labor’s policy. In 2015, NSW Labor Leader Luke Foley promised to establish the park, saying his party had a clear plan to protect koalas.
Industrial logging of remaining native forests in the state is the death knell for primary koala hubs. Communities in the south and north coast forests have exhaustively campaigned in an Olympic effort to stop the slaughter.
Koala decline:
CNA (Channel News Asia) has a lengthy article about the compounding threats faced by Koalas, focussing on south-east Queensland.
[Tabart] “If we don't just do the simple thing of stopping the cutting down of trees now, then I just can't see a secure future. And so that's why I want better legislation. None of the legislation in our country is sufficient to stop that simple chainsaw,” she said.
“Most of the things that are happening to koalas now are because their trees are cut down. They end up being homeless, they starve to death, they get sick and then they die ... The decline is massive.”
More Victorian Koalas die:
The Victorian Conservation Regulator is investigating after 13 koalas were found dead from unknown causes in a blue gum plantation near Hamilton, no logging was happening.
Re-homing Greater Gliders:
About 120 Greater Glider nest boxes, with improved insulation, have been installed in fire-affected forests in Tallaganda National Park, and another 120 in East Gippsland, in response to a third of their habitat being burnt and a housing crisis caused by the loss of mature hollow trees.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/science/environment/2022/06/15/fire-hit-gliders-new-forest-homes/
https://www.northernriversreview.com.au/story/7781872/fire-hit-gliders-offered-new-forest-homes/
Is this really necessary?:
Aussie Ark is proposing to translocate captive Koalas into their fenced predator-proof 1500-hectare Mongo Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in the Northern Rivers region, with the claim that the protected enclosure will ‘rewild’ them.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/science/environment/2022/06/15/project-rewild-koalas/
https://www.southernriverinanews.com.au/national/project-aims-to-rewild-protected-koalas/
Another translocation:
As part of The Wild Deserts project a group of golden bandicoots have been transferred from the Matuwa Kurrara Kurrara Indigenous Protected Area in the central Western Australian desert to the Stuart National Park feral animal exclusion area in far-west New South Wales.
165,000 aerial 1080 baits dropped over Northern Tablelands:
A combined wild dog 1080 aerial baiting program between the Local Lands Services and the National Parks and Wildlife Service is distributing 165,000 baits over national parks, state forests and private properties in an area ranging from Niangala through to Glen Innes, Tenterfield, Emmaville and Nullamanna districts on the Northern Tablelands.
https://www.tenterfieldstar.com.au/story/7777584/165000-wild-dog-baits-spread/
https://www.armidaleexpress.com.au/story/7777584/165000-wild-dog-baits-spread/
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
The drying, dying west:
Sixty five million people in the western USA are facing “severe to extreme drought” conditions as the worst megadrought in a millennium continues to decimate river flows, spawn intense fires, kill people and result in record temperatures, which will get worse as the world heats.
More than a dozen states all across the West, making up nearly half of the Lower 48, have at least some areas in severe, extreme and even “exceptional drought”—the agency’s highest rating for severity.
Federal forecasters warned over the weekend that “dangerous heat” was contributing to a slew of wildfires in California, New Mexico and Arizona. And many officials worry it’s a sign of another intense summer fire season ahead.
The [Colarado] river’s flow has declined at least 20 percent since 2000 and is expected to decline more than 9 percent for every degree Celsius of warming, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
In February, scientists published a study that found that global warming has exacerbated the region’s dry conditions so much that the last two decades are now the driest the region has seen in 1,200 years.
https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?e=6624c72df8&u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=a8a9aae260
Forest Media 10 June 2022
New South Wales
Catherine Cusack has twitted texts between her and Gladys Berejiklian over the Koala Kill Bill to prove she had no knowledge of a deal brokered between then Environment Minister Matt Kean and former Nationals leader John Barilaro, whereby she claimed his energy policy was traded for Koalas – Koalas may have the distinction of being a physical victim of climate inaction and an early political victim of climate action. Matt Kean was quick to deny any deal.
The state’s Upper House this week debated the Greens bill to establish a Great Koala National Park, Greens MP Cate Faehrmann saying the bill was crucial in protecting the now endangered Koalas. While the Government and opposition speakers in the upper house were effusive about the need to protect Koalas they wouldn’t support the bill, with the ALP claiming it was because it would require finances which the Government wouldn’t commit to - but the ALP wouldn’t commit to the park. Catherine Cusack gave an impassioned speech in support, deriding her party’s Koala conservation efforts while doubling-down on her accusations that the Koala Kill Bill was the result of an underhanded deal done by Matt Kean.
The Northern Rivers Times has a lengthy article about how delighted Big Rivers Timbers and Notaras & Sons were to be given the certainty of 5 extra years of resources so they can now invest in upgrading their equipment - who wouldn’t be delighted with being given millions of dollars worth of timber for nothing? NCC and NEFA labelled it “reckless” and “an act of gross irresponsibility”, respectively. The ABC also gave the story a good run, with less emphasis on the loggers.
In response to the extension of WSAs Catherine Cusack has launched a change.org petition calling on Bunnings to stop buying NSW Native Timber product and help save koalas; https://www.change.org/p/bunnings-stop-buying-nsw-native-timber-and-save-koala-habitat? Sign up and pass on now!
The NSW Government has announced new forestry regulations which are open for consultation until 1 July. The penalties have doubled for most protest and green policing activities, for example entering a closed forest, failure to comply with directions of an authorised officer, damage or interfere with a sign, will increase from $2000 to $4000 while approaching within 100m of an operating machine will stay the same at $20,000:
An article focuses on the values of the mid north coast forests and the need for citizen science to hold the Forestry Corporation to account and protect forests, referencing proposed training by Bob Brown Foundation in July.
Coastwatchers have obtained more than half a million dollars of funding over the next three years for projects on the south coast to heal and regenerate the region through a variety of grants provided to Great Eastern Ranges.
State Environment Minister James Griffin announced the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust has signed a partnership with Telstra to offset roughly two million tonnes worth of greenhouse gas emissions a year while creating a new income stream for landholders and support for natural habitats.
Australia
Concerns are growing over a bill before the Victorian parliament to impose whopping 12 months’ jail, or $21,000 in fines to deter “dangerous” protesters from stopping “workers going home to their families each day”, or indeed undertaking forest audits.
After a decade of attrition, the Federal Government’s decision to establish a new super-department covering climate change, energy, the environment and water, responsible to 2 ministers, in itself will make it a challenge to follow through on their environmental and climate promises.
West Australia’s ending of logging of public native forests seems far from settled, with the loggers waiting to find out in the 10-year Forest Management Plan, expected to be released in October, how much logging under the guise of thinning will be allowed for firewood and other products.
The chair of the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee (ERAC), David Byers, defended the design of the Emissions Reduction Fund and rejected claims by his predecessor Andrew Macintosh that most of the carbon offset units issued under the scheme were not backed by actual emissions reductions, but Macintosh refused to back down and awaits the promised review by the new Federal Government.
Species
In the Snowy Mountains many hollows used by Turquoise Parrots were burnt in the Dunns Road fire, though the species was able to survive in small unburnt sections of bushland, now artificial hollows are being used to aid their recovery so they can repopulate the burnt areas.
A contentious wind farm is proposed for Robbins Island off Tasmania's north-western tip, within the known migration pathway for the orange-bellied parrot, with just 70 adult breeding birds left in the wild, leading to conflict between State and Federal environment agencies, with the State EPA supporting the proposal.
A $1.5 million trial funded by WIRES and Landcare, with in-kind support from the Queensland University of Technology, will give drones to 5 landcare groups to undertake surveys, with the data collected later sent to the QUT to be scanned by an AI algorithm to identify Koalas, and the results returned to the groups. On June 4 the Far South Coast Landcare Association hosted a meeting of 70 people to hear the results of recent koala monitoring efforts, as well as learning about cultural burning and other environmental works to try and recover the grossly depleted remaining Koalas.
Large numbers of koalas are being routinely euthanised in Victoria’s southwest by industry, government, and veterinarians as habitat loss, mostly plantation logging, impacts their health. Koalas feeding on leaves coated in fluoride in plantations surrounding Alcoa’s Portland Aluminium are suffering from fluoride poisoning which causes tooth and jaw deformities and weakened bones.
The Queensland government’s announcement that they have allocated almost $40 million to protect native animals across the state, with most to be spent on koalas, was welcomed by some, though the Australian Koala Foundation's Deborah Tabart said the new funding was a "band-aid solution" that did not address the real reason the koalas were endangered – cutting down their feed trees.
The Victorian wildlife watchdog is investigating the deaths of more than 100 long-billed corellas, likely from poison (either intentionally or indirectly through rodenticides) which were found near Barmah on the Murray River. This follows the death of more than 300 Corellas between Tocumwal and Cobram along the Murray River reported in Forest Media on 29 April.
The Deteriorating Problem
One of the world’s primary ocean currents is the “Atlantic meridional overturning circulation” that moves warmer tropical waters to Europe, warming them and cooling tropical areas, though the current is weakening which scientists assess could result in more retention of heat in this region with a more La Niña-like state which would mean more flooding rains over eastern Australia and worse droughts and bushfire seasons over southwest United States.
In 2009, the influential Stockholm Resilience Centre first published its planetary boundaries framework and now scientists have applied it to Australia for 5 boundaries, finding we have already overshot three of these - biodiversity, land-system change and nitrogen and phosphorus flows – while also approaching the boundaries for freshwater use and climate change.
A study in Queensland’s tropical rainforests has confirmed the world-wide trend of increasing dominance of lianas as a result of climate change, leading to structural degradation.
There is a scary video about America’s ghost forests, one of the consequences of rising sea-levels.
Turning it Around
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has released its 2022 State of the World’s Forests, identifying that we are still losing forests at a rate of about 10 million ha per year, halting deforestation could reduce CO2 emissions by 14 percent of what is needed up to 2030 to keep planetary warming below 1.5 °C while safeguarding more than half the Earth’s terrestrial biodiversity, and restoring degraded land through afforestation and reforestation could cost-effectively take 0.9–1.5 GtCO2 e per year out of the atmosphere between 2020 and 2050. The emphasis remains on sustainable use and there is still no focus on what could be achieved by protecting remnant forests and transitioning to plantations.
A study published in Science estimated the minimum land area to secure important biodiversity areas, ecologically intact areas, and optimal locations for representation of species ranges and ecoregions would require 44% of earth’s terrestrial area being the focus of conservation attention ranging from protected areas to land-use policies.
In India a recent Supreme Court order stated that every protected forest, national park and wildlife sanctuary across the country should have a mandatory eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) of minimum one-km starting from their demarcated boundaries, within which commercial mining, setting up of sawmills and industries causing pollution, the establishment of major hydroelectric projects, production of any hazardous substances, undertaking activities related to tourism like flying over the national park area by aircraft and hot air balloons, discharge of effluents and solid waste in natural water bodies or terrestrial areas have been proposed to be made prohibited activities.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Koalas victims of climate action:
Catherine Cusack has twitted texts between her and Gladys Berejiklian over the Koala Kill Bill to prove she had no knowledge of a deal brokered between then Environment Minister Matt Kean and former Nationals leader John Barilaro, whereby she claimed his energy policy was traded for Koalas – Koalas may have the distinction of being a physical victim of climate inaction and an early political victim of climate action. Matt Kean was quick to deny any deal.
[Catherine Cusack tweet] Was a great energy policy. The cost was koalas and that’s unacceptable. Was secret and makes it even greater disgrace. Idk what happened to him I can only state my position.
Ms Cusack said on Twitter she was posting the messages to prove she “had no knowledge of the disgusting deal (then-environment minister Matt Kean) did with the Nationals".
She said the agreement "virtually condemns NSW koalas to extinction”.
“I grasped it last weekend when (Mr Kean) bragged about his deal with Barilaro,” she wrote, also accusing him of having "traded koalas".
Ms Faehrmann commended Ms Cusack for putting koalas "over the self-interest of the Liberal Party".
“If the Liberals did a dirty deal with the National Party to get the ‘koala wars’ off the front page, a deal which threw koalas under a bus, then the public has the right to know," she told Yahoo News Australia in a statement.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-08/wednesday-am-briefing/101132312
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/nsw/2022/06/08/liberal-mps-koala-fight-texts/
NSW Treasurer Matt Kean has denied claims from an outgoing Liberal colleague that he did a political deal that "virtually condemns NSW koalas to extinction".
"I think it's a matter of public record that my relationship with (former NSW Nationals Leader) John Barilaro nearly broke the government over the stance I took to protect koalas."
https://www.gleninnesexaminer.com.au/story/7771842/nsw-treasurer-denies-claims-on-koala-deal/?cs=12
https://www.perthnow.com.au/politics/liberal-mps-koala-fight-revealed-in-texts-c-7090461
https://www.forbesadvocate.com.au/story/7771842/nsw-treasurer-denies-claims-on-koala-deal/?cs=12
https://www.greatlakesadvocate.com.au/story/7771842/nsw-treasurer-denies-claims-on-koala-deal/?cs=12
"And I said, 'Why did Gladys even send you up here?' [Mr Kean] pretty much shrugged. He asked me what I was offered in exchange for my vote and I said, 'nothing'.
"And he said. 'Well no wonder you won't vote for it, what do you want?' and I said 'Well you can't do deals on koalas,' and he said 'Catherine, how else do decisions get made?' — like I was some kind of stupid little two-year-old."
Mr Kean, who is now Treasurer, in question time on Thursday rejected Ms Cusack's account of their conversation.
"I wholeheartedly reject the recollection of events by Ms Cusack, I think it is clearly some wild fantasy dreamed up at night," he said.
A rogue Liberal MP has criticised the NSW government's koala policy as "sheer madness" but the premier says the coalition has done "more to protect koalas than any government before us".
Outgoing Liberal MLC Catherine Cusack told parliament's upper house on Wednesday the government's koala policy is accelerating the destruction of their habitat.
"The NSW Koala Strategy is based on the idea that we can buy our way out of the problems created by private native forestry, native forest and native vegetation clearing -- which is accelerating destruction by a factor of three," Ms Cusack said.
"The plan sees volunteers and wildlife funds planting and revegetating areas for the future, while across the road established trees that are being used by koalas are being cut down--and it is subsidised by taxpayers.
"This is sheer madness."
https://www.hepburnadvocate.com.au/story/7773487/perrottet-defends-koala-plan-amid-fallout/?cs=12
https://www.perthnow.com.au/politics/perrottet-defends-koala-plan-amid-fallout-c-7104460
Great Koala National Park goes down:
The state’s Upper House this week debated the Greens bill to establish a Great Koala National Park, Greens MP Cate Faehrmann saying the bill was crucial in protecting the now endangered Koalas. While the Government and opposition speakers in the upper house were effusive about the need to protect Koalas they wouldn’t support the bill, with the ALP claiming it was because it would require finances which the Government wouldn’t commit to - but they wouldn’t commit to the park. Catherine Cusack gave an impassioned speech in support, deriding her party’s Koala conservation efforts while doubling-down on her accusations that the Koala Kill Bill was the result of an underhanded deal done by Matt Kean.
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2022/06/06/great-national-koala-park-bill-to-be-debated-this-week/
‘Politics has once again won out over the future of koalas in NSW with the government and opposition voting against a Greens bill to establish a Great Koala National Park on the mid-north coast to protect koala habitat at threat from logging,’ said Cate Faehrmann Greens MP and koala spokesperson.
‘As a result of Ms Cusack, once again, crossing the floor to vote in support of koalas we had an opportunity to get some of the best protection for koalas in place that this state has ever seen. But it wasn’t to be.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/06/nsw-labor-and-coalition-vote-against-great-koala-park/
"As we stand here today in NSW now, koalas that live in the wild are on track to be extinct by 2050," Ms Sharpe said.
She said Labor was committed to improving koala numbers and would deliver a fully costed plan ahead of the 2023 state election.
https://www.denipt.com.au/national/perrottet-defends-koala-plan-amid-fallout-2/
Redbank on the ropes:
The Newcastle Herald had an article on Redbank’s knockback by the Court, citing Justin Field and Chris Gambian (NCC).
[Justin Field] "There needs to be a clear regulatory statement by the NSW Environment Minister James Griffin that native forests will not be allowed to be burnt for energy.
[Chris Gambian] "Biomass from native forest timber has no social license in NSW, and never will. The community campaign against this proposal will be relentless - we will not rest until this proposal is withdrawn."
[Susie Russell. NCEC] “It is now up to the NSW and Commonwealth Governments to make the regulatory changes to prohibit native forest wood being classed as a renewable energy source, and thus remove the perverse incentive introduced by Tony Abbott, that called burning trees ‘green’.”
North East Forest Alliance spokesperson Dailan Pugh said: “In this climate emergency, cutting down the trees we urgently need to capture and store our carbon emissions, and burning them to release their stored carbon, is sheer madness.
https://www.miragenews.com/courts-redbank-ruling-is-reprieve-for-native-796527/
Loggers delighted with present:
The Northern Rivers Times has a lengthy article about how delighted Big Rivers Timbers and Notaras & Sons were to be given the certainty of 5 extra years of resources so they can now invest in upgrading their equipment - who wouldn’t be delighted with being given millions of dollars worth of timber for nothing? NCC and NEFA labelled it “reckless” and “an act of gross irresponsibility”, respectively.
Northern Rivers Times, 9 June 2022
The ABC also gave the story a good run, with less emphasis on the loggers.
"We thought they would at least reduce the amount of timber volumes, because they know the trees aren't there and yet they've just rolled the contracts over to continue logging at pre-fire levels," Mr Pugh said.
We're in a dire situation that we need to start addressing right now, not wait another five years."
"We're putting millions of dollars into maintaining this industry but we can make more money out of forests through carbon sequestration and storage, tourism and increasing water yields as older forests get more water into dams and urban water supplies."
Tell Bunnings to stop it:
Catherine Cusack has launched a change.org petition calling on Bunnings to stop buying NSW Native Timber product and help save koalas; https://www.change.org/p/bunnings-stop-buying-nsw-native-timber-and-save-koala-habitat?
The NSW Government has extended all North Coast Native Forest Timber licenses for 5 years, including koala habitat to make power poles, pallets and tomato sticks. Bunnings is a major customer fuelling demand that is vicariously killing koalas by destroying their habitat.
Please support NSW Nature Council’s call on Bunnings to stop buying NSW Native Timber product and help save koalas.
Protesting fines to be doubled:
The NSW Government has announced new forestry regulations which are open for consultation until 1 July. The penalties have doubled for most protest and green policing activities, for example entering a closed forest, failure to comply with directions of an authorised officer, damage or interfere with a sign, will increase from $2000 to $4000 while approaching within 100m of an operating machine will stay the same at $20,000:
https://www.nsw.gov.au/have-your-say/proposed-forestry-regulation-2022
https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/forestry/proposed-forestry-regulation
The penalties have increased, the fines are set at 20 penalty units though the value of the units depends on the offence. These include failure to comply with directions of an authorised officer or enter a forest area contrary to a sign (5.1, 6.3 penalty units increased from $100 to $200), approaching within 100m of equipment (68.1. penalty unit $1,000), damage or interfere with a sign or road (10.2 penalty unit $200), risk to safety (9.1 penalty unit $200).
A land manager may delegate their functions to a Public Sector employee
Citizens to the rescue:
An article focuses on the values of the mid north coast forests and the need for citizen science to hold the Forestry Corporation to account and protect forests, referencing proposed training by Bob Brown Foundation in July.
Local communities are responding to the increased logging in various ways – through forming “friends” groups to protect the forests, and through proposing ecologically, socially and economically viable alternatives to native forest logging, including the Great Koala National Park, the Gumbaynggirr Good Koala Country plan, and a smaller, overlapping plan at the Kalang River Headwaters. The case for such plans is all the more compelling given that industrial native forest logging in NSW operates at a loss of millions of dollars a year.
Concerned citizens on the Mid North Coast and beyond are also using popular online mapping platforms and verifying activities on the ground to hold forestry companies, agencies and contractors to account. These “citizen scientists” are saving forests through their interventions by identifying illegal logging and preventing the clearing of remnant native vegetation. The technology is simple but powerful. Using satellite imagery, citizens overlay forestry logging plans and historical imagery and determine land use change over time, sometimes within days. Collaborating online and in the forest, city dwellers and local residents are coming together to stop the destruction. Anybody can help after a few brief lessons, wherever they live.
https://southsydneyherald.com.au/citizen-scientists-protect-biodiversity-in-nsw/
Fixing the south-east:
Coastwatchers have obtained more than half a million dollars of funding over the next three years for projects on the south coast to heal and regenerate the region through a variety of grants provided to Great Eastern Ranges.
Projects have been specially crafted to complement and build-on existing conservation efforts in the region. These include:
- Restoration of habitat on burnt and unburnt private properties such as the planting of trees and shrubs, traditional burning to manage weeds, and the installation of nest boxes to replace lost trees hollows.
- The creation of wildlife corridors to help local animals to recover and reestablish themselves in the region. This includes the South Coast’s dwindling koala population which is sliding towards local extinction.
- Engaging landholders to record the animals and plants that share their land to help inform conservation priorities and needs.
- Surveys of spotted-tailed quolls and Congo’s threatened greater glider population.
- Encouraging landholders to get involved in Land for Wildlife to help protect important habitat.
NSW helps Telstra offset carbon:
State Environment Minister James Griffin announced the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust has signed a partnership with Telstra to offset roughly two million tonnes worth of greenhouse gas emissions a year while creating a new income stream for landholders and support for natural habitats.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-10891531/Telstra-dials-nature-offset-carbon.html
https://www.sconeadvocate.com.au/story/7770479/telstra-dials-into-nature-to-offset-carbon/
AUSTRALIA
Stopping terrorizing of forestry workers:
Concerns are growing over a bill before the Victorian parliament to impose whopping 12 months’ jail, or $21,000 in fines to deter “dangerous” protesters from stopping “workers going home to their families each day”, or indeed undertaking forest audits.
As president for Lawyers for Forests, I have handled dozens of cases involving protest activity in Victoria’s native forests for over a decade and I am not aware of a single instance of protesters preventing forestry workers from going home safely to their families.
This bill has nothing to do with forest worker safety and everything to do with preventing public scrutiny of VicForests’ activities while further criminalising legitimate community protest and citizen science surveying.
Rather than shutting down their rogue logging agency, the state government has chosen to introduce these extraordinary penalties, to stop concerned citizens from surveying for endangered species. If this bill is passed, we have to ask whether the Victorian government is really working for the community interest in protecting public forests and the right to public assembly, or the interests of the logging industry.
Is the super environment department too big?
After a decade of attrition, the Federal Government’s decision to establish a new super-department covering climate change, energy, the environment and water, responsible to 2 ministers, in itself will make it a challenge to follow through on their environmental and climate promises.
Even if Plibersek’s move from education in opposition to environment in government was a political demotion for her, as some have suggested, placing the environment portfolio in the hands of someone so senior and well-regarded is a boon for the environment.
Having the environment in the broadest sense represented in Cabinet by two experienced and capable ministers is doubly welcome. It signifies a return to the main stage for our ailing natural world after years of relative neglect under the Coalition government.
Both ministers have a packed policy agenda, courtesy of Labor’s last minute commitment to creating an environmental protection agency, as well as responding to the urgent calls for change in the sweeping [2020 review] of Australia’s national environmental law (https://epbcactreview.environment.gov.au/resources/final-report).
That’s not half of it. Bowen is also tasked with delivering the government’s high-profile 43% emissions cuts within eight years, which includes the Rewiring the Nation effort to modernise our grid. He will also lead Australia’s bid to host the world’s climate summit, COP29, in 2024, alongside Pacific countries.
Plibersek also has to tackle major water reforms in the Murray Darling basin and develop new Indigenous heritage laws to respond to the parliamentary inquiry into the destruction of ancient rock art site Juukan Gorge by Rio Tinto.
West Australian logging unresolved:
West Australia’s ending of logging of public native forests seems far from settled, with the loggers waiting to find out in the 10-year Forest Management Plan, expected to be released in October, how much logging under the guise of thinning will be allowed for firewood and other products.
Despite the end to large-scale harvesting, some timber will still be taken from forests.
Native timber that is a by-product of "forest management activities" — such as thinning for fire protection or clearing for energy and mining projects — will still be logged.
Ms Farina said planning for many businesses had stalled while they waited for the report.
"We can't get a clear indication from government as to what its commitment is with respect to ensuring there is sufficient [native] product going forward," she said.
There is expected demand for 100,000 tonnes of firewood per year, and another 150,000 tonnes is needed to power manufacturing plants that rely on it, Ms Farina says.
"It's difficult to see where that's going to come from if we're only thinning small-diameter trees and only doing small-scale thinning," she said.
Emissions offsets OK?:
The chair of the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee (ERAC), David Byers, defended the design of the Emissions Reduction Fund and rejected claims by his predecessor Andrew Macintosh that most of the carbon offset units issued under the scheme were not backed by actual emissions reductions, but Macintosh refused to back down and awaits the promised review by the new Federal Government.
But on Thursday, Macintosh doubled down on his criticisms, saying both ERAC and the CER had “shown a fundamental lack of understanding” of the human-induced regeneration method and the two bodies were “clearly afraid of scrutiny on this issue.”
“The main integrity issue associated with the method is that the CER is allowing projects to be credited for growing trees that were already there when the projects commenced,” Macintosh said.
Macintosh was replaced by Byers, who previously served as the interim CEO and deputy CEO of the Minerals Council of Australia, and as CEO of the oil and gas lobby group APPEA.
SPECIES
Recreating hollows for Turquoise Parrots lost in fires:
In the Snowy Mountains many of hollows used by Turquoise Parrots were burnt in the Dunns Road fire, though the species was able to survive in small unburnt sections of bushland, now artificial hollows are being used to aid their recovery so they can repopulate the burnt areas.
"It's a hollow-nesting species, and often these hollows are less than 3 metres off the ground, which would have been the first things to burn in the bushfires," Mr Gunn said.
"Breeding for the species in some areas will now be incredibly difficult or non-existent, and this could take decades to recover without human intervention."
"The animals would have sought shelter there during the fires, and then those populations will radiate out from those unburnt areas after the fires to repopulate the burnt areas.
Threatening wind farm:
A contentious wind farm is proposed for Robbins Island off Tasmania's north-western tip, within the known migration pathway for the orange-bellied parrot, with just 70 adult breeding birds left in the wild, leading to conflict between State and Federal environment agencies, with the State EPA supporting the proposal.
Documents prepared by Tasmania's orange-bellied parrot (OBP) program last August found the wind farm could create migration barriers, kill birds that collide with the infrastructure, reduce critical habitat, modify or destroy habitat to the extent that the species is likely to decline and interfere with recovery of the species
Finding Koalas remotely:
A $1.5 million trial funded by WIRES and Landcare, with in-kind support from the Queensland University of Technology, will give drones to 5 landcare groups to undertake surveys, with the data collected later sent to the QUT to be scanned by an AI algorithm to identify Koalas, and the results returned to the groups.
https://www.standard.net.au/story/7767171/drones-and-tech-keeping-track-of-koalas/
Talking south coast Koalas:
On June 4 the Far South Coast Landcare Association hosted a meeting of 70 people to hear the results of recent koala monitoring efforts, as well as learning about cultural burning and other environmental works to try and recover the grossly depleted remaining Koalas.
According to the Australian Koala Foundation (AKF), in Eden-Monaro 61.6 per cent of original koala habitat remains, yet the population in the entire region is estimated to be down to 175-250 koalas.
Ms O'Connell said a small, low density koala population spanned the upper reaches of Dignams Creek near Gulaga Mountain, in Biamanga National Park, and there were clusters of known koalas there and in Murrah Flora Reserve.
Killing Koalas directly:
Large numbers of koalas are being routinely euthanised in Victoria’s southwest by industry, government, and veterinarians as habitat loss, mostly plantation logging, impacts their health.
She’s exhausted from ferrying koalas to the vet, as well as rescuing and caring for the animals, which she finds displaced after logging.
Frustrated and feeling like she’s not receiving any support from authorities, she's shared a series of heartbreaking images of recent rescues. Almost all of the koalas pictured were euthanised.
“I feel that nobody wants to address the issue in the southwest because of the timber industry, and the jobs it brings,” she said.
"Logging coups keep coming down and koalas they've got nowhere to go."
Killing Koalas indirectly:
Koalas feeding on leaves coated in fluoride in plantations surrounding Alcoa’s Portland Aluminium are suffering from fluoride poisoning which causes tooth and jaw deformities and weakened bones.
"When you take in a large amount of fluoride over an extended period of time, what happens is the fluoride deposits in mineralised tissues in the body … things like bones and teeth, typically," Dr Hufschmid said.
"The fluoride builds up in those tissues and the body can't excrete them at the same rate they're building up."
She said fluorosis in animals caused teeth to deteriorate badly over time, while in bones the mineral slowly replaced calcium.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-09/koalas-fluorosis-aluminium-smelter-portland-study/101126398
Another Koala cash splash:
The Queensland government’s announcement that they have allocated almost $40 million to protect native animals across the state, with most to be spent on koalas, was welcomed by some, though the Australian Koala Foundation's Deborah Tabart said the new funding was a "band-aid solution" that did not address the real reason the koalas were endangered – cutting down their feed trees.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-05/qld-koala-rescue-funding/101127140
Another mass bird poisoning:
The Victorian wildlife watchdog is investigating the deaths of more than 100 long-billed corellas, likely from poison (either intentionally or indirectly through rodenticides) which were found near Barmah on the Murray River. This follows the death of more than 300 Corellas between Tocumwal and Cobram along the Murray River reported in Forest Media on 29 April.
“These birds are dropping dead out of trees, in mid air and falling into the Murray River and puddles due to excessive thirst which is again, a symptom of poisoning,” she said.
In 2019, sixty corellas fells from the sky in Adelaide after a suspected poisoning event.
Little corellas are also culled by some local governments in Western Australia, where they are considered a pest. The City of Rockingham, on Perth’s southern fringe, has rolled out specially designed wheelie bin traps which it says have aided in the capture and euthanasia of more than 1,000 of the birds.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
A wetter future?
One of the world’s primary ocean currents is the “Atlantic meridional overturning circulation” that moves warmer tropical waters to Europe, warming them and cooling tropical areas, though the current is weakening which scientists assess could result in more retention of heat in this region with a more La Niña-like state which would mean more flooding rains over eastern Australia and worse droughts and bushfire seasons over southwest United States.
A collapse of the North Atlantic and Antarctic overturning circulations would profoundly alter the anatomy of the world’s oceans. It would make them fresher at depth, deplete them of oxygen, and starve the upper ocean of the upwelling of nutrients provided when deep waters resurface from the ocean abyss. The implications for marine ecosystems would be profound.
Crossing boundaries:
In 2009, the influential Stockholm Resilience Centre first published its planetary boundaries framework and now scientists have applied it to Australia for 5 boundaries, finding we have already overshot three of these - biodiversity, land-system change and nitrogen and phosphorus flows – while also approaching the boundaries for freshwater use and climate change.
In around 50% of our river catchments, we already have concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus past the safe level for the health of the environment.
Unfortunately, biodiversity is among the boundaries Australia has already overshot. The number of species threatened by our activities is growing, and many of our endangered animals are at risk of extinction.
Agriculture, forestry and other land use industries also have a critical role to play in reducing emissions and sequestering carbon. But the land use sector is under increasing pressure from growing populations, the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events.
https://www.climateworkscentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/LUF_PB-summary-report_FINAL.pdf
A viney future:
A study in Queensland’s tropical rainforests has confirmed the world-wide trend of increasing dominance of lianas as a result of climate change, leading to structural degradation.
Lianas are increasing in abundance in many tropical forests. This increase can alter forest structure and decrease both carbon storage and tree diversity via antagonistic relationships between lianas and their host trees. Climate change is postulated as an underlying driver of increasing liana abundances, via increases in dry-season length, forest-disturbance events, and atmospheric CO2 concentrations; all factors thought to favour lianas. … These results suggest that liana reproduction and abundance are likely to increase under predicted future climate regimes, with potentially important impacts on the survival, growth, and reproduction of resident trees and thus the overall health of Australian tropical rainforests.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2022.787950/full
Scary ghosts:
There is a scary video about America’s ghost forests, one of the consequences of rising sea-levels.
TURNING IT AROUND
State of Forests:
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has released 2022 State of the World’s Forests, identifying that we are still losing forests at a rate of about 10 million ha per year, halting deforestation could reduce CO2 emissions by 14 percent of what is needed up to 2030 to keep planetary warming below 1.5 °C while safeguarding more than half the Earth’s terrestrial biodiversity, and restoring degraded land through afforestation and reforestation could cost-effectively take 0.9–1.5 GtCO2 e per year out of the atmosphere between 2020 and 2050. The emphasis remains on sustainable use and there is still no focus on what could be achieved by protecting remnant forests and transitioning to plantations.
Forests are resources of global significance.
� They cover 31 percent of the Earth’s land surface (4.06 billion ha) but the area is shrinking, with 420 million ha of forest lost through deforestation between 1990 and 2020. The rate of deforestation is declining but was still 10 million ha per year in 2015–2020.
Forests are crucial for mitigating climate change.
� Trees and forests are major means for combating climate change. Forests contain 662 billion tonnes of carbon, which is more than half the global carbon stock in soils and vegetation. Despite a continued reduction in area, forests absorbed more carbon than they emitted in 2011–2020 due to reforestation, improved forest management and other factors.
Three pathways involving forests and trees offer means by which societies, communities and individual landowners, users and managers can derive more tangible value from forests and trees while addressing environmental degradation, recovering from crises, preventing future pandemics, increasing resilience and transforming economies:
-
Halting deforestation and maintaining forests could avoid emitting 3.6 +/- 2 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2 e) per year between 2020 and 2050, including about 14 percent of what is needed up to 2030 to keep planetary warming below 1.5 °C, while safeguarding more than half the Earth’s terrestrial biodiversity.
2. Restoring degraded lands and expanding agroforestry – 1.5 billion ha of degraded land would benefit from restoration, and increasing tree cover could boost agricultural productivity on another 1 billion ha. Restoring degraded land through afforestation and reforestation could cost-effectively take 0.9–1.5 GtCO2 e per year out of the atmosphere between 2020 and 2050.
3. Sustainably using forests and building green value chains would help meet future demand for materials – with global consumption of all natural resources expected to more than double from 92 billion tonnes 2017 to 190 billion tonnes in 2060 – and underpin sustainable economies.
https://www.fao.org/3/cb9360en/cb9360en.pdf
44% of earth needs protection to conserve biodiversity:
A study published in Science estimated the minimum land area to secure important biodiversity areas, ecologically intact areas, and optimal locations for representation of species ranges and ecoregions would require 44% of earth’s terrestrial area being the focus of conservation attention ranging from protected areas to land-use policies.
In this study, we estimate the minimum land area to secure important biodiversity areas, ecologically intact areas, and optimal locations for representation of species ranges and ecoregions. We discover that at least 64 million square kilometers (44% of terrestrial area) would require conservation attention (ranging from protected areas to land-use policies) to meet this goal. More than 1.8 billion people live on these lands, so responses that promote autonomy, self-determination, equity, and sustainable management for safeguarding biodiversity are essential. Spatially explicit land-use scenarios suggest that 1.3 million square kilometers of this land is at risk of being converted for intensive human land uses by 2030, which requires immediate attention.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abl9127
A pre-print version is at:
Buffering parks in India:
In India a recent Supreme Court order stated that every protected forest, national park and wildlife sanctuary across the country should have a mandatory eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) of minimum one-km starting from their demarcated boundaries, within which commercial mining, setting up of sawmills and industries causing pollution, the establishment of major hydroelectric projects, production of any hazardous substances, undertaking activities related to tourism like flying over the national park area by aircraft and hot air balloons, discharge of effluents and solid waste in natural water bodies or terrestrial areas have been proposed to be made prohibited activities.
Forest Media 3 June 2022
New South Wales
News of the Area gave good coverage to the launch of NEFA’s Save Oldgrowth Trees campaign, running our full media release and a photo of the action at Coffs Harbour.
Good News: a win in the Land and Environment Court - Verdant Technology's appeal against Singleton Council's refusal to accept their burning biomass in their Redbank power plant has been lost, principally because the judge considered that the disposal of coal tailings was a fundamental element of the original proposal, whereas the revised proposal is to replace this with biomass. Now they have to do a new DA and EIS. Muswellbrook and Singleton have been identified as having some of the most polluted air in the country, while a GP blames coal-fired power stations the Mineral’s Council blames domestic woodheaters – it seems to me that the Redbank wood fired power station will exasperate breathing problems.
Wood Supply Agreements for State forests set to expire in 2023 have been extended until 2028, effectively entrenching them for a further 5 years, or at least requiring massive payouts to get them out earlier. To add to this free multi-million dollar gift, the NSW Government has announced another $60 million to fix roads on State forests for logger’s access, while claimed to also benefit beekeepers and tourists.
Australia
The Victorian government has introduced its Sustainable Forests Timber Amendment (Timber Harvesting Safety Zones) Bill 2022 into Parliament with the aim of deterring logging protest activities by imposing fines of up to $21,000 or 12 months’ jail.
About 220,000 hectares of previously logged West Australian forest could still be subject to tree removal beyond the 2024 logging ban “for environmental health” as trees compete for water in a drying climate, and loggers push for government subsidised commercial thinning.
In March, Ley signed off on decisions to remove the requirement for recovery plans for 176 plants, animals and habitats with the move quietly published by the environment department after the election was called in April.
Australian Forest Products Association say they look forward to working with the Albanese Government to implement their ambitious forest policy agenda to deliver more than $300 million in new investment to grow and innovate the sector.
In Victoria Bayside City Council is planting more than 2,200 trees a year on Council land while increasing and protecting other forms of vegetation to create a cooler, greener and more wildlife-friendly suburbs.
A recent case in the Massachusetts Supreme Court which found that an attempt by ExxonMobil to use anti-SLAPP legislation does not apply to lawsuits brought by the government, has prompted Greenpeace Australia to call for governments in Australia that haven’t done so, to get on with enacting anti-SLAPP laws.
Species
Scientists are concerned that platypus are declining due to cattle trampling stream banks, inadequate environmental flows, droughts, floods, erosion following wildfires, yabby traps (opera house), discarded fishing lines and plastic (ie six pack holders), and while they have been recommended as listing as vulnerable, there is not the data on population decline to support the listing.
A "Significant" population of koalas has been discovered in Kosciuszko National Park at higher elevations than previously known. The Cores, Corridors and Koalas project is led by Great Eastern Ranges (GER) with funding from WWF-Australia, with support from Aussie furniture company Koala and Aussie Hair, with the aim of planting 150,000 trees to restore and connect vital habitat for koalas and other forest-dependent wildlife across four fire-devastated landscapes in the NSW South Coast, Border Ranges, Greater Blue Mountains and Coffs Coast Hinterland.
A Victoria Government planned “low-intensity burn” in state’s south-west incinerated at least two koalas and left two so severely dehydrated and burnt they had to be euthanised, despite it being evident from high density of scats that Koalas were present and DELWP inspectors being on hand “to mitigate impacts on wildlife”, with the Koalas not found until days later by bushwalkers. DELWP described it as ‘disappointing’, while a local described it as 'Bloody disgusting'. A paper identifying a June 2020 assessment of the number of Koalas that were rescued from the 2019/20 fires identified that 209 koalas came into care due to the bushfires, and of these, 106 were either euthanised or died, 74 were released, and the remainder were still in care, but due for release soon – I question whether some of the multi-millions pumped into wildlife rescue after the fires would have been better spent on habitat protection.
CNET has a detailed article about Koalas and their plight, identifying that modern Koalas only date back 350,000 years but are the last survivors of an evolutionary branch dating back 20 million years, including postulations about what their ecological role is and what would happen if we lost them, one theory is that when they were more plentiful their consumption of eucalypt leaves may have reduced the threat of wildfires.
Tweed Council has a project began in October last year to restore 6ha of high-conservation value foraging habitat for the grey-headed flying-fox on six private properties at Tomewin, Urliup and Numinbah.
The Deteriorating Problem
Amid a climate change induced enduring drought in the American West, two fires merged to create the largest wildfire in the New Mexico’s history, so far burning 1,300 square kilometers and destroying at least 330 homes, with both fires traced back to planned burns set by U.S. forest managers.
Man-made cellulosic fibers (MMCFs), mostly made from eucalypts, are the new product being touted by the fashion industry as a sustainable product, set to grow from 6 to 10 million tonnes per annum over the next 15 years, though questions are being asked as to whether they are now wearing oldgrowth trees.
Since 1977 researchers have been mist-trapping rainforest understorey birds in the 22,000-hectare Soberanía National Park in the Republic of Panama, finding 40 out of 57 bird resident species (70%) declined in abundance over 44 years, with 35 species losing more than 50% of their initial abundances. Scientists consider that some declines could be related to the increasing isolation of the reserve, though consider the principal cause may be climate change.
Turning it Around
An article by Geoffrey Lean in the Guardian gives a potted history of the long and slow struggle to agree global solutions to emerging global environment problems since the UN’s first-ever international environmental conference in Sweden on 5 June 1972, whose 50th anniversary is on World Environment Day. The Bulletin has an article extolling the multitude of values of America’s olgrowth trees, along with the need to retain and restore them.
The Prince of Wales has been supporting SUPERB (Systemic solutions for upscaling of urgent ecosystem restoration for forest-related biodiversity and ecosystem services) involving more than 100 forest science and practice organizations in 20 countries and including 12 large-scale forest restoration demonstration sites across Europe.
A one hour doco tells the story of the planetary movement to bring Rights Of Nature legislation into law.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Save Oldgrowth Trees:
News of the Area gave good coverage to the launch of NEFA’s Save Oldgrowth Trees campaign, running our full media release and a photo of the action at Coffs Harbour.
THE North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) launched its ‘Save Oldgrowth Trees’ campaign last Friday to pressure the NSW Government to implement its own scientific advice to protect and restore old growth trees throughout State Forests in response to the widespread losses of tree hollows in the 2019/20 wildfires.
To launch the campaign NEFA supporters gathered outside the electoral offices of Member for Coffs Harbour Gurmesh Singh at 10am to publicise their support for the immediate implementation of the Natural Resources Commission (NRC) recommendations.
Redbank Loses:
Good News: a win in the Land and Environment Court - Verdant Technology's appeal against Singleton Council's refusal to accept their burning biomass in their Redbank power plant has been lost, principally because the judge considered that the disposal of coal tailings was a fundamental element of the original proposal, whereas the revised proposal is to replace this with biomass. Now they have to do a new DA and EIS. The judge stating:
- In this case, for the reasons I have found, the disposal of coal tailings was a fundamental element of the proposal, which if altered to a material degree would have the potential to alter an essential or material component of the development the subject of the 1994 DC. The replacement of the fuel source of coal tailings with biomass would be such a change. However, that is not what the Modification Application proposes in this case. The fundamental question here is whether the change proposed is so material that the modified development as proposed in the Modification Application is no longer substantially the same development.
… Accordingly, notwithstanding the retention of the physical capacity to burn coal tailings as fuel, the Modification Application in the form proposed alters the development in such a fundamental manner that it loses the essential and material relationship to the disposal of coal tailings and the associated mine operations that it cannot be characterised as being substantially the same development as the 1994 DC.
For the reasons outlined above, I am not satisfied that the development to which the Modification Application relates is substantially the same development as the development for which the development was originally granted. Accordingly, I have no power to grant the approval sought pursuant to s 4.56 of the EP&A Act and the appeal must be dismissed.
https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/18121985286fdbe1d758652c
Redbank to add to chronic air pollution:
Muswellbrook and Singleton have been identified as having some of the most polluted air in the country, while a GP blames coal-fired power stations the Mineral’s Council blames domestic woodheaters – it seems to me that the Redbank wood fired power station will exasperate breathing problems.
THE Hunter Valley is breathing in "extreme" levels of air pollution which consistently breach international health standards and are driving the nation towards a climate change "health emergency", scientists and medicos say.
Muswellbrook and Singleton have been subjected to air quality that has consistently breached international guidelines for safe levels of pollution every year for the past seven years, since 2015.
The NSW Minerals Council disputes the relative value of the data, and the direct links being made to coal mining-related activity, saying that air quality is also affected by rain and smoke from woodsmoke heaters.
"The data also shows that for PM2.5 - the smallest particles of greatest health concern - another primary driver of exceedences is smoke from domestic woodheaters. The CSIRO Upper Hunter Fine Particle Characterisation study found that woodsmoke was the biggest contributor to PM2.5 in Muswellbrook, averaging 62 per cent of PM2.5 in the winter months."
Wood Supply Agreements extended:
Wood Supply Agreements for State forests set to expire in 2023 have been extended until 2028, effectively entrenching them for a further 5 years, or at least requiring massive payouts to get them out earlier.
Timber processors on the flood-affected NSW North Coast have been given certainty to invest in their businesses and equipment, following the NSW Government’s announcement of a five-year extension to existing wood supply agreements.
Deputy Premier Paul Toole said the additional five-year deal has aligned the expiry date for all timber supply contracts right across the region, and confirmed the government’s support for the hardwood timber sector.
“Most agreements on the North Coast were due to end in 2023, while others run through to 2028, but now these critical timber mills have all been put on the same timeline to help provide investment and business certainty,” Mr Toole said.
Yet more support for loggers:
The NSW Government has announced another $60 million to fix roads on State forests for logger’s access, while claimed to also benefit beekeepers and tourists.
“We have seen first-hand the impact the floods have had on the timber industry in the North Coast, which contributes significantly to the local economy and provides hundreds of jobs to locals,” Mr Saunders said.
“This funding will mean our timber producers will have access to more logs for processing, and, at the same time, will ensure community access for a range of activities like bee-keeping, four-wheel driving, camping and mountain biking.”
https://www.nswnationals.org.au/boost-for-north-coast-forest-roads/
AUSTRALIA
Victorian logging protestors targeted:
The Victorian government has introduced its Sustainable Forests Timber Amendment (Timber Harvesting Safety Zones) Bill 2022 into Parliament with the aim of deterring logging protest activities by imposing fines of up to $21,000 or 12 months’ jail.
“Protests are becoming increasingly dangerous – particularly for workers – which is why this legislation will support them to get on with their job and minimise disruption to the industry,” [Minister for Agriculture, Mary-Anne Thomas] said.
Meanwhile, the Victorian Greens have accused the government of trying to boot peaceful and non-violent protesters out of the way so it could log more, and have vowed to fight the Bill.
https://midlandexpress.com.au/latest-news/2022/05/31/government-moves-on-national-parks/
The Devil’s in the detail:
About 220,000 hectares of previously logged West Australian forest could still be subject to tree removal beyond the 2024 logging ban “for environmental health” as trees compete for water in a drying climate, and loggers push for government subsidised commercial thinning.
The recently released report on the scientific and practical aspects of managing forests and woodlands that will underpin the next 10-year forest management plan says “ecological thinning” should be focused on 220,000 hectares of previously logged forest.
“As far as the next forest management plan is concerned, unless ‘ecological thinning’ is embraced and pushed on a landscape scale, backed by commercial utilisation of the felled trees, we might as well turn the whole of our South West native forests into a national park,” [Forestry Australia WA branch committee member John Clarke] said.
WA Forest Alliance convener Jess Beckerling said the group was happy thinning had been ruled out for national parks but concerned logging could occur under the guise of ecological thinning.
The Devil doesn’t need a plan:
In March, Ley signed off on decisions to remove the requirement for recovery plans for 176 plants, animals and habitats with the move quietly published by the environment department after the election was called in April.
“On what sort of planet does the commonwealth think they don’t need a recovery plan for a Tasmanian devil, one of the ecologically most important species in existence or the critically endangered Christmas Island flying fox, a species entirely under commonwealth control and one of Australia’s most likely next extinctions,” [Wilderness Society, Tim Beshara] said.
Responding on Thursday to Ley’s decision, Plibersek said: “This is alarming. I have asked my new department for an urgent briefing.”
Among the 176 are the critically endangered nightcap oak, which was affected by the 2019-20 bushfires, the critically endangered Cumberland Plain woodland, regularly cleared for development in western Sydney, and several Christmas Island species, including the critically endangered Christmas Island flying fox.
Loggers welcome Albanese:
Australian Forest Products Association say they look forward to working with the Albanese Government to implement their ambitious forest policy agenda to deliver more than $300 million in new investment to grow and innovate the sector.
During the election campaign, Federal Labor matched the Coalition’s pledge to deliver:
- $100 million for a National Institute for Forest Products Innovation (NIFPI) to be headquartered in Launceston
- $86 million in grants to support the establishment costs of new timber plantations
- $112.9 million in innovation grants for timber processors to make the most of our existing resource and create new manufacturing jobs
“On top of this, Labor also committed $10 million for skills and training programs for our sector, and backed native forestry jobs with a commitment to no more forest lock-ups. We look forward to working with the Albanese Government to realise the full potential of Australia’s renewable forest industries.
https://www.alp.org.au/policies/better-future-for-our-regions
Reforesting Suburbia:
In Victoria Bayside City Council is planting more than 2,200 trees a year on Council land while increasing and protecting other forms of vegetation to create a cooler, greener and more wildlife-friendly suburbs.
There are many reasons to love trees. Trees and vegetation make an important contribution to the liveability of our suburbs, encouraging outdoor activity and interaction and playing a crucial role in creating a healthy environment.
Trees draw carbon from the atmosphere, remove air pollutants, improve the look of our streets and provide shade. They and other vegetations are crucial habitat for wildlife, help to purify water, decrease salinity in soils and limit the effects of erosion.
https://www.bayside.vic.gov.au/news/baysides-urban-forest
Need for more anti-SLAPP laws:
A recent case in the Massachusetts Supreme Court which found that an attempt by ExxonMobil to use anti-SLAPP legislation does not apply to lawsuits brought by the government, has prompted Greenpeace Australia to call for governments in Australia that haven’t done so, to get on with enacting anti-SLAPP laws.
Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP) are a legal tactic utilised by larger corporations to silence critics and hinder freedom of expression. Anti-SLAPP legislation involves protections against corporate bodies from undertaking expensive and time-consuming litigation to force a smaller party to cease their activities, including the threat of such litigation.
Lawyers Weekly has written extensively on the issue of SLAPP, stating that to protect freedom of expression and to deter such malicious acts, some states of Australia, Canada and the US have enacted anti-SLAPP legislation. This enables the court to rule certain findings of larger corporations as frivolous, leading to the subsequent dismissal of the lawsuit unless there has been good faith.
[Brooke Dellavedova, general counsel for Greenpeace Australia Pacific] “There has been a growing trend of strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPP suits, which are bought by powerful entities against advocacy organisations or activists, to intimidate and censor them,” she said.
SPECIES
Platypus decline not a priority:
Scientists are concerned that platypus are declining due to cattle trampling stream banks, inadequate environmental flows, droughts, floods, erosion following wildfires, yabby traps (opera house), discarded fishing lines and plastic (ie six pack holders), and while they have been recommended as listing as vulnerable, there is not the data on population decline to support the listing.
"Droughts and floods that have a long sequence can really push populations beyond tipping points. Say you have a massive drought and then a bushfire, a local platypus population might go extinct.
"Because there is no capacity for platypuses to recolonise that area from other areas, then we'll see these populations that just disappear.
Fragmentation of the environment with dams, weirs and roads also threaten the freshwater species, which live in burrows that they build in the banks of creeks, rivers and ponds.
https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/7755088/platypus-bill-of-health-faces-troubled-waters/
Koalas getting high:
A "Significant" population of koalas has been discovered in Kosciuszko National Park at higher elevations than previously known.
Ms Marsh said the higher altitude made the habitat "a little bit different" to where koalas were usually found and meant they could be climate change resilient.
"Some of the lower areas might end up a little bit too hot for koalas because they are quite heat-sensitive.
"So having koalas living at higher elevations, hopefully those populations are going to be a bit of a stronghold for koalas."
Planting Koala corridors:
The Cores, Corridors and Koalas project is led by Great Eastern Ranges (GER) with funding from WWF-Australia, with support from Aussie furniture company Koala and Aussie Hair, with the aim of planting 150,000 trees to restore and connect vital habitat for koalas and other forest-dependent wildlife across four fire-devastated landscapes in the NSW South Coast, Border Ranges, Greater Blue Mountains and Coffs Coast Hinterland.
Control burning Koalas:
A Victoria Government planned “low-intensity burn” in state’s south-west incinerated at least two koalas and left two so severely dehydrated and burnt they had to be euthanised, despite it being evident from high density of scats that Koalas were present and DELWP inspectors being on hand “to mitigate impacts on wildlife”, with the Koalas not found until days later by bushwalkers.
DELWP described it as ‘disappointing’, while a local described it as 'Bloody disgusting'
Koala fire rescues:
A paper identifying a June 2020 assessment of the number of Koalas that were rescued from the 2019/20 fires identified that 209 koalas came into care due to the bushfires, and of these, 106 were either euthanised or died, 74 were released, and the remainder were still in care, but due for release soon – I question whether some of the multi-millions pumped into wildlife rescue after the fires would have been better spent on habitat protection.
Koalas the last of their kind:
CNET has a detailed article about Koalas and their plight, identifying that modern Koalas only date back 350,000 years but are the last survivors of an evolutionary branch dating back 20 million years, including postulations about what their ecological role is and what would happen if we lost them, one theory is that when they were more plentiful their consumption of eucalypt leaves may have reduced the threat of wildfires.
https://www.cnet.com/science/climate/features/a-world-without-koalas/
Planting Flying Fox forage:
Tweed Council has a project began in October last year to restore 6ha of high-conservation value foraging habitat for the grey-headed flying-fox on six private properties at Tomewin, Urliup and Numinbah.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/05/flying-fox-habitat-project-is-soaring-in-the-tweed/
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Drought fires ravage America’s west:
Amid a climate change induced enduring drought in the American West, two fires merged to create the largest wildfire in the New Mexico’s history, so far burning 1,300 square kilometers and destroying at least 330 homes, with both fires traced back to planned burns set by U.S. forest managers.
"The pain and suffering of New Mexicans caused by the actions of the U.S. Forest Service – an agency that is intended to be a steward of our lands – is unfathomable," New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said in a statement.
Making trees fashionable
Man-made cellulosic fibers (MMCFs), mostly made from eucalypts, are the new product being touted by the fashion industry as a sustainable product, set to grow from 6 to 10 million tonnes per annum over the next 15 years, though questions are being asked as to whether they are now wearing oldgrowth trees.
MMCFs include viscose, lyocell, modal, and acetate. Around 98% of these fibers are made from wood (usually eucalyptus), 1% is from bamboo, and less than 1% are from cellulose-rich waste (but Evrnu, Renewcell, Infinited Fiber, and others are working hard to raise that percentage). While the innovators forge this path, the MMCF market is set to grow from 6 to 10 million tonnes within 15 years, with recycled MMCFs (rMMCFs) likely to reach only a fraction of this volume.
So what types of MMCFs will hoover up this growth opportunity? Right now 40-45% will come from “conventional/unknown sources/processes”, which is shorthand for possibly toxic production methods and using ancient/endangered forest wood. And here exists a critical paradox: while next-gen MMCFs offer huge potential to replace damaging incumbent materials, stakeholders risk emboldening a market that is not ready to deliver on its low-impact promises, and may cause more harm before it realizes its potential for good.
Birds declining in parks:
Since 1977 researchers have been mist-trapping rainforest understorey birds in the 22,000-hectare Soberanía National Park in the Republic of Panama, finding 40 out of 57 bird resident species (70%) declined in abundance over 44 years, with 35 species losing more than 50% of their initial abundances. Scientists consider that some declines could be related to the increasing isolation of the reserve, though consider the principal cause may be climate change.
These findings add to a “small but growing body of evidence for significant long-term declines in biodiversity in undisturbed tropical forests—replicating previous findings from the Ecuadorian and Brazilian Amazon,” said Alexander Lees …
TURNING IT AROUND
World Environment Day:
An article by Geoffrey Lean in the Guardian gives a potted history of the long and slow struggle to agree global solutions to emerging global environment problems since the UN’s first-ever international environmental conference in Sweden on 5 June 1972, whose 50th anniversary is on World Environment Day.
Value of oldgrowth trees.
The Bulletin has an article extolling the multitude of values of America’s olgrowth trees, along with the need to retain and restore them.
Large deeply rooted trees also tap groundwater resources unavailable to shallow-rooted plants. During drier months, roots lift deep soil water up to shallow, drier portions of soil and release it, sharing water to the ecosystem, including neighboring plants of different species.
A study in old growth ponderosa pine found that during July and August this process accounted for approximately 35% of total daily water usage from the upper soil, adding weeks of water during drought. This allows the ecosystem to continue photosynthesis, storing more carbon and cooling the forest canopy as water evaporates from foliage.
Large trees are cornerstones of diversity and resilience for the entire forest community, and they provide many services important to society. We would do well to protect large trees where we can, and a sufficient supply of those that will soon reach large diameter.
Reforesting Europe:
The Prince of Wales has been supporting SUPERB (Systemic solutions for upscaling of urgent ecosystem restoration for forest-related biodiversity and ecosystem services) involving more than 100 forest science and practice organizations in 20 countries and including 12 large-scale forest restoration demonstration sites across Europe.
The Circular Bioeconomy Alliance was established by the Prince of Wales in 2020. It provides “knowledge-informed support as well as a learning and networking platform to connect the dots between investors, companies, governmental and non-governmental organizations and local communities to advance the circular bioeconomy while restoring biodiversity globally.”
https://www.romania-insider.com/prince-charles-forest-restauration-ro-may-2022/
Rights of Nature:
A one hour doco tells the story of the planetary movement to bring Rights Of Nature legislation into law.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuFNmH7lVTA
Forest Media 27 May 2022
After the depressing Morrison Government, the election of the Albanese Government, and good showing for the Greens and Teals, have generated a sense of optimism, and an expectation for real action on climate heating and threatened species (amongst many other issues). The challenge for us is to get political recognition of forests as part of the solution for addressing climate heating and saving species, and if we want to influence the March NSW elections and formative period of the Albanese Government we have to do this in the next 6 months.
New South Wales
NEFA has launched its Save Oldgrowth Trees campaign to convince the NSW Government to implement the Natural Resources Commission’s advice to protect and restore oldgrowth trees throughout State forests in response to the widespread losses of tree hollows in the 2019/20 wildfires that 174 of NSW’s animal species depend on for dens, nests and roosts. NEFA held small gatherings outside the offices of local members for Tweed, and Coffs Harbour to launch the campaign, which is aimed at getting members of parliament and the public to write to the Ministers for Environment and Forestry to implement the NRC’s advice. Join the campaign at https://www.nefa.org.au/hollow_housing_crisis
The Echo interviewed Sue Higginson after her first week in parliament, in which she identified protecting “our native forests once and for all” as one of her principal goals.
The state government has announced a $10 million subsidy as part of its Hardwood Timber Haulage Subsidy Program, to cover transport at $30 per tonne of timber, to help the flood-affected timber industry in 18 NSW LGAs declared disaster zones in northern NSW. Until 30 June the community are invited to review and provide feedback on updated forest management plans for the softwood plantations and coastal hardwood forests managed by Forestry Corporation of NSW. To view the forest management plans, ask questions, or make a submission, visit www.forestrycorporation.com.au.
The results of the Federal election have north shore State Liberals worried about the rise of independents. Matt Kean has spoken out on the need to take climate change and women seriously - we just need to get forests up there. Justin Field reminds us that despite Matt Kean, the NSW Government is not really progressive, with terrible records on new gas and coal mines, Murray-Darling water, land clearing and wars against Koalas, thanks to being under the control of the National Party
On the mid-north coast the Uniting Church has started a Faith Ecology Network aimed at stopping the logging of native forests, which they hope will spread throughout north-east NSW.
Australia
There has been so much commentary on the Federal election, including relating to climate heating and threatened species, that I have not attempted to do it justice.
While we now undoubtedly have an Albanese Government, the exact makeup has yet to be decided. At the time of writing the ABC identified ALP had 75 seats in the house of reps, needing 76 for a majority so they may well make it, though they have a pool of at least 3 Greens and 12 independents to seek support from for legislation.
In the Senate there are 76 members, and it’s likely that the Greens will be in a balance of power position with the ALP needing their support to get legislation through:
- the ALP have 23 with 3 more likely, the Greens have 9 with 3 more likely, and the green independent David Pocock is also likely – giving 32, and likely 39
- Jackie Lambie is in there with 1 and 1 more likely.
- the Coalition have 30 with 1 more likely and 2 possible, One Nation have 1 and one more likely, UAP have one possible – giving 31, and likely 33, and possibly 36
On the north coast
- It appeared for a while that Richmond may be won by the Greens, though at this stage ALP have a clear lead and will get in with National preferences, the Greens are running second but the Nationals may come second with a number of anti-vax and right wing candidates preferencing them ahead of the Greens.
- In Cowper it was touch and go for a while with Teal independent Caz Heise (with Green and ALP preferences) almost beating the Nationals.
On the South Coast the seat of Gilmore is line-ball between ALP and Coalition and is likely to require a recount.
There can be no doubt that the underlying issue of this election was climate change, and that this can be considered the primary issue responsible for the great showing by The Greens, Teal candidates and the election of a Labor federal government. An exit poll conducted by YouGov for Farmers for Climate Action found around two thirds of people interviewed across the seats of Gilmore, Page and Eden-Monaro said "effective climate change policies" were important to their vote.
Another good outcome was the poor showing of Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer, Hanson may just scrape back in Queensland as the sole One Notion to get up this time, and Palmer will miss out despite his $100 million in advertising, but UAP may get one up in Victoria thanks to being second on the Coalition’s ticket.
Species
Researchers have identified the 63 Australian birds, mammals, fish, frogs and reptiles most likely to go extinct in the next 20 years, of these five reptiles, four birds, four frogs, two mammals and one fish are likely already extinct, though the other 21 fish, 12 birds, six mammals, four frogs and four reptiles still have a chance.
The NRC have released their ‘NSW Forest Monitoring and Improvement Program, Final Report, Project 2: Baselines, drivers and trends for species occupancy and distribution’, I have only had a quick look, though it’s great to see that they have collated the extensive survey data from the 1990’s as a baseline, developed a number of distribution models and used these to project the significant impacts of climate change – identifying that “Climate projections suggest that potential occupancy of 54 of 78 threatened fauna species … will decline by 2070” and “For 81 climate-sensitive flora species 59% of species … will have less medium to high-suitability habitat by 2070”. It is concerning that they have compared data from different decades that used different methods, and, like Forestry did in the 1990s, failed to account for the fact that most remaining oldgrowth is on steeper and poorer sites when comparing it with more productive logged forests.
Tweed Council is calling for people to record where Albert’s Lyrebirds are by undertaking call surveys on their properties during June, an active breeding time for the birds when they are known to call vigorously.
Lithgow was chosen as a site to rehome the critically endangered mountain pygmy-possum under the belief that pre-historically they roamed through the region’s forests and became trapped in their current alpine habitats by past climate upheavals, where they now have poor prospects of survival due to climate change.
Koala retrovirus appears to be causing immunosuppression in some Koala populations, with some subtypes of the virus increasing their susceptibility to chlamydia by more than 200 per cent. The Gloucester Environment Group (GEG) is holding the Gloucester Koala Habitat Workshop at Barrington Hall on September 3, about their program KoalaWays, which has resulted 1000 tree and understory plantings, in partnership with council, on private properties in the Gloucester area.
The release of another 50 Eastern Quolls into Aussie Arks 400 hectare protected Barrington Wildlife Sanctuary has received lots of attention, with statements such as “returned to the wilderness”.
In a move likely to fail, the Victorian Greens are seeking to outlaw the general sale of second generation rodent poisons in supermarkets and hardware stores in a proposed amendment to the Agriculture Legislation Amendment Bill, poised to be debated in Victoria's upper house.
Bird Flu is adapting fast to infect native species and spread itself around the world, having variable effects on native bird species while killing hundreds of thousands, causing particular concern for vulnerable bird species with smaller populations. It’s likely to be on its way to Australia.
The Deteriorating Problem
David Spratt and Ian Dunlop have released a report Climate Dominoes warning us that the “severity of human influence on our planetary ecosystems is leading us toward a range of irreversible tipping points; uncertainties about which we have limited knowledge”, identifying that we may have already passed some (Arctic, Greenland, West Antarctica and coral systems) and are getting perilously close to others, including for forests where, like the east Amazon, they are increasingly passing their temperature limits, resulting in “a near halving of the land sink strength by as early as 2040”.
Mongabay has another article focussing on where Japan and Korea are obtaining their biomass from to burn for electricity as the industry ramps up under the guise of non-polluting renewable energy, though the good news is that a lot of their biomass has come from Acacia plantations in Vietnam and palm kernel shells, though Drax and Enviva are moving into the market with wood pellets from Canada and America respectively. No mention of Australia.
Turning it Around
Carbon capture and storage has long been lauded as the solution to fossil fuel production, and is central to the business plans of the two biggest Australian-owned fossil fuel producers (Santos, and Woodside), the trouble is that it still isn’t working and at best only offsets a portion of the emissions released in production – more reason to get forests identified as an ancient technology for carbon capture and storage.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
NEFA launches Save Oldgrowth Trees campaign:
NEFA has launched its Save Oldgrowth Trees campaign to convince the NSW Government to implement the Natural Resources Commission’s advice to protect and restore oldgrowth trees throughout State forests in response to the widespread losses of tree hollows in the 2019/20 wildfires that 174 of NSW’s animal species depend on for dens, nests and roosts. NEFA held small gatherings outside the offices of local members for Tweed, and Coffs Harbour to launch the campaign, which is aimed at getting members of parliament and people to write to the Ministers for Environment and Forestry to implement the NRC’s advice. Join the campaign at https://www.nefa.org.au/hollow_housing_crisis
In the hope of making the New South Wales government take its own good advice, the North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) is today launching its Save Old-growth Trees campaign.
NEFA wants to convince the NSW Government to implement its own scientific advice to protect and restore old-growth trees throughout State forests in response to the widespread losses of tree hollows in the 2019/20 wildfires that 174 of NSW’s animal species depend on for dens, nests and roosts.
[Dailan Pugh] ‘The NRC recommended that where there are not eight hollow-bearing trees per hectare, retaining the next largest trees to make up the balance of the eight trees, and for each of these trees retaining two ‘recruitment’ trees that have the potential to become the hollow-bearing trees of the future.
‘Almost a year later the NSW Government has done nothing to implement the NRC recommendations and address the urgent housing crisis for hollow-dependent animals.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/05/saving-old-growth-tree-on-nsws-own-good-advice/
Higginson identifies forests as a priority:
The Echo interviewed Sue Higginson after her first week in parliament, in which she identified protecting “our native forests once and for all” as one of her principal goals.
Higginson believes that the recent classification of the status of koalas to endangered will add leverage in the fight to save forests. ‘It has to. Having our national icon listed as endangered – only a step away from extinction – the science is on the table and the evidence is there. There is the legal acknowledgement that we are at the end of the road for koalas.
‘If we don’t pull out all the stops and do everything we can, we know what that means. We have to protect koalas where they live and their habitat right now. Part of that is our public native forests. And we’re still logging the crap out of them. We’ve got to stop.’
I’m a mature woman on fire and I’ve got nothing to lose. I’ve got a five year plan and that plan is about improving action on climate and it is to protect our native forests once and for all. It’s to try to stop the absurdity of the extinction crisis and to level up the playing field in this inequality crisis that we experience, and all the things that that means.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/05/a-woman-on-fire-with-nothing-to-lose/
More taxpayer subsidies to loggers:
The state government has announced a $10 million subsidy as part of its Hardwood Timber Haulage Subsidy Program, to cover transport at $30 per tonne of timber, to help the flood-affected timber industry in 18 NSW LGAs declared disaster zones in northern NSW.
The NSW Agriculture Minister Dugald Saunders said many plantations remain inaccessible due to wet conditions, and much of the machinery used to harvest timber can not be operated in the wet.
"Access roads to forests in NSW may take many months to repair, resulting in low or no harvesting activity and a critical lack of supply of hardwood resources that timber processing facilities would normally rely on."
Mr Hurford said he hoped the subsidy would be enough to hold on until spring, a time of year when forests usually dried out.
"We're coming into winter now and the ground is wet," he said.
"We just need to try to get through the next few months to spring, when the weather warms up and the cycle generally dries out."
Last month, the NSW Inquiry heard continuous breaches of native forest regulations by Forestry Corporation show a systemic pattern of noncompliance despite the lack of profits from the industry.
Chance to comment on forest management plans:
Until 30 June the community are invited to review and provide feedback on updated forest management plans for the softwood plantations and coastal hardwood forests managed by Forestry Corporation of NSW. To view the forest management plans, ask questions, or make a submission, visit www.forestrycorporation.com.au.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/feedback-requested-on-updated-forest-management-plans-by-forestry-corp/
https://monaropost.com.au/grassroots/community-invited-to-review-updated-forest-management-plans
North Shore Liberals worried:
The results of the Federal election have north shore State Liberals worried about the rise of independents. Matt Kean has spoken out on the need to take climate change and women seriously, we just need to get forests up there.
Climate change risks an environmental catastrophe. It won’t just be future generations who will judge our leaders on the action we take – a pretty clear judgment was handed down on Saturday night.
Some will say we can’t go further on these issues because of the “base”. Let’s be clear, the traditional Liberal party base watches more ABC than Sky After Dark.
Not a single one of the Morrison government’s lost seats went to a rightwing party or candidate. One Nation and Clive Palmer’s United Australia party performed poorly while Labor and the Greens snatched seats.
It also means adopting science-aligned emissions reduction targets of between 45% and 60% by 2030 and developing the policies to achieve it. The science says that the black summer bushfires were the beginning, not the end. The fact is that, until the federal Liberal party’s policy position responds commensurately to the climate challenge, every record-breaking natural disaster over coming years will make that policy seem out of touch with the challenge at hand.
Justin Field reminds us that despite Matt Kean, the NSW Government is not really progressive, with terrible records on new gas and coal mines, Murray-Darling water, land clearing and wars against Koalas, thanks to being under the control of the National Party
The NSW Nationals control of natural resources policy for the last 12 years has been a disaster for the climate and environment and the Liberals consistently turn a blind eye, desperate to avoid a split in the Coalition agreement which underpins their ability to hold Government.
In just the last term of this Liberal and National Government (since 2019) ten new major coal and gas projects have been approved. …
… the state-owned forestry corporation is still today logging prime koala habitat in the North of the state with sign-off from successive Liberal Environment Ministers. This stands in stark contrast to decisions recently taken in Western Australia and Victoria where those State Governments have moved to end native forest logging.
… Leaving the Nationals to dictate natural resource management is destroying our rivers and landscape and fuelling climate change.
Faith in forests:
On the mid-north coast the Uniting Church has started a Faith Ecology Network aimed at stopping the logging of native forests, which they hope will spread throughout north-east NSW.
The International Day for Biological Diversity takes place every year on May 22.
The day celebrates biological diversity, also called biodiversity – the variety of life forms that exist. At a time when the world faces an extinction crisis of massive proportions, it also highlights the critical importance of biodiversity for human flourishing, sustainability and the climate. For example, forests are arks of biodiversity and are critical to maintaining the Earth’s life support systems. They regulate the climate, store carbon, produce oxygen, play a key role in supplying clean water, and lessen flooding, landslides and other natural disasters.
Local communities are responding to the increased logging. “Friends” groups have sprung up to protect the forests – such as Friends of Kalang Headwaters, Friends of Pine Creek and Friends of Tuckers Nob. The communities have also proposed several ecologically, socially and economically viable alternatives to native forest logging, including the Great Koala National Park, the Gumbaynggirr Good Koala Country plan, and a smaller, overlapping plan at the Kalang River Headwaters. Their case is all the more compelling given that industrial native forest logging in NSW operates at a loss of millions of dollars a year.
The Uniting Church affirms that God’s Creation is good in and of itself, as well as in sustaining human life, and is committed to “identify and challenge all structures and attitudes which perpetuate and compound the destruction of creation”.
We attribute rights to Nature, including ecosystems, because all creatures, not just humans, are in a covenantal relationship with God: “We believe that God loves the divine creation and wills the development of its life. No creature is indifferent in the eyes of God. Each has its dignity and thereby also its right to existence… The Holy Scriptures attest to God’s covenant with the Creation.”
There is a calling and opportunity to develop a Christian voice and presence in the struggle for forest protection. In a wonderful new initiative that addresses these issues, a committee set up by the Mid North Coast Presbytery and now with members from multiple presbyteries is working to establish a forest advocate ministry role, starting on the Mid North Coast and expanding to the Queensland border in the north and the Hunter River in the south.
The vision for the ministry is, first, to build a vibrant Christian presence – prophetic, pastoral, and through relationship – in efforts for forest protection. This includes various ways for Christians to work within and alongside community groups who are advocating for the forests.
https://www.insights.uca.org.au/hear-creation-groaning-and-help-to-heal-gods-green-earth-2/
AUSTRALIA
Election hope:
There has been so much commentary on the Federal election, including relating to climate heating and threatened species, that I have not attempted to do it justice.
While we now undoubtedly have an Albanese Government, the exact makeup has yet to be decided. At the time of writing the ABC identified ALP had 75 seats in the house of reps, needing 76 for a majority so they may well make it, though they have a pool of at least 3 Greens and 12 independents to seek support from for legislation.
In the Senate there are 76 members, and it’s likely that the Greens will be in a balance of power position with the ALP needing their support to get legislation through:
- the ALP have 23 with 3 more likely, the Greens have 9 with 3 more likely, and the green independent David Pocock is also likely – giving 32, and likely 39
- Jackie Lambie is in there with 1 and 1 more likely.
- the Coalition have 30 with 1 more likely and 2 possible, One Nation have 1 and one more likely, UAP have one possible – giving 31, and likely 33, and possibly 36
On the north coast
- It appeared for a while that Richmond may be won by the Greens, though at this stage ALP have a clear lead and will get in with National preferences, the Greens are running second but the Nationals may come second with a number of anti-vax and right wing candidates preferencing them ahead of the Greens.
- In Cowper it was touch and go for a while with Teal independent Caz Heise (with Green and ALP preferences) almost beating the Nationals.
On the South Coast the seat of Gilmore is line-ball between ALP and Coalition and is likely to require a recount.
There can be no doubt that the underlying issue of this election was climate change, and that this can be considered the primary issue responsible for the great showing by The Greens, Teal candidates and the election of a Labor federal government, as observed by Bob Carr in the Sydney morning Herald.
The urgency was confirmed by international climate diplomacy galvanised around COP26 in Glasgow last November. And it accorded with the local evidence on the ground. The fires and the floods were ominous proof that a climate shift was upon us. Human activity had warmed the land surface bringing fires earlier and making them bigger; and changing our hydrology. Solid polling commissioned by the Australian Conservation Foundation from YouGov last year and in March this year confirmed a strong co-relation between electorates that rated high the need for more action on climate and strong shifts on Saturday to Labor and climate friendly independents and Greens.
These 20 seats include Ryan, Chisholm, Boothby, Hasluck and Reid. By tomorrow the ACF will be able to match this with exit polling data but the voting figures on Saturday confirm the message: climate shifted votes beyond the Teal seats.
… Nationals now have to defend Cowper and Nichols as marginal seats because they were savaged by 9 per cent and 15 per cent swings respectively.
… But Saturday’s shift was overwhelmingly about what Martin Luther King called “a fierce urgency of now” and the urgency was about one issue. It was only possible because the country boasts a higher civic IQ than Scott Morrison or Barnaby Joyce had calculated.
Candidates campaigning on climate change played a crucial role in toppling the Morrison government, and now advocacy groups are pushing incoming prime minister Anthony Albanese to act decisively.
Several 'teal' candidates backed by billionaire Simon Holmes a Court's Climate 200 fund, along with the Greens, reaped sizeable election gains by concentrating on clean energy and tackling climate change.
https://www.northernbeachesreview.com.au/story/7748472/climate-pressure-follows-greens-teal-swing/
Australia has granted the Greens a mandate to push the new Labor government to greater climate action and a phase-out of fossil fuels, Adam Bandt says, with the minor party on track to gain enough seats in the Senate to hold the balance of power in its own right.
While the Greens appear to have affected a relatively modest 1.6 per cent swing of votes to them across the country, the “Greensland” voting plunge is expected to add up to three seats in Brisbane to the party’s lone Melbourne seat, which is held by Bandt, the party leader. He said the gains were the result of a three-year strategy to target Brisbane electorates.
An exit poll conducted by YouGov for Farmers for Climate Action found around two thirds of people interviewed across the seats of Gilmore, Page and Eden-Monaro said "effective climate change policies" were important to their vote.
Dr Davis said it was also clear rural Coalition MPs who backed strong climate policy were rewarded.
She pointed to nationals MP Kevin Hogan receiving a five per cent swing on preferences in the seat of Page, and Liberal candidate Andrew Constance insulating himself against a big anti-coalition swing in Gilmore.
https://www.innerwestreview.com.au/story/7752302/climate-a-priority-in-nsw-regional-seats/
Another good outcome was the poor showing of Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer, Hanson may just scrape back in Queensland as the sole One Notion, and Palmer will miss out despite his $100 million in advertising, but UAP may get one up in Victoria thanks to being second on the Coalition’s ticket.
SPECIES
Looming extinctions:
Researchers have identified the 63 Australian birds, mammals, fish, frogs and reptiles most likely to go extinct in the next 20 years, of these five reptiles, four birds, four frogs, two mammals and one fish are likely already extinct, though the other 21 fish, 12 birds, six mammals, four frogs and four reptiles still have a chance.
The hardest to save will be five reptiles, four birds, four frogs, two mammals and one fish, for which there are no recent confirmed records of their continued existence.
Four are almost certainly extinct: the Christmas Island shrew, Kangaroo River Macquarie perch, northern gastric brooding frog and Victorian grassland earless dragon. For example, there have only ever been four records of the Christmas Island shrew since it was found in the 1930s, with the most recent in the 1980s.
We know the other 47 highly imperilled animals we looked at still survive, and we ought to be able to save them. These are made up of 21 fish, 12 birds, six mammals, four frogs and four reptiles.
Monitoring decline:
The NRC have released their ‘NSW Forest Monitoring and Improvement Program, Final Report, Project 2: Baselines, drivers and trends for species occupancy and distribution’, I have only had a quick look, though its great to see that they have collated the extensive survey data from the 1990’s as a baseline, developed a number of distribution models and used these to project the significant impacts of climate change – identifying that “Climate projections suggest that potential occupancy of 54 of 78 threatened fauna species … will decline by 2070” and “For 81 climate-sensitive flora species 59% of species … will have less medium to high-suitability habitat by 2070”. It is concerning that they have compared data from different decades that used different methods, and, like Forestry did in the 1990s, failed to account for the fact that most remaining oldgrowth is on steeper and poorer sites when comparing it with more productive logged forests.
… Climate projections suggest that potential occupancy of 54 of 78 threatened fauna species and of seven species, in particular (i.e. Rufous Bettong Aepyprymnus rufescens, Rufous Scrub-bird Atrichornis rufescens, Stuttering Frog Mixophyes balbus, Barking Owl Nixox connivens, Powerful Owl Ninox strenua, Greater Glider Petauroides volans and Sooty Owl Tyto tenebricosa) will decline by 2070.
For 81 climate-sensitive flora species, the global climate model, MIROC3.2 (version RCM1), in the NARCliM suite predicted that will have less medium to high-suitability habitat by 2070 due to climate change, whereas 37% will have more …
Modelling showed that the extent of ‘Candidate Old Growth’ (COG) Forest was significantly associated with the occurrence of priority flora and fauna species in the 1990s …
Species occupancy modelling showed that COG was associated with the distribution of seven priority fauna species. In the northern forests, four priority species were positively associated with COG: Glossy Black Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus lathami), Leaden Flycatcher (Myiagra rubecula), Mountain Brushtail Possum (Trichosurus caninus) and Varied Sittella; and two species were negatively associated with COG in the north: Koala and Powerful Owl. One species was negatively associated with COG in southern forests: Yellow-bellied Glider (Petaurus australis). The counter-intuitive results for the hollow-dependent Yellow-bellied Glider and Powerful Owl may be partly due to the large home-ranges of these two species, such that required nesting and denning hollows may be available within unlogged riparian reserves retained within harvested landscapes.
Climate projections revealed the potential of climate change to drastically reduce the capacity of NSW forests to support valued fauna and flora. Modelling of 78 fauna species, including seven priority species, and of 81 climate-sensitive priority flora species indicated that most species will suffer a reduction in landscape capacity or habitat suitability by 2070 simply due to changing climate. It is strongly recommended that any future design, monitoring and analysis includes a significant climate projection component.
Listening to Albert:
Tweed Council is calling for people to record where Albert’s Lyrebirds are by undertaking call surveys on their properties during June, an active breeding time for the birds when they are known to call vigorously.
Call observations are being collected online via the iNaturalist website or app at inaturalist.org/projects/listening-for-lyrebirds-project-page.
More information on the project, how to listen for Lyrebirds and examples of their calls can be found at tweed.nsw.gov.au/alberts-lyrebird.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/05/keep-your-eyes-and-ears-open-for-alberts-lyrebird/
Reintroduction into prehistorical habitats a chance for survival?:
Lithgow was chosen as a site to rehome the critically endangered mountain pygmy-possum under the belief that pre-historically they roamed through the region’s forests and became trapped in their current alpine habitats by past climate upheavals, where they now have poor prospects of survival due to climate change.
“We think the mountain pygmy-possums moved into the alpine area during a warm, wet period during the Pleistocene, but when the climate changed, they became stranded there. They only just managed to survive by using the rock piles and snow cover to insulate themselves against the cold of winter. The rock piles also protect them from the lethal heat of summer.”
He added that climate change was threatening their alpine homes, with winter snowfalls decreasing and exposing the rock piles in which they seek refuge while they hibernate. “We decided to use these clues from their past to reintroduce them to the cool, lowland rainforest environments where their direct ancestors thrived,” he said.
Among the species was the iconic Australian bogong moth, which made its first appearance, as its population has plummeted in the past three years after record-breaking droughts. Australian zoology professor at Sweden’s Lund University Eric Warrant has observed the moth for decades and said they used to coat the walls of alpine caves, but this year there are only a handful of caves where the moths have been found.
Koala retrovirus worsens chlamydia:
Koala retrovirus appears to be causing immunosuppression in some Koala populations, with some subtypes of the virus increasing their susceptibility to chlamydia by more than 200 per cent.
“What we think is happening is koala retrovirus is causing immunosuppression, and that raises their susceptibility to chlamydia,” she said.
“There are other parts of Australia where koala retrovirus isn’t so much of a problem. They may contract chlamydia, but they are more likely to be asymptomatic, so it doesn’t have the same effect on the population as it does in Queensland and NSW.”
At least half the koalas in southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales have chlamydia, with the disease recorded in up to 100 per cent of some koala populations.
The research has been published in the journal PLOS Pathogens.
Now the molecular virologist has discovered an AIDS-like virus is plaguing koalas, leaving them extremely vulnerable to chlamydia and other life-threatening health conditions.
The retrovirus destroys the koala’s immune system, leaving them at a 200 per cent higher risk of other diseases.
Replanting Koala habitat:
The Gloucester Environment Group (GEG) is holding the Gloucester Koala Habitat Workshop at Barrington Hall on September 3, about their program KoalaWays, which has resulted 1000 tree and understory plantings, in partnership with council, on private properties in the Gloucester area.
https://www.gloucesteradvocate.com.au/story/7741173/can-we-save-the-koala/
More Quolls released into captivity:
The release of another 50 Eastern Quolls into Aussie Arks 400 hectare protected Barrington Wildlife Sanctuary has received lots of attention, with statements such as “returned to the wilderness”.
Controlling sale of rodent poisons:
In a move likely to fail, the Victorian Greens are seeking to outlaw the general sale of second generation rodent poisons in supermarkets and hardware stores in a proposed amendment to the Agriculture Legislation Amendment Bill, poised to be debated in Victoria's upper house.
https://www.blayneychronicle.com.au/story/7750500/push-to-ban-store-bought-rodent-poison/
Bird Flu adapting and approaching:
Bird Flu is adapting fast to infect native species and spread itself around the world, having variable effects on native bird species while killing hundreds of thousands, causing particular concern for vulnerable bird species with smaller populations. It’s likely to be on its way to Australia.
Since October, the H5N1 strain has caused nearly 3,000 outbreaks in poultry in dozens of countries. More than 77 million birds have been culled to curb the spread of the virus, which almost always causes severe disease or death in chickens. Another 400,000 non-poultry birds, such as wild birds, have also died in 2,600 outbreaks — twice the number reported during the last major wave, in 2016–17.
… Regions in Asia and Europe will probably continue to see large outbreaks, and infections could creep into currently unaffected continents such as South America and Australia.
The highly pathogenic H5N1 strain emerged in commercial geese in Asia in around 1996, and spread in poultry throughout Europe and Africa in the early 2000s. By 2005, the strain was causing mass deaths in wild birds, first in East Asia and then in Europe. Since then, the strain has repeatedly infected wild birds in many parts of the world, says Andy Ramey, a research wildlife geneticist at the US Geological Survey Alaska Science Center in Anchorage. Through repeated spillovers, Ramey says, H5N1 seems to have become more adapted to wild birds. It’s “now become an emerging wildlife disease”, he says.
In 2014, a new highly pathogenic H5 lineage — called 2.3.4.4 — emerged and started infecting wild birds without always killing them. This created opportunities for the virus to spread to North America for the first time. The lineage has since dominated outbreaks around the world, including the current ones.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Passing and approaching tipping points:
David Spratt and Ian Dunlop have released a report Climate Dominoes warning us that the “severity of human influence on our planetary ecosystems is leading us toward a range of irreversible tipping points; uncertainties about which we have limited knowledge”, identifying that we may have already passed some (Arctic, Greenland, West Antarctica and coral systems) and are getting perilously close to others, including for forests where, like the east Amazon, they are increasingly passing their temperature limits, resulting in “a near halving of the land sink strength by as early as 2040”.
As the planet continues to warm, a point of warming is reached — the “thermal maximum for photosynthesis” — after which a combination of the rate of photosynthesis decreasing, and the rate of respiration increasing, results in the net flux of CO2 from the atmosphere decreasing.
Together with more severe droughts and wildfires that also add to plant-based CO2 emissions, the total amount of carbon stored in the terrestrial biosphere (the land sink) then starts to fall. This may be understood as a tipping point, a threshold beyond which large change is initiated in the terrestrial biosphere.
In ground-breaking research published in January 2021, Katharyn Duffy and colleagues mapped the relationship between increasing temperatures and carbon uptake by analyzing more than 20 years of data from 250 sites that measure the transfer of CO2 between plants, land and the atmosphere. They found that in recent hot periods the thermal maximum for photosynthesis had been exceeded. The land sink is now approaching a tipping point, and the sink could halve in as soon as two decades:
“We show that the mean temperature of the warmest quarter (3-month period) passed the thermal maximum for photosynthesis during the past decade. At higher temperatures, respiration rates continue to rise in contrast to sharply declining rates of photosynthesis. Under business-as-usual emissions, this divergence elicits a near halving of the land sink strength by as early as 2040.” 53
When those hot periods become the norm — as they will within a decade or two, because further warming of half a degree or more is already in the system — a tipping point will have been reached (with just the current level of greenhouse gases enough to trigger that event).
Christopher Schwalm, an ecologist and earth system modeller at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, says the findings mark a tipping point at which “the land system will act to accelerate climate change rather than slow it down”. He said that “for my money, the results are conservative, because forest die-offs are not factored into this”, but he was “surprised that this tipping point would happen so soon, maybe in 15 to 25 years, and not at the end of the century.”
https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/_files/ugd/148cb0_2a1626569b45453ebadad9f151e031b6.pdf
Asia’s booming biomass electricity production:
Mongabay has another article focussing on where Japan and Korea are obtaining their biomass from to burn for electricity as the industry ramps up under the guise of non-polluting renewable energy, though the good news is that a lot of their biomass has come from Acacia plantations in Vietnam and palm kernel shells, though Drax and Enviva are moving into the market with wood pellets from Canada and America respectively. No mention of Australia.
In 2018, the government excluded new co-fired projects (combining coal with biomass) from subsidies. Currently, biomass represents a little over 4% of Japan’s total electricity generation, a figure the country aims to increase to 5% by 2030, according to its latest energy plan. That’s roughly 14% of Japan’s so-called renewable energy target for that year — hardly comparable to the EU, where biomass already constitutes 60% of so-called renewables.
In 2020, [Korea] generated 19% of its renewable electricity from solid biomass, 70% of which came from wood pellets, according to environmental nonprofit SFOC. Most of the remaining solid biomass was palm kernel shells. In 2020, only 6% of South Korea’s total energy was generated by renewables.
TURNING IT AROUND
Industrial carbon capture and storage fails:
Carbon capture and storage has long been lauded as the solution to fossil fuel production, and is central to the business plans of the two biggest Australian-owned fossil fuel producers (Santos, and Woodside), the trouble is that it still isn’t working and at best only offsets a portion of the emissions released in production.
Chevron’s $3 billion-plus attempt at injecting CO2 underground was an odd example for Davies to choose to promote carbon storage. Operation began three years late and numerous technical hitches followed. The US giant is buying five million tonnes of carbon offsets to make up for failing to achieve what it promised the WA government.
There are two other main options - reduce the burning of fossil fuels even faster than planned or plant a lot of trees to absorb CO2. However, with Shell’s plan to reach net-zero estimated to need planting over an area almost the size of Brazil, carbon offsets can only do so much.
Chevron has been trying to learn how to bury CO2 on Barrow Island off the WA coast since it started studying it in 1998.
The failure at Gorgon is remarkable as it was a relatively simple application of CCS. Only the CO2 in the gas flowing from the offshore reservoirs is captured, not the majority of emissions that come from burning gas to run the LNG plant that are much more complex and expensive to capture.
Forest Media 20 May 2022
New South Wales
Due to the loss of the Rappville pine sawmill in the 2019/20 fires, the Forestry Corporation are seeking industry proposals to process 120,000 tonnes of plantation timber a year from around Grafton from 2025 to “build future homes” or “fencing, paper and packaging”, focussing their PR on how quickly they are replanting the plantations devastated in the 2019-20 fires as a future resource.
For more detail about what Sue Higginson intends to fight for as The Greens new member of the NSW Upper House, the Echo summarises her maiden speech.
The ABC has an article about the 1979 campaign, led by Yuin tribal elder Guboo Thomas, to protect sacred Aboriginal sites on Gulaga and Biamanga Mountains from woodchipping, highlighting the local and political antagonism. An Aboriginal place was declared over parts of the mountains in 1980, though Biamanga and Gulaga National Parks weren’t proclaimed until 1994 and 2001 respectively, and the surrounding State forests protected from logging for Koalas in 2016.
Australia
The Sydney Morning Herald has an op-ed by Christiana Figueres, previously the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (2010 to 2016), warning us that we are international laggards on climate heating, one of the worst countries, and can’t afford to re-elect climate fools. The Conversation has an article summing up the political parties environmental commitments, not unsurprising The Greens (with their policy to stop logging public native forests and keep global warming below 1.5oC) come out best, though Labor is still way ahead of the Coalition who seem hell bent on destroying the world as soon as they can.
Labor has announced it will establish an independent environment protection agency to enforce national conservation laws and collect data on the plight of the country’s wildlife, while also supporting a target to protect 30% of land and 30% of sea areas by 2030 if it wins the election. It was worrying when pro-logging Tasmanian Labor stalwart Dick Adams said Anthony Albanese in the past listened only to the Greens on forestry issues, though has now “matured” and won his support. Not unsurprisingly Anthony Albanese later wrote to ‘Workers and participants in the Tasmanian Forest and Forest Products Industry’ with a promise that Labor “will not shut down the native forest industry in Tasmania”, “that Federal Labor will support native forest harvesting” and that they will support the industry. And won accolades from the CFMEU for their promises.
Australian scientists are despondent ahead of the election next week due to cuts to research funding, low morale and job insecurity, and the lack of commitments from major parties to redress the growing science crisis.
In the rainforests of the wet tropics tree mortality has doubled since the mid 1980s, which the researchers attribute to the warming air having greater drying power, basically sucking the water out of the trees.
After seven years the Tasmanian Conservation Trust has won a Supreme Court battle against the state Liberal member for Lyons approval to clear more than 1800ha of native forest for cattle at Ansons Bay in the state’s North East.
In Western Australia, Chalice Mining has obtained permission to conduct exploration drilling inside Julimar State Forest, despite environmental campaigners urging the WA government to prevent access out of concern for biodiversity, including vulnerable species such as the chuditch or western quoll.
Species
Veterinarians for Climate Action (VfCA) are calling for people concerned by the ongoing loss of animals due to the rising temperature and severe weather events to vote for climate action.
The Koala has been listed as Endangered in NSW on the advice of the NSW Scientific Committee, citing its ongoing decline, that “deforestation and land clearance for grazing, agriculture, urbanisation, timber harvesting, mining and other activities have resulted in loss, fragmentation and degradation of koala habitats”, and the fact its range is declining due to climate heating - with increasing mortality from heatwaves, droughts and wildfires:
With a crash in Bogong Moths, increasing wildfires and rising temperatures the future for 3,000 critically endangered Mountain Pygmy-possums is pretty dire, so now it too is going into a captive breeding program. Animals raised in predator free enclosures quickly lose their adaptive behaviour for coping with predators, making them unable to survive in the real world, though some progress is being made in rewilding by gradual exposure over generations to predators.
On the south coast Waminda received $241,000 from the NSW Environmental Trust for a project to re-establish traditional agricultural practices in the region, with a focus on the magenta lilly pilly. Waminda is looking at a sustainable agriculture component where species can be used in its own Black Cede range of food products.
The Christmas Island Forest Skink was abundant in 1998, by 2008 it was only known from one site, they decided to catch them all for captive breeding and only found 3, two escaped and died, the last one died on May 2014, just four months after the Christmas Island forest skink was listed as endangered.
The Deteriorating Problem
Two studies found forests may not be able to be our saviours from climate heating as droughts, insect attacks (on stressed trees) and wildfires take an increasing toll as climate heating increases, emphasising the need to reign in atmospheric carbon as soon as possible.
A recently published paper by Oil Change International warns us that nearly 40% of the oil, gas, and coal now under development around the world will have to stay in the ground to give humanity a 50-50 chance of holding global warming to 1.5°C. It concludes that 90% of the “committed emissions” would come from 20 countries, with Australia ranked eighth for gas and sixth for coal. Ember compared emissions from coal use in countries across the G20 and the OECD, finding Australia was by far the worst for per capita coal power emissions, averaging more than 4 tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions per person, around twice those of the United States and Japan. Federal Resources Minister Keith Pitt has refused to say he accepts climate science, and pledged to push for more oil and gas projects at a Perth mining conference where he was a rare speaker not to acknowledge the need to cut emissions.
Queensland forests are being cleared at almost twice the rate reflected in national greenhouse gas emissions, with a new analysis of Queensland’s land clearing identifying that in 2018/19 455,756 hectares of forests were cleared, rather than the 245,767 hectares claimed by the national carbon accounting system, meaning that Australia’s carbon emissions are far higher than admitted given that claimed reductions are primarily based on reduced landclearing.
The extreme heatwave that first began afflicting areas of central, south, and western Asia in March continues reaching over 50oC in places, resulting to increases in heat-related deaths, wheat crop failures, power outages, and fires. A study found that climate heating has made such extremes 100 times more likely, increasing their frequency from once every 312 years to once every 3 years, and they could become an annual event by the end of the century.
New Zealand obtains almost 20% of its electricity from renewable geothermal energy, now there are proposals to boost the power output by burning trees to make the water hotter, and then mixing the CO2 with water before injecting it underground.
The Evidence Project is a photography-led campaign focusing on the impact of the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and the causes of viral pandemics. to provoke governments, businesses, opinion leaders and consumers to initiate the changes required for a safe and sustainable future for all life on Earth.
Turning it Around
The 15th World Forestry Congress ended with delegates signing the Seoul Forest Declaration which recognises the importance of forests, the urgency of implementing nature based solutions, and investing in forest and landscape restoration, but has a focus on sustainable use of wood. National Geographic has an article on assessing the benefits of tree planting schemes, highlighting that many are just for timber production and many fail, and advocating for the greater benefits of protecting existing forests and encouraging natural regeneration (provided it is protected).
Finally some traction on biomass as the European Parliament’s Environment Committee made strong, but nonbinding, recommendations to put a brake on the EU’s total commitment to burning forest biomass to produce energy, with recommendations for removal of government subsidies and not counting primary wood biomass as counting towards renewable energy targets.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Forestry touting unused pine plantations:
Due to the loss of the Rappville pine sawmill in the 2019/20 fires, the Forestry Corporation are seeking industry proposals to process 120,000 tonnes of plantation timber a year from around Grafton from 2025 to “build future homes” or “fencing, paper and packaging”, focussing their PR on how quickly they are replanting the plantations devastated in the 2019-20 fires as a future resource.
The Grafton timber industry is hoping a 10 year supply of timber and wood products will attract wood processors to restore an industry devastated.
“A third of the region’s fire-affected plantations are already replanted and are rapidly regrowing,” Mr Froud said.
Remaining trees are to be replanted within the next four years, with a continued push for regrowth.
Mr Froud stressed the importance of softwood plantations for house building, fencing, paper and packaging.
“We‘ve been harvesting at up to four times the normal rate to salvage timber from the dying trees,” he said.
They aim to have 120,000 tonnes of timber a year ready for harvest by 2025.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/grafton-nursery-replanting-runs-ahead-of-schedule/
Sue Higginson’s maiden speech:
For more detail about what Sue Higginson intends to fight for as The Greens new member of the NSW Upper House, the Echo summarises her maiden speech.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/05/sue-higginson-mlc-begins-as-she-means-to-go-on/
Protecting sacred sites:
The ABC has an article about the 1979 campaign, led by Yuin tribal elder Guboo Thomas, to protect sacred Aboriginal sites on Gulaga and Biamanga Mountains from woodchipping, highlighting the local and political antagonism. An Aboriginal place was declared over parts of the mountains in 1980, though Biamanga and Gulaga National Parks weren’t proclaimed until 1994 and 2001 respectively, and the surrounding State forests protected from logging for Koalas in 2016.
"It was obvious that wood chipping, with a system of roads, stream crossings, and log dumps, was impacting Aboriginal sites," archaeologist and anthropologist Brian Egloff said.
"The opposition to reining in the Forestry Commission in Bega was very, very strong," said Jack Miller, who represented conservation interests on the Ashton committee.
"There was a lot of anger, bordering on dangerous anger, toward Aboriginal people."
Guboo Ted Thomas, Percy Mumbulla and other elders were not just confronting hostility and fierce resistance from the local community and the forestry industry. They were up against the more conservative members of the state government.
"One cabinet minister said he wouldn't take notice of a black fella who just clapped a couple of clap sticks together," said Terry Fox, who worked closely with Guboo Ted Thomas on the campaign.
AUSTRALIA
Make your vote count:
The Sydney Morning Herald has an op-ed by Christiana Figueres, previously the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (2010 to 2016), warning us that we are international laggards on climate heating, one of the worst countries, and can’t afford to re-elect climate fools.
There’s no gentle way to say this. Australia’s climate ambition has for years been well at the back of the pack globally. Since the unfortunate repeal of Australia’s last significant climate policy back in 2014, Australia’s decarbonisation efforts have languished, and its emissions reduction targets are broadly consistent with about 3 degrees of catastrophic global warming.
Australians are among the biggest per capita emitters in the world. Add to that Australia’s position as one of the world’s biggest exporters of high-polluting coal and gas, and you have a picture of a nature-blessed country that has not yet embraced its climate leadership potential. Australia is sleep-walking towards devastating bushfires, floods and coral bleaching events that will become more frequent and dangerous than those over the last two years.
To outside observers, Australia has been a paradox. It is a country seen as resistant to taking climate action, but one that is simultaneously incredibly vulnerable to escalating natural disasters. It is well poised to take advantage of the renewables’ revolution with its incredible solar and wind power potential, but sends billions of dollars to the dinosaurs of energy, fossil fuel companies. Government administrations have repeatedly stalled on climate action, while the Australian people overwhelmingly support environmental responsibility.
Voting for the environment:
The Conversation has an article summing up the political parties environmental commitments, not unsurprising The Greens (with their policy to stop logging public native forests and keep global warming below 1.5oC) come out best, though Labor is still way ahead of the Coalition who seem hell bent on destroying the world as soon as they can.
Given the Coalition has been in power for nine years, it has already shown its colours when it comes to caring for nature.
For example, it has approved the destruction of more than 200,000 hectares of threatened species habitat in the last decade, and cut funding to the environment department by over 40% since 2014.
One Nation, for example, state “we are the only political party to question climate science” and believe “Australia should withdraw from the United Nations Paris Agreement”. Katter’s Australian Party are “pro culling flying foxes” (of which some are endangered) and “aims to eliminate crocodiles from our waterways that pose a threat to human life”.
What will Labor do for the environment:
Labor has announced it will establish an independent environment protection agency to enforce national conservation laws and collect data on the plight of the country’s wildlife, while also supporting a target to protect 30% of land and 30% of sea areas by 2030 if it wins the election.
It was worrying when pro-logging Tasmanian Labor stalwart Dick Adams said Anthony Albanese in the past listened only to the Greens on forestry issues, though has now “matured” and won his support.
Not unsurprisingly Anthony Albanese later wrote to ‘Workers and participants in the Tasmanian Forest and Forest Products Industry’ with a promise that Labor “will not shut down the native forest industry in Tasmania”, “that Federal Labor will support native forest harvesting” and that they will support the industry.
I promise you that if I become Prime Minister, a Government I lead will not shut down the native forest industry in Tasmania.
Adding to my commitment to you that Federal Labor will support native forest harvesting, is that Labor will assist in growing the plantation estate and increasing Tasmania’s capacity in sawmilling, timber processing and pulping including more value adding and jobs in Tasmania.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/wp-content/uploads/Albanese-letter.pdf
And won accolades from the CFMEU for their promises.
Labor scored 4.5 stars out of five with the Coalition only making it to 2.5 stars. The Australian Forest Products Association gave the Opposition four stars, and the Coalition five stars.
“Workers are looking for initiatives that will address the national timber shortage, grow more plantations for the future and invest in skills and training,” CFMEU National Secretary, Manufacturing, Michael O’Connor said.
“Labor’s policies do that, and unfortunately, the Coalition have not,” Mr O’Connor said.
… Workers expected more from Mr Morrison but have instead received a strong series of commitments from Mr Albanese,” Mr O’Connor said.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/albanese-writes-a-promise-to-keep-tasmanian-native-forestry/
Australian scientists despondent:
Australian scientists are despondent ahead of the election next week due to cuts to research funding, low morale and job insecurity, and the lack of commitments from major parties to redress the growing science crisis.
“There’s a very dark mood in science in Australia at the moment,” says Darren Saunders, a biomedical scientist at the University of Sydney. “It’s pretty shocking actually. It’s pretty sad. A lot of people have had a really tough time of it.”
… Universities were dealt another blow in 2021, when the federal government implemented legislation that cut funding for science teaching and research. “The lack of funding has hit the road, and a lot of people have lost their jobs, a lot of people shut their labs,” says Saunders.
In the first year of the pandemic, about 9000 full-time-equivalent university jobs were lost, according to figures from the Australian Academy of Science. That’s equivalent to around one in 14 employees.
… surveys by Professional Scientists Australia in 2020 and 2021 found that around one in five respondents wanted to leave the scientific workforce permanently.
Rainforest bleaching:
In the rainforests of the wet tropics tree mortality has doubled since the mid 1980s, which the researchers attribute to the warming air having greater drying power, basically sucking the water out of the trees.
In new research, we and our co-authors found that mortality rates among these trees have doubled since the mid 1980s, most likely due to warmer air with greater drying power. Like coral reefs, these trees provide essential structure, energy and nutrients to their diverse and celebrated ecosystems.…
Until about the mid 1980s, the average annual mortality rate was around 1%. This means that any given year, each tree had about a one in 100 chance of dying.
This corresponds to an average tree lifespan of about 100 years.
However, beginning in the mid-1980s, the annual mortality rate began to increase. By the end of our dataset in 2019, the average annual mortality rate had doubled to 2%.
These results match a similar pattern in tree deaths in the Amazon rainforest at the same time, which suggests the increase in tropical tree mortality may be widespread.
A doubled annual mortality rate means that trees are only living half as long as they were, which means they are only storing carbon for half as long.
Air temperature has increased, relative humidity has remained approximately constant, and the air has become thirstier.
This means the drying power of the atmosphere (or “evaporative demand”) has increased. This is what we found best explained the increasing mortality rates in Australian tropical trees.
The study found that the rise in death rate occurred at the same time as a long-term trend of increases in the atmospheric vapour pressure deficit, which is the difference between the amount of water vapour that the atmosphere can hold and the amount of water it does hold at a given time. The higher the deficit, the more water trees lose through their leaves. “If the evaporative demand at the leaf level can’t be matched by water absorption in fine roots, it can lead to leaves wilting, whole branches dying and, if the stress is sustained, to tree death,” Bauman says.
Tasmanian landclearing stopped:
After seven years the Tasmanian Conservation Trust has won a Supreme Court battle against the state Liberal member for Lyons approval to clear more than 1800ha of native forest for cattle at Ansons Bay in the state’s North East.
Despite likening part of their legal argument to that put by bumbling fictional lawyer Dennis Denuto in The Castle, Justice Stephen Estcourt has ruled in favour of the Tasmanian Conservation Trust, which had applied to stop Lyons Liberal MP John Tucker from clearing 1,800 hectares of native forest at his Ansons Bay farm.
Justice Estcourt's decision agreed the FPA was "wrong to believe, as it evidently did, that it had no alternative but to certify the 2015 plan".
He described one aspect of Senior Counsel Lisa De Ferrari's argument as "not unlike that of Dennis Denuto" — but ultimately quashed the FPA's 2015 decision to certify Mr Tucker's landclearing plan.
Stop the logging and the miners move in:
In Western Australia, Chalice Mining has obtained permission to conduct exploration drilling inside Julimar State Forest, despite environmental campaigners urging the WA government to prevent access out of concern for biodiversity, including vulnerable species such as the chuditch or western quoll.
SPECIES
Saving animals by voting for climate action:
Veterinarians for Climate Action (VfCA) are calling for people concerned by the ongoing loss of animals due to the rising temperature and severe weather events to vote for climate action.
"So, we encourage anyone who loves or relies on animals to remember that climate change is an animal health and welfare problem, and [to] keep it in mind when they vote.
"[People should] know the climate policies of the candidates and look for the strongest, fastest emissions reductions. Let your candidates, and whoever wins, know that climate change is an important issue for you, because you love an animal."
Koala endangered again:
The Koala has been listed as Endangered in NSW on the advice of the NSW Scientific Committee, citing its ongoing decline, that “deforestation and land clearance for grazing, agriculture, urbanisation, timber harvesting, mining and other activities have resulted in loss, fragmentation and degradation of koala habitats”, and the fact its range is declining due to climate heating - with increasing mortality from heatwaves, droughts and wildfires:
The koala was found to be Endangered in accordance with section 4.14 of the Act and clauses 4.2(1)(b) and (2)(c) of the Biodiversity Conservation Regulation 2017. The main reason for the species’ eligibility is that the species has undergone a large reduction in population size due to a decline in its geographic distribution and habitat quality.
Human activities including deforestation and land clearance for grazing, agriculture, urbanisation, timber harvesting, mining and other activities have resulted in loss, fragmentation and degradation of koala habitats. Large areas of forest and woodland within the koala’s range were cleared between 2000 and 2017 (Ward et al. 2019) with clearing for grazing accounting for most of this loss of koala habitat (McAlpine et al. 2015; Evans 2016). …
Areas with a suitable climate for koalas are contracting (Adams-Hosking et al. 2011). Climate change predictions indicate drier, warmer conditions across the range of the koala, and a progressive eastward and southwards contraction in the suitable climate envelope and habitat for koalas is projected (Adams-Hosking et al. 2011). Modelled climatic suitability from 2010 to 2030 indicates a 38-52% reduction in available habitat for the koala and a 62% reduction in koala habitat by 2070 has been forecast (Adams-Hosking et al. 2011). The effects of climate change may result in an increase in koala mortality from heatwave events and droughts, decline in reproduction rates associated with changes in food quality and availability, changed movement patterns, exposure to diseases and other factors in addition to the influence of climate change on fire regimes. ‘Anthropogenic Climate Change’ is listed as a Key Threatening Process under the Act.
Ms Mumford said the Nature Conservation Council are calling on the NSW Government to immediately ban the destruction of koala habitat, on both public and private land; end native forest logging, and expand the National Parks estate to protect high quality koala habitat including the proposed Great Koala National Park.’
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/05/bittersweet-announcement-about-koalas/
https://www.edenmagnet.com.au/story/7747064/nsw-government-lists-koala-as-endangered/?cs=9676
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/nsw/2022/05/20/nsw-government-lists-koala-endangered/
Breeding Mountain Pygmy-possums:
With a crash in Bogong Moths, increasing wildfires and rising temperatures the future for 3,000 critically endangered Mountain Pygmy-possums is pretty dire, so now it too is going into a captive breeding program.
https://www.northernbeachesreview.com.au/story/7739485/hope-for-mountain-pygmy-possums-survival/
Teaching naive wildlife:
Animals raised in predator free enclosures quickly lose their adaptive behaviour for coping with predators, making them unable to survive in the real world, though some progress is being made in rewilding by gradual exposure over generations to predators.
But Moseby says that conservation havens are “really a short-term solution, a band-aid solution.”
Wild species shouldn’t be confined to such havens indefinitely, according to Moseby, and indeed, an unexpected quirk of evolution means that the conservation havens could be undermining the long-term survival of the very species they’re trying to save.
“The long-term aim of conservation is to have these free populations of animals and that is not what [conservation havens] really are,” says Christopher Jolly, an ecologist at Macquarie University in Sydney. “They’re massive, massive areas, but they pale in comparison to the size of the species distribution traditionally.”
But putting these animals back in the wild is no easy task. Because these small mammals didn’t evolve alongside foxes and cats, they often don’t recognize or respond effectively to the threat posed by these introduced predators, a phenomenon known as prey naivete.
“We suspect that this is happening around Australia in these reserves, where the animals that are willing to forage against their better judgment in a highly risky scenario are actually being [evolutionarily] selected for,” Jolly says. “So, when you have strong selection against wariness and against avoiding predators that don’t exist, these traits will rapidly disappear.”
This means that in the short term, conservationists are saving these animals, but they may also be unwittingly creating an evolutionarily skewed population that will never be able to return to the wild.
In 2017, researchers also released some cat-exposed and cat-naive bilbies into another large paddock with higher cat densities and monitored them over the next 40 days. Bilbies that had been exposed to cats fared better than their naive cousins. While fewer than 30% of naive bilbies survived, 67% of cat-exposed bilbies made it through alive. Long-term survival still needs to be determined.
Planting endangered species as food crops:
On the south coast Waminda received $241,000 from the NSW Environmental Trust for a project to re-establish traditional agricultural practices in the region, with a focus on the magenta lilly pilly. Waminda is looking at a sustainable agriculture component where species can be used in its own Black Cede range of food products.
A lesson in extinction:
The Christmas Island Forest Skink was abundant in 1998, by 2008 it was only known from one site, they decided to catch them all for captive breeding and only caught 3, two escaped and died, the last one died on May 2014, just four months after the Christmas Island forest skink was listed as endangered.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Time is running out for forests to save us:
Two studies found forests may not be able to be our saviours from climate heating as droughts, insect attacks (on stressed trees) and wildfires take an increasing toll as climate heating increases, emphasising the need to reign in atmospheric carbon as soon as possible.
The first study, published in the journal Science, challenges thinking that rising carbon dioxide levels will spur forests to grow faster by fueling photosynthesis. A survey of tree ring data in the U.S. and Europe found no link between photosynthesis and growth. However, scientists found, trees were highly sensitive to drought, suggesting that more frequent and severe dry spells expected with climate change will slow forest growth, limiting how much carbon trees take up.
The second study, published in Ecology Letters, finds that rising emissions will lead not only to more intense dry spells, but also to more insects killing drought-afflicted trees, as is happening with bark beetles across the American West. More pernicious than either of these threats, however, is the risk of wildfires, which are expected to grow fourfold by the end of this century if temperatures rise by 3.6 degrees C (6.5 degrees F), the middle climate scenario explored in the study.
The results suggest that limiting emissions would have a sizable impact on how well forests survive this century and, consequently, how much carbon they absorb.
Leave it in the ground:
A recently published paper by Oil Change International warns us that nearly 40% of the oil, gas, and coal now under development around the world will have to stay in the ground to give humanity a 50-50 chance of holding global warming to 1.5°C. It concludes that 90% of the “committed emissions” would come from 20 countries, with Australia ranked eighth for gas and sixth for coal.
“Going beyond recent warnings by the International Energy Agency, our results suggest that staying below 1.5°C may require governments and companies not only to cease licencing and development of new fields and mines, but also to prematurely decommission a significant portion of those already developed,” the paper states. Burning all of those reserves would emit about 936 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, the paper concludes—47% of it from coal, 35% from oil, and 18% from gas—pushing far beyond an available carbon budget of about 580 gigatonnes as of 2018.
Oil Change concludes that 90% of the “committed emissions” it tracked would come from 20 countries, with China, Russia, and the United States showing up among the top emitters for all three fossil fuels. Canada places sixth for oil and 10th for gas; Saudi Arabia is first for oil and fifth for gas; Iran is fifth for oil and third for gas; Qatar ranks 12th for oil and fourth for gas; Australia is eighth for gas and sixth for coal; and India places fourth for coal.
Leading the pack of fools:
Ember compared emissions from coal use in countries across the G20 and the OECD, finding Australia was by far the worst for per capita coal power emissions, averaging more than 4 tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions per person, around twice those of the United States and Japan.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/australia-ranks-as-worlds-worst-for-pollution-from-coal-power-stations/
We need them like a hole in the head:
Federal Resources Minister Keith Pitt has refused to say he accepts climate science, and pledged to push for more oil and gas projects at a Perth mining conference where he was a rare speaker not to acknowledge the need to cut emissions.
[Keith Pitt] “This concept that if you don’t prostrate yourself before the climate religion altar is just outrageous.”
“We need to make sure we continue to remind the Australian people that we need this ongoing pipeline of new projects,” Pitt said.
“They’ll generate billions in tax and billions in revenue by creating high-wage jobs, including construction and manufacturing.”
Five APPEA members – including US giants Chevron and ExxonMobil – have paid no income tax for the seven years to 2020 from $138 billion in income, according to an Australia Institute study released this week based on ATO corporate tax transparency data.
Australia’s emissions higher than admitted:
Queensland forests are being cleared at almost twice the rate reflected in national greenhouse gas emissions, with a new analysis of Queensland’s land clearing identifying that in 2018/19 455,756 hectares of forests were cleared, rather than the 245,767 hectares claimed by the national carbon accounting system, meaning that Australia’s carbon emissions are far higher than admitted given that claimed reductions are primarily based on reduced landclearing.
Asia suffers under extreme heatwave:
The extreme heatwave that first began afflicting areas of central, south, and western Asia in March continues reaching over 50oC in places, resulting to increases in heat-related deaths, wheat crop failures, power outages, and fires. A study found that climate heating has made such extremes 100 times more likely, increasing their frequency from once every 312 years to once every 3 years, and they could become an annual event by the end of the century.
“We are seeing many cases of heat exhaustion, dysentery, body ache—and the number of viral fever cases has increased too since the last two weeks,” Dr. Madhav Thombre, a general practitioner based in Mumbai, told the Financial Times.
In India, the national wheat crop is at severe risk of “terminal heat stress,” as the seasonal timing of temperatures near 50°C threatens to overtax wheat plants and prevent them from forming grain. Although it’s too early to know exactly to what extent the weather will diminish this year’s harvest, some Indian farmers had already estimated in early May that 10 to 15% of their crop has died
With its national food security threatened by domestic wheat prices rising and food stores thinning, India made the dramatic move to ban further wheat exports on Saturday.
As higher temperatures increase energy demand for cooling, India will need to ramp up power generation and will likely turn to its primary source—coal.
The region should now expect a heatwave that exceeds the record temperatures seen in 2010 once every three years.
Without climate change, such extreme temperatures would occur only once every 312 years, the Met Office says.
"Spells of heat have always been a feature of the region's pre-monsoon climate during April and May," says Dr Nikos Christidis, who led the team responsible for today's study.
"However, our study shows that climate change is driving the heat intensity of these spells making record-breaking temperatures 100 times more likely."
If climate change follows the Met Office's central predictions, by the end of the century India and Pakistan can expect similarly high temperatures virtually every year, today's study suggests.
Burning trees to boost thermal energy:
New Zealand obtains almost 20% of its electricity from renewable geothermal energy, now there are proposals to boost the power output by burning trees to make the water hotter, and then mixing the CO2 with water before injecting it underground.
Photographic evidence:
The Evidence Project is a photography-led campaign focusing on the impact of the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and the causes of viral pandemics. to provoke governments, businesses, opinion leaders and consumers to initiate the changes required for a safe and sustainable future for all life on Earth.
TURNING IT AROUND
Seoul Forest Declaration
The 15th World Forestry Congress ended with delegates signing the Seoul Forest Declaration which recognises the importance of forests, the urgency of implementing nature based solutions, and investing in forest and landscape restoration, but has a focus on sustainable use for wood.
The Seoul Forest Declaration
We, the participants from 141 countries gathered in person and online at the 15th World Forestry Congress in Seoul, Republic of Korea, on 2–6 May 2022, assert that forests, forestry and forest stakeholders offer major nature-based solutions to climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, hunger and poverty, but we need to act now – there is no time to lose.
We convey the following urgent messages to encourage actions for a green, healthy and resilient future with forests, as a contribution to Sustainable Development Goals, UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, Post- 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework and green recovery from COVID-19 pandemic.
- Forests transcend political, social and environmental boundaries and are vital for biodiversity and the carbon, water and energy cycles at a planetary scale. The responsibility over forests should be shared and integrated across institutions, sectors and stakeholders in order to achieve a sustainable future.
- Vast areas of degraded land require restoration. Investment in forest and landscape restoration globally must be at least tripled by 2030 to implement global commitments and meet internationally agreed goals and targets.
- There is no healthy economy on an unhealthy planet. Production and consumption need to be sustainable and policies should foster innovative green financing mechanisms to upscale investment in forest conservation, restoration and sustainable use.
- Wood is one of humanity’s most ancient raw materials but can take us into the future – it is renewable, recyclable and incredibly versatile. The full potential of legal, sustainably produced wood must be used to transform the building sector, provide renewable energy and innovative new materials, and move towards a circular bio-economy and climate neutrality.
- Forest degradation and destruction have serious negative impacts on human health and well-being. Healthy, productive forest must be maintained to reduce the risk of, and improve responsiveness to, future pandemics and provide other essential benefits for human physical and mental health.
- Innovative technologies and mechanisms are emerging for the provision of, and equitable access to, accurate information and knowledge on forests. These must be applied widely to enable evidence-based forest and landscape decision-making and effective forest communication.
Growing problems:
National Geographic has an article on assessing the benefits of tree planting schemes, highlighting that many are just for timber production and many fail, and advocating for the greater benefits of protecting existing forests and encouraging natural regeneration (provided it is protected).
There are many reasons to grow trees and support tree growing. But those reasons can contradict one another. For example, a 2021 study of 174 tree-planting groups in 74 countries showed that the majority planted just a few types of trees designed to help landowners produce food, timber, or firewood. Those tree species may help rural communities in the near term, but planting in this way is far less likely to increase biodiversity or maximize the potential to store carbon and reduce climate change.
Other studies have shown similar things. The Bonn Challenge, sponsored by the German government and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, wants to reforest 865 million acres around the world by 2030. But a huge chunk of the commitments toward that goal, according to one study, included plans for growing single-species tree plantations to provide products—even though plantations do little to restore wildlife and absorb only a fraction of the CO2 of a wild forest.
In fact, the cheapest and most successful way to protect or enhance CO2 storage and biodiversity may not involve planting trees at all. It’s often about protecting existing forests or allowing native forests a chance to come back on their own. “Natural regeneration works really well in many cases”—especially in the fast-growing tropics, Brancalion says. And yet it’s a far less common approach, in part because planting a tree sounds easier than restoring a real forest.
A lot can go wrong with tree planting. Mass tree-growing operations in Turkey, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines have resulted in millions of dead seedlings because the wrong species were planted, or trees were planted in poor soils, or there was too little water, or no one cared for the trees after they were planted. A campaign on China’s Loess Plateau actually reduced farmland by a quarter and reduced the amount of water available for people; that ultimately led to a decrease in nearby native forest cover.
Biomass losing traction:
Finally some traction on biomass as the European Parliament’s Environment Committee made strong, but nonbinding, recommendations to put a brake on the EU’s total commitment to burning forest biomass to produce energy, with recommendations for removal of government subsidies and not counting primary wood biomass as counting towards renewable energy targets.
- The European Parliament’s Environment Committee this week made strong, but nonbinding, recommendations to put a brake on the EU’s total commitment to burning forest biomass to produce energy. While environmentalists cautiously hailed the decision, the forestry industry condemned it.
- A key recommendation urges that primary woody biomass (that made from whole trees) to produce energy and heat no longer receive government subsidies under the EU’s revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED).
- Another recommendation called for primary woody biomass to no longer be counted toward EU member states’ renewable energy targets. Currently, biomass accounts for 60% of the EU’s renewable energy portfolio, far more than zero-carbon wind and solar.
- The Environment Committee recommendations mark the first time any part of the EU government has questioned the aggressive use of biomass by the EU to meet its Paris Agreement goals. A final decision by the EU on its biomass burning policies is expected in September as part of its revised Renewable Energy Directive.
Forest Media 13 May 2022
New South Wales
The Echo has run a story on the PNF Codes, citing NEFA and NCC, with Justin Field calling for State forests to be protected to offset increased logging on private lands.
Camp Ourimbah spokesperson, Ursula Da Silva, says she was surprised by the positive outlook to their position of stopping native forest logging, when she and Chairperson of the Gugiyn Balun Aboriginal Corporation, Brett Duroux, addressed the parliamentary inquiry into long-term sustainability and the future of timber and forest products.
The Dirt Witches have launched a I VOTE FOR THE TREES campaign to raise awareness about climate justice and the importance of the environment this election, with any monies raised going to NCC for forest campaigns.
Sue Higginson has succeeded outgoing Greens MLC David Shoebridge in NSW Parliament's upper house.
As part of its purchases for Koalas, the government has purchased 1052 hectares adjoining Macanally State Conservation Area near Monaro, 752 hectares adjoining Bundjalung National Park near Yamba, and 200 hectares adjoining Killabakh Nature Reserve in the ranges north of Taree. It is also proposing to fence in around 2,000 hectares of the South East Forest National Park, Nungatta, to exclude feral animals, with the aim of reintroducing the long-footed potoroo, eastern bettong, smoky mouse and eastern quoll.
Wildlife surveys are taking a different tact as community groups assist in taking water samples throughout the Manning River catchment, which will be analysed for Environmental DNA (or eDNA) to identify species living in or near streams.
Australia
Lindenmayer et. al. have an article in the Conversation arguing that because native forest logging is (at best) economically marginal, emits CO2 and reduces CO2 sequestration, makes forests prone to more severe bushfires, and damages biodiversity, that rather than Morrison subsidising it they would be better enhancing manufacturing and markets for high-value wood products from plantation timber. Meanwhile the peak national forestry body has backed the Coalition as having the best plan for it.
The Greens have announced their $24 billion environmental policy which aims to have zero extinctions by 2030, through investments in mass greening and restoration, stronger environmental laws, ending native logging and ensuring mines are assessed on their climate impacts before approval. In a mix of new and previously announced funding, Labor has promised $224.5m over the forward estimates for a national threatened species program that will include addressing the backlog of almost 200 overdue and outdated species recovery plans, develop a national conservation strategy, as well as $194.5m for the Great Barrier Reef.
Victoria’s auditor-general found the state has the most native vegetation cleared proportional to land mass of any Australian state and it is failing to offset the damage caused, with about 10,380 habitat hectares of native vegetation removed from Victorian private properties each year, often illegally. Protestors have been disrupting logging, claimed to be salvage of windblown trees, in Victoria’s Wombat State Forest, with conservationists claiming it is the return of commercial logging under the guise of salvage logging in a state forest that was earmarked to be declared a national park. Fear of logging the unroaded and unburnt Little Dargo River catchment by VicForests has united high country graziers and conservationists to fight for its protection. Meanwhile Midway Limited has signed an agreement to sell its existing 17,000 hectare plantation estate in south-west Victoria to German company Munich Re for A$154.1 million.
The exit from Western Australia’s public native forests has begun with the Greenbushes karri and marri mil, one of Western Australia's biggest sawmills, announcing it will close and lay off 50 workers as the deadline for the state government's native forest logging ban draws closer. The McGowan Labor Government is providing an additional $30 million boost to its $50 million Just Transition Plan to assist regional communities' transition to new industries when native forest logging ends in 2024.
Species
Scientists are still pushing that our growing extinction crisis should be a political issue, and getting media interest, but the Coalition are ignoring their pleas because of the National Party, and Labor because of the CFMEU.
The National Wildlife Parks Service has launched an investigation into conservation group Aussie Ark after it allegedly trapped six broad-toothed rats in the World Heritage Barrington Tops National Park for captive breeding without obtaining approval. The Victorian government is claiming success in its captive breeding of Eastern Barred Bandicoot in a fenced 100-hectare predator-free site.
While only being discovered in 2000, about 20% of the Critically Endangered Nightcap Oak were killed in the 2019/20 fires, now 20 seedlings are being planted at four secret sites in the Nightcap, north of Lismore.
The new $10M Port Stephens Koala Sanctuary is touting for business, with its immersive educational Sanctuary Story Walk (including a tree top canopy walk) Fat Possum café, deluxe 4-star guest glamping accommodation, and chance to see inpatients at the hospital. Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) is making a final plea to voters to realise that their political leaders and an incoming Government needs to support the Koala Protection Act, as the Government’s recently released Koala Recovery Plan does not go far enough! National Wild Dog Management co-ordinator Greg Mifsud is claiming that wild dogs are the biggest threat to Koalas and thinks the federal government's $74 million commitment to protecting koalas should be used to control them.
An article in the Conversation identifies that female Stick-nest Rats have a matrilineal society where females maintain control of the nests, and likely inherit them, while males wander around looking for sex. This is apparently a trait shared with many small mammals, such as Broad-toother rat (where the males settle down with females for winter), Ash Grey Mouse (where groups of females share a burrow and raise their young together), and Brush-tailed Phascogale.
Cats are spreading Toxoplasma throughout the wild and human populations, both by direct contamination and by cattle ingesting cat faeces and people eating rare meat, infecting 30-66% of Australians and causing ocular toxoplasmosis in one in 150 people, which can affect vision and cause blindness in 25% of cases.
LLS is undertaking a trial using infrared drones to help western NSW farmers ascertain grazing pressures caused by kangaroo numbers so they can better plan how to control them.
The Deteriorating Problem
Remember when the goal was to limit atmospheric concentrations of CO2 to 350 ppm to avoid the worst of climate heating, it doesn’t seem long ago, well this year we have passed 420 ppm and are still going strong. The World Meteorological Organisation has warned the world faces a 50:50 chance of exceeding 1.5°C of warming within the next five years, albeit temporarily, and has pleaded for rapid cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Yet another United Nation’s report, this one on disaster risk, says the situation is spiralling out of control, warning us the number of disasters per year globally may increase from around 400 in 2015 to 560 per year by 2030 (a projected increase of 40%), with the number of extreme temperature events per year almost tripling between 2001 and 2030. We have a lot to look forward to.
We don’t need nuclear submarines, we already have enough carbon bombs to destroy the world. Research by the Guardian has identified 195 carbon bombs, gigantic oil and gas projects that would each result in at least a billion tonnes of CO2 emissions over their lifetimes, in total equivalent to about 18 years of current global CO2 emissions, with the US, Canada and Australia among the countries with the biggest expansion plans, the highest number of carbon bombs and some of the world’s biggest subsidies for fossil fuels per capita.
Its getting desperate, coral bleaching affected 91% of the Great Barrier Reef this year, the fourth mass bleaching event since 2016 and the sixth since 1998. Scientists warn that coral bleaching could soon become an annual event, compounded by ocean acidification eating away the coral, they have nowhere to escape to, emphasizing the need to reach net zero as soon as possible.
As extreme drought grips the western US, Las Vegas has been battling wildfires for weeks, with 696 square kilometres burnt so far, while still facing “exceptionally dangerous and likely historic stretch of critical to extreme fire weather conditions”. The New Mexico wildfire is the largest now in the United States and threatens a string of villages high in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
In the first of a 2 part story, Mongabay identifies that biomass burning is rapidly growing in Japan and South Korea, adding to the European problem of increasing emissions of CO2 while pretending there are no emissions, at the same time increasing the clearing of forests and ruining our chances of reaching net zero. Though the Dutch government has identified their intent to phase out the use of wood biomass for energy purposes, and limit it to high value uses. Atomic scientists have published “The biomass debate, Can burning trees instead of coal fight climate change”, arguing in detail in a number of articles that it can’t, and actually makes it worse.
A new project has mapped the height of the world’s forests, finding only 5 percent of the Earth’s land area in 2020 was covered with trees standing taller than 30 meters, with only 34 percent of this within protected areas.
Turning it Around
Modelling of how 900 million hectares of global tree restoration would impact the water cycle through evaporation and precipitation shows mixed results varying with regions. Reforestation increases evapotranspiration, reducing runoff to streams by redirecting it into the atmosphere where it increases land rainfall (including in adjacent regions and even continents), though with a portion falling over the oceans. Even more reason to protect existing forests as their water use will decrease as they age, providing more water to streams while still increasing regional rainfalls and still increasing carbon storage.
In India Justice S. Srimathy of the Madras High Court in Tamil Nadu ruled that “Mother Nature” is effectively a person under the law, a status which includes “all corresponding rights, duties, and liabilities,” though some argue for a better way as this leaves mother nature liable for any damage she causes.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
PNF still gets a run:
The Echo has run a story on the PNF Codes, citing NEFA, Justin Field and NCC, with Justin Field calling for State forests to be protected to offset increased logging on private lands.
NSW Farmers has welcomed the changes to the State government’s changes to private native forestry codes (PNFC) that were announced last week. However, Nature Conservation Council, North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) and Independent MP, Justin Field, have all expressed serious misgivings over the reduction of protections to the habitat of endangered species, especially koalas.
[Dailan Pugh] ‘In general they are allowing increased logging intensity, reduced retention of old hollow bearing trees essential for the survival of a plethora of hollow-dependent species, and reducing protections for most threatened species.
[Justin Field] ‘These new private logging rules further increase the importance of public native forests for the future of the koala. If the government is going to expand the capacity of logging on private rural landholders, they must get logging out of the public forests, especially those areas on the north and mid-north coast that include high quality koala habitat.
[Chris Gambian] ‘The government has let industry log and flog public native forests for decades, even after the Black Summer fires. Now the timber supply from public forests is drying up, the industry is turning to the almost nine million ha of private forests. The conservation movement has a very real concern that these new codes may accelerate the loss of some of the best forests we have left.’
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/05/new-private-native-forestry-code-of-practice-fails-koalas/
Positive outlook:
Camp Ourimbah spokesperson, Ursula Da Silva, says she was surprised by the positive outlook to their position of stopping native forest logging, when she and Chairperson of the Gugiyn Balun Aboriginal Corporation, Brett Duroux, addressed the parliamentary inquiry into long-term sustainability and the future of timber and forest products.
I Vote for the Trees
The Dirt Witches have launched a I VOTE FOR THE TREES campaign to raise awareness about climate justice and the importance of the environment this election, with any monies raised going to NCC for forest campaigns.
“This election both major parties have remained silent about climate even though our country has been devastated by fires and floods,” says Dirt Witch, Lara Merrett. “Through I VOTE FOR THE TREES, we are asking people to connect with the issue and to make a difference with their vote. Our campaign is not about telling people who to vote for but it’s asking them to find out who is doing what, where.”
When you visit the I VOTE FOR THE TREES website you can learn how to vote for the trees by checking a handy Climate Action Score card that shows which federal leaders are really doing something about climate change.
As part of the I VOTE FOR THE TREES campaign, The Dirt Witches has also released a Romance Was Born x Tom Polo t-shirt collaboration and associated animation featuring Australian actor/producer Claudia Karvan as the voice of the tree.
One hundred per cent of profits from all sales go directly towards supporting forest-protection groups across New South Wales through the Nature Conservation Council NSW.
Sue Higginson ascends to the Upper House:
Sue Higginson has succeeded outgoing Greens MLC David Shoebridge in NSW Parliament's upper house.
"I was responsible for the highest-profile environmental litigation in the country," Ms Higginson's website reads.
"I took on mining giants Adani, Whitehaven, BHP, Rio Tinto and many others in the Courts and won.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-10807899/Greens-lawyer-new-MLC-NSW-parliament.html
https://www.blayneychronicle.com.au/story/7735290/greens-lawyer-new-mlc-in-nsw-parliament/
2,000 ha bought for Koalas:
As part of its purchases for Koalas, the government has purchased 1052 hectares adjoining Macanally State Conservation Area near Monaro, 752 hectares adjoining Bundjalung National Park near Yamba, and 200 hectares adjoining Killabakh Nature Reserve, in the ranges north of Taree.
https://www.northernbeachesreview.com.au/story/7729391/more-land-bought-to-help-save-nsw-koalas/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-10795001/More-land-bought-help-save-NSW-koalas.html
https://www.manningrivertimes.com.au/story/7730774/new-state-koala-reserve-at-killabakh/
https://clarencevalleynews.com.au/new-koala-reserves-to-protect-a-noahs-ark-of-threatened-species/
https://aboutregional.com.au/wildlife-wins-for-threatened-species-in-states-south/
Another enclosure to keep out ferals:
The New South Wales government is proposing to fence in around 2,000 hectares of the South East Forest National Park, Nungatta, to exclude feral animals, with the aim of reintroducing the long-footed potoroo, eastern bettong, smoky mouse and eastern quoll.
While conservationists like professor Lindenmayer welcome the creation of these "mainland islands," he said more work needed to be done.
"It really makes no sense to do these kinds of things unless we tackle the other drivers of animal decline," Professor Lindenmayer said.
"Problems like extensive logging, too much fire and land clearing need to be tackled as well."
The public is encouraged to have their say on the plan of management regarding the South East feral-free zone before construction begins in the middle of the year.
https://psnews.com.au/2022/05/10/new-feral-free-safe-site-for-nsw-wildlife/?state=aps
Surveying for fauna with water samples:
Wildlife surveys are taking a different tact as community groups assist in taking water samples throughout the Manning River catchment, which will be analysed for Environmental DNA (or eDNA) to identify species living in or near streams.
AUSTRALIA
Government subsidies should go to plantations rather than logging native forests:
Lindenmayer et. al. have an article in the Conversation arguing that because native forest logging is (at best) economically marginal, emits CO2 and reduces CO2 sequestration, makes forests prone to more severe bushfires, and damages biodiversity, that rather than Morrison subsidising it they would be better enhancing manufacturing and markets for high-value wood products from plantation timber.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he would not support “any shutdown of native forestry” and claimed the funding would secure 73,000 existing forestry jobs. The spending on native forests, however, is problematic. In 2019-20, 87% of logs harvested in Australia came from plantations, and more investment is needed to bring this to 100%.
Here, we show how directing public funds to native forest logging is bad for the economy, the climate and biodiversity, and will increase bushfire risk.
Native forest logging has long been a marginal economic prospect. … Data from the state’s Parliamentary Budget Office in 2020 show Victoria would be more than $190 million better off without its native forest logging sector.
Victoria exports 75% of plantation-derived eucalypt pulp logs. A small percentage of this diverted for domestic use would readily replace native forest wood at Victoria’s biggest paper mill at Maryvale.
Native forest logging in Australia generates around 38 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO₂) a year.
These benefits also bring economic value. Even under relatively low market prices for carbon, the value of not logging, in terms of reducing greenhouse gases, far exceeds the economic benefits of native forest logging.
There’s now unequivocal evidence that logging native trees makes forests prone to more severe bushfires. Analysis of the 2019-20 Black Summer fires showed logged forests always burn more severely than intact ones.
These logging-generated risks were particularly pronounced in southern and northern NSW.
Numerous studies have demonstrated the damage native forest logging causes to biodiversity.
The bottom line is that ongoing logging will drive yet further declines of Australia’s threatened species and add to the nation’s sad record on biodiversity loss.
We welcome the Morrison government’s spending on supporting new plantations. To create the most positive return on taxpayer investment, however, the bulk of other industry funding should be directed to enhancing manufacturing and markets for high-value wood products from plantation timber.
Loggers back Scomo:
In a paywalled article, the Australian reports the peak national forestry body has backed the Coalition as having the best plan for it, in a verdict they claim could swing votes in key marginal seats.
Greens plan for zero extinctions:
The Greens have announced their $24 billion environmental policy which aims to have zero extinctions by 2030, through investments in mass greening and restoration, stronger environmental laws, ending native logging and ensuring mines are assessed on their climate impacts before approval.
"Our forests, wildlife and oceans are dying and we are at a point in history where, if we don't act, we face total ecosystem collapse," Greens leader Adam Bandt said.
[Sarah Hanson-Young] "We need stronger environmental laws and we need a watchdog to enforce them, and we will be making this part of our push in a balance of power parliament … if we don't do it we're not going to just lose the koala, we're going to lose many more Australian species as well."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-10/greens-zero-extinction-plan-environment-policy/101051522
“We welcome especially the commitment to strengthen Australia’s national environment law and establish an independent watchdog to enforce it.
“ACF calls on all parties to match this level of ambition in nature protection policies.”
https://www.acf.org.au/greens-plan-to-tackle-nature-crisis
Labor plans for species and reef recovery:
In a mix of new and previously announced funding, Labor has promised $224.5m over the forward estimates for a national threatened species program that will include addressing the backlog of almost 200 overdue and outdated species recovery plans, develop a national conservation strategy, as well as $194.5m for the Great Barrier Reef.
The threatened species funding includes an extra $24.5m for koala conservation, $24.8m to address invasive yellow crazy ants in Cairns and Townsville and $75m for the equivalent of 1,000 full-time Landcare rangers to work on environmental restoration.
“Seeing the wonder of the Great Barrier Reef is a highlight for so many Australians,” Albanese said.
“But parents and grandparents are worried their children will not be able to see this incredible natural wonder for themselves.
“That’s why it’s so important we act on climate change and species protection – to protect the reef and the tens of thousands of jobs that rely on it.”
The opposition’s threatened species pledge centres on a new conservation strategy, to be delivered in co-operation with state and territory governments, including koala habitat protection and programs to wipe out feral species such as yellow crazy ants that are invading Cairns and Townsville.
The Coalition in January committed $1 billion over 10 years to the reef as well as $57 million in the March budget to a 10-year threatened species program, and $128 million for controversial reforms to make state governments responsible for assessing the environmental impacts of major project developments.
Clearing Victoria:
Victoria’s auditor-general found the state has the most native vegetation cleared proportional to land mass of any Australian state and it is failing to offset the damage caused, with about 10,380 habitat hectares of native vegetation removed from Victorian private properties each year, often illegally.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/vic/2022/05/11/victoria-tops-list-for-land-clearing/
Wombat protestors:
Protestors have been disrupting logging, claimed to be salvage of windblown trees, in Victoria’s Wombat State Forest, with conservationists claiming it is the return of commercial logging under the guise of salvage logging in a state forest that was earmarked to be declared a national park.
“Protesters keep walking into the coupe and stopping us working,” Mr Greenwood said.
“It’s happening every day, sometimes for two or three hours, others times they stay for eight.”
High country graziers and conservationists unite:
Fear of logging the unroaded and unburnt Little Dargo River catchment by VicForests has united high country graziers and conservationists to fight for its protection.
"These people, they're passionate about saving our Earth, and I am passionate about saving the Little Dargo Valley," Ms Treasure said.
The groups put aside their longstanding differences on how best to manage the High County as they united to push for 10 untouched coupes in the Little Dargo River catchment to be removed from Victoria's Timber Release Plan (TRP).
[Cam Walker] "It's a really pristine catchment. It's un-roaded and it's unburnt," he said.
"It's really important we protect these little pockets of unburnt treasures that still do exist in the High Country."
Midway sell out:
Midway Limited has signed an agreement to sell its existing 17,000 hectare plantation estate in south-west Victoria to German company Munich Re for A$154.1 million. There is also a commitment to invest an additional A$200 million for land purchases for the development of new hardwood plantations in southwest Victoria over the next five years.
https://www.midwaylimited.com.au/news/
The exit begins:
The exit from Western Australia’s public native forests has begun with the Greenbushes karri and marri mil, one of Western Australia's biggest sawmills, announcing it will close and lay off 50 workers as the deadline for the state government's native forest logging ban draws closer.
Shire of Bridgetown-Greenbushes president Jenny Mountford said the region's economy should be insulated by the mill closure due to its diversification in other industries.
Logging transition boosted:
The McGowan Labor Government is providing an additional $30 million boost to its $50 million Just Transition Plan to assist regional communities' transition to new industries when native forest logging ends in 2024.
https://soperth.com.au/perthnews/30-million-boost-for-native-forestry-transition-announced-71002
SPECIES
The politically inconvenient extinction crisis:
Scientists are still pushing that our growing extinction crisis should be a political issue, and getting media interest, but the Coalition are ignoring their pleas because of the National Party, and Labor because of the CFMEU.
It’s a stark fact, but among developed nations Australia is towards the bottom when it comes to protecting its biodiversity. Since colonisation, 104 species have been officially acknowledged as being extinct and that number is sure to grow, with more than 1900 animals, plants and ecological communities designated as at risk of becoming extinct.
There is no shortage of experts raising the alarm bells on this issue. The evidence is there for all to see. Samuel’s report sets out the laws, oversight and advice that must be heeded to reform the system to give our native species a fighting chance to survive. Whoever wins government at the federal election must step up. It is literally a matter of life and death.
There is no shortage of evidence that Australia’s unique environment and its biodiversity are in crisis, and the nation’s elected representatives are running out of time to protect what is left. Yet the environment has been almost entirely absent in this federal election campaign, with the cost of living and gotcha “gaffes” dominating the headlines.
Wintle believes the Coalition government has been hamstrung because of the Nationals’ interest in making sure farmers retain control over land management, including native vegetation clearing, though he notes many farmers are doing great environmental recovery work.
The enmeshed relationship between the union movement and the forestry industry has also limited Labor when it comes to acting on biodiversity issues, particularly logging, Wintle says.
Illegal rat trapping:
The National Wildlife Parks Service has launched an investigation into conservation group Aussie Ark after it allegedly trapped six broad-toothed rats in the World Heritage Barrington Tops National Park for captive breeding without obtaining approval.
“The NPWS has directed an investigation into alleged offences under the Biodiversity and Conservation Act 2016 and the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 following reports of the capture and taking of a threatened species from a World Heritage listed National Park.
“Compliance officers have seized 135 traps that were discovered in the national park. The matter may also be referred to the Commonwealth to consider whether any breaches of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 have occurred.”
Recovering Eastern Barred Bandicoot:
The Victorian government is claiming success in its captive breeding of Eastern Barred Bandicoot in a fenced 100-hectare predator-free site.
https://psnews.com.au/2022/05/12/delwp-helps-bandicoots-make-comeback/?state=aps
Insurance for Nightcap Oak:
While only being discovered in 2000, about 20% of the Critically Endangered Nightcap Oak were killed in the 2019/20 fires, now 20 seedlings are being planted at four secret sites in the Nightcap, north of Lismore.
The critically endangered nightcap oak trees date back to the Gondwana supercontinent era and can grow up to 40 metres tall, but are only found in northern NSW.
The only known wild population is located in rainforest north-east of Lismore.
“The nightcap oak is the ancient rainforest equivalent of the Wollemi pine in terms of evolutionary significance, and it’s yet another great example of a critical species that we’re helping to bring back from the brink,” the NSW environment minister, James Griffin, said.
https://psnews.com.au/2022/05/10/secret-location-to-save-secret-tree-species/?state=aps
Port Stephens Koala Sanctuary seeking guests:
The new $10M Port Stephens Koala Sanctuary is touting for business, with its immersive educational Sanctuary Story Walk (including a tree top canopy walk) Fat Possum café, deluxe 4-star guest glamping accommodation, and chance to see inpatients at the hospital.
https://eglobaltravelmedia.com.au/wild-koalas-on-sale-at-ate22/
AKF call for political support for their Koala Protection Act:
Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) is making a final plea to voters to realise that their political leaders and an incoming Government needs to support the Koala Protection Act, as the Government’s recently released Koala Recovery Plan does not go far enough!
The Recovery Plan does little to tackle climate change or talk about how it will actually stop the bulldozers ripping through Koala homes. Our forests are under continual onslaught and nothing, but a specific piece of legislation, will halt the clearing. The Australian Government does not think large enough for this recovery, they continue to monitor sites that have Koalas, rather than thinking 50-100 years ahead.
Whilst the AKF acknowledges that the Greens have put a Bill in the Senate to protect the Koala – it is still linked to the not fit for purpose Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation ACT 1999 (EPBC ACT) and they too should consider supporting the Koala Protection Act.
Save Koalas by killing dingoes:
National Wild Dog Management co-ordinator Greg Mifsud is claiming that wild dogs are the biggest threat to Koalas and thinks the federal government's $74 million commitment to protecting koalas should be used to control them.
"This important wake-up call for the community underlines the key message that any conservation strategies ignoring wild dog predation as a significant contributor to koala deaths will fail to halt population declines."
A Queensland study in the eastern Moreton Bay Council from 2013 to 2017 over a rail line development saw 503 koalas captured and fitted with telemetry devices for monitoring in the wild.
Of the 144 koala deaths confirmed as predation, wild dogs accounted for 81.3 per cent and domestic dogs 4.2 per cent; another 38 deaths were suspected wild dogs.
Matrilineal societies:
An article in the Conversation identifies that female Stick-nest Rats have a matrilineal society where females maintain control of the nests, and likely inherit them, while males wander around looking for sex. This is apparently a trait shared with many small mammals, such as Broad-toother rat (where the males settle down with females for winter), Ash Grey Mouse (where groups of females share a burrow and raise their young together), and Brush-tailed Phascogale.
This species builds nests out of sticks and dry grass, bonded together with special sticky urine. The nests can reach huge sizes and are surprisingly complex – with multiple burrows, chambers and even levels that keep the inhabitants safe from predators and extreme heat and cold.
The construction is so advanced that nests can last for thousands of years, when protected from the elements by caves or rock overhangs.
These stick nests are communal and used over many generations. …
The evidence pointed to one thing: female greater stick-nest rats typically remain in, or near, the nest they were born in – while males leave and disperse across the landscape.
Cat blindness:
Cats are spreading Toxoplasma throughout the wild and human populations, both by direct contamination and by cattle ingesting cat faeces and people eating rare meat, infecting 30-66% of Australians and causing ocular toxoplasmosis in one in 150 people, which can affect vision and cause blindness in 25% of cases.
Across the world, it’s estimated 30–50% of people are infected with Toxoplasma – and infections may be increasing in Australia. A survey of studies conducted at blood banks and pregnancy clinics across the country in the 1970s put the infection rate at 30%. However, a recent Western Australian community-based study found 66% of people were infected.
The disease caused by this parasite can scar the back of the eye. Our new research looked for signs of disease in otherwise healthy people and found a significant number bore the mark of Toxoplasma.
The cat is the primary host for Toxoplasma.
Cats catch the parasite when they eat infected prey. Then, for a couple of weeks, they pass large numbers of parasites in their faeces in a form that can survive for long periods in the environment, even during extreme weather.
When the faeces are ingested by livestock while grazing, parasites lodge in the muscle and survive there after the animals are slaughtered for meat. Humans can become infected by eating this meat, or by eating fresh produce or drinking water soiled by cats. It is also possible for a woman infected for the first time during pregnancy to pass the infection to her unborn child.
An attack of active inflammation causes “floaters” and blurred vision. When the inflammation progresses to scarring, there may be permanent loss of vision.
In a study of patients with ocular toxoplasmosis seen at a large ophthalmology clinic, we measured reduced vision to below driving level in more than 50% of eyes, and 25% of eyes were irreversibly blind.
Keeping an eye on Kangaroos:
LLS is undertaking a trial using infrared drones to help western NSW farmers ascertain grazing pressures caused by kangaroo numbers so they can better plan how to control them.
The LLS says grazing pressure from unmanaged herbivores such as kangaroos can significantly reduce the carrying capacity and ultimately the profitability and sustainability of livestock grazing in the rangelands, as well as contributing to longterm landscape degradation and reducing drought resilience.
https://www.dailyliberal.com.au/story/7733642/roo-numbers-under-the-drones-eye/
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Passed 420 and climbing:
Remember when the goal was to limit atmospheric concentrations of CO2 to 350 ppm to avoid the worst of climate heating, it doesn’t seem long ago, well this year we have passed 420 ppm and are still going strong.
The NOAA data release shows CO2 levels hitting 420.23 ppm in April, eight years after they breached 400 ppm (400.2 ppm) in May, 2013.
Atmospheric concentrations of the two other major greenhouse gases, methane and nitrous oxide, are also rising sharply. Methane is about 85 times more potent an atmospheric warming agent than CO2 over a 20-year span; nitrous oxide is 300 times more powerful.
Atmospheric methane levels now stand at 1980.9 parts per billion (ppb), up 340 ppb from the early 1980s, while nitrous oxide just reached 335.2 ppb, up from 316 ppb just 20 years ago.
1.5oC within 5 years:
The World Meteorological Organisation has warned the world faces a 50:50 chance of exceeding 1.5°C of warming within the next five years, albeit temporarily, and has pleaded for rapid cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
“For as long as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, temperatures will continue to rise and alongside that, our oceans will continue to become warmer and more acidic, sea ice and glaciers will continue to melt, sea level will continue to rise and our weather will become more extreme,” WMO Secretary-General professor Petteri Taalas said.
“The 1.5°C figure is not some random statistic. It is rather an indicator of the point at which climate impacts will become increasingly harmful for people and indeed the entire planet,” Taalas added.
“Our latest climate predictions show that continued global temperature rise will continue, with an even chance that one of the years between 2022 and 2026 will exceed 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels,” Dr Leon Hermann of the UK’s Met Office said.
“A single year of exceedance above 1.5 °C does not mean we have breached the iconic threshold of the Paris Agreement, but it does reveal that we are edging ever closer to a situation where 1.5 °C could be exceeded for an extended period.”
A disastrous future:
Yet another United Nation’s report, this one on disaster risk, says the situation is spiralling out of control, warning us the number of disasters per year globally may increase from around 400 in 2015 to 560 per year by 2030 (a projected increase of 40%), with the number of extreme temperature events per year almost tripling between 2001 and 2030. We have a lot to look forward to.
The UN Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR) is the flagship report of the United Nations on worldwide efforts to reduce disaster risk.
Human action is creating greater and more dangerous risk, and pushing the planet towards existential and ecosystem limits. Risk reduction needs to be at the core of action to accelerate climate change action and achieve the SDGs. If current trends continue, the number of disasters per year globally may increase from around 400 in 2015 to 560 per year by 2030 – a projected increase of 40% during the lifetime of the Sendai Framework (Figure S.1). For droughts, there is a large year-on-year variation, but current trends indicate a likely increase of more than 30% between 2000 and 2030 (from an average of 16 drought events per year during 2001–2010 to 21 per year by 2030) (Figure S.2). The number of extreme temperature events per year is also increasing, and based on current trends will almost triple between 2001 and 2030 (Figure S.3). Disasters have negative impacts on biodiversity and environmental sustainability.
These trend lines do not take into account future climate change impacts, which are accelerating the pace and severity of hazard events, nor the fact that current choices mean the world is set to exceed the Paris Agreement’s global average maximum temperature increase target of 1.5°C by the early 2030s (IPCC, 2021)
https://www.undrr.org/gar2022-our-world-risk#container-downloads
The industry has enough carbon bombs to destroy the world, and we have many of them:
We don’t need nuclear submarines, we already have enough carbon bombs to destroy the world. Research by the Guardian has identified 195 carbon bombs, gigantic oil and gas projects that would each result in at least a billion tonnes of CO2 emissions over their lifetimes, in total equivalent to about 18 years of current global CO2 emissions, with the US, Canada and Australia among the countries with the biggest expansion plans, the highest number of carbon bombs and some of the world’s biggest subsidies for fossil fuels per capita.
- The fossil fuel industry’s short-term expansion plans involve the start of oil and gas projects that will produce greenhouse gases equivalent to a decade of CO2 emissions from China, the world’s biggest polluter.
- These plans include 195 carbon bombs, gigantic oil and gas projects that would each result in at least a billion tonnes of CO2 emissions over their lifetimes, in total equivalent to about 18 years of current global CO2 emissions. About 60% of these have already started pumping.
- The dozen biggest oil companies are on track to spend $103m a day for the rest of the decade exploiting new fields of oil and gas that cannot be burned if global heating is to be limited to well under 2C.
- The Middle East and Russia often attract the most attention in relation to future oil and gas production but the US, Canada and Australia are among the countries with the biggest expansion plans and the highest number of carbon bombs. The US, Canada and Australia also give some of the world’s biggest subsidies for fossil fuels per capita.
Great Barrier Reef fading fast:
Its getting desperate, coral bleaching affected 91% of the Great Barrier Reef this year, the fourth mass bleaching event since 2016 and the sixth since 1998. Scientists warn that coral bleaching could soon become an annual event, compounded by ocean acidification eating away the coral, they have nowhere to escape to, emphasizing the need to reach net zero as soon as possible.
The Reef snapshot: summer 2021-22, quietly published by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority on Tuesday night after weeks of delay, said above-average water temperatures in late summer had caused coral bleaching throughout the 2,300km reef system, but particularly in the central region between Cape Tribulation and the Whitsundays.
“The surveys confirm a mass bleaching event, with coral bleaching observed at multiple reefs in all regions,” a statement accompanying the report said. “This is the fourth mass bleaching event since 2016 and the sixth to occur on the Great Barrier Reef since 1998.”
It was the first mass bleaching event recorded during a cooler La Niña year.
Dr Hardisty from AIMS confirmed the details of the findings presented by Dr Cantin and added that “the long term prognosis for the reef is very poor".
“If a really intense El Niño develops in the future, it’s going to be pretty dire.”
Our window of opportunity to act is narrowing. We and other scientists have warned about this for decades. Australia has doubled down on coal and gas exports with subsidies of $20 billion in the past two years. When these fossil fuels are burned, they produce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that trap more heat in the atmosphere that also warms the ocean.
If our next federal government wants to save the reef, it must tackle the main reason it is in trouble by phasing out fossil fuel use and exports as quickly as possible. Otherwise it’s like putting bandaids on an arterial wound. But to help the reef get through the next decades of warming we’ve already locked in, we will still need that $1 billion to help reduce other stressors.
Four times in seven years means that bleaching events are accelerating. Predictions have suggested that bleaching will become an annual event in a little over two decades. It may not be that long.
For a week, the marine heatwave pushed the corals to their limits. When corals experience heat stress, some initially turn fluorescent while others go stark white. Then the water goes murky – that’s death in the water. It’s heartbreaking to see. Grief is common among marine scientists right now.
While some fish can move to cooler waters further south, corals face ocean acidification, yet another problem caused by carbon dioxide emissions. As CO₂ is absorbed by the ocean, the changed chemistry makes it harder for corals to build their skeleton (and for other marine organisms to form a shell). There’s no safe place for corals to go.
No developed country has more to lose from inaction on climate than Australia. But no country has more to gain by shifting to clean energy, through new economic opportunities, new jobs, and better protection for our natural treasures.
A sign of the times:
As extreme drought grips the western US, Las Vegas has been battling wildfires for weeks, with 696 square kilometres burnt so far, while still facing “exceptionally dangerous and likely historic stretch of critical to extreme fire weather conditions”.
More than 1,500 people and a fleet of airplanes and helicopters worked feverishly to contain the largest fire burning in the U.S. The blaze, now more than a month old, has blackened more than 269 square miles (696 square kilometres)—an area larger than the city of Chicago.
Part of the fire was started by U.S. Forest Service workers who lost control of a prescribed burn meant to reduce fire risk. State leaders have called on the federal government for accountability, including reparations.
Nationwide, close to 2,000 square miles (5,180 square kilometres) have burned so far this year, the most since 2018, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. And predictions for the rest of the spring do not bode well for the West, where long-term drought and warmer temperatures brought on by climate change have combined to worsen the threat of wildfire.
The New Mexico wildfire is the largest now in the United States and threatens a string of villages high in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
The blaze has burned an untold number of homes in the Mora valley, and violent winds on Sunday threatened adobe mud-brick ranch houses, churches, chapels and water mills dating as far back as the early 19th century.
Biomass burning growing:
In the first of a 2 part story, Mongabay identifies that biomass burning is rapidly growing in Japan and South Korea, adding to the European problem of increasing emissions of CO2 while pretending there are no emissions, at the same time increasing the clearing of forests and ruining our chances of reaching net zero.
- Over the past decade, Japan and South Korea have increasingly turned to burning wood pellets for energy, leaning on a U.N. loophole that dubs biomass burning as carbon neutral.
- While Japan recently instituted a new rule requiring life cycle greenhouse gas emissions accounting, this doesn’t apply to its existing 34 biomass energy plants; Japanese officials say biomass will play an expanding role in achieving Japan’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 46% by 2030.
- South Korea included biomass burning in its renewable energy portfolio standard, leading to 17 biomass energy plants currently operating, and at least four more on the way.
- Experts say these booms in Asia — the first major expansion of biomass burning outside Europe — could lead to a large undercounting of actual carbon emissions and worsening climate change, while putting pressure on already-beleaguered forests.
Western and Eastern biomass usage is creating a surging demand for wood pellets, putting even more pressure on native forests in the southeastern United States, western Canada, and Eastern Europe. Experts say this demand could lead to similar logging in Southeast Asia, especially Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia.
The Environmental Paper Network, a global coalition of forest advocates that tracks biomass usage, estimates that demand for pellets in Japan will rise to 9 million metric tons annually by 2027, up from 0.5 million metric tons in 2017. It estimates that South Korea will hit 8.2 million metric tons annually by 2027, up from 2.4 million metric tons in 2017. The Asian combination is close to future demand predicted for both the EU and the U.K.
In South Korea, government subsidies for further biomass development have been so heavy that they are reducing investment in renewables such as wind and solar, according to a report by Seoul-based NGO Solutions For Our Climate (SFOC).
But industrial-scale wood burning in the form of compressed wood, or wood pellets, is on the rise. The EU is currently the world’s largest wood-pellet market, consuming nearly 31 million metric tons in 2020, up 7% over 2018’s 29 million metric tons. The EU and the U.K. operate more than 100 biomass plants producing energy and heat, according to Environmental Paper Network research.
The multibillion-dollar wood-pellet industry argues that it uses mostly waste wood to make pellets — lumber waste, limbs and tree tops, plus trees killed by pest or disease. But forest advocates have used their close monitoring of the industry to show that big international biomass companies, such as Enviva, actually use whole trees logged and clear-cut from native forests and tree plantations for at least half of wood-pellet production, and that may be a significant underestimate.
Making matters worse, wood pellets produce more carbon emissions per unit of energy than even carbon-intensive coal, because wood isn’t as energy dense as coal.
https://www.eco-business.com/news/biomass-burning-booms-in-east-asia-despite-paris-agreement-goals/
Though the Dutch government has identified their intent to phase out the use of wood biomass for energy purposes, and limit it to high value uses.
Atomic scientists have published “The biomass debate, Can burning trees instead of coal fight climate change”, arguing in detail in a number of articles that it can’t, and actually makes it worse.
A molecule of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere today has the same impact on radiative forcing—its contribution to global warming—whether it comes from fossil fuels millions of years old or biomass grown last year. When burned, the carbon in those trees immediately increases atmospheric carbon dioxide above what it would have been had they not been burned.
If the forest had not been cut, it would have continued to grow, removing additional carbon from the atmosphere. Compared to allowing the forest to grow, cutting it for bioenergy would increase carbon dioxide emissions and worsen global warming for at least half a century—time we do not have to reach net-zero emissions and avoid the worst harms from climate change.
Burning wood to generate electricity emits more carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour generated than fossil fuels—even coal, the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel….
… About 27 percent of the harvested biomass is lost in the wood pellet supply chain, of which the largest share—18 percent—arises from burning some of the biomass to generate heat to dry pellets …
https://thebulletin.org/magazine/2022-05/
https://thebulletin.org/premium/2022-05/does-wood-bioenergy-help-or-harm-the-climate/#post-heading
Only 5% of earth has tall forests:
A new project has mapped the height of the world’s forests, finding only 5 percent of the Earth’s land area in 2020 was covered with trees standing taller than 30 meters, with only 34 percent of this within protected areas.
“Our focus in this work was twofold: First, we wanted to reduce the error associated with tall canopies, as they typically store large amounts of biomass and carbon,” said Lang
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/149793/scientists-show-how-forests-measure-up
TURNING IT AROUND
Reforestation affects global water cycle:
Modelling of how 900 million hectares of global tree restoration would impact the water cycle through evaporation and precipitation shows mixed results varying with regions. Reforestation increases evapotranspiration, reducing runoff to streams by redirecting it into the atmosphere where it increases land rainfall (including in adjacent regions and even continents), though with a portion falling over the oceans. Even more reason to protect existing forests as their water use will decrease as they age, providing more water to streams while still increasing regional rainfalls and still increasing carbon storage.
Tree restoration is an effective way to store atmospheric carbon and mitigate climate change. However, large-scale tree-cover expansion has long been known to increase evaporation, leading to reduced local water availability and streamflow. More recent studies suggest that increased precipitation, through enhanced atmospheric moisture recycling, can offset this effect. Here we calculate how 900 million hectares of global tree restoration would impact evaporation and precipitation using an ensemble of data-driven Budyko models and the UTrack moisture recycling dataset. We show that the combined effects of directly enhanced evaporation and indirectly enhanced precipitation create complex patterns of shifting water availability. Large-scale tree-cover expansion can increase water availability by up to 6% in some regions, while decreasing it by up to 38% in others. There is a divergent impact on large river basins: some rivers could lose 6% of their streamflow due to enhanced evaporation, while for other rivers, the greater evaporation is counterbalanced by more moisture recycling. Several so-called hot spots for forest restoration could lose water, including regions that are already facing water scarcity today. Tree restoration significantly shifts terrestrial water fluxes, and we emphasize that future tree-restoration strategies should consider these hydrological effects.
Tree restoration could locally enhance convergence, cloud cover and precipitation and change the travelling direction and distance of atmospheric moisture. Research suggests that forests could even impact large-scale wind patterns and draw atmospheric moisture from the oceans to the continents, although the importance of this effect is still debated. …
However, global warming, and the tree restoration itself, will shift temperature and precipitation patterns, and these are not considered in our analyses. Higher temperatures could reduce the global tree-restoration potential by 25% towards 2050. …
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-022-00935-0.pdf
https://phys.org/news/2022-05-exploring-forest-affects.html
Mother Nature has the legal rights of a person:
In India Justice S. Srimathy of the Madras High Court in Tamil Nadu ruled that “Mother Nature” is effectively a person under the law, a status which includes “all corresponding rights, duties, and liabilities,” though some argue for a better way as this leaves mother nature liable for any damage she causes.
Some legal experts are, however, questioning Srimathy’s decision to grant legal personhood, with its associated “duties and liabilities”, to Nature, a decision that has precedent in at least three other rulings granted at the state court level in India within the last decade. Animals, glaciers, rivers, and the Earth itself have all been accorded legal personhood status in those cases.
“While those rulings are binding at the state level, the law on the rights of nature is unsettled at the federal level,” writes Inside Climate, citing a 2017 Supreme Court reversal of an Uttarakhand High Court decision that granted legal personhood to the Ganges River, as well as to one of its tributaries, the Yamuna.
Mari Margil, executive director of the Spokane, Washington-based Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, told Inside Climate that “recognizing nature as a legal person with the same rights, duties, and liabilities as humans is not an ideal approach, since nature is inherently different than human beings and cannot be held liable in the same way.”
Forest Media 6 May 2022
New South Wales
NEFA considers that that the new Private Native Forestry Code of Practice released on Monday is a step backwards, and will increase the extinction risk of our most imperilled species of plants and animals. Meanwhile the NSW Government, farmers and loggers continue their spin about how wonderful the PNF Codes will be.
Justin Field and the NCC are calling for a pause on issuing new Wood Supply Agreements until the NSW Government assesses the loss of trees in the 2019-20 fires and responds to recommendations that areas of burnt forest be put under moratorium and additional large old trees be retained, while considering the increase in fire severity caused by logging. The Echo ran this on page 1, mentioned the Coffs Harbour rally, the Girard action and had an article on cryptocurrency and their attempts to greenwash their massive poweruse use with renewable energy such as Condong – including a statement from Susie about the folly of burning trees for electricity.
The Forestry Corporation has accused Eurobodalla Shire Council of being misinformed and being outside their jurisdiction through their proposal in the draft climate plan to end native forest logging. Have your say. BSI Group (an Accredited Certification Body) is conducting a recertification assessment of Forestry Corporation of NSW Hardwood Forests Division against the “Responsible Wood” standard.
An area of heritage-listed bushland that had been protected since 2007 was re-protected as an offset for the western Sydney airport, and now part of it has been cleared for a car park at a new defence facility.
Over 4,000 hectares in the Hunter Valley was cleared between 2015 and 2019, primarily for urban development and related infrastructure (with agriculture, forestry and mining also making significant contributions), leading to complaints about proposed housing developments and the need to stop landclearing.
ECAC and the Eden Trails Group welcome the start of works on the multi-million dollar Eden Mountain Bike Trail in Nullica State Forest, praising the Forestry Corporation.
Australia
The Bob Brown Foundation’s attempt to injunct Chinese-owned base metals producer MMG Inc from pushing ahead with roading, clearing and drilling in preparation for its proposed 285 ha tailings dam in the Tarkine rainforest, on the grounds that they would cause "irreversible damage" to the habitat of the rare Tasmanian masked owl, has failed after the company gave an undertaking to the Federal court that they would apply a 15-metre exclusion zone to trees suitable for masked owl nesting. The foundation's bid to overturn federal government approval for the tailings dam will be heard on July 19.
After having protest charges dropped in Tasmania because it was shown that since 1987 Forest Practices Officers did not have the legal power to approve logging plans, the Government is rushing through legislation to fix the problem and retrospectively approve all logging back to 1987. The Tasmania Greens are asking the Federal Government to pay a billion dollars for the carbon values of ending native forest logging to support the transition and develop tourism opportunities.
Western Australian conservationists have released a report finding more land has been cleared for bauxite mining than by the timber industry in Western Australia’s South West over the past decade.
The University of Tasmania in Launceston will be home to the new National Institute for Forest Products Innovation (NIFPI) that aims to position Australia as a world leader in timber and wood fibre R&D after the Federal Labor Party matched the Coalition’s $100 million pledge.
Species
Scientists alarmed by the decline of Australia’s species, the lack of meaningful and effective action from the Federal Government, and lack of interest by political parties in the lead up to the election, are trying hard to garner action. One group have developed a web app that allows you to identify federally listed threatened species that occur in federal electorates, with contacts of your local member, and is encouraging people to lobby them for a better deal for our declining biodiversity.
A report by BirdLife Australia identifies domestic birding trips contribute an estimated $283m to the Australian economy annually, much of this in regional communities. An article identifies that Goodenia rainforest on the south coast survived the fires and may have become a refuge, though those in north-east NSW weren’t so lucky. A study of the Gondwanan rainforests found that in burnt rainforests the number of functional bird species, and the relative abundances of species, was lower, with the most affected being those that eat insects, leaves or fruit, leading the researchers to warn about the future of rainforest in a heating world ravished by fires.
WIRES at Coffs Harbour is having to euthanize up to 15-20 kangaroos per month as the highway and cars, habitat loss and fragmentation, and stress from dogs take their increasing toll.
The Myall Lakes dingo project, which aims to develop and test non-lethal management techniques and increase understanding of dingos, is seeking volunteers to take part in an online citizen science project, Dingo? Bingo!, to review photos from camera traps to identify dingos and other wildlife.
NSW South East Local Land Services distributed more than 100 audio devices to more than 60 private property owners across parts of the Monaro to survey for calling Koalas as part of the koala karaoke project. The Greens have introduced a Save the Koala Bill into Federal parliament where any destruction “likely to have significant impacts on koalas” would be banned, removing the federal RFA exemption for logging and clearing their habitat. WWF has teamed up with the Government to plant new Koala feed trees in the Northern Rivers, while in itself worthwhile, it provides a distraction from the more urgent need to stop cutting down their existing feed trees nearby. Wildlife campaigners have made a last ditch plea to the Victorian government to relocate koalas from a blue gum plantation due to be logged on Friday.
The Tasmanian Greens are promising federal intervention to control deer, particularly in World Heritage areas, as an election pledge.
The Deteriorating Problem
A report assesses the temperature rises we can expect under the parties policies, the coalition is the winner at 3o (almost 4), Labor second at 2o, and the Greens and Teal Independents last at just 1.5o.
Turning it Around
A recent paper has identified that closing the Triabunna export woodchip in Tasmania has enabled the state to pass net zero and to deliver negative emissions due to the change in forest management, demonstrating the benefits of reducing native forest logging.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is to release a report calling on better recognition of the value of forests, identifying that halting deforestation and maintaining forests could avoid significant greenhouse-gas emissions - about 14 percent of the reduction needed up to 2030 to keep planetary warming below 1.5 C while also safeguarding more than half the Earth's terrestrial biodiversity.
Its not just Australia that is rorting its carbon credit system, the BBC World Service has a report on how the billions spent around the world on ambitious planting programs covering millions of hectares to increase sequestration of carbon are dismally failing to meet targets, compounded by planted trees dying, native vegetation being cleared for plantings, and plantings being logged on a grand scale. The hope is that better accounting using satellite monitoring will turn this around. Carbon credits are being increasingly used to offset company’s emissions, and while trees are increasingly being recognised as our saviours, the appropriateness of offsetting is questioned and many offsets are being lost through droughts, fires and beetle attacks as forests struggle to persist in this heating world.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
PNF Code threatening species:
NEFA considers that that the new Private Native Forestry Code of Practice released on Monday is a step backwards, and will increase the extinction risk of our most imperilled species of plants and animals.
In general they are allowing increased logging intensity, reduced retention of old hollow bearing trees essential for the survival of a plethora of hollow-dependent species, and reducing protections for most threatened species, NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said.
“Under this code most threatened species of plants and animals will get no real protection what-so-ever.
“The only improvement is an increase in the exclusions around headwater streams, though at 10m this is still dramatically less than the 30m identified as necessary in numerous reviews.
“For Koalas they are maintaining the exclusion on logging of core koala habitat where already identified in a Council Koala Plan of Management, though this will not apply to core Koala habitat identified in future plans.
Conservationists fear new rules that regulate logging on private land in New South Wales will allow continued clearing of koala habitat in what an independent MP has described as a “win” for the National party.
Dailan Pugh, the alliance’s spokesperson, said the exceptions were concerning.
“If we’re talking about doubling koala populations, you don’t do that by cutting down their feed trees,” he said.
“We are relieved they’ve retained protections for existing core koala habitat but we are concerned about the hundreds of approvals already given despite the (NSW parliamentary) koala inquiry identifying this as something that needed fixing.”
Pugh added that for other threatened plants and animals the new code offered “no real protection whatsoever”.
Justin Field, an independent MLC, said he was concerned other parts of the code that require landowners to take certain precautions for the environment, such as retaining trees of a particular size and habitat suitability, appeared to have been weakened.
The NSW Government continued their spin about how wonderful the PNF Codes will be.
“These new codes will provide the critical materials we will need to rebuild our communities impacted by the recent floods, keep up with the construction boom and keep firing our economy,” deputy premier and minister for regional NSW Paul Toole said.
The government says the new codes were informed by forest science and ecology experts. The NSW Natural Resources Commission reviewed the new codes of practice and found them to be a substantive improvement.
NSW agriculture minister Dugald Saunders said the new codes would play an important role in the timber shortage.
Pause and reconsider logging commitments:
Justin Field and the NCC are calling for a pause on issuing new Wood Supply Agreements until the NSW Government assesses the loss of trees in the 2019-20 fires and responds to recommendations that areas of burnt forest be put under moratorium and additional large old trees be retained, while considering the increase in fire severity caused by logging.
According to the lead author Professor David Lindenmayer, ‘Logging increases the probability of canopy damage by five to 20 per cent and leads to long-term elevated risk of higher severity fire. On the other hand, if disturbance due to logging is minimised, canopy damage can be reduced, in turn reducing the risk of uncontrollable fires.’
‘Recent Budget Estimates hearings revealed Forestry Corporation was negotiating a five year extension of wood supply contracts on the North Coast despite the fact the NSW Government is yet to respond to a major report recommending substantial changes to logging rules to mitigate the impact of the 2019–20 fires including a moratorium on logging in some forest areas,’ said Mr Fields in a press release.
‘Industry needs certainty about their future, but there is no certainty in signing up to contracts that Forestry Corporation cannot deliver and that our forests cannot sustain.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/05/call-to-pause-logging-contracts-for-north-coast-forests/
The Echo ran this on page 1, mentioned the Coffs Harbour rally, the Girard action and had an article on cryptocurrency and their attempts to greenwash their massive poweruse use with renewable energy such as Condong – including a statement from Susie about the folly of burning trees for electricity.
Forestry attack Council for being ignorant:
The Forestry Corporation has accused Eurobodalla Shire Council of being misinformed and being outside their jurisdiction through their proposal in the draft climate plan to end native forest logging.
A Forestry submission to the council's draft action plan said decisions regarding forestry were "outside council's jurisdiction" and the council did not have expertise nor involvement in native forest management.
"Information about forestry in the draft Climate Action Plan is incorrect and outside council's jurisdiction. It is recommended that Eurobodalla Shire Council remove all references and actions relating to native forestry from its Climate Action Plan."
"The Eurobodalla has around 106,000 hectares of native State Forests which can be harvested and is primarily used for woodchip through the Eden mill and exported," the draft plan said.
Are the Forestry Corporation Responsible?
Have your say. BSI Group (an Accredited Certification Body) is conducting a recertification assessment of Forestry Corporation of NSW Hardwood Forests Division against the “Responsible Wood” standard.
We invite Stakeholders to provide input into the assessment regarding the Applicant’s scope of activities in relation to Responsible Wood Standard.
Copies of all Responsible Wood Standards can be obtained from the Responsible Wood website
https://www.responsiblewood.org.au/
Stakeholders may provide input in writing or if preferred by phone, video-conference or in person during the onsite assessment. Please contact Mick Berry to arrange a time.
Contact Details: Mick Berry, Lead Auditor
Email: [email protected]
Offsetting upsetting:
An area of heritage-listed bushland that had been protected since 2007 was re-protected as an offset for the western Sydney airport, and now part of it has been cleared for a car park at a new defence facility.
Alarm over Hunter clearing:
Over 4,000 hectares in the Hunter Valley was cleared between 2015 and 2019, primarily for urban development and related infrastructure (with agriculture, forestry and mining also making significant contributions), leading to complaints about proposed housing developments and the need to stop landclearing.
"It will also exacerbate our deforestation and extinction crisis, which is already spiralling out of control," Nature Conservation Council Chief Executive Chris Gambian said.
"At the COP26 climate conference Australia committed to end deforestation by 2030. These figures show we have no hope of meeting that commitment without a change in law. The only proven carbon sequestration technology is a tree. It seems pretty obvious that we should stop ripping them down."
"Climate change is already wreaking havoc on biodiversity and driving extinction. If we are to ensure the survival of our threatened species we must protect habitat now in preparation for worsening impacts in the coming years," Hunter Community Environment Centre coordinator Jo Lynch said.
Forestry Corporation like Mountain Bikes:
ECAC and the Eden Trails Group welcome the start of works on the multi-million dollar Eden Mountain Bike Trail in Nullica State Forest, praising the Forestry Corporation.
"This multi-million-dollar project will establish Eden and the broader NSW south coast area as a true mountain biking destination, providing opportunities to attract tourists and investment to the region," Mr Webb said.
"Our partnership with the NSW Forestry Corporation has been amazing and we could not have reached this critical milestone without their belief and support."
https://www.begadistrictnews.com.au/story/7725000/eden-mountain-bike-project-on-the-right-trail/
AUSTRALIA
BBF lose injunction:
The Bob Brown Foundation’s attempt to injunct Chinese-owned base metals producer MMG Inc from pushing ahead with roading, clearing and drilling in preparation for its proposed 285 ha tailings dam in the Tarkine rainforest, on the grounds that they would cause "irreversible damage" to the habitat of the rare Tasmanian masked owl, has failed after the company gave an undertaking to the Federal court that they would apply a 15-metre exclusion zone to trees suitable for masked owl nesting. The foundation's bid to overturn federal government approval for the tailings dam will be heard on July 19.
However, the BBF remains defiant. “This finding reminds us that the EPBC Act is a farce. If a Masked Owl is not safe from this proposal in takayna/Tarkine, and it is not, then it is not safe anywhere,” campaign manager Jenny Weber said in a statement.
“We are now left with the protest option to continue to hold MMG out of takayna’s forests and Tasmanian Masked Owl habitat at an inconvenience to hundreds of citizens who will take a stand for this ancient pocket of takayna.”
MMG is embroiled in controversy in Peru, with locals blocking the Las Bambas mine to protest alleged non-compliance with land-purchase obligations. The mine produces about 2% of the world’s mined copper supply.
MMG said on April 29, a 30-day state of emergency in the Challhuahuacho and Coyllurqi districts had been implemented to reinstate public order.
https://www.mining.com/australian-court-okays-mmgs-tasmania-tailings-dam-study-to-proceed/
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-02/tailing-dam-works-to-continue-in-tarkine/101029822
Retrospectively approving 35 years of illegal logging:
After having protest charges dropped in Tasmania because it was shown that since 1987 Forest Practices Officers did not have the legal power to approve logging plans, the Government is rushing through legislation to fix the problem and retrospectively approve all logging back to 1987.
During recent court proceedings against anti-forestry protesters, who were arrested in Tasmania's Eastern Tiers in 2020, lawyers discovered a potential problem with some of the words in these instruments of delegation that have been used since 1987.
The foundation said if Forest Practices Officers did not really have the legal power to approve timber harvesting operations, then most or all logging of native forests in Tasmania has been done illegally since 1987.
It also argues there was not a valid legal basis to convict and fine or jail anti-forestry protesters since then.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-04/tasmania-1987-forestry-law-row-protesters/101035222
Greens call for Feds to pay to protect Tasmania’s forests for carbon:
The Tasmania Greens are asking the Federal Government to pay a billion dollars for the carbon values of ending native forest logging to support the transition and develop tourism opportunities.
With states across Australia ending native logging, it’s clear the writing is on the wall for Tasmania’s native forest logging industry. The IPCC tells us our forests are the first line of defence against climate change and must be protected. Native forest logging is destroying biodiversity and undermining climate action, and consumers are waking up to the damage.
Under the Greens plan the Federal Government would pay the Tasmanian Government to end native forest logging. The payment reflects the carbon value of forests earmarked to be logged, and would help meet global emissions reduction commitments. The plan also avoids ongoing taxpayer subsidies to the native forests sector.
Payments would be made in instalments over ten years into a fund overseen by a joint Federal-State task force and invested in environmental restoration, forest management, and forest tourism infrastructure. These and other activities would provide job transition opportunities for forestry workers.
https://www.miragenews.com/greens-launch-plan-to-protect-776756/
[Janet Rice] What our policy is going to do is basically to acknowledge the importance of Tasmania’s forests, not just for the wildlife, their recreation and tourism values, for their wildlife values, for their water values, for their values and sovereign lands, but also for their value for soaking up and storing carbon. This policy that we’re announcing today would see the federal government granting Tasmania a billion dollars to end the logging of native forests in Tasmania. Western Australia has already committed to ending their native forest logging by next year, Victoria has committed to ending native forest logging by 2030; we think that it’s too slow, but at least it’s going to happen. For Tasmania, they need to commit now to end native forest logging, and the billion dollars that the federal government would grant would basically recognise the value of Tasmania’s forests, in particular for their carbon value, their value in soaking up and storing carbon.
https://tasmaniantimes.com/2022/05/greens-pledge-1billion-for-forests-management/
Bauxite mining worse than logging:
Western Australian conservationists have released a report finding more land has been cleared for bauxite mining than by the timber industry in Western Australia’s South West over the past decade.
Labor matches 100m forest industry pledge
The University of Tasmania in Launceston will be home to the new National Institute for Forest Products Innovation (NIFPI) that aims to position Australia as a world leader in timber and wood fibre R&D after the Federal Labor Party matched the Coalition’s $100 million pledge.
https://www.miragenews.com/national-forestry-innovation-institute-to-go-774308/”
SPECIES
Save Our Species:
Scientists alarmed by the decline of Australia’s species, the lack of meaningful and effective action from the Federal Government, and lack of interest by political parties in the lead up to the election, are trying hard to garner action.
Unfortunately, our famous ecosystems are not OK. Many are hurtling towards collapse, threatening even iconic species like the koala, platypus and the numbat. More and more species are going extinct, with over 100 since British colonisation. That means Australia has one of the worst conservation records in the world.
This represents a monumental government failure. Our leaders are failing in their duty of care to the environment. Yet so far, the election campaign has been unsettlingly silent on threatened species.
Here are five steps our next government should take.
- Strengthen, enforce and align policy and laws
- Invest in the environment
- Tackle the threats
4.: Look to Indigenous leadership to heal Country
5.Work with communities and across boundaries
The next government must take serious and swift action to save our species.
Speak up to your federal member for threatened species:
Scientists have developed a web app that allows you to identify federally listed threatened species that occur in federal electorates, with contacts of your local member, and is encouraging people to lobby them for a better deal for our declining biodiversity.
More than 1,800 Australian plants and animals are considered at-risk of extinction, and yet protecting threatened species is almost entirely absent from the current election campaign.
We’ve developed a web app, which launches today, that lets Australians learn which threatened plants and animals live in their federal electorate.
Our goal is to help users engage with their elected representatives and put imperilled species on the political agenda this election and beyond. We urgently need to convince federal politicians to act, for they hold the keys to saving these species. So what can they do to help their plight?
By entering a post code, users can learn what the species looks like, where they can be found (in relation to their electorate), and what’s threatening them. Importantly, users can learn about their incumbent elected representative, and the democratic actions that work towards making a difference.
The good news is we know how to avert the extinction crisis. Innumerable reports and peer-reviewed studies have detailed why the crisis is occurring, including a major independent review of Australia’s environment laws which outlined the necessary federal reforms for changing this trajectory.
The bad news is these comprehensive reforms, like almost all the previous calls to action on the threatened species crisis, have been largely ignored.
Predictions show the situation will drastically worsen for threatened species over the next two decades if nothing changes.
For change to occur, communities must effectively persuade elected representatives to act. There are a few ways they can exercise their democratic powers to make a difference.
Threatened species desperately need the required funding alongside the appropriate policy and legislative reform. The current policies are responsible for the threats causing many species to go endangered in the first place.
Our app can help users engage with the current sitting MP in their electorate with the click of a button, as it helps users write an email to them. It’s time federal representatives were asked about their policies on threatened species and what they plan to do for them in their electoral backyards.
The value of birds:
A report by BirdLife Australia identifies domestic birding trips contribute an estimated $283m to the Australian economy annually, much of this in regional communities.
The loss of birds:
An article identifies that Goodenia rainforest on the south coast survived the fires and may have become a refuge, though those in north-east NSW weren’t so lucky. A study of the Gondwanan rainforests found that in burnt rainforests the number of functional bird species, and the relative abundances of species, was lower, with the most affected being those that eat insects, leaves or fruit, leading the researchers to warn about the future of rainforest in a heating world ravished by fires.
However, other rainforests didn't fare as well. When the megafires reached North-East NSW the heritage listed Gondwanan rainforest lost 50% of its habitat. According to a study from the Centre for Ecosystem Science at the University of NSW, the fires continue to impact bird populations vital to rainforest regeneration in areas of Gondwanan Rainforest.
The study, published in Global Ecology and Conservation, investigated the impact of the 2019–2020 Australian bushfire season on the ancient Gondwanan Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area, which were burned for the first time in recorded history.
The researchers found that unprecedented megafires negatively impacted the diversity of functional rainforest bird communities among burnt areas of the Gondwanan compared to surviving regions, as well as adjacent dry sclerophyll forests – woodland areas characterised by hard leafed and drought-adapted vegetation.
“We found that the number of functional species, but also the relative abundances of species, was lower in burnt areas compared with unburnt areas across five national parks surveyed within the World Heritage Area,” says Josh Lee, the study’s lead author. “These results contrasted the less affected and more fire-adapted and adjacent dry sclerophyll forests, which increased in diversity.”
“These rainforests are 40 million years old, and the fact we’ve burned up to half of it in just once fire season – which we can confidently attribute to climate change – is astounding. It’s another page in the story that is the huge impact we’re having on unique ecosystems worldwide,” Mr Lee says.
The study found the most affected rainforest birds were species that eat insects, leaves or fruit. Of particular concern were fruit-eating birds such as the wompoo fruit-dove and paradise riflebird, that have significant roles in rainforest regeneration.
“We found there were fewer fruit-eating birds in the burnt rainforest than the unburnt areas, which is potentially a bad sign because it might mean that there’s less of that rainforest regeneration happening,” Mr Lee says.
“These fruit eaters disperse rainforest seeds over large distances. Rainforests need these birds to eat and then disperse the seeds for them to grow in other parts of the rainforest. If we don’t have the pigeons and doves to help the fire-affected areas of the rainforest regenerate, we are in real trouble.”
Because of the impact on seed-dispersing birds, the recovery of the rainforest is likely to be extremely slow and highly dependent on the emigration of animals from outside burnt areas.
“Inaction on climate change will come at the expense of our rainforests. Because the recovery of the rainforest is slow, the recurrence of fire is probably going to be too frequent that rainforest won’t be able to recover and [we] will just lose more and more of it through time,” Mr Lee says.
“Hotter temperatures and more extreme droughts will continue to have devastating impacts on our biodiversity, particularly our rainforests,” Prof. Kingsford says. “We have to reduce our emissions and get climate change under control.”
https://www.unsw.edu.au/news/2022/04/rainforest-birds-in-decline-in-black-summer-bushfire-aftermath
Kangaroos declining:
WIRES at Coffs Harbour is having to euthanize up to 15-20 kangaroos per month as the highway and cars, habitat loss and fragmentation, and stress from dogs take their increasing toll.
WIRES macropod rescuer Cheryl Malcolm said she saw two kangaroos last week die from what she “presumed” was myopathy.
Myopathy can be caused when an animal – such as a dog or cat – runs at kangaroos, causing extreme stress.
The roo may develop rhabdomyolysis – a breakdown of muscle fibres.
Death typically occurs within 14 days after the stressful incident, according to WIRES.
“The dogs don't have to catch them for them to kill them. They can die from stress – the eastern grays in particular” she said.
Dingo bingo!:
The Myall Lakes dingo project, which aims to develop and test non-lethal management techniques and increase understanding of dingos, is seeking volunteers to take part in an online citizen science project, Dingo? Bingo!, to review photos from camera traps to identify dingos and other wildlife.
Researchers are testing whether the dingoes' own signals can be used to deter them and invasive predators from particular areas.
Dingoes use howls and scent marks to communicate ownership of space, and so by simulating their presence in an area the team hope to be able to deter them from specific areas.
"This project hopes to develop tools and strategies to limit the negative impacts that dingoes have in specific areas, while still allowing them to perform their ecological role as apex predator across the wider landscape," Dr Jordan said.
"As dingoes sometimes kill foxes and cats, we're also testing the idea that these smaller carnivores may avoid areas where they believe dingoes are present - where they hear a dingo howl for example," Dr Pitcher said.
Koala karaoke:
NSW South East Local Land Services distributed more than 100 audio devices to more than 60 private property owners across parts of the Monaro to survey for calling Koalas as part of the koala karaoke project.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/canberra/programs/mornings/koala-habitat-conservation-monaro/13863246
Bid to stop Commonwealth turning blind eye to Koala habitat destruction:
The Greens have introduced a Save the Koala Bill into Federal parliament where any destruction “likely to have significant impacts on koalas” would be banned, removing the federal RFA exemption for logging and clearing their habitat.
Clearing of koala habitat will be banned with "zero exceptions" if a new Greens bill passes federal parliament.
The amendment would remove exemptions used by state authorities to allow the timber industry and private landholders to unleash bulldozers on trees where the marsupials live.
Greens spokesperson for the environment, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, has vowed to “push for the Save the Koala Bill to be made the law” if her party holds the balance of power after the Federal Election.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/controversial-new-law-proposed-to-save-koalas-081850711.html
Planting Koala feed trees while cutting them down:
WWF has teamed up with the Government to plant new Koala feed trees in the Northern Rivers, while in itself worthwhile, it provides a distraction from the more urgent need to stop cutting down their existing feed trees nearby.
Koala Friendly Carbon, a first-of-its-kind carbon program to help restore koala habitat, is now available in the Northern Rivers Region of New South Wales.
The pilot program – which aims to boost koala numbers – is a partnership between the World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia, the NSW Government and Climate Friendly.
If successful, this program will provide an innovative mechanism to dramatically scale up landscape restoration for the benefit of our nation’s most iconic endangered species.
A complimentary partnership between WWF-Australia and the NSW Government has also been launched offering incentives to Northern Rivers landholders to sign conservation agreements to permanently protect koala habitat on their land.
Both projects are part of the recently released NSW Koala Strategy and come just months after the iconic species was uplisted from vulnerable to endangered in Queensland, NSW and the ACT.
https://www.ecovoice.com.au/innovative-koala-friendly-carbon-a-boost-for-iconic-species/
Plea to relocate Koalas before logging fails:
Wildlife campaigners have made a last ditch plea to the Victorian government to relocate koalas from a blue gum plantation due to be logged on Friday.
The Victorian government has approved the clear-felling of the Gordon plantation by owner Midway Pty Ltd without relocating the koalas, despite pleas from local carers and experts to protect them.
“It’s been such an uphill battle. We’re now at a last ditch effort just to try and stop koalas and other wildlife from being killed,” Heidi Johnson, a wildlife carer from Wildlife Victoria, said.
Jessica Robertson, a Wildlife Victoria rescuer and carer, expressed concern that koalas would be injured by logging activity or run over by cars while attempting to cross into other habitats.
The scourge of deer:
The Tasmanian Greens are promising federal intervention to control deer, particularly in World Heritage areas, as an election pledge.
“Invasive species like feral deer pose a critical threat to lutruwita/Tasmania’s biodiversity and cultural heritage. They inhibit fire recovery, trample cushion plants, destroy fences and crops, and cost Tasmanian farmers $80m a year.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Coalition the winner on climate change:
A report assesses the temperature rises we can expect under the parties policies, the coalition is the winner at 3o (almost 4), Labor second at 2o, and the Greens and Teal Independents last at just 1.5o.
Hare, an adjunct professor at Murdoch University, said under the level of global warming consistent with the Coalition’s plan, “intense heat events that have recently occurred once in a decade could happen almost every year, and highest maximum temperatures are likely to be 3 degrees warmer than in recent times.”
He said Labor’s plan was also not consistent with the Paris Agreement and, like the Coalition’s, is not consistent with the survival of the Great Barrier Reef or Ningaloo Reef, as well as increased heat extremes occurring every five years.
The report said the Greens’ target of a 74 per cent emissions reduction by 2030 is consistent with limiting global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees.
TURNING IT AROUND
Reducing logging makes Tasmania into a net carbon sink:
A recent paper has identified that closing the Triabunna export woodchip in Tasmania has enabled the state to pass net zero and to deliver negative emissions due to the change in forest management, demonstrating the benefits of reducing native forest logging.
… the closure of Triabunna meant that in the years that followed Tasmania was one of the first jurisdictions in the world to become not just net zero, but carbon negative.
Unlike mainland Australia, Tasmania relies mostly on hydroelectric power. As a result, Mackey explained, the state’s main cause of greenhouse gas emissions was logging in native forests. When old-growth forests were logged, massive amounts of carbon were released into the atmosphere.
What they found was that Tasmania had gone from being a net emitter of around 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, to a net sink of around the same amount.
“We hear a lot about carbon neutral but not carbon negative. This is one of the first times on the planet that anybody has ever done this kind of reversal,” Lindenmeyer said.
https://news.griffith.edu.au/2022/05/03/tasmania-first-to-become-carbon-negative/
Meeting the Paris Agreement global warming target requires deep and rapid cuts in CO2 emissions as well as removals from the atmosphere into land sinks, especially forests. While international climate policy in the land sector does now recognize forest protection as a mitigation strategy, it is not receiving sufficient attention in developed countries even though they experience emissions from deforestation as well as from logging of managed forests. Current national greenhouse gas inventories obscure the mitigation potential of forest protection through net carbon accounting between the fossil fuel and the land sectors as well as within the different categories of the land. This prevents decision-makers in national governments, the private sector and civil society having access to all the science-based evidence needed to evaluate the merits of all mitigation strategies. The consequences of net carbon accounting for global policy were investigated by examining annual inventory reports of four high forest cover developed countries (Australia, Canada, USA, and Russia). Net accounting between sectors makes a major contribution to meeting nationally determined contributions with removals in Forest Land offsetting between 14% and 38% of the fossil fuel emissions for these countries. Analysis of reports for Australia at a sub-national level revealed that the State of Tasmania delivered negative emissions due to a change in forest management—a large and rapid drop in native forest logging—resulting in a mitigation benefit of ∼22 Mt CO2-e yr–1 over the reported period 2011/12–2018/19. This is the kind of outcome required globally to meet the Paris Agreement temperature goal. All CO2 emissions from, and atmospheric removals into, forest ecosystem carbon stocks now matter and should be counted and credited to achieve the deep and rapid cuts in emissions needed over the coming decades. Accounting and reporting systems therefore need to show gains and losses of carbon stocks in each reservoir. Changing forest management in naturally regenerating forests to avoid emissions from harvesting and enabling forest regrowth is an effective mitigation strategy that can rapidly reduce anthropogenic emissions from the forest sector and simultaneously increase removals of CO2 from the atmosphere
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac661b/meta
Forests needed to solve crises:
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is to release a report calling on better recognition of the value of forests, identifying that halting deforestation and maintaining forests could avoid significant greenhouse-gas emissions - about 14 percent of the reduction needed up to 2030 to keep planetary warming below 1.5 C while also safeguarding more than half the Earth's terrestrial biodiversity.
In response to these multiple global threats, we need solutions at scale that are cost-effective and equitable and can be implemented rapidly. Forests and trees offer such solutions and can help us recover, if we better recognize their value and their crucial role in building resilient and sustainable economies.
The latest report on the State of the World's Forests from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), to be presented at the XV World Forestry Congress under the theme "Building a Green, Healthy and Resilient Future with Forests," clearly shows three ways in which we can step up action if we want to unlock their potential:
Halting deforestation and maintaining forests could avoid significant greenhouse-gas emissions - about 14 percent of the reduction needed up to 2030 to keep planetary warming below 1.5 C. It could also safeguard more than half the Earth's terrestrial biodiversity, which is a key provider of ecosystem services for sustainable agriculture. Forests are the largest terrestrial pool of carbon and of biodiversity, yet they are shrinking.
Restoring degraded lands and expanding agroforestry: 1.5 billion hectares of degraded land - an area twice the size of Australia - would benefit from restoration, and increasing tree cover could boost agricultural productivity on another 1 billion hectares. Restoring degraded land through afforestation and reforestation could cost-effectively remove CO2 from the atmosphere equivalent to eliminating 195-325 million gasoline-powered passenger cars from the road each year for 30 years.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202205/1264740.shtml
Phantom forests used for greenwashing:
Its not just Australia that is rorting its carbon credit system, the BBC World Service has a report on how the billions spent around the world on ambitious planting programs covering millions of hectares to increase sequestration of carbon are dismally failing to meet targets, compounded by planted trees dying, native vegetation being cleared for plantings, and plantings being logged on a grand scale. The hope is that better accounting using satellite monitoring will turn this around.
Capturing carbon by increasing forest cover has become central to the fight against climate change. But there's a problem. Sometimes these forests exist on paper only - because promises have not been kept, or because planted trees have died or even been harvested. A new effort will now be made to track success and failure.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-61300708
Offsetting Emissions:
Carbon credits are being increasingly used to offset company’s emissions, and while trees are increasingly being recognised as our saviours, the appropriateness of offsetting is questioned and many offsets are being lost through droughts, fires and beetle attacks as forests struggle to persist in this heating world.
As companies face increasing public pressure to limit their climate impact, the global market for forest carbon “credits,” already worth billions of dollars, is booming. Polluting companies can buy those credits as an alternative to cutting emissions from burning oil, gas, and coal. Such “offsets” have been questioned on many grounds, including whether they actually reduce carbon in the atmosphere.
But scientists are increasingly focused on a new concern: climate change itself. With trees dying around the globe from droughts, heat waves, pest invasions, and wildfires amplified by global warming, experts say, it’s getting tough to count on any particular patch of forest being alive and reliably storing carbon for decades to come.
But many scientists worry it’s not enough. Climate change is already leaving unprecedented marks on forests. In the Sierra Nevada, up to 19 percent of adult giant sequoias, many of which have stood since the days of Aristotle, died in fires in just the last two summers. Five of the eight most abundant tree species in the West have declined significantly just since the year 2000. Using satellite data, archival records, and machine learning, Jon Wang, at the University of California, Irvine, determined that California likely lost nearly 7 percent of its tree cover between 1985 and 2021.
Forest Media 29 April 2022
Sorry I am a day late, its been a busy week.
New South Wales
NEFA held a rally of around 70 people outside the Coffs Harbour Council Chambers on April 29, before the Coffs Harbour hearing of NSW Upper House, Portfolio Committee 4, 'Inquiry into the long term sustainability and future of the timber and forest products industry', before giving evidence. NEFA sought to demonstrate that logging of public native forests has no social licence. The evening before the NPA hosted a well-attended community forum on the proposed Great Koala National Park in Coffs Harbour, with a variety of presenters (including NEFA), and statements from various federal Cowper candidates (except the Nationals) about their positions on forests and the park
Forest Defence NSW had a blockade in Girard State Forest, with a protector in a tree sit attached to a bulldozer holding up logging one day before being removed by police, someone else then repeated it the next day.
Cash-strapped Central Coast Council is considering transferring 72.4ha of land — valued at over $4.1 million —for inclusion into national parks “for no monetary consideration”. The transfer of 54 hectares of land at Wedderburn from the Office of Strategic Lands to the NPWS has got the ball rolling for the establishment of a Georges River Koala Reserve from Long Point to Appin.
David Lindenmayer’s finding that logging increases fire risk has been pushed by the NCC and is increasingly recognised.
The NSW Government announced it is going to implement the new Private Native Forestry codes on Monday without releasing them publicly, so as to avoid criticism, though they were warmly welcomed by the Nationals, Timber NSW and NSW Farmers who obviously had privileged access.
Australia
Log it before you protect it. Last June the Victorian government announced it would create three new national parks in the state’s central west, including the Wombat State Forest, but 10 months on, there has been no move to legislate and officially create the national parks but salvage logging is underway, leading residents to protest. The Queensland government has proposed to log in a section of the Beerwah State Forest, known locally as Ferny Forest, before it ends native timber production in the “high value” conservation area in two years in accordance with the southeast Queensland forests agreement to end logging in the region by 31 December 2024.
Species
A side-effect of rodenticides, particularly when used outside, is the poisoning of a variety of wildlife, either directly or through eating poisoned rodents. The death of more than 300 Corellas between Tocumwal and Cobram along the Murray River has led to speculation they may be another case linked to pesticides or mouse baits. On Lord Howe Island baits were killing Lord Howe Island Woodhens, until they were used in a systematic eradication of rats and mice, resulting in a massive increase in Woodhens and a variety of other threatened species while facilitating an ecological renaissance, though also for weeds. In the Conversation an expert gives some advice on rodent control.
The Inquiry into Ecosystems Decline in Victoria recommendations included a trial reintroduction of dingoes to the state’s national parks and reserves, and the phasing out of 1080 baiting, leading to farmer outrage.
On May 3 Wild Koala Day we call on everyone to Protect A Forest, Plant A Tree & Phone a Pollie. Learn more: http://www.wildkoaladay.com.au/what-to-do/
Find events here: http://www.wildkoaladay.com.au/whats-on/
Tweed Council voted to write to the NSW Premier, Minister for Environment and Heritage, Minister for Regional NSW and Minister for Agriculture to protect Tweeds hinterland koalas from the NSW Koala SEPP (State Environmental Planning Policy) 2021. A $2 million pilot program funded by the NSW government, World Wildlife Fund and carbon farming company Climate Friendly is aiming to plant new Koala habitat for carbon credits in the Northern Rivers, while the clearing and logging of actual habitat continues.
Researchers take exception with the Royal Australian Mint releasing a $2 collectors’ coin to celebrate 200 years since the introduction of the European honeybee, an invasive alien species, rather than our native bees.
In North America hundreds of white-tailed deer have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, sparking concerns that new mutant strains may develop.
The Deteriorating Problem
The tropics lost 11.1 million hectares of tree cover in 2021, according to Global Forest Watch. Including 3.75 million hectares of tropical primary rainforests at a rate of 10 football pitches a minute – releasing 2.5 Gt of CO2, equivalent to India’s fossil fuel emissions. Outside of the tropics, boreal forests experienced the highest rates of tree cover loss in 2021, increasing 29% over 2020.
A heat dome formed over India in March resulting in its highest maximum temperatures in 122 years and rainfall 71% lower than average, the scorching temperatures extended into April, and ferocious heat waves are forecast to be even worse in May.
Australia does its bit to worsen the extinction crises, while wildlife’s plight is ignored by politicians. A global review found 21% of reptiles are threatened with extinction, not as many as the 41% of amphibians, or the 25% of mammals, but more than the 14% of birds. Reptiles inhabiting forests are facing the strongest threats, including from logging. An article in the Conversation summarises Australia’s world leading role in the extinction crisis and the Federal Government’s contribution to the deteriorating situation. The Guardian similarly summarises Australia’s appalling record and lack of political will, citing Gregory Andrews, Australia’s first threatened species commissioner, who believes the state of our natural wildlife and biodiversity is the “worst it’s ever been” and called the ongoing destruction of forests and other habitat “crazy”.
‘Fire regimes that cause biodiversity decline’ was listed last week as a key threatening process under the EPBC Act (Australia’s national environmental law) after being nominated in 2008.
A comprehensive global review has identified a 50% decline in the abundance of insects and more than a 25% decline in species in areas where substantial warming has been documented and where land has been converted for intensive agriculture. Research (and the Canadian heat dome) shows that if honeybees experience a temperature of 42oC for 2 hours a third of male sperm dies and after 6 hours 50% of males die, with the expectation that increasing heatwaves could impair the fertility of beetles, bumblebees, flies, moths and wasps.
As evidence of the growing extinction crises grows and habitat destruction gathers momentum scientists are becoming increasingly alarmed, with one climate activist immolating himself in America.
Turning it Around
Earth Day was on the 22 April and is celebrated around the world, with overall co-ordination by EarthDay.org. Their Canopy Project focuses on tree planting.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
NEFA Rally
NEFA held a rally of around 70 people outside the Coffs Harbour Council Chambers, before the Coffs Harbour hearing of NSW Upper House, Portfolio Committee 4, 'Inquiry into the long term sustainability and future of the timber and forest products industry', before giving evidence. NEFA sought to demonstrate that logging of public native forests has no social licence.
NEFA want to emphasise to the Committee that there is no social licence for the continued logging of public native forests and that in the midst of the developing climate and extinction crises we need to take urgent action, with the most effective action we can take immediately to begin to address the problems is to stop logging public native forests, NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said.
‘The Committee needs to focus on identifying a just and equitable transition strategy for the 500 workers across north-east NSW that will be affected by protecting public native forests,’ said Mr Pugh.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/04/nefa-rally-this-morning-at-coffs-council-chambers/
Promoting the Great Koala National Park:
A well-attended community forum on the proposed Great Koala National Park was held in Coffs Harbour on April 28, with a variety of presenters (including NEFA), and statements from various federal Cowper candidates (except the Nationals) about their positions on forests and the park.
Nature Conservation Council Chief Executive Chris Gambian said: “Koalas are on track to become extinct by 2050 unless we take decisive action.
“The loss of koalas would be a monumental loss not just for NSW and Australia, but for the whole of humanity.
“To avoid that, habitat protection is key. You can’t have koalas without koala trees, so the best thing we can do is protect koala forests from development.
“The Great Koala National Park proposal is a critical step we must take to ensure species survives for generations to come.”
https://clarencevalleynews.com.au/community-forum-about-the-great-koala-national-park-proposal/
Action in Girard:
Forest Defence NSW had a blockade in Girard State Forest, with a protector in a tree sit attached to a bulldozer holding up logging one day before being removed by police, someone else then repeated it the next day.
‘I’m taking this action because I believe it is necessary,’ said one of the activists, who is currently undertaking a tree sit attached to logging machinery.
‘I love and understand the importance of these forests. Logging in the face of climate collapse is criminal.’
Speaking about this morning’s action, incoming Greens MLC and Forestry Spokesperson, Sue Higginson, said …
‘The current logging of this Public Forest is against the recommendations of the Natural Resources Commission which last year said, after the horrendous fires of 2019/2020 we need to retain more habitat if we are to protect threatened species. The Forestry Corporation is not following this advice.’
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/04/anti-logging-blockage-underway-in-girard-state-forest/
Council park donation:
Cash-strapped Central Coast Council is considering transferring 72.4ha of land — valued at over $4.1 million —for inclusion into national parks “for no monetary consideration”.
It is not the first time council has transferred land for inclusion into national parks and comes after 300ha was transferred to the NPWS for inclusion in Bouddi National Park in 2003.
“Unfortunately National Parks face a similar situation to council in that there’s no such thing as a free gift. There’s still the cost of looking after and maintaining the land.”
Small start made on Georges River Koala Reserve:
The transfer of 54 hectares of land at Wedderburn from the Office of Strategic Lands to the NPWS has got the ball rolling for the establishment of a Georges River Koala Reserve from Long Point to Appin.
“Once fully established, the Reserve will protect up to 1,830 hectares of koala habitat and wildlife corridors in perpetuity.”
https://southwestvoice.com.au/wedderburn-georges-river-koala-reserve/
Burning down the house:
David Lindenmayer’s finding that logging increases fire risk has been pushed by the NCC and is increasingly recognised.
Lead author Professor David Lindenmayer said:
Logging increases the probability of canopy damage by five to 20 per cent and leads to long-term elevated risk of higher severity fire. On the other hand, if disturbance due to logging is minimised, canopy damage can be reduced, in turn reducing the risk of uncontrollable fires. [2]
Nature Conservation Council Organiser Wilson Harris said: “The arguments in support of ending native forest logging keep mounting.
NSW Nationals and Farmers welcome new logging rules:
The NSW Government announced it is going to implement the new Private Native Forestry codes on Monday without releasing them publicly, so as to avoid criticism, though they were warmly welcomed by the Nationals, Timber NSW and NSW Farmers who obviously had privileged access.
The new Northern NSW Private Native Forestry Codes of Practice introduced by the Nationals in NSW Government should help the local timber industry turbocharge flood recovery construction in the Clarence and Richmond Valleys, according to Clarence Nationals MP Chris Gulaptis.
The new Code aims to provide certainty for local landholders and includes simplified operating standards while also allowing landholder to achieve better forest management and environmental outcomes.
https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/about-us/media-centre/releases/2022/general/a-new-era-for-farm-forestry
[Member for Bathurst Paul Toole] The new codes include simplified operating standards that enable a clearer interpretation of the PNF Codes, while also allowing landholders to achieve better forest management and environmental outcomes.
The new Farm Forestry Codes have been informed by specialist experts in Forest Science and Ecology, and reviewed by the NSW Natural Resources Commission which found that the new Codes of Practice are a substantive improvement on the existing PNF Codes.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/new-farm-forestry-codes-of-practice-in-force-may-in-nsw/
The new Farm Forestry Codes of Practice will help farmers manage their native forests with certainty, according to NSW Farmers Conservation and Resource Management Committee Chair Bronwyn Petrie. ‘Years have been lost for rural landowners to manage their native forests while the process has been tied up in unnecessary red tape and restrictions,’ said Mrs Petrie.
‘The new codes recognise the responsible management of timber on private land, and seek to take away the outdated and cumbersome regulations that have stifled the opportunities to develop this important agricultural land management activity.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/04/changes-to-private-native-forestry-codes/
AUSTRALIA
Logging in announced Victorian park sparks protest:
Last June the Victorian government announced it would create three new national parks in the state’s central west, including the Wombat State Forest, but 10 months on, there has been no move to legislate and officially create the national parks but salvage logging is underway, leading residents to protest.
Logging in announced Queensland park sparks protest:
The Queensland government has proposed to log in a section of the Beerwah State Forest, known locally as Ferny Forest, before it ends native timber production in the “high value” conservation area in two years in accordance with the southeast Queensland forests agreement to end logging in the region by 31 December 2024.
The southeast Queensland forests agreement to end logging in the region by 31 December 2024 was signed by the state government, the timber industry and the conservation sector in 1999.
As part of the agreement, about 50% of the 130-hectare Ferny Forest section was considered as an area for harvest, with the forest last logged in the mid-1990s.
A petition to stop logging in the proposed area, located between Steve Irwin Way and Ewen Maddock dam, has received almost 22,000 signatures.
SPECIES
Poisoning mice kills Corellas:
The death of more than 300 Corellas between Tocumwal and Cobram along the Murray River has led to speculation they may be another case linked to pesticides or mouse baits.
Last June, large numbers of dead birds were found at a handful of regional locations including the Riverina.
A toxicology test found some of the birds had consumed poison bait.
The EPA’s spokesperson said it is too early to tell whether this occurrence is a repeat of a similar event last year.
In the EPA statement linked by Berrigan Shire, EPA executive director regulatory operations Carmen Dwyer said grain eating birds can be impacted by pesticide-coated grain crops.
Ms Dwyer acknowledged the difficulty of mouse infestations in regional NSW, particularly on cropping farmers.
The large-scale damage to farms, caused by increased mouse populations, has prompted extensive use of mouse baits both domestically and agriculturally, to preserve crops from damage.
https://www.corowafreepress.com.au/news/hundreds-of-corellas-found-dead-in-murray/
Poisoning rats saves wildlife:
Eradicating rats and mice on Lord Howe Island has resulted in a massive increase in Lord Howe Island Woodhens and a variety of other threatened species while facilitating an ecological renaissance, though also for weeds.
Lord Howe Island's Environment and World Heritage manager says the island is experiencing an 'ecological renaissance' where animals, birdlife and plants are thriving.
Hank Bower said the event is largely thanks to the success of the rodent eradication program which was implemented in 2019.
The population of Woodhens, a critically endangered species, has quadrupled since 2019, due to increased availability of food and the removal of rodenticide poisons from the island.
https://psnews.com.au/2022/04/26/rodent-ruin-saves-lord-howes-rare-birds/?state=aps
In the Conversation an expert gives some advice on rodent control.
Despite the risk to non-target animals, baits will always be needed for large scale rodent problems, such as mouse plagues. However, they are not humane as animals die slowly by blood loss over an average of 7.2 days and have the most potential for poisoning other species.
In Australia, it’s almost always unnecessary to use so-called “second-generation baits” such as brodifacoum. These baits are made in response to rodents developing resistance to some chemical formulations, and require only one feed to be fatal.
The active ingredients in second generation baits have a very long persistence time in the liver of animals that eat them, resulting in widespread secondary poisoning along the food chain.
Proposal to rewild dingoes sparks opposition:
The Inquiry into Ecosystems Decline in Victoria recommendations included a trial reintroduction of dingoes to the state’s national parks and reserves, and the phasing out of 1080 baiting, leading to farmer outrage.
The meeting moved a motion for the Crawfords to write to Premier Daniel Andrew, Minister for Agriculture Mary-Anne Thomas, and Minister for Environment Lily D’Ambrosio expressing opposition to the reintroduction of dingoes and their protected status, and maintenance of lethal control of baiting, trapping and shooting, and the fox and wild dog bounty.
May 3 Wild Koala Day
On May 3 Wild Koala Day we call on everyone to Protect A Forest, Plant A Tree & Phone a Pollie. Learn more: http://www.wildkoaladay.com.au/what-to-do/
Find events here: http://www.wildkoaladay.com.au/whats-on/
Tweed Council wants its hinterland Koalas protected:
Tweed Council voted to write to the NSW Premier, Minister for Environment and Heritage, Minister for Regional NSW and Minister for Agriculture to protect Tweeds hinterland koalas from the NSW Koala SEPP (State Environmental Planning Policy) 2021.
‘The koala SEPP 2021 exempts rural, agricultural and forestry lands, Zones RU1, RU2 and RU 3 from being subject to the protections under the Koala SEPP 2021. In these zones, the Koala SEPP 2020 continues to apply. Under the current proposal it has been identified that critical and significant areas of koala habitat would be able to be logged without assessment, consent or controls – noting in the Tweed the target trees species and size class for forestry are the same trees most critical to koala habitat conservation. Under the current proposal one might argue that our coastal koala populations are afforded better protections conserving their habitat than our hinterland koalas,’ she said.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/04/hinterland-koalas-need-protecting-say-tweed-council/
Earning credits for planting new Koala feed trees as old ones are cut down:
A $2 million pilot program funded by the NSW government, World Wildlife Fund and carbon farming company Climate Friendly is aiming to plant new Koala habitat for carbon credits in the Northern Rivers, while the clearing and logging of actual habitat continues.
The $2 million pilot program funded by the NSW government, World Wildlife Fund and carbon farming company Climate Friendly aims to help double the number of koalas on the east coast by 2050.
The Koala Friendly Carbon project offers carbon credit incentives to private landholders in the Northern Rivers to sign conservation agreements to permanently establish habitat for the marsupials on their land.
The successful environmentally conscious, animal-friendly applicants can start earning credits from the federal government's Emissions Reduction Fund after a year.
https://www.aap.com.au/news/koalas-to-get-new-habitat-in-northern-nsw/
https://www.blayneychronicle.com.au/story/7717499/koalas-to-get-new-habitat-in-northern-nsw/
Celebrating invasive feral species:
Researchers take exception with the Royal Australian Mint releasing a $2 collectors’ coin to celebrate 200 years since the introduction of the European honeybee, an invasive alien species, rather than our native bees..
The coin celebrates an invasive alien species, and continues a long tradition in Australia of romanticising introduced fauna.
But the industry comes with costs as well as benefits. The introduced honeybee can escape managed hives to establish feral populations, which affect native species.
In New South Wales, feral honeybees are listed as a “key threatening process”.
Honeybees can take over large tree hollows to build new colonies, potentially displacing native species. Tree hollows can take many decades to form and bee colonies occupy hollows for a long time – so this is a long-term problem for native bees.
Many other native species also rely on tree hollows for shelter and breeding, and are likely to be affected by competition from honeybees. They include at least 20% of birds including threatened species such as the superb parrot and glossy black cockatoo, as well as a range of native mammals and marsupials.
Honeybees, both feral and managed, also compete with native species for nectar and pollen in flowers. Research has shown honeybees often remove 80% or more of floral resources produced.
Deer catching COVID:
In North America hundreds of white-tailed deer have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, sparking concerns that new mutant strains may develop.
It’s not yet clear whether the virus can spread in long chains of infection among deer, or whether deer-to-human transmission could spark outbreaks. But researchers are growing increasingly concerned about the animals becoming a viral reservoir, serving as a recalcitrant source of outbreaks and potentially breeding new variants. Some researchers think that the highly infectious Omicron variant spent time in an animal reservoir before popping up in people.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Clearing of tropical rain forests continues unabated:
The tropics lost 11.1 million hectares of tree cover in 2021, according to Global Forest Watch. Including 3.75 million hectares of tropical primary rainforests at a rate of 10 football pitches a minute – releasing 2.5 Gt of CO2, equivalent to India’s fossil fuel emissions. Outside of the tropics, boreal forests experienced the highest rates of tree cover loss in 2021, increasing 29% over 2020.
https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/data-and-research/global-tree-cover-loss-data-2021/
India cooking:
A heat dome formed over India in March resulting in its highest maximum temperatures in 122 years and rainfall 71% lower than average, the scorching temperatures extended into April, and ferocious heat waves are forecast to be even worse in May.
The extinction crisis:
A global review has found a 21% of reptiles are threatened with extinction, not as many as the 41% of amphibians, or the 25% of mammals, but more than the 14% of birds. Reptiles inhabiting forests are facing the strongest threats, including from logging.
Global assessments reveal that, among tetrapods, 40.7% of amphibians, 25.4% of mammals and 13.6% of birds are threatened with extinction. …Here we provide a comprehensive extinction-risk assessment of reptiles and show that at least 1,829 out of 10,196 species (21.1%) are threatened—confirming a previous extrapolation8 and representing 15.6 billion years of phylogenetic diversity. Reptiles are threatened by the same major factors that threaten other tetrapods—agriculture, logging, urban development and invasive species—although the threat posed by climate change remains uncertain. Reptiles inhabiting forests, where these threats are strongest, are more threatened than those in arid habitats, contrary to our prediction. Birds, mammals and amphibians are unexpectedly good surrogates for the conservation of reptiles, although threatened reptiles with the smallest ranges tend to be isolated from other threatened tetrapods. Although some reptiles—including most species of crocodiles and turtles—require urgent, targeted action to prevent extinctions, efforts to protect other tetrapods, such as habitat preservation and control of trade and invasive species, will probably also benefit many reptiles.
…
More than half of all reptile species occur in forested habitats (Fig. 4c). … The top threats to reptiles—agriculture, urban development and logging—are also the top threats to species inhabiting forested habitats, affecting 65.9%, 34.8% and 27.9% of forest-dwelling threatened reptiles, respectively, helping to explain the higher extinction risk of forest species.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04664-7
Australia one of the worst:
An article in the Conversation summarises Australia’s world leading role in the extinction crisis and the Federal Government’s contribution to the deteriorating situation.
Australia is losing more biodiversity than any other developed nation. Already this year the charismatic and once abundant gang gang cockatoo has been added to our national threatened species list, the koala has been listed as endangered and the Great Barrier Reef suffered another mass bleaching event.
The Coalition has been in government since 2013. So what has it done about the biodiversity crisis? Unfortunately, the state of Australia’s plants, animals and ecological communities suggests the answer is - not nearly enough.
In fact, as the extinction crisis has escalated, protection and recovery for threatened species has declined. Poor decisions are contributing to the problem, rather than solving it.
Australia has formally acknowledged the extinction of 104 native species since European colonisation, but the true number is likely much higher.
Threatened bird, mammal and plant populations have, on average, halved or worse since 1985. Species recently thought to be safe – such as the bogong moth, gang gang cockatoos, and even the iconic koala – are being added to the global and national threatened species lists following drought, catastrophic fires and habitat destruction.
The hectares cleared in New South Wales over the last decade have tripled, and a staggering 2.5 million hectares have been cleared in Queensland between 2000 and 2018. So what policies are needed to reverse the biodiversity crisis? The answer is: spend more and destroy less.
The government also continues to back activities that cause damage to biodiversity, including the fossil fuel and forestry industries.
Just two days of Coalition election promises (estimated at $833 million per day) would fund recovery for Australia’s entire list of threatened species for a year.
Finally, transformative policies are needed to support the substantial opportunities to enhance and restore biodiversity. This includes:
- using nature to help mitigate climate change
- green recovery of the economy post-COVID
- finding ways to farm profitably while enhancing biodiversity
- designing cities where people and nature can both flourish.
The Guardian similarly summarises Australia’s appalling record and lack of political will, citing Gregory Andrews, Australia’s first threatened species commissioner, who believes the state of our natural wildlife and biodiversity is the “worst it’s ever been” and called the ongoing destruction of forests and other habitat “crazy”.
“Biodiversity and nature have been completely absent from this campaign so far,” he says.
“If we’re serious about what it means to be Australian … we are a rich enough country with enough habitat and enough cleared area to dedicate the remaining land to protection,” he says. “The trouble is the Greens are the only party that says that, and it is seen as a fringe or extremist position.”
A new report from a coalition of conservation groups says if Australia was serious about nature protection, it would increase its spending ten-fold. It highlights 100 animals and plants – including the orange-bellied parrot and the grassland earless dragon – that are at imminent risk of extinction.
The council – backed by BirdLife Australia, Bush Heritage, the Humane Society International and the Australian Land Conservation Alliance – has released a new report that notes extinctions are expected to dramatically escalate in Australia over the next two decades due to Australia’s failure to deal with the major threats of invasive species, habitat destruction and climate change.
It identifies 100 species that have a high risk of extinction in that time, including 20 freshwater fish, nine birds, eight frogs, six reptiles, one mammal and one butterfly with a greater than 50% risk of extinction within 20 years, and 55 plants at high risk of extinction within 10.
Wildfires a key threat:
‘Fire regimes that cause biodiversity decline’ was listed last week as a key threatening process under the EPBC Act (Australia’s national environmental law) after being nominated in 2008.
‘Our current national threat abatement strategies are not working. The growing list of threatened species and declining ecosystems attest to that,’ Dr Rebecca Spindler, Executive Manager Science and Conservation, Bush Heritage Australia, said.
The Averting Extinctions report calls for more systematic listing of threats, more flexible response options including regional plans (as recommended by the Samuel review of the EPBC Act), more funding, and commitments by all governments to implement threat abatement plans.
Download Averting Extinctions here.
https://www.openforum.com.au/australia-faces-an-avalanche-of-extinctions/
The decline of insects:
A comprehensive global review has identified a 50% decline in the abundance of insects and more than a 25% decline in species in areas where substantial warming has been documented and where land has been converted for intensive agriculture
The combination of climate change and heavy agriculture is having a profound impact on the abundance and diversity of insects, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
In areas where substantial warming has been documented and where land has been converted for intensive agriculture — meaning it involves monoculture or the use of pesticides — insects were nearly 50 percent less abundant, and more than a quarter fewer species could be found, the study said.
Getting too hot for sperm:
Research (and the Canadian heat dome) shows that if honeybees experience a temperature of 42oC for 2 hours a third of male sperm dies and after 6 hours 50% of males die, with the expectation that increasing heatwaves could impair the fertility of beetles, bumblebees, flies, moths and wasps.
I research how heat stress affects honeybees, and Huxter’s observations reflect what I’ve seen in the lab. Our experiments show that after six hours at 42°C, 50% of male honeybees die. The results were alarming, yet conservative compared to previous work. Other researchers have found that up to 77% of drones die from exposure to 42°C for just four hours.
Worryingly, male fertility likely begins to decline well before the drones die. For example, after just two hours at 42°C, about one-third of sperm cells within drone ejaculates perish. This means that if a male bee survives a heat event, his fertility is likely impaired.
Honeybees are not the only insects whose fertility is imperiled by extreme heat. Scientists expect that worsening heat waves could impair fertility of beetles, bumblebees, flies, moths, and wasps—and those are just some of the ones we know about.
Getting too hot for scientists:
As evidence of the growing extinction crises grows and habitat destruction gathers momentum scientists are becoming increasingly alarmed, with one climate activist immolating himself in America.
Curry is part of a growing chorus of scientists worldwide calling for an immediate paradigm shift in the way humans travel, produce energy, grow their food and consume goods. Such a shift is not only necessary to tackle climate change, Curry said, but it’s also critical to mitigating the threat of mass extinction, as a rapidly increasing number of species of plants and animals face the threat of losing their natural habitats to inhospitable heat and the growing footprint of human industry and agriculture.
A sweeping new report from the United Nations found that more than 70 percent of the Earth’s land has already been altered by human activity, primarily because of expanding agriculture. And another study published by the World Resources Institute found that the world is essentially losing 10 soccer fields worth of tropical forest per minute because of development and industry.
Earlier this month, more than 1,000 scientists from around the world staged demonstrations and even faced arrest for civil disobedience as a way to decry a lack of action to address the climate crisis. And in a tragic scene last week, in what is believed to be a protest on climate inaction, a U.S. climate activist lit himself on fire in front of the Supreme Court and later died from his injuries.
In some ways, the latest batch of biodiversity studies should act as a clarion call to humanity to do far more to address the industries driving the climate crisis, including logging and agriculture, Curry said.
“You really need to remember that we are species on a planet, and our fate is tied to the health of all of the other species on this planet,” she said. “Killing the planet is killing ourselves, and that’s the message that everybody needs to absorb and start acting on.”
https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?e=6624c72df8&u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=bdcba27df2
TURNING IT AROUND
Earth Day:
Earth Day was on the 22 April and is celebrated around the world, with overall co-ordination by EarthDay.org. Their Canopy Project focuses on tree planting, with their factsheet on reforestation noting:
Reforestation is an effective method to fight against climate change while also maintaining the many benefits forests provide. These ten facts highlight some of the social and environmental benefits forests provide, and statistics on deforestation and reforestation.
- Worldwide forest cover shrinks by an average of 4.7 million hectares per year (12 pp. 125)
- A tree must live for at least 10-20 years to have a meaningful effect on the environment (2)
- Forests are home to an estimated 80% of the world’s terrestrial species (3)
- Throughout 2015-2020, 10 million hectares of trees were removed from forests around the world each year. Only 5 million hectares of trees were planted each year throughout the same period (4)
- Forests are extremely important to humanity’s health and wellbeing. They provide tens of millions of jobs, are a vital part of the food chain, and over 28,000 species of forest plants are used in medicines (5 pp.12-15)
- A study found that urban reforestation projects improved the mental health of office workers who could view green spaces from their office (6)
- Forests play a vital role in regulating water cycles and soil quality (7)
- Adding 10% more green cover in cities and towns could potentially reduce the surface temperature of the area by 2.2 °C (8)
- Plants found in forests release phytoncides, antimicrobial compounds. Studies have found that exposure to phytoncides can reduce stress, boost the immune system, and lower blood pressure as well as heart rate. (9)
- 2,000 years ago, 80% of Western Europe was covered by forests. Today, only 34% is covered by forests. (10)
https://www.earthday.org/reforestation-fact-sheet/
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/04/its-earth-day-invest-in-our-planet/
Forest Media 22 April 2022
New South Wales
The National Parks Association (NPA) community forum about The Great Koala National Park at the Norm Jordan Pavilion at the Coffs Harbour Showgrounds, from 5:30pm until 8pm and NEFA’s 29 April rally at 10.30 to 11.30 outside the NSW Legislative Council committee inquiry into the ‘Long term sustainability and future of the timber and forest products industry’ has been reported by News of the Area.
A Clarence Valley blueberry farmer has entered into an Enforceable Undertaking with the NSW Department of Planning and Environment committing the landholder to a conservation agreement for the property, which will protect more than 22 hectares of remnant vegetation from clearing for a minimum of 25 years, following the unlawful clearing of more than 11 hectares of native vegetation on their property. A NSW company linked to a serial offender has been fined more than $250,000 for building two illegal dams in creeks and clearing 6ha of endangered swamp sclerophyll forest next to the Great Lakes Marine Park.
Residents of Dalmeny in Eurobodalla Shire on the far south coast are continuing their campaign to stop bulldozing of 100 hectares of spotted gum forest that escaped the Black Summer bushfires for housing, and are now seeking donations for a legal challenge.
Australia
The Morrison government has been accused of sitting on the Australia State of the Environment report it received in December to avoid "more bad news" before the election, despite The Greens, Labor, the independent MP Zali Steggall, environment groups and scientists calling on the government to release it.
The ABC has a series of positive case studies of farmers protecting parts of their properties under various forms of conservation agreements in return for stewardship payments or carbon credits, while land clearing goes on.
As part of the Federal Government’s promotion of logging, the Green Triangle forestry industry, hit hard by the ongoing export log ban by China, has received a $1.3 million federal grant to explore the creation of new wood products using softwood and hardwood pulp.
Species
Concerns are growing over the Lendlease housing developments at Figtree Hill and Mt Gilead as clearing of Koala habitat proceeds without the promised fauna underpasses, while Koala corridors are narrowed and the density of development increases. State Member for Campbelltown Greg Warren and the Labor opposition welcome the $193m NSW Koala Strategy but are warning that koalas cannot be saved unless the current laws, policies and planning rules are changed to protect endangered koalas.
Through vaccinations and introductions of healthy adults from other populations, the University of Queensland's koala ecology group consider they have eliminated chlamydia from Koalas in Belmont Hills Reserve in suburban Brisbane, healthy adults are breeding again and hopefully the steady decline has been reversed.
With Firesticks Alliance a Yuin-Djiringanj traditional custodian applied a ‘traditional burn’ on a private property on the edge of Biamanga National Park to protect Koala habitat. Vic Jurkiss denies the Black Summer firestorms ever reached the new koala park at Biamanga, and has his usual rant about Koalas erupting due to increased regrowth and wildfires, noting “Explosive fuels, koala plagues and megafires go together”.
Researchers have undertaken DNA surveys of waterways in Royal National Park, finding traces of 250 land and water species, but no platypus, clearing the way for proposed reintroduction of 10 platypuses in August.
On the south-coast land-owners are being requested to remove Cocos Palms as flying foxes are increasingly being forced to feed on the toxic fruits following the loss of eucalypt blossoms in the fires, followed by rain washing the nectar out of flowers.
In an attempt to avoid extinctions, eighty captive spotted tree frogs, as well as 100 southern corroboree frogs, have been released into Kosciuszko National Park, after being severely impacted by the Black Summer bushfires on top of chytrid fungus. Only 10 spotted tree frogs were thought to have survived the fires.
The Australian Wildlife Conservancy says Bilbys are experiencing a population boom inside their 5 predator-free enclosures, with numbers growing from about 1230 animals last year to around 1480 this year.
The Save the Tasmanian devil Program has shown nearly 60,000 animals were reported killed in road-related incidents in Tasmania since the government launched a smartphone app three years ago, that is an average of 32 animals every hour with many more unreported.
Since December outbreaks of bird flu have been reported amongst wild birds in America, for example it is attributed with killing more than 200 waterfowl and water birds in an Illinois forest preserve, scores of Canada geese in Strafford County, hawks and eagles in Dane County and a growing number of other cases. In America more than 24 million poultry animals have been killed in the last two months across at least 24 states, and outbreaks H5 avian influenza are reported nearly every day. Japanese authorities culled 92,000 chickens following an outbreak, and outbreaks have been reported in South Korea, United Kingdom, Netherlands and Germany.
Researchers have completed the first open-air study of genetically engineered mosquitoes in the United States, the engineered males carry a gene that is lethal to female offspring meaning they die before they can reproduce.
The Deteriorating Problem
South Africa has said it will take climate change adaption seriously after it’s deadliest storm on record resulted in torrential rains that caused floods and mudslides in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, killing 448 people, leaving another 63 missing, destroying over 4,000 homes with thousands more seriously damaged, leaving 40,000 people without shelter, and many more without water or electricity. It was the third such catastrophe since 2017.
Turning it Around
The Conversation is undertaking a survey of its readers to find what matters to them most, so far more than 6,000 people have answered, with climate change (65%) and the environment (28%) topping the list as the issues that have the greatest impact on people’s lives (you can join in). Though they are being ignored by the main political parties.
The Magpie River recently became the first river in Canada to be granted legal personhood, giving it nine rights, among them the right to flow, maintain biodiversity, be free from pollution, and to sue.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
The National Parks Association (NPA) community forum about The Great Koala National Park at the Norm Jordan Pavilion at the Coffs Harbour Showgrounds, from 5:30pm until 8pm and NEFA’s 29 April rally at 10.30 to 11.30 outside the NSW Legislative Council committee inquiry into the ‘Long term sustainability and future of the timber and forest products industry’ has been reported by News of the Area.
Mr Graham told News Of The Area, “If the State Government is serious about doubling the koala population, then The Great Koala National Park is essential.
“Leaving the native forests alone will benefit taxpayers much more than cutting them down.
The Friends of Pine Creek will be promoting their proposal to complete a ‘forest bridge’ from the New England plateau to the coast.
Organisers want the NSW Government to end logging of public native forests and transition to plantations.
They also want to raise awareness about endangered species such as koalas, spotted-tailed quolls and barred frogs and vulnerable species of gliders.
The organisers also want to highlight the role of the Federal Government in forestry.
Blueberry farmer forced to protect 22ha after 11ha illegally cleared:
A Clarence Valley blueberry farmer has entered into an Enforceable Undertaking with the NSW Department of Planning and Environment committing the landholder to a conservation agreement for the property, which will protect more than 22 hectares of remnant vegetation from clearing for a minimum of 25 years, following the unlawful clearing of more than 11 hectares of native vegetation on their property.
https://insidelocalgovernment.com.au/blueberry-farmer-in-a-jam-over-unlawful-land-clearing/
Another fined more than $250,000 for clearing 6ha of an endangered ecosystem:
A NSW company linked to a serial offender has been fined more than $250,000 for building two illegal dams in creeks and clearing 6ha of endangered swamp sclerophyll forest next to the Great Lakes Marine Park.
The Natural Resources Access Regulator brought the case and says it should serve as a warning to landholders about what's at stake if they do the wrong thing.
https://www.northernbeachesreview.com.au/story/7707442/company-fined-over-clearing-illegal-dams/
The company, Bao Lin Pty Ltd, is linked to Chinese billionaire developer Phillip Dong Fang Lee, whose companies have been fined in Australia for environmental damage on three separate occasions since 2009.
Mr Lee’s companies were fined $200,000 in the NSW Land and Environment Court in 2009
when a dam walled collapsed and polluted water contaminated North Arm Cove.
In 2014 his companies were fined $8000 for clearing bushland and in 2019 his companies were fined $88,000 plus $20,000 costs for illegally clearing bushland.
In 2021 Mr Lee and Ms Shi’s assets were frozen by the Australian Tax Office, which is pursuing the couple for $272 million.
Protecting bush from housing:
Residents of Dalmeny in Eurobodalla Shire on the far south coast are continuing their campaign to stop bulldozing of 100 hectares of spotted gum forest that escaped the Black Summer bushfires for housing, and are now seeking donations for a legal challenge.
AUSTRALIA
Morrison sits on environment report:
The Morrison government has been accused of sitting on the Australia State of the Environment report it received in December to avoid "more bad news" before the election, despite The Greens, Labor, the independent MP Zali Steggall, environment groups and scientists calling on the government to release it.
A spokesperson for Ley said, "the report will be released within the statutory timeframe set out under the act". She would say that, but it's no excuse for using the election to avoid delaying the release of the report.
Paying to protect private lands:
The ABC has a series of positive case studies of farmers protecting parts of their properties under various forms of conservation agreements in return for stewardship payments or carbon credits, while land clearing goes on.
Recent research led by a University of Queensland team has found that 48 per cent of Australia’s threatened species’ distributions occur on private freehold land – and that conservation on farmland is critical to threatened species’ recovery.
Professor Lindenmayer says it’s paradoxical that there is so much emphasis on putting trees and shrubs back into the landscape, while legislation still allows large amounts of land clearing, especially in New South Wales and Queensland
Investing in composite timber products:
As part of the Federal Government’s promotion of logging, the Green Triangle forestry industry, hit hard by the ongoing export log ban by China, has received a $1.3 million federal grant to explore the creation of new wood products using softwood and hardwood pulp.
SPECIES
Putting the squeeze on Koalas:
Concerns are growing over the Lendlease housing developments at Figtree Hill and Mt Gilead as clearing of Koala habitat proceeds without the promised fauna underpasses, while Koala corridors are narrowed and the density of development increases.
However, Lendlease has yet to secure approval for the underpasses, and scientists fear other changes made since the plan was approved could harm the population of about 500 disease-free animals.
Koala ecologist Dr Steve Philips said he understands that koala corridors may now be constructed to an average rather than minimum size, which could create “pinch points” that prevent the animals from using them.
“Pinch points … will impede koala movements along the corridor. Males will block transit by other males … rendering them ineffective,” Philips said.
Labor says policies and planning rules need to be changed to double Koalas:
State Member for Campbelltown Greg Warren and the Labor opposition welcome the $193m NSW Koala Strategy but are warning that koalas cannot be saved unless the current laws, policies and planning rules are changed to protect endangered koalas.
State Member for Campbelltown Greg Warren says that while the overdue NSW Koala Strategy is welcome, what the residents of Campbelltown need and deserve is genuine action rather than lip service.
Mr Warren and the Labor opposition are warning that koalas cannot be saved if the current laws, policies and planning rules fail to protect endangered koalas.
Labor says koala numbers cannot be doubled if:
-
The NSW Government fails to apply clear rules through the planning system that protect key koala corridors and ensure there are safe road crossings before development occurs;
- The changes to land clearing laws that have seen a 300 percent increase in land clearing are allowed to continue in their current form;
- The stalled private native forestry code waters down protections for koala habitat on private land;
- The political bickering over the Koala State Environment Planning Policy (SEPP) continues;
- The NSW Government continues to ignore the Natural Resources Commission Report that sets out key actions to save and restore severely burned forests after the Black Summer bushfires;
- The NSW Government refuses to legislate net zero greenhouse gas emissions targets.
https://southwestvoice.com.au/saving-koalas/
Saving urban Koalas:
Through vaccinations and introductions of healthy adults from other populations, the University of Queensland's koala ecology group consider they have eliminated chlamydia from Koalas in Belmont Hills Reserve in suburban Brisbane, healthy adults are breeding again and hopefully the steady decline has been reversed.
[Dr FitzGibbon] accepts the new system is too labour intensive for large areas of habitat but believes it could help save urban colonies living in pockets of bushland.
https://www.blayneychronicle.com.au/story/7705414/new-approach-could-save-urban-koalas/
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2022/04/20/chlamydia-urban-koalas/
Burning to protect Koalas:
With Firesticks Alliance a Yuin-Djiringanj traditional custodian applied a ‘traditional burn’ on a private property on the edge of Biamanga National Park to protect Koala habitat.
For Dan Morgan, the next, crucial step to secure the future of the forests and vulnerable wildlife is to restore the country's traditional fire regime.
He is working with Yuin traditional knowledge holders and the local Koori community, to reclaim and apply cultural fire practices on their traditional lands.
It is a complex path to navigate, reclaiming ancient fire practices within the constraints of the prescribed burning regimes and regulations of different land tenures, and to support a koala population that is more vulnerable than ever.
"It's our cultural responsibility, to care for the land the way our ancestors did for thousands of years," Mr Morgan said. "Because that represents who we are.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-17/koalas-saved-by-traditional-indigenous-burning/100988672
Vic Jurkiss denies the Black Summer firestorms ever reached the new koala park at Biamanga, and has his usual rant about Koalas erupting due to increased regrowth and wildfires, noting “Explosive fuels, koala plagues and megafires go together”.
Koalas are not a vulnerable or endangered species, but there is multi-million dollar multinational industry exploiting their cute and cuddly appearance whilst peddling propaganda about their imminent extinction to raise funds, supposedly for wildlife conservation.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2022/04/explosive-fuels-koala-plagues-and-megafires/
Reintroducing platypuses into Royal NP:
Researchers have undertaken DNA surveys of waterways in Royal National Park, finding traces of 250 land and water species, but no platypus, clearing the way for proposed reintroduction of 10 platypuses in August.
A landmark assessment by UNSW scientists in 2020 found that the area of eastern Australia where platypuses live has shrunk by up to 22 per cent over the past 30 years, with key threats to their habitats including historic land clearing, river regulation, and extreme droughts.
https://www.openforum.com.au/the-return-of-the-platypus/
Cocos Palms killing flying foxes:
On the south-coast land-owners are being requested to remove Cocos Palms as flying foxes are increasingly being forced to feed on the toxic fruits following the loss of eucalypt blossoms in the fires, followed by rain washing the nectar out of flowers.
[Janine Davies] “Unfortunately eating the Cocos palm fruit can be toxic.”
She says removing the Cocos fruit will help reduce the death toll.
“There are many flying foxes being found deceased at the base of Cocos palms and other trees, some with fruit still in their mouth,” Janine says.
Flying fox wings can also get caught in the flower sheaths or leaves and the seeds can cause severe constipation resulting in dehydration and death in younger flying foxes.
Restocking endangered frogs:
In an attempt to avoid extinctions, eighty captive spotted tree frogs, as well as 100 southern corroboree frogs, have been released into Kosciuszko National Park, after being severely impacted by the Black Summer bushfires on top of chytrid fungus. Only 10 spotted tree frogs were thought to have survived the fires.
https://www.aap.com.au/news/endangered-frogs-jump-back-in-the-wild/
https://www.sydneytimes.net.au/critically-endangered-frogs-hop-back-into-the-wild/
Locking Bilbys up for their own good:
The Australian Wildlife Conservancy says Bilbys are experiencing a population boom inside their 5 predator-free enclosures, with numbers growing from about 1230 animals last year to around 1480 this year.
https://7news.com.au/technology/bilby-populations-climb-across-the-country-c-6464226
https://www.northernbeachesreview.com.au/story/7701492/bilby-populations-climb-across-the-country/
Car-nage:
The Save the Tasmanian devil Program has shown nearly 60,000 animals were reported killed in road-related incidents in Tasmania since the government launched a smartphone app three years ago, that is an average of 32 animals every hour with many more unreported.
Bird Flu continues to spread:
Since December outbreaks of bird flu have been reported amongst wild birds in America, for example it is attributed with killing more than 200 waterfowl and water birds in an Illinois forest preserve, scores of Canada geese in Strafford County, hawks and eagles in Dane County and a growing number of other cases. In America more than 24 million poultry animals have been killed in the last two months across at least 24 states, and outbreaks H5 avian influenza are reported nearly every day,
“Waterfowl are a natural host for Avian Influenza viruses and this strain has been identified in every North American Flyway this year,” she wrote. “Flyways are the migratory routes that many species of bird take between the areas they overwinter and summer. The summering and wintering grounds may overlap with those for species from other parts of the globe.”
https://www.concordmonitor.com/avian-flu-nh-new-hampshire-45828844
https://fox47.com/news/local/avian-influenza-found-in-wild-birds-in-wisconsin-dnr-says
Japanese authorities culled 92,000 chickens following an outbreak, and outbreaks have been reported in South Korea, United Kingdom, Netherlands and Germany.
https://www.poultryworld.net/health-nutrition/japanese-authorities-battle-bird-flu-outbreak/
Genetically engineered mosquitoes released:
Researchers have completed the first open-air study of genetically engineered mosquitoes in the United States, the engineered males carry a gene that is lethal to female offspring meaning they die before they can reproduce.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Time to adapt:
South Africa has said it will take climate change adaption seriously after it’s deadliest storm on record resulted in torrential rains that caused floods and mudslides in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, killing 448 people, leaving another 63 missing, destroying over 4,000 homes with thousands more seriously damaged, leaving 40,000 people without shelter, and many more without water or electricity. It was the third such catastrophe since 2017.
TURNING IT AROUND
Climate Change and the environment main issues:
The Conversation is undertaking a survey of its readers to find what matters to them most, so far more than 6,000 people have answered, with climate change (65%) and the environment (28%) topping the list as the issues that have the greatest impact on people’s lives (you can join in). Though they are being ignored by the main political parties.
Climate change (65%) and the environment (28%) topped the list as the issues that have the greatest impact on your lives. The cost of living (20%), misinformation (17%), housing (15%) and aged care (13%) comprise the remaining top spots on the list, followed by education, mental health, gender equality and COVID-19. These issues will all be prominent in our coverage.
The #SetTheAgenda survey will be open for a while yet, so please fill it out if you haven’t done so yet.
Mention forests if you do the survey
As far as political debate goes, this federal election seems to be less about climate change than any in the past 15 years. Unlike in 2010, 2013 and 2016 – when governments were elected and leaders deposed over climate policy – this time there’s no brutal contest over the issue.
In 2019, climate change determined how about 13% of Australians voted. And while it’s early days in the campaign, several polls suggest climate change remains a defining issue for voters this time around. If they’re right, the Coalition is in trouble.
Public anxiety over future climate damage is growing. The Lowy Institute has found 60% of Australians now say global warming is a significant and pressing problem. The same poll showed 55% of Australians say the government’s energy policy should prioritise “reducing carbon emissions” – up eight points since 2019.
The crucial indicator is the short-term national emissions target. The Coalition is sticking with a 26-28% reduction on 2005 levels by 2030. Labor is aiming for a 43% cut in the same period. The Greens and independents want more, and would legislate their targets.
While the Coalition has no renewable energy target, Labor is promising renewables will comprise 82% of the national grid by 2030.
Granting rivers legal rights:
The Magpie River recently became the first river in Canada to be granted legal personhood, giving it nine rights, among them the right to flow, maintain biodiversity, be free from pollution, and to sue.
To protect the natural landmark, the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit and the Minganie Regional County Municipality declared the Mutuhekau Shipu a legal person in 2021. Now the river has nine rights, among them the right to flow, maintain biodiversity, be free from pollution, and to sue.
While this is a first in Canada, it’s part of a global, Indigenous-led campaign echoing the rights of nature movement, which aims to provide concrete protections for the natural landscape. In recent years, many rivers—from New Zealand’s Whanganui to the United States’ Klamath River—have been given personhood. In 2018, Colombia’s Supreme Court granted the Amazon—the world’s largest river—legal rights.
Forest Media 15 April 2022
New South Wales
Echonet has a lengthy article against the burning of forests for electricity, noting that earlier this year (17 March) Tweed Shire Council passed (with only one dissenting) an amendment to exclude the purchase of renewable energy sourced from the burning of wood or waste as part of their procurement of Large-scale Generation Certificates.
Eurobodalla Council Deputy Mayor Alison Worthington put a motion to Council on 12 April calling for the cessation of logging of native forests in the Eurobodalla and a transition to sustainable plantations. Though it didn’t go according to plan, with Council voting to defer most issues. Fiona McCuaig gave a presentation to a public meeting for why logging of public native forests should cease in Eurobodalla.
The Forestry Corporation being fined $45,000 for cutting down ‘hollow bearing’ trees in Mogo State Forest on the South Coast is still generating media (repeatedly since 18 March), though it appears that Forestry Corp has appealed one of the 3 $15,000 fines which means it will be tested in court – generating yet more media.
If you are planning on visiting a national park check before you go, the NPWS have temporarily closed some of its campgrounds, walking tracks and vehicle accesses throughout NSW due to landslips, flooding and coastal erosion.
Australia
The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) have been engaging closely with both the Coalition and Federal Labor throughout this election campaign to secure the best deal for Australia’s forest industries, focussing on Government subsidised plantations, no forest protection, and more pulplogs. It quickly bore fruit, as Scott Morrison promised his government “won’t support any shutdowns of native forestry” as he announced $220m to make more wood products in Australia, including $100 million to set up a National Institute for Forest Products Innovation in Launceston as part of his bid to hang on to marginal seats in Tasmania. The Australian Forest Products Association were delighted, claiming they would be able to quickly develop new methodologies for manufacturing structural timbers. Christine Milne joined the chorus of environmentalists decrying Morrison’s delusional fantasy of creating 73,000 new jobs in a dying industry. The Greens called for an end to logging native forests, and completing the transition to plantations.
For the industry ABARES are assessing the available resources for logging outside State forests over privately managed native forests, planted farm forestry, and native forests managed by Indigenous peoples. They have now released the Farm forestry sector report, identifying 73,400 hectares of farm forestry in Australia, of which 53,100 hectares have previously been identified and reported as commercial plantation.
The debate about whether logging makes forests more vulnerable to burning continues in the academic journals, most recently Lindenmayer et. al. reinterpret the data presented by Bowman et. al, concluding “Their data clearly show the effect of logging on the probability of high-severity fire and such findings, coupled with the results of other empirical analyses, indicate that forest management can lead to long-term elevated risks of high-severity fire. Even in mild fire weather, logged forests were more likely to suffer high-severity fire than undisturbed forests under more severe fire weather conditions”, in response Bowman et. al admit “a relatively small positive effect of recent harvesting on fire severity; however, the overall effect size is negligible on an area basis because such a small proportion of the area burned (<5%) was affected by recent harvesting”, regarding as critically important “the vulnerability of recently clear-felled native forests, plantations and the very large area of native forests regenerating following the recent fires”.
Species
On Saturday 9 April the NSW Government released its NSW Koala Strategy, to avoid scrutiny strategically timed to be sandwiched between the launch of the Federal Government’s Koala Recovery Plan and announcement of the federal election. Despite a promise to double Koala populations by 2050, with $193.3 million for the next 5 years, the strategy is set to fail because it does not fulfill the most fundamental requirement of stopping existing Koala habitat from being cleared and degraded, and lacks a strategic approach to identify the highest priority lands for protection and revegetation. It was praised by WWF though they did have a qualification about not stopping landclearing. NEFA’s criticisms for not stopping clearing and logging of koala habitat, while ignoring public lands (such as the Great Koala National Park and Sandy Creek Koala Park) and their proposed reductions of private land protections, were widely publicised. The Greens said it would be better to stop logging public forests. Labor emphasised the need to stop landclearing and adopt policies and laws for koalas.
The announced 5,000 ha Taronga Zoo Box-Gum Woodland Rewilding Reserve is assumed to be another fenced breeding compound, though no details were found. Koalas are intended to be introduced into it, though it seems inappropriate to fund it with Koala strategy money as they don’t need feral predators excluded.
There is no need to worry about clearing and logging Koala habitat, or biobanking habitat as compensation, when for a fraction of the cost we can just biobank sperm. A new koala rescue course has been launched nationwide by WIRES for registered wildlife carers.
NSW loggers have welcomed the Federal Government’s National Recovery Plan for the Koala, because, like NSW’s Strategy, it focuses on DPI Forestry’s dodgy findings that logging has no impact on Koala occupancy and ignores all the other studies which found logging has significant impacts, to justify doing nothing about logging.
NSW is missing in action as the Queensland Department of Environment and Science joined the Commonwealth in updating the conservation status of the koala to ‘endangered’.
An article in the Conversation (with audio) identifies Albert’s Lyrebird can mimic 11 other birds and 37 different sounds, each population with their own songs, though worryingly a third of their habitat was burnt.
A biologist fears last year's mysterious mass die-off of Australian frogs, which has been partially attributed to the skin-attacking amphibian chytrid fungus, could be on the cards again this winter, amplified by the recent floods. In the recent Queensland floods invasive fire ants formed rafts out of their bodies enabling them to float around with their queen and larvae on floodwaters for weeks before finding dry ground and starting new colonies.
Forestry had been monitoring wildlife at 40 sites in state forests south of Eden since 2007. Small mammals started declining with the drought in 2016-17 and then the 2019-20 fires caused a greater than 50 per cent decline in some species, though according to Forestry increased rainfall and prolific vegetation regrowth over the past 2 years have led to rapid recovery of a range of animal species including Southern Brown Bandicoots, Long-nosed Bandicoots, Bush Rats, Agile Antechinus and Painted Button quail.
The Sydney Morning Herald has an in-depth article about recovery efforts for the Orange-bellied Parrot as it teeters on the brink of extinction in the wild, with a massive investment there has been a slight improvement in the last few years.
Park rangers in China’s Ailaoshan Nature Reserve collected and preserved 30,468 leeches over a few months, whose blood was then analysed to identify the DNA of 86 different species from frogs to bears, enabling researches to identify what parts of the park the species utilised – wild animals preferred wild areas.
The Deteriorating Problem
National Geographic has a series of articles on the plight of our forests. ‘The Future of Forests’ documents cases of mass die-offs of forests around the world, including cases where repeat fires or other factors stop regeneration. While heating is enabling boreal forests to expand north, and CO2 fertilisation is enhancing growth, the apocalypse of intensifying heatwaves, droughts, fires, storms, and insect infestations are killing forests on a massive scale, as trees die they release their carbon, the land warms and the air dries. We can still limit the losses. In ‘4 solutions for trees and forests threatened by a hotter world’ they identify 1. Help forests migrate to beat the heat (climate is shifting faster than trees can), 2. Plant trees—but the right ones in the right places (too often inappropriate species are planted and the capacity for natural regeneration ignored – though the most effective action is to restore forests), 3. Build tougher trees with genetic engineering (in America they have genetically engineered a variety of native trees to resist diseases, though there is strong concern about releasing them into the wild), and 4. Leave forests alone to heal themselves (moving away from treating forests as plantations and allowing natural processes to restore forests, while logging occasional mature trees).
Mongabay has an article on the various metrics that can be used to measure biodiversity loss and planetary boundaries, concluding that by all measures biodiversity and ecosystems are in dramatic decline necessitating radical action.
A recent study of tropical forests identified how the regional warming and rainfall declines caused by deforestation affected remaining forests, finding significant biomass losses across the remaining rainforest.
Turning it Around
A recent study has claimed that we have a 50% chance of keeping warming to 2oC if all countries honour their promises, though limiting it to 1.5o warming will require deeper cuts. At the National Press Club the Greens focussed on the climate crisis as a war, and accused Liberal and Labor of aiding the enemy by backing more coal and gas, while spruiking how they will turn it around if they get the balance of power.
Last week, as part of the ‘Scientist Rebellion’ an estimated 1,000 scientists in more than 25 countries staged demonstrations to demand that world leaders do far more to reduce climate-warming emissions, with some locking themselves to the gate of the White House and to the front door of the JPMorgan Chase bank in Los Angeles, as well as blocking highway traffic in Washington, D.C. In a Guardian article a scientist speaks of his growing terror of the impacts of climate change, grief at the loss of reefs and forests, increasing activism, and inability to effect change – still urging others to action, citing Martin Luther King Jr.: “He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Tweed votes against incinerating forests:
Echonet has a lengthy article against the burning of forests for electricity, noting that earlier this year (17 March) Tweed Shire Council passed (with only one dissenting) an amendment to exclude the purchase of renewable energy sourced from the burning of wood or waste as part of their procurement of Large-scale Generation Certificates.
[Greens Councillor Nola Firth] ‘The reasoning used to justify burning wood for energy is that wood regrows so is a renewable source. This reasoning is deeply flawed because we know trees take time to grow and also that trees are disappearing from the earth at a disastrous rate- in Australia one Melbourne Cricket Ground is cleared every 86 seconds, This at a time when over a million species are at risk of extinction and loss of habitat is the main cause.’
Mayor Chris Cherry supported the amendment pointing out that ‘we do have options for wind and solar that is the better option at this time. I am happy to see this going forward to meet our target for 2022 and 2030’.
Eurobodalla Council is being asked to support stopping logging of public forests:
Eurobodalla Council Deputy Mayor Alison Worthington put a motion to Council on 12 April calling for the cessation of logging of native forests in the Eurobodalla and a transition to sustainable plantations.
Deputy Mayor Councillor Worthington says "There is growing community demand here in the Eurobodalla, across NSW, as well as around Australia and the world, for native forest logging to stop, and for the native forest timber industry to be transitioned to sustainable plantations. We are in the middle of twin deteriorating crises - the Biodiversity Crisis and the Climate Crisis.
"Native forest logging practices in our south coast State Forests, which make up 31% of our shire’s land area, directly contribute to both crises. Logging of our south coast State Forests is not economically or environmentally sustainable.
Though it didn’t go according to plan, with Council voting to defer most issues.
In what was an argumentative, cumbersome, poorly informed debate the majority of Eurobodalla Shire Councillors voted to defer many of the points in a motion calling for an end to native forest logging in the State Forests within Eurobodalla.
As if it was painfully pulling teeth the Council voted to acknowledge and raise the concerns of south coast residents with FCNSW asking for better management of State Forests to support nature-based tourism enterprises, recreational usage, threatened species habitat protection and carbon sequestration.
https://www.beagleweekly.com.au/post/visionary-forest-policy-deferred-by-eurobodalla-council
https://www.beagleweekly.com.au/post/council-shows-its-underbelly-on-continued-native-forest-harvesting
In light of the passed motions to defer, Council will now seek further information on each of the matters.
Based on debate in the chamber, it is understood Council will ask NSW Forestry Corporation about the organisation's profitability and viability; discussions are also likely to occur with local tourism operators impacted by this issue.
The current deferrals are active until council receives the extra information it has requested. At this stage, there is no set date for when the motion will return to the council chamber.
Fiona McCuaig gave a presentation to a public meeting for why logging of public native forests should cease in Eurobodalla.
https://www.beagleweekly.com.au/post/presentation-to-public-forum-fiona-mccuaig
Mogo repeating fines:
The Forestry Corporation being fined $45,000 for cutting down ‘hollow bearing’ trees in Mogo State Forest on the South Coast is still generating media (repeatedly since 18 March), though it appears that Forestry Corp has appealed one of the 3 $15,000 fines which means it will be tested in court – generating yet more media.
The EPA issued three $15,000 Penalty Infringement Notices to FCNSW for felling hollow bearing trees across three areas in Mogo State Forest in 2020. These trees provide vital habitat for endangered species.
Forestry Corporation has appealed against one of the fines.
The EPA set Site Specific Operating Conditions for forestry activity in the Mogo State Forest following damage from the 2019/20 Black Summer Bushfires.
EPA Executive Director Regulatory Operations Carmen Dwyer said these conditions were in place to provide additional environmental protections for damaged forests, including the requirement to permanently retain all hollow bearing trees, which were particularly important for the habitat of native animals.
https://www.miragenews.com/forestry-corporation-fined-for-destroying-762091/
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7695117/habitat-loss-costs-forestry-corp-nsw-45k/
https://www.tenterfieldstar.com.au/story/7695117/habitat-loss-costs-forestry-corp-nsw-45k/?cs=7
https://www.thebharatexpressnews.com/forestry-corp-nsw-fined-for-habitat-loss/
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/nsw/2022/04/11/forestry-corp-nsw-fined-over-habitat-loss/
Check before going bush:
If you are planning on visiting a national park check before you go, the NPWS have temporarily closed some of its campgrounds, walking tracks and vehicle accesses throughout NSW due to landslips, flooding and coastal erosion.
https://psnews.com.au/2022/04/12/visitors-on-way-to-parks-advised-to-check-first/?state=aps
AUSTRALIA
Loggers after election commitments:
The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) have been engaging closely with both the Coalition and Federal Labor throughout this election campaign to secure the best deal for Australia’s forest industries, focussing on Government subsidised plantations, no forest protection, and more pulplogs.
The four themes under which more detailed policy requests are included in the Plan for Growth, are:
- Rapidly delivering on the bipartisan agreement of an additional one billion new production trees to meet Australia’s future timber needs
- Ensure hardwood supplies for floors and other high value uses continue through no more forest lock ups
- Turbocharge the job creating, value adding new fibre-based industries by establishing the National Institute for Forest Products Innovation (NIFPI) in Launceston
- Enhance our world leading pulp, paper and packaging sector to allow it to play a larger role in moving Australia to a recyclable bioeconomy replacing plastics
https://www.miragenews.com/this-election-vote-for-forest-industries-to-762078/
… and quickly get cash handouts:
Scott Morrison has promised his government “won’t support any shutdowns of native forestry” as he announced $220m to make more wood products in Australia, including $100 million to set up a National Institute for Forest Products Innovation in Launceston as part of his bid to hang on to marginal seats in Tasmania.
Morrison said the Coalition’s support for forestry was about jobs, and showed it understood “what drives regional economies”.
“Forestry is key to that,” he said. “Under our government we won’t support any shutdowns of native forestry, and we will continue to work with state governments to create permanent timber production areas.”
Morrison said the Coalition still had time to meet the tree planting commitment. He said the new announcement would allow manufacturing and processing businesses to “maximise log recovery, process smaller diameter logs and create new and innovative wood products”, and followed a $86.2m promise to reduce the upfront cost of establishing new plantations.
The Australian Forest Products Association claimed they would be able to quickly develop new methodologies for manufacturing structural timbers
Australian Forest Products Association chief executive Ross Hampton said it was "absolutely possible to get quick wins" from the grant funding and see a "significant amount" of timber injected into the domestic market.
"We need our researchers finding clever ways to get more structural timber out of the trees we've currently got coming in," he said.
"There are new saws that can cut around curves, it's possible to glue smaller pieces of timber to get the strength we need in construction and there's an opportunity to review the timber grading system we use."
Christine Milne joined the chorus of environmentalists decrying Morrison’s delusional fantasy of creating 73,000 new jobs in a dying industry.
The reality is that it is over for native forest logging in Australia. It is ecologically unsustainable and destroys biodiversity and carbon stores. WA has shut it down, Victorian regeneration has failed and the industry is set for closure by 2030 and under huge community, legal and financial pressure to go before the end of this year.
The community does not want native forests burnt for bioenergy anywhere in the country. Almost 90% of timber used in Australia comes from plantations. The market has spoken; yet today’s announcement is the logging equivalent of Morrison’s “this is coal” gimmick in Parliament.
https://www.miragenews.com/keeping-forests-intact-is-essential-to-protect-764613/
The Greens called for an end to logging native forests, and completing the transition to plantations.
As stated by Greens spokesperson for forests, Senator Janet Rice:
“Logging Australia’s native forests is environmental vandalism and economically unviable. The Greens will end the destructive native forest logging that is destroying wildlife habitation, water catchments, carbon stores.
“Ninety percent of the timber industry is already plantation based. We need to complete the shift to 100% plantation based industry and cease the devastating destruction done by logging our precious native forests.
https://www.miragenews.com/forestry-sector-needs-reform-not-expansion-764826/
Finding more resources for logging:
For the industry ABARES are assessing the available resources for logging outside State forests over privately managed native forests, planted farm forestry, and native forests managed by Indigenous peoples. They have now released the Farm forestry sector report, identifying 73,400 hectares of farm forestry in Australia, of which 53,100 hectares have previously been identified and reported as commercial plantation.
Farm forestry sector report – PDF [ 3.4 MB]
https://www.awe.gov.au/abares/forestsaustralia/publications/private-forest-inventory
Logging does increase burning:
The debate about whether logging makes forests more vulnerable to burning continues in the academic journals, most recently Lindenmayer et. al. reinterpret the data presented by Bowman et. al, concluding “Their data clearly show the effect of logging on the probability of high-severity fire and such findings, coupled with the results of other empirical analyses, indicate that forest management can lead to long-term elevated risks of high-severity fire. Even in mild fire weather, logged forests were more likely to suffer high-severity fire than undisturbed forests under more severe fire weather conditions”, in response Bowman et. al admit “a relatively small positive effect of recent harvesting on fire severity; however, the overall effect size is negligible on an area basis because such a small proportion of the area burned (<5%) was affected by recent harvesting”, regarding as critically important “the vulnerability of recently clear-felled native forests, plantations and the very large area of native forests regenerating following the recent fires”.
Substantial research demonstrates that crown fire is far less likely in older and unlogged forests. In logged forests, including those subject to intensive clearcutting, stand age can effectively be reduced to zero. For many forests studied to date, there is an initial (~10 yr) decline in high-severity fire after logging, followed by an extended period (of at least 40 yr) of increased probability of high-severity fire, particularly under extreme fire weather conditions. The likelihood of crown fire then declines as forests further mature 13. For example, a previous study showed that in the 2009 fires in Central Victoria, crown fire was seven times more likely in young Mountain Ash regrowth forest (much of which was logged and subsequently regenerated) compared to unlogged old-growth forest
This concern was validated by Bowman et al. in their analysis of canopy damage (Fig. 1). Their data clearly show the effect of logging on the probability of high-severity fire and such findings, coupled with the results of other empirical analyses, indicate that forest management can lead to long-term elevated risks of high-severity fire. Even in mild fire weather, logged forests were more likely to suffer high-severity fire than undisturbed forests under more severe fire weather conditions (Fig. 1). If rates of disturbance by logging are minimized, canopy damage can be mitigated and the risk of uncontrollable high-severity fires that endanger humans and biodiversity can be reduced.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-022-01717-y
Our initial analysis showed a relatively small positive effect of recent harvesting on fire severity; however, the overall effect size is negligible on an area basis because such a small proportion of the area burned (<5%) was affected by recent harvesting (Fig. 1)
Regardless, our re-analysis demonstrated that using the most extreme severity category alone has no effect on the conclusion that the impacts of forestry disturbance were overwhelmed by extreme fire weather conditions
Our findings have critically important, unreresolved implications for forest and fire management given the vulnerability of recently clear-felled native forests, plantations and the very large area of native forests regenerating following the recent fires. There is urgency to address these issues given the trajectory for a hotter, drier climate in temperate Australia and other fire-prone forested landscapes elsewhere in the world. Solely focusing scientific and media attention on the small, and highly variable, relationship between past logging and fire severity distracts from evidence-based policy regarding options for managing future fire risks.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-022-01716-z
SPECIES
NSW Koala Strategy:
On Saturday 9 April the NSW Government released its NSW Koala Strategy, to avoid scrutiny strategically timed to be sandwiched between the launch of the Federal Government’s Koala Recovery Plan and announcement of the federal election. Despite a promise to double Koala populations by 2050, with $193.3 million for the next 5 years, the strategy is set to fail because it does not fulfill the most fundamental requirement of stopping existing Koala habitat from being cleared and degraded, and lacks a strategic approach to identify the highest priority lands for protection and revegetation.
https://thewest.com.au/news/environment/hopes-cash-splash-doubles-koala-population-c-6389560
https://www.huntervalleynews.net.au/story/7693419/hopes-cash-splash-doubles-koala-population/?cs=12
https://southwestvoice.com.au/state-spotlight-campbelltown-koalas/
It was praised by WWF
"It is a great improvement over the first koala strategy as it includes goals and actions that are explicit and ambitious, major funding for habitat restoration and a commitment to national parks," the conservation body said.
https://www.tenterfieldstar.com.au/story/7693419/hopes-cash-splash-doubles-koala-population/?cs=7
… though they did have a qualification about not stopping landclearing
But he noted that it did not address land clearing, which he said was the single greatest threat to koalas along with climate change.
and criticised by NEFA for not stopping clearing and logging of koala habitat, while ignoring public lands (such as the Great Koala National Park and Sandy Creek Koala Park) and their proposed reductions of private land protections.
The NSW Government’s Koala Strategy released today will do little to turn around their extinction trajectory as it is not stopping logging and clearing of Koala habitat which, along with climate heating, are the main drivers of their demise.
“The Strategy proposes nothing to redress the logging of Koala habitat on public lands …
[Great Koala National Park and Sandy Creek Koala Park] are public lands that we know are important Koala habitat that need to be protected from further degradation if we want to recover Koala populations. There are many other areas of important Koala habitat on State forests in need of identification and protection from logging.
“This will not compensate for the Liberal’s promises to the Nationals, as peace terms in the 2020 Koala Wars, to remove the requirement to obtain permission before clearing core Koala habitat, to end the prohibition on logging core Koala habitat, to open up all environmental zones for logging, and to stop core Koala habitat being added to environmental zones.
“Throwing money at piecemeal protection of private land, while allowing some of the best Koala habitat to be cleared and logged will not save Koalas
“The NSW Koala Strategy is set to fail because it does not fulfill the most fundamental requirement of stopping existing Koala habitat from being cleared and degraded, and lacks a strategic approach to identify the highest priority lands for protection and revegetation” Mr. Pugh said.
The Greens said it would be better to stop logging public forests:
[Cate Faehrmann] “The government should have spent $195 million on ending logging in koala habitat including developing a jobs transition plan for forestry workers.”
There was widespread coverage of NEFA’s concerns.
https://www.nefa.org.au/koalas
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2022/04/11/nsw-government-announces-new-koala-strategy/
https://indynr.com/koalas-could-be-extinct-by-2050-is-the-new-state-govt-193mil-strategy-enough/
The Northern Rivers Times, April 14 2022.
https://www.echo.net.au/downloads/byron-echo/volume-36/ByronEcho3644.pdfT (p21)
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/04/nsw-koala-strategy-set-to-fail/
https://neweysnews.co.uk/state-government-promises-millions-to-rescue-endangered-koalas/
https://theworldnews.net/au-news/state-government-promises-millions-to-rescue-endangered-koalas
https://almooon.com/endangered-koalas-focus-of-multi-million-dollar-nsw-government-rescue-package/
https://biaust.com/state-federal-government-assures-millions-to-rescue-threatened-koalas/
… and there was an interesting translation
A spokesperson for the North East Forest Alliance, Dailan Pugh, besides criticised the strategy for not doing capable to support situation connected backstage onshore oregon forestall logging successful authorities forests successful situation areas.
“The centrepiece of the NSW Koala Strategy is to walk $71 cardinal connected backstage lands, buying properties and implementing conservation agreements implicit up to 22,000 hectares,” helium said.
https://usnews.ansneed.com/state-government-promises-millions-to-rescue-endangered-koalas
Labor emphasised the need to stop landclearing and adopt policies and laws for koalas.
"Labor welcomes this investment in the future of NSW koalas but we remain concerned that this target cannot be met without a change to other policies across government." Labor environment spokeswoman Penny Sharpe said. "The NSW Koala Strategy is doomed to fail unless a true whole of government approach is committed to and delivered by each and every minister with oversight on the policies and laws that impact on koalas."
Labor says koala numbers cannot be increased without changes to land clearing laws or clearer rules for protecting koala corridors.
https://www.wollondillyadvertiser.com.au/story/7699156/funding-for-strategy-to-save-koalas/
The 5,000 ha Taronga Zoo Box-Gum Woodland Rewilding Reserve is assumed to be another fenced breeding compound, though no details were found. Koalas are intended to be introduced into it, though it seems inappropriate to fund it with Koala strategy money as they don’t need feral predators excluded.
Koalas and other threatened species are to be given a safe haven, in a first-of-its-kind 5000-hectare Box-Gum Woodland Rewilding Reserve, led by Taronga Conservation Society Australia and supported by a $16m investment from the NSW government.
“This strategy aims to protect 47,000 hectares of koala habitat over five years, while we’re currently losing 38,000 hectares of native vegetation each year to land clearing and logging. It’s a losing battle.
“The NSW Koala Strategy is welcome – particularly funds to purchase important koala habitat but the key habitats of the Mid North coast could be protected with the stroke of a pen,” Mr Gambian said.
“It’s time for the Great Koala National Park.”
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/nsw-government-releases-new-koala-strategy-91081
A cheaper form of biobanking:
No need to worry about clearing and logging Koala habitat, or biobanking habitat as compensation, when for a fraction of the cost we can just biobank sperm.
The research published in the journal Animals on Wednesday found that, biobanking would allow the storage of live koala genes by freezing sex cells such as sperm.
"The frozen sperm can then be used to impregnate female koalas in breed-for-release programs, using assisted reproductive technology", the researchers said.
They also noted the strategy would be five-to-12 times cheaper than current captive koala breeding methods and wouldn't compromise their genetic diversity.
https://www.innerwestreview.com.au/story/7697929/koala-ivf-could-save-endangered-species/
To reach the genetic target, you would need 223 koalas in a conventional captive program. By contrast, adding assisted reproduction means you’d only have to keep 17 koalas.
While we’ve seen some progress in tailoring these technologies to koalas, there’s more to do. To date, 34 koala joeys have been born using artificial insemination in tame zoo koalas. These joeys, however, came from fresh or chilled sperm, not frozen. To use frozen sperm requires more research and technology development. Other procedures like embryo transfer and cryopreservation of sperm will also need more development.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/could-freezing-koala-sperm-help-095120121.html
New WIRES course:
A new koala rescue course has been launched nationwide by WIRES for registered wildlife carers.
The WIRES koala rescue course will cover:
- Work health and safety risks involved in rescuing and transporting koalas
- Koala biology, behaviour, distribution, and threats
- Appropriate capture, handling, and transport methods
- Rescue scenarios and how to approach koalas
- Koala observational assessment and reporting processes post-rescue
- Common injuries and diseases.
https://www.innerwestreview.com.au/story/7692719/how-to-rescue-a-koala-new-course-for-carers/
More publicity:
A mixed story on Channel Nine about the decline of Koalas, the need for the AKF proposed legislation, and the need to be able to release recovered Koalas away from where they were found.
Loggers praise National Recovery Plan:
NSW loggers have welcomed the Federal Government’s National Recovery Plan for the Koala, because, like NSW’s Strategy, it focuses on DPI Forestry’s dodgy findings that logging has no impact on Koala occupancy and ignores all the other studies which found logging has significant impacts, to justify doing nothing about logging.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/sustainable-timber-harvesting-has-no-impact-on-koala-numbers/
Queensland lists Koalas as Endangered:
NSW is missing in action as the Queensland Department of Environment and Science joined the Commonwealth in updating the conservation status of the koala to ‘endangered’.
https://www.ecovoice.com.au/endangered-koala-must-be-protected-made-the-qld-olympics-mascot/
Albert’s Lyrebirds good mimics, ecosystem engineers and fire affected:
An article in the Conversation (with audio) identifies Albert’s Lyrebird can mimic 11 other birds and 37 different sounds, each population with their own songs, though worryingly a third of their habitat was burnt.
Impressively, they can accurately mimic up to 11 different species, including satin bowerbirds, Australian king-parrots, crimson rosellas and kookaburras, among others.
They also mimic multiple vocalisations from each species, as well as non-vocal sounds such as wingbeats. In fact, one lyrebird can mimic up to 37 different sounds!
These songs also vary from region to region, so each population has its unique set of whistle songs shared among the local males
Like female superb lyrebirds, female Albert’s lyrebirds sing both their own song and mimic the sounds of other birds.
Superb lyrebirds are “ecosystem engineers”, who turn over soil when foraging with their powerful claws, which can reduce bushfire fuel. Albert’s lyrebirds also rake the forest floor while foraging and are likely to have similar impacts.
The devastating 2019-2020 bushfires that engulfed Australia’s east coast burnt an estimated 32% of Albert’s lyrebirds habitat. As a result, Albert’s lyrebirds have now been listed as one of 13 priority bird species requiring urgent management after the fires.
Floodwaters may increase mysterious frog deaths:
A biologist fears last year's mysterious mass die-off of Australian frogs, which has been partially attributed to the skin-attacking amphibian chytrid fungus, could be on the cards again this winter, amplified by the recent floods.
Even so, Dr Rowley is hoping Australians will continue to help by reporting frog illness and deaths by emailing [email protected]
Amphibian chytrid fungus is not a new threat in Australia and the pathogen is not always deadly. Some species seem to tolerate it well, and the fungus is often found in individuals that appear unaffected.
[Jane Hall] believes there's something else going on besides the fungus.
"Free-ranging wildlife encounter pathogens all the time. Often they are able to fight those infection off but sometimes, if conditions are right, then things can go a little bit sideways and that's when we get these unusual mortality events."
Exposure to toxins, such as pesticides, is another avenue of inquiry but so far tests have not revealed anything that could explain the die off's broad geographic range.
https://www.innerwestreview.com.au/story/7695384/floods-may-ramp-up-fungus-threat-for-frogs/
… and spread fire ants:
In the recent Queensland floods invasive fire ants formed rafts out of their bodies enabling them to float around with their queen and larvae on floodwaters for weeks before finding dry ground and starting new colonies.
Forestry claiming wildlife recovery:
Forestry had been monitoring wildlife at 40 sites in state forests south of Eden since 2007. Small mammals started declining with the drought in 2016-17 and then the 2019-20 fires caused a greater than 50 per cent decline in some species, though according to Forestry increased rainfall and prolific vegetation regrowth over the past 2 years have led to rapid recovery of a range of animal species including Southern Brown Bandicoots, Long-nosed Bandicoots, Bush Rats, Agile Antechinus and Painted Button quail.
"While the recovery of smaller native mammals has been most pronounced, larger and more common species including Common Wombats, brush-tailed possums, Swamp Wallabies, Lace Monitors, Short-beaked Echidnas and Superb Lyrebirds have continued to be recorded at rates similar to those recorded before the fires and drought.
"While this is preliminary monitoring data, our cameras have been monitoring the same 40 locations in state forests south of Eden for more than a decade and this latest data is a really promising sign that many native species have not only survived the Black Summer fires quite well, but are currently thriving."
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/wildlife-scampers-back-to-fire-ravaged-nsw-forests/
Orange-bellied Parrot teetering on the brink:
The Sydney Morning Herald has an in-depth article about recovery efforts for the Orange-bellied Parrot as it teeters on the brink of extinction in the wild, with a massive investment there has been a slight improvement in the last few years.
Only six years ago it looked like orange-bellied parrots were destined for extinction. Their numbers had dropped so low that in 2016 only 17 wild OBPs - 14 males and three females - remained in Melaleuca at the end of the breeding season.
This autumn about 140 OBPs will leave Melaleuca and fly north to the mainland.
Wintle and other researchers found that in Australia we spend about 5 per cent (around $122 million) of what we would need to recover our nationally listed threatened species.
Using leeches to track wildlife:
Park rangers in China’s Ailaoshan Nature Reserve collected and preserved 30,468 leeches over a few months, whose blood was then analysed to identify the DNA of 86 different species from frogs to bears, enabling researches to identify what parts of the park the species utilised – wild animals preferred wild areas.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
The heat is on forests:
National Geographic has a series of articles on the plight of our forests. ‘The Future of Forests’ documents cases of mass die-offs of forests around the world, including cases where repeat fires or other factors stop regeneration. While heating is enabling boreal forests to expand north, and CO2 fertilisation is enhancing growth, the apocalypse of intensifying heatwaves, droughts, fires, storms, and insect infestations are killing forests on a massive scale, as trees die they release their carbon, the land warms and the air dries. We can still limit the losses.
And what’s become ever more clear to Allen, through his own work and that of many others, is that trees the world over are vulnerable to the added heat. The warmer atmosphere sucks more moisture from plants and soil. To cut their losses during droughts, trees close pores in their leaves, called stomata, or shed leaves entirely. But that limits the CO2 they take in, leaving them both hungry and parched all at once. When it’s especially hot, they even leak some of the water they’re desperate to retain.
When soil gets dry enough, trees can no longer maintain pressure in the internal conduits that carry water up to their leaves. Air bubbles interrupt the flow, causing fatal embolisms. …
The upshot, scientists figured out in just the past decade, is that many trees in most landscapes, from the hot, rainy Amazon to cold, dry Alberta, are operating at the limits of their hydraulic systems, even under normal conditions, with little safety margin. That means a hot drought can push them over the threshold….
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/forests-future-threatened-heat-drought-feature
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/protecting-the-nations-trees-and-forests/
In ‘4 solutions for trees and forests threatened by a hotter world’ they identify 1. Help forests migrate to beat the heat (climate is shifting faster than trees can), 2. Plant trees—but the right ones in the right places (too often inappropriate species are planted and the capacity for natural regeneration ignored – though the most effective action is to restore forests), 3. Build tougher trees with genetic engineering (in America they have genetically engineered a variety of native trees to resist diseases, though there is strong concern about releasing them into the wild), and 4. Leave forests alone to heal themselves (moving away from treating forests as plantations and allowing natural processes to restore forests, while logging occasional mature trees).
There is nothing more important that humans can do for forests, which have been on this planet for hundreds of millions of years, than cut our greenhouse gas emissions and stop cutting down old-growth trees.
With resources limited and no time to spare, Brancalion says, jump-starting natural processes can help. In many cases, if we let nature do the heavy lifting, he says, “the forest can regrow quite effectively.”
Prince Salm is part of a growing group of German forest owners who have turned to what’s known as close-to-nature forestry. This hands-off approach avoids tree planting when possible and advocates largely sticking to native species. The aim is to replicate the ecosystems of wild forests by leaving deadwood behind and selectively harvesting only the most mature trees.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/solutions-fixing-forests-fight-warming-feature
Passing biodiversity thresholds:
Mongabay has an article on the various metrics that can be used to measure biodiversity loss and planetary boundaries, concluding that by all measures biodiversity and ecosystems are in dramatic decline necessitating radical action.
For instance, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) estimates that about 77% of the land and 87% of the ocean have been altered by humans, which has led to a loss of 83% of wild mammal biomass, and half of the world’s plant biomass. The IPBES also suggests that more than a million plant and animal species are currently threatened with extinction, potentially putting us on a path to what has been dubbed Earth’s sixth mass extinction.
While fossil records show that extinctions happen naturally, current extinction rates are estimated to be 100 to 1,000 times higher today than what is considered natural. This rate is even expected to increase tenfold over the course of the century.
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the multilateral treaty responsible for conserving biodiversity and ensuring sustainable and equitable use of biodiversity, draws on the concept of protecting half of land and sea in the draft of its post-2020 global biodiversity framework. The framework, which was negotiated in Geneva in March, maps a route for “living in harmony with nature” by 2050. One proposed means for achieving this target is for countries to protect at least 30% of land and ocean by 2030, extended to 50% by 2050.
“Global economies are destroying the web life, ripping all these threads out,” Peterson said. “Has it passed some boundary or not? What does that even mean? There’s no question … we’re on a terrible trajectory with biodiversity, and the only way of dealing with this is very radical change.”
Clearing effects spread:
A recent study of tropical forests identified how the regional warming and rainfall declines caused by deforestation affected remaining forests, finding significant biomass losses across the rainforest.
He explained that for a new patch of deforestation in the Amazon, the regional climate changes that happen as a result led to an additional 5.1 percent more loss of total biomass in the entire Amazon basin. In the Congo, the additional biomass loss from the climate effects of deforestation is about 3.8 percent. Tropical forests store about 200 petagrams of carbon in their aboveground biomass. Since 2010, deforestation has been removing about 1 petagram of that carbon every year. (One petagram is equal to 1 trillion kilograms.)
"Deforestation has ramifications to forests growing elsewhere, because its consequences to the region's air temperature and precipitation," said co-author Paulo Brando
https://phys.org/news/2022-04-deforestation-climate-forest.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29601-0
TURNING IT AROUND
In with a chance for 2o:
A recent study has claimed that we have a 50% chance of keeping warming to 2oC if all countries honour their promises, though limiting it to 1.5o warming will require deeper cuts.
The difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees of warming is stark, climate scientists say. At 2 degrees of warming, 38 per cent more permafrost will thaw and twice as many vertebrates and plants will lose half their range. In a world of 2 degrees of global warming, an average Australian summer would outstrip historically hot ones such as 2012-13. There will be greater climate variability too – hotter temperatures, more storms, droughts and bushfires.
The new analysis estimates that, by 2030, emissions will be between 6 and 13 per cent higher than 2010 levels. But in its most recent report, released last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that limiting temperature rises to 1.5 degrees would require a 37 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, compared with 2010 levels.
Green promise to use their power to turn it around:
At the National Press Club the Greens focussed on the climate crisis as a war, and accused Liberal and Labor of aiding the enemy by backing more coal and gas, while spruiking how they will turn it around if they get the balance of power.
“Our enemy is the climate crisis. The enemy is fuelled by coal and gas. Mining and burning coal and gas is killing people. And Liberal and Labor want more,” Bandt told the National Press Club.
“The war is bleaching our reef, burning our forest to the dropping rain bombs on our cities and towns, damaging our communities and our economy.”
“Liberal and Labor haven’t just given up; they are aiding the enemy by backing more coal and gas.”
If you don’t want to condone it you have to protest:
Last week, as part of the ‘Scientist Rebellion’ an estimated 1,000 scientists in more than 25 countries staged demonstrations to demand that world leaders do far more to reduce climate-warming emissions, with some locking themselves to the gate of the White House and to the front door of the JPMorgan Chase bank in Los Angeles, as well as blocking highway traffic in Washington, D.C.
https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?e=6624c72df8&u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=f0f98c86ae
In a Guardian article a scientist speaks of his growing terror of the impacts of climate change, grief at the loss of reefs and forests, increasing activism, and inability to effect change – still urging others to action, citing Martin Luther King: “He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”
Nothing has worked. It’s now the eleventh hour and I feel terrified for my kids, and terrified for humanity. I feel deep grief over the loss of forests and corals and diminishing biodiversity. But I’ll keep fighting as hard as I can for this Earth, no matter how bad it gets, because it can always get worse. And it will continue to get worse until we end the fossil fuel industry and the exponential quest for ever more profit at the expense of everything else. There is no way to fool physics.
Martin Luther King Jr said, “He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” Out of necessity, and after exhaustive efforts, I’ve joined the ranks of those who selflessly risk their freedom and put their bodies on the line for the Earth, despite ridicule from the ignorant and punishment from a colonizing legal system designed to protect the planet-killing interests of the rich. It’s time we all join them. The feeling of solidarity is a wonderful balm.
Forest Media 8 April 2022
New South Wales
At the south coast Upper House hearings into the ’Long term sustainability and future of the timber and forest products industry’ concerns were raised about the frequency of logging breaches, the slow investigations, the lack of third-party enforcement, the logging of burnt forests and the pitiful returns on native forest logging, whereas the industry was concerned about restrictions on logging big trees.
Susie, Greg and Jane ventured from Elands to set up a soup kitchen in Lismore called Trees not Bombs, a collaboration between the old NEFA liberation cafe and Food Not Bombs in Newcastle, serving 300 to 400 hot meals a day and unlimited hot drinks.
The first wave of fish kills in the Richmond River were massive as inundated exotic pastures on river banks and floodplains rotted and deoxygenated waters, suffocating millions of fish. Another wave is expected to result from runoff from activated acid sulphate soils (in drained wetlands) with high levels of sulphuric acid and metals. Though the good news is that all our streams have had a thorough flush-out of fine sediments and toxins deposited by our activities.
Australia
Last week Bob Brown and three other protesters had their charges suddenly withdrawn in court in relation to protests in the Eastern Tiers in 2020, and then two other protesters also had charges dropped this week regarding Wentworth Hills protests. Since the mid 1980s the Government has been approving logging illegally, and they can’t retrospectively fix it for over a month. Bob Brown said the decision called into question the legality of native forest harvesting in Tasmania spanning decades, stating "The government should prepare to compensate hundreds of good people who have been wrongfully charged, convicted and even sent to jail for obstructing this illegal logging."
The Morrison government has launched its Farm Forestry: Growing Together strategy which aims to encourage tree planting for loggers, which can be double counted as carbon storage until they log it. They are antithetic to the concept of planting trees for the environment or the future.
Two men have been convicted and fined $25,000 each plus costs in the Mildura Magistrates Court for the destruction of more than eight hectares of wildlife habitat near Mildura.
Species
The National Koala Recovery Plan has finally been released, with the Commonwealth, NSW and ACT signing onto it, and Queensland refusing to. There are promises of a new national koala recovery team to oversee and co-ordinate recovery efforts, with the plan “implemented through regional-scale implementation plans” (covering anywhere from whole bioregions to Council KPoMs). So while the goal is to protect and recover Koala populations, it seems to be business as usual, with more committees and buck-passing as Koala habitat continues to be logged and cleared while Koalas decline.
The NSW Government has purchased 73ha for Koalas adjacent to Cudgen Nature Reserve in the Tweed. This was likely already zoned for protection, though this entrenches protection and improves management, though Provest is gilding the lily by claiming it significantly increases their habitat area and decreases their risk of extinction (particularly given he supported the Koala Kill Bill). Sue Arnold bemoans media focussing on politicians kissing Koalas while they ignore track records and lack of any pre-election policy focus on biodiversity loss, let alone koalas. Now you can experience Allen’s Chew’Ems Gummi Koalas fruity flavoured fun or get zapped with the tanginess of Chew’Ems Sourz Gummi Koalas, while helping fund a new WIRES online National Koala Rescue Training Course.
A company claims its trials were able to reliably identify an individual koala with 94 percent accuracy from its call and are now applying for Phase 2 of the NSW Small Business Innovation and Research Program, which will allow tracking of individual animals through their bellows using multiple recorders.
Recent research found that revegetation can help restore populations of some woodland birds in farming landscapes, though remnant vegetation was far more valuable for increasing the diversity of woodland birds, with many dependent on the resources provided by older trees.
The Deteriorating Problem
The issue of the week was the IPCC’s release of Working Group III’s report ‘Climate Change 2022 Mitigation of Climate Change’. From 1850 to 2019 we released 2,400 billion net tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, though it is truly frightening that 42% of these emissions occurred since 1990, after we were meant to begin curbing our emissions. Average annual GHG emissions during 2010- 2019 were higher than in any previous decade, while the rate of growth has slowed we are quickly burning through our carbon budget, the chance of limiting warming to below 1.5℃ is rapidly disappearing and we are on track to over 3℃ (2.5 to 4℃) heating. THE KEY MESSAGES ARE THAT ITS NOT YET TOO LATE – BUT SOON WILL BE – AND IF WE TAKE URGENT AND DRASTIC ACTION WE CAN STILL DO IT. Even if we do reduce our carbon emissions we still need to remove carbon from the atmosphere, and while unjustified reliance is been placed on pumping a proportion of emissions underground, it is clear we need the proven ability of forests. Protecting forests, changing diets, and altering farming methods could contribute around a quarter of the cuts we need by 2050.
The European energy crisis accentuated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine has biomass companies touting their wares, leading to warnings from conservation groups of the folly of burning more forests.
A new study highlights hotter-drought conditions are causing instances of mass tree dieback around the world across the full range of environmental variation. It is estimated that under +2 °C and +4 °C scenarios, mortality-year climate condition frequencies increase by 22 and 140%. Forests will have to change to adapt to the changed conditions with losers and winners, unfortunately it is oldgrowth forests that evolved in more stable climates that are likely to be the biggest losers.
An experimental study that increased soil temperatures and water supply found that climate change reduces the abundance of wildflowers and causes them to produce less nectar and fewer and lighter seeds.
Bird Populations have been quietly declining for years in Panama’s forests due to climate change. 35 species of birds have declined by more than 50 per cent and 9 bird species declined by 90 per cent or more.
Turning it Around
While NSW attempts to construct carbon balances of its forests using an assumption that all forests originated in 1920, often dubious logging history data and assumptions about storage off-site in wood products (see previous forest news), there are actual measurements being taken using lidar, even from the orbiting space station.
In America they are resolving a logging debate by generating carbon credits from protection, generating tens of millions of dollars in the coming years to help fund public schools and county services, while also protecting a major watershed.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Upper House inquiry hears south-coast:
At the south coast Upper House hearings into the ’Long term sustainability and future of the timber and forest products industry’ concerns were raised about the frequency of logging breaches, the slow investigations, the lack of third-party enforcement, the logging of burnt forests and the pitiful returns on native forest logging, whereas the industry was concerned about restrictions on logging big trees.
"It can take months if not years before any action is taken, and in terms of wildlife it's too little too late, as those trees are gone," National Public Affairs Manager for Birdlife Australia, Sean Dooley said.
South East Region Conservation Alliance Committee (SERCA) member Lisa Stone recommended that Section 69ZA of the Forestry Act, which prevents Forestry Corporation from being brought before a court, be repealed.
[Pentarch Forestry] "What we're struggling against is the prescriptions and the rules that exist to protect individual habitat trees in more coastal areas being applied to an entire forest," executive director Stephen Dadd said.
"We are seeing literally millions of tonnes of good quality logs off-limits to industry and those who would seek to restore forest health through forestry activity."
Trees not Bombs:
Susie, Greg and Jane ventured from Elands to set up a soup kitchen in Lismore called Trees not Bombs, a collaboration between the old NEFA liberation cafe and Food Not Bombs in Newcastle, serving 300 to 400 hot meals a day and unlimited hot drinks.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/04/trees-not-bombs-so-much-more-than-food-and-chai/
Cleaning out the rivers:
The first wave of fish kills in the Richmond River were massive as inundated exotic pastures on river banks and floodplains rotted and deoxygenated waters, suffocating millions of fish. Another wave is expected to result from runoff from activated acid sulphate soils (in drained wetlands) with high levels of sulphuric acid and metals. Though the good news is that all our streams have had a thorough flush-out of fine sediments and toxins deposited by our activities.
‘After the first flood in late February there was no oxygen in the river between Ballina and Coraki. That’s around 60 kilometres of river and estuary with no oxygen and therefore no fish.
‘The sheer scale of this flood has meant that all those fine sediments that wash off from other smaller flood events and deposit on the river bed have been scoured out. So, we’ve nearly had a reset of the system where it’s been taken back to something closer to the original morphology prior to developing the catchment,’ he said.
‘If there are ways to stop the excess sediment in the upper catchment that’s been moved around through these landslides and prevent that from getting back into the river, we may actually be looking at a river system that’s partly reverted back towards its natural state. So, there’s opportunity to enhance that trajectory in a positive way.’
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/04/no-oxygen-and-no-fish-in-richmond/
AUSTRALIA
Tasmanian logging illegal:
Last week Bob Brown and three other protesters had their charges suddenly withdrawn in court in relation to protests in the Eastern Tiers in 2020, and then two other protesters also had charges dropped this week regarding Wentworth Hills protests. Since the mid 1980s the Government has been approving logging illegally, and they can’t retrospectively fix it for over a month. Bob Brown said the decision called into question the legality of native forest harvesting in Tasmania spanning decades, stating "The government should prepare to compensate hundreds of good people who have been wrongfully charged, convicted and even sent to jail for obstructing this illegal logging."
The Tasmanian Government said:
However, to provide certainty for our industry and to remove doubt, the Government intends to introduce validating legislation when Parliament resumes to resolve this technical issue at law.
This is not the first time that validating legislation has been brought to Parliament and I wish to stress again that this does not go to the safety or appropriateness of forestry operations undertaken on ground.
It is no secret that the radical Bob Brown Foundation and their Parliamentary allies in the Greens will take any opportunity in their ongoing attempts to shut down our sustainable native forestry sector.
The Greens said:
Guy Barnett has admitted his government has broken the law by logging forests in breach of the Forest Practices Act 1985.
It’s not just a “technical detail”, it’s the law. Illegal logging cannot be allowed to continue.
It was Minister Barnett’s colleagues who sought to prorogue Parliament. The soonest the Liberals can attempt to retrospectively fix legislation to legalise native forest logging is the first week in May, with the Legislative Council not sitting until Budget week at the end of May.
Bob Brown foundation said:
“This outrageous minister and government has crowed week-in and week-out about the need for harsher laws to stop forest protests when, all along, it has been his logging which has been illegal. The protesters were upholding the Tasmanian laws which governments, including minister Barnett, were breaking,” Bob Brown said today.
All logging should cease until this bungling minister has been replaced and the mess sorted out. The government should prepare to compensate hundreds of good people who have been wrongfully charged, convicted and even sent to jail for obstructing this illegal logging.”
“Barnett’s limp attempt to justify breaking Tasmanian law by calling it a ‘technical detail’ would be thrown out of court. The law is the law. No ordinary citizen can retrospectively change the law’s technicalities, or claim ignorance, to rescue themselves from prosecution or imprisonment. Logging of Tasmania’s wildlife-filled forests without proper authorisation is a crime. The minister is proposing to backdate laws to cover up criminal behaviour by Forestry Tasmania. This is truly shocking,” Brown said.
https://tasmaniantimes.com/2022/04/on-illegal-logging-in-tasmanian-forests/
Can’t see the forest for the wood:
The Morrison government has launched its Farm Forestry: Growing Together strategy which aims to encourage tree planting for loggers, which can be double counted as carbon storage until they log it. They are antithetic to the concept of planting trees for the environment or the future.
“We’re seeing an increasing demand for timber products, as well as the development of new carbon markets that reward farmers for planting trees,” Assistant Minister Duniam said.
“We want to see a real boost in farm forestry, and that’s why we have put together the Farm Forestry: Growing Together strategy.
“This strategy will help farmers find the information and support they need to look at diversifying into farm forestry.
“As a government, we’re working with states, territories, forest industries and landholders to identify restrictions on the uptake of farm forestry.
“This way we can empower farmers and landholders to invest in farm forestry and diversify their business while building Australia’s wood resources.”
https://www.miragenews.com/branching-out-into-farm-forestry-760175/
Clearing of over 8 ha of old mallee near Mildura resulted in $50,000 fine plus costs.
Two men have been convicted and fined $25,000 each plus costs in the Mildura Magistrates Court for the destruction of more than eight hectares of wildlife habitat near Mildura.
[Forest and Wildlife Officer Patrick Vincenzini] "This clearing has destroyed the natural ecosystem, including the homes and food sources for native, endangered animals such as the Regent parrot.
"It will take hundreds of years for new Mallee trees to grow to the size they once were in the area."
SPECIES
National Koala Recovery Plan belatedly released:
The National Koala Recovery Plan has finally been released, with the Commonwealth, NSW and ACT signing onto it, and Queensland refusing to. There are promises of a new national koala recovery team to oversee and co-ordinate recovery efforts, with the plan “implemented through regional-scale implementation plans” (covering anywhere from whole bioregions to Council KPoMs). So while the goal is to protect and recover Koala populations, it seems to be business as usual, with more committees and buck-passing as Koala habitat continues to be logged and cleared while Koalas decline.
Minister for the Environment Sussan Ley has established the first National Koala Recovery Plan, setting clear strategies to support protection and population recovery, reduce disease impacts, and coordinate programs across multiple levels of government.
In releasing the plan today, Minister Ley said that she would also form a National koala recovery team which will guide the implementation of the plan and monitor outcomes.
"Actions under the plan include the identification of nationally important populations, national monitoring, restoration of habitat, and community education in urban and peri-urban areas."
https://minister.awe.gov.au/ley/media-releases/national-koala-recovery-plan-released
The overarching threats to the listed Koala are land use change and climate change. Other direct threats include disease, dogs and vehicles (Part IV) (TSSC 2021). These threats interact to impact population size of the listed Koala and distribution through associated ecologically threatening processes of habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation, exacerbation of disease impacts, disruption of population processes, impediments to safe movement and loss of genetic diversity (Figure 4, Part VI).
The goal of the recovery plan is to stop the trend of decline in population size of the listed Koala, by having resilient, connected, and genetically healthy metapopulations across its range, and to increase the extent, quality and connectivity of habitat occupied.
Objectives are that by 2032:
- The area of occupancy and estimated size of populations that are declining, suspected to be declining, or predicted to decline are instead stabilised then increased (Objective 1A).
- The area of occupancy and estimated size of populations that are suspected and predicted to be stable are maintained or increased (Objective 1B).
- Metapopulation processes are maintained or improved (Objective 2).
- Partners, communities and individuals have a greater role and capability in listed Koala monitoring, conservation and management (Objective 3).
The National Koala Recovery Plan is at: https://www.awe.gov.au/environment/biodiversity/threatened/publications/recovery/koala-2022
"It won't stop koalas from going extinct, as it is. It has no strong binding commitments on the two key drivers of koala loss - habitat loss and climate change," WWF Australia conservation scientist Stuart Blanch said.
[ACF Jess Abrahams] "If we want our kids and grandkids to see koalas in the wild, governments must stop approving the bulldozing of their homes for mines and new housing estates."
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7691582/wildlife-groups-find-koala-plan-lacking/
Buying Tweed Koala habitat:
The NSW Government has purchased 73ha for Koalas adjacent to Cudgen Nature Reserve in the Tweed. This was likely already zoned for protection, though this entrenches protection and improves management, though Provest is gilding the lily by claiming it significantly increases their habitat area and decreases their risk of extinction (particularly given he supported the Koala Kill Bill).
“From the koala’s perspective high in the canopy, this is very real, not just humans arguing: Their habitat area has just increased a significant amount and consequently their risk of extinction has just decreased,” Mr Provest said.
Kissing Koalas while fucking them over:
Sue Arnold bemoans media focussing on politicians kissing Koalas while they ignore track records and lack of any pre-election policy focus on biodiversity loss, let alone koalas.
Now you can have your Koala and eat it too:
Now you can experience Allen’s Chew’Ems Gummi Koalas fruity flavoured fun or get zapped with the tanginess of Chew’Ems Sourz Gummi Koalas, while helping fund a new WIRES online National Koala Rescue Training Course.
https://www.c-store.com.au/allens-chewems-range-to-support-our-vulnerable-koalas/
Distinguishing individuals by calls:
A company claims its trials were able to reliably identify an individual koala with 94 percent accuracy from its call and are now applying for Phase 2 of the NSW Small Business Innovation and Research Program, which will allow tracking of individual animals through their bellows using multiple recorders.
https://www.miragenews.com/koala-vocals-provide-key-to-saving-species-759276/
For birds we need to save remnant vegetation, but revegetation can help:
Recent research found that revegetation can help restore populations of some woodland birds in farming landscapes, though remnant vegetation was far more valuable for increasing the diversity of woodland birds, with many dependent on the resources provided by older trees.
Our research, published today, shows these efforts to revegetate farmland has made an important difference for woodland birds.
We surveyed and compared bird communities in farm landscapes with differing amounts of tree cover. We found when the amount of revegetation in open farmland increased, the number of woodland bird species did, too. For example, an increase in revegetation from 1% to 10% of the landscape doubled the number of woodland bird species.
Yet extensive habitat destruction, replaced by vast areas of intensive farmland, have caused the number of once-abundant woodland birds to decline greatly. …
For example, in landscapes with only 1% revegetation cover, most birds were open-country species such as galah, red-rumped parrot and willie wagtail, with only 11 woodland species on average. On the other hand, landscapes with 15% revegetation cover had 25 woodland species, on average, as part of the bird community.
… we found that revegetated landscapes and those with remnant native vegetation don’t offer the same benefits. For a given amount of wooded vegetation, revegetated landscapes had fewer species in total and supported different types of woodland species.
In contrast, those that depend on older trees were less likely to be found in revegetated landscapes. This includes the white-throated treecreeper and varied sitella which forage on tree trunks and large branches, and the spotted pardalote and white-naped honeyeater that feed within canopy foliage.
We also found individual patches of revegetation have the greatest value for birds when they include a diverse range of trees and shrubs, are close to or connected with native vegetation, and are older (meaning the plants have had longer to grow).
At least 11 of the 60 woodland species recorded in the study weren’t detected in revegetated landscapes, such as sacred kingfisher and black-chinned honeyeater. Others, such as jacky winter and eastern yellow robin were rare.
Increasing wooded vegetation to cover at least 10-30% of farmland is an important long-term goal to ensure sufficient habitat to sustain healthy populations of many species. …
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Its not too late, but almost so:
The issue of the week was the IPCC’s release of Working Group III’s report ‘Climate Change 2022 Mitigation of Climate Change’. From 1850 to 2019 we released 2,400 billion net tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, though it is truly frightening that 42% of these emissions occurred since 1990, after we were meant to begin curbing our emissions. Average annual GHG emissions during 2010- 2019 were higher than in any previous decade, while the rate of growth has slowed we are quickly burning through our carbon budget, the chance of limiting warming to below 1.5℃ is rapidly disappearing and we are on track to over 3℃ (2.5 to 4℃) heating. THE KEY MESSAGES ARE THAT ITS NOT YET TOO LATE – BUT SOON WILL BE – AND IF WE TAKE URGENT AND DRASTIC ACTION WE CAN STILL DO IT. Even if we do reduce our carbon emissions we still need to remove carbon from the atmosphere, and while unjustified reliance is been placed on pumping a proportion of emissions underground, it is clear we need the proven ability of forests. Protecting forests, changing diets, and altering farming methods could contribute around a quarter of the cuts we need by 2050.
Unless action is taken soon, some major cities will be under water, Mr. Guterres said in a video message, which also forecast “unprecedented heatwaves, terrifying storms, widespread water shortages and the extinction of a million species of plants and animals”.
The UN chief added: “This is not fiction or exaggeration. It is what science tells us will result from our current energy policies. We are on a pathway to global warming of more than double the 1.5-degree (Celsius, or 2.7-degrees Fahreinheit) limit” that was agreed in Paris in 2015.
In an op-ed article penned for the Washington Post, Mr. Guterres described the latest IPCC report as "a litany of broken climate promises", which revealed a "yawning gap between climate pledges, and reality."
He wrote that high-emitting governments and corporations, were not just turning a blind eye, "they are adding fuel to the flames by continuing to invest in climate-choking industries. Scientists warn that we are already perilously close to tipping points that could lead to cascading and irreversible climate effects."
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/04/1115452
Average annual GHG emissions during 2010- 2019 were higher than in any previous decade, but the rate of growth between 2010 and 2019 was lower than that between 2000 and 2009. (high confidence)
Historical cumulative net CO2 emissions from 1850 to 2019 were 2400±240 GtCO2 (high confidence). Of these, more than half (58%) occurred between 1850 and 1989 [1400±195 GtCO2], and about 42% between 1990 and 2019 [1000±90 GtCO2]. … By comparison, the current central estimate of the remaining carbon budget from 2020 onwards for limiting warming to 1.5°C with a probability of 50% has been assessed as 500 Gt CO2, and as 1150 Gt CO2 for a probability of 67% for limiting warming to 2°C.
All global modelled pathways that limit warming to 1.5°C (>50%) with no or limited overshoot, and those that limit warming to 2°C (>67%) involve rapid and deep and in most cases immediate GHG emission reductions in all sectors.
[agriculture, forestry and other land use] AFOLU mitigation options, when sustainably implemented, can deliver large-scale GHG emission reductions and enhanced removals, but cannot fully compensate for delayed action in other sectors.
The largest share of this economic potential [4.2-7.4 GtCO2-eq yr -1 ] comes from the conservation, improved management, and restoration of forests and other ecosystems (coastal wetlands, peatlands, savannas and grasslands), with reduced deforestation in tropical regions having the highest total mitigation.
The deployment of CDR [carbon dioxide removal] to counterbalance hard-to-abate residual emissions is unavoidable if net zero CO2 or GHG emissions are to be achieved. …
… The processes by which CO2 is removed from the atmosphere are categorised as biological, geochemical or chemical. Afforestation, reforestation, improved forest management, agroforestry and soil carbon sequestration are currently the only widely practiced CDR methods (high confidence).
… Reforestation, improved forest management, soil carbon sequestration, peatland restoration and blue carbon management are examples of methods that can enhance biodiversity and ecosystem functions, employment and local livelihoods, depending on context (high confidence). In contrast, afforestation or production of biomass crops for BECCS or biochar, when poorly implemented, can have adverse socio-economic and environmental impacts, including on biodiversity, food and water security, local livelihoods and on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, especially if implemented at large scales and where land tenure is insecure (high confidence).
In addition to deep, rapid, and sustained emission reductions CDR can fulfil three different complementary roles globally or at country level: lowering net CO2 or net GHG emissions in the near-term; counterbalancing ‘hard-to-abate’ residual emissions (e.g., emissions from agriculture, aviation, shipping, industrial processes) in order to help reach net zero CO2 or net zero GHG emissions in the mid-term; achieving net negative CO2 or GHG emissions in the long-term if deployed at levels exceeding annual residual emissions (high confidence)
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_SummaryForPolicymakers.pdf
“The IPCC has repeatedly cautioned against over-reliance on speculative technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCS) and large-scale carbon dioxide removal, including direct air capture (DAC) and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), which are unproven at scale, risky to humans and nature, and may simply not work to reduce emissions or limit temperature rise,” the U.S. Center for. International Environmental Law said in its response to the report.
Monday’s climate mitigation report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows it’s still possible to hold global warming to 1.5°C, with little or no overshoot and no reliance on speculative carbon dioxide removal technologies—but only with much faster government action and a sixfold increase in annual funding for solutions that work.
“The bleak and brutal truth about global warming is this: barring action on a sweeping scale, humanity faces worsening hunger, disease, economic collapse, mass migration of people, and unbearable heat,” said Oxfam Climate Policy Lead Nafkote Dabi. “It’s not about taking our foot off the accelerator anymore—it’s about slamming on the brakes. A warming planet is humanity’s biggest emergency.”
“Since the last report, technologies have significantly improved, and the costs of solutions like solar, wind and batteries have declined by up to 85%,” said IPCC lead author Dr. Stephanie Roe, global climate and energy lead scientist at WWF. “ We clearly have the tools to tackle the climate crisis, but they need to be deployed more rapidly and at a larger scale to keep 1.5ºC within reach and reduce the severity of climate impacts.”
“Governments agreed in this IPCC report that solar and wind power as well as energy efficiency have the largest economic potentials to cut carbon pollution the most by 2030,” followed by “protection of pristine forests and restoration of degraded ecosystems and a shift to plant-based, low-carbon diets,” said Dr. Stephan Singer, senior advisor at Climate Action Network International
The Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Uses (AFOLU) sector offers some of the most important options available for reducing greenhouse gas emissions that can be achieved by a “concerted, rapid, and sustained effort by all stakeholders, from policy-makers and investors to landowners and managers,” the IPCC writes. Forests—along with peatlands, wetlands, and other natural ecosystems—can provide the largest climate improvements, with agricultural strategies like cropland and grassland management offering the second greatest source of potential.
Over the period from 2010-2019, the sector accounted for 13 to 21% of the greenhouse gases produced by human activity. But while they’re a significant source of emissions, managed and natural lands also acted as a net carbon sink, absorbing roughly a third of all emissions during that same time. According to the IPCC, AFOLU can provide 20 to 30% of the global mitigation needed for a 1.5 or 2°C pathway by 2050, though it cannot be a substitute for reducing emissions in other sectors.
Governments will need to establish strong policies that directly address emissions and use land-based strategies to limit global warming, including stronger land tenure protections, better agricultural and forestry management, and paying for ecosystem services.
Protecting forests, changing diets, and altering farming methods could contribute around a quarter of the greenhouse gas cuts needed to avert the worst impacts of climate change, according to the United Nations' climate panel.
Mitigation measures in those sectors - including protecting forests from clearcutting, sequestering carbon in agricultural soils, and more sustainable diets - can provide as much as 20%-30% of the emissions reductions needed to limit global warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
In recent years, Australia overtook Qatar to become the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). We’re still the second-largest exporter of thermal coal, and the largest for metallurgical coal.
Time’s up, Australia. We have to talk about weaning ourselves off fossil fuels and exporting our wealth of clean alternatives.
That means, in 2022, we are facing an election campaign in which neither major party has put up serious ideas to cut emissions. There’s no mention of a price on carbon or an emissions trading scheme, no real action on land clearing, and no expansion of the government’s safeguard mechanism, meant to provide incentives for large industries to cut emissions relative to a baseline.
We’ve run out of time to deal with the problem of global heating. We cannot afford another three years of inaction.
Forest fire sale:
The European energy crisis accentuated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine has biomass companies touting their wares, leading to warnings from conservation groups of the folly of burning more forests.
In reality, burning wood emits more carbon pollution per unit energy than burning fossil fuels, and as the European Commission’s own scientists acknowledge, burning wood emits CO2 quickly, while forests regrow slowly. This means that net CO2 emissions from burning trees exceed those from fossil fuels for decades to centuries.
Burning wood in the EU emits over 300 million tonnes of carbon pollution each year, about the same as the total reported emissions of Spain, yet burning wood and other biomass is counted as “zero carbon” energy. Forest harvesting for fuel – a particularly ruthless practice of the modern biomass industry, which vacuums up nearly every scrap, leaving land naked and depleted – is in part responsible for more than 80% of assessed EU forest ecosystems being designated as in inadequate or bad condition. And as shown in a new report from the Forest Defenders Alliance, while the biomass industry often claims to mostly burn sawdust from mills, or branches left over from forest harvesting, in fact they are burning trees.
But while some communities rely on wood heating, wood burning is the biggest source of the particulate pollution that already kills over 1,000 people in the EU every day. Wood burning is deadly. This isn’t the “clean” energy that Europeans think they’re paying for.
Forest die-off:
A new study highlights hotter-drought conditions are causing instances of mass tree dieback around the world across the full range of environmental variation. It is estimated that under +2 °C and +4 °C scenarios, mortality-year climate condition frequencies increase by 22 and 140%. Forests will have to change to adapt to the changed conditions with losers and winners, unfortunately it is oldgrowth forests that evolved in more stable climates that are likely to be the biggest losers.
Climate-induced tree mortality in recent decades under hotter-drought conditions has been documented across forests from a diverse array of boundary conditions, spanning from the tropics to the boreal, from sea level to 3,500 m, and across a four-meter precipitation gradient and 30 °C of mean annual temperature.
Additionally, we found that many of Earth’s forests may become increasingly imperiled by further warming and drought, as the frequency of lethal climate conditions observed with recently documented global mortality events will accelerate with further warming
Under the observed (1985–2015) climate, mortality-year hotter-drought fingerprint climate conditions occurred on average 1.62 years per decade (+/−0.08 SE) at sites in our analysis. Under +2 °C and +4 °C scenarios, mortality-year climate condition frequencies increase by 22 and 140% (1.97 +/− 0.07, 3.88 +/− 0.10 years per decade), respectively
The impact of this hotter-drought fingerprint is acting on Earth’s forests already, with nearly half a billion trees having died from hotter-drought events in Texas and California alone since 2010. In central Europe, hotter drought starting in 2018 has led to extensive dieback of forests that is ongoing—and of yet undetermined magnitude and extent— which could lead to significant ecological transitions. Other notable global tree mortality events documented during hotter-drought episodes include three pulses of large-tree mortality since 2005 across Amazon basin tropical moist forests, and historically unprecedented hotter-drought-triggered dieback in Jarrah forests of southwest Australia in 2011
As the longest-lived organisms on Earth, trees routinely are imbued with historical and cultural significance by human societies, while also persistently sequestering carbon and amplifying local biodiversity for centuries, sometimes millennia. In contrast, extreme climate stress events occur on the scale of days to months to a few years, and in these relatively brief periods, large old trees—exemplars of Earth’s historical forests—can be especially susceptible to mortality. Forests will certainly persist and thrive over large areas into Earth’s future, but increasingly they will have to rapidly shift in physiological function, morphology, genetics, species composition, structure, and geographic distribution in response to anticipated climate changes. Where the pace of climate change outruns the adaptive or acclimation capacities of historically-dominant tree individuals and species, additional die-off events are likely to occur and some forests may even cease to exist. In particular, the current tree communities of Earth’s historical old-growth forests—which took centuries, sometimes millennia, to grow to structural dominance under now locally-shifted climate conditions—may continue to often be most negatively affected by continued warming and drying, as novel hotter-drought extremes increasingly exceed their range of survivable climate across diverse forested biomes. The expected near-term outcome is simplified tree communities, where more drought- and heat-tolerant species survive, and less tolerant species diminish or perish. In many cases, this may lead to lasting changes in vegetation composition, stature, and spacing, where surviving woody plants in these communities do not maintain or develop the complex canopy structure typical of historical old-growth forests
In conclusion, our findings reveal the emergence of a global acceleration of lethal climate conditions, associated with recent forest mortality events, under further warming. Earth’s historical forests in particular face a challenging future, including dramatic changes in the extent, composition, age, and structure of these unique and irreplaceable forests, with planetary-scale consequences for biodiversity and the cycling of water and carbon. … Our findings show that limiting warming to +2 °C over pre-industrial levels could reduce the frequency of these climate conditions associated with observed tree mortality events to less than half that predicted at +4 °C. Efforts to protect the world’s climate from excessive warming likely will be decisive in determining the future persistence of many of Earth’s forests.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29289-2.pdf
“Plants do a phenomenal job of capturing and sequestering carbon,” said Hammond. “But death of the plants not only prevents their performing this critical carbon-capturing role, plants also start releasing carbon as they decay.”
One proposed resolution to combat global climate change is to use trees to capture and sequester carbon. However, if we lose more trees due to climate change, this solution will no longer be feasible.
https://www.earth.com/news/hotter-drier-deadlier-how-much-can-forests-tolerate/
https://www.futurity.org/trees-forests-temperature-droughts-2722122/
Changes will be everywhere:
An experimental study that increased soil temperatures and water supply found that climate change reduces the abundance of wildflowers and causes them to produce less nectar and fewer and lighter seeds.
… a recent study published in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science … conducted in the U.K., found that wildflowers across Northern Europe would likely see a steep decline in abundance — up to 40%. In the experimental study, the researchers simulated the warmer, wetter conditions predicted for the region due to climate change. Under this new scenario, some species of plants produced flowers with 60% less nectar and fewer or lighter seeds. Due to these changes, pollinating insects had to visit more flowers to gather the needed pollen and nectar, and visited each flower more frequently.
Worldwide, two in five plants, including wildflowers, are threatened with extinction due to land use change for agriculture, housing and construction. In California, which is experiencing increasingly hotter and drier winters due to climate change, studies have recorded a decline of wildflower species by 15% in 15 years.
… and are already happening:
Bird Populations have been quietly declining for years in Panama’s forests due to climate change. 35 species of birds have declined by more than 50 per cent and 9 bird species declined by 90 per cent or more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LgiLb4f46g
TURNING IT AROUND
Using space to count carbon:
While NSW attempts to construct carbon balances of its forests using an assumption that all forests originated in 1920, often dubious logging history data and assumptions about storage off-site in wood products (see previous forest news), there are actual measurements being taken using lidar, even from the orbiting space station.
The newly released Level 4B (L4B) Gridded Aboveground Biomass Density dataset from NASA’s Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) mission provides that foundation by providing near-global estimates of aboveground biomass density (AGBD) in megagrams per hectare (Mg/ha) at a 1-kilometer (km) resolution
https://gedi.umd.edu/gedi-level-4b-gridded-agbd-data-have-been-released/
https://vervetimes.com/nasa-releases-breakthrough-forest-biomass-carbon-product-data/
Cashing in on protection:
In America they are resolving a logging debate by generating carbon credits from protection, generating tens of millions of dollars in the coming years to help fund public schools and county services, while also protecting a major watershed.
Nearly 1,400 acres of state-owned forests near Lake Whatcom will be newly protected from logging as part of an initiative announced Wednesday, April 6, by Washington’s Department of Natural Resources. Instead, the trees will be monetized for their ability to combat worsening climate change. This “historic carbon project,” as the agency described it, will allow Western Washington’s “most ecologically valuable” forests to continue growing and absorbing planet-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This stored carbon will generate “carbon credits,” or permits that can be purchased by organizations or individuals to offset, or cancel out, their own greenhouse gas emissions.
Revenue from the DNR initiative is expected to generate tens of millions of dollars in the coming years, which will help fund public schools and county services.
The first phase of the state’s carbon project includes 2,500 acres of forests previously slated for imminent timber harvest, more than half of which are in Whatcom. Phase 1 also includes 1,250 acres already protected from logging by existing DNR policies. The second phase of the project, to be announced within the next year, will bring the amount of land dedicated to the project up to an estimated total of 10,000 acres.
https://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/local/article260171480.html
Forest Media 1 April 2022
There's no fool like a fossil fool.
New South Wales
NEFA’s challenge to the North East NSW RFA was heard in the Federal Court on the 28 and 29 of March before Justice Perry, with our case ably argued by Jeremy Kirk SC (who was made a judge in the Supreme Court the next day). Arguments focused on whether it was open for Prime Minister Scott Morrison to extend the North East NSW RFA in 2018, effectively indefinitely, without a new regional assessment, and whether the 2018 review undertaken by the Commonwealth could be considered an assessment. The failure to take the impacts of climate change into account is likely our strongest argument. We are asking the Federal Court to find the North East RFA does not lawfully exempt logging in the north east RFA region from federal biodiversity assessment and approval requirements. The judge will rule on all the issues raised, though we are likely to have to wait many months for a judgement.
Susie Russell (NCEC) attributed the severity of recent floods to the compounding influences of decades of logging and clearing in the upper catchment and along the gullies, creeks and rivers, along with rising greenhouse emissions, calling for action on protecting and restoring catchments to redress increasing flooding.
The Nature Conservation Council is hosting An Alternative Vision for South Coast Forests event in Moruya on April 4, with a panel including Professor David Lindenmayer, answering the question "why is it that we are still logging our native forests in an era when almost no income is sourced from hard-wood state forests?"
The NRC have released another dodgy study, this one measuring forest/woodland carbon over time. They estimate that including wood products storing carbon off-site and excluding soil carbon, that the carbon in NSW forests is 164 million tonnes less in 2020 than in 1990, with the 2019/20 fires releasing 90 Mt carbon to the atmosphere. They identify 39% of the carbon stored carbon in native vegetation as being within National Parks and 13% within State Forests. There are numerous dodgy assumptions, such as treating all forests as having originated in 1920, with no allowance for the extra carbon stored in oldgrowth forests, allowing for off-site storage in forest products, and not accounting for changes in soil carbon.
Forestry Corporation has put out the first Registration of Interest (RoI) for renewable energy projects, such as wind farms, to be built within its state-run pine plantations.
The walk to the top of Wollumbin (Mount Warning) was initially closed in March 2020, and the traditional owners don’t want it reopened due to its immense spiritual significance, though the NPWS continue to dither about their intentions as Right To Climb agitate for it to be reopened.
Australia
This week’s budget included $1 billion for the rapidly deterioration Great Barrier Reef, $840 million for East Antarctica, $170 million for Koalas, threatened species and tree planting, $27 million for national parks, and $192 million to put the fix in on environmental laws. Unfortunately throwing money at the problems they are aggravating will not fix the underlying policy vacuum. In another low, the Federal Coalition government has created a rule for new native vegetation projects covering more than 15 hectares, or more than one third of a farm, to obtain the approval of the Agriculture Minister, allowing the Minister to prevent plantings if he considers them to be detrimental to farming and regional communities.
The 2019/20 Black summer bushfires reduced the ozone layer over Australia by about 1 per cent in March 2020, a 1 per cent increase in ultraviolet radiation is associated with a 2 per cent increase in skin cancer.
Species
A recent study found that higher bird occurrence occurred in strictly protected forest fragments over 50ha in size, but required over 175 ha of partially protected fragments. Worldwide, fences are increasingly fragmenting animal populations, stopping migrations, cutting animals off from essential resources, and directly killing many through collisions or entanglement.
Queensland’s first Koala bred with “high genetic merit” has been released into the wild in south-east Queensland - north-east NSW to follow? A group of conservationists have declared 3 May as Wild Koala Day, on which everyone is being encouraged to register to plant a tree, sign a petition to protect a forest, or phone a politician to show them we care about koalas and that they need to stop killing koala trees. Another opinion piece laments the Koala’s decline, WWF likening it to our orangutan.
Bayside Council is assessing other options to rat poisons known as Second-Generation Anticoagulant Rodenticide (SGAR) because they are thought to be contributing to a sharp increase in deaths of endangered Powerful Owls, and will also advocate for an end to the use of the second generation rodenticides nationally.
The apocalypse is taking a toll on wildlife, first there was the big dry, then the big incineration, and now the big inundations (that won’t stop), each compounding each other and making sure few escape. The floods have taken a high, but unquantified, additional toll on wildlife, including aquatic species.
The Camden Haven Courier has the sixth in a series by Dunbogan Bushcare and the National Parks Association Mid North Coast branch in the Restoring Natural Values of the Dunbogan-Crowdy Bay National Park Habitat Corridor Project, this time focussing on rewilding backyards for birds. A Belgian study in peri-urban bushland found that dogs’ urine and faeces deposit 11 kg of nitrogen (N) and 5 kg of phosphorous (P) per hectare per year, significantly increasing nutrient concentrations.
The Deteriorating Problem
In our contribution to global heating Australia’s fossil fuel subsidies increased $1.3 billion in the last year to a total of $11.6 billion in 2021-22, according new Australia Institute research. A company producing “sustainable” aviation fuel (SAF) from forest biomass carbon was the winner of Canada’s “The Sky’s the Limit Challenge”, and of course they claim there are no carbon emissions from liquifying forests.
Turning it Around
As one of more than 30 School Strike For Climate events held across the country on Friday, a crowd of about 1,000 people protested outside Kirribilli House in Sydney, though Scomo was absent. The successful appeal by environment minister Sussan Ley to the full bench of the Federal Court to reverse the Sharma decision, where Justice Mordecai Bromberg declared last July that the federal environment minister has a duty of care to the wellbeing of Australian children, emphasises the lack of legal recourse to affect climate heating and urgency of voting the climate fools out and getting some good crossbenchers in.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
NEFA’s day in court:
NEFA’s challenge to the North East NSW RFA was heard in the Federal Court on on the 28 and 29 of March before Justice Perry, with our case ably argued by Jeremy Kirk SC (who was made a judge in the Supreme Court the next day). Arguments focused on whether it was open for Prime Minister Scott Morrison to extend the North East NSW RFA in 2018, effectively indefinitely, without a new regional assessment, and whether the 2018 review undertaken by the Commonwealth could be considered an assessment. The failure to take the impacts of climate change into account is likely our strongest argument. We are asking the Federal Court to find the North East RFA does not lawfully exempt logging in the north east RFA region from federal biodiversity assessment and approval requirements. The judge will rule on all the issues raised, though we are likely to have to wait many months for a judgement. I did an interview with ABC north coast.
On behalf of client the North East Forest Alliance (NEFA), EDO will argue that when the North East RFA was renewed, the Commonwealth did not have regard to endangered species, the state of old growth forests or the impacts of climate change, as the EDO will argue it was required to do.
NEFA is asking the Federal Court to declare that the North East RFA does not validly exempt native forest logging from federal biodiversity assessment and approval requirements (EPBC Act).
NEFA is acting to protect native forests, which provide critical habitat for vulnerable and endangered species such as koalas and greater gliders and to ensure that the laws that regulate logging in these forests are up-to-date and fit for purpose. It is the first legal challenge to an RFA in New South Wales.
On behalf of NEFA, EDO will argue that the lack of crucial assessments before the 2018 renewal means the decision to extend the North East RFA was not made in accordance with the relevant legislation. As a consequence, the Federal Court should find the North East RFA does not lawfully exempt logging in the north east RFA region from federal biodiversity assessment and approval requirements.
This is the first time a NSW RFA has been challenged in court, and, if successful, may have implications for other RFAs in New South Wales, as a well as Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia.
It's all about catchments:
Susie Russell (NCEC) attributed the severity of recent floods to the compounding influences of decades of logging and clearing in the upper catchment and along the gullies, creeks and rivers, along with rising greenhouse emissions, calling for action on protecting and restoring catchments to redress increasing flooding.
“It shouldn’t need much investigation to reveal that the catastrophic north coast floods resulted from the compounding influences of: decades of logging and clearing in the upper catchment and along the gullies, creeks and rivers; rising greenhouse emissions leading to rising global temperatures, particularly ocean temperatures and thus massive evaporation leading to the ‘rain bomb’ event; and the failure of engineering solutions.
“Without a widespread well funded Total Catchment Management plan that stops the ongoing destruction and begins a serious program of catchment repair, this disaster will be repeated all too soon,” Ms Russell predicted.
“This doesn’t just apply to the Richmond Catchment, it is every catchment. They are all in desperate need of repair. The destruction of the native vegetation, particularly the forests, that hold the land together and hold and slow the water, has to stop,” she said.
Seeing forests differently:
The Nature Conservation Council is hosting An Alternative Vision for South Coast Forests event in Moruya on April 4, with a panel including Professor David Lindenmayer, answering the question "why is it that we are still logging our native forests in an era when almost no income is sourced from hard-wood state forests?"
"No sooner than three weeks after the fires I could see logging trucks taking partially burnt timer out of Mogo State Forest even though we had just lost so much forest," [Ms Taylor-Mills] said.
"In a time when the forest was so stressed and so much had been lost, animal habitat was being carted away."
https://www.batemansbaypost.com.au/story/7681776/a-panel-discussing-visions-for-south-coast-forests/
Counting Carbon:
The NRC have released another dodgy study, this one measuring forest/woodland carbon over time. They estimate that including wood products storing carbon off-site and excluding soil carbon, that the carbon in NSW forests is 164 million tonnes less in 2020 than in 1990, with the 2019/20 fires releasing 90 Mt carbon to the atmosphere. They identify 39% of the carbon stored carbon in native vegetation as being within National Parks and 13% within State Forests. There are numerous dodgy assumptions, such as treating all forests as having originated in 1920, with no allowance for the extra carbon stored in oldgrowth forests, allowing for off-site storage of forest products, and not accounting for changes in soil carbon.
They estimate that including wood products storing carbon off-site and excluding soil carbon:
… the results indicate that there was a general decline in forest carbon stock from 1990 through to the mid-2000s, after which there has been a marked increase in forest carbon until 2020 and the impacts of the 2020 fire season. This trend suggests that the state of NSW has transitioned from being a net source of carbon from forests, to being a net sink up to 2019. Following the 2020 fire season, NSW forests were a net source of emissions. The results indicate that the carbon in NSW forests is 164 million tonnes less in 2020 than in 1990.
Between 1990 and 2019, there was an average decline of close to 0.8MtC per annum ... There was a general decline in forest carbon stock from 1990 to 2010 of close to 4MtC per annum, and gain the average gain in forest carbon stock between 2010 and 2020 of 3MtC per annum.
With the exception of 2003 and 2020 fire seasons, the majority of change in forest carbon stock across NSW was driven by forest cover loss and forest cover gain (Figure 41 & Figure 42). In general, most of the change occurred in areas outside of the NSW state forest and national park estate (Figure 43), which is reflected in the forest carbon stock estimates.
The impact of the 2019/2020 fire season on forest carbon represents the largest annual change in forest carbon across the 90 years modelled under this assessment. The fires are modelled to have directly resulted in 90 Mt carbon moving from the forest biomass (AGB & DOM) to the atmosphere, and an additional 63 Mt carbon from the living to the dead organic matter pools (Figure 45).
While these uncertainties reflect the uncertainties with specific input parameters, testing the results against empirical measurements is beyond the scope of project. In this context, it is recommended that a sensitivity assessment be completed to determine the implications of the modelling assumptions, in particular the initial condition assumptions. It is also recommended to compare the modelled outputs with the measured data to assess accuracy of the output.
A graph identifies Proportion of Forest Carbon Stock in 2020 in non-plantation forests by land tenure, identifying 39% of stored carbon as being within National Parks and 13% within State Forests.
There are some dodgy underlying assumptions, such as:
- any area of native forest present at the start of the simulation (i.e. 1935) was 15 years old in 1935, and growing toward maximum biomass - so there was no bonus for oldgrowth forests.
- Assumptions regarding loss of carbon in fires
- Assumptions regarding off-site storage of carbon in wood products
- Failing to account for changes in soil carbon
Powering plantations:
Forestry Corporation has put out the first Registration of Interest (RoI) for renewable energy projects, such as wind farms, to be built within its state-run pine plantations.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/nsw-puts-out-call-for-wind-farms-to-be-located-in-pine-plantations/
Right to trespass on spiritual site:
The walk to the top of Wollumbin (Mount Warning) was initially closed in March 2020, and the traditional owners don’t want it reopened due to its immense spiritual significance, though the NPWS continue to dither about their intentions as Right To Climb agitate for it to be reopened.
AUSTRALIA
Environmental budgeting:
This week’s budget included $1 billion for the rapidly deterioration Great Barrier Reef, $840 million for East Antarctica, $170 million for Koalas, threatened species and tree planting, $27 million for national parks, and $192 million to put the fix in on environmental laws. Unfortunately throwing money at the problems they are aggravating will not fix the underlying policy vacuum.
https://thelatch.com.au/budget-2022-climate-change-australia/
The Morrison government has been slammed for delivering yet another federal budget that fails to grasp the urgency of climate change, fails to support an accelerated transition to renewable energy and offers no support for boosting electric vehicle uptake.
The clean energy sector, climate researchers and environmental groups have all criticised the budget delivered by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Tuesday evening, which will see federal spending on climate change measures fall year-on-year for the next four years.
[Climate Council] “At the same time, significant funds are being spent on so-called ‘low emissions hydrogen’ and the costly and unproven carbon capture and storage. And a further $50 million is being directed to accelerate polluting gas projects.”
First is a A$100 million round of the Environment Restoration Fund – one of several grants programs awarded through ministerial discretion which has been found to favour marginal and at-risk electorates.
Second is $62 million for up to ten so-called “bioregional plans” in regions prioritised for development. Environment Minister Sussan Ley has presented the measure as environmental law reform, but I argue it’s a political play dressed as reform.
Constraining carbon farming:
In another low, the Federal Coalition government has created a rule for new native vegetation projects covering more than 15 hectares, or more than one third of a farm, to obtain the approval of the Agriculture Minister, allowing the Minister to prevent plantings if they are considered to be detrimental to farming and regional communities.
"We don't want to see entire farms locked up becoming havens for weeds and feral animals as families leave the land," Mr Littleproud said.
"I will not hesitate to act to protect community and agricultural interest over corporates and passive investors."
Under the changes, native forest regeneration projects must also report on pest and weed management compliance with state and local laws.
… industry group The Carbon Market Institute (CMI) opposed the changes because of "a lack of supporting evidence, inadequate consultation, constraints on landholder decision making, additional administrative burden, and stifled confidence among investors and service providers".
Bushfires destroy the ozone layer:
The 2019/20 Black summer bushfires reduced the ozone layer over Australia by about 1 per cent in March 2020, a 1 per cent increase in ultraviolet radiation is associated with a 2 per cent increase in skin cancer.
It’s very concerning, however, that the smoke released by bushfires, which are on the increase as a result of global warming, contains a particularly toxic mix of chemicals that further damages the ozone layer and delays its recovery. It’s particularly worrying for Australians that a new study utilising three different datasets has demonstrated that the 2019/20 Black summer bushfires reduced the ozone layer over Australia by about 1 per cent in March 2020. That may not sound like much but 1 per cent is the amount that the ozone layer has been increasing every decade since the introduction of the Montreal Protocol. A 1 per cent increase in ultraviolet radiation is associated with a 2 per cent increase in skin cancer.
https://johnmenadue.com/environment-pollution-destroys-lives-the-ozone-layer-and-bushland/
SPECIES
Fragmented birds need protection:
A recent study found that higher bird occurrence occurred in strictly protected forest fragments over 50ha in size, but required over 175 ha of partially protected fragments.
We compiled a global dataset on almost 2000 bird species in 741 forest fragments varying in size and protection status, and show that protection is associated with higher bird occurrence, especially for threatened species. Protection becomes increasingly effective with increasing size of forest fragments. For forest fragments >50 ha our results show that strict protection (International Union for Conservation of Nature [IUCN] categories I– IV) is strongly associated with higher bird occurrence, whereas fragments had to be at least 175 ha for moderate protection (IUCN categories V and VI) to have a positive effect.
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fee.2485
Fragmenting fences:
Worldwide, fences are increasingly fragmenting animal populations, stopping migrations, cutting animals off from essential resources, and directly killing many through collisions or entanglement.
Recent research shows that these impacts extend far beyond blocking animal migration routes and include furthering disease transmission by concentrating animals, altering the hunting practices of predators, and impeding access to key areas of water and forage. Fences may also prevent “genetic rescue” if an isolated population is decimated by disease or a natural disaster.
The world’s longest fence, and an object lesson in how fences change the natural world, is the Wild Dog Barrier Fence, which stretches 3,488 miles across the corner of southeast Australia. Researchers say the massive fence has created two “ecological universes” on either side of the wire. On the inside of the fence, where farmers trap, shoot, and poison the dingoes that do manage to get through, it has caused a trophic cascade. The lack of dingoes on that side of the fence has meant many more kangaroos, which has led to overgrazing, soil erosion, the loss of soil nutrients, and has even altered the geomorphology of sand dunes and stream flow. This has reduced cover for the dusky hopping mouse, an imperiled species, and made it far more susceptible to predators.
Fence construction is growing rapidly throughout the world. An extension of the dingo fence is underway to add another 460 miles.
Genetically improved Koala released:
Queensland’s first Koala propagated with “high genetic merit” has been released into the wild in south-east Queensland - north-east NSW to follow?.
Jagger is the first koala to be bred as part of the Living Koala Genome Bank pilot program, led by the University of Queensland (UQ), and was on Friday released into Elanora Conservation Park on the Gold Coast.
“Jagger is disease-free, has been fully vaccinated against chlamydia and – thanks to his diverse genetics – will protect koalas against the dangers of inbreeding,” UQ Associate Prof Stephen Johnston said.
… we propagate koalas with high genetic merit
“Our hope is that we can now apply our concept to other wildlife parks in Queensland and possibly northern NSW, to safeguard the future of koalas, and we’re currently consulting with government to do just that.”
Stephen Johnston from UQ’s School of Agriculture and Food Sciences said Jagger was the result of a selective breeding program designed to produce koalas which could be introduced into the local population and add to its genetic diversity.
Jagger has been bred to closely resemble the genetic make-up of other koalas in the region while bringing enough diversity to avoid inbreeding.
Witnessing Koala’s decline:
A group of conservationists have declared 3 May as Wild Koala Day, on which everyone is being encouraged to register to plant a tree, sign a petition to protect a forest, or phone a politician to show them we care about koalas and that they need to stop killing koala trees.
http://www.wildkoaladay.com.au/
Another opinion piece laments the Koala’s decline, WWF likening it to our orangutan.
In 10 years the koala has gone from no listing, to vulnerable, to endangered. With the "koala wars" receded and a new environment minister in place, but clear conflict between development and conservation, it remains to be seen what NSW does next.
Banning rat baits:
Bayside Council is assessing other options to rat poisons known as Second-Generation Anticoagulant Rodenticide (SGAR) because they are thought to be contributing to a sharp increase in deaths of endangered Powerful Owls, and will also advocate for an end to the use of the second generation rodenticides nationally.
https://www.bayside.vic.gov.au/news/powerful-owls-protected-poison
The apocalypse of droughts, fires, and floods take their toll:
The apocalypse is taking a toll on wildlife, first there was the big dry, then the big incineration, and now the big inundations (that won’t stop), each compounding each other and making sure few escape. The floods have taken a high, but unquantified, additional toll on wildlife, including aquatic species.
"Without the stable banks, it's hard for them to build their burrows," she said.
The Black Summer bushfires tore across eastern and southern Australia, and Dr Hawke said the platypus population in most fire-affected areas, including on Kangaroo Island, was struggling.
"On the mid-north coast, we're seeing quite low numbers, so there are these areas where you could say the bushfires did have a real impact on the population," she said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-27/platypus-habitat-damaged-by-bushfire/100939668
Freshwater turtles washed out to sea, wombats, echidnas, birds and bandicoots waterlogged, snakes dehydrated and starved, kangaroo joeys abandoned, and thousands of livestock dead are just some of the challenges wildlife carers are facing four weeks after devastating floods in northern NSW.
Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital vet Dr Bree Talbot said animals that survived the recent floods face an uphill battle. Food sources, habitats and entire populations may have been disrupted and those left behind might not be able to survive.
Rewilding backyards:
The Camden Haven Courier has the sixth in a series by Dunbogan Bushcare and the National Parks Association Mid North Coast branch in the Restoring Natural Values of the Dunbogan-Crowdy Bay National Park Habitat Corridor Project, this time focussing on rewilding backyards for birds.
https://www.camdencourier.com.au/story/7672517/how-to-turn-your-garden-into-a-birds-haven/
Dog’s nutrient load:
A Belgian study in peri-urban bushland found that dogs’ urine and faeces deposit 11 kg of nitrogen (N) and 5 kg of phosphorous (P) per hectare per year, significantly increasing nutrient concentrations.
These levels of ‘fertilisation’ by dogs can have very negative effects on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Higher nutrient levels can lead to increased plant growth of nutrient-demanding species which outcompete others and cause loss of species. This is not what is wanted in urban and peri-urban bushland where species diversity is valued and nurtured, and it’s a particular problem for many parts of Australia where the native flora has evolved and thrive on nutrient-poor soils.
The authors recommend:
- Greater awareness of the issue by organisations responsible for the management and restoration of urban bushland;
- Education of dog walkers about the problem and highlight the necessity of removing dog faeces in urban bushland, just as in parks;
- In ecosystems adapted to nutrient-poor soils, establish off-leash dog parks, enforce use of short leashes, and even apply dog bans.
https://johnmenadue.com/environment-pollution-destroys-lives-the-ozone-layer-and-bushland/
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Fossil fuelled fools:
In our contribution to global heating Australia’s fossil fuel subsidies increased $1.3 billion in the last year to a total of $11.6 billion in 2021-22, according new Australia Institute research.
The total value of future fossil fuel subsidies already committed in Federal, state and territory budgets is $55.3 billion – more than 10 times the balance of Australia’s Emergency Response Fund ($4.8 billion in Dec 2021), while $11.6 billion is 56 times the budget of the National Recovery and Resilience Agency.
Liquidating forest assets:
A company producing “sustainable” aviation fuel (SAF) from forest biomass carbon was the winner of Canada’s “The Sky’s the Limit Challenge”, and of course they claim there are no carbon emissions from liquifying forests.
Enerkem is proud to announce that, as the project leader in partnership with CRB Innovations, it has been selected by an independent panel of international aviation experts as the winner of “The Sky’s the Limit Challenge” hosted by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), from among the four finalists. This prestigious honour underscores its significant achievement in producing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from forest biomass carbon. The resulting biogenic fuel will contribute to a 93 per cent reduction in GHGs from air transport per unit of fossil fuel replaced by SAF.
TURNING IT AROUND
Back to school strike:
As one of more than 30 School Strike For Climate events held across the country on Friday, a crowd of about 1,000 people protested outside Kirribilli House in Sydney, though Scomo was absent.
Thirteen-year-old Ella O'Dwyer-Oshlack should be at school but she now doesn't have one.
The Lismore girl lost her house during the northern NSW city's flood catastrophe, just two years since the region was affected by bushfires.
She says she feels let down by the government and is "terrified" about the future.
"We have leaders that don't lead us in the right direction, in fact we are going in the exact wrong direction," she said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-25/nsw-floods-highlighted-school-strike-for-climate/100938942
Time for political revolution:
The successful appeal by environment minister Sussan Ley to the full bench of the Federal Court to reverse the Sharma decision, where Justice Mordecai Bromberg declared last July that the federal environment minister has a duty of care to the wellbeing of Australian children, emphasises the lack of legal recourse to affect climate heating and urgency of voting the climate fools out and getting some good crossbenchers in.
Less attention was paid to a key take-home message: the EPBC Act gives the minister power to approve coal projects, even if they’ll have adverse effects.
It doesn’t, in a general sense, protect the environment from these effects. It doesn’t protect the public from consequent harm, even if deadly. And it doesn’t, actually, tackle climate change at all.
Alarmed? You should be.
But the other two were dissuaded by their view that the EPBC Act doesn’t in fact protect the environment in a general sense. Nor does it explicitly aim to mitigate climate change. It operates in a piecemeal way, rather than concerning ecosystems as a whole, or our dependency on them.
We heard this same message just recently via the ten-yearly, independent review of the legislation. It concluded that the EPBC Act is outdated, and not fit for the purpose of environment protection.
Let’s look at this case as a call to action. The Federal Court has essentially said it can’t act. …
But the decision certainly doesn’t mean the government can’t act. In fact, that’s exactly who the judges indicated must.
“This is yet another lost opportunity to get some real climate action with the urgency we need,” lamented XR Australia spokesperson Miriam Robinson. “There have been numerous international cases brought, with mixed success along similar lines, but none have yet been successful.”
But there’s hope mounting within the general populace that the pending election holds potential for change, as commentators are predicting a minority Labor government, with the balance of power in the hands of a climate-concerned crossbench of Greens and progressive independents.
Robinson sees the coming vote as “absolutely pivotal”. She further explained that even though XR is “beyond politics”, she asserts that the general populace should get out there, get engaged and put in a vote for the non-major candidates that are prioritising climate.
Forest Media 25 March 2022
NEW SOUTH WALES
NEFA is in court on Monday challenging the indefinite extension of the North East NSW Regional Forest Agreement without a new assessment of climate change, threatened species and oldgrowth. Should we win, the North East NSW RFA will no longer exempt logging operations from assessment and approval under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, or exempt wood from the requirements of the Export Control Act 2020, with potential ramifications for all other RFAs.
This week marked International Day of Forests, a time to acknowledge the importance of forests, recognise the threat they are under, and demand action to protect them, NEFA released a statement calling for an end to logging of public native forests and stopping landclearing. Timberbiz reports at length on Justin Field’s attack on the wood supply agreements, giving Forestry Corporations feeble response that they have voluntarily changed their practices in burnt forests and their 100 year modelling shows they have plenty of timber. The NCC’s call to end logging of public native forests is still getting attention as is Forestry Corporation being fined $45,000 for felling habitat trees in Mogo State Forest.
In a further erosion of civil liberties, amidst the hyperbole following Blockade Australia’s Port Botany action the NSW Government has raised the penalties for blocking bridges and tunnels tenfold to $22,000 or two years jail and promised to change the law to extend these penalties to all Sydney’s roads and its transport and industrial facilities, and set up a police strike force including dogs, aircraft and mounted police, to deal with future protests. Meanwhile the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions has been forced to drop charges against a series of anti-coal protesters by Blockade Australia — who blockaded rail lines for coal transport in the Hunter Valley for over a week – because they couldn’t prove an intention to endanger lives.
To offset their carbon emissions Telstra is reforesting 240 hectares at Yarrowyck in northern New South Wales, with 158,000 native trees and shrubs, which is expected to store around 160,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide over the next 25 years.
AUSTRALIA
An attempt by the Victorian opposition to amend legislation along NSW lines to prohibit third-party legal challenges to logging was unsuccessful, amidst claims the industry could be forced to close within months.
An important study found that in Western Australia, as in the Australian ALPs, burning makes forests on average seven times more flammable for 43 to 56 years, due to the proliferation of shrubs following fire and the long time taken for the shrubs to self-thin. They argue that unlike prescribed burns, burning by indigenous practitioners was precise and focused and they did not attempt to burn vast areas at once. They argue for limiting controlled burning to around settlements and suppressing fires elsewhere to allow understories to become open again. As NSW suffered from floods, western Tasmania suffered its worse drought in 40 years, leading researchers to argue for adequate funding for a draft fire management strategy to stop further attrition of Gondwanan refuges.
The ANU’s Australia's Environment 2021 Report still garners attention, while Australia’s flooding cycle has provided significant relief, its likely to only be temporary as wildlife continue their decline.
The ACF identify that the Federal Government has approved 200,000 ha of endangered species habitat for clearing in the past decade, mostly for mining, this is in addition to the vast areas logged under Regional Forest Agreements. No wonder the Morrison Government now want regional mining agreements so they can stop being accountable for mining approvals.
An Environmental Lawyer argues that after 50 years we should restore Lake Peder, while linking it to the birth of the Green Party.
SPECIES
In the Blue Mountains the floods washed Eastern Pygmy-possums out of their hollows and Grey-headed Flying-foxes out of their roosts.
Echonet has an article about Ballina Shire’s current Citizen of the Year, Maria Matthes, where she talks about her flood experiences and Koalas’ attachment to their feed trees. DPI Forestry’s Brad Law has now had his research published claiming that logging has no impact what-so-ever on Koalas – it doesn’t matter how many of their feed trees are cut down. Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley has listed Yellow-bellied Glider as vulnerable on the advice of the Federal Threatened Species Scientific Committee, adding to the uplisting of Koalas as Endangered due to the 2019-20 bushfires.
They have been getting the pasture just right, not too bare and not too dense, for the release of 10 captive bred critically endangered Plains-wanderers, nicknamed Goldilocks. A European study has found that rising temperatures are decreasing the survival and body size of a bird species, though the effects are less in urban areas, likely due to pre-adaption. The Great Glossy Count is on March 26 to assess their current status.
A researcher has uncovered 111 cases of quolls eating corpses, in one case before they died, though due to our assault on the environment there are not enough left to now be a problem.
Australians are being encouraged to keep their cats indoors to stop them killing around 250 million native animals every year. A new report says controlling rabbits with viruses has saved Australian agriculture $81.8 billion, while allowing native plants to recover and causing feral cat and fox numbers to plummet.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
The United Nations secretary general António Guterres has singled out Australia for not setting stronger 2030 targets as Australia announces more subsidies for the gas industry. Australia is attempting to water down targets and commitments in October’s Convention on Biodiversity Kunming Declaration aimed at stopping the world’s extinction crisis.
Prof Andrew Macintosh says the growing carbon market overseen by the Australian government and the Clean Energy Regulator, which gives credits for projects such as regrowing native forests after clearing, is ‘a fraud’ on the environment, taxpayers and consumers, delivering little increased carbon storage and often reductions.
Scientists have assessed that tropical carbon loss has doubled over the last 20 years as a result of excessive forest removal, mostly for agriculture, showing that current reporting and mitigation measures are not working. A new study led by a National University of Singapore researcher has found that the amount of CO2 taken in by land ecosystems, such as forests, could be linked to the availability of water, which is in short supply during droughts.
Thanks to climate change the drought-stricken Southern Plains of the United States have been affected by a rash of wildfires, the largest blaze burning nearly 220 square kilometres. A new analysis has identified that between 2001 and 2019 wildfires were responsible for 26-29% of global forest loss. A study has found that in the arctic brown carbon from wildfires is having twice the warming effect of black carbon from high temperature combustion of fossil fuels - as wildfires increase, they increase warming which increases wildfires.
Unprecedented heatwaves occurred simultaneously in the Arctic and Antarctica, with temperatures reaching 30 and 40oC (respectively) warmer than average, alarming scientists and emphasizing the need for urgent climate action.
TURNING IT AROUND
The United Nations promoted International Forest Day, noting they cover 30% of the earth’s surface, support 80% of biodiversity, supply clean water and air, regulate the climate by creating rain and cooling the land, absorb a third of our carbon emissions, are crucial for fighting climate change, and provide livelihoods for millions of people. Alarmed that we still degrade and destroy some 10 million hectares of forest each year, while warning that if the rises in temperature become higher than 1.5 degrees, then we will risk losing all control of the climate resulting in ecosystems collapsing without the possibility of restoration afterwards. There is a turning tide on the value of forests, with plenty of good forest stories from around the world, including the Western Australian decision to protect 400,000 ha of its state forests. Loggers saw it as an opportunity to promote logging, particularly because it was meant to be about sustainable production and consumption. Planet Ark chimed in to support their financiers, extolling the logging of native forests.
All forests promote local climate stability by reducing extreme temperatures in all seasons and times of day, though they are also responsible for cooling the earth by half a degree, with the cooling effect increasing to more than one degree in the tropics.
The Atlantic has an article adapted from Thomas E. Lovejoy and John W. Reid’s forthcoming book, Ever Green: Saving Big Forests to Save the Planet talking about forest fragmentation and the need to protect the world’s five big forests. Suzanne Simard has an impassioned plea in The Guardian to save the forests, reflecting her deep understanding. Ninety scientists have written to the Canadian government requesting that protection of old-growth forests be a big part of the soon to be released plan to meet greenhouse gas targets.
James Griffin, NSW Environment Minister, argues in The Australian that we need to urgently invest in enhancing natural capital. In light of the Federal courts ruling that the Federal Environment Minister, Sussan Ley, does not owe a duty of care to Australia’s children, Professor David Kinley argues that Australia needs to change its laws to recognise human and environmental rights
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
NEFA challenges NE NSW RFA
NEFA is in court on Monday challenging the indefinite extension of the North East NSW Regional Forest Agreement without a new assessment of climate change, threatened species and oldgrowth. Should we win, the North East NSW RFA will no longer exempt logging operations from assessment and approval under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, or exempt wood from the requirements of the Export Control Act 2020, with potential ramifications for all other RFAs.
NEFA’s court case ‘North East Forest Alliance Inc v Commonwealth of Australia & State of NSW’ challenging the extension of the North East NSW Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) will be heard in the Federal Court of Australia before Justice Perry on the 28 and 29 of March. NEFA’s challenge is being run by the Environmental Defenders Office.
NEFA is challenging the 2018 decision to extend the North East RFA, effectively indefinitely, largely based on the Comprehensive Regional Assessment (CRA) undertaken in 1997 and 1998, without a new assessment.
“Because of the data limitations we argued that the RFA should only last 10 years, though we were over-ruled to make it 20 years. We participated in good faith. We would not have taken part in the CRA had we thought there was any chance of its being extended indefinitely because the data was not good enough. We relied upon the promise there would be a reassessment by 2018.
“We are aware of the studies since undertaken by scientists, the improved data, changes to forests, growing threats, increasing numbers of threatened species, increased understanding of climate heating impacts, and changes in the logging industry and regional communities, that should have been part of a new CRA before extending the North East NSW RFA.
“NEFA considers a reassessment now would conclude that all public forests should be protected.
International Day of Forests
This week marked International Day of Forests, a time to acknowledge the importance of forests, recognise the threat they are under, and demand action to protect them, NEFA released a statement calling for an end to logging of public native forests and stopping landclearing. (there are more extensive stories under Turning it Around).
On International Day of Forests, North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) says it is essential that we recognise that forests support our civilisation, climate and biodiversity.
In a statement for International Day of Forests for NEFA President Dailan Pugh said that forests are under unprecedented threat due to increasing droughts, heatwaves, wildfires and floods, at the very time we need them to take our carbon out of the atmosphere and store it safely in their wood and soils, and to mitigate flooding by storing and slowing the water during extreme rainfall events.
‘Forests improve our health, generate rainfall, cool the land, regulate streamflows, sequester and store carbon, reduce flood risk by storing water and slowing flows, reduce landslips by reinforcing soils, and support most of our biodiversity.’
‘We must act immediately to turn the accelerating climate and biodiversity crises around before it is too late. Two easy changes we need to make are stopping logging public native forests and stopping clearing forests.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/03/its-international-day-of-forests/
Forestry fights back:
Timberbiz reports at length on Justin Field’s attack on the wood supply agreements, giving Forestry Corporations feeble response that they have voluntarily changed their practices in burnt forests and their 100 year modelling shows they have plenty of timber.
It says that on the north coast, models show it would be able to continue to supply timber at existing levels over the long-term as forests are harvested and regrown time and again.
There were strict environmental rules in place for all forestry operations and Forestry Corporation was committed to complying with all applicable laws and regulations.
To read Forestry Corporation of NSW full statement head to https://www.forestrycorporation.com.au/about/releases/clarification-on-native-forest-management
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/forestry-corp-counters-criticism-of-its-management-of-native-forestry/
Ending logging of public forests doing the rounds:
The NCC’s call to end logging of public native forests is still getting attention.
“The latest annual report shows NSW taxpayers unwittingly paying to cut down forests the people want protected.
“It’s not just ecologically and economically unsustainable, it is morally indefensible.
Mr Gambian said the government should not renew the 30 wood supply agreements with timber mills that will expire in 2023 but rather start talks with workers and the industry about transitioning out of native forest logging.
“Will it lock in destructive native forest logging for years to come or will it develop a plan to transition to a sustainable, plantation-based timber industry?
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/calls-to-stop-logging-native-forests-89661
Mogo fines still garners attention:
Forestry Corporation being fined $45,000 for felling habitat trees in Mogo State Forest still garners attention.
Rights to protest further curtailed:
In a further erosion of civil liberties, amidst the hyperbole following Blockade Australia’s Port Botany action the NSW Government has raised the penalties for blocking bridges and tunnels tenfold to $22,000 or two years jail and promised to change the law to extend these penalties to all Sydney’s roads and its transport and industrial facilities, and set up a police strike force including dogs, aircraft and mounted police, to deal with future protests.
Despite what Mr Speakman says, the protesters are not mere vandals. They included a 71-year-old woman and a 57-year-old woman, who by all indications are sincerely concerned about climate change, a concern shared by the Herald. It seems excessive to lock up a woman in her 70s for two years for expressing her views on this subject.
While the government is justified in arresting people who trespass or cause major disruption, the protesters at Botany were few in number and peaceful. Police could have dealt with them under existing laws.
In 2016 NSW passed laws against protests around coal seam gas fields, raising fines to $5500 or seven years in jail. …
While certain sections of the media might like the idea of using police-state tactics against “woke” activists, the new laws could cause more problems than they solve.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/crackdown-on-protests-is-an-overreaction-20220324-p5a7ps.html
The new penalties were supported by the Labor leader, Chris Minns, who dismissed fears that the extension of police powers posed a threat to civil liberties, saying the protests had caused “serious damage to the NSW economy”.
“It’s almost impossible to think of anything more disruptive, or damaging to the environmental cause, or the cause for climate change than the actions of these people,” he said.
But the Greens MP David Shoebridge savaged the government, calling it a “politically motivated crackdown on legitimate political expression”.
“NSW Police has launched Strike Force Guard to proactively investigate and target those involved in the planning and facilitation of this type of protest activity, in addition to current operations,” Mr Toole said.
“I have been clear from the start; we will not stand for this kind of blatant disregard for the law and its impact on the livelihoods of all workers and business owners impacted by these foolish acts.
“Strike Force Guard will ensure Police are always one step ahead of the protesters to make sure we crack down on this economic vandalism.”
Strike Force Guard will include general duties officers and detectives from Central Metropolitan Region, analysts from State Intelligence Command, operatives from Operations Support Group and the Public Order and Riot Squad, and specialist officers from Traffic and Highway Patrol Command, PolAir, Marine Area Command and Police Rescue.
In in addition to monitoring and responding to unauthorised protest activity, Strike Force Guard officers will also conduct intelligence-driven taskings, including highly visible patrols around significant infrastructure across Sydney.
Meanwhile the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions has been forced to drop charges against a series of anti-coal protesters by Blockade Australia — who blockaded rail lines for coal transport in the Hunter Valley for over a week – because they couldn’t prove an intention to endanger lives.
Telstra offsets:
To offset their carbon emissions Telstra is reforesting 240 hectares at Yarrowyck in northern New South Wales, with 158,000 native trees and shrubs, which is expected to store around 160,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide over the next 25 years.
https://exchange.telstra.com.au/why-were-creating-a-forest-using-experimental-tech/
AUSTRALIA
Bid to prohibit legal challenges to Victorian logging lost:
An attempt by the Victorian opposition to amend legislation along NSW lines to prohibit third-party legal challenges to logging was unsuccessful, amidst claims the industry could be forced to close within months.
The Opposition tried to convince cross-bench MPs to back amendments to government legislation before the Upper House last yesterday, which would block third-party legal action against timber harvesting.
But the amendment to the Government’s Conservation, Forests and Lands Amendment Bill 2022 was lost, after key cross-bench MPs refused to back it.
Former harvest and haulage contractor and Coalition assistant forestry spokesman Gary Blackwood said the timber industry would be shut down within three to four months unless action was taken to end the barrage of environmental groups’ legal actions now.
Controlling controlled burning:
An important study found that in Western Australia, as in the Australian ALPs, burning makes forests on average seven times more flammable for 43 to 56 years, due to the proliferation of shrubs following fire and the long time taken for the shrubs to self-thin. They argue that unlike prescribed burns, burning by indigenous practitioners was precise and focused and they did not attempt to burn vast areas at once. They argue for limiting controlled burning to around settlements and suppressing fires elsewhere to allow understories to become open again.
As coal-fired climate change makes bushfires in Australia worse, governments are ramping up hazard-reduction burning. But our new research shows the practice can actually make forests more flammable.
We found over time, some forests “thin” themselves and become less likely to burn – and hazard-reduction burning disrupts this process.
In the summer of 2019-20, the Black Summer bushfires ravaged Australia’s south-east. In the decade before the fires, the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service doubled the area of prescribed burns compared to the previous decade.
In fact, the area of national park burned that decade was the largest in the state’s history. But as we now know, it had little effect.
Where prescribed burns had very recently been carried out, the bushfires were marginally less severe, about half of the time. But the bushfires ultimately burned ten times more forest than any other Australian forest fires on record.
To find out, we looked at the forests of south-western Australia, where hazard-reduction burns are very frequent.
We examined official records showing where fires had burned over 65 years in national parks. The results were stark.
Forests were unlikely to burn for five to seven years after a prescribed burn. This finding supported earlier work in the same region. But there’s more to the story.
Other studies have shown fires cause a massive flush of understorey growth in WA’s karri and jarrah forests.
During bushfires, the understorey is the main driver of large flames which cause destructive crown fires.
Our research corroborated these earlier findings. We found as the understorey grew back, becoming taller and denser, fire risk greatly increased for the next 37 to 49 years.
As the below graph shows, 43 to 56 years after a fire, the forests had thinned their shrub layers. We found this meant they were, on average, seven times less likely to carry a bushfire than forests burned more recently.
In other words, burning made forests on average seven times more flammable for 43 to 56 years.
In the hottest and driest climate conditions, old, self-thinned forests even out-competed recent prescribed burns – those up to seven years old. Bushfires were three times less likely in old forests than they were in recent prescribed burns.
Our previous work in the Australian Alps found similar trends; mature forests there are dramatically less likely to burn.
Early Australian colonists recorded many Australian forests as park-like with open understoreys.
This reflected First Nations’ care for country. In southwest Australia, as in many parts of the continent, Indigenous fire use was precise and focused. Unlike prescribed burns, Indigenous practitioners did not attempt to burn vast areas at once.
Cooperating with country today means moving away from prescribed burning across large areas. Frequent burns may be useful only close to homes, or in other locations where we know with confidence they can achieve an ecological goal or help firefighters stop a burning edge.
Elsewhere, we should work with forest landscapes and allow them to become open again. We can support this process by refocusing fire management to quickly suppress fire when it does break out.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac5c10
Tasmanian drought threatens Gondwanan legacy:
As NSW suffered from floods, western Tasmania suffered it’s worse drought in 40 years, leading researchers to argue for adequate funding for a draft fire management strategy to stop further attrition of Gondwanan refuges.
There is increasing scientific recognition of the risk of the Gondanwan ecosystem collapsing from climate change driven fires. A new draft fire management plan outlines key steps to ensure these iconic forests survive for decades to come – and it must receive dedicated funding.
The cool moist climate, combined with the skilful, intentional application of fire by Aboriginal people, have conserved ancient, unique trees for millennia. However, the changes in fire patterns following colonialism have caused some Gondwanan refugia to collapse.
Wet provides a hiatus to our deteriorating environment:
The ANU’s Australia's Environment 2021 Report still garners attention, while Australia’s flooding cycle has provided significant relief, its likely to only be temporary as wildlife continue their decline.
It found that in 2021 the oceans were storing 6.5 per cent more heat year-on-year, and we experienced the sixth warmest year on record.
Ms Rapley said one of the biggest concerns highlighted was the continual and rapid decline of animal and plant species, a major indicator of where things are at.
In the last five years, 34 new species have become threatened including eight bird, four frog, and two fish species.
The Nature Conservation Council said there remains a lack of political will to address the dire reality.
"The government spends $50 million on improving koala habitat and $2 billion on diesel fuel subsidies," Mr Tremain said.
"They're not serious about the problem."
We can use this window of opportunity for social change to really ask 'what is the future we want to build?'" Ms Rapley said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-19/australian-environment-report-2021-good-and-bad/100920726
Feds approve 200,000 ha of endangered species habitat for clearing:
The ACF identify that the Federal Government has approved 200,000 ha of endangered species habitat for clearing in the past decade, mostly for mining, this is in addition to the vast areas logged under Regional Forest Agreements. No wonder the Morrison Government now want regional mining agreements so they can stop being accountable for mining approvals.
A major investigation has found 200,000 hectares of endangered species habitat has been green-lit for destruction over the last decade by the Federal Government.
Areas supporting koalas, spot-tailed quolls, gliders and swift parrots were among those earmarked to be cleared, a new report by Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) alleges.
Researchers concluded approximately 72 per cent of the approved area was for mining projects, followed by transport, residential development and energy supply.
In December, a report from WWF-Australia found state and federal approved clearing in Queensland has the potential to derail Commonwealth carbon reduction commitments.
While state-based logging projects and agriculture contribute to the most habitat loss, they generally don’t require federal scrutiny, so they were not included in ACF's findings.
https://www.acf.org.au/investigation-reveals-extent-of-habitat-destruction
Birth of the Greens:
An Environmental Lawyer argues that after 50 years we should restore Lake Peder, while linking it to the birth of the Green Party.
Fifty years ago this week, the world’s first “green” political party was born in Tasmania after the state government purposefully flooded the magnificent Lake Pedder.
The loss of Pedder helped trigger the formation of the United Tasmania Group (UTG), which is generally credited as the world’s first political party with a foundation in environmental values.
While the UTG didn’t win seats in that or subsequent elections it contested during the 1970s, it was the forerunner to the Tasmanian Greens and, nationally, the Australian Greens.
The name “Green” for environmentally minded political parties, however, came later. Indeed, it was derived from another Australian-first: the “Green Ban” movement in Sydney in the 1970s that united building workers and community groups to save cultural and natural heritage from destruction.
SPECIES
Flushing out pygmies:
In the Blue Mountains the floods washed Eastern Pygmy-possums out of their hollows and Grey-headed Flying-foxes out of their roosts.
Wildlife carers have been called to help six displaced Eastern Pygmy-possum joeys in as many days - half the number normally rescued in a whole year.
"I think their hollows have been washed out," Ms Burgess said.
Ms Burgess said there had also been a big spike in rescues of the Grey-headed Flying-fox after floodwaters devastated their usual roosting areas in Emu Plains, Windsor, Richmond and Yarramundi.
https://www.hawkesburygazette.com.au/story/7665890/tiniest-residents-left-homeless-by-floods/
Koalas get attached to their homes:
Echonet has an article about Ballina Shire’s current Citizen of the Year, Maria Matthes, where she talks about her flood experiences and Koalas’ attachment to their feed trees.
‘Individual koalas have an attachment to the individual trees and when they’re affected, they get quite stressed. I’ve even seen little ones have a go at defending their tree,’ she said.
‘They stress,’ said Maria. ‘We had a case at Meerschaum Vale a a few years ago where a fellow chopped down a tree that grew the wrong way over his house and was dropping branches.’
That tree was home to a koala called Sweetie.
‘It wasn’t a huge tree, but he dropped it down. She did go and eat a little bit elsewhere. But every time you saw her she was always sitting in a nearby jacaranda or palm tree, just staring at where her tree used to be.
‘People always fail to recognise that strong attachment individual koalas have to their chosen trees.’
‘What we saw with the highway, it’s very clear that with loss of habitat, stress levels really quickly escalate.’ She says all koalas need to be valued, no matter where they live.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/03/koala-champion-escapes-floods/
Making Koalas like logging:
DPI Forestry’s Brad Law has now had his research published claiming that logging has no impact what-so-ever on Koalas – it doesn’t matter how many of their feed trees are cut down.
Naïve occupancy was close to 100% before and after harvesting, indicating koalas were widespread across all arrays. Average density was higher than expected for forests in NSW, varying between arrays from 0.03–0.08 males ha −1 . There was no significant effect of selective harvesting on density and little change evident between years. Density 5–10 years after previous heavy harvesting was equivalent to controls, with one harvested array supporting the second highest density in the study. Within arrays, density was similar between areas mapped as selectively harvested or excluded from harvest. Density was also high in young regeneration 5–10 years after heavy harvesting. We conclude that native forestry regulations provided sufficient habitat for koalas to maintain their density, both immediately after selective harvesting and 5–10 years after heavy harvesting.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-08013-6.pdf
Yellow-bellied Glider recognised as nationally vulnerable:
Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley has listed Yellow-bellied Glider as vulnerable on the advice of the Federal Threatened Species Scientific Committee, adding to the uplisting of Koalas as Endangered due to the 2019-20 bushfires.
“If we do not end native forest logging and land clearing now, we will lose these species forever.”
The Committee found the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires, which destroyed more than five million hectares of forests, were a key factor that had increased risks to both species, along with land clearing, habitat fragmentation, and climate change.
“The NSW Government is still logging forests that were smashed by the Black Summer bushfires or forests that have become precious refuges for koalas and gliders that fled the flames,” Mr Gambian said.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/yellow-bellied-gliders-listed-as-vulnerable-to-extinction-89741
Goldilocks likes pasture just right, not too bare and not too dense
They have been getting the pasture just right, not too bare and not too dense, for the release of 10 captive bred critically endangered Plains-wanderers, nicknamed Goldilocks.
Also known as plains-wanderers, 10 of the animals, which were hatched in captivity, have been released in native grassland near Hay, in NSW's south-west.
It is hoped the inaugural project will boost Australia's dwindling population, estimated to be at less than 1,000 in the wild.
"Overgrazing is the biggest deterrent to the bird because it likes to have ground cover that's sparse, but not too sparse or too congested.
Chief Executive of Taronga Conservation Society Australia, Cameron Kerr said plains-wanderers were a unique Australian bird, whose genetic history dated back millions of years, “which is why breeding and releasing these birds back into the wild is so important”.
https://psnews.com.au/2022/03/22/goldilocks-bird-finds-new-house-bearable/?state=aps
Heating decreasing the survival and body size of birds:
A European study has found that rising temperatures are decreasing the survival and body size of a bird species, though the effects are less in urban areas, likely due to pre-adaption.
Rising temperatures decreased the survival and body size of forest bird nestlings more than their urban counterparts, shows a new article in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. Increasing urbanization and the climate crisis present varied challenges for wildlife, and this is one of the first studies looking at the combined impact of these factors on warm-blooded animals.
https://phys.org/news/2022-03-extreme-forest-dwelling-bird-chicks-city.html
Making Glossy Black Cockatoos count:
The Great Glossy Count is on March 26 to assess their current status.
The demise of its favourite feeding tree was accelerated by the Black Summer bushfires, which destroyed swathes of natural habitat.
Griffith University’s Associate Professor Guy Castley says long-term drought and fire have no doubt taken a toll on the glossy black.
“The species faces a number of threats but the primary driver is habitat loss across much of its range,” he said.
“The overall population is estimated at less than 10,000 mature birds in the latest Action Plan for Australian Birds but is declining in many areas,” he said.
https://www.aap.com.au/news/survey-to-help-save-declining-cockatoos/
The birds, who feed on casuarina trees, have been hit by both a debilitating loss of habitat and a reduction of food supply.
"There's been a massive loss of habitat through fires. These birds nest in large hollows, and when there are severe fires, these hollows are burnt out completely."
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/7669332/nationwide-search-for-this-spectacular-bird/
Beware native cats:
A researcher has uncovered 111 cases of quolls eating corpses, in one case before they died, though due to our assault on the environment there are not enough left to now be a problem.
Quoll populations in Australia have been declining for more than a century. Tasmania’s remaining eastern quoll population, for example, fell more than half in the decade to 2009 and numbers have not recovered since.
And a sorry account tells of a man lost in the forest at Winchelsea in Victoria. Found near death, he said quolls and other animals “had eaten his fingers and his toes. They had bitten his face and torn his nose away”. He died soon after.
In some cases, fox and cat control has allowed quolls to return to places they’ve been absent from for many years. But more conservation measures are needed.
Keeping cats indoors:
Australians are being encouraged to keep their cats indoors to stop them killing around 250 million native animals every year (interview).
Every year, domestic cats kill around 250 million wild animals.
Cat Protection Society of NSW CEO Kristina Vesk told Ben Fordham it’s not hard to keep the animals inside.
“Provide them with lots of enrichment … things like high perches and places to climb, window boxes to sit in and look out at the world.”
https://www.2gb.com/how-to-keep-your-cat-indoors-to-stop-them-killing-native-wildlife/
Controlling rabbits:
A new report says controlling rabbits with viruses has saved Australian agriculture $81.8 billion, while allowing native plants to recover and causing feral cat and fox numbers to plummet.
The report, Benefits of Rabbit Biocontrol in Australia: An Update, also reveals that the removal of rabbits just as good for the environment, allowing native vegetation to thrive, causing feral cat and fox numbers to plummet, and native mammals to bounce back.
https://www.liverpoolchampion.com.au/story/7666629/the-86-billion-bunny-bounty/
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Australia reaffirms their tag as fossil fools:
The United Nations secretary general António Guterres has singled out Australia for not setting stronger 2030 targets as Australia announces more subsidies for the gas industry.
Australia has been named and shamed by the United Nations secretary general António Guterres, in an extraordinary speech that called out the governments of wealthy nations for not setting stronger 2030 emissions reduction targets.
In an address to the Economist Sustainability Summit overnight, Guterres targeted his criticism at wealthy countries, including the members of the G20, saying that they were overwhelmingly responsible for global emissions, and so had an obligation to act.
And, unusually for a person in his position, Guterres singled out Australia as being among a group of countries he described as “holdouts” on announcing stronger 2030 emissions reduction targets.
On Tuesday, federal energy minister Angus Taylor announced that the federal government would provide a further $50 million in subsidies to the gas industry, supporting the development of a further seven gas infrastructure projects.
On Tuesday, federal energy and emissions reduction minister Angus Taylor said the Morrison government would provide an additional $50.3 million in subsidies to the gas industry to support the construction of more gas infrastructure.
“It is nonsense to pretend that Australia has a gas supply problem. Australia produces five times more gas each year than is used for domestic purposes, but the vast majority is exported,” Baxter said.
“The federal government already has the power to compel gas exporters to ensure that Australia’s gas needs are met first, but it refuses to use it. Instead, they insist on goading this parasitic industry into doing more harm to Australian productivity by throwing ever more taxpayer funds at it.
… and seeks to water down Kunming declaration:
Australia is attempting to water down targets and commitments in October’s Convention on Biodiversity Kunming Declaration aimed at stopping the world’s extinction crisis.
With over 40,000 species at risk of being wiped out globally, the UN Convention on Biodiversity is meeting in Geneva this month to draft a framework of principles to help reverse the trend.
Despite Australia making these bold environmental commitments, Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) are warning the country could insist on making number of subtle changes during current negotiations that could weaken the framework.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/extinction-crisis-fear-australia-watering-down-global-agreement-222517173.html
Australia’s payments for carbon capture a fraud:
Prof Andrew Macintosh says the growing carbon market overseen by the Australian government and the Clean Energy Regulator, which gives credits for projects such as regrowing native forests after clearing, is ‘a fraud’ on the environment, taxpayers and consumers, delivering little increased carbon storage and often reductions.
His critique – outlined in four new academic papers – has major implications for the credibility of the Coalition’s $4.5bn “direct action” emissions reduction fund, through which the government buys carbon credits from rural landholders and other businesses.
Macintosh and his colleagues analysed 119 human-induced regeneration projects in New South Wales and Queensland. They found that despite the government issuing 17.5m carbon credits to these projects – with each credit meant to represent one tonne of carbon dioxide absorbed by growing trees – the total forest area had barely increased.
For 59 of the projects, the amount of forest was found to have reduced. They still received 8.2m carbon credits, worth more than $100m.
Taylor announced in January that generation of credits would also be allowed through plantation forestry, emissions cuts at industrial sites, and the use of biomethane and “blue carbon” – storing carbon in coastal wetland ecosystems.
Loss of tropical forest carbon doubles in 20 years:
Scientists have assessed that tropical carbon loss has doubled over the last 20 years as a result of excessive forest removal, mostly for agriculture, showing that current reporting and mitigation measures are not working.
They disclosed a dual increase in gross tropical forest carbon loss globally from 0.97 gigatons of carbon annually in 2001–2005 to 1.99 gigatons of carbon per year in 2015–2019 as a result of quick forest loss.
The doubling and acceleration in the loss of forest carbon, including biomass and soil organic carbon, is primarily driven by agricultural expansion which differs from current estimates of land-use change emissions in the assessments of the global carbon budget that shows a flat or decreasing trend.
Feng, Y., et al. (2022) Doubling of annual forest carbon loss over the tropics during the early twenty-first century. Nature Sustainability. doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00854-3.
https://www.azocleantech.com/news.aspx?newsID=31413
Forests carbon capture declines in droughts:
A new study led by a National University of Singapore (NUS) researcher has found that the amount of CO2 taken in by land ecosystems, such as forests, could be linked to the availability of water, which is in short supply during droughts.
The lead author of the study, Assistant Professor Luo Xiangzhong from NUS' geography department, said: "The key message from our study is that extreme droughts in the tropics are particularly important to the global carbon cycle."
But, while the study established a correlation between changes in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and drought events that have hit the world's tropical belt over the past 60 years, the exact way forest habitats are impacted by drought is still not very well understood, he said.
"This means that we are unsure if we can estimate forest carbon uptake correctly under future climate scenarios," Prof Luo said.
At night, the forest breathes as humans do. On satellite images, plumes of CO2 can be seen coming out from the three forest basins during these times.
But when the sun is up, the plumes disappear. Instead, these habitats take in CO2 through photosynthesis, converting the carbon into sugars that are stored in tree trunks, leaves or the soil, keeping the carbon out of the atmosphere where it can trap heat.
He said that droughts can influence carbon uptake even after a drought ends.
"We often assume ecosystems can fully recover to their normal status after extreme droughts. But droughts may have some long-lasting impacts, such as shifted species composition, higher fire possibility and deadwood decomposition," he said.
"All of these processes release carbon, but they do not necessarily happen during droughts and are often ignored."
Fires spread:
Thanks to climate change the drought-stricken Southern Plains of the United States have been affected by a rash of wildfires, the largest blaze burning nearly 220 square kilometres.
Fires to blame for over a quarter of forest loss:
A new analysis has identified that between 2001 and 2019 wildfires were responsible for 26-29% of global forest loss.
No high-resolution global satellite-based assessment of forest loss due to fire, employing consistent definitions and methods across biomes, has been available to date. In order to address this information gap, Tyukavina and her colleagues have developed the first ever 30m resolution (a 30 meter pixel represents a square patch of the land with a 30m side) global map of forest loss due to wildfires between 2001 and 2019. The study was published recently in Frontiers in Remote Sensing.
The new map with its more refined scale, showed that the proportion of global forest loss due to fires between 2001 and 2019 is 26 to 29 percent, which is higher than what was previously estimated. It showed relatively consistent increases in wildfires across the globe, with boreal forests having the highest proportion of forest loss (69–73 percent), followed by subtropical forests (19–22 percent), temperate forests (17–21 percent), and tropical forests (6–9 percent).
https://www.earth.com/news/one-third-of-global-forest-loss-has-been-caused-by-wildfires/
Brown is worse than black:
A study has found that in the arctic brown carbon from wildfires is having twice the warming effect of black carbon from high temperature combustion of fossil fuels - as wildfires increase they increase warming which increases wildfires.
Their study revealed that brown carbon from burning biomass – including from wildfires – was responsible for at least twice as much warming as black carbon from fossil fuel burning.
Worryingly, they say this could spark a vicious cycle, leading to even more wildfires in the near future.
'The increase in brown carbon aerosols will lead to global or regional warming, which increases the probability and frequency of wildfires,' said Professor Pingging Fu, senior author of the study.
'Increased wildfire events will emit more brown carbon aerosols, further heating the earth, thus making wildfires more frequent.'
The researchers point out that in the last 50 years, the Arctic has been warming at a rate three times that of the rest of the planet – and say that it's likely that wildfires are one of the leading drivers.
According to work by the University of Colorado Boulder, on average, US wildfires have become four times larger and three times more frequent since 2000.
The findings come off the back of a report by the United Nations that found global wildfires could increase by up to 50 percent over the next 80 years due to global warming.
Heatwaves poles apart:
Unprecedented heatwaves occurred simultaneously in the Arctic and Antarctica, with temperatures reaching 30 and 40oC (respectively) warmer than average, alarming scientists and emphasizing the need for urgent climate action.
An alarming heatwave is taking place simultaneously in the Arctic and Antarctic – a development described as “unthinkable” by scientists.
Records have been shattered in parts of Antarctica, with the temperature more than 40C warmer than average. Meanwhile in parts of the Arctic, the mercury shot up more than 30C higher than normal.
The heatwave has stunned scientists.
“They are opposite seasons. You don’t see the north and the south (poles) both melting at the same time,” National Snow and Ice Data Centre scientist Walt Meier told NBC News.
Scientists say it’s still too early to tell whether climate change is responsible for an extreme heat wave in Antarctica that shattered records as it brought temperatures soaring as high as -12°C, a full 40°C/70°F warmer than normal for this time of year.
“It is impossible, we would have said until two days ago,” tweeted Stefano Di Battista, …
Eastern Antarctic temperatures at this time of year typically register between -60° and -45°C. It is even more unusual that the weather pattern occurred in March, which marks the onset of Antarctica’s low-sunlight fall months, reports The Washington Post.
Climate change is affecting other parts of Antarctica, as well. High temperatures are reducing the mass of ice sheets on the western side of the continent and threatening to destabilize the Thwaites Glacier, a slab the size of Florida that contributes about 4% of annual global sea level rise. The Antarctic heat wave comes on the heels of a bout of exceptional warmth in the Arctic that reached close to the melting point.
The Antarctic continent as a whole on Friday was about 4.8C warmer compared to a baseline temperature between 1979 and 2000, the Associated Press reported. On the same day, the Arctic as a whole was 3.3C warmer than the 1979 to 2000 average.
“Right now we’ve got the lowest sea ice extent on record in Antarctica,” Arblaster said. “A lot of the sea ice around Antarctica that might be there normally close to the continent is now ocean. It would be really interesting to understand if there’s any connection between the low Antarctic sea ice extent and these warm temperatures.”
TURNING IT AROUND
International Forest Day
The United Nations promoted International Forest Day, noting they cover 30% of the earth’s surface, support 80% of biodiversity, supply clean water and air, regulate the climate by creating rain and cooling the land, absorb a third of our carbon emissions, are crucial for fighting climate change, and provide livelihoods for millions of people. Alarmed that we still degrade and destroy some 10 million hectares of forest each year, while warning that if the rises in temperature become higher than 1.5 degrees, then we will risk losing all control of the climate resulting in ecosystems collapsing without the possibility of restoration afterwards.
On March 21, 2022, we celebrate International Forest Day for the 10th year in a row to raise awareness of the importance of forests. Our lives are just as dependent on the land as on the sea regarding both food and livelihood. Moreover, forests are the most biologically diverse ecosystems on land and accommodates more than 80% of the terrestrial species of animals, plants and insects. Forests cover 30% of the earth’s surface and are vital habitats for millions of species, they are sources of clean air and water, and of course crucial for fighting climate change. A study from the UN shows that forests actually can lift one billion people out of poverty and create additional 80 million green jobs.
… Also, the world’s forests act as shields from zoonotic diseases, which means that their destruction will have fatal consequences for the global public health. In fact, 1 out of 3 outbreaks of new and emerging diseases, e.g. HIV and SARS, are linked to deforestation and other land use changes.
… However, experts around the world have warned that if the rises in temperature become higher than 1.5 degrees, then we will risk losing all control of the climate resulting in ecosystems collapsing without the possibility of restoration afterwards.
Another report from last week specifies that the world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon, is approaching irreparable damage due to forest fires and deforestation. This emerges from a new study from the journal Nature Climate change. They state that the Amazon is losing resilience and is at a crucial threshold of rainforest dieback. Factors such as droughts, forest fires, climate change and deforestation jointly reduce forest resilience. If the forest dies, it can have gargantuan repercussions for the whole globe; the Amazon covers large parts of South America and is home to around 25% of the earth’s total biodiversity. Furthermore, it is an important collector of CO2 in the atmosphere, and without forests the temperature will increase and the soil will not hold water, resulting in floods.
https://unric.org/en/international-forest-day-2022/
“They act as natural filters, providing clean air and water, and they are havens of biological diversity…[and] help to regulate our climate by influencing rainfall patterns, cooling urban areas and absorbing one-third of greenhouse gas emissions,” explained Secretary-General António Guterres.
Commemorated annually on 21 March, the international day reminds everyone that the sustainable management of forests and their resources, are key to combating climate change, and to contributing to the prosperity and well-being of current and future generations.
Even though these priceless ecological, economic, social and health benefits, global deforestation continues at an alarming rate.
While commitments to halt the wanton destruction of trees have rung out “loud and clear”, and slowing has been registered in some regions, “each year we still degrade and destroy some 10 million hectares of forest,” he said.
“It is essential that the world implements the recent Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use and other instruments designed to protect our forests,” underscored the Secretary-General.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1114262
Boreal and tropical forests are indispensable in the dual fights against climate change and biodiversity loss. These “lungs of the earth” are among the most carbon-dense biomes on Earth, absorbing and storing carbon dioxide and converting it into life-giving oxygen and buying us critical time to transition to a decarbonized future. Their protection is essential to achieving global climate and biodiversity targets. Yet, each year, tens of millions of acres of climate-critical tropical and boreal forests are lost or degraded, with catastrophic climate, biodiversity, and human rights impacts.
Forest ecosystems provide innumerable benefits. They are reservoirs of genetic diversity— hosting the majority of our planet’s terrestrial biodiversity, which is critical for the discovery of new medicinal compounds, and essential for our planet’s overall resiliency in the face of widespread disasters. Many Indigenous Peoples’ ways of life and livelihoods are tied to the health of forests. Furthermore, forests absorb enough carbon dioxide to offset one and a half times the amount of carbon emissions released by the United States each year. Forests like the boreal store vast amounts of carbon, locking it away from the atmosphere. But, when forests are lost or degraded, carbon that trees have captured from the atmosphere and stored for centuries is released. In 2020, 2.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide were added to the atmosphere from tropical forest loss alone. The Canadian boreal alone stores twice as much carbon as the world’s oil reserves, and logging’s impact on these carbon stores is a significant contributor to Canada’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, much of these forest’s impacts occur in violation of internationally recognized Indigenous rights.
The world stares at a global crisis precipitated by large-scale deforestation and damage to the environment. Reckless human activities have aggravated the climate crisis, raising a big question mark on the prosperity and well-being of current and future generations. Global deforestation continues at an alarming rate. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated that 10 million hectares were cleared each year globally between 2015 and 2020.
… good news stories:
There is a turning tide on the value of forests, with plenty of good forest stories from around the world, including the Western Australian decision to protect 400,000 ha of its state forests.
Monday was International Day of Forests, a perfect moment for taking a walk under your local trees and reading a roundup of forest victories from around the world.
This year notes a turning tide in the global awareness of the value of trees.
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/mark-international-forest-day-with-these-conservation-victories/
The day reminds people to value and save forests and the importance of forests in the lives of living creatures. It is quite evident that forest plays an essential role in proving food, water, shelter to animals as well as human beings.
https://sambadenglish.com/international-forest-day-2022-theme-history-significance/
Dominica can boast not only about the fact that it has in excess of 60% vegetative cover, but also the country with perhaps the greatest percentage % of
Protected Areas (21%) in our hemisphere and last but by no means least a forest ecosystem which has proven itself to be both relevant and resilient bearing in mind ravages caused by Hurricane David some 38 years ago and most recently Tropical Storm Erika and Hurricane Maria. On all occasions, as with other like natural disasters, the forests have re-emerged in a rather quick time.
https://dominicanewsonline.com/news/homepage/release-on-international-day-of-forest-2022/
… the loggers have their spin:
Loggers saw it as an opportunity to promote logging, particularly because it was meant to be about sustainable production and consumption.
Proclaimed by the United Nationals General Assembly, this year's International Day of Forests carries the theme 'forests and sustainable production and consumption', which is especially relevant for WA's industry.
Forest Industries Federation WA chief officer Adele Farina said while the industry had faced many challenges, the International Day of Forests was the ideal day for positive reflection.
"Our industry in WA is world-class and nationally we have the ability to be self-sustainable in timber production, which is vitally important, particularly considering recent events," Ms Farina said.
https://www.bunburymail.com.au/story/7664305/fifwa-to-hold-world-forestry-day-dinner/?cs=12
Planet Ark chimed in to support their financiers, extolling the logging of native forests.
David Rowlinson, Planet Ark Environmental Foundation’s Make it Wood Campaign Manager, said Make it Wood supported Australian forestry and the use of wood in construction.
“The Australian forestry sector is one of the most highly regulated and well regard-ed in the world,” Mr Rowlinson said.
Mr Rowlinson said using wood as a construction material helped to mitigate climate change.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/forestry-australia-shines-a-light-of-forest-science-and-skills/
Forests are cool:
All forests promote local climate stability by reducing extreme temperatures in all seasons and times of day, though they are also responsible for cooling the earth by half a degree, with the cooling effect increasing to more than one degree in the tropics.
Researchers from the US and Colombia found that overall forests keep the planet at least half of a degree Celsius cooler when biophysical effects – from chemical compounds to turbulence and the reflection of light – are combined with carbon dioxide.
In the tropics – from Brazil and Guatemala to Chad, Cameroon and Indonesia – the cooling effect is more than one degree. In short, while all forests provide multiple benefits, some are more important than others in keeping the climate stable.
These physical qualities allow trees to move heat and moisture away from the Earth’s surface where we live, which directly cools the local area and influences cloud formation and rainfall – which has ramifications far away.
… tropical deforestation immediately increases extreme heat locally and decreases regional and local rainfall.
Michael Coe, the tropics program director at the Woodwell Climate Research Center and a study co-author, said: “Without the forest cover we have now, the planet would be hotter and the weather more extreme. Forests provide us defense against the worst-case global warming scenarios.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/23/forests-climate-crisis-carbon-cooling-effect
We find that tropical deforestation leads to strong net global warming as a result of both CO2 and biophysical effects. From the tropics to a point between 30°N and 40°N, biophysical cooling by standing forests is both local and global, adding to the global cooling effect of CO2 sequestered by forests. In the mid-latitudes up to 50°N, deforestation leads to modest net global warming as warming from released forest carbon outweighs a small opposing biophysical cooling. Beyond 50°N large scale deforestation leads to a net global cooling due to the dominance of biophysical processes (particularly increased albedo) over warming from CO2 released. Locally at all latitudes, forest biophysical impacts far outweigh CO2 effects, promoting local climate stability by reducing extreme temperatures in all seasons and times of day.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2022.756115/full
One of the main biophysical effects of deforestation the researchers looked at was how the loss of forest cover impacts heat distribution. High tree canopies, like those found in forests, push heat away from the surface and distributes it higher in the atmosphere.
“Imagine a smooth surface, the wind just flows straight across and the heat from the sun comes straight down,” she said, “But with the canopy and its surface like a crown of broccoli, those air parcels bounce around and the heat is dispersed.”
“Forests are also important to regional hydrological cycles; once you cut the trees, you remove the pump that transfers water from the surface to the atmosphere, which affects down-wind rainfall,” Vercho said.
Forests are also a main source of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs), which are one of the many factors involved in cloud formation. “The BVOCs produced by forests increase the concentration of water droplets in clouds, which makes them brighter so they reflect more energy back to space.”
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/947514
Time to honour and protect forests:
The Atlantic has an article adapted from Thomas E. Lovejoy and John W. Reid’s forthcoming book, Ever Green: Saving Big Forests to Save the Planet talking about forest fragmentation and the need to protect the world’s five big forests.
But to meet the climate challenge, we have to accomplish one other essential task: Save the world’s biggest forests. The planet is a linked physical-biological system in which large wooded expanses keep both local and global conditions stable and livable. They metabolize the carbon our economies so relentlessly put in the air in a process that circulates life-giving water around our landscapes. This physical work is accomplished with a biological mechanism involving trillions of organisms belonging to millions of distinct species in a constant whir of transacted matter and energy, moving from one being to another, from earth to sky and back.
All forests can help, but large forests are of supreme importance for the climate. The five largest ones left—the megaforests—include boreal forests in Russia and North America, and the tropical forests in the Amazon, Congo, and New Guinea. …
Losing the forest would change more than the reading on the thermometer. Wind, rain, fire, and ocean currents would be rewritten. If we lose too many trees, everything changes.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/climate-change-deforestation-carbon/627114/
Suzanne Simard has an impassioned plea in The Guardian to save the forests, reflecting her deep understanding.
Trees live amid an orchestra of organisms. Whispering, gossiping, eavesdropping, all working together in symphonic harmony. Recent research shows that trees are in constant communication with one another through an underground biological neural network made of mycorrhizal fungi. …
The big trees look after the little ones by donating parcels of food and information, serving as “mother trees”. …
The first step is to reconnect with the natural world, viewing ourselves as partners, not dominators, and fulfilling our responsibilities to look after each other, our non-human kin, and the planet. …
Second, we must stop converting natural forests into industrial plantations or agricultural land, and demand that existing plantations should be allowed to revert. …
Third, we need climate policies that put as much emphasis on protecting forest carbon sinks and preventing greenhouse-gas emissions from logging as they do on preventing fossil-fuel emissions. …
Ninety scientists have written to the Canadian government requesting that protection of old-growth forests be a big part of the soon to be released plan to meet greenhouse gas targets.
“We are deeply concerned by the evidence of continued deforestation and degradation of primary forests globally and in Canada because of the resulting impact on greenhouse gas emissions and the biodiversity crisis,” says the open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Smith criticizes industry claims that using wood for biofuels is carbon-neutral, pointing out it takes decades to replenish the carbon such fuels emit.
“You’re looking at 10-20 years before you get any (carbon storage) out of them,” she said.
As well, the letter says government isn’t accounting for all the carbon currently being released by forestry.
By failing to account for factors such as carbon released from logged-over soils, DellaSala said his research suggests B.C. is under-reporting emissions from its forestry industry by as much as 88 per cent.
Need to invest in natural capital:
James Griffin, NSW Environment Minister, argues in The Australian that we need to urgently invest in enhancing natural capital.
More than 50 per cent of global gross domestic product is dependent on nature, according to the World Economic Forum.
The problem is that we’re using more of nature than we’re giving back to it.
The risk is not just to our nature, species and ecosystems, but to our quality of life – those stocks of natural capital.
The urgency is real: biodiversity and ecosystem collapse is ranked as one of the top five most likely and harmful risks to humans in the next 10 years, according to the World Economic Forum.
Australia ranks fifth-highest on a list of 140 countries that would experience economic losses if environmental challenges are not immediately addressed.
There is an immediate need to increase private sector investment in natural capital and conservation projects.
Legislating environmental responsibility:
In light of the Federal court's ruling that the Federal Environment Minister, Sussan Ley, does not owe a duty of care to Australia’s children, Professor David Kinley argues that Australia needs to change its laws to recognise human and environmental rights.
Following last week’s ruling by the Federal Court in that the Federal Environment Minister, Sussan Ley, does not owe a duty of care to Australia’s children, we might now ask whether it’s time that Australia catches up with the rest of the world in recognising a right to a healthy environment.
In much of the rest of the world, the situation is very different. Most other countries recognise the right to a healthy environment, either in their constitutions, ordinary human rights laws, or relevant regional human rights treaties. Aside from China, Russia, and the Middle East, it is mainly only common law jurisdictions that lack such legal recognition (the Republic of Ireland is an exception in that regard).
As a result, vanguard and successful environmental litigation based on human rights arguments, while not exactly run-of-the-mill, is not only expected — it is actively embraced by many national courts.
There have been other like cases in courts across Europe, including in Belgium, Germany, and Ireland, as well as before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. But also such litigation has been pursued across the globe, from Argentina and Brazil to India and Indonesia. Indeed, according to the latest Global Climate Litigation Report published by the UN Environment Programme, there are more than 1,500 climate-related human rights cases currently being litigated around the world.
Evidently, across all these jurisdictions, the presence of legal guarantees to the protection of the environment and human health have not only helped governments and corporations focus on their responsibilities and “moral obligations” (as Anjali Sharma puts it), they have also provided courts with the tools to force them to do so.
And so it could and should be in Australia.
Surely, we owe it to our children, our judges, and ourselves to provide better legal tools than that to tackle climate change.
https://www.abc.net.au/religion/david-kinley-human-right-to-healthy-environment/13804888
Forest Media 18 March 2022
NSW
It’s lamentable that the Koala’s saviour, North Coast-based Liberal MLC Catherine Cusack, has resigned from the NSW Parliament over the Federal Government’s decision to increase emergency payments to flood victims in the National Party seat of Page by $2000, but not in the ALP seat of Richmond, describing it as “probably the most unethical approach I have ever seen," A win for ethics, a loss for Koalas. Soon after Morrison extended the payments.
In response to a question by Justin Field in estimates, NSW Forestry Minister Dugald Saunders confirmed they are negotiating to extend North Coast logging contracts for five years to 2028. Leading Field to call for a halt, and NEFA to call for Premier Perrottet to block the extension because of the massive loss of resources in the 2019/20 fires, the increased need to protect fire refuges for affected Koalas, the need to restore hollow-bearing trees, and the urgency of protecting forests as carbon sinks to mitigate climate heating. The Forestry Corporation’s loss of $20 million last year logging public native forests, equating to $441 per hectare, has been amplified by a chorus of voices calling for it to end. The EPA has fined the Forestry Corporation $78,000 for the removal of hollow-bearing trees in Mogo State Forest and failing to protect feed trees and swift parrots in Bodalla and Boyne State Forests.
Bob Brown Foundation report that earlier this year Queensland Commodity Exports ceased receipt of plantation timber from New South Wales due to the risks posed to conservation values within NSW plantation areas.
Concerns grow over development of cabins on the Light to Light Walk within Ben Boyd National Park on the Far South Coast, with the community sidelined as costs blowout from $7.9million to $14.48million. The Camden Haven Courier has an article about increasing habitat values of backyards as part of the Restoring Natural Values of the Dunbogan-Crowdy Bay National Park Habitat Corridor Project.
AUSTRALIA
The Australian Forest Network is hosting a webinar with Professor Brendan Mackey, Christine Milne AO and Virginia Young this Monday from 4-5pm on “A campaigner’s guide to the dangers of forest carbon offsets. https://forms.gle/XKufjVtiTQdn5SiT7
Australia’s carbon credit processes are accused of distorting the market, rorting and rewarding bad practices.
We now have our political leaders acknowledging that climate change is causing unprecedented disasters, but the fix is in as in the next breath they want more coal and oil.
The Bob Brown Foundation stepped up their campaign by immobilising all logging machinery ripping into ancient native forests in the Wentworth Hills area of Tasmania’s Central Plateau. Environment groups are concerned changes to Victoria’s logging rules will make it easier to log by limiting court’s ability to consider the precautionary principle, and thereby undermine court challenges.
Trees are our allies in flood control, holding soils together to reduce stream bank erosion and landslips, while slowing floodwaters and sheltering smaller plants - roles we can enhance. As floods become more frequent, deeper and prolonged trees can also be victims.
ANU’s annual assessment of Australia’s environment using 15 key indicators, such as water availability, bushfire, population pressures and vegetation health, shows a significant improvement, rising 4 points from 2020 to 6.9 for 2021, primarily because of the rains, aided by COVID slowing population growth and emissions. The outlook for 2022 is not so bright with excessive rainfall, lifting of COVID restrictions, and a threatened coral bleaching event.
The Commonwealth is allocating $130 million to replicate the RFA regional assessment process in non-forest areas to exempt themselves from the need to consider individual developments under the EPBC Act and hand responsibility over to the States. While conservation groups want more information, the mining, oil and gas industries are delighted. The RFA’s have been such a success they want regional mining agreements.
There is a lot happening at the federal level to allow farmers to claim credits for additional work they do to enhance biodiversity and carbon with $66.1 million for its Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship Package, though unfortunately it won’t reward farmers for their existing native vegetation. The short time frame of 25 years to claim credits for tree plantings is a worry as it allows them to then be logged. The NSW state government is chipping in $125 million for its Primary Industries Productivity and Abatement Program to help tap the growing market for carbon credits for farmers through measures such as targeted revegetation of grazing country, or seaweed feed across the dairy industry to reduce methane emissions.
There are calls for the Queensland government to stop approving a growing number of large, foreign-owned wind farm developments in Far North Queensland, involving land clearing adjacent to the World Heritage Area, some arguing there are more appropriate sites.
SPECIES
A study estimates there are now 1.7 million foxes in Australia, spread across 80% of the mainland and on 50 Australian islands, eating 300 million native mammals, birds and reptiles each year. Along with cats, each day across Australia their combined death toll includes 1.9 million reptiles, 1.4 million birds and 3.9 million mammals
A report by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) found the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment is poorly implementing the EPBC Act and failing threatened species and ecosystems.
The Queensland government’s most recent Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (Slats), showed landholders cleared 680,688 hectares of woody vegetation in 2018-19, and now TWS has identified that 92,718 hectares of that clearing was in known or likely koala habitats, with 80% for cattle. Sue Arnold considered this exemplifies Queensland Premier Palaszczuk’s doublespeak where she talks up Koala protection while allowing vast areas of Kola habitat to be cleared for houses, highways, mines and cattle. As bad as NSW.
The NSW Wildlife Rescue and Education Service (WIRES) has yet to spend most of the $100 million in donations it raised after the Black Summer fires two years ago. The Raptor Fliers Association of WA uses free-flight falconry techniques to rehabilitate injured or orphaned birds and is licensed by the WA State government, and is trying again to get NSW approval.
When it comes to shooting rare albino Kangaroos, some shooters avoid them while others target them as valuable trophies. Hair ties lost and discarded in and near water are strangling platypus to death, with alarming frequency.
Decimated by chytrid fungus, feral horses and fires there are only 30 critically endangered southern corroboree frogs left living in the wild, so National Parks are successfully breeding them in enclosures spread through Kosciuszko National Park for release in the wild. Wombats have a habit of waiting till a car is almost upon them before dashing across roads for their burrows. A trial of virtual fencing to reduce wombat roadkills in southern NSW does not appear to have been very successful, though the researchers are persisting in testing light and sound-based devices to reduce roadkills.
Cate Faehrmann had an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald talking about the significant but unknown toll of the floods and climate change on wildlife, including Koalas. Hundreds of thousands of fish are known to have been killed in the Richmond River, likely the result of runoff of deoxygenated water from dead pasture on the floodplains.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Another bleaching event is underway on the Great Barrier Reef, its full extent has not yet been quantified. The Australian Psychological Society says in the past five years climate change has become one of the most common issues psychologists discuss with their clients, with the fires and the floods eco-grief is increasing as people realise it is here and now.
Despite the resistance, the biomass behemoth continues to consume forests and belch carbon into the air in ever increasing volumes as governments pretend there’s nothing to see as they cruel our chances of switching to genuinely renewable energy. Drax now control two thirds of British Columbias wood pellet manufacture, shipping oldgrowth forests and jobs off to the United Kingdom in the guise of carbon neutrality. An American study found that forests burnt in wildfires release relatively little carbon, far less than other assessments claim, and far less than logging them (including salvage logging for biomass) does.
Cyclone affected study sites identified that thinned plantations experienced significantly more damage which was attributed to trees in the unthinned plantation helping each other to release strong pressure by frequently crushing their crowns, whereas the trees in the thinned plots had to individually resist the pressure without any help from the neighbouring trees, due to the distance between the trees.
TURNING IT AROUND
An ACF community attitude poll taken before the floods found that climate change is the most important issue for 14% of voters, with six-in-ten Australians not convinced Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s commitment to net zero by 2050 is enough with 41% of people believing net zero by 2050 is ‘too little, too late’.
A study found planted native forests store more above-ground carbon, provide more water to nearby streams, and better support biodiversity and prevent soil erosion than plantations. An American researcher extols the benefits of larger trees, by sourcing water from deep down and making it available to surface plants, cooling the air, increasing rainfall and streamflows. Also distributing resources through mycorrhizal fungi, storing and sequestering more carbon, providing decaying timber and hollows, providing large logs and resisting fires. A Japanese study found the variety of threatened fish in catchments increased with forest cover.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Koala’s saviour quits:
It’s lamentable that the Koala’s saviour, North Coast-based Liberal MLC Catherine Cusack, has resigned from the NSW Parliament over the Federal Government’s decision to increase emergency payments to flood victims in the National Party seat of Page by $2000, but not in the ALP seat of Richmond, describing it as “probably the most unethical approach I have ever seen," A win for ethics, a loss for Koalas.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-16/liberal-upper-house-mp-to-quit-over-flood-funding/100914460
Wood Supply Agreements challenged:
In response to a question by Justin Field in estimates, NSW Forestry Minister Dugald Saunders confirmed they are negotiating to extend North Coast logging contracts for five years to 2028. Leading Field to call for a halt, and NEFA to call for Premier Perrottet to block the extension because of the massive loss of resources in the 2019/20 fires, the increased need to protect fire refuges for affected Koalas, the need to restore hollow-bearing trees, and the urgency of protecting forests as carbon sinks to mitigate climate heating.
Justin Field said:
NSW Forestry Minister Dugald Saunders has confirmed negotiations are on foot to extend North Coast logging contracts for five years to 2028 despite a Government report warning that existing logging cannot continue and that post fire logging presents a risk of "serious or irreversible harm" to native forests.
Independent NSW MLC Justin Field said “It’s totally unacceptable that the Minister would even consider extending contracts when the Government still hasn’t responded to the impact of the 2019/20 fires on our forests.
“I’m calling on the Minister to halt all contract negotiations and establish an immediate moratorium on logging in ‘extreme’, ‘high’, and ‘medium’ risk sites identified by the NRC report. The Government must explain how they will sustainably manage our forests into the future before any new contracts are signed.
“The ending of WSAs presents an opportunity to scale down or transition out of destructive native forest logging and we need leadership from the new Forestry Minister and Environment Minister James Griffin to reimagine a different future for our forests,” Mr Field said
NEFA said:
“Even if his Ministers refuse to, Premier Perrottet needs to recognise that extending Wood Supply Agreements at pre-fire levels is clearly unsustainable in multiple ways as it will cause gross overcutting and run-down sawlogs, require removal of Koala feed trees in fire refugia needed to rebuild populations, and require the logging of older mature trees needed as recruitments for future hollow-bearing trees”
“Before committing public resources to private individuals Perrottet needs to ensure there is a full and proper assessment in an open and transparent process that accounts for fire impacts and wildlife needs”, Mr. Pugh said.
It is worth watching the clip from estimates of Justin Field questioning the Minister.
In Budget Estimates this week, Agriculture Minister Dugald Saunders admitted he had not read a Natural Resources Commission report leaked last year which found native forests were at risk of "serious and irreversible harm … from the cumulative impacts of fire and harvesting".
President of the North East Forest Alliance, Dailan Pugh, said the extension of logging contracts contradicted the government's verbal commitments to double koala populations by 2050.
"We regularly go out to the forests, we do surveys, we find areas where koalas survived the bushfires," Mr Pugh said.
"They have managed to hang in there and Forestry wants to cut down their remaining feed trees.
"The NRC recommended there had to be increased retention [of the largest trees] yet the government refuses to implement that advice."
Forestry losses amplified:
The Forestry Corporation’s loss of $20 million last year logging public native forests, equating to $441 per hectare, has been amplified by a chorus of voices calling for it to end.
The state-owned Forestry Corporation suffered a $20 million loss last year, with NSW taxpayers forced to pay to log critical native forests.
Upper house Greens MP and forests spokesperson David Shoebridge said native forestry was “a dying industry that is damaging the state finances”.
“If this was a true commercial operation it would be closed. It is only surviving because the state government is essentially choosing to underwrite it for an increasingly small number of jobs,” Professor Macintosh said.
[Justin Field] “There is an economic and ecological imperative to take this step,” he said. “The fires have changed everything, and it’s time for them to take advantage of opportunities in sequestration and nature-based tourism. Industry needs a transition package.”
“If you’ve got the scientists, the accountants and the people all saying it’s time to end native forest logging, what is the government waiting for?” Mr Gambian said.
[Chris Gambian NCC] “The latest annual report shows NSW taxpayers unwittingly paying to cut down forests the people want protected. [2] It’s not just ecologically and economically unsustainable, it is morally indefensible.
“If you’ve got the public, the scientists and even the bean-counters telling you to stop cutting down native forests, the government must listen and act.
Mr Gambian said the government should not renew the 30 wood supply agreements with timber mills that will expire in 2023 but rather start talks with workers and the industry about transitioning out of native forest logging.
https://clarencevalleynews.com.au/save-our-forests-and-save-taxpayers-a-small-fortune/
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/03/logging-costs-taxpayers-20m/
Forestry fined $78,000:
The EPA has fined the Forestry Corporation $78,000 for the removal of hollow-bearing trees in Mogo State Forest and failing to protect feed trees and swift parrots in Bodalla and Boyne State Forests.
The EPA said Forestry Corporation had a "history of noncompliance", and said lesser regulatory actions had not been effective in changing behaviour.
Greens MP David Shoebridge said the Mogo fines related to illegal logging activity in the months after the Black Summer fires.
"Even though so much of the forest had been burnt and destroyed, Forestry Corp still went in and logged these critical habitat trees, without any regard for swift parrots," he said.
"When you talk to the forestry protectors on the ground, these penalty notices represent just a fraction of the trees and other habitat that was illegally destroyed by Forestry Corporation."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-15/logging-forestry-corporation-native-timber-greens/100910456
NSW Forestry Corporation logging contractors cut down at least 70 mature habitat trees in Mogo State Forest on the South Coast in clear contravention of post-fire logging regulations, a NSW Environment Protection Authority investigation has found.
Coastwatchers spokesperson Nick Hopkins, whose own home was destroyed by the fires, said: “The destruction of vital habitat trees so soon after the Black Summer bushfires was utterly appalling. Hollow bearing trees were scattered all over the forest floor like dismembered corpses.
“Our members recorded at least 70 tree hollows that logging contractors had cut down in clear breach of the post-fire orders.
“These hollows are critical for many species that bore the brunt of the catastrophic fires.
Hardwood Plantation exports cease:
Bob Brown Foundation report that earlier this year Queensland Commodity Exports ceased receipt of plantation timber from New South Wales due to the risks posed to conservation values within NSW plantation areas.
Investigations undertaken by citizen scientists and stakeholders reveal that significant areas of biodiversity, including koala habitat, old growth trees, and rainforests are impacted by logging inside plantation areas, and that remnant native forests inside plantations continue to be imperilled.
Parks tourism plan sparks opposition:
Concerns grow over development of cabins on the Light to Light Walk within Ben Boyd National Park on the Far South Coast, with the community sidelined as costs blowout from $7.9million to $14.48million.
"NPWS is not going down the path of conservation. They are more interested in tourism and expanding income, which is taking precedence over the endangered southern brown bandicoot and other vulnerable species," they said.
"Staff involved were not adequately consulted either and if they raised their concerns were gagged to shut up and told to back off.
"It's no wonder people are confused and concerned. The proposed 'huts' are designed by Andrew Burns Architecture, the firm that designed the privately-owned 'huts' on the Three Capes Great Walk in Tasmania, which cost approximately $1000 per night to stay in," Mr Ripon said.
A NPWS spokesperson said after community concerns were raised, it was "now guaranteeing the accommodation along the walk will be owned and operated by NPWS".
"NPWS will explore commercial partnerships to deliver visitor experiences and services that complement the walk."
Rewilding gardens:
The Camden Haven Courier has an article about increasing habitat values of backyards as part of the Restoring Natural Values of the Dunbogan-Crowdy Bay National Park Habitat Corridor Project.
Remember - planting locally-found natives in preference to other plants will greatly help the diversity of our local ecosystems.
https://www.camdencourier.com.au/story/7654076/getting-started-on-backyard-biodiversity/
AUSTRALIA
The dangers of carbon offsets:
The Australian Forest Network is hosting a webinar with Professor Brendan Mackey, Christine Milne AO and Virginia Young this Monday from 4-5pm on “A campaigner’s guide to the dangers of forest carbon offsets. https://forms.gle/XKufjVtiTQdn5SiT7
Australian Forest Network Webinar #2
A campaigner’s guide to the dangers of forest carbon offsets
Join international experts Professor Brendan Mackey, Christine Milne AO and Virginia Young this Monday for a powerful live webinar.
When: 4-5pm AEDT. This Monday, 21 March
Where: On Zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85269372561
Professor Mackey will explain the science and Christine will discuss the politics of forest carbon offsets.
Learn what this all means for our forest campaigns and most importantly, what you can do!
Carbon rorting:
Australia’s carbon credit processes are accused of distorting the market, rorting and rewarding bad practices.
The Nature Conservation Council are calling for the Federal Government to maintain carbon offset rules that exclude regrowth on illegally cleared land and the planting of weed species from the national carbon credit scheme.
Minister Taylor has announced carbon traders will be allowed to re-sell credits already bought by the Commonwealth, a move that the Nature Conservation Council say will significantly distort the carbon market and set back Australia’s emission reduction efforts by 112 million tonnes.
[Kathy Brown of EcoNetwork Port Stephens] “According to the Australian Financial Review (March 4, 2022), the Government’s revised rules on carbon credits will also provide funds for them to underwrite new schemes such as Santos’ controversial Moomba gas plant carbon capture and storage project in South Australia, which hinges on access to Australian carbon credit units.
Political fix is in:
We now have our political leaders acknowledging that climate change is causing unprecedented disasters, but the fix is in as in the next breath they want more coal and oil.
But even as Palaszczuk acknowledged the role of the climate crisis in the recent catastrophes, she doubled down on her state’s output of fossil fuels.
“Queensland is lucky,” she said. “We have coal, we have gas, and we have huge renewable investment, which is going to really rapidly increase over the next 10 years.”
What an illustration of the mess in which we find ourselves – reliant on coal to pay for the damage coal brings!
So, logically, Covid-19 should have spurred a ceasefire in the war on nature. But that’s not what happened. Carbon emissions have now rebounded to their highest level in human history, as, in response to the Covid downturn, politicians relied on coal to reboot their economies.
The Nationals’ Matt Canavan, for instance, say that the war means Australians should “stop trying to save the planet by building a green economy, and instead defend Australia by rebuilding our industrial base.”
Meanwhile, carbon budgets seemed to be the last thing on Morrison’s mind when he fronted a “town hall” discussion on Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News on Monday night.
He vowed support for the coal industry, said coal generators should “run as long as they possibly can”, and would be happy with new coal generators if the economics stacked up.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/aemo-defends-rapid-coal-closure-timelines-after-prodding-from-regulator/
Logging stopped:
The Bob Brown Foundation stepped up their campaign by immobilising all logging machinery ripping into ancient native forests in the Wentworth Hills area of Tasmania’s Central Plateau.
This protest follows on from a week of protests in the same forest last month, which saw four protesters arrested.
‘We are here today because we want to see an end to native forest logging. Sustainable Timbers Tasmania needs to move out of this area and never return.
Bob Brown Foundation Campaign Manager Jenny Weber added, ‘The relentless logging of native forests by Tasmania’s government logging agency for low grade pulp and paper products is for products that last only days or months. Over 90% of native forest recovered from the forest coupe is destined for woodchips or export chip logs.
‘Much of the forest crushed to the ground is left as waste on the forest floor, then incinerated, contributing to a mass amount of carbon released into the atmosphere,’ she said.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/03/protest-halts-logging-in-wentworth-hills/
Victoria’s weakening of logging rules attacked:
Environment groups concerned changes to Victoria’s logging rules will make it easier to log by limiting court’s ability to consider the precautionary principle, and thereby undermine court challenges.
They say the amendments to the act tabled in parliament in late February would give the minister unchecked power to determine the lawfulness of the logging activity of state-owned logging agency, VicForests.
The government says the changes to the legislation and forestry codes are intended to enable it to introduce “compliance standards” that will effectively codify how the precautionary principle should be applied.
“My concern is that this is really intended to avoid third-party scrutiny by environment and community groups as to whether VicForests is complying with logging laws,” [Brendan Sydes, an environmental lawyer] said.
Victorian Government says it is committed to delivering the Victorian Forestry Plan, which includes ending native timber harvesting by 2030 with a reduction in 2024.
Trees our allies in flood control:
Trees are our allies in flood control, holding soils together to reduce stream bank erosion and landslips, while slowing floodwaters and sheltering smaller plants - roles we can enhance. As floods become more frequent, deeper and prolonged trees can also be victims.
The large and fine roots of trees, such as river red gums, bind and consolidate soil, stabilising river banks and reducing erosion. This reduces the amount of sediment entering waterways, and prevents waters down-stream becoming muddied and clogged with silt.
Large trees can also protect smaller plants such as shrubs by acting as a physical barrier, shielding other vegetation from the forceful momentum of floodwater. This is because the presence of trees slows the floodwaters’ speed, as their trunks, roots and branches block and deflect water, and change the direction of flow.
However, slowing floodwaters can also cause the flood front to widen, inundating areas further away from the usual river course. This is a major consideration when creek and river banks are being revegetated – we want to capture the benefits trees provide, but also ensure that if floodwaters slow down there’s no greater risk to property or life.
Another different but related role is that trees can prevent landslides or landslips. Indeed, landslides have occurred across flood-affected regions such as Illawarra and Kangaroo Valley in NSW, and continue to threaten people and homes.
On slopes, tree root systems consolidate soils and help prevent the movement of super saturated soil, which can flow like a liquid down hill. So it can be a problem when people remove trees from around their homes or along roads as a part of bushfire prevention programs, without thinking that cleared sites and roadside verges might be prone to landslides.
Water-logged soils have low levels of oxygen, which means roots struggle to maintain their normal metabolism, health and function. This also affects the fungi associated with healthy roots. The longer low oxygen levels persist, the less suitable conditions are.
Water-logged soils also mean roots are deprived of their usual sources of energy and die of starvation. And once the roots start to go, there’s a rapid downward spiral in the tree’s condition.
In this land of extremes, trees have always been part of floods and flood prone ecosystems. Yet trees are disappearing at an alarming rate along many waterways.
While climate change poses new threats to trees, it also creates new opportunities for us to work with trees as allies in dealing with climate change and its consequences. We must not work against them.
A good year:
ANU’s annual assessment of Australia’s environment using 15 key indicators, such as water availability, bushfire, population pressures and vegetation health, shows a significant improvement, rising 4 points from 2020 to 6.9 for 2021, primarily because of the rains, aided by COVID slowing population growth and emissions. The outlook for 2022 is not so bright with excessive rainfall, lifting of COVID restrictions, and a threatened coral bleaching event.
On our website, you can also find regional scores for your state or territory, local government area, catchment and electorate. Unusually, scores improved almost everywhere.
While the number of threatened species fluctuate with the condition of their habitat, their long-term decline continues unabated. This is largely driven by invasive species such as feral cats and foxes, logging, urban development, river water extraction and an increasingly hot climate.
For example, despite the good rains and increased wetland extent, researchers counted fewer birds in Eastern Australia than in the previous four years.
Favourable conditions in the Great Barrier Reef led to the rapid, but fragile, recovery of hard corals after three bleaching events in five years. However, a recent heatwave in northern Queensland means a fourth coral bleaching event is on the cards for 2022.
But the biggest environmental impacts [of intense rainfall] are where natural vegetation was cleared for farming, housing or mining. Unprotected, bare soil soaks up less excess rainfall, and the rain and runoff can loosen up more sediment.
This erosion degrades farmland, cuts away riverbanks and the washed-out sediment and nutrients end up in rivers and the sea, where it can smother marine life and encourages outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish that attack coral reefs.
Unfortunately, the pressures of vegetation destruction, invasive species and climate change will degrade our agriculture and ecosystems for decades to come. Incisive reductions in carbon emissions and more careful ecosystem management can avoid these impacts worsening.
Both are within reach, but require the sort of consensus and resolve shown in response to COVID-19 and Russia’s invasion. Our environmental crisis is no less severe.
Removing Green Tape:
The Commonwealth is allocating $130 million to replicate the RFA regional assessment process in non-forest areas to exempt themselves from the need to consider individual developments under the EPBC Act and hand responsibility over to the States. While conservation groups want more information, the mining, oil and gas industries are delighted. The RFA’s have been such a success they want regional mining agreements.
Almost $130m in this month’s federal budget will go to reforms to slash so-called green tape and remove the need for project-by-project approvals in areas that require protections under national environment laws.
Under the changes, $62.3m would be invested in the delivery of as many as ten regional environmental protection plans, which could be divided up to include areas like the Bowen Basin in Queensland and Western Australia’s wheatbelt.
“The ten new regional plans will streamline development approvals, including those for crucial resources projects, by removing the need for a project-by-project approval under national environment law,” he said.
Another $37.9m would go toward streamlining assessment processes – including $10 million to move towards a single-touch approval process.
Places like the Bowen Basin, Mackay and South East Queensland are expected to be included in the 10 plans.
Rather than project-by-project assessments, the regional plans are expected to outline what types of approvals or protections would be in place for particular areas broadly.
It would include protected areas of environmental significance, streamlined assessments and management of the cumulative impacts of projects.
Former competition watchdog Graeme Samuel completed a major review of the EPBC Act last year and found it was failing to protect the environment. He recommended bilateral agreements with state governments to streamline approvals but said new national standards must come first.
Ms Ley has committed to implementing stronger national standards over time but said the single-touch system should go ahead in the meantime.
The federal government has developed a bill to enact the changes, but it requires support from crossbench senators who are refusing to back it until new national standards are in place.
“Now would be a reckless time to make changes that could result in more threatened species habitat being destroyed for commercial projects.” a spokesperson from the ACF said. “Without robust standards to protect nature, fast-tracked approvals will fast track extinction.”
https://junkee.com/disneyland-resort-is-your-happiest-place-on-earth/324205
Tania Constable, the chief executive of the Minerals Council of Australia, said the changes would “help provide greater certainty for businesses to invest in regional Australia, supporting local communities, jobs and furthering sustainable development”.
Andrew McConville, the chief executive of the oil and gas industry’s peak body, the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association, said the announcement would result in “better environmental protection while reducing the costly regulatory burden on business”.
Labor opposed the Morrison Government’s attempts to rehash Tony Abbott’s failed 2014 policy which would hand over environmental decision-making powers to the states without strong environmental standards, a tough cop on the beat or fixing the huge blow-out in decision making delays.
Labor is on your side. You can check out Labor leader Anthony Albanese’s speech on EPBC here and Shadow Minister for the Environment, Terri Butler’s speech here.
You can also read Labor’s dissenting report from the Senate Inquiry into the EPBC Amendment (Standards and Assurance) Bill 2021 which was recently debated in the House of Representatives.
https://www.sharonbird.com.au/environmental_reform
Farming biodiversity and carbon:
There is a lot happening at the federal level to allow farmers to claim credits for additional work they do to enhance biodiversity and carbon with $66.1 million for its Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship Package, though unfortunately it won’t reward farmers for their existing native vegetation. The short time frame of 25 years to claim credits for tree plantings is a worry as it allows them to then be logged.
the federal government has budgeted $66.1 million for its Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship Package, which it is developing in partnership with the Australian National University (ANU), the National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) and Natural Resource Management (NRM) organisations to trial pilot projects, develop market arrangements, and kick start private investment in farm biodiversity.
His Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship legislation was tabled in parliament in February. It’s been a very tight turnaround in this election year and there are some concerns that mistakes will be made, however there is clearly a lot of momentum to make things happen.
This world-first program offers farmers two revenue streams: biodiversity payments up front and the opportunity to earn income down the track by selling Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs).
Essentially, farmers offer to deliver long-term biodiversity improvements through plantings (for which they are paid in two instalments) in conjunction with specific ERF environmental plantings of native trees and shrubs on land that has been clear of forest for at least five years in order to store carbon (and generate ACCUs). Farmers must maintain both planting projects for 25 years.
“The Certification Scheme aims to provide farmers with tools to prove sustainability across five parameters: carbon sequestration, biodiversity, tree and land cover, and drought resilience,” according to Professor Macintosh. The National Stewardship Trading Platform (NSTP) is a single platform (https://agsteward.com.au) to help farmers participate in emerging environmental markets by:
- Providing planning tools to evaluate biodiversity and carbon projects
- Providing easy-to-use portals to apply to the pilot programs; and connecting them with potential buyers of biodiversity and carbon services.
“We’ve got to make this process easier for farmers,” says Macintosh. “The online marketplace is designed to function like a sort of eBay where buyers and sellers can meet. Ideally, the marketplace will help kick-start private sector biodiversity markets as well.”
[Oscar Pearse] “However, despite this positive precedent, farmers who are already good land managers will still struggle to benefit from the Stewardship Package because everything that’s been done in the past is not credited. This sends the wrong signal because it rewards the worst farm managers.”
“Regen Farmers Mutual can partner with existing farmer and member organisations to supply a range of offsets at scale, which is much more extensive than what individual farms can do. In this way, the Mutual can maximise returns for its farmer members while leveraging the networks they belong to. This is where things get really exciting.”
https://thefarmermagazine.com.au/farmers-being-rewarded-for-biodiversity-initiatives/
… NSW chips in:
The NSW state government is chipping in $125 million for its Primary Industries Productivity and Abatement Program to help tap the growing market for carbon credits for farmers through measures such as targeted revegetation of grazing country, or seaweed feed across the dairy industry to reduce the methane.
NSW’s new scheme, the Primary Industries Productivity and Abatement Program, is open to Indigenous land managers and projects on Crown Land and in National Parks. A competitive grant scheme will provide funding to select projects – conditional on the proponent helping to educate other farmers to follow their initiative.
Getting the wind up:
There are calls for the Queensland government to stop approving a growing number of large, foreign-owned wind farm developments in Far North Queensland, involving land clearing adjacent to the World Heritage Area, some arguing there are more appropriate sites.
SPECIES
Who kills 7.2 million Australian animals every day?:
A study estimates there are now 1.7 million foxes in Australia, spread across 80% of the mainland and on 50 Australian islands, eating 300 million native mammals, birds and reptiles each year. Along with cats, each day across Australia their combined death toll includes 1.9 million reptiles, 1.4 million birds and 3.9 million mammals.
Foxes kill about 300 million native mammals, birds and reptiles each year, and can be found across 80% of mainland Australia, our devastating new research published today reveals.
This research, the first to quantify the national impact of foxes on Australian wildlife, also compares the results to similar studies on cats. And we found foxes and cats collectively kill 2.6 billion mammals, birds and reptiles every year.
Although they eat many of the same species, foxes take larger prey than cats and have a bigger toll on kangaroos, wallabies and potoroos.
Cats eat smaller prey, so eat a lot more of them. Nationally, feral cats kill about five times more reptiles, two and a half times more birds and twice as many mammals than foxes.
In total, feral cats kill 1.5 billion animals every year (not including invertebrates and frogs). Pet cats kill another 500 million animals.
Each day across Australia their combined death toll includes 1.9 million reptiles, 1.4 million birds and 3.9 million mammals.
Our new research highlights the urgent need to increase investment for cat and fox management across Australia. Management will need to be large-scale and strategically coordinated as both species breed like rabbits, so to speak, and travel great distances.
We also need to protect and recover habitat for native animals. Evidence shows good habitat supports healthier native animal populations and gives them more places to hide from predators.
Commonwealth inept management of threatened species:
Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) report ‘Management of Threatened Species and Ecological Communities under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999’ found the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment is poorly implementing the Act and failing threatened species and ecosystems.
The department’s administration of the listing process is partly effective. The process to determine what should be considered for listing could be improved by establishing a strategy to ensure it identifies the species, ecological communities and key threatening processes that will have the greatest impact on achieving the objectives of the EPBC Act. Largely appropriate definitions and guidelines have been established to set out when items are eligible for listing, but procedural guidance for undertaking listing assessments does not fully capture all relevant requirements of the EPBC Act and is not complete, up to date or consistently implemented.
The department is partly effective in developing and supporting the implementation of conservation advice, recovery plans and threat abatement plans. Procedural guidance for development needs updating and is not fully followed, and arrangements for review and update are not appropriate. There are arrangements to prioritise some funding programs and align them with conservation advice, recovery plans and threat abatement plans. There are not currently any other effective arrangements to provide coordinated support for or obtain assurance over the implementation of conservation advice, recovery plans and threat abatement plans.
Most listing assessments are completed within statutory timeframes, although some species assessments and most ecological community assessments require extensions. Recovery plans, recovery plan reviews, threat abatement plan reviews and changes to the list are not completed within statutory timeframes. The department is unable to demonstrate that its efficiency has improved over time. Systems and processes partly support timeliness and efficiency.
Measurement, monitoring and reporting arrangements are not sufficient to support the achievement of desired outcomes. The statuses of some threatened species are monitored, but most species are not. The statuses of ecological communities and key threatening processes are not monitored. There is no measurement, monitoring or reporting on progress, or on the contribution of listing assessments, conservation advice, recovery plans and threat abatement plans to their desired outcomes. Available information does not indicate desired outcomes have been achieved.
“Alarmingly, only 2% of species recovery plans have been completed within statutory time frames since 2013.
“The average time it took to establish a species recovery plan was 2,355 days – in other words more than six years.
“The EPBC Act requires recovery plans to be reviewed within five years, but of the 77 recovery plans due for their first five-year review between 2016 and 2021, none were reviewed within the statutory timeframe. This is completely unacceptable.
“The main index indicates that threatened species populations have declined around 60% in the 20 years since the EPBC Act came into effect.
https://www.acf.org.au/audit-reveals-system-is-failing-threatened-species
Professor Cunningham said historically a threatened listing had been no guarantee of a recovery plan and follow up steps for species recovery routinely didn't happen.
"What's been revealed in the audit is alarming, and what's even more alarming are the actual outcomes, which is a continuing bad trajectory for too many species in Australia," he said.
https://www.singletonargus.com.au/story/7663147/threatened-species-process-inadequate-audit-finds/
The Auditor General’s report into threatened species paints a bleak picture for the survival of Australia’s koalas and wildlife, the Greens Environment Spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has said today.
“The independent audit report reveals that Australia’s most endangered species like the koala, the leadbeater’s possum and the swift parrot stand no chance against a bureaucracy that is ineffective and ill-equipped, and a Minister that is ignorant to their plight.
https://www.miragenews.com/auditor-general-report-shows-morrison-745883/
Clearing Koalas for cattle:
The Queensland government’s most recent Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (Slats), showed landholders cleared 680,688 hectares of woody vegetation in 2018-19, and now TWS has identified that 92,718 hectares of that clearing was in known or likely koala habitats, with 80% for cattle.
Sue Arnold considered this exemplifies Queensland Premier Palaszczuk’s doublespeak where she talks up Koala protection while allowing vast areas of Kola habitat to be cleared for houses, highways, mines and cattle. As bad as NSW.
Generate mountains of paper, create advisory groups, councils, expert panels, more strategies, recommendations so that when questioned, the Queensland Government could point to policies.
In December 2019, Palaszczuk released yet another ‘landmark plan to protect koalas’ entitled the South-east Queensland Koala Conservation Strategy 2019-24.
In September 2020, the Palaszczuk Government handed mining leases to the Olive Downs mining project set to clear 5,500 hectares of koala and glider habitat.
The NSW L-NP Government has copped a massive amount of protest over koala habitat destruction, but it’s clear if there was a “who is worse” competition between that state and Queensland, it would be a tie.
WIRES yet to expend most bushfire donations:
The NSW Wildlife Rescue and Education Service (WIRES) has yet to spend most of the $100 million in donations it raised after the Black Summer fires two years ago.
A review of three charities that raised significant funds after the fires, conducted by the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission in 2020, found that WIRES was spending its windfall on bushfire-related activities and was “planning for the long-term distribution of funds on a range of activities in line with its charitable purposes”.
Rehabilitating raptors:
The Raptor Fliers Association of WA uses free-flight falconry techniques to rehabilitate injured or orphaned birds and is licensed by the WA State government, and is trying again to get NSW approval.
Shooting rarity:
When it comes to shooting rare albino Kangaroos, some shooters avoid them while others target them as valuable trophies.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/rare-white-kangaroos-targeted-by-shooters-australia-064025671.html
Strangling Platypus with hair ties:
Hair ties lost and discarded in and near water are strangling platypus to death, with alarming frequency.
Swimmers who enter rivers, creeks and lakes frequently lose them while swimming, but ties and rubber bands can also end up around platypus necks when they are carelessly discarded on land.
The scale of the issue can clearly be seen in one response to Australian Platypus Conservancy’s post, with a Victorian woman claiming to have picked up close to 200 bands in a year.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/little-excuse-horrifying-trend-thats-strangling-platypus-042527176.html
Breeding southern corroboree frogs:
Decimated by chytrid fungus, feral horses and fires there are only 30 critically endangered southern corroboree frogs left living in the wild, so National Parks are successfully breeding them in enclosures spread through Kosciuszko National Park for release in the wild.
"Now, we're talking hundreds, we should be talking millions, so we have a long way to go and a lot to learn."
Deterring wombat suicides:
Wombats have a habit of waiting till a car is almost upon them before dashing across roads for their burrows. A trial of virtual fencing to reduce wombat roadkills in southern NSW does not appear to have been very successful, though the researchers are persisting in testing light and sound-based devices to reduce roadkills.
‘Virtual fencing implemented in regions that have high wombat roadkill rates may aid in reducing road deaths and species conservation,’ she said.
‘Virtual fences are light and sound-based devices, originally developed in Austria, that can be used to reduce roadkill through mitigation.
Dr Stannard noted that NRMA Insurance claims data shows there were over 13,000 collisions involving animals in 2019 (includes kangaroos, wombats, cattle, deer, etc), and rural areas have higher rates of vehicle-animal collisions. On the rare occasion, hitting a wombat can result in human fatality.
She said more research is required to assess virtual fencing, as a roadkill mitigation strategy, including an investigation into a larger number of species in a range of different habitats.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/03/virtual-fences-save-wombats-from-becoming-roadkill/
Wombats flooded:
The ABC has an interview with Cedar Creek Wombat Hospital where the talk mainly about the impacts on them, though give some insights to the impacts on wombats.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/newcastle/programs/mornings/wombat-hospital-flood-recovery/13798122
Floods unknown toll on wildlife:
Cate Faehrmann had an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald talking about the significant but unknown toll of the floods and climate change on wildlife, including Koalas.
We are all still coming to terms with the toll that this violent, climate-change-fuelled weather event took on human life, livelihoods, mental health, communities and economies. Now many are also coming to terms with an impact we can never fully quantify – the loss of wildlife, including threatened species like the koala.
This time, the sheer force of the rain that fell in huge sheets and smashed records and homes and buildings and infrastructure also tore out huge chunks of rainforest in massive landslides in the beautiful, forest-clad Terania Creek and The Channon. In these floods all the ground-dwelling mammals, marsupials, reptiles and insects wouldn’t have stood a chance against rapidly rising floodwaters. When landslides are added to the mix, all the tree-dwelling critters like koalas wouldn’t have stood a chance either.
We need to mitigate climate change if our beloved Australian wildlife are to stand a chance and that means decarbonising our economy and keeping coal and gas in the ground by the end of this critical decade.
Known toll on fish:
Hundreds of thousands of fish are known to have been killed in the Richmond, likely the result of runoff of deoxygenated water from dead pasture on the floodplains.
OzFish Unlimited chief executive Craig Copeland estimates hundreds of thousands of fish have been killed in the Richmond River alone.
"We've got juvenile fish, we've got big fish, we've got all the major species. So we've got sea mullet, bream, flathead, whiting, and then all the small fish, we've got toadfish, all sorts of things," he said.
"These fish aren't just dying here, they're dying all the way upstream, so they'll just keep on floating down and end up here all the time."
The reason behind the widespread fish kills across the catchment — already one of the most polluted in the country — is the lack of oxygen in the water.
"It's a bit natural in that after a flood, stuff in the wetlands decompose and comes out and chews up all the oxygen in the water," he said.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Great Barrier Grief:
Another bleaching event is underway on the Great Barrier Reef, its full extent has not yet been quantified.
“I’m seeing reports of widespread, variable levels of bleaching over significant areas. If it’s not mass bleaching it’s awfully close,” Professor Hughes said.
Professor Hughes said the reef was still at risk of bleaching and it was possible the damage would be as bad as in previous years.
Eco-grief
The Australian Psychological Society says in the past five years climate change has become one of the most common issues psychologists discuss with their clients, with the fires and the floods eco-grief is increasing as people realise it is here and now.
Various terms have been coined to describe the psychological distress which accompanies climate change. There’s climate anxiety and eco-anxiety, as well as solastalgia (from the Latin “solacium” for comfort and the Greek root “-algia” for pain, coined by philosopher Glenn Albrecht in 2003 to describe a “homesickness you have when you are still at home”).
Although its use dates back to the 1940s, perhaps the most apt term for the modern state of affairs is “eco-grief”.
“That’s the grief that people are feeling as we watch our planet die around us,” explains Dr Kate Wylie, chair of the Royal Australian College of GPs’ climate and environmental medicine group.
A 2019 survey of about 1600 young people aged 14 to 23 found 82 per cent believed climate change would “diminish their quality of life” and 80 per cent reported being “somewhat or very anxious” about climate change.
Biomass behemoth grows as it consumes our forest’s future:
Despite the resistance, the biomass behemoth continues to consume forests and belch carbon into the air in ever increasing volumes as governments pretend there’s nothing to see as they cruel our chances of switching to genuinely renewable energy.
A mounting stack of conclusive scientific studies failed. Letters signed by hundreds of top scientists failed. Public and social media campaigns, protests, petitions, damning media stories, and commentaries failed. So did intense lobbying by influential policymakers.
Despite more than a decade of nonstop work, forest advocates have been stymied in their efforts to reverse European Union policies that encourage the burning of forests to make energy. Now they are testing a new line of attack — using existing statutes and regulations to take their complaint to the EU court system.
In early February, a coalition of European and US NGOs, led by two European law firms, challenged the European Commission as it develops rules on what it deems sustainable finance for bioenergy and forestry. These rules would support forest biomass expansion as a good and environmentally sound investment. The complainants, however, allege that the new rules, along with existing policies favoring bioenergy, violate the Taxonomy Regulation approved by the 27-nation European Union in June 2020.
Recent studies have concluded that burning forests — with trees and organic waste processed into wood pellets and chips — generates more carbon emissions than coal per kilowatt hour. Also, the clearcutting of native forests, which already constitutes about half of the feedstock needed for pellets and chips, decreases nature’s ability to slow climate change.
Whether through internal review or by trial, Christian Rakos of Austria, president of the World Bioenergy Association, said he believes his industry will prevail and forest biomass will retain its current global position as a fast-growing alternative to burning coal.
The view held by Rakos was challenged by an exhaustive study published last November in the journal GCB Bioenergy on the future demand for wood pellets and its impact on global forests.
Drax increases stranglehold on Canada:
Drax now control two thirds of British Columbias wood pellet manufacture, shipping oldgrowth forests and jobs off to the United Kingdom in the guise of carbon neutrality.
Last year, a massive ocean freighter bound for the UK set sail from Prince Rupert on BC’s north coast, its hold filled with 63,601 tonnes of wood pellets. The event marked the single largest shipment of wood pellets from Canada and was recorded by Pinnacle Renewable Energy, which had weeks earlier been purchased by Drax.
The purchase of Pinnacle gave Drax full or partial control of half of BC’s 14 pellet mills, which accounted for 62 per cent of all the wood pellets produced in the province. Late last year, Drax further increased its control by purchasing the sales contracts of Pacific Bioenergy, a pellet mill in Prince George. Immediately after the purchase, Pacific Bioenergy’s owners announced they were closing shop. Fifty-five people lost their jobs and Drax’s share of BC’s pellet output increased to 66 per cent.
But that’s not our biggest worry. Drax claims consistently that pellet mills use“residual” wood, mostly wood chips generated at sawmills when round logs are turned into rectangular lumber products. But research from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, including photographs and video footage obtained in 2021, tells a different story.
Tens—if not hundreds of thousands—of cubic metres of logs from primary forests, which have never before been subject to industrial logging, are piling up at Drax operations in Smithers, Houston, Burns Lake and outside Quesnel.
In our view, the alternative is clear. Stop cutting down trees just to burn them. Conserve more of what remains of our primary forests and ensure that what is logged in BC is always processed into long-lasting solid wood products first. It’s time to stop letting our forests and forest industry jobs go up in smoke.
https://www.policynote.ca/up-in-smoke/
Burning forests doesn’t emit much carbon:
An American study found that forests burnt in wildfires release relatively little carbon, far less than other assessments claim, and far less than logging them (including salvage logging for biomass) does.
The study showed that while combustion rates were 100% for the smaller branch segments of big trees and up to 57% for whole small trees, the combustion rates were low overall at the stand level — 0.1% to 3.2% — and the landscape level, about 0.6% to 1.8%.
“While many field scientists likely would not find our results surprising, there were recent peer-reviewed published estimates of up to 85% live tree combustion from the Rim Fire,” Harmon said. “Other studies based on a literature review suggest up to 65% of the live trees could have been combusted in high-severity patches. No one in the peer-review process questioned the results.”
He added, “Even in severe fire patches the larger-size trees showed low combustion rates – less than 5%. Large trees account for the majority of a forest’s biomass, leading to the low overall combustion rates at the stand level.”
“Removing vegetation over vast areas is likely to lead to more cumulative carbon emissions than large fires themselves,” added Harmon.
Dead trees decompose slowly as new vegetation grows and absorbs atmospheric carbon, noted the scientists. If fire-killed trees are allowed to remain in place, the natural decomposition process might take decades to hundreds of years to release the trees’ carbon.
However, if those trees are logged to serve as energy-producing biomass, that same carbon could potentially enter the atmosphere much faster, said OSU.
https://www.koin.com/news/wildfires/carbon-still-in-trees-despite-big-forest-fires-osu-study-says/
https://phys.org/news/2022-03-huge-forest-dont-trees-carbon.html
Thinning increases wind damage:
Cyclone affected study sites identified that thinned plantations experienced significantly more damage which was attributed to trees in the unthinned plantation helping each other to release strong pressure by frequently crushing their crowns, whereas the trees in the thinned plots had to individually resist the pressure without any help from the neighbouring trees, due to the distance between the trees.
https://vervetimes.com/forest-survival-strategies-for-extreme-cyclones/
https://phys.org/news/2022-03-forest-survival-strategies-extreme-cyclones.html
TURNING IT AROUND
People want change on climate change:
An ACF community attitude poll taken before the floods found that climate change is the most important issue for 14% of voters, with six-in-ten Australians not convinced Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s commitment to net zero by 2050 is enough with 41% of people believing net zero by 2050 is ‘too little, too late’.
Around 7-in-10 people in Australia recognise that action on climate change will deliver long term economic benefits, a poll of more than 15,000 people conducted by YouGov in January for the Australian Conservation Foundation shows.
Six-in-ten Australians are not convinced Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s commitment to net zero by 2050 is enough with 41% of people believing net zero by 2050 is ‘too little, too late’.
“The results of this poll overturn the myth that people across Australia are not willing to pay for climate solutions,” said ACF Chief Executive Officer Kelly O’Shanassy.
“People want climate action and many Australians want stronger climate targets for 2030.
“People across Australia want climate action because they know it’s good for their health and will create future opportunities for young people.
“Across the country, a majority think the top climate solution is to replace gas and coal-fired power stations with renewable energy and battery storage.
https://www.acf.org.au/australias-biggest-climate-poll-2022
The YouGov poll of more than 15,000 people found 'Managing Covid-19' and 'Cost of Living' were ranked at equal first place with 21 per cent of voters choosing both as important issues.
Meanwhile, 14 per cent of voters selected climate change as the most important issue when determining their vote.
Overwhelmingly, 70 per cent of voters believe Australia needs to commit to net zero by 2050, while 41 per cent said they were not convinced the action was enough.
In the seat of Richmond, which was recently ravaged by floods, 40 per cent of voters believe further action was needed, compared to 33 per cent satisfied with the current target.
Almost half (48 per cent) said the benefits of climate change action outweigh the costs to them personally, while a further 19 per cent support greater action even if it costs them in the short term.
Just one-in-10 believe the costs of climate action were too high, while only nine per cent didn't support climate action regardless of the cost.
Restoring native forests better than timber plantations:
A study found planted native forests store more above-ground carbon, provide more water to nearby streams, and better support biodiversity and prevent soil erosion than plantations.
Diverse native forests store more above-ground carbon, provide more water to nearby streams, and better support biodiversity and prevent soil erosion than simple tree plantations, a major new study published today in the journal Science has found—but plantations have an advantage in wood production.
"Establishing a tree plantation is useful for producing wood—but not so good for restoring biodiversity. This is a huge missed opportunity for conservation," said Dr. Fangyuan Hua, ...
The study found that as with biodiversity, all three environment-oriented ecosystem services—aboveground carbon storage, soil erosion control, and water provisioning—are delivered better by native forests than by tree plantations. Soil erosion control in particular has the most to lose from plantation-style forest restoration, and the shortfall of plantations in water provisioning is more serious in drier climates—precisely where water is scarcer.
https://phys.org/news/2022-03-forest-trade-offs-environmental-wood-production.html
Forest restoration is being scaled-up globally to deliver critical ecosystem services and biodiversity benefits, yet we lack rigorous comparison of co-benefit delivery across different restoration approaches. In a global synthesis, we use 25,950 matched data pairs from 264 studies in 53 countries to assess how delivery of climate, soil, water, and wood production services as well as biodiversity compares across a range of tree plantations and native forests. Carbon storage, water provisioning, and especially soil erosion control and biodiversity benefits are all delivered better by native forests, with compositionally simpler, younger plantations in drier regions performing particularly poorly. However, plantations exhibit an advantage in wood production. These results underscore important trade-offs among environmental and production goals that policymakers must navigate in meeting forest restoration commitments.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abl4649
The older the better:
An American researcher extols the benefits of larger trees, by sourcing water from deep down and making it available to surface plants, cooling the air, increasing rainfall and streamflows. Also distributing resources through mycorrhizal fungi, storing and sequestering more carbon, providing decaying timber and hollows, providing large logs and resisting fires.
Large trees are crucial in ecosystem water and energy cycles. Large deeply rooted trees tap groundwater resources not available to shallow-rooted plants. During drier months roots lift deep soil water up to shallow, drier portions of soil and release it, sharing water to the ecosystem, including neighboring plants of different species. A study in old growth ponderosa pine found that during July and August this process accounted for approximately 35% of total daily water usage from the upper soil, adding weeks of water during drought. This allows the ecosystem to continue photosynthesis, storing more carbon, and cooling the forest canopy as water evaporates from foliage. Forest canopies can register summer surface temperatures more than 30°F cooler than adjacent non-forest cover types, and large trees are the engine of this work. The water released to the atmosphere contributes to downwind moisture content and rainfall. Intact forests with large trees are positively associated with cool summer temperatures, increased late-summer streamflow and clean surface drinking water.
Among the more remarkable recent discoveries is that massive root systems of large trees link belowground ecosystems via mycorrhizal fungal networks and myriad soil microorganisms, forming an interconnected resource sharing and communication network. Large trees function as focal centers of this underground system, revolutionizing our understanding of the complexity and interconnectedness of forest ecosystems.
Globally, a 2018 study found that the largest-diameter 1% of trees hold half of all the aboveground carbon stored in the world’s forests. …
As trees grow larger, small increases in diameter add a relatively large amount of volume — the overall effect being that carbon stores increase rapidly with tree diameter. …
Large trees are cornerstones of diversity and resilience for the entire forest community, and they provide many services important to society. We would do well to protect large trees where we can, and a sufficient supply of those that will soon reach large diameter.
Saving forests saves fish:
A Japanese study found the variety of threatened fish in catchments increased with forest cover.
“For the first time, we have successfully presented scientific data that suggests having abundant forest cover enriches the conditions of local streams,” said Yoh Yamashita, a specially appointed professor of coastal resource ecology at Kyoto University, who heads the team.
They analyzed the connections between the surrounding conditions and the number of species identified, and found that the mouths of streams that had more forests along them were home to many varieties of species on the Red List.
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14555972
The number of red-listed species increased from 3 to 11 along a watershed land-use gradient ranging from a high proportion of agriculture cover to a large proportion of forest cover. Furthermore, the results showed that throughout Japan all the examined watersheds that were covered by >74.8% forest had more than the average (6.7 species per site) richness of red-listed fish species.
https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.13849
Forest Media 4&11 March 2022
Sorry I skipped a week due to losing internet access because of the floods.
NSW
Before the fires in 2017 DPI recommended a 15% reduction in Wood Supply Agreements. In the 2019/20 wildfires 49% of north-coast State Forests burnt, Forestry Corporation guesstimate that 9.4% of sawlogs and 24.5% of future sawlogs were killed, increasing to around 15% and 35% north from Coffs. Forestry Corporation have yet to remeasure their 1,616 growth plots in burnt forest to accurately quantify timber losses, yet have written to Wood Supply Agreement holders offering 5 year extensions until 31 December 2028 for existing annual quantities (which expire in 2023) with no reductions.
NEFA asked Morrison to intervene to stop the Forestry Corporation continuing to log in Yarratt SF despite the NRC recommending it stop and the evidence it includes extensive areas of high quality habitat for now endangered Koalas. In NSW Budget Estimates, Minister Griffin was questioned over biomas burning, PNF, Grey-headed flying foxes, unexplained landclearing, Campbelltown koalas, logging of Koala hubs, the NRC recommendations to stop logging in burnt forests and retain more habitat trees, and a variety of other issues. Cate Faehermann focused on Koalas in Yarratt SF and logging of Koala Hubs. He is only a new Minister, so kept saying he knew little and had done nothing, but he also proved adept at saying nothing. We did learn that the Natural Resources Commission has been engaged to undertake an in-confidence review of the proposed private native forestry codes, which will be completed within a month, though it too will be secret and can be buried if they don’t like it.
As our lists of threatened species grows, the success of reintroduced species in NSW’s 7 feral free enclosures, particularly the two 2000 ha enclosures in Sturt National Park, continues to get a lot of promotion. The establishment of breeding enclosures was Minister Griffins chief boast in estimates, with Labor’s Penny Sharpe having a go at him for keeping animals in pens. Inspiring Australia NSW is undertaking regional community programs to build connections and raise awareness of threatened species and biodiversity issues.
AUSTRALIA
In Tasmania The Greens and Bob Brown Foundation are calling on the government to offer greater protections to a stand of 3000-year-old Huon Pines by scrapping the nearby Mt Lindsay mine redevelopment, and the Blue Derby Wild petition with 34,000 signatures aimed at protecting forests around a mountain bike track has been tabled in parliament as logging continues.
As Governments around Australia push private enterprise developments within national parks, polling on behalf of a coalition of conservation groups found 91% of Australians agree that national parks and conservation areas are desirable to protect nature from resource extraction including logging, mining and fishing, and 78% support not having development in parks and protected areas. Aboriginal custodians have joined the chorus opposing commercial huts in Tasmania's Southwest National Park, like others they are not opposed to tourism development but want it outside parks.
The Science Show has a 24m interview “Meg Lowman - a voice for trees” about her autobiography The Arbornaut. In the lead-up to the March 19 election the South Australian Labor party has promised multi-million dollars to the state's forestry industry – at least its plantations.
SPECIES
With vast areas of riparian and floodplain forests inundated innumerable animals have been killed or lost access to essential resources, greatly compounding the 2019/20 wildfire impacts. Its not just burrows, even tree hollows can fill with water.
The Bob Brown Foundation is trying to raise $500,000 as it launches legal action against the federal government and mining company MMG Australia to prevent preparatory work for a proposed tailings storage facility for MMG’s Rosebery mine in northwestern Tasmania on the grounds of impacts on the endangered Tasmanian Masked Owl.
Koalas still garner attention, with more Koala reserves called for. Brad Law is at it again, this time using his acoustic recordings to assess the impacts of the 2019/20 fires on Koala density, he does report the loss of all Koalas with high fire severity and a 50% reduction with moderate fire severity. Camp Ourimbah is calling on Forestry Corporation NSW to declare Ourimbah State Forest a koala conservation reserve following a sighting on an adjacent property. The Macleay Landcare Network has obtained funding to support landholders to restore mesic habitat corridors for Koalas on their property.
The Guardian delves a bit deeper into the proposal to protect just 60,000 ha of Tasmania’s public forests as breeding habitat for the endangered Swift Parrot. Across Australia’s northern savannas 4 species of mammals have been made extinct and 9 more are likely to follow in the next 20 years. Flying fox populations are crashing due to land clearing and extreme heat. A student studying Greater Gliders in Woomargama National Park in southern NSW, notes they use up to 20 tree-hollows, and don’t like logging or wildfires.
The Federal Government has accepted most recommendations, but ruled out night-time curfews and a federal desexing program, in its response to the 2020 inquiry into the problem of feral and domestic cats in Australia, particularly Australia's 2.8 million feral cats that kill close to 3 billion native animals annually. Port Stephens Councillors are being called upon to do something to control foxes and feral cats in the Mambo Wetlands Reserve, but Council does not currently have the funding to address the issue. Removal of over 40,000 feral pigs from the Riverina gains national award - where were they all re-homed?
In the West Kimberley the Nyikina Mangala Rangers are using drones fitted with thermal imaging cameras to track an endangered subspecies, the black-footed rock wallaby. With attention focused on attempts to resurrect the Thylacine following a $5 million grant, some consider de-extinction a diversion from the needs of those that still survive.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Global carbon dioxide emissions from energy hit a record high of 36.3 billion tonnes (gigatonnes) in 2021, with coal accounting for 40% of the increase, hitting an all-time high of 15.3 gigatonnes.
The recent IPCC report Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability concludes that: “The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health. Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all. (very high confidence)”. It emphasises that climate change enhanced drought-related tree mortality is currently a threat to forests, with forest biodiversity and forests themselves at particular risk if temperatures exceed 1.5oC, even if only temporarily, and expresses high confidence “that maintaining the resilience of biodiversity and ecosystem services at a global scale depends on effective and equitable conservation of approximately 30% to 50% of Earth’s land, freshwater and ocean areas”.
Experts are becoming increasingly shrill in their calls to take urgent action to dramatically and immediately begin reducing greenhouse gasses and restoring ecosystems as the consequences of climate heating take a major toll on people and the environment. The 2019-20 bushfires and 2022 floods are a harbinger of worse to come. António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, pulled no punches in the press conference launching the IPCC report, identifying a need to cut emissions by 45% by 2030 when instead they are set to increase by 14%, while describing the abdication of leadership as criminal and accusing the world's biggest polluters as “guilty of arson of our only home”, commenting ”Now is the time to turn rage into action”. Australia is led by the worst climate criminals, deserving of our rage.
As climate heating increases atmospheric moisture, “atmospheric rivers” and “water bombs” are becoming more prevalent, meaning more and intensified events like we recently experienced. On 28 February Dunoon had 775mm of rain in the previous 24 hours, the second highest ever recorded in NSW. At Lismore the flood was 2m higher than previously recorded, spread across the Richmond floodplain the water volumes were astronomical. It was a 1-in-1000 to 1-2000 year event. The Climate Council has produced a report that explains how climate change is intensifying extreme rainfall and how the frequency of these events is likely to almost double with each degree of further global warming.
With mounting deaths, thousands evacuated (with little credit to Government) and thousands of homes and businesses in the Northern Rivers declared unliveable, it is evident that recovery will take years as the true extent of the unprecedented flood disaster becomes clear. While the Australian newspaper reverts to type and says we have always had floods and there is nothing we can do to change the climate and Stuart Ayres renewed calls for the raising of Warragamba Dam to allow more development on a floodplain, others are making the connection with some calling for bigger flood levies while others talk about moving development out of floodplains. Shane Fitzsimmons, head of Resilience NSW, was heavily criticised for the slow response, though he said his responsibility was policy coordination and recovery, while also focusing on the folly of developing floodplains.
Rising temperatures are taking an increasing toll on Australia’s native species, with some starving when too hot, some with habitat constricting as they retreat to higher elevations, and others embarking on the long march south. Monitoring of the Amazon shows most of it is sickening and teetering on the brink of transforming into savanna, in the process turbo-charging our climate and extinction crises. While many focus on the Amazon, Australia’s alpine forests have already passed their tipping point, and trees are in retreat across the world when we most need them.
TURNING IT AROUND
The Climate Council wants climate change to be firmly on the agenda for the federal election because if we can’t turn it around now we’re even more stuffed.
North America has less than 1% of oldgrowth left on the east coast and about 4% left in the west, and most has no protection against logging, though the Old-Growth Forest Network is trying to save what is left.
In New Zealand, Forest & Bird is backing the Government’s suggestion that pine forests should not be counted as permanent carbon sinks in the Emissions Trading Scheme, with this reserved to support investment in native forest and wetland restoration.
WWF have released a report describing how forests are indispensable to human health and why conservation, protection and restoration of the world’s forests are undeniably critical to safeguarding and promoting human health.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Extending commitments:
Before the fires in 2017 DPI recommended a 15% reduction in Wood Supply Agreements. In the 2019/20 wildfires 49% of north-coast State Forests burnt, For the 15% suffering crown fires Forestry Corporation guesstimate all trees <30cm and half the larger trees were killed, and for the 19% suffering hot fires the guesses are 50% <30cm killed and 10% larger killed. This is 9.4% of sawlogs and 24.5% of future sawlogs, increasing to around 15 and 35% north from Coffs. Forestry Corporation have yet to remeasure their 1,616 growth plots in burnt forest (680 nth from Coffs) to accurately quantify timber losses, yet has written to Wood Supply Agreement holders offering 5 year extensions until 31 December 2028 for existing annual quantities (which expire in 2023) with no reductions. After discussions are complete, FCNSW will prepare and distribute a Variation Agreement for companies to execute and return for final execution by FCNSW and the Deputy Premier on behalf of the State of NSW.
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/lc/papers/pages/qanda-tracking-details.aspx?pk=90461
Morrison must save Koalas:
NEFA asked Morrison to intervene to stop the Forestry Corporation continuing to log in Yarratt SF despite the NRC recommending it stop and the evidence it includes extensive areas of high quality habitat for now endangered Koalas.
The North East Forest Alliance is calling on Prime Minister Scott Morrison to intervene to stop logging of important Koala habitat in Yarratt State Forest near Wingham in accordance with the June recommendations of the Natural Resources Commission and the Commonwealth’s February Conservation Advice for now Endangered Koalas.
As a signatory to the North East NSW Regional Forest Agreement, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has responsibility for NSW’s refusal to protect important Koala habitat on State Forests, and must modify his approval to provide rapidly declining Koala populations with the protection they urgently need, said NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh.
“Nearly the whole of Yarratt SF is ranked as high or very high Koala habitat by Department of Primary Industries Forestry’s model, Koala records show they are widespread, and Office of Environment and Heritage identified 3 Koala Hubs covering around 370ha.
“Prime Minister Scott Morrison signed off on the North East NSW Regional Forest Agreement in 2018. He now needs to change the RFA to provide Endangered Koalas with the protection the February Conservation Advice to him identified as needed to save them from extinction” Mr. Pugh said.
Local MP Dr David Gillespie though has come out swinging, saying their claims are far from the truth.
Dodging and weaving:
In NSW Budget Estimates, Minister Griffin was questioned over biomas burning, PNF, Grey-headed flying foxes, unexplained landclearing, Campbelltown koalas, logging of Koala hubs, the NRC recommendations to stop logging in burnt forests and retaining more habitat trees, and a variety of other issues. Cate Faehermann focused on Koalas in Yarratt SF and logging of Koala Hubs. He is only a new Minister, so kept saying he knew little and had done nothing, but he also proved adept at saying nothing, as demonstrated by this exchange:
Mr JUSTIN FIELD: Has a recommendation regarding the Government's response to the NRC report gone to Cabinet?
Mr JAMES GRIFFIN: I cannot comment on that.
Mr JUSTIN FIELD: Have you signed off on any response at this point?
Mr JAMES GRIFFIN: I cannot comment on that.
…
Mr JUSTIN FIELD: When are we going to see it? It is getting beyond ridiculous, right. The fires were 2019-20. This damage has been done to a degree but is still occurring now. It is unacceptable, I would suggest.
Mr JAMES GRIFFIN: I would like to see action. As I said, I have met with a number of stakeholders in this particular area and it is something that I am focused on.
Mr JUSTIN FIELD: What is your time frame?
Mr JAMES GRIFFIN: I cannot give you specifics right now.
Mr JUSTIN FIELD: Is that because you do not really control this, do you? The National Party can actually dictate that this thing stays in the bottom drawer probably for the rest of your term in government.
…
Mr JAMES GRIFFIN: As you would appreciate, I cannot comment on the specifics of that particular report, but I commit to you that I want to get the balance right.
Mr JUSTIN FIELD: If we lose those trees, it is 60, 70, 80 or 100 years before those species have a home. Has the EPA put any additional prescriptions on the Forestry Corporation with regards to hollow-bearing trees since they basically told to you go jump with regards to the site-specific conditions?
JACQUELEINE MOORE (EPA): We continue to enforce the conditions of the coastal IFOA and the protocols and the legislation.
Mr JUSTIN FIELD: The same ones that the NRC says are inadequate to protect hollow-bearing trees, which are the home for most of our threatened species in our Crown land State forests.
JACQUELEINE MOORE: I cannot comment on that report.
We did learn that the Natural Resources Commission has been engaged to undertake an in-confidence review of the proposed private native forestry codes, which will be completed within a month, though it too will be secret and can be buried if they don’t like it.
Is penning animals securing them in the wild?
As our lists of threatened species grows, the success of reintroduced species in NSW’s 7 feral free enclosures, particularly the two 2000 ha enclosures in Sturt National Park, continues to get a lot of promotion.
“It’s wonderful to see these animals back in their original home, prospering, and restoring this desert ecosystem to some of its past magnificence,” University of NSW Wild Deserts Project Leader Professor Richard Kingsford said. “As well as mulgara and bilbies, 13 Shark Bay bandicoots translocated in May last year have not wasted time either.”
Modelling predicts only 496 of the 991 terrestrial species listed as threatened are predicted to survive in 100 years’ time. The report noted that management and conservation efforts will not be enough to save many species without addressing key threats such as habitat removal and climate change.
[NSW Environment Minister James Griffin] “Eventually, we want to see these species thrive beyond the fence and to do that we will also need to do more to tackle the problem of feral cats which kill more than 1 billion native animals each year.”
There are plans to establish another four feral-free zones in national parks, which would provide a conservation benefit to more than 50 threatened species.
These two exclosures are wild ‘training zones’, where vulnerable mammals are learning to survive in the landscape without the danger of predators like cats and foxes. When their populations grow, the mammals will be moved into a second training area with predators, where it’s hoped they will learn to become predator-smart.
The ultimate project aim is to release a smarter generation of bilbies and other locally extinct mammals back into the wild – which will in turn help restore the desert ecosystem.
https://www.openforum.com.au/forums/native-life-returns-to-nsws-wild-deserts/
https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/reintroduced-mammals-now-thriving-sturt-national-park
The establishment of breeding enclosures was Minister Griffins chief boast in estimates, with Labor’s Penny Sharpe having a go at him for keeping animals in pens.
The Hon. PENNY SHARPE: Can we just unpack "secure in the wild"? We had that discussion about fenced areas. I am very happy that they are safe in their pens, but they are in pens, even if they are very big pens.
Raising awareness:
Inspiring Australia NSW is undertaking regional community programs to build connections and raise awareness of threatened species and biodiversity issues.
As regional NSW continues to recover from devastating floods and the fires of 2019-2020, Inspiring Australia NSW will trial a pilot program with four NSW Regional Science Hubs to deliver community programs that build connections and raise awareness of threatened species and biodiversity issues.
Our place, our species will engage communities in the Far South Coast, Central West, Paterson Allyn Williams and Northern Rivers regions with the why and how of species preservation and the critical value of healthy ecosystems to planetary health and wellbeing.
With a particular focus on youth engagement, Our place, our species will aim to create increased awareness of biodiversity issues through cross-cultural and First Nations knowledge, art and science engagement. A key component will be fun and engaging activities for young people aged 12 to 24 presented during NSW school holiday periods in addition to general community events.
https://inspiringnsw.org.au/2022/03/03/our-place-our-species/
AUSTRALIA
Call for Huon Pines:
In Tasmania The Greens and Bob Brown Foundation are calling on the government to offer greater protections to a stand of 3000-year-old Huon Pines by scrapping the nearby Mt Lindsay mine redevelopment, and the Blue Derby Wild petition with 34,000 signatures aimed at protecting forests around a mountain bike track has been tabled in parliament as logging continues.
https://tasmps.greens.org.au/parliament/huon-pine-forest-wilson-river-valley
https://tasmps.greens.org.au/parliament/petition-krushka-forests
People don’t want parks privatised:
As Governments around Australia push private enterprise developments within national parks polling on behalf of a coalition of conservation groups found 91% of Australians agree that national parks and conservation areas are desirable to protect nature from resource extraction including logging, mining and fishing, and 78% support not having development in parks and protected areas.
New national polling confirms that the vast majority of Australians do not want to see prime protected areas like national parks compromised by commercial or large-scale development. Research undertaken by National Parks Australia Council, a coalition of state-based conservation groups, shows just how protective Australians are of our national parks and reserves.
Of the 1,122 Australians we surveyed, the results were unequivocal, with 91% agreeing national parks and conservation areas are critical to protect nature from resource extraction (including logging and mining), and 78% of saying they did not support any development in parks and protected areas at all. There was support for small scale projects that help people enjoy nature such as public toilets, visitor centres, and interpretation areas.
The poll was commissioned in response to the increasing trend of federal and state governments proactively spruiking and funding development and commercial interests over nature protection in national parks.
Recent disputes over Kosciuszko National Park Special Development Precincts, the Ben Boyd National Park Light to Light Walk in NSW, Lake Malbena in Tasmania, Warburton/Yarra Ranges National Park Bike Track in Victoria, Australian Walking Company’s private, luxury accommodation in Flinders Chase National Park, South Australia, and the Wangetti trail in Queensland, which is under development, have raised community concern that federal and state governments are undermining the integrity of national parks.
“We have seen numerous examples over the years, and they just keep coming, a seemingly insatiable push to inappropriately develop even for our prime protected natural places like national parks.” said National Parks Australia Council President, Dr Bruce McGregor.
Report is here https://vnpa.org.au/publications/polling-2022/
https://tasmaniantimes.com/2022/02/poll-confirms-australians-want-parks-protected/
Aboriginal custodians have joined the chorus opposing commercial huts in Tasmania's Southwest National Park, like others they are not opposed to tourism development but want it outside parks.
"The tracks that exist at the moment are very close to some of the most ancient Aboriginal heritage that you could find anywhere in the state, so there's huge concern on behalf of the Aboriginal community about what an influx of further tourism would do to those sites and what building or further infrastructure could potentially damage or destroy ancient heritage," Ms Mansell said.
A life in the tree tops:
The Science Show has a 24m interview “Meg Lowman - a voice for trees” about her autobiography The Arbornaut. Her career started in Australia with canopy studies. She talks about Australian rural dieback caused by Christmas beetles, which was most extreme in the 80s, loss of the Amazon, building canopy walkways in endangered rainforest to encourage local ecotourism, the importance of trees, tree trunks expanding when it rains, and the challenges of women working in science.
The Amazon is being cleared. It will take a while, but it is happening. What is achieved? Land with poor soils, diminishing returns on land open to erosion. What is lost? Unique creatures, the lungs of the Earth, a key controller of much of the Earth’s climate. Botanist Meg Lowman gives a voice to the trees. She studied and worked for 11 years in Australia, investigated forests of the east coast.
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/meg-lowman---a-voice-for-trees/13771558
More money for loggers:
In the lead-up to the March 19 election the South Australian Labor party has promised $15 million over 10 years for a 'Centre for Excellence' for timber research and development in Mount Gambier, $2 million over three years to develop a Manufacturing and Infrastructure Masterplan, $2 million to upgrade fire towers in the region's forests, and an additional $5 million for the Mount Gambier TAFE.
SPECIES
Floods compound fires:
With vast areas of riparian and floodplain forests inundated innumerable animals will have been killed or lost access to essential resources, greatly compounding the 2019/20 wildfire impacts. Its not just burrows, even tree hollows can fill with water.
The RSPCA and other wildlife care organisations have received hundreds of calls to help rescue and care for stranded animals. But the true toll on wildlife will remain unknown, in part because we know surprisingly little about the impacts of floods on wildlife.
Others simply don’t have the ability or opportunity to take evasive action in time. This can include animals with dependent young in burrows, such as wombats, platypus and echidnas.
Many birds, for example, couldn’t get away from the heavy rain and seek shelter, ending up waterlogged. If birds are exhausted and can’t fly, they may suffer from exposure and also be more vulnerable to predators, such as feral cats and foxes.
But if floods, fires and other extreme events become more regular, we could see some populations or species at increased risk of local or even total extinction.
This highlights how Earth’s two existential crises – climate change and biodiversity loss – are inextricably linked. We must combat them swiftly and substantially, together, if we’re to avoid a bleak future.
Thousands of animals have died in the recent Queensland and New South Wales floods, with rescue services unable to make it to all calls for help due to flooded and debris-blocked roads.
She said the service is currently caring for many kangaroo and wallaby joeys, possums, birds and koalas.
"It's really impacting all types of animals," she said.
"Lots of joeys ... have been swimming through floodwaters and they're just absolutely exhausted.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-04/animals-stranded-drowning-floods-rspca-rescue/100880008
"The flood waters pose a huge threat to wildlife, and their survival," Aussie Ark said in a statement.
"The quickly rising waters have likely flooded burrows and drowned animals such as wombats and echidnas, while critical food sources will be washed away.
"The destruction of habitat will be huge, and the impacts will be long lasting, with species displaced and placed at greater risk of predation by feral animals, car strike and disease."
https://www.ausleisure.com.au/news/australian-wildlife-also-suffering-through-floods/
This time of year in northern NSW, echidna puggles are in their burrows and not yet ready to disperse, meaning many would have drowned, Leoni Byron-Jackson, the coordinator of Wires in Lismore, said.
“Heavy rainfall and storm events impact all wildlife, but are particularly challenging for birds, small mammals and young or dispersing animals,” said Libby Hall, Taronga’s wildlife rescue and rehabilitation coordinator.
[Euan Ritchie] “In the case of flood, it’s relatively quick and if the animals can survive that flood they can repopulate an area fairly quickly.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/australian-wildlife-impacted-by-floods_n_621db123e4b0afc668c51c77
IFAW animal rescue officer Nicole Rojas-Marin said natural disasters have impacted on wildlife over the last two years and "we simply can't afford for our native wildlife to be impacted any further".
https://www.theleader.com.au/story/7642025/fears-for-wildlife-as-flooding-strikes-nsw/
Predominately, the spokesperson said, calls had been in regards to birds and possums.
"A lot of these animals live in tree hollows. If the rain just continues the tree hollows can fill up with water and sometimes when they're trying to escape they get caught in the floods," the spokesperson told ACM.
"It's just another knock to our wildlife that they didn't need," the WIRES spokesperson said.
In defence of Masked Owls:
The Bob Brown Foundation is trying to raise $500,000 as it launches legal action against the federal government and mining company MMG Australia to prevent preparatory work for a proposed tailings storage facility for MMG’s Rosebery mine in northwestern Tasmania on the grounds of impacts on the endangered Tasmanian Masked Owl.
Burnt Koalas:
Brad Law is at it again, this time using his acoustic recordings to assess the impacts of the 2019/20 fires on Koala density, he does report the loss of all Koalas with high fire severity and a 50% reduction with moderate fire severity.
Koalas were temporarily extirpated where high fire severity dominated the landscape, but some localized recovery was evident after 1 year. Where moderate severity fire dominated, density was reduced by about 50% within 1 year, but koalas were widespread throughout the burnt area. In our third area dominated by low severity fire, no impact was detected as pre- and post-fire uncertainty intervals overlapped.
A substantial impact of high severity fire was confirmed. Severe impacts were localized across the landscape, recovery had begun within a year and resilience was evident where low severity fire dominated. However, more frequent fires in the future will compound koala losses.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/geb.13458
Another Koala park:
Camp Ourimbah is calling on Forestry Corporation NSW to declare Ourimbah State Forest a koala conservation reserve following a sighting on an adjacent property.
Da Silva said the forest acts as an important corridor with the potential to link populations and is critical habitat for the koala.
Forestry Corporation NSW said protection of koalas and their habitat is a core priority and specific searches are carried out prior to and throughout harvest operations.
“These measures were developed on the basis of ongoing research, which continues to show that koalas occupy forests where timber harvesting takes place at the same rate as unharvested forests,” it said.
Koalas doomed by political spin:
The language of the announcement was a jarring mix of promotion and doom, with the doom element – namely, declaring the koala as endangered in three jurisdictions – buried in over the rainbow promises of protection. “Together we can ensure a healthy future for the koala and this decision, along with the total $74 million we have committed to koalas since 2019 will play a key role in that process.”
With such stewards of the environment as Ley, animal species are doomed. This was predictable enough. For decades, Australia’s environmental portfolio has been leased, if not bought outright, by fossil fuel and developer interests. It was Ley who used her good offices to convince international officialdom that the world need not worry about the ailing health of the Great Barrier Reef. It was yet another example of the odious “She’ll be right, mate” syndrome.
https://johnmenadue.com/australias-doomed-koalas/
More plantings for Koalas:
The Macleay Landcare Network has obtained funding to support landholders to restore mesic habitat corridors for Koalas on their property.
More on protecting habitat for Swift Parrots:
The Guardian delves a bit deeper into the proposal to protect just 60,000 ha of Tasmania’s public forests as breeding habitat for the endangered Swift Parrot.
Dr Jennifer Sanger, a forest ecologist with Tree Projects, says while the parrot faces other threats, including predation from sugar gliders and worsening bushfire risk due to the climate crisis, habitat loss from logging remains the “number one” issue.
… It says a swift parrot protection plan would require the industry to give up just 7% of the forest area on state land available for logging. It would protect 40,000ha more mature forest and 20,000ha of regrowing forest that could provide future habitat.
It says this could be achieved by listening to the board of the state-owned forestry business, Sustainable Timber Tasmania, which in 2016 told the state government logging was not profitable if it had to meet a legislated quota of providing 137,000 cubic metres of sawlogs a year. It called for this to be cut to 96,000 cubic metres – a 30% cut in timber supply.
The call by the industry body was rejected by the state resources minister, Guy Barnett. …
The only thing standing in the way, according to Woehler, is “political unwillingness”.
“The problem is well-known, has been for decades, and we’ve seen a weakening of protection and a business-as-usual approach to land management in the state,” he says. “It’s a recipe for the extinction of a species.”
Northern savannas haemorrhaging mammals:
Across Australia’s northern savannas 4 species of mammals have been made extinct and 9 more are likely to follow in the next 20 years.
Four species have become extinct and nine face the same fate in the next two decades.
So what’s driving the decline? For some animals, we don’t know the exact reasons. But for others they include global warming, pest species, changed fire regimes, grazing by introduced herbivores and diseases.
Yet governments in Australia have largely sat on their heels as the biodiversity crisis worsens.
In September last year, the federal environment department announced 100 “priority species” would be selected to help focus recovery actions. But more than 1,800 species are listed as threatened in Australia. Prioritising just 100 is unlikely to help the rest.
Missing Flying Foxes:
Flying fox populations are crashing due to land clearing and extreme heat. The Science Show has a story about flying foxes, but when checked the audio wasn’t available:
The 1990s saw their population crash by 30% in just ten years. In NSW they are classified as vulnerable to extinction. They are impacted by loss of habitat due to land clearing and extreme heat. At The Australian Museum, Anja Divljan described her work determining the age of flying foxes by counting rings in their teeth.
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/flying-foxes-crashing/13771562
Flying Koalas:
A student is studying Greater Gliders in Woomargama National Park in southern NSW, notes they use up to 20 tree-hollows, and don’t like logging or wildfires.
These little marsupials can maintain up to 20 tree-trunk dens at any given time and with their very specific folivore diet (leaves and occasionally flowers), they are highly dependent on old growth forests.
A combination of logging, fire, climate change and habitat degradation has seen such a decline in population that they are listed as ‘vulnerable’, Mikayla said.
“So far, the data is indicating that Greater Gliders are in much higher densities in the unburnt areas of Woomargama National Park compared to those areas which have been impacted by burning,” she said.
https://aboutregional.com.au/mikaylas-study-involves-spotlit-night-searches-for-flying-koalas/
Catastrophic impacts on wildlife:
The Federal Government has accepted most recommendations, but ruled out night-time curfews and a federal desexing program, in its response to the 2020 inquiry into the problem of feral and domestic cats in Australia, particularly Australia's 2.8 million feral cats that kill close to 3 billion native animals annually.
"Just keeping your cats indoors at night does not solve the problem because cats are good hunters any time of the day," Mr Cox said.
"At the moment some states don't allow local councils to enforce cat containment — requiring cats to stay within their properties — NSW is an example of that.
"We expect people to keep their dogs in their properties, we should actually expect people to keep their cats in their properties."
The government has agreed to the majority of the report's recommendations, including that more work be done to understand the impact of feral, stray and domestic cats, and that veterinary experts be included on the taskforce.
More calls to control predators:
Port Stephens Councillors are being called upon to do something to control foxes and feral cats in the Mambo Wetlands Reserve, but Council does not currently have the funding to address the issue.
NSW Local Land Services state, “Feral cats are one of the primary causes of the decline and extinction of native Australian species.
“Cats prey on small native and exotic mammals, birds, lizards and insects.
“An estimated 80 endangered and threatened species are preyed on by wild cats.
“Feral cats can also spread and carry diseases that affect humans and other animals.”
The Invasive Species Council states, “Of the 21 completely extinct marsupials and rodents in Australia, the red fox and cat have most probably contributed to the extinction of all but two.
“Foxes and cats are also blamed for the loss from the mainland of another nine species that survive on islands, sometimes precariously.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/feral-animals-damaging-native-species-in-mambo-wanda-wetlands-88239
Feral revolution:
Removal of over 40,000 feral pigs from the Riverina gains national award - where were they all re-homed?
The project was awarded a national Froggatt Award for delivering the program, removing 43,608 feral pigs from the Western Riverina.
'Landholders in the region reported feral pig numbers rising at an alarming rate, resulting in an increase in stock losses ... This burgeoning feral pig population was also threatening fragile wetland ecosystems."
The pigs hit their peak in 2017, with over 11 pigs per square kilometre. Due to the wide-reaching project, that number is down to less than one per square kilometre in 2020.
https://www.areanews.com.au/story/7652788/huge-success-of-feral-pig-control-program/
Using drones to track rock wallabies:
In the West Kimberley the Nyikina Mangala Rangers are using drones fitted with thermal imaging cameras to track an endangered subspecies, the black-footed rock wallaby.
Is de-extinction a good idea:
With attention focussed on attempts to resurrect the Thylacine following a $5 million grant, some consider it is a diversion from the needs of those that still survive.
One of the main arguments against de-extinction is the huge expense required for research and technology. …
Ecologists and conservation biologists argue the money would be better spent on initiatives to prevent extinction in the first place. These include purchasing land to conserve entire ecosystems, removing invasive species, restoring damaged habitats, and programs to breed and re-introduce threatened species.
Perhaps the most important practical argument against de-extinction, but also the most overlooked, is that creating one or two animals won’t be nearly enough to bring back a species.
To have any real chance of surviving in the wild, introduced populations need to number in the hundreds, if not thousands. Could we make enough individuals to do this?
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Energy emissions reach record highs:
Global carbon dioxide emissions from energy hit a record high of 36.3 billion tonnes (gigatonnes) in 2021, with coal accounting for 40% of the increase, hitting an all-time high of 15.3 gigatonnes.
We need to turn rage into action, NOW
We must get rid of Scott Morrison and his fossil fools.
The recent IPCC report Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability concludes that: “The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health. Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all. (very high confidence)”. It emphasises that climate change enhanced drought-related tree mortality is currently a threat to forests, with forest biodiversity and forests themselves at particular risk if temperatures exceed 1.5oC, even if only temporarily, and expresses high confidence “that maintaining the resilience of biodiversity and ecosystem services at a global scale depends on effective and equitable conservation of approximately 30% to 50% of Earth’s land, freshwater and ocean areas”. Of particular note for forests:
Widespread, pervasive impacts to ecosystems, people, settlements, and infrastructure have resulted from observed increases in the frequency and intensity of climate and weather extremes, including hot extremes on land and in the ocean, heavy precipitation events, drought and fire weather (high confidence). … These include … increased drought related tree mortality (high confidence). Observed increases in areas burned by wildfires have been attributed to human-induced climate change in some regions (medium to high confidence).
Approximately half of the species assessed globally have shifted polewards or, on land, also to higher elevations (very high confidence). Hundreds of local losses of species have been driven by increases in the magnitude of heat extremes (high confidence), as well as mass mortality events on land and in the ocean (very high confidence)
Projected climate change, combined with non-climatic drivers, will cause loss and degradation of much of the world’s forests (high confidence), coral reefs and low-lying coastal wetlands (very high confidence)….
Near-term risks for biodiversity loss are moderate to high in forest ecosystems (medium confidence), …
In terrestrial ecosystems, 3 to 14% of species assessed will likely face very high risk of extinction at global warming levels of 1.5°C, increasing up to 3 to 18% at 2°C
If global warming transiently exceeds 1.5°C in the coming decades or later (overshoot), then many human and natural systems will face additional severe risks, compared to remaining below 1.5°C (high confidence). Depending on the magnitude and duration of overshoot, some impacts will cause release of additional greenhouse gases (medium confidence) and some will be irreversible, even if global warming is reduced (high confidence). … such impacts are already observed and are projected to increase with every additional increment of global warming, such as increased wildfires, mass mortality of trees …
The resilience of species, biological communities and ecosystem processes increases with size of natural area, by restoration of degraded areas and by reducing non-climatic stressors (high confidence).
Adaptation options, where circumstances allow, include facilitating the movement of species to new ecologically appropriate locations, particularly through increasing connectivity between conserved or protected areas, targeted intensive management for vulnerable species and protecting refugial areas where species can survive locally (medium confidence).
Recent analyses, drawing on a range of lines of evidence, suggest that maintaining the resilience of biodiversity and ecosystem services at a global scale depends on effective and equitable conservation of approximately 30% to 50% of Earth’s land, freshwater and ocean areas, including currently near-natural ecosystems (high confidence).
Importantly climate resilient development prospects are increasingly limited if current greenhouse gas emissions do not rapidly decline, especially if 1.5°C global warming is exceeded in the near term (high confidence).
https://www.ipcc.ch/2022/02/28/pr-wgii-ar6/
Experts are becoming increasingly shrill in their calls to take urgent action to dramatically and immediately begin reducing greenhouse gasses and restoring ecosystems as the consequences of climate heating take a major toll on people and the environment. The 2019-20 bushfires and 2022 floods are a harbinger of worse to come.
There are options to adapt to a changing climate. This report provides new insights into nature’s potential not only to reduce climate risks but also to improve people's lives, the IPCC says.
“Healthy ecosystems are more resilient to climate change and provide life-critical services such as food and clean water”, said IPCC Working Group II Co-Chair Hans-Otto Pörtner.
“By restoring degraded ecosystems and effectively and equitably conserving 30 to 50 per cent of Earth’s land, freshwater and ocean habitats, society can benefit from nature’s capacity to absorb and store carbon, and we can accelerate progress towards sustainable development, but adequate finance and political support are essential.”
Inger Andersen, the head of the UN Environment Progarmme (UNEP) agreed that protecting and strengthening nature, and letting nature do its job, are vital to staving off catastrophe.
“We can’t keep taking the hits and treating the wounds. Soon those wounds will be too deep, too catastrophic, to heal, she said during a press conference in Geneva on the launch of the IPCC report.
Ms. Andersen said that the best way to “We need to soften and slow the blows by cutting greenhouse gas emissions. But we also need to cushion the blows by picking up our efforts to adapt to climate change – which have been too weak for too long.
The best way to do this is to “soften the blow” is to let nature do the job it spent millions of years perfecting. Absorbing and channelling rainwater and surging waves. Maintaining biodiversity and balance in soils so that diverse plants can grow. Providing cooling shade under leafy canopies.
“We need large-scale ecosystem restoration from ocean to mountaintop – including through agreeing to start negotiations on a global plastic pollution agreement at the fifth UN Environment Assembly,” which opened today in Nairobi.
She also spotlighted the need to bring nature into baking hot cities to keep them cool. “We need to conserve mangroves, coral reefs and nature’s other defences. We need to protect and restore wetlands for nature and incorporate wetlands in our cities.”
“The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/02/1112852
António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, pulled no punches in the press conference launching the IPCC report, identifying a need to cut emissions by 45% by 2030 when instead they are set to increase by 14%, while describing the abdication of leadership as criminal and accusing the world's biggest polluters as “guilty of arson of our only home”, commenting ”Now is the time to turn rage into action”. Australia is led by the worst climate criminals.
I have seen many scientific reports in my time, but nothing like this.
Today's IPCC report is an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership.
With fact upon fact, this report reveals how people and the planet are getting clobbered by climate change.
Nearly half of humanity is living in the danger zone – now.
Many ecosystems are at the point of no return – now.
Unchecked carbon pollution is forcing the world's most vulnerable on a frog march to destruction – now.
The facts are undeniable.
This abdication of leadership is criminal.
The world's biggest polluters are guilty of arson of our only home.
It is essential to meet the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees.
Science tells us that will require the world to cut emissions by 45 percent by 2030 and achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
But according to current commitments, global emissions are set to increase almost 14 per cent over the current decade.
…
Now is the time to turn rage into action.
Every fraction of a degree matters.
Every voice can make a difference.
And every second counts.
https://media.un.org/en/asset/k1x/k1xcijxjhp
- If global temperatures rise by more than 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, some environmental changes could become irreversible, depending on the magnitude and duration of the ‘overshoot’ beyond this threshold. In forests and Arctic permafrost zones that act as carbon dioxide reservoirs, for instance, extreme global warming could lead to the release of excess carbon emissions, which would in turn drive further warming — a self-perpetuating cycle.
- Sustainable economic development must include protection for biodiversity and natural ecosystems, which secure resources such as fresh water and coastlines that shield against the effects of storms, the report says. Multiple lines of evidence suggest that maintaining the resilience of biodiversity and ecosystems as the climate warms will depend on “effective and equitable conservation of approximately 30% to 50% of Earth’s land, freshwater and ocean areas”.
Normal outdoor activity across much of northern Australia could become potentially fatal due to the risk of heat stress, much of the Great Barrier Reef will likely die and snowfields will shrink or disappear under climate change scenarios laid out in a blockbuster United Nations report.
Australia is already at the forefront of extinctions likely attributable to climate change, having lost the Bramble Cay Melomys from its Torres Strait Island home due to sea-level rise in 2016 and a white sub-species of the lemuroid ringtail possum from Queensland, which disappeared after heat waves in 2005.
Should temperatures rise between 1.5 and 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels the frequency of heatwaves will increase by 85 per cent. Heatwaves will rise fourfold if the planet warms by 3°C. Under this scenario some parts of northern Australia would become virtually unlivable by the end if the century, says the report.
The frequency and severity of fires will increase, with up to 70 per cent more fire weather days by 2050 in some regions if emissions are not cut, along with the replacement or collapse of alpine ash, snowgum woodland, pencil pine and northern jarrah forests.
Increased heatwaves, droughts and floods are already exceeding plants’ and animals’ tolerance thresholds, driving mass mortalities in species such as trees and corals, said a statement from the IPCC secretariat.
Climate Envoy of the Marshall Islands Tina Stege, a leading voice in global climate diplomacy, said the science of the crisis was now even more clear.
“Failing to adapt to this crisis will cost lives. Failing to provide fair, accessible climate finance will cost lives. Continued dependence on fossil fuels will cost lives. With the consequences of inaction spelled out so clearly, yet again, a failure to act is inhuman and unconscionable.”
At 1.5℃ warming above pre-industrial levels, the new report projects that, for example, children under 12 will experience a fourfold increase in natural disasters in their lifetime, and up to 14% of all species assessed will likely face a very high risk of extinction. This is our best-case scenario.
Global warming of 1.09℃ has already caused widespread impacts globally. In the past several years, we’ve seen enormous wildfires sweep across Australia, Chile, the United States and Greece. We’ve seen global, back-to-back mass coral bleaching events. And we’ve seen unprecedented heatwaves and cold events such as in British Columbia, Canada and in Texas, US.
- up to 18% of all those species assessed on land will be at high risk of extinction if the world warms 2℃ by 2100. If the world warms up to 4℃, roughly every second plant or animal species assessed will be threatened
It’s clear reducing global emissions alongside effective adaptation will put us on a trajectory of lower costs and damages. But at a global level, we’re doing neither of these things to the necessary extent. We’re at risk of missing a brief and rapidly closing window to secure an equitable and sustainable future.
The consequences for Australia include irreversible loss of coral reefs, loss of alpine species, collapse of forests in southern Australia, loss of kelp forests, a drastic rise in severe fire weather conditions, sea-level rise and a dramatic increase in fatal heatwaves.
Australia is one of the most vulnerable developed countries in the world. Right now, rainfall and flood records are being obliterated in south-east Queensland and Northern NSW. These communities have hardly had time to ]recover from past disasters and again they’re facing profound heartbreak and loss.
If we continue on our current trajectory, the extreme weather that drove the Black Summer fires will be average by 2040.
Our ecosystems simply don’t regenerate to what they were before following such catastrophic events.
If the Great Barrier Reef suffers a mass bleaching event every year, it won’t have time to recover. These tipping points mean irreversible changes to our iconic Australian land and seascapes.
Australians would actually be better off if the Morrison government did nothing at all. The choices our government has made over this past decade have not only set us back when it comes to acting on the climate challenge, but have actually accelerated us towards catastrophe. Now we’re at the precipice.
‘One of the clear projections is an increase in the intensity of heavy rainfall events,’ says Professor Brendan Mackey…
‘Interestingly, [we’ve observed] more rainfall in the north, less winter rainfall in the southwest and southeast, and more extreme fire weather days in the south and east.’
There’s also high confidence that lower snowfall will reduce alpine biodiversity. Forest ecosystems (alpine ash, snow-gum woodland, pencil pine and northern jarrah) in southern Australia will transition or collapse, and heatwaves and sea level rise will damage other land ecosystems. Marine heatwaves are expected to damage or destroy coral reefs and kelp forests, again with high or very high confidence.
If we delay introducing effective adaptation methods and significant global emission reduction, the damage caused will be more expensive and require far greater change. We need robust, timely adaptation, and deep cuts to emissions.
That’s to have our best chance of keeping global warming to 1.5-2℃ and reduce the challenges of adaptation.
Although the climate impacts and risks we face are increasingly severe, it is by no means too late to avert the worst outcomes.
Australia’s strategy was ranked last in an expert assessment of the adaptation plans published by the governments of 54 countries, finding Australia was amongst the nations most vulnerable, but whose plan was not aligned with the Paris Agreement.
The Morrison government has eschewed its responsibilities at the UN climate talks, refusing to commit to a stronger 2030 emissions reduction target and refusing to address to phase out coal use and methane emissions at the COP26 talks held last year in Glasgow.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/ipcc-exposes-morrison-governments-catastrophic-failures-on-climate-2/
“Adaptation and mitigation can reduce climate-related risks. Implementing these two types of climate action together increases their effectiveness by exploiting synergies and reducing trade-offs among them,” the IPCC report says.
As of Wednesday, neither of the minister for emission reduction, Angus Taylor, his assistant minister, Tim Wilson, nor the environment minister, Sussan Ley, have issued any formal acknowledgement of the IPCC report.
The Morrison government has also neglected the need to implement adaptation plans in response to climate change, failing to deliver on a promise made at international climate change talks to prepare and publish a National Adaptation Plan.
“The report says Australia’s 1-in-100-year floods could occur several times a year. None of us can cope with back-to-back Brisbane floods.”
https://reneweconomy.com.au/morrisons-deathly-silence-on-ipcc-report-as-floods-devastate-east-coast/
Flying rivers:
As climate heating increases atmospheric moisture, “atmospheric rivers” and “water bombs” are becoming more prevalent, meaning more and intensified events like we recently experienced. On 28 February Dunoon had 775mm of rain in the previous 24 hours, the second highest ever recorded in NSW. At Lismore the flood was 2m higher than previously recorded, spread across the Richmond floodplain the water volumes are astronomical. It was a 1-in-1000 to 1-2000 year event.
Our recently published research was the first to quantify the impacts these weather systems have in Australia, and another study we published in November looked closely at the floods in March last year
Atmospheric rivers are like highways of water vapour between the tropics and poles, located in the first one to three kilometres of the atmosphere. They are responsible for about 90% of the water vapour moving from north to south of the planet, despite covering only 10% of the globe.
When atmospheric rivers crash into mountain ranges or interact with cold fronts, they rain out this water with potentially disastrous impacts. Mountains and fronts lift the water vapour up in the atmosphere where it cools and condenses into giant, liquid-forming bands of clouds. Intense thunderstorms can also form within atmospheric rivers.
About 30% of southeast Australia’s rainfall comes from atmospheric rivers, including in the Murray-Darling Basin.
We also know climate change will increase the occurrence of atmospheric rivers over the planet … However, this path is not final. There is still time to change the outcome if we urgently reduce emissions to stop global warming beyond 1.5℃ this century.
https://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/how-rare-was-this-rain-and-flooding-event/536508
… and then there are the consequences:
With five deaths, thousands evacuated (with little credit to Government) and thousands of homes and businesses in the Northern Rivers declared unliveable, it is evident that recovery will take years as the true extent of the unprecedented flood disaster becomes clear. While the Australian reverts to type and says we have always had floods and there is nothing we can do to change the climate and Stuart Ayres renewed calls for the raising of Warragamba Dam to allow more development on a floodplain, others are making the connection with some calling for bigger flood levies while others talk about moving development out of floodplains.
In any case, we do know extreme events like this will occur more frequently in a warmer world. And the rising death toll, ongoing evacuations and destroyed homes make this one of the most extreme natural disasters in colonial Australian history.
Four of the top six highest rainfall totals in NSW were recorded on 28 February, …
The atmosphere can hold approximately 7% more moisture for every degree Celsius of global warming. …
… recent work shows climate change will cause long-lasting atmospheric rivers over Sydney to occur almost twice as often by the end of the 21st century.
Taking steps like concentrating new housing and infrastructure projects in areas above flood plains would help make us less vulnerable to these events.
The Climate Council has produced a report ‘A Supercharged Climate: Rain Bombs, Flash Flooding and Destruction’ that explains how climate change is intensifying extreme rainfall and how the frequency of these events is likely to almost double with each degree of further global warming.
If it increasingly feels as though political leaders spend most of their time responding to crisis after crisis, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk would probably agree. “I’ve never seen so many natural disasters, we seem to be dealing with more and more; more cyclones, more floods,” she said on Friday. “Let’s face it, it’s climate change.”
The idea of abandoning the floodplains was rejected by some senior NSW government ministers, including Planning Minister Anthony Roberts, who said the housing crisis meant it was no time to “pivot away” from areas afflicted by fire or flood.
Shane Fitzsimmons, head of Resilience NSW, was heavily criticised for the slow response, though he said his responsibility was policy coordination and recovery, while also focussing on the folly of developing floodplains.
You don’t want to go and put a whole bunch of new suburbs full of people’s homes in an area that you know, is going to go under. The conversation needs to be around, if you do the development, is it going to be inundated, or is the damage going to be limited? And what can be done to mitigate, to prevent future damage, by bringing in better design arrangements. We do need to consider very carefully what that looks like going forward.
Thermoregulation:
Rising temperatures are taking an increasing toll on Australia’s native species, with some starving when too hot, some with habitat constricting as they retreat to higher elevations, and others embarking on the long march south.
According to the Australian National University some animals eat less when they get too hot, even when plenty of food is available. … greater glider … Gouldian finch
In Queensland's wet tropics, species such as the ringtail possum and 28 species of birds are trying to keep cool by moving to higher elevations.
Other animals like the flying fox are seeking respite by heading south, with many land-based species moving an average of 17km every decade.
The Amazon is losing it:
Monitoring of the Amazon shows most of it is sickening and teetering on the brink of transforming into savanna, in the process turbo-charging our climate and extinction crises. While many focus on the Amazon, Australia’s alpine forests have already passed their tipping point, and trees are in retreat across the world when we most need them.
Yet satellite images taken over the past several decades reveal that more than 75 percent of the rainforest is losing resilience, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change. The vegetation is drier and takes longer to regenerate after a disturbance. Even the most densely forested tracts struggle to bounce back.
This widespread weakness offers an early warning sign that the Amazon is nearing its “tipping point,” the study’s authors say. Amid rising temperatures and other human pressures, the ecosystem could suffer sudden and irreversible dieback. More than half of the rainforest could be converted into savanna in a matter of decades — a transition that would imperil biodiversity, shift regional weather patterns and dramatically accelerate climate change
Historically, the Amazon has been one of Earth’s most important “carbon sinks,” pulling billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the air and storing it in vegetation. Researchers fear that this carbon’s sudden release would put humanity’s most ambitious climate goal — limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) — out of reach.
The warming consequences of suddenly losing half the rainforest would be felt thousands of miles away and for centuries into the future, scientists warn. It would mean escalating storms and worsening wildfires, chronic food shortages and nearly a foot of sea level rise inundating coastal communities. It could trigger other tipping points, such as the melting of ice sheets or the disruption of the South American monsoon.
And the Amazon has the potential to pour some 90 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the forest dies off, the equivalent of several years of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.
“It’s worth reminding ourselves that if it gets to that tipping point and we commit to losing the Amazon rainforest, then we get a significant feedback to global climate change,” said Timothy Lenton, a scientist at the University of Exeter and a co-author of the study, published yesterday in Nature Climate Change.
Drier parts of the Amazon seem to be faring worse, the research reveals, along with areas located closer to human activities. Declining rainfall, increasing drought and deforestation are chipping away at the rainforest’s strength to recover.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/amazon-rain-forest-nears-dangerous-tipping-point/
TURNING IT AROUND
Time to vote Scommo out:
The Climate Council wants climate change to be firmly on the agenda for the federal election because if we can’t turn it around now we’re stuffed.
In short: unless we rapidly and drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions this decade, extreme weather will get much, much worse.
Worsening disaster after disaster – with fewer reprieves between are our reality, because the Earth’s atmosphere is warmer, wetter, and more energetic. This is climate change.
Now is the time to talk about the Morrison Government’s inadequate response to climate change, because burning coal, oil, and gas is supercharging extreme weather. Those who argue otherwise want debate gagged because they are failing to step up on this issue.
We call on all federal political parties and candidates to:
- Tell Australians what concrete steps you will take to prepare and equip emergency services and communities for inevitable climate-fuelled disasters.
- Actively acknowledge the destructive role that climate change is playing in driving worsening disasters including these megafloods.
- Explain to the public how in the next term of Federal Parliament you plan to get national emissions plummeting by rapidly scaling up readily available renewable energy and building an economy that is free from fossil fuels.
- Ensure that towns, cities and communities are rebuilt in a way that takes into account the inevitable future changes in climate and makes them more resilient.
It’s time to show leadership and step up to the most critical issue not just of our time, but all time. We have everything to lose, the time for action is now.
‘Our Prime Minister stood in front of the people of Lismore, in front of the country’s media and spoke about “unprecedented natural disasters” and a “national catastrophe”, Ms McKenzie said via a media statement.
But the PM failed to even mention the term ‘climate change’.
While the prime minister was speaking to a carefully restricted crowd in Goonellabah, the federal minister for industry, energy, and emissions reductions, Angus Taylor, was saying he wanted to accelerate oil and gas.
Saving America’s vanishing oldgrowth:
North America has less than 1% left on the east coast and about 4% left in the west, and most has no protection against logging, though the Old-Growth Forest Network is trying to save what is left.
Of the old-growth forest that once covered the Eastern portions of North America, Maloof says, more than 99% has either been removed or radically altered, while about 96% has been decimated in the western portion of the continent. In Maryland, 2,300 of the state’s 2.8 million acres of forested land — less than a tenth of 1% — have been inventoried as old growth. And much of what been untouched, including School House Woods, has no legal protection against logging.
If anyone has successfully pushed back against such depletion, it’s Maloof. Her five books helped bring the crisis into the public eye. Her nonprofit Old-Growth Forest Network is going strong nationwide in its 10th year. And she succeeded last month in getting a bill introduced in the Maryland General Assembly that would ban the logging of old-growth forest on all state conservation land.
Her next endeavor made it a national movement. One reason she retired 11 years ago, Maloof says, was to identify and support nonprofit groups addressing the imperilment of old-growth forests on a national scale. There weren’t any, so she started one.
Pine carbon shouldn’t count:
In New Zealand, Forest & Bird is backing the Government’s suggestion that pine forests should not be counted as permanent carbon sinks in the Emissions Trading Scheme, with this reserved to support investment in native forest and wetland restoration.
We need forests for our wellbeing:
WWF have released a report describing how forests are indispensable to human health and why conservation, protection and restoration of the world’s forests are undeniably critical to safeguarding and promoting human health.
Marking two years since the current pandemic spread across the globe, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) today released The Vitality of Forests, a new report synthesizing a mounting body of evidence that documents how human health depends on forests. This is one of the first reports that details the escalating risks to human health associated with forest loss and degradation, including the emergence of zoonotic infectious diseases. The findings strongly argue that the conservation, protection and restoration of the world’s forests are undeniably critical to safeguarding and promoting human health.
“Forests deliver critical benefits to people, nature and climate,” said Kerry Cesareo, senior vice president for forests at WWF. “They are habitat for wildlife, capture and store carbon, and protect our water supply. This report now outlines another compelling reason to safeguard forests: They are indispensable to human health. We can use these findings as a road map for collaboration across the health and environment sectors to help resolve public health issues ranging from emerging infectious diseases to mental well-being.”
The report finds that forests play a vital role in supporting human health across several dimensions — infectious diseases; noncommunicable diseases like cancer, diabetes, and mental health issues; nutrition and food security; and physical hazards.
With this in mind, the report presents a framework to understand the public health value of forests and outlines numerous actions to safeguard the vitality of forests and promote long-term human well-being. These include protecting forests and avoiding forest conversion; improving forest management on working lands; taking a diversified approach to forest restoration; creating urban forests; and fostering a learning exchange between the conservation and health fields.
https://news.mongabay.com/2022/03/wwf-report-calls-forests-a-vital-public-health-solution/
Forest Media 25 February 2022
NSW
NEFA are requesting that you make a submission to the EPA ‘Protection of the Environment Operations (General) Amendment (Thermal Energy from Waste) Regulation 2021’ asking that wood from native forests be prohibited from burning for electricity: online at https://yoursay.epa.nsw.gov.au/energy-waste-regulation or by email to [email protected].
Environmental lawyer Sue Higginson has been preselected to fill the Greens' vacancy in the NSW parliament upper house when David Shoebridge leaves to contest the federal election.
In 1999, a 2000 hectare property in Northern NSW was handed back to the Bandjalang people and in 2011 it was declared the Minyumai Indigenous Protected Area, since then the Banjalang have been restoring the bush, with the next stage being the restoration of its wetlands. Fresh from his role with NSW Department of Primary Industries Forest Science, Nick Cameron has been appointed as manager of the Federal Government’s industry body, the North East NSW Regional Forestry Hub.
Eurobodalla Mayor, Mat Hatcher, has called on the council to write to the Premier of NSW to advocate for increased funding to be provided to Crown Lands and Forestry Corporation for urgent maintenance and disaster recovery works on roads under their control. Wild Nature, the final book by John Blay in a trilogy documenting the natural history of the South East forests will be officially launched next month. Five 4wheel drivers broke through gates in Morton National Park and did wheelies on a walk in camp site, forcing its closure for rehabilitation.
AUSTRALIA
A nation-wide series of special Q&A events in capital cities and regional towns will be held to discuss Damon Gameau’s new documentary short, Regenerating Australia, which asks the question, “What would Australia look like by 2030 if we simply listened to the needs of its people?” It appears to be a film of hope for a greener future. The Queensland government has bought the 131,900 hectare Bramwell Station on Cape York, the most northerly cattle station, with the aim of converting it to a national park under Aboriginal ownership and management.
As part of its re-election bid Morrison has announced that farmers and foresters will receive up to $86 million in seed capital for plantations as part of the federal government’s plan to grow the plantation timber industry, they have so far only delivered 1,500 of the 1 billion trees they committed in 2018 to plant by 2028. The Greens Peter Whish-Wilson described it as little more than a cynical electioneering stunt, while Bob Brown pointed to their admission that the 2006 managed investment schemes for plantation forestry ‘had terrible outcomes’, with thousands of hectares of failed plantations.
In Tasmania traditional owners have come out against another series of proposed commercial huts along the South Coast Track and at South East Cape.
Sydney’s Inner West Council will trial ‘micro forests’ as part of a $2 million commitment for new tree planting in the next council budget, despite opposition from Greens and Independent councillors who wanted the “Tree Development Control Plan” strengthened. A study found the beneficial effects of urban plantings at reducing temperatures is related to high levels of soil moisture and thus evaporative cooling, while the benefits of reducing flooding is related to low levels of soil moisture, thus making urban plantings of variable benefit depending on climate.
SPECIES
The compilation of Australian bird calls titled Songs of Disappearance made it to number 2 on the ARIA charts, and is now being published in America. In Western Australia, researchers found that very hot weather is affecting Magpie's ability to survive, reproduce and raise their chicks, suffering cognitive decline when the temperature reaches around 32 to 33 C, with heat stress hindering their ability to forage for food and feed their babies no young survived the 2019/20 heatwave.
The ABC has an interview with the Liberal MP Catherine Cusack who crossed the floor in 2020 to stop the coalition’s disastrous koala kill bill proceeding, she welcomes the increased Commonwealth funding but says the state government has fallen behind on its previous commitments to protect koalas, especially on rural zoned land. Koalas have made it onto the second Ballina Shire Council meeting agenda for 2022, with new Greens Councillor Simon Chate calling for their habitat to become an immediate priority.
While Victorian Koalas are thriving in some places, so well that they are eating themselves out of food and starving, in others they are struggling. Despite concerns, 4 young male Koalas have been taken from a remnant Koala population in Gippsland’s Strzelecki Ranges to mate with inbred koalas from Kangaroo Island in an effort to create a new race of genetically enhanced Koalas. The Victorian government has announced a new strategy for southern koala populations, updating the 2004 strategy. The Victorian Government is also proposing weakening its logging laws, which will have the effect of undermining current legal challenges.
Clearing and logging of Koala habitat continues, but emergency triage for Koalas is increasing. Australia Zoo have completed their Koala Intensive Care Unit. Ampcontrol has donated diagnostic laboratory equipment to Port Stephens Koala Hospital allowing diagnosing of dehydration, kidney failure and chlamydia in under 30 minutes.
Sydney property developer Lendlease have been criticised by environment group for beginning work in Koala habitat for their housing estate at Mount Gilead near Campbelltown without first implementing the required Koala corridors, koala proof fencing and two underpasses beneath the road, while they seek to increase the density of their development. Federal Member for Paterson, Meryl Swanson has expressed her anger at the Morrison Government’s recent koala announcement describing it as a shameful grab for votes. The Taree koala rescue organisation Koalas in Care has expressed scepticism over the recent federal Koala announcements, while their group focuses on tree planting. Meanwhile, as they cut down feed trees, the Forestry Corporation are claiming credit for controlled burning of Koala habitat.
Swift parrots are rapidly declining towards extinction, with estimates that as few as 750 swift parrots are left in the wild, a reduction from about 2,000 a decade ago. the main threat to the parrot is the loss of breeding and foraging habitat — with a new plan recommending that 60,000 hectares of Tasmanian blue and black gum forests on public lands be protected and timber quotas reduced. We also need to protect the mature flowering eucalypts they need for winter feed in NSW’s forests. As we destroy species homes and habitats, hi-tech replacements are becoming more common, though they can be problematic and a distraction from bigger problems, such as nest boxes distracting from the widespread loss of hollow-bearing trees.
4Corners has an insightful program on the ugly divide cutting through the country towns around the snowy mountains as to whether horses in national parks should be protected as a national icon or eliminated as feral pests destroying precious alpine environments. The brumby lovers emerge as environmental terrorists victimising those seeking horse control.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
The IEA have identified that global methane emissions, one of the most dangerous greenhouse gasses, from the energy sector are about 70% greater than the amount national governments have officially reported. ACF research found one third of Australia’s major coal, oil and gas projects are reporting emitting more greenhouse gases than estimated at the time of their environmental approval, with Whitehaven Coal's mines in New South Wales emitting 2.5 - 4.5 times the greenhouse gases estimated when they were approved.
The UNEP has released two reports. One identifies that worldwide vegetation degradation, invasive species and climate heating are fuelling increased wildfires, resulting in 423 million hectares of the Earth’s land surface burning annually, the majority (67%) on the African continent. The other anticipates a global increase of extreme fires of up to 14 per cent by 2030, 30 per cent by the end of 2050 and 50 per cent by the end of the century. An American study found that runoff from forested catchments where more than 20% is burnt increased streamflows by an average of 30% for 6 years, increasing erosion, flooding and risk of landslides.
A global study found that climate heating has already intensified the water cycle, with up to 7% more rain in wetter areas and 7% less rain (or more evaporation) in dryer areas. During a heatwave it got too hot for a Tasmanian messmate forest and it began transpiring heavily and emitting CO2 - as the world heats forest’s tolerances will be exceeded more frequently and they could be converted into carbon sources as they collapse. Whether its drought or excessive heat, dead and dying trees are becoming increasingly common around Australia. One of the UNEP studies highlights how the natural cycles of plants and animals are triggered by a multitude of environmental cues, the effects of climate heating means that the life cycles of many interdependent species are becoming increasingly mismatched resulting in increasing ecosystem imbalance and threats to species, particularly in temperate and polar regions of the world.
New Republic has an in-depth article about Romania’s fast disappearing oldgrowth forests by illegal logging (including in protected areas), frequent violence against people investigating, involvement of IKEA and connivance of the FSC.
TURNING IT AROUND
On a brighter note, scientists claim that we can stop temperature rises within a few years once we reach net zero due to the clear relationship between atmospheric carbon and temperatures, though there would still be some environmental changes and feedback loops locked in. In a historic vote on the rights of nature, the Italian parliament approved a law that means as part of its constitution the state must safeguard ecosystems and biodiversity “in the interest of future generations.”
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Your chance to stop native forests being burnt for electricity:
Will you take 2 minutes to Stand up for Forests and raise your voice against native forests being burnt in power stations for electricity instead of coal?
The EPA is asking for feedback on the draft ‘Protection of the Environment Operations (General) Amendment (Thermal Energy from Waste) Regulation 2021’ until Sunday 20 March 2022. The regulation currently classes wood from native forests as 'eligible fuel' to be burnt in power stations.
We need them to hear loud and clear that this is environmentally damaging and has no social licence.
You can make a comment online at https://yoursay.epa.nsw.gov.au/energy-waste-regulation or email your submission to [email protected].
The regulation covers many things... but we need you to tell the EPA “native forest bio-material must be prohibited from burning in any electricity generating work” (or words to that effect), and briefly say why in your own words. Identify your email as a submission to the Thermal Energy from Waste Regulation 2021.
Sue Higginson to replace David Shoebridge for Greens in NSW upper house:
Environmental lawyer Sue Higginson has been preselected to fill the Greens' vacancy in the NSW parliament upper house when David Shoebridge leaves to contest the federal election.
Ms Higginson said her environmental law experience will serve her well in challenging the government, noting "this decade is crucial in our fight against climate change, the extinction crisis and inequality".
https://www.northernbeachesreview.com.au/story/7634147/greens-elect-lawyer-to-fill-nsw-parly-spot/
https://7news.com.au/politics/greens-elect-lawyer-to-fill-nsw-parly-spot-c-5822300
Restoring nature in an Indigenous Protected Area:
In 1999, a 2000 hectare property in Northern NSW was handed back to the Bandjalang people and in 2011 it was declared the Minyumai Indigenous Protected Area, since then the Banjalang have been restoring the bush, with the next stage being the restoration of its wetlands.
https://www.indigenous.gov.au/news-and-media/stories/wetlands-dairy-farm-and-back
New boss for North East NSW Regional Forestry Hub:
Fresh from his role with NSW Department of Primary Industries Forest Science as a forest resource analyst and a manager of its private native forest research and development program, Nick Cameron has been appointed as manager of the Federal Government’s industry body, the North East NSW Regional Forestry Hub.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/new-north-east-nsw-regional-forestry-hub-manager/
Disaster relief sought for Crown roads:
Eurobodalla Mayor, Mat Hatcher, has called on the council to write to the Premier of NSW to advocate for increased funding to be provided to Crown Lands and Forestry Corporation for urgent maintenance and disaster recovery works on roads under their control, particularly those roads that provide access to resident’s properties.
Wild about South East forests:
Wild Nature, the final book by John Blay in a trilogy documenting the natural history of the South East forests, was released 18 months ago and will be officially launched next month by James Griffin and Bob Debus.
4wheel drivers go feral:
Five 4wheel drivers broke through gates in Morton National Park and did wheelies on a walk in camp site, destroying recovering vegetation and forcing its closure. Prosecution is being pursued.
AUSTRALIA
Regenerating Australia:
A nation-wide series of special Q&A events in capital cities and regional towns will be held to discuss Damon Gameau’s new documentary short, Regenerating Australia, which asks the question, “What would Australia look like by 2030 if we simply listened to the needs of its people?” It appears to be a film of hope for a greener future. All screenings will feature an audience Q&A with expert panelists and live entertainment from local artists. Screening information and tickets are available at www.regeneratingaustralia.com/see-the-film.
https://if.com.au/regenerating-australia-trailer/
Another cattle station to become national park.
The Queensland government has bought the 131,900 hectare Bramwell Station on Cape York, the most northerly cattle station, with the aim of converting it to a national park under Aboriginal ownership and management.
The government's $11.5 million buyout comes hot on the heels of the purchase of 35,300 hectare (87,228 acre) Lakes Station, a cattle station west of Townsville.
Like the purchase of the Lakes Station, US charity The Wyss Foundation, set up by Swiss billionaire Hansjrg Wyss, has chipped in to pay for Bramwell, up to $2.4m.
The Federal government is also providing almost $2m.
Environment Minister Meaghan Scanlon said the property would return to First Nations ownership and management through negotiation as part of the highly successful Cape York Peninsula Tenure Resolution Program.
https://www.agtrader.com.au/news/property/our-most-northerly-cattle-station-to-become-national-park
Theoretical plantation boost:
As part of its re-election bid Morrison has announced that farmers and foresters will receive up to $86 million in seed capital for plantations as part of the federal government’s plan to grow the plantation timber industry, they have so far only delivered 1,500 of the 1 billion trees they committed in 2018 to plant by 2028.
Private industry can access the fund to establish new plantations and is required to match public expenditure in a 50-50 split. The fund is open to state-run timber corporations, private plantation companies and landholders that want to convert farmland.
In 2018 the federal government committed – under its Growing a Better Australia: One Billion Trees for Jobs and Growth plan – to help the timber industry plant 1 billion more trees than is needed to replace harvested timber by 2028. It set a target to plant at least 70 million trees a year.
Department officials told a Senate estimates hearing last week that since 2018 an extra 1500 trees had been planted, and there are plans under way for about 4.3 million trees to go into the ground.
Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries Jonno Duniam said that this commitment was a clear indication that only a Morrison Government could be trusted to back-in the future of the forestry sector.
“In contrast to the Labor party who are intent on shutting our sustainable, world-class forest industries down, we are focused on growing them,” Assistant Minister Duniam said.
https://tasmaniantimes.com/2022/02/on-national-forest-industries-plan/
The Greens Peter Whish-Wilson described it as little more than a cynical electioneering stunt, while Bob Brown pointed to their admission that the 2006 managed investment schemes for plantation forestry ‘had terrible outcomes’, with thousands of hectares of failed plantations.
“The Liberal Government promised in 2018 to plant one billion trees over the decade to 2028. The policy cited studies that showed 400,000 hectares of new plantations would be needed over the next decade. Yet in 2021 it was revealed that less than 1% of that goal had been achieved.
“The Abbott government also promised to plant millions of trees nearly ten years ago, but this also turned out to be an empty promise.
“This Government simply can’t be trusted. As usual there are so many unanswered questions and falsehoods in today’s empty promise.
[Bob] Brown says that “Liberal Senator Duniam’s admission on ABC radio this morning that former Forestry Minister Eric Abetz’ 2006 managed investment schemes to promote plantation forestry ‘had terrible outcomes’ underscores what a debacle the continued diversion of taxpayers’ funds into private enterprise forestry has been for both major parties. While thousands of hectares of the plantations failed and have been bulldozed in recent years, logging provides less than one percent of Tasmania’s jobs. The Liberals are tied into the logging corporations against the public interest. Far from ‘capitalism can do’ is a clear case of capitalism failing and ongoing government subsidies intervention being a big loser for the average taxpayer.”
“If the last lot of managed Investment Scheme plantations failed because they were planted in the wrong place without adequate rainfall and subject to weeds and invasive species, why will this lot be any different?”
https://www.miragenews.com/morrison-cant-see-forest-for-trees-728522/
Victoria weakens logging laws:
The Victorian Government is proposing weakening its logging laws, which will have the effect of undermining current legal challenges.
The Andrews government has published draft changes to logging standards that regulate VicForests’ operations.
It says the changes are intended to make the code clearer but environmental advocates are concerned the proposal could affect legal challenges to VicForests’ operations that are being heard by the supreme court.
Commercial “huts” on Tasmanian walking track opposed.
In Tasmania traditional owners have come out against another series of proposed commercial huts along the South Coast Track and at South East Cape.
ASX-listed Experience Co, which recently purchased the Maria Island Walk, wants to continue with long-mooted plans to develop the walks along the South Coast Track and at South East Cape.
The $6m proposal to build six walking huts along the South Coast has attracted $3m in federal government funding and the support of the state government through the controversial expressions of interest process.
But Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre campaign manager Nala Mansell said the community didn’t want the walk to go ahead.
“The South Coast is not somewhere we support private huts, service helicopters and a new level of commercialisation that leads to exploitation and ultimately, the degradation of values. “If asked by Experience Co. we would make this clear, as was the case with Lake Malbena’’.
Micro forests all the rage:
Sydney’s Inner West Council will trial ‘micro forests’ as part of a $2 million commitment for new tree planting in the next council budget, despite opposition from Greens and Independent councillors who wanted the “Tree Development Control Plan (DCP)” strengthened.
A micro forest, which was originally founded by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki, acts as a mini-ecosystem located in a city or in suburbs, containing shrubbery, trees, groundcover and canopy. The density of the vegetation helps to directly cool the surrounding environment, and also helps to increase biodiversity and reduce carbon emissions.
Urban planting benefits variable:
A study found the beneficial effects of urban plantings at reducing temperatures is related to high levels of soil moisture and thus evaporative cooling, while the benefits of reducing flooding is related to low levels of soil moisture, thus making urban plantings of variable benefit depending on climate.
But our latest research shows that, for most cities worldwide, urban greening can either subdue floods or mitigate heat. It generally cannot do both in one city.
Temperatures in cities are often several degrees higher than rural areas, due to the “urban heat island” effect, where the predominance of concrete and steel absorb and retain heat, and there is a lack of cooling by water evaporating from plants.
These same heat-intensifying features are also often responsible for flash flooding in cities, as sealed surfaces can’t act like a sponge to soak up and store rain, unlike the soil they’ve replaced.
Our results, published in the journal Nature Communications, show the greatest cooling potential occurs where abundant rainwater is available for plants to transpire (release water vapour during photosynthesis). …
In contrast, the greatest potential for water retention by soils, which is crucial for flood prevention, occurs in drier areas where there’s plenty of energy from sunshine, but rainfall is more limited. …
Melbourne, for example, can endure urban heat island-induced temperature increases of 3℃. City greening initiatives are an important way to mitigate this heat.
On the other hand, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane are “water-limited”, which means urban greening is ineffective at reducing the urban heat island effect. However, because much of Australia has a relatively dry climate which is good for water retention, large-scale urban greening initiatives can help reduce flash flooding in these cities.
Urban greening also has other positive benefits – it provides habitat, filters air and has demonstrable effects on people’s well-being.
SPECIES
Bird songs number 2 on ARIA charts:
The compilation of Australian bird calls titled Songs of Disappearance made it to number 2 on the ARIA charts, and is now being published in America.
Magpies doomed by climate heating:
In Western Australia, researchers found that very hot weather is affecting Magpie's ability to survive, reproduce and raise their chicks, suffering cognitive decline when the temperature reaches around 32 to 33 C, with heat stress hindering their ability to forage for food and feed their babies no young survived the 2019/20 heatwave.
"I think it is probably quite a solid representation of what's happening to a lot of bird species," she said.
Dr Ridley added that providing water for the magpies in hot weather is one way to help the birds.
Revisiting Koala protection on private lands:
The ABC has an interview with the Liberal MP Catherine Cusack who crossed the floor in 2020 to stop the coalition’s disastrous koala kill bill proceeding, she welcomes the increased Commonwealth funding but says the state government has fallen behind on its previous commitments to protect koalas, especially on rural zoned land.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/northcoast/programs/breakfast/endangered-koalas-/13758636
Koalas have made it onto the second Ballina Shire Council meeting agenda for 2022, with new Greens Councillor Simon Chate calling for their habitat to become an immediate priority.
Victoria’s Koalas also have problems:
While Victorian Koalas are thriving in some places, so well that they are eating themselves out of food and starving, in others they are struggling.
Today, there is little genetic diversity among most of the state's koalas, because they were reintroduced from a few surviving populations.
Koala overabundance is never good, it wreaks havoc on forests, and causes populations to plummet.
"Cape Otway is a good example of where there were too many … and that population crashed, but has since been building back up again," Dr Whisson said.
Unfortunately, koalas from Victoria's overabundant populations could not be rehomed in the areas where koalas have been declared endangered.
"Our koalas aren't well suited to those hotter temperatures that you get in NSW and Queensland," Dr Whisson said.
Dr Whisson said koala populations around Ballarat, and some places in Gippsland, were struggling.
… creating new improved Koalas:
Despite concerns, 4 young male Koalas have been taken from a remnant Koala population in Gippsland’s Strzelecki Ranges to mate with inbred koalas from Kangaroo Island in an effort to create a new race of genetically enhanced Koalas.
The program has been criticised by some leading researchers in the field including specialist koala ecologist Steve Phillips who said the program was unethical with too many unknowns.
"Young male koalas are not tested, they're full of testosterone, they have little regard for the females they're potentially going to be mating with," Dr Phillips said.
"Essentially it will be a forced love feast. The females will have no other option because they won't be able to escape. For the female koalas it's not a very pleasant experience at all.
"Taking just 2–3 per cent of a species could trigger a population decline, and we don't know officially how many Strzelecki koalas are left in that region."
… a new strategy:
The Victorian government has announced a new strategy for southern koala populations, updating the 2004 strategy.
Estimates from the first state-wide koala abundance model, developed by the Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research, estimates that Victoria's koala population stands at 460,000. Around 413,000 koalas inhabit native forests and woodlands and a further 47,000 koalas in eucalypt plantations.
https://www.flownews24.com.au/post/concerns-about-koala-future-in-nsw-victoria
Emergency triage of Koalas increasing:
Australia Zoo have completed their Koala Intensive Care Unit.
https://www.nowtolove.com.au/celebrity/celeb-news/robert-irwin-koalas-steve-birthday-71161
Ampcontrol has donated diagnostic laboratory equipment to Port Stephens Koala Hospital allowing diagnosing of dehydration, kidney failure and chlamydia in under 30 minutes.
More backlash over Koalas:
Federal Member for Paterson, Meryl Swanson has expressed her anger at the Morrison Government’s recent koala announcement describing it as a shameful grab for votes.
“As I said in Parliament this week, if the Morrison Government was serious about saving koalas in Port Stephens it would stump up the money and stop land clearing,” Ms Swanson said.
The Taree koala rescue organisation Koalas in Care has expressed scepticism over the recent federal Koala announcements, while their group focuses on tree planting. Meanwhile, as they cut down feed trees, the Forestry Corporation are claiming credit for controlled burning of Koala habitat.
This can largely be attributed to how many koalas we have in our area - experts say that the Manning Valley has one of the highest recorded densities of koalas in NSW, particularly in the Tinonee/Mondrook/Bootawa area, which forms part of the Kiwarrak ARKS (Area of Regional Koala Significance).
Hunter Local Land Services (HLLS) is also working in the Kiwarrak ARKS to conserve the koala population, with two partnerships, the first with MidCoast Council, and the second with the Forestry Corporation, while also working with the public.
In partnership with forestry HLLS is conducting low intensity burns in State forests to manage fuel loads, and doing acoustic monitoring of koalas in the Kiwarrak ARKS.
https://www.manningrivertimes.com.au/story/7630821/mixed-news-for-mannings-koalas/
Lendlease fail to implement Koala plan despite commencing development:
Sydney property developer Lendlease have been criticised by environment group for beginning work in Koala habitat for their housing estate at Mount Gilead near Campbelltown without first implementing the required Koala corridors, koala proof fencing and two underpasses beneath the road, while they seek to increase the density of their development.
Despite putting forward a detailed koala conservation plan for Mount Gilead that included koala proof fencing and two underpasses beneath the road, last year Lendlease began work on stage 1 without any underpasses or corridors being built.
And while construction has begun on the land that is koala habitat, Lendlease has not yet started any koala tunnels or the corridor. This leaves the koalas exposed to risk.
Mr Dee claims that in December koalas were found dead on the road “right next to the construction site”.
“They have stopped engaging with us,” he said. “They’ve added a new road to the map that wasn’t on any maps beforehand. They’ve gone back and asked for denser development and more commercial, which means more vehicles.
“They are chopping down 300 year old, completely healthy trees and claiming they are not healthy. They are replacing them with seedlings and claiming there will be no loss of habitat. You can’t compare a 300 year old tree with a young sapling.
Halting the swift decline in parrots:
Swift parrots are rapidly declining towards extinction, with estimates that as few as 750 swift parrots are left in the wild, a reduction from about 2,000 a decade ago. the main threat to the parrot is the loss of breeding and foraging habitat — with a new plan recommending that 60,000 hectares of Tasmanian blue and black gum forests on public lands be protected and timber quotas reduced. We also need to protect the mature flowering eucalypts they need for winter feed in NSW’s forests.
Swift parrots nest in hollows in mature eucalypt trees, which can take between 100 and 140 years to form.
"Existing policies surrounding swift parrot conservation in Tasmania are woefully inadequate," Dr Sanger said.
"We're losing significant amounts of swift parrot habitat every year to logging."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-22/swift-parrot-forestry-extinction-tasmania/100849384
Artificial homes an artful distraction:
As we destroy species homes and habitats, hi-tech replacements are becoming more common, though they can be problematic and a distraction from bigger problems, such as nest boxes distracting from the widespread loss of hollow-bearing trees.
But artificial habitats are not a silver bullet. Some can harm animals, and they can be used by developers to distract from the damage their projects cause.
In some instances, artificial habitats may be detrimental to an animal’s health. For example, they may get too hot or be placed in areas with little food or lots of predators.
And artificial habitats can become ineffective if not monitored and maintained.
Artificial habitat structures can also be used to greenwash environmentally destructive projects, or to distract from taking serious action on climate change and habitat loss.
Further, artificial habitat structures are often only feasible at small scales, and can be expensive to build, deploy and maintain.
Brumby lovers go feral:
4Corners has an insightful program on the ugly divide cutting through the country towns around the snowy mountains as to whether horses in national parks should be protected as a national icon or eliminated as feral pests destroying precious alpine environments. The brumby lovers emerge as environmental terrorists victimising those seeking horse control.
https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/feral/13763806
Despite clear, consistent and peer-reviewed evidence, a formidable opposition has for years used its political clout to effectively prevent any significant reduction in Kosciuszko's horse numbers.
They dispute evidence of environmental damage, reject census counts that show the horse population is surging, and attack experts as "liars" and "corrupt". They also oppose a government plan to remove more than 11,000 horses from Kosciuszko because they claim there are only 3,000 horses in the park, a fraction of the official estimate of 14,000.
Advocates of horse removal are subjected to vicious online abuse, vandalism and even death threats, and aggressive behaviour towards National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) staff has led the service to upgrade security and offer counselling to its staff.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Methane emissions grossly understated:
The IEA have identified that global methane emissions, one of the most dangerous greenhouse gasses, from the energy sector are about 70% greater than the amount national governments have officially reported.
Global methane emissions from the energy sector are about 70% greater than the amount national governments have officially reported, according to new IEA analysis released today, underlining the urgent need for enhanced monitoring efforts and stronger policy action to drive down emissions of the potent greenhouse gas.
Methane is responsible for around 30% of the rise in global temperatures since the Industrial Revolution, and quick and sustained emission reductions are key to limiting near-term warming and improving air quality. Methane dissipates faster than carbon dioxide (CO2) but is a much more powerful greenhouse gas during its short lifespan, meaning that cutting methane emissions would have a rapid effect on limiting global warming.
The energy sector accounts for around 40% of methane emissions from human activity, and this year’s expanded edition of the IEA’s Global Methane Tracker includes country-by-country emissions from coal mines and bioenergy for the first time
Australian coal, oil and gas projects emitting more greenhouse gases than approved:
ACF research found 1 in 5 of Australia’s major coal, oil and gas projects are emitting more greenhouse gases than estimated at the time of their environmental approval, with Whitehaven Coal's mines in New South Wales emitting 2.5 - 4.5 times the greenhouse gases estimated when they were approved.
Research by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and undergraduate students from the Australian National University (ANU) reveals one in five of those coal, oil and gas projects is polluting significantly more than estimated.
Some of the worst offenders have emitted 20 times more than estimated, indicating the Morrison government’s safeguard mechanism, in its current state, is not working.
Chevron came out as the biggest over-emitter with the company’s WA Gorgon gas project releasing 16 million tonnes more climate pollution than the company said it would during the approval phase.
Whitehaven was another major over-polluter with its Maules Creek coal mine emitting three to four times more than estimated and its Narrabri coal mine emitting twice as much as estimated.
https://www.acf.org.au/emissions-blowouts-rampant-in-australia
As climate and environments change fires increase and some species become unsynchronized:
UNEP has released Frontiers report: Noise, Blazes and Mismatches? that considers the worldwide increases in wildfires and the effects. Fuelled by vegetation degradation, invasive species and climate heating from 2002 to 2016, approximately 423 million hectares of the Earth’s land surface burned annually, the majority (67%) on the African continent. And natural cycles of plants and animals are triggered by a multitude of environmental cues, the effects of climate heating means that the life cycles of many interdependent species are becoming increasingly mismatched resulting in increasing ecosystem imbalance and threats to species, particularly in temperate and polar regions of the world.
The chapter titled Wildfires Under Climate Change: A Burning Issue discusses the role of climate change and human influence in the changing wildfire regimes around the world, the impacts of wildfires on the environment and human health, and the measures that can help to prevent, respond and build resilience to wildfires.
The chapter titled Phenology: Climate Change Is Shifting the Rhythm of Nature looks at how climate change is disrupting the life cycle patterns of plant and animal species, its consequences, and the need to address this issue by restoring ecological connectivity and biological diversity and most importantly, reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
https://www.unep.org/resources/frontiers-2022-noise-blazes-and-mismatches
UNEP have also released ‘Spreading like Wildfire: The Rising Threat of Extraordinary Landscape Fires’ that finds that climate change and land-use change are making wildfires worse and anticipates a global increase of extreme fires of up to 14 per cent by 2030, 30 per cent by the end of 2050 and 50 per cent by the end of the century, also impacting areas previously unaffected.
Wildfires and climate change are mutually exacerbating. Wildfires are made worse by climate change through increased drought, high air temperatures, low relative humidity, lightning, and strong winds resulting in hotter, drier, and longer fire seasons. At the same time, climate change is made worse by wildfires, mostly by ravaging sensitive and carbon-rich ecosystems like peatlands and rainforests. This turns landscapes into tinderboxes, making it harder to halt rising temperatures.
Wildlife and its natural habitats are rarely spared from wildfires, pushing some animal and plant species closer to extinction. A recent example is the Australian 2020 bushfires, which are estimated to have wiped out billions of domesticated and wild animals.
The restoration of ecosystems is an important avenue to mitigate the risk of wildfires before they occur and to build back better in their aftermath. Wetlands restoration and the reintroduction of species such as beavers, peatlands restoration, building at a distance from vegetation and preserving open space buffers are some examples of the essential investments into prevention, preparedness and recovery.
https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/number-wildfires-rise-50-2100-and-governments-are-not-prepared
https://www.unep.org/resources/report/spreading-wildfire-rising-threat-extraordinary-landscape-fires
https://thesaxon.org/the-planet-is-on-fire-on-earth-the-number-of-forest-fires-will-increase-by-50-many-species-will-become-extinct/
Forest fires increase streamflows:
An American study found that runoff from forested catchments where more than 20% burnt increased streamflows by an average of 30% for 6 years, increasing erosion, flooding and risk of landslides.
In basins where over 20% of the forest had burned, streamflow was 30% greater than expected based on climate conditions, on average, for an average of six years.
Park Williams, a UCLA associate professor of geography and the study's lead author, said forest fires enhance streamflow because they burn away vegetation that would otherwise draw water from soil and block precipitation before it ever reached the soil. Intense forest fires can also "cook" soils, making them temporarily water repellent.
But other outcomes could be troubling. For example, in the coming decades, too much water could overwhelm reservoirs and other infrastructure, and could increase the risk for catastrophic flooding and landslides in and around burn areas.
Water after a forest fire also tends to be heavily polluted, carrying mud, debris and large sediment loads. So even if the quantity of available water increases after a large fire, it's likely that water quality will worsen.
https://phys.org/news/2022-02-forest-increasingly-affecting-rivers-streams.html
Its getting wetter where its wetter and drier where its drier:
A global study found that climate heating has already intensified the water cycle, with up to 7% more rain in wetter areas and 7% less rain (or more evaporation) in dryer areas.
Climate change is shifting where the water cycle deposits water on land, with drier areas becoming drier still, and wet areas becoming even wetter.
Our research published today in Nature has found the water cycle is changing faster than we had thought, based on changes in our oceans.
What might this look like? Weather, intensified. In relatively dry areas, more intense droughts, more often. In relative wet areas, more extreme storms and flooding.
Think of the megadrought afflicting America’s west, of the unprecedented floods in Germany, or of the increase in severe rainfall seen in cities like Mumbai.
What did we find in our new study? The fresh water equivalent of 123 times the waters of Sydney Harbour have shifted from the tropics to the cooler areas since 1970. That’s an estimated 46,000 to 77,000 cubic kilometres of water.
This is consistent with an intensification of the water cycle of up to 7%. That means up to 7% more rain in wetter areas and 7% less rain (or more evaporation) in dryer areas.
Unfortunately, these findings suggest potentially disastrous changes to the water cycle may be approaching faster than previously thought.
Some people and ecosystems will be hit harder than others, as the IPCC report last year made clear. For example, Mediterranean nations, south-west and south-east Australia, and central America will all become drier, while monsoon regions and the poles will become wetter (or snowier).
Forest at tipping point:
During a heatwave it got too hot for a Tasmanian messmate forest and it began transpiring heavily and emitting CO2 - as the world heats forest’s tolerances will be exceeded more frequently and they could be converted into carbon sources as they collapse. Whether its drought or excessive heat, dead and dying trees are becoming increasingly common around Australia.
I monitored what happened to a messmate stringybark (Eucalyptus obliqua) forest during a three week heatwave in November 2017. Under these conditions, the forest became a net source of carbon dioxide, with each hectare releasing close to 10 tonnes of the greenhouse gas over that period.
A year earlier during more normal conditions, the forest was a net sink for carbon dioxide, taking in around 3.5 tonnes per hectare.
So what actually happened in the forest during the hot spell? Two crucial things.
The first was that the forest breathed out more carbon dioxide. This was expected, because living cells in all air-breathing lifeforms (yes, this includes trees) respire more as temperatures warm.
But the second was very unexpected. The forest’s ability to photosynthesise fell, meaning less solar energy was converted to sugars. This took place while the trees were transpiring (releasing water vapour) rapidly.
During the 2017 heatwave, the temperatures soared well outside the forest’s comfort zone. In the hottest part of the day, the forest was no longer able to make enough food to feed itself.
But as the world warms, these forests will be pushed outside their comfort zones more and more. They can only endure so many of these kinds of heatwaves. If they keep coming, there will be a tipping point beyond which the forest can no longer recover.
Beware of IKEA’s oldgrowth chairs:
New Republic has an in-depth article about Romania’s fast disappearing oldgrowth forests by illegal logging (including in protected areas), frequent violence against people investigating, involvement of IKEA and connivance of the FSC.
As is often the case in trades dominated by illegality, violence is never far behind, and around the time of Ikea’s purchases, a wave of high-profile, logging-related attacks commenced. In 2015, Romanian environmentalist Gabriel Paun was beaten unconscious by loggers in an ambush caught on camera; he eventually fled the country and has spent years living in hiding. Doina Pana, the former minister of waters and forests, announced that she had been poisoned with mercury in 2017 after attempting to crack down on illegal logging. In late 2019, two forest rangers, Raducu Gorcioaia and Liviu Pop, were murdered in separate attacks in the span of just a handful of weeks.
… All told, at least six patrolmen have been killed in recent years; in another 650 registered incidents, people have been beaten, shot at, or otherwise attacked in relation to illegal logging.
Though it’s known that more than half of the country’s timber, on average, is extracted without permission, only 1 percent of that illegal wood gets officially tallied.
That reality is critical for the furniture industry, which is forecast to grow from $564 billion in 2020 to $850 billion by 2025. It’s especially important for Ikea, which is not only the largest furniture company in the world, but the largest buyer and retailer of wood. Having doubled its consumption in the last 10 years, it now devours 1 percent of the world’s timber annually, with a particular regional reliance on Romania and its surrounds. …
… In 2020, the Romanian factory Plimob was caught out for using illegal timber in its chairs; it sports the blue and gold on its gate, visible even on Google street view. Plimob sells 98 percent of its goods to Ikea.
…found that illegal beechwood from Ukraine, harvested by the wood processing firm VGSM, was being used in the production of Ikea chairs manufactured by Plimob as well as shipped to Ikea directly. … Egger, another Romanian supplier of Ikea, has also gotten busted for importing illegal timber. …followed a truck full of illegal timber to a log yard that supplies Kronospan, an Ikea supplier … In one infamous 2015 case, FSC-certified HS Timber (then called Schweighofer), Romania’s foremost spruce processor, was caught on hidden camera pledging not only to buy illegal timber, but to pay a bonus for it. …
TURNING IT AROUND
Net zero will quickly stabilise temperatures:
Scientists claim that we can stop temperature rises within a few years once we reach net zero due to the clear relationship between atmospheric carbon and temperatures, though there would still be some environmental changes and feedback loops locked in.
[CCNow co-founder and executive director Mark Hertsgaard] “The psychology is that we can stop the temperature rise within three years once we zero out emissions, so that means we’re not necessarily doomed after all,” he said. “Yes, there’s a lot of stuff still locked in,” and there’s still a lot of work to do. “But if we lower emissions quickly, we can get there. We can avoid the worst.”
That shift in psychology makes it more obvious to more people that it’s worthwhile to march, vote, and organize for change, and “then the policies you can pursue become different,” he said. For practitioners of solutions journalism, “this is not cheerleading or optimism or saying ‘go do it’ and campaigning. It’s telling the whole story. It’s reporting on the problem, but also on what the solution is.”
Italy adds the environment to its constitution:
In a historic vote on the rights of nature, the Italian parliament approved a law that means as part of its constitution the state must safeguard ecosystems and biodiversity “in the interest of future generations.”
The changes to the constitution also mean that health and the environment must be protected by the economy. The new law states that private industry can no longer impact the climate. The protection of animals has been recognised too.
The inclusion of the environment and animals in the Italian constitution has been hailed as significant for the country’s future by both politicians and activists.
“I think it is an epochal day,” Minister of Ecological Transition, Roberto Cingolani said in a statement.
Forest Media 18 February 2022
Last year the NSW parliamentary inquiry into ‘Sustainability of energy supply and resources in New South Wales’ found the burning of forest biomass for power generation is “not economically or environmentally sustainable, and it generates significant carbon emissions”, recommending “the government takes steps to declassify forest biomass as a form of renewable energy and ensure it's not eligible for renewable energy credits”. On Monday the NSW Government rejected the committee’s recommendations on the grounds that they think its fine to burn native forests as long as some sawlogs are also removed.
An e-petition has been launched which calls for end to public native forest logging in NSW – please sign and promote it https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/la/pages/epetition-details.aspx?q=quge-8rdRlyn4PTcuMj_PA. A petition has also been launched opposing ongoing logging of the burnt Brooman State Forest on the south coast.
The recently released NSW State of the Environment 2021 paints a grim picture of our deteriorating environment with the ecological carrying capacity of the 69% of remaining vegetation reduced by 69%, permanent landclearing has tripled since 2015 to an average of 35,000 ha each year, and NSW listed threatened species have increased by 18 in three years to 1,043, with 78 now extinct and 116 critically endangered. Logging has been removed from the landclearing statistics because it is “temporary vegetation change”, and otherwise is not mentioned in the report.
Amidst much controversy, late last year the Hawkesbury Council resolved to carry out research and seek expert advice before opting into the Rural Boundary Clearing Code that could potentially see up to 15,800 hectares cleared, including koala habitat and other vulnerable ecological communities. The new Liberal dominated Council quickly moved to rescind that decision and opt into the code.
In November 2021 the Government declared that 30,000 hectares of the Gardens of Stone north of Lithgow would become a state conservation area, replete with a plethora of new recreational facilities. Now that it’s evident that mining will be allowed to proceed uninterrupted, and the plans for Australia's longest zip-line, a rock-climbing route, canyon walk, 4WD circuit and mountain bike trails are being finalised, conservation and Aboriginal groups are dismayed.
The Australian Farmers’ Fighting Fund will back federal Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor’s company Jam Land Pty Ltd to help it fight a Commonwealth ruling that found it destroyed endangered grasslands by spraying herbicide in southern NSW.
The Bob Brown Foundation has established a blockade in Tasmania’s Central Highlands, with three arrests so far. Between May and July 2021 71 protesters were arrested in takayna/Tarkine, today 38 charged with trespass while on a public road had their charges dropped on the grounds that it was Forestry Tasmania who acted unlawfully by closing a public road.
The ABC has a potted history of the Western Australian forest campaign from the Bunbury bombing to last year’s bombshell that logging of public native forests would stop. An agreement has been reached between the Western Australia Government and the Australian Workers Union on a range of financial support programs for native forestry workers to assist them to transition to a new industry as part of the $50 million Just Transition Plan.
Unable to get its subversion of the EPBC Act through parliament, the Morrison Government is now trialling the adoption of Regional Plans, akin to the Regional Forest Agreements, as a means of absolving itself of environmental responsibility.
Researchers used pollen from wetland sediments to identify the relative make-up of vegetation pre and post European settlement, using an estimated average 12% increase in shrubiness to argue that it is due to the cessation of Aboriginal burning practices. Given 200 years of other changes to vegetation through clearing, logging and grazing, and climate through clearing and heating, I think it is a simplistic interpretation. With rainforests and plantations burning, and alpine forests being burnt too frequently to enable them to regenerate, as well as cultural burning, people are proposing all sorts of environmental interventions such as replanting with genetically selected species from elsewhere, thinning for biomass, and grazing to remove understories. It is a brave new world when our genetic manipulation extends to species and ecosystems as we attempt to reconstruct forests (and reefs) into new systems able to cope with the climate we are creating. Meanwhile they persist with spending millions planting tiny seedlings as environmental actions, while they turn a blind eye to the millions of mature trees cleared and logged. After creating successful micro forests in Canberra’s Downer and Watson, Edwina Robinson has shifted her focus to Eurobodalla.
A furore has erupted over the Queensland government plans to allow a private company to construct 10 luxury cabins – complete with flushing toilets – in sensitive forest overlooking a perched lake as part of the Queensland government’s Cooloola Great Walk ecotourism project. And on the NSW south coast opposition to cabins in Ben Boyd National Park continues.
Reactions to the Koala’s listing as Endangered were widespread, with the general reaction being it was an avoidable outcome if we had of actually protected their habitat, and will the listing make any difference, while some see it as an opportunity to round up the survivors for breeding. Bushfire donations are helping fund construction of the RSPCA Koala Ward in a $2.55 million veterinary facility at Werribee Open Range Zoo. Central Coast was once a Koala hotspot, with more surveys needed to determine their current status. Environmentalists across the Mid North Coast are asking for bipartisan support for the Great Koala Protected Area Bill (2021), when it comes before the NSW Parliament. The Clarence Valley Environment Centre hired a scat dog to find Koalas and were delighted with the results. Griffith University will soon be asking citizen scientists to collect koala scats to build a long-term DNA dataset. North Coast Local Land Services is inviting expressions of interest from landholders keen to protect key koala habitat on their properties in the North Macleay-Nambucca Area of Regional Koala Significance.
The Endangered Bramble Cay melomys was simply monitored into extinction with no action to protect it as rising seas overwhelmed its small sandy cay, a victim of climate heating and neglect. Birdlife Australia are seeking volunteer citizen scientists to collect data on the South-eastern Glossy Black-Cockatoo and their feed trees on Saturday March 26.
The American west has been plagued by a 22-year megadrought that deepened so much last year that it is now the driest in at least 1,200 years and is a worst-case climate change scenario, except that the worst case is worsening. Researchers found that common, ground-level air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (found in diesel exhaust fumes) and ozone react with floral scents to reduce flower visits by 90% and pollination by a third, principally by bees, flies, moths and butterflies.
A study recommends letting rainforests recover naturally, and only using planting where necessary, pointing out that over half of the world’s tropical forests are naturally regenerating forests, of which a large part is secondary forest. New Guinea is home to the third-largest tract of tropical rainforest in the world, of which 80% is still intact. Mongabay have released its third podcast on the values of New Guinea’s rainforests and threats being faced, with the latest one focussing on birds of paradise and ecotourism potential.
In his weekly roundup, Peter Sainsbury focuses on environmental accountancy; the rorting of token carbon offsets, whether Australian Carbon Credit Units are effectively a tax, subsidies to coal-fired power stations, and the creation of a market for natural assets on the New York Stock Exchange in the interests of capitalism.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Government rules out ruling out burning forests:
Last year the NSW parliamentary inquiry into ‘Sustainability of energy supply and resources in New South Wales’ found the burning of forest biomass for power generation is “not economically or environmentally sustainable, and it generates significant carbon emissions”, recommending “the government takes steps to declassify forest biomass as a form of renewable energy and ensure it's not eligible for renewable energy credits”. On Monday the NSW Government rejected the committee’s recommendations on the grounds that they think its fine to burn native forests as long as some sawlogs are also removed.
Contrary to the Government’s claims of moving to net zero carbon and doubling Koala populations, burning native forests for electricity puts us and Koalas on an extinction trajectory, said North East Forest Alliance spokesperson Dailan Pugh.
“This opens up north-east NSWs forests, one of the world’s centres of both species diversity and endemism, for woodchipping on the scale of the Eden forests, where over 90% of the trees are logged for woodchips” Mr. Pugh said.
“This is particularly distressing as several companies are currently vying to use our native forests to replace coal for generating electricity”, said North Coast Environment Council spokesperson Susie Russell.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/02/trees-to-replace-coal-for-energy-under-guise-of-sustainability/
Time to stop logging NSW’s public forests:
An e-petition has been launched which calls for end to public native forest logging in NSW – please sign it and promote it https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/la/pages/epetition-details.aspx?q=quge-8rdRlyn4PTcuMj_PA
Petitioning burnt forests:
A petition has been launched opposing ongoing logging of the burnt Brooman State Forest on the south coast.
The Brooman State Forest Conservation Group (BSFCG) has launched a petition to end the logging of almost 2000 hectares of forest south of Ulladulla, which was devastated by the 2019/20 Black Summer bushfires.
The continued logging of forests has sparked outrage from residents after a Natural Resources Commission (NRC) report was leaked last year and deemed logging in the Batemans Bay and Ulladulla area "high-risk".
[Takesa Frank] "But we've watched our home be destroyed by the fires, and now we're watching it get destroyed again because of the logging.
A spokesperson from FCNSW said additional environmental safeguards have been implemented for fire-affected South Coast logging areas.
"These additional safeguards include carrying out extra flora and fauna ecology and soil surveys, retaining greater numbers of habitat trees and establishing larger buffers on environmental protection zones," the spokesperson said in a statement to the South Coast Register.
State of our deteriorating environment:
The recently released NSW State of the Environment 2021 paints a grim picture of our deteriorating environment with the ecological carrying capacity of the 69% of remaining vegetation reduced by 69%, permanent landclearing has tripled since 2015 to an average of 35,000 ha each year, and NSW listed threatened species have increased by 18 in three years to 1,043, with 78 extinct and 116 critically endangered. Logging has been removed from the landclearing statistics because it is “temporary vegetation change”, and otherwise is not mentioned in the report.
The NSW population has continued to increase at an annual average growth rate of 1.4% between 2015 and 2020. The growth in population and the economy described in the theme leads to the consumption of energy, water and land resources and the generation of waste.
Greenhouse gas emissions in NSW were 136.6 million tonnes of CO2-e in 2019, representing 26% of Australia's total emissions. After peaking in 2007, greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 in NSW were 17% lower than in 2005.
- While native vegetation covers 69% of NSW, the ecological carrying capacity of this vegetation is estimated at just 31% of natural levels in the aftermath of the 2019–20 Black Summer fires.
- Since 2018, more than 300,000 hectares have been added to the public reserve system, which now covers around 9.6% of land in NSW.
- In contrast, permanent clearing of native woody vegetation in NSW has increased about three-fold since 2015 and stands at an average of 35,000 ha cleared each year. Permanent clearing of non-woody vegetation, such as native shrubs and ground covers, occurs at an even higher rate.
- Soil resources in NSW are generally in a moderate condition. Ongoing declines are mainly due to acidification caused by intensified land use, with the added recent hazard of wind erosion levels which has increased four-fold over the past three years due to prevailing weather conditions.
- The Black Summer fire season was the most severe ever recorded in NSW with about 5.5 million hectares burnt. It is estimated more than a billion animals were killed, burnt or displaced in NSW. Where fire history is available, an estimated 62% of vegetation is now under pressure from too much fire
The number of species considered at risk of extinction continues to rise with 1,043 NSW species listed as threatened, 18 more than reported three years ago. A further 116 ecological communities are also listed as threatened.
78 species are extinct in NSW (2020 data)
116 critically endangered species were listed in NSW as at 2020 and face an extremely high risk of extinction in Australia in the immediate future
Freshwater fish communities are in very poor condition across the state and are declining.
https://www.soe.epa.nsw.gov.au/
Hawkesbury approves boundary clearing:
Amidst much controversy, late last year the Hawkesbury Council resolved to carry out research and seek expert advice before opting into the Rural Boundary Clearing Code (RBCC) that could potentially see up to 15,800 hectares cleared, including koala habitat and other vulnerable ecological communities. The new Liberal dominated Council quickly moved to rescind that decision and opt into the code.
Joy over Gardens of Stone sours:
In November 2021 the Government declared that 30,000 hectares of the Gardens of Stone north of Lithgow would become a state conservation area, replete with a plethora of new recreational facilities. Now that its evident that mining will be allowed to proceed uninterrupted, and the plans for Australia's longest zip-line, a rock-climbing route, canyon walk, 4WD circuit and mountain bike trails are being finalised, conservation and Aboriginal groups are dismayed.
Wiradjuri elder Aunty Helen Riley said she felt "sick" when she heard the announcement, and it makes her question if the NPWS can be trusted with the care of culturally significant places.
"It's more like a theme park and the Aboriginal Place should be handed back to the community," she said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-14/gardens-of-stone-state-conservation-area-slammed/100826716
Farmers support federal Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction challenge the finding he destroyed an Endangered Ecological Community:
The Australian Farmers’ Fighting Fund will back federal Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor’s company Jam Land Pty Ltd to help it fight a Commonwealth ruling that found it destroyed endangered grasslands by spraying herbicide in southern NSW.
AUSTRALIA
Return to the Central Highlands:
The Bob Brown Foundation has established a blockade in Tasmania’s Central Highlands, with three arrests so far. Between May and July 2021 71 protesters were arrested in takayna/Tarkine, today 38 charged with trespass while on a public road had their charges dropped on the grounds that it was Forestry Tasmania who acted unlawfully by closing a public road.
Wentworth Hills is an area of critical native forests in the Central Highlands region of Tasmania. This area contains tracts of old growth alpine eucalypt forest and patches of temperate rainforest, and is home to nine threatened fauna species including the Tasmanian devil, grey goshawk, spotted-tailed quoll and wedge-tailed eagle.
Today, a group of forest defenders from the Bob Brown Foundation have entered an active logging coupe, with one protester perched on a platform high up in the canopy. Her tree-sit platform is immobilising all the logging machinery present in the coupe.
“Last year, we held strong in this exact same logging coupe for a 10-day occupation whilst stopping work in a nearby area. Now, loggers have started work in this area and we are back to stand strong once again for these forests,” said Lisa Searle, Bob Brown Foundation Native Forests campaigner.
https://tasmaniantimes.com/2022/02/protesters-return-to-wentworth-hills-forests/
Western forests, from bombings to bombshells:
The ABC has a potted history of the Western Australian forest campaign from the Bunbury bombing to last year’s bombshell announcement that logging of public native forests would stop.
"We're going to stop logging in our native forests ... to preserve these beautiful, magnificent, wonderful areas for future generations of West Australians," WA Premier Mark McGowan said.
Jess Beckerling, convenor of the WA Forest Alliance, says the decision to end logging after a "very long fight" is the result of people joining forces.
"When groups of people come together, we can do extraordinary things," she says.
"It takes grit, courage and perseverance."
The bombing of the Bunbury woodchip terminal [in 1976] was regarded as one of the first examples of eco-terrorism in Australia.
"It had a very galvanising effect on those of us who were planning further forest campaigning to redouble our efforts to make sure that what we did was non-violent direct action."
"I've seen so many forests obliterated, so many birds lose their homes, nesting hollows crushed under logging machines," [Beckerling] says.
"And it's in this time of [logging] finally ending that the grief and that feeling of having failed those areas, all catches up with you."
Transitioning workers:
An agreement has been reached between the Western Australia Government and the Australian Workers Union on a range of financial support programs for native forestry workers to assist them to transition to a new industry as part of the $50 million Just Transition Plan. This means an eligible, long-term native forestry worker could receive a total Worker Transition Payment of up to $45,000, as well as various support payments.
Forestry Minister Dave Kelly "The decision to end the logging of native forests from 2024 is critical in the fight against climate change and will ensure we protect our beautiful South-West forests for future generations.
Regional Plans are the new RFAs:
Unable to get its subversion of the EPBC Act through parliament, the Morrison Government is now trialling the adoption of Regional Plans, akin to the Regional Forest Agreements, as a means of absolving itself of environmental responsibility.
“If it goes ahead, this pilot must be about real action to protect our wildlife and natural heritage, not an effort to lock in wholesale exemptions for destructive industries from community and environmental checks and balances, like we’ve seen with the disastrous Regional Forest Agreements,” Suzanne Milthorpe of the Wilderness Society said.
Reconstructing the past to identify European impacts:
Researchers used pollen from wetland sediments to identify the relative make-up of vegetation pre and post European settlement, using an average 12% increase in shrubiness to argue that it is due the cessation of Aboriginal burning practices. Given other changes to vegetation through clearing, logging and grazing, and climate through clearing and heating, that have occurred, I think it is a narrow interpretation.
We found grass and herb vegetation dominated the pre-colonial period, accounting for about half the vegetation across all sites. Trees and shrubs covered about 15% and 34% of the landscape, respectively.
After British invasion, shrubbiness in forests and woodlands in southeast Australia increased by up to 48% (with an average increase of 12%). Shrubs replaced grassy areas, while tree cover has remained stable overall.
Australia’s forests need fire, deployed by capable Indigenous hands. Without it, increased fuel loads, coupled with climate change, will create conditions for bushfires bigger and more ferocious than we’ve ever seen before.
Reconstructing forests to cope with our climate changes:
With rainforests and plantations burning, and alpine forests being burnt too frequently to enable them to regenerate, as well as cultural burning people are proposing all sorts of environmental interventions such as replanting with genetically selected species from elsewhere, thinning for biomass, and grazing to remove understories. It is a brave new world when our genetic manipulation extends to species and ecosystems as we attempt to reconstruct forests into new systems able to cope with the climate we are creating. Meanwhile they persist with spending millions planting tiny seedlings as environmental actions, while they turn a blind eye to the millions of mature trees cleared and logged.
Land managers are expressing serious concerns as to whether conventional replanting methods will be effective, and are discussing and testing alternative reforestation proposals. These include the selection of genetically superior seeds and a land management vision encouraging more fire-resistant novel ecosystems, native forests and plantations.
“With changes in fire frequency and fire severity — coupled with drought stress — we [now] need to question how resilient [Australia’s native] forests are, including the re-sprouters. We don’t really understand how much fire they can cope with,” said Rachael Nolan, lecturer in fire ecology and biogeosciences at the University of Western Sydney.
Severely drought-stressed trees exposed to the intense heat of today’s mega fires are seeing increased mortality rates, she explained …
But the Black Summer — along with increased fire frequency and intensification — have raised big questions about whether replanting alone is a viable strategy for mountain and alpine ash restoration. …
One initiative: using alpine ash “super seed” in post-fire restorations. That collaborative effort is being conducted by Greening Australia, a forest restoration NGO, and the Minderoo Foundation, …
OTP has committed to planting 25 million trees across Australia by 2025, working with Greening Australia on behalf of a reforestation program initiated by pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca (AZ). …
Similar land management approaches are currently being developed in fire-prone regions of Spain, such as Catalonia, where land managers are thinning forests for bioenergy, clearing dense undergrowth, and allowing livestock to graze in some areas to reduce fire risk and fuel loads, and create “green fire breaks.”
Constructing micro-forests:
After creating successful micro forests in Canberra’s Downer and Watson, Edwina Robinson has shifted her focus to Eurobodalla.
Inspired by wanting to address the hottest and driest year on record (2019) from a community level, Edwina started works on the Downer micro-forest in 2019 as part of her social initiative, the ‘Climate Factory’. The initial response suggested there was a strong demand within the community.
“I ran a crowd-funded campaign and raised a bit over $20,000, and the community in Downer also applied for a government grant so we had about $35,000 altogether,” Edwina said.
“So we built an 1800-plant micro-forest using the `Miyawaki’ method.”
Realising the interest she’d sparked, Edwina created a model for others to follow: “Eight Steps to Make a Community Micro-Forest”.
Privatising parks:
A furore has erupted over the Queensland government plans to allow a private company to construct 10 luxury cabins – complete with flushing toilets – in sensitive forest overlooking a perched lake as part of the Queensland government’s Cooloola Great Walk ecotourism project.
And on the NSW south coast opposition to cabins in Ben Boyd National Park continues.
"There should be no presumption that overnight facilities are required or appropriate in every national park setting - in many situations it is simply not possible to meet the requisite standards," Mr Dunnett said.
"A large part of the excessive scale can be attributed to the commercial model prompted by NPWS, which requires both physical separation of paying and self reliant campers and a high level of facilities for the clients of commercial operators."
SPECIES
More Koala reactions:
Reactions to the Koala’s listing as Endangered were widespread, with the general reaction being it was an avoidable outcome if we had of actually protected their habitat and will the listing make any difference, while some see it as an opportunity to round up the survivors for breeding.
One development, Pembroke’s Olive Downs coking coal mine near Moranbah in Queensland, was approved in 2020 for almost 6,000 hectares of clearing.
In July last year, the resources minister, Keith Pitt, announced that same project would receive a $175m loan from the government’s northern Australia infrastructure facility for its first stage.
It’s a sum worth considering next to the $50m the prime minister, Scott Morrison, announced for koala protection only two weeks ago.
Lisa Cox has a video explainer and a podcast
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/audio/2022/feb/17/can-australia-save-the-koala
However, Mr Lourens [Port Stephens Council] said council undertakes assessments under NSW legislation and does not have a role in referring development applications to the federal government under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
"The Australian and NSW Governments have a bilateral agreement that allows significant impacts on federally listed species to be offset under state legislation," he said.
State member for Port Stephens, Kate Washington says she’ll be raising the concerns in parliament but added the NSW Liberal government has “koala blood on its hands”.
“I’ll be bringing it to parliament as soon as I can. Essentially the NSW government needs to, and should have a long time ago, put in protections for koalas to reduce the land clearing. They relaxed the laws in 2016, which allowed more land clearing and nothing has changed since,” Washington said.
Birrbay and Dhanggati woman Gulwanyang Moran’s totem is the Koala, known in Gathang language as Guula.
Ms Moran said the survival of koalas is crucial for ‘Maa-Bularrbu’ – a Gathang word that acknowledges the "next seven again".
"Everything we do is for the next seven generations, we have them in mind always. It would make us incredibly sad if this is taken from our children's children's identities if Guula no longer exists,” she said.
Those who live in the country where the grey bum of a koala up a local tree was not a rare sight will know that most newcomers have never seen a koala in the wild. Koalas have fallen in the gaps between tree corridors, been squeezed into yards where dogs await, have been hit by cars and trains, have lost their habitats, suffered long unyielding droughts, and died unthinkable deaths amid the frenzy of bushfires.
But so much more needs to be done on a national level to save our national favourite. Habitat preservation, health and rehabilitation funding, a go-slow on urbanising our landscape - these are the things that will make a difference. They need to happen now,
https://www.northerndailyleader.com.au/story/7621633/facing-a-life-without-our-most-iconic-friends/
Environmentalists across the Mid North Coast are asking for bipartisan support for the Great Koala Protected Area Bill (2021), when it comes before the NSW Parliament.
Spokesperson for the Great Koala National Park (GKNP) Committee, Kevin Evans, said that evidence has been mounting for years to support the conservation status change.
He said the reasons for the dramatic decline of koalas are complex, but major factors are the significant weakening of land clearing laws in NSW in favour of development and big agriculture, unsustainable native forest logging, devastating bushfires and an absence of a national approach to koala conservation management.
Environmentalists across the Mid North Coast are asking for bipartisan support for the Great Koala Protected Area Bill (2021), when it comes before the NSW Parliament, to provide habitat protection to help save NSW koalas from extinction.
The Coast Environmental Alliance (CEA) has welcomed a Federal Government decision to upgrade the status of koalas from vulnerable to endangered but spokesperson Jake Cassar said the group was keen to see what actions followed on from the decision.
“Locally we have a proposed development at Kariong in an officially listed Area of Regional Koala Significance (ARKS). “This development would see thousands of healthy koala habitat trees felled for only around 50 houses.
“This package is a fantastic opportunity for local organisations like the Aussie Ark (conservation arm for the Australian Reptile Park) and Walkabout Wildlife Sanctuary to apply for funding so they can establish or continue projects which aim to conserve and restore koala habitats,” Wicks said.
Aussie Ark president and General Manager of The Australian Reptile Park, Tim Faulkner, said he was excited by the announcement [of the money].
Drones will be used, as part of Port Macquarie Koala Hospital's wild koala breeding program, to give a clearer picture of koala numbers across the local government area.
"That is going to give us more accurate numbers, we will be able to tell where there are koalas and we will be sourcing healthy koalas for the breeding program," Mrs Ashton said.
Bushfire donations are helping fund construction of the RSPCA Koala Ward in a $2.55 million veterinary facility at Werribee Open Range Zoo to treat sick and injured koalas and other native wildlife.
https://wyndham.starweekly.com.au/news/rspca-koala-ward-for-werribee-zoo/
Central Coast was once a Koala hotspot, with more surveys needed to determine their current status.
As recently as the 1990s, the koala populations in Brisbane Water National Park and around Pearl Beach were so significant they were considered the most important koala populations in NSW from the Victorian border all the way north to Port Stephens.
Since that time, a number of bushfires have devastated the koala habitats: first there was the early 1990s’ fire, which destroyed the Pearl Beach koala colony, followed by the widespread Black Summer fires of 2019–’20. Sightings are so rare now that it made the local news in 2020, when a single koala was seen crossing Patonga Drive near Pearl Beach.
It’s thought for an area to be sustainable for koalas, there needs to be between 100 and 400 suitable trees per koala. …
https://coastmagazine.com.au/featured/say-hello-to-the-koalas-on-the-coast/
Making poo count:
The Clarence Valley Environment Centre hired a scat dog to find Koalas and were delighted with the results.
Meanwhile, volunteer environmental organisation, Clarence Valley Environment Centre (CEC – established 1989), has released the results of a survey it commissioned, “to undertake koala scat detection [using a specifically trained] dog … in the Shannondale area, [in order] to assess koala presence/absence after the droughts, fires and floods”
Patricia Edwards, who is the coordinator of the Clarence Valley branch of the Land for Wildlife scheme for the Clarence Valley, said Max, a springer spaniel, “sniffed out 67 koala scat sites across the surveyed area, the majority with multiple scats showing a koala’s good use of each tree”.
Canines for Wildlife surveyed 26 hectares over six days, including the access road to Clarence Valley Council’s Shannon Creek Dam, covering 63.2km and focussing on habitat that wasn’t burnt during the 2019 bushfires.
Ms Edwards said that “CEC members, as well as involved residents, are elated with the end results”.
https://clarencevalleynews.com.au/max-sniffs-out-koala-habitat/
Griffith University will soon be asking citizen scientists to collect koala scats to build a long-term DNA dataset.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-16/griffith-university-research-wants-koala-poo/100830914
Assistance for protecting Koalas:
North Coast Local Land Services is inviting expressions of interest from landholders keen to protect key koala habitat on their properties in the North Macleay-Nambucca Area of Regional Koala Significance. Applications must be in by midnight 25 February.
Neglect and climate heating made the Bramble Cay melomys extinct:
The Endangered Bramble Cay melomys was simply monitored into extinction with no action to protect it as rising seas overwhelmed its small sandy cay, a victim of climate heating and neglect. It was once a common small native rodent that lived on a five-hectare sandy cay in the Torres Strait. By 1998 it was estimated that just 93 animals were left and it was listed as Endangered. It took 4 years to prepare a recovery plan as the population continued to decline, when the first "annual" count prescribed in the recovery plan was conducted 2014 it no longer existed.
https://www.northernriversreview.com.au/story/7624742/how-australia-failed-the-bramble-cay-melomys/
Great Glossy Count:
Birdlife Australia are seeking volunteer citizen scientists to collect data on the South-eastern Glossy Black-Cockatoo and their feed trees on Saturday March 26. Register to participate in the Great Glossy Count: https://bit.ly/GreatGlossyCount2022 Registrations close at midnight on March 16 2022, or when all citizen scientist positions are filled.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Megadrought a sign of the times:
The American west has been plagued by a 22-year megadrought that deepened so much last year that it is now the driest in at least 1,200 years and is a worst-case climate change scenario, except that the worst case is worsening.
“Climate change is changing the baseline conditions toward a drier, gradually drier state in the West and that means the worst-case scenario keeps getting worse,” said study lead author Park Williams, a climate hydrologist at UCLA.
“This is right in line with what people were thinking of in the 1900s as a worst-case scenario. But today I think we need to be even preparing for conditions in the future that are far worse than this.”
The Drought Monitor says 55% of the U.S. West is in drought, with 13% experiencing the two highest drought levels.
Williams said there is a direct link between drought and heat and the increased wildfires that have been devastating the West for years. Fires need dry fuel that drought and heat promote.
Eventually, this megadrought will end by sheer luck of a few good rainy years, Williams said. But then another one will start.
Pollution reduces pollination:
Researchers found that common, ground-level air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (found in diesel exhaust fumes) and ozone react with floral scents to reduce flower visits by 90% and pollination by a third, principally by bees, flies, moths and butterflies.
Researchers found that common, ground-level air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (found in diesel exhaust fumes) and ozone react with floral scents, leading to reduced pollination, according to a newly published study in the journal Environmental Pollution.
Over the course of two summers, researchers used a fumigation facility to control levels of nitrogen oxides and ozone over an open field of black mustard plants and observed the effects of these pollutants on pollination by local, free-flying insects.
The presence of these gases resulted in up to 90% fewer flower visits and one-third less pollination than in a smog-free field. The largest decrease in pollination came from bees, flies, moths and butterflies.
TURNING IT AROUND
Rewilding rainforests:
A study recommends letting rainforests recover naturally, and only using planting where necessary, pointing out that over half of the world’s tropical forests are naturally regenerating forests, of which a large part is secondary forest.
Secondary forests regrow naturally after nearly complete removal of forest cover for anthropogenic use, usually for shifting cultivation, conventional cropping or cattle ranching. Currently, over half of the world’s tropical forests are not old growth but naturally regenerating forests, of which a large part is secondary forest. In the neotropics, secondary forests cover as much as 28 percent of the land area.
In a study published in the journal Science, the researchers analyzed how 12 forest attributes recover during the natural regeneration process and how their recovery is related. …
They found that soil fertility takes less than 10 years to recover to old-growth forest values. Plant functioning takes less than 25 years, and species diversity takes 60 years. Above-ground biomass and species composition take over 120 years.
“While it is essential to actively protect old-growth forests and stop further deforestation, tropical forests have the potential to regrow naturally in already deforested areas on abandoned lands. These regrowing forests cover vast areas and can contribute to local and global targets for ecosystem restoration,” said Lourens Poorter, a professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands and lead author of the study.
“Nature will take care of it if we let it,” said Clemson University ecologist Saara DeWalt, who contributed data from forests in Panama that she has tracked since the 1990s. “Restoration of tropical forests should rely on natural regeneration. It’s the most efficient way to do it. It’s the most ecologically efficient. It’s the most economically efficient.”
Protecting New Guinea’s rainforests:
New Guinea is home to the third-largest tract of tropical rainforest in the world, of which 80% is still intact. Mongabay have released its third podcast on the values and threats being faced, with this one focussing on birds of paradise and ecotourism potential.
Capitalising on the environment:
Peter Sainsbury focuses on environmental accountancy; the rorting of token carbon offsets, whether Australian Carbon Credit Units are effectively a tax, subsidies to coal-fired power stations, and the creation of a market for natural assets on the New York Stock Exchange in the interests of capitalism.
The New York Stock Exchange has created a new asset class which will allow investors (for instance institutional and private investors, corporations, sovereign wealth funds and international development banks) to invest in something that is intrinsically valuable but has, to date, been excluded from financial markets, specifically … wait for it … the natural environment! The purpose, it is claimed, is “to preserve and restore the natural assets that ultimately underpin the ability for there to be life on Earth.” A Natural Asset Company (NAC) will “hold the rights to the ecosystem services produced on a given chunk of land, services like carbon sequestration or clean water” and will then manage and grow those natural assets and sell the produce, for instance food, tourism, clean water, pollination, carbon sequestration, to make a profit, part of which will be used to preserve the asset (e.g. a rainforest) or undertake other conservation efforts. According to critics, the ultimate goal of NACs is not sustainability or conservation – “it is the financialisation of nature, i.e. turning nature into a commodity that can be used to keep the current, corrupt Wall Street economy booming under the guise of protecting the environment and preventing its further degradation.” This view is supported by IEG, one of the developers of the new asset class, who boldly state that the “Traditional Economy” is worth about US$600 trillion globally, while “Nature’s Economy” is worth over $US4000 trillion. I don’t know much about this sort of thing but my prejudice is to side with the critics.
https://johnmenadue.com/sunday-environmental-round-up-38/
Forest Media February 11 2022
After long delays the Upper House inquiry into the ‘Long term sustainability and future of the timber and forest products industry’ is on the move again, venturing out to the Riverina this week and threatening to visit the north and south coasts. I did a submission for NEFA but have not been invited to a hearing. My media comment was that we need an inquiry to determine how best to rapidly transition the 900 people throughout NSW employed in logging public native forests into alternative employment.
A south coast resident takes joy with the return of each species to her fire ravished property at Conjola, but many birds and mammals are still missing. The NSW Government will deliver $416,000 to improve crown land reserves and community facilities in the Macleay catchment, with $352,351 for buildings and the balance for control of weeds, notably Cockspur Coral Tree and Tropical Soda Apple. Construction of 3 huts along the popular far south coast 30 km Light to Light Walk in Ben Boyd National Park has locals outraged and concerned that it will effectively privatise the walk.
The industry continues to attack the Victorian Labor Government in the leadup to November’s state election, this time for encouraging Vicforests not to pursue $1.2 million in court costs against MyEnvironment.
We have made 22 native birds extinct, and likely two others, with many more in serious decline, and even some common species disappearing from where they were once common. We risk total ecosystem collapse unless we make fundamental changes in the way we manage and use landscapes, starting with strong national environmental standards.
The week started with the backlash against Morrisson’s $50 million Koala pledge continuing, with groups questioning why the national recovery plan is a decade overdue, why the Government is sitting on its recommended listing as Endangered, why they have approved 25,000 hectares of koala habitat to be cleared since it was listed as vulnerable, and why the NSW Government hasn’t released their touted $193 million revised Koala Plan. The furore put the focus back on the numerous unresolved Koala actions in NSW, including the Koala Strategy, PNF rules, landclearing rules and Koala SEPP. As an indicator of community attitudes, Hunter Local Land Services has been overwhelmed by support for creating koala habitats across the Manning Valley. By the end of the week Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley caved into the outcry and finally heeded the threatened species scientific committee’s advice to list Koalas as Endangered, and she is saying she will soon release the Recovery Plan, but will anything change?
In the ACT X-rays of wombats are showing that those hit by cars suffer more broken bones than realised, with some left paralysed for days as they slowly die and their babies are eaten alive. We have amongst the highest numbers of venomous snakes in the world, but due to their nature and antivenoms we have few deaths or amputations, and their venom can be therapeutic.
The NSW Government is promoting the successes of their feral free animal enclosures and plans to create 65,000 ha of fenced reserves – that will keep those pesky wild animals out. Scientists are hopeful of combining remnant patchy DNA from Thylacines with Numbat DNA to resurrect the Tasmanian Tiger, or something like it.
State Forest Hunting for Queensland campaign has started a petition calling for the Queensland State Government to allow Queensland local councils to stop treating deer as pests, and to instead manage deer for hunting. In western NSW, NSW Farmers’ Association and Government agencies are collaborating in GPS tracking wild dogs and feral pigs to reveal how they use the landscape to better target management (ie killing).
The Daily Mail reports Scott Morrison's horror week has continued with the Prime Minister getting savaged by Twitter trolls and an Australian actress for releasing 'environmentally damaging' balloons at a memorial for four children killed by a drugged driver. South Coast NSW environmental activist Karen Joynes has been trying to have balloon releases banned in NSW, in line with Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania which have all banned balloon releases.
Mark Howden from ANU’s Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions has warned the bushfire threat already exceeds the ‘worst case’ climate change scenarios, and must be treated with the same urgency as Covid. Methane emissions have rapidly increased since 2007, with livestock, agricultural waste, landfill and fossil-fuel extraction accounting for about 62% of total methane emissions from 2007 to 2016. Only 16% of the world’s coastal regions are in relatively good condition, with almost half severely degraded. We need to save coastal regions that remain in good condition, while restoring those that are redeemable.
A study found that using carbon credits could protect 114 million ha of forests in Southeast Asia, which would avoid 835 MtCO2e annually while also providing pollination services to provide food for 323,739 people annually, reduce the volume of nitrogen pollutants by 78% and protect 25 Mha of Key Biodiversity Areas. In America the loggers continue to peddle their lies that cutting down forests and replacing them with regrowth sequesters more carbon, whereas older forests store more carbon.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Asking the wrong questions:
After long delays the Upper House inquiry into the ‘Long term sustainability and future of the timber and forest products industry’ is on the move again, venturing out to the Riverina this week and threatening to visit the north and south coasts. I did a submission for NEFA but have not been invited to a hearing. I was approached by mid north coast ABC and Echonet for comment.
North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) spokesperson Dailan Pugh said that they ‘welcome an inquiry into the future of the NSW timber industry’ though he says they are ‘not asking the right questions’ and that they ‘intent on identifying how to spend yet more public money propping up clearly unsustainable logging of public native forests’.
‘An honest appraisal would show that continued logging of public forests is not in the community’s best economic, social or environmental interests as far greater benefits can be generated by protecting forests and allowing them to mature: increasing carbon capture and storage, increasing water yields to streams and providing increased recreation benefits and tourism opportunities.’
‘Rather than an inquiry to identify how to spend more public money to prop-up an environmentally damaging and uneconomic industry, what we need is an inquiry to determine how best to rapidly transition the 900 people throughout NSW employed in logging public native forests into alternative employment.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/02/logging-forests-and-sustainability-what-are-the-right-questions/
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/committees/inquiries/Pages/inquiry-details.aspx?pk=2762
A slow recovery.
A south coast resident takes joy with the return of each species to her fire ravished property at Conjola, but many birds and mammals are still missing.
… Still no possums, bats or wallabies of any species which is sad," she said.
"I dearly miss the colony of sugar gliders who were here almost constantly out the back.
"There are also no microbats, we had a colony living in one of the big gums. I am surprised the bats haven't returned but they were having a very hard time in the drought before the fires."
"We are pushing so many species to the brink of extinction and the fires accelerated this," she said.
"I was so angry when I first saw the flames, that the world has done so little with all the scientific knowledge of climate change.
"Greed is winning and to what means?
Controlling weeds on select Crown lands:
The NSW Government will deliver $416,000 to improve crown land reserves and community facilities in the Macleay catchment, with $352,351 for buildings and the balance for control of weeds, notably Cockspur Coral Tree and Tropical Soda Apple.
"Crown land covers around 34 million hectares or 42 per cent of NSW and we have about 35,000 Crown reserves that accommodate parks, community halls, nature areas, showgrounds, sporting facilities, camping areas and walking tracks," Mr Anderson said.
https://www.macleayargus.com.au/story/7613386/major-funding-injected-into-macleays-crown-lands/
Concerns that hut construction a forerunner of park privatisation:
Construction of 3 huts along the popular far south coast 30 km Light to Light Walk in Ben Boyd National Park has locals outraged and concerned that it will effectively privatise the walk.
The Ben Boyd Light to Light Community Action Group has been vocal in its opposition to the development, and warned with 170 infrastructure projects on the horizon in national parks across Australia, the redevelopment of Ben Boyd National Park would set a precedent for similar developments to follow.
“It’s the first big accommodation complex development to be built, but there’s several more in the pipeline.
The project has faced stiff opposition from local committees and stakeholders since it was first made public in 2018.
A NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment spokesman said the government would own and operate the huts, including the current accommodation at Green Cape Lightstation.
AUSTRALIA
Victorian loggers attack in leadup to November state election:
The industry continues to attack the Victorian Labor Government in the leadup to November’s state election, this time for encouraging Vicforests not to pursue $1.2 in court costs against MyEnvironment.
Timber industry sources say Labor ministers have repeatedly “leaned on” VicForests not to recover $1.2 million it was owed by the MyEnvironment group.
The debt is the result of a 2015 Supreme Court order demanding MyEnvironment cover VicForests legal costs after the anti-logging activists lost a case it brought against the state-owned forest harvest manager.
Since then the $1.2m debt has ballooned to $2m on the back of unpaid interest.
VicForests has been swamped with green lawfare cases, costing it $4.8 million in 2020-21 alone….
Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio has refused appeals from Forest and Wood Communities Australia to close a loophole that allows activists to take legal action against VicForests under the state’s Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act 2004 for breaches to the Code of Practice for Timber Production.
The Andrews Government passed new laws last October allowing its officers to seize timber harvest and haulage contractors documents and slap them with penalties of $21,808 for an individual and $109,044 for corporations if they breach a code that is still under review.
SPECIES
Totaling ecosystem collapse:
We have made 22 native birds extinct, and likely two others, with many more in serious decline, and even some common species disappearing from where they were once common. We risk total ecosystem collapse unless we make fundamental changes in the way we manage and use landscapes, starting with strong national environmental standards.
… We found 530 million hectares, or 69%, of Australia, has lost at least one bird species. In some parts of the country, we’ve lost up to 17 birds.
In the last 250 years, 22 native birds have gone extinct. We found two more currently listed as threatened under Australia’s environmental legislation may also be now extinct.
One is the eastern star finch. This bird was once found from northern New South Wales to Queensland’s Burdekin River. A victim of overgrazing, it has not been seen since 1995. …
The plight of the regent honeyeater is another tragic story of decline. Flocks of thousands once occurred from Adelaide to north of Brisbane …
Today, only 100 breeding pairs are left, and almost all breed in just three sites in NSW. The species has lost more than 86% of its historical habitat, with land clearing the main driver of decline. So few remain that young birds cannot learn to sing properly, so have trouble attracting a mate.
The story of decline is not limited to only threatened species, with more common birds such as willie wagtails, brolgas, boobook owls, and even magpies now disappearing from many places they were once common.
Indeed, the loss of so many species is the canary in the coal mine of total ecosystem collapse. And total ecosystem collapse poses an existential threat to food systems, water quality and climate stability.
If we don’t make fundamental changes in the way we manage and use landscapes, the extinction wave will continue to inundate Australia.
A major, independent review last year revealed that the EPBC Act has failed native wildlife. One of its key recommendations was to implement strong national environmental standards, such as not allowing any degradation of critical habitat.
https://www.cootamundraherald.com.au/story/7609333/australias-bird-rich-continent-is-no-more/
"The Mount Lofty Ranges (in South Australia) is a horrific story," said Dr Ward.
"They've lost species that are still common in southeast Queensland like bush stone-curlew, the azure kingfisher, the barking owl. They also used to have regent honeyeaters and swift parrots all of which are gone."
Dr Ward said the study showed how crucial it is to protect what's left and regenerate habitat destroyed by urbanisation, forestry, farming and mining.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-10482633/Australias-bird-rich-continent-no-more.html
Koalas threatened by policy paralysis:
The backlash against Morrisson’s $50 million Koala pledge continues, with groups questioning why the national recovery plan is a decade overdue, why the Government is sitting on its recommended listing as Endangered, why they have approved 25,000 hectares of koala habitat to be cleared since it was listed as vulnerable, and why the NSW Government hasn’t released their touted $193 million revised Koala Plan.
HSI, WWF Australia and the International Fund for Animal Welfare argue that the combined effects of multiple, ongoing threats – global heating, disease and habitat destruction – mean the species is on an accelerated track toward extinction.
They also called on the Morrison government to finally develop a recovery plan that had been identified under national laws as a requirement for the species since 2012, but which successive Australian governments have failed to deliver.
The nomination was accepted for assessment and the threatened species scientific committee – an independent body that advises the government on conservation listings – handed its recommendation that the koala be officially listed as endangered to the federal environment minister, Sussan Ley, late last year.
Promised new codes for land management and private native forestry, as well as an updated koala planning policy are also outstanding almost 18 months after koala habitat management nearly split the NSW Coalition.
https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/koala-conservation/
New research reveals the federal government has approved the clearing of more than 25,000 hectares – the equivalent of 500,000 average house blocks – of koala habitat since the species was declared ‘vulnerable’ to extinction ten years ago.
The research by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) shows 61% of the koala habitat approved to be cleared under the federal environment law was for mining, 12% was for land transport and 11% was for residential housing projects.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. The actual habitat cleared is many times greater as clearing for agriculture is rarely assessed under the national environment law and native forest logging is exempt from these laws altogether.
Previous research by ACF showed the size of koala habitat actually cleared in a five-year period was almost 95% greater than the size that was approved.
https://www.acf.org.au/federal-govt-has-approved-clearing-25000ha-koala-habitat-10-yrs
The Threatened Species Scientific Committee noted in a recommendation in June last year that the loss of climate-suitable habitat, land clearing, chlamydia and intense weather – including droughts, bushfires and heatwaves – have all been key drivers in the decline in koala populations.
These contributed to the recommendation by group, an advisory body to the federal government, that the animal should be moved to the higher risk category.
Ms Ley now has until mid-March to decide on whether to act on the recommendation.
While populations are difficult to estimate, the scientific committee put the number of koalas in 2001 at about 184,700 Australia-wide. This is believed to have since declined to about 92,200. Estimates say there could be as few as 63,500 by 2032.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7611146/listing-fails-to-safeguard-koala-habitat/
MINISTER for the Environment Sussan Ley was in Port Stephens on Monday to talk about the protection of the East Coast’s koala population.
“When we invest in koala habitat it makes sense to do it where the koala trees are, where the koala corridors are and in strong areas of habitat, and you can do it on a landscape scale, we are already doing that in northern NSW and Southern Queensland.
“Habitat is the main game,” she said.
When questioned on the subject of the impact of multiple developments impacting on koala habitats the Minister said it is important that the cumulative impact of development on koala habitat be considered by the relevant government
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/further-funding-for-koala-habitat-86958
But until the problems of habitat loss and land clearing are addressed, national koala populations will continue to dwindle. And as our recent research shows, much of the new funding is inadequate at the scale required.
But the primary driver of koala population decline is the clearing of its habitat. No amount of money can save koalas unless we tackle this.
Two recent federal decisions demonstrate this active undermining of koala conservation efforts:
- approval to clear more than 75 hectares of critical koala habitat for housing west of Brisbane, reportedly in breach of the government’s own policy
- approval of the Brandy Hill Quarry, which would clear 52 hectares of koala habitat to produce gravel and stone.
These projects were also approved by respective state governments, and were enabled by weak koala protections under both national and state environment laws.
So it’s only fair to expect this funding to deliver results. To protect the important public and community investment in koalas, the federal government must:
- review current funding levels and provide adequate investment to support all Australia’s wildlife, including koalas
- endorse the expert recommendation to list the koala as endangered in parts of Australia
- finalise the Draft National Recovery Plan for the koala, which has been pending since 2012
- enforce strong protections for koalas and other native wildlife, with independent oversight. The measures should follow the recommendations in Professor Graeme Samuel’s review of federal environment law.
… focusing on NSW:
The furor has put the focus back on the numerous unresolved Koala actions in NSW, including the Koala Strategy, PNF rules, landclearing rules and Koala SEPP.
There is still no date for a new Koala Strategy, koala codes or Koala SEPP, however all are expected to be resolved in some manner this year.
A review of the laws (Biodiversity Conservation Act and Local Land Services Act) is due this year.
Conservation groups want the government to: Resolve the SEPP issue such that koala habitat on private land is protected from development, clearing and private native forestry; release a strong Koala Strategy asap; end native forest logging asap; and create the Great Koala National Park that conservation groups have proposed for the Mid North Coast.
Mr Tremain told News Of The Area, “Habitat protection is the key.
“You can’t have koalas without koala trees, so the best thing we can do is protect koala forests from development.
“It means using the power of the people and collective action to demand change.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/advice-on-how-to-support-koala-populations-in-nsw-86979
Mr Mitchell said it's important for the NSW Government to finalise its planning policy regarding koala habitat, to ensure the species' land is protected from development on private rural land and property.
According to the NSW Government website, the NSW Koala Strategy is part of a long-term vision to first stabilise, then increase, koala population numbers across the state.
https://www.portnews.com.au/story/7613381/push-to-keep-mid-north-coast-koalas-on-protection-radar/
… people want Koalas protected:
Hunter Local Land Services has been overwhelmed by support for its latest project, creating koala habitats across the Manning Valley.
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2022/02/08/overwhelming-support-for-tinonee-koala-habitats-project/
… Feds cave in and make Koalas Endangered:
Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley caved into the outcry and finally heeded the threatened species scientific committee’s advice to list Koalas as Endangered, and she is saying she will soon release the Recovery Plan, but will anything change?
Ley said in addition to the endangered listing, the government planned to adopt a long-awaited national recovery plan for the koala.
It took the black summer bushfire disaster to prompt consultation on a draft, with a final version delivered to the minister late last year.
Once a recovery plan is adopted, ministers are legally bound not to make decisions that are inconsistent with it, however governments have no obligation to actually implement the plan.
Wombats threatened by paralysis:
In the ACT X-rays of wombats are showing that those hit by cars suffer more broken bones than realised, with some left paralysed for days as they slowly die and their babies are eaten alive.
“Because they can't get back on their feet from paralysis, they can lie there for days.”
Female wombats will often be carrying a joey in their pouch, and if help is not rendered, they will often slowly be eaten alive by predators.
“What happens to them is firstly they’re exposed to the elements, then comes the ants, and they love the little ones because their skin is soft,” Ms Vermaak said.
“Then comes birds, and they love the eyes, they pick out their eyes, then comes foxes, so it's horrific.”
https://au.news.yahoo.com/x-rays-silence-myth-devastating-iconic-aussie-wombats-060511201.html
Saving species by locking out the wild:
The NSW Government is promoting the successes of their feral free animal enclosures and plans to create 65,000 ha of fenced reserves – that will keep those pesky wild animals out.
Numbats, bettongs, wallabies and phascogales have been released into protected conservation zones in the Pilliga National Park in the state's central north and the Mallee Cliffs National Park in southwest NSW in a bid to help them avoid extinction.
It's part of a plan to create 65,000 hectares of protected conservation areas in NSW national parks - "one of the most ambitious mammal rewilding programs in Australia" - according to Environment Minister James Griffin.
Five more feral-free zones are being established, to be managed in partnership between the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Australian Wildlife Conservancy and the UNSW Wild Deserts program.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-10492371/Extinct-animals-thriving-NSW-parks.html
Raising the dead:
Scientists are hopeful of combining remnant patchy DNA from Thylacines with Numbat DNA to resurrect the Tasmanian Tiger, or something like it.
Today, our team at the DNA Zoo has hopefully taken a step towards creating a blueprint to clone one of Australia’s most loved, and most missed, extinct species: the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger.
We’ve done it not by studying the thylacine itself, but by completing a chromosome-length 3D genome map of one of its closest living relative: the numbat.
Crucially, numbats and thylacines shared a common ancestor that lived some time between 35 million and 41 million years ago – relatively recent in evolutionary terms.
We’re lucky our poisonous snakes are so benign:
We have amongst the highest numbers of venomous snakes in the world, but due to their nature and antivenoms we have few deaths or amputations, and their venom can be therapeutic.
The bite of an eastern brown snake can kill an adult in under an hour. And that’s just one of more than 150 venomous snakes inhabiting the island continent across land and sea. …
Compared to other countries with many snake species, Australia has orders of magnitude fewer snakebites and related deaths. South Africa has 476 snakebite deaths on average every year. By contrast, Australia has two or three.
This means snakebites in Australia very rarely result in amputations. … By contrast, across sub-Saharan Africa it is sadly common, with almost 2400 amputations reported in Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, every year.
… In fact, a toxin from the venom of eastern brown snakes (P. textilis) is being tested as a drug used to reverse life-threatening bleeding complications.
Rather than fearing our venomous snakes, let’s try seeing them as they are.
They pose little risk to us. They flee from us. Their bites can usually be cured quickly. Their venom holds therapeutic promise. And they play a vital role in keeping down the numbers of introduced rats and mice.
Deer are dear:
State Forest Hunting for Queensland campaign has started a petition calling for the Queensland State Government to allow Queensland local councils to stop treating deer as pests, and to instead manage deer for hunting.
The pest status of the deer is resulting in the unnecessary, expensive, and wasteful destruction of Queensland’s wild deer herds, mainly by helicopter shooting, which is at odds with the historical and cultural significance of deer to Queensland. Red Deer first arrived in the Brisbane Valley as a gift from Queen Victoria in 1873 and shares the Queensland coat of arms with the Brolga, the Australian native crane. This makes Queensland Red Deer an older Aussie icon than “Waltzing Matilda”, so it is the duty of Queensland hunters to maintain deer in an environmentally responsible manner, which also mitigates impacts on agriculture.
The same applies for other historical deer herds, the Fallow Deer around Stanthorpe, Chital in Charters Towers and Rusa on the Torres Strait islands. These deer have been in these locations long enough that the local environment has adapted to them, so to consider them out of place just because they were introduced, makes no sense.
http://www.sportingshooter.com.au/latest/state-forest-hunting-for-queensland-campaign
Tracking ferals to target:
Not before time, in western NSW, NSW Farmers’ Association and Government agencies are collaborating in GPS tracking wild dogs and feral pigs to reveal how they use the landscape to better target management (ie killing).
https://seedstockcentral.com.au/2022/02/07/using-science-to-determine-wild-dog-control-efforts/
https://www.theland.com.au/story/7611700/nsw-big-wet-bogs-western-tracks/
A recent Ag Econ report, commissioned by North West Local Land Services, has revealed feral pigs have cost agricultural production in the North West an estimated $47 million in damage. The study focused on the winter 2020 and summer 2020/21 cropping periods.
Morrison deploys balloons in his latest attack on wildlife:
The Daily Mail reports Scott Morrison's horror week has continued with the Prime Minister getting savaged by Twitter trolls and an Australian actress for releasing 'environmentally damaging' balloons at a memorial for four children killed by a drugged driver.
… balloons are no laughing matter:
South Coast NSW environmental activist Karen Joynes has been trying to have balloon releases banned in NSW, in line with Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania which have all banned balloon releases.
Karen Joynes was told to hold off lobbying the NSW Government to ban balloon releases until the NSW Plastics Action Plan was released.
Ms Jones said when the plan was released, a balloon release ban was not part of it.
"An amendment was then moved by the Animal Justice Party for a ban on the release of balloons and the motion was backed by the Greens and Labor," Ms Jones said.
"It was defeated by one vote and I'm confident if we can get the motion to go again, it will get passed next time.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-10/activist-calls-for-balloon-release-ban-in-nsw/100816410
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Escalating bushfires worse than worse:
Mark Howden from ANU’s Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions has warned the bushfire threat already exceeds the ‘worst case’ climate change scenarios, and must be treated with the same urgency as Covid.
“Starting from spring and ending early in autumn, and we can see [the area burned] going up, essentially linearly. But if we look at the winter period, the autumn and winter period, the cool season, what we see is the area burnt is actually going up essentially exponentially.”
“There is no reason to feel comfortable about how fire is evolving at the moment. And this is beyond the worst-case climate change scenarios for this type at this time span, which were produced just a few years ago,” Howden added.
Methane going up:
Methane emissions have rapidly increased since 2007, with livestock, agricultural waste, landfill and fossil-fuel extraction accounting for about 62% of total methane emissions from 2007 to 2016.
Methane concentrations in the atmosphere raced past 1,900 parts per billion last year, nearly triple preindustrial levels, according to data released in January by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Scientists says the grim milestone underscores the importance of a pledge made at last year’s COP26 climate summit to curb emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas at least 28 times as potent as CO2.
… Lan’s team has used the atmospheric 13C data to estimate that microbes are responsible for around 85% of the growth in emissions since 2007, with fossil-fuel extraction accounting for the remainder5.
… Lan’s team estimates that anthropogenic sources such as livestock, agricultural waste, landfill and fossil-fuel extraction accounted for about 62% of total methane emissions since from 2007 to 2016
The rising tide of humanity overwhelming coasts:
Only 16% of the world’s coastal regions are in relatively good condition, with almost half severely degraded. We need to save coastal regions that remain in good condition, while restoring those that are redeemable.
Only about 16% of the world’s coastal regions are in relatively good condition, according to our world-first research released today, and many are so degraded they can’t be restored to their original state.
Troublingly, 47.9% of coastal regions have been exposed to very high levels of human pressure. And for 84% of countries, more than half their coastal regions were degraded.
What’s more, human pressures were high in about 43% of protected coastal regions – those regions purportedly managed to conserve nature.
It’s safe to say intact coastal regions are now rare. We urge governments to urgently conserve the coastal regions that remain in good condition, while restoring those that are degraded but can still be fixed.
To assist with this global task, we have made our dataset publicly available and free to use here.
TURNING IT AROUND
Greenies carbon dreams:
A study found that using carbon credits could protect 114 million ha of forests in Southeast Asia, which would avoid 835 MtCO2e annually while also providing pollination services to provide food for 323,739 people annually, reduce the volume of nitrogen pollutants by 78% and protect 25 Mha of Key Biodiversity Areas.
Forest carbon projects can deliver multiple benefits to society. Within Southeast Asia, 58% of forests threatened by loss could be protected as financially viable carbon projects, which would avoid 835 MtCO 2e of emissions per year from deforestation, support dietary needs for an equivalent of 323,739 people annually from pollinator-dependent agriculture, retain 78% of the volume of nitrogen pollutants in watersheds yearly and safeguard 25 Mha of Key Biodiversity Areas.
Here we assessed the co-benefits of establishing carbon projects that focus on avoided deforestation across Southeast Asia. First, we mapped the locations of standing forests that could be protected as financially viable carbon projects based on net present values (NPVs) and considering additionality over a 30-year time frame2 (see the Methods for the details). We then modelled the extent to which carbon projects would (1) mitigate climate change from the avoided emissions from deforestation, (2) support crop pollination services for pollinator-dependent agriculture8,9 , (3) maintain water quality regulation services for downstream rivers and lakes by retaining nitrogen in watersheds, and (4) safeguard Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs)
.
We find that 114 million ha of forests in Southeast Asia could be protected as viable carbon projects (NPV > 0) on the basis of our conservative starting carbon pricing scenario of US$5.80 per tCO 2 e…
Forest carbon projects in proximity to agricultural lands also provide important foraging and nesting habitats for wild pollinators. These pollinators not only ensure the ecosystem health of adjoining forest patches but also support pollinator-dependent agricultural production and nutritional services within the immediate vicinity. We find that this benefit can serve the dietary needs of an equivalent of 323,739 ± 18,725 people across the region every year, on the basis of pollinated micronutrient production and dietary intake requirements (Fig. 1b and Supplementary Table 3). This service is particularly important in the Malaysian state of Sabah, where pollination service supported by each hectare of protected forest provides enough micronutrient production to fully meet the needs of up to 42 people, with more people potentially benefiting from having their nutritional needs even partially supported by pollination.
Forests are also known to absorb nutrients such as nitrogen from the environment for biomass growth and metabolism. This uptake would in turn reduce the amount of nutrients that flow into freshwater habitats within the area’s watersheds and thereby improve the quality of water flowing downstream, reducing the need for added treatment of potable water. On the basis of an InVEST Nutrient Delivery Ratio model, we find that 2.86 ± 0.03 Mt of nitrogen pollutants (representing an estimated 78% of potential nitrogen pollutants across Southeast Asia) per year would be avoided from
the establishment of carbon projects …
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-022-00849-0.pdf
Logger’s carbon delusions:
In America the loggers continue to peddle their lies that cutting down forests and replacing them with regrowth sequesters more carbon, whereas older forests store more carbon.
But some of the nation’s top forestry and climate experts say that that conclusion is out of touch with reality, and that what matters more is the total amount of carbon those forests keep out of the atmosphere, not the rate at which they absorb carbon.
Old-growth forests, the kinds that have been around for decades and even centuries, store significantly more total carbon than young forests, with the largest trees playing the biggest role. …
But once a forest gets harvested, chances are that the carbon stored in those trees will soon return to the atmosphere, said Beverly Law, a professor emeritus at Oregon State University and a leading voice in the intersecting fields of forest ecosystems and carbon sequestration.
In 2019, Law co-authored a study that found that 65 percent of the trees harvested in Oregon over the past 115 years have returned to the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide, while 16 percent ended up in landfills. Those trees often became short-lived consumer products such as paper or cardboard.
Conversely, only 19 percent of those trees harvested in Oregon turned into longer-term consumer products—such as the wood used for building homes—that continue to store carbon today, the research found.
“We’ve looked at these numbers over time, and cumulative amounts, it goes to the atmosphere fairly quickly,” Law said, referring to the carbon held in harvested trees. “Most of it ends up in the atmosphere within a few decades.”
Research has also shown that young trees are more susceptible than older trees to dying from heat waves, drought and wildfires, all of which are worsening under climate change. And newly planted forests can take decades to store as much carbon as the older forests they’re replacing, Law said.
All things considered, Law said, states should be prioritizing the protection of their old-growth forests, not replacing them with young trees as the timber industry suggests, as they pursue tough plans to reduce emissions and stave off the worst of the climate crisis. “We only have the next 10 to 30 years—and we have to start now—to get our emissions down,” she said. “That is not getting our emissions down. That’s taking us back to ground zero and trying to regrow again.”
https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?e=6624c72df8&u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=3404390c99
Forest Media 4 February 2022
Sweetman Renewables announcement that it had a $90 million contract to supply woodchips over 20 years to Japanese energy company Sinanen has been unequivocally refuted by Sinanen, leading NCC to ask ASIC to investigate and Sweetman to apologise for the incorrect and misleading information.
David Lindenmayer describes when he realised ESFM is a sham, why we need to stop logging native forests, and why we have to try harder to stop it. The Mountain Ash and Snow Gum forests continue their retreat into firery oblivion in the Victorian highlands.
A rally was held near the Tasmanian town of Derby’s mountain bike trails as loggers prepare to harvest 2 coupes, 200 local and international tourism businesses have signed an open letter against the logging, with a petition bearing 31,000 signatures to be presented to parliament. South Australia’s parks and reserves contribute more than $374 million to the state economy every year, support 1,211 private sector jobs, and each dollar spent by a visitor in a reserve injects a further $23 into the state’s regional economy. There is a need to increase protection from mining and water table changes for the more than 6,000 non-government conservation areas across Australia, which are owned by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups, individuals and NGOs.
Forest Industries Federation Western Australia (FIFWA) and the State government are at war over whether current contractual obligations have been met, surprisingly the loggers want more, a lot more than the Government thinks they are entitled to. A New Zealand council moved to have a new roading targeted rate introduced for “exotic forestry” owners from July 1 to cover the cost of road damage caused during harvesting.
The big news is that the Federal Government has committed $50 million to Koalas for the next four years. I did a NEFA press release describing it as a smokescreen to cover-up Scomo’s approval for increased logging and clearing of Koala habitat, while allowing climate heating to run amok, threatening the future of both Koalas and the Great Barrier Reef. Similar sentiments were expressed everywhere, spoiling Scomo’s mo. The Federal Government didn’t bother to consult national group the AKF, before announcing it would be granting them funding. While the local member at Port Stephens is keen to hand out money, the Koalas are being systematically eliminated decision by decision. As elsewhere, in south-east Queensland it is a steady erosion of habitat, with deaths to be marked with little crosses. Gympie wildlife carers weary from rescuing non-existent Koalas from developments. Vic Jurskis continues to argue that there are no problems as Koalas never had it so good. Newsy had a different spin on it, considering it all about coal(a).
South coast Koalas appear to have survived the devastating Currowan fire and retained a tenuous hold in East Lynne. Dr Karen Marsh gives a revealing presentation on why Koalas and other folivores prefer certain individuals of certain species for feeding. Koala conservationist Maria Matthes was named Ballina’s Citizen of the Year in Australia Day Awards.
The Australian Conservation Foundation has teamed up with scientists at the University of New South Wales to promote the "Platy-project", and are asking people to report Platypus sightings this February. As its creeks dried in the drought, all surviving Booroolong frogs they could find were rounded up from the New England Tablelands and taken into Taronga Zoo’s captive breeding program. Following reports since the mid 1980’s of the re-discovery of the Buff-breasted button-quail in north Queensland, a search suggests it may be a case of mistaken identity.
At least Scomo is in good company, with United States, Norway, and Canada as fellow climate change hypocrites. China is claiming credit for its massive reforestation after it almost wiped out its native forests, but it has just exported its deforestation to other countries on a massive scale. Mercury released by gold fever is permeating into Amazon’s pristine rainforest and contaminating food chains.
Ancient trees emerged in oldgrowth forests, they have survived centuries of change and as climate change increases mortality they are increasingly unlikely to ever be replicated, they are irreplaceable. So now we know there are around 73,300 tree species in the world, but we don’t know what 9,300 of them are, and we may not find them before we eliminate them.
A study has found that genetics has a strong influence on a person’s affinity with nature, though its mostly shaped by life experiences. In a familiar story, a new settler in Oregon recounts how a move to self-sufficient living in the wilderness turned into a lifelong campaign to protect forests.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Sweetman’s deal sours:
Sweetman Renewables announcement that it had a $90 million contract to supply woodchips over 20 years to Japanese energy company Sinanen has been unequivocally refuted by Sinanen, leading NCC to ask ASIC to investigate and Sweetman to apologise for the incorrect and misleading information.
"We don't/will not have any contract with Sweetman on wood chips supply. We deplore the announcement that Sweetman had signed an agreement with us (Sinanen Holdings) to import wood chips," Mr Yamazaki wrote in a letter to the Nature Conservation Council.
"It is true that we took small samples from Sweetman through an intermediary broker, but we gave up the business with them, since they do not seem to comply with our environmental commitments or policy.
"In line with a Japanese national policy, we will keep on working for renewable energy business in the future. However, we do not intend to use biomass fuels without official certification, which could lead to any environmental damage."
The Nature Conservation Council has asked the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to investigate whether Sweetman Renewables misled the public and potential investors.
https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/7599767/japanese-company-refutes-wood-chip-contract-claim/
But Sinanen’s Chief Executive, Masaki Yamazaki, has refuted the claims, saying the company deplores the announcement.
Sweetman Chairman John Halket has since written to Sinanen apologising for the incorrect and misleading information.
AUSTRALIA
We just need to try harder to stop logging:
David Lindenmayer describes when he realised ESFM is a sham, why we need to stop logging native forests, and why we have to try harder to stop it.
The evidence is in: logging our native forests increases fire risk, threatens water supply, destroys habitat, squanders a carbon resource, and doesn’t even supply timber. The next big thing? A politician guided by the science and good economics.
What really changed for me came after the 2009 fires in Victoria – it became very clear that the government agencies involved actually had no intention of changing the way that they managed the forests, even though a very large amount of the forest resource had been destroyed, or very badly damaged, by those fires. Everything that I’d been writing about sustainable forest management and working alongside government agencies around the issue was not what it was all about. What it was all about for them was simply extracting as much resource as possible.
The other thing that became important was a horrific discovery that we made in 2014. When we looked at what happened during the 2009 fires, we discovered that the areas that had a history of logging actually burnt at a much higher severity than intact forests – up to seven times the probability of high-severity fire. We’ve since discovered that’s exactly what occurred again during the Black Summer fires of 2019–20. These extensive areas of previously harvested forest are actually carrying an extra fire burden in them that we hadn’t accounted for before.
Sometimes you feel like you’re being ignored, but from my perspective, it only means that you’ve got to keep trying harder.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/sustainability/end-of-native-forest-logging/
Collapse of Alpine forests:
The Mountain Ash and Snow Gum forests continue their retreat into firery oblivion in the Victorian highlands.
A group of volunteers has banded together to map what's been described as the "heartbreaking" decline of snow gums in Victoria's High Country.
Friends of the Earth is using fire maps to determine its snow gum mapping priority locations, with some places having been affected by fire up to four times in the past 20 years.
"Fire probably in 2003 killed off some of the parent trees and then there was some regrowth and resprouting, and subsequent fire came through and killed that off.
"So it's been vacant and basically bare earth with a little bit of grass for many years now."
"They're not the snow gum forests you or I would have seen whenever we are up in the mountains, and this is really the new normal.
"It is very much ecological collapse in real time.
"It is really heartbreaking to see how much these forests have been transformed from beautiful old forests into grassy wasteland."
Logging concessions inadequate:
A rally was held near the Tasmanian town of Derby’s mountain bike trails as loggers prepare to harvest 2 coupes, 200 local and international tourism businesses have signed an open letter against the logging, with a petition bearing 31,000 signatures to be presented to parliament.
It comes after state-owned forestry corporation, Sustainable Timber Tasmania, released a plan, the Derby Precinct Concept Plan, promising to lock away 930ha of land containing the Blue Derby Mountain Bike Trails from future logging, with a 50m buffer zone established between the trails and any logging coupes.
Despite STT’s assurances, environmental group Blue Derby Wild says the promises do not go far enough, …
Valuing Reserves:
South Australia’s parks and reserves contribute more than $374 million to the state economy every year, support 1,211 private sector jobs, and each dollar spent by a visitor in a reserve injects a further $23 into the state’s regional economy.
An innovative study undertaken by the State Government and University of Adelaide using 2018-19 data shows South Australia’s national parks and reserves contribute more than $374 million to the state economy every year.
“The data shows that interstate and international activity generated 76% of all visitor revenue travelling to and enjoying South Australian parks and reserves in the year prior to the pandemic,” Minister Speirs said.
South Australian Premier Steven Marshall said the report reveals for the first time just how substantial a driver of economic growth our parks and reserves are, supporting 1,211 private sector jobs in regional communities.
“Every dollar spent on park management is returning a $10 benefit to South Australia’s economy, supporting thousands of local jobs.
“Importantly for our rural communities, the data also shows that for every dollar a visitor spends in a park, they inject a further $23 into the state’s regional economy.”
To view the summary report visit: www.parks.sa.gov.au
https://www.ausleisure.com.au/news/innovative-study-shows-true-value-of-south-australias-parks/
Protecting protected lands:
There is a need to increase protection from mining and water table changes for the more than 6,000 non-government conservation areas across Australia, which are owned by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups, individuals and NGOs.
Unlike national parks, mining projects are allowed to be developed within privately owned nature refuges against the land owner’s wishes. This has been a longstanding concern of conservationists worldwide.
Both privately protected land and national parks are also at risk from development projects operating outside their boundaries. One of the biggest threats is the impact of mining on groundwater, the focus of our research.
We untangled the complex web of environmental, mining and water laws regulating mining and gas developments in Queensland, and found three key biases that leave nature refuges vulnerable.
Give us more to log:
Forest Industries Federation Western Australia (FIFWA) and the State government are at war over whether current contractual obligations have been met, surprisingly the loggers want more, a lot more than the Government thinks they are entitled to.
https://www.farmweekly.com.au/story/7588550/forest-group-feels-let-town-by-government/
Charging plantation owners for road damage:
A New Zealand council moved to have a new roading targeted rate introduced for “exotic forestry” owners from July 1 to cover the cost of damage caused during harvesting.
The Stratford District Council said costs to repair the unsealed roads in eastern Taranaki during forest harvest has averaged NZ$292,120 a year, seeing other roading projects in the district grind to a halt.
Mayor Neil Volzke said it was an “almost critical situation”, and something needed to be done.
https://tasmaniantimes.com/2022/02/nz-council-to-charge-forestry-for-road-damage/
SPECIES
Koala’s plight obscured by smoke and mirrors:
The big news is that the Federal Government has committed $50 million to Koalas for the next four years. I did a NEFA press release describing it as a smokescreen to cover-up his Government’s approval for increased logging and clearing of Koala habitat, while allowing climate heating to run amok, threatening the future of both Koalas and the Great Barrier Reef. I had interviews on ABC mid north coast and Lismore’s ZZZ.
“Without good policies on habitat protection and climate change no amount of money will save Koalas, said NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh.
“If Scott Morrison was fair dinkum about protecting Koala habitat the first thing he would do is to stop their feed and roost trees being logged and cleared. Money is no good for Koalas if they have nowhere to live.
“The second is to take urgent and meaningful action on climate heating, as Koalas and their feed trees have already been decimated by intensifying droughts and heatwaves in western NSW, and bushfires in coastal areas.
“If the Morrison Government doesn’t take urgent action on climate heating then neither Koalas nor the Great Barrier Reef will have a future.
“Thanks to the Morrison Government we now have a shoddy process where a few small trees are protected in inaccurately modelled habitat, while loggers rampage through Koala’s homes, and if a Koala is seen in a tree then all they need to do is wait until it leaves before cutting its tree down.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/02/scomos-50-million-for-kolas-a-smokescreen/
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the new money would be spent on habitat protection, community-led restoration projects and population monitoring, among other initiatives.
"Our $50 million investment will enhance the protection of koalas by restoring koala habitat, improving our understanding of koala populations, supporting training in koala treatment and care and strengthening research into koala health outcomes," Mr Morrison said.
"Koalas are one of Australia’s most-loved and best-recognised icons, both here at home and across the world, and we are committed to protecting them for generations to come."
Environment Minister Sussan Ley said the government was already working on restoring koala habitats.
"The extra funding will build on work already happening across the koala range to restore and connect important habitat patches, control feral animal and plant species and improve existing habitat," Ms Ley said.
"Current funding is already supporting eight strategic habitat restoration projects that target thousands of hectares in significant koala areas in eastern Australia."
https://www.pm.gov.au/media/press-conference-beerwah-qld
https://buzzon.live/federal-koala-recovery-funding-tripled-as-populations-continue-to-decline/
https://www.aap.com.au/news/govt-allocates-50m-to-help-protect-koalas/
Alexia Wellbelove, senior campaign manager for Humane Society International, welcomed the funding but said it must be introduced in "combination with a national recovery plan, and stronger national and state environment laws".
"Strong National Environmental Standards for threatened species that prevent the destruction of koala habitat on both public and private land are essential to prevent the koala's slide to extinction," she said in a statement.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare says it welcomes any funding towards the protection and recovery of koalas but wants more done to reverse the factors that have triggered the marsupial's decline.
"They're on the road to extinction with population numbers dwindling and their habitat disappearing but pouring money into the problem isn't going to solve anything unless we address the root cause of their decline which is habitat loss and climate change," campaign manager Josey Sharrad said.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-10453593/Govt-allocates-50m-help-protect-koalas.html
"We have got koalas over at West Wallsend and Minmi where there is a huge amount of development happening at Fletcher. We have lost an enormous amount of forest in the last couple of months. Any animal that's trying to move through there won't be able to.
Nature Conservation Council acting chief executive Jacqui Mumford said the money, while welcome, would make little difference.
"We don't need more research and koala hospitals. We know what the problem is - it's habitat loss. Habitat loss is driving our koalas to extinction," she said.
https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/7599765/koala-funding-wont-stop-habitat-destruction/
Kevin Evans, President of the Coffs Coast Branch of National Parks Association of NSW, told News Of The Area, “To double our koala population, which is the stated objective of the NSW Government, we must protect and connect remaining koala habitat.
“The quickest and simplest way to achieve this is to commit to ending loss making native forest logging and restore these forests just as the WA and Victorian Government have announced,” he continued.
… money for nothing:
The Federal Government didn’t bother to consult national group the AKF, before announcing it would be granting them funding.
AKF Chair Deborah Tabart OAM said the group had not been consulted by the Federal Government whatsoever in the lead up to this surprise announcement, despite many attempts to pass on invaluable mapping, population research and carefully considered solutions developed over the space of three decades.
https://gympietoday.com.au/news/2022/02/04/invisible-koalas-and-surprise-funding/
https://tasmaniantimes.com/2022/02/koala-foundation-calls-out-morrison-for-non-consultation/
… money won’t redress death of a thousand cuts:
While the local member at Port Stephens is keen to hand out money, the Koalas are being systematically eliminated decision by decision.
"The saying 'death by 1000 cuts' has long been used about our threatened species and its never been more obvious here in Port Stephens, where the koala population has reduced as a direct result of approved clear fell developments."
This was the sentiment expressed by Koala Koalition EcoNetwork Port Stephens (KKEPS) spokesperson Caitlin Spiller in response to the substantial number of rock quarries and extensions being proposed across the Port Stephens LGA.
"When you consider the cumulative impacts of these quarries - along with the growth of sand mines and housing developments, both already approved and proposed - it paints a very sad picture for our koalas," Ms Spiller added.
https://www.portstephensexaminer.com.au/story/7591993/death-by-1000-cuts-habitat-threat-to-koalas/
As elsewhere, in south-east Queensland it is a steady erosion of habitat, with deaths to be marked with little crosses.
As koalas continue to die on Queensland roads, an exhausted wildlife worker plans to start marking the position of each victim with a tiny cross.
With development continuing to displace koalas and other native animals across the Gold Coast, rescuer Amy Wregg hopes the memorials will drive awareness of their plight.
With koala habitat continuing to disappear across the region, it’s often impossible to find displaced koalas new homes.
“There are a lot more vehicle strikes during the night-time in areas in close proximity to clearing,” Ms Wregg told Yahoo News Australia.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/heartbreaking-story-roadside-koala-crosses-queensland-071315465.html
… still in denial about existence:
Gympie wildlife carers weary from rescuing non-existent Koalas from developments.
An ANARRA carer, who wished not to be named, said almost weekly she is being called to Gympie region development clearing sites to rescue what she calls “invisible” koalas, because according to Gympie Regional Council and the Queensland State Government, these koalas do not exist in these areas.
She said displaced koalas are suffering from malnutrition and because of their poor condition, are more susceptible to disease.
Plus, having to leave the safety of their trees in search of food, they are succumbing to vehicle strikes and dog attacks.
https://gympietoday.com.au/news/2022/02/04/invisible-koalas-and-surprise-funding/
… still in denial about decline:
Vic Jurskis continues to argue that there are no problems as Koalas never had it so good.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2022/01/the-great-koala-extinction-that-never-happens/
… its about protecting coal(a):
Newsy had a different spin on it, considering it all about coal(a).
Climate change, loss of habitat and 2019-20’s dangerous forest fire season have pushed the coal population into the market.
The proportion of the amount of coal left in the wild varies greatly, but it is widely accepted that the population fell before the fires.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the new money will be spent on site protection, community -led improvement work and community monitoring, and other initiatives.
“Our $ 50 million investment will improve the protection of koalas by rehabilitating the coal site, improving our understanding of the coal population, supporting education in the treatment and care of the coal. coal and encourage research into the health effects of coal, ”Mr Morrison said.
https://newsny.org/federal-coal-recovery-funding-tripled-due-to-declining-population/
South coast Koalas hanging on:
South coast Koalas appear to have survived the devastating Currowan fire and retained a tenuous hold in East Lynne.
A recent review of the Bodalla State Forest indicates the area "must be a priority focus" for any Eurobodalla-wide revival of koala populations, says a local koala expert.
The review of the forest comes after a koala was sighted there in October last year, prompting lead researcher Keith Joliffe to ascertain the significance of the Bodalla State Forest.
Threats to address are landscape drying, further severe wildfire impacts, atmospheric carbon dioxide affecting leaf nutrients, degraded soils, dieback, historical clearing of the Tuross River lowlands, over-intensive logging and new clearing for urban development.
https://www.beagleweekly.com.au/post/bodalla-state-forest-vital-for-koala-recovery
Fussy eaters:
Dr Karen Marsh gives a revealing presentation on why Koalas and other folivores prefer certain individuals of certain species for feeding.
https://www.restoringnutritionallandscapes.com/learn-more
A well deserved award:
Koala conservationist Maria Matthes was named Ballina’s Citizen of the Year in Australia Day Awards.
https://www.echo.net.au/2022/01/ballina-community-leaders-honoured/
Platypus spotting:
The Australian Conservation Foundation has teamed up with scientists at the University of New South Wales to promote the "Platy-project", and are asking people to report Platypus sightings this February.
To find out more and to sign up for the Platy-project, go to https://www.acf.org.au/platy-project.
Captivating Booroolong frogs:
As its creeks dried in the drought, all surviving Booroolong frogs they could find were rounded up from the New England Tablelands and taken into Taronga Zoo’s captive breeding program.
A critically endangered Australian frog has been given a jump along after moving into a purpose-built breeding habitat at Sydney's Taronga Zoo.
Rare Booroolong frogs, native to the NSW Northern Tablelands, are being supported to build up numbers in captivity after a severe drought pushed the species to the brink.
The 58 frogs are an "insurance colony", Michael McFadden, unit supervisor of the Herpetofauna Department at Taronga Zoo said.
The frogs had been affected by drying streams in recent droughts, sediment build-up in waterways, and chytrid fungus, Mr McFadden said.
https://www.northernbeachesreview.com.au/story/7604555/rare-frog-species-jump-for-joy-at-taronga/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-10466595/Rare-frog-species-jump-joy-Taronga.html
https://www.theland.com.au/story/7603996/endangered-frog-in-breeding-program/
Found but lost:
Following reports since the mid 1980’s of the re-discovery of the Buff-breasted button-quail in north Queensland, a search suggests it may be a case of mistaken identity.
In short, with no hard evidence of the buff-breasted button-quail’s existence for 100 years, many of the most recent sightings of the species could actually have been the much more common painted button-quail.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
World-leading hypocrites:
At least Scomo is in good company, with United States, Norway, and Canada as fellow climate change hypocrites
The United States, Norway, and Canada are set to produce more oil this year than ever before, despite solemn pronouncements at last year’s COP 26 climate summit on the urgent need for climate action, Oil Change International asserts in a new analysis.
All three countries “like to see themselves as climate leaders,” Oil Change writes, recalling American president Joe Biden’s commitment to “doing our part,” Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau’s call to “do more, and faster,” and Norwegian PM Jonas Gahr Støre’s urging to “jointly step up our commitments,” in their respective COP 26 speeches.
But those avowals were meant for last year, Oil Change says. “This is a new year, and instead of new commitments to double down on climate action, what do we see?”
China a leading reforester within its borders, but a leading deforester of other’s forests:
China is claiming credit for its massive reforestation after it almost wiped out its native forests, but it has just exported its deforestation to other countries on a massive scale.
China under President Xi Jinping is ostensibly dedicated to creating an “ecological civilisation.” According to Xi, that civilisation is supposed to include healthy forests.
In October, he told an international summit on biodiversity that forests should be conserved because “We need to have deep reverence for nature, respect nature, follow nature’s laws and protect nature, so as to build a homeland of harmonious coexistence between man and nature.”
… That’s because China has a very long record of razing forests to feed its development. Alongside its economic rise in recent decades, it has taken on an outsize and accelerating role in global deforestation.
… by about 1990 only 5 per cent of the country’s original forests remained, mostly in remote or inaccessible locations.
During the 1980s and 1990s, domestic timber production shot up in China, and by the mid-1990s many provinces were completely denuded of forests, while others experienced unsustainable felling. In the late 1990s, the Chinese government banned logging, in large part due to devastating floods that were exacerbated by widespread deforestation.
… China has a plan to plant 36,000 square kilometres of trees each year between 2021 and 2025. According to officials, this will raise China’s forest coverage to nearly a quarter of its territory.
Half of all timber shipped around the world goes to China, making it “a predator on the world’s forests.” China is the largest importer of tropical deforestation – more than imports of the European Union and the United States put together – as well as the greenhouse gas emissions that result from it.
https://hongkongfp.com/2022/01/30/as-china-replants-its-own-forests-it-is-destroying-the-worlds/
Poisoning Amazon’s pristine rainforests:
Mercury released by gold fever is permeating into Amazon’s pristine rainforest and contaminating food chains.
The protected old-growth forest in the Amazon of southeastern Peru appears pristine: Ancient trees with massive trunks grow alongside young, slender ones, forming a canopy so thick it sometimes feels to scientists like evening during the day.
But a new analysis of what’s inside the forest’s leaves and birds’ feathers tells a different story: The same canopy that supports some of the richest biodiversity on the planet is also sucking up alarming levels of toxic mercury, according to a study published on Friday.
The mercury is released into the air by miners searching for gold along nearby riverbanks. They use mercury to separate the precious metal from surrounding sediment and then burn it off. Carried in the air, particles catch on leaves like dust and are washed onto the forest floor by rain. Other particles are sucked into the leaves’ tissue. From there, mercury appears to have transferred up the food web to songbirds, which showed levels of mercury two to 12 times as high as those in comparable areas farther from mining activity.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/28/climate/amazon-forest-mercury-peru.html
TURNING IT AROUND
Saving the grandmother trees:
Ancient trees emerged in oldgrowth forests, they have survived centuries of change and as climate change increases mortality they are increasingly unlikely to ever be replicated, they are irreplaceable.
New research suggests that ancient trees possess far more than an awe-inspiring presence and a suite of ecological services to forests—they also sustain the entire population of trees' ability to adapt to a rapidly changing environment.
To put it simply, according to the authors, ancient trees have survived countless environmental changes over hundreds or thousands of years, and in turn, this genetic resilience is passed on to the forest. Moreover, these old trees provide invaluable services to their ecosystem. They provide a habitat for endangered species and sequester a disproportionate amount of carbon compared to typical mature trees.
… However, at higher mortality rates, like those that might be seen as resulting from climate changes, the ability of trees to reach the same impressive ages is very limited or virtually impossible.
"As the climate changes, it is likely that mortality rates in trees will increase, and it will become increasingly difficult for ancient trees to emerge in forests," said Cannon. "Once you cut down old and ancient trees, we lose the genetic and physiological legacy that they contain forever, as well as the unique habitat for nature conservation," he added.
… They are an emergent property of old-growth forests that are impossible to recreate in newly regenerating forests, and must be protected, urge the authors.
"This study recalls the urgent need for a global strategy to conserve biodiversity, not only by preserving intact forests, but in particular the small remnant of a few ancient trees that have survived in managed forest landscapes," said Piovesan.
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-ancient-trees-deemed-vital-forest.html
Ancient trees are an emergent property of forests that requires many centuries to generate. They radically change variance in generation time and population fitness, bridging centennial environmental cycles. These life-history ‘lottery’ winners are vital to long-term forest adaptive capacity and provide invaluable data about environmental history and individual longevity. Old and ancient trees cannot be replaced through restoration or regeneration for many centuries. They must be protected to preserve their invaluable diversity.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-021-01088-5
73,300 tree species in the world, and declining unseen.
So now we know there are around 73,300 tree species in the world, but we don’t know what 9,300 of them are, and we may not find them before we eliminate them.
Although around 64,000 tree species have been documented, the total global number of tree species – both documented and undocumented – remained unknown. The international team’s work, which is detailed in a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals an answer. It estimates there are approximately 73,300 tree species in the world today.
“For instance, South America contains roughly 43% of the planet’s tree species and the highest number of rare species,” Liang said. “It is very possible we could lose undiscovered tree species to extinction before we even find them.”
The global initiative GFBI has steadily grown over the past five years, and its efforts to understand the world’s tree population are bearing fruit. The global tree species estimate follows development of the first global map of tree symbioses, published in the journal Nature, and discovery that forest biodiversity benefits the economy by more than five times the cost of conservation efforts, published in the journal Science.
Genetics affect nature responses:
A study has found that genetics has a strong influence on a person’s affinity with nature, though its mostly shaped by life experiences.
We studied more than 1,100 pairs of twins to understand the origin of affinity for nature, and report the results in a study published today in PLoS Biology. It turns out identical twins are much more similar to each other in the strength of their connection to nature than non-identical twins.
Statistical analysis of the results showed 46% of the variation in connection to nature, as measured on a psychological scale, can be explained by genetic factors. Even the amount of time we spend in our own backyards and visiting local parks seems to have a strong genetic basis.
Despite the clear role of genetics, our results show other factors actually shape most of our affinity to nature. These might include childhood holiday destinations, the examples set by our parents, friends and other family members, educational experiences, and whether we live in a biodiverse area.
Nature–based health interventions such as green gyms or environmental volunteering can improve physical, mental and social health and well-being. Nature-play initiatives such as the Green Passport for Queensland kids can give children powerful experiences of nature that could benefit their health over the long term.
The US ecologist James Miller has argued interactions with nature are crucial in sparking support for protecting nature. Yet an Australian study led by environmentalist Jessica Pinder showed conservation concern among Australian undergraduates was more strongly associated with social and cultural experiences in childhood than with the amount of time a person spends in nature.
A familiar story:
In a familiar story, a new settler in Oregon recounts how a move to self-sufficient living in the wilderness turned into a lifelong campaign to protect forests.
We'd only lived in Oregon for a few years and didn't know about logging yet. Of course, it was happening all around us. Throughout the day, we'd hear the sound of chainsaws, the yarder whistle, and the crash of trees as they fell, and every day on Highway 101 or on the narrow, winding gravel road to our place, we passed trucks full of huge logs. We'd seen whole landscapes that had been clear cut and then sprayed with toxic chemicals. We saw areas that had once been pristine forest, now stripped of every living plant and animal, like a bomb had gone off, but we didn't understand the forces at play. Later we'd see how Big Timber had worked its way into and corrupted Oregon's legislature, its agencies, communities and schools, but back then, we were innocent.
Forest Media 28 January 2022
A neighbour bordering Tuckers Nob State Forest is trying to organise opposition to logging part of a key corridor linking through to Bongil Bongil. Our pleas for the Environment Minister to stop Forestry Corporation rampaging through burnt forests garnered more interest. The State is spending $3 million restoring visitor facilities at Ebor Falls after the fires.
The South Australian Forest Products Association is calling on the major political parties to commit to planting 50 million trees to replenish South Australia’s estate and support regional economies ahead of the March state election, claiming they need it for the domestic market when they export huge volumes.
World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia is undertaking the Koala Genome Survey with more than $1 million in Federal and NSW government funding, with the aim to sequencing Koala populations across their range. It’s a brave new world, creating compounds to isolate species from the wild is one thing, another is cross breeding from different populations, now they are genetically engineering threatened species for their own good.
A spike in deaths of Powerful Owls in urban Melbourne has been attributed to possums eating rat baits, leading to renewed calls to ban anticoagulant rodenticides. Property developers behind a new housing estate in Perth’s southern suburbs were fined $250,000 by the federal government for the destruction of 10 hectares of habitat for the endangered Carnaby, Baudin and Red-tailed Black Cockatoos in contravention of federal laws protecting threatened species, after approval was given for clearing another 15 ha. South-west Australia’s bandicoots were separated as a species in 2018; Quenda. As with its kin it is another ecosystem engineer, turning over 4 tonnes of soil each year, aiding infiltration, decomposition, germination and importantly dispersing fungi (including mycorrhizas).
As shown by the recent heatwave, south-western Australia is leading the way in climate heating, as exemplified around 2011 when simultaneously there were mass deaths of trees, seagrass, kelp and corals, a population crash of an endangered terrestrial bird species, plummeting breeding success in marine penguins, and outbreaks of terrestrial wood-boring insects. A study of Arizona's ponderosa pines found that they are getting smaller and growth rates declining as climate change progresses, primarily due to water stress.
They tout the news that renewable energy generators contributed almost 35 per cent of east coast electricity supplies in the December quarter, as cheap wind and solar pushed out increasingly expensive gas and coal rivals out of the network. While on one hand Australian states are extolling their virtues in taking action to reduce CO2 emissions from electricity generation, and some are even phasing out logging of public native forests to increase sequestration, BUT on the other hand they all have massive coal and gas plans.
Australia was justifiably labelled a climate fool for their promotion of carbon capture and storage at Glasgow, as exemplified by the 400 climate scientists and other academics who wrote to Canadian Government urging them to drop plans to subsidise Carbon Capture and Storage. Now it is apparent that a Canadian Government sponsored Carbon Capture and Storage project touted as a success only captures 39% of its emissions. In February open access to a ream of scientific publications will become easier.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Opposition to logging Tuckers Nob:
A neighbour bordering Tuckers Nob State Forest is trying to organise opposition to logging part of a key corridor linking through to Bongil Bongil.
Ms Firefly is also a neighbour of the Bindarri and Dorrigo National Parks and told News Of The Area that her property is a koala habitat.
“I have to get permission to cut down one tree, and yet Forestry Corporation can cut down a whole forest,” she said.
Ms Firefly said the compartment to be logged is part of the proposal to create a land bridge from the tablelands through Bindarri and Dorrigo National Parks to Bongil Bongil State Forests.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/valery-residents-rally-to-save-native-forests-at-tuckers-nob-85988
Continuing Ministerial irresponsibility:
The 20/1/2022 Northern Rivers Times ran my media release as ‘Plea to Minister to stop Forestry Corporation’.
John Edwards also took the theme up in Voices for the Earth in the Clarence Valley Independent.
These actions prove once again that Forests Corporation isn’t fit to manage our publicly owned forests.
https://clarencevalleynews.com.au/voices-for-the-earth-31/
Upgrading Ebor:
The State is spending $3 million restoring visitor facilities at Ebor Falls after the fires.
AUSTRALIA
Please sir, I want some more:
The South Australian Forest Products Association is calling on the major political parties to commit to planting 50 million trees to replenish South Australia’s estate and support regional economies ahead of the March state election, claiming they need it for the domestic market when they export huge volumes.
https://indaily.com.au/news/2022/01/27/forestry-industry-launches-bid-for-50-million-trees/
SPECIES
Koala sequencing:
World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia is undertaking the Koala Genome Survey with more than $1 million in Federal and NSW government funding, with the aim to sequencing Koala populations across their range.
However, the Koala Genome Survey is sequencing each location in the genome of every koala 30 to 60 times. The only other projects this thorough are human genome studies.
Such depth of analysis will enable scientists to identify which populations have important genetic variants – such as those for climate and disease resilience – that better equip koalas to adapt to a changing environment.
As reservoirs of crucial genes, those populations can be prioritised for protection.
In the future, through targeted translocations, vital genes could be introduced to populations with low genetic diversity – a move to strengthen the species.
“One theory is that southern koalas are so closely related they are less aggressive with each other and tolerate being near other koalas, enabling more breeding and higher densities. Northern populations don’t seem to typically accept such close proximity,” said Dr Ashman.
https://www.blayneychronicle.com.au/story/7594460/koala-baby-boom-in-victorias-east/
Re-engineering Threatened Species:
It’s a brave new world, creating compounds to isolate species from the wild is one thing, another is cross breeding from different populations, now they are genetically engineering threatened species for their own good.
Around the world, populations of many beloved species are declining at increasing rates. According to one grim projection, as many as 40% of the world’s species may be extinct by 2050. Alarmingly, many of these declines are caused by threats for which few solutions exist.
… My colleagues and I have developed an intervention method that aims to give endangered species the genetic features they need to survive in the wild.
The toolkit my colleagues and I developed is called “targeted genetic intervention” or TGI. It works by increasing the occurrence or frequency of genetic features that impact an organism’s fitness in the presence of the threat. We outline the method in a recent research paper.
Such tools can accurately tweak targeted genetic features in an individual organism – making it more able to adapt – while leaving the rest of the genome untouched. The genetic modifications are then passed on to subsequent generations.
I am working with researchers at the University of Melbourne to develop TGI approaches in Australian frogs. We are trialling these approaches in the iconic southern corroboree frog, and plan to extend them to other species if they prove effective.
As with many conservation approaches, targeted genetic intervention is likely to involve trade-offs. For example, genetic features that make a species resistant to one disease may make it more susceptible to another.
Poisoning Owls:
A spike in deaths of Powerful Owls in urban Melbourne has been attributed to possums eating rat baits, leading to renewed calls to ban anticoagulant rodenticides.
To their dismay and surprise, the results, now published as a paper in the journal Science of the Total Environment, found 14 of the 18 powerful owls tested positive to anticoagulant rodenticides.
This suggests they are being exposed to rodenticides via accidental or deliberate poisoning of non-target species such as possums, which are eating the rat poison.
“These rodenticides are really problematic because they stay around the body for such a long time,” said Professor White. “They permeate the food chain far wider than people think.”
BirdLife Australia, the largest bird advocacy group in the country, has been campaigning against anticoagulant rodenticides for years, and is calling on Australia’s largest hardware chain, Bunnings Warehouse, to stop stocking them.
“Ultimately, we need to think very hard whether second-generation anticoagulants should be available to the public at all,” he said.
Commonwealth fining and approving clearing of Cockatoos:
Property developers behind a new housing estate in Perth’s southern suburbs were fined $250,000 by the federal government for the destruction of 10 hectares of habitat for the endangered Carnaby, Baudin and Red-tailed Black Cockatoos in contravention of federal laws protecting threatened species, after approval was given for clearing another 15 ha.
Before the fine was issued, federal authorities approved on November 21 the clearing of a further 15 hectares of vegetation at the Paramount Estate.
The clearing approval allows for the removal of about 15.36 hectares of foraging habitat for black cockatoos, 404 potential breeding trees and five trees which contain seven suitable nesting hollows.
Conditions for the approval include how the clearing must be done in a slow, progressive way that allows for animals to escape to remaining vegetation.
The kangaroos were ultimately relocated but the developers reported about 40 per cent died within the first 24 hours of the translocation due to capture myopathy, which is a stress-related illness.
The roles of bandicoots:
South-west Australia’s bandicoots were separated as a species in 2018; Quenda. As with its kin it is another ecosystem engineer, turning over 4 tonnes of soil each year, aiding infiltration, decomposition, germination and importantly dispersing fungi (including mycorrhizas).
Quenda are prolific diggers in their search for dinner – a single quenda can dig up to 45 small pits per night. Although each pit is small, one quenda can dig over four tonnes of soil each year in total, almost 30 wheelbarrow loads.
Quenda and other digging mammals are like nature’s gardeners. Their digging helps break the water repellent layer on the soil surface, allowing more water to infiltrate the soil, and decreases soil compaction and erosion.
Quenda digs also incorporate leaf litter and seeds into the soil, and this improves conditions for native plants to grow and thrive.
But perhaps the biggest way they help Australian ecosystems is by dispersing fungal spores in their droppings.
We examined quenda scats from urban bushland south of Perth, and found they contained a large variety of fungi. Quenda scats are only 3-5cm long, but had an average of 45 different fungi species in each that the quenda would have deliberately sought out and eaten.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Feeling the heat:
As shown by the recent heatwave, south-western Australia is leading the way in climate heating, as exemplified around 2011 when simultaneously there were mass deaths of trees, seagrass, kelp and corals, a population crash of an endangered terrestrial bird species, plummeting breeding success in marine penguins, and outbreaks of terrestrial wood-boring insects.
Perth smashed its previous heatwave records last week, after sweltering through six days in a row over 40℃ – and 11 days over 40℃ this summer so far. On top of that, Perth has suffered widespread power outages and a bushfire in the city’s north…
Australia has already warmed by about 1.4℃ since 1910. Under a high emissions scenario, where global emissions continue to rise unabated, the hottest day of the year will be as much as 4 to 6℃ warmer by 2080–2099, compared to 1995–2014.
… southwest WA is one of few regions worldwide where the vast majority of climate models agree we’ll see a marked decline in winter and spring rainfall – by up to 30% under a high emissions scenario.
Extreme heatwaves and dry spells can take a heavy toll on wildlife. For example, the region endured an exceptionally dry winter in 2010, followed by a hot summer in 2011, and then a marine heatwave in March, 2011.
Their combined impact led to mass tree deaths and coral bleaching occurring simultaneously. Plants on land, seagrass and kelp also died en masse, along with a population crash of an endangered terrestrial bird species, plummeting breeding success in marine penguins, and outbreaks of terrestrial wood-boring insects.
The science could not be any clearer. We need to reach net zero emissions as soon as possible to avoid catastrophic climate change, otherwise extreme heat events, like we in Perth experienced, will simply become more normal.
Climate heating shrinking trees:
A study of Arizona's ponderosa pines found that they are getting smaller and growth rates declining as climate change progresses, primarily due to water stress.
The reasons for declining tree size are varied and complex, but the main culprit is the fact that ponderosa pines in Arizona grow less as temperature increases. This is especially true for the largest trees.
"A tree has to work against gravity to get water to its top, and the tallest trees have to work the hardest. If you turn up the temperature, the water-transport system of the tree is under even greater pressure and often is damaged," Evans said. "Warming means trees are more drought stressed, and growth is reduced."
While taller trees are more vulnerable to drought driven by high temperatures, the researchers also found that small trees are more vulnerable to drought driven by lack of water. Their smaller roots, which cover a smaller area than the roots of larger trees, struggle to extract moisture from the soil.
"The third interaction is between forest density and the climate variables. These interactions show that denser forests fare worse when it's hotter and drier, which is generally what we'd expect for the species, but this is concerning given the recent densification of these forests," Heilman said.
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-future-forests-smaller-trees-carbon.html
I think we can, I think we can …
They tout the news that renewable energy generators contributed almost 35 per cent of east coast electricity supplies in the December quarter, as cheap wind and solar pushed out increasingly expensive gas and coal rivals out of the network.
… we can’t, we can’t
While on one hand Australian states are extolling their virtues in taking action to reduce CO2 emissions from electricity generation, and some are even phasing out logging of public native forests to increase sequestration, BUT on the other hand they all have massive coal and gas plans: South Australia is intending to set fire to underground coal seams in an attempt to generate gas, Victoria wants to turn its brown coal into “renewable” brown hydrogen, NSW is intent on keeping Newcastle as the world’s largest coal export port with new mines being approved while fracking the Piliga, Queensland now has Adani and many more online while also fracking its west, Northern Territory has its shale fracking Beetaloo project onshore and its offshore Barossa gas project, and Western Australia may soon frack the Kimberley to increase its exports
But like the people in the Hollywood film, recently I haven’t wanted to “look up” at this seemingly endless stream of new Australian planet-killing proposals that show no sign of stopping. Looking up sickens me. Looking up especially sickens me after I’ve been looking down at the smiling faces of my grandchildren.
Federal and state elections loom. Get involved and strongly support candidates who have declared real climate action as a top priority. These will either be independents or candidates not linked to the incumbent parties that have failed us for so long. If it’s our planet’s last chance, then it’s probably our democracy’s last chance too.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/dont-look-up-australias-endless-list-of-planet-killing-projects/
TURNING IT AROUND
We couldn’t have a more foolish Government:
Australia was justifiably labelled a climate fool for their promotion of carbon capture and storage at Glasgow, as exemplified by the 400 climate scientists and other academics who wrote to Canadian Government urging them to drop plans to subsidise Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS).
“Deploying CCUS at any climate-relevant scale, carried out within the short time frame we have to avert climate catastrophe without posing substantial risks to communities on the front lines of the buildout, is a pipe dream,” declared the group of signatories led by Dr. Christina Hoicka, Canada Research Chair in Urban Planning for Climate Change at the University of Victoria.
“We must instead move forward with proven climate solutions that will contribute the most to emissions reductions: increased electrification, wide-scale use of renewable energy, and intensifying energy efficiency.”
With four of every five CCUS projects in the U.S. declared a failure, and 81% of the carbon captured to date injected underground to force more oil to the surface through a process called enhanced oil recovery (EOR), “carbon capture for the oil and gas sector is not a climate solution,” they added. “At best, it prevents some carbon dioxide from polluting facilities from reaching the atmosphere, but it is not a negative emissions technology. Despite the billions of taxpayer dollars spent by governments globally on CCUS, the technology has not made a dent in CO2 emissions.”
Now it is apparent that a Canadian Government sponsored Carbon Capture and Storage project touted as a success only captures 39% of its emissions.
The federal government is looking into independent analysis claiming that carbon capture at a highly-touted Shell Canada demonstration project in Alberta is producing more greenhouse gas emissions than it prevents, The Energy Mix has learned.
The report issued late last week by London, UK-based human rights organization Global Witness acknowledges that Shell’s Quest carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility near Edmonton captured five million tonnes of carbon dioxide between 2015 and 2019, in what the company celebrated as a major milestone in July 2020.
But Global Witness came up with rather different numbers. “Our new research reveals that Quest is in fact emitting more than it is capturing,” the organization states. Despite the five megatonnes captured, the facility “has emitted a further 7.5 million tonnes of climate-polluting gases during the same time,” the equivalent of 1.2 million internal combustion cars per year.
“When the plant’s overall greenhouse gas emissions are factored in, such as methane pollution from the fossil gas supply chain, only 39% of its emissions are captured,” the report adds.
For that result, Global Witness says Shell invested US$1 billion in the facility, including US$654 million in government subsidies, despite sustained opposition from many Indigenous communities focused on the industry’s “severe environmental damage”.
Freeing up information:
In February open access to a ream of scientific publications will become easier.
An ambitious free index of more than 200 million scientific documents that catalogues publication sources, author information and research topics, has been launched.
The index, called OpenAlex after the ancient Library of Alexandria in Egypt, also aims to chart connections between these data points to create a comprehensive, interlinked database of the global research system, say its founders
The tool is also integrated with the Unpaywall database, which contains more than 30 million open-access articles that Priem and OurResearch co-founder Heather Piwowar launched in 2017. “We now have much better coverage of open access than MAG ever did,” Priem says. “Not only can we tell you where the free-to-read copies of any particular article live, but we can also tell you the licence and the version of that article.”
Forest Media 21 January 2022
We had a good start to the year on north-coast ABC. After giving me a long run on the Minister’s refusal to require Forestry to comply with the NRC’s fire recommendations, and the plight of local Koalas, both Sean and Susie rang in and were given a good run on the need to stop logging public forests. While we await the Land and Environment Court decision on whether Verdant Earth needs a new DA for Redbank, they are planning to publicly list in the United States to raise $100 million to recommission the power plant. The key PNF players have begun a renewed push to get the Government moving on removing constraints on Private Native Forestry, given that processes have been stalled for 2 years.
UNSW Sydney scientists are after citizen scientists to document the bushfire recovery of plants, animals and fungi across bushfire affected regions in New South Wales, focussing on three areas. Forestry Corps are taking credit for helping fund an Aboriginal café at Sealy Lookout, near Coffs.
The industry and Victorian opposition are trying to emulate NSW and stop legal challenges against logging. The Victorian Government has established an Eminent Panel for Community Engagement to lead conversations with Victorian communities to determine new conservation, recreation and tourism opportunities over more than 146,000 hectares of state forest identified as Immediate Protection Areas in 2019 due to their precious biodiversity. Western Australia too has begun its conversion of State forests, with the creation of the17,870 ha Dryandra Woodland National Park, renowned for numbats, woylies, malleefowl and brushtail possums. Queensland has been battling over landclearing for decades, but with 680,688 hectares bulldozed in 2018-19, and 71% of this classed as exempt clearing, the environment is clearly losing.
The Federal Government is committing $20 million to the battle against pests and weeds, both on farmland and in the bush. Millions of feral goats are devastating native vegetation and its dependent wildlife in western NSW, and now the Government is breeding them to clear native vegetation on Crown land for fuel reduction. Having completed their conquest of northern Australia, cane toads are launching an assault on Sydney, with several confirmed in at least 10 locations across Sydney over the last year, including Penrith, Narrabeen, Kenthurst, Caringbah and Campbelltown.
Locals are fighting a quarry extension in south-east Queensland which is claimed to affect 51 ha of Koala habitat. Record numbers of tourists to 2 South Australian parks have caused record roadkills of vulnerable heath goannas.
With a rise of 1.4oC Australia is a leader in global warming, and its only going to get hotter. Coal-fired power generation hit its highest levels in history in 2021, subsequently pushing CO2 emissions through the roof, according to the International Energy Agency. Australia is the world’s second largest exporter of thermal coal making us the Typhoid Mary of emissions. Its not just coal, Michael West has a scathing attack on Australia’s corrupt gas-led recovery. While the emphasis has to be on protecting or restoring native vegetation for long term carbon storage, true to form the Australian Government has done a deal with the industry to allow short-term plantations to be used for carbon credits. We should be afraid, very afraid. Its time to tell it as it is and stop denying the urgency of the climate crisis. Many animals are changing ranges in response to global heating, with climatically suitable habitat often constricting or moving polewards, which means many of the half of plant species dependent upon animals to disperse their seeds may be stranded.
A new study advocates that policymakers need to adopt a hierarchy of natural climate solutions to remove atmospheric carbon, that considers all values, with the highest priority being protecting native vegetation, the second priority being improved management, and lastly restoring natural ecosystems. Another study has estimated applying optimal land-management practices to extant vegetation (farms and forests) alone can “reduce” more than 1/3 of the current global fossil fuel emissions. As regional towns sell off public open space, houses grow to fill shrinking urban blocks, and cities grow unbearably hot, the moves to make cities greener is gaining momentum. Is forest bathing better for us with a trained guide?
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Putting Minister Griffin on notice:
We had a good start to the year on north-coast ABC. After giving me a long run on the Minister’s refusal to require Forestry to comply with the NRC’s fire recommendations, and the plight of local Koalas, both Sean and Susie rang in and were given a good run on the need to stop logging public forests. Starts at 2 hrs 33 min.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/northcoast/programs/breakfast/breakfast/13701394
Floating biomass burning:
While we await the Land and Environment Court decision on whether Verdant Earth needs a new DA for Redbank, they are planning to publicly list in the United States to raise $100 million to recommission the power plant.
Australian biomass-to-hydrogen venture Verdant Earth has progressed plans to undertake a public listing in the United States, kick-starting a process to raise almost $100 million to fund the recommissioning of a New South Wales power station using biomass.
In seeking a public listing, Verdant is looking to secure investor support to reactivate the 150MW Redbank power station, located in the NSW Hunter Region, and which has previously been fuelled with coal.
In a prospectus included with the filing, Verdant said that it could commence early hydrogen production later in 2022, with a goal to ramp up production using the Redbank power station from 2023 onwards.
Such projects have been met with some scepticism, particularly from environmental groups wary of the potential biodiversity impacts of bioenergy projects, as well as the potential for output from the project to be labelled ‘renewable hydrogen’.
Local environment groups have also expressed fears that the project could ultimately lead to increased logging of native forests.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/austalian-biomass-to-hydrogen-venture-readies-for-us-public-listing/
Reigniting the Koala Wars:
The key PNF players have begun a renewed push to get the Government moving on removing constraints on Private Native Forestry, given that processes have been stalled for 2 years.
Most timber for house frames comes from commercial softwood plantations and the gap can’t readily be filled by hardwood, which is also in short supply.
But the hardwood shortage provides a golden opportunity for landowners with native forest on their properties, who aren’t yet actively managing it for timber or for conservation.
The NSW Government began a review of the codes in 2018. At the time it was estimated PNF accounted for 8.7 million hectares, or 39.7 per cent of the state’s native forests.
Andrew says one of the hurdles to any expansion of PNF is the overlapping and conflicting regulations that apply to different activities on those farms – from grazing cattle to fences, as well as firebreaks, weed and vermin control.
The review of PNF codes of practice that began in 2018 was due for completion by September 2019. But it was delayed and became entangled in the 2020 political dispute dubbed the “koala wars”.
[Mr Marshall] also said he had made it clear to LLS staff that any amendments to the code must include an increase in approval periods for PNF plans from 15 to 30 years and removal of dual consent requirements for PNF.
https://thefarmermagazine.com.au/timber-shortage-between-wood-and-a-hard-place/
Citizen science:
UNSW Sydney scientists are after citizen scientists to document the bushfire recovery of plants, animals and fungi across bushfire affected regions in New South Wales, focussing on three areas.
The Big Bushfire BioBlitz starting on February 25 is a series of weekend-long events which will generate new evidence on the impacts of large-scale fire on biodiversity.
- BioBlitz 1: Blue Mountains, Friday 25 February – Sunday 27 February 2022
- BioBlitz 2: Washpool National Park, Friday 4 March – Sunday 6 March 2022
- BioBlitz 3: Murramarang National Park, Friday 11 March – Sunday 13 March 2022
Register for the Big Bushfire BioBlitz.
https://blog.csiro.au/big-bushfire-bioblitz/
Forestry café:
Forestry Corps are taking credit for helping fund an Aboriginal café at Sealy Lookout, near Coffs.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/forestry-corp-helps-to-open-a-cafe/
AUSTRALIA
Protecting VicForests from legal challenge:
The industry and Victorian opposition are trying to emulate NSW and stop legal challenges against logging.
The Victorian Liberal-Nationals Coalition leadership team is drafting legislation to block anti-logging activists using the courts to delay or halt native timber harvesting.
“Green lawfare has become an easy method for green activists to halt legitimate timber harvesting and has disrupted the livelihoods of workers and the supply chain to industries right across Victoria,” Mr Blackwood said.
VicForests, which manages harvesting, already faces 10 court actions by environmental groups, with one of those leading Supreme Court Justice Melinda Jane Richards to last month slap injunctions on any coupe where a Greater Glider possum has been spotted.
Mr Blackwood said the Coalition was looking at NSW legislation, which excluded third-party civil enforcement proceedings for breaches of an integrated forestry operations orders.
“The Andrews Labor Government does not agree that there is a ‘loophole’ in the legislation and is continually working to improve environmental standards, including the revision of the Timber Code of Practice to improve clarity and enforceability for timber workers, environmentalists, and the Conservation Regulator,” Ms D’Ambrosio’s office said.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/andrews-government-cant-see-the-loophole-the-coalition-can/
Deciding management of Victoria’s Immediate Protection Areas:
The Victorian Government has established an Eminent Panel for Community Engagement to lead conversations with Victorian communities to determine new conservation, recreation and tourism opportunities over more than 146,000 hectares of state forest identified as Immediate Protection Areas in 2019 due to their precious biodiversity.
https://sgst.com.au/2022/01/next-steps-for-mirboo-north-state-forest/
Western Australia has begun its transition:
Western Australia too has begun its conversion of State forests with the creation of the17,870 ha Dryandra Woodland National Park, renowned for numbats, woylies, malleefowl and brushtail possums.
Queensland clearing on:
Queensland has been battling with landclearing for decades, but with 680,688 hectares bulldozed in 2018-19, and 71% of this classed as exempt clearing, the environment is clearly losing.
The SLATS report reveals 680,688 hectares was bulldozed in 2018-19, showing that land clearing is continuing in Queensland at an alarming rate.
WWF-Australia called on the Queensland Government to move the state out of deforestation and into reforestation to ensure the land sector is carbon positive by 2030.
The SLATS report shows approximately 71% of the area cleared occurred through the ‘Category X’ loophole in the Queensland Vegetation Management Act, with ‘X’ referring to ‘Exempt’.
Almost one-third of the area of vegetation cleared occurred in catchments flowing to the Great Barrier Reef (217, 419 ha). Of this, 85% was exempted from the state’s land clearing laws.
“Preliminary estimates indicate 84% of the area of land cleared comprised regrowing trees that were older than 15 years of age, which could be 10 m high, and provide important habitat for koalas and other threatened wildlife,” said Dr Blanch.
“Worse still, remnant clearing in the Brigalow Belt actually increased by 58% from 22,460 ha in 2017-18 to 35,550ha in 2018/19.
More for pests and weeds:
The Federal Government is committing $20 million to the battle against pests and weeds, both on farmland and in the bush.
https://www.aap.com.au/news/millions-more-to-fight-weeds-and-pests/
Breeding more pests:
Millions of feral goats are devastating native vegetation and its dependent wildlife in western NSW, and now the Government is breeding them to clear native vegetation on Crown land for fuel reduction.
A bushfire mitigation trial which has goats chewing their way through hectares of bushfire fuel in the State’s west, has recruited more of the honorary four-legged firefighters and increased its count from 40 to over 100 goats.
https://psnews.com.au/2022/01/18/goats-not-kidding-on-way-to-beat-bushfires/?state=aps
Killer toads assault on Sydney:
Having completed their conquest of northern Australia, cane toads are launching an assault on Sydney, with several confirmed in at least 10 locations across Sydney over the last year, including Penrith, Narrabeen, Kenthurst, Caringbah and Campbelltown.
“We are seeing a big increase in these sightings with most cases related to the arrival of plant shipments in trucks from Queensland,” he said.
SPECIES
Mining Koalas:
Locals are fighting a quarry extension in south-east Queensland which is claimed to affect 51 ha of Koala habitat.
About 51 hectares of koala habitat will be removed under a Karreman Quarries proposal to expand its 88 hectare site at West Mount Cotton Road.
The extension plan is now before the federal environment department under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, having already passed through the state government and council.
Goannas going:
Record numbers of tourists to 2 South Australian parks have caused record roadkills of vulnerable heath goannas.
Wildlife rangers on South Australia's southern Eyre Peninsula are heartbroken after 10 vulnerable heath goannas were killed by vehicles in two national parks over the holiday period.
Record numbers of people visited Lincoln and Coffin Bay National Parks with more than 6,000 visitors to each park last month.
But the increase in visitors brought a setback in recovery for a top-order predator reptile that takes nine years to reach breeding age.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
As climate heating gathers momentum, so too do our carbon dioxide emissions.
With a rise of 1.4oC Australia is a leader in global warming, and its only going to get hotter.
Australia is warming faster than the world as a whole, with Australian temperatures already up about 1.4℃ since 1910.
Even if we start acting on climate change with more urgency, we will experience more frequent and intense heatwaves in coming years. This means we need to build greater resilience to these extremes and adapt cities and towns to a hotter world.
Rapid decarbonisation is needed to reduce further warming of the planet. It’s not too late to avoid the most dangerous climate change impacts.
Coal-fired power generation hit its highest levels in history in 2021, subsequently pushing CO2 emissions through the roof, according to the International Energy Agency. . Australia is the world’s second largest exporter of thermal coal making us the Typhoid Mary of emissions.
“Emissions from electricity need to decline by 55 per cent by 2030 to meet our Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario, but in the absence of major policy action from governments, those emissions are set to remain around the same level for the next three years,” Dr Birol said.
“Not only does this highlight how far off track we currently are from a pathway to net zero emissions by 2050, but it also underscores the massive changes needed for the electricity sector to fulfil its critical role in decarbonising the broader energy system.”
https://esdnews.com.au/coal-fired-generation-and-co2-emissions-hit-record-high/
Australian electricity demand saw close to 1% growth last year and the IEA expects it to surpass 2019 levels in 2022, with slow continued growth of an average 1% per annum out to 2024.
While coal power made up around 53% of electricity generation in Australia last year, the IEA forecasts a slow decline following capacity retirements – including the closure of Liddell Power Station’s first unit (500 MW) in April this year and the remainder (1,500 MW) in April next year.
The report forecasts coal’s share in Australia’s electricity mix to drop to around 47% in 2024.
But Australia can’t be smug – after all, 47% coal power is still too way too much, and we’re the Typhoid Mary of emissions given our fossil fuel exports and how much manufacturing we outsource.
According to the Australian Government’s December 2021 Resources and Energy Quarterly, our thermal coal exports dropped from 213 million tonnes in 2019–20 to 192 million tonnes in 2020–21, but are to reach 204 million tonnes by 2022–23. Even given the drop in 2019–20, Australia was the world’s second largest exporter of thermal coal.
https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/coal-power-electricity-mb2317/
Rushing headlong into oblivion:
Michael West has a scathing attack on Australia’s corrupt gas-led recovery.
Emissions targets are dead. Corrupt governments in hock to their corporate donors are accelerating fossil fuel projects despite international condemnation, economic logic and the future of the planet. Michael West reports on Kurri Kurri gas plant and the slew of new projects.
Kurri Kurri gas plant approval for one; the most bizarre and useless bit of fossil fuel infrastructure which they could possibly have devised, unless of course you happened to be the Liberal Party donor who bought the land on which it is to be built. Or the gas pipeline mob which will connect it to Santos’s Narrabri equally venal gas fields development.
The $600m public subsidy for the Kurri Kurri plant is therefore straight-out corruption; money paid to political parties by private interests in return for our money, public money.
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/kurri-kurri-gas-plant-climate-crime/
Using plantations to meet carbon targets:
While the emphasis has to be on protecting or restoring native vegetation for long term carbon storage, true to form the Australian Government has done a deal with the industry to allow short-term plantations to be used for carbon credits.
Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction Hon Angus Taylor has announced several changes to the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) methodology relating to timber production forests which will assist tree companies make the decision to proceed to expand their estates.
Chief Executive Officer of AFPA Ross Hampton said, “Professional forestry experts worked for many months with the Government to develop these changes which will be very helpful for tree planting companies seeking to participate in the Government’s voluntary ERF where eligible activities can earn Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs). One ACCU is equivalent to one tonne of carbon removed from or avoided in the atmosphere and can be sold by companies to generate income, either to the government through reverse auction or in the secondary market.
Indeed, the Government’s “Growing A Better Australia – A billion trees for jobs and growth” plan is seeking to plant an additional 400,000ha of production tree plantings which according to recent modelling can capture between 150 to 210Mt C02-e by 2050.
We should be afraid, very afraid:
Its time to tell it as it is and stop denying the urgency of the climate crisis.
It is overdue time to tell the full appalling truth and act with the urgency and radicalism that extinction of our species forever demands.
Despite the drought and bushfires of 2019-20, flooding around the globe in 2021, extreme storms, droughts, crop failures, starvation, conflict and mass migration from the most climate compromised regions, we have failed to break through the complacency and ignorance, of our populations, governments, corporations and institutions; internationally, nationally, at state, territory and local levels. The climate emergency is not being treated like the real, global apocalyptic event that it is. We are ignoring the signs.
We have only a few years until the last 6 of 15 climate feedback loops are triggered, that will see our climate spiral out-of-control to unsurvivable 4 to 6 degrees of warming. So here’s my take on 2021:
- IPCC AR6 – Delusionally complacent – eight years to decarbonise globally.
- Breakaway group of IPCC scientists — four years to decarbonise globally (as per last IPCC report AR5).
- Professor Sir David King, former UK Chief Scientist, and his Cambridge Climate Crisis Advisory Group say we need radical change in the next three to five years and even with net zero by 2030 our survival will depend on unproven risky geo-engineering.
They are also messaging to undermine effective opposition – many of us involved in climate activism are falling for and boosting this cleverly duplicitous messaging e.g.:
- “If you frighten folk they become paralysed and fatalistic” – clinical psychologist Jane Morton says this is not true– fear motivates as long as it is followed by a call to action. The fossil fuel industries and our governments use fear and divisive messaging all the time (how much will it cost? Who will pay? It will cost jobs?)
- Undermining and discrediting those that are telling the full appalling truth, demanding precautionary action or taking appropriate emergency levels of action or protest as “alarmist” or “extremist”!
https://johnmenadue.com/environment-2022-lets-put-the-blah-blah-behind-us-and-demand-change/
Mutual dependency may be left stranded by climate heating:
Many animals are changing ranges in response to global heating, with climatically suitable habitat often constricting or moving polewards, which means the half of plant species dependent upon animals to disperse their seeds may be left behind.
The decline of seed-dispersing animals is damaging plants’ ability to adapt to climate breakdown, a study has found.
Almost half of all plant species depend on animals to spread their seeds, but scientists fear these plants may be at risk of extinction when animals are driven to migrate to cooler areas, as plants cannot easily follow.
“This study shows that these baseline dispersal functions have drastically shrunk since humans conquered all islands and continents, leaving plants little adaptive resilience against the current ravages of climate change.”
TURNING IT AROUND
Vegetation has potential to reduce climate heating:
A new study advocates that policymakers need to adopt a hierarchy of natural climate solutions to remove atmospheric carbon, that considers all values, with the highest priority being protecting native vegetation, the second priority being improved management, and lastly restoring natural ecosystems.
We need drastic reductions in emissions to—and increased removals from—the atmosphere to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Reducing fossil fuel emissions is the most critical action, but natural climate solutions (NCS) are also required to meet this goal. The latter are ‘additional’ land-stewardship actions that capture or reduce greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions by protecting existing ecosystems, improving the management of working lands or restoring natural ecosystems. Unlike emergent technologies, such as the direct air capture of carbon dioxide (CO2), NCS are often lower cost, more readily available and can improve air, soil and water quality.
Here we propose the ‘NCS hierarchy’ as a framework for public and private sector decision-makers that suggests considering NCS related to protection, improved management and then restoration when prioritizing among different NCS….
… The first three steps of the biodiversity hierarchy are (1) avoid negative impacts to biodiversity, (2) minimize unavoidable impacts and (3) remediate negative impacts by restoring the affected sites or species. …
… Protection NCS avoid emissions from the conversion of forests, grasslands or wetlands, or from changing wetland hydrology (for example, when salt marshes are diked). Improved management NCS minimize and/or reduce emissions in working agricultural and forest lands. Improved manure management reduces methane emissions and improved timber felling techniques reduce damage to the residual forest stand. Improved management NCS can also regenerate carbon pools when, for example, cover crops increase soil carbon sequestration. Finally, restoration NCS remediate and/or restore forest, wetland and grassland cover where those ecosystems historically occurred
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01198-0.pdf
Another study has estimated applying optimal land-management practices to extant vegetation (farms and forests) alone can “reduce” more than 1/3 of the current global fossil fuel emissions.
Vegetation dominates most terrestrial ecosystems (e.g., forests, grasslands, croplands, shrublands, and savannas) and absorbs 112–169 PgC each year from the atmosphere through a biochemical process called photosynthesis. Improving vegetation carbon sequestration provides an alternative measure to counteract the excessive carbon emissions. The net amount of carbon captured by plants through photosynthesis over a given period is called net primary production (NPP). … NPP depends on various factors, such as the supply of nutrients, water availability, soil profile characteristics, and landscape attributes (e.g., terrain and drainage). Those factors can be broadly categorized as the following three groups: (1) climate impact (e.g., precipitation and temperature); (2) nonclimatic natural factors such as soil property, landforms, and biomes; and (3) human-related (HUMAN) land-management practices.
… The Paris Climate Agreement proposed national contributions to the goal of holding global warming to well below 2 °C. Assessing the carbon gap, i.e., how much more carbon is to be sequestered through optimal land-management practices (OLMPs), is helpful to mitigate climate changes. … We estimate that ~1/5 more carbon, totaling 13.74 PgC yr−1, could be added to the current NPP from global terrestrial vegetation if the identified OLMPs get implemented, or a net effect of reducing 3.5–4.0 PgC yr−1 from the atmosphere.
…Previously, it was reported that land use, land-use change, and forest (LULUCF) sector could contribute to as much as 20% of the mitigation potential of NDC [nationally determined contributions] targets at the global level. Our study suggests the contributions from LULUCF to NDC targets might be greatly underestimated, as applying OLMPs alone can reduce more than 1/3 of the current global fossil fuel emissions…
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00333-1
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00333-1.pdf
Naturalising cities:
As regional towns sell off public open space, houses grow to fill shrinking urban blocks, and cities grow unbearably hot, the moves to make cities greener is gaining momentum.
To thrive, cities must lean into nature. That means having open green spaces and interconnected waterways to prevent floods; green roofs and walls that reduce temperatures and produce food; and forests planted as green belts to oxygenate urban areas and regenerate ecosystems.
One initiative, ‘BiodiverCities by 2030’, helps city administrators to explicitly include existing ecosystems in urban planning and to keep economic, sociological and ecological needs in harmony. This week, we published a report on how urban leaders can use nature-based solutions in their planning (go.nature.com/3fzhqss).
Professional bathing:
Is forest bathing better for us with a trained guide?
TOKYO - Forest therapy, a guided outdoor practice, can benefit our well-being and give us more grounding. A licensed guide helps those who join a session to rediscover the joy of wandering and wondering in the forest or another natural environment. Beyond relaxation and the connection with nature , there are numerous health benefits that have been researched and documented, for example, in the International Handbook of Forest Therapy.
Japan Today talked to two licensed forest therapy guides in Japan — Makiko Sugishita and Stacy Kurokawa — about their training, current activities and how guided forest therapy sessions can be more beneficial to us than just a walk in the park.
https://japantoday.com/category/features/environment/forest-medicine-in-japan
Forest Media 14 January 2022
Given that I did my media release early in January about the need to protect unburnt refugia and habitat trees in line with the NRC recommendations, it gained a bit of traction against the Covid current. As well as Echonet and Echo running it, I did interviews with NBN, Prime, ABC, ZZZ/2LM, and 2SER. I also did an earlier interview with 3CR. The January 2022 Nimbin Good Times has an article by Jim Morrison on Cherry Tree SF, focussing on the aesthetic cultural values of the roadside and the growing threat of Bell Miner Associated Dieback, letters by Malveena and Chibo, and the regular Nimbin Environment Centre column focussing on a variety of forest issues.
Daisy Barham has summarised the environmental highs and lows of 2021, its not all bad. The threat on Blockading Australia’s facebook to shut down the Sydney CBD from Monday June 27th has commentators outraged. Its not just a logging failure, Forestry Australia is muddying the water by calling for establishment of a seedbank and workforce to regenerated forests after logging and wildfires, and they have weighed in on Western Australia, asking the Government to prove logging is bad. ACF has released the report Nature as a Climate Solution, Country, culture and nature-based solutions for mitigating climate change. The Black Summer fires were driven by climate change, not fuel build-up, and burnt through half of our wet sclerophyll forests and over a third of NSW’s rainforests.
Not long ago Regent Honeyeaters roamed Australia is large flocks, now there are less than 300 left and it is likely to be extinct within 20 years. While habitat loss is recognised as a major cause they still don’t get it that the loss of mature flowering trees (through logging, fire and droughts) is equally culpable. The Hunter Valley, home of Redbank, is their most important refugia. Roads are taking an increasing toll on Australia’s wildlife, necessitating the need for assisted wildlife crossings, which can be effective.
A new threat to Koalas, Port Macquarie’s new Koala tourism/breeding centre in Cowra SF is intending to track down and remove Koalas from the bush for their breeding program, with an initial target of 30 Koalas. Raising animals in predator proof enclosures makes them more vulnerable to predation, trials of exposing animals to low predation offers some hope they may be able to adapt over time to live free. After a community uproar the Australian Reptile Park at Somersby has withdrawn an exclusive ‘koalas to your room’ program that offered hotel guests and homeowners a visit from a koala for a cool $2,200 an hour. As forestry continues to cut down mature Koala feed trees, others are planting tiny little seeds.
South-western Australia's recent record-breaking heatwave, with 4 days above 40oC, resulted in critically endangered western ringtail possums falling from trees due to extreme dehydration. In Victoria Sambar Deer are thriving in the wake of bushfires, finding the new growth palatable and ringbarking trees by rubbing them with their antlers, putting at increased risk many badly burnt rainforests. The Animal Justice Party want deer to roam free. Superb fairy-wrens are one of many cooperatively breeding bird species, though its not just about family groups as they also have multilevel societies forming themselves into supergroups and broader communities. Unlike most scavengers, Tasmanian devils are fussy eaters with their own individual preferences according to their whiskers.
A researcher has highlighted that its generally ignored that freshwater mussels are dying suddenly and in the thousands, with each mass death event bringing these endangered molluscs closer to extinction, emphasising the need for freshwater protected areas.
You are what you eat. With every breath in the forest you are breathing in the DNA of its inhabitants, from the fish in the river, to the snake in the undergrowth and the koala in the treetops. Now researchers can undertake fauna surveys just by sampling air.
The past seven years have been the world’s seven hottest on record, and 2021 was the fifth hottest, Australia was one of those countries cooled by La Nina. The oceans continue to modify impacts by taking-up ever increasing heat energy at great cost to them. Scientists are lamenting that Governments aren’t addressing the overwhelming science proving the growing climate crisis and are calling for a moratorium on further research until Governments take action.
Biden needs to decide whether he will let Alaska’s ancient trees, that have weathered the tests of time, survive Trump’s legacy a little longer. The boreal forests are rapidly heating and drying, leading to an increase in zombie fires that over-winter by burning under snow in the peat before emerging to grow in spring. More evidence that as climate heating progresses rainforests are becoming increasingly stressed and may soon reach a tipping point where they become part of the problem rather than the solution.
Biomass burning is rapidly expanding around the world under the cloak of renewable energy and jobs. A company has released a biomass mapping tool able to map annual changes in biomass (up until 2019), enabling real time identification of changes in biomass around the world.
James Hansen, a leading advocate for action on climate change, has published a lengthy dissertation on the problems and solutions for climate heating. It is now common to hear conservationists arguing for return of control of forests to communities, though this will not necessarily result in increased protection as shown in Indonesia. Its business as usual, despite some companies’ pretence they regret fucking up the planet.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Recklessly causing serious and irreversible harm.
Given that I did my media release early in January about the need to protect unburnt refugia and habitat trees in line with the NRC recommendations, it gained a bit of traction against the Covid current. As well as Echonet running it, I did interviews with NBN, Prime, ABC, ZZZ/2LM, and 2SER. I also did an earlier interview with 3CR.
NEFA have called upon the new environment Minister, James Griffin, to fulfil his responsibilities and immediately implement the Natural Resources Commission (NRC) minimalist recommendations to reduce the risks of logging compounding the massive impacts of the 2019-20 fires, including on Koalas.
“NRC recommended that logging stop immediately in Taree Management Area because of the extreme risk logging would cause serious and irreversible harm, a month later Forestry started logging the only unburnt State Forest (Yarratt) and they are still at it.
“In burnt parts of the Casino Management Area the NRC recommend that Forestry protect some unburnt and lightly burnt forests in temporary Fire Offsets for 3 years post-fire,
“Additionally, because of the widespread burning of hollow-bearing trees, the NRC recommended the retention of additional mature trees where there are less than 8 hollow-bearing trees per hectare remaining, and the retention of the next 16 `largest (recruitment) trees per hectare as potential future hollow-bearing trees.
“Camira State Forest (near Whiporie) is the only one where Forestry have pretended to comply, though as proof they are bereft of any shred of ecological integrity they have put aside the most heavily burnt and logged areas in Fire Offsets, while intending to log most of the 4% of the forest that escaped the worst of the fires.
“On Sunday I undertook a preliminary inspection of part of Camira’s 50 ha patch of unburnt and lightly burnt forests and identified numerous trees with Koala scratches and scats, proving that it is indeed a Koala fire refuge and should have been protected.
“Worse still the Forestry Corporation have re-released their 2019 logging plan for the Koala hotspot of compartments 6 and 7 Braemar SF, and their 2020 logging plan for Myrtle SF, without any attempt what-so-ever to apply the NRC recommendations.
Maintaining the rage.
The January 2022 Nimbin Good Times has an article by Jim Morrison on Cherry Tree SF, focussing on the aesthetic cultural values of the roadside and the growing threat of Bell Miner Associated Dieback, letters by Malveena and Chibo, and the regular Nimbin Environment Centre column focussing on a variety of forest issues.
AUSTRALIA
The good the bad and the ugly of 2021.
Daisy Barham has summarised the environmental highs and lows of 2021, its not all bad.
https://www.aegn.org.au/nature-outcomes-in-2021/
https://johnmenadue.com/nature-outcomes-in-2021-the-good-the-bad-and-the-sad/
Shutting down Sydney CBD.
The threat on Blockading Australia’s facebook to shut down the Sydney CBD from Monday June 27th has commentators outraged.
But NSW Police Minister Paul Toole has vowed not to let “selfish” protesters derail the state’s economic recovery, with police promising zero tolerance of illegal protests hellbent on bringing the city grinding to a halt.
“Plans to now shut down the country’s biggest city at a time when our priority is keeping everyone safe and the state moving during a global pandemic is just selfish.”
Not there, look over here:
Dr Michelle Freeman, vice-president of Forestry Australia, is calling for establishment of a seedbank and workforce to regenerated forests after logging and wildfires.
There’s no question VicForests must ensure it takes all remedial actions to successfully regenerate harvested sites that have not been successful at first attempt. Conceding forest loss following timber harvesting is not an option.
An estimated 32,000 ha of ash forest (equivalent to 16,000 MCGs), across both national parks and state forests, have failed to regenerate following repeated bushfires over the past 20 years.
This is a ticking time bomb in our forests, given the threat of increased fire risk in a rapidly changing climate. At least 140,000 ha of fire-killed ash forest is now in an immature condition in Victoria and at risk of forest loss if burned again within 20 years.
We urgently need a strategic seed bank and the capacity to recover forests after the big fires of the future, including associated investment in science and a skilled workforce to do this work.
… and they have weighed in on Western Australia, asking the Government to prove logging is bad.
Forestry Australia President Bob Gordon said the association was concerned the decision to end native harvesting was not based on science, demonstrated poor understanding of WA’s world-class forest management practices and would result in increased imports of wood products from countries with lower management standards.
“We are calling on the government to publish the scientific evidence that it used as a basis for the decision and its claim that halting native harvesting in WA will protect native forests,” Mr Gordon said.
https://www.miragenews.com/forestry-australia-calls-for-science-to-justify-706939/
Nature solutions:
ACF has released the report Nature as a Climate Solution, Country, culture and nature-based solutions for mitigating climate change.
Australia’s plan to reach net zero emissions by 2050 relies heavily on unproven technologies to sequester carbon from the atmosphere, among other things.
But we already have solutions based in restoring nature and Country. In fact, nature-based solutions can deliver one third of promised global cuts in emissions.
Our new report, which brings together expertise from across Australia, reveals how we can make this happen using proven approaches including:
- Indigenous-led work on Country
- keeping our existing forests and woodlands safe from land clearing
- restoring ailing ecosystems
- simplifying access to carbon markets and
- mapping ways of working with nature rather than technology to store emissions.
In Australia, climate change and biodiversity are largely dealt with independently in policy, legislation, regulation and resourcing of initiatives to tackle either challenge. Australia has been identified as a global extinction hotspot and serial under-performer in conserving biodiversity,2,3,4 and in setting and reaching emissions reductions targets.5 Biodiversity and climate are inextricably linked. The loss of biodiversity exacerbates climate change due to the reductions in nature’s ability to absorb and store atmospheric greenhouse gases. Ongoing climate change exacerbates biodiversity loss by reducing the suitability of climatic niches and driving the disappearance of habitats. In Australia, this is most clearly observed in our recent track record of land clearing and high-emissions forest management, which lead to biodiversity losses and are responsible for 25% of total human-induced or anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions nationally.6
Dispossession of Country from its Traditional Owners is a central part of this story. Changed fire regimes,7,8 western agriculture,9 altered waterways,10 urbanisation11 and many other transformations in landscapes cause ongoing harm to Country and its people. Healing Country and people means not just learning from Traditional Knowledge, it means listening to Indigenous leadership and creating real opportunities for people to return to Country.
In addition to fixing these large and obvious pol icy perversities that drive emissions and biodiversity loss, there is an exciting set of opportunities to contribute to GHG emission reduction and sequestration targets through Country, culture and nature-based solutions. Ambitious implementation of land- and ocean-based actions to protect, sustainably manage and restore ecosystems have co-benefits for climate mitigation, potentially providing over a third of GHG emissions reductions and atmospheric carbon removal required under the Paris Agreement1,12,13 provided that such actions support, and are not in lieu of, ambitious reductions of emissions from fossil fuels. In Australia, these include actions as diverse as regenerative and Traditional farming and fire practices, urban forests, feral herbivore control, and wetland rejuvenation.
Here, we detail five big ideas to bring forward nature as a climate solution with manifold benefits for Australia, including growing all Australians’ connection and reconnection with Country, protecting and enhancing Australia’s unique biodiversity and the ecosystems that underpin our very existence, and providing positive employment prospects for a new generation of environmental workers in all sectors from agriculture to infrastructure and energy. For inspiration, we document leading case studies where nature-based solutions are already improving our lives and reducing our carbon emissions.
Guided by the oldest culture on earth, we have the opportunity now, with the addition of positive vision, leadership, resourcing, and regulation, to stand up and secure a future rich in nature and culture that we’ll be proud to endow to future generations.
https://conservationfutures.org.au/wp-content/uploads/natureasaclimatesolution.pdf
Why aren’t we protecting freshwaters?
A researcher has highlighted that its generally ignored that freshwater mussels are dying suddenly and in the thousands, with each mass death event bringing these endangered molluscs closer to extinction, emphasising the need for freshwater protected areas.
Despite this, the conservation management of freshwater species lags far behind that of terrestrial or marine species. Freshwater environments are very poorly protected by conservation reserves and up to 71% of the world’s wetlands have been lost since 1900.
One urgent priority for Australia is to invest in freshwater protected areas, the same way as we invest in marine protected areas and terrestrial conservation reserves.
Lest we forget:
The Black Summer fires were driven by climate change, not fuel buildup, and burnt through half of our wet sclerophyll forests and over a third of NSW’s rainforests.
In our recent synthesis on the Black Summer fires, we argue climate change is exceeding the capacity of our ecological and social systems to adapt. The paper is based on a series of reports we, and other experts from the NSW Bushfire Risk Management Research Hub, were commissioned to produce for the NSW government’s bushfire inquiry.
We found no evidence the fires were driven by above-average fuel loads stemming from a lack of planned burning. In fact, hazard reduction burns conducted in the years leading up to the Black Summer fires effectively reduced the probability of high severity fire, and reduced the number of houses destroyed by fire.
Instead, we found the fires were primarily driven by record-breaking fuel dryness and extreme weather conditions. These conditions were due to natural climate variability, but made worse by climate change. Most fires were sparked by lightning, and very few were thought to be the result of arson.
All this means that hazard reduction burning in NSW is generally effective, however in the face of worsening climate change new policy responses are needed.
Smoke exposure from the disaster led to an estimated 429 deaths.
The Black Summer fires burnt an unprecedentedly large area – half of all wet sclerophyll forests and over a third of rainforest vegetation types in NSW.
Importantly, for 257 plant species, the historical intervals between fires across their range were likely too short to allow effective regeneration. Similarly, many vegetation communities were left vulnerable to too-frequent fire, which may result in biodiversity decline, particularly as the climate changes.
Climate change has driven a measurable increase in Australia’s forest fire activity over the last 30 years, finds new research conducted by Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO.
The study identified a lengthening of the fire season towards autumn and winter, along with an increase in fire activity in cooler and warmer regions such as the alpine forests in Tasmania and the tropical rainforests of Queensland.
Australia’s mean temperature has increased by 1.4 degrees Celsius since 1910, with a rapid increase in extreme heat events, while rainfall has declined in the southern and eastern regions of the continent.
The CSIRO research, published in the journal “Nature Communications,” is the first of its kind and combines analysis of previous forest fire sites with eight drivers of fire activity, including climate, fuel accumulation, ignition and management techniques such as prescribed burning.
https://ens-newswire.com/australia-links-increasing-megafires-to-climate-change/
SPECIES
NSW Government guilty of regicide:
Not long ago Regent Honeyeaters roamed Australia is large flocks, now there are less than 300 left and it is likely to be extinct within 20 years. While habitat loss is recognised as a major cause they still don’t get it that the loss of mature flowering trees (through logging) is equally culpable. The Hunter Valley, home of Redbank, is their most important refugia.
Less than 80 years ago, regent honeyeaters ruled Australia’s flowering gum forests, with huge raucous flocks roaming from Adelaide to Rockhampton.
Now, there are less than 300 birds left in the wild. Habitat loss has pushed the survivors into little pockets across their once vast range.
Sadly, our new research shows these birds are now heading for rapid extinction. Unless we urgently boost conservation efforts, the regent honeyeater will follow the passenger pigeon into oblivion within the next 20 years.
We now know their breeding success has declined because their nests are raided and the chicks killed by aggressive native species, with noisy miners a particular problem.
We also know the wild birds are losing their song culture because of a lack of older birds for fledglings to learn their songs.
That means we have to find nesting birds early in the breeding season and protect them from noisy miners, pied currawongs and even possums.
Finally, our models clearly show regent honeyeaters will only become self-sustaining if we do much more to secure their habitat. Their remaining pockets of habitat are simply too small. We must protect all remaining habitat, restore degraded habitat and control noisy miners.
Without habitat, other conservation efforts will be pointless. The honeyeater will simply never reach flock sizes large enough to muscle their way back into the surprisingly competitive business of drinking nectar.
Eroding wildlife:
Roads are taking an increasing toll on Australia’s wildlife, necessitating the need for assisted wildlife crossings, which can be effective.
“Animals need to move,” says one of the world’s top road ecologists, Professor Darryl Jones, “whether to find a mate or new territory or food. Sooner or later they’re going to hit a road.”
Englefield has calculated a “very, very conservative” estimate of four million native mammals killed annually on Australian roads.
That number, published by the CSIRO, is big enough, says Jones. “But the truly unbelievable numbers are the small animals, which nobody takes any notice of; the frogs, reptiles and others. Those hot summer nights when the frogs are out, the numbers that are being squashed on the road is astronomical. Terrifying.”
“It went from being this little, windy road to something sealed that people were driving 100km/h on and, within a year, the eastern quolls in that area had been exterminated – every last one of them hit on the road. It’s one of the only cases in the world where traffic caused the local extinction of a species.”
Rounding up Koalas for captive breeding:
A new threat to Koalas, Port Macquarie’s new Koala tourism/breeding centre in Cowra SF is intending to track down and remove Koalas from the bush for their breeding program, with an initial target of 30 Koalas:
"The difference with this program is these koalas will be sourced from the wild."
As part of phase one, in 2022 the program is aiming to recruit 15 females and 15 males into the wild breeding program. It's hoped five joeys will be born as a result.
By 2034 it's anticipated 35 joeys will be born each year.
Mrs Ashton said the wild koalas will be placed in large yards which mirror their natural environment.
"Some of the enclosures are 200 square metres, which is just huge," she said.
Mrs Ashton said it will be a challenge to find healthy koalas to breed.
Adapting to predators:
Raising animals in predator proof enclosures makes them more vulnerable to predation, trials of exposing animals to low predation offers some hope they may be able to adapt over time to live free. It also raises questions about our increasing reliance on confining species to compounds.
We found cat-exposed bilbies became warier and sought areas of thicker cover within only a couple of years. Not only that, they had higher survival rates than control bilbies when both were reintroduced to an area where cats were present.
Within 18 months, predator-exposed bettongs became significantly harder to approach at night. Remarkably, their hind feet became longer relative to control populations over several years and they had significantly faster reaction times during escapes from predators, though not yet fast enough to show a significant difference in survival between control and cat-exposed populations.
In short, exposing naive prey to predators changed behaviour and in some cases survival after just a few generations. This is positive news.
Home delivered Koalas:
After a community uproar the Australian Reptile Park at Somersby has withdrawn an exclusive ‘koalas to your room’ program that offered hotel guests and homeowners a visit from a koala for a cool $2,200 an hour.
Koalas make small gains, against giant loses.
As forestry continues to cut down mature Koala feed trees, others are planting tiny little babies.
https://www.wwf.org.au/news/blogs/hidden-vale-crouching-koala#gs.m3n1ej
https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2022/01/using-drones-to-build-homes-for-koalas/
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-11/girgarre-plants-eucalypts-to-feed-koalas/100749152
Koala comeback:
Where there is life there is hope.
A newly released East Lynne carrying capacity study suggests the area could support four resident koala groups, if natural post-wildfire recovery is accompanied by deliberate land management intervention.
Focus points for koala recovery would be Cockwhy, Benandarah, Murramarang and Kioloa.
Lead author Keith Joliffe said there was "probably one small resident group (of koalas) surviving after the devastating Currowan fire".
Its getting too hot for many:
South-western Australia's recent record-breaking heatwave, with 4 days above 40oC, resulted in critically endangered western ringtail possums falling from trees due to extreme dehydration.
Social organisation the key to success:
Superb fairy-wrens are one of many cooperatively breeding bird species, though its not just about family groups they also have multilevel societies forming themselves into supergroups and broader communities.
We found that during the autumn and winter months, some breeding groups – (which include the breeding pair, one or more helpers and last summer’s offspring), stably associated with other breeding groups to form supergroups. And this was usually done with individuals they were genetically related with.
In turn, these supergroups associated with other supergroups and breeding groups on a daily basis, forming large communities. In the following spring, these communities split back into the original breeding groups inhabiting well-defined territories – only to join again next winter.
Fussy little devils:
Unlike most scavengers, Tasmanian devils are fussy eaters with their individual preferences according to their whiskers.
“It’s a scavenger’s job to be a generalist and take whatever it can find,” says Tracey Rogers, a professor at UNSW and senior author of a new study out today in Ecology and Evolution. “But we’ve found that most Tasmanian devils are actually picky and selective eaters – they’ve broken the laws of scavenging.”
It turns out that individual devils have their own tastes and preferences – much like us – and can be decidedly picky eaters, unlike other scavenger species like wolverines and hyenas. And while it might not sound like the most earth-shattering discovery, it actually upends much of what we know about scavenger ecology.
Exploding deer:
In Victoria Sambar Deer are thriving in the wake of bushfires, finding the new growth palatable and ringbarking trees by rubbing them with their antlers, putting at increased risk many badly burnt rainforests.
"This is a process we've observed to be occurring right across the landscape in this critically endangered rainforest ecosystem," Mr Crook said.
Estimates suggest there are about 1 million deer in Victoria, while the number of sambar deer has exploded in recent years.
"They're everywhere east of the Hume [Freeway]," University of Melbourne research fellow Ami Bennett said.
"They are definitely in the Illawarra region … they weren't in New South Wales that high up 10 to 15 years ago. It's a long way," Dr Bennett said.
We think that [the bushfires] opened up the country … then they [the deer] moved relatively easy and quickly through the landscape and started feeding on plants," Dr Morgan said.
"They come back into fire-affected areas. The new growth is pretty yummy for them to eat."
The deer's hard hooves have since contributed to alpine wetlands eroding, Dr Morgan said.
Modelling in a 2016 scientific paper suggests deer could move much further north.
"It's interesting because sambar are doing perfectly well in Victoria but we can expect they will do even better when they move up to subtropical and tropical areas, which are more like their natural home," said University of Tasmania Professor Christopher Johnson, a co-author of the scientific paper.
Some want deer to roam free.
THE ANIMAL Justice Party has called on Port Stephens Council to abandon plans to cull a herd of deer at Raymond Terrace.
The Newcastle Herald reported on January 1 the council was expected to make a decision in the new year about whether to proceed with the plan. The council had said the growing deer population had lined up with a rising number of motorists reporting near-misses and strikes.
A change.org petition against the plan has more than 480 signatures.
[Mark Pearson] said deer were "peaceful, quiet creatures" and that "every wild animal deserves a life free from harm".
…remind you that areas rich in unique wildlife are excellent tourist attractions," he said.
Careful what animals you breathe in.
With every breath in the forest you are breathing in the DNA of its inhabitants, from the fish in the river, to the snake in the undergrowth and the koala in the treetops. Now researchers can undertake fauna surveys just by sampling air.
Two separate teams of scientists have tested a potential new way to identify the invisible, the secretive and the hard-to-track species that make the wilderness truly wild: sniff the air. The technique may help address a biodiversity emergency that is unfolding in tandem with the climate crisis.
Biodiversity is in global crisis: a million species may be at risk of extinction this century from either human destruction of habitat, or from human-triggered climate change. And as scholars, governments, and international agencies have repeatedly confirmed, climate change and biodiversity loss are not separable. The mass and variety of living things manages the air, water, and food supplies for the planet, and the climate as well: intact forests play a vital role in absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide, and the creatures of the forest are equally vital to the maintenance of a functioning forest.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Extremists perpetuate extremes:
The past seven years have been the world’s seven hottest on record, and 2021 was the fifth hottest, Australia was one of those countries cooled by La Nina. The oceans continue to modify impacts by taking-up ever increasing heat energy at great cost.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service report also showed the world has already warmed between 1.1 and 1.3 degrees above pre-industrial levels …
Carbon dioxide levels reached an annual global record of approximately 414 parts per million and methane an annual record of approximately 1876 parts per billion.
Carbon emissions from wildfires worldwide amounted overall to 1850 megatonnes, especially fuelled by fires in Siberia, Copernicus found.
"These have potentially devastating impacts on aquaculture, fisheries, tourism and marine ecosystems - including repeated coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. It is looking likely that we may experience a bleaching event this year," Dr Miller said.
"Whether it be a possum dropping dead out of a tree, a beloved family pet dog passing away from heat stress, or a farmer's cow collapsing in the field - all of Australia's animals are at risk from the unprecedented rise in temperatures," Dr Kessels said.
"It doesn't have to be this way.
Towns across Western Australia have recorded some of the hottest weather ever recorded in the country, while other parts of the nation are preparing for heavy rains, humid nights and the after-effects of an ex-tropical cyclone.
Three towns in Western Australia’s Pilbara region have hit more than 50 degrees, with Onslow recording 50.7 degrees, on par with the hottest temperature ever recorded in Australia at Oodnadatta Airport in South Australia, which recorded 50.7 degrees on January 2, 1960.
And the oceans continue to mop up most of the heat we generate, also warming at an accelerating rate, with dire consequences.
The world’s oceans reached their hottest levels on record in 2021. It’s the third year in a row it’s happened, and it’s driven almost entirely by human-caused climate change, scientists announced yesterday.
The study finds that the amount of heat in the oceans last year broke the previous 2020 record by around 14 zettajoules. That’s equivalent to at least 20 times the entire world’s annual energy consumption.
It’s an ongoing pattern. All five of the world’s hottest ocean levels have occurred in the last five years. The record-breaker in 2017 is still a bit higher than 2018. But each of the last three years, from 2019 to 2021, have all broken the previous record.
The world’s oceans recorded their hottest year in more than 60 years with greenhouse gases driving increasing temperatures, amid concerns the ocean’s ecosystems will be unsustainable in the warmer climate.
Is research on climate change part of the problem:
Scientists are lamenting that Governments aren’t addressing the overwhelming science proving the growing climate crisis and are calling for a moratorium on further research until Governments take action.
Yet, global carbon dioxide emissions are 60% higher today than they were in 1990, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its first assessment. At some point we need to recognise the problem is political and that further climate change science may even divert attention away from where the problem truly lies.
Even if COP26 commitments are fulfilled, there is a strong likelihood that humanity and life on Earth face a precarious future.
Governments just haven’t taken the necessary action. In a recent Nature survey, six in ten of the IPCC scientists who responded expect 3℃ warming above pre-industrial levels by 2100.
We have reached a critical juncture for humanity and the planet. Given the unfolding tragedy, a moratorium on climate change research is the only responsible option for revealing and then restoring the broken science-society contract. The other two options are seductive but offer false hope.
Rainforest's precarious future:
More evidence that as climate heating progresses forests are becoming increasingly stressed and may soon reach a tipping point where they become part of the problem rather than the solution.
In a new study, Clark et al. assessed tropical forests' annual net primary productivity from 1997 to 2018. They measured wood growth and litterfall in 18 plots in Costa Rica's La Selva Biological Station. The scientists collected litterfall every other week from basket traps and annually measured the growth of all live stems greater than 10 centimeters in diameter. They found that the stress associated with hotter temperatures outweighed the benefits of increased carbon dioxide. Annual aboveground net primary production fluctuated greatly year to year, but no productivity component increased over the 21 years. Twig litterfall declined, and wood production suffered in years with slightly warmer nights and with particularly hot dry seasons.
The new research provides further evidence that as nighttime temperatures continue rising and as more daytime hours exceed the optimum temperature for photosynthesis, productivity will decline. The authors warn that tropical forests could soon enter into a positive feedback loop that accelerates both global warming and tropical forest decline. As forests become less productive because of rising temperatures, they will soak up less carbon dioxide, which in turn will lead to more warming. This cycle could pose a major threat to the survival of these highly biodiverse ecosystems.
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-forest-productivity-future-climate.html
The uncertain future of Alaska’s oldgrowth forests.
Biden needs to decide whether he will let Alaska’s ancient trees, that have weathered the tests of time, survive Trump’s legacy a little longer.
TONGASS NATIONAL FOREST, Alaska — The Sitka spruce soaring more than 180 feet skyward has stood on this spot on Prince of Wales Island for centuries. …
This tree’s erect bearing — a 1917 publication called the Sitka species “the autocrat of timbers” — is what helps give it such extraordinary commercial value. Musical instrument makers covet its fine grain, as do builders whose clients want old-growth wood that’s increasingly scarce. In a world whose ancient forests have largely disappeared, this grove holds a sliver of what remains.
But there’s another value the spruce holds: the carbon dioxide locked inside its fibers, in its roots, in the soil and in the vegetation that clings to it from its branches to its base, where berry bushes proliferate. The miraculous process that sustains life on Earth is embedded within its vast trunk, a reservoir for the greenhouse gases that now threaten humanity. …
The spruce would hold nearly 12 metric tons of carbon, says forest ecologist Beverly Law, a professor emeritus at Oregon State University. Its roots and the soil below would hold another 1.4 tons. And while roughly a third of the tree’s carbon would stay locked in the logs being shipped to mill, the rest would escape to the atmosphere. …
Booming biomass:
Biomass is rapidly expanding around the world under the cloak of renewable energy and jobs.
“Wood-pellet manufacturing is an industrial process, which means forest harvesting, carbon impacts, air pollution from trucks, and emissions of fine particulates and toxic pollutants like formaldehyde,” countered David Carr, general counsel with the Southern Environmental Law Center. The first Enviva wood-pellet factory came online in the American South in 2011, and since then the company has increased by 10 times the number of pellets it exports, operating 24 hours a day, he added.
The trend is spreading beyond Europe’s borders. Since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan has relied more heavily on fossil fuels. Now it is planning to turn to biomass, in a big way. At the end of 2021, Enviva and J-Power, the biggest coal-fired power generator in the country, signed a memorandum of understanding that would create a supply chain of five million tonnes of pellets. This is a staggering amount of wood, given that in 2020 the US exported 7.26 million tonnes of wood pellets in total.
An expanding wood pellet market in the Southeast has fallen short of climate and job goals—instead bringing air pollution, noise and reduced biodiversity in majority Black communities.
According to a 2009 study on climate accounting published in Science Magazine, at the point of combustion, wood pellets put more carbon into the atmosphere than coal, despite generating less energy per unit than coal. Other studies, like one published in 2012 in GBC Bioenergy, directly challenge the idea that wood pellets are renewable energy because forests can be replanted. The "carbon debt" generated when forests are cut and their stored carbon is burned into the atmosphere can take decades, if not more than a century, to "repay" through forest regrowth.
A 2018 report by the Environmental Integrity Project found that 21 wood pellet mills exporting to the EU emit thousands of tons of particulate matter (fine dust), carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides (smog), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) per year, each of which are associated with a range of illnesses, from respiratory and heart disease to cancer. These wood pellet mills also emit 3.1 million tons of greenhouse gases per year. The report also found that at least a third of wood pellet facilities violated their air permit limits in 2017. Fires and explosions have erupted in plants in five states largely from wood dust, which is combustible. In 2017, a wood pellet storage silo owned by German Pellets in Port Arthur, Texas, caught fire and burned unchecked for two months, sending many local residents to the hospital. Later that year, a worker at the silo died when pellets fell on the Bobcat machine he was operating.
https://www.ehn.org/wood-pellet-energy-environmental-racism-2647890088/particle-11
Stocktaking biomass:
A company has released a biomass mapping tool able to map annual changes in biomass (up until 2019), enabling real time identification of changes in biomass around the world.
A new biomass mapping tool launched on 13 January takes us ever closer to Earth’s actual dynamics. Chloris, founded by Marco Albani and Dr Alessandro Baccini provides a net view of the planet’s aboveground biomass (AGB), showing how it has changed over the last 20 years.
The Chloris Global Biomass 2003 - 2019 dataset provides estimates of stock and change in aboveground biomass for Earth's terrestrial woody vegetation ecosystems. It covers the period 2003 - 2019, at annual time steps. The global dataset has a circa 4.6 km spatial resolution.
The spatial data sets are available on Microsoft’s Planetary Computer under a Creative Common license of the type Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike CC BY-NC-SA.
https://planetarycomputer.microsoft.com/dataset/chloris-biomass
Zombies that never die:
The boreal forests are rapidly heating and drying, leading to an increase in zombie fires that over-winter by burning under snow in the peat before emerging to grow in spring.
Schwing: The boreal forest, also known as taiga, is the largest terrestrial biome on the planet. And thanks to climate warming, this ecosystem is becoming increasingly vulnerable to wildfire. That’s significant, because estimates show at least one third of the world’s terrestrial carbon is stored in these forests—in the trees, in the soil, in the understory plants—and when it burns, this carbon is released to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas.
Jandt says the increasing prevalence of zombie fires could challenge fire and land managers who are already struggling to find ways to bolster thin budgets.
Jandt: So when we start looking at Siberia and Eurasia, that’s going to be really interesting because ... overwintering fires seem to have been [a] really important contributor to that really awesome fire season—awesome in a bad way—that Siberia had in 2020, you know? Did you hear about that? They burned 35 million acres. Yeah, I mean, can you wrap your head around that? Oregon thought they had a bad season in 2020—it was less than a million acres burned. So, I mean, 35 million is amazing.
TURNING IT AROUND
What’s the problems with climate heating:
James Hansen, a leading advocate for action on climate change, has published a lengthy dissertation on the problems and solutions for climate heating, A Realistic Path to a Bright Future, starting with a call to children to continue their fight. It includes many useful insights. Spoiler alert, he does advocate for nuclear power as a substitute for a gas led recovery.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2021/BrightFuture.03December2021.pdf
Is restoring community control of forests part of the solution?:
It is now common to hear conservationists arguing for return of control of forests to communities, though this will not necessarily result in increased protection as shown in Indonesia.
JAKARTA — A “social forestry” program administered by the Indonesian government to grant land rights to communities has not been effective in preventing deforestation, and in some cases has even seen the problem get worse, a new study shows.
Under the program, the government has granted land titles for 4.7 million hectares (11.6 million acres) of state forest to 1 million households as of August 2021. But an analysis of 4,349 land titles across Indonesia, covering 2.4 million hectares (5.93 million acres), or more than half the total granted, shows the program hasn’t led to a reduction in forest loss on aggregate.
Despite these programs being designed with forest conservation in mind, the study found that forest loss actually increased in village forests and community forests.
This comes despite the social forestry program being touted by the government as one of the factors contributing to the recent decline in the country’s deforestation rate, based on the idea that forests that are managed by communities will be better protected and more sustainably managed.
Global policy commitments on conservation such as the recent COP 26 declaration on Forest and Land Use are a step in the right direction but policy-makers must be inclusive of indigenous peoples and ensure that any initiatives learn from the long and problematic history of forest conservation, argues an international consortium of indigenous scholar activists and social, cultural, environmental, and behavioral scientists in correspondence published today in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
The researchers argue that there is little evidence to show that traditional policy tools such as incentives, compensation and legal coercion are effective in securing sustainable land use. In fact top-down conservation measures that do not take into account the realities and priorities of indigenous forest-dwelling communities can be very harmful and even accelerate deforestation and land degradation.
Highlighting the need for inclusive, heritage-sensitive, and behavioral conservation policy, the authors recommend that there should be local social impact assessments supported by satellite mapping in order to better understand the social and ecological consequences of conservation policies; that this evidence base should be overseen by an independent body and shared openly; and that indigenous scholar activists should be closely involved in the process.
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-forest-policies-safeguard-indigenous-peoples.html
Why aren’t big businesses doing their part?:
Its business as usual, despite some companies’ pretence they care about fucking up the planet.
A new report published Thursday details how some of the world's biggest corporations and banks are exacerbating the global climate emergency by fueling the destruction of the world's tropical rainforests.
Titled A Climate Wake-Up, the analysis finds that 72% of the 350 largest producers of palm oil, soy, beef, leather, timber, pulp, and paper "do not have a deforestation commitment for all of the forest-risk commodities in their supply chains." One-third of the companies "have no deforestation commitments at all," and none have a "comprehensive approach to human rights."
Forest Media 24 December 2021
This will be my last media summary for a few weeks.
Dominic Perrottet's revamped cabinet team has been announced. Matt Kean - who was Treasurer as well as Environment and Energy Minister - keeps control of the purse strings and the energy portfolio, but gives the environment portfolio to first-timer Manly MP James Griffin – this is effectively a demotion for the environment. In Matt Kean’s swan song, two nationally significant wetlands in far north-west NSW will be added to the national parks estate as part of a 33,000ha land purchase by the state government: Lake Wombah wetlands on the Queensland border, and more than 7,000ha of the Yantabulla Swamp. The Sydney Morning Herald has an article and photo essay on the other recent acquisition; Narriearra Caryapundy Swamp National Park.
The Upper House inquiry into the Integrity of the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme has heard widespread evidence of serious failures. The Wonga Walk in Dorrigo National Park has re-opened after a $1.1 million upgrade, funded through the COVID Relief and Recovery Fund, to service the annual 150,000 visitors.
The ABC has good coverage of the changes that Victoria is making to forest management, which primarily seem to be aimed at throwing more money at the dying industry, and papering over the cracks while reducing the community’s ability to use the precautionary principle in court. This year’s federal Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook has included $26.2 million in funding measures to loggers. An in-depth article in Wild discusses how to define wilderness, the need to protect it, and laments the increasing commercial developments within it.
Mining giant Glencore has defended its plans to dig a $1.5bn coalmine in Queensland involving clearing 10,364 hectares for the mine, workers’ camp, and access road, affecting four threatened plants, nine threatened animals (including Koalas, greater gliders and squatter pigeons) and three threatened ecological communities.
The Commonwealth’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee is undertaking assessments of 7 nominated ecological communities to determine their eligibility for listing and preparing Conservation Advice for each ecological community. Please take this opportunity to increase recognition of the plight of these communities.
The Victoria State Conservation Regulator has charged the landowner and two companies who recklessly logged plantations in Cape Bridgewater, that were home to a Koala colony, with a total of 126 counts each, including 18 counts of aggravated cruelty for allegedly causing fatal injuries to Koalas. Biolink will be undertaking surveys for Koalas to assess their distribution in the NSW Northern Rivers region. A new population of 250 Oaklands donkey orchids covering 3ha has been found in a travelling stock reserve in the Riverina. The Conversation has an article about the attributes of blackwood, aside from timber.
A new study shows that wood-burning stoves in cities are responsible for over half of human's exposure to chemicals that cause cancer and are usually found in air pollution particles, with carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) the worst offenders. What does this mean for burning forests for electricity?
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
NSW ministries reallocated:
Dominic Perrottet's revamped cabinet team has been announced. Matt Kean - who was Treasurer as well as Environment and Energy Minister - keeps control of the purse strings and the energy portfolio, but gives the environment portfolio to first-timer Manly MP James Griffin – this is effectively a demotion for the environment. Nationals MP Adam Marshall has been ousted, replaced as agriculture minister by Dubbo MP Dugald Saunders. Oxley MP Melinda Pavey lost her job as water minister, being replaced by Tamworth MP Kevin Anderson as Minister for Lands and Water, and Hospitality and Racing. Its still unclear who is the new Forests minister.
Biobanking failures:
The Upper House inquiry into the Integrity of the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme has heard widespread evidence of serious failures.
The NSW Upper House inquiry has heard schemes set up to halt or reverse the loss of biodiversity values are not working and, in some cases, did more harm than good.
Also, legal requirements for offsets are too often replaced with cash payments into a fund to set up a biobank at a later date, with offsets too often given priority over the principle of 'avoid and minimise'.
Saul Dean from the Total Environment Centre told the inquiry the Lendlease Gilead Stage One biodiversity certification was "a case study in the collapse of bio-certification".
He said one of the main reserves registered as a biobank by Campbelltown Council and used as credits so mature trees could be removed at Gilead had been a bushland reserve for 20 to 30 years before it applied to be a biobank.
"Koalas gained not a single tree from that biobank experience.
New wetland parks:
Two nationally significant wetlands in far north-west NSW will be added to the national parks estate as part of a 33,000ha land purchase by the state government: Lake Wombah wetlands on the Queensland border, and more than 7,000ha of the Yantabulla Swamp.
Prof Richard Kingsford, river ecologist and conservation biologist at the University of NSW, said the wetlands in the area were “magnificent”.
“It’s a really great example of prevention being better than cure in terms of conservation.”
The Sydney Morning Herald has an article and photo essay on the other recent acquisition; Narriearra Caryapundy Swamp National Park.
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/in-pictures-caryapundy-swamp-20211218-h20otu.html
Upgrading Dorrigo:
The Wonga Walk in Dorrigo National Park has re-opened after a $1.1 million upgrade, funded through the COVID Relief and Recovery Fund, to service the annual 150,000 visitors.
AUSTRALIA
Victorian Government increases support for loggers:
The ABC has good coverage of the changes that Victoria is making to forest management, which primarily seem to be aimed at throwing more money at the industry, and papering over the cracks while reducing the community’s ability to use the precautionary principle in court.
More Federal subsidies for loggers:
This year’s Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) has included $26.2 million in funding measures to support and bolster innovation in the forest and wood products industries.
https://www.miragenews.com/forest-industries-to-benefit-from-expanded-rd-695342/
Keep wilderness wild:
In an indepth article Martin Hawes and Grant Dixon discuss how to define wilderness, the need to protect it, and lament the increasing commercial developments within it.
As Wild Editor James McCormack described in articles in Wild #178 and #179, the Lake Malbena proposal is only one of dozens of proposals around Australia that would see—and in some cases have already seen—tourism developments constructed inside national parks and World Heritage Areas, often at great cost to wilderness values. At the same time, wilderness in places like the Blue Mountains, Cape York, and Tasmania’s takayna/Tarkine region is under threat from developments like inundation, land clearing, logging, mining, and incursions by off-road vehicles.
We recently commissioned a Roy Morgan national poll on support for protecting Australia’s wilderness. It showed that 90% of Australians agree that wilderness areas should be protected. Roughly the same number agree that the remoteness of wilderness should be protected. Sixty-three per cent agree that helicopter-based tourism and luxury lodges should be kept outside wilderness areas—three times the number who disagree. Clearly, the kinds of tourism development being proposed at Lake Malbena and in other wilderness areas are out of step with public opinion.
https://wild.com.au/conservation/what-wilderness-means/
Mining biodiversity:
Mining giant Glencore has defended its plans to dig a $1.5bn coalmine in Queensland involving clearing 10,364 hectares for the mine, workers’ camp, and access road, affecting four threatened plants, nine threatened animals (including Koalas, greater gliders and squatter pigeons) and three threatened ecological communities.
But Glencore said it was yet to decide if it would commit financially to the project, which would have to fit within its commitment to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
That goal, the company has said, also includes the burning of the coal the company sells. In 2019, the company said it would not increase its coal production after pressure from investors.
SPECIES
Speak up for Threatened Ecological Communities:
The Commonwealth’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee is undertaking assessments of 7 nominated ecological communities to determine their eligibility for listing and preparing Conservation Advice for each ecological community. Please take this opportunity to increase recognition of the plight of these communities.
You are invited to provide your views on the assessments of and draft Conservation Advice for the following fire-affected ecological communities:
- Araluen Scarp Grassy Forest
- Ben Halls Gap Sphagnum Moss Cool Temperate Rainforest
- Brogo Wet Vine Forest of the South East Corner Bioregion
- Dunn’s white gum (Eucalyptus dunnii) moist forest in north-east New South Wales and south-east Queensland
- Grey Box (Eucalyptus moluccana) - Grey Gum (Eucalyptus propinqua) Wet Forest of Subtropical Eastern Australia
- Mount Kaputar Highland and Rainforest Snail and Slug Community
- Subtropical eucalypt forest on the floodplains of eastern Australia
All seven ecological communities are proposed for inclusion in the Endangered category, or potentially Critically Endangered for Ben Halls Gap Sphagnum Moss Cool Temperate Rainforest, on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) list of threatened ecological communities.
The Committee particularly seeks comments on whether the nominated items are eligible for listing and whether the proposed conservation status for each is appropriate. Any other relevant comments and information about these ecological communities or Conservation Advice documents also are invited.
Koala massacre cruel:
The Victoria State Conservation Regulator has charged the landowner and two companies who recklessly logged plantations in Cape Bridgewater, that were home to a Koala colony, with a total of 126 counts each, including 18 counts of aggravated cruelty for allegedly causing fatal injuries to Koalas. Twenty-one koalas were found dead at the site and 49 were euthanized as a result of injuries suffered during the clearing, seventy more were reported as suffering from starvation or dehydration, with some also sustaining fractures.
The landowner faces 126 charges under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986 and the Wildlife Act 1975, including 18 aggravated cruelty charges for causing fatal injuries. A forest and earthmoving business faces the same 126 charges.
A separate contracting business has also been charged with one cruelty offence under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986 for disturbing the koala population.
The maximum penalty for one charge of aggravated animal cruelty leading to death is $218,088 for a business, and $90,870 or two years’ jail for an individual.
The maximum penalty for one charge of animal cruelty is $109,044 for a business, and $45,435 or 12 months’ jail for an individual.
The maximum penalty for one charge of illegally hunting, taking or destroying protected wildlife is $9087 and/or six months imprisonment. An additional fine of up to $908 per head of wildlife may also apply.
The matter is listed for the Portland Magistrates Court on February 22.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/science/environment/2021/12/23/koalas-bridgewater-plantation/
https://www.thebharatexpressnews.com/hundreds-of-animal-cruelty-charges-for-alleged-koala-slaughter/
https://www.newser.com/story/314819/charges-filed-after-an-alleged-koala-massacre.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-59750160
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-22/charges-laid-over-cape-bridgewater-koala-deaths/100718840
Northern Rivers Koala search:
Biolink will be undertaking surveys for Koalas to assess their distribution in the NSW Northern Rivers region.
Scat lying beneath large trees is an important clue in the hunt for the animals.
"This is a great technique because it allows us to determine not only where koalas are but where they are not, with a very high level of confidence," said Amanda Lane, a supervising ecologist with consultant Biolink.
Biolink is working on the head count in the Northern Rivers, along with local councils and the World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia.
The researchers will also be deploying detection dogs and heat-seeking drones.
The team is calling on locals to help out, given many koalas live on private land.
https://thewest.com.au/news/animals/koala-poo-aids-nsw-head-count-c-5046677
Donkey orchid found in travelling stock reserve:
A new population of 250 Oaklands donkey orchids covering 3ha has been found in a travelling stock reserve in the Riverina.
Until recently, there were just 1,000 Oaklands donkey orchids remaining, their survival threatened by livestock grazing, rabbits and invasive weeds.
There are just four populations of the orchid in the entire region, all clustered around Urana and Oaklands.
In praise of Blackwood:
The Conversation has an article about the attributes of blackwood, aside from timber.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Burning wood is bad for you:
New study shows that wood-burning stoves in cities are responsible for over half of human's exposure to chemicals that cause cancer and are usually found in air pollution particles, with carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) the worst offenders. What does this mean for burning forests for electricity?
While PAHs may be the primary carcinogen in wood smoke, Nenes claimed there were numerous additional chemicals that were harmful to the human body.
All types of illnesses, from cancer to oxidative stress, which causes heart attacks and strokes, obesity, accelerated ageing and diabetes - everything that has to do with inflammation in the body - may be caused by wood smoke.
Forest Media 17 December 2021
In the Cherry Tree SF action Ian, Malveena and Naomi were arrested - the police were angry and drove carelessly, throwing Malveena and Naomi about in the back of the paddywagon, Malveena fracturing her L2 vertebra - though the arresting officers showed no care. A woman arrested for protesting at the Eden chipmill was fined $750 as a deterrent.
The Redbank court case started on Tuesday, with Verdant Earth challenging Singleton Council’s refusal of their “modification” of a 1994 approval for a coal fired power station to instead burn around a million tonnes of forests each year. As well as making 3 submissions. NEFA presented to the court – the proceedings will conclude next week, though the Court’s decision will be some time. The Guardian has focussed upon the NRC report saying that carbon emissions from soils are going to increase as the climate warms to warn of the dangers of relying on soil carbon to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.
Forestry are wooing the mountain bikers. Construction of stages two and three of the Narooma Mountain Bike Hub, a $4 million project funded by the Bushfire Local Economic Recovery Fund, will aim to start in March 2022. Mountain bike trails are to be expanded in Wedding Bells State Forest with a State Government grant of $400,397.
The Friends of Leadbeater’s Possum are unable to appeal the ruling against their win, much to the delight of industry which emphasises how essential it is to cut down Leadbeater’s Possum’s homes for pallets to deliver essentials such as beer. The Victorian Government has significantly increased funding for timber workers displaced in the transition to ending logging of public native forests, are introducing legislation to make the uncertainty of the precautionary principle certain, and are spending money on rehabilitating failed regeneration. CFMEU want their cake and to eat it too, welcoming the increase in redundancy payments to displaced timber workers up to $120,000, though they still want to go on logging public native forests. For their part the industry have put forward a guitar maker rather than a woodchipper to argue logging should continue.
Australia's eleventh Regional Forestry Hub to assist and promote logging has been launched in Eden, bringing the Commonwealth’s total assistance to $19.8 million. To the delight of NSW Farmers, as part of the National’s climate deal, federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud is proposing he get new environmental veto powers to prevent carbon projects based on allowing natural regeneration from going ahead if they would have an adverse impact on agricultural production or communities. MP Angus Taylor’s company was found guilty of spraying 28.5 ha of the critically endangered ecological community Natural Temperate Grasslands of the Southern Highlands and required to manage and enhance the natural ecological values of 103 hectares of native grasslands on the property – though the company is considering a challenge if the National Farmers Federation chip in. The Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment is currently conducting a scheduled ten-year review of the Illegal Logging Prohibition Regulation 2012, with a view to weakening import controls.
The Tasmanian Greens have called on Liberals to immediately rule out burning native forests for energy generation as part of their announced Bioenergy Vision. The Climate Council has produced a report showing photos of the havoc that climate change is already causing to our natural ecosystems, and its only just begun. The fossil fuel companies, along with News Corp, are not paying us much, if anything, for our resources as they rob our children’s future. Beef farming in Australia is driving significant deforestation, including in the habitats of threatened species, according to a new satellite analysis by Unearthed. A partnership between the Indigenous owners and the World Wide Fund for Nature, aims to “rewild” Lungtalanana (Clarke) Island in Bass Strait.
Half Commonwealth Recovery and Action Plans for threatened species don’t consider climate change, and many that do give it scant regard. As a result of a strong community campaign, the NSW Government announced the purchase of 194 hectares of prime koala habitat located adjacent to the Lake Innes Nature Reserve, south-west of Port Macquarie. A plan to take up to six male koalas from south-east Victoria’s original Strzelecki population to breed with koalas in the Adelaide Zoo and Cleland wildlife park to improve their genetic diversity, has raised the ire of various community groups, particularly because no one knows the size of the Strzelecki population or how it will be affected. Despite the recent rains the annual waterbird survey counted 95,306 birds, third lowest tally in almost four decades of tracking. The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) have developed a Wildlife Rescue App to put motorists in direct contact with the nearest wildlife rescue group, should they need to report an injured animal. A group of Hunter-based authors and illustrators have penned Slippery, Slimy, Feathered and Furred aimed at 7-12 year olds to raise awareness and promote action to help protect vulnerable Australian wildlife. Opposition has been growing to Port Stephens Council proposal to cull feral deer. The electrocution of raptors on power lines is causing concern in South Australia. Forest workers claim they came across a Bigfoot-like ‘yowie’ on a deserted road in north Queensland.
The Energy Mix has an article about the session on “Beyond Burning, Beyond Biomass” at COP 26. We’ve been changing our environment for a long time, around 125,000 years ago Neandertals transformed a largely forested area bordering two central European lakes into a relatively open landscape. Nearly 70% of New York voters have backed an amendment to the state’s climate law to grant all residents the right “to clean air and water and a healthful environment,” potentially laying the groundwork for lawsuits against fossil fuel polluters and developers. Tropical soils can recover quickly with regeneration, though it takes a lot longer for species diversity and carbon storage. The Canadian government has planted less than half a per cent of the two billion trees it pledged in 2019 to put in the ground across Canada by 2030. California regulators haven’t approved permits for fracking since February, effectively phasing out the process ahead of Governor Gavin Newsom’s 2024 deadline to end it. An American scientific collaboration have called for the United States to immediately move to create a collection of strategic forest reserves in the Western U.S. to fight climate change and safeguard biodiversity.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Injuring Protestors:
The December Nimbin Goodtimes has a front page story about the blockade in Cherry Tree SF, describes the arrest of Ian (on a tripod), Malveena and Naomi (locked onto a barrel of concrete). The police were angry and drove carelessly, throwing Malveena and Naomi about in the back of the paddywagon, Malveena fracturing her L2 vertebra.
“Right from the start these two seem angry” Malveena says. “Then they were going too fast … We were lurching from side to side. It was like a washing machine.
“Then they (the police driving) hit a pot-hole. Naomi and I were thrown into the air, I landed on my back and immediately knew something was wrong. I was in excruciating pain. …
Malveena says she asked the attending police officer for water and pain relief. Neither was forthcoming. Later, when the day officer appeared, he organised paramedics to take Malveena to hospital where x-rays revealed a fracture to the L2 vertebra.
Woodchipping sucks:
A woman arrested for protesting at the Eden chipmill fined $750 as a deterrent.
Tarraganda woman Sally-Anne Brown, 62, has been convicted on three charges relating to a protest that blocked the road to the Eden chipmill on October 14, 2021.
Ms Brown entered a guilty plea for obstruct driver's/other pedestrian's path; fail to leave area on being requested by an authorised officer; and refuse/fail to comply with direction under Part 14.
[Magistrate] "If people were allowed to protest on whatever they felt strongly about, society would be in chaos."
"I have to send a very clear message to people who are likeminded, my role overall is in deterrence," he said.
In the end he elected not to impose the maximum fines for the infringements and reduced them from a combined total of $295 to $250.
For failure to leave an area on being requested by an authorised officer, the maximum fine could have been $2200, but Ms Brown was convicted and fined $500.
Biomass’ day in court:
The Redbank court case started on Tuesday, with Verdant Earth challenging Singleton Council’s refusal of their “modification” of a 1994 approval for a coal fired power station to instead burn around a million tonnes of forests each year.
A motion, moved by Mr Field in October, noted there were "increasing efforts" to open up the state's forests for energy production.
The motion asserted support for "the use of genuinely renewable and sustainable biomass" but it raised "concerns about the potential impact on native forests of expanding access to native forest biomaterials for the biomass to energy sector."
https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/7548609/redbank-biomass-project-off-to-court-this-week/
The Nature Conservation Council of NSW, North East Forest Alliance and the Australian Forest and Climate Alliance are scheduled to give evidence objecting to the proposal.
Conservation groups across the state are concerned about the impacts that burning a million tonnes of wood every year will have on the forests and biodiversity, the atmosphere and greenhouse gas emissions. They are also concerned about the impact on roads that will be subject to tens of thousands more heavy truck movements every year.
Dave Burgess of Redbank Action Group said: "Reopening one of Australia's most polluting power stations or export woodchips is precisely what the Hunter Valley doesn't need moving forward to a cleaner future.
Tom Ferrier of No Electricity From Forests said: "When we tell people there have been plans in the pipeline for many years to burn native forest hardwood for electricity, they're in disbelief.
https://www.singletonargus.com.au/story/7551555/redbank-heads-back-to-lec/
To mark the beginning of proceedings at the Land and Environment Court for Redbank, NCC has released an explainer video on the matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01tEUaZNfi0
Soil carbon not our climate saviour:
The Guardian has focussed upon the NRC report saying that carbon emissions from soils are going to increase as the climate warms to warn of the dangers of relying on soil carbon to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.
Fresh doubts have emerged over whether Australia can rely on boosting soil carbon to achieve its net zero emissions goals with a new New South Wales government report predicting the land sector will become a significant source of emissions in a warmer climate.
“From the average of the 12 models, in the upper depth interval (0 to 30cm of soil), there is a statewide average 2.5 tonnes of carbon per hectare decrease to the near-future change period [to 2040] and 5.1tC/ha to the far-future change period,” the second report said. The models ranged from as much as 1.6tC/ha additional carbon taken up on average to losses of as much as 12tC/ha.
The Morrison government’s recently released 2050 net zero plan, relies on as much as 17m tonnes of CO2 a year be sequestered in soil carbon projects for carbon neutrality to be achieved.
“Until we have better scientific evidence, we need to be cautious about relying on soil carbon to be our saviour in our net zero plans,” said Beverley Henry, an adjunct associate professor at Queensland University of Technology.
A biker led recovery:
Construction of stages two and three of the Narooma Mountain Bike Hub, a $4 million project funded by the Bushfire Local Economic Recovery Fund, will aim to start in March 2022.
Stage one of the project was completed by the NMBC in 2019, and features the initial 30km of trail which is currently open to the public.
The club expects stages two and three to be complete by June of next year, and thanked the NSW Forestry Corporation for their "amazing" partnership.
"We could not have had such success in building these trails without their belief and help," the club said in a statement.
Mountain bike trails are to be expanded in Wedding Bells State Forest with a State Government grant of $400,397 for three new trails and a shelter and seating area and a space for skills development.
Woolgoolga Mountain Bike Club (WMTBC) worked with Forestry Corporation NSW and local Indigenous representatives to fine tune their successful application, paying attention to environmental impacts and amenity for other users of the State Forest.
AUSTRALIA
Leadbeater’s homes needed for pallets:
The Friends of Leadbeater’s Possum have had their leave to appeal the Federal Court’s overruling their earlier win, rejected. Much to the delight of industry which emphasises how essential it is to cut down Leadbeater’s Possum’s homes for pallets to deliver essentials such as beer.
[AFPA CEO Ross Hampton] Our industries also produce essential products like timber pallets, where there is a national shortage leading into Christmas.
“The current ‘palletgate’ issue really puts the impact of green extremism in perspective for people as now they will experience what happens when a sustainable, reputable industry is brought to a grinding halt because of escalating lawfare,” Senator McKenzie said.
“Beer is now being rationed across some bottle shops because brewers can’t get enough pallets to freight their products, which are made from native timber.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/high-court-rejects-appeal-by-friends-of-leadbeaters/
Victorian Government throws more concessions and money to loggers, as well as making uncertainity certain:
The Victorian Government has significantly increased funding for timber workers displaced in the transition to ending logging of public native forests, are introducing legislation to make the uncertainity of the precautionary principle certain, and are spending money on rehabilitating failed regeneration.
The Labor Government today announced more than $100 million for workers, communities and businesses impacted by the 2024 step-down from native timber harvesting, which will include opt out packages and increased redundancy payments.
The new commitment to timber communities and families boosts the Government’s total investment for transition support to more than $200 million.
Legislation to be introduced early next year will include standards that set out how the industry can meet its obligations to a section of the Code called the precautionary principle.
The changes will provide the industry with greater certainty about how the precautionary principle should be implemented.
$14 million will be provided to implement new environmental measures. This includes a new coupe regeneration plan, which will increase confidence that regeneration requirements are met before coupes are taken off the Timber Release Plan
https://www.miragenews.com/bolstering-victorian-forestry-plan-696497/
… we want our cake and to eat it too:
CFMEU Manufacturing has welcomed the announcement from the Victorian Government that they will increase redundancy payments to displaced timber workers from a maximum of $23,000 up to $120,000, though they still oppose the ending of logging public native forests.
The revised package will see the Government pay a top up to any statutory redundancy payments payable by employers to 4 weeks (up from 3 weeks) for every year of skills investment in the industry, so they receive up to $120,000 (up from a $23,000 maximum government contribution).
“This is a significant improvement. Along with increased funding for relocation assistance, it will make a real difference to timber workers, their families and communities,” CFMEU Manufacturing Division National Secretary, Michael O’Connor, said.
“A redundancy package is like the life rafts on a ship. It’s great that we’ve now secured them, but we need to stop the ship from going down.
“It is possible to reach a sensible approach to forest management and the forest industry including ongoing sustainable forest management for timber production in the public native forest estate where appropriate.
“We have always supported Sustainable Forest Management and the need to vary resource outlooks and projections from time to time to ensure social, economic, and biological sustainability.
https://www.miragenews.com/big-increase-in-support-for-displaced-timber-696530/
… backlash grows to allow Victorian logging to continue:
An Otways timber harvester has launched a petition calling on the Andrews Government’s to reverse its decision to phase out all native forest logging by 2030.
More millions to subsidise logging:
Australia's eleventh Regional Forestry Hub to assist and promote logging has been launched in Eden, bringing the Commonwealth’s total assistance to $19.8 million.
"The Eden hub will work with the forestry industry to identify limitations for existing processing facilities and wood resources, and find innovative solutions to support future opportunities for value adding.
"This new hub brings the total number of regional forestry hubs to 11 around the country, which are bringing together local forest industries and communities to develop strategic visions and regional analysis to drive growth in Australia's forest industries."
South Coast Timber is aspiring to continue the "legacy" left by Blue Ridge Hardwoods and Allan Richards.
The company is now in action on the site where Blue Ridge operated from until its closure in 2020, due to diminishing supply and contract changes.
According to Mr Hall, much of the material is being sourced from private property, as well as some from the Eden Management Area (Forestry).
Government gives itself power to stop revegetation:
To the delight of NSW Farmers, as part of the National’s climate deal, federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud is proposing he get new environmental veto powers to prevent carbon projects based on allowing natural regeneration from going ahead if they would have an adverse impact on agricultural production or communities. These new Emissions Reduction Fund rules will be open for consultation today.
The Emissions Reduction Fund veto would apply to new or expanded human induced regeneration (HIR) and native forest managed regrowth (NFMR) projects that make up more than a third of the farm and are larger than 15 hectares.
The changes would give the agriculture minister the right to reject carbon projects where there is evidence that the project would have an adverse impact on agricultural production or communities.
“I don’t want to see our prime agricultural regions turned into native vegetation behind locked gates,” Littleproud said.
Increasing critical endangerment:
After been found guilty of spraying 28.5 ha of the critically endangered ecological community Natural Temperate Grasslands of the Southern Highlands, MP Angus Taylor’s company Jam Land Pty Ltd has been directed to mitigate the damage by managing and enhancing the natural ecological values of 103 hectares of native grasslands on the property, though the fight is not over yet.
The department said the spraying had a "significant impact" on the threatened ecological community and Jam Land Pty Ltd was found to be in breach of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act
Richard Taylor estimated it would cost more than $300,000 to challenge the case in the Federal Court and which could see the landholders apply to the Australian Farmers Fighting Fund, a legal fund managed by the National Farmers Federation.
Weakening illegal logging rules:
The Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment is currently conducting a scheduled ten-year review of the Illegal Logging Prohibition Regulation 2012, with a view to weakening them.
The rules were designed to ensure timber produced overseas and imported to Australia was not logged illegally. Some changes under discussion would water down the rules by reducing the regulatory burden on businesses.
Biomass cancer spreading:
The Tasmanian Greens have called on Liberals to immediately rule out burning native forests for energy generation as part of their announced Bioenergy Vision.
Cynically released under the cover of the border reopening, Guy Barnett’s Bioenergy Vision outlines the potential for over 700,000 tonnes of so-called ‘woody biomass’ to be used in energy generation. This volume would inevitably have to include large quantities directly from Tasmania’s native forests.
https://tasmps.greens.org.au/media-release/barnett-needs-rule-out-burning
The growing toll of climate heating:
The Climate Council has produced a report showing photos of the havoc that climate change is already causing to our natural ecosystems, and its only just begun.
Fossil fuel companies steal more than our future:
The fossil fuel companies, along with News Corp, are not paying us much, if anything, for our resources as they rob our children’s future.
It was a different story for fossil fuel companies, however. Gas giant Santos paid no tax on the $29 million profit it claimed to have made off total revenue of more than $5 billion, and it paid just $127 million in Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) from its Western Australian operations.
Origin Energy claimed to make no profit at all off more than $14 billion in revenue, and paid no tax. Woodside paid just $176 million in tax off nearly $2.2 billion in profit — or about 8% — which it claimed from $8 billion in revenue.
That means the three biggest fossil fuel culprits collectively paid $176 million in company tax off revenue of nearly $28 billion.
Another gas giant, Chevron, claimed profit of just $169 million off $12.2 billion in revenue, and didn’t pay a cent of tax, and paid no tax on $3.7 billion that went to a subsidiary. Shell paid no tax and claimed no profit on more than $5 billion in revenue.
Chinese-owned Yancoal paid no tax on $18 million of profit and more than $5 billion in revenue. Whitehaven Coal paid no tax on $1.8 billion in revenue. Adani’s Abbott Point terminal paid no tax on $557 million in revenue.
Another major climate culprit, News Corp — one of corporate Australia’s biggest tax dodgers — yet again paid no tax, this time off revenue of $1.73 billion. Nine Entertainment paid $52 million on profit of $217 million, and revenue of $2.4 billion.
https://www.smartcompany.com.au/finance/tax/tax-transparency-report-fossil-fuels/
Fattening on forest soils:
Beef farming in Australia is driving significant deforestation, including in the habitats of threatened species, according to a new satellite analysis by Unearthed.
An analysis of the imagery for Unearthed has identified 13,500 hectares of deforestation since 2018 – an area more than twice the size of Manhattan – across 57 beef cattle properties in Queensland, Australia.
The analysis suggests that despite Queensland passing landmark new laws in 2018 to curb deforestation, loopholes have left some landowners with significant scope to continue large-scale clearances – including some in areas classified as likely habitats for threatened species.
Australia is included in the WWF’s list of global deforestation hotspots – the only country in the developed world to make the list. The NGO identifies Queensland as the nation’s “deforestation front” – an area with significant concentrations of deforestation hotspots and large areas of forest under threat.
A 2019 report by the Wilderness Society found that beef is the major driver of this, accounting for 73% of all deforestation in the state between 2013 and 2019. This proportion rose to over 90% in the Great Barrier Reef catchment area, the land area adjacent to the underwater ecosystem.
https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2021/12/15/australia-beef-deforestation-climate-brexit-trade-deal/
“It beggars’ belief the lack of understanding of the scale of Australia and the remoteness of the pastoral sector that organisations like Unearthed (some sort of Greenpeace trojan horse) have and which now accuse Australian farmers of wholesale destruction when it’s a legal and legitimate practice.
https://www.miragenews.com/queensland-farmers-combine-world-class-beef-695322/
Rewilding Lungtalanana:
A partnership between the Indigenous owners and the World Wide Fund for Nature, aims to “rewild” Lungtalanana (Clarke) Island in Bass Strait.
SPECIES
What Climate Change:
Half Commonwealth Recovery and Action Plans for threatened species don’t consider climate change, and many that do give it scant regard.
GreenLaw, which conducts environmental law research, found climate change impacts were omitted from the conservation documents for 178 of 334 critically endangered species and ecological communities.
Many that did deal with climate change-related threats were vague and lacked detail, with some summarising the impacts in a single sentence.
GreenLaw CEO and lead researcher Annika Reynolds said there were inherent dangers in species rescue and recovery plans being “blind” to climate impacts.
“Many conservation documents for endangered species do not even identify climate change as a threat, this gap occurs even in cases where the species is known to suffer from extreme heat and drought,” she said.
https://www.aap.com.au/news/climate-threats-missing-from-rescue-plans/
ACF biodiversity policy adviser Brendan Sydes says its clear existing conservation plans do not adequately account for the threat climate change poses to species decline and loss.
"ACF urges the federal government to update all recovery plans and conservation advices using the best available science and allocate more funding to endangered species research so we can understand the specific challenges facing each species."
https://www.blayneychronicle.com.au/story/7550062/climate-threats-missing-from-rescue-plans/
https://au.news.yahoo.com/urgent-call-to-tackle-climate-change-koala-flying-fox-083034527.html
Koala community win:
As a result of a strong community campaign, the NSW Government announced the purchase of 194 hectares of prime koala habitat located adjacent to the Lake Innes Nature Reserve, south-west of Port Macquarie.
The purchase is funded as a joint initiative and only possible through the generous contribution of $3.5 million from Koala Conservation Australia (KCA) as well as from the NSW Government’s landmark $193 million dollar investment in koala conservation.
Environment Minister Matt Kean said the purchase will protect core koala habitat of strategic importance in the Port Macquarie region which will help us reach our target of doubling the koala population by 2050
https://www.miragenews.com/key-koala-habitat-secured-for-port-macquarie-696616/
https://www.nationaltribune.com.au/key-koala-habitat-secured-for-port-macquarie/
https://www.camdencourier.com.au/story/7556505/nsw-protects-mid-north-coast-koala-habitat/?cs=12
Breeding improved Koalas:
A plan to take up to six male koalas from south-east Victoria’s original Strzelecki population to breed with koalas in the Adelaide Zoo and Cleland wildlife park to improve their genetic diversity, has raised the ire of various community groups, particularly because no one knows the size of the Strzelecki population or how it will be affected.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-16/victoria-south-australia-koala-breeding-program/100704356
Waterbirds continue declining despite the rains:
Despite the recent rains the annual waterbird survey counted 95,306 birds, third lowest tally in almost four decades of tracking.
The researchers, though, did observe increases in breeding of birds such as the Australian white ibis and straw-necked ibis.
However, the researchers counted just 57 Australasian shovelers, compared with thousands in the early years of the survey.
Similarly, they observed just 105 freckled ducks, compared with more than 10,000 in previous good years. Researchers also counted 6,528 pink-eared ducks versus a dozen previous years when numbers were closer to 50,000, the report said.
[Professor Richard Kingsford] “Over the last 30-odd years, there has been a 70 per cent decline in waterbird numbers in eastern Australia - much of that in the Murray Darling Basin,”
He thinks it is unlikely bird populations will return to the numbers seen in the 1980s. But through careful management, including possible buybacks of water, the decline could be slowed down.
Many wetlands are still recovering from the 2017-to-2019 drought and despite back-to-back La Nina events and record-breaking rains, wetland bird populations across eastern Australia have failed to bounce back.
Reporting injured wildlife:
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) have developed a Wildlife Rescue App to put motorists in direct contact with the nearest wildlife rescue group, should they need to report an injured animal.
The app can be downloaded on ios and android devices. Visit ifaw.org/au/resources/wildlife-rescue-app
Educating kids on vulnerable species:
A group of Hunter-based authors and illustrators have penned Slippery, Slimy, Feathered and Furred aimed at 7-12 year olds to raise awareness and promote action to help protect vulnerable Australian wildlife.
Slippery, Slimy, Feathered and Furred is published by Hunter Writers Centre and can be purchased online from Amazon or Booktopia or ordered through any good bookstore
https://newcastleweekly.com.au/hunter-authors-and-illustrators-unite-to-save-our-fauna/
Opposition to culling feral deer:
Since Port Stephens Council distributed a letter to residents advising them of a proposed cull of feral deer, opposition has been growing.
https://www.portstephensexaminer.com.au/story/7548378/save-the-deer-petition-opens/
Electrocuting raptors:
The electrocution of raptors on power lines is causing concern in South Australia.
Yowie scares foresters:
Forest workers claim they came across a Bigfoot-like ‘yowie’ on a deserted road in north Queensland.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Biomass criminally harmful:
The Energy Mix has an article about the session on “Beyond Burning, Beyond Biomass” at COP 26.
Forest biomass has been mislabelled as a carbon-neutral energy source, said speakers gathered at a COP 26 side meeting who urged governments to stop subsidizing power plants that say they have gone green by replacing coal.
“Forest biomass is criminally harmful in so many ways,” said Maya Menezes, senior forests campaigner with Stand.earth. Public energy from forests “must not be used by major fossil fuel companies looking to turn a buck and trying to manipulate the public panic (over climate change) into a subsidy scheme that it will take precious years to disentangle ourselves from.”
“Standing and intact forests are the best offence and defence for climate catastrophe,” she added. “Betting our lives on potential carbon capture systems that are not yet operational but hypothetical” is not a path forward.
We’ve been changing our environment for a long time:
Around 125,000 years ago Neandertals transformed a largely forested area bordering two central European lakes into a relatively open landscape,
Analyses of pollen, charcoal, animal fossils and other material previously unearthed at two ancient lake basins in Germany provide the oldest known evidence of hominids reshaping their environments, the scientists report December 15 in Science Advances
Regular fire use by members of the Homo genus began around 400,000 years ago (SN: 4/2/12). Evidence of human occupations associated with increased fire setting and shifts to open habitats date to around 40,000 years ago in Australia; 45,000 years ago in highland New Guinea; and 50,000 years ago in Borneo.
Analyses of lake cores and stone-tool sites in southern-central Africa indicate that fires set by increasing numbers of humans kept the landscape open even as rainy conditions conducive to forest growth developed around 85,000 years ago.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/neandertals-first-hominid-modify-environment-forest-grassland
TURNING IT AROUND
Rights to a clean environment:
Nearly 70% of New York voters have backed an amendment to the state’s climate law to grant all residents the right “to clean air and water and a healthful environment,” potentially laying the groundwork for lawsuits against fossil fuel polluters and developers.
Rainforest recovery:
Tropical soils can recover quickly with regeneration, though it takes a lot longer for species diversity and carbon storage.
Soils on deforested tropical lands can recover their fertility in less than a decade, but it will still take a century for the newly-regrown trees to fully recover their carbon storage capacity and species diversity, according to a new study in the journal Science.
Poorter agreed that it’s crucial to maintain current forest cover. “First, stop deforestation and conserve old growth forests,” he told the Post, adding that deforested lands’ ability to recover “is not a licence to kill.”
Empty pledges:
The Canadian government has planted less than half a per cent of the two billion trees it pledged in 2019 to put in the ground across Canada by 2030
Phasing out fracking:
California regulators haven’t approved permits fracking since February, effectively phasing out the process ahead of Governor Gavin Newsom’s 2024 deadline to end it.
More reserves needed:
An American scientific collaboration have called for the United States to immediately move to create a collection of strategic forest reserves in the Western U.S. to fight climate change and safeguard biodiversity.
Describing the U.S.'s natural wooded systems as "America's Amazon" and forest protection as "the lowest-cost climate mitigation option," the researchers emphasize older forests' ability to accumulate massive amounts of carbon in trees, vegetation and soils, to provide homes for wildlife and to serve as sources of water for drinking and other uses.
The scientists note that multiple nations have pledged to meet goals commonly known as 30x30 and 50x50; the former calls for protecting 30% of land and water areas globally by 2030, the latter 50% by 2050. Hitting the 50x50 target is widely viewed as necessary for ensuring the Earth's biodiversity, the researchers say.
https://phys.org/news/2021-12-scientists-urge-strategic-forest-reserves.html
Forest Media 10 December 2021
Hi, in future I will be focussing on Australia more due to the time it takes to search international media.
The Echo and Echonet ran NEFA’s media release which accused the Minister for Environment, Matt Kean, of dereliction of duty for failing to implement the minimal changes recommended by the Natural Resources Commission to reduce the impacts of the 2019/20 wildfires on public State forests for the past five months. The study finding that stopping logging in the south-east forests would increase carbon sequestration by a million tonnes per annum and result in a profit of $62 million by 2050 has been feebly attacked by the loggers, giving it more publicity. Where is the water to come from, a kilogram of green hydrogen gas typically requires about nine litres of water feedstock. The State Government inquiry into the integrity of the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme received 100 submissions, will hold public hearings in December, and is due to report to the State Government by 1 March 2022.
The recurrent droughts are taking a huge toll on trees, killing up to 60% at some localities and threatening ecosystem collapse. Combined with increasing fire frequency, forest’s carbon storage is declining, by up to 50% at some sites. In Australia’s north extreme fire weather in October and November led to bushfires across 120,000 square kilometres of southern savanna regions, and the north is still burning. The Commonwealth Government has given you until the 17 December to have a say on Australia’s National Farm Forestry Strategy, aimed at facilitating logging and plantations on private lands.
124 Australian species have been added to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) "Red List of Threatened Species", increasing Australia’s tally to 1,830 animals ranked as either critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable. The decline of Bogong moths, a keystone species for alpine areas, from plague proportions to endangered highlights the dramatic shifts underway as climate change progresses.
Around 20 enthusiastic protestors gathered outside Pittwater MP Rob Stokes office at Mona Vale demanding he do more to save the koala colony at Mount Gilead in Sydney’s south-west. Stokes says he is committing to adopting all 31 recommendations of the NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer. The proposed 3000-lot Kings Hill housing estate in Port Stephens has been further delayed while the NSW Department of Environment, Energy and Science assess potential threats to the koala population. Animal Justice Party have led protests outside Environmental Minister Matt Hornsby office, demanding he put a stop to kangaroo killing. In Melbourne Extinction Rebellion held a rally to protest the growing extinction risk to Victoria’s species and ecosystems, with an impressive animatronic burning Koala called Blinky.
Scientists are calling on us to care about our birds, and take meaningful action to stop the Golden-shouldered Parrot following the Paradise Parrot into oblivion. The Saving our Species program is intending to interbreed Eastern Bristlebirds from isolated populations to create a genetic master race. Greater Gliders are in decline in Victoria, when conservationists found a dense pocket over 100 hectares they were told it would be protected, and then VicForests prepared to log it. Neighbours have complained to Blue Mountains council that a serial backyard bird feeder is causing gangs of cockatoos to spread disease, tear up timber cladding, attract rats, and disturb the peace. We are warned that plagues of snakes, spiders and mosquitoes are coming to ruin your Christmas, though the NSW government has solved the snake (and raptor) problem by extending the mouse poison rebates for farmers, small businesses and households into 2022.
The New Yorker has an extensive article about biomass focussing on Drax in England. A study found tropical agricultural land (where soil is not too degraded) can recover rainforests naturally, without costly plantings. Researchers are recommending planting trees and riparian buffers to reduce erosion and save reefs from being smothered.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Burning down the house:
The Echo and Echonet ran NEFA’s media release which accused the Minister for Environment, Matt Kean, of dereliction of duty for failing to implement the minimal changes recommended by the Natural Resources Commission to reduce the impacts of the 2019/20 wildfires on public State forests for the past five months.
‘The changes proposed by NRC are minimal, three years is not long enough for the forests to recover and has almost expired before it is implemented. Many of the worst affected forests, species and streams get no increased protection what-so-ever. Though permanently increased retention of hollow-bearing trees and their replacements will have lasting benefits for the 174 of NSWs vertebrate species dependent upon them.
‘Once again the Forestry Corporation have proven their reckless disregard for the consequences of their actions, even when they know they are likely to result in serious and irreversible harm.
‘Around two years after the fires, and five months after the NRC provided their recommendations to the Minister for Environment, in a clear dereliction of duty Matt Kean has wantonly allowed the Forestry Corporation to continue to cause serious and irreversible harm,’ said Mr Pugh.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/12/ministers-causing-serious-and-irreversible-harm-in-state-forests/
Stopping logging stops loggers making money:
The study finding that stopping logging in the south-east forests would increase carbon sequestration by a million tonnes per annum and result in a profit of $62 million by 2050 has been feebly attacked by the loggers;
Former Institute of Foresters president Rob de Fegely said Professor Macintosh's report was not particularly "well founded" or "well researched."
"That debate around native versus plantations is a false one and it doesn't exist in reality," Mr de Fegely said.
"We can't grow the products that we harvest and use from natural forests in plantations — they're not durable, they don't have the same qualities."
However, South East Timber Association said this week ending logging would strip many more millions out of South East economies and from the families that rely on it for their livelihoods.
SETA secretary Peter Rutherford said he and members were "deeply disturbed" by "flaws" in the report.
"What are claimed to be avoided costs, is actually income that will be stripped from regional families, businesses and economies," he said.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7544808/timber-industry-slams-analysis-on-forests/
Green Hydrogen needs lots of water:
Where is the water to come from, a kilogram of green hydrogen gas typically requires about nine litres of water feedstock.
Upper Hunter water security will be among the issues in the spotlight as part of a feasibility study into a green hydrogen manufacturing plant near Liddell Power station.
Early details show the proposed hydrogen production project will use water drawn from Lake Liddell, which draws from the Hunter River.
About 10 kilometres to the north is the proposed Bells Mountain pumped hydro project. The project, a joint venture between AGL and Japanese energy company Idemitsu, would pump water from an existing mining void 2000 metres to the top of Bells Mountain where it would be stored in a 1.9 gigalitre reservoir.
Surplus water licences from the closure of Liddell power station in 2023 and the closure of the Muswellbrook coal mine will be used to fill the bottom void with water from the Hunter River over an 18 month period.
https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/7544733/water-supply-a-factor-in-hunter-renewable-projects/
Offsetting upsetting biodiversity:
The State Government inquiry into the integrity of the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme received 100 submissions, will hold two days of public hearings on December 9 and 10, and is due to report to the State Government by 1 March 2022.
“Urban Taskforce members report buying or owning land that has been cleared and has been rezoned for urban development and then during the (usually long and drawn out) development approval process a species emerges on the site that requires offsetting.
“The outcome being that the late emergence of biodiversity values is cost prohibitive, makes the zoning irrelevant and the land is unable to be feasibly developed.”
“Rachel Walmsley, Policy & Law Reform Director EDO NSW, coined the phrase “the political endorsement of extinction” to describe the federal government’s accreditation of the NSW Government’s biodiversity offsets policy for major projects,” BPN said.
The Guardian has a podcast about offsets:
When they work, environmental or biodiversity offsets are supposed to prevent new roads, buildings and other major infrastructure from impacting negatively on the environment. But Guardian Australia has exposed serious concerns about the NSW offsets system, triggering multiple inquiries.
Environment reporter Lisa Cox explains to Jane Lee how Australia’s environmental offsets policy, which was designed to protect Australian wildlife, ended up failing it.
AUSTRALIA
The dying time:
The recurrent droughts are taking a huge toll on trees, killing up to 60% at some localities and threatening ecosystem collapse. Combined with increasing fire frequency, forest’s carbon storage is declining, by up to 50% at some sites.
Working off information about diebacks supplied to the citizen science website the Dead Tree Dectective, researchers at Western Sydney University’s Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment assessed the health of 18 tree species across 15 New South Wales forest and woodlands.
Measurements were taken during the drought and about eight to 10 months after good rains, finding trees deaths reached 60-70% in the worst affected areas. The sites examined ranged from the northern tablelands down to the southern highlands region of the state.
“There was some snow gums up around Armidale – which is the northern extent of their range – they were hit very badly,” said Brendan Choat, an associate professor at the university and a lead author of a paper to be submitted to the Frontiers in Plant Science journal.
“About 60% of them didn’t recover in any way.”
Red stringybark trees and brittle gums were among other species that suffered losses of up to 50% in the sites studied.
The study found “trees with a severely compromised canopy immediately after drought did not manage to recover even with prolonged favourable water availability”. The loss of leaf cover indicated a failure in trees’ internal hydraulic system that draws moisture from the roots to the canopy.
But our new research finds more frequent, severe bushfires and a hotter, drier climate may limit eucalypt forests’ ability to resprout and reliably lock up carbon. This could seriously undermine our efforts to mitigate climate change.
Australia’s forests have forged a tight relationship with bushfire. But climate change is already changing – and will continue to change – the size, severity and frequency of bushfires. In Victoria, for example, over 250,000 hectares have been burned by at least two severe fires in just 20 years.
This unprecendented frequency has led to the decline of fire sensitive forests, such as the iconic alpine ash.
In our new paper, we tackled this question by measuring carbon stored in Victoria’s dry eucalypt forests. We targeted areas that had been burned once or twice by severe bushfire within just six years. In these places, severe fires usually occur decades apart.
In general, we found climate change impacts resprouting forests on two fronts:
- as conditions get warmer and drier, these forests will store less carbon due to reduced growth
- as severe fires become more frequent, forests will store less carbon, with more trees dying and becoming dead wood.
First, we found carbon stores were lower in the drier and hotter parts of the landscape than the cooler and wetter parts. This makes sense - as any gardener knows, plants grow much better where water is plentiful and it’s not too hot.
When frequent fire was added to the mix, forest carbon storage reduced even further. At warmer and drier sites, a forest burned by two severe fires had about half as much carbon as a forest burned by a single severe fire.
Pyro-silviculture can include targeted thinning to reduce the density of trees in forests, which can lower their susceptibility to drought, and encourage the growth of large trees. It can also involve controlled burns to reduce the severity of future fires.
Welcome to the Pyrocene:
In Australia’s north extreme fire weather in October and November led to bushfires across 120,000 square kilometres of southern savanna regions, and the north is still burning.
This year, Western Australia and the Northern Territory experienced serious heatwaves late in the year and a late start to the wet season. This provided the perfect bushfire conditions.
But following the displacement of Indigenous people and the decline of traditional burning practices, fire regimes changed dramatically. The average fire size today is many orders of magnitude greater than those set under Aboriginal management.
The change has been implicated in the decline and extinction of some mammals and plant species. One massive and fast-moving October fire in the Tanami desert – home to endangered bilbies – burned nearly 7,000 square kilometres over a few days, our data show.
As climate change worsens, we’re now living in a global fire age dubbed the Pyrocene. This will bring challenges across the Australian continent.
Promoting Logging:
The Commonwealth Government has given you until the 17 December to have a say on Australia’s National Farm Forestry Strategy, aimed at facilitating logging and plantations on private lands.
Visit https://haveyoursay.awe.gov.au/national-farm-forestry-strategy to complete a short survey or upload a written submission.
SPECIES
Species Collapse:
124 Australian species have been added to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) "Red List of Threatened Species", increasing Australia’s tally to 1,830 animals ranked as either critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable. The decline of Bogong moths, a keystone species for alpine areas, from plague proportions to endangered highlights the dramatic shifts underway as climate change progresses.
Bogong moths once invaded Australian cities in their billions. Now they’re so scarce that the endangered mountain pygmy-possums which eat them have been found starving, their babies dead.
But in 2017 and 2018 the moths largely failed to arrive and on Thursday, the species was formally listed as endangered on a global red list of threatened species compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
ACF nature campaigner Jess Abrahams says the moth’s population collapse a few years ago was staggering, with scientists believing a mix of extreme droughts, pesticides and changes in agricultural practices were to blame.
Another of the Australian species added to the IUCN red list this year is Australia’s largest bat – the grey-headed flying fox, which has a wingspan of over one metre.
The megabat – also among the world’s largest – has been in trouble for a while. It’s found in Queensland, NSW and Victoria and is listed as vulnerable nationally thanks to its habitat being cleared, and culling by farmers before the species was protected.
https://www.aap.com.au/news/bogong-moth-megabat-struggling-to-survive/
The International Union for Conservation of Nature released its Red List, the most comprehensive global inventory of biodiversity, on Friday, logging 40,084 species at risk of extinction. In Australia, 1830 animals are ranked as either critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable.
[Professor Warrant] “The bogong moth is the canary in the coal mine,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine five years ago that it would be included on this list. There were four million of these moths entering the Australian Alps ... I would have almost laughed if someone had suggested [they’d be on the list] ... It has brought home to me that even a highly abundant insect like the bogong moth can decline.”
[Professor Lindenmayer] “Because the climate is changing so quickly, the interventions needed to conserve more and more animals are critical,” he said. “If you have one thing going wrong in life once, it’s hard – if you have two things, it’s a nightmare. If you have three things, it’s impossible and that is what we are asking biodiversity to deal with.”
… 124 Australian species added to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) "Red List of Threatened Species".
Of those, 54 have been categorised as either critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable, which includes the bogong moth, the grey-headed flying-fox, greenlip abalone, arcadia velvet gecko and several insect species from Kangaroo Island.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-09/bogong-moth-grey-headed-flying-fox-endangered/100687642
Stoking koala concerns:
Around 20 enthusiastic protestors gathered outside Pittwater MP Rob Stokes office at Mona Vale demanding he do more to save the koala colony at Mount Gilead in Sydney’s south-west. Stokes says he is committing to adopting all 31 recommendations of the NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer.
The road underpasses are one of 31 recommendations that have been made in response to a report by the NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer released this month (December 2021). The Save Sydney’s Koalas group recently lost a court case with respect to trying to prevent Lendlease from commencing stage one of the development. However, they are still seeking to have the underpasses incorporated into stage one.
https://www.northernbeachesadvocate.com.au/2021/12/06/koala-pressure-on-stokes/
The Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) has responded to advice from the NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer on protecting one of the State’s largest and healthiest koala populations with updates to its Cumberland Plain Conservation Plan (CPCP).
Announcing the Plan, Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Rob Stokes said changes to the CPCP, which sought to minimise negative impacts to biodiversity from future development in south-west Sydney, put protection of koalas at the heart of planning.
“After seeking advice from the NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer on the draft Plan, I’m pleased to confirm we are adopting all 31 recommendations to protect our critical koala population,” Mr Stokes said.
https://psnews.com.au/2021/12/07/updated-plan-to-keep-koalas-up-trees/?state=aps
Developers are again removing trees at a housing development between Campbelltown and Wollongong after a legal attempt to block the action failed.
The court case was brought on by local advocacy group Save Mount Gilead, which argued the area on Appin Road at Figtree Hill was core koala habitat and should be preserved in line with the recommendations of the NSW chief scientist and engineer.
Giving homes to Koalas (even when they don't want them):
The proposed 3000-lot Kings Hill housing estate in Port Stephens has been further delayed while the NSW Department of Environment, Energy and Science assess potential threats to the koala population.
Convenor Carmel Northwood said that the Hunter and Central Coast Regional Planning Panel's decision to apply the 'precautionary principle' to ensure plans would be assessed against the most recent information and scientific evidence about the potential threat the proposed development posed to the shrinking koala population was admirable.
"The plans to clear the development site in stages, in the hope that koalas will move to the enriched conservation areas, will likely result in chronic stress for the koalas which can impact their disease resistance, fertility and breeding success."
https://www.portstephensexaminer.com.au/story/7533232/kings-hill-delayed-for-koala-review/
The killing fields:
Animal Justice Party have led protests outside Environmental Minister Matt Hornsby office, demanding he put a stop to kangaroo killing.
Early November, leaked documents showed that members of his department have serious concerns that his management of kangaroo hunting is unsustainable and puts the animals on a path of extinction. MP Catherine Cusack, a member of Minister Kean’s party, lashed out on the 7.30 report stating.
“I’m now seriously alarmed that we have a big issue in relation to the sustainability of this species that’s iconic to Australia… It’s actually quite distressing to me that our kangaroos could be in such a predicament.”
This year has also seen the Parliamentary Inquiry into the Health and Wellbeing of Kangaroos and Other Macropods in NSW, which found kangaroo numbers in severe decline in NSW. Drought and bushfires contribute to the dwindling numbers, but the biggest culprits are land clearing, licensed killing for agricultural interests and the commercial harvesting industry.
https://www.sydneyobserver.com/2021/12/protesters-blast-mp-over-kangaroo-killing/
In Melbourne Extinction Rebellion held a rally to protest the growing extinction risk to Victoria’s species and ecosystems, with an impressive animatronic burning Koala.
2,000 animals, plants and ecological communities are listed as threatened in Victoria, an increase from 700 five years ago.
Extinction Rebellion's rally, which featured women dressed in red dresses, veils and masks, was held 'to save our precious and unique habitat', the group said.
They marched in front of Blinky the koala - which is part-skeleton, stands about four metres high, lets out groaning and crying noises and emits plumes of smoke.
'They have announced native logging will be "phased out" by 2030, but widespread logging of critical habitat of threatened species continues throughout Victoria, accelerating ecosystem decline and climate collapse.'
The group also addressed trees, claiming Victoria needed to stop cutting them down as there were alternatives for paper and building materials.
'We do not have alternatives for our unique native forests. We have alternative ways to provide jobs in regional areas. We do not have an alternative planet,' it said
Extinction Rebellion has brought back one of its most nightmarish concepts and no, it’s not the thought of the earth’s inevitable destruction as the result of human greed. It’s a giant groaning zombie koala called Blinky.
Thus re-enters Blinky, a weapon of mass awareness raising if there ever was one. Blinky lingers on the edge of my subconscious, a furry manifestation of our existential doom. This is, I suppose, the point.
https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/extinction-rebellions-koala-zombie/
Stopping the Golden-shouldered Parrot following the Paradise Parrot into oblivion:
Scientists are calling on us to care about our birds, and take meaningful action to stop the Golden-shouldered Parrot following the Paradise Parrot into oblivion
If we’re to ensure the golden-shouldered parrot and other endangered species do not go the way of the paradise parrot, we need scientific strategies and technologies.
But we need more than those. Sometimes, at least, we need to subordinate avarice to avian welfare.
For that, we need to connect, emotionally and ethically, with the birds around us. Birds must matter to us – not merely in an abstract or objectified fashion but as beings of intrinsic worth.
Interbreeding Bristlebirds:
The Saving our Species program is intending to interbreed Eastern Bristlebirds from isolated populations to create a genetic master race.
“We will use this knowledge to selectively breed birds from different populations, with the aim of improving disease resistance, increasing genetic diversity and lifting fertility rates, particularly in the smallest population of birds located in northern NSW,” she said.
“The end goal is to see resilient populations of healthy birds, able to sustain population growth in the wild.”
https://psnews.com.au/2021/12/07/dpie-on-genetic-mission-to-save-rare-bird/?state=aps
Lessening Greater Gliders:
Greater Gliders are in decline in Victoria, when conservationists found a dense pocket over 100 hectares they were told it would be protected, and then VicForests prepared to log it.
"We have seen in the central highlands of Victoria, just east of Melbourne, declines of up to 80 per cent over about 10 years in surveys done in the tall forests.
"We have seen declines of about 50 per cent in East Gippsland."
Professor Wintle says a combination of bushfires, climate change and logging are threatening the existence of the greater glider.
"Field verification survey results met the requirements for a zoning amendment to be applied at this location and timber harvesting excluded," he concluded.
In this case, enough greater gliders were detected for approximately 100 hectares to be set aside as a special protection zone.
"It is extremely poor practise for the department to sit on its hands and fail to put this protection in place," she says.
Cockatoos terrorise Blue Mountains:
Neighbours have complained to Blue Mountains council that a serial backyard bird feeder is causing gangs of cockatoos to spread disease, tear up timber cladding, attract rats, and disturb the peace.
Authorities and wildlife carers warn residents against providing meals for their visiting wild feathered friends to discourage human dependency and help prevent the spread of infectious diseases, such as the common virus Psittacine beak and feather disease.
https://www.blayneychronicle.com.au/story/7540703/neighbours-beg-dont-feed-the-birds/
Be afraid, very afraid:
We are warned that plagues of snakes, spiders and mosquitoes are coming to ruin your Christmas.
… warnings of a summer plague of mosquitos, snakes AND spiders
Wet and humid weather, as well as plentiful food stocks courtesy of the mouse plague that terrorised inland NSW, will lead to a spike in snakes and spider numbers.
David Bock of the Australian Museum says the combination of stale water and humid temperatures creates the perfect breeding ground for mosquitos
… a plague on all species:
The NSW government has extended the mouse poison rebates for farmers, small businesses and households into 2022.
Primary producers will now be able to make multiple claims for zinc phosphide purchases, up to the $10,000 cap.
Already more than 52,500 households and 6500 small businesses have taken advantage of this rebate worth more than $31 million.
https://www.agtrader.com.au/news/cropping/mice-plague-persists-as-rebate-extended-to-2022
TURNING IT AROUND
Renewable Drax:
The New Yorker has an extensive article about biomass focussing on Drax in England.
In essence, Drax is a gigantic woodstove. In 2019, Drax emitted more than fifteen million tons of CO2, which is roughly equivalent to the greenhouse-gas emissions produced by three million typical passenger vehicles in one year. Of those emissions, Drax reported that 12.8 million tons were “biologically sequestered carbon” from biomass (wood). In 2020, the numbers increased: 16.5 million tons, 13.2 million from biomass. Meanwhile, the Drax Group calls itself “the biggest decarbonization project in Europe,” delivering “a decarbonized economy and healthy forests.”
The result was what many scientists call the “carbon accounting loophole.” By international agreement, if a nation or industry burns megatons of wood, thereby emitting megatons of carbon, it can be defined as a largely carbon-neutral event. “The wood biomass energy claims of carbon neutrality are incorrect and misleading,” Beverly Law, a professor of global climate-change biology at Oregon State, told me. “It can worsen climate change even if wood displaces coal.”
By 2019, biomass accounted for about fifty-nine per cent of all renewable-energy use in the E.U. The Dogwood Alliance estimates that sixty thousand acres of trees—trees that would have otherwise sequestered carbon—are burned each year to supply the growing pellet market.
Why plant if it can regenerate:
A study found tropical agricultural land (where soil is not too degraded) can recover rainforests naturally, without costly plantings.
Many organizations and communities are working to restore native forests by reclaiming unproductive or abandoned land and carrying out costly tree-planting efforts. … But in many cases forests can recover naturally, with little or no human assistance.
Our research shows that tropical forests recover surprisingly quickly: They can regrow on abandoned lands and recover many of their old-growth features, such as soil health, tree attributes and ecosystem functions, in as little as 10 to 20 years. …
All of the forest attributes that we examined recovered within 120 years of regrowth. Some recovered 100% of their old-growth values in the first 20 years of regrowth.
For example, the soil attributes that we analyzed reached 90% of old-growth values within 10 years and 98% to 100% within 20 years. In other words, after 20 years of regrowth, soils in the forests contained virtually as much organic carbon and had similar bulk density as soils in old-growth forests.
Our findings show that tropical forest regrowth is an effective and low-cost, nature-based strategy for promoting sustainable development, restoring ecosystems, slowing climate change and protecting biodiversity. And since regrown forests in areas where the land has not been heavily damaged quickly recover many of their key attributes, forest recovery doesn’t always require planting trees.
In our view, a range of suitable reforestation methods can be implemented, depending on local site conditions and local people’s needs. We recommend relying on natural regrowth wherever and whenever possible, and using active restoration planting when needed.
Planting trees to save the reef:
Researchers are recommending planting trees and riparian buffers to reduce erosion and save reefs from being smothered.
When the team used these methods to assess 5,500 coastal areas around the world, they discovered that nearly 85% of the sediment load leaching from the land eventually settled on coral reefs.
“Bringing forest restoration to the forefront of global marine ecosystem conservation discussions is imperative,” Suárez-Castro said. “Countries need to commit to land and forest restoration in coastal regions, which will help reduce the amount of sediment runoff from coastal land areas.”
Protecting and restoring coastal forests isn’t the only way to reduce runoff. The team also found riparian buffers — the assemblages of trees and plants that surround rivers and streams — can stop up to 90% of sediment from entering waterways. In other words, restoring forests across multiple watersheds can help reduce erosion and simultaneously improve coral reef health.
Underground networks:
An interesting article on fungi
Forest Media 3 December 2021
Greens Member of the Legislative Council David Shoebridge and Richmond candidate Mandy Nolan spoke at a rally in Lismore protesting logging in Cherry Tree SF. NEFA have accused the Ministers for Environment and Foresty, Matt Kean and Paul Toole, of dereliction of duty for failing to implement the Natural Resources Commission recommendation to stop all logging in the Taree Management Area and to increase retention of hollow-bearing trees and recruits.
The Forestry Corporation reported a loss of $20 million for its Hardwood Forests Division in 2020-21. A study by Frontier Economics and Professor Andrew Macintosh of the Australian National University found stopping native forestry in the Southern and Eden RFA areas would produce a net economic benefit to the state of approximately $60 million, while also reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by almost 1 million tonnes per year over the period 2022-2041. In Shellharbour's council elections there is a push to take management of Killalea State Park off Reflections and hand it over to NPWS.
Victorian groups released After the Logging, a shocking assessment of failed regeneration following logging, which revealed that 1 in 3 logged areas fail to "grow back". The WA Forest Alliance will host three 'Forest Fiestas' to celebrate South West forests and the recent breakthrough in their conservation. Even in the relatively fire adapted savannahs of northern Australia, too frequent burning (including “cultural”) is pushing many mammals to extinction. Federally the Coalition and Labor are moving to further muffle charities at election times.
A consortium of 17 Koala and wildlife groups have written to Dominic Perrottet identifying the loss of habitat as the principal threat to Koalas and asking him to strengthen logging rules and protect the Great Koala National Park and Sandy Creek Koala Park. The NSW Chief Scientist and engineering panel are recommending changes to protect Sydney’s Koalas. A new koala facility has been built in Richmond by wildlife rescue group WIRES with donations from the devastating 2019-20 bushfires. Claiming they found the highest density of Koalas in NSW, Hunter Local Land Services is seeking landholders who would like to create koala habitat on their land in the Tinonee area. A new action plan for Australian birds has been released, identifying 216 species now at risk of extinction. Bilbies are getting poisoned implants to deter predators. Now they are deploying carboard flatpack homes for wildlife affected by wildfire.
A study in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province found deforestation between 2002 and 2018 induced a rise in mean daily maximum temperatures of 0.95° C, causing the additional deaths of 101-118 people annually.
In Canada, Old Growth Revylution has set up a blockade to stop logging in areas that were recently identified as high-value old growth forest by the Ministry of Forests. Ecuador’s highest court has ruled that plans to mine for copper and gold in a protected cloud forest are unconstitutional and violate the rights of nature which are enshrined in the country’s constitution. Rwanda has committed to restore 2 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2030, though is having major problems with incursions into protected forests. In Bali farming in a protected area started in 1999 during civil unrest, following floods and landslips a community is trying to regulate the activity. In Kenya awareness about the importance of forests and community involvement is protecting forests. The ambition of restoring a million hectares as Africa’s Great Green Wall to protect against climate change is only 4% of the way there after 14 years.
Forest bathing continues to grow.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
A cherry picking protest:
Greens Member of the Legislative Council David Shoebridge and Richmond candidate Mandy Nolan spoke at a rally in Lismore protesting logging in Cherry Tree SF. It was sympathetically run on NBN and in Daily Telegraph via the Northern Star.
Protesters say they are building pressure on the government to stop logging in a state forest after gaining more supporters for their cause.
The Greens Member of the Legislative Council David Shoebridge and Richmond candidate Mandy Nolan joined North East Forest Alliance members at Spinks Park on Saturday.
Ms Nolan said she was backing alliance members who had been protesting in Cherry Tree Forest for the past two weeks.
“Although this is outside my electorate it’s not outside our bigger community care for the environment and really hammering home we don’t want our state forests logged,” Ms Nolan said.
Northern Rivers Times ran NEFA’s media release calling on Cherry Tree to be protected as core Koala habitat.
Ministers’ refusal to stop Forestry Corporation causing ‘serious and irreversible harm’ a dereliction of duty
NEFA have accused the Ministers for Environment and Foresty, Matt Kean and Paul Toole, of dereliction of duty for failing to implement the minimal changes recommended by the Natural Resources Commission (NRC) to reduce the impacts of the 2019/20 wildfires on public State forests for the past 5 months. This resulted in just one interview on 2LM.
The NRC identified 3 forestry Management Areas, including Taree, as being at ‘extreme risk’ “of serious and irreversible harm to environmental values from the cumulative impacts of fire and harvesting”, recommending that logging “must be temporarily suspended for three years from the time of fire”.
“Despite the extreme risk and contrary to the recommendation, the Forestry Corporation started logging Yarratt State Forest in the Taree Management Area in July, with more operations scheduled to start in February.
“In recognition of the massive loss of hollow-bearing trees in the fires and following logging, the only change to the logging rules proposed by the NRC was to require the retention of the next largest trees where enough hollow-bearing trees no longer exist (as in most coastal forests) to achieve 8 trees, and for each hollow-bearing tree 2 of the next largest trees as ‘recruitment’ trees to develop into the hollow bearing trees of the future. This is a needed improvement.
“Forestry Corporation are refusing to implement NRC’s single change to the logging rules. For example, the logging plan for Cherry Tree SF was approved in September and only requires for hollow-bearing trees “8 per ha must be retained where available”. No restoration to a minimum of 8 and no recruitment trees.
More economic not to log:
Despite receiving $16.8 million from the government for ‘community service obligations‘ (provision of recreation facilities, education and advisory services, government liaison and regulatory services, community fire protection and research), as well as other monies for transport, infrastructure and replanting subsidies, the Forestry Corporation reported a loss of $20 million for its Hardwood Forests Division in 2020-21.
Normalised earnings were -$20 million (FY20: $0 million), with expenses projected to remain at elevated levels as infrastructure repairs continue. If the cost of infrastructure repairs and other fire recovery activities is excluded, the division’s normalised earnings would be adjusted to -$6 million1, which reflects the $18 million impact on net revenue margin from reduced timber harvesting operations
Both operating divisions used equity funding to offset infrastructure repair costs, with approximately $18 million of the equity injection allocated to support infrastructure repairs.
With the regulator advising a heightened focus on regulatory compliance, stop work orders were received on two operations and the EPA also issued several penalty infringement notices. The EPA commenced prosecutions for operations that took place in prior years under previous regulations and during the early implementation of the current regulations. These are expected to be heard by the Land and Environment Court during FY22.
The Corporation has declared force majeure on contracts that have been affected by the 2019/20 bushfires and 2020/21 floods.
A study Frontier Economics and Professor Andrew Macintosh of the Australian National University found stopping native forestry in the Southern and Eden RFA areas would produce a net economic benefit to the state of approximately $60 million, while also reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by almost 1 million tonnes (Mt) per year over the period 2022-2041.
There is an opportunity to expand the role of forests in NSW’s climate strategy by stopping logging in state forests. Frontier Economics and Professor Andrew Macintosh of the Australian National University have prepared a report, Comparing the value of alternative uses of native forests in Southern NSW, that looks at the climate and economic outcomes of this strategy, based on a case study in the southern forests of NSW, covering the Southern and Eden Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) areas.
Based on conservative assumptions, the study found stopping native forestry in the Southern and Eden RFA areas would produce a net economic benefit to the state of approximately $60 million, while also reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by almost 1 million tonnes (Mt) per year over the period 2022-2041.
The key findings are:
- There are net benefitswhen native forest logging ceases. The supply of native logs is no longer there and the industry is shifting to harvesting smaller logs that produce lower value wood products .
- Stopping native forest harvesting will generate significant carbon abatement, which will contribute to addressing climate change. Stopping logging in the Eden and Southern RFA regions represents the largest single low cost abatement opportunity in NSW or across Australia, particularly in the land sector. As context, a ’no logging’ scenario would generate more than 3 times more abatement per year for the next 20 years than the largest existing Emissions Reduction Fund project anywhere in Australia.
- Over the 5 years up to 2020, revenue derived from logging state forests totalled just $2.3 million in total versus $64 million for the same period from plantation forestry. Logging native forests does not make economic sense.
- The very small number of people employed in the industry (ranging between 0.1% and 1.6% of the workforce ) have credible, alternative, employment opportunities in the region.
Link to report: https://www.frontier-economics.com.au/documents/2021/11/comparing-the-value-of-alternative-uses-of-native-forest-in-southern-nsw.pdf/
Across the states that still engaged in native forestry there was likely to be a similar result, Australian National University’s Andrew Macintosh told AAP on Tuesday.
“Given the nature of the products that they produce, there’s likely to be similar dynamics, and also benefits, from stopping harvesting, particularly on the greenhouse gas emissions side,” Professor Macintosh said
Danny Price, managing director of Frontier Economics, said NSW could demonstrate strong leadership in removing the taxpayer burden of native forest logging and boosting tourism sector and carbon abatement.
“There is no doubt managing the native forests for conservation purposes provides greater economic benefits than logging,” he said.
“It’s a win-win and, quite frankly, a no-brainer.”
Long-term sustainable timber supply from the south coast forests has been reduced by almost a third since the bushfires of 2019-2020.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/nsw/2021/11/30/native-forest-worth-more-logging/
Stop reflections:
In Shellharbour's council elections there is a push to take management of Killalea State Park off Reflections and hand it over to NPWS.
"The key is to take away these professional administrators, Reflections, out of the trust role, to somewhere that has protection in perpetuity, and that's the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
AUSTRALIA
Forestry deforesting:
Victorian groups released After the Logging, a shocking assessment of failed regeneration following logging, which revealed that 1 in 3 logged areas fail to "grow back". Shocking photos and footage show Victoria's beautiful, biodiverse forests reduced to weed-infested wastelands, dominated by blackberries.
The ABC have another well presented story:
At the heart of VicForests’s sustainability pitch is the claim that every tree they remove is grown back.
Others, once majestic and carbon-dense mountain ash forests, are now thickets of wattle with hardly a eucalypt in sight.
Sections of logged state forests have been classified as ‘regenerated’ despite not being so — and have been handed back to the public as little more than weed-infested fields.
The ABC can also reveal an official government investigation concluded that forests had not been regrown as required by the law — but decided it couldn’t take any action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF3H8Y_IwSc
West Australian activists celebrate:
The WA Forest Alliance will host three 'Forest Fiestas' to celebrate South West forests and the recent breakthrough in their conservation.
"From here, much work remains to be done to get the details right and ensure forests are properly and securely protected, and as we celebrate, we regenerate, recharge, and stoke the fires of the forest movement.
"Thanks to the heartfelt work of thousands of people of many decades, the South West native forests' intrinsic, climate and biodiversity values are being recognised and given precedence by the State Government.
Be careful what you wish for:
Even in the relatively fire adapted savannahs of northern Australia, too frequent burning (including “cultural”) is pushing many mammals to extinction. As pressure builds to replicate their relatively higher fire frequency in NSW’s forests, we need to be aware that this will have significant impacts on plants, particularly obligate seeders, and animals reliant on the resources provided by long unburnt areas.
Native small mammals such as bandicoots, tree-rats and possums have been in dire decline across Northern Australia’s vast savannas for the last 30 years – and we’ve only just begun to understand why.
Our new research points to fire. In the most comprehensive study of small mammals and the threats they face in northern Australia, we found the length of time a habitat is left unburnt determines the number of different mammal species present, and their abundance.
This is important because Northern Australia’s tropical savanna is one of the most fire-prone regions on the planet. Our findings suggest we need to change the way we manage wildfires so we can help native wildlife come back from the brink.
Fire managers, largely led by Indigenous rangers as well as state government agencies and conservation organistations, use low intensity prescribed burning in the early dry season, when vegetation is moist and conditions are cooler. This produces patchy fire scars that limit the spread of the inevitable wildfires later in the dry season.
There’s ample evidence this approach is highly effective. And yet, mammals continue to decline, and scientists have been criticised for not having the answers.
However, the most vital factor was vegetation that remained unburnt for four or more years – whether from wildfires or prescribed burns. Sites with longer unburnt vegetation, including with fruiting shrubs and trees, had far more mammals.
Pyrodiversity refers to the number of patches within a landscape, with different times since the last fire, and is something fire managers try to achieve.
However, we found pyrodiversity had a negative influence on mammals. Unburnt vegetation was the only attribute that explained the higher abundance and diversity of small mammal species.
What’s more, the benefits for small mammals increase with the size of the unburnt patch – bigger is better. These longer unburnt patches provide critical resources such as food from fruiting trees and shrubs, and shelter including tree hollows and hollow logs. They also help small mammals to evade feral cats.
Stopping charity advocates:
Federally the Coalition and Labor are moving to further muffle charities at election times.
"As it reduces the expenditure threshold and applies it retrospectively, ACF and other organisations will now be assigned to this onerous category for past lawful, non-partisan activities."
The head of the Australian Council of Social Services, Cassandra Goldie, said Australians benefited when charities were able to advocate for policy reform without further burdens.
"We are deeply concerned that this legislation will stifle the voices of community services and prevent them from advocating for the much needed changes to ensure people with greatest need are front and centre," she said.
https://7news.com.au/politics/charities-speak-out-on-stifling-new-laws-c-4778465
https://www.blayneychronicle.com.au/story/7534510/charities-speak-out-on-stifling-new-laws/
SPECIES
Save Koala’s homes:
A consortium of 17 Koala and wildlife groups have written to Dominic Perrottet identifying the loss of habitat as the principal threat to Koalas and asking him to strengthen logging rules and protect the Great Koala National Park and Sandy Creek Koala Park.
We commend the NSW Government for the substantial investment in koala rescue and rehabilitation outlined in the 2021-22 NSW Budget. These resources are very welcome and will hopefully alleviate animal suffering and help to return rescued koalas to the wild as quickly and safely as possible.
However, the continuing loss of bushland is not only forcing more koalas into care, it is making it harder every year for carers to find healthy habitat where koalas can be safely released. Until the government meaningfully addresses the critical issue of habitat loss, this investment will be only a Band-Aid solution.
Consequently, we are eagerly awaiting the NSW Koala Strategy (2021-26). If this strategy does not adequately address habitat loss as a key threat, the NSW Government cannot achieve its stated goal of doubling wild koala numbers by 2050. We therefore call on the government to ensure the NSW Koala Strategy:
- Strengthens koala protections in key laws and codes, including the Biodiversity Conservation Act, the Local Land Services Act, the Private Native Forestry codes and the 2021 Koala Habitat Protection SEPP;
- Declares the 175,000ha Great Koala National Park and the 7,000ha Sandy Creek Koala Park on North Coast and new koala national parks for southwestern and western Sydney; and
- Protects koala habitat from intensified logging under weakened forestry regulations (the Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approval).
Consequently, it is essential that the NSW Koala Strategy adequately addresses the critical issue of habitat loss, the primary underlying cause of koala displacement, injury and death. Loss of mature trees forces koalas to stray close to towns and farms searching for suitable new habitat. This exposes them to dog attacks and the risk of being hit by vehicles, two of the main causes of recorded koala injuries and deaths. The stress caused by habitat loss also makes individuals more vulnerable to disease, including chlamydia.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-10261419/NSW-koala-protections-coming-soon.html
https://www.hawkesburygazette.com.au/story/7534054/nsw-koala-protections-coming-soon/
https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/animals/nsw-koala-protections-coming-soon-c-4772803
Protecting Koalas from Sydney
The NSW Chief Scientist and engineering panel are recommending changes to protect Sydney’s Koalas.
Koala corridors over or under roads, traffic-calming measures and fences around residential pools and gardens are among 31 recommendations set to be adopted by the NSW government to protect the koala population of south-western Sydney.
The report by the NSW Chief Scientist and engineering panel, to be released Thursday, says koala habitats should be retained, increased and restored through improved bushfire, disease and pest mitigation efforts, as well as ensuring future development projects minimise harm to koalas.
… rehabilitating Sydney Koalas:
A new koala facility has been built in Richmond by wildlife rescue group WIRES with donations from the devastating 2019-20 bushfires.
https://www.esperanceexpress.com.au/story/7537459/mountains-koalas-get-their-own-hospital/
Creating Koala habitat:
Claiming they found the highest density of Koalas in NSW, Hunter Local Land Services is seeking landholders who would like to create koala habitat on their land in the Tinonee area.
Recent surveys by ecologists found that this area has the highest recorded densities of koalas in all of NSW.
Declining birds needed protection:
A new action plan for Australian birds has been released, identifying 216 species now at risk of extinction.
The 216 Australian birds now at risk of extinction comprise:
23 critically endangered
74 endangered
87 vulnerable
32 near-threatened.
This is up from 134 birds in 1990 and 195 a decade ago.
Birds are easily harmed by changes in their ecosystems, including introduced species, habitat loss, disturbance to breeding sites and bushfires. Often, birds face danger on many fronts. The southeastern glossy black cockatoo, for example, faces no less than 20 threats.
Introduced cats and foxes kill millions of birds each year and are considered a substantial extinction threat to 37 birds.
Land clearing and overgrazing are a serious cause of declines for 55 birds, including the swift parrot and diamond firetail. And there is now strong evidence climate change is driving declines in many bird species.
A good example is the Wet Tropics of far north Queensland. Monitoring at 1,970 sites over 17 years has shown the local populations of most mid- and high-elevation species has declined exactly as climate models predicted. Birds such as the fernwren and golden bowerbird are being eliminated from lower, cooler elevations as temperatures rise.
As a result, 17 upland rainforest birds are now listed as threatened – all due to climate change.
The Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20 – which were exacerbated by climate change – contributed to the listing of 27 birds as threatened.
Some 91 birds are threatened by droughts and heatwaves. They include what’s thought to be Australia’s rarest bird, the Mukarrthippi grasswren of central west New South Wales, where just two or three pairs survive.
Climate change is also pushing migratory shorebirds towards extinction. Of the 43 shorebirds that come to Australia after breeding in the Northern Hemisphere, 25 are now threatened. Coastal development in East Asia is contributing to the decline, destroying and degrading mudflat habitat where the birds stop to rest and eat.
The research shows declines in extinction risk for 23 Australian bird species.
https://ebooks.publish.csiro.au/content/action-plan-australian-birds-2020
https://www.aap.com.au/news/bushfires-climate-impact-aussie-birds/
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/am/scientists-tracking-bird-declines/13656544
Poisoning Bilbies to save them:
Bilbies are getting poisoned implants to deter predators.
One of Australia's most iconic native animals has been fitted with a poisonous implant to help combat the threat of feral cats and other invaders.
About 30 bilbies at Arid Recovery, a wildlife reserve about 550 kilometres north of Adelaide in the South Australian outback, have had the small rice-sized implant injected under their skin.
Flatpack homes for wildfire victims:
Now they are deploying carboard flatpack homes for wildlife affected by wildfire.
It’s the latest flat-pack innovation – a biodegradable shelter that can be rapidly installed to provide refuge for native animals left exposed and vulnerable after a bushfire.
The habitat pods themselves take the shape of a sturdy, six-sided pyramid made from folded cardboard, perforated with multiple small holes where animals can scamper in and out. Unlike the wire and shadecloth structures that have been used as post-fire shelters previously, the pods are light, easy to transport and set up, and entirely biodegradable.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Deforestation heats a warming world:
A new study in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province published in Lancet Planetary Health reports how localized deforestation between 2002 and 2018 induced a rise in mean daily maximum temperatures of 0.95° Celsius, compounding the impacts of global warming, and causing the additional deaths of 101-118 people annually.
In localized regions, tropical rainforests increase humidity, generate rainfall and produce wind currents, all with substantial cooling effects. In addition, the shade cast by a forest canopy produces cooler ground temperatures compared to cleared areas directly exposed to sunlight.
The researchers say the study establishes a clear link between deforestation and heat-related mortality. Even under favorable work conditions in Berau, working in deforested areas, compared to forested areas, for 90 minutes can lead to elevated core body temperatures higher than 38.5°C (101.3°F).
TURNING IT AROUND
More on COP 26 and biomass.
A story on 3CR examines reforestation, including an interview with Peg Putt on biomass – mentions Redbank. Has links to other stories.
https://www.3cr.org.au/climateaction/episode-202111291700/cop26-restored-forests-2030
Protecting Canada’s oldgrowth:
Old Growth Revylution has set up a blockade to stop logging in areas that were recently identified as high-value old growth forest, by the Ministry of Forests.
Rights of nature trump mining in Ecuador protected area:
Ecuador’s highest court has ruled that plans to mine for copper and gold in a protected cloud forest are unconstitutional and violate the rights of nature which are enshrined in the country’s constitution.
In a landmark ruling, the constitutional court of Ecuador decided that mining permits issued in Los Cedros, a protected area in the north-west of the country, would harm the biodiversity of the forest, which is home to spectacled bears, endangered frogs, dozens of rare orchid species and the brown-headed spider monkey, one of the world’s rarest primates.
The ruling by Ecuador’s highest court, published on Wednesday, upheld the rights of nature, which are enshrined in the country’s constitution, and said they applied across the whole country, not just to protected areas.
Engaging local communities to protect forests as problems escalate:
Rwanda has committed to restore 2 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2030, though is having major problems with incursions into protected forests.
The ministry of environment is to engage local communities in conservation decision making in its latest efforts to save some small natural forests from human encroachment.
According to government figures, at least 7,000 hectares of small natural forests in different parts of the country are under threats related to human activities—agriculture, poaching, settlement, wood pilfering and fires.
Rwanda has committed to restore two million hectares of degraded and deforested landscapes by 2030. Currently, 900,000 hectares are being restored.
The country has invested $652 million in forest landscape restoration programmes, according to the ministry of environment.
https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/govt-engage-local-communities-management-small-natural-forests
In Bali farming in a protected area started in 1999 during civil unrest, following floods and landslips a community is trying to regulate the activity.
- Bali’s Penyaringan village was hit by flash floods in September, which some have linked to the ongoing loss of its forest.
- While the village’s forest has been designated as a protected area, it’s still subject to encroachment by villagers for the planting of short-lived crops, a practice known locally as ngawen.
- To regulate the practice and regenerate the forest, the village formed a management body that restricts the extent and types of crops that villagers can grow and requires them to also plant trees.
In Kenya awareness about the importance of forests and community involvement is protecting forests.
For decades, Samburu women cut down trees in the Kirisia Forest to make charcoal, their only source of income. Today, 550 of them have teamed up to help safeguard the forest in this dense, mountainous ecosystem, which provides water to more than 150,000 people. With climate change, drought is driving the men of this lowland herding community to leave for months on end in search of water and pasture for their animals.
The women’s stewardship of the 226,000-acre national forest is part of a broader shift in thinking among governments in places like Kenya and Tanzania toward entrusting communities with local resource management.
Africa’s Great Green Wall faltering:
The ambition of restoring a million hectares as Africa’s Great Green Wall to protect against climate change is only 4% of the way there after 14 years.
- Fourteen years since the launch of Africa’s Great Green Wall project, only 4% of the 100 million hectares (247 million acres) of land targeted for restoration in the Sahel region has actually been restored.
- Billions of dollars in new funding announced this year have raised hopes that the initiative to combat desertification will gain momentum, but experts and the reality on the ground point to money being far from the only hurdle.
- Funding restoration activities will cost $44 billion, with every dollar invested generating $1.20 in returns, a recent study in Nature Sustainability calculates.
- But experts have echoed concerns captured in the research that conflict and climate change are complicating efforts on the ground, with nearly half of the area identified as viable for restoration falling within the orbit of conflict zones.
Promoting forest bathing:
Forest bathing continues to grow.
https://www.fatherly.com/health-science/forest-bathing-benefits-shinrin-yoku/
Forest Media 26 November 2021
As a result of a NEFA assessment on Sunday confirming compartments 3 and 4 of Cherry Tree State Forest to be core Koala habitat, which would not be allowed to be logged if it was on private land, Minister Kean was asked to protect it - rain has stopped logging this week. The Indigenous-Aboriginal Party of Australia supports Camp Ourimbah and their peaceful direct action to stop native forest logging.
This week saw the leaking of the Natural Resource Council’s ‘Final report Coastal IFOA operations post 2019/20 wildfires, June 2021’. The general thrust is to require increased retention of unburnt and partially burnt forests for 3 years post fire, depending on the assessed risk on a Management Area basis. Logging was meant to stop immediately in 3 Management Areas for 3 years to allow recovery, though the Forestry Corporation subsequent approved and commenced logging in the Taree MA. The highlight is improved protection for hollow-bearing trees (restoring them when less than 8) and resurrecting ‘recruitment’ trees, increasing them to 2 for every hollow-bearing tree.
NSW Government announced $91.5 million will be invested into shovel-ready projects in national parks. You have until 30 January to comment on NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service Cycling Strategy, which sets out its plans on formalising a network of trails suitable for biking.
VicForests hired a private investigator to follow a forest activist (and found nothing), he then went on to spy on protestors. In Newcastle Magistrate Janine Lacy, wife of NSW One Nation leader Mark Latham, sentenced anti-coal activist Sergieo Herbert to 12 months jail – six months without parole - for standing on a coal train for 5 hours. VicForests blame their loss of almost $4.7 million in the last financial year (after receiving $18 million in funding from the state government) on fire losses and courts locking them out of forests. Vic Forests were assessed as undertaking illegal and widespread logging of slopes over 30o in Melbourne’s water catchments, yet their regulator failed to properly investigate and the Victorian Government changed the rules to allow it.
As extreme fire weather is fuelled by climate heating the area burned by fire across Australia’s forests has been increasing by about 48,000 ha per year over the last three decades. In Tasmania a public meeting heard why logging native forests must end.
A CSIRO report identifies that feral species are costing Australia at least $25bn a year and could cause a wave of plant and animal extinctions by 2050, with Myrtle Rust a major threat. Bird Life Australia are listening for Eastern Bristlebirds to assess their recovery after the fires. One of two populations of Northern Bettongs in north-eastern Queensland has been found to have declined to fewer than 50 making it at risk of extinction - another target for captive breeding. The displacement of Campbelltown’s Koalas for housing continues to generate concern. Almost 25,000 people have signed the petition calling for the purchase of a 200ha property at Lake Innes for Koalas - at a cost of over $11 million. For the fifth year running, koala numbers recorded during NPWS led community surveys in Bongil Bongil National Park increased on the previous year’s tally. A study found that feeding rats on processed foods weakens their skulls, with implications for feeding wildlife.
As clearing of the Amazon increases rainfalls decline, along with hydroelectricity, cropping and lakes. In the Ivory Coast 20-30% of cocoa may be coming from illegal plantings in protected rainforest. In north America unprecedented heat domes are scorching millions of trees and causing intense wildfires. In Canada followed by a devastating rainstorms and landslips, in part attributed to clearfelling. In British Columbia a march was held for oldgrowth.
Australian scientists are promoting indigenous land management, stopping clearing, habitat restoration, accessible carbon markets and working with nature to help solve the climate crisis. In Pakistan the government is moving to take back public land from land grabbers and reforest it.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Stop logging,
… core Koala habitat:
A NEFA assessment on Sunday confirmed compartments 3 and 4 of Cherry Tree State Forest to be core Koala habitat, which would not be allowed to be logged if it was on private land. NEFA prepared a report and wrote to Minister Matt Kean asking him to undertake an assessment to verify their findings and ensure core Koala habitat is protected from further logging. Rain has stopped logging this week. There was coverage in Echonet and on the local ABC.
If it was private land it would be considered core koala habitat so why are the NSW government allowing Cherry Tree State Forest to be logged?
Confirmation that Cherry Tree State Forest is core koala habitat by North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) on Sunday has led to a call for the Minister for Energy and Environment Matthew Kean ‘to stop logging their homes if his claims of saving koalas from extinction and doubling populations are to have any credibility’.
‘The forest in the logging area is dominated by koala use tree species, and thus is highly suitable koala habitat and qualifies as core koala habitat as defined in State Environmental Planning Policy (Koala Habitat Protection) 2021.
‘If this core koala habitat was identified in a council Koala Plan of Management it would be prohibited from logging under the Private Native Forestry Code. Why then is a Government agency exempt from having to assess whether it is core Koala habitat, and allowed to log it?’
‘If Minister Kean is to have any credibility about saving koalas from extinction and doubling populations then he has to stop logging their homes to give them a chance’.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/11/stop-logging-core-koala-habitat-at-cherry-tree-state-forest/
https://www.nefa.org.au/cherry_tree_sf_core_koala_habitat
… Ourimbah:
The Indigenous-Aboriginal Party of Australia supports Camp Ourimbah and their peaceful direct action to stop native forest logging.
The new Indigenous-Aboriginal Party of Australia (IPA) has come out in support of local group, Camp Ourimbah, over “appalling” plans to continue logging in Ourimbah State Forest.
The IPA says logging will destroy crucial natural habitat and risk further damage to an important Aboriginal cultural site.
Duroux said the Indigenous Party of Australia would be writing to local politicians and State ministers, including Environment Minister, Matt Kean, demanding an end to the unprofitable, damaging practice of logging in native forests, including Ourimbah State Forest.
… burnt forests:
This week saw the leaking of the Natural Resource Council’s ‘Final report Coastal IFOA operations post 2019/20 wildfires, June 2021’. The Government had suppressed it since June as the Forestry Corporation continued business as usual, despite the risk of serious and irreversible harm to environmental values from the cumulative impacts of fire and harvesting.
The report confirms the significant impact of the Black Summer bushfires, while highlighting that such extreme fires are increasing in frequency it only considers the one event. The general thrust is to require increased retention of unburnt and partially burnt forests for 3 years post fire, depending on the assessed risk on a Management Area basis. The highlight is improved protection for hollow-bearing trees and a resurrection of ‘recruitment’ trees. In Medium and High Risk Management Areas: for a period of 10 years (subject to monitoring), “if 8 hollow-bearing trees per hectare are not available retain suitable substitutes (in priority order: potential future hollow-bearing tree, largest mature tree in the stand, regrowth tree that is not suppressed)”, and “two recruitment trees per hollow-bearing tree”. This is a needed and welcome change.
In Low Risk Bulahdelah, Chichester, Tenterfield, Urbenville, Urunga, Walcha-Nundle, and Wingham Management Areas it will be business as usual.
In Medium Risk Casino, Coffs Harbour, Coopernook, Grafton, Kempsey, Kendall, Morisset, Queanbeyan, Styx River, Tumut, and Wauchope Management Areas they propose for each Local Landscape Area temporary retention of additional areas equivalent to areas in existing exclusions that have been affected by high and extreme severity fire that have not met a “spectral recovery threshold”.
In High risk Badja, Bago-Maragle, Batemans Bay, Dorrigo, Eden, and Glen Innes Management Areas they propose temporary (at least 3 year) retention of 75% of local landscape areas (priority unburnt, low and moderate burnt) - no more than 25% can be logged. Logging can be undertaken where the primary purpose is not to provide high quality sawlogs.
For Extreme risk Narooma, Nowra, and Taree Management Areas NRC notes “In management zones rated as being extreme risk, there is a risk of serious and irreversible harm to environmental values from the cumulative impacts of fire and harvesting”, rrecommending logging be suspended for 3 years from February 2020, noting in June “existing operations should cease as soon as operationally practical but no longer than three months”.
Undaunted on 26 July the Forestry Corporation started logging 1,187ha of Yarratt State Forest Cpt Nos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in the Taree Management Area. They are still planning logging 1,211 ha forming the balance of Yarratt, and 831 ha in Kiwarrak SF.
The New South Wales government has kept secret a document calling for a halt to native logging in regions hit hard by the black summer bushfires and recommending revising agreements to account for the increasing threat of global heating .
The independent upper house MP Justin Field said that two years after the fires, the government was “keeping secret a report that the logging rules are not fit for purpose to deal with extreme events”.
“The report called for an urgent response, including immediately stopping logging in some areas and putting in place significant additional protections in many others,” Field said. “Some of these areas are being logged today without those additional protections undermining forest recovery.”
NSW residents who campaigned to stop logging native forests on the south coast after the 2019-20 bushfires said they have been vindicated by a leaked government report that supported claims of environmental risks.
"The community was very disheartened and angered that Forestry Corporation could go about business as usual as though there never had been this major wildfire," [Nick Hopkins] said.
"The fact that that government would have this information that it commissioned itself and sit on it, it's actually despicable."
A Forestry Corporation New South Wales spokesperson said in a statement that following the bushfires of 2019-20, they have "taken a range of steps to ensure hardwood timber harvesting continues to be appropriately managed."
Prolificate waste:
Loggers son, economist Ken Henry talks about his childhood witnessing the giant trees being logged, with most left where they fell, with scant return to the state. This set him on his career. Forest highlights at 2.20, 7, 47.30
Parks funding for visitor infrastructure increased:
NSW Government announces $91.5 million will be invested into shovel-ready projects in national parks:
As part of the NSW Government's Economic Recovery Strategy an additional $91.5 million will be invested into shovel-ready projects in our national parks in a significant boost to our nature-based tourism industry.
Treasurer and Environment Minister Matt Kean said this investment will support jobs by creating better facilities – such as walking trails and family-friendly amenities – across the State's vast network of national parks.
"Before COVID we had more than 60 million visits every year, national parks were already a key driver of the visitor economy, generating $18 billion in economic activity and supporting over 74,000 jobs.
"Since COVID visitation levels have skyrocketed, highlighting the role parks play in supporting the physical and mental health of the community. Put simply – national parks are good for the soul."
Visitor infrastructure projects include:
- $3.45 million upgrade to the elevated rainforest boardwalk in Budderoo National Park
- $3 million in visitor precincts including in Georges River National Park
- $3 million for better visitor infrastructure at Ebor Falls in Guy Fawkes River National Park
- $1.5 million to improve public roads access to the Royal coastline in Royal National Park
- $795,000 for short stay accommodation at Kinchega and Paroo Darling national parks in the Far West
- $600,000 for enhancements to the mountain bike track network at Glenrock State Conservation Area
https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/news/funding-boost-for-national-parks
https://newcastleweekly.com.au/glenrock-state-conservation-area-to-receive-600000-funding-boost/
Have your say on biking in parks:
The Government has drafted the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service Cycling Strategy which sets out its plans on formalising a network of trails suitable for biking which is available for public comment until 30 January.
Over the last 10 years, cycling experiences have evolved in our parks. This increasing demand has resulted in the need for the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service to review and replace our current Sustainable Mountain Biking Strategy.
The scope of this new strategy is broad. It includes all types of cycling experiences in our parks. It is complemented with a more detailed set of guidelines for implementation and updates to our Cycling policy.
Your feedback on the draft Cycling Policy, strategy and implementation guideline documents is valued. Our response to your submission will be based on the merits of the ideas and issues you raise rather than just the quantity of submissions making similar points. For this reason, a submission that clearly explains the matters it raises will be the most effective way to influence the finalisation of the plan.
https://www.nsw.gov.au/have-your-say/draft-cycling-strategy
AUSTRALIA
Tailing activists:
In 2011 forest protector Sarah Rees was involved in a campaign to stop logging in Toolangi, near Kinglake (close to Melbourne), when VicForests hired a private investigator to follow her for 4 days (and found nothing), he then went on to spy on protestors. In 2020 VicForests presented a dossier on Rees (including her tweets) and Dr. Chris Taylor to the Forest Stewardship Council in an attempt to get them sacked.
"They told me they wanted me to get as much dirt as I possibly could on the woman," Mr Davey says.
"I was of the understanding Sarah Rees was a person of great interest that VicForests was trying to shut up."
However, the ABC can reveal VicForests hired a private investigator to conduct surveillance on conservationists and, more recently, conducted what some have called "digital surveillance" on people the agency argues are trying to "discredit" it.
It's not just conservationists who have been the target of this work. An academic says he has also been the subject of digital surveillance by VicForests.
"I don't think it's appropriate for a government agency to … behave like this. The government has an obligation and a duty to take care of its citizens, not to surveil its citizens, not to intimidate its citizens," Ms Rees says.
Jailing activists:
Magistrate Janine Lacy, wife of NSW One Nation leader Mark Latham sentenced anti-coal activist Sergieo Herbert to 12 months jail – six months without parole - for standing on a coal train for 5 hours.
Over 10 days, 28 people were arrested with 65+ hours of sustained blocking of coal operations.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/11/coal-activist-given-12-month-jail-sentence-over-newcastle-action/
Vic forests haemorrhaging money:
VicForests blame their loss of almost $4.7 million in the last financial year (after receiving $18 million in funding from the state government) on fire losses and courts locking them out of forests.
State-owned logging agency VicForests has recorded a $4.7 million loss and attributed it to an unprecedented number of court challenges from community environment groups and the destruction of timber in the Black Summer bushfires.
The agency’s annual report, tabled in State Parliament last week, shows it posted the loss despite being given $18 million by the state government and making $84 million from selling forest products. Without the government grant, VicForests would have lost almost $23 million. In the previous financial year, it lost $7.5 million.
In a hearing in the Victorian Supreme Court last week, a judge granted two environment groups – Kinglake Friends of the Forest and Environment East Gippsland – injunctions that halted logging in 27 areas of forest in East Gippsland and the Central Highlands until the matters could return to court.
On behalf of the two groups, barrister Jonathan Korman argued VicForests was failing to undertake adequate surveys for greater gliders and yellow-bellied gliders (both listed as vulnerable) before logging, as well as risking serious environmental damage in logging operations. VicForests will defend the matter in court when the case returns in early December.
Vic forests haemorrhaging soil:
The ABC has a detail and well presented report about illegal logging steep slopes in Victoria. Vic Forests were assessed as undertaking illegal and widespread logging of slopes over 30o in Melbourne’s water catchments, yet their regulator failed to properly investigate and the Victorian Government changed the rules to allow it. David Lindenmayer says he thinks illegal logging has become VicForests’ business model and the regulator is facilitating it.
The ash trees play a crucial role in filtering drinking water that winds its way down the steep slopes, and into Melbourne’s largest reservoir.
Their trunks, roots and leaf-litter — as well as the understorey of ferns they support — slow the torrents of water that sometimes flow down the mountains, stopping soil from being washed into streams, rivers and dams.
When slowed, the water descends into the ground, where it is naturally filtered by the root-bound, compacted soil.
However, high-resolution spatial data and information obtained as part of an ABC investigation have sparked allegations that the timber corporation, VicForests, is putting this vital process at risk through widespread and systemic illegal logging of the region’s steepest slopes.
According to leading ecologist Professor David Lindenmayer, it’s the story of Australia’s “lawless” loggers, and a regulator failing to regulate.
In total, applying the most conservative assumptions, the researchers say they found almost 66 hectares of forest across the Thomson and Upper Goulburn water catchments that should not have been logged by VicForests
“This whole thing is now a charade,” Professor Lindenmayer said.
“It’s bordering on corruption from the agency that is meant to be doing the regulation.”
“You would have to describe VicForests as an outlaw organisation,” he said.
Professor Lindenmayer says he thinks illegal logging has become VicForests’ business model and the regulator is facilitating it.
This month, Ms D’Ambrosio changed the legal protections for Victoria’s important water catchments, allowing previous slope limits to be breached for up to 10 per cent of any coupe.
The burning question:
As extreme fire weather is fuelled by climate heating the area burned by fire across Australia’s forests has been increasing by about 48,000 ha per year over the last three decades.
We can now confidently say that these fires were far from normal. Our new analysis of Australian forest fire trends just published in Nature Communications confirms for the first time the Black Summer fires are part of a clear trend of worsening fire weather and ever-larger forest areas burned by fires.
Our study found that the annual area burned by fire across Australia’s forests has been increasing by about 48,000 ha per year over the last three decades. After five years, that would be roughly the size of the entire Australian Capital Territory (235,000 hectares).
We found three out of four extreme forest fire years since states started keeping records 90 years ago have occurred since 2002.
And we found that the fire season is growing, moving out of spring and summer into autumn and winter.
These trends are almost entirely due to Australia’s increasingly severe fire weather and are consistent with predicted human-induced climate change.
Since 2001 winter fires have soared five-fold compared to 1988–2001 and autumn fires three-fold.
Could fuel loads or prescribed burning be to blame? No. We looked for trends in these factors, and found nothing to explain the rise in burnt areas.
The main driver for the growing areas burnt by fire is Australia’s increasingly severe fire weather, accounting for 75% of the variation observed in the total annual area of forest fires. This is consistent with predictions from climate change scenarios that severe fire weather conditions will intensify due to increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
We can also safely – and sadly – predict that more and more of Australia will burn in years to come, with increasing numbers of megafire years.
https://www.theleader.com.au/story/7528243/csiro-warns-of-more-mega-fire-years/
Time to stop native forest logging:
In Tasmania a public meeting heard why logging amd burning native forests must end.
Bob Brown Foundation hosted a Hobart Town Hall meeting today with keynote speaker West Australian Forest Alliance convenor Jess Beckerling, who was announced as 2021 Environmentalist of the Year earlier this week.
“There are no more excuses. It is clear that forest protection is critically important for the climate and for rainfall, rivers, wildlife and culture. It is also clear that fears about job losses and timber availability are unfounded. I hope the Western Australian experience gives strength to the arms of Tasmanian forest campaigners and helps to ring the alarm bell among your decision makers that time is up for native forest logging. Policy change is inevitable and the sooner it happens the better for everyone. All of our remaining forests are worth more standing. We can and must end native forest logging,” said Jess Beckerling, Western Australia Forest Alliance convenor
Burning forest wood for large scale energy production is as emissive as burning coal and robs us of their carbon storage and sequestration at the most vital time. Protecting and restoring our forests is a climate change solution – burning them is not,” Peg Putt said.
https://tasmaniantimes.com/2021/11/wa-forest-alliance-tas-must-end-native-forest-logging/
SPECIES
Costly feral threat:
A CSIRO report identifies that feral species are costing Australia at least $25bn a year and could cause a wave of plant and animal extinctions by 2050, with Myrtle Rust a major threat.
The research, by Australia’s national science agency the CSIRO and the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions, takes a once-a-decade look at the scale of the threat caused by rabbits, feral cats, toxic toads, weeds, diseases such as myrtle rust and other invasive pests.
Australia now has more than 2,700 established weed species – a figure that is growing by 20 new species every year – or one new weed every 18 days.
The other problem the researchers were most worried about was myrtle rust, an invasive plant disease that is already threatening at least three native plants with extinction.
“There are parts of Australia it could still get into and cause devastating impacts for native flora,” Sheppard said.
Listening to Eastern Bristlebirds
Bird Life Australia are being funded by the Federal Government to install sound recorders and develop song recognition software to identify calls of Eastern Bristlebirds to assess their recovery after the fires.
There are only 2000 birds left in the wild and machines are being used to listen for the reclusive species among the cacophony of songs that ring out from the thick undergrowth in the coastal heath where the birds hide.
The federal government has committed $10 million and is partnering with non-government organisations for conservation work on 74 species that are struggling following Black Summer.
Declining Bettongs:
An assessment of one of two populations of Northern Bettongs at Mount Carbine Tableland in north-eastern Queensland has been found to have declined to fewer than 50 making it at risk of extinction, another target for captive breeding.
“As specialist fungivores which eat and disperse truffles, northern bettongs play an essential role in maintaining the forest’s health,” Fischer said.
Displacing Koalas:
The displacement of Campbelltown’s Koalas for housing continues to generate concern.
"Human pressure is encroaching on their habitats and the more development for housing, the less habitat they actually have. So they are coming into suburban areas and crossing roads. Their habitats are shrinking for humans," she says.
"If you were trying to wipe out koalas in New South Wales, you would do exactly what the New South Wales government is doing. You would find a habitat where they are surviving and succeeding and you would start to declare that as housing as well, and you'd start to wipe out that habitat," says Saul Deane, campaigner at Save Sydney's Koalas, "This is the area that koalas need. We can live in other places, they can't."
The nation's much loved marsupial are in rapid decline, dropping to a maximum of around 57,000 across the country since 2018, according to figures from the Australian Koala Foundation.
In the last three years, it's feared New South Wales has lost 41% of its koala population.
Unhindered, pressures including drought, disease and development could mean they disappear completely.
Petitioning for Koalas:
Almost 25,000 people have signed the petition calling for the purchase of a 200ha property at Lake Innes for Koalas, at a cost of over $11 million.
Bongil Bongil Koalas increasing:
For the fifth year running, koala numbers recorded during NPWS led community surveys in Bongil Bongil National Park increased on the previous year’s tally.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/night-surveys-indicate-bongil-bongil-koalas-doing-well-82676
Feeding babies processed food weakens them:
A study found that feeding rats on processed foods weakens their skulls, with implications for wildlife.
If rescued baby animals are raised on diets full of soft, processed, peeled, chopped, blended or portioned foods, much of the biting and chewing has already been done for them. This means the bones and muscles of their skulls won’t be as conditioned for the tougher foods they may need to eat in the wild. This might leave them more vulnerable to being injured or going hungry when ultimately released.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Amazon responsible for declining rainfalls:
As clearing of the Amazon increases rainfalls decline, along with hydroelectricity, cropping and lakes.
Several studies in recent months have pointed to deforestation, a warming climate and weak governance as the main drivers of drier conditions in Brazil's midwest and southeast, leaving farms parched and hydro-power plants struggling to meet electricity demand. According to research released in August by deforestation mapping initiative MapBiomas, Brazil has lost nearly 16% of its surface water over the past three decades.
From August 2019 to July 2020, the Amazon lost more than 10,850 sq km (4,190 sq miles) of trees, a jump of more than 7% compared to the previous 12 months, according to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). Forests in the Amazon basin play an important role in generating rainfall - about 20 billion tons of vapor evaporate from the region every day, later coming down as rain in the rainforest and other parts of Brazil.
Deforesting for chocolate:
The Ivory Coast is the world’s top cocoa-growing country, likely contributing to the chocolate you eat. The Government is trying to clean up the industry as 20-30% may be coming from illegal plantings in protected rainforest.
"They set the whole village on fire," said Alexis Kouassi Akpoue. He was describing the day when the agents went through the settlement in Rapides Grah, a protected forest. He and thousands of other farmers had planted cocoa there illegally. “The next morning at 5 o’clock they sent in the bulldozers,” he added.
In addition, purchasing documents as well as talks with farmers suggest that some of the chocolate industry’s biggest companies do receive at least some of their cocoa from protected forests. These companies include Nestle, Mars Inc, Cargill Inc, and Touton S.A.
Ivory Coast’s Ministry of Water and Forests estimates 20 to 30 percent of the 2 million metric tons of cocoa produced each year is grown illegally. It believes that almost all illegally grown cocoa enters the international supply chain.
Heat domes and logging ravish north American forests:
In America in late June a climate heating fuelled heat dome brought record temperatures for three consecutive days across the Pacific Northwest, killing a hundred people in Oregon, causing baby hawks to jump out of their nests, and scorching millions of trees – many dying .
Many trees had scorched leaves and needles, mostly on the south and west sides, which were fully exposed to the sun for the hottest parts of the day. The nature of the damage quickly helped them rule out drought or pests as the cause.
In his limited surveys, DePinte said at least 229,000 acres showed some damage, with about half rated as “very severe.”
“Having a heat wave atop a drought is like putting your foot on the gas ... toward tree mortality,” Hammond said.
As Canada’s British Columbia struggles to recover from ferocious fires during a heat dome, followed by a devastating rainstorm and landslips, there are growing calls to stop clearfelling:
As the long work of rebuilding southern British Columbia begins, forestry professionals and activists are urging the Horgan government to connect the dots between the climate crisis, clearcut logging, and catastrophes like the landslide that killed five people on Highway 99 near Lillooet.
B.C. hydrologists and forest ecologists have been warning for decades that clearcutting severely compromises a forest’s ability to soak up water, but their red flags went unheeded, reports The Narwhal.
“Without question, the removal of forests both increases the frequency of landslides and frequency of flooding,” said watershed geoscientist and hydrologist Kim Green. She explained that as the remnant roots rot, they create conduits for water with nowhere else to go but down, undermining slope stability.
Plus, trees are fantastic sponges, soaking up water through their roots and releasing it as water vapour through their needles (or leaves), in a process known as transpiration, adds forester Peter Kuitenbrouwer, in a Globe and Mail op-ed where he, too, stresses the link between deforestation and devastating floods.
“Even the rainfall that gets caught up in the branches and a billion little needles is an incredible surface area that can just take the rain and moderate the rate at which the rain comes into the river systems,” said forest management expert Peter Wood.
While Wood hesitated to lay full blame at the door of industry, he too urged the government to consider logging practices as one of several key and debilitating stressors on forests and their associated watersheds.
Protesting for Canadian oldgrowth:
In British Columbia a march was held for oldgrowth.
The procession was promoted as a protest against the “rampant loss of irreplaceable and globally-important ancient temperate rainforests in British Columbia.” The march also aimed to bring attention to interrelated struggles for Indigenous rights and call for a safe climate future, an immediate moratorium on all old-growth logging and a just transition strategy for impacted workers and communities.
In early November, the B.C. government deferred logging in an area that represents about half of the identified old-growth forest in the province that is not yet protected. Affected Indigenous communities were given 30 days to indicate whether they support the deferrals, wish to change them or needed more time, but the process caused concern from several community leaders.
As he helped direct the eight-foot-diameter log section, Pan said the slice of what was a 1,200-year-old tree was a symbol for how the protesters felt.
TURNING IT AROUND
Australian scientists promote nature-based solutions:
Australian scientists are promoting indigenous land management, stopping clearing, habitat restoration, accessible carbon markets and working with nature to help solve the climate crisis.
But we already have solutions based in restoring nature and Country. In fact, nature-based solutions can deliver one third of promised global cuts in emissions.
Our new report, which brings together expertise from across Australia, reveals how we can make this happen using proven approaches including:
- Indigenous-led work on Country
- keeping our existing forests and woodlands safe from land clearing
- restoring ailing ecosystems
- simplifying access to carbon markets and
- mapping ways of working with nature rather than technology to store emissions.
The easiest and cheapest way to both reduce and store emissions is by keeping the vegetation we still have. Australia’s plants – from deserts to forests to ocean – play a vital role.
Australia has committed to end deforestation within nine years, but this seems highly optimistic given Australia’s depressing record of land clearing.
Restoration helps pollinator-dependent farming industries and boosts the economy more than cutting down forest.
In our heating climate, trees keep local areas significantly cooler and wetter. Forested watersheds reduce the cost of providing clean water. And intact vegetation boosts resilience to floods and storms, and stops soil eroding into rivers.
Pakistan grabbing land back from landgrabbers:
In Pakistan the government is moving to take back public land from land grabbers and reforest it.
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan Thursday while calling the retrieval of forest land from land grabbers and encroachers as the government’s priority, directed the authorities concerned for urgent steps to multiply the country’s forest cover through forestation on the encroached land.
https://www.brecorder.com/news/40135919
Forest Media 19 November 2021
A blockade was instigated by Forest Defence NSW in Cherry Tree State Forest on Monday by about 15 people, with two locked-on to a concrete barrel and one on a tripod, who stopped logging for most of the day. Four were arrested, and one injured in the paddywagon. After a community campaign lasting almost 90 years, the 30,000ha Gardens of Stone near Lithgow is to be declared a State Conservation Area. The Government’s bill to create the Gardens of Stone is a trojan horse, including giving the minister greater powers to approve activities within parks – such as new visitor infrastructure – that are otherwise inconsistent with park management plans and using national parks to create carbon credits and biodiversity credits as offsets for developments off-park. The Government’s announcement that it is intending to make 1,600 hectares of Forestry Corporation pine plantations available for wind turbines and solar farms has raised concerns it is to facilitate privatisation.
Bioenergy, with theoretical Carbon Capture and Storage, is part of Australia’s Long Term Emissions Reduction Plan. The Australian Renewable Energy Agency has released a bioenergy road map backed with $34 million in public funds, though it recommends native forests shouldn’t be included. With 80% of Victorian rainforests burnt in the 2020 fires there are concerns that many may never recover. In north-east Tasmania Blue Derby Wild continue their campaign to stop logging around their mountain bike trail. An additional $8.9 million of Australian Government funding will boost forest industries in 9 Regional Forestry Hubs across the country, including North East NSW and Eden. The industry want some for plantations under the guise of carbon abatement.
The Natural Resources Commission is funding the training and use of sniffer dogs to find Hastings River Mouse and trialling the use of heat detecting drones to locate Koalas and Greater Gliders. DPI are after volunteers to review images of animals using nest boxes. Campbelltown’s koala population has increased almost 50 per cent since 2012, and a new colony has been found in Heathcote National Park. Koala petitions are also increasing. Meanwhile Gunnedah has lost half its Koalas due to climate heating amplified drought, and now most of the survivors have chlamydia, so the Federal Government is spending $1 million on plantings and rehabilitation of habitat as they pump more CO2 into the atmosphere. Lismore based Friends of the Koala have undertaken bushfire training to rescue Koalas. Concerns that bush stone curlews are declining around Port Stephens. King Parrots are suffering from a wasting disease. Volunteers treating suffering wombats for mange want the government to commit to eradicating it.
As atmospheric CO2 rises unabated, Australia was the clear winners of COP 26, identified as having annual per person emissions five times greater than the global average and 40% higher than any other major coal power user, being awarded 5 fossil fool awards and taking out the Colossal Fossil award, and we were identified as one of the The Fossil Fuelled 5 because of our 100 fossil fuel projects currently in the approval pipeline. As emissions rebound from Covid we are not even going to meet our unambitious targets.
A study mapped areas with high stocks of ‘irrecoverable carbon’, being natural places that we cannot afford to lose due to their irreplaceable carbon reserves if we want to avoid the worst of climate heating. A study found global heating has already impacted 20 per cent of the Earth’s landscapes, with impacts projected to triple by 2050. As it gets hotter more people in tropical countries will need air conditioners to avoid heat stress. As deforestation continues a study found each tree is equivalent to 2 air conditioners, finding deforestation can heat a local area by as much as 4.5℃, and can even raise temperatures in undisturbed forests up to 6km away. And they generate rainfall, one scientist claiming that in Australia that clearing has increased temperatures up to 2oC and reduced rainfalls by up to 15-20%. Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest rose by almost 22% in one year, with 13,235 square kilometers lost, the highest level in 15 years. The loggers welcome a report claiming they are good for mitigating climate change, as a company is converting forest biomass into “sustainable” aviation fuel.
An assessment claims that ending deforestation by 2030 has potential to avoid the emission of 18.9 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) while allowing forests to continue to sequester an average of 7.3 GtCO2e per year, provided we stop logging them, or converting them to plantations. Moomaw and others make a plea to protect older forests in America for carbon sequestration, while others plea for tropical forests. A study in central Panama found that restoring forests restores stream bacterial communities.
Canada is suffering the effects of climate heating with heatwaves and fires followed by deluges and landslips, helped by logging. The Fairy Creek injunction to stop protectors has been extended on appeal after being roundly condemned by a judge. The British Columbia government has deferred logging of half the remaining unprotected oldgrowth. While a blockade is underway to stop construction of a gas pipeline through tribal territory.
In America protection for Alaskan Tongass National Forest restored. Forest cover in China increased 26.5 million hectares from 2007 to 2020. In England a new forest school opened.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Cherry Tree actions:
A blockade was instigated by Forest Defence NSW in Cherry Tree State Forest on Monday by about 15 people, with two locked-on to a concrete barrel and one on a tripod, who stopped logging for most of the day. Four were arrested, and one injured in the paddywagon. The local ABC had two lengthy interviews with Jim Morrisson, Sean did an interview on NBN, the Daily Telegraph ran the arrests, Echonet and The Echo ran NEFA’s media release.
‘With logging underway in Cherry Tree State Forest, NEFA have written to the EPA and Minister Kean asking for it to be stopped until outstanding issues are dealt with. It is particularly concerning that buffers are not being applied to rainforest given that it is known that logging significantly increases the risk and intensity of fires, and 30 per cent of north-east NSW’s rainforests were burnt in the 2019/20 wildfires.
Mr Pugh said that koalas are present in the area and there needs to be surveys to identify core koala habitat for protection. ‘The Richmond Range represents the divide between the Richmond and Clarence Rivers, with most of the logging area draining into the Richmond River. Protection of these headwater streams on steep country is particularly important to the health of these rivers. Regrettably, the stream buffers have been significantly reduced, increasing logging impacts on water quality.
Widespread and systematic breaches of the logging rules
Mr Pugh said NEFA audited logging of the northern part of this planning area in 2015 and identified widespread and systematic breaches of the logging rules, from which the EPA identified 66 cases of non-compliance with legal requirements for threatened plants, rainforest, habitat trees, tracks, streams and threatened fauna.
NEFA’s report requests that before logging proceeds: the Border Ranges Rainforest Biodiversity Management Plan needs to be complied with; wide buffers need to be placed around rainforest and related vegetation; canopy retention needs to be increased to mitigate impacts on the Black-striped Wallaby and to compensate for the past excessive logging; compensatory areas need to be retained for the 91.3 ha of the EEC Grey Box-Grey Gum Wet Sclerophyll Forest illegally logged; all hollow-bearing trees need to be retained to compensate for the hundreds illegally logged; the identified Wildlife Habitat Clumps need to be redesigned to maximise inclusion of the best habitat and remove overlaps with existing exclusions and heavily logged areas, and; areas susceptible to Bell Miner Associated Dieback need to be identified and excluded from logging.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/11/nefa-says-logging-in-cherry-tree-must-stop/
The 47-year-old woman and 69-year-old man were charged with enter forestry in contravention of notice, fail to leave after being requested by authorised officer, erect fence or obstruction, and resist police in execution of duty.
The 55-year-old woman was charged with enter forestry in contravention of notice and fail to leave after being requested by authorised officer.
Lismore resident and activist Naomi Shine said there were scientists on site gathering evidence to prove koala habitat was at risk and there was also evidence that koalas were living in the trees that were to be cut down.
The Forestry Corporation spokesman said the organisation respected the rights of community members to protest and voice their views.
He asked community members to protest outside of active harvesting operations which were closed worksites where workplace health and safety considerations were of the utmost importance.
Gardens of Stone finally protected:
The big news is that after almost 90 years since it was proposed, the 30,000ha Gardens of Stone near Lithgow is to be declared State Conservation Area. This is the result of the persistent community campaign by the Blue Mountains Conservation Society, Lithgow Environment Group, Traditional Owners and the Colong Foundation for Wilderness. The announcement included $50 million to establish upgraded lookouts, walking trails, a 4WD circuit, mountain bike network, and the "centrepiece of the investment" the Lost City Adventure Experience - including Australia's longest zipline, an elevated canyon walk, and a rock climbing course.
https://7news.com.au/news/wildlife/new-conservation-area-created-near-lithgow-c-4542293
https://psnews.com.au/2021/11/16/chosen-forests-to-be-reborn-as-colosseums/?state=aps
… the bill becomes a Trojan horse:
The Government’s bill to create the Gardens of Stone is a trojan horse, including giving the minister greater powers to approve activities within parks – such as new visitor infrastructure – that are otherwise inconsistent with park management plans and using national parks to create carbon credits and biodiversity credits as offsets for developments off park.
“It’s potentially turning our protected area network into an opportunity for massive, statewide greenwashing,” National Parks Association executive officer Gary Dunnett said.
[Field] “I don’t think they’ve taken into account, or they don’t care, that this will either deliver no net benefit or it will deliver a net loss across the landscape.”
Fears of Forestry privatisation resurface:
The NSW Government are intending to make 1600 hectares of Forestry Corporation pine plantations available for wind turbines and solar farms under a plan that would allow the corporation to boost its income by millions of dollars, which has prompted concerns from the loggers and the Labor opposition that the state government is building the revenue base of the softwood asset to boost its price in a future privatisation.
[opposition natural resources spokeswoman Tania Mihailuk] “We know that the government was preparing to sell Forestry Corp to the highest bidder back in 2019, so is this move to commercialise our timber plantations just another way of fattening the Forestry Corp pig for market?”
Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union NSW assistant secretary Alison Rudman said the timing of the legislative changes to the government-owned corporation had prompted concerns it was moving to sell the asset.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/is-there-a-sale-in-the-wind-of-forestry-corporation-by-nsw-government/
AUSTRALIA
Bioenergy part of Australia’s Long Term Emissions Reduction Plan:
Australia’s Long Term Emissions Reduction Plan, its roadmap to zero carbon, intends achieving 0-6% reduction in emissions from bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), one of the four “advanced technologies” they are relying on. It identifies “the technology is not economically viable in the absence of incentives”, though projects it will become increasingly viable after 2040.
Experts said it was not clear how the government had arrived at the BECCS figure, with some saying the technique itself was unproven, problematic and ecologically risky.
BECCS theoretically requires three key elements – the availability of biomass such as trees, vegetation or waste and land and water to grow it; a power plant to burn the biomass and capture the CO2; and then a geological formation underground close by where the CO2 could be injected.
According to the government’s modelling report, BECCS removes 38m tonnes of CO2 by 2050 under its technology plan, compared to 253Mt of gross emissions from sectors including electricity, transport and agriculture.
There has been little research carried out into the potential for BECCS in Australia. One study, published in 2018, did suggest a potential 25Mt of CO2 could be stored a year by 2050 through BECCS.
But the research, from the University of Melbourne, was based on sourcing waste biomass “to avoid the ecological uncertainties and social challenges of dedicated energy crops.”
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency has released a bioenergy road map backed with $34 million in public funds.
Low-emissions fuels for aircraft and cargo ships are targets of a new federal government initiative to harness organic waste for bioenergy, sparking calls for a ban on the use of native forest timber to fuel furnaces for power generation.
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency’s (ARENA) bioenergy road map, released on Thursday, has been backed with $34 million in public funds from Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor.
ARENA’s road map said if bioenergy achieved its growth potential, it could add $10 billion to gross domestic product by sometime in the 2030s and create 26,000 jobs while reducing emissions by nearly 10 per cent and using 6 per cent more landfill waste than it did now.
It said waste from the forestry sector, created during milling and harvesting, represented 22 per cent of the total resource potential available to the sector, raising fears among conservation groups that logging of native forests could be spurred by increased demand for organic waste for biofuels.
“The forestry sector accounts for 22 per cent of total resource potential, largely composed of plantation forests, most of which are certified sustainable forestry residues and wood processing wastes. Given the low community support for harvesting native forests, this resource is not a feasible component of the growth of Australia’s bioenergy industry” (p.23)
https://arena.gov.au/knowledge-bank/australias-bioenergy-roadmap-report/
Victorian rainforests may never recover:
With 80% of Victorian rainforests burnt in the 2020 fires there are concerns that many may never recover:
Up to 80 per cent of Victoria’s warm temperate rainforest was affected by the fires that raged in the summer of 2019-20, with some threatened sections burnt across 95 per cent of their range.
La Trobe University ecologist Pete Green said scorched rainforests could take more than 150 years to fully regrow if left undisturbed, but might never regenerate when burnt by more fierce fires.
“As fires become larger, more intense and more frequent we might be seeing long-term decline of our rainforests over time,” he said.
Melbourne University bushfire prevention specialist Janet Stanley said small-scale planned burns may be effective in protecting properties. But she insisted mounting evidence suggested larger prescribed burning was not the most effective way to reduce the risk of major blazes.
Blue Derby Wild continue campaign:
In north-east Tasmania Blue Derby Wild continue their campaign to stop logging around their mountain bike trail.
The attractions of Blue Derby Trail Network were quickly acknowledged by interstate and international mountain-bike enthusiasts. By 2017 Dorset Council mayor Greg Howard was boasting the trails were attracting 30,000 visitors a year, with the initial investment of $3.1 million returning $30 million a year.
… A study published in March 2021 (commissioned by the group AusCycling and funded by the federal government’s Building Better Region Fund), estimates Australia’s mountain bike market is worth about A$600 million a year, supporting more than 6,000 jobs.
How does the mountain-bike tourism compare with the value of logging? Again, while there are no studies that directly quantify this, comparisons between logging and ecotourism more generally point strong to the latter. A study on the economic contribution of ecotourism versus logging in the Wet Tropics of Queensland area, for example, found ecotourism was worth up to ten times more than logging.
Mountain bikers predominantly seek out destinations based on the quality of the trail systems, the attractiveness of the terrain and appeal of the natural scenery. But just as important is support from the local community and politicians.
In Derby the choice between logging and sustainable tourism should be clear-cut. Mining didn’t last. Nor can logging. Long-term protections are needed now.
Commonwealth subsidies to loggers:
An additional $8.9 million of Australian Government funding will boost forest industries in 9 Regional Forestry Hubs across the country, including North East NSW and Eden.
https://minister.awe.gov.au/duniam/media-releases/regional-forestry-hubs-funding-extension?
[Australian Forest Products Association CEO Ross Hampton] “Growing new timber plantations should be a major part of Australia’s net-zero emissions by 2050 goal, producing a win for the environment, the farmer and the builders needing timber.”
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/9m-federal-boost-to-support-forestry-growth/
SPECIES
Finding Fauna:
The Natural Resources Commission is funding the training and use of sniffer dogs to find Hastings River Mouse and trialling the use of heat detecting drones to locate Koalas and Greater Gliders.
https://psnews.com.au/2021/11/16/detection-dogs-to-nose-out-rare-fauna-in-forests/?state=aps
The Department of Planning, Industry and Environment is calling upon volunteers to review images taken at 15 Glossy Black Cockatoo nest boxes installed on Gundungurra lands in the Southern Highlands in May 2020, in response to the 2019-20 bushfires, to identify which animals are using them.
Cambelltown Koalas increasing:
Campbelltown’s koala population is estimated to have increased its population almost 50 per cent since 2012.
The Koala Occupancy and Population Assessment shows that Campbelltown’s koala population has steadily increased in recent years, with an estimate of an almost 50 per cent increase in population size since 2012.
“Campbelltown is fortunate to have a healthy, disease free and growing koala population and this data will be valuable in helping us better understand their movements and take actions that will help mitigate threats to their health,” he said.
https://www.miragenews.com/results-of-campbelltown-koala-monitoring-675192/
… with new colonies:
Citizen scientists have found a new colony of Koalas in Heathcote National Park, just a 60-minute drive south of the Sydney CBD.
https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2021/11/new-colony-of-koalas-discovered-in-sydney/
Gunnedah’s Koalas declining:
Gunnedah lost half its Koalas due to climate heating amplified drought, and now most of the survivors have chlamydia, so the Federal Government is spending $1 million on plantings and rehabilitation of habitat as they pump more CO2 into the atmosphere.
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2021/11/15/1-million-for-gunnedahs-koala-habitat/
Koala petitions increasing:
Koala Custodians have a petition calling on the NSW government to purchase a 200ha property is currently on the market and borders the Lake Innes Nature Reserve in Port Macquarie to protect koalas.
World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia has a petition to classify Koala's on the east coast as an endangered species
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/brisbane/programs/mornings/stuart-blanch/13628652
One Green Planet has a petition encouraging Australia to protect Koalas.
Training Koala rescuers:
Lismore based Friends of the Koala undertake bushfire training to rescue Koalas.
Friends of the Koala general manager Richard Atkin said the organisation was doing "Black Walk Training" with the International Fund for Animal Welfare and Hunter Valley Wildlife.
"We've been able to upskill our volunteers so they're as prepared as possible to enter more critical locations sooner after bushfires have come through and not be an impediment to emergency services," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-15/friends-of-koala-volunteers-get-bushfire-training/100576016
Disappearing Stone Curlews:
Birdwatchers in Port Stephens have raised concerns that the Australian native bush stone curlew (burhinus grallarius) is under serious threat of local extinction
"I recently conducted a research study of the species in Port Stephens and my conclusion is that they will soon become extinct in our region, due to predation by introduced species such as foxes and cats, widespread land clearing, intensive farming and urban development, in addition to a lack of an effective conservation program," Mr Fraser said.
https://www.portstephensexaminer.com.au/story/7504429/port-bird-facing-extinction-photos/
Wasting King Parrots:
King Parrots are suffering from a wasting disease. Experts warn that it could be spread by birdbaths and collective food tables.
Dozens of emaciated king parrots have been surrendered to wildlife carers and veterinarians in Far North Queensland over the past 12 months.
"It's been seen in Victoria and New South Wales and other parts of Queensland," University of Sydney veterinary science professor David Phalen said.
"It's a wasting disease where king parrots gradually, or sometimes relatively rapidly, lose weight and go down to the point they're so weak they can't fly."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-17/king-parrots-dying-of-mysterious-disease/100620680
Mangy wombats:
Volunteers treating suffering wombats for mange want the government to commit to eradicating it.
Mange is a parasitic infestation, tiny mites that burrow into the wombat's flesh. The marsupials scratch themselves raw. Their skin turns to concrete, with weeping cracks. They become flyblown. They lose their sight and hearing. It's not the parasites that kill them, they die of secondary infections, starvation, or from wandering blindly onto the road.
[Melina Budden] "I think once you see the pain that these animals are in, and when you see that the government's doing nothing, you just step up."
https://www.hepburnadvocate.com.au/story/7515338/the-blight-of-the-bulldozers-of-the-bush/
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
We are the worst of the worst:
Despite COP 26 our relentless release of CO2 into the atmosphere continues unabated, with 2.56 ppm more than a year ago. Australia was the clear winners of COP, identified as having annual per person emissions five times greater than the global average and 40% higher than any other major coal power user, being awarded 5 fossil fool awards and taking out the Colossal Fossil award, and we were identified as one of the The Fossil Fuelled 5 because of our 100 fossil fuel projects currently in the approval pipeline.
As negotiators from 195 countries concluded two weeks of COP 26 negotiations with lacklustre results, atmospheric readings from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii showed carbon dioxide levels rising over the last year to 414.49 parts per million—2.56 ppm more than a year ago, and a 24.69 ppm rise in a decade.
https://www.theenergymix.com/2021/11/14/co2-hits-414-49-ppm-as-cop-26-negotiations-conclude/
The energy thinktank Ember estimated we are stand out world leaders in our per capita carbon emissions
Australia topped the list, with annual per person emissions five times greater than the global average and 40% higher than any other major coal power user. Examining the period since the landmark Paris agreement was signed in 2015, the analysis found Australia emitted 5.34 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person each year, placing it ahead of South Korea (3.81), South Africa (3.19), the US (3.08) and the world’s biggest outright emitter, China (2.71).
After netting a total of five (5) Fossil awards, the Climate Action Network actually pinned Australia as the overall winner (read: loser) of COP26. Australia was handed the Colossal Fossil award for expanding fossil fuel production in the face of environmental collapse and simply having “no ambition” when it comes to climate change. Cool!
https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/australia-cop26-performance-embarrassing-moments/
The report, The Fossil Fuelled 5, says the gap between climate rhetoric and reality is dangerously wide, with wealthy nations—Canada, the U.K., the United States, Norway, and Australia—planning to approve (and subsidize) new fossil fuel projects, a contradiction which it says undermines their recent claims of leadership in tackling the climate crisis.
Despite its recent commitment to net-zero by 2050, Australia has over 100 fossil fuel projects currently in the approval pipeline.
https://www.theenergymix.com/2021/11/14/fossil-fuelled-5-put-1-5-in-jeopardy-report-finds/
… and we are not going to meet our unambitious targets:
The latest Tracking 2 Degrees Report, prepared by consultancy Ndevr Environmental shows that while Australia’s emissions have been falling in recent years, and even to their lowest level since 2005, they are not falling at a rate fast enough to deliver on the federal government’s 2030 target and nowhere near fast enough to reach zero net emissions by 2050. With a major upswing as we come out of the Covid lockdown.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/why-morrison-and-taylor-wont-meet-and-beat-their-2030-emissions-target/
We should be worried:
A University of Queensland and Wildlife Conservation Society-led research team assessed the impact of global warming across the world, finding it has already impacted 20 per cent of the Earth’s landscapes, with impacts projected to triple by 2050.
“We found that 27 million square kilometers, or 18.3 per cent of earth’s land mass had been impacted,” Professor Watson said.
“Boundaries between life zones have shifted poleward and towards higher elevations, leading to expansions of zones associated with tropical climates and contractions of zones associated with temperate climates.”
“Business-as-usual may mean that climate impacts will triple in their extent across life zones in the next 50 years,” Professor Watson said.
The study has been published in Global Change Biology.
Air Conditioners needed in heating tropics:
As it gets hotter more people in tropical countries will need air conditioners to avoid heat stress.
In a world for the moment still committed to dangerous levels of warming, three new research studies deliver a grim warning. By the time the planetary thermometer registers a 2°C rise above the historic average, around a billion people could expect to be afflicted with extreme heat stress, according to the UK Met Office.
Those with resources will find ways to combat the increasing extremes of heat and humidity: European and Brazilian scientists report in the journal Nature Communications that within the next 20 years, 85% of households in Brazil will be fitted with air conditioning systems, as will 61% of Indonesia families and 69% of homes in India. But that will still leave somewhere between 64 million and 100 million households exposed to uncomfortable and potentially harmful extremes.
One tree equivalent to 2 air conditioners:
Yet another study quantifies the value of forests as air conditioners, finding deforestation can heat a local area by as much as 4.5℃, and can even raise temperatures in undisturbed forests up to 6km away.
Forests directly cool the planet, like natural evaporative air conditioners. So what happens when you cut them down?
In tropical countries such as Indonesia, Brazil and the Congo, rapid deforestation may have accounted for up to 75% of the observed surface warming between 1950 and 2010. Our new research took a closer look at this phenomenon.
Using satellite data over Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea, we found deforestation can heat a local area by as much as 4.5℃, and can even raise temperatures in undisturbed forests up to 6km away.
This is a crucial measure in our fight to stop the planet warming beyond the internationally agreed limit of 1.5℃, because forests store vast amounts of carbon. Deforestation releases this carbon – approximately 5.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year – back into the atmosphere. This accounts for nearly 10% of the global emissions from 2009-2016.
Forests cool the land because trees draw water from the soil to their leaves, where it then evaporates. The energy needed to evaporate the water comes from sunshine and heat in the air, the same reason you feel colder when you get out of a pool with water on your skin.
A single tree in a tropical forest can cause local surface cooling equivalent to 70 kilowatt hours for every 100 litres of water used from the soil — as much cooling as two household air conditioners.
Trees also bring rain:
Scientists are again warning that as trees are responsible for recycling rainfall back up into the atmosphere up to six times as it crosses the Amazon, once 20-25% is cleared that this may be a tipping point at which much of the rainforest will not be able to produce enough rain to keep itself alive and it becomes a savannah, clearing is now at 17%. But its also happening in Australia, with clearing increasing temperatures up to 2oC and reducing rainfalls by up to 15-20%.
Deforestation also reduces rainfall in Australia, according to Clive McAlpine from the University of Queensland.
Historical clearing has caused local climates to increase by up to 2 degrees Celsius, Professor McAlpine says.
This has been paired with declines in rainfall of up to 15 to 20 per cent.
"We are losing that cycling function of our deep-rooted trees," he says.
Amazon deforestation increases:
Despite deforestation commitments, deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest rose by almost 22% in one year, with 13,235 square kilometers lost, the highest level in 15 years.
Logging is good for climate?
Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) CEO and Chair of the UN Advisory Committee of Sustainable Forest Based Industries (ACSFI), Ross Hampton, has welcomed a Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ (FAO) report on forest products ‘and the vital role they play in the global bioeconomy and climate change mitigation’.
The report, Forest products in the global bioeconomy: Enabling substitution by wood-based products and contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals, provides a set of recommendations to increase the contribution of forest products for climate change mitigation and sustainable development.
https://www.miragenews.com/new-report-highlights-vital-role-of-forest-674084/
Flying trees:
A company claims to have had a major breakthrough in converting carbon from forest biomass into “sustainable” aviation fuel (SAF) using a thermochemical process.
"Our diligent and innovative approach in developing our forest biomass conversion technology has enabled us to produce a sustainable aviation fuel that will reduce the full life cycle carbon emissions of the aviation industry by over 90 percent compared to conventional fuel. This breakthrough will allow travelers to take flights that emit significantly less GHGs," says Michel Chornet, Enerkem's executive vice president, engineering, innovation and operations.
Enerkem's aviation fuel is already in the process of being certified by Canadian, American and European authorities. Enerkem already has the infrastructure in place to move to the commercialization stage (plant in Edmonton and innovation center in Westbury) and will be able to proceed as soon as the market conditions are met.
http://biomassmagazine.com/articles/18478/enerkem-produces-saf-from-forest-biomass
TURNING IT AROUND
The benefits of COP 26 deforestation pledge:
Ending deforestation by 2030 has potential to avoid the emission of 18.9 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) while allowing forests to continue to sequester an average of 7.3 GtCO2e per year, provided we stop logging them, or converting them to plantations.
We compared such success to a business-as-usual scenario to estimate the potential greenhouse gas mitigation impact of the Glasgow Declaration. Ending forest loss by 2030 within all the signatory countries would offer 32.8 million hectares of avoided loss and 18.9 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) in avoided emissions. That’s an area roughly the size of Malaysia and equivalent to a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions from transportation from 2009-2018.
Ending the emissions released into the atmosphere from deforestation would be a huge climate win, but forests have even more climate potential to offer. As forests grow, they sequester more carbon from the atmosphere: Data shows that between 2001-2020, forests around the world sequestered an average of 7.3 GtCO2e per year. When these forests are removed, the carbon sink provided by them is also lost, reducing future carbon removals.
https://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/articles/what-cop26-means-for-forests-and-the-climate/
Rhett Butler, editor in chief of the environmental news agency Mongabay, discusses deforestation in light of the COP 26 pledge to end deforestation.
BUTLER: One of the ways that a lot of conservation groups are recognizing is critical for reducing deforestation is recognizing local land tenureship. So, helping indigenous local communities secure land rights because there's plenty of research to show that these communities have the lowest deforestation rates in their traditionally managed forests. And so, if we look at like where forests exist today, a large share of those forests are in territories that are stewarded by indigenous local communities. So, a lot of groups are now rallying around the idea that helping strengthen land rights is a key mechanism for reducing deforestation.
https://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=21-P13-00046&segmentID=3
Irrecoverable carbon:
A study mapped areas with high stocks of ‘irrecoverable carbon’, being natural places that we cannot afford to lose due to their irreplaceable carbon reserves if we want to avoid the worst of climate heating. The criteria are: (1) how they can be influenced by direct and local human action (‘manageability’), (2) the magnitude of carbon lost upon disturbance (‘vulnerability’) and (3) the recoverability of carbon stocks following loss (‘recoverability’).
There are some natural places that we cannot afford to lose due to their irreplaceable carbon reserves. Here we map ‘irrecoverable carbon’ globally to identify ecosystem carbon that remains within human purview to manage and, if lost, could not be recovered by mid-century, by when we need to reach net-zero emissions to avoid the worst climate impacts. Since 2010, agriculture, logging and wildfire have caused emissions of at least 4.0 Gt of irrecoverable carbon. The world’s remaining 139.1 ± 443.6 Gt of irrecoverable carbon faces risks from land-use conversion and climate change. These risks can be reduced through proactive protection and adaptive management. Currently, 23.0% of irrecoverable carbon is within protected areas and 33.6% is managed by Indigenous peoples and local communities. Half of Earth’s irrecoverable carbon is concentrated on just 3.3% of its land, highlighting opportunities for targeted efforts to increase global climate security.
Securing Earth’s irrecoverable carbon requires both strategies to prevent imminent loss, such as payments for reducing deforestation and concessions buybacks, and proactive strategies to secure areas long-term, such as promoting Indigenous rights, expanding and adequately financing PAs and managing high-carbon ecosystems for climate resilience. In this epoch of the Anthropocene, humans have the unique ability to manage carbon storage and fluxes at the global scale. Decisions governing irrecoverable carbon in ecosystems today will affect the atmosphere of generations to come.
“We absolutely must protect this irrecoverable carbon to avert climate catastrophe – we must keep it in the ground,” said Monica Noon at Conservation International, the lead author of the study. “These are the areas that really cannot be recovered in our generation – it is our generation’s carbon to protect. But with irrecoverable carbon concentrated in a relatively small area of land, the world could protect the majority of these climate-essential places by 2030.”
Australia is home to 2.5% of the world’s irrecoverable carbon, in its coastal mangroves and seagrasses as well as forests in the south-east and south-west, which were hit by megafires in 2019-20.
Rob Field, a conservation scientist at the RSPB in the UK, said: “Protection of irrecoverable carbon, coupled with widespread decarbonisation of the world’s economies, will make a safe climate more likely, at the same time as conserving important areas for biodiversity.”
Scientists plea for old carbon:
Moomaw and others make a plea to protect older forests in America for carbon sequestration.
Alarmingly, global deforestation is occurring at a rate of 27 football fields every minute of each day. Recognizing this loss, President Biden pledged that the United States will “help the world halt natural forest loss and restore at least an additional 494 million acres by the year 2030.”
As it stands, the Biden administration’s climate plans say nothing about ending forest losses right here at home by protecting climate-saving older forests and trees on federal lands. It’s a glaring omission that needs to be fixed.
Old-growth forests are disappearing globally because of logging and land clearing. Most of the remaining older forests are in the tropics and the circumboreal forests. Very little old growth remains in the United States, and much of what is left of these towering trees has been targeted for logging. But forests on federal lands from coast to coast have been slowly maturing and will become old growth in the decades ahead if protected from chainsaws.
Older trees are nature’s carbon warehouses, storing up to 70 percent more carbon than logged and replanted forests….
As trees age, the rate of carbon accumulation increases continuously so keeping this carbon in the forest and not in the atmosphere is critical to reaching emissions reduction targets. However, when these forests are logged, most of that carbon is returned to the atmosphere with very little retained in short-lived wood products.
Replanting trees is not the answer as this practice typically follows clearcut logging and cannot be counted in restoration targets. Newly planted trees would take decades to centuries to make up for the carbon emitted when forests are logged. We no longer have the luxury of time in the climate emergency.
Older forests need a break from centuries of logging to build back carbon reserves and keep additional emissions out of the atmosphere. …
Climate change is solvable if we act now by increasing carbon stored in natural ecosystems while we rapidly end our dependence on fossil fuels and aggressively cut emissions across all sectors, including forestry. Even as the world replaces fossil fuels with clean energy, we still need to take climate pollution out of the atmosphere and forests are best at doing this.
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/581612-us-forests-hold-climate-keys
Max Holmes, acting President and Executive Director of the Woodwell Climate Research Center, provides a broad overview of the threats to, and carbon values of, tropical forests.
Forests with this vast amount of carbon that they contain, it takes them a long time to build it up. It's not a year, it's not ten years, it's in many cases, not even a hundred years. It's longer than that to build up all that carbon. Just like you can empty out your bank account in a hurry, you can empty the carbon out of a forest in a hurry. You chop those trees down, you burn them, all that carbon goes back to the atmosphere right away. Yeah, you can build it back. But it takes a lot of time. With climate change right now, we don't have that time. We've got to keep the carbon in the forests that are standing; where we can restore forests, we need to start doing it, it will pull carbon out of the atmosphere, but it's gonna, it will take them a long time to restock that balance they'd started with before we deforested.
https://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=21-P13-00046&segmentID=2
Restoring forests restores stream bacterial communities:
A study in central Panama found that restoring forests restores stream bacterial communities.
Saltonstall and her colleagues discovered high bacterial diversity in streams surrounded by both mature and secondary forests. Streams surrounded by traditional cattle pasture, on the other hand, had much lower diversity, highlighting the negative influence that raising cattle has on water quality and bacterial communities.
“When streams become polluted or surrounding landscapes are degraded, microbial communities shift, risking their ability to help maintain natural processes and often allowing harmful bacteria to flourish,” Saltonstall said.
The study reveals huge benefits in allowing forests to regrow on abandoned agricultural land, finding that bacterial communities in streams can recover and flourish in as little as a decade when cattle are removed from the area.
“Our results indicate that the presence of cattle in the watershed can decrease bacterial diversity,” said Megan Lindmark, a researcher at the STRI and co-author of the study. However, “our results also indicate that streams in secondary, restored forests have similar bacterial communities and diversity to mature forests, indicating the importance of reforestation,” she said.
https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/young-forests-can-help-heal-tropical-aquatic-ecosystems-study/
Canada’s British Columbia a hotbed of insurrection:
Canada is suffering the effects of climate heating with heatwaves and fires followed by deluges and landslips, helped by logging. The Fairy Creek injunction to stop protestors has been extended on appeal after being roundly condemned by a judge. The British Columbia government has deferred logging of half the remaining unprotected oldgrowth. While a blockade is underway to stop construction of a gas pipeline through tribal territory.
… Injunction on injunction injuncted:
The Fairy Creek old-growth defenders, who have suffered over 1,000 arrests in the largest campaign of civil disobedience in Canadian history, had a major win in September when a B.C. Supreme Court judge refused to extend an injunction against them on the basis that police enforcement led to serious infringements of civil liberties, including impairment of freedom of the press, and damage to the court’s reputation. Unfortunately the injunction remains in place while the industry appeals to a higher court.
… oldgrowth deferred:
British Columbia government defers logging of half unprotected oldgrowth, as the industry claims that half their timber comes from oldgrowth and that regrowth is better at sequestering CO2.
In the lead-up to last week’s announcement that the B.C. government will defer logging on 2.6 million hectares of old-growth forest, the conversation was sometimes muddied with invocations of “deforestation” and climate change as reasons to halt logging of old-growth forests in B.C.
According to updated estimates by B.C.’s Old Growth Technical Advisory Panel, 31.5% of old growth in B.C. is already protected. Of the 7.7 million hectares of old growth containing big, ancient and rare trees, 2.6 million hectares (34%) is protected. Deferrals announced last week would double the amount of old tree, big tree and ancient tree old growth that would be protected.
Elsewhere in Canada they have concerns about gas.
On Sunday, members of the Gidimt’en clan ordered all Coastal GasLink employees to leave the Wet’suwet’en territory. At 8 a.m. Sunday, clan members told workers they had eight hours to “peacefully evacuate” the area before the main road into the Lhudis Bin territory was closed at 1 p.m.
The development comes 50 days after the establishment of Coyote Camp, which halted efforts by Coastal GasLink to build an essential part of the 670-kilometre pipeline that would transport natural gas from Dawson Creek in northeastern B.C. to Kitimat in the province’s North Coast region.
For its part, Coastal GasLink said, in a press release, that a January 7, 2020 B.C. Supreme Court injunction allows the company to have “continued safe access” to the area.
Mike Farnworth, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General, said the province is concerned about the 500 workers trapped behind the blockads.
… Logging takes a toll:
And logging is being blamed for worsening floods, landslips and fires.
“To be just this awful feeling of being right – and not wanting to be right. This is exactly what the best available science has predicted for years,” says Peter Wood, author of a recent report on the link between clear logging and community safety of the Sierra Club BC. “We know the result if you log steep slopes… You reach sort of a tipping point, where the forest die can no longer provide moderating service of regulate power; of water.”
Experts have long warned that clear-cutting affects slope stability rate where water in the soil is absorbed and the ability hold ground in root systems. Without trees, heavy rains can wash away large amounts of sediment in nearby water systems, choking creeks and streams and quickly flooding them.
Tuesday evening brought news of one confirmed death, with CBC News reporting that a woman’s body had been recovered from the site of a mudslide on a highway near Lillooet, 250 northeast of Vancouver, and some 60 kilometres due north of what remains of the town of Lytton after it was incinerated by wildfire June 30.
Clague remarked on the contrast between the weekend deluge and June’s lethal heat dome. “To me, the counterpoint is amazing. But that’s what happens with climate changes,” he said.
He added that increasingly hot wildfires—the kind that burn right down to bedrock—are leaving mountainsides stripped of the soil and vegetation that would in the past have soaked up the rain.
“The water doesn’t infiltrate, it just flows across the landscape and triggers landslides,” Ward said.
Protection for Alaskan Tongass National Forest restored:
In Alaska Biden is repealing Trump’s rule that exempted 36,421 square kilometers in the Tongass National Forest from a 2001 rule that banned road construction, reconstruction and timber harvesting in roadless areas, with some exceptions.
https://wtop.com/life-style/2021/11/feds-move-ahead-with-plan-to-block-alaska-forest-logging/
In China planted forests are expanding:
Forest cover in China increased 26.5 million hectares from 2007 to 2020, contributing about 95 percent of the total increase among all 21 members of the APEC, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration said on Wednesday
http://www.china.org.cn/china/2021-11/19/content_77881017.htm
In England a new forest school opened:
Staff and families of Coleham Primary School pupils spent the summer transforming a forgotten and unloved patch of land into a forest school.
The natural woodland and orchard area is full of exciting and imaginative activities such as potion making, an outdoor stage, treasure station, digging pit and dinosaur cove. But its show stopper is the physical assault course and low ropes trail that weave amongst the apple trees.
Forest Media 12 November 2021
Matt Kean has come out fighting for climate action after COP 26, even ruling out NSW’s $70 million funding for “green hydrogen” using native forests. Though much more needs to be done to stop native forests being used to power our electricity grid. Still this has soured Sweetman’s Renewables plans to float their company. Kean moves to make parks carbon positive. In western NSW the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers and NSW Farmers are calling for the purchase of properties for parks to stop, claiming they are a threat to rural communities.
On the south coast mountain biking is being used as a reason for protecting Mogo State Forest, though in other places mountain biking is being resisted as it threatens significant cultural and environmental values, with some bikers displaying a breathtaking contempt. Tasmania's tourism lobby (including bikers) has called for an end to logging of public native forests because it is undermining Tasmania's "clean, green and clever brand".
Genetic analysis has revealed north-east NSW’s Pouched Frog to comprise 2 species, with Wollumbin (Mt Warning) sufficiently isolated over the millennia to evolve a separate species to the surrounding caldera. More evidence that stress caused by habitat loss and climate heating makes Koalas more susceptible to chlamydia. BirdLife Australia are releasing captive bred Regent Honeyeaters. Palm Cockatoos are now endangered by the loss of hollow-bearing nest trees.
Whatever the failures of COP 26, at least it has put climate heating back on the agenda, with an avalanche of media, and shown-up Australia as fossil fools. Juice Media have aptly summarised the situation. While last week the International Energy Agency (IEA) were claiming that COP commitments had us on track for a 50% chance of 1.9oC warming, this week we are advised by U.N. Environment Program that if all pledges are honoured the best we can hope for is 2.1oC, but that considering only the “unconditional” plans submitted to the U.N., projected warming remains stubbornly at 2.7oC. Australia’s ranking dropped to 54 out of 60 countries.
Our carbon emissions have quickly rebounded from Covid, though it is clear that the world is not properly accounting for emissions from forest clearing and degradation, claiming illusionary savings. One assessment is that true emissions are likely 16 to 23 percent higher than admitted, with unrealistic claims of sequestration by forests the biggest rort. Australia is of course a major rorter in many ways. There is concern that unrealistic claims of using forests to offset emissions are being used as a smokescreen for continued polluting. Part of the problem is the reliance upon replacing fossil fuels with biomass and pretending its carbon neutral.
Environment Minister Sussan Ley says that Australia’s signing on to end deforestation by 2030 will not result in any additional restrictions on land clearing and not affect state and territory vegetation management laws. WTF, some think that as deforestation hotspot we should stop landclearing and end native forest logging to meet our obligations. Carbon Capture and Storage is just another of our rorts, and whatever is managed to be pumped underground at taxpayers expense becomes a long term liability.
Actions continue in Glasgow, a hundred thousand people marched for real action on climate change, while negotiations over the final working of a COP26 statement continued. It is far from over yet, and there are some good things happening. There is still hope, but we are fast running out of time to turn things around. Some honest accounting of forest stores, and how they are affected by logging, should be a high priority.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Kean kean on climate action:
Matt Kean has come out fighting for climate action after COP 26. He has sidestepped the Federal Government and signed the COP pledge to work “towards all sales of new cars and vans being zero emission by 2040 or earlier, or by no later than 2035 in leading markets”
“The world saw Australia on the front line of climate change, and is now looking to us to be on the front line of taking action to address it,” he said. “And let me be clear – there is no country better placed in the world to be a climate leader than Australia.
“The past decade of fearmongering, mistruths and denial has held our country back when it comes to taking action on climate change. We must put those days well and truly behind us.”
Last month, the NSW government ruled that green hydrogen projects will not be funded if any input (including electricity or feedstock) is derived using biomass from native forests. The move has been welcomed by environmental groups.
“It is a relief that the NSW government has ruled out funding the use of native forests as a feedstock for this new industry as a variety of companies in the Hunter region have been spruiking for investors in start-ups intending to burn native forests for electricity to then generate green hydrogen,” said North East Forest Alliance spokesperson Dailan Pugh.
Sue Arnold sums up the situation with NSW biomass, prior to the partial change in NSW’s guidelines for funding green hydrogen.
What the two politicians didn’t say was that NSW forests would be the source feedstock for the so-called “renewable energy”. Nor did they detail that this latest effort to convince the public their government is “serious” about net zero commitment, is in fact yet another massive money pit labelled “renewable energy”. A green light to the corporate cowboys waiting to cash in on the net zero train.
One of the first cabs off the green hydrogen rank is the old coal-fired Redbank Power Station near Singleton. It is now owned by Verdant Earth Technology, previously known as Hunter Energy. The project plans to convert the station into a 150-megawatt biomass plant to generate 1,00,000 MWh of green baseload power, equivalent to supplying 200,000 homes with net zero CO2 emissions.
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/green-hydrogen-masks-mammoth-plans-to-wood-chip-forests/
… a sweet deal sours:
Sweetmans Renewables is talking itself up in preparation for going public with its Initial Price Offering (IPO) where it shares itself with investors. As well as buying Sweetman’s mill, it has a 20-year export contract for 60 thousand metric tonnes per annum of green woodchip to a power plant near Kitakyushu - but nowhere to export it from, and it has a $15 million joint venture with Singapore’s CAC-H2 for the establishment of a hydrogen production centre in the Hunter Valley – except that wood fired hydrogen is not eligible for the NSW Government subsidies. I hope people don’t put their life savings into the float.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/sweetman-renewables-expands-divisions-after-new-business-deals/
Parks stop pollution:
The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) is committing to becoming carbon positive with the release of its Carbon Positive by 2028 Plan.
Mr Kean said that, under the Plan, NPWS would implement actions to reduce its carbon footprint, including switching to 100 per cent renewable energy; electric passenger vehicles; installing onsite solar photovoltaic (PV); reducing waste; and updating refrigeration and air conditioning assets with high-efficiency models.
“National parks also represent one of the largest carbon stores in the State, protecting over 40 per cent of all forest carbon,” he said.
“NPWS will protect these existing carbon stores through effective fire management and invest in a suite of biodiversity-friendly carbon sequestration projects.”
https://psnews.com.au/2021/11/09/nsw-parks-planning-to-control-carbon/?state=aps
Stop the parks:
The backlash over the NSW Government’s purchase of 5 properties totalling 400,000 hectares in western NSW this year for national parks is growing. The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers and NSW Farmers are claiming massive economic and social impacts as the NPWS inflate land prices and outcompete farming families, calling for the buying program to "stop".
Also of great concern was that National Parks had paid almost $2.6 million over the market price for the Koonaburra station near Ivanhoe, paying over $9m for a property on the market for $6.5m.
While the buy-up program was publicly announced, many are also now concerned that the government is buying land to gain carbon credits. Avenel, on the NSW-SA border was bought for an estimated $20 million and came with a "carbon farming deal" in place.
https://www.farmonline.com.au/story/7498487/parks-buy-up-outrage-among-western-nsw-communities/
Protecting forests for mountain biking:
The Beagle has an article focussing on protecting Mogo State Forest because of its value for mountain biking within the context of stopping logging of native forests and the Glasgow commitment to ending deforestation. It may be a bit naïve in thinking that NRC is recommending phasing out native forest logging.
Local Member for Bega, Andrew Constance, himself a mountain biker and proud supporter of the Mogo Adventure Trails Hub is one of the cabinet ministers sitting on a report into the future of native forest logging in NSW by the Natural Resources Commission. The Beagle has been told by activist groups that “Ït is understood this report could be recommending the phasing out of native forest logging in the state." "Why else is it classified as cabinet– in-confidence?
… protecting forests from mountain biking:
Mountain bike riders are outraged that the Illawarra Local Aboriginal Land Council and NPWS are trying to close an unauthorised 250-metre mountain bike trail through Mount Keira, south of Sydney, that is damaging an area with significant cultural and environmental values, despite the NPWS developing a 50-kilometre network of tracks to service the growing interest in riding.
Alex Zanier, a geologist and mountain bike rider, said the sport was no more destructive than other activities that took place in the area.
"Fifty kilometres would have been great 10 years ago but these days we could have 500km of trails," he said.
"If they want to lock us out of paradise and give us a tiny little piece back in exchange then I think they are fooling themselves.
"We may see issues going forward [with] these trails being reopened, duplicated, or simply being moved 100m into the bush."
The tracks involve substantial concrete structures, and large amounts of materials and equipment. They are in an area where no formal mountain bike trails are being planned.
“There has recently been an explosion in illegal mountain bike trail construction, and it’s doing huge damage to the Illawarra escarpment’s environmental and cultural heritage,” she said.
“We are hearing more and more concerns from across the community. We’d like to see mountain bike riders respect the escarpment and other community members, and stop the expansion of illegal trails.”
The NSW Greens Party has thrown its support behind Canobolas Conservation Alliance and the Wiradjuri-led Gannha-bula Action Group in opposing Orange City Council’s proposal to construct a mountain bike track in the conservation area of Mount Canobolas rather than a State Forest pine plantation.
AUSTRALIA
Logging Tasmania’s tourism:
Tasmania's tourism lobby has called for an end to logging of public native forests because it is undermining Tasmania's "clean, green and clever brand".
Hours after more than 180 tourism operators signed an open letter calling for the Tasmanian government to end native forest logging, the Tourism Industry Council of Tasmania (TICT) has walked away from the Tourism and Forestry Protocol Agreement.
"Brand Tasmania promises an island at the bottom of the world where ancient forests and wild rivers await to reconnect people to their wild side, through nature-based tourism experiences found nowhere else on earth," the letter states.
"Logging these publicly owned native forests takes away the promise of wilderness experiences, replacing it with industrial logging operations."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-10/tourism-businesses-call-for-end-tas-native-logging/100607752
Deforestation in pictures:
The Guardian has a pictorial about deforestation in Australia.
More than 100 nations including Australia this month signed up to stop or reverse deforestation by 2030. The pact, hailed as one of the main achievements of the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, put the spotlight on an issue that combines carbon emissions and threatened species. These images reveal some of the shocking impacts of deforestation
SPECIES
Wollumbin a special site of speciation:
Genetic analysis has revealed the pouched frog Assa darlingtoni to comprise at least 2 species, with a second species Assa wollumbin occurring at Mount Wollumbin (Mount Warning). Its full distribution has not yet been identified, though it would seem likely that it extends over the whole Wollumbin complex, including the Assa records in the old Wollumbin SF that NEFA blockaded in 1995 and had protected as part of the Icon Decision in 2003.
Minister for Environment Matt Kean said the NSW Government took immediate action to protect the tiny frogs, declaring their habitat an Asset of Intergenerational Significance under the National Parks and Wildlife Act.
"This incredible discovery shows just how much we don't know about the world around us, with this tiny 16mm frog found on just one isolated mountain in the Wollumbin National Park," Mr Kean said.
"The small population size makes this frog more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, which is why the NSW Government moved quickly to protect its habitat within days of being formally described.
The research also revealed the new species will likely meet the criteria for listing as critically endangered due to its specific habitat needs and restricted distribution.
https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/news/new-frog-species-hopping-into-protection?
https://www.miragenews.com/new-frog-species-hopping-into-protection-668085/
Stress a threat to Koalas:
CNN has a detailed article about the rapidly rising incidence of chlamydia in Koalas emphasizing that the disease worsens when Koalas are stressed, including by climate changed induced droughts, heatwaves and fires. It also refers to research that suggests that it may have originated, or spread, by livestock.
A paper published in September 2020 in FEMS Microbiology Reviews said the more dangerous strain of chlamydia may have originated in domestic livestock brought to Australia by European colonisers in the 19th century.
The Australian government report said when the marsupials are exposed to unusually stressful environmental conditions, including "hot weather, drought, habitat loss and fragmentation," chlamydia spreads more quickly through their population.
Peter Timms, professor of microbiology at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, said once koalas' stress hormones rise due to environmental problems, infections often progress from a relatively minor problem to "one that is more serious."
He said a combination of habitat loss and climate change is causing koalas to be "chronically stressed," depressing their immune systems.
Worsening heatwaves have severely impacted the marsupials across the state’s northwest, with each event leading to population declines of between 20 and 25 per in some areas.
University of Sydney’s Professor of Veterinary Pathology Mark Krockenberger believes between 80 and 90 per cent of koalas in the Gunnedah region suffer from chlamydia, meaning that the majority of females are unable to reproduce.
Research has demonstrated that on top of drought, increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is resulting in increased toxins in eucalyptus leaves, the koala's only food source.
This change in chemical composition is believed to be affecting the function of koala immune cells, adding yet another stressor contributing to decreased resilience to resist disease.
Researchers are seeing some positive signs with chlamydia immunisation trials, and a new form of the vaccine is undergoing a field trial to see if it is more effective.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/climate-change-fuelling-localised-koala-extinctions-040910675.html
Regent Honeyeaters:
The Wire has an audio story about BirdLife Australia’s program to breed honeyeaters and to save them from extinction, and recently they released 58 of these birds into the wild.
https://www.thewire.org.au/story/program-to-save-the-honeyeaters-is-successful-in-nsw/
Palm Cockatoos now Endangered:
The magnificent Palm Cockatoos of Cape York are now in danger of extinction as their old hollow-bearing nesting trees are burnt out or cleared.
Our analysis predicts a severe decline from 47% to as high as 95% over the next half-century. Given the current population is estimated at just 3,000 birds, it is likely to drop to as low as 150 birds. They could all but disappear from Australia in our lifetimes.
Of the offspring, only 23% of their chicks live until they fledge. On average, this means each breeding pair successfully raises just one chick every 10 years. And who knows if that fledgling will make it to sexual maturity at five or more years old?
Our research on palm cockatoo genetics and vocal dialects reveals their three major populations on the peninsula are poorly connected, meaning little movement of birds between groups.
At the same time, we have to get better at managing the landscape they need to survive. What does that look like? It means cool burns to prevent extreme bushfires burning down their ancient nesting trees – plus avoiding any further felling of these priceless trees.
These trees are a key part of the puzzle. Palmies are picky breeders. For these birds, not just any tree hollow will do. They require large, old hollow-bearing trees to breed in, which can be up to 300 years old.
TURNING IT AROUND
A juicy COP summary:
Juice Media have summarised where we are up to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FqXTCvDLeo
COP a failure?
While last week the International Energy Agency (IEA) were claiming that COP commitments had us on track for a 50% chance of 1.9oC warming, this week we are advised by U.N. Environment Program that if all pledges are honoured the best we can hope for is 2.1oC, but that considering only the “unconditional” plans submitted to the U.N., projected warming remains stubbornly at 2.7oC.
“When we look at what has come in, the additional pledges, frankly it’s the elephant giving birth to a mouse,” said U.N. Environment Program executive director Inger Andersen. “We are not doing enough. We are not where we need to be. And we need to step up with much more action, much more urgency and much more ambition.”
“This has become a matter of life and death for the great majority of Haitians,” Haitian Environment Minister James Cadet told fellow ministers on Tuesday. “We must act here and now. If we wait it will be too late.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/11/09/cop26-un-emissions-gap/
Due to Australia’s performance at COP our ranking dropped to 54 out of 60 countries on the Climate Change Performance Index. At least we are above Taiwan, Canada, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Kazakhstan.
Spending our carbon budget:
The Global Carbon Project (GCP) projects that fossil emissions are rebounding faster than expected, reaching 36.4bn tonnes of CO2 in 2021, only 0.8% below their pre-pandemic high of 36.7bn tonnes of CO2 in 2019. Most significantly it revises overall global CO2 emissions from increasing by an average of 1.4 GtCO2 per year between 2011 and 2019 to basically flatlining, primarily due a downward reassessment pf the extent of clearing emissions (Land Use Change - LUC), though it makes no attempt to assess the emissions from within forests.
The 2021 GCP almost halves the estimate of net emissions from land-use change over the past two years – and by an average of 25% over the past decade.
These changes come from an update to underlying land-use datasets that lower estimates of cropland expansion, particularly in tropical regions.
The GCP has always reported on emissions from both fossil CO2 and from land-use change (LUC). Fossil CO2 emissions represent upwards of 90% of current global emissions and understandably tend to get most of the attention. However, the GCP researchers have long pointed out that the largest uncertainties in understanding of CO2 emissions comes from LUC, despite its relatively small contribution to the total.
The new dataset … suggesting that LUC emissions have actually declined by around a third since 2000. Over the past decade, LUC emissions went from increasing by 1.8% per year to decreasing by 4% per year in the latest version of the GCP data.
The authors caution, however, that their new estimates may not fully capture the rise in Brazilian deforestation in the past few years. It also does not include forest degradation – deterioration of forest ecosystems that does not involve a reduction in forested area – that may be contributing to some additional LUC emissions.
Most concerning is the long-term upward trends of CO₂ emissions from oil and gas, and this year’s growth in coal emissions, which together are far from trending towards net-zero by 2050.
Global CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels dropped by 5.4% in 2020, compared to the previous year. But they are set to increase by about 4.9% above 2020 levels this year, reaching 36.4 billion tonnes. This brings them almost back to 2019 levels.
We can expect another 2.9 billion tonnes of CO₂ emissions this year from the net effect of everything we do to the land, including deforestation, degradation and re-vegetation.
The big lie of COP:
A Washington Post investigation found that many countries underreport their greenhouse gas emissions in their reports to the United Nations, by a total of at least 8.5 billion to as high as 13.3 billion tons a year. Unrealistic claims of sequestration by forests is the biggest rort, followed by unaccounted emissions of methane and fluorinated gases. How can we measure emissions reductions when true emissions are likely 16 to 23 percent higher than admitted, and countries are allowed to use different measures?
“If we don’t know the state of emissions today, we don’t know whether we’re cutting emissions meaningfully and substantially,” said Rob Jackson, a professor at Stanford University and chair of the Global Carbon Project
At the low end, the gap is larger than the yearly emissions of the United States. At the high end, it approaches the emissions of China and comprises 23 percent of humanity’s total contribution to the planet’s warming, The Post found.
The analysis found at least 59 percent of the gap stems from how countries account for emissions from land … A key area of controversy is that many countries attempt to offset the emissions from burning fossil fuels by claiming that carbon is absorbed by land within their borders.
Crikey builds on this by adding the failure to honour finance commitments to developing countries (20% shortfall), Australia’s refusal to account for the emissions from megafires, the rort of carbon capture and storage, and Australia’s attempts to use Kyoto carryover credits.
https://media.streem.com.au/restricted/JgmB2RFVE6?keywords%5B%5D=gas&keywords%5B%5D=Santos
Questions have been raised about the accuracy of Australia’s assessments of landclearing after a review of 50 properties by Martin Taylor, an adjunct senior lecturer at the University of Queensland, identified significant discrepancies between what is treated as cleared land by Australia’s National Carbon Accounting System (NCAS) and the Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (Slats) used by the state government.
“It flummoxes me – what’s going on in their models when they are missing such obvious land clearing,” Taylor said. “How can you possibly say that’s still forest … it’s so glaringly obvious something is wrong.”
“Where forest tree cover gets reduced down from 100% to 30% or 20%, to them it’s still a forest and nothing’s changed,” he said. “That’s huge.”
Taylor and other researchers said even 20% coverage could be understating actual clearing because the models used are less accurate than the Slats detection used by Queensland and other states, including NSW.
Are forests our saviour:
Some question the ability of forests to “offset” the ongoing emissions from all those companies and countries that are relying upon it to justify their ongoing pollution.
Net-zero emissions pledges to protect the climate are coming fast and furious from companies, cities and countries. But declaring a net-zero target doesn’t mean they plan to stop their greenhouse gas emissions entirely – far from it. Most of these pledges rely heavily on planting trees or protecting forests or farmland to absorb some of their emissions.
Researchers estimate that nature might annually be able to rf forests emove 5 gigatons of carbon dioxide from the air and avoid another 5 gigatons through stopping emissions from deforestation, agriculture and other sources.
Reaching the point at which nature can remove 5 gigatons of carbon dioxide each year would take time. And there’s another problem: High levels of removal might last for only a decade or so.
When taking these factors into consideration – the delay while nature-based removals scale up, saturation and the one-off and reversible nature of enhanced terrestrial carbon storage – another team of researchers found that restoration of forest and agricultural ecosystems could be expected to remove only about 3.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide annually.
Research indicates that net-zero strategies that rely on temporary removals to balance permanent emissions will fail. The temporary storage of nature-based removals, limited land availability and the time they take to scale up mean that, while they are a critical part of stabilizing the earth system, they cannot compensate for continued fossil fuel emissions.
This means that getting to net-zero will require rapid and dramatic reductions in emissions. Nature will be called upon to balance out what is left, mostly emissions from agriculture and land, but nature cannot balance out ongoing fossil emissions.
Clearing the dead wood:
Some see an essential future for our forests. While land clearing has escalated and past efforts to curb deforestation have not all worked there have been some successes, we have to hope that the pledge to end deforestation by 2030 will make a significant difference, even if countries like Indonesia and Australia want to continue business as usual.
Deforestation leads to an enormous amount of carbon emissions. Lumber rots, and the organic matter stored in the forest floor begins to break down. Stopping that process would reduce global emissions, and reforestation could begin to soak up atmospheric carbon. The IPCC estimates that better forest-management practices could reduce emissions by 14 gigatons of carbon a year in 2030—nearly twice the annual carbon emissions of the United States.
After decades of protests from environmental activists, the US and Canada have both taken steps to slow logging of primary forest for paper and timber. A plan in the 1990s ended logging in some of the Pacific Northwest’s last remaining old-growth forests, while British Columbia passed a law meant to protect old-growth trees in 2020, though it has faced criticism for overemphasizing the plan’s benefits, while leaving many large trees available for logging.
There’s been progress on curbing forest-replacing industries before: a report on global forest health from the World Resources Institute found that over the past decade, Indonesia and Malaysia have managed to curb the conversion of tropical forest into palm plantations. That’s particularly significant for Indonesia, a historical center of rainforest destruction that has lost the equivalent of one Texas’ worth of forests over the last 50 years. The authors chalk the success in Indonesia up to a pause in plantation licenses and a permanent ban on forest clearing.
Even in the absence of specific government deforestation policies, private companies have played a role in previous successes. In the early 2000s, several massive companies pledged to stop buying soy from deforested plots of land in the Amazon. Recent research in Nature showed the plan reduced deforestation by thousands of square miles.
https://www.popsci.com/environment/cop26-deforestation/
Russia relies on forests to offset emissions:
Russia is not proposing net zero until 2060, and it is intending on relying on sequestration by its extensive forests to get there. Though there are questions about how it is assessing sequestration potential.
“By aiming to build a carbon-neutral economy by no later than 2060, Russia is relying, among other things, on the unique resource of forest ecosystems available to us, and their significant capacity to absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen," Putin said in a video address Nov. 2 to the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. "After all, our country accounts for around 20% of the world’s forestland.”
Scientists say that natural forms of removing carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere will indeed play a key role in tackling global warming.
https://wgnradio.com/news/international/russia-comes-in-from-cold-on-climate-launches-forest-plan/
Paying communities to protect Papua New Guinea forests:
The Governor of Oro Province in Papua New Guinea has used COP 26 to sign an agreement with the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry to get funding for protecting rainforest of the 360,000-hectare Managalas Plateau.
Juffa, who has been governor since 2012, represents 22,000 traditional landowners, members of 153 clans that have safeguarded the region for 40,000 years.
Now, supported at the national level by Prime Minister James Marape and Minister for Environment, Conservation and Climate Change Wera Mori, he has spearheaded a landmark memorandum of agreement between Papua New Guinea and the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF), under the Resilient Landscapes program.
“Landowners feel that the only option available to them, are their forests — they feel that there is no other option but to liquidate these forests — and that’s what they have been doing,” he said. “They feel that that’s the only way to go, or the only way to move in that direction.”
That is where CIFOR-ICRAF can help support a transformation from liquidating natural resources, to protecting them as an asset, not just for Papua New Guinea, but for the world.
“We are Indigenous people, but I want to propose that all of us are Indigenous — we’re indigenous to Earth — to the only planet with life on it,” Juffa added. “And those of us who have the great fortune to live connected to our natural environment, our forests, oceans, rivers – we want to assist our fellow Indigenous people — we need all the help we can get, so we can avert what is about to happen.”
“For 105 million years, Papua New Guinea has had 75 percent forest cover – they’ve maintained that and, unfortunately, our world doesn’t reward people who maintain and protect forests.”
Don’t forget biomass:
Mongabay has an in depth article on the world’s biomass industry, lamenting the fact that it is being promoted at COP 26 and is rapidly expanding. It exists on subsidies based on the falsehood it is renewable energy. Worth a read for a world overview.
But more than a decade of research has shown that wood pellets cause more carbon pollution than coal per unit of energy produced. …
However, the forest biomass industry is gearing up for soaring growth, as the U.K., European Union (E.U.) and Asian nations rush to meet their net zero emissions targets by burning wood instead of coal. In the process, they receive carbon credits for switching to renewable energy without actually lowering their carbon footprint.
… In the runup to COP26, it prompted an International Day of Action on Big Biomass on October 21. The forestry industry staged pro-biomass events the day before with its National Bioenergy Day.
… However, the U.K. government, which is co-hosting COP26, showcased Drax last month as one of a dozen green companies chosen to take part in the government’s Global Investment Summit.
The result of this soaring demand: Trees are being stripped from old growth forests, boreal forests and/or native hardwood forests in Canada, Eastern Europe, the U.S. Southeast and Russia; and cut in tropical forests in Vietnam and Malaysia, all to produce wood pellets.
Those provisions include logging for lumber, forest biomass energy, and wood pellets on public and private forestlands nationwide, which would undermine natural climate solutions and our forests’ carbon storage and sink capacities,” according to a November 2 open letter from 160 ecologists, biologists and climate scientists.
Emissions from the forest biomass industry’s logging-to-burning process are substantial, according to new research released last month.
In support of their view, they attached a 2014 study published in the Journal of Forestry that evaluated more than 135 peer-reviewed scientific articles exploring “forest bioenergy and carbon debts” and favoring the growing use of biomass.
And Indonesia is relying on co-firing biomass with coal.
Deforestation pledge more hot air:
Environment Minister Sussan Ley says that Australia’s signing on to end deforestation by 2030 will not result in any additional restrictions on land clearing and not affect state and territory vegetation management laws.
NSW Farmers president James Jackson said Australia was not exposed at all in terms of deforestation.
"Agriculture is not exposed on forested areas at all because the net amount of timber in Australian agriculture has been increasing for some time, contrary to the Grattan report and various other reports," he said.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations defines deforestation as, "the conversion of forest to another land use or the long-term reduction of the tree canopy cover below the minimum 10 per cent threshold".
However, it excludes areas where trees are removed as a result of harvesting or logging, and where the forest is expected to regenerate naturally or through silvicultural practices.
What really matters is changing policy domestically; if countries don’t change what they are doing at home to bring emissions from fossil fuels to zero and restore degraded lands, declarations like this are meaningless.
As a global land clearing hotspot, Australia will need to enact rapid policy change to bring its current practices in line with what it has signed on to. Australia remains the only developed nation on the list of global deforestation fronts. This is due to weakening land clearing legislation in New South Wales and Queensland, mostly for expansion of grazing lands.
As a signatory to this new declaration, Australia must strengthen land clearing laws, end native forest logging, and restore degraded ecosystems – just planting new trees will not get us there. Australia has the potential to restore large areas of degraded land. Experts have proposed how this could be done for relatively little investment.
.. CCS more hot air:
The ABC has an assessment of Carbon Capture and Storage, some argue that its just a scam to get Government subsidies for the practice of pumping emissions down into wells to force out additional oil. The Gorgon gas facility in Western Australia was claimed to be able to capture 80 per cent of its emissions, though has only achieved 30 per cent with some 10 million tonnes of CO2 released to the atmosphere. Even where some is stored it will create a legacy issue for Governments dealing with leaking and failing storages for ever more – like mining tailings dams.
A study published in Environmental Research Letters last year found more than 80 per cent had either failed to launch, or failed after launch.
The possibility of a leakage, and who is responsible for those emissions. is a major problem for carbon capture and storage, according to Dr Hare.
[Mr Ogge] "It's been re-branded as carbon capture and storage to basically greenwash it and allow the oil and gas industry to get taxpayer subsidies by presenting it as a climate abatement measure.
"It really is just a complete scam."
Another gross exaggeration in Morrison’s net zero is its strong reliance on storing carbon in agricultural soils, but scientific experts said that the amount of carbon the government was claiming could not physically be done.
There is no better way to describe the significance of this by just pointing out that the amount of carbon that Santos proposes to capture per year is just 0.27% of Australia’s 2005 emissions. It will be used to produce even more gas and oil, and the government will subsidise it by assuming the long term liability for any release of carbon from its storage.
COP negotiations continue:
Actions continue in Glasgow, a hundred thousand people marched for real action on climate change, while negotiations over the final working of a COP26 statement continued.
Inside the negotiations, battle has broken out between those advocating for greenhouse gas cuts in line with the more ambitious climate target mentioned at the Paris Agreement of 1.5 degrees, with others pushing for the 2-degree goal also included in the Paris wording.
Three alliances of developing nations accounting for about 100 countries along with much of the European Union are backing the more ambitious goal, along with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
A key goal of the conference is to tighten global emission reductions by 2030, according to the document, which notes that”parties who have not yet submitted enhanced NDCs [Nationally Determined Contributions] are expected to do so in 2022″.
Australia’s low 2030 target has been a cause of significant criticism at COP.
Cutting down trees to save them?
An American group is putting up billboards promoting using chainsaws to save forests, on the basis of thinning forests to generate carbon credits rather than logging them
Because whether it’s clearing out brush and fallen trees that fuel forest fires, removing diseased trees, or thinning out stands that have grown too thick, cutting down trees in the short term is necessary to preserve the long-term health of the forests. And we need healthy forests to help tackle our carbon crisis.
The group behind the message wants private Oregon forest owners to consider a way to make money off their land without logging.
The organization offers to help landowners navigate carbon credit markets "so you earn a passive income for actively preserving - and enjoying - your land."
"You’re not chaining yourself to trees, but you are tying yourself to their future," according to the Forest Carbon Works website. "You don’t worry about the left or the right, just doing what’s right to preserve what’s left."
Restoration:
Mongabay has a podcast on reforestation.
But, contrary to popular opinion, planting a tree is not always an unmitigated boon to planet Earth. Planting the wrong trees in the wrong place can actually lead to the destruction of native biodiversity and deplete water tables, causing water scarcity. Some trees planted for beneficial purposes have become invasive, forcing local governments to spend large amounts of money and resources to remove them.
Of course, forest restoration does not always involve tree-planting — forests can and quite frequently do regenerate on their own. So when is tree-planting actually necessary, and when is it best to let forests restore themselves? What role do local communities need to play in reforestation initiatives? And how do we create programs that unlock the potential of reforestation efforts while avoiding the pitfalls?
The growing urban jungles:
The City of Burnaby in Canada is the latest to publicise that they are developing an Urban Forest Management Strategy “that will help protect, preserve and expand the forest canopy in the city while delivering significant quality of life and climate action benefits”.
Forest Media 5 November 2021
Local Land Services have released their first “annual” 2018-20 NSW Land Management Report . Over that time they authorised 521,494 ha for various forms of clearing, they crow that despite long-term approvals that in the first 2 years only 12,114 ha of that approved was actually cleared, and 43,399 hectares was set aside as offsets. These clearing stats are well below the 115,300 ha identified as cleared in 2018 and 2019, in part because most of this was “unapproved”. In response to the commitment to phase out landclearing by 2030 given at COP 26, NCC and NEFA called on NSW to stop it now. For their contribution the NSW ALP called for Sydney Councils not to be allowed to interfere in landholder’s freedom to clear 25m around property boundaries.
Mawson Infrastructure is setting up what it says will be the country’s biggest renewable bitcoin mining operation in Northern NSW, based on Cape Byron Power’s biomass plants. As Sweetmans Renewables tout their biomass to investors, their glee at the State Governments $70 million green hydrogen fund is misplaced as they are not eligible “if any input (including electricity or feedstock) is derived using biomass from native forests”
After being repeatedly caught out illegally logging on slopes over 30o in Melbourne’s water catchments, the Victorian government has changed the laws to legitimise it. There is growing concern that because of the recent fires Australia’s biocapacity reserve for people turned into deficit for that year.
After its first year the Port Stephens Koala Sanctuary, with its Koala Hospital, skywalk, café and 4 star glamping accommodation, has high visitation and maybe some Koalas. Meanwhile the campaign to add 2,500 hectares to Bongil Bongil National Park from parts of Tuckers Nob and Pine Creek State forests has gained support of the Greens. Following 33 roadkills this year, Lismore Council has installed Koala signs at 6 hotspots. Groups unite to oppose logging of habitat of the endangered Swift Parrot in Tasmania. Following the loss of mistletoe used by Regent Honeyeaters in recent fires, they are now being planted in tree canopies by arborists. Like Koalas, Greater Gliders were severely impacted by the 2019/20 fires, though can recover if we stop droughts and fires – and logging. Someone has built a better nest box. Firefighters get wildlife wildfire training. Threatened Japanese fish need forests.
Some tree species are declining across North America's vast boreal region due to increased mortality from fires coupled with problems regenerating in a drier climate.
The world can only emit a defined amount of CO2 to stay below 1.5o C or 2o C warming. At current rates we will use up our 1.5o C budget by 2030 - this was the impetus to get countries to commit to increased reductions before then, only some of us wouldn’t. The leaders have been to COP 26, made their big announcements, and left. We should feel shamed and dirtied by our leaders. Australia distinguished itself by refusing to commit to the needed 50% plus reductions in CO2 by 2030, rapidly phasing out coal by 2030, or to sign on to reducing methane emissions by 30% by 2030. We promoted Santos’ Moomba Carbon Capture and Storage project as our centrepiece, after allowing any carbon sequestered from their gas production to earn carbon credits while paying millions in subsidies for CCS development – your taxes at work. Despite Australia, it is now predicted that if every country meets their promises the world will only warm by 1.9oC.
Our only concession was to sign the Glasgow Leader’s Declaration on Forests and Land Use, along with 104 other countries, with the aspirational goal “to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030”. There are all sorts of problems with this, particularly as it doesn’t of itself herald an end to conversion to plantations, stop biomass or stop logging, but it is a start. New funding of £14 billion is being supplied by 12 countries (not us) and private organisations to help key countries combat forest loss over five years – good news for the Congo and Amazon. It recognises the importance of forests for carbon sequestration, elevates the importance of natural carbon solutions, and if taken with the aspirational biodiversity goal of reserving 30% of land, it is a significant step forward. If we can stop clearing and increase forest sequestration, we still have a chance to not overshoot 1.5o by too much. But Indonesia is already saying they didn’t really mean to commit to stopping deforestation.
American President Joe Biden’s omnibus climate bill Build Back Better has suffered numerous cuts in negotiations within his own party, though the allocation of roughly $27 billion for spending related to federal, state, and tribal forests forest funding has survived. Some are so concerned the $14 billion in Build Back Better for “hazardous fuels reduction projects” will just be used to increase logging under the guise of hazard reduction they have asked for it to be removed. Regrettably, like us the U.S. plans to keep exporting oil, natural gas and coal for decades to come. Australia’s reliance on using Carbon Capture and Storage and offsets to achieve net zero are dubious. Some claim that the methodology used to account for forestry’s emissions estimates are a sham, with Canada’s actual emissions over 18 times higher than what the Government claims. Loggers like Kean’s intent to count the carbon stored in buildings - the more wood the better.
In Oregon an agreement has been reached between timber and environmental groups to overhaul management of 10 million acres of private forestlands. After plantings failed in Niger it was found the best way was to assist natural regeneration, now over 5000 ha. Forest schools are becoming more popular in England, inspired by the outdoors culture – or friluftsliv – of Scandinavia, they focus on unstructured play in nature.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Landclearing beneficial:
Local Land Services have released their first “annual” 2018-20 NSW Land Management Report. It only assesses “authorised” land clearing, whereas most landclearing is unauthorised. It identifies that authorisations included 431,842 ha of poorly defined “invasive” native species, 50,092 ha of pasture expansion (thinning native vegetation or clearing up to 70% of an area), 4,148 ha “continuing use”, 35,167 ha “equity” (allows clearing with offsets, usually 2 for 1 basis – criticised by auditor general), and 245ha farm plan (mostly paddock trees). Though it claims that while approved for future clearing, only a very small proportion had been implemented by 2019.
For 2018 and 2019 calendar years, land management activities were authorised on a total of 363,187 hectares of rural regulated land across NSW. In that time period, authorised activities were implemented on a total of 12,114 hectares.
There is a significant discrepancy with the 54,500 ha of woody vegetation identified as cleared in 2019, and 60,800 ha cleared in 2019, because most is “unexplained”.
The report identifies that “43,399 hectares of land was set aside under land management to conserve and enhance in-perpetuity”. In addition, “the Biodiversity Conservation Trust has executed in-perpetuity private land conservation agreements for 274,470 hectares of land, and 33,002 hectares of in-perpetuity Biodiversity Stewardship Agreements across NSW”.
https://www.lls.nsw.gov.au/what-we-do/plans-and-publications/nsw-land-management-report
The report found a total 43,399 hectares of regulated rural land had been set aside for native vegetation under the code, 12 times more than the area of vegetation removed by producers during the same period between 2018 and 2020.
Time to end clearing and logging:
In response to the COP 26 ‘Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use’ commitment to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030 (see below for more media under COP 26), NEFA and other groups did media in north-east NSW
‘Eastern Australia has been identified by WWF as one of the world’s worst deforestation hotspots,’ Nature Conservation Council Chief Executive Chris Gambian said.
‘Given that forests take up 31 per cent of the world’s annual global carbon emissions it is vital that we retain and enhance their vital contribution to reducing atmospheric carbon and mitigating climate heating,’ Mr Pugh said.
‘It is essential that as well as stopping clearing, we actively restore forests and enhance their ability to sequester carbon. Logging has more than halved forest’s carbon storage, by stopping logging we avoid additional emissions and allow forests to sequester ever increasing volumes of carbon as they recover.
‘This is a planetary emergency, as a developed state in a developed country NSW has no excuse to delay forest action.
‘Last financial year 54,500 hectares of native vegetation was cleared in NSW; it is past time that this was stopped.
‘We also need to follow the examples of Victoria and Western Australia and urgently phase out the logging of public forests by 2023.’
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/11/time-to-turn-australia-and-the-world-around-on-deforestation/
ALP want boundary clearing to be mandatory:
When the NSW Government allowed landholders to clear within 25m of their boundaries they allowed Sydney Councils to consult with ratepayers before implementing it. The Murdock press and Alan Jones made this controversial when Hawkesbury City Council voted to put it out to public consultation. Now the ALP have waded in on the side of mandatory clearing.
NSW Shadow Minister for Natural Resources Tania Mihailuk says the state’s Rural Boundary Clearing Code should be “mandatory” and not require the approval of local councils.
Talking up the biomass industry:
… biomass Bitcoin Standard
Sydney-based company Mawson Infrastructure is setting up what it says will be the country’s biggest renewable bitcoin mining operation in Northern NSW.
That mine will be created in partnership with Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, a firm that manages two 30 megawatt biomass-fired power stations near Byron Bay.
… sweet deals:
Sweetman’s renewables are spruiking their export biomass and hydrogen deals to attract investors.
With ~50% of a delivered logs from certified forest operation sending up as finished product and the other half residues the development of biomass power generation will substantially increase the value of residue products at the sawmill and other sawmills in a 300km radius of the Millfield site.
Biomass sourced from wood waste is seen as a form of baseload renewable energy that provides a viable alternative to coal and was an industry worth US$50bn in 2020.
Sweetman has signed a $15m joint venture agreement with Singaporean renewable fuel technology company CAC-H2 to establish Australia’s first wood-fed hydrogen production plant, and the country’s largest green bio-hydrogen production eco-hub.
CAC-H2 brings gasification technology that converts woodchip into 99% pure hydrogen via a proven proprietary process – along with off-take agreements for 100% of Sweetman hydrogen and biochar production.
Already, Sweetman has a preliminary offtake agreement for US$90m with a Japanese entities supply 60k tonnes annually for a 20 year period and is confident of securing more contracts in the future.
The Japanese market is switching away from nuclear and coal and over the next five years, there’s expected to be a huge push for alternative energy sources such as biomass and hydrogen.
… a bitter blow:
Expressions of Interest (EOIs) are now open for the NSW $70 million hydrogen hub initiative, with a focus on the Hunter and Illawarra regions. Unfortunately for Sweetmans the Hydrogen hub initiative guidelines make it clear that ‘Hydrogen projects will not be eligible for funding if any input (including electricity or feedstock) is derived using biomass from native forests”.
AUSTRALIA
Legalising illegal logging:
After being repeatedly caught out illegally logging on slopes over 30o in Melbourne’s water catchments, the Victorian government has changed the laws to legitimise it:
"Instead of abiding by the law, what they've done is simply change the laws to make what was a widespread, illegal logging approach legal," said David Lindenmayer, a professor of forest ecology at the Australian National University.
Professor Lindenmayer led research that alleged "widespread" and "systemic" breaches of the slope proscriptions.
One new clause in the law has confused stakeholders already.
After the code says only 10 per cent of a coupe can be logged beyond 30 degrees, it then says "all steep slopes (exceeding 30 degrees)" can be logged, so long as "logging techniques specifically designed for steep slopes" are employed.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-05/victorias-logging-laws-changed-fewer-protections/100595676
Growing beyond our limits:
The mantra of unlimited growth has consumed our discourse, from immigration to economics to affordable housing, though this comes at an environmental cost, with Australia now past its estimated biocapacity.
More than three-quarters of all nations, including all the big and developed economies, are in a state of biocapacity deficit, taking more from their ecologies than their territories regenerate.
Climate change had been drying out the forests of the east coast and Western Australia. Then came 2019, Australia’s hottest year on record, and the Black Summer bushfires erupted. The nation’s biocapacity of 296 million global hectares was reduced to 153 gha, less than the people’s 160 gha Ecological Footprint of consumption.
David Lin, chief science officer of Global Footprint Network (GFN), says the think tank “calculated the impact of last summer’s devastating wildfires in Australia. Our research found that Australia’s biocapacity reserve turned into deficit for that year.”
“Humanity currently demands 56 per cent more from our planet than its ecosystems can renew. To maintain 85 per cent of the world’s biodiversity, human demand can only use half of what the planet can provide.”
It’s hard even to frame the problem in a way which people will accept, because the problem is ourselves, our population number and our way of life — even our beliefs.
https://johnmenadue.com/natures-right-a-world-with-limits-to-fossil-fuels-and-population/
SPECIES
Giving Koalas sanctuary:
… tourism led recovery:
The Port Stephens Koala Sanctuary is celebrating their anniversary, tourism is going well:
The site also includes the Port Stephens Koala Hospital, the Newcastle Airport Skywalk, the Sanctuary Story Walk, Fat Possum Café and deluxe 4 star glamping accommodation.
Over the past 12 months, despite COVID-19 lockdowns and weather events, the service has welcomed more than 25,000 day visitors and 2,848 overnight tourists.
https://newcastleweekly.com.au/animal-sanctuary-marks-milestone/
… a real sanctuary:
Kate Faerman has given her support to the “Koala bridge” proposal to add 2,500 hectares to Bongil Bongil National Park from parts of Tuckers Nob and Pine Creek State forests.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/cate-faehrmann-supports-pine-creek-forest-bridge-81247
… killer cars:
Lismore Council has installed Koala signs at 6 hotspots following the reported road kills of 33 Koalas this year.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/11/33-roadkill-koalas-so-far-this-year-is-33-too-many/
Acting swiftly:
In Tasmania activists from Grassroots Action Network Tasmania, Forestry Watch, and the Wilderness Society blocked roads in the Lonnavale Forests, about an hour southwest of Hobart, to stop logging of habitat of the endangered Swift Parrot.
“Forestry Tasmania are ignoring expert advice from their own specialists. The expert advice is that we need to end logging of Swift Parrot habitat in the Lonnavale forests.”
The group launched a petition on Tuesday, demanding Guy Barnett to declare the area as a protected Swift Parrot breeding area.
“If we want our kids to see and experience them like we have, we need to act swiftly,” Ms Nichols said.
… and regally:
In the Hunter Valley $50,000 from Landcare Led Bushfire Recovery Grants has been obtained to collect Mistletoe seed and employ arborists to plant them on tree branches as food for Regent Honeyeaters.
Hunter Valley conservationists are battling to save the critically endangered Regent Honeyeater by embarking on a mistletoe planting blitz – a vital food and nesting source for the threatened species – after most was destroyed by intense bushfires in the 2016 and 2017 fire seasons.
Greater Gliders have potential to recover:
Surveys have found Greater Gliders around 40 kilometres from Crookwell, where the canopy was fully consumed in the fires they are not finding any, though some managed to hang on in the partially burnt forests
However, experts estimate the species in the corridor will take time to recover from the catastrophic weather events of recent years. In any one year, up to half of the adult females do not breed, and those that do breed successfully only raise a single young. They also face the threat of localised predation by powerful owls.
"These are worrying signs but we are still hopeful that Greater Glider populations will gradually recover to their pre-drought, pre-fire levels, as long as the next major drought and fire do not come too soon," Dr Smith said.
They all live in little boxes made of ticky tacky:
As hollow-bearing trees continue to be sawn down, bashed with machinery and burnt out, there are increasing efforts to replace them with wooden boxes with 10 year lifespans, now high tech ones are being deployed, the latest ones are Habitech injection-moulded boxes with timber interiors, claimed to have vastly improved thermal insulation and a lifespan of over 40 years.
Wildlife training:
Firefighters get wildlife training:
Firefighters across the State are to receive training in wildlife first response under a new NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) initiative to help animals impacted by bushfires.
Announced by Minister for the Environment, Matt Kean, the NPWS training program is expected to improve survival rates for injured wildlife.
The Minister said the training program, developed with the Taronga Conservation Society Australia, would be available to all firefighters from 1 December.
https://psnews.com.au/2021/11/02/firefighters-to-brush-up-on-wildlife-skills/?state=aps
Fish need Forests:
In Japan it was found that the number of threatened fish species were higher in estuaries that were surrounded by higher forest cover, and lower in those waters surrounded by more agricultural land.
The researchers think this could be because forests retain water, thus protecting estuarine ecosystems from flooding and strong run-off after heavy rain. They also prevent land erosion and runoff of fine sediments that have serious harmful effects on aquatic ecosystems. Agricultural land, however, can release fine sediments and pesticides into aquatic systems.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/933819
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
The forests are a-changing:
As a harbinger of climate changes, the Black Spruce which are found as dominants throughout North America's vast boreal region are diminishing because of their vulnerability to increasing fire frequencies and problems regenerating in a drier climate.
"Black spruce is a fire-adapted species that has dominated the boreal landscape for millenia," Baltzer said in a media release. "But the cumulative effects of a drier, warming climate plus increased fire activity is pushing black spruce to the point that it's not able to maintain dominance on the landscape.
"An established tree has ... all these roots, [it] has a big canopy. It's actually pretty resilient to the direct effects of climate. But if you kill that tree, and now it has to regenerate as a tiny seedling, those seedlings are much more vulnerable to adverse, dry, summer conditions and they can die."
The other big factor, she said, is that because fires are happening more frequently — black spruce trees are burning before they're mature enough to have grown cones with new seeds.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/climate-change-wildfires-black-spruce-1.6230699
TURNING IT AROUND
Budgeting for 1.5oC:
The Brisbane Times has a great article explaining our carbon budget. Basically we can emit an additional 320 gigatonnes of CO2 from next year to have a 67 per cent chance of staying at 1.5 degrees warming. Given that we currently emit more than 40 gigatonnes of CO2 annually, and it’s still increasing, it is apparent that we will spend our budget well before 2050, in fact at current rates we will run out of carbon to spend by 2030.
Natural carbon sinks, such as trees and seaweed hold more promise for large-scale drawdown but also require vast expanses, and so may be vulnerable to extreme weather, from fires to storms.
Switching to renewables fast is by far the cheapest and most effective solution – cheaper now even than the fossil fuels propped up by government subsidies around the world.
A report in October found that the world still plans to produce more than twice the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than what we can afford if we are to stay around 1.5 degrees.
We’ve already burnt through most of our share of the world’s carbon budget (calculated by the government’s own Climate Change Authority as 0.97 per cent). We had roughly 7760 megatonnes (million tonnes) left in 2014, using that modelling methodology, and in a recent report from the Climate Targets Panel, Meinshausen estimated it’s now down to about 3521 megtatonnes. To meet our Paris commitments, Australia needs to cut emissions by at least 50 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030, and reach net zero by 2045, the research concluded. To help hold warming near 1.5 degrees, that 2030 target needs to be even higher; 75 per cent.
COP 26
The leaders have been to COP 26, made their big announcements, and left. We should feel shamed and dirtied by our leaders. Australia distinguished itself by refusing to commit to the needed 50% plus reductions in CO2 by 2030, rapidly phasing out coal by 2030, or to sign on to reducing methane emissions by 30% by 2030. We promoted Santos’ Moomba Carbon Capture and Storage project as our centrepiece, after allowing any sequestered carbon emissions from their gas production to earn carbon credits while paying millions in subsidies to CCS development – your taxes at work. Our only concession was to sign on to the aspirational goal “to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030”, elevating the importance of natural carbon solutions.
Officials continue to flesh out the details, but it is clear we have not redressed the problems.
… the buildup:
The IPCC has made clear that emissions cuts of 45%, based on 2010 levels, are needed by 2030 for the world to stay within the 1.5C threshold. There is growing recognition that COP 26 is going to fail as many countries, notably Australia, China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Brazil, have no intention of reducing CO2 emissions with the urgency required, this has increased recognition for the need for natural climate solutions.
Newspapers report the UK host presidency at COP26 is spearheading an ambitious initiative financed by public and private money to halt deforestation by 2030, and asking producers and traders of major agricultural commodities to stop land-clearing activities.
However, the net-zero emissions discussion, coupled with the expectations of a new global carbon market that may include nature, creates a risk that carbon trading in offsets using nature will lead to delays in the phase-out of fossil fuels, Leonard added. “We need to avoid this – and incentives must be put in place for very deep decarbonization and efforts to protect the world’s last remaining natural ecosystems and to scale up restoration in a way that also supports biodiversity.”
“The message is starting to get through that conserving what exists will be cheaper and more efficient than rebuilding what has been destroyed – conservation must have priority over restoration,” Martius said.
Through initiatives linked with the net zero goal, such as the Marrakech Partnership Programme, investors will make commitments to shift finance away from deforestation linked activities and invest in protection and restoration.
The Global Landscapes Forum (GLF), jointly coordinated by CIFOR-ICRAF, the World Bank, and the U.N. Environment Programme, is hosting a three-day conference focused on forests, food and finance on the side lines of the COP26 summit at the University of Glasgow.
Danny Marks, an assistant professor of environmental politics at Ireland's Dublin City University.
But smaller achievements are possible such as agreements on green energy, forest protection and climate finance, "which would enable the UK to claim the conference was still a success", he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/30/cop26-the-time-for-prevarication-is-over
The Guardian gives a history of moves to reduce carbon emissions.
António Guterres, the UN secretary general, warned after the IPCC report that we were approaching the brink. “This is a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk.”
… on the first day, announces land clearing deal:
The ‘Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use’, to be issued on 2 November by 101 countries plus the European Union at the COP26 climate summit, comes alongside £14 billion of new funding to combat forest loss over five years. The money is being supplied by 12 countries including the UK, plus private organisations including the Bezos Earth Fund.
By signing the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forest and Land Use, presidents and prime ministers from major producers and consumers of deforestation-linked products will commit to protect forest ecosystems.
Boris Johnson will unveil the agreement at an event attended by the US president, Joe Biden, the Prince of Wales and the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo. He is expected to say: “These great teeming ecosystems – these cathedrals of nature – are the lungs of our planet. Forests support communities, livelihoods and food supply, and absorb the carbon we pump into the atmosphere. They are essential to our very survival.”
The Glasgow Leader’s Declaration on Forests and Land Use, signed by 105 countries including Australia, states in part:
Reaffirm our respective commitments to sustainable land use, and to the conservation, protection, sustainable management and restoration of forests, and other terrestrial ecosystems.
We therefore commit to working collectively to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030 while delivering sustainable development and promoting an inclusive rural transformation.
We will strengthen our shared efforts to:
- Conserve forests and other terrestrial ecosystems and accelerate their restoration;
- Facilitate trade and development policies, internationally and domestically, that promote sustainable development, and sustainable commodity production and consumption, that work to countries’ mutual benefit, and that do not drive deforestation and land degradation;
- Reduce vulnerability, build resilience and enhance rural livelihoods, including through empowering communities, the development of profitable, sustainable agriculture, and recognition of the multiple values of forests, while recognising the rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as local communities, in accordance with relevant national legislation and international instruments, as appropriate;
- Implement and, if necessary, redesign agricultural policies and programmes to incentivise sustainable agriculture, promote food security, and benefit the environment;
- Reaffirm international financial commitments and significantly increase finance and investment from a wide variety of public and private sources, while also improving its effectiveness and accessibility, to enable sustainable agriculture, sustainable forest management, forest conservation and restoration, and support for Indigenous Peoples and local communities;
- Facilitate the alignment of financial flows with international goals to reverse forest loss and degradation, while ensuring robust policies and systems are in place to accelerate the transition to an economy that is resilient and advances forest, sustainable land use, biodiversity and climate goals.
https://ukcop26.org/glasgow-leaders-declaration-on-forests-and-land-use/
For COP 26, IUCN and the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) prepared a briefing note building on the key messages agreed on by IUCN’s 1,500+ State, Government Agency, NGO and IPO Members in the Marseille Manifesto and various other resolutions at the IUCN World Conservation Congress (WCC) in Marseille, France in September 2021. including:
All pathways to attaining the Paris Agreement target of limiting average global temperature increases to 1.5°C of pre-industrial levels require enhancing ecosystem integrity through the protection of remaining intact ecosystems and primary forests and the restoration of lost and damaged terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems.
Enhancement of protected and conserved areas is a key nature-based solution. Significantly scaling up the proportion of land, inland waters and ocean effectively protected, conserved and restored is necessary to reverse the decline of nature, tackle climate change and attain the UN Sustainable Development Goals
- The emerging scientific evidence is that at least 30% and up to 70% or more of the world should be protected, conserved and restored in an interconnected way to safeguard biodiversity, stabilize the climate and provide a foundation for a sustainable relationship with Earth
- The 2021 WCC called on IUCN to support at a minimum a target of effectively and equitably protecting at least 30% of terrestrial inland water, while also recognizing that “protecting, conserving and restoring at least half or more of the planet is likely necessary to reverse biodiversity loss, address climate change and as a foundation for sustainably managing the whole planet”
- The WCC 2016 called on state members to designate at least 30% of marine habitat in a network of highly protected areas (MPAs) by 2030.
- Parties to the Paris Agreement are encouraged to adopt the target to protect at least 30% of lands and oceans by 2030 to simultaneous reduce greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss.
Indigenous Peoples, and particularly Indigenous Conserved and Protected Areas, have a central role to play in the implementation of nature-based climate solutions.
World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) information note for UNFCCC COP26: Role of Protected and Conserved Areas (PCAs) in attaining the Paris Agreement Target.
There was immense media reaction, below are a few examples.
Biden joined other leaders Tuesday for an initiative to promote safeguarding the world’s forests, which pull vast amounts of carbon pollution from the air. As part of a broader international effort, the administration is attempting to halt natural forest loss by 2030 and intends to dedicate up to $9 billion of climate funding to the issue, pending congressional approval.
“Forests have the potential to reduce — reduce — carbon globally by more than one third,” Biden said.
Julia Jones, Professor of Conservation Science, Bangor University considers:
Saving the world’s dwindling forests is essential if we are to avoid dangerous climate change. Forests soak up carbon from the atmosphere and cutting them down releases it. On balance, forests removed about 7.6 billion tonnes of carbon every year over the last two decades. This is roughly 15% of global emissions.
Given that the window for keeping global warming below 1.5°C, or even 2°C, is rapidly closing, humanity desperately needs remaining forests to stay standing. …
Perhaps I am naive, but I sense a helpful change in tone among world leaders, from assuming that forest conservation inevitably delivers triple wins which benefit the climate, biodiversity and local livelihoods, to a more honest acknowledgement that often, there are winners and losers. Only by finding ways for conservation to benefit those who live alongside forests can the world hope to keep those forests absorbing emissions for years to come.
So, will this pledge finally halt and reverse deforestation? Unlikely. But given the importance of the issue, the renewed focus on deforestation at COP26 is certainly positive.
Conservation group WWF Australia, which earlier this year declared eastern Australia as among the worst offenders in relation to global deforestation, has welcomed the pledge.
“It must be followed by rapid concerted action. We can’t afford to see the same weak progress that followed the 2014 New York Declaration on Forests,” CEO Dermot O’Gorman said.
“At least 370,000 hectares of forests and woodland were bulldozed across Australia in 2018. That is equivalent to 2913 times the area of Flemington Racecourse.
“Australia’s forests store 22 billion tonnes of carbon, the seventh largest forest carbon store on Earth.”
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/science/environment/2021/11/02/pledge-to-halt-deforestation-queries/
Kate Dooley observes in The Conversation:
But there have been many such declarations before, and it’s hard to feel excited about yet another one.
What really matters is changing policy domestically; if countries don’t change what they are doing at home to bring emissions from fossil fuels to zero and restore degraded lands, declarations like this are meaningless.
It is also promising to see recognition that conserving existing forests and other terrestrial ecosystems is the priority, and signatories committing to accelerate their restoration (as opposed to just planting new trees).
A vast body of research shows planting new trees as a climate action pales in comparison to protecting existing forests. As I have written before, restoring degraded forests and expanding them by 350 million hectares will store a comparable amount of carbon as 900 million hectares of new trees […] Forest ecosystems (including the soil) store more carbon than the atmosphere. Their loss would trigger emissions that would exceed the remaining carbon budget for limiting global warming to less than the 2℃ above pre-industrial levels, let alone 1.5℃, threshold.
Once intact forests are gone, we can’t regain the carbon lost. It is known as “irrecoverable carbon”. So protecting existing forests is the top priority, especially given the critical time frame we are in now to keep climate change under the 1.5℃ or even 2℃ thresholds.
As a signatory to this new declaration, Australia must strengthen land clearing laws, end native forest logging, and restore degraded ecosystems – just planting new trees will not get us there. Australia has the potential to restore large areas of degraded land. Experts have proposed how this could be done for relatively little investment.
This is the latest in a series of similar declarations. A pledge made at COP24 in Katowice, the New York Declaration on Forests, and Sustainable Development Goal 15 (Life on Land) all include similar commitments to end deforestation by 2030 or earlier.
Mongabay notes:
Other signees include the United Kingdom and the largest nations in the European Union, each of which are enormous consumers of woody biomass for energy generation, half of which comes from native forests. The United States, Canada and Russia, the world’s leading producers of wood pellets for export, to be burned as a coal substitute, also signed on.
Forest-advocacy NGOs have been waging a relentless battle to slow the growth of biomass-for-energy, and to end what they’ve documented in parts of the world as widescale clear cuts of mature and old-growth forests and their habitats to supply wood pellets for burning by the E.U., U.K. and other nations whose policies declare biomass to be “carbon neutral.”
But precise language in the declaration does not appear to address the growing demand for wood pellets, not just in Europe but increasingly in Japan and South Korea, and the threat it poses to global forests. The troubling loophole: Under U.N. definitions, it’s not technically deforestation if the land is not developed into other commercial uses, or if it’s replanted as tree farm plantations.
https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/cop26-glasgow-declaration-salvation-or-threat-to-earths-forests/
A series of snapshots of 7 of our key forests.
https://www.dw.com/en/the-worlds-most-important-forests-need-protection/g-59699907
… that’s not what we meant:
Indonesia is already welching on the deal.
“The massive development of President Jokowi’s era must not stop in the name of carbon emissions or in the name of deforestation,” Ms Bakar told the Indonesian Students’ Association in a speech she later posted on Twitter. “Forcing Indonesia to (reach) zero deforestation in 2030 is clearly inappropriate and unfair. If the concept is that there is no deforestation, it means that there should be no roads, then what about the people, should they be isolated? The state must really be present in the midst of its people.”
But Siti Nurbaya Bakar, the environment minister for the south-east Asian archipelago, which is home to the world’s third-biggest rainforest, said on Wednesday that “forcing Indonesia to zero deforestation in 2030 is clearly inappropriate and unfair”.
She said that there were multiple ways to define deforestation, and that any deal could not halt economic growth. “The massive development of President Jokowi’s era must not stop in the name of carbon emissions or in the name of deforestation,” she said, referring to Joko Widodo by his nickname.
… the outcome:
An assessment by Climate Resource maintains that if fully implemented the pledges made at COP 26 reduce a projected 2100 warming from 2.7oC down to 1.9oC, with a 50% chance.
For the first time in history, the aggregate effect of the combined pledges by 194 countries might bring the world to below 2°C warming with more than a 50% chance.
The large difference between the 2.7°C warming estimates and an estimated peak warming of 1.9°C is twofold: For one, the 1.9°C estimate includes all the 70+ countries’ long-term strategies (2050, 2060 or 2070 net-zero targets etc). Secondly, it includes the new NDCs by China and a few other countries, including the announcement by India for lower 2030 emissions and net-zero by 2070.
https://data.climateresource.com.au/ndc/20211103-ClimateResource-below2C.pdf
Better commitments at COP 26 were needed for reductions by 2030 to have a chance of limiting warming to 1.5oC, at current rates we will blow the entire carbon budget for this by around 2030, with nothing left to spend.
If we hit the end of the budget without having cut emissions at all, by about 2029 we would have to eliminate all carbon emissions within a single year. Obviously that won’t be possible, so what will happen instead is that we end up on a temperature trajectory associated with a higher carbon budget: 2C, 3C or even higher, with catastrophic consequences.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/04/qa-how-fast-do-we-need-to-cut-carbon-emissions
America allocations to Natural Climate Solutions:
American President Joe Biden’s omnibus climate bill Build Back Better has suffered numerous cuts in negotiations within his own party, though the allocation of roughly $27 billion for spending related to federal, state, and tribal forests forest funding has survived.
A large chunk of those funds would go toward preventing wildfires — which release huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and have devastated Western towns — and toward more equitable access to green spaces. The bill would also set aside billions of dollars for ecosystem restoration and more environmentally friendly farming practices.
Biden’s framework reveals that conserving forests and biodiversity is a core component of the nation’s plan to tackle climate change, as many scientists say it should be: Trees and soil are a natural sink for carbon dioxide, making forests a key solution for cutting climate pollution. Yet for decades, biodiversity conservation and climate change have largely been considered separate issues. The bill also shows that the US government has recognized the growing threat of climate-fueled wildfires and is willing to fund the Forest Service to do something about it.
Putting billions into fire prevention isn’t a huge surprise. Climate change is making forest fires worse, and they spew a huge amount of carbon dioxide into the air. This summer, for example, fires in the American West belched 130 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere — that’s equivalent to the annual emissions of more than 28 million passenger cars.
According to Dominick DellaSala, the chief scientist at Wild Heritage, a forest advocacy organization, the Forest Service often uses fire prevention as an excuse to sell timber. “By putting more logging on the landscape, you are not going to reduce fire intensity,” he said.
President Biden’s framework would also provide billions of dollars for conserving biodiversity. The bill allocates $50 million for protecting old-growth trees and another $50 million for conserving and restoring habitats for threatened species in public forests. It would put another $50 million toward reducing human-wildlife conflict on these lands, such as between ranchers and wolves.
Remarkably, the framework also includes a huge and historic sum for conservation activities on US farmland, O’Mara said — another $27 billion or so.
It includes $9 billion for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which helps farmers make their land more sustainable, such as by improving soil health, and $4 billion for the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), the largest conservation program in the US, according to the government. The CSP helps farmers make habitats for wildlife, reduce the need for synthetic fertilizer and pesticides, and make their crops more resilient to extreme weather.
Efforts like these to make working lands including farms more sustainable are part of Biden’s push to conserve at least 30 percent of US land by 2030.
… but Biden doesn’t get it:
Despite Biden restoring protection for oldgrowth in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, there is growing concern that he does not appreciate the value of mature forests in sequestering carbon and intends pursuing the industry line of increasing logging under the guise of reducing wildfire risk, prompting 200 climate scientists and forest ecologists to request he remove the $14 billion in Build Back Better for “hazardous fuels reduction projects”.
Moomaw said there’s a point at which growth and the rate of carbon storage peaks in a forest, usually in the midlife of the trees. This has led timber interests to argue ancient forests should be cut down and replaced with young trees. Moomaw called it “magical thinking.”
“Those younger trees, between now and 2050, will never have accumulated out of the atmosphere nearly as much carbon as the older trees would in that same growth time,” he said. “In other words, 30 years of growth of an older forest is going to remove more carbon out of the atmosphere by 2050 than planting new trees and letting them grow for 30 years.”
… and they are hypocrites, like us:
One of the flaws with the Paris climate agreement us that our exports of fossil fuels don’t count to our targets.
The U.S. is among countries that plan to keep exporting oil, natural gas and coal for decades to come even as they work to zero out climate-warming fossil fuel emissions at home. In an increasingly controversial quirk, this is perfectly acceptable under the Paris climate agreement.
"Australia is responsible for about 460 million tonnes of CO2 emissions at power plants outside its borders," says Ryan Driskell Tate, research analyst at the climate data organization Global Energy Monitor. "That's greater than Australia's annual CO2 emissions from all fossil fuels."
The Carbon Capture and Storage contribution to the political scam:
Its not just Twiggy and Malcom who consider Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) a sham to delay meaningful action. This is an issue raised in David Tyler’s scathing review of Australia’s politics.
Net Zero to Morrison’s government, means increasing carbon emissions while pledging carbon capture to soak it all up. Except it doesn’t work.
“(CCS) … is neither practical nor economic,” US coal giant Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray confesses. “It is just cover for the politicians, both Republicans and Democrats that say, ‘Look what I did for coal,’ knowing all the time that it doesn’t help coal at all.”
The Nats’ assent is pure theatre. Cabinet will make the call. The PM has a majority there. As is net zero. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an industry scam. Australia has pumped at least a billion dollars in public funds in subsidies to operators such as Glencore who just can’t get it to work. Like Abbott’s ill-fated Direct Action, his soil magic, however, polluters stand to do very well out of it.
[David Littleproud]s all over the airwaves with his case to hold the PM to ransom over carbon emissions, a nifty distraction from the fact that Morrison’s net zero by 2050 is a hollow slogan which will see carbon emissions increase, gas fracking and coal mining expand because carbon capture and storage and soil magic and other schemes which simply don’t work are sold to the nation as some solution.
https://theaimn.com/berejiklian-morrison-and-joyce-mugged-by-reality/
Are carbon credits credible?
Australia’s “plan” for net zero by 2050 relies on offsets comprising 10-20% of emission reductions, which has spurred investment in carbon credits.
Dr Kate Dooley, a University of Melbourne researcher on environmental politics, says framing offsets as “essential” will delay making unavoidable emission reductions and could be considered intergenerational inequity. “Relying on offsets is one of the many flaws in the government’s plan,” she says.
Alison Reeve, deputy director of the energy and climate program at the Grattan Institute, … says offsets have a legitimate place, but only if countries have done everything possible to eliminate greenhouse gases first. If we want to stabilise the global climate we will need to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, she points out.
Is hydrogen really our next export fuel:
While Australia talks up export hydrogen as the industry of the future, GFG Alliance executive chairman Sanjeev Gupta considers that future hydrogen users will need to be co-located with the source of the fuel.
“But you can’t ship hydrogen that easily, it’s virtually impossible to ship hydrogen in my opinion.
“It’s too expensive, too dangerous and it just won’t happen.
Accounting for forestry’s emissions:
In Canada accounting for emissions from the forestry sector is plagued by a variety of accountancy tricks to downplay their contribution to Canada's carbon emissions, actual emissions are over 18 times higher than what the Government claims, four environmental organizations argue in a new report.
In 2019, managed forests had net emissions of 4.6 Mt CO2-equivalent, according to the official government figures, a tiny part (0.6 per cent) of Canada's total emissions of 730 Mt CO2-equivalent. But according to the proposed accounting outlined in the report, the sector's emissions should have been around 85 Mt CO2-equivalent, or nearly 10 per cent of Canada's total emissions for that year.
Canada's industrial carbon price does not apply to the burning of wood and other biomass, as energy from wood is seen as being carbon neutral and renewable since the carbon released into the atmosphere is balanced by the carbon absorbed when the biomass grows. The report argues that the emissions from the burning of biomass should be counted separately and a carbon price applied to them.
In their response the Forest Products Association of Canada extolled the Government’s methodology and claimed it is world leading:
"It's been accepted by the International Panel on Climate Change, and it's now been adopted in 25 other countries."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/forestry-emissions-accounting-1.6227903
Loggers like Kean:
The Australian Forest Products Association has welcomed NSW moves to count the carbon stored in buildings (what is lost in getting there is another issue).
NSW Treasurer and Environment Minister Matt Kean’s announcement to include carbon stored within buildings as part of rating new major developments was a welcome development. Source: Timberbiz
According to the Australian Forest Products Association NSW this announcement means new major developments will be scored on how carbon-intensive they were to build under a planning framework being developed by the NSW government to bolster the drive towards net-zero.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/carbon-store-in-buildings-to-count/
Compromising over private forestry in America:
Under the auspices of Oregon Gov. Kate Brown an agreement has been reached between timber and environmental groups to overhaul management of 10 million acres of private forestlands.
Representatives from the timber industry and environmental groups were charged with setting terms to pursue a statewide habitat conservation plan to safeguard fish, wildlife and water quality. A habitat conservation plan, or HCP, is a tool that allows practices like logging or irrigation to continue while minimizing damage to wildlife habitat.
The next step will be to introduce a bill in the Oregon Legislature to make significant changes to the Forest Practices Act to protect riverbanks and streamsides, improve forest roads and allow for adaptive management of private forests.
https://www.columbian.com/news/2021/oct/30/deal-would-overhaul-private-forest-management-in-oregon/
https://www.opb.org/article/2021/10/30/private-forest-accord-oregon/
The new restrictions would quintuple the size of no-spray buffers around homes and schools, widen them around streams and require logging companies to provide one-day notice to neighbors before helicopters start spraying.
Over the next 18 months, timber companies and green groups would work in mediated meetings toward developing a conservation blueprint to ensure logging practices on private industrial timberlands allow salmon and other species to come back from the brink of extinction.
That would give logging companies protection from litigation if their actions harm an endangered species in exchange for solid conservation commitments.
Brown said she expected the process to result in “a significant rewrite" of the Oregon Forest Practices Act, the state’s logging rules.
It would also establish 50-foot aerial spraying buffers on all headwater streams -- waterways that don’t have fish but that feed into streams and rivers that do. Those headwater streams comprise a majority of Oregon’s stream network. No buffers exist for them currently.
The agreement is at
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/6772961/Oregon-Strategy-MOU-Final-Executed.pdf
Stopping planting best way to regenerate forests:
When Aussie missionary Tony Rinaudo arrived in Niger he was shocked by the rampant deforestation because farmers saw trees on their land as weeds to be eliminated. His attempts at conventional tree-planting resulted in frustration as trees died because of neglect, animals, drought, sandstorms, or termites. After a few years he realised that the shrubs scattered around were actually suppressed trees that could recover with help, thus was born Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR).
”These ‘bushes’ were living time capsules ready to recolonise the land if given a chance. I realised that I was standing on an underground forest”.
In Niger alone, local farmers embracing FMNR have rehabilitated more than five million hectares of ruined land (that’s over 200 million trees!) while doubling their crop yields and income. Tony says, “In Niger, our calculations show the crop yields feed an extra 2.5 million people every year.”
https://www.eternitynews.com.au/world/the-aussie-forest-maker-helping-to-heal-the-planet/
Forest schools growing in England:
Forest schools arrived in the UK in 1993, inspired by the outdoors culture – or friluftsliv – of Scandinavia, they focus on unstructured play in nature.
Of more than 200 forest schools surveyed by the Forest School Association (FSA), about two-thirds said demand for their services had increased since March 2020. Among the reasons cited were increased awareness of the benefits of the outdoors, especially in relation to stress and anxiety, Covid safety, and dissatisfaction with the school syllabus after months of pandemic homeschooling.
State schools are increasingly putting on forest school sessions for pupils within the school day because they are considered to be beneficial to mental and physical health, behaviour and academic attainment – as well as being relatively “Covid-proof”.
Forest Media 29 October 2021
Great week for forest actions, we certainly took a standout lead in direct actions related to Big Bad Biomass around the world, with media stories continuing into this week. This week saw Red Rebels blocking the main street in Bellingen on Monday. A demonstration outside the entrance to the Heron’s Creek sawmill on Wednesday, was followed-up by two women locking onto a barrel of concrete at the entrance for 7 hours on Thursday. Well done to all who contributed, including those who wrote to local papers.
At Port Stephens the Koala Koalition called on Council to intervene to stop over 55s lifestyle developments totally severing a Koala corridor, while Council got party political with calls for the president and CEO of Port Stephens Koalas to stand down in response to claims of bullying. Liverpool Council has been requested to either purchase or rezone for protection bush in a Koala corridor. The Guulago Koala Custodians are continuing their campaign to protect 200 hectares of core koala habitat at Lake Innes. Tweed Council is maintaining the pressure on the State to allow them to retain their rights to identify and protect core Koala habitat.
Lots of media interest was generated Kean’s admissions in Budget Estimates that “we have not done good enough when it comes to protecting koalas, they are massively under threat", slow progress is being made with the PNF logging code and landclearing rules, and there are serious failures in the state's biodiversity offset scheme. Kean promised release of a fully funded comprehensive Koala plan soon. Kean also announced the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has acquired 2 properties totalling 167,000 ha in western NSW, to the dismay of graziers. The Forestry Corporation announced they planted 16 million pine and hardwood seedlings funded through a $46 million equity injection from the NSW Government, part (46%!) of a larger $100 million COVID stimulus package for regional NSW.
Australia is using reductions in landclearing for about 90 % of the CO2 emissions reduction claimed, and farmers are demanding compensation for it. Though David Paul points out, the first vegetation laws to regulate land-clearing in NSW and Queensland were introduced because of its impacts on biodiversity and water, not international carbon commitments, and anyway since 2001 7.5 million ha has been cleared in NSW and Queensland. The Murdock press is attacking Hawkesbury City Council for wanting public consultation before they allow clearing within 25m of property boundaries. The MidCoast Council has assured residents it will consult before partially clearing a Koala corridor for an APZ.
Tasmanian Forest Defenders locked on to halt logging in the Styx Valley as part of the National Forest Week of Action. Western Australian activists review their successful campaign to protect public native forests, while timber companies want logging to continue. The Commonwealth announced its only going to fund works for 100 (5%) of the 1890 species listed on the EPBC Act, and will invite the community to put forward proposals. 16 species occurring in the forests of eastern NSW made the cut, others are expendable. Some think we could turn around our extinction trajectory – but not with such paltry funding.
The south west of WA is a biodiversity and climate hotspot – there is no time to lose. As an indicator of the value of natural areas, a study found World Heritage forests store approximately 13 billion tons of carbon and absorb approximately 190 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, but over the past 20 years sequestration of some has declined with 10 properties scattered around the world now converted into carbon sources by droughts, fires, illegal logging and stock grazing. Indonesia’s forests continue to diminish, in the past 20 years Sumatra and Kalimantan have lost 25% and 14% respectively of their forests, for West Papua the concern is that roading will open up new areas and increase deforestation to similar levels. In India tribal communities continue to fight Adani’s proposal to displace forest villages and clear 841 acres of forest for coal. Turkey is succumbing to increasing greed for groundwater as aboveground water evaporates and lakes dry up.
For humanity’s sake, Peter Garrett and Paul Gilding call for a mass peaceful uprising. Remember when the goal was to stop carbon dioxide levels at 350 parts per million, in 2020 they reached 413.2 ppm. Under countries’ current pledges, global emissions would be 16% higher in 2030 than they were in 2010. It could worsen quickly if we continue to turn forest carbon sinks into sources. We only have so much carbon we can add to the atmosphere if we want to limit global warming to 1.5O, at current rates we only have 2.5 to 7 years left before we blow our carbon budget. We can’t afford to stuff around any longer, the good news is that solar is becoming so cheap that we can do it if there is a will.
Whatever happens, we need carbon capture and storage to reduce atmospheric carbon, and trees are the only realistic means of removing significant volumes. Existing forests take up 31% of our CO2 emissions. Vested interests are diverting attention onto plantations that will do little in the short term, whereas logged natural forests have lost around half their stored carbon which they can quickly begin reclaiming if allowed. Scientists advise “natural systems can likely accumulate and store sufficient atmospheric carbon and biodiversity to restore safety and stability to our climate and ecosystems”. The benefits of protecting and restoring native vegetation require more promotion, though a national rural stewardship investment strategy would help. The pretence that burning biomass has zero emissions is a disincentive for recycling wood waste.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Maintaining the rage:
The Newcastle Herald has a lengthy article based on the unanimous Upper House support for Field’s motion expressing "concerns about the potential impact on native forests of expanding access to native forest biomaterials for the biomass to energy sector." And the International Day of Action on Big Biomass.
[Field] "It's time for the Perrotet Government and Energy Minister and Treasurer Matt Kean to remove the legislative loopholes which continue to allow native forests to be burned for energy.
In a lengthy article The Echo focussed on Broadwater and Condong:
… Broadwater Power Station, which is owned by Cape Byron Power (CBP) where about 15 people headed onto the site to take action.
‘We walked on site where there were both piles of woodchips and piles of logs. We took photos. And then as we were leaving they tried to lock the gate and parked a vehicle in the way to stop us from leaving. We reminded the driver that it was kidnap if they try to trap you or hinder you from leaving the premises.
‘Burning wood is worse than coal. We didn’t think they could find anything worse than coal but they did it – burning habitat.’
[Condong] ‘We are standing for the tress. Don’t waste out forest,’ was the message that was put forward by rally organiser Scott Sledge President of Northern Rivers Guardian (NRG).
Sean O’Shannassy, spokesperson for North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) said that ‘They call it selective logging but really it is clear felling areas. We need to end logging in all public native forests.’
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/10/bigbadbiomass-rally-at-condong-sugar-mill/
On 25 October concerned locals, koalas and the ‘Red Rebels’ blocked the main street of Bellingen.
Mr Merkel said, “The proven answers are already here for new energy sources, and biofuel isn’t one of them.
“Forest blockades like the ones in Kalang and Newry State Forest have been established to stave off further logging incursions in public native forests as community awareness grows around their importance as habitat for native species and as one of the most efficient carbon capture and storage systems, provided by nature itself.”
A group of concerned residents gathered at the Herons Creek sawmill near Port Macquarie on October 27 calling for an end to industrial logging in the NSW native forests.
Spokesperson from No Electricity From Forests (NEFF), Jane McIntyre, said the rally aimed to raise awareness about the degradation of forests for woodchipping and send a clear message that logging is "destructive and wasteful".
"Burning our forests for electricity is so bizarre that people find it hard to believe. While the NSW government claims to be 'the clean energy superpower of the future', these plans are flying under the radar. No matter how you cut it, burning wood releases CO2 into the atmosphere and boosts global warming - just when the world needs to do exactly the opposite.
https://www.portnews.com.au/story/7486787/sawmill-rally-at-herons-creek-ahead-of-climate-talks/
The next morning two women from Forest Defenders NSW locked themselves to a concrete barrel, that read "Saving Forests Is Climate Action", that blocked the main entrance to Heron's Creek Timber Mill near Port Macquarie for 7 hours, before being arrested and taken into custody.
74 year old woman, Susan Doyle, who is locked onto the barrel shares,
“I didn’t think I’d spend my retirement having to confront these climate criminals. But the climate science has become so dire that I’ve had to join others in making a stand."
“It’s criminal to neglect taking measures that will mitigate runaway climate change. Forests are the best carbon capture and storage that we have. Our future relies on native forests being left alone to grow old.”
“Ecologists have warned us that extensive soil disturbance and the destruction of ground vegetation through logging increases bushfire risk. Less trees also means hotter climate, which means more fires and less trees… it’s a viscous feedback loop that our communities will face if public native forests continue to be logged,” shares Zianna Fuad.
We need to leave all fossil fuels and forests in the ground. Australia must stop subsidising corporations that profit from clearing, logging and climate emissions.
Media release from Forest Defenders NSW.
News of the Area has a letter from the Forest Ecology Alliance on International Day of Action on Big Biomass, keeping the issue alive.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/opinion-international-day-of-action-on-big-biomass-80348
Chibo Mertineit chimes in in the Echo.
While Gladys has left the building and we have a new religious fanatic in the top job, things are looking very grim in the state of NSW. Apart from handing out licences for gas mining, the government is allowing logging in koala habitat and burning wood, instead of /as well as coal, to produce electricity, which is even more polluting.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/10/nsw-bad-to-worse/
And Peta Best contributes her views.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/10/waste-to-energy/
Bombing Bom Bom:
John Edwards complains about the re-trashing of Bom Bom SF near Grafton.
Regrettably, after some 20 years, nature’s work at Bom Bom has been disrupted yet again, with Forestry Corporation returning to log the largest and healthiest trees, further compacting the already degraded and eroded soils, and no doubt following that by burning as much of the residue as possible.
Conservationists, campaigning for an end to native forest logging across the country, are increasingly concerned at the rate of wildlife habitat loss that is occurring, and contributing to the steady decline of almost all forest fauna species, a trend that can only end in extinction.
https://clarencevalleynews.com.au/voices-for-the-earth-26/
The battle for Councils to protect Koalas continues:
At Port Stephens two over 55s lifestyle developments are threatening a Koala corridor, leading the Koala Koalition to encourage people to contact Council to ask for increased protection.
Together these two over 55’s lifestyle developments have now potentially created a fenced concrete jungle extending from Nelson Bay Road north to the wetlands of Tilligerry Creek, impossible for koalas to navigate – unless the remaining corridor of koala-friendly trees is retained without barrier fencing.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/koala-koalition-hoping-to-save-koala-corridor-on-trotter-rd-80389
Meanwhile at Port Stephens Koalas are getting very political, with claims of bullying following Port Stephens Koalas board member and Labor's mayoral candidate, Ms Anderson, being appointed CEO in August without outside advertising;
PORT Stephens Council has voted to call on the president of Port Stephens Koalas, Ron Land, and its chief executive, Leah Anderson, to stand down while an investigation into the management of the organisation is undertaken.
The vote followed a fiery debate in the Raymond Terrace council chambers over a notice of motion moved by retiring Independent councillor Ken Jordan.
The Guulago Koala Custodians are continuing their campaign to protect 200 hectares of core koala habitat at Lake Innes.
There are calls for Liverpool City Council or the State Government purchase a 10 ha block of bush used as a Koala corridor, or alternatively see council change the zoning of the land from E3 (environmental management) to E2 (environmental zoning), which would place stricter limits on the development-potential for the site.
… Tweed seeks to retain its rights:
Tweed Council is maintaining the pressure on the State to allow them to retain their rights to identify and protect core Koala habitat.
At last nights council meeting Mayor Cherry moved a notice of motion (NOM) asking that, among other points, Tweed Council maintain ‘dual consent provisions for Forestry, including Private Native Forestry in Local Environmental Plans’ and ‘Enable Council to opt into Schedule 1 of the NSW Koala SEPP 2021 and apply the policy in all zones as per the precedent established for the Central Coast and eight Greater Sydney local government areas’.
‘We had one [clearing incident] where neighbours were reporting koalas fleeing that site. Council had very little ability to access what those [PNF] agreements entailed or provide any protection [from clearing].’
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/10/tweed-council-seeks-duel-consent-for-forestry-to-protect-koalas/
The Echo has a letter from Lindy Stacker
WTF? Natural Resources Commission (NRC)… how dare they spread these deliberate lies and total bullshit. … We must attempt to save Blinky and family, and by doing this many other native species may just survive too. I have to say I feel ashamed at this point in time to be Australian.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/10/save-blinky-bill/
Kean admits not doing enough for koalas:
When questioned in budget estimates Minister Kean acknowledged the government was not doing enough for Koalas, with a fully funded comprehensive plan soon to be released and negotiations over regulation of Koalas on private land progressing slowly.
"I agree with the proposition that you have put; we have not done good enough when it comes to protecting koalas, they are massively under threat," he said.
"The government could do a lot more and we will be announcing a very comprehensive plan that has been developed with some of the best scientists in the country, and that plan will be fully funded."
Ms Sharpe asked the Minister about the impact of the government's delay in reviewing a series of regulations, including the Private Native Forestry Code of Practice, the Koala State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) and the Land Management Native Vegetation Code.
"Are you concerned Minister that the lag time in adjusting all these issues is actually allowing more koala habitat to be removed?"
"Yes, I am."
In response to further questions about the regulations, Mr Kean said any attempt to remove the prohibition on logging core koala habitat in the Private Native Forestry Code of Practice would be a "line in the sand for me".
Mr Kean said he had signed the terms of reference for the review of the Land Management Native Vegetation Code, and said the review was now awaiting the signature of Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall for approval.
Mr Kean praised investigative work by the media in highlighting serious failures in the state's biodiversity offset scheme.
As a result, a parliamentary inquiry has been launched into the scheme and some actions have been referred to the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/oct/26/nsw-environmental-offsets-to-be-reformed-after-appalling-practices-revealed-minister-says
Mr Kean acknowledged it was not acceptable only four of the 26 recommendations from a 2018 strategy had been implemented.
Opposition environment spokeswoman Penny Sharpe said the recommendations that had been implemented essentially amounted to "looking at koalas, looking at where their trees are and saving their dead genetic material".
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-10130519/NSW-not-doing-koalas-Kean.html
https://7news.com.au/business/energy/nsw-not-doing-enough-for-koalas-kean-c-4334749
Kean adds 167,000 ha to western parks:
The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has acquired Avenel/Mount Westwood Station, 150 kilometres north of Broken Hill in the far west, and Koonaburra Station, 140 kilometres south-west of Cobar in the Central West.
Avenel, covering 121,390 hectares, is a remote and ecologically diverse landscape on the South Australian border featuring the spectacular dunes of the Strzelecki Desert. It supports at least 30 threatened plant and animal species including the Australian bustard bird, the eastern-fat tailed gecko and the dusky hopping mouse.
Koonaburra’s 45,534 hectares includes the significant Mallee woodlands with callitris trees, melaleuca, acacia and hakea species. It supports at least 20 threatened animal species, such as the major Mitchell cockatoo, malleefowl and the fat-tailed dunnart.
… graziers distraught:
But in recent years, graziers hoping to expand their portfolios and begin succession planning for surrounding properties in the region have been outbid by the New South Wales government.
"The young people in the industry cannot possibly afford a property at the prices the national parks are paying," she said.
Where would we be without them:
More than 16 million pine and hardwood seedlings were hand planted in state forest plantations this year.
The trees will grow for around 30 years before being harvested for renewable timber products
“This winter’s 14,000-hectare softwood record planting was an important milestone in the organisation’s bushfire recovery program, but not without its challenges.
Forestry Corporation’s nursery upgrades were funded through a $46 million equity injection from the NSW Government, and part of the larger $100 million COVID stimulus package, designed to directly stimulate economies in regional NSW.
This equity injection has seen investment to support the forestry industry and recovering regional communities, said Forestry Corporation CEO Anshul Chaudhary.
“Over the last 12 months, the equity injection has seen Forestry Corporation repair priority damaged public infrastructure, expand our Grafton and Blowering nurseries and start replanting bushfire-affected State forests.”
AUSTRALIA
Seeing clearly now:
Australia has used its claimed restrictions on land clearing to allow it to go on increasing emissions from fossil fuels.
So-called avoided deforestation, which means more vegetation remained in place than would otherwise have been the case, has contributed about 90 per cent of the emissions reduction Australia has achieved since the baseline year for measurement in 2005.
David Paul fact checks farmer’s demands for retrospective compensation for being prohibited from landclearing to avoid carbon emissions, and finds them a pack of lies.
Currently carbon sequestration schemes (both for soil and vegetation) for landowners have had a limited rollout and impact. This has primarily been because the government’s failure till recently to link soil carbon with an income stream and has not provided credits for the retention of remnant vegetation, along with other practical issues of the schemes reducing their effectiveness. This has primarily been the fault of the recalcitrance of the National Party and the NFF who have generally been very cautious in supporting carbon-friendly methods.
Importantly, as reported recently in the Guardian, when the first vegetation laws to regulate land-clearing in NSW and Queensland were introduced, these had nothing to do with international carbon commitments but were due to concerns of widespread land-clearing and its impacts on biodiversity and water. …
… If we look at land clearing statistics since 2001, approximately 5 million hectares has been cleared Queensland, while 2.5 million hectares has been cleared in NSW in the same time (see WWF report here).
… Council interferes in clearing freedoms:
The Australian complains that Hawkesbury City Council is stymying landholders ability to clear 25m around their boundaries because they want public consultation first.
NSW Emergency Services Minister David Elliott in September enacted the Rural Boundary Clearing Code to allow landowners to clear a 25m firebreak, but the legislation required local councils to pass the orders to allow residents to begin clearing their land.
Last week, a mix of Labor, independent and Greens members of the Hawkesbury City Council voted the proposal down, 9-3, instead opting to tender it for community consultation.
Greens councillor Danielle Wheeler, who voted to commence community consultation for the “sledgehammer” piece of legislation, said she had “concerns” that the code would allow people to clear properties and sell them off as hobby farms or houses.
Alan Jones joins the attack on Councils in peri urban fringe being allowed to have a say on 25m clearing around properties.
Following concerns about clearing of a Koala corridor for an asset protection zone (APZ), MidCoast Council has assured Hallidays Point residents it would not undertake any work on the APZ without consulting the community first.
Mr De Szell assured council was committed to balancing both the integrity of the wildlife corridor and the requirement to maintain the bushfire protection zones.
"Maintaining the tree canopy is an important part of asset protection zones.
"Maintenance in these areas focuses on reducing fuel loads by managing grasses and understorey clearing."
https://www.manningrivertimes.com.au/story/7480486/managing-wildlife-and-bushfires-a-balancing-act/
Return to Styx:
Tasmanian Forest Defenders have locked on to halt logging in the Styx Valley as part of a National Forest Week of Action, calling for an end to native forest logging.
‘Saving forests is climate action and now is the time to end all native forest logging across Australia. Forests are worth more standing, but this ancient forest is due for a cable logger to arrive and demolish the ancient carbon sink. Premier Gutwein and Prime Minister Morrison are removing critical tools to mitigating the looming climate emergency – our native forests,’ said Jenny Weber, campaign manager for the Bob Brown Foundation.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/10/the-time-for-climate-action-has-come-today-protect-styx-valley/
The battle for WA’s forests:
The Saturday Paper has a brief review of the battle to save WA’s remaining old-growth forests, identifying it “required activists to mobilise public opinion and pressure the government to see the financial, climate and biodiversity benefits of leaving those forests intact”.
A key pivot came in 2016 with the launch of “Forests for Life”, a transition strategy for timber and workers. “We felt that we could socially and economically justify that argument because we’re also articulating a solution.”
To emphasise the climate and biodiversity benefits of retaining native trees, traditional direct action restarted in logging coupes across the south-west.
Hammond says Labor politicians had previously told campaigners there wasn’t enough public noise to force their hand on this issue. “So the idea was to screen the film and then get people to make a noise and I wasn’t thinking rallies, it’s knocking on the doors of the politicians ... signing the postcards, plus doing the actions online. So you have a step-through process of where people can go, but whether that was going to work was another thing.”
WA Furniture Manufacturers' Association is predictably claiming they will now have to import Indonesian timber if they can’t get Jarrah. Previously 85,000 tonnes of jarrah sawlog was provided to the timber industry, with the WA Furniture Manufacturers' Association now claiming 50,000 tonnes will do them (fine furniture, sure!), after all “we should not be putting countries under stress overseas for their resources while we don't utilise ours”.
5% of Commonwealth listed threatened species to be helped:
The Commonwealth’s 2021–2031 Threatened Species Strategy (the Strategy) delivers a framework for action to protect and recover our nation’s threatened plants and animals across Australia, spanning terrestrial, marine and freshwater environments. The Strategy is to be underpinned by consecutive 5-year Action Plans published as addendums to the Strategy.
https://www.awe.gov.au/environment/biodiversity/threatened/publications/strategy-home
The first Action Plan is being released in stages, starting with a list of 100 priority species, released on 22 October 2021, which is now open to public feedback. Out of the 1890 species listed on the EPBC [Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act] as either Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable, the Commonwealth has used a scoring system based on 6 prioritisation principles to select 100 priority species. Overall 95% of Australia’s threatened species have been omitted. Some 16 species occurring in the forests of eastern NSW made the cut:
- Red Goshawk Erythrotriorchis radiatus
- Regent Honeyeater Anthochaera Phrygia
- Swift Parrot Lathamus discolor
- Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby Petrogale penicillate
- Koala (Qld, NSW, ACT) Phascolarctos cinereus
- New Holland Mouse, Pookila Pseudomys novaehollandiae
- Bellinger River Snapping Turtle Wollumbinia georgesi
- Pink Underwing Moth Phyllodes imperialis smithers
- Border Ranges Lined Fern Antrophyum austroqueenslandicum
- Carrington Falls Pomaderris Pomaderris walshii
- Imlay Mallee Eucalyptus imlayensis
- Native Guava Rhodomyrtus psidioides
- Gorge Rice-flower Pimelea cremnophila
- Bolivia Hill Rice-flower Pimelea venosa
- Smooth Davidson’s Plum Davidsonia johnsoni
- Wollemi Pine Wollemia nobilis
https://www.awe.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/100-priority-species_0.pdf
The Australian Government’s $10 million Threatened Species Strategy Action Plan - Priority Species grant opportunity will open on 1 November 2021.
https://www.miragenews.com/australias-100-priority-species-657221/
https://www.themandarin.com.au/172938-new-federal-strategy-targets-100-threatened-species/
Some consider that Australia’s world leadership in mammal extinctions, and our 19 collapsing ecosystems, distinguish us as not just world climate change pariahs and embarrassments, but also conservation ones. Yet continue to see the possibility of a silver lining within the gathering extinction stormclouds, the Commonwealth just need to pay for it.
In NSW the government launched its zero extinction target within its national parks with much fanfare recently, but approved the logging and destruction of habitat for some of the state’s most threatened species and koalas elsewhere.
On Friday the Morrison government released 100 priority species, which will be a key focus of the second Threatened Species Strategy, with $10 million in community grants — around $100,000 per species — for on-ground activities. But Australia spends just 15% of what is needed to avoid extinctions and recover threatened species …
Despite all the environmental and conservation doom and gloom, an amazing opportunity exists. State, territory and federal governments could invest in halting Australia’s extinction and environmental crises, and in doing so create enormous employment opportunities, help rural and regional economies thrive, and support the goals of First Nations people including self-determination in land management and caring for country.
https://media.streem.com.au/restricted/bzLQ35FBYG?keywords%5B%5D=NSW&keywords%5B%5D=logging
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
The south west is a biodiversity and climate hotspot:
The south-west of WA has an amazing diversity of plants and animals making it one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, unfortunately it is also a global drying hotspot already suffering from declining rainfall, plummeting stream flows, and intensifying droughts and heatwaves. The collapse of another one of Australia’s biological treasures is happening in real time, in our lifetimes.
The southwest of Western Australia has been identified as a global drying hotspot. Since 1970, winter rainfall has declined up to 20%, river flows have plummeted and heatwaves spanning water and land have intensified.
And remarkably, a 1℃ increase in the average global temperature over the last century has already more than doubled the days over 40℃ in Perth.
This trend is set to continue. Almost all climate models project a further drop in winter rainfall of up to 30% across most of the southwest by 2100, under a high emissions scenario.
Annual rainfall in the southwest has fallen by a fifth since 1970. That might not sound dangerous, but the drop means river flows have already fallen by an alarming 70%.
… the number of invertebrate species in 17 lakes in WA’s wheatbelt fell from over 300 to just over 100 between 1998 and 2011.
… This was particularly dire in 2010/2011, when all ecosystems in the southwest suffered from a deadly drought and heatwave combination.
What does that look like on the ground? Think beetle swarms taking advantage of forest dieback, a sudden die off of endangered Carnaby’s Black Cockatoos, and the deaths of one in five shrubs and trees. Long term, the flowering rates of banksias have declined by 50%, which threatens their survival as well as the honey industry.
World Heritage Sites begin hemorrhaging carbon:
A study by UNESCO, the World Resources Institute, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) found as a whole, World Heritage forests store approximately 13 billion tons of carbon and absorb approximately 190 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, but many showing a trajectory of increasing emissions. They found that humans and climate change have transformed 10 World Heritage sites into net emitters of carbon over the past 20 years, including the Blue Mountains in Australia, Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra, Kinabalu Park in Malaysian Borneo, and the Grand Canyon in America.
“Our finding that even some of the most iconic and best protected forests, such as those found in World Heritage sites, can actually contribute to climate change is alarming and brings to light evidence of the severity of this climate emergency,” said Tales Carvalho Resende, of UNESCO and co-author of the report.
It also recommended protection of the forests be integrated into the world’s climate strategies.
UNESCO researchers said two main factors are causing forests to flip from sinks to sources: climate change-fueled extreme weather events including wildfires, storm and drought; and human land-use pressures such as illegal logging, wood harvesting and agricultural practices such as livestock grazing.
In the last decade, warming temperatures and dry conditions have primed much of the environment for wildfires to ignite. The report pointed to several examples of significant fires that have occurred in the last decade at World Heritage sites, including in Russia's Lake Baikal in 2016, and Australia's Tasmanian Wilderness and Greater Blue Mountains Area in 2019 and 2020.
"We have seen some wildfires in some sites that have emitted more than 30 million megatons of CO2 -- that's more or less what Bolivia emits in from fossil fuels in one single year," Resende said.
"Our analysis illustrates how we can stop taking nature for granted and start putting a value on the climate benefits generated by these and other important forest sites around the world," Harris said.
The forests' ability to prevent the climate crisis from spiraling out of control makes the threats they face all the more concerning, Resende said.
Eroding West Papua’s rainforests:
Indonesia’s forests continue to diminish, in the past 20 years Sumatra and Kalimantan have lost 25% and 14% respectively of their forests, for West Papua the concern is that roading will open up new areas and increase deforestation to similar levels.
Papua lost only 2% (748,640 hectares) of forest between 2001 and 2019, much less than other Indonesian islands Sumatra and Kalimantan, which lost 25% and 14% respectively. However, our model predicts 4.5 million hectares (Mha) – around 13% of the total 34.29Mha of forest – could disappear by 2036. That’s a result of the development of thousands of kilometres of highway in a project known as “Trans Papua”.
Fight against Adani continues in India:
In India tribal communities continue to fight Adani’s proposal to displace forest villages and clear 841 acres of forest for coal:
Raipur: Just a week after of taking out 300-km long stretch padyatra ( foot march) by tribal villagers of Hasdeo Aranya forests, the Ministry of Forest and Environment (MOEF) granted clearance for coal block mining in the region. It has shocked and disappointed, entire tribal community and common man across the state who have faith in constitution, parliamentary democracy and opposed to any infringement of rights of tribals in fifth schedule area.
Notably, Parsa East and Kente Basan is an open pit coal mine having capacity 15 million ton-per-annum (MTPA) operated by Adani Group and owned by Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam (RRVUNL). It is also the block where the mining companies and the government faced strong resistance from the indigenous tribes.
With the forest clearance for Parsa coal mining, it was evident that forest villages like Hariharpur, Fattepur, Salhe will be uprooted and around 650 people will be displaced and 841 acres of forest cover will be destroyed, which also home for endangered species and catchment area of Bango dam, said Umeshwar Singh Armo, a tribal activist.
Green Left Weekly has a detailed and informative discussion about Adani’s bulldozing into India’s tribal forests, it is a disgusting tale of communities repeatedly being denied their legal rights and over-ridden by Government.
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/india-indigenous-peoples-demand-water-forests-land-coal
Climate of greed:
Turkey is succumbing to increasing greed for groundwater as aboveground water evaporates. Lakes are drying up, affected by low precipitation and unsustainable irrigation practices as experts warn that the entire Mediterranean basin is particularly at risk of severe drought and desertification due to climate change.
The 1,665 square kilometer (643 square mile) lake — Turkey’s second-largest lake and home to several bird species — has entirely receded this year. Experts say Lake Tuz (Salt Lake in Turkish) is a victim of climate change-induced drought, which has hit the region hard, and decades of harmful agricultural policies that exhausted the underground water supply.
“There were about 5,0000 young flamingos. They all perished because there was no water,” said Tunc …
In July, wildfires devastated swaths of forests along Turkey’s southern coast, killing eight people and forcing thousands to flee. Parts of the country’s northern Black Sea coast were struck by floods that killed 82 people. Earlier, a layer of sea mucilage, blamed on soaring temperatures and poor waste management, covered the Sea of Marmara, threatening marine life.
TURNING IT AROUND
Time for an uprising:
Peter Garrett and Paul Gilding call for a mass peaceful uprising.
We need to remember that there are few examples in history, short of war, where transformational social change occurred without mass civil uprising.
This means sharper-focused civil disobedience, in the Ghandian tradition, on a large scale. We saw this emerge pre-Covid with groups including Extinction Rebellion and the youth climate strikes showing the mainstream environmental movement that taking to the streets is as important, in some cases more important, than clicking our screens or writing reports. To be successful acts of protest must be totally non-violent and genuinely peaceful, or public support will drop.
Emissions rise at record rates while functioning of carbon sinks cut:
A World Meteorological Organization report showed that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere surged to 413.2 parts per million in 2020, while a recent report by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) identifies that under countries’ current pledges, global emissions would be 16% higher in 2030 than they were in 2010.
The WMO report confirmed that last year’s temporary dip in emissions “did not have any discernible impact on the atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases and their growth rates.” Concentrations of other gases methane and nitrous oxide also rose in 2020 and beat the last decade’s average, it showed.
It also flagged concerns about the ability of the ocean and trees to soak up roughly half of carbon dioxide levels, thus protecting us against potentially more dramatic temperature hikes.
“It’s not automatic that the strength of sinks will continue at the same rate,” said Taalas, describing “alarming” new data showing that a portion of the Amazon rainforest was now emitting carbon rather than absorbing it due to deforestation and fires.
We are burning through our carbon budget with gay abandon:
At the start of 2021, the remaining global carbon budget for 1.5 degrees has been estimated by some as 296 GtCO2, it represents just seven years of emissions at estimated 2021 emissions levels. To stay within this budget, global emissions would need to reach net zero in a straight line by 2034. https://www.climateworksaustralia.org/news/the-global-1-5c-carbon-budget-has-reduced-by-30-per-cent/ Others have different figures, though whichever you use, we are fast running out of time:
If we want to meet the goals of Paris climate agreement and limit global warming to 1.5℃ this century, what actually matters is the action we take this decade.
The carbon budget approach is a useful way to assess whether climate targets are adequate.
To keep global temperatures below 1.5℃, and assuming humans emit CO₂ at the current rate of 43 billion tonnes a year, we have about 2.5 years of emissions still to spend. This pushes out to 5 years at a linear rate of emission reduction, achieving net-zero emissions by 2026.
Using the same logic, we also calculated when the world would exceed the Paris ambition of staying “well below 2℃” of warming, which we assume to be 1.8℃. Our remaining global carbon budget would be spent in about 9.5 years – so by about 2030. This pushes out to 19 years at a linear rate of emission reduction, so net-zero emissions would need to be achieved by about 2040.
The Climate Change Authority recommended Australia’s emissions be reduced by between 45% and 65% on 2005 levels by 2030. This approach generously allocated 0.97% of the remaining global carbon budget to Australia even though our population is about 0.33% of the global total.
Applying the same method today to estimate Australia’s share of the remaining carbon budget, we calculate Australia needs to achieve net-zero emissions within 16 years – around 2038 – and reduce emissions by 50% to 75% by 2030.
While Australia is now saying it will adopt the target of net zero by 2050 based on a business as usual approach, it refuses to make the cuts needed by 2030. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has found if nations make good on their latest promises to reduce emissions by 2030, the planet will warm by at least 2.7℃ this century. It finds we must take an extra 28 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent off annual emissions by 2030, over what’s already promised.
The good news is that solar is getting dirt cheap and coal and biomass (?) won’t be able to compete if we stop subsidising them. This also makes the future for green (solar) hydrogen (rather than gas blue) brighter.
“Green” hydrogen, produced by cheap electrolysis, could do the same for coking coal, as well as undercutting “blue” hydrogen produced from gas.
The internal politics of the LNP might have stopped Morrison from announcing a serious target for emissions reductions by 2030, but there is no reason we couldn’t reduce emissions by 50% or more, while setting a course for a more prosperous and sustainable future.
Time for action is now, and we need forests:
A group of scientists have written a paper in an effort to influence COP 26 – they are currently seeking other scientists to sign on. The six urgent areas identified for action are: energy, atmospheric pollutants, nature, food, population and economy. In relation to nature it states, in part:
Our current crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and cultural disenfranchisement are all rooted in the widespread degradation, destruction and commodification of land and natural resources. …
Nature is all-encompassing in its benefits - not just a set of commodities
Protecting oceans, natural landscapes, and remaining primary forests are critical for successfully accumulating carbon out of the atmosphere. Afforestation, from planting trees, has relatively little impact on increasing forest carbon. But trees alone do not make a forest. Proforestation is the practice of purposefully growing existing forests intact toward their full ecological potential, as a nature-based solution protecting existing intact ecosystems to maximize carbon storage, biodiversity, and structural complexity, including soil, mycorrhizal fungi, insects, plants, lichens, etc. while avoiding emissions from harvesting of forest products. Existing forests and grasslands could likely store twice as much carbon as they currently do under alternative management practices. A study on western U.S. forests found that reducing harvest by half of public lands would accumulate 10 times the carbon by 2100 as planting trees now.
If we exceed the global goal of protecting an effective 30% of land and water by 2030, while rapidly halving FF use, natural systems can likely accumulate and store sufficient atmospheric carbon and biodiversity to restore safety and stability to our climate and ecosystems. For the past 60 years, natural ecosystems have removed 56% of all atmospheric CO2 added to the atmosphere by human actions: 31% by existing forests and land plants, and 25% by oceans.1 It is essential to accelerate this removal of atmospheric CO2 by protecting and restoring forests and other land ecosystems, coastal mangroves and marshes, and ocean kelp forests. Yet a disturbing number of tropical and temperate forests (Brazil and Canada) are now increasingly susceptible to fragmentation, wildfires and invasive pests, and no longer store more carbon than they release to the atmosphere. They have become carbon sources, instead of sinks.
|
Conservation, restoration, rewilding will get our civilization back on track Widespread conservation, restoration and rewilding are needed to help natural habitats recover sufficient resilience to support the survival and migration of biodiversity, including humanity, in the face of now-inevitable climate disruption. This is why bold goals such as the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration, setting aside 30% of land and water by 2030 to protect biodiversity through the Convention on Biological Diversity, and IUCN Motion 101, calling for setting aside 50% of our planet for nature, are essential - even if perceived as unattainable within current economic and political systems. But such a goal requires a roadmap of action at local, regional, national, and global levels. These actions must begin showing real headway in implementation within the 2030 decade to be effective at securing our life-support system. …. (e) Actions to halt the burning of ‘forest bioenergy’ wood as a replacement for FFs, and the subsidies that support the practice. This is more carbon intensive than burning coal, and reduces the accumulation capacity of the forest because of the loss of the harvested trees and associated disturbance. Bioenergy continues to be subsidized in Europe, North America, Japan and elsewhere, despite the carbon burden, air pollution, environmental justice issues, and very high cost. … To “stabilize greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a concentration that will avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”56 requires rapidly reducing CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions, while simultaneously increasing accumulation of carbon in forests and other natural systems to remove as much atmospheric CO2 as possible. Photosynthesis by forests and other land and ocean plants is the major means for removal. … WORLD SCIENTISTS’ WARNINGS INTO ACTION, LOCAL TO GLOBAL Barnard, P., Moomaw, W.R., Fioramonti, L., Laurance, W.F., Mahmoud, M.I., O’Sullivan, J., THIS MANUSCRIPT IS NOW IN PRESS AT THE JOURNAL SCIENCE PROGRESS, https://journals.sagepub.com/home/sci |
A win for the Congo?
Following a doubling of deforestation over a decade and calls to review illegal logging concessions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the environment minister said on Thursday the country intends to ban all log exports and implement other measures to lessen threats to its carbon-absorbing tropical rainforest, a major bulwark against climate change.
Incentivising land stewardship:
In Australia the need to assist landholders maintain native vegetation and encourage revegetation grows, some think we need another bureaucracy to implement a national rural stewardship investment strategy.
Land stewardship involves efforts to enable landowners and others to responsibly manage and protect land and environmental assets.
This year’s federal budget included A$32.1 million for “biodiversity stewardship”, in which farmers who adopt more sustainable practices can earn money on private markets. The funding includes programs to protect existing native vegetation, implement a certification scheme and set up a trading platform.
But as others have noted, the experience of environmental markets and certification schemes to date suggests they won’t effectively encourage farmers to take part.
Our study recommended the creation of an authority to lead the design and initial implementation of a national rural stewardship investment strategy.
A feasible rural stewardship investment strategy for Australia is essential, possible, and would deliver a much needed win-win for landholders and the planet. It would be a shame for Australian politicians not to harvest such attractive, low-hanging fruit
… the benefits can be an incentive:
The ABC has an interview with a farming family who found plantings helped stabilise stream banks, shade streams, reduce insecticide use, reduce spray drift and increase biodiversity.
During the past 12 months, a partnership between Landcare Australia, Country Road and the cotton industry has seen more than 34 hectares of biodiversity improvements made on local properties around the Namoi region.
Industry can have their cake and eat it:
The industry has welcomed the Federal Government removing the highly contested rainfall regulation, known as the ‘water rule’ under the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI), which limited incentives in areas with above 600mm rainfall to high biodiversity revegetation projects – to reduce impacts on downstream water supplies. Now commercial timber plantations in higher rainfall areas will be eligible for carbon credits under the Emissions Reduction Fund and the voluntary carbon market, and used to meet the Commonwealth’s one billion trees pledge.
The AFPA forecasts this will contribute significantly towards the Government’s One Billion Trees plan and is a vital step towards meeting future housing timber needs.
“Importantly the trees will be planted close to processing centres such as sawmills and pulp and paper manufacturing plants, meaning the timber will be accessible when the trees are ready for harvest and ensuring the landowner has an ever-appreciating asset,” Mr Hampton said.
“The regulation was … inherently unfair towards forestry compared with the environmental and carbon plantings,” [VFPA CEO Deb Kerr] said.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/unlocking-100-million-trees-with-the-emissions-reduction-fund/
False accountancy a disincentive to recycling wood:
An international recycling company complains that ranking burning biomass as zero carbon is a disincentive to recycling
Waste fuel specialist Geminor says recycling waste wood is “more CO2 intensive” than sending the material for energy recovery, though this does not make it more “environmentally friendly”.
Geminor notes this is because biomass is “defined as having net-zero emissions”, while the CO2 emissions from material recycling are higher because it involves more processing and the use of chemicals.
However, the company said focusing on emissions did not consider the resources saved through recycling. Instead, it highlights “a good example of how looking at only one parameter is insufficient in determining the best solutions,” Christina Telnes, sustainability manager at Geminor, said.
https://www.letsrecycle.com/news/wood-recycling-more-co2-intensive-than-biomass/
Forest Media 22 October 2021
The #BigBadBiomass actions were successful, starting with banner drops at Redbank and Broadwater on Thursday and demonstrations at Condong and Millfield on Friday. A gathering was held at Mogo on the south coast. The NSW Legislative Council unanimously “expresses its concerns about the potential impact on New South Wales native forests of expanding access to native forest biomaterials for the biomass to energy sector”. David Bradbury of Frontline Films has made the film 'Dear Dominic, Gondwana is Burning..!' which is worth a watch.
South East Forest Rescue had their second court win against the expansion of the Eden woodchip mill. Elizabeth Farrelly lamented Lendlease’s court win over Save Sydney’s Koalas to build thousands of houses on vital Koala habitat and corridors on their Figtree Hill development. In Lismore Extinction Rebellion targeted federal member Kevin Hogan as one of koala-focussed actions around the country. Koalas now have their own Scottish tartan. Sue Arnold focuses on the impacts of a proposal to bring 2 million migrants into NSW over the next 4 years on forests.
A Commonwealth report on the impact of the 2019/20 fires on invertebrates identified 239 species as being at elevated risk of further decline and priorities for urgent response, 60 of which were candidates for urgent assessment for listing as threatened, 99 that were expected to be at high risk, but required urgent surveys to quantify fire impacts, and 80 to be the focus of surveys. 6,300 hectares has been added to Queensland’s Main Range reserves.
The United Nations identifies by 2030 governments are intending to produce 240% more coal, 57% more oil, and 71% more gas than would be consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C. It identifies that Australia as the world’s largest coal exporter and the second largest LNG exporter, by 2030 intending on increasing coal, oil, and gas production by 4%, 32%, and 12%, respectively, with Export Finance Australia providing between AUD 1.6 and 1.7 billion in finance to fossil fuel projects from mid-2009 to mid-2020. It is no wonder that a Climate Council report ranked Australia dead last among 31 wealthy, developed countries on the criteria of emissions reduction performances and pledges, recommending Australia reduce emissions by 75% below 2005 levels by 2030 and achieve net zero by 2035. Its not as if Australia hasn’t been taking action, it tried to change the IPCC scientific report to play down the need to move rapidly away from fossil fuels.
To the delight of industry, the International Energy Agency is promoting to COP 26 a growing role for forest biomass in achieving net zero by 2050, while Australia is clearing regulatory barriers to the use of biomass to generate hydrogen and biomethane. It seems that burning forests for electricity will not make it onto the main agenda at COP 26, though will be a major side issue with biomass companies promising to use elusive carbon capture and storage to bury their emissions provided they get more subsidies, while the “cut carbon not forests” campaign cites research that U.S.-sourced wood pellets burned for energy in the U.K. were responsible for 13 million to 16 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, almost none of which are included in that country’s official greenhouse gas inventory. Countries depending on biomass to maintain the illusion they are reducing emissions refuse to acknowledge the reality, much to the chagrin of Greta Thunberg. A glimmer of hope as Drax is axed from the index of the world’s greenest energy companies in recognition of mounting doubts over the sustainability of wood-burning power plants within the financial sector.
From Patagonia to Paraguay, South America is suffering from extreme droughts as climate change ravishes multiple countries. Researchers argue for the movement of groundwater in riparian areas to be accounted for. Despite attempts to stop forest loss in many countries it continues apace, with portable sawmills implicated in India, corrupt logging concessions in New Guinea and the Congo, and degazetting of protected areas in Malaysia.
The first round of negotiations at Kunming aimed at establishing multilateral commitments to turn around the world’s sixth extinction through united effort resulted in bugger all, just another series of motherhood statements dubbed the ‘Kunming Declaration’. American attempts to unite small forest owners to claim carbon credits are worthwhile, but misdirected at short term storage to allow future logging. While companies talk the talk about forests, much of the money seems to be directed at plantations and economic exploitation. There are growing efforts to allow forests to naturally regenerate where possible, to assist it where needed and only resort to planting where necessary. This is more cost and environmentally effective than plantations.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Cut Carbon not Forests
The Echo publicised Friday’s proposed at the Condong sugar mill, north of Murwillumbah, to object to the burning of trees and ‘forest waste’ and ‘biomass’ by Cape Byron Power to generate electricity at the Condong sugar mill.
‘The Condong power plant burns wood which they describe as “waste”. This releases 50 per cent more carbon than coal, plus a raft of dangerous pollutants. Native forests remove carbon dioxide from the air more effectively than anything else on land; they do this best when they’re left to mature and grow old in peace.
‘Forest Biomass is our next big battle to avoid further climate crises being locked-in. Burning biomass already happens right across the north-east coast of NSW.’
For their contribution NCEC and NEFA released a joint press release.
With only days to go until world leaders gather in Glasgow in an attempt to negotiate significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, conservationists around the globe are focussing on an elephant in the room- biomass.
“Biomass is being burnt in power stations around the world as a substitute for coal. Unfortunately the most prevalent form of biomass is wood, usually from whole trees, cut for the purpose of supplying the power stations.,” said North Coast Environment Council spokesperson, Susie Russell.
“The pretence that replacing wood for coal is carbon neutral is a dangerous fallacy because it is actually far more polluting than coal, increasing atmospheric CO2, displacing the genuine and cheaper renewables of wind and solar, and taking out the trees we urgently need to capture and store CO2 over this critical decade” said Dailan Pugh, North East Forest Alliance.
“Now there are proposals to feed more than a million tonnes of wood every year into the Redbank Power Station near Singleton and begin exporting woodchips from Newcastle for Japanese power stations. This will devastate all forests within 400 kilometres, and require tens of thousands of truck trips to get it there. The NSW Government and the Federal Government class this as green, renewable energy.
NCEC & NEFA joint media release
For their contribution Forest Defence NSW dropped banners.
One banner was hung over the conveyor belt at the Broadwater Mill that runs from the woodchip stockyard across the M1 to be burnt for electricity by Cape Byron Power. And is now joined by more concerned citizens holding banners outside the power station.
The other was dropped off the mothballed Redbank Power Station (Singleton) where there are plans to reboot the power station to burn wood instead.
These forest defenders are concerned that burning wood for electricity (biomass) is being touted as a fake solution to climate change. Biomass facilities can receive renewable energy subsidies, when they release more carbon dioxide than coal, plus a raft of dangerous pollutants. As well they contribute to massive deforestation and habitat destruction.
“You can't take millions of trees from the forests and say it will have no impact. The only people saying this are those with vested interests. Any scientists who claim that removing trees has no impact on koalas need to hand back their degrees,” said Zianna Fuad, spokesperson.
Forest Defence NSW media release
The Echo combined both into an online story.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/10/bigbadbiomass-protesters-reject-burning-trees-for-energy/
Protesters lined Wollombi Road outside Sweetman's Timber at Millfield near Cessnock as part of the International Day of Action on Big Biomass.
Redbank Action Group Convener Dave Burgess said: "Burning forests for electricity is not renewable. It destroys koala habitat, destroys ecosystems & is more polluting than coal. The NSW Parliament needs to act on the recommendations of this report as a matter of urgency, before more of our forests go up in flames."
Millfield resident Llynda Nairn said: "Trees are one of nature's most effective ways of capturing and storing carbon. It is madness to be burning them for electricity - either here or overseas."
https://www.singletonargus.com.au/story/7480125/protest-over-redbank-proposal-to-use-biomass/
… and on the south coast:
Concerned locals from Mogo and surrounding coastal areas held a roadside community gathering at the tourist village Mogo’s northern town sign this morning.
Coastwatchers called the gathering to show community support against the logging of public native forests. Locals are participating in forest actions in the last week of October across NSW to draw attention to the valuable role forests play in reversing climate change in the lead up to the Glasgow COP 26 conference.
“Significant carbon emissions are saved from stopping logging native forest in the Eurobodalla and Bega Shire councils. said Joslyn van der Moolen, Community Liaison from the Coastwatchers’ Association Forest Working Group.
”If logging of the Southern Forestry Region (SFR) ceased, 1.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions would be avoided in our region each year”
… and in NSW parliament:
Justin Field put forward a motion to the Legislative Council that it “expresses its concerns about the potential impact on New South Wales native forests of expanding access to native forest biomaterials for the biomass to energy sector”, which was passed unanimously:
(1) That this House notes 21 October 2021 is the International Day of Action on Big Biomass which aims to raise global awareness about the importance of protecting forests as action on climate change and to highlight the risks to native forests around the globe from the biomass industry including their burning for electricity or for other energy production.
(2) That this House notes increasing efforts to open up the biomass to energy sector in New South Wales to burn native forest biomaterial for electricity production or use gasification technology to produce hydrogen.
(3) That this House notes that the recent bi-partisan report of the Legislative Assembly Committee on Environment and Planning found in its August 2021 report "Sustainability of energy supply and resources in New South Wales" that native forest biomass is not a renewable energy source.
(4) That this House supports the use of genuinely renewable and sustainable biomass from plantations and agricultural wastes for energy production in New South Wales but expresses its concerns about the potential impact on New South Wales native forests of expanding access to native forest biomaterials for the biomass to energy sector.
‘The people of NSW do not want our precious native forests to be thrown in the furnace. NSW Parliament doesn’t either. It’s time for the Perrotet Government and Energy Minister and Treasurer Matt Kean to remove the legislative loopholes which continue to allow native forests to be burned for energy,’ Mr Field said.
https://www.justinfield.org/opposition_grows_against_burning_native_forests_for_energy
David Bradbury of Frontline Films has made the film 'Dear Dominic, Gondwana is Burning..!' which is worth a watch.
… and internationally:
Sydney/Tokyo/Delhi/Johannesburg/Brussels/Washington and more, 21st October 2021 – Leading into COP 26, over 170 non-government organisations worldwide have been taking action today – the International Day of Action on Biomass – to highlight the impacts of biomass energy, a false solution to climate change that actually emits as much or more CO2 as burning coal. A colourful wave of activities, organized by the Biomass Working Group of the Environmental Paper Network (EPN), has moved around the world – starting in Australia and traveling via Asia to Africa and Europe, then to the Americas.
Activities were organised in Sydney, Tokyo, Seoul, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Delhi, Lome, Accra, Johannesburg, Berlin, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Tallin, Brussels, London, Glasgow, Victoria, Wilmington, Asheville, Washington DC, San Francisco, Santiago de Chile, and more.
170 NGOs from 40 countries are signatories to the EPN Biomass Delusion position statement on large scale forest biomass, which severely threatens the climate, biodiversity and vulnerable communities.
Eden woodchip mill expansion:
South East Forest Rescue won their second challenge to the lawfulness of a development consent granted by Council for an expansion to the Eden woodchip mill.
Today in the Land and Environment Court conservation group South East Forest Rescue (SEFR), represented by the Environmental Defenders Office, challenged the lawfulness of a development consent granted by Bega Valley Shire Council to Allied Natural Wood Enterprises (ANWE), which owns the Eden woodchip mill.
Justice Moore stated he will declare that the development consent is invalid, void and of no force and effect, and will order that the DA consent be set aside.
The Court will also order that ANWE be restrained from undertaking any development in reliance on the purported development consent. While ANWE has all but completed construction and commissioning of the relevant expansion works, it cannot now use those works.
SEFR media release 15/10/21
Replacing Koala homes with ours:
Elizabeth Farrelly laments Lendlease’s win over Save Sydney’s Koalas to build thousands of houses that infringe on vital Koala habitat and corridors on their Figtree Hill development south of Cambelltown, highlighting NSW’s appalling landclearing and need to protect Koala habitat.
The Echo announced that Extinction Rebellion Lismore intended to “occupy Kevin Hogan’s office with a dramatic and potentially messy reminder that we must immediately begin to transition away from fossil fuels if we want to limit extreme weather events such as the fires two years ago”.
[Daniel Berg] ‘We need massive subsidies out of fossil fuels and into renewables. We need urgent protection of old-growth and State forests.
There will be koala-focussed actions around the country today, as part of an escalating series of ‘Reclaim Our Future’ events, coinciding with important national climate policy developments and the lead up to international climate talks in Glasgow.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/10/reclaim-our-future-koalas-pay-a-visit-to-federal-mp/
Red Rebels and Black Wraiths pushing empty white prams also visited Kevin Hogan’s office, but he wasn’t receiving visitors.
The Northern Rivers Times had a variety of Koala stories last week; Sue Higginson wished that the National Party would have a change of heart now that Barilaro has gone and reinstate the dumped Koala SEPP, Bangalow Koalas have been busy planting 18,000 trees, and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) endorsed a brand of instant coffee that donates to wildlife organisations.
… recognising their heritage?
Now Gunnedah have registered a Koala Tartan with The Scottish Register of Tartans, in recognition of someone’s heritage.
https://australianseniorsnews.com.au/featured/koala-capital-weaves-new-tartan-tale/
The story reported herein last week about 400 Koalas being vaccinated against chlamydia has received widespread coverage this week. The Echo also ran NEFA’s complaints about the NRC’s assessment of logging impacts on Koalas in their print version.
Accelerating growth accelerates forest impacts:
This week Sue Arnold focuses on the environmental consequences of a proposal to bring 2 million migrants into NSW over the next 4 years, with a particular focus on associated forest carbon emissions.
… the Australian Financial Review revealed that top NSW bureaucrats have urged the new Premier to push for:
‘...an explosive post-WWII-style immigration surge that could bring in two million people over five years... as a key means of economic recovery and post-pandemic growth.’
The contradiction between Perrottet’s green hydrogen announcement and the revelations by AFR is a huge issue. Two million people need houses. Timber is used for building houses.
It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to work out that ending deforestation and protecting native forests is one of the best ways of cutting carbon emissions. However, this obvious fact doesn’t carry any weight with the Big Australia devotees as the most obvious step is to reduce immigration and engage the public in cutting consumption.
AUSTRALIA
Don't know what you got 'til it's gone … and probably not even then:
The Commonwealth has released a report on the impact of the 2019/20 fires on invertebrates. Only a limited number of species were able to be considered, as little is known about most species and many remain undescribed and unknown.
Of the 1237 highly fire impacted species, we identified 646 priority species that had traits that indicated high mortality risk in fire and a high risk of delayed, or incomplete, post-fire recovery. Of these 646 species, 239 were identified as being at elevated risk of further decline and were priorities for urgent response, 60 of which had sufficient data to be plausible candidates for assessment for listing as threatened, and 99 that were expected to be at high risk, but which urgently require further distributional data to confidently assess population decline. These 99 species are priorities for urgent surveys to determine their post-fire distribution, and elucidate aspects of their ecology and biology relating to fire susceptibility.
For those invertebrates with high levels of overlap and with traits that increase susceptibility to fire, or reduce recovery potential, there may be a high risk of extinction. Given their small size and often cryptic nature, demonstrating extinction (or not) of an invertebrate species will likely be difficult and require considerable targeted survey effort. However, this effort is important because: i) it will help to more explicitly quantify the extent of loss, particularly irretrievable loss (such as extinctions) due to these fires; and ii) where survivors are found for species at very high risk of extinction, urgent recovery actions may need to be implemented to safeguard the species and prevent extinction.
In addition to considering the impacts of fires on individual invertebrate species, we used the distributional information collated here across all Australian invertebrate species to identify centres of endemism for the Australian invertebrate fauna; and to assess the extent to which such significant areas were affected by the 2019-20 fires. Circumscription of such centres of endemism is important also to improve preparedness for future significant fire events, as it may help guide fire operational responses to protect those areas given that they may support especially rich concentrations of species whose small ranges render them particularly susceptible to disproportionately high losses in major fire events. The identification and subsequent protection of areas of endemism also provides an avenue to move beyond species level protection of Australian invertebrates, and allow inclusion of the many undescribed or data poor species, which are often excluded from species level conservation assessments.
Recommendations
Incorporating the findings of this project we have the following recommendations:
1. That the 60 fire-affected species we propose as priorities for further assessment of conservation status should be assessed urgently for state/territory and national threatened species listing or, where applicable, uplisting.
2. That the 99 fire-affected species identified as being at high priority for research and /or response should be the focus of targeted survey and research, in order to help further resolve their extent of loss and to guide recovery efforts. We further recommend the 80 species identified as moderate priority for research be the focus of surveys to resolve uncertainties in trait data.
- The development and implementation of management plans for key sites of conservation significance (notably including centres of endemism) for Australian invertebrate fauna, with such planning including actions to mitigate and respond to future large scale threat events. This recommendation would help protect the large number of undescribed species and is a considered response to the paucity of data for described species.
6,300 hectares has been added to the Main Range reserves:
Queensland has announced that more than 3,400 hectares of the former Glen Rock State Forest (a grazing property purchased by the Queensland Government in 1995) would be converted and added to Main Range National Park south of Gatton, while a further 2,890 hectares would become the new Main Range Conservation Park.
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Australia a climate laggard:
The United Nations Environment Programme’s Production Gap Report tracks the discrepancy between governments’ planned fossil fuel production and global production levels consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C or 2°C. It includes individual country profiles for 15 major fossil fuel-producing countries.
In 2030, governments’ production plans and projections would lead to around 240% more coal, 57% more oil, and 71% more gas than would be consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C..
Australia is now the world’s largest coal exporter and the second largest LNG exporter.
The federal government has promoted a “gas-fired recovery” from the COVID-19-related economic slowdown, including by providing substantial new public funding to unlock new gas basins, supporting the expansion of the gas transport network, and using various measures to boost gas supply and domestic gas use
the Australian government projects increases in coal, oil, and gas production of 4%, 32%, and 12%, respectively, from fiscal year 2019 to 2030
Australia’s fiscal regime for oil and gas production allows some operators of major projects to pay little or nothing in royalties or resource rent taxes
Australia exempts fuel used in mining from fuel taxes through the fuel tax credit system …
Export Finance Australia provided between AUD 1.6 and 1.7 billion (USD 1.1 to 1.2 billion) in finance to fossil fuel projects from mid-2009 to mid-2020, including AUD 0.3 billion (USD 0.2 billion) to a LNG facility and coal export terminal
https://www.unep.org/resources/report/2021-production-gap-report
The UN agency points to the decades between 2020 and 2040 as the prime time for expanded natural gas production. Gas is increasingly extracted through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a process that releases large volumes of methane—a climate super-pollutant that is about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over the 20-year span when humanity will be scrambling to get climate change under control.
“The research is clear: global coal, oil, and gas production must start declining immediately and steeply to be consistent with limiting long-term warming to 1.5°C,” said Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) scientist and lead author Ploy Achakulwisut. “However, governments continue to plan for and support levels of fossil fuel production that are vastly in excess of what we can safely burn.”
A Climate Council report ranked Australia dead last among 31 wealthy, developed countries on the criteria of emissions reduction performances and pledges.
The Climate Council recommended Australia reduce emissions by 75% below 2005 levels by 2030 and achieve net zero by 2035.
Australian emissions from electricity have increased by a third since 1990, while transport emissions have grown by more than half, the report said.
If Australia achieves its current 2030 targets, the progress will mostly be reached through reduced land clearing and other land use changes, Climate Council Head of Research Simon Bradshaw told The Associated Press.
… when denial fails, change it:
Leaked documents reveal that Australia has been trying to change the IPCC scientific report on how to tackle climate change.
The leak reveals Saudi Arabia, Japan and Australia are among countries asking the UN to play down the need to move rapidly away from fossil fuels.
One senior Australian government official rejects the conclusion that closing coal-fired power plants is necessary, even though ending the use of coal is one of the stated objectives the COP26 conference.
Australia asks IPCC scientists to delete a reference to analysis of the role played by fossil fuel lobbyists in watering down action on climate in Australia and the US.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58982445
Growing bioenergy:
In their report World Energy Outlook 2021 the International Energy Agency identify a variety of future pathways, including “Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario” (NZE). This has been prepared for COP 26. While it envisions a rapid phase-out of burning wood for cooking and heating, it promotes a growing role for forest biomass in achieving net zero by 2050. Don’t under-estimate what we are fighting.
Tackling emissions from coal‐fired power plants calls for making the best use of the existing fleet of coal plants until they can be retired. … Another is to retrofit facilities with carbon capture technologies or to co‐fire coal with high shares of ammonia or sustainable biomass, enabling continued operations while greatly reducing emissions.
… Increased materials efficiency and new energy efficient processes making use of biomass‐based fuels and CCUS are key to cutting emissions to 2030 and beyond.
Around 55 EJ of solid bioenergy is consumed worldwide today. Almost half is in the form of solid biomass used in traditional methods for cooking and charcoal production, which is a major cause of household air pollution and premature deaths. Modern solid bioenergy, which accounts for the remainder, is used to produce liquid and gaseous biofuels or electricity and heat or is consumed directly in end-use sectors. …
In the NZE, the supply of modern solid bioenergy expands to 75 EJ in 2050, of which around 45% comes from forestry by-products and residues, 25% from energy crops, and the remainder from agricultural residues and municipal solid waste.
… much to the delight of profiteers:
“While there is no silver bullet to achieve net-zero, sustainable wood bioenergy is a proven technology that can be expanded at scale – today – to accelerate the energy transition,” said John Keppler, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Enviva. “The IEA is a prominent member of the growing chorus of respected climate and energy authorities and policymakers that recognize the role modern bioenergy plays as a part of the global solution to climate change.”
… paving the way for other biomass products:
Australian Energy Ministers agreed in August to expedite reforms to support investment in projects that will help to scale up the hydrogen and biomethane industries.
Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction, Angus Taylor, said the reforms support the Morrison Government’s actions to build a clean hydrogen industry and expand biomethane opportunities through reducing regulatory barriers.
“These reforms will encourage even more innovative projects to be rolled out across Australia by ensuring regulation doesn’t restrict investment,” said Taylor. “This will also ensure consumers are adequately protected if using these low emission technologies.
“Blending biomethane and hydrogen into our gas network is an important measure to increase domestic demand and grow these new industries. This scale is needed to help reach our ‘H2 under $2 (€1.28)’ goal under the Technology Investment Roadmap and be a major global player in clean hydrogen by 2030.
Biomass burning a side issue for COP 26
It seems that burning forests for electricity will not make it onto the main agenda at COP 26, though will be a major side issue with biomass companies promising to use elusive carbon capture and storage to bury their emissions provided they get more subsidies, while the “cut carbon not forests” campaign seeks to stop the industry.
While the industry generally maintains that it only uses wood waste or low-value trees to make pellets, critics have issued reports with photographs that they say show destructive logging practices and the conversion of entire trees to wood pellets.
The scientists maintain that subsidies have escalated tree harvesting for energy production at a rate that is creating a “carbon debt” that eventually might be paid back by regrowth—but not nearly fast enough. In 2018, Sterman was lead author of a scientific paper published in Environmental Research Letters that said the time frame was as long as 104 years, depending on forest type.
In a report made public on Thursday, the London-based think tank Chatham House and the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts, formerly the Woods Hole Research Center, concluded that U.S.-sourced wood pellets burned for energy in the U.K. were responsible for 13 million to 16 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, almost none of which are included in that country’s official greenhouse gas inventory.
A new report from the U.K.-based think tank Ember notes that per kilowatt hour, burning wood pellets emits more carbon dioxide than burning coal, helping to make Drax the U.K.’s largest single source of carbon dioxide emissions. Ember previously found that Drax received more than £800 million in subsidies last year and is on pace to receive £10 billion in subsidies between 2012 until 2027, when the financial support is to run out.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17102021/biomass-wood-pellet-us-uk-subsidies/
In his statement to Mongabay Randall predicted: “It is only a matter of time before the U.K. government begins to re-examine [biomass] as part of its energy mix. Other countries, at COP26, will see the U.K. realizing that pursuing biomass electricity has been a mistake for the climate, people, and nature. They should not follow the U.K. down the path of dirty biomass electricity.”
Carbon accounting legalities aside, both new studies, and many before them, have found that burning wood pellets produces more CO2 emissions than burning coal per unit of energy, and that newly planted trees take decades, if not centuries, to offset the daily emissions from burning tonnes of wood pellets for energy and heat, thus negating the real-time carbon neutrality claim.
Birdsey, a forestry expert at Woodwell, said environmentalists will need to be patient in awaiting policy changes.
“The (bioenergy) industry is a powerful and entrenched lobby and a lot of countries are depending on carbon neutrality to meet their [emission reduction] targets. They are not interested in seeing any changes made,” he said. “I don’t think any single report is going to matter that much. But as they accumulate, I do think some minds are changing.”
Thunberg also accused the UK, the US and China of spinning emissions statistics to make it appear that their levels are lower.
She wrote: “Between 1990 and 2016, the UK lowered its territorial emissions by 41%. However, once you include the full scale of the UK emissions – such as consumption of imported goods, international aviation and shipping etc – the reduction is more like 15%.
“And this is excluding burning of biomass, like at Drax’s Selby plant – a heavily subsidised so-called “renewable” power plant that is, according to analysis, the UK’s biggest single emitter of CO2 and the third biggest in all of Europe. And yet the government still considers the UK to be a global climate leader.
Chinks develop in Biomass fantasy:
S&P Global Dow Jones axed Drax from the index of the world’s greenest energy companies after changing its methodology in recognition of mounting doubts over the sustainability of wood-burning power plants within the financial sector. We need to use this chink to drive a wooden stake through its heart.
However, the Jefferies equity analyst Luke Sussams said bioenergy was unlikely to make a positive contribution to climate action because of “uncertainties and poor practices” in some parts of the timber industry regarding the sources of wood, forest management practices, supply chain emissions and high combustion emissions.
“We argue that bioenergy production is not carbon neutral, in almost all instances. …
Despite the growing concerns, Susamms expects the UK government to continue allowing Drax to rake in billions in subsidies to support its plans. Drax’s share price has climbed by more than 4.5% to 540p a share this week.
Its BECCS plans could cost British energy bill payers £31.7bn over 25 years and would “not deliver negative emissions” after accounting for the full carbon footprint of biomass in the power sector, according to the climate thinktank Ember.
Climate change ravishes South America
From Patagonia to Paraguay South America is suffering from extreme droughts as climate change ravishes multiple countries. Chile is suffering from “a 13-year drought, its longest and most severe in 1,000 years”, Bolivia has suffered “two brutally dry years” that “have left millions of acres ravaged by wildfire, and lakes formerly used for drinking water as dry as deserts”, Argentina “is being hammered by drought”, and Brazil is facing “what is shaping up to be the worst drought in nearly a century.”
… and Africa:
Cameroon blames its loss over 1.5 million hectares of forest from 2000 to 2017, mostly in the Congo Basin, on climate change, and it appears to have accelerated since then.
Accounting for the unseen:
Focussing attention on the subsurface water flows in riparian areas near streams.
In a new study, scientists conclude that the sideways flow of water through soil can have an important impact on how riparian forests respond to climate change. Models used to predict the future plight of forests typically don’t account for this factor — but they should, researchers say.
“There hasn’t been a lot of attention on groundwater and how the movement of water from one location to another below ground can impact plants’ survival prospects, making some locations drier, and others wetter,” says lead author Xiaonan Tai, PhD, assistant professor of biological sciences at New Jersey Institute of Technology. “Groundwater is a hidden water source for ecosystems that people have neglected over the years: It is very hard to observe and quantify, just because we can’t see it. The contribution of our new research is to begin characterizing lateral groundwater processes and quantifying how much of a role they can have in terms of influencing the future of forests."
The study was published in July in Environmental Research Letters,
https://www.miragenews.com/whats-missing-from-forest-mortality-projections-655117/
Forest clearing continues despite protections:
A 2019 assessment found northeast India continues to lose forests with a loss of about 3,199 sq kms of forests since 2009. Arunachal Pradesh lost 276.22 sq kms since 2017 despite the “cutting of trees and timber business” being “banned by the Supreme Court many years back”.
Reduction in forest cover is caused by a variety of reasons, including jhum (shifting) cultivation, timber business, conversion of forested areas for construction of houses, offices and irrigation fields, hill-cutting to create real estate, firewood, etc. Rampant deforestation has been aggravated by the easy availability of handheld sawing machines. Hundreds of handheld sawing machines are held by local villagers, leading to rampant cutting of trees. Most of these trees and bamboos are ferried on rafts and sold in Assam.
Only those forests are surviving where humans, vehicles and elephants cannot venture due to tough terrain. On a small scale, some government-declared reserve forests are being preserved. Some trees and plants are being revived due to plantation crops like tea, rubber, orange, oil palm, etc.
https://arunachaltimes.in/index.php/2021/10/17/depleting-forest-cover/
Recent satellite data has shown a marked increase in the loss of tree cover in Papua New Guinea’s East New Britain province which appears to be due to logging.
A decade ago, ENB province was heavily forested, with more than 98% of its primary forest remaining. But an increase in logging and the establishment of oil palm plantations has pushed the loss of tree cover higher. Before 2008, the area of lost tree cover annually topped out at 3,640 hectares (nearly 9,000 acres). But since that time, deforestation has increased exponentially, with tree cover loss reaching more than 20,000 hectares (around 50,000 acres) in 2015. In the past few years, the level of loss has remained high. GFW analysis shows that this part of New Britain Island has lost 10% of its tree cover between 2001 and 2020, with nearly 60% occurring in primary forest.
Today, foreign companies continue to show interest in converting the forests of New Britain Island to both timber and oil palm plantations, and there are concerns that some high-level leaders in PNG are more motivated by the money they can extract from these companies than keeping the forests standing. An October 2021 investigation by the watchdog NGO Global Witness caught representatives of a Malaysian-run oil palm company called East New Britain Resources Group discussing how they bribed ministers in PNG and used the police to suppress opposition to the group’s plantations. The individuals who had been recorded denied involvement in illegal activity when contacted by Global Witness.
… corruption runs riot:
The Democratic Republic of Congo encompasses 60 percent of the Congo Basin’s 375 million hectares of dense forests, the second-largest tropical forest in the world, one of the world’s lungs. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) committed to a three-year credit for $1.5 billion provided the DRC enhanced the fight against graft and lopsided mining agreements granted to foreign firms, prompting a clean up.
President Felix Tshisekedi, he said, has also ordered Ève Bazaiba, the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of the Environment and Sustainable Development, to suspend “all doubtful contracts pending the outcome of the audit.”
According to an initial verification, the Congolese government claims numerous “illegal” contracts, among them “those signed in September 2020, including six concessions by a single company covering a total area of 1,376,375 hectares in violation of the law.”
DRC law limits the acreage control by a single firm to 500,000 hectares.
… degazettal a growing threat:
Around the world protected areas are coming under increasing attack from illegal encroachments, and also from governments degazetting them. In Malaysia the rapid shrinking of protected areas is being blamed for increasing wildlife conflicts.
In 2014, the Johor government excised 15,011 hectares out of the Jemaluang and Tenggaroh forest reserves. …
An undisclosed area of the land was privatised and now belongs to the ruler of Johor, Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar
Before, the nearby forests – comprising the Jemaluang and Tenggaroh forest reserves – stretched for 25 kilometres along the coast. But land clearing removed 21 per cent of the forests. Upcoming projects will shrink them by at least another 24 per cent.
TURNING IT AROUND
Kunming Declaration fails biodiversity:
The first round of negotiations at Kunming aimed at establishing multilateral commitments to turn around the world’s sixth extinction through united effort resulted in bugger all, just another series of motherhood statements dubbed the ‘Kunming Declaration’, with no concrete commitments. This will now go forward to the spring 2022 session of the UN biodiversity negotiations.
Kunming Declaration, Declaration from the High-Level Segment of the UN Biodiversity Conference 2020 (Part 1) under the theme: “Ecological Civilization: Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth”
Emphasizing that biodiversity, and the ecosystem functions and services it provides, support all forms of life on Earth and underpin our human and planetary health and well-being, economic growth and sustainable development,
Acknowledging with grave concern that the unprecedented and interrelated crises of biodiversity loss, climate change, land degradation and desertification, ocean degradation, and pollution, and increasing risks to human health and food security, pose an existential threat to our society, our culture, our prosperity and our planet,
Noting the call of many countries to protect and conserve 30% of land and sea areas through well-connected systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures by 2030,
https://www.cbd.int/doc/c/99c8/9426/1537e277fa5f846e9245a706/kunmingdeclaration-en.pdf
Strength in numbers:
In America the Family Forest Carbon Program pays family and individual small forest owners to implement practices that increase the amount of carbon sequestered and stored on the land, though it seems to be primarily focussed on short-term storage and facilitating logging, never-the-less the concept of joining numerous small land owners together to enable them to participate in the carbon market is sound.
The program, a product of the American Forest Foundation and the Nature Conservancy, enables the carbon sequestered by enrolled landowners to become part of a carbon market in the form of carbon credits to be verified by a third party. The program provides expert consultation from foresters to landowners and a forest management plan customized for the landowner’s property.
“We built into [the program] a management plan, not to tell them what to do but to help them reach the goals and visions they have for their land, put it into a management plan so that their woods are producing timber, wildlife, carbon for the years to come,” American Forest Foundation CEO Tom Martin said.
Enrollment is being offered for one of two improved management practices. One consists of sustainable harvesting, and the other improves new forest growth by managing invasive species and undergrowth.
They have the idea, but are they really solving the problem?:
Insurer AXA say “Forests represent 80% of the Earth's biodiversity and play an essential role in the fight against climate change” and that it has over 60,000 hectares of forests in its portfolio, which it appears is used for logging.
Deforestation is one of the main causes of biodiversity loss and carbon emissions, the company said. AXA also underlined in a release that the destruction of the world’s forests is a double loss for the planet’s climate, as forests are the greatest contributors to carbon capture.
To protect the world’s forests, AXA will invest €1.5 billion (approximately AU$2.35 billion) billion) to support sustainable forest management – which includes €500 million in reforestation projects in emerging countries. These efforts will enable a total of 25 megatons of CO2 to be captured each year.
Give trees a chance:
There are growing efforts to allow forests to naturally regenerate where possible, to assist it where needed and only resort to planting where necessary. This is more cost and environmentally effective.
- Tree-planting schemes are common these days, and they’re touted as one of the best tools we have to combat climate change, species extinction, and other environmental crises.
- But natural regeneration — allowing forests to reestablish themselves — is increasingly being recognized as a more cost-effective strategy for meeting ambitious forest restoration targets.
- Natural regeneration can occur on its own, just by stepping back and letting trees grow. But sometimes it’s more effective to assist regeneration with measures such as putting up fences, removing weeds, and addressing the pressures that lead to logging and other disturbances.
- Recent research focuses on identifying the conditions necessary for natural regeneration to occur.
Karen Holl, an expert in restoration ecology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said she agreed that forest restorers should consider natural regeneration first, before tree planting. “When I’m talking to people about tree planting campaigns, what I always say is, first of all, we should call it tree growing, not planting,” Holl told Mongabay. “People immediately think, ‘Let’s plant trees.’ But the default should be, ‘Will they regenerate on their own?’”
If the answer is “no,” for a given site, then it makes sense to move on to planting trees, Holl said.
Forest Media 15 October 2021
The Natural Resources Commission (NRC) had a busy week releasing a series of reports on Koalas, bushfires, water catchments and soils. These are components of their overview and monitoring of the Regional Forest Agreements. The Koala report reaffirms that Koalas prefer trees over 30cm diameter of certain individuals (low toxic compounds) of certain species (high nutrients) and then claims that logging such trees has no impact on Koalas, so its business as usual. The bushfire and soil reports paint a grim future of declining soil carbon, declining ranges of many species, and increasing fires due to both logging and climate heating. The water report is equivocal. It is concerning that none of them consider the actual measures applied to mitigate impacts, their efficacy and improvements needed, nor do they intend to monitor their effectiveness. All they intend is broad monitoring of environmental trends.
Following questioning from Justin Fields about the NSW Department of Primary Industry’s multiple meetings with Verdant Earth at Redbank, DPI freaked out and tried to distance themselves by requesting Verdant remove their logo from Verdant's website along with reference to them as a project partner. As woodchips are proposed to be exported to Japan, they can’t afford to thin and replant their own plantations due to cheap imports.
A warning that the world’s 6th major extinction is progressing rapidly with the risk of Australia losing 75 per cent of our species over the next 2 centuries. Victoria cannot show if, or how, it is halting the decline of the state's threatened species, turns out they are just too expensive to save.
While their appeal grows, populations of some native bees were decimated by the 2019/20 wildfires, with 2 uplisted to endangered and 9 vulnerable. DPI have an informative webinar on the critically endangered Swift Parrot and Regent Honeyeater, our most endangered nectarivores. Superb Blue Wrens voted most appealing. Despite the debate over compulsory Covid vaccinations for people, Koalas are being compulsory treated with a novel chlamydia vaccine. Friends of the Koala are behind a proposal for a wildlife hospital at Wollongbar in the northern rivers.
Australia is ranked 13th in the world for our cumulative carbon emissions from 1850-2021, from both fossil fuels and landclearing, contributing 1.4% of the world’s CO2. Since 2000, flood-related disasters have increased by 134% and the number and duration of droughts increased by 29% compared to the two previous decades. And it only cost US$5.9 trillion last year in worldwide government subsidies for coal, oil, and gas industries.
This is the week where the world agrees to turn around the extinction crisis, or not, in Kunming, China. Australia punches above its weight, ranking 3rd in the world for species extinctions and first for mammals. We have protected 18% of our land area (9% in NSW), though support the proposed goal to protect 30 per cent globally of land areas and of sea areas by 2030, just not for us. Conflict grows with people being removed from new reserves. Captain Kirk supports Canadian oldgrowth, while protectors battle for secondary forests in California.
The focus is increasingly on the COP26 climate talks early next month in Glasgow. Even Morisson is going after being chided by our prince. Dan Ilic’s crowdfunding for $12,000 for 2 billboards in Glasgow during the COP26 to poke fun at Australia’s coal/gas lead recovery has surpassed $151,000 and spread to Times Square. Clearing of vegetation has contributed a third of the atmospheric carbon, forests take-up 30% of our carbon emissions, their sequestration is increasing as atmospheric carbon does, and yet their future is being jeopardised by clearing, droughts and fires. While there are major reforestation projects underway to increase carbon sequestration, they have been captured by plantations, suffered from inappropriate plantings and dispossessed local communities, and are used as an excuse to continue emitting CO2. Though there have been positive outcomes, the World Bank claims 15 Emission Reductions Payment Agreements they have signed with countries under the REDD+ scheme commit over US$720 million for reductions of nearly 145 million tons of carbon emissions as a success (?).
Many want COP26 to refocus on meaningful and effective Natural Climate Solutions as an integral component of emissions reductions, though many environment groups want Natural Climate Solutions excluded. In Australia the farmers and Nationals are using restrictions on landclearing as an example of the cost to landholders of the Kyoto Protocol and want retrospective compensation – they obviously haven’t factored in NSW and Queensland’s subsequent free-for-all. There are numerous environmental tree plantings going on around the world, with some scientists saying Australia could restore 13 million hectares of over-cleared ecosystems on degraded land for $2 billion annually for 30 years, all of which could be paid for with carbon credits
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Natural Resources Commission
The Natural Resources Commission (NRC) had a busy week releasing a series of reports on Koalas, bushfires, water catchments and soils. These are components of their overview and monitoring of the Regional Forest Agreements. The Koala report reaffirms that Koalas prefer trees over 30cm diameter of certain individuals (low toxic compounds) of certain species (high nutrients) and then claims that logging such trees has no impact on Koalas, so its business as usual. The bushfire and soil reports paint a grim future of declining soil carbon, declining ranges of many species, and increasing fires due to both logging and climate heating. The water report is equivocal. It is concerning that none of them consider the actual measures applied to mitigate impacts, their efficacy and improvements needed, nor do they intend to monitor them. All they intend is broad monitoring of environmental trends.
https://www.nrc.nsw.gov.au/publications
… Koalas:
The Natural Resources Commission (NRC) have released their final report “Koala response to harvesting in NSW north coast state forests” which relies upon a dubious DPI Forestry assessment to claim that logging has no impacts on koalas.
NEFA’s press release stated in part:
“The NRC’s pretence that the Forestry Corporation can log the large trees that Koala’s are preferentially feeding on and have no impact on Koalas maintains a dangerous fallacy that is one of the reasons why Koala populations on the north coast had declined by 50% in the 20 years before the 2019/20 fires.
“The NRC confirms that the 2019/20 fires had a significant impact of Koalas, yet it proposes nothing to mitigate impacts. Surely there should at least be a moratorium on logging in or near burnt high quality koala habitat until Koala populations have been assessed as recovered from the fires.
“The NRC were meant to review the adequacy of the existing logging prescriptions, but instead have relied upon a fundamentally flawed assessment by DPI Forestry to claim that logging has no impact on Koalas to justify not reviewing the clearly inadequate logging rules. Even though NRC admitted the impacts of the fires it similarly failed to recommend any changes to account for them. The NRC have failed Koalas in their time of greatest need” Mr. Pugh said.
I had a bit of coverage on ABC radio as a counterpoint to their claims of no impact, though with the NRC’s backing it was a losing debate.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-15/report-finds-logging-has-no-affect-on-koala-numbers/100539690
The NRC extolled the scientific integrity of their research, trying to conflate the logging study done by DPI Forestry with the other expert studies into very different issues.
The NSW timber industry’s harvesting practices on the north coast have been vindicated in a research paper released yesterday. The Natural Resources Commissioner, Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte, said koala density was higher than anticipated in the surveyed forests and was not reduced by selective harvesting.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/research-paper-says-koalas-are-happy-in-harvested-north-coast-forests/
The loggers were understandably delighted.
The NSW north coast forestry koala habitat protection practices are working well. Latest research from the Natural Resources Commission (NRC) has settled beyond all doubt that koalas are safe and sound living and traversing the hardwood forests where highly regulated harvesting occurs
https://www.miragenews.com/unexpected-research-outcomes-for-koalas-and-650608/
… water:
The Natural Resources Commission (NRC) released the Melbourne University report “Long-term trends of Water Quality and Quantity of forested catchments within the NSW Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) regions”. They identified significant long-term declines in catchment runoff on the south coast, but claimed that the relationships between logging and fire on runoff are equivocal, providing a somewhat biased review of previous paired catchment studies. Key findings on the long-term trends are:
-
Within the NSW RFA regions, over at least the last 35 years, forested catchments (75 catchments with >50% forest coverage) either show statistically significant decreases at a 0.05 level (29 catchments) or insignificant decreases (46 catchments) in annual flow based on hydrological years. No catchment shows increasing annual flow. Most catchments showing significant flow decreases are within the Southern RFA region.
For catchments that had significant flow decreases, the magnitude of decline is around 10 to 20% per decade relative to the long-term mean annual flow.
Specifically, a smaller reduction in flow is correlated individually with i) higher mean annual flow ii) higher proportion of catchment area as national park, iii) higher proportion of catchment area being harvested, and iv) higher proportion of catchment area being burnt. However, defining baseline and explaining spatial differences in flow trends are made challenging by the high cross-correlations between catchment characteristics in climate, hydrology and disturbance history.
… soils
The Natural Resources Commission (NRC) released the DPIE/University of Sydney report “Determining baselines, drivers and trends of soil health and stability in New South Wales forests – Regional Forest Agreement regions”. Basically they concluded there was very little baseline data to measure anything against, so more information will be collected as we blunder on in ignorance, despite the evidence that soil health is declining. It is noted “very little monitoring has been undertaken in the last decade”. It is interesting that they refer to a 2008/9 NSW Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting (MER) program initiated by NRC that sampled 800 paired soil sites as baselines to be remeasured every 5 years, but only 60 have since been remeasured – and none were remeasured for this project. This is a clear demonstration of what we can expect in the future - ignorance is bliss.
WTF. It is astounding that soil data collected by the Forestry Corporation as part of its licence requirements is not shared and was not considered!
Forestry Corporation of NSW collect soil regolith information within the RFA regions from state forests as part of an inherent soil erosion and water pollution hazard assessment prior to timber harvesting and commencement of roading operations in native forests as a requirement of the Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals. This information is not submitted to the NSW Soil and Land Information System and is thus not available for this analysis.
Despite model performance being limited by the lack of current soil data, the digital soil modelling undertaken indicates significant impacts of logging, burning and grazing on soil organic carbon (SOC), that will be greatly increased as climate change progresses, representing a major impact:
- Increased forest disturbance (as represented by the FDI) results in decreasing SOC and increasing bulk density, suggesting poorer soil structure and condition. These changes are typical for any human operation that removes carbon-based products and sees a reduction in vegetation cover, such as timber harvesting and stock grazing. The modelling revealed that areas of moderate disturbance (e.g. subject to periodic stock grazing) had greater impact on forest SOC, bulk density and associated soil condition than less disturbed areas.
- Climate change was shown to contribute to a decline in SOC over most of the region. The projected decline in SOC suggests an associated decline in soil condition suggests that forest managers will have to implement appropriate soil carbon-enhancing strategies to maintain current SOC levels. This also has implications for identifying ongoing net carbon emissions from NSW lands, with respect to aiming for Net Zero Emissions (NSW Government 2016; DPIE 2020) and mitigating climate change.
- Climate change was also shown to contribute to a slight rise in pH over most of the region. Any significant change in soil pH, either rise or fall, can be detrimental to natural ecosystems that are adapted to particular pH ranges. A resulting degree of migration of ecosystems may be an eventual consequence of these changes (Steffen et al. 2009).
- Bushfires are demonstrated to have a major influence on SOC, with a dramatic loss predicted immediately following the bushfire, in the order of 50% (relative loss). This is followed by a gradual recovery of SOC in the following years, with over 60% recovery after 20 years and approaching re-equilibrium levels after approximately 75 years. Based on this scenario, SOC may be subject to continuous decline with more frequent fires. Further analysis is required to evaluate this trend. The influences of prescribed and cultural burning on SOC were not assessed in this study, but should be examined in ongoing monitoring programs.
…No SOC decline occurs over relatively undisturbed lands, then moderate declines (mean -9% in relative terms for 0-30 cm) over partially disturbed lands, and highest declines (mean -20.38% in relative terms) over moderately disturbed, periodically grazed forest lands …
[By 2070 climate change causes] A mean relative loss of 17% for the 0-30 cm interval is projected over both North east subregions, rising to over 37% relative loss in the Southern region. The results represent the mean of 12 climate model projections under the IPCC intermediate A2 emission scenario applied in the NARCliM program (Evans et al. 2014).
… fire:
The assessment of the 2019/20 fires by the University of Wollongong (Risks to the NSW Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals Posed by the 2019/2020 Fire Season and Beyond) shows that the vulnerability of ecosystems and species has been significantly elevated, which will be compounded by likely future changes in fire regimes and species distributions. Those species most likely to suffer significant declines in predicted suitable habitat under future climate scenarios by 2030, and known to be vulnerable to increased fire, include: Eastern Pygmy-possum, Spotted-tailed Quoll, Yellow-bellied Glider, White-footed Dunnart, Red-legged Pademelon, Glossy Black-Cockatoo, Powerful Owl, Masked Owl, Sooty Owl, Eastern False Pipistrelle, Golden-tipped Bat, Greater Broad-nosed Bat, Stuttering Frog, Giant Barred Frog. Note Koala was unable to be modelled.
These changes to fire regimes, wrought by the 2019/20 fires, were likely to pose significant risks to the CIFOA objectives and outcomes. Importantly the magnitude of the fires and their effect on disturbance regimes have placed the CIFOA, generally, in a highly vulnerable state where risk may be maintained at an elevated level into the immediate future. In particular, the integrity of riparian buffers, regeneration, hollows and carbon stocks may have been negatively directly affected by the 2019/20 fires and resultant changes to disturbance regimes.
Indicators of plant biodiversity responses were significantly shifted into a vulnerable state (circa 50 percent of the area of National Parks estate and State Forests), along with a small increase in the proportion of area of most vegetation formations that were deemed to be too frequently burnt. Notably, a large proportion of rainforest assessed was shifted into this state (> 50 percent). Predicted suitable habitat for 25 threatened vertebrate species (including 17 focal species listed for the CIFOA) was substantially burnt by the 2019/20 fires (up to 62 percent) and resultant shifts in fire regimes for the bulk of these species may constitute a significant risk to key habitat elements such as hollows, nesting and food resources. A substantial proportion (about 15 percent) of a sample of major catchments across the CIFOA was burned in 2019/20. The magnitude of burning and severity patterns, coupled with well above average rainfall post-fire throughout 2020 into early 2021were likely to have resulted in significant erosion, transport and deposition of soil, ash and other material into waterways and estuaries. Resultant compromised water quality was likely to have posed significant risk to aquatic biodiversity.
Increases in adverse fire weather were predicted across CIFOA using the NSW and ACT Regional Climate Modelling (NARCliM) ensemble, in both the near (2020 to 2039) and far (2060 to 2079) future. Such shifts in fire weather were likely to result in increased area burned by wildfires in sample case studies corresponding to the range of CIFOA regions across the domain of the CIFOA. Such trends potentially elevate risks to CIFOA objectives and outcomes, while capacity to mitigate these risks may be constrained. Changes in projected suitable habitat for the range of threatened vertebrate species may either elevate or buffer risks sustained by changes in future fire regimes.
DPI withdraw public support for Redbank when under scrutiny:
Following questioning from Justin Fields about the NSW Department of Primary Industry’s multiple meetings with Verdant Earth at Redbank, DPI freaked out and tried to distance themselves by requesting Verdant remove their logo from Verdant's website along with reference to them as a project partner.
A DPI spokeswoman said there were "no agreements of any nature" between the department and Verdant or Sweetman Renewables.
"DPI is not involved in the Redbank project and is not actively working to support it," she said.
A spokeswoman for Verdant told the Herald that the company had no agreements to secure future wood supply contracts from the Forestry Corporation of NSW or the NSW government.
https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/7461511/redbank-biomass-links-questioned/
Australian exports undermine Japanese industry:
Japan established many plantations after World War II that are now uneconomic to thin and manage due to competition from imports. So stopping woodchip exports from Newcastle would help.
Battered by inexpensive timber imports, the forest industry in Japan is suffering from weakened competitiveness and unable to properly thin and replant trees
AUSTRALIA
Extinction beckons:
Professor of ecology at Flinders University Corey Bradshaw is warning that the world’s 6th major extinction is progressing rapidly with the risk of losing 75 per cent of our species over the next 2 centuries.
It’s the frequency of extreme events that become the problem,” Dr Bradshaw said, explaining that recurring disasters didn’t give time for fragile wildlife to recover.
“It’s like you smack them on the head and they have time to heal; and then you smack them again, they’re still going to be around. But if you smack them again and again, the chance of survival is much lower.”
“At the rate we’re going we’ll lose 75 per cent of our species in a couple of hundred years potentially causing an extinction event that’s equivalent to the loss of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.”
“Koalas are stuffed,” he told news.com.au.
“When they go extinct is up for debate, but whether they will go extinct is not really up for debate anymore.
Victorian threatened species threatened by inaction:
A report by the Victorian auditor-general found the government cannot show if, or how, it is halting the decline of the state's threatened species, with chronic underfunding of recovery actions.
The government's investment in a 20-year plan to halt biodiversity loss was $110 million short over its first four years, and there remains an annual shortfall of $38 million in ongoing funding.
The department had advised the government that level of funding was "likely to result in the state's inability to preserve its 10 endangered icon species" and "many more vulnerable species becoming endangered".
[David Lindenmayer] "We know from analysis using the government's own data, that places that are planned to be logged under the timber release plan are also the very same places that have the highest conservation value for Victoria's 70 threatened forest-dependent species."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-13/biodiversity-loss-threatened-species-victoria/100534548
There are 550 critically endangered species in Victoria, such as the Baw-Baw frog, Leadbeater’s possum and the Mount Cole grevillea. Many of the species may not be adequately protected by the department’s broad-action approach, the Auditor-General found, and many need individual and targeted action for which current funding does not allow.
https://www.northernriversreview.com.au/story/7468495/vic-dept-may-be-missing-endangered-species/
SPECIES
Bees burn as appeal grows:
Populations of some native bees were decimated by the 2019/20 wildfires, with 2 uplisted to endangered and 9 vulnerable.
The Flinders University study found between 50 to 80 per cent of some species' habitat had been destroyed, with two native bee species moved to the endangered list and another nine marked vulnerable.
PhD candidate James Dorey said the findings were shocking.
"It's shocking because this is caused by just a single fire event," he said.
Focus on Swift Parrot and Regent Honeyeater:
The DPI have an informative webinar on the critically endangered Swift Parrot and Regent Honeyeater. These are our 2 most endangered nectivorous birds, as such it is the older and larger trees they rely upon for their more abundant nectar and more frequent flowering, with Spotted Gum particularly important in winter. Given that the Hunter Valley is of recognised importance, these are also the species most directly threatened by Redbank.
“Recent studies indicate there could be as few as 750 swift parrots left in the wild with the remaining regent honeyeater population estimated at around 250-350.
You can view the webinar via https://vimeo.com/599510135 (using Google Chrome for the best viewing experience).
For more information on the birds visit https://birdlife.org.au/projects/woodland-birds-for-biodiversity.
https://coastcommunitynews.com.au/central-coast/news/2021/10/endangered-bird-webinar-popular/
Superb Blue Wrens most appealing:
The Guardian/BirdLife Australia 2021 bird of the year poll ended with the superb fairywren coming out on top.
Koalas not given choice in vaccine rollout:
Despite the debate over compulsory Covid vaccinations for people, Koalas are being compulsory treated with a novel chlamydia vaccine.
USC is leading a Phase 3 rollout of a koala chlamydia vaccine that has been developed collaboratively over many years with many partners, including the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital where the vaccine will be trialled in about 400 koalas from today (15 October).
“Although many koalas with chlamydia can be treated using traditional antibiotics, some animals cannot be saved due to the severity of their infection. Having a vaccine that can help prevent both infection and the severity of the disease is a critical element in the species’ conservation management.”
Koala rehabilitation still generating interest:
Friends of the Koala are behind a proposal for a wildlife hospital at Wollongbar in the northern rivers.
A proposal for a wildlife hospital on a 2.39 hectare parcel of Crown land in Lindendale Road at Wollongbar, is before Ballina Council and on public exhibition. Northern Rivers Wildlife Hospital chair, Ninian Gemmell, welcomed consent for the use of Crown land for the proposed hospital.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/10/wildlife-hospital-sets-sights-on-wollongbar-location/
Zoos Victoria has made it their mission to provide wildlife with ongoing support, kickstarting the Bushfire Emergency Wildlife Fund, which has $17M worth of bushfire projects in the works.
https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/rescuing-rehabilitating-releasing-injured-koalas/
Planting of Koala corridors is underway at Gunnedah.
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2021/10/14/gunnedahs-koala-habitats-given-a-boost/
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Australia responsible for 1.4% of world’s C02.
Carbon Brief have done an assessment to identify countries’ cumulative carbon emissions from 1850-2021, accounting for emissions from both fossil fuels and landclearing. This cements the United States as by far the biggest culprit, responsible for 509 GtCO2 (20%) of the world’s emissions, since 1850. Far back are China (11%) and Russia (7%). Brazil and Indonesia have been elevated to fourth and fifth places largely because of landclearing. Australia is at thirteenth place with the release of 18.9 GtCO2 from fossil fuels and 16.1GtCO2 from land clearing, representing 1.4% of the world’s emissions. On a per capita basis (based on current population) Australia is ranked fourth, with each of us taking responsibility for a cumulative 1,388 GtCO2.
In total, humans have pumped around 2,500bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) into the atmosphere since 1850, leaving less than 500GtCO2 of remaining carbon budget to stay below 1.5C of warming.
At a global level, emissions from land use and forestry have remained relatively consistent over the past two centuries. They amounted to around 3GtCO2 in 1850 and stand at roughly 6GtCO2 today, despite huge shifts in regional patterns of deforestation over time.
Land-use change and forestry added some 786GtCO2 during 1850-2021, amounting to nearly a third of cumulative total, with the remaining two-thirds (1,718GtCO2) from fossil fuels and cement.
From the start of 2022, the remaining 1.5C budget (50% probability) would be used up within 10 years, if annual emissions remain at current levels – and the budget for a two-thirds likelihood of staying below 1.5C would last just seven years.
The emissions from clearing out forests are not the only threat deforestation poses to the global climate. Along with the oceans, forests are a major source of uptake of global emissions. That means we need the forests standing to capture the carbon we’re releasing into the atmosphere.
https://www.miragenews.com/to-fight-climate-crisis-we-need-our-forests-651480/
Intensifying water cycle:
The 2021 edition of the World Meteorological Office State of Climate Services report focuses on water, identifying a number of worrying trends as the water cycle is amplified by climate heating.
- Over the past 20 years, terrestrial water loss has been occurring at approximately 1cm/year.
- 3 billion people live in water stressed countries, of which 733 million live in high and critically water-stressed countries.
- since 2000, flood-related disasters have increased by 134%, compared with the two previous decades.
- The number and duration of droughts also increased by 29% since 2000 compared to the two previous decades.
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/8d00bb8d495b48789d01ce49c7063362
Subsidising our demise:
The coal, oil, and gas industries received US$5.9 trillion in worldwide subsidies in 2020—a mind-bending $11.2 million per minute, every minute of every hour of every day in the year—the International Monetary Fund (IMF) revealed in an analysis released this week.
TURNING IT AROUND
Simplifying biodiversity:
Past international agreements have failed to stem the earth’s haemorrhaging of biodiversity as out 6th major extinction gathers pace. The latest attempt to get common agreement on action is being played out in Kunming, China, to finalise a Kunming Declaration and Framework to aim to govern how the world deals with the biodiversity crisis from 2020 to 2030, with aspirations for 2050. The draft agreement seeks to ensure that global biodiversity is "on a path to recovery by 2030 at the latest", though the proposed targets are heavily qualified to make them non-binding aspirations. Given the abject failure of the previous Aichi Targets there is reason for pessimism.
"The World Economic Forum [put] a value on the loss of nature as $44 trillion in terms of what we've lost so far," said James Watson, a Professor of Conservation Science from the University of Queensland.
There's a lot at stake for Australia.
It is ranked third in the world for the most species extinction and number one when it comes to extinctions of mammals. More than a third of all mammal extinctions since industrialisation have occurred in Australia.
A study this year found that 19 ecosystems in Australia are now "collapsing" — including the crucial Murray-Darling Basin and the Great Barrier Reef.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-11/cop15-china-aims-at-reversing-biodiversity-loss/100524696
Australia is seen as a “global pariah” on biodiversity protection, says Brendan Wintle, an expert in conservation ecology from the University of Melbourne.
Professor Wintle estimated Australia needs to spend $1.5 billion to $2 billion a year to halt biodiversity decline. In comparison, Australians spend about $12 billion a year on their pets.
A spokesperson for Ms Ley said Australia was committed to finalising an ambitious global biodiversity framework. “Australia fully supports a High Ambition Coalition global target of protecting 30 per cent of the world’s land and 30 per cent of the world’s oceans to support biodiversity as part of that vision,” they said.
The Framework comprises 21 targets and 10 ‘milestones’ proposed for 2030, en route to ‘living in harmony with nature’ by 2050. Key targets include:
- Ensure that at least 30 per cent globally of land areas and of sea areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and its contributions to people, are conserved through effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems of protected areas and other effective area based conservation measures, and integrated into the wider landscapes and seascapes.
- Prevent or reduce the rate of introduction and establishment of invasive alien species by 50% and control or eradicate such species to eliminate or reduce their impacts.
- Reduce nutrients lost to the environment by at least half, pesticides by at least two thirds, and eliminate discharge of plastic waste.
- Use ecosystem-based approaches to contribute to mitigation and adaptation to climate change, contributing at least 10 GtCO2e per year to mitigation; and ensure that all mitigation and adaptation efforts avoid negative impacts on biodiversity.
- Redirect, repurpose, reform or eliminate incentives harmful for biodiversity in a just and equitable way, reducing them by at least $500 billion per year.
- Increase financial resources from all sources to at least US$ 200 billion per year, including new, additional and effective financial resources, increasing by at least US$ 10 billion per year international financial flows to developing countries, leveraging private finance, and increasing domestic resource mobilization, taking into account national biodiversity finance planning.
https://www.cbd.int/article/draft-1-global-biodiversity-framework
The first draft is at
https://www.cbd.int/doc/c/abb5/591f/2e46096d3f0330b08ce87a45/wg2020-03-03-en.pdf
The conflict between reserves and farmers:
Kaeng Krachan National Park is Thailand’s biggest national park, sprawled over more than 2,900 square kilometres. In July it was recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Eco Business reports on a village that was relocated out of the park to a less favourable site, repeated attempts by some to return to their ancestral lands, and forced removals, noting:
Hundreds of thousands of people have been evicted globally as governments prioritised conservation, with some 300 million estimated to be displaced by a global push to conserve at least 30 per cent of the earth’s surface by 2030.
Between 2014 and 2019, more than 46,000 cases were brought by the government against villagers and ethnic communities for forest encroachment, estimates Land Watch Thai, a non-profit.
https://www.eco-business.com/news/new-world-heritage-site-forest-imperils-thai-indigenous-people/
In India the Telangana government will move landless, non-tribal farmers engaged in shifting cultivation inside forests to peripheral areas where they will be given land ownership certificates, power supply and water.
Several MLAs had earlier raised the issue of encroachment of forests by farmers, who clear a portion of land to raise crops one season and move to a different location next season, all the while clearing large areas of forests. Kumarum Bheem-Asifabad MLA Athram Sakku said cultivation is taking place right in the middle of forests, posing a threat to environment and wildlife.
He also said the rights and livelihood of traditional forest dwellers will be protected.
“Their living culture is intermingled with the forests. They treat the forests as dear as their own lives. They will not cause any harm to the forests. They utilise forests to collect forest produce like honey, firewood, and natural adhesive. The government will protect their livelihood and birth right. The problem is all about those who come from outside, encroach the forestlands, destroy the forest wealth and misuse the resources. We will not allow such elements to plunder the forest wealth and destroy the forests.
Star wars:
Capt. James T. Kirk (William Shatner) of Star Trek fame has joined more than 200 celebrities, scientists, artists, and Indigenous and political leaders, including scientist James Hansen, actor Judi Dench, primatologist Jane Goodall, to pressure the British Columbian government to protect at-risk old-growth forests as a shield against the climate crisis.
Last week, B.C. Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau tabled a petition with the signatures of 52,204 B.C. residents collected by Stand.earth calling for the government to keep its promises to implement deferrals on old-growth logging.
“It has been a year and a half since the strategic review panel report recommended a six-month timeline to defer logging in old-growth forests at risk of irreversible biodiversity loss,” Furstenau said in a statement.
In California battles are raging over logging of an old regrowth Redwood forest that protectors consider more valuable for carbon storage.
When the redwoods started hitting the ground in Jackson this year, a new generation of activists sprang into action. A high-school senior stayed for nine days in a tree-sit. Then, nonprofit directors, community group leaders and outdoor enthusiasts took turns as forest defenders. Locals marched in protests, while bolder activists walked right into active logging sites and placed their bodies in close proximity to chainsaws.
Signs of the times:
Podcast host Dan Ilic initially sought to fund just two satirical billboards in Glasgow during the COP26 climate talks early next month, but his target of $12,000 was quickly passed as $151,000 came flooding in, allowing him to extend his message further, including on the 12 metre high “Godzilla” billboard in Times Square, New York. Slogans include “Cuddle a koala (before we make them extinct)”.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/poke-the-bear-aussie-comics-150-k-climate-message-hits-nyc-034556175.html
Emissions offsets:
Offsetting unavoidable emissions by increasing sequestration is a necessity for achieving net zero emissions, though offsets are being used to allow polluting activities to continue, with the offsets often of questionable veracity. The Grattan Institute has prepared a review, which supports offsetting, commenting:
Offsetting is a difficult part of the net-zero conversation. Some see it as an excuse to delay reductions, others as bringing about unacceptable social change, particularly in rural areas. It has been plagued by integrity problems, and there is understandable cynicism about its potential.
The Grattan Institute downplay the emission benefits of protecting extant vegetation, claiming that because a protected forest is likely to be mature, “the amount of additional carbon sequestered is likely to be small, although forest management can increase it somewhat”. This is a nonsense. However the Grattan Institute promote technological solutions, “such as direct air carbon capture and storage, and large-scale mineralisation,” despite the billions and delayed action these failed technologies have already cost.
https://grattan.edu.au/report/towards-net-zero-practical-policies-to-offset-carbon-emissions/
The report generated a fair amount of media interest.
Though there is a strong push, including from conservation groups, to stop NCS from being used to offset emissions:
More than 100 million units in offsets, or carbon credits, could be needed annually to make up for residual emissions from activities like agriculture, aviation, chemical production and fugitive emissions, Grattan’s report estimates.
Dr Kate Dooley from Melbourne University told RenewEconomy that land carbon or forest carbon offsets are “risky, they’re prone to reversals – we’ve seen bushfires in Australia – they’re difficult to measure and quantify robustly.”
Given these concerns, Greenpeace International has recently called for an end to offsets.
Offsets should be used “as little as possible”, Tim Baxter, senior researcher with the Climate Council told RenewEconomy.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/avoid-emissions-first-offsets-needed-for-net-zero-but-they-must-be-real/
Some groups argue that we should leave it to nature to reclaim its lost territory;
Over a million acres of urgently needed new woodland could be created in England easily and cheaply – by simply allowing existing woods to regenerate and spread, campaigners and researchers have said.
While various conservation groups have signed a group letter opposing the use of Natural Climate Solutions, others still consider them part of the solution and are attempting to rectify problems. More than 2,600 experts and concerned citizens from 113 countries signed the Kew Declaration on Reforestation for Biodiversity, Carbon Capture and Livelihoods.
Although reforestation holds immense promise for slowing the dual crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, the dark side of this momentum is that, in some cases, planting trees can cause more harm than good.
This is a key message of the “Kew Declaration on Reforestation for Biodiversity, Carbon Capture and Livelihoods,” published today in the journal Plants, People, Planet.
The declaration expresses the co-signatories’ concern over large-scale tree plantations of single species and/or non-native trees, which can harm biodiversity and capture less carbon than native forests. It proposes that forests be planted to reflect the diversity of natural ecosystems.
The declaration specifically calls upon “policymakers, financiers and practitioners in countries that have made reforestation pledges” to adhere to the Ten Golden Rules, work with Indigenous and local people and respect their land tenure rights, ensure that any habitats lost are replicable, safeguard threatened species, continue to steward and monitor projects, and “learn from past mistakes.”
The declaration also calls for subsidies and “positive financial incentives” to support restoration.
The UN Environment Programme still have faith in the Green Gigaton Challenge (GGC) launched in 2020 by a coalition of private and public sector partners with the aim of helping forests take up a gigaton of carbon dioxide by 2025.
It is initiatives like this that will have a concrete impact on delivering a green recovery from COVID-19 and in implementing nature-based solutions to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change. Success in delivering one gigaton of emissions reductions will also serve to catalyze more large-scale private and public funding commitments while contributing to the 2030 mitigation goals and delivering an array of non-carbon benefits.
As world leaders gather at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26) in Glasgow in a few weeks, we echo the need to transition to a net-zero carbon world. If the international community can come together to adopt and deliver the goal of the GGC, it will have achieved a big step towards fulfilling the 2030 mitigation goals.
Tree’s carbon use increases as CO2 rises:
The Free-Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) facility of the Birmingham Institute of Forest Research (BIFoR) bathed 175-year-old oak trees with carbon dioxide to replicate what CO2 levels will be like in 2050, and found that photosynthesis, and thus CO2 uptake, increased by 30 per cent.
When a similar experiment was conducted on a red gum forest in Australia in 2019, the trees photosynthesised just 20 per cent more CO2, so the UK result surprised Professor Ellsworth.
"Not only are they taking up CO2 in the present day, but if we cut them down, something happens with all the carbon that's been bound up in them, and we don't want that to go back up in the atmosphere."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2021-10-10/oak-trees-soak-up-extra-carbon-emissions/100527448
Are these part of the solution?:
Guatemala is the 15th country to sign an Emission Reductions Payment Agreement with the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, which together commit over US$720 million for nearly 145 million tons of carbon emissions reduced through 2025.
Guatemala has signed a landmark agreement with the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) that will unlock up to US$52.5 million for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and increasing carbon sequestration—commonly known as REDD+. This Emission Reductions Payment Agreement (ERPA) will reward efforts to reduce 10.5 million tons of carbon emissions through 2025 under Guatemala’s ambitious emissions reduction program.
Guatemala’s emissions reduction program aims to tackle the main drivers of deforestation and forest degradation. Covering over 31% of the national territory and 92% of forest lands, it seeks to strengthen the management of national protected areas and reinforce forest policy instruments, expand existing incentives to increase carbon stocks, and promote sustainable forest management. It also aims to strengthen the co-management of protected areas, agroforestry systems, and forest plantations.
Guatemala is the fourth country in Latin America (after Chile, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic) and the 15th worldwide to sign an ERPA with the FCPF. Together, these agreements commit over US$720 million for nearly 145 million tons of carbon emissions reduced through 2025.
https://www.miragenews.com/mozambique-becomes-first-country-to-receive-652816/
Nepal’s expanding forests:
Since 1990 the forested areas of Nepal have increased from less than 30 per cent to 45 per cent of the total land area.
"The preservation of forest resources under the community-based forest management system, the migration of people from hilly areas to plain areas leaving forests to grow, and the increasing use of cooking gas instead of fire woods have all contributed to the growth of the areas covered by forest," said Prabhu Budhathoki, an expert on biodiversity conservation.
Farmers fuming over avoided landclearing:
Despite NSW and Queensland being amongst the worst deforesters in the world, farmers are complaining that they haven’t been able to clear enough due to avoided landclearing emissions being used to meet our Kyoto targets.
Annual emissions have fallen by about 122 million tonnes since 2005 and emissions from changes to land use made up 111 million tonnes of the total. Mr Baxter said agriculture, with help from renewable energy, had done the heavy lifting while emissions from other industries are either increasing or flatlining.
In a statement ahead of Monday’s session with MPs, the NFF president Fiona Simson said the Nationals needed to drive a hard bargain for agriculture. Simson suggested the government needed to compensate landholders for land clearing regulations that pre-dated the Kyoto period as a goodwill exercise.
In order to try and persuade a majority of the Nationals party room to accept a mid-century commitment, senior government players have been signalling agriculture will likely be excluded from any heavy lifting on abatement – but not from the income streams associated with carbon sequestration.
Its president Fiona Simson said in the 1990s and early 2000s farmers in Queensland and NSW were the victims of land clearing laws which removed their property rights, without compensation.
Ms Simson said the "statutory theft" had left a "festering sore" for farmers.
"Appropriate redress must be provided," she said.
https://www.theland.com.au/story/7466738/crunch-time-for-coalition-on-net-zero-roadmap/
Should we be using carbon credits to restore degraded ecosystems?
Scientists say we need to re-establish cleared ecosystems and claim we could restore 13 million hectares of degraded land for $2 billion annually for 30 years, all of which could be paid for with carbon credits.
We devised a feasible plan to restore 30% of native vegetation cover across almost all degraded ecosystems on Australia’s marginal farming land.
By spending A$2 billion – about 0.1% of Australia’s gross domestic product – each year for about 30 years, we could restore 13 million hectares of degraded land without affecting food production or urban areas.
Such cost-effective solutions must be implemented now if we’re to pull our landscapes back from the brink. This bold vision would transform the way we manage our landscapes, help Australia become a net-zero nation and create jobs in regional communities.
After a decade of vegetation growth, 13 million tonnes would be stored annually – equal to 16% of the emissions reduction required under Australia’s Paris Agreement obligations.
We applied those figures to plausible carbon price scenarios where prices rise 5-10% per year from $15 per tonne, reaching $24-39 per tonne by 2030. If the carbon stored by the project was translated into carbon credits, the potential revenue could be between $12 billion and $46 billion.
https://www.openforum.com.au/restoring-australian-landscapes/
Restor is an open data platform that seeks to accelerate the global restoration movement by connecting everyone, everywhere to local restoration. You can open a new map online and click to outline an area of land anywhere on the planet, the site will tell you how much tree cover has been lost over time, how much carbon is stored in the soil, and how much could potentially be added if the area was restored.
The potential for restoration is huge: Restor says that if the process is managed well globally, it could avoid more than 60% of species extinctions, sequester nearly 300 billion metric tons of CO2, and increase food security for more than 1.3 billion people. There’s also plenty of room for it to happen. In a previous study, the Crowther lab estimated that 2.2 billion acres (0.9 billion hectares) of land—outside of farms and cities—could theoretically be reforested. Even inside cities, there’s space to restore nature. On the site, anyone can use the tool to look at the potential for their own backyard or a local park. “People can really get a sense of, ‘Wait, there’s carbon in my neighborhood,'” Rowe says. “So there’s that broader change of, ‘Oh, I actually could be a part of this.'”
Converting pine to native forest:
In New Zealand 4,000 ha of pine plantations established by clearing native vegetation in the1980s is being restored to native forest.
The aim is to re-vegetate the area with indigenous forest. There is sufficient native species seed in the soil to enable natural regeneration but the major challenge, and cost, is the elimination of regenerating pine seedlings which crowd out the slower growing native forest species.
Forest Media 8 October 2021
In a surprise announcement Barilaro announced he will follow Gladys out the door, acknowledging that he mishandled the war over the koala kill bill that almost tore the government apart. Apparently, there was no love lost between him and Gladys, though rumours are that his reasons may be more related to Barnaby than her. Don’t underestimate the role that the Koala Wars, and our part in it, had on the coalition.
Friends of Pine Creek keep the pressure on forestry. The loggers have been telling the NSW Upper House inquiry that they need more timber. Friends help Murray Valley National Park. The NPWS are painting red Waratahs blue to stop them being ripped off.
Yet another study finds that logging increases fire severity in tall wet eucalypt forests, primarily because a developing rainforest understorey creates a moister microclimate and the canopies of taller trees are less likely to burn. A greedy stench surrounds Sandalwood’s demise. A Tasmanian logging company is being praised by the Greens, Labor, conservationists and the government for its environmental accounts. The Commonwealth and South Australian governments are subsidising transport of timber from Kangaroo Island. A Victorian group undertakes citizen science to justify forest protection.
Help is needed to find out whether an exotic plant is causing Lorikeet Paralysis Syndrome. BirdLife Australia want help doing bird counts. At Coffs Harbour NPWS want help counting Koalas, while at Port Stephens volunteer Koala tour guides are wanted.
In the United Kingdom butterfly counting shows they are declining. Reaffirmation that forests moderate temperature extremes for their inhabitants. Stress makes trees sweeter for wildlife, which increases their stress, which increases their palatability. Discussions focus on people’s past impacts on wilderness areas and rainforests, some reaching the dubious conclusion that they need human disturbance.
As we phase out coal we reduce pollutants that reflect heat back into space, increasing short-term heating. Companies claiming to be leading the fight against climate heating are supporting business groups that are fighting Bidens landmark climate legislation. Ecological damage and conflict have been found to be intimately connected, meaning climate change will increase conflict and mass migration. The heat-island effect is amplifying climate heating, making cities increasingly dangerous. Its not just us, in India they are winding back laws to facilitate landclearing.
You can help make a difference by joining a #ClimateStrike on Friday 15 October. The movement for protecting 30% of the land and oceans by 2030 is gathering momentum, though the Half-Earth Project see this as just a first step in a goal of protecting half for nature. Australia is identified as having 18.54% protected and ranked as no 55 in the world, with our forested lands most in need of increased protection.
Natural Climate Solutions are increasingly being recognised and funded, though they are being misused as offsets, rorted and discredited. It is suggested that additional payments, beyond carbon, for ecosystem services and biodiversity will help. Planned plantings based on multiple benefits are also better. Though inappropriate plantings have been implicated in ethnic cleansing. Banana plants are the latest packaging product. Resorts to courts are still effective in America. The latest front in legal attempts to recognise the environment is to recognise access to a safe and healthy environment as a human right.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Barilaro falls on own sword:
In a surprise announcement Barilaro announced he will follow Gladys out the door. He acknowledged that he mishandled the war over the koala kill bill that almost tore the government apart. Another cited reason was his defamation case against Friendly Jordies, which he labelled a racist attack, only to have Friendly Jordies claim Barilaro used the press conference to 'defame me as a racist'.
Don’t underestimate the role that the Koala Wars, and our part in it, had on the coalition.
When the Coalition hit its lowest point last year after an internal brawl over koala planning policy, it was Barilaro who pulled the trigger and declared war….
… Publicly, Barilaro was full of praise for Berejiklian and her handling of the COVID-19 crisis. Privately, Barilaro had not forgiven her after the koalas debacle, where he felt he had been unfairly hung out to dry by the Liberals.
Meanwhile, according to Berejiklian’s inner circle, she had been subject to bullying behaviour, including “menacing” texts, from Barilaro for months.
https://www.afr.com/rear-window/nsw-will-be-just-fine-without-john-barilaro-20211007-p58y6u
Now Paul Toole has replaced Barilaro, as he did briefly in the peace talks over the Koala wars. What shocks me is that many seem to think the outcome was a compromise rather than a total capitulation by the Liberals.
Mr Toole on Wednesday reflected on his time brokering the koala protection policy with Liberal colleagues after Mr Barilaro’s exit.
He described the period of infighting as “robust,” but said he led the party during the period “behind closed doors”.
“Were we in agreement? No, not for a long time. But we actually made sure that there was a conversation, discussion to actually get an outcome. And that was the most important thing,” he said.
Lest we forget, as we start again:
Friends of Pine Creek have a letter in News of the Area quoting scientists and loggers about conversion of native forests to tree farms that was occurring there in 1995 before an outcry by locals and NEFA had it stopped.
Forest practices on the Mid North Coast have converted these moist sclerophyll forests into dry blackbutt forests.
The new Integrated Forest Operations Approval, allows clear-felling of native forest up to 45 hectares, larger than the devastation of 1995
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/opinion-once-upon-a-time-in-pine-creek-state-forest-79200
Loggers want more:
The loggers have been telling the NSW Upper House inquiry that the $80,000 worth of timber currently needed in each new home is facing price rises of 20-30 per cent, and the 270,000 tonnes of timber redirected from the export market to the domestic market over the next three years is not enough.
Forestry loss is forest’s gain:
The wisdom of stopping logging of public native forests in Western Australia is compared to NSW’s push for renewed woodchipping in north-east NSW.
https://clarencevalleynews.com.au/voices-for-the-earth-24/
Friends offer a helping hand:
The volunteer group, “Friends of Corowa” has been formed to help protect and improve Corowa’s Murray Valley National Park, focusing on illegal firewood removal, uncontrolled camping and rubbish being dumped or left behind.
http://news.corowafreepress.com.au/news/2021/10/06/5350058/new-group-to-protect-national-park
Roses are red, violets are blue, but what are waratahs?:
The giant red Waratahs are blooming spectacularly around Sydney following the fires, leading to a spate of illegal collection as people rip them off. This has prompted the NPWS and volunteers to spray paint them blue.
AUSTRALIA
Logging increases burning again:
Yet another study finds that logging increases fire severity in tall wet eucalypt forests, primarily because a developing rainforest understorey creates a moister microclimate and the canopies of taller trees are less likely to burn. Unsurprisingly, Southern Cross University’s Professor of Sustainable Forestry, Jerry Vanclay, denies the science in favour of logging.
Wildfire ecologist James Furlaud said the study found fire risk in older forests was much lower than in young forests, and clear-felling — the practice of removing all trees from a coupe — could increase fire risk.
"The older forests, especially really old forests, had moister understories, and because they had taller trees in the canopy it was much harder to have these very large, intense fires in older forests than in younger forests," Dr Furlaud said.
"The take-home message here is that logging always contributes to higher severity fires," Professor Lindenmayer said.
"The evidence is compelling from studies from not only in many parts of Australia — Victoria, New South Wales and now Tasmania — but there are also results from Patagonia, Western North America, and Eastern North America, that are showing exactly the same thing."
A University of Tasmania paper has found that widespread logging can increase landscape-scale fire risk in tall wet eucalyptus forest, backing up similar findings made in a retracted study from last year.
Older stands were found to burn at lower severity, while younger stands burn at higher severity. As rainforest ages, the species in the understorey develop less-flammable foliage and a moister microclimate, the paper found.
"Their paper has shown a really clear link between logging and the risk of fire, and it's actually the seventh paper from Australia to show this link," Dr Sanger said.
"The Tasmanian government and the forestry lobby groups really need to accept the science, there's now clear and overwhelming evidence linking forestry and an increase in fire risk."
https://www.examiner.com.au/story/7459218/native-logging-increases-bushfire-risk-utas-paper-finds/
Highlights
- Fire risk in Tasmanian tall wet Eucalyptus forest decreases as they mature.
- Older stand have a moister understorey and less dense ladder fuels.
- Extreme fires in older forests are unlikely unless the moist understorey ignites.
- Tasmanian tall wet Eucalyptus forests are vulnerable to a ‘landscape trap’ effect.
We found that, while fuel loads remained unchanged across the chronosequence, later development stages had a significantly moister understorey, an increased abundance of rainforest trees, and more vertically discontinuous fuels. These factors resulted in a significantly reduced fire risk, with high-severity fire much more likely in the early stages. … Our results indicate that [tall wet Eucalyptus forest] is vulnerable to a ‘landscape trap’ effect, where intensive disturbance creates large areas of regrowth stands with increased risk of high-severity fire, which increases the likelihood of landscape-wide, demographic collapse.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S037811272100815X
Scenting death:
Sandalwood is used in incense and as a perfume, it has been logged in Western Australian arid lands for hundreds of years, It can live for 250–300 years, but there has been virtually no regrowth for 60–100 years. It is on the verge of extinction in the wild, yet the Government continues to log it rather than shifting to already established plantations.
Our research, published today, reveals the WA government has known for more than a century that sandalwood is over-harvested and is declining in numbers, with no new trees regenerating. We estimate 175 years of commercial harvesting may have decreased the population of wild sandalwood by as much as 90%.
Tasmanian Greens and Government agree on forest value:
In Tasmania Forico manages almost 90,000 hectares of plantation for wood fibre production, and over 76,000 hectares of natural forest and other habitats managed for conservation and biodiversity values – which are not logged. They recently released their assessment applying Natural Capital Accounting, which includes:
- Carbon storage both within the plantations and natural forest areas;
- Water quantity and quality improvements within the catchments where our forests are located;
- Habitat services for the many and varied plant and animal species;
- Cultural, research and recreational values.
The conclude:
Assigning a financial value to the importance of habitat, vegetation and biodiversity is evolving fast, and leading government offset schemes would value our natural forest areas at more than $5 billion!
https://forico.com.au/volumes/documents/Natural-Capital-Report-Extract-Spreads.pdf
This report had the unprecedented outcome for a logging company of being praised by the Greens, Labor, conservationists and the government. The Greens said
Forico’s ‘Natural Capital Report’ addresses the ecological and carbon value of forest protection, and its positive contributions to the business’s bottom line.
This Australia-first report recognizes the intrinsic value in forests, and their worth for habitat, biodiversity, and as vast carbon banks.
This report demonstrates native forest destruction is not just environmentally reckless, it’s also bad economics. It also compromises Tasmania’s hard-won, lucrative clean and green brand.
As Forico’s Bryan Hayes makes clear, it’s past time to think about forests in terms of their natural values. We can earn a positive return to the state by protecting and restoring natural forests.
https://tasmps.greens.org.au/media-release/plantation-sector-leadership-forest
https://tasmaniantimes.com/2021/10/natural-capital-report-is-future-of-forestry/
https://launcestononlinenews.com.au/natural-capital-report-is-future-of-forestry/
The Tasmanian Minister for Resources Guy Barnett said:
The Tasmanian Government welcomes Forico’s second Natural Capital Report released today.
The report clearly shows the economic and social benefit this company alone delivers to Tasmania and Tasmanians each year amounts to $400 million going directly into Tasmanian businesses and $3 billion going to the community more broadly.
Importantly, much of the net value to society comes from carbon sequestration of forest areas under Forico ownership and management.
https://www.miragenews.com/forico-report-highlights-tasmanias-sustainable-648074/
Subsidising Kangaroo Island’s timber:
The deal has been done between the Commonwealth and South Australian Governments to ship 60,000 tonnes of softwood logs off Kangaroo Island to support South Australia’s forestry sector under the Construction Softwood Transport Assistance Program (CSTAP). The following assistance is available:
- funding will be made available for transport of bushfire-affected softwood logs suitable and intended for processing into structural timber;
- a total of $30 per tonne assistance for transport from Kangaroo Island to the South Australian mainland;
- a total assistance of 10 cents per tonne per kilometre travelled by road from first port of landing to sawmill, commencing after the first 200 road kilometres travelled.
https://www.premier.sa.gov.au/news/media-releases/news/deal-done-to-get-timber-off-kangaroo-island
https://www.tenterfieldstar.com.au/story/7458596/king-island-bushfire-timber-to-be-shipped/?cs=9676
Justifying forest protection:
The Victorian group Preserve Our Forests Mirboo North has released a report documenting their citizen science assessment of one of the Interim Protection Areas and calling on the state government to protect the Mirboo North forest as a Nature Conservation Reserve.
https://sgst.com.au/2021/10/campaign-to-save-forests-one-step-closer/
SPECIES
Who is poisoning lorikeets?
Rainbow Lorikeets in northern NSW and south-east Queensland are increasingly suffering from Lorikeet Paralysis Syndrome where they get progressively paralysed from their feet up. Researchers at Sydney University theorise that it could be caused by feeding on an exotic plant, though they want to find out which one it could be. Is it someone’s garden plant? They are asking citizen scientists to submit feeding records of lorikeets, with photographs of their feed plants.
Make Birds Count:
From 18 – 24 October, BirdLife Australia is asking all Aussies to spend 20 minutes in their backyard or favourite outdoor space, identifying and counting birds before submitting results using the app or via the webform.
Koalas too:
At Coffs Harbour the NPWS are after volunteers to participate in night-time spotlighting surveys for Koalas.
https://www.miragenews.com/koala-spotters-wanted-646124/
At Port Stephens council is after Koala lovers to volunteer to show visitors around the Port Stephens Koala Sanctuary.
https://www.miragenews.com/volunteers-wanted-become-koala-sanctuary-645276/
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Butterfly count declining:
In the UK an annual survey of butterflies by Butterfly Conservation found the lowest numbers of species and numbers ever.
Julie Williams, the charity’s chief executive, said: “The facts are clear. Nature is in crisis and we need urgent action, not just to prevent further species losses but to rebuild biodiversity.”
And with extreme weather events expected to increase as a result of climate breakdown, it is feared the long-term impact on butterflies and moths could be devastating.
The moderating affect of trees:
A European study demonstrates the moderating affect of forests on temperatures, with their interiors cooler in summer and warmer in winter.
According to their observations, the insulating effect of trees allows temperatures to drop by 2.1°C in summer and maintains a temperature 2°C higher than the ambient air temperature in winter throughout Europe.
“This insulating effect undeniably provides shelter for forest-dwelling wildlife.
“If, however, droughts, human activity and storms continue to intensify in the future, the insulation provided by forests could be jeopardised, endangering these ecosystems,” the researchers state.
Stress increases desirability:
When plants get stressed, as in droughts, they convert more of their carbohydrates to sugars, increasing their desirability to graziers, which just adds to the stress as their health deteriorates. This contributes to the runaway success of BMAD.
When a plant is stressed, one of its first responses is to mobilise its resources. Among other things, it often converts its starch reserves back to sugar. As soon as this happens, the stressed plant becomes sweeter than its healthier neighbours
Some stressed trees emit chemicals that can be picked up by grazers. In other cases, the grazers may come upon a stressed tree by chance.
In either case, the grazer gets an increased sugar hit and so will return to the tree when the opportunity presents; other grazers may follow.
Initially, the tree may have been stressed by drought, poor nutrition or waterlogged soils. The increased grazing then adds to the level of stress.
With more stress, the tree converts more and more starch into sugar and produces yet more new leaves and shoots — so the grazers get a sweet and nutritious reward for their efforts.
https://theconversation.com/why-sweet-toothed-possums-graze-on-stressed-sickly-looking-trees-169241?
Wilderness needs human disturbance?
An article in the Conversation argues that wilderness areas are actually the product of long-term management and maintenance by Indigenous and local peoples, therefore “the idea of wilderness is destructive, and must be abandoned”. There can be no doubt that humans have changed and altered vegetation over most of the earth, though I question the author’s premise that nature which evolved over millions of years before humans, needs human disturbance.
In a recent paper for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, we demonstrate how many iconic “wilderness” landscapes – such as the Amazon, forests of Southeast Asia and the western deserts of Australia, are actually the product of long-term management and maintenance by Indigenous and local peoples.
But this fact is often overlooked - a problem which lies at the heart of many of the world’s pressing environmental problems. Indigenous and local people are now excluded from many areas deemed “wilderness”, leading to the neglect or erasure of these lands.
Human influences on tropical rainforests is also the focus of a new set of articles edited by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the Smithsonian Research Institute
“Although tropical forests are often seen as pristine ‘wildernesses’ prior to industrial activities, we now know that hunter-gatherers, food producers, and even city-dwellers have inhabited – and modified – these environments for a long, long time,” continues Roberts.
“The term the ‘Anthropocene’ can suggest that our current sustainability plight was caused equally by all human societies and, in turn, impacts them all equally. However, contributors to this volume show that, particularly over the last 500 years, it has been an unequal and often-imbalanced process,” says Roberts.
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/40/e2109243118
Stopping carbon pollution will worsen climate heating:
In Pearls and Irritations, Peter Sainsbury has a weekly environmental roundup, last week he cited calculations by Hansen that the rate of global warming will double over the next 20 years, because less sulphate (particularly) aerosols will be released to brighten clouds and thereby reflect heat back into space, meaning the highly dangerous 2oC “limit” being reached by 2040.
https://johnmenadue.com/sunday-environmental-round-up-24/
“Progressive” companies fight Biden’s attempts to address climate heating:
As another example of saying one thing while doing another, the Guardian reports an analysis that found some of America’s most prominent companies, including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Disney, are supporting business groups that are fighting Bidens landmark climate legislation, despite their own promises to combat the climate crisis. This is in addition to some Democrats refusing to vote for it unless it allows for natural gas to be used.
Degradation fosters conflict:
The Institute for Economics and Peace second Ecological Threat Report found ecological damage and conflict are intimately connected, and that climate change will amplify ecological threats, increasing conflict and mass migration unless significant efforts are made to limit the damage.
Their research found that regions menaced by conflict and ecological damage — such as natural disasters, resource scarcity and temperature anomalies — fall into a sort of feedback loop, where each issue reinforces the other.
"Resources get degraded, you fight over them, conflict then weakens all the social infrastructure and systems, and it also destroys the resources further, which now creates more conflict," Killelea said. "You've then also got the different ethnic or religious groups and old animosities from past conflicts, so it's easy to fall back in along those lines again."
The three regions found to be most at risk of societal collapse are the Sahel-Horn of Africa belt, which stretches from Mauritania to Somalia, the Southern African belt, from Angola to Madagascar, and the Middle East and Central Asian belt, which runs from Syria to Pakistan.
https://www.dw.com/en/conflict-being-driven-by-ecological-damage-report-finds/a-59426714
Cities heating up:
As temperatures increase due to climate heating, heatwaves are also increasing in extent and frequency, with deaths escalating, particularly in cities due to the heat-island effect.
Of all the extreme weather phenomena experienced by humans today, heat is the deadliest. A heat wave that scorched Europe in 2003 claimed 70,000 lives. At least 15,000 people died in France alone, with the Paris region reporting the most excess deaths.
Urban residents’ exposure to dangerously high temperatures nearly tripled in the 34 years between 1983 and 2016, according to a paper published Oct. 4 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Both burgeoning populations and exceptional warming have fueled this health crisis in metropolitan areas.
Clearing loopholes:
Its not just us, in India they are winding back laws to facilitate landclearing:
These changes, made public in a consultation paper recently, are designed to nullify a wider interpretation of the law, effected in the landmark 1996 ruling of the Supreme Court. If the proposed amendments become a part of the law, it could result in large-scale conversion of forest lands for other uses.
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/forest-conservation-law-must-not-be-diluted-321633
TURNING IT AROUND
Climate strike:
Join a #ClimateStrike on Friday 15 October and support the School Strike 4 Climate movement in their call for climate action now.
https://www.acf.org.au/join-school-strike
Giving 30% to nature is not enough:
The movement for protection 30% of the land and oceans by 2030 is gathering momentum, being listed in the first draft of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework published in July. Though others see this as just a first step in a goal of protecting half for nature, which is understandably controversial.
The concept of protecting half of the world stems from E.O. Wilson’s Half-Earth:Our Planet’s Fight For Life, a 2016 book that argues that protecting at least half of the planet would help preserve 80% of species and places the Earth in a “safe zone.” The Half-Earth Project provides an array of resources to help make this ambitious goal a reality, the backbone of which is the Half-Earth Project Map,…
One of the Half-Earth Project’s more recent developments, launched last year, is the implementation of “national report cards” into its mapping system, … There is also a map of each country with a sliding color scale: the yellow areas denote places most in need of conservation protection, while purple areas are locations of lower priority. Areas in green are those that are already being protected.
In a 2019 paper published in Nature Sustainability, experts suggest the Half-Earth framework could adversely affect more than a billion people if the land on which they live is pegged for protection. …
By either measure we have a long way to go, Australia is identified as having 18.54% protected and ranked as no 55 in the world, with our forested lands most in need of increased protection.
https://map.half-earthproject.org/nrc/AUS
Is protecting forests climate action:
In the Guardian Richard Dennis takes aim at the scam of offsetting our increasing coal and gas emissions with fake carbon credits gained by not clearing forests that were not going to be cleared anyway. Unfortunately this scam has distracted from the very real and significant benefits of protecting forests to sequester and store carbon.
But make no mistake – not chopping down a few trees won’t protect us from the emissions that come with opening enormous new gas wells and coalmines.
… relying on fake solutions to very real problems can be even more dangerous than denying those problems exist in the first place.
… nature-based Solutions create cesspools:
Nature-based solutions (NBS) to our climate and extinction crises are gaining traction and are now recognised as one of the key planks for dealing with climate heating, though the term is broadly defined and NBS is being used as another shoddy off-sets scheme by many players. The theory is sound, and vital, but once again it has created another slush-fund and its implementation is poor.
Particularly problematic for Counsell is the framing of the term and that NBS are “being presented as a third or more of the solution to climate change, while they are actually very insignificant on an international scale.” He was referring to a widely quoted 2017 study by the U.S.-based conservation organization The Nature Conservancy, which concluded that NBS can contribute 37% to the global effort of meeting the Paris Agreement goals by 2030.
But skepticism remains. NBS allow corporations and “international organizations who are driven by the wrong self-interest to greenwash their destruction,” Devlin Kuyek, a Montreal-based researcher for GRAIN, said in an interview with Mongabay. The NGO advocates for small farmers in the Global South and released a statement last week rejecting the term NBS, which was also signed by other grassroots organizations and international NGOs.
…Indigenous groups have raised growing concern about land rights and the threat of displacement in connection with NBS.
A U.N. Environment Programme report on financing nature and NBS, released earlier this year, suggested that the $133 billion currently being spent on NBS annually “ought to at least triple” in the coming nine years. …
… “NBS are basically REDD+ rebranded,” Counsell said. “The attraction for governmental and corporate players is that they can be done at scale and are a cheap alternative to cutting fossil fuel emissions or using machinery.”
Groups working on NBS have also recognized greenwashing as a risk. The Oxford University NbS Initiative (NbSI), for instance, published a report about this issue, …
Others suggest putting a value on biodiversity and ecosystem services as well as carbon.
According to a May report by the United Nations Environment Programme, the world needs about $8.1 trillion of investment in nature by 2050 to handle the interlinked climate, biodiversity and land degradation crises. To facilitate investments in nature-based solutions, policymakers and investors need to recognize nature as a “new asset class,” Martijn Wilder, founding partner at climate advisory firm Pollination Group, said at the Ecosperity event convened by Temasek, Singapore’s state investment firm.
One example of valuing nature’s broader benefits beyond carbon capture is the Land Restoration Fund in Queensland, Australia, which takes into account additional ecosystem services provided, Wilder said.
“They paid individuals who would undertake activities to reduce carbon, pay for the carbon credits, and then on top of that, they would layer additional payments for things like watershed benefits, and koala [habitat restoration],” he said.
The United Nations, European Union and developing countries including India and China have an ongoing initiative that aims to advance ecosystem accounting frameworks.
Planning plantings for multiple benefits:
In England their grand ambitions for using plantings to take-up carbon is progressing with the aid of geospatial data to analyse terrain and identify areas most suitable for planting trees to maximise multiple benefits.
Protecting and restoring our forest land has emerged as a key part of the UK government’s mission to decarbonise – acting as efficient carbon sinks while also boosting biodiversity and even providing natural flood management solutions. Public opinion is also heavily in favour of this climate mitigation strategy, and the UK government has set a target of planting 30,000 new hectares of forestland every year to meet the Committee on Climate Change’s estimation that 1.5bn trees would be needed by 2050 to achieve a net-zero target.
The beauty of creating new forests is that trees can make the world better in so many ways. Done well, tree-planting can improve biodiversity, water quality, and air quality, reduce risks of flooding, and provide income and leisure opportunities for local communities.
https://biomarketinsights.com/5-minutes-with-matthew-brown-co-founder-of-forest-creation-partners/
Using plantings for ethnic cleansing:
For a long time the Jewish National Fund (JNF) has been converting the sites of Palestinian settlements and Bedouin grazing lands to plantations of pines and eucalypts under the guise of “making the desert bloom”, though the principal aim is claimed to be obliterating evidence of prior occupation and stopping repatriation.
However, more and more evidence is coming to light that planting dense forests in a desert might not be such a good idea environmentally, and increasingly ecologists in Israel and elsewhere provide evidence that these forests have wiped out delicate desert ecosystems as well as the lands of the people living there. Thus the old Zionist slogan of “making the desert bloom” is increasingly acknowledged as double-edged, for environmental reasons as well as the fact that taking land for Jews only, inevitably means taking it away from the previous inhabitants.
Replacing wood packaging with bananas:
Papyrus Australia has recently completed a proof-of-concept trial which has successfully demonstrated the commercial viability of using 100 per cent refined banana fibre to produce moulded food packaging such as pizza boxes, burger clamshells, meal containers and serving dishes.
For more information, visit www.papyrusaustralia.com.au.
https://www.foodmag.com.au/papyrus-australia-create-packaging-alternative-banana-fibre/
American court intervenes for wildlife:
Some things are universal about foresters – a desire to take out as much as they can get away with. A U.S. District Court judge in Missoula has stopped a logging project on the Lolo National Forest, saying it didn’t follow the forest’s management plan.
Court is seen as the last resort after the Forest Service issued approval to log 755 acres on Pine Mountain in the Ventura County backcountry, despite over 16,000 comments of opposition received from tribal groups, elected officials, organizations, businesses, and the general public. Who needs a social licence?
https://www.edhat.com/news/forest-service-approves-controversial-logging-project-on-pine-mountain
Giving human rights for clean environment:
There are battles to give nature legal rights, to legally recognise actions that cause major environmental harm as ecocide, and to recognise access to a safe and healthy environment as a human right. All these have the potential to provide environmental benefits.
GENEVA, Oct 5 (Reuters) - Britain and the United States are among a few countries withholding support for a proposal brought at the United Nations that would recognise access to a safe and healthy environment as a human right …
If adopted, environmental defenders say it will pressure countries to join the more than 100 nations that already recognize a legal right to healthy surroundings. And while the resolution would not be binding, lawyers say it will shape norms and help campaigners develop arguments in climate cases.
Forest Media 1 October 2021
The big news this week is that Gladys Berejiklian has resigned. Now the jostling within the Liberal Party goes into over-drive. One possible outcome is Dominic Perrottet as Premier with Kean as his deputy. Whatever the outcome it may be that Kean is promoted to a higher profile portfolio. It was great to have such a committed Environment Minister, though he was rendered ineffective outside national parks by the National’s control of rural portfolios.
Matt Kean is at it again, this time creating a national park in western Sydney over an area already protected as an offset for urban development, though leaving 20ha out for a highway and fencing the remainder to make it into a wild zoo where species can be bred-up, while stopping the dispersal of many native species. The Mayor of The Hills Shire is calling on them to now protect Cumberland State Forest. While it is good that the court has directed the EPA to develop policies to protect the environment from climate change, unfortunately it is discretionary.
The Tasmanian group Blue Deby Wild collected over 24,000 signatures supporting stopping logging and creating a North East Tasmania Gondwana National Park. The federal and state forestry ministers got together with the loggers to be told that there is a looming shortage of plantation logs for house frames and that we should therefore be planting trees for them, or facilitating their plantation development. Redirecting export logs to domestic use would do.
The Commonwealth’s decision to no longer require recovery plans for 200 threatened species is no great loss as most are wishy-washy and unfunded, meaning the loss of species continues. Koalas are coming under increasing scrutiny as their genetics are mapped and facial recognition is used to track them with drones. The trade in dead bats is booming, risking their, and our, health.
American’s are not content with just burning trees for electricity, now they are replacing them with solar panels. Wyoming loggers complain about being starved of resources as mills close and jobs are lost, though it is their greed that is to blame as they cut out their future. Now they are even after 70,000 year old trees. Something is changing in Panama as lianas proliferate in oldgrowth rainforest, threatening its future.
Canadian oldrowth had a win when a judge refused to extend an injunction against its protectors to save “the Court from the risk of further depreciation of its reputation” due to police actions. Erection of billboards in Glasgow for COP 26 to satirise Australia’s inaction on climate change has put the heat on Australia. The Pope is renewing his call for immediate action to protect the environment in the lead-up to COP26.
Around the world there are major commitments to tree planting to reverse environmental degradation and mitigate climate heating, though many targets are not being achieved and clearing often outpaces plantings. In New Zealand rural communities are upset as carbon farming displaces sheep farming, partly because it is monocultural plantings of exotic pine rather than habitat restoration. As our climate crisis escalates the price of carbon will too – we just need to redirect it into habitat protection and restoration. There is growing realisation that the health of cities is dependent on trees within them and forests around them. In Columbia, as land clearing escalates, some farmers are turning to tourism to capitalise on their remaining forests and spectacular birds. Though in India some farmers are objecting to their farms being bought to protect wildlife. Momentum is growing to have serious cases of the destruction of natural ecosystems identified as the legal crime of “ecocide”, with those responsible open to prosecution.
Dailan Pugh
NEW SOUTH WALES
Kean’s at it again
The NSW Government’s latest environmental announcement is that the 558 hectares Shane’s Park in western Sydney will be made into a national park. Its environmental values have been recognised for decades, and since 2011 it’s been an off-set for the construction of 181,000 houses in new suburban developments. The catch is that 20ha is to be set aside for a future highway, and 555 ha fenced as a breeding area for wildlife. The fencing may enable them to breed up some species, but it will isolate populations of many species and create a barrier to their dispersal. These zoos are Kean’s new parks.
Kean said the project was one of the biggest urban wildlife restoration projects in Australian history and would be like “stepping back in time to see the Australian bush alive with native animals as it was before foxes, cats and rabbits had such a devastating impact”.
“Whilst we are supportive of any efforts to conserve threatened species, this park will be more like a zoo than a natural ecosystem,” [Gambian] said.
Mayor of The Hills Shire, Dr Michelle Byrne, has welcomed the Government’s announcement, and is asking for Cumberland State Forest to be similarly protected as a national park.
“I believe Cumberland State Forest deserves the same classification and protection as Shanes Park. I’m hopeful – and with the support of our local Baulkham Hills MP, David Elliott and the Minister for Energy and Environment, Matt Kean MP – that we can make this happen,” she added.
https://www.miragenews.com/campaign-continues-for-cumberland-state-forest-642659/
Koala Friends:
Friends of Pine Creek have stepped up their campaign to protect those parts of Pine Creek State Forest (near Coffs Harbour) that link Bongil Bongil and Bindarri National Parks
… unlike a large number of NSW’s koala habitats, this forest remains entirely unburnt from the Black Summer bushfires of 2019 and the koala population remains intact, making its biodiversity value immeasurable.
EPA’s requirement to develop climate change policies discretionary:
The court’s direction for the EPA to develop policies to protect the environment from climate change is discretionary.
Preston CJ found that the EPA breached its duty under section 9(1)(a) of the POEA Act and ordered the EPA to develop environmental quality objectives, guidelines and policies to ensure the protection of the environment in NSW from climate change.
The Court found that under section 9(1)(a) of the POEA Act, the instruments must be developed by the EPA to ensure environment protection. That is, the EPA cannot delegate its duty. Accordingly, objectives, guidelines or policies developed by a person or body other than the EPA cannot be objectives, guidelines or policies for the purposes of section 9(1)(a) of the POEA Act.
However, the duty under section 9(1) of the POEA Act is not prescriptive. That is, the EPA has a discretion as to the specific content of those instruments. In particular, the duty does not specifically require the EPA to develop instruments that are consistent with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5oC above pre-industrial levels.
The EPA is subject to the control and direction of the Minister. As such, it seems likely that any instrument prepared by the EPA will take into account any NSW government policy on climate change.
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/nsw-epa-duty-to-prepare-policy-and-5356896/
AUSTRALIA
Signing on for Tasmania’s forests:
A petition by Blue Derby Wild calling for an end to the logging of Krushka’s forests and creation of a North East Tasmania Gondwana National Park has attracted more than 24,700 signatures.
Loggers want taxpayers to establish more plantations for them.
The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) has told a meeting of federal and state Forestry Ministers that there is a looming shortage of plantation timber for houseframes and they need a COAG-level plan to deliver on the Federal Commonwealth’s goal to grow our plantation estate by one billion trees by 2030. (maybe they should stop exporting so many sawlogs!). They want:
- Unlocking the carbon market opportunities for the plantations sector through the Commonwealth’s Emissions Reduction Fund as well as the voluntary national and international carbon markets.
- Supporting farmers to incorporate forestry alongside their agricultural production, which studies have found can boost crop and lambing yields as well as provide an additional income stream for farmers.
- More regulatory certainty, particularly around water, land use and planning laws, to provide the stability forest growers need to make 30-plus year investment decisions.
- Supporting innovation in forestry and wood processing to find higher value uses for sawmill and forest residues and smaller logs, such as engineered timber products and biomaterials.
Australia could be facing a deficit of 250,000 wooden house frames over the next 15 years if efforts aren’t made to plant more trees, Master Builders Australia and Australian Forest Products Association said in a report.
The ‘HomeBuilder’ grant, introduced in June 2020, led to a spike in construction activity, but builders are now telling clients that projects requiring timber face protracted delays. Saw-milling operations have added weekend and overtime shifts to get much-needed timber to the market, according to the AFPA, but the supply deficit has only has widened.
https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/timber-crunch-shifts-australia-threat-190000982.html
SPECIES
Loss of recovery plans no great loss as loss of species continues:
In the Conversation Steven Garnett considers the federal government’s intent to abolish recovery plans for 200 threatened species and replace them with “conservation advices” as “no great loss”, because many recovery plans are “so vague they do very little to protect threatened species from habitat destruction and other threats”, with little funding to implement them, most are “virtually useless”. Having read most for north-east NSW I concur, they do provide some good background information but only a few recommend habitat protection, and the few useful actions are usually ignored. Some of the better ones (ie Swift Parrot) are being rewritten to make them vague and useless. I think they are good in theory but have failed in practice.
One analysis in 2015 by environment and legal groups exposed weaknesses in the wording around habitat protection. Of the 120 most endangered animals covered by recovery plans, only 10% had plans where limits to habitat loss was clearly stated.
… The recovery plan for the Leadbeater’s possum, for example, was devised five years ago but has never progressed past draft form.
Third, conservation management in Australia is grossly underfunded. This means recovery plans are often just a piece of paper, without funding or a team to implement them.
… Far better than both instruments would be to strengthen regulatory tools, such as critical habitat protection….
… But most importantly, the federal government must invest far more in threatened species protection….
Mapping Koala genes:
A project to identify the genetic variation in Koalas across Australia has been delayed, though is still progressing.
The original plan was to release batches of 96 sequenced koala genomes to the AWS Open Data Sponsorship Program every six to eight weeks, with all 450 being available by the end of 2021. While COVID-19 pushed back the timeline, the first set of genomes is now available for researchers to access.
"The best way to safeguard the koala population is generally to stop cutting down their trees," said Hogg. "But as much as many of us would like to say, 'Let's just stop doing that,' we have to be realistic. We can't stop development. We have to find multiple, creative solutions to these problems, and not be wedded to tools we developed in the '90s."
Big Brother is now following Koalas:
They are now using drones with facial recognition to follow Koalas around.
Koalas could be the latest animal to benefit from ultra high-tech artificial intelligence, as the South Australian government has announced plans to use drones and AI facial recognition to count koalas.
Drones will monitor individual koalas and entire populations in an attempt to analyse how well they're doing in terms of numbers, movement, behaviour, and physiology.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/tech/australian-government-deploys-facial-recognition-25091819
https://www.miragenews.com/facial-recognition-drones-to-help-save-koalas-639867/
A pandemic of bat sales:
Stuffed bats are being sold on Ebay in large numbers around the world, raising scientist’s concerns about impacts on bat populations and forest ecosystems, and the potential risks of disease transmission.
In a preliminary study, published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science , researchers at the University of Adelaide identified over a 15-day period (May 2020), more than 4,400 bat specimens for sale on eBay listings across 24 countries, including Australia, Canada, Italy, Switzerland, United Kingdom and US. Items on offer were mostly taxidermy (61.2%) or skull (21.1%) specimens and most came from South-East Asia.
Overall, 32 different species of bat were advertised, including several species known internationally as vulnerable, near threatened or critically threatened.
Co-author, Dr Kyle Armstrong in the University of Adelaide’s School of Biological Sciences, said, bats provide many essential services in forest ecosystems, they are pollinators of plants, play a role in seed dispersal and insect control, in fact their very presence can serve as an indicator of a healthy forest ecosystem.
“While deforestation, disturbance at roosting sites and hunting for food and/or medicine are more common threats, the large demand for dried specimens and skulls as tourist souvenirs and curios in local and foreign shops and online is also a significant problem,” he said.
The conversation has a nice essay about birds:
https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-on-birds-feathered-messengers-from-deep-time-168469?utm
THE DETERIORATING PROBLEM
Replacing trees with solar panels:
Its bad enough that they are cutting down forests to burn for electricity, now they want to replace them with solar panels. In America people are protesting as forests are cleared for solar farms;
“You will lose the diversity both above and below ground” if forests are cut down to make way for solar projects, he said. “It is painfully short-sighted that we subsidize such activity. Let us first use all the land already dominated by humans — parking lots, roofs, landfills and brownfields. Come talk to me when those sites are fully deployed, not before.”
Bill Moomaw, a climate scientist at Tufts University, believes that halting the rise in heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere will require growing existing forests more and restoring what’s been lost. “Solar panels belong on rooftops and wasteland,” he said in a statement. “They do not belong on permanently deforested lands.”
Greed is loggers biggest problem:
Wyoming loggers complain about being starved of resources as mills close and jobs are lost, though it is their greed that is to blame as they cut out their future. Logging in the Dakota Black Hills has been declining and mills closed, though estimates are that logging rates need to be more than halved to reduce logging to a sustainable level as the loggers fight the overdue cuts.
Several former Forest Service Employees, meanwhile, say that the timber industry’s rate of logging could not only damage the forest beyond repair, but inadvertently lead to the premature demise of the industry they are hoping to save.
https://pinedaleroundup.com/article/wyoming-loggers-fear-extinction-as-federal-forest-policy-evolves
Loggers after 70,000 year old trees.
Scientists have only just begun studying a 42,000 - 74,000 year old forest buried in sediment 13 km off the Alabama coast in the Gulf of Mexico and already the loggers are after the timber.
https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/scoping-out-the-gulf-of-mexicos-secret-submerged-forest/
Lianas strangling forests:
A ten year study of oldgrowth rainforest in Panama found liana density increased by almost one-third between 2007 and 2017, which was primarily attributed to natural disturbances, though raises concerns for the future of rainforests;
“Lianas are clearly responding to disturbance with increased proliferation, which has resulted in massive liana increases on BCI over the past decade,” said Schnitzer. “However, their response to disturbance appears to be intensified or potentiated by other factors, such as increased carbon dioxide, temperature, or other climate-change factors.”
“Lianas may continue to accumulate in abundance in tropical forests until a new stable equilibrium is reached where liana recruitment is once again balanced by liana mortality,” Schnitzer said. “Alternatively, lianas could continue to increase in abundance on BCI and in other forests, eventually changing much of the high-canopy forest to low-canopy liana-dominated forest.
TURNING IT AROUND
Victory for Canadian oldgrowth protectors:
After 1,101 arrests of people trying to stop logging of oldgrowth in the Fairy Creek in Canada, a judge refused to extend an injunction against the protectors on the grounds it was “not just and equitable” and to protect “the Court from the risk of further depreciation of its reputation”. The judgement has thrown the loggers and police into disarray.
“On the other hand, methods of enforcement of the Court’s order have led to serious and substantial infringement of civil liberties, including impairment of the freedom of the press to a marked degree,” he wrote.
“And, enforcement has been carried out by police officers rendered anonymous to the protesters, many of those police officers wearing ‘thin blue line’ badges. All of this has been done in the name of enforcing this Court’s order, adding to the already substantial risk to the Court’s reputation whenever an injunction pulls the Court into this type of dispute between citizens and the government.”
Putting the heat on Morrisson:
Comedian Dan Ilic bought billboard space in Glasgow for COP 26 to satirise Australia’s inaction on climate change. With a bill for $12,225 he launched a fundraiser to help pay for it, and quickly raised $65,000 which he is using for more advertising.
"We've got one that says, 'cuddle the koala before we make them extinct'," Mr Ilic told the ABC's The World Today program.
"The next billboard says, 'Australia: net zero emissions by 2300'."
Planning on Planting:
England has big aspirations, though slow on delivering:
In England they have committed to massive tree planting programs to absorb carbon, enhance nature, provide greenspace and enhance stream health, though they are not meeting targets.
A £15m Government funding boost has been confirmed for a project aiming to plant 50 million trees between Liverpool and Hull, in the same week that Ministers published plans for 3,000 hectares of new woodlands along waterways.
Some three million trees have already been planted as part of the Northern Forest since work began on the ground in 2018.
“Woodlands for Water” project …
Defra said in a statement: “Planting trees on and around riverbanks or allowing them to grow naturally can help to improve water quality by blocking the runoff of pollutants into rivers, manage flood risks by slowing the flow of water, boost biodiversity by creating new habitat corridors and make our rivers more climate-resilient by providing shade and cooling water temperatures.”
… Africa planning forward, going backwards:
The African continent hosts 17 percent of the world’s forests (636 639 000 ha) and 31 percent of the world’s “other wooded lands”. In recent decades African countries have committed to undertake Forest landscape restoration (FLR) projects covering hundreds of millions of hectares, but an assessment by the Food and Agriculture Organisation found their forest area continues to decline.
African governments have made ambitious restoration commitments. In 2015, the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) was launched to restore 100 million ha by 2030. Three years later, the Pan-African Agenda on Ecosystem Restoration for building resilience led to the commitment to restore 200 million ha. And the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and Sahel, launched in 2007, also led to the commitment to restore a 100 million ha zone of degraded lands across the Sahel. Yet, Africa continued to lose forest in the last decade, with a net annual forest loss of 3.94 million ha during the 2010–2020 period. Estimates suggest that the continent also has 660 million ha of degraded land and 132 million ha of degraded cropland. Although 625 million ha are regenerating, and 11.39 million ha have been planted in the last decade, that is insufficient to address the scale of the problem.
http://www.fao.org/3/cb6111en/cb6111en.pdf
“Despite our efforts, every year more forest disappears, costing the continent a 3 percent loss of GDP,” said Abebe Haile-Gabriel, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Africa in the *Review’s *Foreword. “Degraded forest landscapes intensify the effects of climate change and are a barrier to building resilient and prosperous communities when 60 percent of Africans depend on their land and their forests.”
https://reliefweb.int/report/world/review-forest-and-landscape-restoration-africa-2021
… other countries are trying:
In India the state of Tamil Nadu is seeking funding from the government to increase forest area from the present 23.98 per cent to 33 per cent, as well as expand tiger reserves.
In Hawaii more than $5 million is being spent helping private landowners to plant 210,000 native trees and remove 1,650 acres of invasive plants. They “will remove highly flammable invasive species because they intensify wildfires”, while plantings will be of “native trees with the highest potential for carbon capture” to help redress climate change, “help prevent soil erosion, which can harm coral reefs and native fish populations”, “provide habitats for critically endangered birds” and “help recharge the aquifers supplying the state’s water”.
https://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/local-news/2021-09-29/hawaii-receives-5m-for-forest-restoration
… networking restoration:
Restor is growing the global restoration movement by connecting everyone, everywhere to local restoration. Restor serves as a hub for restoration, connecting people to scientific data, supply chains, funding, and each other to increase the impact, scale, and sustainability of restoration efforts. We believe that anyone can be a restoration champion, including you.
https://restor.eco/about/mission
Growing carbon stress:
The rush by investors, often from overseas, to buy New Zealand farms for plantations is stressing farming communities, but carbon farming is more profitable than sheep.
Tensions around the issue of farms converting to forestry has been increasing because of the impact it could have on rural communities.
A 2019 investigation by RNZ found that the largest landowners in New Zealand were foreign forestry interests and that sales of sheep and beef stations to forestry interests have accelerated under the special forestry test.
The carbon price has doubled over the last two years from just over $25 a tonne of CO2 to more than $60 a tonne after the most recent auction on September 1 when it hit $53.85. The Government has also indicated it would lift the floor and ceiling price in the next few years
The idea of attracting investors, many of them offshore, to plant large swathes of our countryside in industrial plantations of exotic conifers that will never be harvested has little to do with long-term benefits for local landscapes and communities.
Instead, its about trading in commodities – in this case, carbon – on a global ‘futures’ market. By exporting many of the profits and leaving local communities to carry many of the costs, this kind of “permanent” carbon farming helps to drive social and environmental inequalities, including the loss of jobs and the collapse of rural industries in New Zealand.
Planting pine trees across the countryside purely for carbon also ignores the risks of fire and pests with climate change; the biodiversity crisis; and the need to secure local prosperity and food production. It is a classic case of silo thinking.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/ideasroom/anne-salmond-the-case-for-nature-based-forests
https://www.gisborneherald.co.nz/column/opinion/20211001/case-for-nature-based-forests/
Valuing forests:
Trees and forests value for carbon sequestration is increasing and will go through the roof once tree’s true value in meeting our climate crisis is recognised. Now we need to have forests valued for their standing value and the rorts stopped, and tree’s carbon value can be their saviour.
All climatic modelling that limits global warming to under 2 degrees requires improvements in land use, with some models showing a requirement of over 1 billion hectares of reforestation by 2050 relative to 2010 to remove carbon from the atmosphere. This is a staggering figure — particularly when we imagine a world where we need to meet the food, fuel, timber, and energy needs of 10 billion people. This transformation in land use will require the mobilisation of hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in Natural Climate Solutions (NCS) — the protection of threatened forests, improved management of productive forests and agriculture, and reforestation of landscapes.
Investment experience in the US, Australia, and New Zealand shows that modest carbon pricing (for example, $15 per tonne of CO2) creates meaningful incentives for incremental management changes to increase carbon sequestration like extended rotations, and slightly higher prices (such as $30 per tonne) creates incentives for investment in reforestation with native species and in new plantation development. Analysis by McKinsey forecasts the voluntary carbon market to rise to $50 billion per annum in 2030 in alignment with corporate net-zero commitments — a carbon market of this size would need significant tropical forest conservation and reforestation across landscapes in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.
A world in which the carbon price reaches $100 per tonne of CO2 is imaginable — and is in fact necessary to reach net zero emissions by 2050. In this not-too-distant future, carbon asset value in land use could be trillions of dollars in 2030 and beyond, which would be capitalised into land and forest values. Substantial areas of forests and land would be valued primarily for their conservation. Some forecasts show forestry shifting into a trillion dollar asset class — greater than the market capitalisation of the oil and gas majors today. The emerging investment opportunity is clear — to invest in forests for the benefit of climate, people and nature.
Industrial Carbon capture and storage has been an expensive failure – leaving trees as the last man standing.
Turnbull and Forrest were both critical of carbon capture and storage technologies, which they said had failed despite receiving huge amounts of government support, adding that industry must resist fossil fuel industry efforts to grow the amount of hydrogen produced using coal and gas.
“Carbon capture and storage has received billions of dollars in support over many years. There were high hopes for it,” Turnbull said.
“I had high hopes for it when I was Australia’s environment minister back in 2007. But it simply has not worked. It does not work consistently. In fact, it only works in very niche areas. And it’s failed. Blue hydrogen is a delaying exercise that we have to resist.”
Forrest also lamented the amount of funds spent on unsuccessful carbon capture and storage projects.
“Carbon sequestration has robbed the economies of the world of more money than any bank robber ever possibly could, then you’ll realise because it simply doesn’t work,” Forrest said.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/turnbull-and-forrest-push-green-only-hydrogen-dismiss-carbon-capture/
Greening cities:
There is growing realisation that the health of cities is dependent on trees within them and forests around them. This article makes the case.
Thankfully, many cities across the world are beginning to recognise that the liveability of their city is connected with the health of forests by joining Cities4Forests, a city-led movement to protect and expand forests. Since its launch in 2018, more than 70 cities have declared action to protect, manage and restore forests across multiple scales. Cities4Forests helps cities by providing technical assistance, capacity building, and facilitating financial investment.
https://cities-today.com/industry/forest-based-solutions-for-enhancing-quality-of-life-in-cities/
Farming land for wildlife:
In Columbia, as land clearing escalates, some farmers are turning to tourism to capitalise on their remaining forests and spectacular birds.
Deforestation grew by 8% in Colombia last year, with the South American country losing about 170,000 hectares of its forests to industries like cattle ranching and illegal mining.
Perez is hoping that next year the farm will make 50% of its revenues from tourism…
… And Giraldo is letting the forest regrow all around his property to give more space to the wildlife. The forest cover here is only interrupted by four log cabins and two yurts where tourists can spend the night.
https://www.pri.org/stories/2021-09-30/colombian-farmers-bet-bird-watching-lodges-conserve-forests
Buying land for wildlife:
In India farmers groups are outraged by the suggestion of the Forest minister Umesh Katti that the government buy farms where farmers are unable to cultivate them due to regular raids by wild animals from adjacent reserves, they want the Government to stop the animals escaping.
Prosecuting Ecocide
There are growing calls to have serious cases of the destruction of natural ecosystems identified as the legal crime of “ecocide”, with those responsible open to prosecution. There is a presentation:
Inside Climate News has a focus on this:
Another crime of similar magnitude is now at large in the world. It is not as conspicuous and repugnant as a death camp, but its power of mass destruction, if left unchecked, would strike the lives of hundreds of millions of people. A movement to outlaw it, too, is gaining momentum. That crime is called ecocide.
President Emmanuel Macron of France, too, has been sharply vociferous. He has called the burning of the Amazon’s rainforests an ecocide and blamed Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for reckless mismanagement of a planetary resource. Indigenous leaders have gone further. They have formally requested the International Criminal Court to investigate Bolsonaro for crimes against humanity. Ecocide is not yet illegal. International lawyers are working to codify it as a fifth crime but their campaign faces a long and uncertain road, riddled with thorny issues.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07042021/ecocide-should-destruction-of-the-planet-be-a-crime/
A panel of 12 legal experts from around the world on Tuesday released a proposed definition for a new international crime called “ecocide” covering “severe” and “widespread or long-term environmental damage” that would be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court in the Hague, alongside genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression.
The 165-word definition begins: “For the purpose of this Statute, ‘ecocide’ means unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.”
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22062021/ecocide-definition-panel-international-crime/
Pope calls for environmental stewardship:
The Pope has called on Council of Europe for immediate action to protect the environment in preparation for the COP26 on climate change.
In a message to the Council of Europe, Pope Francis reiterates his call for immediate action to protect our common home. The message was sent on the occasion of a panel of discussion on environment and human rights organized by the Council’s Assembly in preparation for the COP26 on climate change.
The message further noted that “when the human being considers himself the master of the universe and not its responsible steward, he or she justifies any kind of waste and treats the other people and nature as mere objects,” denying “the fundamental right of every person to live with dignity and to develop integrally.”
“Everything is connected, and as a family of nations we must have a common concern: to see that the environment is cleaner, purer and preserved. And take care of nature, so that it takes care of us,” he said.
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2021-09/francis-healthy-environment-human-right.html
Pope Francis sends a video message to some 400 young people from 197 countries participating in a 3-day Youth4Climate meet taking place in Milan, northern Italy.
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2021-09/pope-francis-video-message-youth4climate-cop26.html
Forest Media 24 September 2021
The debate over Redbank, and whether burning a million tonnes of forest each year emits no CO2 or over 2 million tonnes, continues – you have until the 27th to have your say. Meanwhile the Commonwealth has joined NSW in identifying the Hunter as a Clean Hydrogen Industrial Hub, promising more millions to develop processing and export facilities – presumably including Redbank and Sweetman’s Renewables proposals to use native forests as fuel. The Nationals are showing that they can redirect export pine sawlogs to domestic processing and pay the bosses $10 million to close mills and retrench workers, provided it has nothing to do with stopping logging of native forests.
Kean is at it again, this time encouraging people to nominate Areas of Outstanding Biodiversity Value across private and public lands, which will become priority areas for funding. The catch is that they can only be assessed and declared with the landowner’s consent, so it is futile unless the landowner agrees upfront. The question is, why hasn’t NPWS already identified them across national parks?
A reassessment of the 2019/20 bushfire CO2 emissions puts them as 715 million tonnes, 1.7 times Australian’s 2019 emissions, though it is claimed the smoke triggered a phytoplankton bloom far out to sea which sucked up as much as 95% of the emissions from the fires. There are concerns that the increasing fire frequency and intensity will cause long-term changes in species and ecosystems. Nest boxes and community education are some ongoing fire responses.
Taronga zoo are worried by unprecedented reports of dead and dying frogs due to unknown causes. The University of Newcastle is asking people to record frog calls (before they croak). The AKF gained lots of attention with their estimates that Koala numbers have plunged by 30 per cent in three years, leading one expert to claim “Koalas are stuffed,” and requests for a Koala Protection Act. One of the problems is that we don’t know how they react to fires. WIRES justifies their spending on Koalas. Calls grow for purchase of 200ha of Koala habitat at Port Macquarie to save it from urban development. There are growing concerns for the future of the other eucalypt leaf feeder, the Greater Glider. Meanwhile dog owners are taking advantage of the lockdown to take their dogs into national parks.
The Commonwealth boasts of its support for loggers, including the tens of millions granted to them. Meanwhile the ACF claims a significant part of the billions spent on the Emission Reduction Fund is for avoided land clearing that would never have happened – it’s ‘junk’ credits are a rort. Australia is not just bad when it comes to taking action on climate heating, we are one of the worst.
Once again scientists warn that the crucial role of ocean and land ecosystems in removing around 50% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions from the atmosphere each year is being taken for granted, and is being jeopardized as stressed ecosystems release their carbon. We need to urgently protect our forests. The stories of ecosystem collapse continue as logging, clearing, droughts, pests and wildfires ravish the world’s forests. In America there appears to be recognition that it is the dense regrowth from logging that is a major cause of the severity of the wildfires, though the cure of thinning the forest to restore its natural structure is creating more problems. On the east coast rising seas are creating ghost forests. As tree’s climatic envelopes shift in response to global heating, the trees can’t keep up. We just like some species too much for their own good.
More evidence that exposure to nature is good for kid’s health, this time by improving their immune system. Attempts around the world to create rights of nature laws (to give legal rights to trees, rivers, mountains) and to criminalize ecocide continue, particularly in America, though vested interests are managing to frustrate progress.
Dailan Pugh
Redbank closing soon:
Submissions on Verdant Earth’s modified Redbank DA are closing soon. While the proponents are claiming burning over a million tonnes of trees each year won’t release any CO2 (!!), opponents say that burning that much forest will release over 2 million tonnes of CO2 to contribute to the climate emergency, with much more released in the forest and by transport. You can still have a say until 27th https://www.singleton.nsw.gov.au/310/Public-Exhibition
"The applicant has lodged a Class 1 Appeal in the Land and Environment Court for the deemed refusal, as the application had not been determined.
Redbank plans to burn 850,000 tonnes of dry woodchips annually sourced from clearfelled NSW public forests, and generating over 2 million tonnes of CO2 each year, [Hunter Environment Lobby] argues.
"Impacts of clearing and burning native forests are significant for NSW wildlife, including koalas" says Jan Davis.
https://www.singletonargus.com.au/story/7439001/redbank-power-station-back-in-court/
Biomass boost:
Following Sweetmans Renewables announcement that they intend to use 30,000 tons of biomass pa to create hydrogen, and Verdant Earth’s intent to generate hydrogen using electricity from their new biomass fed Redbank plant, it comes as no surprise that the federal government has declared the Hunter as one of seven national hydrogen hubs.
The government said the Hunter was chosen due to the high level of existing interest from industry stakeholders, the region's skills and research capabilities, infrastructure and resources.
The government will invest $464 million to accelerate the development of the hubs. It forms part of a $1.2 billion program to support the development of a clean hydrogen industry in Australia.
The Activating a Regional Hydrogen Industry: Clean Hydrogen Industrial Hubs program has been designed to de-risk projects and quickly achieve the scale necessary to establish new export industries and meet the growing energy needs of the Indo Pacific region.
The program will provide grants of between $500,000 and $3 million for hub development and design work needed to advance hydrogen hub concepts.
https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/7436282/hunter-declared-a-national-hydrogen-hub/
NSW can find more pine sawlogs and retrench workers when they want:
The NSW Nationals are taking credit for directing Forestry Corporation to divert 90,000 m3 per annum of softwood log exports (impacted by the China trade embargo) to domestic processing. Now we just need to substitute export pine for native hardwood. At the same time Big Rivers Timbers are being paid $10 million for retrenching 50 workers in Wagga Wagga and expanding their Grafton operations.
“This timber will help to build thousands of new homes in NSW and using timber to frame these houses increases carbon benefits over other construction methods.”
Mr Barilaro highlighted the range of public interest considerations underpinning this decision, including safeguarding vital timber processing jobs in regional NSW, while bolstering the benefits to the construction sector where demand for locally produced and processed timber remains high.
Meanwhile, timber company Big River Group has secured a $10 million 'dollar-for-dollar' bushfire industry recovery grant to help retrain the around 50 timber mill workers in Wagga Wagga who were set to lose their jobs due to the shut down the mill, following the bushfires.
"Following the devastating 2019/20 bushfires, these funds helped Big River relocate and expand its existing operations in Grafton," Mr Barilaro said.
https://www.theland.com.au/story/7436931/china-embargo-boosts-domestic-softwood-supplies/
Kean keen to be seen to be green:
Kean’s latest reannouncement is that people can nominate areas of public and private land to be identified as Areas of Outstanding Biodiversity Value (AOBVs), after which they will be subject to a scientific review, and, if declared, be priority areas for funding. The catch is that they can only be assessed and declared with the landowner’s consent, so it is futile unless the landowner agrees upfront.
The NSW Government has today announced the opening of nominations to identify and protect Areas of Outstanding Biodiversity Value (AOBVs) on both private and public lands across New South Wales.
Environment Minister Matt Kean said these new legal instruments will fill a gap in conservation measures in New South Wales by preserving key landscapes that protect a broad range of our natural heritage.
AOBVs can only be declared with landholders' consent, with nominated areas assessed against key scientific criteria set out in the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016. Further info available: Areas of Outstanding Biodiversity Value.
The guidelines are at:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-10018083/Conservation-scheme-targets-private-land.html
https://www.blayneychronicle.com.au/story/7441958/conservation-scheme-targets-private-land/
But conservation advocates say the long-awaited reform is "underwhelming" and mistakenly relies on the "goodwill of landholders".
https://www.northernbeachesreview.com.au/story/7441958/conservation-scheme-targets-private-land/
Bushfire carbon emissions worse than thought, but …
A satellite reassessment of carbon emissions from the 74,000 square kilometres burnt in the 2019/20 bushfires has estimated the release of 715 million tonnes of CO2. This is 2.6 times previous estimates, nearly 80 times the typical amount in a summer bush-fire season and 1.7 times Australian’s 2019 emissions. But the earth appears to have a counter-balance:
Wildfires have long been considered net-zero-carbon events, because the emissions they release are recaptured when the vegetation regrows — but an increase in the frequency and intensity of fires in Australia could mean that ecosystems never fully bounce back. If these fires “threaten the recovery of the ecosystem, then we really need to worry”, [Cristina Santín] says.
[Richard Matear] and his colleagues found that, during the fires, vast black plumes of smoke, rich in nutrients, were swept thousands of kilometres away over the ocean. Within days, these aerosols had infused the waters with much-needed iron, nourishing phytoplankton, which sucked up carbon equivalent to as much as 95% of the emissions from the fires.
Changing fire impacts:
As fire intensity, frequency, and seasonality change, so too does the recovery of plants. With changes amplified by drought, heatwaves and pests. The most obvious effects are on obligate seeders, such as Mountain Ash, which are killed in fires and new plants take years to set seed – another fire before they mature can eliminate them. Though the impacts are far more insidious.
We found while many plants are really good at withstanding certain types of fire, the combination of drought, heatwaves and pest insects may push many fire-adapted plants to the brink in the future. The devastating Black Summer fires gave us a taste of this future.
The Black Summer bushfires burned parts of these young forests, and nearly 10,000 football fields of ash forest was at risk of collapse. Thankfully, approximately half of this area was recovered through an artificial seeding program.
As climate change progresses, many fire-prone ecosystems will be pushed beyond their historical limits.
We demonstrate that, although many communities will remain resilient to changing fire regimes in the short-term, longer-term changes to vegetation structure, demography and species composition are likely, with a range of subsequent effects on ecosystem function. Resprouting species are likely to be most resilient to changing fire regimes. However, even these species are susceptible if exposed to repeated short-interval fire in combination with other stressors.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pce.14176
Bushfire recovery:
In Taree they are replacing lost tree hollows and in Milton they are talking about what to do.
Taree Indigenous Development and Employment (TIDE) has received funding of $150,000 to enable continuation urgent post bushfire wildlife and habitat recovery works.
"Since the beginning of the program the Aboriginal bushfire recovery rangers have installed nearly 500 nesting boxes," Chris Sheed OAM, TIDE program manager said.
Ways members of the public can assist the bushfire recovery process of a vital piece of the Milton environment will be outlined in an upcoming webinar.
The NSW Government Department of Planning Industry and Environment, as part of Biodiversity Month, is hosting a series of online community events which includes the 'Rebuilding Forests in Milton' webinar on Tuesday September 28 from 12-1 pm.
Dying frogs a worry:
The unprecedented reports of dead and dying frogs have scientists at the Australian Registry of Wildlife Health at Taronga zoo worried.
Since late July, they’ve collected 1,200 records of dead or dying frogs, about 70% of them in New South Wales and 22% in Queensland.
“They go a fawny beige colour then turn brown. They seem to get dry and they become emaciated and then shrivel and become skeletons,” Hulbert said.
[Jodi Rowley ] “Chytrid can change, so we want to see if it’s the chytrid our frogs are used to being exposed to or if it’s a different kind of chytrid.”
She says another important and still to be answered question is whether the animals are dying of or with the disease – that is, if it is just a contributing factor and other environmental stressors of recent years such as droughts, fires and climate change have played a role. Alternatively, the cause could be something else entirely, like a novel pathogen.
Anyone who spots an unwell or dead frog is encouraged to contact the FrogID project email on [email protected] with the location and photos if possible.
… citizen science
The University of Newcastle is asking people to record frog calls (before they croak)
For more information: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/ollibruuh/frog-find
https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/7437324/hop-into-the-amazing-world-of-frogs/
Koalas going, going …
The AKF estimates that Koala numbers have plunged by 30 per cent in three years, requesting a Koala Protection Act. This garnered widespread coverage across Australia.
The most recent population estimate is that the country is home to between 32,000 and 58,000 koalas, down from between 46,000 and 82,000 in 2018.
'When they go extinct is up for debate, but whether they will go extinct is not really up for debate anymore.' Professor Bradshaw said.
'Habitats have been cleared... fragmented by roads and development. [There's] genetic problems and diseases... dogs and cars. Add bushfires, and there's not a lot of long term hope for that species in particular,' he said.
The mapping is available here:
https://www.savethekoala.com/our-work/bobs-map-koala-populations-then-and-now/
https://www.forbesadvocate.com.au/story/7436977/koalas-in-rapid-decline-around-australia/
https://www.braidwoodtimes.com.au/story/7436977/koalas-in-rapid-decline-around-australia/?cs=9676
https://www.greatlakesadvocate.com.au/story/7436977/koalas-in-rapid-decline-around-australia/
Ms Tabart blames political parties of all stripes for not doing enough to save the creature. Indeed, the NSW Coalition almost fell apart last year over a plan put forward by Liberals to preserve more tree types so koalas could roam, which was not supported by the Nationals.
Flinders University’s Professor of ecology Corey Bradshaw is more blunt about it.
“Koalas are stuffed,” he told news.com.au.
“It’s the frequency of extreme events that become the problem,” Dr Bradshaw said.
“It didn’t give time for fragile wildlife to recover.
“It’s like you smack them on the head and they have time to heal; and then you smack them again, they’re still going to be around. But if you smack them again and again, the chance of survival is much lower.”
The AKF has a vision of a “Great Koala Trail,” an unbroken koala habitat stretching 2443km from Cairns to Adelaide.
https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2021/09/koalas-in-rapid-decline-around-australia/
… managing ignorance:
An article in The Conversation highlights our profound ignorance of how Koalas react to fire, and what to do to lessen impacts, though then makes some recommendations on what to do.
So what’s the best way to protect these iconic animals from fires? Our new report for the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) sought to answer this question. We identified actions to reduce the risk of koalas being harmed by fires, and found gaps in scientific knowledge where more research is urgently needed.
Our framework, one of the first of its kind, sought to address these questions. It can be used by land managers, scientists, koala rehabilitation groups, the media and the general public.
Wires identifies some of the issues that need to be taken for Koala conservation and reports on what they have been doing with monies raised in the wake of the fires.
https://www.hepburnadvocate.com.au/story/7441327/why-more-koalas-are-needing-care/
https://www.blayneychronicle.com.au/story/7441327/why-more-koalas-are-needing-care/
… buying time:
There is mounting pressure being applied for the State Government to buy 200 ha of Koala habitat at Port Macquarie to save it from urban development.
Mrs Ashton's concerns come after Member for Port Macquarie Leslie Williams made a plea directly to Minister for the Environment, the Hon Matt Kean requesting the NSW government work urgently to purchase the 200 hectare swathe of land.
Greater Glider going, going …
It is telling that the two mammals that feed almost exclusively on eucalypts are becoming increasingly endangered.
According to World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Australia it’s estimated that almost a third of the Greater Glider’s habitat burned in the 2019-20 bush fires. This loss has been compounded by the logging that continues in their habitat. In 2016, the Greater Glider was listed as vulnerable by the Federal Government. Since then habitat clearing in Queensland has increased by 300%. The re-categorization of the Greater Glider to vulnerable has also had no discernible impact in Victoria, with logging continuing at the same rate prior to 2016 and additional habitat slated for future clearing.
https://www.thewire.org.au/story/perilous-future-awaits-for-the-greater-glider/
National Parks going to the dogs:
Domestic dogs are increasingly being taken into parks during lockdowns, and attacking bushwalkers.
"Dogs can also have a significant impact on local wildlife. Unlike some other local parks, national parks are designated protected areas that are specifically managed for their biodiversity values. Even the most well-behaved dog can inadvertently scare or harm native wildlife. Dogs will also leave their scent in the bush and this may keep wildlife away or disrupt their natural behaviour."
Commonwealth touts its support for logging:
The Commonwealth is boasting that it has spent $9.2 million to date in the existing regional forestry hubs (including north-east NSW), with an additional $10.6 million provided in the 2021–22 Budget, including to create 2 new hubs in the Northern Territory and Eden NSW. In addition they emphasise amending the Emission Reduction Fund restrictions on funding plantations where they affect groundwater, identifying and facilitating access to timber on private and Aboriginal lands, developing markets for forest residues, $37.5 million for Plantation Development Concessional Loans, $40 million grants for 14 private mill upgrades, $25 million for storage and transport of Salvage Logs, $15.1 million for future transport subsidies for burnt wood, etc.
https://www.agriculture.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/national-forest-industries-report.pdf
“The Australian Government listened to industry when they told us they needed support to grow, to innovate and to meet the challenges of the future,” Assistant Minister Duniam said.
“We set about reducing barriers to plantation expansion and unlocking investment to assist industry in achieving the one billion trees target.
“We have reduced barriers to investment by reviewing water requirements in the Emissions Reduction Fund farm forestry and plantation methodologies to enable greater participation.
“There is no bigger backer of the forestry industry than the Morrison Government, and we will continue to support its vital contribution to regional economies and promote its environment friendly credentials.”
https://www.miragenews.com/morrison-government-continues-to-deliver-on-638857/
… timber to burn:
The Federal Government has stumped up 15 million to transport bushfire-damaged pine sawlogs from Kangaroo Island to NSW and Victoria
KIPT responded by announcing it would convert its plantations to farmland and that if it couldn’t get the usable timber off the island, it would be left with no other option other than burning it to reduce the fire hazard.
Around 300,000 tonnes of salvageable pine will be transported to the mainland via Penneshaw.
Mr Basham said it could take 3-5 years to ship the timber off the island.
The funding will support the transportation of the softwood to mills with spare processing capacity however, it is understood all of South Australia’s structural timber mills are operating at full capacity.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/15m-allocated-to-move-kangaroo-island-timber/
Commonwealth carbon-offsets a scam:
While people should be rewarded for the carbon they store on their properties, the rules are that they can only be paid for avoided emissions, such as by landclearing, or new plantings. A new analysis by the Australia Institute and The Australian Conservation Foundation found Australia’s carbon offset scheme is being rorted because people are being paid not to clear land that would not have been cleared anyway. Each tonne of avoided CO2 emissions is monetized as an Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU).
One in five carbon credits issued by the Federal Government’s $4.5 billion Emission Reduction Fund (ERF) do not represent real abatement and are essentially ‘junk’ credits, according to new research by the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Australia Institute.
Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) generated by the ‘avoided deforestation’ method of carbon abatement are awarded to landholders who surrender land clearing permits and commit to retain vegetation on their properties.
The Australian Government has committed to buy 26.3 million ACCUs from avoided deforestation projects, using around $310 million of taxpayers’ money, to meet its climate targets.
Analysis shows projects are being issued ACCUs for retaining vegetation that was never going to be cleared, meaning anyone purchasing these credits is buying non-existent abatement.
The avoided deforestation method is currently responsible for more than 20% of the total number of ACCUs that have been issued under the ERF.
https://www.acf.org.au/integrity-concerns-around-junk-carbon-credits
It found the amount of "avoided" deforestation — paid for by carbon offset schemes — could not have realistically occurred in the first place.
"This method of accounting sees taxpayer dollars paying to retain vegetation that was never going to be cleared," Mr Merzian said.
"Our research shows that many of Australia's carbon credits could be little more than hot air."
The federal government assumed that any farmer who had approval to clear forest under a particular type of permit in NSW would have cleared it, and so it was eligible for ACCUs if they committed to not clearing it.
For the assumption to be true, the report says, clearing rates would have had to increase by up to 128 times.
https://www.agtrader.com.au/news/property/land-owners-in-the-gun-over-junk-carbon-credit-claims
According to a new analysis by Greenpeace, most of Australia’s highest-emitting companies that have implemented net-zero emission commitments do not have any will to meet their target.
The report is titled, From Hero To Zero: Uncovering the truth of corporate Australia’s climate action claims.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/09/biggest-corporate-greenwashers-revealed-by-greenpeace/
Australia a pariah nation:
We are not just bad when it comes to taking action on climate heating, we are one of the worst:
The watchdog Climate Action Tracker (CAT) analyzed the policies of 36 countries, as well as the 27-nation European Union, and found that all major economies were off track to contain global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
"Of particular concern are Australia, Brazil, Indonesia Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Switzerland and Vietnam: they have failed to lift ambition at all, submitting the same or even less ambitious 2030 targets than those they put forward in 2015. These countries need to rethink their choice," said Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics, another CAT partner.
The Australian government, which has said it will keep mining coal past 2030, is also investing money into new gas exploration and infrastructure, and "is of particular concern," CAT said in its report.
Natural Climate Solutions are increasingly urgent:
The IPCC’s climate models take it for granted that ocean and land ecosystems will continue to remove around 50% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions from the atmosphere each year, but as forests are increasingly converted into carbon sources they should no longer be taken for granted. Scientists argue for urgent action to safeguard our forest sinks.
All major global climate models whose simulations give us hope of meeting the target of the Paris Climate Agreement—to keep warming well below 2 °C—take the continued provision of this gigantic biosphere endowment for granted, merely concluding, as in the recent IPCC report, that the efficiency of nature’s carbon sink may reduce slightly for high emission pathways. This means that the ability of intact nature to continue to sequester carbon is already factored into the climate models and thus in the estimate of the remaining carbon budget to hold to the Paris climate target. Yet this fundamental assumption relies on terrestrial and marine ecosystems remaining sufficiently intact and resilient to human pressures, even as climate change progresses
Are we at risk of losing the biosphere carbon sinks and thereby the safe operating space for humanity provided by nature? The latest evidence is not encouraging…
… terrestrial ecosystems have reduced warming by at least 0.4 °C since 1900. Furthermore, if ecosystems on land cease to be a net carbon sink, this would lead to a dramatically higher rate of global warming …
We have reached a new risk landscape. For the first time in human history, we face a planetary emergency. Not only have human pressures on Earth reached dangerously high levels, but we see signs that humanity may no longer be able to count on the capacity of the biosphere to continue dampening greenhouse gas emissions and hold onto its carbon stocks…
… Natural Climate Solutions (NCS), constitute a vital toolbox for practical biosphere stewardship that could deliver a third of global CO2 emission reductions needed by 2030 … The roadmap’s long-term goals are already clear: 1) rapidly safeguard irrecoverable carbon stocks in vulnerable terrestrial and coastal ecosystems [i.e., stocks that, if lost, cannot be recovered by 2050 (21)]; 2) achieve a net carbon absorbing land use sector; and 3) restore and regenerate degraded native ecosystems as carbon sinks.
https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/118/38/e2115218118.full.pdf
… as forests lose their ability to take up the carbon we pump into the air:
Worldwide the stories of forests collapsing keep coming. Drought stressed trees in Germany are suffering, their weakened defences leaving many vulnerable to attack by bark beetles that thrive in the warmer and drier weather conditions.
More trees died in 2020 than in any other year on record, according to the government's annual Forest Conditions Report. The study examined 10,000 trees across the country and found that just 21% had an intact canopy -- an indication of how healthy a tree is -- the lowest percentage since studies began 37 years ago.
"Crown condition is like a medical thermometer; it shows how the trees are doing. The survey shows: our forests are sick," said Agriculture Minister Julia Kloeckner.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/24/europe/germany-climate-crisis-election-intl-cmd-grm/index.html
Americans deal over burning forests:
The wrapping of the trunks of 2-3,000 year old giant sequoia trees in fire blankets to protect them from wildfire garnered world-wide attention, though the full range of actions is more insidious. As the fires and debate about their management rages in California, logging is identified as increasing burning, yet oldgrowth forests in national parks are increasingly being logged to thin them out and reduce fire spread.
“We are going to have to as an agency and a culture be willing to consider more aggressive actions,” said Christy Brigham, chief of resources management and science at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. “I’m talking about thinning with chainsaws in these 2,000-year-old forests so they don’t burn up in a high-severity fire.”
Meanwhile, this year in Yosemite National Park, logging crews hauled out hundreds of tons of downed ponderosa pine, incense cedar and white fir right outside of the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias.
“Yosemite, as far as I know, has not removed this much biomass before,” explained Garrett Dickman, vegetation forest manager for the park. “This is a whole new scale.”
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/environment/story/2021-09-18/giant-sequoia-forest-thinning
The latest science finds that conventional logging practices, together with a century of overzealous fire suppression, are eroding forest health and increasing the severity of wildfires. While news to some, the U.S. Forest Service has recognized this inconvenient truth for over a quarter century. Logging is also diminishing forests’ ability to help fight climate change and so-called “thinning” projects can result in more carbon emissions than the wildfires they are meant to prevent.
By harvesting smaller and smaller trees more and more frequently, the department’s practices reduce the number of big trees over time. Big trees have a large thermal mass making them mostly non-combustible, even in the hottest fires, and they are also heavily protected by thick bark and have fewer low branches, making them most equipped to survive wildfire.
After logging, rather than setting an example of best practices for the industry, Cal Fire leaves behind heaps of flammable “slash,” rafts of unusable logs and other tinder. More than two decades ago, the U.S. Department of Agriculture emphasized that fires are significantly more severe when encountering these materials. In their analysis of recent fires in Oregon, researchers found, remarkably, that logged areas burned more intensely than unlogged forests, and that logging played a larger role than historical fire suppression.
Additional fire-risk multipliers include far denser and more flammable regrowth, openings for opportunistic and flammable invasive species, reduced shade and more sunbaked fuels and winds and flying embers no longer slowed by vegetation
Research from Oregon State University and the U.S. Forest Service affirms that salvage logging increases fire risk and hinders forest regeneration.
https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/cal-fire-timber-industry-must-face-an-inconvenient-truth/
In Oregon the consensus seems to be that the forest structure has been dramatically altered by logging and fire suppression, creating dense regrowth that promotes intense wildfires. Some environmentalists and loggers are collaborating on projects of mechanical forest thinning, which is generally uneconomic and requires subsidies. Controversially they are intending on taking larger trees, which makes it more economic, alienating other conservationists. (Beware that while the problems caused by logging are similar, American forests are different ecosystems to ours so solutions are not directly transferable).
Ghost forests floating:
As sea levels rise, salt water intrusion into white cedar forests along America’s east coast is killing the trees and turning the forests white.
The scientists from University of Virginia and Duke project that coastal forested wetlands will be “drowned and salted out of existence through the North American Coastal Plain within 100 years,” but also note this isn’t the only region globally that’s at risk. Environments in Brazil, Ukraine and Mozambique have similar wetland ecosystems, but don’t currently have research available.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/ghost-forests-creep-us-east-coast-rcna2142
Trees too slow for their own good:
Researchers at Harvard University’s Harvard Forest modeled the rate at which 32 tree species in New England are predicted to shift their ranges northward over the next century in response to climate heating, finding they can’t keep up.
Simulated tree species range boundary shifts in New England over the next century were far below (usually <20 km) that required to track the velocity of temperature change (usually more than 110 km over 100 years) under a high-emissions scenario.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13847
So, under a changing climate can forests make like a tree and leave? This work suggests that tree species in the northeast will be unable to flee warming regions for more suitable conditions. Future forests are likely to consist of species with wide “climate niches” that allow them to survive in more extreme climate conditions.
Trees too pretty for their own good:
Chinese merchants have been focusing on Nigerian rosewood for furniture since 2010 when Asian forests were depleted, now their forests are being depleted. It is another case study of short-term greed and corruption, while tree protectors are murdered.
https://dailytrust.com/tarabas-rosewood-trees-on-verge-of-extinction
Natural therapies:
Studies of preschoolers in Finland found they showed increased T-cells and other important immune markers in their blood within 28 days of introducing nature into playgrounds.
Among kids who got outside – playing in the dirt, the grass, and among the trees – an increase in a microbe called gammaproteobacteria appeared to boost the skin's immune defense, as well as increase helpful immune secretions in the blood and reduce the content of interleukin-17A, which is connected to immune-transmitted diseases.
"This supports the assumption that contact with nature prevents disorders in the immune system, such as autoimmune diseases and allergies," said Sinkkonen.
Research shows getting outside is also good for a child's eyesight, and being in nature as a kid is linked to better mental health. Some recent studies have even shown green spaces are linked to structural changes in the brains of children.
Bonding with nature as a kid is also good for the future of our planet's ecosystems. Studies show kids who spend time outdoors are more likely to want to become environmentalists as adults, and in a rapidly changing world, that's more important than ever.
Recognising nature’s legal rights:
There are attempts around the world to create rights of nature laws (to give legal rights to trees, rivers, mountains) and to criminalize ecocide (widespread destruction of the environment). There are now legislation, judicial rulings and constitutional amendments in countries that include Canada, Mexico, France, Columbia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bolivia, India, New Zealand, Ecuador and Uganda. In the United States rights of nature laws have surfaced in more than 30 localities. In the latest test 89 percent of Orange County voters have united behind the rights of nature. This article provides a broad review of the wins and losses around the world, focusing on Florida.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19092021/rights-of-nature-legal-movement/
Forest Media 17 September 2021`
The Echo ran our media release calling upon the NSW Government to follow Western Australia’s lead of phasing out logging of public native forests by 2024. Under Kean’s environment smokescreen of increasing protection for 4% of existing national parks, they quietly released their land clearing tool to allow landholders to clear within 25m of property boundaries, irrespective of environmental impacts, without needing approval. While scientists are horrified, farmers complain that still not allowed to clear rainforest and wetlands.
As NSW dismantles private land protections, the Commonwealth is offering financial incentives for protection, but aimed at new plantings. Bega Council is offering assistance to protect extant riparian vegetation. The Country Women’s Association is behind a plan to link Koala habitat from Royal NP to Bargo. The government have been accused of inflating koala counts, while they can be bought for $595, some are discounted to just $93.75.
You can have a say on the Commonwealth’s proposal to make recovery plans for threatened species discretionary. The Commonwealth is targeting the Northern Territory as the new biomass (?) frontier. The fallout from the WA phase out continues, with the community onside, the industry asking for more compensation and others pointing out that mining is worse.
Not only the environment is coming under increased attack during COVID, so are its defenders, with at least 227 killed last year. India has observed National Forest Martyr’s Day to honour the supreme sacrifice of more than 1500 forest officials across the country for protection of forest and wildlife, in homage to about 360 people of Bishnoi community who laid down their lives to protect the “Khejri” trees in 1730.
The world continues to burn, with Russian fires setting new records. California’s climate heating induced mega fires are now threatening the largest grove of 2-3,000 year old Giant Sequoias, prompting an embedded fire brigade and the wrapping of their trunks in fire-proof blankets. The death toll from the smoke has reached over 33,500 lives a year, with many more hospitalized with respiratory and cardiovascular conditions.
In America the response to attacks by invasive species, drought deaths, and fire threat has been to increase logging which is compounding the problems, while proposals to use natural climate solutions to reach net zero carbon are being compromised by forest clearing. While NSW encourages fragmenting forests, roads and other disturbances are rapidly fragmenting the world’s rainforests, in the process creating edges that increase wind and sun penetration, drying the forest, killing trees and increasing carbon losses. Clearing and logging have already compromised the functioning of Brail’s Amazon as the earth’s lungs, and now they are suffering a heart attack as logging moves into the core. As clearing of Africa’s montane rainforests accelerates, recognition of their importance for carbon sequestration has prompted renewed calls for giving carbon credits for extant forests, not just plantings.
Tree planting is recognised as a key natural solution to climate heating, with massive reforestation projects underway world-wide. Though in practice tree planting is often part of the problem, being subverted into commercial plantations by timber companies and complicit Governments (such as Australia).
Doctors for the Environment Australia urge the environment movement to support a proposal to include natural capital in national accounts and therefore GDP.
Dailan Pugh
NEFA extols NSW to follow WA example and phase out native forest logging by 2024:
The Echo ran our media release calling upon the NSW Government to Western Australia’s lead of phasing out logging of public native forests because of their vital roles in taking up and storing carbon and providing homes for so many of our threatened species.
NEFA spokesperson Susie Russell said we are in the midst of climate and species-extinction crises that need to be urgently addressed. ‘The simplest and most effective action we can take to buy us time to reduce emissions and replant forests, is to stop logging those we have left so they can regain their lost carbon and habitat values.
‘Most Wood Supply Agreements expire in 2023, so this would be an appropriate time to end logging of public native forests in NSW,’ said Ms Russell.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/09/following-the-lead-of-western-australia-and-victoria/
NSW further facilitates fragmentation and extinction:
While Kean pursued his environment smokescreen they quietly released their land clearing tool to allow landholders to clear within 25m of property boundaries, irrespective of environmental impacts, without needing approval. While scientists are horrified, farmers complain that they are still not allowed to clear rainforest and wetlands. The Conversation has a good article highlighting the consequences.
This is poor environmental policy that lacks apparent consideration or justification of its potentially substantial ecological costs. It also gravely undermines the NSW government’s recent announcement of a plan for “zero extinction” within the state’s national parks, as the success of protected reserves for conservation is greatly enhanced by connection with surrounding “off-reserve” habitat.
For instance, scientific monitoring has shown five pairs of regent honeyeaters (50% of all birds located so far this season) are nesting or foraging within 25m of a single fence-line in the upper Hunter Valley. This highlights just how big an impact the loss of one small, private location could have on a species already on the brink of extinction.
A potentially devastating environmental precedent is being set, if other regions of Australia were to follow suit. The environment and Australians deserve better.
"You can't clear where there's a koala plan of management, you can't clear in any of the critical ecological species, you can't clear wetlands, you cannot clear rainforest," she said.
Those restrictions meant that Ms Petrie could not clear one of her properties at all and she wanted the government to look at making it easier to put fire breaks in.
Environmental groups say a new code allowing land clearing 25 metres out from fences will do little to aid protection against bushfires in NSW but could have devastating impacts on wildlife
It might seem churlish, if not ungrateful, to question the minister’s eagerness to preserve endangered species such as the Botany Bay bearded orchid or the black-tailed antechinus. These are species that few of us would have heard of, let alone seen in the wild.
Mr Kean clearly has an enthusiasm and clout in this vital portfolio, probably unmatched in NSW from either side of politics since Premier Bob Carr led a blitzkrieg of new national park declarations two decades ago.
To that end, we see cause for optimism with the National Parks and Wildlife Service advertising for jobs, including ecologists, to fatten the ranks of experts that have endured years of thinning.
Why these constraints matter was on display this week when the government finally released its land-clearing tool for landholders. In most cases, they will be allowed to clear 25 metres either side of a fence line for bushfire protection.
At the time of the cabinet’s approval late last year, senior government officials were privately worried the provision would unleash wanton habitat destruction with little science to back the move in terms of improving fire safety. The 25-metre rule was not among the NSW Bushfire Inquiry’s recommendations.
Meanwhile, pressure is mounting for Australia to step up its climate change targets and NSW Energy and Environment Minister Matt Kean says federal inaction is starting to impact the country's ability to trade into international markets.
Government pushing for voluntary protection:
While the NSW Government is weakening protection for Koalas and private forests, the Commonwealth is offering incentive payments for those that want to do the right thing, though the scheme is aimed at plantings for carbon credits rather than protecting extant vegetation.
THE FEDERAL AGRICULTURE Department under David Littleproud is acting on recognition that much Australian biodiversity/habitat lies on private land, farm land, and that private landholders must be engaged to stem the catastrophic level of native plant and animal removal and decline since colonial times.
Paying farmers for the costs of on-farm habitat restoration starts with six regional ‘Australian Farm Biodiversity Stewardship’ pilot projects. NSW will focus on the Central West. The intent is to roll out the program to other regions thereafter.
This is part of the government’s Agricultural Stewardship Package that aims to rely on market mechanisms and private investment to restore/retain aspects of original landscapes and habitat — presumably with added urgency following the 2019–2020 drought and bushfires.
https://districtbulletin.com.au/retaining-biodiversity-on-private-land/
… help to protect riparian habitat in Bega:
There are several programs being rolling out in the Bega Valley that can support landholders wanting to improve, protect, and enhance riparian zones and native vegetation on their properties.
Rewilding Sydney’s Koalas
The Country Women’s Association is behind a plan to link Koala habitat from Royal NP to Bargo:
The 'Rewilding Sydney's Koala' project, proposed by the Country Women's Association's Picton and Illawarra branches with the aim of joining the Queen's Commonwealth Canopy reforestation strategy, would see a linked koala corridor from the Royal National Park down to Bargo, taking in much of Macarthur and Liverpool's Georges River area.
Making Koala’s count:
AKF have accused the federal government of significantly inflating koala numbers.
The Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) accused the federal government of significantly overestimating koala populations, saying there could be as few as 50,000 left in the wild
Buy your own Koala:
You can now buy your own Koala for just $595, though some are discounted to just $93.75
https://www.perthmint.com/catalogue/australian-silver-koala-silver-coins.aspx
Recovery Plans Endangered:
The Commonwealth is proposing on removing the need to make recovery plans for threatened species, preferring to make them discretionary. You can have a say:
The public is invited to provide comment to the Minister on the Minister’s proposed subsequent decision (to not have a recovery plan) for 28 ecological communities and 157 species (comprising 104 plant, 14 mammal, 19 bird, 3 fish, 3 frog, 6 invertebrate, and 8 reptile species), details of which are available on the Have Your Say website(link is external).
[Senator Sarah Hanson-Young] “By seeking to rewrite the government’s obligations, the Minister is putting up the white flag on saving our wildlife and native plants.
“Downgrading the level of obligation on the Minister is downgrading the protection of our native animals and species.
https://www.miragenews.com/environment-minister-puts-up-white-flag-on-634449/
Northern Territory logging to “take-off”
The Australian Government has launched a regional forestry hub in the Northern Territory to add to the existing 9 hubs under the National Forest Industries Plan
Minister for Agriculture and Northern Australia David Littleproud says the Territory’s forestry industry is primed to expand, export and create jobs.
“Territory forestry is ready for take-off.
Fast Facts:
The Australian Government is providing more than $10 million over 4 years for existing Regional Forestry Hubs and the establishment of two new hubs in Eden NSW, and the Northern Territory
Another $1 million is being provided for a feasibility study into an Australia-wide National Institute for Forest Products Innovation
The NT Hub will study how the local forest industry can value add, by processing forest products and creating jobs for Territorians
https://www.miragenews.com/northern-territory-forestry-ready-for-take-off-633525/
The West Australia fallout continues:
Debate still continues over West Australia’s decision to phase out public native forest logging, while clearing for mining continues:
“Logging is a major disturbance which removes the structure of the forest, and by removing the structure that also affects the composition and function,” says Wardell-Johnson of the forests of southwest WA. “There’s been broad scale logging for a long time, and the logging has been greater than what the forest can sustain.”
Beyond logging, Wardell-Johnson points out that there is no legislation to protect these forests from mining – principally of bauxite (a common ore of aluminium) in the jarrah forests.
“Now, logging is obviously a damaging activity if it’s not done sustainably, but of course mining, where you actually remove the substrate of the forest, that’s an even more serious issue.”
https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/sustainability/native-logging-to-end-in-wa/
Forestry workers have held a meeting in Manjimup in protest of the state government’s incoming ban on logging.
https://www.6pr.com.au/logging-ban-were-in-a-bit-of-shock/
"The biggest concern from our perspective is that the cost 20 years ago [when old-growth logging was banned] was $180 million. Today they're shutting down the industry with just $50 million [support package].
"I know anecdotally that's not even going to come close to fairly compensating people."
A survey conducted by the Western Australian Biodiversity Science Institute found of nearly 17,000 respondents, 73 per cent said no native forests should be harvested.
We have it easy, spare a thought for those who literally give their lives:
COVID has been a screen for unprecedentedattacks on environmental defenders.
Despite COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns, 2020 set a new record for the deadliest year for land and environmental defenders, Global Witness said Sept. 13. It’s the second year in a row that the death toll reported by the advocacy group was the highest since it began tracking data in 2004. In all, the world saw at least 227 killings — a figure described as almost certainly an underestimate.
“During the last decade we’ve seen a grim trend,” Seema Joshi, director of campaigns at Global Witness, said in a press conference. “As the climate crisis intensifies, violence against defenders of the Earth is also escalating.”
The bulk of the killings took place in the Americas, where violence against Indigenous and other communities over land and control of resources are common. Of the top 10 countries by number of deaths, seven were in Latin America.
India celebrates forest martyrs:
Jammu and Kashmir Forest Department observed National Forest Martyr’s Day in recognition of all those who have laid down their lives to protect forests.
Speaking on the occasion, PCCF highlighted the importance of the day and said the National Forest Martyr’s Day is observed to pay homage to about 360 people of Bishnoi community who laid down their lives while protecting the “Khejri” trees in “Kejrali” village of Rajasthan on this day in 1730. This day also marks the supreme sacrifice of more than 1500 forest officials across the country for protection of forest and wildlife.
https://www.dailyexcelsior.com/forest-deptt-observes-national-forest-martyrs-day/
Russia burning again:
Drought and fires set new records in Russia as climate heating continues:
Greenpeace says it estimates, based on satellite data, that more than 17.6 million hectares have burned, breaking the previous record of 16 million hectares set in 2016.
Greenpeace Russia’s Grigory Kuksin told reporters there was no end in sight to this year’s fire season, which has been fuelled by hot and dry conditions that scientists say is a clear result of climate change.
… America too:
California’s climate heating induced mega fires are now threatening the largest grove of 2-3,000 year old Giant Sequoias, prompting an embedded fire brigade and the wrapping of their trunks in fire-proof blankets.
https://news.yahoo.com/giant-forest-trees-prepped-sequoia-185631482.html?guccounter=1&guce_
In a little over a century, from 1910 through 2014, wildfires burned 25 percent of the giant sequoia range, forest and fire ecologist Kristen Shive found when analyzing the state’s Cal Fire data. Then in 2015 through 2020, wildfires burned 65 percent of the range: 2020 alone accounted for half of that, 16,000 grove acres, dwarfing the 1910-2014 combined acreage burned.
Last year's Castle Fire, sparked by lightning in Sequoia National Forest, took out thousands of old-growth monarchs -- a data point from satellite and aerial imagery that is most stunning when considered alongside historical losses of zero to just a few trees a year, Beamish reported. As the Castle Fire blasted through Sequoia, about 3,550 acres of sequoia groves suffered high-severity burning, she added, noting that park officials estimated that an unprecedented 340 monarch trees -- those with trunk diameters of four or more feet – were lost.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/california/fires/article254284283.html
More evidence that smoking is bad for you:
Smoke from wildfires is a particularly dangerous form of atmospheric pollution, causing respiratory and cardiovascular conditions that kill tens of thousands of people annually worldwide and send many more to hospital.
Smoke from wildfires in burning forest vegetation now claims at least 33,500 lives a year worldwide. And that’s based on data from just 749 cities in 43 countries during the years 2000 to 2016.
The true cost to humankind of wildfire pollution from tiny particles of incinerated vegetation in cardiovascular and respiratory deaths will inevitably be much larger.
And a separate study finds that the fires now blazing every year in the Brazilian Amazon send more than 48,000 Brazilians to hospital. In the same timespan − the first 15 years of this century − an estimated 755,091 Brazilians have been admitted to hospitals with respiratory and cardiovascular conditions triggered by wildfire pollution.
Wildfire smoke is deadlier than most forms of atmospheric pollution: it’s made up of smaller particles of a different chemical composition forged in higher temperatures. It can also travel further, up to 1,000 kms (625 miles), and still be potentially sickening.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/smoke-from-wildfires-kills-thousands-annually/
Pulling the plug on our life support systems:
… putting the heat on American forests:
American forests are in a mess, being ravished by invasive beetles, droughts, and wildfires. These are being used as an excuse to increase logging, which is just compounding problems as more forests get converted into carbon sinks:
Looking down a hillside dotted with large stumps and nearly devoid of trees, a pair of retired U.S. Forest Service employees lamented logging policies they helped craft to deal with two harbingers of climate change — pine beetles and wildfires.
Timber production dramatically ramped up two decades ago in the Black Hills National Forest along the South Dakota-Wyoming border, as beetles ravaged huge expanses of forest and worries grew over wildfires.
The beetles left, but the loggers haven’t — and they’re now felling trees at twice the rate government scientists say is sustainable. That means the Black Hills forests are shrinking, with fewer and smaller trees.
A sweeping government review of forest health surveys since 1993 found that the rate of trees dying increased this century and outpaced new growth in all eight states examined … Timber harvested from Forest Service lands over the past two decades also increased.
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/sep/15/climate-change-logging-collide-and-a-forest-shrink/
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/climate-change-logging-collide-forest-shrinks-80035735
… deforestation compromises zero carbon:
A Massachusetts climate law signed in March requires that greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 be at least 50% lower than 1990 emissions, that 2040 emissions be at least 75% lower and that 2050 emissions be at least 85% below 1990 emissions, with sequestration used to achieve net zero. Natural climate solutions are part of the solution, though are being compromised by forest clearing.
A new report conducted by Clark University for The Nature Conservancy found that the six New England states and New York are collectively releasing an estimated 4.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere each year through forest loss. And being without the storage power of that lost forest means the region is also losing out on 1.2 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) in carbon sequestration each year.
https://www.gazettenet.com/Forest-Losses-Hampering-Carbon-Fight-42474753
… forests increasingly edgy:
While NSW encourages fragmenting forests, roads and other disturbances are rapidly fragmenting the world’s rainforests, in the process creating edges that increase wind and sun penetration, drying the forest, killing trees and increasing carbon losses.
researchers have demonstrated, repeatedly, that canopy up to 100 metres from the edge of any forest becomes less effective at storing carbon, maintaining moisture and conserving biodiversity.
At the beginning of this century, researchers report in the journal Science Advances, they pored over high-resolution forest cover maps of the globe to count 131 million fragments of forest: that is forest subdivided by roads, or mining and quarrying works, or plantations, or clearance for logging, or for plantations or ranches. In just 10 years, this number had reached 152 million.
Every year now in the tropics, the clearance, destruction or degradation of forest releases between 1,000 and 1,500 million tonnes of carbon. The loss of efficiency at the edge of the surviving forest could increase this figure by almost a third.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/as-big-forests-shrink-the-carbon-leaks-and-the-heat-rises/
… Amazon suffering a heart attack:
It’s bad enough that a cancer is spreading through the world’s lungs, now the Amazon is suffering a heart attack:
Tracking cut trees through satellite mapping data, the research found that logging activities cleared 464,000 hectares (1.15 million acres) of the Brazilian Amazon — an area three times the size of the city of São Paulo — between August 2019 and July 2020.
… “Our map shows this is happening now: logging is going toward the Amazon core.”
He said the logging pattern was that of “frontier migration,” adding, “This is something that terrifies us. We have to stabilize this frontier.”
… Africa needs to value priceless forests:
A study of Africa’s montane rainforests found that they are storing more carbon than expected, but are also being felled faster than thought, with more than 0.8m hectares lost since the turn of the century, and another half a million hectares could be lost by 2030.
The forests serve as “water towers” for rivers that millions of people depend on. But they are rapidly under threat from mining, logging, farming and political conflicts, says the paper.
Carbon Brief spoke to Sonam P Wangdi, chair of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) negotiating group, who said:
“LDCs should be rewarded for keeping our forests intact. Environmentalism should have a value. Currently, it doesn’t have any value. Under Article 6, sinks don’t have any value, it covers mitigation only. There’s a difference between a new plantation and ancient forests and any trading mechanism should be flexible enough to allow us to value assets. You can only trade a reduction. But we have surplus. We should be entitled to trade.”
Lewis agrees, telling Carbon Brief that the focus should be on ending deforestation:
“If the world is going to close the emissions gap and actually halve CO2 emissions by 2030 then almost entirely ending deforestation by 2030 will need to be part of a broad package of measures. New funding sources to help keep forest standing will need to be integral to any successful set of measures, with payments for carbon, protecting biodiversity and other services that ecosystems provide can be part of that.”
The solution is part of the problem:
Tree planting is seen as a key natural solution to climate heating, with massive reforestation projects underway world-wide. Though in practice tree planting it is often part of the problem, being subverted into commercial plantations by timber companies and complicit Governments (such as Australia).
It’s as if a professional cleaner has been let loose in the rainforest. The whistles of birds and croaks of frogs have been vacuumed up, the messy understory cleared away. Where once chaotic tangles of vines and saplings wrestled over flecks of sunlight beneath a shady canopy, now trees of the same height stand tidy and organized in neatly spaced rows beneath the scorching sun.
This was meant to be a reforestation project. But something has gone very wrong.
Community members and scientists say Think Biotech has cleared diverse rainforest and replanted it with a monoculture, or single species, of acacia. Customary landowners have been kicked off lands they no longer recognize.
Yet in many places, plantations are already more than just a climate scandal. In China, researchers have shown that plantations of non-native black locust trees (Robinia pseudoacacia) on the Loess Plateau are sucking up 92% of rainfall during wet years, appropriating the freshwater that keeps rivers flowing. And China’s watery woes aren’t unique. The government of South Africa continues to spend millions of dollars each year on its flagship Working for Water campaign to clear rogue, water-guzzling plantation trees out of critical watershed areas.
Now, for the first time, we can start to unpick past patterns of tree plantation expansion in the tropics … Their results paint a worrisome picture. Between 2000 and 2012, tree cover expansion was dominated not by biodiverse natural forest regrowth, but by those neat rows of monoculture plantations. In total, these plantations made up roughly two-thirds of observed tree expansion, a massive 92% of which happened in “biodiversity hotspots.”
“Dense tree plantations in arid lands are likely to either grow slowly (if at all), burn up in a fire, or suck up all the groundwater,” Fagan says. “And yet, a fifth of all the plantations we observed were planted in arid biomes.”
But the most dire finding, Fagan says, is what’s happened in protected areas. One in 11 protected areas have experienced the nibbling pressures of tree plantations, their protected status unable to keep expanding monocultures at bay.
Evidence suggests that plantations are more vulnerable to fires, droughts and diseases than naturally regenerating forests, throwing yet another potential spanner in the works.
A review of a series of large-scale tree planting programs in Northern India found that they had not been effective
We find that tree plantings have not, on average, increased the proportion of forest canopy cover and have modestly shifted forest composition away from the broadleaf varieties valued by local people. Further cross-sectional analysis, from a household livelihood survey, shows that tree planting supports little direct use by local people. We conclude that decades of expensive tree planting programmes in this region have not proved effective. This result suggests that large-scale tree planting may sometimes fail to achieve its climate mitigation and livelihood goals.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00761-z
Valuing Nature
Doctors for the Environment Australia urge the environment movement to support a proposal to include natural capital in national accounts and therefore GDP.
The response of the UK government to the Dasgupta Review is positive and comprehensive. The question is whether the environmental movement will see this as an opportunity to slow the demise of the natural environment.
The Dasgupta Review “The Economics of Biodiversity” says we can no longer afford for biodiversity to be absent from accounting systems and ignored by economic decision makers. Accordingly the Review details the need for environmental accounting which would allow natural capital to be included in national accounts and therefore GDP
In Australia there was a transient response in some media including the ABC. There does not seem to have been an official response from the Government and the important 2021 Intergenerational Report which guides Australia over the next 40 years has only one sentence on Dasgupta in its 198 pages.
Many in the environment movement believe that only a new economic system can save us; this may be so but a first step is to educate on the value of ecological systems which is rarely in the thoughts of finance ministers. The inclusion of natural capital in accounting systems will do this.
The recent UK-Australian trade deal transgresses the Paris climate agreement and allows the import of large quantities of cheap beef and other agricultural goods produced to lower environmental standards than are permitted in the UK. Hopefully it will not be ratified.
We await a response to the February 2021 Dasgupta Review from the Australian Government as well as the financial sector and the environmental movement
https://www.miragenews.com/the-economics-of-biodiversity-and-the-worlds-634257/
Forest Media 10 September 2021
A renewed assault on north-east NSW’s forests has been launched by Sweetman’s Renewables based in the Hunter Valley, with commitments to covert 30,000 tonnes of woodchips p/a to hydrogen for export to Singapore, export 60,000 tonnes of woodchips to Japan for electricity generation, and to supply the rebooted Redbank Power Station with 850,000 tonnes p/a of partially dried woodchips. You can still have your say until 27 September 2021 on a revised Development Application for the Redbank Power Station being considered by the Land and Environment Court. SERCA had initial success in its case against Bega Valley Shire Council’s approval of a Development Application for the Eden chipmill, though this may prove to be temporary as Council seeks to revise their approval.
The NSW Government has released its Energy From Waste Infrastructure Plan which will see the proliferation of incinerators permitted to burn tree “waste” across NSW. On the Northern Rivers there is a “new thermal waste to energy project” (which appears to be a regional incinerator) north of Casino and an EIS in process to allow Condong to burn 120,000 tpa of “recovered” timber fuel (Broadwater already burns more timber than bagass).
The good news is that logging of public native forests will be banned in Western Australia from the end of 2023, protecting an additional 400,000 hectares of karri, jarrah and wandoo forests (but not from mining). The Premier describing it as “critical in the fight against climate change", The decision was a shock to the loggers, but the ending of this Government subsidised industry was considered by economists as a good economic decision that should be emulated by other states. Meanwhile in NSW Minister Kean has generated lots of undeservedly positive media from his pretence that he can stop species extinctions on national parks without addressing other tenures, and declared 221 sites on national parks to be Assets of Intergenerational Significance (AIS), meaning that 4% of existing national parks will get increased (?) protection. Kean has also announced that 10 local government areas will get assistance for education campaigns on the dangers of cats.
Koalas still garner lots of interest; with the Central Coast vying to become NSW’s Koala capital (despite the low numbers left), Kempsey partnering with the state on recovery actions, the tourism company CaPTA Group pulling out of its partnership with Gunnedah to build a koala tourist park and mini golf course, training of dog owners and dogs in Redland reducing Koala losses, and mothers found to be transmitting retrovirus to their joeys. Meanwhile the loggers praise Brad Law for his Koala work.
The inquest into the Badja fire on the south coast that killed 7 people and destroyed more than 1400 homes and buildings has been told that it was started by a lighting strike in a log dump, and fuelled by the logs and debris. Lindenmayer’s findings that logging increases burning still garners attention. While American pine forests are very different systems, the debate over the role of logging in increasing fires is similar.
After complaints by the Nationals that the fees being requested of developers to “offset” their impacts on threatened species and ecosystems are too high, the variable fees are being replaced by standardised fees, despite a $11.5 million shortfall. The legal battle continues in Victoria with an injunction granted to stop logging of glider habitat that it is argued was meant to be protected.
A 5 year assessment by Botanic Gardens Conservation International has evaluated the worldwide conservation status of trees, finding 30% threatened with extinction and widespread ecosystem collapse. Bird species across the globe are suffering and dying from a type of malaria that is spreading quickly through global transmission hotspots, including in Australia. In a joint, and radical, editorial the world’s major health journals say the climate and nature crises are an emergency demanding we urgently transform our societies. Religious leaders are calling on the world’s Governments to “listen to the cry of the earth” and take urgent action on climate change.
Saturday 12(?) September is International Forest Bathing Day, with activities being undertaken around the world. With covid restrictions easing, its time for a dip.
Dailan Pugh
North East NSW’s forests under unprecedented attack:
A renewed assault on north-east NSW’s forests has been launched by Sweetman’s Renewables based in the Hunter Valley. Under the leadership of John Halkett they have announced a variety of new deals:
- a $15 million deal with Singapore’s CAC-H₂ to construct the country’s largest wood-fed hydrogen production plant, gasifying 30,000 tonnes of woodchips p/a to produce hydrogen, with biochar as a by-product.
- A 20 year $US90 million deal with a Japanese conglomerate Sinanen Holdings to supply 60,000 tonnes of native forest woodchips per annum to four biomass power plants in Japan, at US$75 per tonne.
- Supply the 850,000 tonnes p/a of partially dried woodchips to Verdant Earth Technologies’ 151MW Redbank Power Station near Singleton in the Hunter Valley
[Chris Gambian, NCC] “Anyone thinking of investing in Sweetman Renewables should be made aware the conservation movement will not rest until this proposal is dead and buried,”
Mr Gambian said woodchipping was a high-turnover, low-cost business which created markets for forests that should be left standing and encouraged loggers to intensify their practices, cutting down not only mature established trees but younger, smaller trees as well.
Dr Andrew Smith, a consultant forest ecologist agreed. “The last thing you want anywhere in Australia is a new market for low value, high-volume product because that’s what’s destroying the environment,” he said.
https://www.ecogeneration.com.au/the-750kwh-energy-solution-you-wooden-expect/
It is estimated that around 25-30 million tonnes of waste timber residues are needed to replace 25% of Australia’s coal-fired generators or produce 5 GW of green baseload power generation using waste biomass to power generators.
… you can still object until 27 September:
You can still have your say until 27 September 2021 on Verdant Earth Technologies proposal to reboot their Redbank Power Station with over a million tonnes of woodchips taken from forests by objecting to their proposed variation to DA 183/1993. At least state that you object to the variation to replace coal with biomass, you could mention that there needs to be a new application that assesses impacts on forest ecosystems, CO2 emissions, air pollutants and regional traffic. Put it in your own words, it only needs to be brief, but individualist. It’s a numbers game, so make sure you count.
https://www.singleton.nsw.gov.au/310/Public-Exhibition
Successful court action against Eden chipmill:
While SERCA had initial success in its case against Bega Valley Shire Council’s approval of a Development Application for the Eden chipmill, this may prove to be temporary as Council seeks to revise their approval.
South East Region Conservation Alliance (SERCA) has congratulated member group, South East Forest Rescue Inc on its successful legal action which will force the Bega Valley Shire Council to reconsider a major Development Application from the owners of the Eden chipmill.
The approval was originally made back in September last year, but declared “invalid, void and of no force and effect” by Judge Robson in the Land and Environment Court on 24 August. The judge set aside the DA and granted an injunction to stop the work.
https://www.beagleweekly.com.au/post/chipmill-expansion-approval-must-be-reconsidered
NSW Government has released its Energy From Waste Infrastructure Plan which will see the proliferation of incinerators permitted to burn tree “waste” across NSW
The NSW Government has released its Energy From Waste Infrastructure Plan, which identifies 4 locations for what appears to be regional waste incineration centres (including a Richmond Valley Regional Jobs Precinct – just north of Casino on the Kyogle road). Minister Kean was on ABC radio on Friday extolling the Government’s “energy from waste” strategy, while trying to fudge the forest issue. The EPA define eligible waste fuels to include “forestry and sawmilling residues” and “uncontaminated wood waste” (as well as car tyres).
Minister for Energy and Environment Matt Kean said the plan is the final piece of the waste management puzzle and builds on the NSW Waste and Sustainable Materials Strategy and Plastics Plan released earlier this year.
“The Plan ensures new thermal waste to energy projects are co-located with transport links and complimentary industries, and kept away from high density residential areas.
https://www.miragenews.com/certainty-for-community-and-industry-on-energy-629533/
Despite the claim that “The Plan makes clear where new thermal waste to energy facilities can and cannot proceed” (ie the 4 sites), there are numerous other “Energy from Waste” facilities currently being planned across NSW.
https://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/Assess-and-Regulate/State-Significant-Projects/Energy-from-waste
Under this strategy Tweed’s Condong Cogeneration Plant is currently preparing an EIS to obtain State Significant Development approval to permit the receipt, temporary storage & combustion of ~120,000 tpa of “recovered” timber fuel.
https://www.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/major-projects/project/41926
The good news is that logging of native forests will be banned in Western Australia from the end of 2023:
West Australia Premier has announced that native forest logging will be phased out by 2024. There will be a $50 million Just Transition Plan to support affected workers, businesses and local economies, and $350 million will be spend planting at least 33,000 hectares of softwood. This will preserve at least an additional 400,000 hectares of karri, jarrah and wandoo forests. This means nearly two million hectares of native forests will be protected for future generations.
Premier Mark McGowan:
"Protecting this vital asset is critical in the fight against climate change."
Environment and Climate Action Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson:
"The McGowan Government is committed to preserving our beautiful South-West forests for future generations by ending large-scale commercial logging from 2024.
"This will not only ensure this important asset can be enjoyed for its beauty, Aboriginal cultural heritage, and ecotourism for years to come, but it is an important step in the fight against climate change.
"WA's South-West native forests are storing approximately 600 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, or roughly 116 years' worth of annual emissions for every car in Western Australia."
… Mr McGowan said “This will be good for preserving carbon, for stopping the release of carbon into the atmosphere.
“There's millions upon millions of tons (that) will be preserved in the forests as part of this decision so it's an important climate initiative as well and shows Western Australia is doing our bit to assist with combating climate change as well.”
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7421678/wa-puts-an-end-to-native-forest-logging/
… a decision welcomed by economists:
“Australia Institute research has highlighted the financial and economic losses of the WA Forest Products Commission, in particular on native forestry.
“The FPC lost $1.7 million on native forestry in 2020, just the latest of many poor financial results.
“WA Governments have pumped far more money into native forestry than they were ever likely to get out of it.
“The same pattern is seen across Australia – state governments spending millions to subsidise native forestry while better options are available in plantation forestry and conservation.
“It’s time for a full independent audit of native forestry operations in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania where the same pattern of government subsidies is resulting in rotten economic and environmental outcomes.
https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/economists-welcome-end-of-native-forest-logging-in-wa/?
https://www.miragenews.com/economists-welcome-end-of-native-forest-logging-629901/
… meanwhile NSW’s big announcement is that they intend to protect 4% of existing National Parks:
Minister Kean has set a target of zero extinctions of native wildlife in the state’s national parks estate (as if this can be achieved in isolation) and declared 221 sites on national parks to be assets of intergenerational significance (AIS). Koalas, Brushtail Rock Wallabies and a variety of threatened plants feature prominently in the selection of just over 300,000 hectares, almost four per cent of the entire National Parks Estate (ie 4% of 9% of NSW = 0.36%).
“Globally, one million species face extinction over the coming decades and, as international biodiversity negotiations continue, everyone needs to aim high,” Kean said.
“Just as we have a net zero emissions target, we now also have a target of zero extinctions for our national parks, and are aiming to improve and stabilise the on-park trajectory of threatened species by 2030,” Kean said.
In total, 27 animal species, including 13 mammals, four birds, seven frogs and three reptiles, will be protected as well as 66 plant species, including the Wollemi pine.
https://www.standard.net.au/story/7420291/nsw-vows-no-more-species-extinctions/
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?
https://www.ecovoice.com.au/wwf-welcomes-zero-extinction-target-in-nsw-national-parks/
There is a map of the sites at:
https://ais-map-dot-npws-ais-portal.ts.r.appspot.com/map
The Nature Conservation Council welcomes the NSW Government’s commitment to a new suite of measures to protect the state’s most threatened species and ecosystems.
https://clarencevalleynews.com.au/fresh-approach-to-extinction-crisis-is-welcome/
The loggers thought it is a great idea too:
“We congratulate the NSW Government for their focus on biodiversity and their drive to manage threatened species within National Parks. We should also recognise and applaud the conservation and biodiversity role of our sustainably-managed native forestry operations in our multi-use forests and by our farm foresters,” said Ms Grau.
https://www.miragenews.com/multi-use-forests-and-sustainable-native-627353/
… the announcement was seen as the smokescreen it is by some:
Great! Environment groups joined in congratulating Kean on his “intergenerational” vision before looking at it in any detail.
The most threatened bird species in NSW is the critically endangered regent honeyeater. Its habitat in the Burragorang, Capertee and Hunter valleys were not listed as an “intergenerational asset”. A curious omission given the $1 million in funding the NSW government has thrown at the species over the past six years.
The environmental movement should be calling out this announcement for the blatant political spin that it is. The devil is always in the detail – and the detail shows Matt Kean is sending some of Australia’s most iconic species towards extinction through what could be called his government’s own form of “environmental terrorism”.
… Kean’s keen to appear green:
Kean has also announced assistance to 10 Councils (incl. Byron, Tweed, Kyogle), providing education and advice for communities on the importance of containing their cats safely at home.
The Minister for the Environment, Matt Kean has announced that a program encouraging cat owners to keep their cats at home would help curb the toll on native wildlife caused by domestic cats across the State.
Mr Kean said domestic cats were estimated to kill around 67 million native mammals, 83 million native reptiles and 80 million native birds in Australia each year.
He said the four-year Keeping Cats Safe at Home program was supported by a $2.5 million grant from the Environmental Trust.
https://psnews.com.au/2021/09/07/environment-pounces-on-cat-control/?state=aps
Central Coast keen to be Koala capital:
The Pearl Beach Arboretum flora and fauna sanctuary is collaborating with the University of Sydney to support the Central Coast as a future home for fire-surviving koalas.
‘I would like to see the Central Coast established as the largest natural koala sanctuary in the world,’ Jake says.
... Kempsey involved in Koala Recovery Partnership
Through the Koala Recovery Partnership, Council along with its partners are on a mission to improve koala conservation across the Hastings-Macleay region. Representatives engage with local landholders, the community, research groups and government agencies to deliver key projects aiding local koala recovery including long-term monitoring programs and the Koala Smart school program.
You can check out the great work being carried out through the partnership at Koala Recovery Partnership.
https://www.miragenews.com/koala-conservation-backed-through-dedicated-626616/
… is this another blow for Koalas … probably not:
After suffering huge financial losses the tourism company CaPTA Group has pulled out of Gunnedah’s propose koala tourist park and mini golf course.
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2021/09/09/operator-pulls-out-of-gunnedah-koala-park-project/
... training dogs reduces Koala deaths:
A dog training program in suburban Redland LGA was found to reduce Koala deaths from dogs by 40%:
Piloted by the Redland City Council in 2017 the Leave It dog training program co-designed by Social Marketing @ Griffith (SM@G) researchers has reduced koala deaths from dog attacks in the area by 40 per cent.
Funding provided by the Department of Environment and Science will be used to design and deliver a Coordinated Koala Awareness Campaign and Threat Management Initiative to support the SEQ Koala Conservation Strategy 2020-2025 in partnership with SEQ local governments.
“We will work with LGAs to deliver a series of agreed engagement and threat mitigation activities from increasing the proportion of dogs that are trained to avoid koalas to encouraging drivers to slow down in areas where koalas are present,” she said.
https://news.griffith.edu.au/2021/09/08/koala-campaign-reaches-new-heights-in-south-east-qld/
Mothers infect joeys with retrovirus:
A Queensland study found that mother Koalas are likely responsible for spread of Koala retrovirus (KoRV):
A deadly koala virus that can cause immune depletion and cancer, known as koala retrovirus, is being transferred to joeys from their mothers, according to University of Queensland scientists.
“Koala retrovirus – also known as KoRV – and associated diseases are another threat facing koalas, along with climate change and habitat loss.
“The virus causes immune depletion, likely making it much harder for koalas to cope with these other, already-detrimental environmental stressors.
https://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2021/08/koala-killer-being-passed-joeys-mum
Loggers laud Law:
Australian Forest Products Association NSW (AFPA NSW) Sue Grau congratulates Dr Brad Law who has been appointed as a Fellow of the Royal Zoological Society of NSW.
“We are lucky to have Dr Law working here in NSW
https://www.miragenews.com/nsw-government-scientist-and-koala-expert-629053/
Logging fuels Badja fire:
A coronial hearing into the devastating Black Summer of 2019-2020 focused on the Badja Forest blaze that claimed seven lives and destroyed more than 1400 homes and buildings.
Senior fire investigator Glenn Bradley said he had never seen anything like the rapid and extreme spread of the fire sparked in southeast NSW by a barrage of lightning strikes on December 27, 2019.
It is believed the fire started in an area off Badja Forest Rd, where felled trees were left to be picked up and removed.
“From speaking to witnesses, it was a heavy fuel load … on the ground level,” Detective Bradley said.
NSW Police Detective senior constable Glenn Bradley told the court he believed the fire had begun when it struck a tree in a logging dump in the Badja Forest on December 27, after a “band of lightning” hit the region.
… continuing coverage of logging increasing burning:
Behind paywalls:
… the debate and fires rage on in America:
The analysis is based on historical satellite and aerial images, as well as data covering grazing and state and federal logging. DellaSala, who is based in Talent, Ore., said the analysis shows the fire moved faster through areas that had been thinned or grazed.
The analysis found that on average the wildfire moved 3.4 miles per day through public and private forest lands that had been logged over the past two decades. That’s compared to an average of 2.1 miles for unmanaged wilderness and roadless areas. The analysis attributed the slower spread in dense forests to the amount of moisture retained in trees and their cooler, shadier microclimates.
Oregon State University forestry professor Chris Dunn and Harold Zald of Humboldt State University published a 2018 paper finding young, industrial plantation forests burned more severely during the Douglas Complex fire that occurred five years earlier.
https://www.streetroots.org/news/2021/08/17/forest-management-not-so-clear-cut
Making it cheaper to kill threatened species:
After sustained attack from the Nationals, the Biodiversity Conservation Trust is to scrap its offset calculator that determines what a developer must pay into the government’s Biodiversity Conservation Fund in return for being allowed to destroy habitat of threatened species and ecosystems, replacing it with a standardised fee.
The scheme - a key pillar of the state’s conservation efforts, including in preserving koala habitat - has come under increasing criticism from the property industry and the Nationals for being too costly, while environmentalists have criticised it as dwindling in its initial intent of preservation.
The trust’s most recent annual report, from 2019-20, said it had suffered an $11.5 million shortfall in the amount it had received from developers and the amount needed to buy the necessary biodiversity credits.
East Gippsland court injunction:
The legal battle continues in Victoria with an injunction granted to stop logging of glider habitat that it is argued was meant to be protected.
Environment East Gippsland is currently conducting a proceeding against VicForests alleging that VicForests have been logging habitat that they were required by law to set aside for Greater Gliders and Yellow bellied Gliders known to exist in the immediate vicinity.
The court held that EEG was raising a serious question for trial, and logging in the affected forest should not proceed until the case was decided, or until the court ordered otherwise.
The Status of Trees:
A 5 year assessment by Botanic Gardens Conservation International has evaluated the worldwide conservation status of trees, finding 30% threatened with extinction and widespread ecosystem collapse. Out of Australia’s 3,232 tree species, 2,730 are endemic and 471 (15%) are threatened.
Through the Global Tree Assessment, intensive research has been undertaken over the past five years to compile extinction risk information on the 58,497 tree species worldwide. We now know that 30% of tree species are threatened with extinction, and at least 142 tree species are recorded as extinct. The main threats to tree species are forest clearance and other forms of habitat loss, direct exploitation for timber and other products and the spread of invasive pests and diseases. Climate change is also having a clearly measurable impact.
Through reforestation efforts, there is a huge opportunity to change this dire picture but tree planting practices largely need to change. Forests can regenerate naturally if given a little time to rest and when tree planting is needed, in particular for threatened tree species that have reached very low numbers of individuals, the right species need to be planted in the right place.
Concern about ecosystem collapse is increasing, owing to growing recognition that the process can be very abrupt, as illustrated by the bleaching and death of large parts of the Great Barrier Reef in 2016/7. With respect to forest ecosystems, there has been a series of major, large-scale disturbance events, such as the unprecedented fires in California, southern Australia, Indonesia and the Amazon in recent years. At the same time, large areas of forest are undergoing mass mortality events because of other factors, including drought and heat stress and the increased incidence of pests and diseases. Allen et al. (2010) provide a striking account of large-scale tree mortality occurring in many different parts of the world including the severe loss of the Endangered Atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica) from Morocco to Algeria potentially leading to ecosystem collapse. The rapid decline of dominant tree species currently evaluated as Least Concern may also trigger ecosystem collapse in wide areas as with the mortality of Pinus tabuliformis across 0.5 million ha in east-central China, and extensive mortality of Nothofagus dombeyi in Patagonian South America. Many of the best-documented examples are from North America, including death of >1 million ha of multiple spruce species in Alaska, >10 million ha of Pinus contorta in British Columbia, 1 million ha of Populus tremuloides in Saskatchewan and Alberta, and >1 million ha of Pinus edulis in the southwestern US (Allen et al., 2010)
Analysis of empirical evidence (Newton, 2021) shows that collapse is most likely to occur when forest ecosystems are subjected to multiple anthropogenic threats simultaneously. Different threats such as fire, logging, herbivory, and habitat fragmentation can potentially interact, creating feedbacks that can drive abrupt ecological change. However, climate change has the potential to become the principal driver of collapse …
The Gondwana Rainforests of eastern Australia are conserved as a World Heritage Site protecting more than 40 million years of rainforest evolutionary history. Three-quarters of the forests of New South Wales were destroyed in around 130 years leading up to the 1970s by burning and logging for valuable timber.
In total, there are 822 Australian eucalypts. … Prior to the Global Tree Assessment, 89 eucalypts were listed as threatened under Australian environmental law. The new assessment recommends that 32 of these species be downgraded to Near Threatened or Least Concern. A further 11 species were identified as Data Deficient, while an additional 147 species were proposed for listing as threatened.
The GlobalTree Portal https://www.bgci.org/resources/bgci-databases/globaltree-portal/ allows access to information on all of the world’s tree species. You can explore tree species distribution, conservation status (global and others) and conservation actions.
The second most common use of trees recorded during the Global Tree Assessment, is for medicinal purposes. Medicine from trees, extracted from the wood, bark, roots, leaves, flowers, fruits or seeds is fundamental to the well-being of millions of people. An estimated 10% of all trees (nearly 6,000 tree species) have medicinal or aromatic use …
https://www.bgci.org/our-work/projects-and-case-studies/global-tree-assessment/
Birds suffer their own pandemic:
Bird species across the globe are suffering and dying from a type of malaria that is spreading quickly through global transmission hotspots, including in Australia. This bird-specific avian malaria now affects 13-14% of birds worldwide.
https://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2021/08/bird-malaria-spreading-global-hotspots%E2%80%99
Medical journals issue united call for urgent and radical action on climate change and species’ extinctions:
In a joint, and radical, editorial the world’s major health journals say the climate and nature crises are an emergency demanding we urgently transform our societies.
we—the editors of health journals worldwide—call for urgent action to keep average global temperature increases below 1·5°C, halt the destruction of nature, and protect health.
Health is already being harmed by global temperature increases and the destruction of the natural world, a state of affairs health professionals have been bringing attention to for decades. The science is unequivocal; a global increase of 1·5°C above the pre-industrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse.
Rises above 1·5°C increase the chance of reaching tipping points in natural systems that could lock the world into an acutely unstable state. This would critically impair our ability to mitigate harms and to prevent catastrophic, runaway environmental change.
Encouragingly, many governments, financial institutions, and businesses are setting targets to reach net-zero emissions, including targets for 2030. The cost of renewable energy is dropping rapidly. Many countries are aiming to protect at least 30% of the world's land and oceans by 2030.
The greatest threat to global public health is the continued failure of world leaders to keep the global temperature rise below 1·5°C and to restore nature. Urgent, society-wide changes must be made and will lead to a fairer and healthier world. We, as editors of health journals, call for governments and other leaders to act, marking 2021 as the year that the world finally changes course.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01915-2/fulltext
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/global-health-journals-warn-on-climate-and-nature/
… as do soul physicians:
Religious leaders are calling on the world’s Governments to “listen to the cry of the earth” and take urgent action on climate change:
In "A Joint Message for the Protection of Creation," Pope Francis, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew asked Christians to pray that world leaders at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow in November make courageous choices.
"We call on everyone, whatever their belief or world view, to endeavour to listen to the cry of the earth and of people who are poor, examining their behaviour and pledging meaningful sacrifices for the sake of the earth which God has given us," the message said.
The fight for Canada’s dwindling oldgrowth continues:
At least 866 arrested defending Vancouver Island’s oldgrowth since April, reputedly making it the largest act of civil disobedience in Canada’s history.
“The civil disobedience movement is very simple. We put our bodies on the line, we almost expect to be injured, we expect to be in a very uncomfortable situation,” said Warren Kimmit. “Our willingness to do that is what causes the public to see our commitment to a cause, to rally them and to put pressure on the government to act.”
Saturday is International Forest Bathing Day
Saturday 12 September is International Forest Bathing Day, with activities being undertaken around the world.
Visitors to Minnowburn on the outskirts of Belfast will be able to experience forest bathing in the utmost comfort thanks to the installation of three new forest bathing beds, just in time for International Forest Bathing Day on Saturday.
China engaged in major tree planting:
China will plant 36,000 square kilometres of new forest a year until 2025 as a measure to combat climate change and better protect natural habitats, a senior forestry official says.
Following the destruction of major ecosystems during decades of rapid economic growth, China has promised to create "ecological security barriers" and protect as much as a quarter of its total territory from human encroachment.
Over the next five years, China will also expand its national park system, create corridors to alleviate habitat fragmentation, and will crack down further on illegal wildlife trade, according to Chen Jiawen from the Chiense State Forestry Administration, who was lead author of the five-year plan.
Forest Media 28 August- 3 September 2021
Hi, having had a great time exploring new areas and various ecosystems around Australia I am back and will resume my weekly forest media summaries (for a while at least).
NEFA joined with 60 other forest conservation groups around Australia to call for an end to logging of public native forests, with incentives for landowners to protect private forests. As a result of a legal challenge by bushfire survivors, a court has compelled the EPA to take stronger action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Another assessment has found that 10-40 year old regrowth following logging is more susceptible to burning, prompting calls to stop logging near settlements.
Fridays for Forests activities are being effective in raising awareness, garnering support and protecting forests. A landowner near Bungabbee is complaining about Forestry’s failure to maintain fire trails being rendered impassable by 4WDers.
Having devoted the last 100 years to getting rid of those big old hollow-bearing trees to make room for regrowth, Forestry now have a hole borer to make new hollows in small trees. Meanwhile the assault on Greater Glider hollows and habitat continues unabated, increasing their endangerment.
The Commonwealth’s Koala Recovery Plan has been decried again, you have until 24 September to let them know what you want for Koalas. AKF have announced their Koala Kiss Project, the first stage of which is to identify missing habitat linkages to prioritise for rehabilitation. They intend to fund it by getting people to eat Koalas. Queensland University of Technology are offering to analyse infra-red drone footage to find Koalas. Meanwhile the Queensland Government is putting $1.4 million into the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary to boost tourism.
The Victorian Environmental Assessment Council (VEAC) is to undertake an assessment of 96,000 ha of State forests identified as Immediate Protection Areas (IPA) to determine their most appropriate tenure. A new book extolling the beauty and values of Mountain Ash forests has been released.
The earth’s sixth major extinction is on track, and Australia is doing its part. Of the 1,795 taxa recognised as nationally threatened, Habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation is the major threat to 1,210. Reservation targets are on the agenda of the long delayed 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity now scheduled to take place in early 2022. NSW has failed miserably to meet the 17% reserve targets set in 2010, and have no intent of meeting the proposed 30% targets that have already been adopted by 70 countries.
The Amazon has come under increasing attack since 2019, with its biodiversity under attack and the Brazilian Amazon confirmed to have been converted into a net emitter of CO2 due to clearing and burning. The Congo appears set to follow.
The European Union currently relies upon forests to absorb 10% of their CO2 emissions, with calls to plant 3 billion trees as part of its effort to cut CO2 emissions by 55% by 2030 (an unrealistic goal as it will take decades before plantings become net sinks), though as climate change gathers momentum forests ability to absorb CO2 is diminishing and the risk to plantings increasing. The European Union came close to recognising that forests are most important as carbon sinks, until vested interests intervened to allow wood to be used to replace fossil fuels.
Forests contain a large amount of dead wood (branches, logs, trees) that contain carbon that is slowly released as it decomposes, contributing more CO2 than burning fossil fuels. In tropical forests 28.2% of deadwood is lost every year and in temperate regions its 6.3%, which means that on average 85% remains in the forest storing carbon – using it for fuel increases emissions.
Protests over the logging of oldgrowth forest continue in north America. Earthworms invading Canada’s boreal forests are increasing litter decomposition, threatening to turn the forests into net emitters of CO2. Further south they are changing habitats to the detriment of native species. Urban tree planting gains momentum. As a foretaste of our future, California continues to be ravished by record droughts and fires.
Pollution due to burning-off for forest clearance and agriculture in Southeast Asia causes around 59,000 premature deaths every year.
Dailan Pugh
United call for end to logging of public native forests:
The Examiner reports that 61 forest conservation organisations from across Australia have released a statement calling for an immediate end to native forest logging on public lands. The article cites Bob Debus “We know now that preserving big, mature trees is one of the best ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and that allowing young native forests to grow old does more to increase carbon storage and protect wildlife than planting new trees," and Susie Russell “Our public native forests provide valuable services such as flood and erosion mitigation, carbon storage and maintaining biodiversity. These are all diminished by logging and their value increased by restoration and protection”.
The statement is at:
EPA forced to take action on climate change.
The group, the Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action, were successful in getting a court to compel the NSW EPA to take action to reduce greenhouse emissions:
On Thursday, a New South Wales court compelled the state Environment Protection Authority (EPA) to take stronger action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It’s the first time an Australian court has ordered a government organisation to take more meaningful action on climate change.
The case challenging the EPA’s current failures was brought by a group of bushfire-affected Australians. The group’s president said the ruling means those impacted by bushfires can rebuild their homes, lives, and communities, with the confidence the EPA will also work to do its part by addressing emissions.
Time to stop logging near towns:
The Nature Conservation Council has called on the NSW Government to stop logging near towns in response to the latest paper published by David Lindenmayer that found logging significantly increases the risks of catastrophic fires.
“Forests burned at very high severity when they were between 10 to 40 years old,” he explained, “and young forests regenerating after logging were particularly susceptible to very high severity fire.
“Our findings show there should be no logging near rural towns and other communities.”
Professor Lindenmayer said that at a time when the risk of extreme fire weather had risen 10 times since the 1960s, “we must do everything possible to keep country people safe”.
“Reducing the flammability of forests is crucial,” he added.
Our analyses suggest that forests managed for timber production near settlements may be at increased risk of high-severity fire. This is because logging resets stand age to zero, after which there is a subsequent period of increased probability of high-severity fire, particularly under extreme fire weather conditions. Therefore, policies to maintain cover of older forest near settlements should be considered.
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ecs2.3721
Friday for Forests PR:
This week’s print edition of The Echo has a lengthy article “We’ve got the evidence – citizen scientists take on the Forestry Corporation” by Miriam Torzillo quoting a variety of people about Fridays for Forests and their effectiveness:
A group of dedicated conservationists have been quietly gathering evidence in the forests of northern NSW. The evidence they’ve sought is for proof of what will be lost if these forests are logged, as is part of Forestry Corporation plans.
Led by environmental scientists, biologists and ecologists, these citizen scientists have been going into forests in the north of the state to look for evidence of koala habitation, endangered flora and other species endemic to the area.
The Sept 1st print edition is available online at https://www.echo.net.au/ , the article is on p14.
Bungabbee fire concerns:
A landowner has complained about the lack of maintenance of fire trails in Bungabbee, most of which have been rendered impassable by 4WDs, though FC says they are not on the priority list for repair.
“It’s very fortunate the reserve which is managed by the Forestry Corporation NSW, escaped disaster but it was more luck than good management.
“No fire truck would be able to get in there if there was a fire and I would not recommend it,” Mr Serone said.
Hollowing out trees:
As they continue to cut them down, the NSW Government has invested in a new machine to hollow out trees.
In New South Wales alone, it’s estimated 5.5 million hectares of tree hollows were lost in the 2019/2020 mega-fires that possums, gliders, micro-bats and birds use for breeding, shelter and protection.
[The Hallowhog is] “the first tool of its kind and combines hardened steel and tungsten carbide cutting blades to provide the safest and most efficient way to carve a large cavity through a small hole, meaning that the tree’s living parts are left intact.”
The NSW Government has invested $165,000 into the project, which is faster and less invasive than using a chainsaw.
Gliders in great trouble:
Since Greater Gliders were listed as Vulnerable in 2016 their habitat has continued to be logged and cleared, and burnt in the 2019-20 wildfires, now they are eligible for listing as Endangered. NSW still refuses to list or protect them.
We also quantified how much greater glider habitat was affected by the 2019-2020 Black Summer bushfires, and found approximately 29% of greater glider habitat was burnt. Almost 40% of this burnt at high severity, which means few gliders are likely to persist in, or rapidly return to, these areas.
As a result, earlier this year — just five years after listing — an assessment by the Threatened Species Scientific Committee found the greater glider is potentially eligible for up-listing from vulnerable to endangered.
In Victoria and parts of NSW, the forestry industry is allowed to log greater glider habitat under “regional forest agreements”. These agreements allow logging to operate under a special set of rules that bypasses federal environmental scrutiny under the EPBC Act.
… the species is highly sensitive to disturbance.
Federal Government’s Koala Extinction Plan:
Sue Arnold describes the Feds’ draft Koala Recovery Plan as “a recipe for disaster, allowing massive destruction of koala habitat and incapable of providing desperately needed protection”, noting:
Virtually every national koala conservation plan and all states’ strategies have stressed the primary threat to koalas is the ongoing destruction of habitat.
Yet in 2021, neither the Federal or State Governments are willing to provide the foundational response to ensure any survival of the species. Without habitat protection, koalas are doomed.
Direct threats identified by the plan have introduced a brand new marketing language. Instead of industrial logging as a major threat, we now have ‘vegetation change through forest harvesting’.
The draft National Recovery Plan for the Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) (combined populations of Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory) is open for comment until 24 September 2021. PLEASE LET THEM KNOW WHAT YOU THINK.
https://haveyoursay.awe.gov.au/koala-recovery-plan
Australian Koala Foundation launches its Koala Kiss Project:
AKF have announced their Koala Kiss Project, the first stage of which is to identify missing habitat linkages to prioritise for rehabilitation.
… a new initiative entitled the ‘Koala Kiss Project' which is our plan to understand how much habitat there is from Cairns down to Melbourne.
Our idea will ultimately lead to a 'Great Koala Trail', approximately 2,543kms through prime Koala habitat that can be created into an uninterrupted conservation corridor by connecting key 'kiss points'.
Kiss points are the points where intact sections of Koala habitat come close to each other, but remain separated by divisions of cleared land.
As we all know the remaining Koala habitat in Australia is extremely fragmented, but some areas come close to ‘kissing’ each other at certain points in the landscape. These connections could be key to saving the Koala.
The first phase of this project will be a scientific exercise using software to plot the kiss points over 1.5 million square kilometres of land. Imagine, once we have identified those areas, landholders could be given incentives to plant Koala forests that link those fragmented habitats. Every kiss we can connect in the near future will help ensure the survival of the Koala”.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-9945373/Habitat-corridor-proposed-save-koalas.html
https://www.blayneychronicle.com.au/story/7411456/habitat-corridor-proposed-to-save-koalas/
https://www.hepburnadvocate.com.au/story/7411456/habitat-corridor-proposed-to-save-koalas/
https://www.theadvocate.com.au/story/7411456/habitat-corridor-proposed-to-save-koalas/?cs=9676
https://www.miragenews.com/save-koala-with-kisses-habitat-regeneration-623352/
Eating Koalas to save them:
Now by eating Koalas you can help fund the AKF’s Koala Kiss Project.
Forget the Lindt bunny because the Lindt Koala is now a thing and the company has partnered with the Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) to ensure that every chocolate koala eaten helps to save a real koala.
The Lindt Koala is available from September 1 in conjunction with Save the Koala month. Every koala sold will see $1 put towards the AKF to help support the survival of our favourite tree bears.
https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2021/09/lindt-koala-chocolate-charity/
Still faced with extinction:
An opinion piece referring to the Koala Inquiry and noting:
"The committee [report] found that koalas in NSW are on track to be extinct by 2050. Sadly, the best evidence now seems to suggest that date may even be sooner. But with the right policies and real effort, we can turn reverse that trend. We can stop destroying koala habitat. It really is as simple as that. Koalas are under threat in all sorts of places across the state because of land clearing, logging in native forests and property developments," said Chris Gambian, chief executive of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW.
https://www.newsweek.com/australias-koalas-face-extinction-2050-opinion-1624323
Help to find Koalas:
Queensland University of Technology have received funding to analyse infra-red drone imagery from around Australia to identify Koalas and other species.
“This system will allow Landcare groups, conservation groups, organisations working on protecting and monitoring species to survey large areas in their regions, anywhere in Australia, with the use of drones and thermal imaging detection, and send the data back to us where we can process it.”
Supported with $325,000 from the Landcare Led Bushfire Recovery Grants, the program will develop the capacity of Landcare and other community groups to conduct drone surveys for wildlife detection.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/science/environment/2021/09/01/drones-ai-koala-qut/
Koala tourism boosted:
Work is about to start on a $1.4 million expansion of Brisbane’s iconic Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, creating fresh attractions predicted to generate an extra $3.2 million for Brisbane’s visitor economy and grow visitor numbers.
https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/93063
https://www.ausleisure.com.au/news/major-expansion-begins-on-brisbanes-lone-pine-koala-sanctuary/
https://theglobalherald.com/news/koala-sanctuary-set-for-multimillion-expansion-7news/
Victoria begins assessment of Immediate Protection Areas:
The Victorian Environmental Assessment Council (VEAC) will undertake a scientific assessment of environmental, biodiversity and other values in 96,000 ha of State forests identified as Immediate Protection Areas (IPA) in Mirboo North, Strathbogie Ranges, Central Highlands and East Gippsland to determine the most appropriate tenure.
Extolling the beauty and values of Mountain Ash forests:
David Lindenmayer has collaborated with photographer Sarah Reese on a new book about Victoria’s Mountain Ash forests:
"The stunning photography creates this artistic background against which my own life experiences in the same forest are set."
The Great Forest is published by Allen and Unwin and available now.
Earth’s sixth major extinction on track:
Researchers applied up-to-date data on currently recognized threatening processes affecting all nationally listed threatened taxa in Australia, concluding “the most frequently listed threats being Habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation (n = 1,210 taxa), and Invasive species and disease (n = 966 taxa)”. By comparison climate change is only listed as a current threat to 233 taxa. They identify as threatened 1,339 plants (7.2% of all plant species), 135 birds (16.3%), 107 mammals (27.7%), 65 invertebrates (0.02%), 61 reptiles (6.6%), 51 fish (1%, but 12% of freshwater fish) and 37 frogs (16.3%). They note:
The sixth mass extinction is arguably the worst environmental crisis humanity currently faces (Ceballos et al., 2020), with species becoming extinct 100–1,000 times faster than Earth's biota has experienced over the last ten million years (Barnosky et al., 2011; Ceballos et al., 2015; Pimm et al., 2014). Recent estimates show that one million species are now threatened with extinction (hereon “threatened”) globally and could go extinct in the next century (IPBES, 2018), with at least 515 terrestrial vertebrates likely to be lost within the next 20 years (Ceballos et al., 2020). In Australia, 25 taxa (ten birds, seven mammals, six reptiles, one butterfly, and twenty fish) are likely to become extinct within the next 20 years unless major conservation action is undertaken [doesn’t add up]…
European settlement has significantly changed the Australian environment by introducing novel species (e.g., woody and herbaceous weeds, cane toads, and cats; Lintermans et al., 2013; Woinarski et al., 2011), widespread clearing of native vegetation for intensive agriculture and urban development (Ward et al., 2019), ungulate grazing (e.g., sheep and cattle; Kuiper & Parker, 2013), spreading alien disease (e.g., Phytophthora cinnamomi, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis; Skerratt et al., 2007), and altering fire regimes (Woinarski et al., 2015).
Since 2000, 85% of Australia's threatened species lost habitat, equating to 7.7 million hectares, and efforts to ameliorate this ongoing loss have had little effect (Ward et al., 2019). As habitat loss is primarily driven by agriculture and urban development (Evans, 2016), it is a politically polarizing issue (Lindenmayer et al., 2014). However, habitat is the most fundamental need of species, and its continued loss will result in ongoing declines regardless of how well other threats are managed.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ece3.7920
https://www.newsgram.com/australian-wildlife-on-list-of-endangered-species
https://www.orissapost.com/australian-wildlife-on-list-of-endangered-species/
Saving biodiversity:
The long delayed 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity is now scheduled to take place in Kunming, China, in April and May 2022. One of the issues will be reservation targets:
In 2010, countries committed to slowing the overall rate of biodiversity loss by 2020. But just 6 out of the 20 targets that were agreed on that occasion — at COP 10 in Aichi, Japan — have been even partially met, notable among them a commitment to conserve 17% of the world’s land and inland waters.
Ahead of the Kunming meeting, policymakers and scientists are discussing a new action plan, called the Global Biodiversity Framework, which they hope to agree next year. The latest draft (published in July; see go.nature.com/3kbvspd) includes a promise to conserve 30% of the world’s land and sea areas by 2030
Back in 2010 they released a Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, with ambitious Aichi Biodiversity Targets (https://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/), including
By 2020, at least 17 per cent of terrestrial and inland water, and 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services, are conserved through effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative and well connected systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures
The High Ambition Coalition (HAC) for Nature and People is an intergovernmental group of 70 countries co-chaired by Costa Rica and France and by the United Kingdom as Ocean co-chair, championing a global deal for nature and people with the central goal of protecting at least 30 percent of world’s land and ocean by 2030. The 30x30 target is a global target which aims to halt the accelerating loss of species, and protect vital ecosystems that are the source of our economic security.
https://www.hacfornatureandpeople.org/home
In 2018, philanthropist Hansjörg Wyss put $1 billion toward initiatives to help a range of stakeholders conserve 30% of the planet in its natural state by 2030. One of the products of that commitment is the Campaign for Nature, an advocacy, communications, and alliance-building effort to turn that 30×30 target into a reality.
- The campaign’s strategy has three major components: building political support for 30×30, ensuring Indigenous and local community rights are advanced in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, and boosting funding for nature conservation, especially for developing countries where biodiversity is concentrated.
https://news.mongabay.com/2021/08/building-the-campaign-for-nature-a-with-brian-odonnell/?utm
Australia has failed miserably to achieve most of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. For example, NSW now has 9% of its land area in reserves, and even less of its marine areas in sanctuary zones. Even if we protect the 2 million ha of native forests on State Forests this only represents an additional 2.4%. So we have a long way to go to meet the 2010 reserve targets, and even further to meet the proposed revised 30x30 targets.
The Amazon is under increasing attack:
A new study authored by researchers from Florida State University and the University of Arizona is offering the first quantitative assessment of how lax deforestation policies, drought and forest fires have impacted biodiversity in the Amazon River basin.
Researchers found that, since 2001, between 40,000 and 73,400 square miles of Amazon rainforest have been impacted by fires. Those fires have affected 95% of all Amazonian species and as many as 85% of the region’s species that have been identified as threatened.
The Amazon basin supports around 40% of the world’s remaining tropical forests and plays a crucial role in regulating Earth’s climate via crucial ecosystem services such as scrubbing and storing carbon from the atmosphere.
The area is a reservoir of the planet’s biodiversity, providing habitats for one out of every 10 of the planet’s known species.
The latest assessment reaffirms that the Brazilian Amazon has been transformed by fires and deforestation into a net emitter of carbon dioxide, emitting 3.6 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent more than it sequestered over the past 20 years. The good news is that across the entire Amazon there was a net sequestration of 1.7 billion metric tons, chiefly from reserves and indigenous lands. Though in this climate emergency we need to maximise sequestration across all forests, including our own.
Finer said. “All of a sudden you go from the [Brazilian] Amazon to being a key buffer against climate change to putting its foot on the accelerator.”
Threats to Congo rainforests grow:
As threats to the Amazon grow, so too do they to Africa’s Congo rainforests:
“The Democratic Republic of Congo harbours the world’s second-largest rainforest after Brazil,” Greenpeace, Rainforest Foundation UK and others said in a statement.
The environment ministry announced a proposal in July to lift a 19-year-old ban on new industrial logging, touching on a resource that is both financially lucrative and a natural treasure.
“… potentially as much as 60-70 million hectares of intact forest, home to thousands of local and indigenous communities and endangered species such as the lowland and mountain gorillas, forest elephants and the endemic okapi, are under threat.”
https://www.macaubusiness.com/environmental-groups-warn-of-catastrophe-in-congos-forests/
Growing risks to plantings to offset emissions:
The European Union currently relies upon forests to absorb 10% of their CO2 emissions, with calls to plant 3 billion trees as part of its effort to cut CO2 emissions by 55% by 2030. The growing risks to plantings emphasises the need to retain extant forests.
“European forests have been removing CO2 for many years,” said Peter Iversen, forests and climate expert at the European Environment Agency (EEA), but “we see a decline” in the last five years. “They are removing less than before.”
Planting trees is also not a miracle cure for emissions being pumped into the atmosphere today. It takes decades for a seedling to grow into a mature tree that absorbs about 30 kilograms of carbon a year.
“The element of time is often forgotten when talking about the carbon balance of forests,” said German Green MEP Anna Deparnay-Grunenberg, … “Yes, in the end, forests will be carbon neutral, but not before 80 or 100 years, and we can’t wait that much time.”
“If fires’ frequency and intensity increase it will be negative for the capacity of forests [to absorb CO2] because they won’t have the time to regrow,” Iversen warned.
In the United States, some carbon removal programs, where landowners are incentivized to manage their land to maximize carbon storage, have already gone up in flames — including ones supported by BP and Microsoft to offset their emissions.
https://www.politico.eu/article/climate-change-co2-emissions-carbon-sinks-forests/
Europe to continue to use forests for fuels:
When the European Union’s new forest strategy emphasised protecting forests as carbon sinks, the industry, Sweden and Finland were successful in changing it to allow forests to be used to replace fossil fuels:
… when a draft of the EU’s new forestry strategy was leaked in June and said little about wood-based products and a lot about how forests should be used as carbon sinks, Finland’s vast lobbying efforts in the sector sprang to life.
… the pushback worked. The EU’s final forestry strategy, published in mid-July, was more favourable towards Finland, making allowances for the possibility of wood products being used to replace fossil ones.
https://www.ft.com/content/b7e8ae66-f002-4361-84eb-6888ded2ec87
Forest deadwood continues to store carbon, though contributes to emissions:
Forests contain a large amount of dead wood (branches, logs, trees) that contain carbon that is slowly released as it decomposes. This can take decades, with some contributing to soil carbon. As climate heating gathers momentum more trees are dying and fires hasten the release of carbon, though using it for fuel greatly accelerates its release.
“deadwood” … plays several vital roles in forest ecosystems.
It provides habitat for small mammals, birds, amphibians and insects. And as deadwood decomposes it contributes to the ecosystem’s cycle of nutrients, which is important for plant growth.
The world’s deadwood currently stores 73 billion tonnes of carbon. Our new research in Nature has, for the first time, calculated that 10.9 billion tonnes of this (around 15%) is released into the atmosphere and soil each year — a little more than the world’s emissions from burning fossil fuels.
Forests are crucial carbon sinks, where living trees capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping to regulate climate. Deadwood — including fallen or still-standing trees, branches and stumps — makes up 8% of this carbon stock in the world’s forests
… deadwood in tropical regions lost a median mass of 28.2% every year. In cooler, temperate regions, the median mass lost was just 6.3%.
… 85% of the global deadwood carbon stock remains on forest floors and continues to store carbon each year.
We recommend deadwood is left in place — in the forest. Removing deadwood may not only be destructive for biodiversity and the ability of forests to regenerate, but it could actually substantially increase atmospheric carbon.
For example, if we used deadwood as a biofuel it could release the carbon that would otherwise have remained locked up each year. If the world’s deadwood was removed and burned, it would be release eight times more carbon than what’s currently emitted from burning fossil fuels.
Ongoing protest over old-growth logging on Vancouver Island marks one year
It is a year since the first camp was set up to prevent old-growth logging around the Fairy Creek watershed on southern Vancouver Island in Canada.
The recent flurry of arrests may also deter some people from joining the blockades, making it more difficult for the group to sustain its presence, Tindall added.
The Mounties have said protesters' tactics include locking themselves into precarious structures above the ground and trenches dug into the road.
The number of arrests since the RCMP began enforcing the injunction at Fairy Creek in May is over 800, similar to arrests made during the 1993 War in the Woods, one of thelargest acts of civil disobedience in recent Canadian history.
Logging of oldgrowth continues elsewhere:
The Alberta government has directed a forestry company to harvest old-growth trees in caribou habitat where the province has already spent millions and signed agreements to help the herds survive, environmental groups say.
British Columbia did the unexpected in 2016 by establishing the Great Bear Rainforest Agreement, protecting 6.4 million hectares (15.8 million acres) of coastal old-growth forest. But elsewhere in the province, 97% of all tall, old-growth forest has been felled for timber and wood pellets. In the U.S., protection outside Olympic National Park is scant.
New protections are promised, but old-growth logging continues apace. The U.N. says the world must aggressively reduce carbon emissions now, as scientists press the Biden administration to create a national Strategic Carbon Reserve to protect a further 20 million hectares (50 million acres) of mature forested federal lands from logging to help meet U.S. carbon-reduction goals by 2030.
Worms accelerating climate heating in Canada:
Invasive earthworms (particularly jumping ones) alone could tip the northern boreal forests into net carbon emitters (without accounting for melting of permafrost, increasing fires, or declining reflection from white snow). Earthworms arrived in Canada with European settlers in the 18th century, with more than 30 species of non-native earthworms they are rapidly expanding through the boreal forests. The problem is being exasperated by the recent invasion of jumping worms.
When earthworms move into our forests, they have the potential to rapidly change these ecosystems by devouring the leaf litter. They break down plant matter in much the same way as other invertebrates, but they do it much faster. In essence, worms speed up decomposition, which can be a bad thing for ecosystems used to taking it slow.
Lejoly estimates that only around 10 per cent of the boreal forest currently has earthworms, but she projects that by 2050, most of the boreal forest will be invaded — which means the boreal forest soil could potentially lose most of its carbon stock.
This means that boreal forests may potentially be emitting a lot more carbon, in the form of carbon dioxide, into the Earth's atmosphere, than they are absorbing.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/invasive-earthworms-threat-forests-climate-change-1.6154164?cmp=rss
… and destroying habitat in America:
Non-native earthworms have moved into woodland areas that had evolved to survive without them. The worms speed up the decomposition of the spongy forest floor, disrupting the delicate balance of the animals, plants, and other organisms that depend on it. …
In normal conditions, leaf litter builds up on the forest floor faster than it can decompose thus forming a thick spongy surface called a “duff layer” that holds moisture and keeps organisms in the soil below from freezing in the winter. All sorts of living things depend on the duff layer.
Urban plantings gather momentum:
The City of Somerville took a step towards combating climate change and fighting environmental injustice yesterday with the release of its first ever Urban Forest Management Plan. The plan aims to grow coverage and improve tree health in the city, helping the environment and increasing equitable access to shade and green space.
A high number of trees is linked with higher property values, Boukili said, and trees are a vital part of urban communities because they reduce urban heat, reduce energy costs, filter air and water and create a central habitat for wildlife.
California ravished by drought and fires again:
As a foretaste of our future, California continues to be ravished by increasing droughts and fires:
As historic wildfires tear through California’s forests, driven by an ever-worsening climate crisis that is increasing global temperatures and drying out soils and fuels, the U.S. Forest Service announced in an Aug. 30 statement that all the state’s national forests will be closed to the public effective at 11:59pm today, Aug. 31, through Sep. 17.
"We have fire behavior beyond the norm of our experience or the fire modeling we use," Eberlien said, adding that there's no predicted weather relief for the foreseeable future.
Tony Scardina, a deputy regional forester with Forest Service who oversees fire and aviation for the southwest region, said drought conditions are worse than they were last year, and he expects the conditions to last several more months.
… Scardina added, "We are in record drought…We can safely say that in the weeks ahead conditions are likely to get worse."
Fires cause premature deaths:
Forest and vegetation fires, used for forest clearance and agriculture in Southeast Asia, are a major source of air pollutants and can cause serious air quality issues. … We found that preventing these fires could substantially improve regional air quality and yield a considerable public health benefit across the region; avoiding around 59,000 premature deaths every year.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GH000418
https://phys.org/news/2021-09-forest-linked-tens-thousands-deaths.html
A tree joke:
https://news.amomama.com/277297-daily-joke-wise-old-tree-gives-advice-fo.html
Forest Media 14 May 2021
Hi, this will be my last media summary for a few months as I am taking some time off.
The Greens are upping the ante on the Great Koala National Park by introducing a bill into parliament to create it. Neighbours and conservationists are distraught over private land logging in Congarinni North near Macksville, though the landowner denies the presence of Koalas. The Greens are holding a Koala quiz in Mullumbimby as a fundraiser for the upcoming Council elections. The National Party are behind a push to resurrect the proposed Dunoon Dam, flooding Aboriginal graves and Koalas. Though thanks to the fires, at Port Macquarie Koalas are to get luxury accommodation.
Leadbeaters Possum has lost its appeal as the court rules that despite the acknowledged impacts, logging’s exemption from federal legislation is an exemption, irrespective of the impact on federally threatened species. The CFMEU are delighted. A review of our threatened plants identifies a 72% decline in monitored populations over 22 years, and identifies the 50 most threatened.
A recent study is being widely touted as proving that logging had no effect on the Black Summer’s fires, and promotes more logging. Though it appears to be a case of misspeaking as David Lindenmayer claims the results actually show that logging made the fires worse. Though of course the prime driver of their intensity and extent was climate heating.
Dubious forestry is a worldwide phenomenon. In Canada the government’s BC Timber Sales’s plan failed to meet objectives for biodiversity and oldgrowth protection, and in America the Forest Service continues to ignore the rules and log unsustainably. Meanwhile gypsy moth caterpillars continue to rampage through North America’s forests with a1,200 per cent increase in defoliation last year in Ontario, over half a million hectares, and this year is likely to be worse. There is some good news, WWF have found that over the last 20 years 59 million hectares of forests have regenerated worldwide, though the bad news is that we lost 386 million hectares of tree cover. Win some, lose more.
Dailan Pugh
The Greens introduce a bill for the Great Koala National Park:
The Greens are upping the ante on the Great Koala National Park by introducing a bill into parliament to create it:
Cate Faehrmann Greens MP and spokesperson for the Environment & Wildlife visited the Great Koala National Park Visitor & Information Centre at Urunga today to announce that the Greens will introduce a bill to establish the Great Koala National Park on the Mid North Coast of NSW.
The National Parks and Wildlife Amendment (Great Koala National Park) Bill 2021 would:
- Gazette 175,000 hectares of state forests, adding them to existing protected areas to form a 315,000 hectare protected area on the Mid North Coast, protecting an area that is home to around 20 percent of the NSW koala population.
- Require the government to develop an economic, conservation and tourism plan for the ‘Great Koala National Park; and
- Require the government to develop a transition plan, including a structural adjustment package, for forestry workers
- A University of Newcastle report found the Great Koala National Park would generate $412 million in visitor expenditure and create 9,810 full-time-equivalent jobs.
“If Labor and the Government have the courage to support my bill, the people of NSW will benefit from a unique protected area that is not only great for koalas, but also for the region. The other parties should be jumping at the chance to support something that protects the environment while creating almost 10,000 jobs over 15 years.
Landowner quizzes Koala presence:
Neighbours and conservationists are distraught over private land logging in Congarinni North near Macksville, though the landowner denies the presence of Koalas.
According to a spokesperson from Forest Ecology Alliance (FEA), … “PNF logging approvals are often granted years before logging commences, yet there is no requirement for community consultation or environmental assessment other than desktop data checks.
“Until concerned residents contact the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) no on ground assessment is conducted and by then it is sadly too late,” the spokesperson said.
News Of The Area spoke with the property owner and the logging contractor, and both said that they had not encountered koalas or any other endangered animals on the property.
He said that the contractors use chainsaws to limit the damage to the forest.
Koalas quizzed in Byron:
The Greens are holding a Koala quiz in Mullumbimby on 2 June as a fundraiser for the upcoming Council elections:
The NSW Libs have rammed a new Koala SEPP (State Environmental Planning Policy) through parliament but it’s designed by their dummy-spitting coalition partner, The Nationals. Under this policy our iconic furry friend will be wiped out.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/05/how-much-do-you-know-about-koalas/
As the National Party seek to resurrect the Dunoon Dam the fight goes on:
The National Party are behind a push to resurrect the proposed Dunoon Dam, after it was excluded from Rous Water’s 2020 Water Strategy.
The dam would inundate 25 graves of the Widjabul Wai-bal people, for whom this is a sacred site. It would also intersect with an important koala food tree corridor used by koalas in a very healthy state owing to their lack of exposure to intensive urban areas with all their dangers. Removal of this koala habitat would simply push koalas further along the path to extinction.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/05/water-and-the-dam/
Koalas to get luxury accommodation:
As well as their new wild Koala tourist facility in Cowarra State Forest, the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital now has a draft concept plan for the $6.25 million redevelopment of the existing facility, supported by a $5 million grant from the state government. They now call themselves Koala Conservation Australia. The Port Macquarie Koala Hospital's GoFundMe campaign initiated after the bushfires was initially aimed at drinking stations, but has now raised $7.9 million.
Leadbeaters Possum loses its appeal:
It was great news when the court ruled that VicForests’ failure to abide by their own logging codes, with their failure to abide by the precautionary principle threatening the future of Leadbeater’s Possum and Greater Glider, nullified their exemption from federal laws. Unfortunately for Leadbeater’s Possum they lost the case on appeal:
The ruling, delivered in the Federal Court in Melbourne on Monday, means the clearing of native forests under Regional Forestry Agreements remain exempt from federal environment laws, no matter how it is conducted.
Environmental group Friends of the Leadbeater Possum argued in the Federal Court that since VicForests had broken state laws in its logging, it no longer benefited from that exemption.
In May 2020, the court agreed, and ordered an injunction on VicForests, stopping them from logging in 66 areas.
[Monday’s ruling] upheld all initial findings of the Federal Court, including that VicForests had not been complying with the precautionary principle — a requirement of state law which says actions should be taken to avoid environmental harm, even when it is not certain that harm would occur.
It also agreed with the original judge's finding that VicForests was destroying habitat critical to the survival of the greater glider and the Leadbeater's possum.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-10/possums-logging-appeal-win-for-vicforests/100128352
A once-in-a-decade independent review of the EPBC Act by the former competition watchdog chief Graeme Samuel last year found the environment laws were failing, and the effective exemption granted to native forest logging should be abolished. The government is yet to formally respond to Samuel’s recommendation.
The Australian Forest Products Association said the court judgment was a “historic win for Australia’s sustainable native forest industries” that confirmed RFAs “provide all the environmental protections required by national environmental laws”.
Young called on “manufacturers, processors, retailers and consumers of timber, paper and packaging products” made from wood logged by VicForests to boycott its products, and the Victorian government to bring forward its plan to phase out native forestry by 2030.
The CFMEU were delighted, now they just need to weaken the Victorian logging rules and stop the phasing out of public native forest logging:
The union congratulated VicForests on their diligence in appealing the shock decision made last year that their activities were in breach of federal laws.
The union will continue to call for changes to the regulatory environment to safeguard timber jobs including to federal laws and the Code of Practice for Timber Production in Victoria, while opposing the ill informed and flawed Victorian Forestry Plan.
https://www.miragenews.com/union-welcomes-judgement-in-vicforests-possum-556984/
Our most imperiled plants identified:
A review of our threatened plants identifies that they continue to decline at an alarming rate, with a 72% decline in monitored populations over 22 years, picking out the 50 most imperiled and recommending how to save them. Now they just need someone to care:
To help prevent the loss of any native plant species, we’ve assembled a massive evidence base for more than 750 plants listed as critically endangered or endangered. Of these, we’ve identified the 50 at greatest risk of extinction.
There are 1,384 plant species and subspecies listed as threatened at a national level. Twelve Australian plant species are considered probably extinct and a further 21 species possibly extinct, while 206 are officially listed as critically endangered.
Things aren’t improving. Scientists recently compiled long-term monitoring of more than 100 threatened plant species at 600 sites nationally. And they found populations had declined on average by 72% between 1995 and 2017.
To find the top 50, we looked at the evidence: all available published and unpublished information and expert surveys of over 120 botanists and land managers. They’re targeted by our Action Plan for Australia’s Imperilled Plants.
Now we have an effective plan to conserve the Australian plants at the greatest risk of extinction. What’s needed is the political will and resourcing to act in time.
Claims logging doesn’t increase burning.
The Conversation has an article from David Bowman claiming that their assessment of the 2019-20 fires found “Logging activity in the last 25 years consistently ranked “low” as a driver of fire severity””, which they attributed to “extraordinarily extreme” fire conditions and the comparatively small areas commercially logged in the last 25 years. They then go on to talk about using logging to reduce fuels, and lose any pretense of impartiality in the process. I am concerned by what they mean when they say logging is a “low” driver of fire severity and then claim one contributor is the small area logged – it leaves me wondering just how much worse the burning was within the logged forests. As their research is behind a paywall I haven’t found out what their results show at the stand level. So while they have done a media blitz where they appear to be claiming logging has no impacts on fire I remain skeptical – it appears to be a case of misspeaking.
Forestry are claiming 90% of trees were killed in stands logged within the last 4 years. When I checked the difference for burnt wet sclerophyll around here from the Government’s mapping there did appear to be an obvious increase in burn intensity in stands logged in the last 20 years.
Past logging and wildfire disturbance in natural forests had a very low effect on severe canopy damage, reflecting the limited extent logged in the last 25 years (4.5% in eastern Victoria, 5.3% in southern New South Wales (NSW) and 7.8% in northern NSW). The most important variables determining severe canopy damage were broad spatial factors (mostly topographic) followed by fire weather. Timber plantations affected by fire were concentrated in NSW and 26% were burnt by the fires and >70% of the NSW plantations suffered severe canopy damage showing that this intensive means of wood production is extremely vulnerable to wildfire. The massive geographic scale and severity of these Australian fires is best explained by extrinsic factors: an historically anomalous drought coupled with strong, hot dry westerly winds that caused uninterrupted, and often dangerous, fire weather over the entire fire season.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-021-01464-6
… another shoddy study for the industry?
Among the researchers disagreeing with the new paper’s analysis of the effect of native logging is Professor David Lindenmayer, a forest ecologist from ANU who co-authored the 2020 report.
He doesn’t pull punches in his assessment of this new study – he says that it is “a rather unfortunate paper, poorly framed, badly analysed, with the narrative actually not matching the data or the analysis.”
Lindenmayer points out the effects of forest management on the fires’ severity are actually evident in the study’s own data.
“There is an extensive body of science that shows there are strong links between logging and fire severity and the data in this paper actually reinforces exactly that, despite the misleading title of the paper,” he says.
“There are significant statistical problems with the way data were analysed – for example by combining cool fires with crown fires – which greatly weaken the analysis. Despite these problems they still found an effect of logging on fire severity!”
https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/climate/bushfire-experts-clash-over-logging-impacts/
Cutting corners in Canadian oldgrowth rush as infected forests die:
With the campaign to protect oldgrowth in Canada ramping up, who would have thought that their forestry department would ignore the rules and approving logging where they shouldn’t? They are the same the world over.
The investigation, released on Wednesday, concluded the B.C. forests ministry erred in approving a forest stewardship plan put forward by BC Timber Sales, the government agency responsible for auctioning off provincial logging permits.
The plan failed to meet land-use objectives for biodiversity protection, including where and how much old-growth forest should be conserved in the 20,000-hectare watershed southwest of Port Alberni, the three-year investigation found.
https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-forests-old-growth-nahmint-river-watchdog/
At the same time as they are ramping up the destruction of oldgrowth, other forests are suffering and dying on a massive scale from waves of exotic invaders. A few years ago it was forest tent caterpillars and now its gypsy moth caterpillars as the world’s forests succumb to the multitude of assaults initiated by humans.
“Severe” defoliation is predicted for eastern Ontario’s forests this summer as, for the second year in a row, millions of gypsy moth caterpillars hatch and head to the treetops to feed.
By the time they’re done in July, the very hungry caterpillars — an invasive species — can strip bare vast swaths of forests.
Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry estimates gypsy moth defoliation increased a staggering 1,200 per cent last year, from 47,203 hectares in 2019 to 586,385 hectares in 2020. Aerial surveys and ground searches for gypsy moth egg masses show this year’s infestation could be even worse.
And American foresters are at it too:
While there is a requirement that logging in America be undertaken at a sustainable rate the Forest Service continues to log unsustainably in the Black Hills. Another example of a captured bureaucracy.
For nearly a decade Forest Service data has shown that a combination of too much logging, climate-driven fires and insect epidemics has been killing trees faster than they can grow. ..
After a year-long review, the Rocky Mountain Research Station in March released its unequivocal results: The amount of logging allowed under the Black Hills’ Forest Plan is unsustainable. Logging must be reduced by at least half for the forest to have a chance to recover.
… The agency said it will weigh whether to change timber targets through a forest plan revision process, but that will take many years to complete …
Beyond the Black Hills, the Forest Service has been hesitant to embrace scientific studies showing that one of the best and cheapest ways to combat climate change is to leave old and mature forests standing rather than cutting them down.
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/552824-forest-service-is-flunking-bidens-science-test
Can’t keep a good thing down:
According to a new World Wildlife Fund study, over the last 20 years 59 million hectares of forests have regenerated worldwide.
There were different ways the forests were regenerated — in some areas, nothing was done, while in others native trees were planted, invasive plants removed, and livestock fenced off, BBC News reports. Natural forest regeneration is "cheaper, richer in carbon, and better for biodiversity than actively planted forests," WWF's William Baldwin-Cantello said.
These regenerated forests could absorb the equivalent of 5.9 gigatons of carbon dioxide, which is more than the U.S. emits every year, BBC News reports.
To "realize the potential of forests as a climate solution," there needs to be more than just the restoration of natural forests, Baldwin-Cantello said. The world must also combat deforestation.
Overall, separate research has shown that 386 million hectares of tree cover - an area more than seven times larger than that of naturally regenerated forest identified in the study - has been lost globally in the past two decades.
“If we give forests the space [...] to regenerate at scale, and if we create that space, and we ensure that last into the future, then this is going to play a major role in avoiding climate change,” Baldwin-Cantello told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an online call.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/11/forest-size-of-france-regrown-worldwide
Forest Bathing all the rage:
https://www.abc27.com/news/health/stressed-forest-bathing-may-be-able-to-help/
Forest Media 7 May 2021
Redbank had another outing as our campaign gathers momentum. Koalas to star in new movie, get in the way of attempts to resurrect Dunoon Dam, get funding on the mid north coast, and make a good present for Mothers Day. As they continue to clear Koala habitat for highways and housing estates in south east Queensland they are putting $7.5 million into wildlife hospitals, focussing on vaccinating for Chlamydia aggravated by the stress they are causing.
The proposed 39,000 ha Gardens of Stone addition to the Blue Mountains National Park garners parliamentary interest as miners set to undermine it. Burnt pine forests a boon to logging companies, and they expect us to praise them for capitalising on the windfall, though as the pine bonanza comes to an end they will soon cry poor and seek to ramp up native forest logging.
As Suzanne Simard continues her book promotion she reveals more fascinating insights into the woodwide web, such as trees bequeathing their accumulated wealth to those close to them before they die.
The fight over British Columbia’s oldgrowth forests is hotting up as both forest actions and logging accelerate. In Oregon conservationists are fighting to stop the logging of dead trees. The scarry news is that the Amazon has passed the tipping point where, thanks to clearing, logging and fires, it has become a net emitter of carbon dioxide, and the process of rainforests degrading to grasslands has begun. Once forests stop taking up 30% of our emissions they become part of the problem rather than the solution, and we’re screwed. Amazon’s intent to offset its emissions with commercial forestry is part of the problem.
Dailan Pugh
Redbank gets another run:
The Singleton Argus has a front page article about the local ALP Federal member Joel Fitzgibbon extolling the 50 jobs that burning over a million tonnes of forests per annum will generate in Singleton (not to mention all the employment in cutting and transporting trees), with The Greens candidate for the Upper Hunter by-election Sue Abbott opposing it.
"This is our valley's transition nightmare," said RAG spokesperson David Burgess. "At a time when the best minds in the Hunter are coming together to negotiate a difficult path beyond coal, the last thing we need is a Trojan horse of fake forest logging jobs masquerading as green energy."
"There is no way any maths in the world adds up to this being renewable. On the face of it, and in the wake of enormous pressure on the EU and the USA to cease and desist, Hunter Energy seems to be claiming that it has purchased a sawmill in Millfield and turned it into a woodchip mill bigger than Eden," Mr Burgess said.
https://www.singletonargus.com.au/story/7235389/redbank-pushes-biomass-credentials/?cs=1534
Koala stars:
The makers of Cultivating Murder are making a film The Koala Corridor which focuses on the future of Koalas around south-west and southern Sydney, they are currently crowd-funding to raise the budget.
A 10 minute preview, with exclusive footage and interviews, will be showing at Hazelhurst Gallery, Gymea on May 16.
https://www.theleader.com.au/story/7231862/new-film-to-show-our-koalas/
The National Party won’t let the Dunoon Dam go away, though Koalas are getting in their way:
Dr Steve Phillips from Biolink Ecological Consultants says the Dunoon koala population has different genetic origins.
‘These koalas are more robust and outbred than other koala populations to the south and east, which are, in contrast, immunologically compromised and demonstrably inbred,’ he said.
‘The Dunoon koalas thus have lots to offer these other koalas which suffer from high disease levels and associated mortalities, as well as the manifestation of physical traits of inbreeding such as smaller average body sizes and microcephaly,’ said Dr Phillips.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/05/dam-doesnt-give-a-damn-about-koalas/
Mid north-coast groups working on Koalas have received a $130,000 Bushfire Recovery for Wildlife and Habitat Community Grant from the federal government
The funds will be distributed across five focus areas, including the implementation of a koala and community road safety program at Tinonee, working with TIDE to plant koala food trees at Cattai Wetlands, koala connectivity modelling and evaluating revegetation scenarios in the Kiwarrak Area of Regional Koala Significance (ARKS), strengthening koala refuges and corridors, and assisting bushfire affected landowners to re-establish vegetation on their properties.
https://www.miragenews.com/boost-for-our-koalas-553098/
And why not pay Port Macquarie Koala Hospital $50 to adopt a Koala for Mother’s Day?
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/adopt-a-koala-for-mothers-day-68991
Mid Coast region identifies priorities:
The fauna species that Council has identified for priority action in the Draft Roadmap For Managing Our Natural Environment includes, threatened shorebirds (little tern, pied oystercatcher), our squirrel glider population at Forster the yellow-bellied gliders at Smiths Lake, the Manning River helmeted turtle, giant dragonfly, the grey-crowned babbler population at Gloucester the koala and the long-nosed potoroo.
There are also three flora species identified the Manning threatened eucalypts (narrow-leaved red gum and slaty red gum), Guthrie’s grevillea, and the Threatened terrestrial orchids (Wingham doubletail, Tuncurry midge orchid).
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/fauna-and-flora-at-risk-in-myall-coast-region-69078
As Queensland clears Koala’s homes for roads and houses at least they treat the consequences:
The Moggill Koala Rehabilitation Centre has had an $830,000 refurbishment with the latest diagnostic equipment.
One of the centre's main tasks is to administer vaccines for Chlamydia, a disease which is having a devastating impact on koala populations.
http://www.ecns.cn/news/2021-05-05/detail-ihakynqm6148627.shtml
“Together with these three wildlife hospitals, Moggill forms what is called the SEQ Wildlife Hospital Network, and for the last five years, the Queensland Government has contributed $7.5 million towards supporting this important public-private partnership.
“The project plans to vaccinate up to 500 koalas presenting to several south east Queensland wildlife hospitals for care including Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital, RSPCA Wildlife Hospital and the Moggill Koala Rehabilitation Centre,” Ms Scanlon said.
Renewed Push for Gardens of Stone:
The Sydney Morning Herald reports on a visit by four members of the cross-party Parliamentary Friends of Nature to the proposed 39,000 ha Gardens of Stone addition to the Blue Mountains National Park. Catherine Cusack was the Liberal representative. The area of State Forests is managed by neglect, with the greatest threat underground coal mining causing subsidence and draining of swamps.
Fires boost forestry:
While the fires did long-term damage to the pine plantations, there has been a boom as they salvage burnt timber, with almost double normal yields, and they want us to thank them for capitalising on the windfall. Though as the pine bonanza comes to an end they will soon cry poor and seek to ramp up native forest logging.
The NSW South West Slopes forestry region around Tumut and Tumbarumba was hit particularly hard by the bushfires with around 45,000 hectares of softwood plantations (about 40 per cent of the area planted) burnt – creating major salvage challenges for the local forestry and sawmilling industries – to meet the uptick in demand.
Unfortunately, over half the burnt trees in the fires affected region were too young to save, with the salvage focus on getting all the trees older than 19 years and as much as possible of those over 12 years – resulting in harvest running 80 per cent above normal.
All up, around 2.7 million tonnes of timber has been salvaged in the Tumut/Tumbarumba region …
“Our forest industries should be commended for getting the maximum timber supply and regional economic benefit from the blackened timber. It has proven critical to the housing construction market, with soaring timber demand nationwide off the back of the Government’s HomeBuilder stimulus,” Mr Hampton said.
Valuing nature:
Sue Arnold provides a variety of economic valuations of natural attributes, though most of them are dated, with more recent studies (such as for the Great Koala National Park, and The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review) omitted.
We need to give dying trees time to bequeath their wealth before they die:
GPB radio has an interesting half hour conversation (including a transcript) with Suzanne Simard about her studies on the woodwide web and the interactions between trees, as well as mother trees and their offspring and between species, including one species sharing resources with one it is shading. I found the death of trees, and their sharing of resources with their acquaintances intriguing. Her studies are insightful, though they only hint at how forest ecosystems function as a whole.
And, you know, it's not just a matter of saving one old tree. Those old trees, when you - if you clear-cut around and leave one tree, for example, which is the tendency, or to just leave a few seed trees - they're called seed trees - those trees are really vulnerable, left all alone because trees are social creatures. And they depend on each other for protection and all these things I've been talking about.
And so I've been trying to get them to leave old trees in patches so that the neighbors - they can continue to communicate with their neighbors and also that the neighbors can help protect them. And then so the trees will provide seed for natural regeneration and for conserving biodiversity and carbon as well.
And dying is a process, and it takes a long, long time. It can take decades for a tree to die. In the process of dying, there's a lot of things that go on. … And we found that about 40% of the carbon was transmitted through networks into their neighboring trees.
… And so I've been trying to tell people, let - hold back on this salvage logging until trees have had the chance to pass on this energy and information to the new seedlings coming up.
… You know, if a tree is dying, do they send more to their kin? And we found that they do.
https://www.mtpr.org/post/trees-talk-each-other-mother-tree-ecologist-hears-lessons-people-too
Canadians increase logging of oldgrowth in response to increasing calls to protect it:
In British Columbia the fight to protect oldgrowth has escalated since a report last year recommended protecting most of what was left. There have been increases in both forest actions and the rate of oldgrowth logging:
It says that since the NDP received a report and recommendations from the Old-Growth Strategic Review Panel last April, there has been an alarming spike in approved logging operations.
The group says it used publicly available data to map out approved old-growth logging sites after communities around the province noticed increased logging activity.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development tells CTV News the province is committed old-growth forests and has taken action by protecting 200,000 hectares in nine areas of the province.
After receiving the report from the Old-Growth Strategic Review Panel last year, the province says it has commissioned an independent panel to advise on how to improve the protection of old-growth forests.
https://www.comoxvalleyrecord.com/news/courtenay-council-calls-on-b-c-to-defer-old-growth-logging/
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/old-growth-logging-approvals-nearly-015748362.html
https://thetyee.ca/News/2021/05/03/Old-Growth-Forest-Logging-Soaring-BC/
https://wildsight.ca/2021/04/30/lots-of-talk-but-little-action-on-old-growth-protection/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-fairy-creek-injunction-appeal-1.6008504
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/05/06/news/bc-catches-flak-over-old-growth-logging-approvals
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/altercation-video-loggers-protesters-1.6015920
https://thenarwhal.ca/raush-valley-bc-logging-forest/
Americans fight to stop logging of dead trees:
While in Canada there is a concerted campaign to stop the logging of oldgrowth forest, in Oregon conservationists failed to obtain a court injunction, had an action and will soon hold a rally at the state capitol to "demand an end to the reckless post-fire logging taking place on public lands across the state." There has been a particular focus on the aggressive removal of ‘hazard’ trees along roads:
Reports from Oregon Public Broadcasting and the Oregonian/OregonLive quoted whistleblowers, landowners and others who described a program with "little oversight, unqualified staff, constantly evolving standards for what constitutes a hazard tree, rampant drug use by workers and instances of possible fraud," the Oregonian/OregonLive reported.
https://www.klcc.org/post/protestors-decry-post-fire-roadside-logging
Some say the Amazon has turned:
For decades plants and soils have been absorbing around 30 percent of our CO2, even as CO2 continued to rise, with the Amazon a significant contributor, but now that may be coming to an end. Without forests to mop up our mess we are stuffed. If we don’t take action immediately to turn this around we will be stuffed if through clearing, logging and burning our forests become permanent net emitters of carbon as they collapse.
The Brazilian Amazon released nearly 20 percent more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the last decade than it absorbed, according to a stunning report that shows humanity can no longer depend on the world's largest tropical forest to help absorb man-made carbon pollution.
From 2010 through 2019, Brazil's Amazon basin gave off 16.6 billion tonnes of CO2, while drawing down only 13.9 billion tonnes, researchers reported Thursday in the journal Nature Climate Change.
“We half-expected it, but it is the first time that we have figures showing that the Brazilian Amazon has flipped, and is now a net emitter,” said co-author Jean-Pierre Wigneron, a scientist at France’s National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA).
We found that the gross forest area loss was larger in 2019 than in 2015, possibly due to recent loosening of forest protection policies. However, the net AGB loss was three times smaller in 2019 than in 2015. During 2010–2019, the Brazilian Amazon had a cumulative gross loss of 4.45 Pg C against a gross gain of 3.78 Pg C, resulting in a net AGB loss of 0.67 Pg C. Forest degradation (73%) contributed three times more to the gross AGB loss than deforestation (27%), given that the areal extent of degradation exceeds that of deforestation. This indicates that forest degradation has become the largest process driving carbon loss and should become a higher policy priority.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01026-5
The world’s forests are supposed to stave off climate change. Left alone, perhaps they could. But they’re not being left alone.
The world’s forests are a key part of the great carbon conundrum: what happens to all the greenhouse gases emitted from power stations, vehicle exhausts and factory chimneys? The assumption is that approaching one third of all the carbon dioxide emissions are absorbed by the forests, and the conservation of the planet’s forests has become part of the proposed arsenal of global defence against catastrophic climate change.
Researchers have repeatedly confirmed that, undisturbed, the world’s great natural forests are important reservoirs of atmospheric carbon. They have also confirmed that, even without taking carbon sequestration into account, the forests represent precious natural capital: they are worth more to humankind undisturbed than they could ever be as sawn timber or ranchland.
And then there is the direct effect of climate change driven by rising temperatures: with heat comes drought, and the greater risk of fire. Forests that had once been reservoirs of carbon could start to surrender it to accelerate climate change even more. The marvel that is the Amazon rainforest could, one researcher has warned, collapse altogether and change irrevocably in one human lifetime.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/only-intact-forests-can-stave-off-climate-change/
… as the Amazon converts to savanna:
Droughts and fires are taking their toll on the Amazon’s heart, indicating that concerns about ecosystem collapse are not fanciful:
“The edges of the Amazon Rainforest have long been considered the most vulnerable parts owing to expansion of the agricultural frontier. This degradation of the forest along the so-called ‘deforestation arc’ [a curve that hugs the southeastern edge of the forest] continues to occur and is extremely troubling. However, our study detected the appearance of savannas in the heart of the Amazon a long way away from the agricultural frontier,” Flores told Agência FAPESP.
“We mapped 40 years of forest fires using satellite images, and collected detailed information in the field to see whether the burned forest areas were changing,” Flores said. “When we analyzed tree species richness and soil properties at different times in the past, we found that forest fires had killed practically all trees so that the clayey topsoil could be eroded by annual flooding and become increasingly sandy.”
https://www.eurasiareview.com/05052021-forest-fires-drive-expansion-of-savannas-in-heart-of-amazon/
Amazon now wants to plant trees:
They are beginning to get the idea, but there is still far to go. Companies like Amazon still have this idea they can do it by commercial plantations. There are also concerns that the carbon price is too low and that the net benefits may be marginal if its used to offset other emissions.
* LEAF Coalition rewards nations for lowering deforestation * First round aims for 100 million tonnes of emissions reductions * Purchasing companies must cut own emissions in line with science. Few people, nowadays, would disagree the world's forests need better protection.
Few people, nowadays, would disagree the world's forests need better protection. But many conservation projects that offer carbon credits have an image problem, with critics saying they allow buyers to offset their planet-warming emissions without actually cutting them and have limited climate benefits.
The LEAF Coalition, a new $1-billion forest conservation program backed by the United States, Britain and Norway alongside multinational companies including Amazon, Unilever and Nestle, is hoping it can put the shine back on paying for nature-based emissions reductions. On its Earth Day launch last month, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg emphasized tropical forests are indispensable to fighting climate change and biodiversity loss, "and have received far less attention and finance than they deserve".
Forests can provide over one-fifth of the emissions reductions needed before 2030 to keep planetary heating to relatively safe levels, but efforts to protect them account for less than 3% of climate funding, Bapna noted. Meanwhile, tropical forest loss increased by 12% from 2019 to 2020, releasing emissions equivalent to those of 570 million cars last year alone, WRI-backed research showed in March.
Forest Media 30 April 2021
The open letter organised by NCC, and signed by 31 groups, calling on Governments to abandon plans to reboot the Redbank power plant with native forests was published in full in the Newcastle Herald. In southern NSW the pretence that the Eden Woodchip industry is sawlog driven has been shattered with 96% of trees felled turned into woodchips, and 1.5% for firewood. This is what they call waste wood – just what Redbank needs. The NPA are surveying for Koalas and fungi as part of their campaign to expand Barrington Tops National Park to incorporate 9,500 ha of Chichester SF. The NSW Greens are encouraging people to make submissions objecting to weakening of the biodiversity offsets scheme by 3 May, amidst concerns that some consultants may be gaming the system. There are also concerns that ex-Premier Baird may be resurrected as Tony Abbott 2.
Koalas are still a focus, a Strategy is on exhibition for Armidale, Friends of the Koala have a new tree nursery, Southern Cross University wants to be able to release rehabilitated Koalas where they like, locals are objecting to logging of Koala habitat on private property near Bowraville, and in Queensland locals are complaining about Council’s intent to increase allowable dogs on rural properties from 2 to 4 because of the Koala threat.
The Examiner has an in-depth article about Tasmanian logging. Despite their beauty, 26 of Australian butterflies have been identified as on death row, with little being done to save them. Next time you ask “who’s a pretty boy” the answer may surprise you (its not a Cocky).
Two veteran retired American forest professors have spoken out against the folly of salvage logging and logging of older (non-oldgrowth) natural forests. Meanwhile in the Amazon tribal lands that were protected in 2014 are under assault again. Simard who pioneered research into the below-ground interactions and communications between trees via the “woodwide web” wants to find out whether trees can recognise humans, and warns about the intoxicating effects of fungi. No wonder forest bathing is catching on.
Some take hope from the recent setting of emissions targets for 2030, as well as more countries signing onto net zero by 2050, while others are sceptical because America’s policies don’t match their promises, and Europe, Japan and South Korea are pretending to meet theirs by burning forests. While forests are taking up more CO2, their storage is being compromised by logging and burning, meanwhile carbon accounting schemes are gaming the system by inflating forest’s storage. The United Nations continue to promote the necessity of forests to save us. Cities continue to reforest to improve the quality of resident’s lives.
Dailan Pugh
Redbank Power Station plan to fuel native forests' demise near Singleton
The open letter organised by NCC, and signed by 31 groups, calling on Governments to abandon plans to reboot the Redbank power plant with native forests was published in full in the Newcastle Herald.
We call on the governments of NSW and Australia to reject plans by Verdant Technologies to recommission Redbank Power Station near Singleton and use native forest biomass as fuel.
We urge the NSW and federal governments to reimpose the ban on the burning of residues from native forests for electricity generation on the grounds that this will lead to an intensification of logging, increases in CO2 emissions and the displacement of genuine renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.
Waste not want not:
The Government has admitted that during 2020, 96% of trees felled in the NSW region of Eden were turned into woodchips, with 1.5% for firewood. Harriet Swift considers this may be illegal because its contrary to the requirement that “an operation must not be conducted for the primary purpose of producing low quality logs (including salvage and firewood) and pulp logs”.
The core principle of south east NSW’s woodchipping industry is that it only uses “waste” wood – parts of the tree that a sawmill cannot use.
Expanding Barrington Tops
The National Parks Association have been undertaking Koala, and now fungi surveys, to support their proposal to expand Barrington Tops National Park to incorporate 9,500 ha of Chichester SF:
President of the National Parks Association of NSW (Hunter Branch) Ian Donovan said the association has made a submission to transfer around 9,500 ha of Chichester State Forest to be incorporated in the adjacent world heritage listed Barrington Tops National Park.
He said the national park extension submission was prepared in consultation with community groups in the Dungog and Gresford area, and had received wide support from the community.
https://www.dungogchronicle.com.au/story/7224085/fungi-find-in-chichester-forest/?cs=410
Offsetting Biodiversity Offsets:
The NSW Greens are encouraging people to make submissions objecting to weakening of the biodiversity offsets scheme. You have until 3 May to make a submission.
It will soon become easier for developers to clear threatened species habitat in NSW if changes proposed to the state’s Biodiversity Offsetting Scheme are approved. - This will mean some of our most treasured native animals such as the Koala, the Regent Honeyeater, Rock Wallaby, Red Tailed Black Cockatoo, and many more will be one step closer to extinction.
The idea that critical habitat for our native wildlife could be “offset” is already ridiculous enough, but now they’re trying to make an already dodgy scheme less transparent with less accountability.
What’s more, these changes prioritise development over conservation and create a more permissible environment for financial misconduct at the expense of nature.
https://agreennsw.good.do/savenativeanimals/submission/
… offsetting is upsetting:
The NSW Opposition has called for an urgent review of the government's environmental offset program and an investigation into Guardian reports that some employees of Eco Logical Australia were part of a consortium that sold more than $100 million worth of BioBanking credits to the state and federal governments, despite the firm also providing offset advice to government agencies.
The price of Cumberland Plains credits has tripled in 18 months, with a single offset credit of shale plains woodlands now priced in excess of $33,000.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-30/nsw-opposition-calls-for-biobanking-offset-review/100107330
Baird’s resurrection feared:
Sue Arnold laments reports that Prime Minister Scott Morrison trying to persuade former NSW Premier Mike Baird to contest Tony Abbott’s old seat of Warringah, now held by Independent Zali Steggall, detailing the litany of disastrous environmental decisions resulting from the war against nature he initiated.
Concerns about Koalas
Armidale Regional Council's draft Koala Management Strategy is on public exhibition for 28 days, and they are inviting comments. I note that it is not a legal Comprehensive KPoM.
Council's General Manager James Roncon said having a Koala Management Strategy in place is vital to protecting and expanding the population of this iconic native species.
"This project came about due to the fact that the Northern Tablelands has been identified as an important area for the future of koalas," Mr Roncon said.
The Sydney Morning Herald has an article about Friends of the Koalas new tree nursery.
With the extra funding they will produce another 240,000 feed and habitat trees over the next three years, and expand the adjoining koala hospital, which already receives up to 400 patients a year.
What is needed to spread these successes is some form of government scheme to encourage and even recompense landowners for preserving the last patches of crucial habitat, Mr Wilson said.
Southern Cross Uni is trying to overturn the restriction on releasing rehabilitated Koalas within a kilometre of where they are found, preferring to be allowed to do so anywhere within a genetically similar population – or maybe elsewhere:
The concept could see koalas relocated close to where they were found - or even across State lines, for instance from NSW to Victoria to boost genetic diversity.
https://www.macleayargus.com.au/story/7229630/get-koalas-on-the-move-if-were-to-save-them/
https://www.miragenews.com/controversial-idea-could-aid-recovery-of-550609/
NBN has a story covering Friends of the Koalas new tree nursery as well as Southern Cross’ proposal to be able to rehouse Koalas somewhere else within the same population as they were found in,
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2021/04/28/friends-of-the-koalas-bushfire-recovery-nursery-launched/
NBN has a story about conservationists and wildlife carers in the Nambucca Valley concerned about the logging of native forest, including Koala habitat, on private property near Bowraville.
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2021/04/26/call-to-stop-logging-of-koala-habitat/
In Queensland Redlands Council is proposing increasing the number of dogs allowed on a property over 2000 m2 from 2 to 4, concerning some locals.
"Council, through its Koala Ambulance operation run by volunteers, is well aware of the devastating effects for koalas when multiple dogs are present on a property.
"It is a known fact that, when in numbers, dogs revert to pack behaviour. Records show that slow-moving animals like koalas don't stand a chance," Ms Pointing said.
Resetting Tasmanian Forests:
The Examiner has an in depth article about proposed logging of relatively intact wet forests near Derby, explaining the silvicultural options regarding the extent of clearfelling vs retained clumps (this is the model used for our new logging rules) and community feelings about the degradation of what is obviously pretty nice forest next to a popular bike track.
https://www.examiner.com.au/story/7218010/at-what-cost-clearfelling-burning-and-sowing-near-derby/
26 of the Prettiest on Death’s Row:
It is one of the few invertebrates that we can recognise but that is not translating into conservation action:
Our team of 28 scientists identified the top 26 Australian butterfly species and subspecies at greatest risk of extinction. We also estimated the probability that they will be lost within 20-years.
We are now sounding the alarm as most species identified as at risk have little or no management underway to conserve them, and only six of the 26 butterflies identified are currently listed for protection under Australian law.
Our most imperilled butterfly is the Australian fritillary, with a 94% chance of extinction within 20 years. Like many of our butterfly species, a major threat facing the fritillary is habitat loss and habitat change.
The swamps where the fritillary occur have been drained for farming and urbanisation. At remaining swamps, weeds smother the native violets the larvae depend on for food.
It might already be extinct, but as it was once quite widespread at swampy areas along 700 kilometres of coastal Queensland and NSW, we have hope there are still some out there.
By raising awareness of these butterflies and the risks they face, we aim to give governments, conservation groups and the community time to act to prevent their extinctions.
People wanting to learn more about the butterfly species near them can use the free Butterflies Australia app to look up photos and information. You can also be a citizen scientist by recording and uploading sightings on the app.
Who’s a pretty boy then?:
Believe it or not the Tawny Frogmouth rules them all, obtaining the most “likes” on nine popular avian photography Instagram accounts.
Five of our Smallest Mammals:
The Conversation profiles 5 of our smallest carnivores, including the little forest-bat, mountain pygmy possum and Silver-headed antechinus. They are just basic species profiles.
Australia’s small mammals face a host of human-caused threats. These include habitat clearing, climate change and feral predators. …The combined pressures have too often proven insurmountable. With 34 species lost forever, Australia has the worst modern-day mammal extinction record of any country on Earth.
American stalwarts condemn salvage logging:
The Statesman Journal has an opinion article by retired forestry professors Jerry F. Franklin and K. Norman Johnson about the evils of salvage logging in burnt American forests:
Salvage logging profoundly interferes with the natural recovery process in two ways:
First, logging and road-building disturb the soil and damage the initial flush of plant regrowth in the forest, increasing the potential for soil and nutrient losses and adversely affecting water quality.
Second, salvage logging removes the wildfire’s legacy of standing dead and down wood, which is fundamental to the recovery of the forest’s functional capabilities.
In the wake of the 2020 wildfires, the best approach to ecological recovery is, literally, to let nature take its course.
… and they are also targeting logging of older forests:
Almost 20 years ago, the U.S. Forest Service essentially stopped logging older primeval forests on national forests in Western Oregon and Washington. Its harvests were halted by protests, legal challenges, species impacts and broadening social realizations of the ecological and wildlife benefits of such forests.
Once again, however, the Forest Service plans extensive logging of older natural forests. … However, primeval older forests are now grossly underrepresented in Oregon’s forested landscapes, and they provide important ecological services and have high social value. They should be permanently protected.
https://www.opb.org/article/2021/04/29/northwest-forest-plan-ecosystems-protection/
Resetting the Amazon’s Forests:
The BBC’s Justin Rowlatt chronicles his experience with Brazil’s Awa, from the heady days in 2014 when the army bulldozed the last of the illegal settlements on the Awa lands, to the reign of President Bolsonaro that has seen clearing rebound to the highest levels since 2008.
I was desperate to know how the Awa were getting on. After much phoning around we managed to get a message through to them.
It seemed like an eternity before we finally got a reply in January. It was a recorded message from Pirai.
"Loggers, farmers, hunters, invaders...they are all coming back," Pirai continued. "They are killing all our forest."
https://au.news.yahoo.com/killing-forest-brazilian-tribe-warns-234139836.html
Tree feelings:
The Guardian has an interview with Suzanne Simard about her and her new book, Finding the Mother Tree. She is the one who pioneered research into the below-ground interactions and communications between trees via the “woodwide web”. This book seems primarily an autobiography.
One of Simard’s most thrilling beliefs is that trees can recognise us. “Trees perceive many things. … Trees don’t have a brain, but the network in the soil is a neural network and the chemicals that move through it are the same as our neural transmitters.” She is currently collaborating on research to see whether trees can distinguish us as humans.
“One thing people don’t realise is, when you’re walking in the forest, there is a whole city underfoot that includes myriad organisms, including actinomycetes [bacteria] that excrete chemicals that can make us a bit high – there’s an aphrodisiac thing going on.
Forest Bathing:
Mental Health Today extols the virtues of forest bathing, noting:
Shelby Deering, writing for Healthline on her experience of a guided forest bathing session that she believed for years that simply going to wooded areas, for a run or a hike would give her the same benefits, but that having experienced a real forest bathing session “now I know the difference”.
Upon being “invited” to notice by her guide, Kate Bast, Deering was astounded at how much she would miss during her runs, “the spider spinning a sunlight-soaked web. The dew on the flowers. How the smells change as I move…from wet and earthy to fresh and floral.”
Gary Evans, who set up the UK’s Forest Bathing Institute in 2018 speaks on the same experience: “People initially think they’ve been doing this all their lives: going for a walk in the woods” but he notes people are often distracted.
Enter the Group Forest Bathing Togetherness Day. Yes, a chance to strip off and share the wonders of nature with your colleagues in various forest locations.
And if that doesn’t ring your bell, how about signing up the team up to The Wildlife Trust’s 30 Days Wild which requires participants to perform a ‘random act of wildness’ every day for 30 days during June?
https://employeebenefits.co.uk/forest-bathing-boost-team-engagement/
A political tipping point?
As identified in the Conservation the recent setting of emissions targets for 2030, as well as more countries signing onto net zero by 2050, has given some researchers hope that we may have passed a political tipping point:
It seems we’re heading for an “overshoot” scenario, where the global temperature rise will exceed 1.5℃, before we pull the temperature back down over decades with negative emissions. Investment in such technology initiatives as direct air carbon dioxide capture, must be massively scaled up. Nature-based solutions such as reafforestation and restoration of carbon sequestering ecosystems, on land and in the water, will also be crucial.
Above all, we need to act fast. The 2020s really are our final chance: our “Earthshot” moment to start to repair the planet after decades of inaction.
… not all are convinced:
- As the U.S. promised to halve its emissions by 2030, advocates noted the lack of policies in place to achieve that goal, and the likelihood of intense Republican political resistance. China promised at the summit to eliminate coal plants, but 247 gigawatts of coal power is currently in planning or development stages there.
- The UK, EU, Japan, and South Korea all pledged to do more, but all are committed to burning forest biomass to replace coal — a solution relying on a longstanding carbon accounting error that counts forest biomass as carbon neutral, though scientists say it produces more emissions than coal per unit of electricity made.
Forests ability to save us is being compromised:
Given that forests take up about a third of our annual carbon emissions, our ability to reign in climate heating depends upon maintaining and enhancing this ability. Thankfully many forests (those not succumbing to droughts) are responding positively to the fertiliser affect of increasing CO2, though this is being offset by increasing fires and logging.
New research indicates that the computer-based models currently used to simulate how Earth’s climate will change in the future underestimate the impact that forest fires and drying climate are having on the world’s northernmost forests, which make up the largest forest biome on the planet.
“Fires are intensifying, and when forests burn, carbon is released into the atmosphere,” says Boston University environmental earth scientist Mark Friedl, senior author on the study published in Nature Climate Change. “But we’re also seeing longer growing seasons, warmer temperatures, which draws carbon out of the atmosphere [and into plants]. More CO2 in the atmosphere acts as a fertilizer, increasing growth of trees and plants—so, scientifically, there’s been this big question out there: What is happening on a global scale to Earth’s forests? Will they continue to absorb as much carbon as they do now?”
The new study, however, reveals that scientists have so far been underestimating the impact that fires and other disturbances—like timber harvests—are having on Earth’s northern forests and, at the same time, have been overestimating the growth-enhancing effect of climate warming and rising atmospheric CO2 levels.
“It is not enough for a forest to absorb and store carbon in its wood and soils. For that to be a real benefit, the forest has to remain intact—an increasing challenge in a warming, more fire-prone climate,” says Jonathan Wang,
…. the biomass in Earth’s northern forests has changed over time—revealing that the forests have been losing more biomass than expected due to increasingly frequent and extensive forest fires.
https://phys.org/news/2021-04-northern-forest-climate.html
Here we combined multiple satellite datasets to estimate annual stocks and changes in aboveground biomass (AGB) across boreal northwestern North America. From 1984 to 2014, the 2.82 × 106 km2 study region gained 434 ± 176 Tg of AGB. Fires resulted in losses of 789 ± 48 Tg, which were mostly compensated by post-fire recovery of 642 ± 86 Tg. Timber harvests contributed to losses of 74 ± 5 Tg, which were partly offset by post-harvest recovery of 32 ± 9 Tg. Earth system models overestimated AGB accumulation by a factor of 3 (+1,519 ± 171 Tg), which suggests that these models overestimate the terrestrial carbon sink in boreal ecosystems and highlights the need to improve representation of fire and other disturbance processes in these models.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01027-4
… and people are inflating forests values to avoid accountability:
Pro Publica reports on a review that shows California’s climate policy created up to 39 million carbon credits that aren’t achieving real carbon savings. The baseline is calculated by averaging out carbon storage across large areas of forests and credits are earned by reducing logging or thinning out smaller trees and brush to allow for increased overall growth. The credits are then sold to major polluters to offset their pollution.
But the averages are determined from such large areas and such diverse forest types that they can differ dramatically from the carbon stored on lands selected for projects.
Project forests that significantly exceed these averages are frequently earning far more credits than the actual carbon benefits they deliver, CarbonPlan found.
And an article in Climate Change identifies that some countries have been over-stating the carbon storage in their forests (largely by not accounting for degradation) to claim they are meeting their emission reduction targets:
Mitigation pathways by Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) describe future emissions that keep global warming below specific temperature limits and are compared with countries’ collective greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction pledges. This is needed to assess mitigation progress and inform emission targets under the Paris Agreement. Currently, however, a mismatch of ~5.5 GtCO2 yr−1 exists between the global land-use fluxes estimated with IAMs and from countries’ GHG inventories. Here we present a ‘Rosetta stone’ adjustment to translate IAMs’ land-use mitigation pathways to estimates more comparable with GHG inventories. This does not change the original decarbonization pathways, but reallocates part of the land sink to be consistent with GHG inventories. Adjusted cumulative emissions over the period until net zero for 1.5 or 2 °C limits are reduced by 120–192 GtCO2 relative to the original IAM pathways. These differences should be taken into account to ensure an accurate assessment of progress towards the Paris Agreement.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/29/22410367/forest-offsets-trees-carbon-dioxide-accounting
The United Nations Wades in on Forests Again:
Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said we were at a “make-or-break moment”, adding that woodlands provide vital functions, including as guardians of fresh water sources and biodiversity protection.
“Forests are at the core of the solutions that can help us make peace with nature”, she underscored, stressing that "we need all-hands-on-deck" to support of forests worldwide.
Moreover, failure to protect them would have a major, negative impact on damaging and rising carbon emissions.
In his video message, QU Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), called healthy forests the key to “building back better”.
As they provide energy, food security and income while also storing carbon and housing most of the Earth’s terrestrial biodiversity, he said that "forests offer hope to heal people, environment and economy".
"Our generation must be the one that halts deforestation, biodiversity loss and climate change...and achieve better nutrition, better production, a better environment and a better life", the FAO chief said.
The event also launched the Global Forest Goals Report 2021, which evaluates where the world stands in implementing the UN Strategic Plan for Forests 2030.
While the world had been making progress in key areas, such as increasing global forest area through afforestation and restoration, findings reveal that the worsening state of our natural environment is threatening these and other gains.
“Before the pandemic, many countries were working hard to reverse native forest loss and increase protected areas designated for biodiversity conservation”, wrote Secretary-General António Guterres in the report’s foreword.
“Some of those gains are now at risk with worrying trends of increased deforestation of primary tropical forests.”
https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/04/1090622
Another City seeks to restore tree cover:
The City of Cambridge is launching the Healthy Forest Healthy City Initiative to help reshape its relationship with Cambridge’s urban forest and to provide opportunities for the Cambridge community to play a role in keeping the urban forest healthy and strong—and enjoy its many benefits. A healthy forest is a vital part of a healthy city and we all share a responsibility to care for our urban forest.
The Healthy Forest, Healthy City Initiative sets the groundwork necessary to:
- Increase awareness of the benefits of the urban forest and engages community members to take action;
- Achieve a minimum of 25% canopy cover by neighborhood and 60% canopy cover over sidewalks;
- Grow and nurture a more diverse urban forest to be 30% canopy cover citywide;
- Increase canopy cover on land owned by the city, individuals, businesses, and institutions by up to 25% by 2050.
The Healthy Forest Healthy City initiative came out of the development of the City of Cambridge’s Urban Forest Master Plan (UFMP) a strategic plan to evaluate the urban forest canopy and its resilience to climate change and its ability to reduce the urban heat island effect, mitigate stormwater runoff, and contribute to community well-being.
https://www.cambridgema.gov/Departments/publicworks/news/2021/04/arborweek2021
Forest Media 23 April 2021
The newly created Camp Nunguu in Newry State Forest had more publicity, and it is doing well. A once thriving koala population in the Eurobodalla Shire on the NSW South Coast is on its last legs, though locals hope a new strategy will save them. Researchers hope that peptides in Koala’s pouches may hold the cure to their chlamydia, and could be used to fight our own infections. People continue to hold the Nationals to account over their continuing attempts to remove protection for Koalas. The Government’s deal to buy out the China Shenhua Energy Company promises acquisition of more than 6000 hectares though it is worrying that this is to be managed by Local Land Services rather than NPWS. Forestry are also using our taxes to fund giving seedlings to community groups for planting, giving them a PR opportunity as they continue to fell their mature feed trees.
VicForests have been accused of 160 breaches of rules limiting logging to less than 30o slopes in Melbourne’s drinking water catchments, though only 2 are admitted. In Tasmania The Greens are going to the election promising to end native forest logging and establish Carbon Capture and Conservation reserves. And at the federal level the Nationals have introduced their own bill aimed at stopping federal oversight of logging.
It sounds like noise can affect the species and structure of native vegetation by affecting fauna. The Climate Council released a new report warning the world will likely pass the critical 1.5℃ temperature rise threshold in the 2030’s, warning that Australia should aim to reach net-zero emissions by 2035 as 2050 is too late. While America has now committed to halve its CO2 emissions by 2030, Australia refuses to set goals, though is on track to a 22% reduction. Though whereas once upon a time cuts used to be relative to 1990 they have been steadily creeping up, along with emissions, with a 2005 baseline now.
You can look at examples of Sweden’s clearfelling regimes, and sign a petition calling for protection of at least 50% of our lands and oceans.
Dailan Pugh
Camp Nunguu in place:
News of the Area reports that Gumbaynggirr elders have set up ‘Camp Nunguu’ in the Newry State Forest in response to Forestry Corporation of NSW plans to log 657 hectares, with more than 200 concerned citizens attending the opening of the blockade on Saturday April 10.
Traditional owner and Gumbaynggirr elder, Uncle Miklo Jarrett, officially opened the camp with family members.
“There is a lot of harmony and good feelings about being in the forest,” he said.
“We have looked after the land for thousands of years and to see the forests and animals disappearing is very upsetting.
“It is now up to everyone to protect the land,” he said.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/gumbaynggirr-elders-set-up-camp-to-protest-logging-plans-68003
Disappearing Koalas:
About Regional reports that “a once thriving koala population in the Eurobodalla Shire on the NSW South Coast is now so small that sightings are only reported about once every five years”, so the Eurobodalla Koala Project has prepared a Recovery Strategy “sponsored by the Coastwatchers Association, with light support from the Commonwealth Government, Forestry Corporation of NSW – Southern Region and National Parks and Wildlife Service South Coast Branch” – I’m not sure what “light” support is.
The Draft Revised Eurobodalla Koala Recovery Strategy 2021 is currently open for consultation and can be read here.
https://aboutregional.com.au/alarming-drop-in-eurobodalla-koala-numbers-prompts-call-for-action/
For Koalas with chlamydia, cure could be inside their pouches:
Koala peptides may hold the cure to their chlamydia, and may also be useful in fighting our own bacteria and fungus infections – if only some are left.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/am/koalas-with-chlamydia-cure-could-be-inside-pouches/13303560
Maintaining the rage:
In Stokes own electorate the Pittwater Online News has a detailed article about Koalas, written by the local Greens, and calling for people to lobby the Minister.
However, Ms Faerhmann said that even while the report was being handed down in June 2020, the timber industry and particularly Boral, was lobbying the National Party to block the new restrictions on logging koala habitat.
“Basically, I saw a lot of lobbying by timber companies in emails, also some legal advice by timber NSW,” she said.
It was then, in September 2020, that NSW Nationals leader John Barilaro “went ballistic” – saying his party would no longer support Government legislation in Parliament or join party room meetings in opposition to the new rules.
By March this year, NSW Planning Minister Rob Stokes and Environment Minister Matt Kean had caved in to the Nationals and the timber companies, exempting private rural land zoned for farming or forestry from the new SEPP.
http://www.pittwateronlinenews.com/Pittwater-Action-to-Save-Koalas-How-You-Can-Help.php
Geoff Pratt’s letter to News of the Area maintains the rage:
At the announcement the National ‘s member for Coffs Harbour, Mr Gurmesh Singh, declared that, “Buying this land is an important step in conserving our native flora and fauna in the local area.”
Just wondering, would this be Mr Singh whose political party last year began eroding the NSW Government’s plan and regulations meant to ensure the proper preservation and protection of koala habitats?
As does Maria Paola Torti, all the way from Italy:
This policy has to be changed!
We across the whole world love your iconic koalas! When the pandemic is over thousands and thousands of tourists from all over the world will come to Australia bringing much money to see your iconic koalas in the wild.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/04/death-for-koalas/
Liverpool farmers and koalas get a reprieve:
There was immense relief when landholders and activists found out that the Government had done a a $100 million deal with the China Shenhua Energy Company Limited to withdraw its mining lease application and surrender its development consent for the Shenhua Watermark Coal project at Breeza on the Liverpool Plains. The deal includes the acquisition of more than 6000 hectares of high biodiversity land to protect habitat for koalas and other endangered species, though it is worrying that this is to be managed by Local Land Services rather than NPWS (the National’s own conservation agency?).
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/04/shenhua-gone-and-breeza-breathes-again/
Your taxes at work:
The Forestry Corporation is providing thousands of trees to Koala groups in a PR blitz (likely paid for by Government Community Service Obligations subsidies). As they cut down mature Koala feed trees they claim kudos for giving out seedlings to plant.
Victorians caught out again logging on excessively steep slopes in water catchments:
The ABC reports on assessments by Lindenmayer and Taylor that found VicForests had committed 160 breaches of rules limiting logging to less than 30o slopes in Melbourne’s drinking water catchments, though only 2 are admitted. They report logging on slopes extending to over 40 degrees, with their findings published.
According to Professor Jamie Pittock, an expert in water management from ANU — who was not involved in the report — soil washed into the water can increase the chance of dangerous algal blooms and increase the cost of filtration.
"Soil tends to contain things like nitrates and phosphates and, if that gets into drinking water sources in dams, that exacerbates things like algal blooms," Professor Pittock said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-20/vicforests-illegally-logging-in-water-catchments/100079514
The Greens want to end logging of native forests:
The Greens new forest policy would end native logging in Tasmania's forests, and Forestry Tasmania would be repurposed to make the state a world leader in biodiversity protection and carbon storage.
Greens leader Cassy O'Connor said … "We will reclassify the Permanent Timber Production Zone (PTPZ) forests as Carbon Capture and Conservation reserves. And we'll work to monetise the carbon stored in these forests to provide an income, instead of a loss, to the State Budget."
https://www.examiner.com.au/story/7217718/carbon-storage-key-in-greens-forest-policy/
Tasmanian loggers see the light?
Nick Steel Tasmanian Forest Products Association head grudgingly admits that value adding and sustainable forests are the future for Tasmania as greenies in Tasmania argued for nearly 50 years. The only problem now is finding enough private land to grow forests that can meet a spike in demand.
The Nationals are intent on removing federal protections to appease loggers, as well as state ones:
The Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie has introduced a private members bill to make native forest logging across the country exempt from national environmental protections. The Sydney Morning Herald reports the loggers and CFMEU support the bill, though federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley opposes it.
The federal Environment Department’s submission to Senator McKenzie’s bill said the bill would “remove the Australian government’s regulatory environmental protections, such as penalties and other remedies”.
Noise affects plant communities:
An American study of vegetation plots near noisy gas wells compared to quite sites found significant differences in seedling abundances and plant species composition which they attributed to likely changes in pollination and dispersal of seeds by fauna,
The findings suggest noise pollution is more than a mere nuisance, according to the researchers -- it could be a serious threat with the power to transform ecosystems. The study was published Tuesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/noise-pollution-prevent-forest-growth-study/story?id=77125576
We are fast running out of time to save our future:
The Climate Council report Aim High: Go Fast: Why Emissions Need To Plummet This Decade identifies that because we have squandered our opportunities to reduce CO2 emissions it will be virtually impossible to keep average global temperature rise to 1.5℃ or below this century, without a period of significant overshoot and “drawdown”. A concern that I have is that the Climate Council doesn’t recognise the importance of protecting forests to achieve the drawdown.
It is now virtually certain Earth will pass the critical 1.5℃ temperature rise this century – most likely in the 2030s. Now, without delay, humanity must focus on holding warming to well below 2℃. For Australia, that means tripling its emissions reduction goal this decade to 75%.
And perhaps most frighteningly, overshooting 1.5℃ runs a greater risk of crossing “tipping points”, such as the collapse of ice sheets and the release of natural carbon stores in forests and permafrost. Crossing those thresholds may set off irreversible changes to the global climate system, and destroy critical ecosystems on which life on Earth depends.
Australia should also aim to reach net-zero emissions by 2035. Doing so by 2050 – a goal Prime Minister Scott Morrison says is his preference – is too late.
https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/net-zero-emissions-plummet-decade/
The Australian Model:
With the United States now promising to halve its CO2 emissions from 2005 levels by 2030 and Canada committed to a 40-45% cut on 2005 levels by 2030, the Australia COALition is missing in action yet again. Unfortunately, the ALP opposition mouth platitudes but aren’t opposing anything. Reuters comments:
Australia is the highest per capita carbon emitter among the world's richest nations, yet Prime Minister Scott Morrison made no pledge at the summit on Thursday to hit net zero by 2050.
Nor did Morrison proffer any change to Australia's commitment under the Paris Agreement to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 26% to 28% from 2005 levels by 2030, although speaking to media on Friday he left the door open to a new target.
However based on the government's own projections released in December, Australia's emissions in 2030 would be 22% below 2005 levels on its current trajectory, well short of its Paris commitment.
"When the PM says we can rely on him to meet Australia's targets – which are among the weakest climate targets in the developed world – it's like a naughty schoolboy saying you can rely on him to not do his homework and get a D in maths," Australian Conservation Foundation Chief Executive Kelly O'Shanassy said.
The Swedish Model:
If you had some inkling that Sweden has got its act together over forests, you were wrong as this photo essay demonstrates.
While you are looking at Swedish forestry you are encouraged to sign the petition calling on world leaders to support a Global Deal for Nature that safeguards the Earth, protecting at least 50% of our lands and oceans
https://www.globaldealfornature.org/petition/en/
Forest Media 16 April 2021
An announcement on the evening TV news that the Forestry Corporation had pulled out of Newry SF turned out to be wishful thinking. Koalas remain under sustained attack by politicians, bureaucrats and developers. Bit by bit we eat away their homes. Government and Campbelltown Council trial a sprinkler system in flying fox colony to counter devastating effects of increasing heatwaves.
In keeping with his industry bias, the federal ALP’s ex-forestry shadow forestry minister has given his fulsome support for Hunter Energy’s biomass plant at Redbank. An attack by two timber advocates on the credibility of Professor Lindenmayer, regarding his research finding that logging increased fire intensities, backfired when he sued them. A Western Australian hazard reduction backfired when it maimed native wildlife and habitat. WWF have identified six priority landscapes, covering nearly 5.8 million hectares on the east coast, and are working with EDO to secure stronger legal protection for these areas to defend the Unburnt Six and the wildlife that calls them home.
The Government has made a small addition to Billinudgel Nature Reserve and are considering a request by Hills Shire Council to make Cumberland State Forest into a national park. The Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife has launched a Wildlife Heroes Wildlife Friendly Vets program to highlight and support their wildlife work. Meanwhile a person establishing hollows to encourage the recovery of feral European honeybees in native bush gets promoted.
The important roles of mangroves and wetlands in sequestering “blue carbon” is recognised, while research finds that bacteria living on paperbarks can reduce wetland emissions by converting methane to the less dangerous carbon dioxide. Rich countries pay poor countries to protect rainforests, yet their consumption pays to clear it - with each person in a G7 country driving an average loss of four trees in the world. Apple is intending to use trees to offset their carbon footprint, though they want to log them too. And Whitehaven Coal want to plant used tyres under their rehabilitation of Leard State Forest.
An assessment identifies the immense environmental and economic costs of our transport of species around the world. Though the depressing news is that despite the depression there has been no depression in CO2 emissions, with the global rate of increase the fifth-highest level since records commenced, reaching levels higher than at anytime in the past 3.6 million years.
Dailan Pugh
Good news was wishful thinking:
Gumbaynggirr elders and supporters gathered to speak up against logging in Newry State Forest, only to be told that forestry announced that they are no longer going to proceed with logging. This is how TV reported it, though after the media left it was revealed it was a case of wishful thinking, and the campaign is still ongoing as the Forestry Corporation haven’t caved in yet.
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2021/04/10/logging-to-stop-in-newry-state-forest/
Koalas under concerted attack:
The Sydney Morning Herald considers the NSW government is undermining a key platform of its koala protection policy by removing financial incentives for conservation on private properties as part of a bill to help harmonise council rates. It states:
Greens MLC David Shoebridge said there needed to be a long-term solution that protected environmental land from rates but also gave councils an economic lifeline, adding the current proposal “does not strike that balance”.
In Independent Australia Sue Arnold again attack the NSW Government over their Koala policies, noting:
The Koala SEPP 21 has outraged conservation organisations. It does not apply to rural and forestry zones which comprise 90 per cent of private forests in northeast NSW. Further, a new provision allows the secretary of the department of regional NSW (National Party leader Barilaro’s bailiwick) to have a concurrent role in any future koala plans of management.
Stokes further asserts that the new SEPP has already enabled a plan to better protect koalas in Campbelltown. This is a statement that is guaranteed to disgust local conservation organisations fighting massive urbanisation by LendLease, the Walker Corporation and the Greater MacArthur Project — projects destined to eradicate the last healthy surviving koala population in not only southwest Sydney but potentially the state. Projects all approved by Stokes.
Environmental assessment reports warn of dire consequences for koalas if a dam is built in the lower Hunter region.
https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/7201086/new-dam-would-leave-koalas-homeless/?src=rss
The Queensland government is considering approving a 585-kilometre gas pipeline from west of Aramac in central-west Queensland to Injune in the state's south-west, involving clearing up to 134.54 hectares of koala habitat. The ABC notes the federal Department of Environment found that the proposed pipeline would significantly impact two endangered and 15 vulnerable species, including:
"There is a real chance or possibility that the proposed action will adversely affect habitat critical to the survival of the koala,"
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-08/qld-government-jemena-gas-pipeline-vulnerable-koala/100027578
At Toondah Harbour in Queensland the plan is for up to 3,600 apartments to be built over the water, alongside redeveloped parkland, a ferry terminal, and a 200-berth marina all in a RAMSAR listed wetland. The ABC reports that as well as objecting to the impacts on migratory shorebirds, the locals have been doing their own assessments of Koalas:
"We had eight individuals in the tracking project plus there were many others that we would see when we were tracking in the field, that were moving in and out of the area."
Walker Corporation declined to comment, but has previously told the ABC the EIS would demonstrate that all significant impacts on the natural environment would be avoided, minimised or offset and the project design would be informed by that work.
Ms Pointing disagreed the impact on koalas could be minimised.
"To be blunt, it's a death sentence," Ms Pointing said.
Reducing the heat on Flying foxes:
The NSW Government’s Saving our Species (SoS) program is pioneering a research partnership to test if water sprinklers can reduce the effects of heat stress on flying-foxes.
“During the 2019–20 summer over 72,000 grey-headed flying-foxes are estimated to have died in extreme heat events and sadly this is part of an escalating trend for this threatened species,” said Manager Threatened Species Conservation Linda Bell.
“Flying-foxes feed on nectar and pollen and travel vast distances and are also able to disperse larger seeds. This makes them vital to the health and regeneration of our native forests, especially the hardwood forests our timber industry depends on.
“This ground-breaking research project will determine whether sprinklers can reduce temperature-related deaths in flying-fox camps and, if so, how they can be configured to provide the best possible result for this threatened species,” Ms Bell said.
For more information on flying-fox heat stress go to: Heat stress in flying-fox camps.
ALP’s Fitzgibbon backs Hunter Energy biomass:
The Land reports that the ALP MP for the Hunter, Joel Fitzgibbon, has given his fulsome support for Hunter Energy’s biomass plant at Redbank.
"This would bring multiple jobs related to the logistics and transport of about a million tonnes a year of waste wood biomass that would provide the feedstock for this baseload power station.
"The project has my wholehearted support and I wish it well," [Fitzgibbon] said.
"We are working with the government to deliver on the twin goals of 24/7 reliable baseload power and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by focusing on biomass for energy solutions," Mr Poole said.
He said there was a place for controlled burns and mechanical thinning ... "but something less talked about could be the key to restoring healthy, fire-resistant forests - biomass.
Biomass focused on removing small trees and underbrush from the forest and burning it for power electricity. Any fears by industry detractors that biomass would draw on mature forests should be dismissed because biomass plants can only process trees of no more than 30 cm.
"You do it for jobs, yes, but you do it for cleaner air, the ecosystem, and climate change benefits," he said.
The Redbank Action Group issued a PR in response:
Joel Fitzgibbon’s claim that burning over a million tonnes of NSW’s native forests in the Hunter to generate electricity will benefit air, ecosystems and mitigate climate change is greenwashing in its purest form, the Redbank Action Group (RAG) said today.
“This is our valley’s transition nightmare,” said RAG spokesperson David Burgess. “At a time when the best minds in the Hunter are coming together to negotiate a difficult path beyond coal, the last thing we need is a Trojan horse of fake forest logging jobs masquerading as green energy.”
“There is no way any maths in the world adds up to this being renewable. On the face of it, and in the wake of enormous pressure on the EU and the USA to cease and desist, Hunter Energy seems to be claiming that it has purchased a sawmill in Millfield and turned it into a woodchip mill bigger than Eden,” Mr Burgess said.
“A double-handling of truck movements and the burning of so-called ‘residue’ or 'forest waste' at Redbank is a method that’s more polluting than coal. This is a fire with an insatiable appetite. While they’re chasing would-be investors around the world, Mr Fitzgibbon and the mill in question should look at what the first word on their brand new website, ‘legacy’, means. The volumes of forest they are claiming will require the burning of whole trees from public and private tenure and massive taxpayer subsidies. This, by their own description of the project, is the industrial-scale logging of the Watagans, west to the Pilliga and anywhere up to Grafton and down to Ulladulla.”
Attack on Lindenmayer backfires:
Lindenmayer sued two timber advocates after they attacked his credibility in relation to his comments about logging increasing the flammability of forests. They were forced to print retractions.
Mr Law and Mr Leplaa were required to publish apologies. Mr Law wrote that he accepted his statements could be interpreted as meaning Professor Lindenmayer’s opinion did not deserve to be considered.
“While my own views and that of some forestry scientists are diametrically opposed to the views expressed by Professor Lindenmayer in acknowledged scientific publications, my comments impugned his personal and professional integrity,” he wrote.
In his apology, Mr Leplaa acknowledged he had made statements about Professor Lindenmayer that were personally offensive to him and stepped beyond what was legitimate debate on a matter of important public policy in terms of forestry management.
As WA hazard reduction backfires:
Horrific injuries to 7 Kangaroos from a hazard reduction burn in a nature reserve at Perup, 300km south of Perth have contributed to an outcry.
Mr Smart said he is also concerned that countless old-growth trees with hollows were destroyed in the fires and endangered numbat habitat, which was taped off by authorities, was also left scorched by the blaze.
WWF Defending the Unburnt:
WWF have released a report ‘Defending the Unburnt’ that identifies six priority landscapes, covering nearly 5.8 million hectares on the east coast: Border Ranges, Nymboida, North Coast, Yengo-Wollemi, South Coast and Gippsland-Eden.
Criteria used to identify priority regions were habitat for the priority bush-fire affected species identified by the federal government, WWFs priority areas map for reserving 17% of the landscape (Aichi target) and expert opinion. Within regions they selected a 25 km buffer around burned areas 2ha+ in size. Within these areas action priorities appear to have been largely based on broad mapping of vegetation and condition, with cleared land identified as the highest priority. They multiplied asset and action priorities together to provide a final priority map. I am sceptical about their criteria and methodology (the delineation of regions is of concern, though its particularly perplexing how cleared land could become the highest and most urgent action priority).
https://www.wwf.org.au/what-we-do/2-billion-trees/defending-the-unburnt-six#gs.ywgmtk
… the 6 have been used as a focus to secure stronger legal protection
The Guardian reports that WWF Australia is setting up a legal fund through the EDO for community groups to challenge development decisions in forests they say are under threat from land clearing in the aftermath of the 2019-20 bushfire disaster.
The EDO state:
Our team of environmental law experts will work with WWF, local communities, and decision-makers across the country to secure stronger legal protection for these areas to defend the Unburnt Six and the wildlife that calls them home.
Rather than focussing on litigation, this landmark initiative will push for greater legal protection for the Unburnt Six by advocating for stronger laws, policies and processes that properly take into account the impact of the 2019-20 bushfires.
Find out more about how you can help Defend the Unburnt Six on WWF’s project page.
https://www.edo.org.au/2021/04/15/defending-the-unburnt-a-landmark-legal-initiative/
As well as reviewing the use of existing wildlife protections, the initiative will examine how to improve and create new laws to ensure Australia’s flora and fauna can survive into the future.
The partnership aims to support community groups including First Nations people, to know their rights when it comes to protecting their land.
Of particular focus are logging coups within state forests, many of which border national parks and while they harbour the same species, they are subject to weaker protections.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/bold-plan-to-save-six-wildlife-arks-across-australia-090539250.html
Small addition to Billinudgel Nature Reserve:
Tamara Smith MP, Member for Ballina, has welcomed the news that National Parks and Wildlife Service has acquired 37 hectares of land adjoining the Billinudgel Nature Reserve.
“An addition of 37 hectares of National Park estate in our region is not insignificant but as long as the Minister for the Environment, Matt Kean, insists on logging native forests, allowing core koala habitat to be destroyed en masse on rural land across the state and supporting new coal, National Parks are simply trophy cabinets.
“It is definitely a case of the left hand at odds with the right hand when it comes to the management of the environment by the Liberals and Nationals in NSW. On the one hand the Minister says he wants to double koala populations, expand National Parks and end the expansion of coal mining in the State. On the other hand he is colluding with the Nationals and the right-wing of his party to strip protections for koalas on rural land, log our native forests and expand coal mining.
https://www.miragenews.com/national-parks-in-nsw-trophy-cabinets-of-lnp-542518/
Council attempts to have Cumberland SF made into National Park:
The Hills Shire Council reports in a media release that it has put a planning proposal to rezone land within the Cumberland State Forest on hold until a decision is made by the NSW Government on the possibility of the Cumberland State Forest becoming a national park.
Council voted to delay determining whether or not to send the planning proposal for a Gateway Determination on the Forestry Corporation of NSW controlled sites during Tuesday’s Ordinary Meeting of Council.
Mayor of The Hills Shire, Dr Michelle Byrne said delaying the determination would allow time for full consideration of the national park proposal.
“The Cumberland State Forest is home to some of the country’s most valuable flora and fauna species and we would like to see it moved from a forestry land use to a national park so that generations of people can enjoy this wonderful space.
“Reclassifying Cumberland into a national park strengthens its protection. In addition to this, national parks play a significant role in providing scientific research and conservation efforts, as well as providing the public with access to a place where they can appreciate the natural wonders of our local environment,” Mayor Byrne added.
The decision comes after the Minister for Energy and Environment, Matt Kean MP advised Council that he had asked the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Services to carry out a detailed assessment of the area as part of the process in determining whether to reclassify the urban forest into a national park.
Wildlife Heroes Wildlife Friendly Vets program:
The Ballina Shire Advocate reports that the Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife is launching the Wildlife Friendly Vets program as part of its 'Wildlife Heroes' project, which aims to support wildlife volunteers around the country.
The Wildlife Heroes Wildlife Friendly Vets program aims to:
- Promote the challenging and unpaid work veterinary practices do, treating native wildlife (to vet clients, media and general public).
- Improve veterinary wildlife care through funding and training.
- Improve vet client awareness of wildlife rescue and wildlife needs.
- Support wildlife rescue co-ordination between carers and vets, including during emergencies.
Is any bee a good bee?
The Guardian has an article about the impact of the fires on both native and exotic bees, with a focus on a person establishing hollows to encourage the recovery of feral European honeybees in native bush. The encouragement of feral bees is problematic as it is an impost upon the diminished resources available for native pollinators, while denying many plant species effective pollination.
Mangrove losses add up:
Griffith University researchers found that mangroves accumulate three to 10 times more carbon than most ecosystems on the planet and their loss is a significant contributor to climate change.
“This project allows nations to value mangroves, predict potential carbon emission from mangrove loss and place a value on these to help meet targets set under the Paris Climate Agreement.”
The Mangrove Carbon app allows users to explore the contribution of mangrove protection to mitigating carbon emissions.
The research ‘Future carbon emissions from mangrove forest loss’ has been published in Global Change Biology.
Paperbarks eat methane:
While it is clear that we need trees to take up our carbon emissions, it is becoming evident that trees (or more correctly the soil beneath them) can emit the far more dangerous methane. The discovery that bacteria living on bark can convert methane to the less dangerous carbon dioxide again confirms the vital role of trees in the carbon cycle.
… in a world-first discovery published in Nature Communications, we found unique methane-eating communities of bacteria living within the bark of a common Australian tree species: paperbark (Melaleuca quinquenervia). These microbial communities were abundant, thriving, and mitigated about one third of the substantial methane emissions from paperbark that would have otherwise ended up in the atmosphere.
… research from 2020 found low-lying subtropical Melaleuca forests in Australia emit methane at similar rates to trees in the Amazon.
Dead trees can emit methane, too. At the site of a catastrophic climate-related mangrove forest dieback in the Gulf of Carpentaria, dead mangrove trees were discovered to emit eight times more methane than living ones. This poses new questions for how climate change may induce positive feedbacks, triggering potent greenhouse gas release from dead and dying trees.
We confirmed, in other recent research, that wetland soils were indeed the source of methane emissions in lowland forest trees. But this wasn’t always the case.
We discovered the bark of paperbark trees provide a unique home for methane-oxidizing bacteria — bacteria that “consumes” methane and turns it into carbon dioxide, a far less potent greenhouse gas.
Remarkably, these bacteria made up to 25% of total microbial communities living in the bark, and were consuming around 36% of the tree’s methane. It appears these microbes make an easy living in the dark, moist and methane-rich environments.
We need to stop eating so much forest:
A recent study quantified the world-wide deforestation that results from rich-countries’ consumption of products such as soybeans, cocoa and timber. At least in Australia, as one of the world’s leading deforesters, we are not just off-setting all our deforestation to other countries.
In the last few years, as climate changes continues to become more severe, there has been a growing push for rich countries to pay poorer ones to preserve and protect rain forests and other tropical forests. However, according to a new study in Nature Ecology & Evolution, RIHN Associate Professor Keiichiro Kanemoto and Senior Researcher Nguyen Tien Hoang show that other financial motives, namely international trade, with these same rich countries have actually encouraged poorer countries to increase their annual deforestation levels from 2001 to 2015.
Forests cover nearly one third of the earth's land area. Moreover, tropical forests are estimated to provide the habitat of anywhere between half to 90% of all the terrestrial species. They are also home to an unknown number of pathogens that escape with deforestation, which can explain some of the epidemics seen in recent years. Frustratingly, despite their importance for both human and ecological health, forests are being brought down at an alarming rate because of their valuable land for mining, farming and other commodities.
Ultimately, the United States, with its high demand for several commodities, had the most distinguishable footprint including timber from Cambodia, rubber from Liberia, fruits and nuts from Guatemala, and soy and beef from Brazil.
Kanemoto and Hoang additionally estimated the number of trees consumed per resident of a nation, calculating that each person in a G7 country drives an average loss of four trees in the world, but residents in China and India only lead to the loss of one. However, the loss of some trees has a greater biological impact than others.
"Different tree types have different environmental and ecological roles. For example, the environmental impact of three Amazonian trees might be more severe than the impact of 14 trees in the boreal forests of Norway," they said.
Ultimately, the study indicates that if rich countries want poorer countries to protect their forests, they must incentivize sustainability.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-03/rifh-ptc032521.php
Climate News Network reports on the above, and an additional study that looked at the impact of demand for pulpwood, sugar cane, beef, corn and other commodities on South America:
They found that human impact on the continent’s land surface just between the years 1985 and 2018 had expanded by 60%. In those years the natural tree cover had dwindled by 16%, and the scale of pasture increased by 23%, cropland by 160% and plantation by 288%.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/rich-worlds-demands-fell-poorer-worlds-forests/
Apple using forestry to offset carbon impacts:
Apple are investing in natural carbon sequestration to offset their emissions, though they don’t seem to understand that it takes years, and often decades, to offset the emissions from plantation establishment and that cutting the trees down later will release all their stored carbon.
Apple on Thursday announced a $200 million fund to invest in timber-producing commercial forestry projects, with the goal of removing carbon from the atmosphere while also generating profit.
The fund aims to remove one million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually from the atmosphere, equal to the amount spewed by more than 200,000 passenger vehicles.
Apple said last year it would become carbon neutral by 2030 for all its operations, including manufacturing.
https://hypebeast.com/2021/4/apple-200-million-usd-fund-forest-restoration
And Whitehaven using tyres for forest rehabilitation:
Whitehaven Coal are proposing burying 730 used heavy-machinery tyres under its rehabilitated Leard State Forest because its too expensive to truck them elsewhere or recycle them.
Alien invasions come at cost of US$162.7 billion a year:
French (with one Australian) scientists have quantified the economic costs of our transport of species around the world:
Biological invasions are responsible for substantial biodiversity declines as well as high economic losses to society and monetary expenditures associated with the management of these invasions1,2. The InvaCost database has enabled the generation of a reliable, comprehensive, standardized and easily updatable synthesis of the monetary costs of biological invasions worldwide3. Here we found that the total reported costs of invasions reached a minimum of US$1.288 trillion (2017 US dollars) over the past few decades (1970–2017), with an annual mean cost of US$26.8 billion. Moreover, we estimate that the annual mean cost could reach US$162.7 billion in 2017. These costs remain strongly underestimated and do not show any sign of slowing down, exhibiting a consistent threefold increase per decade.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03405-6#author-information
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/invasive-alien-species-exact-huge-ecosystem-cost/
The depressing news is that despite the depression there has been no depression in CO2 emissions:
Carbon dioxide levels are now higher than at anytime in the past 3.6 million years
Levels of the two most important anthropogenic greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, continued their unrelenting rise in 2020 despite the economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic response, NOAA announced today.
The global surface average for carbon dioxide (CO2), calculated from measurements collected at NOAA’s remote sampling locations, was 412.5 parts per million (ppm) in 2020, rising by 2.6 ppm during the year. The global rate of increase was the fifth-highest in NOAA’s 63-year record, following 1987, 1998, 2015 and 2016. The annual mean at NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii was 414.4 ppm during 2020.
The atmospheric burden of CO2 is now comparable to where it was during the Mid-Pliocene Warm Period around 3.6 million years ago, when concentrations of carbon dioxide ranged from about 380 to 450 parts per million. During that time sea level was about 78 feet higher than today, the average temperature was 7 degrees Fahrenheit higher than in pre-industrial times, and studies indicate large forests occupied areas of the Arctic that are now tundra.
“Human activity is driving climate change,” said Colm Sweeney, assistant deputy director of the Global Monitoring Lab. “If we want to mitigate the worst impacts, it’s going to take a deliberate focus on reducing fossil fuels emissions to near zero - and even then we’ll need to look for ways to further remove greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere.”
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/greenhouse-gas-levels-surge-despite-slow-economy/
Forest Media 9 April 2021
Hi, had to go a day early this week. It has been an extremely quite week for forests.
The deaths of a large proportion of forest trees gained a bit more coverage, but likely still not enough to put the Government off their intent to renew Wood Supply Agreements. Floods are now compounding the impacts of the fires – there are ecological limits. Despite the floods, we can’t forget about our increasingly imperiled forest wildlife and the combined impacts that droughts, heatwaves and fires are still having, notably on flying foxes and greater gliders. The upgraded Pacific Highway has claimed the life of an endangered coastal emu. Bangalow Koalas are planting corridors all over the place. Another day and another plan to create a race of super-koalas to repopulate our forests.
Mongabay has an in-depth article about the Bob Brown Foundation’s challenge to the RFA, focusing on the Swift Parrot.
COVID 19 has resulted in a worldwide housing boom, such that the Australian industry can’t keep up with demand, so (of course) are asking for taxpayer subsidies to be extended. Meanwhile in America they are genetically engineering eucalypts to stop them flowering and invading native vegetation.
Dailan Pugh
Forest deaths continue:
The Echo and Northern Rivers Times ran NEFA’s media release (see last week) on the loss of trees in the 2019-20 fires. The Echo included media from the NCC, citing Chris Gambian:
‘The EPA slowed Forestry Corp’s destructive behaviour by enforcing post-fire logging rules, but the corporation has now gone rogue, defying EPA controls and resuming pre-fire logging practices.’
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/04/burnt-logged-and-flogged-unsustainable-forestry-continues-unabated/
Northern Rivers Times 8 April 2021
From drought to flooding rains, and erosion:
Good item on ABC PM detailing the erosion threat of the flooding rains compounding the impacts of the bushfires, with David Lindenmayer focusing on the threat of logging:
Last month's huge rain event in New South Wales saw vast torrents pummel the land, in some cases, in areas that had already been savaged by the fierce 2019-20 wild fires. There's an ongoing impact of that double assault. Massive amounts of unstable soil has been swept away, draining into waterways, threatening river and wetland eco-systems and animal life, and wreaking havoc for farmers. Now, amid plans for salvage logging in some areas, there's a fight over whether areas that have been damaged by multiple natural disasters should be left alone altogether.
The continuing rise of super Koalas
Kyodo News reports on the intent to create "super koalas" by breeding Kangaroo Island’s chlamydia-free inbred Koalas (with a disease called oxalate nephrosis) “with a group of more genetically diverse males” from Victoria, with an intent use them to replace our obviously unfit and declining northern varieties:
"We will wind up with koalas that not only are free of infectious disease but are also free of oxalate nephrosis...in which case, you've got the healthiest, most robust, most resilient koalas you can possibly have," Daniels said.
We too can have super Koalas, creating super overpopulation and resulting in super defoliation.
Brytfmonline puts their slant on it:
Australian experts are trying to create one “Super Cola”, Matching stallions from the mainland with women survivors of wildfires on Kangaroo Island will kill them and control some of the most genetically modified diseases.
The other side of the coin is the low genetic type of kangaroo colas, which is due to insularity, but mainly All are descendants of 18 models brought to the island in the 1920s, … which previously had to be sterilized to prevent their population from erupting
https://www.brytfmonline.com/australia-wants-to-create-a-super-cola-starting/
Planting a future for Koalas:
ABC Gold Coast reports Bangalow Koala’s Linda Sparrow saying there was a surge in farmers wanting to create wildlife corridors on their land after the wildfires, noting that from February to September last year, Bangalow Koalas planted nearly 54,000 trees.
Currumbin struggles to cope with ever increasing patients:
The Guardian reports on Currumbin Wildlife hospital, noting that in “2019 koala admissions increased to nearly 600, up from just 27 in 2008”. The identify that many animals in need of care were brought in during the bushfire disaster of 2020, but far more (particularly flying foxes) were admitted during the drought leading up to the fires, with senior vet Michael Pyne commenting “The three months leading up to those fires we saw a heap of animals coming in that were just starving and dehydrated.”
Gliders crash:
Surveys for Greater Gliders in parts of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area have found that populations had plummeted by around 60 per cent after the successive impact of the 2019–20 bushfires, drought, and heatwaves, leading one of the researchers to comment:
"If we continue with this elevated level of fires and droughts and heatwaves you can really see them disappearing from the [World Heritage Area] entirely, so it is a big worry."
Dr Smith called for further action to mitigate climate change, warning the future for species like the gliders would be "diabolical" if the environmental conditions around the so-called Black Summer fires were to become the norm.
"Halting climate change needs to be a much more urgent priority in Australia than it has been," he said.
Upgraded motorway a new threat to endangered coastal emus:
The Northern Rivers Times reports that the upgraded Pacific Highway has claimed the life of an endangered coastal emu, following 2 reported sightings in the previous week.
Northern Rivers Times 8 April 2021
Saving Native Forests:
Mongabay has an in depth article about the Bob Brown Foundation’s challenge to the RFA, focusing on the Swift Parrot. It cites Bob Brown as concluding:
“People forget that the case we brought forth to protect Tasmania’s south west wilderness in the 1980s was thrown out by the High Court. Everyone told us it was over,” he said. “Eighteen months later, it was saved. All native forests will one day be conserved in Australia. It’s just a matter of when.”
COVID 19 building boom creates timber shortage:
COVID 19 has caused a worldwide building boom, resulting in the timber industry calling for a time extension to the government’s HomeBuilder scheme to extend the subsidies to “ease demand for both domestic and imported timber” by extending the boom. Given that the industry can’t keep up with demand, you have to wonder why it is being subsidized by taxpayers:
“Timberlink is producing more timber than at any other time, and our $100 million investment in our Australian mill upgrade program will shortly further increase our production capacity.”
Executive general manager Cameron MacDonald said imports had previously made up 25 per cent of demand for timber in Australia.
“We’re seeing a worldwide phenomenon where government stimulus has seen a lot of new home building activity, as well as do-it-yourself projects, and the timber prices in the US have doubled,” Mr MacDonald said.
“So, a lot of those imports are going to America rather than coming to Australia and it’s really been a significant drop in imports.”
He said he hoped common sense would prevail with the HomeBuilder scheme, which required construction to start within six months.
“Everyone’s asking the federal government to relax that deadline so that we can push some of this demand out because it’s not just timber, it’s tradies, it’s bathroom fittings, everything’s in short supply at the moment,” he said.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2021/04/04/homebuilder-supply-shortage/
Engineering eucalypts to stop them flowering:
In America they are genetically modifying eucalypts to stop them seeding and invading natural ecosystems. Oregon State University reports:
Eucalyptus, a pest-resistant evergreen valued for its hardy lumber and wellness-promoting oil, can be genetically modified not to reproduce sexually, a key step toward preventing the global tree plantation staple from invading native ecosystems.
“Roughly 7% of the world’s forests are plantations, and 25% of that plantation area contains nonnative species and hybrids,” said Elorriaga, now a postdoctoral researcher at North Carolina State. “Eucalyptus is one of the most widely planted genera of forest trees, particularly the 5.7 million hectares of eucalyptus in Brazil, the 4.5 million hectares in China and 3.9 million hectares in India.”
Those plantings, the scientists note, can lead to undesirable mingling with native ecosystems. Thus eliminating those trees’ ability to sexually reproduce without affecting other characteristics would be an effective way to greatly reduce the potential for invasive spreading in areas where that is considered an important ecological or economic problem.
Strauss points out that despite the promising findings, trees genetically modified as they were in this research could not legally be planted in Brazil, a nation with some of the largest economic value from eucalyptus tree farming.
“The trait could not be used there due to laws against modifying plant reproduction with recombinant DNA methods,” he said. “It would also be disallowed for field research or commercial use under sustainable forest management certification in many parts of the world – something scientists have come together to severely criticize in recent years.”
Forest Media 2 April 2021
Our highlighting of the Government’s mismanagement of Koalas on private lands caused them some concern, so they re-announced the Tweed and Byron Koala PoMs. They are also spending $6.5 million on the Gunnedah Koala amusement park – Koalas will get to enjoy ziplining, playing mini-golf, petting rabbits and luxuriating in eco-tents. Kean and Barilaro’s bromance continues, with the Government soon to announce a strategy to double koala numbers by 2050 with funding of almost $180 million. Changes to river flows are having a ‘damming’ impact on platypuses.
The Forestry Corporation have declared Force Majeure because of the rain, amid worries about increased erosion and pollution. David Shoebridge observes that Public native forests are being logged for a net return of less than 20 cents per mature tree. The Forestry Corporation have released their desk-top review of sawlog losses from the fires, claimed to vary from 4% on the north coast to 30% on the south coast, though there seems to be some creative accountancy as for the north coast their data show a loss a loss of around 10% of sawlogs and 25% of smaller trees. NEFA is calling for an immediate 10% reduction in wood supply commitments to north-coast sawmillers and a freeze on imminent Wood Supply Agreements until sufficient plots are sampled to accurately quantify remaining timber volumes (and to stop logging public forests).Surprisingly Bega MP Andrew Constance thinks that the Forestry Corporation are “out of touch” and called for the agency to be disbanded given the rising tensions between it and the EPA.
Tasmanian loggers are disappointed that the Government didn’t succeed in getting penalties for first offence protestors of up to 18 months in jail, and four-year jail terms and a $10,000 fine for a second offence. Some were worried it may be applied to other protestors. They were also mortified that the Greens accused them of spiking trees, without any proof – they are the only ones who can demonise greenies without proof.
Time to panic with (reiterated) projections that on current trajectories by the end of this century Australia can expect bushfires on the catastrophic scale of Black Summer happen almost every year, regular 50℃ days in Sydney and Melbourne, storms and flooding violently reshaping our coastlines, and unique ecosystems damaged beyond recognition – including the Great Barrier Reef, which will no longer exist. The 2019 bushfires were as severe as normal in dry forests, but more so in wet forests, though their extent was unprecedented, representing 44% of the total area burned by high-severity fire since 1988. The warning is that the future of our wetter forest types, which have not evolved to cope with frequent and severe fires, is in jeopardy. The good news is that Australia’s environmental health has improved from 0.8 out of ten in 2019 to 3.2 last year.
Meanwhile, globally landclearing is on the increase with the tropics losing 12.2 million hectares (led by Brazil). Australia is still up there, and NSW is leading our way. We have passed 4 of the 9 planetary boundaries that risk changing earth’s trajectory and endangering the future of humans, with climate change and biosphere integrity the biggest threats. Trees are feeling the heat. Most of the world’s reserves just slow deforestation, rather than stopping it. Lastly Canberra wants more trees to enhance community wellbeing.
Dailan Pugh.
How to Extinct Koalas
Echonet ran my article on the evolution of the Koala Wars and the Koala Killing Bill.
The Koala Wars erupted between the National and Liberal Parties last September, while the Nationals are claiming victory over the Liberals, it is the loggers that have prevailed over koalas and local councils.
Ironically the National’s declaration of war came after the bipartisan inquiry into ‘Koala populations and habitat in NSW’ released their findings in June 2020 that the regulatory framework for private native forestry does not protect koala habitat on private land, and that without urgent government intervention to protect habitat the koala will become extinct in New South Wales before 2050.
This appeared to inflame the debate about State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) Koala Habitat Protection 2019, which applied to private forests, home to more than 60% of NSW’s koalas. In early September the Nationals threatened to cross the floor unless the Liberal’s agreed to their demands to weaken protections for koalas. The Liberals surrendered.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/03/this-is-how-to-extinct-koalas/
Government re-announces Tweed and Byron KPoMs:
The Government can’t get enough good news, re-announcing the adoption of the Tweed (finalised in 2015) and Byron (finalised in 2016) Coastal Koala Plans of Management which were adopted last week with the new SEPP. They are trying to pretend they cover the whole of the shires, while both only apply to the coastal strip - Tweed’s covers 18% of the shire applying to some 3,800 ha of highly fragmented Koala habitat supporting some 140 Koalas, Byron’s covers 23% of the shire applying to some 2,000ha of highly fragmented Koala habitat supporting some 240 Koalas. Intriguingly, even though its Rob Stokes portfolio, John Barilaro is given top billing in the Government’s PR:
Deputy Premier John Barilaro said approval of the KPoMs would provide certainty to private landholders.
“The majority of Tweed and Byron’s koala habitat is on private land and these KPoMs mean farmers and landowners will no longer have to do individual assessments when proposing new development,” Mr Barilaro said.
“It means koala habitat is protected and gives landowners greater certainty.”
Gunnedah’s Koala amusement park takes shape
Gunnedah koala park development application now on display includes a koala hospital, on-site camping, caravan park, eco-tents, mini golf course, a zipline, native animal enclosures, petting zoo for domestic animals, and indigenous cultural heritage centre – all to help in Koala recovery, I’m sure that the thrill of ziplining, a few rounds of mini golf and petting rabbits will make them happier and therefore recover quicker? This type of tourism is where the Koala money is mostly going, the State Government has so far invested $6.5 million in this project.
Kean and Barilaro’s bromance blossoms
The Sydney Morning Herald has a lengthy article about the NSW Government’s environmental wins and losses, generally painting a rosy picture of what Kean has been able to achieve while delivering on Barilaro’s demands for less regulation of private lands.
In a lengthy conversation with the Herald Kean was evidently proud of his government’s record, particularly his navigation of energy and climate policies and his proposed expansion of the state’s national parks by 370,000 hectares.
Kean said he would soon announce a strategy to double koala numbers by 2050. That policy will likely come with funding of almost $180 million.
Some left overs from last week:
… NBN ran the Lismore Koala day of action:
“The State Environment Planning Policy that the New South Wales government introduced will do anything but protect koala habitat,” State Member for Lismore, Janelle Saffin, said.
“Making sure we give core koala habitat the legal protection it needs while providing financial assistance to landowners to protect it,” Dalian Pugh from the North East Forest Alliance said.
The Northern Rivers Times (March 25) had 2 articles “Koala Kill Bill resurrected, NEFA claims” and “Protesters claim new laws will wipe out NSW’s Koalas” (about the Lismore rally).
Changes to river flows are having a ‘damming’ impact on platypuses
The researchers from UNSW Sydney’s Platypus Conservation Initiative in the Centre for Ecosystem Science (CES) say the natural flow regime needs to be replicated on dammed rivers if platypus populations are to recover in areas below large dams.
“The way dams are managed, such as the timing and volume of the release of water, can significantly impact on platypuses living downstream,” lead author Dr Tahneal Hawke said.
Their findings, published in the international scientific journal Aquatic Conservation, are concerning as much of the distribution of platypus overlaps with highly regulated or dammed rivers
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/mid-north-coast-home-to-the-elusive-platypus-66917
Wet weather forces Forestry to declare Force Majeure:
The SMH reports that the rains have forced the Forestry Corporation to trigger insurance provisions to allow it to halt most of its logging and timber supply operations on the NSW North Coast, also citing David Shoebridge as observing the “Forestry Corp earning less than 20 cents in profit per tree even with a range of subsidies that mask its loss-making native logging division”, and:
Dailan Pugh, a spokesman for the North East Forests Alliance, said loggers run the risk of creating long-term damage operating in the wet as their machinery creates huge ruts and compacts sodden soils. Tree removal from headwater regions can worsen erosion and pollute rivers.
Logging is not worth the cost:
The Greens review Forestry’s claimed profits:
Public native forests are being logged for a net return of less than 20 cents per mature tree, according to forestry data analysed by the NSW Greens.
This appallingly low return coupled with the increasing environmental damage caused by industrial logging confirms the need for an urgent end to this destructive and non viable industry.
Analysis of Forestry Corporation figures obtained by Greens MP David Shoebridge show the profit from native forest logging in 2019/20 was a just $28.00 a hectare. Over the last five years native logging profits have declined from a high of $225.85 in 2016/17 to less than half that.
With every hectare of native forest containing an average yield of 140 mature trees, this equates to an average profit of less than 20 cents for each mature tree logged.
"Ending native forest logging would allow the money currently wasted on forestry roads and destroying nature to be re-directed towards opening these forests up to their local communities and people across NSW," Mr Shoebridge said.
https://www.miragenews.com/cliff-edge-plunge-for-native-forest-profits-is-536741/
Numerous trees killed by fires, but has no impact on timber:
The Forestry Corporation’s assessment of losses of high-quality sawlogs from the fires varies from 30% in south coast forests, 27% in Tumut, 14% in Eden and 4% in north-east NSW. NEFA reviewed Forestry’s guesstimates of tree fire losses for the north coast (I was interviewed on north-coast ABC):
The North East Forest Alliance is calling for an immediate 10% reduction in wood supply commitments to north-coast sawmillers from public forests because of the widespread death of trees due to the Black Summer bushfires, and a freeze on any new commitments until sufficient plots are sampled to accurately quantify remaining timber volumes.
The Forestry Corporation report ‘2019–20 Wildfires, NSW Coastal Hardwood Forests Sustainable Yield Review’ undertakes a preliminary desktop review of the likely impacts of the Black Summer wildfires on timber resources.
The Forestry Corporation estimate is that there has been a significant loss of trees across at least a third of the north coast’s State Forests (north from Gosford), with a loss of 10-50% of large sawlog sized trees over 30 cm diameter at breast height, and 50-100% of smaller trees, according to NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh.
“The worst affected stands were those logged in the previous 4 years where over 90% of trees were killed.
“Overall, across the north coast State Forests, the Forestry Corporation estimate there has been a loss of around 10% of sawlogs and 25% of smaller trees. North from Coffs Harbour these losses increase to 15% of sawlogs and 35% of smaller trees.
“It appears the NSW Government intends to rely upon this simplistic review to sign new Wood Supply Agreements to replace the current 20 year agreements due to expire in 2023.
… the losses in the south get attention:
The Guardian reports that Justin Field said a review by the Natural Resources Commission of forestry operations in fire-hit regions should be completed before any new logging was considered. NSW forestry minister, John Barilaro apparently intends to continue business as usual on the north coast though may reduce quotas elsewhere, reported as commenting:
“In some areas we will be able to largely continue to supply timber at existing levels over the long term as forests are harvested and regrown time and again,” he said.
“In other areas we cannot carry on with business as usual over the long term and will need to work with timber mills to make adjustments to supply.”
Intriguingly it reports:
On Monday, government minister and Bega MP Andrew Constance told the ABC that the Forestry Corporation was “out of touch” with what south coast residents had been through and called for the agency to be disbanded given the rising tensions between it and the EPA.
“I think it has become a body that butts heads with the EPA the entire time,” he said.
Tasmania’s anti-protest laws go down:
The Liberal government introduced anti-protest laws in 2014, aimed particularly at opponents of the forestry industry, which were challenged in the High Court by Bob Brown and were found to be unconstitutional, as they impacted the implied freedom of political communication. The Government tried again, with the legislation going to the Upper House this week with penalties for a first offence under the laws of up to 18 months in jail, while a second offence could attract a four-year term and a $10,000 fine. Tasmania's Upper House voted down the anti-protest laws, with six in favour and eight against.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-26/tasmania-long-history-of-environmental-activism/100025328
The loggers don’t like the finger being pointed at them:
Loggers immediately blame greenies if anything happens, such as old nails in sawn logs, sawmills catching fire, machinery being vandalised, when often such incidents can be accidents, actions by disgruntled employees, random acts or even deliberate acts to obtain insurance or discredit greenies. While loggers eagerly use such incidents to demonise forest protectors (despite having no proof), they froth at the mouth when they are accused of orchestrating such events, describing it as “gutter politics and typical of the demonisation and mental abuse that has been inflicted for decades on good hard-working people”. I know how that feels.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/tasmanian-greens-leader-must-apologise-for-disgraceful-slur/
Time to panic – if you’re not already:
The Conversation reports:
Imagine, for a moment, a different kind of Australia. One where bushfires on the catastrophic scale of Black Summer happen almost every year. One where 50℃ days in Sydney and Melbourne are common. Where storms and flooding have violently reshaped our coastlines, and unique ecosystems have been damaged beyond recognition – including the Great Barrier Reef, which no longer exists.
Frighteningly, this is not an imaginary future dystopia. It’s a scientific projection of Australia under 3℃ of global warming – a future we must both strenuously try to avoid, but also prepare for.
The sum of current commitments under the Paris climate accord puts Earth on track for 3℃ of warming this century. Research released today by the Australian Academy of Science explores this scenario in detail.
The damage is already evident. Since records began in 1910, Australia’s average surface temperature has warmed by 1.4℃, and its open ocean areas have warmed by 1℃. Extreme events – such as storms, droughts, bushfires, heatwaves and floods – are becoming more frequent and severe.
At 3℃ of global warming by 2100, oceans are projected to absorb five times more heat than the observed amount accumulated since 1970. Being far more acidic than today, ocean oxygen levels will decline at ever-shallower depths, affecting the distribution and abundance of marine life everywhere. At 1.5-2℃ warming, the complete loss of coral reefs is very likely.
Under 3℃ warming, global sea levels are projected to rise 40-80 centimetres, and by many more metres over coming centuries.
At 3℃ of warming, the number of extreme fire days could double.
A 3℃ global temperature increase would reduce yields of key crops by between 5% and 50%. Significant reductions are expected in oil seeds (35%), wheat (18%) and fruits and vegetables (14%).
Under a sea level rise of 1 metre by the end of the century – a level considered plausible by federal officials – between 160,000 and 250,000 Australian properties and infrastructure are at risk of coastal flooding.
Heatwaves on land and sea are becoming longer, more frequent and severe. For example, at 3℃ of global warming, heatwaves in Queensland would happen as often as seven times a year, lasting 16 days on average. These cause physiological heat stress and worsen existing medical conditions.
At 3°C global warming, many locations in Australia would be very difficult to inhabit due to projected water shortages.
Are Bushfires getting more severe?
The Conversation reports:
… we found the average proportion of high-severity wildfire remained constant in dry forest — the dominant vegetation across this region. There was, however, evidence of an increase in the average proportion of high-severity fire in wet forests and rainforests, along with woodlands.
While the proportion of high-severity fires hasn’t changed, the enormous range of the 2019-2020 bushfires meant 44% of the total area burned by high-severity fire since 1988 occurred in that one summer alone.
This means 1.8 million hectares of the forest and woodland regions of southeastern Australia — an enormous proportion — was exposed to intense and severe fire. In this regard, the Black Summer bushfires were exceptional.
As Australians remember all too clearly, this had a devastating effect on the environment. An estimated three billion animals were killed or displaced, vulnerable rainforests burned and 3,000 homes were destroyed.
As bushfires become larger in the future, the area exposed to intense and severe fires is likely to increase commensurately. As a result, the future of our wetter forest types, which have not evolved to cope with frequent and severe fires, is in jeopardy.
At least we’re not in total collapse – yet:
The Conversation reports on a scorecard of our environmental health based on the indicators of high temperatures, river flows, wetlands, soil health, vegetation condition, growth conditions and tree cover, with the data available at the local government area scale, noting:
A year ago, after prolonged drought and devastating bushfires, Australia’s environment scored a shocking 0.8 out of ten. Our new research shows nature started its long road to recovery in 2020, especially in New South Wales and Victoria.
Nationally, Australia’s environmental condition score increased by 2.6 points last year, to reach a (still very low) score of 3.2. But overall conditions across large swathes of the country remain poor.
Finally, pressure your local, state and national politicians. Ask them: how are you addressing vegetation loss, invasive pests and over-extraction from rivers? If you don’t like the answer, tell them, or try to vote them out.
With greater urgency and some luck, there is still much to be salvaged.
Landclearing increases again in 2020:
Global Forest Watch and the University of Maryland found the tropics lost 12.2 million hectares of tree cover in 2020, nearly a third of that loss (4.2 million hectares) occurred within humid tropical primary forests. Primary forest loss was 12% higher in 2020 than the year before, and it was the second year in a row that primary forest loss worsened in the tropics. Once again Brazil is by far the worst offender, accounting for over a third of all loss.
Of that, 4.2 million hectares, an area the size of the Netherlands, occurred within humid tropical primary forests, which are especially important for carbon storage and biodiversity. The resulting carbon emissions from this primary forest loss (2.64 Gt CO2) are equivalent to the annual emissions of 570 million cars, more than double the number of cars on the road in the United States.
From 2001 to 2020, Australia lost 8.47Mha of tree cover, equivalent to a 20% decrease in tree cover since 2000, and 1.86Gt of CO₂ emissions. … New South Wales had the most tree cover loss at 2.89Mha.
https://blog.globalforestwatch.org/data-and-research/global-tree-cover-loss-data-2020/
The Guardian reports:
On Wednesday, the UK, which will host the vital UN Cop26 talks this November, is holding a conference on climate and development at which wealthy nations will be asked to come up with plans to help the most vulnerable countries cut emissions and cope with the effects of climate breakdown. Campaigners hope to raise the issue of forest funding there.
“Forests need to be on the agenda for Cop26,” said Seymour. “The world’s forests are still an enormous carbon sink, and we need to keep that carbon sequestered to avert catastrophic climate change.”
Passing planetary tipping points:
In an in-depth article, Mongabay reports that we have passed 4 of the 9 planetary boundaries that risk changing earth’s trajectory and the future of humans:
Of the four boundaries that researchers say we have already exceeded, climate change and biosphere integrity are considered “core” planetary boundaries because either one, on its own, could change the course of Earth’s trajectory and endanger humanity.
“There’s enough science today to say that [human-induced climate change] on its own can knock the planet away from the Holocene state,” Rockström said. “Similarly, if we just continue our mass extinction, losing more and more species, from phytoplankton to top predators, you will come to a point where the whole planet [system] collapses.”
Trees getting feverish:
Mongabay reports on research that found leaves can’t handle it if it gets too hot:
- A recent study from Brazil shows that heat stress is disrupting a critical component of photosynthesis in tree species found in the Amazon and Cerrado belt.
- Leaves heat up faster than the ambient air, and sufficiently high temperatures can cause irreversible damage to them and endanger the tree.
- The area has become hotter in recent decades and faced increasingly intense heat waves, fueled not just by global warming but also local deforestation.
- Tropical forests could look more and more like deciduous forests or savannas in the future, which are better adapted to deal with higher temperatures, the study found.
Most forest reserves unprotected:
A global study published in Nature has found that most protected areas just slow deforestation rather than stopping it:
Overall, protected areas did not eliminate deforestation, but reduced deforestation rates by 41%. Protected area deforestation rates were lowest in small reserves with low background deforestation rates. Critically, we found that after adjusting for effectiveness, only 6.5%—rather than 15.7%—of the world’s forests are protected, well below the Aichi Convention on Biological Diversity’s 2020 Target of 17%. We propose that global targets for protected areas should include quantitative goals for effectiveness in addition to spatial extent
Valuing urban trees:
Canberra is using trees to make it more liveable:
The ACT’s Urban Forest Strategy has today been released to guide the growth of our urban forest and maintain a resilient, diverse and sustainable tree canopy.
“Canberra’s urban forest is one of our city’s most precious community assets. It contributes to cooling our suburbs, cleaning our air, improving the liveability of our streetscapes, providing habitat for local wildlife and enhancing community wellbeing,” said Minister for City Services Chris Steel.
“The Strategy provides a framework to achieve this while working towards the target of 30 per cent canopy cover or equivalent by 2045.”
https://www.miragenews.com/acts-urban-forest-strategy-released-536554/
Forest Media 26 March 2021
Unfortunately our Koala Day of Action was washed out, though Murwillumbah went ahead in sunshine, Lismore in rain and a small action took place on the south coast. Tweed Council has expressed its dismay about the new SEPP only applying to small areas, asking it apply to the whole of its local government area as it does on the central coast. The Federal Government is due to start its $2 million great Koala count, why avoiding needed action. Amongst Victoria’s reintroduced Koalas there remains a patch of genetically complex survivors from the genocide, in need of help. AKF’s Deborah Tabart has launched her Koala Manifesto. The superhero Koala Man is making a comeback, amongst great interest.
The Forestry Corporation is resuming logging operations on the South Coast in forests that were heavily burnt during the Black Summer bushfires, against the advice of the EPA and in contravention of legal requirements. Graziers and environmentalists have joined forces to stop logging of an irreplaceable swathe of old mountain ash forest in Victoria’s high country. Dr Jennifer Sanger defends her withdrawal of a paper on the effects of logging on fires pointing out that “Despite our paper retraction, there is still clear and overwhelming evidence that logging makes forests more flammable”. At the Federal level, Assistant Forestry Minister Jonathon Duniam displays his objectivity in estimates: “Our pathway forward will be guided by industry, they will tell us what they need and my job is to deliver for them,”
Another study found outbreaks of infectious diseases are more likely in areas of deforestation and monoculture plantations. There is growing recognition of the need to protect and restore native forests to address the twin crises of species extinction and climate warming, except in Australia where our ignorant government thinks short rotation pulp plantations are the answer.
Dailan Pugh
Koalas do it again:
The wet weather put a dampener on our Koala day of action, with only Murwillumbah and Lismore proceeding on the north coast, and Lismore greatly reduced. The Echo gave Murwillumbah good coverage.
The event at Knox Park was organised and MC’d by NRG member Lori Scinto and was joined and supported by Team Koala and the Caldera Environment Centre. Speakers included NRG President Scott Sledge, NEFA President Dailan Pugh, Tweed Shire Councillor Katie Milne, and Limpinwood resident and wildlife carer Susie Hearder.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/03/saveourkoalas-day-found-sun-in-murwillumbah/
Tweed Council considered the new SEPP and expressed their concerns, passing a resolution, including:
Seeks an urgent meeting with the State members for Tweed and Lismore, Mr Geoff Provest MP, and Ms Janelle Saffin MP respectively, and the Minister for Planning and Public Places, the Hon. Rob Stokes to discuss the following issues: a) potential amendments to the Koala SEPP 2021 to permit the preparation of koala plan of management under the Koala SEPP to apply to all land, including rural zoned land. b) the proposed removal council’s consent role in relation to forestry. c) environmental planning measures to ensure that koala habitat is appropriately zoned in Council LEPs. d) further consultation with stakeholders including councils, researchers and practitioners to ensure the Koala SEPP 2021 meets the needs and aspirations of local communities. e) further investment in hardwood plantations instead of harvesting native forest.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/03/tweed-council-calls-for-same-koala-protections-as-central-coast/
A small group of 11from the Far South Coast Koala Action group took to the highway in front of Potoroo Palace to participate in statewide Koala Action Day.
News of the Area reports that Koalas are moving closer to extinction in New South Wales, according to conservationists, because of the concessions to farmers resulting from the recent agreement between the NSW Liberals and Nationals. Includes comments from Cate Faehrmann and Dominic King, as well as mentioning the proposed rally.
While the Federal Government’s Koala Recovery Plan is 5 years overdue, they intend to avoid doing anything to protect them while they do a national count – at a cost of $2 million – which is now due to start in July.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/science/environment/2021/03/22/koala-census-july/
https://www.hepburnadvocate.com.au/story/7177627/nationwide-koala-count-to-start-in-months/?cs=9676
… Australian Koala Foundation:
An interview with Australian Koala Foundation’s Deborah Tabart and her 33-year fight to save the koalas
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/brisbane/programs/mornings/deborah-tabart-the-koala-manifesto/13267326
Deborah Tabart has launched her the book The Koala Manifesto, her ‘10 Koala Commandments’ include:
- The Koala Protection Act to be enacted into law immediately;
- A national koala mapping standard;
- Logging of native koala forests to stop, better management of plantation forests adjacent to koala habitats and cleared farmland to be regenerated;
- Call for a royal commission into the industries and individuals who have knowingly and wantonly sought to kill koala habitat and koalas;
- Call for a bill of rights for the environment;
… some Victorian survivors of the genocide:
A small but largely unknown population of endemic koalas, once believed wiped out across mainland Victoria, were found in fragmented habitat in the 1990s, living in the Strzelecki in South Gippsland, Victoria. The problem is that most of Victoria and SA’s Koalas were hunted to extinction, before being repopulated by surviving animals on French Island and Phillip Island with a small gene pool. The resultant weak gene pool has been found to lead to kidney and renal failures, undescended testicles and high levels of hermaphroditism, while also making them highly vulnerable to a disease outbreak. The Strzelecki Koalas, with their diverse genetics, are thus of outstanding importance.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/unique-koala-group-thought-to-be-extinct-faces-new-threat-100307368.html
… now they’re boasting that they can stop Koalas climbing trees to save them:
In an innovative collaboration between DES and the Department of Transport and Main Roads, the Koala shield metal guards – will be affixed to posts along the M1 motorway between Brisbane and the Gold Coast to prevent the claws of koalas and other nocturnal wildlife from getting a grip on the poles.
… their humanity just makes them adorable:
Gulf News has a photo essay on Koalas.
https://gulfnews.com/world/oceania/fresh-deluge-worsens-one-in-100-year-australia-floods-1.78013003
Macarthur Advertiser reports on a book by John Pickrell Flames of Extinction: The race to save Australia's threatened wildlife, about his journeys “through the firegrounds to find stories about the creatures that escaped the flames, the wildlife workers who rescued them, and the conservationists, land managers, Aboriginal rangers, ecologists and firefighters on the frontline of the climate catastrophe”.
Have no fear, Koala Man is coming to Hulu. The streaming service has ordered the family animated series that will follow an Australian suburban superhero. He is described as an Australian suburban hero with no power greater than a passion for stopping petty crime and bringing order to his community.
https://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/koala-man-hulu-orders-animated-series-about-australian-superhero/
https://animesuperhero.com/is-the-world-ready-for-koala-man/
… and the stories continue.
Illegal?, or is it just immoral?, logging of burnt south coast forests resumes:
About Regional reports the Forestry Corporation is resuming logging operations on the South Coast in forests that were heavily burnt during the Black Summer bushfires, against the advice of the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA), reporting:
In the meantime, the EPA says it has increased its regulatory oversight of logging operations and that its officers are actively monitoring forestry operations at all stages of logging: pre, post and during harvesting.
“Where the EPA identifies a non-compliance, it will take appropriate regulatory action,” said the spokesperson.
Includes comments from Richard Barcham and Harriet Swift.
Graziers unite with forest protectors:
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that graziers and environmentalists have joined forces to stop logging of an irreplaceable swathe of old mountain ash forest in Victoria’s high country that hasn’t burnt since 1939.
The burning matter of professional integrity:
In a letter to the Tasmanian Examiner Dr Jennifer Sanger defends her withdrawal of a paper on the effects of logging on fires (due to an error in Forestry plantation maps) against an attack by Senator Eric Abetz, pointing out that “Despite our paper retraction, there is still clear and overwhelming evidence that logging makes forests more flammable”.
https://www.examiner.com.au/story/7180950/forestry-conflict-of-interest-claims-ironic/
Forestry should be Exempt from National Laws:
Its not just the NSW Nationals who think that forestry should be able to rape and pillage regardless of threatened species, so too do the national Liberals. Mike Foley reports that despite Graeme Samuel’s review of the EPBC Act finding “there are “fundamental shortcomings” in Regional Forest Agreements and he had “low confidence” they were upholding Commonwealth protections for native forests subject to logging operations”, in Federal Senate estimates Assistant Forestry Minister Jonathon Duniam responded to the Nationals:
“Our pathway forward will be guided by industry, they will tell us what they need and my job is to deliver for them,”
… “My job, broadly, is to maintain the Regional Forest Agreements in their current form,” .... “We are pro-forestry, we want to grow the sector.”
Logging and plantations incubate pestilence:
The Guardian reports on research that found outbreaks of infectious diseases are more likely in areas of deforestation and monoculture plantations, noting “this was because diseases are filtered and blocked by a range of predators and habitats in a healthy, biodiverse forest. When this is replaced by a palm oil plantation, soy fields or blocks of eucalyptus, the specialist species die off, leaving generalists such as rats and mosquitoes to thrive and spread pathogens across human and non-human habitats. The net result is a loss of natural disease regulation”. The researchers note:
we find that the increases in outbreaks of zoonotic and vector-borne diseases from 1990 to 2016 are linked with deforestation, mostly in tropical countries, and with reforestation, mostly in temperate countries. We also find that outbreaks of vector-borne diseases are associated with the increase in areas of palm oil plantations. Our study gives new support for a link between global deforestation and outbreaks of zoonotic and vector-borne diseases as well as evidences that reforestation and plantations may also contribute to epidemics of infectious diseases.
Scientists, public health and policymakers should reconcile the need to preserve biodiversity while taking into account the health risks posed by lack or mismanagement of forest (both deforestation and afforestation) by considering the following recommendations:
- halt deforestation by implementing an international governance of forests and their contributions to healthy planet and people;
- develop research on disease regulating service provided by forests and other ecosystems, which may help at better manage forested and planted areas;
- recognize that forests and plantations not only contribute to carbon sequestration but to biodiversity and global health;
- following Veldman et al. (39), revise the forest definitions of the FAO as to avoid afforestation, forest expansion, and agricultural conversion of grasslands.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2021.661063/full
Some are beginning to realise the true value of forests:
The Seattle Times reports on a rethink going on in Washington state where the commissioner of public lands pulled back nearly 40 acres with most of the biggest, oldest trees from an approved timber sale, and is now reconsidering the future of 10,000 acres of the oldest forests “to rethink the value of trees on state lands not as logs, but as trees to help address the twin crises of species extinction and climate warming”. And two of her predecessors have launched a proposal to gradually stop all commercial harvest of state forests west of the Cascades, for what they see as a higher purpose: combating the climate crisis.
In New Zealand the Climate Change Commission’s proposal for 300,000 hectares of new native forests to be established by 2035 to provide effective carbon sinks over the next century, has been attacked as not being ambitious enough, with calls for between 1 million and 2 million hectares of new permanent native forest cover.
…. Australia just doesn’t get it:
While other countries recognize the need to replant and restore permanent forests, all that Australia can think about are short rotation plantations. Federal Assistant Minister for Forestry Jonathon Duniam has signaled the Federal Government will ramp up efforts to unlock the carbon storing potential of Australia’s forest industries, drive growth in the plantation estate and boost future timber supply.
https://www.miragenews.com/federal-government-commits-to-unlocking-forest-534248/
Forest Media 19 March 2021
Koalas continue their media dominance with our various actions garnering a bit of attention (the echo articles have a full list of events if anyone is interested), the NCC have come on board and added additional actions as far afield as Armidale, Heatherbrae and Merimbula, raising the number of events to 11. The only problem is that a variety are likely to be flooded out. A great effort and worth replicating when it’s a bit dryer. It apparently freaked the Government out as they released their new SEPP, approved Tweed and Byron KPoMs and bought 69 ha of Koala habitat adjacent to Cudgen NR, all in the last few days. The new SEPP2021 is worse than expected, while it only applies to non rural zones (excluding 2.4 million ha, 90%, of private forests) koala plans now require the approval of the head of Barilaro’s Department.
The week started with a good in depth article in the Sydney Morning Herald on Koalas, focusing on the Great Koala National Park. The Northern Star and Daily Telegraph had good articles about the travesty of Tweed’s KPoM. Namoi Valley Independent reports that an approved rail loop for the Shenhua Watermark will wipe out core Koala habitat. Its not just NRMA, Koalas are fast becoming an advertising icon, PETA are using them to protest land clearing for meat eaters and Australian reddit traders are offering koala adoption certificates.
Populations of Regent Honeyeaters are losing their culture, they may have dropped to such low levels that young males no longer have adults to teach them love songs, leaving females unimpressed by their mimicry of other species.
The Natural Resources Commission has finally announced the will undertake the long-promised review of logging in burnt State Forests, apparently looking at the adequacy of the logging prescriptions in light of the fires, as well as impacts on resources. More secret business with outcomes likely suppressed for months. Burning forests also attracted a bit of attention with NEFA and No Electricity From Forests holding their first protest at the Redbank power plant. And now, unlike Coal (and probably biomass), renewable energy projects are going to require a social licence.
There is increasing interest in the health benefits of recreation in forests, and even parks, where what started off as assessments of the health benefits of a walk in the forest is fast becoming an organised spiritual exercise. The benefits of plantings in urban areas in lowering temperatures and cleaning air is being increasingly recognised as essential to make cities liveable in a heating world. In this context Councils are being required to review their Crown lands and rationalise public parks, some councils opting to get rid of “surplus” parks.
For those interested, next Saturday is World Frog Day and Sunday is International Day of Forests and start of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Its good to see that as we rebound from COVID some countries are undertaking mass plantings in the goal to reach net zero emissions, including as one of a variety of environmental stimulus measures, just not us Australians.
Dailan Pugh
Koalas continue their media dominance:
… day of action garners attention as next chapter is saga unfolds:
This Sunday March 21, two local conservation groups have organised three events to participate in a statewide Koala Action Day. They hope that many locals will join in the fun and show their support for koalas in our region.
https://www.bellingencourier.com.au/story/7170524/koala-action-day/
The #Koala Day of Action will see a range of activites being held in Sydney and around the state this weekend to protest the new koala laws that will see the likely extinction of koalas by 2050 in NSW Cr Coorey told The Echo.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/03/from-byron-to-sydney-to-armidale-koaladayofaction/
The Echo reports on NEFA’s media release that condemned an announcement by NSW Liberals and Nationals government ministers Barilaro, Stokes and Kean that they have made a deal on koala protection, including highlighting the Murwillumbah action.
NEFA spokesperson, Dailan Pugh, says the new plan will ‘take away Council’s ability to require consent for logging, as well as their ability to create environmental zones’.
He says, ‘Over 60 per cent of koalas occur on private lands, and now the vast majority of their habitat will be available for clearing and logging, without any mapping of core koala habitat and no requirements to look for koalas.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/03/nsw-govt-accused-of-resurrecting-koala-killing-bill/
Rob Stokes then made the new State Environmental Planning Policy (Koala Habitat Protection) 2021 on 17 March, The Echo ran NEFAs comments, as well as promoting the day of action, in part I sent them:
After all the years of effort and angst put into preparing the new SEPP it is incredible that Robert Stokes has now excluded rural and forestry zones from its ambit as these represent 2.4 million hectares (90%) of north-east NSW’s private forests.
Given that its now mostly limited to Development Applications in existing environmental zones and lots over 1 ha in other zones its hard to know what it can achieve.
Stokes deal is that the problematic and largely ineffective 1995 SEPP 44, with its 10 feed trees, will still apply to the rural and forestry zones. One step forward, 25 years back.
The price Stokes paid to get this token outcome is the opening up of identified core Koala habitat for logging and self-assessed land clearing, allowing logging to over-ride Council’s Local Environment Plans, and stopping Councils being able to protect core Koala habitat in environmental zones.
Robert Stokes and Matt Kean should be ashamed of themselves for signing off on this deal with the Nationals.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/03/koala-sepp-fails-to-protect-koalas-say-experts/
The Sydney Morning Herald focused on the clause “Before approving a koala plan of management, the Planning Secretary must obtain the concurrence of the Secretary of Regional NSW”, commenting:
The top bureaucrat in the office of Deputy Premier and Nationals leader John Barilaro will have the final say over contested koala habitat under new laws, prompting fears the vulnerable species may face an even bleaker future.
Tweed Valley Weekly has an article citing Team Koala lamenting that SEPP21 has “eroded the powers of council to prevent the loss of key koala habitats”, Sledge saying “If we want a NSW future to include our precious and iconic koalas, we must demonstrate a strong, united and unwavering public presence and pressure”, and Lori Scinto fed up “with the government’s political spin and disgraceful dishonesty”.
Tweed Valley Weekly 18 March 2021
… great Koala story:
The Sydney Morning Herald has a general article (including video and photo gallery), focusing on the Great Koala National Park, highlighting that the Stokes-Barilaro deal will aggravate the plight of Koalas and that the Koala wars are far from over. Interestingly it emphasizes that Barilaro went public with the deal before the “codes” intended to protect Koalas under the LLS Act (land clearing and logging) were developed, effectively blindsiding Stokes yet again. Reading through the released Government documents shows that since late 2019 Stokes has been asking for the Nationals to put forward the “codes” before “decoupling” but they have failed to – and it is assumed they have no intention to do so.
Includes quotes from Dominic King, Mark Graham, and Clarence Valley Council about the failure to adopt their KPoM.
The Northern Star reports that north coast Councils are still waiting to have their KPoMs approved, reporting
Tweed Shire Council's senior program leader of biodiversity, sustainability and environment, Scott Hetherington, said new state planning rules will do little to protect many of the state's vulnerable koala populations in rural areas.
"So what you're relying on is the landholder to make the call themselves, where everybody else who wants to do a development has to engage an ecologist … to come and make a professional assessment.
Lismore Northern Star, March 15, 2021
… Shenhua Watermark Coal Mine could destroy a core koala habitat:
Namoi Valley Independent reports that an approved rail loop for the Shenhua Watermark will wipe out core Koala habitat.
[Dr Valentina Mella] has carried out studies on Court Lane since 2015 and stated 25 koalas, including four breeding females, had been documented in that time, leading her to believe it should be classified as a core corridor and therefore not destroyed.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-16/sydney-morning-briefing-news-new-city-at-airport/13249278
… add campaigns focus on Koalas.
Its not just NRMA, Koalas are fast becoming an advertising icon.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has launched a Sydney-wide campaign with digital panels displaying “Eating meat kills koalas”, featuring a koala clinging to a branch that becomes a fork stabbing a piece of meat alongside the message, “Australian bushland is being destroyed to make way for the animals you eat”.
A PETA ad, which depicts a koala clinging to a branch that transforms into a fork stabbing a piece of meat, is displayed on 10 billboards in five major shopping centres in the area: Bankstown Central, Broadway Sydney, Castle Towers, Macquarie Centre, and Westpoint
https://www.miragenews.com/animal-rights-group-targets-grocery-buyers-with-529487/
https://www.peta.org.au/news/koala-ad-blitz/
Australian reddit traders, r/ASX_Bets are also getting in on the action, offering koala adoption certificates with funds donated to Port Macquarie and Port Stephens Koala hospitals.
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2021/03/aussie-reddit-traders-asx_bets_koalas-donation-adoption/
When cultural genocide affects mating:
The Guardian reports on research that shows that populations of Regent Honeyeaters have dropped to such low levels that young males no longer have adults to teach them love songs, leaving females unimpressed as they mimic other species.
The study has found that this mimicry might not be a male’s show of skill that would be attractive to a female, but could instead be a symptom of a “loss of vocal culture” that could make it harder for the birds to find a mate.
Secret review of burnt State Forests:
The Natural Resources Commission has finally announced the long-promised review of logging in burnt State Forests, with the rider that it is to be secret:
The Minister for Planning and Public Spaces has requested the Commission through a terms of reference to provide independent, evidence-based advice on forestry operations under the coastal IFOA as the NSW public forest estate recovers from the 2019-20 bushfires.
The Commission will provide its final advice to the Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, the Deputy Premier and Minister for Regional NSW, Indsutry and Trade, and the Minister for Energy and Environment.
The Minister has directed the Commission to provide its advice in confidence and consult with relevant agencies and subject matter experts only.
https://www.nrc.nsw.gov.au/ifoa
The Sydney Morning Herald reports the review will assess how the huge fires had affected the state’s public forests and their ability to meet supply contracts, noting:
“Have you got the right experts in the right room and got the right answers?” Professor Kingsford said. “They should be reporting on the available information openly and transparently.”
First action at Redbank
NEFA and No Electricity From Forests held their first protest at the Redbank power plant. A handful of protestors managed to get the media breakthrough in the Hunter Valley that we needed, with 2 good stories in the Singleton Argus and an interview on local ABC – well done. Our media release stated:
Representatives of community groups concerned that the highly polluting Redbank power station, near Singleton in the Hunter Valley, is to be re-opened using wood fuel, will gather at the power station gate to greet the Community (sic) Consultative (sic) Committee, scheduled to meet there on Wednesday morning.
“This project is based on totally false premises'', said Redbank Action Group spokesperson Dave Burgess. “They claim that burning more than a million tonnes of wood a year will be carbon neutral. This is patently untrue. More greenhouse gas will be released than if the power station was burning coal. Add to that the 50,000 truck movements a year coming from up to 400km away and you have a very heavily polluting project. For Hunter Energy to give it a name like “verdant” is classic greenwashing.”
The Redbank power station is owned by Hunter Energy Ltd. who are attempting to greenwash their image by changing their name to Verdant Technologies Australia Ltd. The Department of Primary Industry estimates that this scheme would require burning about 1,250,000 tonnes of trees, releasing over 2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year.
“Not only will this power station pump massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, it will result in millions of trees being cut down to satisfy its voracious appetite,” said Tom Ferrier from No Electricity From Forests. “Those trees will include koala homes and habitat for dozens of animal species already vulnerable to extinction.”
https://www.singletonargus.com.au/story/7172095/biomass-power-rejected/
https://www.singletonargus.com.au/story/7171123/differing-views-on-the-future-power-supply/
Renewable Energy requires social licence:
Renew Economy identifies that under new legislation recently passed by the NSW parliament, the NSW government has the power to prohibit projects from connecting to the grid within a renewable energy zone where there is “significant opposition from the community in the local area” in an effort to maintain goodwill with the local community. Seems like its more of a ploy by the National Party to block those they don’t like.
Saving and managing urban parks in a deteriorating environment:
The Conversation has an article about the now well documented health benefits of taking walks in nature, which has proven to be particularly important during the pandemic, urging planners and decision makers to include more green spaces in our towns and cities. This builds on the increasing recognition of the need for more trees in urban areas to reduce the heat island affect and keep our urban areas livable in a heating world.
https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2021/03/boost-your-mood-with-forest-bathing/
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-03-nature-important-essential-coping-pandemic.html
The Independent identifies a process for maximizing the benefits of forest bathing (though note that just a walk in a forest, or even a park, has been shown to be beneficial), and extols its benefits, referencing The Forest Bathing Institute, noting:
Research carried out by Natural England during England’s spring 2020 lockdown revealed that 85 per cent of adults reported that spending time in nature contributed to feelings of happiness, and those who had spent time in nature within the last seven days were happier than those that had not.
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/uk/forest-bathing-trees-nature-b1818006.html
The Forest Bathing Institute cites a recent small UK study that compared Forest Bathing with Compassionate Mind Training finding:
There were improvements in positive emotions, mood disturbance, rumination, nature connection and compassion and 57% of participants showed an increase in heart rate variability.
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/3/1380
BBC Travel report a German resurgence of waldeinsamkeit, an archaic German term for the feeling of "forest loneliness":
With more free time, more flexibility and more pressure at home, but also fewer alternative pastimes, Germans have sought calm, fresh air and hermit-like solitude in greater numbers than before. There is a palpable yearning – a feeling of a life being half-lived – and it has not gone unnoticed that the country's restriction-free spruce, conifer, beech, oak and birch forests are busier than ever.
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20210314-waldeinsamkeit-germanys-cherished-forest-tradition
There is a worldwide trend for establishing “micro-forests” in urban areas, which can help create real community connection. One is now being planned for Canberra, with Her Canberra reporting:
“The Watson Micro-forest will provide habitat for native species, absorb carbon, and cool the local environment by up to six degrees, helping to reverse the urban heat island effect.”
“Many people want to make a difference and take action on issues like climate change and habitat loss, creating a Micro-Forest is a way that people can really see and be part of the change.”
This comes at a time when some Councils are proposing to sell off “under-utilised” parklands. For example, as Lismore did recently, the Northern Rivers Times (March 11 2021) reports that the Richmond Valley Council is seeking community input on a proposal to sell 5 parks in Casino. Councils are now required undertake assessments of Crown lands under their control as part of its requirements to prepare plans of management. The Local Government Act 1993 requires all “Community” land to be categorised. Kempsey Council has recently released their Plan of Management for Council Managed Crown Land, noting:
Under amendments to the Crown land management system in 2018, councils in NSW now have responsibility to manage some areas of Crown land, generally in the same way that it manages its own land under the Local Government Act 1993.
Saturday is World Frog Day (March 20)
Australia is home to some 230 species of frogs, sadly 37 of these are currently listed as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable on the government’s EPBC list.
https://www.fame.org.au/news-and-media/world-frog-day-20-march
And Sunday is International Day of Forests (March 21)
The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 21 March the International Day of Forests (IDF) in 2012, this year is the start of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
The theme of the International Day of Forests for 2021 is "Forest restoration: a path to recovery and well-being." The restoration and sustainable management of forests help address the climate-change and biodiversity crises. It also produces goods and services for sustainable development, fostering an economic activity that creates jobs and improves lives.
This year’s theme fits into the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030), a call for the protection and revival of ecosystems around the world.
https://www.un.org/en/observances/forests-and-trees-day
The world is losing 10 million hectares of forest – about the size of Iceland – each year, and land degradation affects almost 2 billion hectares, an area larger than South America. Forest loss and degradation emit large quantities of climate-warming gases, and at least 8 percent of forest plants and 5 percent of forest animals are at extremely high risk of extinction. The restoration and sustainable management of forests, on the other hand, will address the climate-change and biodiversity crises simultaneously while producing goods and services needed for sustainable development.
Small-scale planting and restoration projects can have big impacts. City greening creates cleaner air and more beautiful spaces and has huge benefits for the mental and physical health of urban dwellers. It is estimated that trees provide megacities with benefits worth USD 0.5 billion or more every year by reducing air pollution, cooling buildings and providing other services.
http://www.fao.org/international-day-of-forests/en/
Some countries are trying:
Climate News Network has a positive story about those countries that are planting trees on a massive scale to help us reach net zero. We are one of the worst deforesters, we need to follow others examples and become part of the solution rather than the problem.
Trees have an undeniably positive effect on the planet, absorbing from the atmosphere carbon dioxide and other climate-heating emissions produced by humans.
But care is needed. An existing forest is more effective than a new one, as mature trees are better than young ones at absorbing emissions, and are more resilient to storms and drought.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/wales-goes-green-with-welsh-national-forest-plan/
… just not Australia:
Renew Economy reports that despite our massive expenditure a new report published by the United Nations Environment Programme has found that Australia is at the bottom of the list for directing post-Covid 19 economic stimulus towards clean, rather than polluting, options. The graphs in the report are telling.
Forest Media 12 March 2021
The big news this week was the resurrection of the Koala killing bill in another incarnation. Stokes and Barilaro have done a deal to limit the SEPP to DAs, exclude logging and clearing from its ambit, allow logging to over-ride provisions of Council LEPs and stop core Koala habitat being included in environmental zones. Stokes claimed it as a win, but it was roundly condemned as a cave-in to the Nationals. The loggers loved it, the farmers were unsure (mainly because they are concerned about ‘the codes’) and the Feds welcomed it. For over a year Stokes has been asking the farmers and Barilaro to come up with an alternative to protect Koalas from land-clearing and logging though they have been unwilling to put anything forward, now they are saying they will come up with codes to protect Koalas by the end of April (sure). Barilaro had his win, again. Catherine Cusack described it as a "giant leap" backwards. A poll found 71% support for the Great Koala National Park, and the Age had a nice pictorial. Given the failure of Government, NRMA are encouraging kids to take direct action to stop Koala trees being felled (no lock-ons yet).
Days of action for Koalas next weekend (20-21 February) in Murwillumbah, Lismore and Grafton.
Bellingen residents call for protection of Koalas and an end to aerial spraying of weeds. Residents of south-west rocks want wildlife protected from development. The Guardian profiles East Gippsland forest protectors. NEFA complained about Forestry’s careless clearing and damage to over 5 ha of world heritage rainforest, mostly in a national park.
NPWS install a live-cam so you can perve on a rock-wallaby colony – their sexual antics are a claimed highlight. It’s the frequent visitors that get to Broad-headed Snakes.
Hunter Energy get a boost for their forest derived liquid hydrogen with $70 million from either the State and/or Federal Governments (or both) for a Hunter export hydrogen hub. Meanwhile more reports that the world’s forests are succumbing to climate heating. COVID 19 has been a natural disaster.
The United Nations have adopted Ecosystem Accounting guidelines. Who would have thought it, our federal Government has established a trial where landowners can obtain revenue streams for storing carbon and protecting biodiversity, and they only need to do it for 25 years (presumably they can then log it). Kew Gardens have identified reforestation rules, first is protect existing forests, then highest priorities are work with local communities, restore native forests on previously forested land, and preferentially use natural regeneration.
Dailan Pugh
Koala - Kill Bill 2:
The NSW Government has resurrected their Koala killing bill under another guise announcing that they will create a new Koala SEPP 2021, whereby Core rural zones in rural areas will be decoupled from the SEPP as new codes that protect koala habitat under the Local Land Services Act are developed over the next month. “Rob Stokes said the new solution is a big step forward for the protection of koalas in NSW”, and Matt Kean “said the new solution will ensure protections for core koala habitat and colonies across NSW.
“We have ambitious plans to double koala populations in NSW by 2050 and that means we need the right policy tools in place to protect and preserve wildlife and their habitat,” Mr Kean said.
Some highlights:
- Comprehensive Koala Plans of Management (KPOM) will be finalised to protect koala habitat in Tweed and Byron Shires.
- Private Native Forestry (PNF) and Local Land Services (LLS) codes will be revised to ensure robust protections for koalas in areas of high value koala habitat and certainty and consistency for primary producers;
- The Minister for Planning will issue a new section 9.1 direction to ensure that only the Minister, and not councils, will be empowered to rezone land used for primary production to an environmental zone, or to rezone land currently in rural zones 1, 2 and 3 to other rural zones;
- At that time, dual consent provisions for PNF in local environmental plans will be removed through Koala SEPP 2021;
The ABC identifies that while they are developing the new codes “The government is yet to come to an agreement on what rules will apply to the North Coast, where some of the most important koala populations in the state live”.
The announcement was greeted by strong condemnation from Chris Gambian at the Nature Conservation Council, MLC Justin Fields, MLC Cate Faehrmann, and a range of other voices. It was a PR disaster for the Government as it was generally seen as a cave in to the Nats.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-08/nsw-coalition-strikes-deal-on-koala-policy/13227862
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2021/03/08/nsw-koala-management/
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7158371/nsw-koala-deal-will-push-them-to-brink/?cs=14231
https://7news.com.au/news/animals/barilaro-pleased-by-nsw-koala-rule-changes-c-2312826
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-09/morning-briefing-minister-defends-koala-policy/13227714
https://www.miragenews.com/nsw-government-delivers-koala-sepp-524697/
https://www.northernriversreview.com.au/story/7158371/nsw-koala-laws-not-a-diminution-stokes/
https://www.greatlakesadvocate.com.au/story/7160218/koala-policy-change-could-be-catastrophic/
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6238117931001
NEFA attacked the intent to implement the Koala killing bill by another means, particularly focusing on the intent to allow logging to over-rule Council LEPs and taking away Council’s ability to make environmental zones. The North Coast ABC had me in debate with Chris Gulaptis and the Country Hour gave me a run, as well as NBN TV.
The Government’s intent is to allow core koala habitat to be indiscriminately logged and cleared, and to take away Council’s ability to require consent for logging, as well as their ability to create environmental zones, said NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh.
“Minister Stokes’ pretence that this is somehow a big step forward for protection of Koalas is a big lie.
“Logging and clearing will in future be allowed in any core Koala habitat identified in a Koala Plan of Management
“Council’s rights to prohibit or require consent for logging through zoning or Tree Preservation Orders will be removed, instead logging will be allowed across all existing environmental zones. North coast Councils’ zoning currently prohibits logging of 167,000 ha, and requires development consent for logging over 600,000 hectares, all of which will go.
“Council’s rights to rezone rural land to an environmental zone, or even to vary the rural zoning, will be removed, with only the Planning Minister allowed to do such rezonings in future. This is specifically aimed at stopping core Koala habitat being included in environmental zones, though affects all high conservation value vegetation.
“Matt Kean’s pretence that these removals of existing protections for Koalas over most private lands ‘will ensure protections for core koala habitat and colonies across NSW’ is utter nonsense.
“This major reduction in Koala protection reveals his promise to double Koala populations by 2050 as empty rhetoric”, Mr. Pugh said.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/nsw-country-hour/nsw-country-hour/13209396
https://www.echo.net.au/downloads/byron-echo/volume-35/ByronEcho3539.pdf
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2021/03/09/many-not-happy-with-koala-sepp-2021/
Not unsurprisingly the loggers are the only ones to unreservedly welcome the changes. The final PNF logging codes have not been released yet, and Stokes is saying they will be revamped in the next month to make up for the exemption from the SEPP (and presumably local council’s controls), so the industry is making its case for no changes.
The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) has welcomed the NSW Government’s recognition that the Private Native Forestry Codes of Practice, which regulate forestry operations on private land, already provides significant protections to koalas.
“I commend the NSW Government for listening to the forest industries on this important policy reform, and we look forward to seeing the detail of this announcement,” Mr Hampton said.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/forest-land-in-nsw-not-subject-to-new-state-environmental-planning/
The Leader reports that NSW Farmers are concerned about the lack of consultation and worried about what the foreshadowed future changes to land clearing and PNF rules may mean, President James Jackson stating "The deputy premier has said the new SEPP cuts red tape for farmers but we have no concrete evidence that this is the case because farmers have not been consulted on the changes,"
The Leader reports that the Federal Environment Minister, Susan Ley has welcomed the decision stating "From my observation, where there is a challenge for NSW government planning processes is in suburbs on the edge of major cities, in new residential developments, in areas where we live and where koalas like to live”.
… estimates of Koala’s survival:
Back in September 2020 the Department of Planning was advising that “Excluding RU1 (Primary Production) and RU2 (Rural Landscape) zoned land from the SEPP would exclude more than 80% of the land in each LGA, on average, that the SEPP applies to, rendering the SEPP ineffective and koalas unprotected”.
This of course is what the Government is now doing. The Guardian reports that this advice was put to Stokes by the Greens in estimates, with Cate Faehrmann asking “How can the premier save koalas from extinction when her government’s signature policy will now not cover most of the state?”
The Guardian also reports Justin Field said he was concerned with the Government’s claims that they would increase protection for Koalas in the PNF codes, stating:
“The public are being asked to believe that the National party, who have railed against regulation on rural land to protect koalas, will now work collaboratively to develop a new private logging code to do just that,”
https://www.braidwoodtimes.com.au/story/7158371/nsw-koala-laws-not-a-diminution-stokes/
In estimates on 9 March 2021 Planning Minister Rob Stokes and his department were given a grilling over the Koala SEPP announcement the day before. They did an effective job of avoiding most questions, The Chair was Cate Faehrmann. Some highlights are presented below:
The Government is saying that the new SEPP 2021`will only apply to Development Applications (and that eventually logging and clearing will not require DAs), though there will be a transition period during which SEPP 2020 (nee SEPP 44), with just 10 Koala feed tree species, will apply to rural zoned lands. They are saying that new land clearing and logging codes will be developed by April and once they are in place then SEPP 2021 will apply to DAs on all lands. Reading through the released documents it is clear that Stokes had long offered to “decouple” the SEPP from the Local Land Services Act if the Nationals put forward an alternative means of protecting Koalas, but they never did.
The Hon. PENNY SHARPE: Minister, under this new regime is it not the case that farmers will be able to clear and then sell to developers? Is this not the problem that you were trying to address previously?
…
Mr ROB STOKES: In relation to those areas where SEPP44 will continue to apply, SEPP 44 will continue to apply until such time as a new code is developed—I think the timeline is provided there in the media release; I think it is April, that we are seeing to conclude that by—and that will be by concurrence with the environment Minister. A lot of the concern that has been expressed by members of the Committee and members of the community at large, are that the codes, as they stand, are not sufficiently robust. This is an opportunity, this is a trigger to address those concerns. Absolutely the codes will need to be robust, and that will have to be to the satisfaction of the environment Minister and also generally of government. I think this sets a context to not only increase protections over the vast majority of areas, we are developing a trigger to improve koala protections in the balance of areas as well.
…
Mr JUSTIN FIELD: Thank you. Minister, you seem to be putting a lot of stock into SEPP 44 remaining in place until such time there is a review of the codes. I assume we are explicitly talking about the PNF code, correct? Why do you have so much confidence, with the National Party in charge of the PNF code review, that that outcome is going to be one that is better for koalas and for the protection of koala habitat than what we have currently got?
Mr ROB STOKES: Well, certainly, if it is not then SEPP 44 will remain in place.
…
The Hon. MARK PEARSON: On private land, with this apparently new code of practice that is going to be in place, where there is koala habitat or potentially koala habitat, who is going to assess as to whether there are koalas living there or koalas relying on those trees for feed? Who is going to do the assessment before the clearing commences?
Mr ROB STOKES: As I have indicated, SEPP 44 continues to apply in those areas unless and until—it is clear the intention of the announcement is to develop a new code.
…
Mr RAY: In relation to the koala SEPP 2021, the proposed SEPP 2021, the activities that have been the subject of the media release are the activities that can be carried out under the Local Land Services code and under private native forestry. To the extent that they are the activities that can be carried out, they will still be the activities that can be carried out under any revised codes. We are talking about those farming activities, we are talking about that private native forestry. If the codes are made with the robust protections that Minister Stokes spoke—
The Hon. MARK PEARSON: The code will be critical in capturing that?
Mr RAY: Yes, that is the case. The robust protections that Minister Stokes spoke about in those two codes, if Government were satisfied about those things, then that would then enable the removal of those development consent provisions relating to private native forestry.
Rob Stokes avoided answering questions relating the intent to allow logging to over-ride Council’s Local Environmental Plans (including environment zones and Tree Preservation Orders), and pretended that his taking decisions on rezoning to environmental zones off councils was nothing new – he wouldn’t admit it was a deal he did with the Nationals to stop core Koala habitat being zoned for protection. There was no denial, just obfuscation. In all the Government’s documents the Nationals intent to over-ride Council’s LEPs didn’t surface until they released their Koala killing bill.
The CHAIR: Minister, if you ask councils about this—I have a number of submissions before me now from various councils that came to the koala inquiry, which I chaired and this Committee inquired into, that talk about how important it is for councils to have the ability to be able to consent to private native forestry [PNF]. We have councils that have undertaken really strong efforts for a couple of decades to protect lands from clearing and logging. They are incredibly disturbed by this. Are you aware of that? It is not about streamlining, as you say; it is actually about overriding decades of councils' efforts to protect koala habitat in their area. That is what you have done.
…
The CHAIR: I have a media release in front of me from the North East Forest Alliance, which states that "North Coast Council zoning currently prohibits logging of 167,000 hectares and requires development consent for logging over 600,000 hectares, all of which will go." Is that a correct statement?
Mr ROB STOKES: Again, I would have to take that—I can refer through to the Secretary. I have taken a few of these on the technical details. I might refer you to the Secretary
…
Ms CATE FAEHRMANN: … why have you, the Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, issued a new section 9.1 direction to ensure that only the Minister and not councils will be empowered to rezone land use for primary production to an environmental zone, or to rezone land currently in rural zones 1, 2 and 3 to other rural zones. ...
Mr ROB STOKES: Well, certainly I am not about removing the ability to create E zones or to change rural use zones. I am merely restating, which is in fact already the case, that before councils can change any zone it has to be approved by the Minister for planning. And I would invite—I would use the occasion of this Committee—to invite councils, if they have specific land where they would like to change a zoning, by all means come and talk to me about it. On the basis of the proper process and proper exhibition and proper studies, then of course I would be happy to consider that. Any suggestion that I am not open to considering or making environmental zones—well, again, I would point you to the Cumberland Plain Conservation Plan. I am well aware of how fraught the process of environmental zoning is but I am also aware that it is a valuable tool and, where it is necessary, it should be used.
The Government has been making much of the decision to finally go ahead and approve the Tweed and Byron Coastal Koala PoMs after 6-5 years delay, pretending that somehow this exempts them from the worst aspects of the announcement (it doesn’t). And the fact they were preparing a new SEPP didn’t stop them approving Ballina’s KPoM. They had repeatedly claimed that making the new SEPP would allow them to approve 5 outstanding
KPoMs, what happened to the other 3?
Mr ROB STOKES: I will take it on notice. What I can say, and I need to clarify: I did not say that those koala plans of management for Byron and Tweed had been approved. It now clears the way for them to be approved. They were held in abeyance until this matter could be resolved, that is my understanding.
The CHAIR: Until what matter could be resolved?
Mr ROB STOKES: Until the matter of reintroducing the new SEPP could done, these koala plans of management could not be concluded.
Cate Faehrmann was perplexed as to why Rob Stokes didn’t take into account EEC’s advice to rank the 123 feed trees by their relative importance and reflect this in their protection. David Scotts, who prepared the list had submitted in March 2020 “It was never the intent that the list be transferred to the SEPP without the embedded prioritised classes included … THIS IS A FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM WITH THE SEPP AND GUIDELINE WHICH WILLLEAD TO SIGNIFICANT ISSUES IN KOALA CONSERVATION AND REGULATION”.
The CHAIR: To delve into the detail a little bit further, there is input here by EES that suggests—it kind of looks like they are trying to come up with some kind of a solution or a compromise around the koala feed trees. They have put forward ranking the koala feed trees one, two, three and four, into regionally—this, I think, has been done in the past. One is that it is regionally high use; it is a strong preferred koala tree. Two is local high use within a single koala management area, three is an irregular use tree and four is a low use tree. What happened to that recommendation from EES?
…
The CHAIR: Yes. I understand what you are saying. The ranking, however, does suggest that basically there could be core koala habitat, for example, defined where it then says that allowable activities are restricted, and then, say, low value koala habitat or medium value koala habitat if it has got 15 per cent or more of canopy, say, and no record of koala presence, the full suite of allowable activities could occur. That was what was recommended. This was a compromise to what was originally announced, wasn't it? This was a compromise to the SEPP that was in place at the beginning of last year.
Mr RAY: Yes. What Environment, Energy and Science are doing here is explaining to us and providing advice about how the 123 trees are made up. They have got these four categories of regionally high use, local high use, irregular use tree and a low use tree. They were providing advice about certain activities that could take place given the different status and the different importance of these four different rankings of trees in relation to koala habitat.
The CHAIR: It does sound like a better compromise, and it seems that it was hastily rejected. But this sounds like it could have been a compromise to what was going on. Just have a look at prioritising the trees, if you like, a little bit more than maybe what they were 18 months ago to still ensure that some of the really core koala habitat—the really critical trees that are much more preferred by koalas—are still protected. Was that considered by government? I have seen some of the lobbying letters by Timber NSW. I have seen some of the lobbying letters by NSW Farmers. They are all, of course, saying, "Get off our property, get off our land. We do not want any koala protection on rural lands." This seems like a decent compromise but it sounds like it was rejected outright.
Mr BETTS: Why do you say that?
The CHAIR: I say that because it says here from the Minister:
It is entirely counterproductive and not what we asked for. Just spoke with Marcus and Danijela and their view was the same.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald the Berejiklian-Barilaro relationship has never recovered from his threat to walk away from the coalition over Koalas, and while many hoped he would resign, he is here to stay. His position now being bolstered by his deal with Stokes. It is interesting that Barilaro told his party of the deal before it was announced, but Stokes didn’t.
It seems that nobody in the Government knows the detail of the Stokes-Barilaro-Kean deal beyond their media release.
… Catherine Cusack speaks out again:
North coast ABC ran an interview with Catherine Cusack where she slams the new Koala SEPP.
A New South Wales Liberal MLC says the government's latest koala-protection policy is a "giant leap" backwards for much of the state.
"But as far as the other 80 per cent of koala habitat, which is on private land, the government is basically going to remove controls by the Planning Minister, the Environment Minister, and by local councils.
… day of action for Koalas:
The Northern Rivers Guardians are going a day early with a rally in Murwillumbah Saturday week. Another action is planned for Grafton on Sunday 21 March, and actions will also take place in Sydney.
The Northern Rivers Guardians (NRG) are holding a peaceful gathering as part of the #SaveOurKoalas National Day of Action at Knox Park Murwillumbah between 10 to 11 AM on Saturday the 20th of March.
Scott Sledge, NRG's President confirmed, “Never before has it been so urgent for those living in the Northern Rivers and across NSW to come together to raise the pressing plight of our endangered NSW koalas. If we want a NSW future to include our precious and iconic koalas, we must demonstrate a strong, united and unwavering pubic presence and pressure. Everyone, regardless of age or political views has an important role to play, and we need active participation or our koalas will become extinct. Tragically, the current koala status is that black and white and straightforward.”
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/03/tweed-voters-call-on-geoff-provest-to-help-save-koalas/
… 71% of people want a Great Koala National Park:
Sue Arnold identifies that a poll of 1,009 respondents for Australians for Animals found 71.4 per cent supported the creation of the Great Koala National Park. Sue covers Koalas, Redbank and NRC’s forest monitoring.
… picturing the park:
The Age has a great pictorial on the Great Koala National Park.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/nsw/the-great-koala-debate-20210312-h1uiy3.html
… where Governments fail, companies encourage kids to engage in direct action:
The NRMA have gone a step further with their Koala adds, this time glorifying direct action in the form of kids interfering with trees marked for logging. What is the world coming to? The NRMA attribute their Koala adds so far as being a huge success, boosting their brand and winning awards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfbhbRpXyuo&t=3s
Bellingen residents stand up for forests:
News of the Area reports that 150 people met in Bellingen and unanimously agreed to call on the NSW Government to instruct Forestry Corporation NSW to stop logging prime koala habitat and ask Forestry Corporation to stop aerial spraying of weeds in state forests in the area.
… as do residents of South West Rocks:
The Macleay Argus reports that residents gathered to voice their concern over loss of wildlife habitat due to development … [then it’s a paywall].
Why Blockade:
The Guardian has a series of profiles of forest protectors at Errinundra in East Gippsland.
Forestry Corp clear rainforest in a National Park:
After a tip-off I did an audit for NEFA of the Forestry Corporation’s widening of a track through rainforest around a Hoop Pine plantation west of Urbenville (in the upper Clarence River valley), documenting the clearing and damage to 5-6 hectares of world heritage quality rainforest, mostly in the Tooloom National Park, in a callous and indiscriminate act of vandalism. This was apparently done during the fires in December 2019.
The Forestry Corporation’s bulldozing of whole trees out of the ground into the rainforest was reckless and indiscriminate vandalism, it caused immense damage to rainforest assessed as being of world heritage value in a national park, those responsible must be held to account and the rainforest rehabilitated, said NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh.
This was covered by ABC North Coast, with an interview with Dailan Pugh on 8 March and a follow-up interview with Rob Kooyman on 10 March.
Perving on Rock Wallabies:
The NPWS have placed a camera near a colony of around 10 brush-tailed rock-wallabies in the Green Gully area of Oxley Wild Rivers National Park and now live-stream all the action.
https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/brush-tailed-rock-wallaby-cam
https://www.nationaltribune.com.au/brush-tailed-rock-wallaby-cam-more-captivating-than-kardashians/
Endangered broad-headed snakes endangered by pet trade:
A study in Morton National Park compared populations of broad headed snakes at sites with open access compared to sites with locked gated-access. Disturbed rocks were easily identified because aside from being displaced or overturned, they often had the remains of squashed invertebrates or vertebrates (lizards and frogs) beneath them. The findings were that pet collection is a threat to their survival:
Long-term data revealed that annual survival rates of snakes were significantly lower in the ungated population than the gated population, consistent with the hypothesis of human removal of snakes for the pet trade. Population viability analysis showed that the ungated population has a strongly negative population growth rate and is only prevented from ultimate extinction by dispersal of small numbers of individuals from the gated population. Sensitivity analyses showed that the removal of a small number of adult females was sufficient to impose negative population growth and suggests that threatened species with slow life histories are likely to be especially vulnerable to illegal collecting.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-84745-1
Hunter Energy get another boost:
Following Hunter Energy’s announcement that they intend to use their Redbank power station, rebooted with over a million tonnes of native forests, to generate liquid hydrogen the NSW Government has announced that they are committing $70 million to make the Hunter into the State's first green hydrogen hub.
The Hunter is set to become the home of one of the State's first green hydrogen hubs with the NSW Government committing at least $70 million to their development.
Energy Minister Matt Kean said the Hunter is a key site for these developments due to its access to existing energy infrastructure, sustainable water sources, ports and logistics capabilities and a future supply of cheap, reliable renewable energy.
Developing green hydrogen hubs aligns with planned NSW Renewable Energy Zones (REZs) under the Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap, ensuring they become thriving business precincts.
https://www.miragenews.com/hunter-hydrogen-hub-to-drive-jobs-investment-527209/
The Guardian reports that the Federal Government will overhaul Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) mandate so there will be less investment in solar and wind, and more focus on investment in hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, microgrids and energy efficiency. Noting the federal government will also continue to plough more taxpayer funds into carbon capture and storage through a $50m fund, while $70.2m will be allocated for an export hydrogen hub.
https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/7162869/hunter-selected-as-a-hydrogen-hub/
Forests succumbing to climate heating:
The Guardian has a truly frightening article tying together the increasing death of the world’s forests, particularly in America, with many unable to regenerate due to climate heating. A story worth reading,
Forests cover 30% of the planet’s land surface, and yet, as humans heat the atmosphere, some locations where they would have grown now appear too dry or hot to support them.
In western North America, huge swaths of forested areas may become unsuitable for trees owing to climate change, say researchers. In the Rocky Mountains, estimates hold that by 2050, about 15% of the forests would not grow back if felled by fire because the climate would no longer suit them. In Alberta, Canada, about half of existing forests could vanish by 2100. In the south-western US, which is experiencing a “megadrought”, as much as 30% of forests are at risk of converting to shrubland or another kind of ecosystem.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/10/is-this-the-end-of-forests-as-weve-known-them
Valuing nature:
Nature has an editorial that the united Nations have adopted a set of principles for measuring ecosystem health and calculating a monetary value which creates a route to protecting Earth’s endangered regions.
Last week, however, countries took a giant step towards enabling public authorities to put a value on their environment. At its annual meeting, the United Nations Statistical Commission — whose members are responsible for setting and verifying standards for official statistics in their countries — laid out a set of principles for measuring ecosystem health and calculating a monetary value. These principles, known as the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA), are set to be adopted by many countries on 11 March.
Once adopted, they will give national statisticians an internationally agreed rule book. It will provide a template for payments for ecosystem services … and an official benchmark against which the condition of ecosystems can be judged by policymakers and researchers over time.
… UN chief economist Elliot Harris rightly called the new principles a game changer. “The economy needs a bailout, but so does nature,” he said. “What we measure, we value, and what we value, we manage.” Momentum on valuing ecosystem services is now unstoppable, and that is a good thing.
The SEEA EA is built on five core accounts. These accounts are compiled using spatially explicit data and information about the functions of ecosystem assets and the ecosystem services they produce.
The five ecosystem accounts are:
- ECOSYSTEM EXTENT accounts record the total area of each ecosystem, classified by type within a specified area (ecosystem accounting area). Ecosystem extent accounts are measured over time in ecosystem accounting areas (e.g., nation, province, river basin, protected area, etc.) by ecosystem type, thus illustrating the changes in extent from one ecosystem type to another over the accounting period.
- ECOSYSTEM CONDITION accounts record the condition of ecosystem assets in terms of selected characteristics at specific points in time. Over time, they record the changes to their condition and provide valuable information on the health of ecosystems.
- & 4. ECOSYSTEM SERVICES flow accounts (physical and monetary) record the supply of ecosystem services by ecosystem assets and the use of those services by economic units, including households.
- MONETARY ECOSYSTEM ASSET accounts record information on stocks and changes in stocks (additions and reductions) of ecosystem assets. This includes accounting for ecosystem degradation and enhancement.
https://seea.un.org/ecosystem-accounting
… incentivising conservation:
The Federal Government has established a ‘Carbon + Biodiversity Pilot’ whereby farmers who plant native trees – in line with a biodiversity protocol developed by the ANU – will receive payments for biodiversity outcomes, in addition to earnings a landholder might receive for their carbon abatement. Plantings will only need to be retained for 25 years. It will be run in six Natural Resource Management (NRM) regions Australia wide, including Central West in NSW.
The Weekly Times reports ANU professor Andrew Macintosh as stating
“What we’ve designed is making this a commercial proposition to farmers so they can actually look at environmental planting as a commercial proposition that competes with their other alternative land uses,”
“This is the first time I know of in the world where a program has been trialled that provides two completely separate revenue streams for carbon and then also for biodiversity.”
… while favouring protection and natural regeneration:
CAN has a lengthy article about tree planting, concluding that “Tree planting is an undoubtedly valuable solution to mitigate climate change, but reforestation cannot be a cure-all. It must be combined with efforts to protect existing forests, tackling the root causes of deforestation and cutting carbon emissions at source”. It places reliance on Kew Gardens’ 10 golden rules for reforestation:
1. Protect existing forest first
It can take over 100 years for these forests to recover, so it is crucial that we protect what we already have before planting more.
To conserve existing forests, governments and corporations should create and enforce more protected areas and legislate against deforestation. At the same time, local efforts could focus on tackling the drivers of deforestation, including fires and overgrazing by livestock.
2. Work with local people
Not only does working with local people encourage successful, long-term outcomes for a project, but it also benefits the community by creating employment in land preparation, tree planting, and forest maintenance, and providing opportunities to develop sustainable forest-based enterprises.
3. Maximize biodiversity recovery to meet multiple goals
Long-term restoration of native forests and re-establishing what was there before is far better for recovering biodiversity than just planting fast-growing, cultivated trees.
Restoring native forests also captures more carbon, boosts ecosystem services (such as flood prevention) and economically benefits the community by providing a range of livelihood opportunities, such as sustainably-harvested forest products and ecotourism.
4. Select the right area for reforestation
The best place to plant trees is on land which was previously forested. Non-forested lands like grasslands or wetlands already contribute to capturing carbon, mostly in the soil, so should be avoided.
5. Use natural forest restoration wherever possible
Natural regeneration – natural forest regrowth after land is abandoned, or within a degraded forest – can be cheaper and more effective than tree planting.
Carbon capture can be 40 times greater in naturally regenerated areas than in plantations.
This natural approach works best on lightly degraded sites or those close to existing forests that can serve as a source of seeds
6. Select tree species that maximise biodiversity
Planting should be done using a mix of species, including as many natives as possible, as well as rare and endangered species where feasible.
7. Use resilient tree species that can adapt to a changing climate
It is important to use tree seeds or seedlings with appropriate levels of genetic diversity to match the region they are planted in and make them suitable for the local or projected climate.
8. Plan ahead
9. Learn by doing
10. Make it pay
https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/10-golden-rules-for-reforestation
COVID 19 a natural disaster:
The Conversation reports that COVID 19 has dramatically cut tourism and its funding for communities and policing of the environment, leading to increased poaching and resource extraction.
Conservation is often funded by tourism dollars – particularly in developing nations. In many cases, the dramatic tourism downturn brought on by the pandemic meant funds for conservation were cut. Anti-poaching operations and endangered species programs were among those affected.
This dwindling of conservation efforts during COVID is sadly ironic. The destruction of nature is directly linked to zoonotic diseases, and avoiding habitat loss is a cost-effective way to prevent pandemics.
The findings are contained in a special issue of PARKS, …
In more bad news, governments of at least 22 countries used the pandemic as a reason to weaken environmental protections for protected and conserved areas, or cut their budgets.
The pandemic shows the potentially devastating outcomes when animals and humans are forced into closer contact in shrinking habitats – for example, as a result of forest destruction.
… As the special issue’s co-editors argue, if COVID-19 is not enough to make humanity wake up to the “suicidal consequences” of misguided development, then how will future calamities be avoided?
Forest Media 5 March 2021
Koalas continue to be the key issue. Kean came under attack from the ALP and the right-wing shock-jocks when it was revealed that he had been strongly advised not to set a target for Koalas before he announced he was going to double their populations. He thought it was good politics. His estimates answers indicated he is supporting removing Koala protections from private lands and relying on financial incentives. There was a fair bit of interest in the launch of the NCC’s Koalas Need Trees campaign, interestingly they vowed to hold the government to account for their promise to double the koala population. Various Koala groups, and NEFA, have been applying pressure on Geoff Provest in Tweed. Out of the blue Prime TV gave the Sandy Creek Koala Park a run. In south-east Queensland they rescue a lot of Koalas, but have trouble finding places to release them. I am concerned by the efforts to breed super Koalas for release, particularly as habitat dwindles. The oldest captive Koala is 24 years old, and lives in Japan.
Everyone wants Koala ‘sanctuarys’/tourist parks, now we are expanding to platypus. Though captive breeding of critically endangered Bellinger River snapping turtles are returning them to the wild. The benefits of keeping animals wild is displayed by the ecosystem engineering of Echidnas. The 3 species of Greater Glider are still garnering attention, and Bungabbee gets a mention.
NSW estimates hearings are dealing with more than Koalas, some highlights are:
- The stoush between the EPA and Forestry over logging of burnt forests without applying the site specific conditions – it seems Forestry will get away with it on the grounds they had pre-fire approvals and the site specific conditions were only meant to last 12 months.
- Forestry apparently gave a voluntary undertaking to the EPA to not log in unburnt forests in Lower Bucca State Forest that they subsequently reneged on.
- Forestry timber revenue is expected to decrease by 25 per cent, largely due to a loss of pine plantations, though the Government has chipped in 46 million primarily to expand nurseries and replant plantations.
- The net return that the taxpayers of New South Wales got from the hardwood division last year was $400,000. Forestry have done an assessment of the loss of hardwood resources and the impact on100 year sustainable yields, which they should release within a month. Once this is done they will start renegotiating expiring (2023) Wood Supply Agreements.
- Barilaro claims he was misrepresented as supporting the phase out of logging public native forests.
- The shock was that despite Redbank claiming they are ready to go, Forestry claim they have no intent to provide biomass resources to them and the EPA say they have had no discussions with them.
Timberbiz reports that the Victorian Forest Products Association has slammed Murrindindi Shire Council’s (in northern Victorian) unanimous decision to advocate for logging to cease in a local catchment.
March the 3 was World Wildlife Day, this year’s theme was Forests and Livelihoods: Sustaining People and Planet. A time to reflect on the benefits of forests in supporting 80 per cent of all terrestrial wild species, and their clearing at a rate of a football pitch every 6 seconds. Australia displayed that it is not just one of the leaders in deforestation by declaring 12 mammals and a lizard as extinct, cementing our leadership in mammal extinctions (34). On World Environment Day (5 June 2021) the United Nation is launching the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration – I expect Australia to be missing in action again.
Some good news is that the Dutch have stopped subsiding biomass (from as far away as America) as renewable energy, the first of the EU cards to fall. Meanwhile we are recovering from the Covid-19 crisis with a surge in CO2 emissions returning us to our unrelenting growth trajectory.
Dailan
Koalas continue to rule the roost:
… doubling is troubling:
The big Koala story in the Sydney Morning Herald, Daily Telegraph, Australian, 2GB etc. is that Environment Minister Matt Kean set a target to double the koala population against explicit expert advice to the chief scientist that such a target would lead to “substandared” decisions and often result in inappropriate spending. The ALP obtained the advices under a freedom of information request and presented them during estimates hearings, though Kean dug in as he thought it good politics.
https://www.2gb.com/matt-keans-koala-stunt-inspires-seussian-poetry-from-mark-latham/
Alan Jones piled in on the attack on Kean, linking the Koala target to the plight of the coal industry, saying “This bloke obviously doesn’t want to fight the Greens, he wants to join them,” “He’s a joke.”
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6237057675001
Also at estimates Matt Kean indicated the Government is going to proceed with doing away with regulation of private forests and put increased emphasis on incentive payments. The Chair, Cate Faherman asked:
What is being done to try to ensure that landholders can be paid at least as much to protect koala habitat as opposed to clearing it, for example, under Private Native Forestry [PNF]? We have heard from a lot of landholders that that is quite an attractive incentive to log their land for forestry. They are not getting nearly enough to protect koala habitat. It is really up to the Government to try to throw more money towards this. Is that going to happen?
Matt Kean responded:
We want to use the Biodiversity Conservation Trust to incentivise landowners to protect koala habitat on their land. Right now I can see why people would use PNF codes, for example, as opposed to using the Biodiversity Conservation Trust. We have just shaken up the trust a bit. We have made some new appointments and we were talking about how they could better focus their finances and energies on protecting koala habitat. That is a work in progress.
… We need to respect farmers' property rights; I get that. There are other mechanisms which we can use to try to protect those property rights and deliver on our environmental objectives.
The NCC have launched their Koalas Need Trees, interestingly vowing they will hold the government to account for their promise to double the koala population by 2050. The campaign is based on 15 principal aims:
- Place an immediate moratorium on logging in all state forests identified by the NSW Government as koala hubs and core koala habitat.
- End all logging in public native forest by 2030 and invest in a sustainable, plantation-based timber industry.
- Ban the destruction of all koala habitat for mining, agriculture and urban development on public and private land by 2025.
- Reinstate the State Environmental Planning Policy (Koala Habitat Protection) 2019.
- Transfer state forests and crown lands identified as core koala habitat to the national parks estate.
- Support listing koalas in NSW as endangered under the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 and the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
- Write a recovery plan to double koala populations in every Koala Management Area.
- Fund koala plans of management (KPOMs) by 2030 in all local government areas where koala habitat is known to occur or is likely to occur.
- Identify koala habitat links in urban areas and areas requiring dog control, fencing modifications, traffic calming, koala crossings, tree retention and plantings.
- Protect existing koala corridors and create new ones by revegetating links between koala colonies.
- Establish a $1 billion fund for koala habitat restoration by the state election in 2023.
- Buy high-quality and core koala habitat from willing sellers and add to the national parks estate or establish stewardship payments for private landholders to protect koala habitat on their land.
- Map core and high-quality koala habitat and corridors over all tenures by 2025. Have the maps validated by independent experts, updated every five years and made available to the public.
- Establish a database with critical data on all koala populations in NSW. Update the database annually and publicly report on the species’ status.
- Develop an ongoing funding program to support koala carers and koala hospitals.
https://www.nature.org.au/our-campaigns/koalas-need-trees/
https://www.perthnow.com.au/lifestyle/koalas-need-trees-campaign-to-save-icon-ng-s-2051636
https://au.news.yahoo.com/koalas-trees-campaign-save-icon-215107038.html
https://www.northernargus.com.au/story/7148533/koalas-need-trees-campaign-to-save-icon/
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/world/campaign-save-koala
The Byron Echo reports on meetings of Friends of the Koala (FoK), Friends of Cudgen Nature Reserve (FCNR) Caldera Environment Centre (CEC) and NEFA, with Member for Tweed Geoff Provest to request action on Koalas. NEFA requested he make the following representations:
- The NSW Government immediately resolve outstanding issues and adopts the Tweed Coast Comprehensive Koala Plan of Management.
- The NSW Government urgently funds Koala surveys to the west of the highway to identify core Koala habitat throughout Tweed Shire in accordance with the SEPP process.
- The NSW Government not allow forestry operations to over-ride provisions of Local Environment Plans (LEPs) and State Environmental Planning Policies (SEPPs).
- The NSW Government not support that clearing for infrastructure (fences, roads, pipelines, sheds, dams, stockyards), farm timber, grazing, gravel pits, airstrips, firebreaks etc, be allowed in environmental zones without requiring consent from Councils.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/03/koala-groups-lobby-tweed-mp-goeff-provest-for-action/
On Wednesday 3 March Prime News gave the Sandy Creek Koala Park a good run.
… breeding super Koalas to take over:
Scientific American has a lengthy story about the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital’s new breeding/tourism facility. The hospital treated 50 Koalas (many of which were euthanised) out of at least 5,000 NSW koalas affected by the fires. Interestingly they cite the University of Queensland as finding that wild Koalas have poor quality semen because of environmental stressors, though this improves threefold in captive individuals. The University has also been crossbreeding them with individuals from other populations and applying chlamydia vaccination therapy, their aim being to “release the captive-born joeys so they can spread their unique genes among wild populations”, to “replace those susceptible to disease and inbreeding”. It’s a brave new world of breeding super Koalas while the blitzkrieg continues against natural habitats. Hitler would be proud.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/struggling-koalas-get-help-from-a-bold-breeding-program/
The Camden Courier reports that more than 5000 trees donated by the Port Macquarie Hospital are being planted by 24 landowners around Lorne through a post-fire koala habitat recovery grant funded by Landcare Australia and guided by Hastings Landcare.
https://www.camdencourier.com.au/story/7142463/farmers-planting-trees-to-safeguard-future-of-koalas/
The Daily Mail tells the story about a Koala rescuer who has saved more than 100 koalas in 3 months complaining “'We rescue a sick koala which survives the disease or injury it has sustained, to be released back home which is already listed for development and translocation is not an option in older koalas”. They are fighting a losing battle against habitat loss.
The world record of 24 years has been set by a Japanese zoo for the oldest Koala in captivity.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/03/02/national/oldest-koala/
And now a platypus zoo/refuge/sanctuary:
The decision by Taronga zoo to build a bigger and better platypus enclosure (refuge/sanctuary) has been hailed as a world first and saviour for our next imperilled species.
https://gulfnews.com/world/oceania/australia-building-worlds-first-platypus-sanctuary-1.77572542
Captive breeding does have a place:
The Bellingen Courier Sun reports that there has been a third release of critically endangered Bellinger River snapping turtles, bred at Taronga Zoo, to their Bellinger River habitat after a virus wiped out 90 per cent of the turtles in just six weeks in 2015.
Earthy benefits of wild echidnas:
The Conversation extols the earthy benefits of echidnas as ecosystem engineers, improving soil health, promoting plant growth and keeping carbon in the soil, with each moving about seven tonnes – about eight trailer loads – of soil every year.
Great Gliders:
BBC travel have done a lengthy article about the recognition of 3 species of Greater Gliders and their plight. (Clearly they deserve at least 3 sanctuaries). Bungabbee gets a mention:
South of the border, conservationists are currently campaigning against planned logging in several northern NSW glider habitats including Bungabbee State Forest north of Casino, where a recent survey organised by the North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) also revealed the previously unknown presence of two vulnerable animals – the long-nosed potoroo and marbled frogmouth.
"The area has already been denuded of large hollow-bearing trees so the greater glider population will be in big trouble if they lose what's left," said NEFA co-founder Dailan Pugh, whose environmental activism in the 1990s led to the creation of the state's first endangered fauna species legislation.
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20210217-australias-charismatic-glider-marsupial
NSW Estimates hearings shed a bit of light:
… EPA muzzled from taking on Forestry:
At the estimates hearing on 2 March Justin Field noted that the Forestry Corporation were intending to start logging burnt forests in South Brooman SF that morning without applying the Site Specific Conditions, asking the EPA “Are you considering injuncting the Forestry Corporation from going back into these sites, particularly the high-risk sites you identified, without site-specific conditions?”. To which the EPA responded “to proceed with an injunction we would have to do so consistent with the Premier's memorandum on litigation between government agencies, which means the process around that is quite different for us as a government agency. The basis upon which we would take that injunction needs to be a breach. It cannot be a pre-emptive step prior to logging commencing”, leading Mr. Field to retort “So we have to lose the trees first. We have to see the damage first before we can do something. We lost hundreds of hollow-bearing trees that we could not afford to against your rules last year before you issued a stop work order. Why do we have to see the damage occur first?”
Further to this Matt Kean indicated that Forestry may be intending to operate on pre-fire approvals:
Mr MATT KEAN: Well, we have an independent environmental watchdog. I expect them to be a tough cop on the beat and we expect them to be out there doing their job. But, you know, Forestry Corp, if they have gone in to log these areas, just remember the tranches that they are logging have pre-approved plans. Those plans were approved before these bushfires ripped through. There is a gap in the IFOA.
When questioned on this in estimates Mr CHAUDHARY, Acting Chief Executive Officer, Forestry Corporation stated:
We have been working quite closely with the EPA on it, on site-specific conditions to find out a way through. That has been a very slow process and we have found it has not been operational on the ground; when you start to put all those conditions together it does not quite work for timber production on the ground. So we have recently made a decision to recommence harvesting under the rules set, which is the Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approval [CIFOA] that is part of our legal framework, but we are augmenting that with additional environmental safeguards so that there is environmental protection as well.
Barilaro later stating:
Mr JOHN BARILARO: The EPA is the sheriff on the beat, but they know—again, firstly, we have been able to work within those forests with site-specific arrangements. Now we are moving back to the IFOA and with a number of augmented measures to protect, because, again, with respect to Forestry Corp, they do not just go in there and pillage these forests, as you would like to pretend and claim—
Justin Field also questioned Mr BARNES Secretary, Department of Regional NSW what was “the basis on which the decision was taken to effectively ignore site-specific operating conditions and move back to using the coastal IFOA?”, to which he responded:
I informed the Deputy Premier that I had advice from the Forestry Corporation that it believed given the passage of time that it could get back into certain coupes and operate in accordance with its legislative framework, which is the coastal IFOA.
Later adding:
Mr BARNES: I think the other thing—just to note—is that when the site-specific conditions were put in place, the EPA themselves made them only relevant for the first 12 months. For most of them, that 12-month period is over.
… and in Lower Bucca SF:
In Estimates Justin Field queried the EPA whether Forestry had reneged on an undertaking not to log unburnt forests in Lower Bucca State Forest:
… One of those related to forestry operation in koala habitat in the Lower Bucca State Forest and it is very clearly indicated here that Forestry Corporation had given an undertaking voluntarily to not log in unburnt forests that they subsequently went back on. I asked this question of the Forestry Corporation, and they were not very clear about whether or not they had given such an undertaking and were going to come back to me: Can you give me an indication, is that your understanding of the undertaking that Forestry Corporation had given?
To which the EPA’s Ms MACKEY responded unequivocally “Yes”.
Field also asked questions of the Forestry Corporation:
… The suggestion in this briefing note is that the EPA asked Forestry Corporation to voluntarily not log in the unburnt forest and to replant operations in burnt sites—I am quoting from it here now—where additional controls can be placed on the operations to manage the environmental risk. Forestry Corporation originally agreed with this approach, leading to a process that has been underway, but since rejected the EPA's request, saying you needed the unburnt forest to deliver on wood supply agreements. Did you agree not to log the Lower Bucca State Forest and then go back on it?
Mr CHAUDHARY: I do not think we did agree not to log, but before we commenced our harvesting operations, we have undertaken the necessary planning process and that would have advised whether we would be harvesting in that particular forest or not.
… Forestry’s shaky financials:
The Hon. MICK VEITCH questioned the Forestry Corporation about their statement in their annual report that timber revenue is expected to decrease by 25 per cent:
Mr CHAUDHARY: Sure. That is a very good question, Mr Veitch, and it is one that we are very concerned about. So a quarter of the softwood plantations of all of the revenue translates to a fairly large number—about $100 million in revenue. What we are doing there is—first of all, the impact of the fires is going to see additional expenditure over the next several years. One of the key expenditure items is restocking the plantations and that is in the vicinity of about $150 million over the next seven years. The other one is that we have lost—not quite lost, but fire has damaged a lot of the road network in our native forest part of the business, which is something like 200-plus bridges and about 20,000 kilometres of road.
Mr CHAUDHARY: We have actually done quite a bit of work over the last 12 months. We were fortunate enough to get some funding from the Government in terms—it was an equity injection in terms of the stimulus funding, which was about $46 million.
Mr HANSEN: Just on that, there are three components to that equity injection. The first one is expansion of Blowering and Grafton; the second one, as outlined, is the infrastructure pieces—the roads, the bridges, the facilities; and the third one—in fact just over half of the dollars—is for replanting to re-establish the plantations.
Mr. Shoebridge also questioned their financials, focussing on the Government’s subsidising them through community service obligations:
Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: And the $11 million to $12 million for community service obligations, what was that spent on?
Mr HANSEN: There is 2.5 million for road construction and maintenance; 6.7 for firefighting and prevention for community purposes and unproductive forest areas; 2.9 for recreation and tourism activities; 1.5 for community engagement, education, interaction with councils and government departments; 0.8 for research and development; 2 million for non-commercial forestry management; 1.5 million for the maintenance of Edrom and Imlay roads. Which actually last year, so the 2019-20 is 17.9 million.
Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: So it went from 17.9 down to 11 or 12?
Mr HANSEN: I just told you what the community service obligation is and the breakdown for the community service obligation, and that is obviously split between plantations as well as hardwood.
Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: If you take that payment from Treasury into the hardwood division, last year the hardwood division would have gone backwards by about $11.5 million—in the red?
…
Mr CHAUDHARY: The major item was the impairment. We had a write-down in the asset value of the softwood biological asset due to the fire. As I explained earlier, we lost 25 per cent of the softwood estate. That was about $346 million. It is an accounting adjustment, it is not a cash adjustment. I just want to make that clear.
Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: So the whole effort of destroying forests, logging forests, the environmental damage caused by that—the net return that the taxpayers of New South Wales got from the hardwood division was $400,000, like the cost of a modest unit in Western Sydney? That was the net result of the hardwood—
… and how has timber been affected:
Estimates questions revealed that the Forestry Corporation has done a rapid assessment of the fire’s impacts on timber, including extrapolating these over the next 100 years to determine sustainable yields, with the results to be released within a month. Justin Field questioned Mr BARNES Secretary, Department of Regional NSW about the impacts of the fires on timber yields, to which he responded:
… there has been a sustainable yield review completed in the last six months of last year. That is now being finalised. Whilst not at the stage of public release at this stage, it has been guiding Forestry Corporation's supply discussions with customers as well as supply agreements and will be available soon.
There were a series of interventions by Barilaro, so a more definitive answer was not forthcoming, leading Field to finally ask:
Mr JUSTIN FIELD: When will the sustainable yields review be published?
Mr HANSEN: Within a month you would expect it to be published, yes.
Regarding renewing Wood Supply Agreements, the exchange was:
Mr JUSTIN FIELD: I think the non-Boral North Coast wood supply agreements fall due in 2023. Have you commenced renegotiations with those contract holders?
Mr CHAUDHARY: Not at this stage. We are again waiting for the sustainable yield review. When we understand what that looks like for the future then we will be having those discussions with the customers.
… is Barilaro really intending to phase out logging:
In estimates Mark Banasiak The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers chair, asked Barilaro “in January 2021 in The Sydney Morning Herald you are reported as saying that you are open to ending logging in State forests as part of what is reported as your new bromance with Minister Kean. Can you help us reconcile that commentary?”, to which Barilaro responded:
… Mr Hannam had the ability to use a bit of creative writing and took liberties to quote or misquote me, let me say. At the end of the day, let us not kid ourselves. The idea of private native forestry plantations will continue to grow. That is where the focus needs to be. … No, I believe that private native forestry plantations and native forests will all be part of the landscape when it comes to the timber industry going forward.
… and what about biomass:
The responses on Redbank were astounding, despite Hunter Energy talking up how they are about to start within months they don’t seem to have the resources they need. The Forestry Corporation said they have no intent to supply any wood to them, and the EPA say they have had no discussions with them and obtaining offcuts from native forests would be illegal without a resource recovery order. In estimates David Shoebridge questioned the Forestry Corporation about biomass:
Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: Is there any intention or is there any planning to provide biomass from the native forests?
Mr CHAUDHARY: No.
Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: Regarding the proposed Redbank energy park in Singleton in the Hunter Valley, which is proposed to burn one million tonnes of native hardwood annually, do I understand that there is no current contract and no intention to have any of that come from public native forests?
Mr CHAUDHARY: Yes. It will not be from public native forest.
Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: And you have not had any discussions between Forestry Corporation and the proponents for the Redbank energy park.
Mr CHAUDHARY: I am not sure, Mr Shoebridge. I can check that for you.
Under questioning from the Hon. MARK PEARSON (AJP) the EPA responded:
Ms MACKEY: The way the biomass operates is that they have explicit orders under our resource recovery orders, and it is clear what they can and cannot use in terms of what you are calling "offcuts". So I want to just go into a bit of detail around those offcuts. The offcuts that can be used from native forestry are those that have already been through the mill—for example, the sawdust, of which they have great piles. But it is not the offcuts. For example, if you go into a native forest—one of our State forests that has been harvested—you will see remnants of trees and the undergrowth that are left in the forest. They cannot take that and use that as part of that resource recovery order.
Ms MACKEY: So in terms of Redbank there is a process that is underway at the moment that is going through the planning process, but there has been no application to the EPA around amending or seeking a different licence for that Redbank site. There would absolutely be due consideration to the current regulatory arrangements, including any resource recovery orders that we have relating to biomass as a part of that development project. It was at the stage before at the moment. We have had no engagement with Redbank.
How dare council’s oppose logging:
TimberBiz reports that the Victorian Forest Products Association has slammed Murrindindi Shire Council’s (in northern Victorian) unanimous decision to advocate for logging to cease in the Snobs Creek area, on the grounds “tourist trails through pristine forests will be destroyed, pollution of Snobs Creek from the logging will threaten the viability of the Snobs Creek Hatchery, and the increased dust from the destruction of Snobs Creek Road will further pollute the creek and render the formerly popular Snobs Creek Falls unviable as a tourist attraction.”
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/vfpa-slams-murrindindi-council-trying-to-stop-logging-at-snobs-creek/
3 March was World Wildlife Day:
March 3 is World Wildlife Day and this year’s theme was Forests and Livelihoods: Sustaining People and Planet. The World Economic Forum highlight four issues:
- a UK-sized area of tropical forest is being lost every year, at a rate of a football pitch every 6 seconds, responsible for 4.7 gigatons CO2 emissions per year (more than the EU).
- key advances in drug therapies rely on the natural world, for example almost half (48.6%) of cancer drugs are either natural products or were directly derived from natural sources
- one teaspoon of healthy soil is home to more living organisms than there are people on the planet.
- simply planting trees won’t automatically create healthy forest biomes.
The United Nations commented:
Under increasing threat from the unsustainable use of forest resources and wildlife trafficking, the UN chief called on Wednesday for people and governments everywhere to step up efforts to protect forests and support forest communities.
“In so doing, we will contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for people, planet and prosperity”, Secretary-General António Guterres said in a message commemorating World Wildlife Day.
Highlighting the benefits of forests, home to about 80 per cent of all terrestrial wild species, Mr. Guterres explained that “they help regulate the climate and support the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people”.
Every year, unsustainable agriculture, timber trafficking, organized crime and illegal trade in wild animal species, costs the world about 4.7 million hectares of forests – an area larger than Denmark.
The latter also raises the risk of zoonotic diseases, such as Ebola and COVID-19, Mr. Guterres said.
“So, on this year’s World Wildlife Day, I urge governments, businesses and people everywhere to scale up efforts to conserve forests and forest species, and to support and listen to the voices of forest communities”, he said.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/03/forest-biodiversity-facts-world-wildlife-day/
https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/03/1086222
https://www.miragenews.com/protect-forests-support-forest-communities-522587/
Once again we have proven we can punch above our weight in more than just landclearing and CO2 pollution. As Australia’s contribution to the world’s wildlife and the extinction crisis, the Minister for the Environment, the Hon Sussan Ley, amended the list of threatened species under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 by adding 12 mammal and a reptile species to the extinct list, and 4 plants and 1 fish to critically endangered. That confirms 34 mammals as extinct since Europeans arrived.
http://www.environment.gov.au/node/50977
https://au.news.yahoo.com/12-species-added-to-aussie-extinction-list-115136312.html
https://www.townandcountrymagazine.com.au/story/7153057/pm-focuses-on-industry-over-biodiversity/
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/newsradio/australia-has-the-worst-mammal-extinction-record/13215446
In 2020 David Attenborough produced the video “Extinction: The Facts in 6 minutes”, which is one of 8 short video clips around the issue of extinction (and the spread of pandemics).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08rg347
A Decade of Ecosystem Restoration:
On World Environment Day (5 June 2021) the United Nation is launching The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration noting:
There has never been a more urgent need to restore damaged ecosystems than now.
Ecosystems support all life on Earth. The healthier our ecosystems are, the healthier the planet - and its people. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration aims to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems on every continent and in every ocean. It can help to end poverty, combat climate change and prevent a mass extinction. It will only succeed if everyone plays a part.
Mongabay has a podcast with Judith Schwartz, whose 2020 book The Reindeer Chronicles: And Other Inspiring Stories of Working with Nature to Heal the Earth documents the growing global movement focused on ecological rehabilitation.
https://www.decadeonrestoration.org/
The Dutch stop biomass subsidies:
After giving 11.4 billion euros to subsidize biomass in 2019 the Dutch government recently rejected more Biomass subsidies. The American Dogwood Alliance claimed this as an historic win that “sets an important precedent that will send shockwaves through the biomass industry”.
Carbon dioxide rebounds stronger than before:
The IEA identify that CO2 emissions are on the rise again:
The Covid-19 crisis in 2020 triggered the largest annual drop in global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions since the Second World War, according to IEA data released today, but the overall decline of about 6% masks wide variations depending on the region and the time of year.
After hitting a low in April, global emissions rebounded strongly and rose above 2019 levels in December. The latest data show that global emissions were 2%, or 60 million tonnes, higher in December 2020 than they were in the same month a year earlier. Major economies led the resurgence as a pick-up in economic activity pushed energy demand higher and significant policies measures to boost clean energy were lacking. Many economies are now seeing emissions climbing above pre-crisis levels.
Forest Media 26 February 2021
EPA fines Forestry $30,000 for breaches in Ballengarra State Forest. Campaign on Newry State Forest getting recognition. Hunter Energy has rebadged itself as Verdant Technologies Australia and announced plans to use its biomass electricity to generate liquid hydrogen for the export market.
Genetic analysis shows Koala populations around Port Macquarie are being fragmented by the highway and urban development, while in south-east Queensland urbanisation is forcing them into remnant habitat around wetlands where most are suffering from Ross River Virus, and other work links the prevalence of cancers in Koalas to the koala retrovirus. The Greens are pushing for a Senate Inquiry into the protection of critical Koala habitat. Endangered coastal emus being diminished through car collisions.
The NSW Government has released its 5 year plan to support the recovery of biodiversity following the 2019–20 bushfires, it does take a rosy view of what they have been doing, never-the-less it has some merits and good proposals, though predictably ignores issues such as clearing and logging. NSW Transport secretary Rodd Staples was sacked by Mr Constance in February 2020 for refusing a directive to clear every tree within 40m of a state highway.
Four more forest protectors arrested in Tasmania, and despite losing their court case the Bob Brown Foundation doesn’t have to pay the Government’s costs, estimated at over $300,000. 19 marine and terrestrial ecosystems across Australian and Antarctica identified as undergoing collapse. Fire frequency is increasing, with some experts advocating removing settlements from vulnerable areas and building defendable self-sufficient eco-villages to avoid an apocalyptic future.
Morrison has introduced his new federal threatened species bill which was roundly criticised for ignoring the recommendations from the recent Samuel Review. Meanwhile the United Nations Environment Programme warns us to stop our senseless and suicidal war against nature, noting “The consequences of our recklessness are already apparent in human suffering, towering economic losses and the accelerating erosion of life on Earth”. They call for a “fundamental change in the technological, economic and social organization of society, including world views, norms, values and governance”.
Dailan Pugh
EPA fines Forestry $30,000 for breaches in Ballengarra
The NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) has issued two penalty notices and one official caution to Forestry Corporation of NSW (FCNSW) for allegedly contravening regulatory requirements, in the Ballengarra State Forest in the mid north coast of NSW.
EPA Officers conducting inspections of the area following a harvesting operation identified 10 freshly cut mature trees within the hard and soft protection zones of a second order stream; a significant amount of debris pushed into a stream bed; and evidence of machine access, and earthworks caused by harvesting machinery within a protected zone.
EPA Executive Director of Regional Operations Carmen Dwyer said “Riparian zones must be marked up prior to an operation commencing, so they are identifiable and protected from logging operations. This failure to correctly mark the location resulted, in turn, in further contraventions.”
The EPA has issued FCNSW with a total penalty of $30,000, comprising $15,000 for two breaches and an official caution for a subsequent breach.
https://www.portnews.com.au/story/7144863/forestry-corporation-cops-30000-epa-fine/
Newry getting recognition:
The Bellingen Courier Sun has an in depth article about proposed intensive logging scheduled for Newry State Forest, promoting the town meeting that night.
https://www.bellingencourier.com.au/story/7140491/action-to-save-newry-state-forest-from-logging/
Redbank now to convert forests into liquid hydrogen:
While Hunter Energy have variously proposed restarting the Redbank power plant using various percentages of coal they appear to have now settled on 100% biomass. According to ‘Renew Economy’, Hunter Energy has rebadged itself as Verdant Technologies Australia and has now acquired Monarch Hydrogen with a view to using the electricity from its million tonnes of biomass to generate liquid hydrogen for sale on overseas markets.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/hydrogen-start-up-seeks-funds-to-convert-old-coal-generator-to-biomass/
https://stockhead.com.au/energy/new-hydrogen-play-verdant-technologies-launches-pre-ipo-raise/
Verdant claim they already have all approvals, and only need get approval to use 100% biomass. According to Barclay Pearce Capital, Verdant have lodged a DA modification to add the ability to operate on 100% biomass with an estimated 2-4 month approval time, and intend to restart the power plant in 6-8 months.
https://www.barclaypearce.com.au/blog/private-placement-verdant-technologies-australia
Coastal Koalas suffering from fragmentation:
A preliminary assessment of Koala genetics around Port Macquarie undertaken on behalf of WWF has identified genetically distinct populations:
A new DNA study suggests there is limited gene flow between koalas in Port Stephens because they are trapped in isolated patches of habitat, separated from other koalas by roads, houses, buildings and farmland.
Analysis revealed there are two main koala populations or ‘genetic clusters’ in Port Stephens: koalas in the Tilligerry and Tomaree Peninsulas, referred to as ‘peninsula’ koalas, and those further west in Karuah, Ferodale and Balickera, referred to as ‘inland’ koalas.
Genetic data showed these two clusters were once connected. However, the report says peninsula koalas “are now significantly different from those sampled further inland suggesting that gene flow between peninsula and inland koalas has been restricted over recent generations”.
“Peninsula koalas were also found to be less genetically diverse than inland koalas, suggesting that peninsula koalas may be losing genetic diversity due to a lack of successful migration from outside the peninsula”.
Among inland koalas, despite minimal distances separating them, fine-scale analysis suggests gene flow is limited. Koalas sampled in Balickera and Ferodale are separated by the Pacific Highway.
OWAD’s Olivia Woosnam, a koala conservation ecologist, said koala habitat remained largely connected in Port Stephens until the 1940s when tree clearing ramped up due to urbanisation and infrastructure development.
“Previous research shows that isolated populations rapidly become genetically differentiated, and lose genetic diversity due to loss of gene flow. This is likely what has happened on the peninsula, and appears to be starting to happen inland too.
“To improve gene flow in Port Stephens, existing forest must be conserved and groups of koalas reconnected by reinstating safe corridors.
“Functional koalas crossings are also needed to enable koalas to safely traverse roads and highways.
The ABC has a 2 min video of a scat dog search.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-22/taz-and-missy-searched-for-evidence-of-koalas/13176462?nw=0
… and marginalisation:
A scientific report in Nature by Johnson et. al. found that Ross River Virus (RRV) is rampant in south-east Queensland Koala populations as urbanisation forces them into refuges around wetlands:
We demonstrate that RRV exposure in koalas is much higher (> 80%) than reported in other sero-surveys and that exposure is uniform across the urban coastal landscape. Uniformity in exposure is related to the presence of the major RRV mosquito vector, Culex annulirostris, and similarities in animal movement, tree use, and age-dependent increases in exposure risk. Elevated exposure ultimately appears to result from the confinement of remaining coastal koala habitat to the edges of permanent wetlands unsuitable for urban development and which produce large numbers of competent mosquito vectors.
… as retrovirus takes a toll:
Brinkwire has an article about research that found multiple links between the koala retrovirus (KoRV) and genes known to be involved in the kind of cancers to which koalas are prone. The entire koala population of Queensland and New South Wales in Australia now carry copies of KoRV in their genome.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/lifz-rar022421.php
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21612-7.pdf
… at least some politicians care:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-83919-1
The Greens have introduced their proposed bill to stop land clearing of critical Koala habitat, with the intent to move for a Senate Inquiry into the bill.
https://www.miragenews.com/save-koala-laws-debated-in-517529/
Coastal Emus Endangered by speeding cars:
Mounting road deaths of Endangered coastal emus on Brooms Head Road is of concern, as locals call for more effective traffic calming.
https://clarencevalleynews.com.au/endangered-emu-becomes-road-kill/
Government releases fire-response plan:
The NSW Government has released its 5 year plan to support the recovery of biodiversity following the 2019–20 bushfires, it does take a rosy view of what they have been doing, never-the-less it has some merits and good proposals, though predictably ignores issues such as clearing and logging,
NSW Wildlife and Conservation Recovery: Medium-term response plan outlines actions the NSW Government (DPIE) will take over the next 1 to 5 years to support the recovery of biodiversity following the 2019–20 bushfires. Appendix A – NSW Koala Strategy: Bushfire Recovery Actions details actions the NSW Government will take to address koala recovery post-fire. Also included are Supplement A – Assessing the impact of the bushfires on wildlife and conservation, and Supplement B – Report on the Immediate Response January 2020.
The 5 year Response Plan identifies the raw statistics as 5.5 million ha burnt - 38% National Parks, 42% State Forests, 4% freehold land, 54% Gondwana Rainforests of Australia WHA, 25% koala habitat, and 51% heathlands. Within the fire grounds there has been a 39% reduction in ecological condition, a 39% reduction in ecological carrying capacity and 4% reduction in ecosystem persistence.
The medium-term bushfire recovery plan is based around eight themes and four aims, including: Ecological refuge areas should be identified and protected for the long term. Priority actions for identifying refugia are:
4.1.1 Build comprehensive maps of potential ecological refuge areas, linked to biological data and fire science
4.1.2 Identify habitat refuges for koalas across land tenures to optimise recovery actions and inform where to permanently protect koala habitat
They note:
Ecological refuges are places that naturally provide protection for plants and animals from threats (Selwood & Zimmer 2020). … Some ecological refuge areas are temporary, like the unburnt patches of vegetation that harbour the survivors of the 2019–20 bushfires. …
Other refuge areas, called refugia, provide longer-term protection, potentially over thousands of years. These persistent refugia are areas of long-term, continuous occupation by species, where multiple species survive environmental change and re-expand into newly available habitat as conditions improve … Climate change also needs to be considered when identifying refuges and refugia.
I think they paint an overly-optimistic assessment of rainforest impacts in the Border Ranges, noting:
The results of the assessments show that some rainforest areas were less fire-affected than previously understood, including in Mount Nothofagus and Washpool national parks. However, other areas, such as the dry rainforests in Oxley Wild Rivers National Park, were significantly impacted, with the loss of some rainforest patches.
… In New England National Park, some areas of cool temperate rainforest that were burnt at low to medium severity showed canopy death, demonstrating that some types of rainforest can be impacted even at low fire intensities.
Under suitable environmental conditions and given enough time and management, there are indications that impacted rainforests may recover. The greatest challenge will be protecting these areas from further fire to allow regeneration to occur. Considering the time scale, significant multi-generational commitment will be required to achieve this outcome.
For those concerned about erosion, DPIE has produced a model to predict the risk of hillslope erosion that is publicly available on SEED:
In early January 2020, DPIE produced a powerful state-wide model to predict the risk of hillslope erosion following the fires. This event-based model is one of a number of tools that land managers can use to assist erosion risk assessment and support land and water decision-making in areas impacted by the fires, including water catchments.
For those wanting to get involved they note “A key opportunity for volunteer participation in citizen science and recovery activities is the new SEED Citizen Science Digital Hub”.
Appendix A – NSW Koala Strategy is a disappointment, being silent about logging on all tenures, though it does identify:
Conservation actions across all types of land ownership and use will become increasingly important as refuge areas are identified. Prioritising conservation programs in these refuge areas is critical to prevent further loss and fragmentation of important koala habitat. It will also help to maintain connectivity across the landscape and protect koala populations and habitat into the future.
Supplement A identifies that in NSW 77 terrestrial fauna species are currently considered priorities for assessment due to the fires, 231 plants of national significance as being at greatest risk of global decline and/or extinction, 15 Threatened Ecological Communities have been burnt over more than 50% of their distribution and were identified to be at risk of significant declines in diversity, richness and ecological function, and 225 Plant Community Types (26%) were identified as being at high risk of declines in diversity, richness and function.
Supplement A identifies that many critical habitat attributes have been extensively lost or reduced by the bushfires, limiting the capacity of animal species to recover and repopulate burnt areas, including the Key Threatening Processes loss of hollow bearing trees and the removal of dead wood and dead trees. Warning:
There is ongoing potential for loss of species and populations and cascading ecological change from both drought and fires, especially if the fires become so frequent that plants cannot reach maturity and set seed between fires.
As warming continues, changes in climate and/or fire severity and behaviour may result in ecosystem changes. Rainforest areas, for instance, may change to eucalyptus forest or shrubland. Wetter forest types that are rarely affected by fire may become more prone to fire as fire-tolerant species replace fire-sensitive species.
https://www.nationaltribune.com.au/plan-to-protect-and-preserve-bushfire-affected-biodiversity/
… Transport NSW boss sacked for refusing direction to clear millions of trees along highway.
The Australian reports Transport for NSW secretary Rodd Staples was sacked by Mr Constance in February 2020 for refusing a directive to clear every tree within 40m of a state highway “in light of the recent catastrophic fires”. Even though Staples advised that it would likely be unlawful to remove the trees, Constance stated it was not “particularly acceptable” his directions were not followed.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/former-nsw-transport-secretary-rodd-staples-refused-orders-to-clear-trees-before-sacking/news-story/405d31ec444a07c6eb85f9968987aa28?btr=afdf52d402e11d229bc97a7ea4b2a9db
More arrests in Tasmania:
Four more forest protectors arrested. The Bob Brown Foundation (22/2/2021) reported:
Four forest defenders, including a retired organic gardener, a midwife, a law student and a nurse, have attached themselves to logging machinery.
“The logging in Wentworth Hills is out of control and needs to halt immediately to preserve old growth forests, critical carbon stores and wildlife habitat for rare and endangered species. Tasmania is losing ancient forests in Wentworth Hills at a rapid pace, some of the logging is happening at an altitude just below Hobart’s iconic Organ Pipes and trees as probably as old as 350 years old are being chainsawed,” Bob Brown Foundation’s Campaign Manager Jenny Weber said.
https://www.bobbrown.org.au/releases
A saving grace for the Bob Brown Foundation, despite losing their legal challenge, on Friday the Federal Court ruled that each party in the proceedings would be required to pay their own legal costs.
The court concluded ‘this is an appropriate case to depart from the usual costs order and order that each part bear its own costs’.
“Today’s judgment has vindicated us bringing this important case to the Federal Court, proving the case is a matter of public importance,” Bob Brown said.
The expected costs were likely to exceed $300 000 of taxpayers’ funds spent by the Commonwealth and State Governments opposing our defence of Tasmania’s wild forests including the critically endangered Swift parrot.
https://www.bobbrown.org.au/releases
Australian Ecosystems Collapse:
A paper by 38 authors in Global Change Biology identifies 19 marine and terrestrial ecosystems across Australian and Antarctica undergoing collapse (defined as potentially irreversible change to ecosystem structure, composition and function) is occurring. These include a number of forest ecosystems, ranging from Wet tropical rainforest down to Tasmanian Gondwanan conifer forests, and from eastern Sub-alpine forests to western Mediterranean forests & woodlands. Central east coast forests are not included, though they deserve to be.
The authors concluded that in the near future, even apparently resilient ecosystems are likely to suffer collapse as the intensity and frequency of pressures increase.
Co-author Leslie Williams hopes that “this paper will be a wake-up call for all Australians that value the natural environment and the services it provides. Without significant environmental investment, far stronger environmental protection, and rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the ecosystems that many now take for granted may disappear completely within the next decade.
As the plants and animals that live in these habitats decline, the services the ecosystems provide, underpinning our economic livelihoods, our health and well-being, will disappear. Ultimately, these thus transformations threaten our own survival”.
Fire frequency increasing:
The Guardian has a special on the growing frequency of forest fires around the world due to climate change. It includes landsat images, with the comparison between Cape York and this region representing a warning for those wanting to replicate its burning regime.
The Guardian also reports on research that found more fierce and frequent fires are reducing forest density and tree size and may damage forests’ ability to capture carbon in the future
With widespread burning of south-west forests there are complaints that understories are being treated as fuel not habitat
Nature has an article by Norman et. al. detailing why the 2019/20 wildfires were catastrophic and unprecedented, focusing on the need for our settlements “not to just bounce back, but to bounce forward as good resilient settlements must do, adapting and mitigating as they rebuild” if we want to avoid an apocalyptic future. They advocate retreating from risky areas, with some settlements in forests not rebuilt, and a focus on defendable self-sufficient eco-villages with distributed energy and water systems, and electrification of transport, promoting the scenario:
Re-thinking our peri-urban/rural towns: the need for resilience to be built into all town planning and the consciousness of rural communities post the apocalypse makes it easier to replace the scattered approach to housing in vulnerable areas around the big cities and along coastlines, rivers and into forests. The focus is now on compact housing where Eco Villages are facilitated and other services can be better provided. New Towns along major train lines are built using the Eco Village model with strong resilience features and possible wider lessons for larger urban centres. Australians begin to see a better future is possible to rise out of the ashes of the apocalypse.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42949-020-00013-7
Crossbenchers refuse to support Feds weakening of environmental laws:
Town and Country Magazine reports that independent senators Rex Patrick, Stirling Griff and Jacqui Lambie will not support Morrison’s handing environmental responsibility over to States unless there is a genuinely independent national environment watchdog and strong national environmental standards.
https://www.townandcountrymagazine.com.au/story/7137653/renewed-pressure-for-environment-watchdog/
The bill introduced to parliament on the 25 February was roundly criticised for fundamentally ignoring the recommendations from the recent Samuel Review
https://www.townandcountrymagazine.com.au/story/7142959/enviro-bill-sparks-animal-extinction-fears/
https://www.nationaltribune.com.au/half-measures-will-not-save-koala-from-extinction/
Declining biodiversity:
The United Nations Environment Programme (2021) report ‘Making Peace with Nature: A scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies’ starts with the statement by Secretary-General of the United Nations:
Humanity is waging war on nature. This is senseless and suicidal. The consequences of our recklessness are already apparent in human suffering, towering economic losses and the accelerating erosion of life on Earth.
This report shows that we have the ability to transform our impact on the world. A sustainable economy driven by rene-wable energy and nature-based solutions will create new jobs, cleaner infrastructure and a resilient future. An inclusive world at peace with nature can ensure that people enjoy better health and the full respect of their human rights so they can live with dignity on a healthy planet.
The report is quite clear that we need a revolution in our approach:
Decades of incremental efforts have not stemmed the environmental decline resulting from an expansive development model because vested and short-term interests often prevail.
- Only a system-wide transformation will achieve well-being for all within the Earth’s capacity to support life, provide resources and absorb waste. This transformation will involve a fundamental change in the technological, economic and social organization of society, including world views, norms, values and governance.
At the current rate, warming will reach 1.5°C by around 2040 and possibly earlier. Taken together, current national policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions put the world on a pathway to warming of at least 3°C by 2100 …
Natural sinks today are only able to absorb around half of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, split between terrestrial ecosystems and the ocean. The increased uptake of carbon dioxide by the oceans is causing harmful ocean acidification.
Human skills need to be redeployed from transforming nature to transforming the social and economic fabric of society.
Strong environmental laws would protect ecosystems and the human enjoyment of a healthy environment, bolstered by consistent enforcement of laws and independent judiciaries.
Given the interconnected nature of climate change, loss of biodiversity, land degradation, and air and water pollution, it is essential that these problems are tackled together now
For example, large-scale reforestation with native vegetation can simultaneously help address climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation and water security.
A more extensive network of protected areas is needed in order to include key biodiversity currently not protected. Many protected areas are currently too small or isolated to be effective in the long term, given that climate change is shifting the geographic ranges of animal and plant species. Increasing connectivity between protected areas makes them more resilient to climate change and more able to sustain viable populations of threatened species. … A number of governments and NGOs are committing to or promoting the protection of 30 per cent of the land and oceans by 2030.
Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation Develop policies and strategies to integrate biodiversity conservation and restoration into the many uses of terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems, as well as expanding and improving protected areas. Drastically reduce deforestation and systematically restore forests and other ecosystems as the single largest nature-based opportunity for climate mitigation.
https://wedocs.unep.org/xmlui/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/34949/MPN_ESEN.pdf
https://environmentjournal.online/articles/transforming-humans-relationship-with-nature-is-key/
The Guardian reports that the UK government is seeking to dramatically increase tree planting to 30,000 hectares of new trees each year, with plantations sequestering carbon and helping the government reach net zero emissions by 2050, though the scheme has been criticised for spending taxpayers’ money on non-native plantations, some of which damage peatlands and imperil rare species and habitats.
DW report that the death of trees in Germany forests has reached a record level due to bark beetle infestations, storms, drought and forest fires.
https://www.dw.com/en/german-forest-decline-hits-record-levels/a-56680590
WWF and 15 NGOs have released a ‘World's Forgotten Fishes’ report, extolling the values and benefits of freshwater fish, commenting
Nowhere is the world’s biodiversity crisis more acute than in freshwater ecosystems. Around a third of freshwater fish species are threatened with extinction, and 80 species have already been declared Extinct.
Since 1970, mega-fish populations have crashed by 94% on average, while migratory fish populations have fallen by 76%.
They are championing an Emergency Recovery Plan for freshwater biodiversity based on six-pillars:
- Let rivers flow more naturally;
2. Improve water quality in freshwater ecosystems;
3. Protect and restore critical habitats;
4. End overfishing and unsustainable sand mining in rivers and lakes;
5. Prevent and control invasions by non-native species, and;
6. Protect free-flowing rivers and remove obsolete dams.
https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/freshwater_practice/the_world_s_forgotten_fishes/
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/techandscience/freshwater-fish-in-catastrophic-decline/ar-BB1dV8Jr
New Scientist shows graphically how our stewardship of the earth’s biodiversity is progressing. As dismal as these are I think they are a bit misleading as the momentum is rapidly escalating. We have taken over 52% of the land’s surface for our use, with a further 20% comprised of forests used for logging. Of the 28% remaining in a natural state, most is barren or non-forest, with relatively intact forests now comprising 9% of the land’s surface.
Its not all bad news for biodiversity, as identified in the journal Conservation Letters different initiatives have prevented up to 32 bird and 16 mammal extinctions since 1993. Protection of important habitats is of course important.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/hope-springs-eternal-for-species-facing-extinction/
Animal Dangers
The Daily Telegraph reports there were 541 animal-related deaths reported to an Australian coroner between 2001 and 2017, with an average of 32 animal-related deaths reported per calendar year, with the most dangerous being horses with (172 killed), cows, bulls and other bovines (82 killed), and dogs (53 killed).
A novel forest action:
Alison Gibbs has written the book Repentance about the conflict between loggers and forest protectors set in the 1970s. She grew up in north-east NSW. The book is touted as being a balanced view.
https://www.watoday.com.au/culture/books/when-the-huggers-and-loggers-come-together-to-live-love-and-argue-20210204-p56zgn.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_feed
Forest Media 19 February 2021
Burning forests for electricity not on:
The Nambucca Guardian had an in-depth story on biomass (with a focus on Way Way, Newry, Tarkeeth, and Redbank) in (citing Michael Jones, Susie Russell, Dailan Pugh)
https://www.nambuccaguardian.com.au/story/7118714/will-nambuccas-forests-be-burnt-for-electricity/
A group of over 500 international scientists have written to the president of the European Council, the president of the European Commission, the US president, the prime minister of Japan and the president of South Korea, asking them to intervene to end the practice of burning wood for energy at an industrial scale as it is seriously undermining efforts both to tackle climate change and to protect biodiversity.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2021/02/11/time-end-subsidies-burning-wood-forests/
The letter, signed by Peter Raven Director Emeritus Missouri Botanical Society, states:
… We urge you not to undermine both climate goals and the world’s biodiversity by shifting from burning fossil fuels to burning trees to generate energy.
… In recent years, however, there has been a misguided move to cut down whole trees or to divert large portions of stem wood for bioenergy, releasing carbon that would otherwise stay locked up in forests.
The result of this additional wood harvest is a large initial increase in carbon emissions, creating a “carbon debt,” which increases over time as more trees are harvested for continuing bioenergy use. Regrowing trees and displacement of fossil fuels may eventually pay off this carbon debt, but regrowth takes time the world does not have to solve climate change. As numerous studies have shown, this burning of wood will increase warming for decades to centuries. That is true even when the wood replaces coal, oil or natural gas.
The reasons are fundamental. Forests store carbon -approximately half the weight of dry wood is carbon. When wood is harvested and burned, much and often more than half of the live wood in trees harvested is typically lost in harvesting and processing before it can supply energy, adding carbon to the atmosphere without replacing fossil fuels. Burning wood is also carbon-inefficient, so the wood burned for energy emits more carbon up smokestacks than using fossil fuels. Overall, for each kilowatt hour of heat or electricity produced, using wood initially is likely to add two to three times as much carbon to the air as using fossil fuels.
Increases in global warming for the next few decades are dangerous. This warming means more immediate damages through more forest fires, sea level rise and periods of extreme heat in the next decades. It also means more permanent damages due to more rapid melting of glaciers and thawing of permafrost, and more packing of heat and acidity into the world’s oceans. These harms will not be undone even if we remove the carbon decades from now.
Government subsidies for burning wood create a double climate problem because this false solution is replacing real carbon reductions. Companies are shifting fossil energy use to wood, which increases warming, as a substitute for shifting to solar and wind, which would truly decrease warming.
To avoid these harms, governments must end subsidies and other incentives that today exist for the burning of wood whether from their forests or others. …
Trees are more valuable alive than dead both for climate and for biodiversity. To meet future net zero emission goals, your governments should work to preserve and restore forests and not to burn them.
Forestry and EPA at Loggerheads.
The story of the week is the feud between Forestry Corporation and the EPA over logging of burnt forests, particularly in the south east, with the Forestry Corporation refusing to comply with the Site Specific Operating Conditions (SSOCs) anymore and the EPA threatening to prosecute them for causing environmental harm. The interesting aspect is that the EPA’s SSOCs are legal requirements, so if they are not complied with they are legal breaches. The story in The Guardian is best. The second SMH article cites a variety of documents identifying Barilaro a putting the pressure on.
The EPA’s press release stated:
Based on expert advice and the literature, the EPA is of the view that site specific conditions are the most effective way of managing the environmental risks associated with harvesting in landscapes that have been so extensively and severely impacted by fire.
The EPA has been working to negotiate updated site specific conditions based on current knowledge of the impact of the fires, and to identify and implement a long-term approach to manage the risks posed by timber harvesting in the post-fire landscapes of coastal NSW.
FCNSW has now withdrawn from those discussions around logging on the South Coast.
The EPA expects to receive advice from FCNSW regarding additional voluntary measures they intend to apply to manage the impacts of logging operations. These will not be enforceable by the EPA under the current rules.
In response to the decision of FCNSW, the EPA will further increase its regulatory oversight of future logging operations.
The EPA has a statutory objective to protect, restore and enhance the quality of the environment in NSW having regard to the need to maintain ecologically sustainable development. Where the EPA identifies non-compliance, it will take appropriate regulatory action.
FCNSW is authorised by the NSW Government to undertake forestry operations under the Forestry Act 2012, and must comply with the IFOA rules.
Sue Arnold attacks Barilaro for earlier over-riding the advice of the EPA by insisting that burnt forests be logged to satisfy timber commitments irrespective of environmental and resource impacts. She also focusses on the inability for third-party enforcement (cites Dailan Pugh).
Gladys retiring?
There is an intriguing story in Pearls and Irritations that Gladys Berejiklian is soon going to jump ship (March-June), with NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet set to replace her, with Matt Kean as his running mate. Could be interesting times.
https://johnmenadue.com/unruly-scenes-as-removalists-arrive-for-premier-gladys/
EPBC Act:
The big national issue is the review of the EPBC Act and the Coalition’s intent to hand its responsibilities for Matters of National Environmental Significance over to the states for determination, without the strong National Environmental Standards recommended by Professor Samuel’s review. Strangely everyone seems to have seen the Government’s piss-weak national standards except the states. The Guardian reports that there’s little support for the Government’s approach from key cross-benchers or the ALP.
Article: Sydney Morning Herald 13 February 2021
An article in VICE World News takes it down to the species level, lamenting our horrible extinction record and the failure of the EPBC Act to reverse the decline.
And the Guardian has an article highlighting the sham that offsetting is, with the example that the offset for clearing 1,780ha of bushland for the Badgerys Creek airport was to protect a similar sized area that was already protected.
Baby faced Koalas an iconic issue, so cute everyone wants one:
The reason we find Koalas so appealing is because they remind us of kids, and their successful “anthropomorpism” as characters such as Norman Lindesay’s Bunyip Bluegum and Blinky Bill.
https://theconversation.com/why-do-we-love-koalas-so-much-because-they-look-like-baby-humans-153619
The ABC has an in-depth article about the threats faced by Koalas, citing the primary problem being the direct and indirect impacts of habitat loss, with climate change a growing problem. It advocates stewardship payments for landholders. Meanwhile the Tim Flannery special on Are We Killing Our Koalas takes a different tact, largely ignoring logging and habitat loss, and effectively saying that while it’s a shame that NSW and Queensland are losing their Koalas, its all OK because we can repopulate with South Australia’s inbred Koalas. An article in Wagga’s Daily Advertiser cites the example of Narrandera’s successful translocation of Victorian Koalas to support the Green’s advocating establishing another colony in urban Wagga. And Gunnedah is about to get a 50 acre Gunnedah Koala Sanctuary, run by Council and tourism operator CAPTA, with a koala hospital, petting zoo, wildlife centre and accommodation. Why worry about logging when we can have open air Koala zoos as tourist attractions everywhere.
https://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/are-we-killing-our-koalas/13161298
Article: The Daily Advertiser 17 Feb 2021
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2021/02/19/gunnedah-koala-sanctuary-one-step-closer-to-fruition/
Revelations that Kangaroos and Koalas living in plantations adjacent to Alcoa's Portland aluminium smelter had deformed bones and teeth as a result of fluorosis, a condition linked to the facility's fluoride emissions, with 40 Koalas having to be euthanised. Koalas are also breaking through the perimeter fence and suffering horrible injuries.
The Myall Koala and Environment Group focuses on tree planting and bush regeneration.
https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/myall-koalas-supporting-a-species-in-crisis-64904
And Port Macquarie-Hastings Council are building koala stiles across the entire LGA to assist koalas to safely get across road fences.
Federally the Greens attempted to introduce legislation to prevent the Federal Environment Minister from approving new mines or developments in koala habitat.
https://www.miragenews.com/greens-introduce-new-laws-to-save-our-514102/
The economic benefits of the Great Koala National Park had another run.
https://clarencevalleynews.com.au/the-great-koala-national-park/
Fragmentation causes stress and disease:
A South American study found that small mammals were more stressed in smaller forest fragments than those in larger patches, which can lead to increases in disease and the risk of diseases moving into human populations.
The study compared small and large habitat fragments in Argentina finding “that the levels of the glucocorticoids cortisol and corticosterone differed in small mammals based on (1) the size of the forest fragment where the individuals lived; (2) the trapping method used, probably due to stress of confinement upon capture”, concluding “individuals living in heavily disturbed habitats may experience more physiological challenges than individuals in more intact habitats”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-81073-2
Are our alpine forests doomed?:
Since the beginning of this century a series of wildfires have devastated our Alpine ash (Eucalyptus delegatensis) and Mountain ash (E. regnans) forests, as they require 20 years to set seeds and many stands have been burnt more frequently. Snow Gums have also been suffering fire losses, though now there is rising concern as attacks by a longicorn beetle is ringbarking trees and causing widespread dieback above1600 metres.
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/7130683/cant-see-the-trees-for-the-forest/?cs=307
There is a podcast at:
https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/7117837/voice-of-real-australia-podcast/
Snow-gum dieback refers to the death of snow-gum species as a consequence of infestation by a wood-boring longicorn beetle. Larvae, feeding on the outer layers of wood and inner layers of bark, ring-bark affected trees. The canopy of affected trees gradually declines in health and dies. In most instances infestation ends with the complete death of the tree, and in the most severe cases, the entire stand. Although snow-gum dieback is known to have occurred sporadically throughout the latter part of the twentieth century, the current outbreak appears to eclipse the extent of earlier outbreaks.
https://www.saveoursnowgum.org/dieback
Beware the zombie trees:
On occasion trees can live on after they are apparently killed, their stumps kept alive by a mysterious force which is likely the symbiotic relationships they formed with mycorrhiza and root grafts with other trees – leading to a view that forest ecosystems are superorganisms.
If you are scared by zombies you can monitor logging from the safety of your armchair:
Starting with audio detectors using an old mobile phone, solar panels and a microphone, the group Rainforest Connection has teamed up with major companies to place audio detectors in a dozen countries. The recorders send audio to a central facility where artificial intelligence is used to pick out desired information, from the sounds of logging to bird calls. It can identify logging in real time, as well as enabling remote fauna surveys.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/02/15/asia-pacific/illegal-logging-sensors/
The World Resources Institute has upgraded its Global Forest Watch to make it possible to monitor what’s happening to distant tropical forests almost in real time through satellite imagery.
https://wamu.org/story/21/02/15/pillagers-of-tropical-forests-cant-hide-behind-clouds-anymore/
This is a useful site for deforestation data, down to a LGA level. I had a brief look at the real time disturbance data. It is primarily aimed at tropical rainforests, with the highest resolution data not covering Australia. The GLAD mapping only covers to 30o S (ie sth of Grafton) and I was not convinced it adequately represented eucalypt forest cover or logging – though it deserves further assessment. It displays conservation reserves and LGAs, but not state forests. Disturbances can be identified over any time period since 2015, which is a useful feature.
https://www.globalforestwatch.org/
March 21 International Day for Forests:
The United Nations General Assembly declared 21 March as International Day of Forests. The theme for 2021 is "Forest restoration: a path to recovery and well-being".
Forest Media 12 February 2021
Red legged Pademelons doing well after fires, Long-nosed Potoroos not so well, and Golden-tipped bats badly. Another report emphasises that logging increases blazing. Concerns that logs from Way Way may be being burnt for electricity. Governments invest $1 million into genetically sequencing Koalas, Kean repeats his refrain “the biggest single threat to koala populations is the loss and fragmentation of their habitat”. Highway offsets north from Hexham lead to 9,000 ha new reserves and biodiversity stewardship agreements. Byron Bay wildlife hospital to build a raptor aviary.
Tasmania forest wars spark up, with a woodchip mill blockade and loggers violence. In Western Australia forest protectors are doing an advertising blitz in the lead-up to the State election. Commonwealth parliamentary inquiry recommends locking up cats at night, though doesn’t address their daytime slaughter of birds and reptiles.
As Governments dither and seek to avoid their responsibilities, frustration grows with Federal and State inaction and lack of coordination to combat climate change and protect forests and biodiversity (including Koalas). As Scott Morrison is wedged by Biden into maybe, possibly, having to commit to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the Nationals are as revolting as usual, doing their best to frustrate any action. Meanwhile research finds that trees are better at taking up carbon than thought as atmospheric carbon increases. Now a satellite is being launched to accurately weigh the carbon of the world’s forests.
American forests are being ravished by successive plagues of voracious insects and fungi let loose through ballooning global trade, weak regulatory systems and sheer carelessness. In Gabon rising temperatures are resulting in less fruit and starving elephants.
Researchers find that broad-acre commodity farms dramatically dry out landscapes and increase temperatures compared to small scale agriculture that preserves some vegetation cover. Others find that plantings of fast growing trees transpire more water and dry out soils, compared to slow growing species.
The UK Treasury has published a report calling for the inclusion of environmental values to balance the books, as using up the resources of 1.6 earths is clearly unbalanced. In the EU’s Nature Trade computer algorithms are used to quantify benefits from nature (such as carbon storage, pollination, recreation) derived on someone's land so they can be paid for them.
The ABC’s Country Hour has been attacked as a National Party echo chamber.
Dailan Pugh
Fire affects on mammals:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-07/scientists-report-card-on-threatened-species/13113582
Since bushfires burned through World Heritage forests in 2019 there have been fears for the already threatened animals that may have perished in the flames.
"Our study found that the activity of long-nosed potoroos and red-legged pademelons in the national parks did not change following small-scale ecological burns," he said.
"The surprise has been that the red-legged pademelon is highly abundant, with numbers far higher than they were in 2016 are 2017," he said.
"The implications are that the red-legged pademelon seems to have coped very well with the fires across Nightcap, Tooloom and Gibraltar."
But the picture is not as bright for the long-nosed potoroo.
"We have detected long-nosed potoroos in both burned and unburned sites within Gibraltar Range National Park and Nightcap National Park," Mr McHugh said.
"But we're yet to detect them in burnt or unburnt forest in Tooloom National Park."
Another rainforest creature especially vulnerable to the impact of wildfire is the small, insect-eating golden-tipped bat.
"Although we've recorded one bat in a severely burnt forest, we generally have not seen the golden-tipped bats in those high severity burn sites."
Logging increases blazing:
https://www.miragenews.com/logging-and-thinning-of-forests-can-increase-512332/
Logging can make native forests more flammable and lead to greater fire severity for decades, while ‘mechanical thinning’ can also increase fire risk.
These are two of the key findings of an expert review of published scientific research by The Bushfire Recovery Project – a joint project between Griffith University and the Australian National University to provide the Australian community with a scientific understanding of bushfires.
The review used the data and findings of 51 peer-reviewed studies, including those that compared how hot or severe fire burned in different areas during the same fires, to assess the impact logging has on bushfires.
Other key findings include:
- The key contributor to increased bushfires and resultant damage is climate change
- Native forest logging increases the severity at which forests burn, beginning roughly 10 years after logging and continuing at elevated levels for another 30+ years
- The likelihood of “crown burn” (when the forest canopy is burned) is about 10% in old growth forest versus 70% in forest logged 15 years ago. This drops steeply as the forest continues to age, but remains elevated for decades
- The mechanism is likely that after logging removal of the forest canopy means thousands of young trees regrow, creating an increased fuel load. Many of those young trees then die, becoming dry and highly flammable
- The lack of canopy following logging also results in increased drying of the young plants and soil by the sun and wind, and greater wind speeds on days with extreme fire danger
The reviewed studies found ‘mechanical thinning’ does not decrease fire risk. For example, a study on Alpine Ash forest in Victoria showed ‘mechanical thinning’ reduced the surface fuel, however, increased coarse woody debris by 50% and increased the density of saplings tenfold.
Burning forests for biomass?
Two environmentalists have raised the possibility that native forest timber is being used for fuel in Way Way Forest near Macksville on the Mid North Coast of NSW.
Frank Dennis, a spokesperson from No Electricity From Forests” (NEFF), has said that “The government, and sections of the timber industry, seems intent on continuing their ‘war on forests’ here on the North Coast.
He claimed, “Their serious mission for years has been to provide a supply of small logs to the burgeoning worldwide market for wood pellets, forest biomass and to burn as fuel to produce electricity both here and overseas in countries like Japan”.
Mr. Jones and Mr. Dennis say that new forestry rules will allow 140,000 hectares of forests to be virtually clear-felled from south of Taree to Grafton, in areas of up to 60 hectares (previously 0.25hectares), converting complex forests types into single species monocultures, mainly blackbutts.
As well, burning wood for electricity produces more CO2 than burning coal and it takes decades for trees to grow and tie up the carbon again.
They say that large volumes of native timber are required to keep this industry going and the claim that “waste” timber, only, is to be used is totally misleading.
Genetic sequencing of Koalas:
Dozens of Australian species headed for the “extinction cliff” including koalas will have their genomes sequenced to help protect them from threats such as disease and climate change.
A $1 million investment from the NSW and federal governments will kick off the program to assess the genetic variation of hundreds of koalas in NSW, Queensland and northern Victoria. The methods will later be applied to as many as 50 other species ranging from frogs to birds and others at risk.
NSW has 49 distinct populations of the marsupial and researchers want to collect samples for at least 20 animals in each.
“We know koalas are hugely under threat from a range of factors including disease,” Mr Kean said, adding that “we know the biggest single threat to koala populations is the loss and fragmentation of their habitat. So everything else will count for nothing if we don’t protect their habitat.”
In the past, many species would have adapt to shifts in the climate or from other threats by moving. Land-clearing by humans has made that much more difficult for koalas and other species.
“If you fragment the landscape so badly how are they ever going to retract to those areas of climate refugia that they can expand from?” Dr Hogg said.
Highway offsets:
https://www.roadsonline.com.au/pacific-highway-flora-and-fauna-protection-program-begins/
A rehabilitation program for threatened flora and fauna has begun at Teven as part of the Woolgoolga to Ballina Pacific Highway upgrade biodiversity offset program.
A 220 hectare property at Teven has been given to NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service to continually protect native wildlife and vegetation along the highway.
[Paul Toole] “These Teven wetlands is just another example of how we’re getting on with the job of delivering road projects that make a real difference to locals while ensuring the environment they treasure is protected.”
Ben Franklin said other sustainability initiatives used … fuelling a biomass-fired power generator with green waste.
“On top of that, biodiversity offsets provide an opportunity for landowners to receive a guaranteed long-term income in return for managing some or all of their land for wildlife.”
The Woolgoolga to Ballina Pacific Highway upgrade will see more than 3600 hectares of land protected. Private landowners will manage about 1400 hectares of this land through biodiversity stewardship agreements.
In total the Pacific Highway projects have provided around 9000 hectares of biodiversity offsets between Hexham and the Queensland border.
Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital expands to include raptors:
https://www.thirdsector.com.au/free-flight-aviary-to-rise-in-northern-rivers-nsw-for-birds-of-prey/
Injured Australian birds of prey will soon be rehabilitated in a new free flight aviary located in Northern Rivers NSW and operated by Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital, thanks to a $50,000 grant from the Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife’s “Wildlife Heroes” program.
“Round aviaries allow raptors to generate enough speed to take off and land as they would in their natural habitat.” It’s a critically important factor in successful rehabilitation,” she said.
In NSW alone, over 1000 a year are hit by cars, caught in barbed wire, shot or caught in rabbit traps and suffer poisoning through pesticides, causing horrendous injuries and often death.
“Having the free-flight aviary located at just 2km away from the Wildlife Hospital means we can get them into rehabilitation very quickly, significantly improving their prospects of being released back into the wild.”
Tasmania forest wars spark up:
https://www.examiner.com.au/story/7115723/government-consultation-plan-labelled-a-broken-promise/
The government's plan to move 25,000 hectares of forestry land into the reserve or conservation system doesn't go far enough to protect the world heritage values of the area, says the Greens.
The land apart of the Western Tiers and already sits within the World Heritage Area.
Greens leader Cassy O'Connor said the decision to exclude the option for the area to become a national park from the consultation constituted a broken promise by the government.
"This is an area that has recognised world heritage and national park values, it has been recommended to be made a national park by UNESCO itself and yet the best this government can do is conduct a consultation process over two lower conservation status options.
https://www.examiner.com.au/story/7124268/two-charged-at-bell-bay-protest-as-log-trucks-bank-up/
About 50 log trucks banked up at the entrance to Artec's woodchip mill at Bell Bay on Friday morning after a protest from the Bob Brown Foundation, which resulted in two arrests and heightened tensions.
About 20 protesters scaled a 30-metre loading gantry to gain access to the site overnight, and two people used barrels to chain themselves to an entry gate, preventing access. It was the first woodchip mill protest in Tasmania for a decade.
Police used trolleys to transport the two protesters and barrels out of the way of the gates about 11am, allowing for the trucks to begin depositing their logs for woodchipping.
It came after recent protests at Wentworth Hills in the Central Highlands, in which protesters "immobilised" logging machinery on Wednesday.
https://tasmps.greens.org.au/media-release/forest-defenders-highlight-tasmania
Tasmania Police must investigate the violent and threatening actions of Artec employees and log truck drivers towards forest defenders from Bob Brown Foundation at the Bell Bay woodchip mill.
Protestors were shoved, chased around the site with threats of violence, driven at in vehicles, and their car tyres were slashed.
Under the Liberals and Resources Minister, Guy Barnett, native forest logging for woodchips is intensifying.
This is a crime against Nature. The Premier and Minister for Climate Change, Peter Gutwein, should be utterly and deeply ashamed of the ecological tragedy unfolding on his watch.
West Australians ramp up campaign for election:
https://www.bunburymail.com.au/story/7121301/forest-protection-up-in-lights/
The WA Forest Alliance have turned to digital billboards to push its cause in the lead up to the election.
"The weight of public opinion is firmly behind protecting native forests.
"Recent polling shows that 78 per cent of West Australians support the protection of the South West's native forests and timber production coming from plantations.
"Now we need Government policy to reflect community views.
"Every single day in the South West, 10 football fields of Karri and Jarrah forests are logged and cleared - with 85 per cent of the wood sold going to woodchip, firewood, charcoal and mill-waste.
"This is a shocking waste of precious forests that we need now more than ever to be removing carbon from the atmosphere, bringing rain and providing homes and food for wildlife.
Cat curfew:
Cat owners could be required to lock up their pets at night as part of a new plan to protect native wildlife.
The proposal is one of several recommendations from a parliamentary inquiry looking at ways to tackle the feral cat pandemic and protect Australian native animals.
One of the recommendations is to establish “new strategies for the management and control of domestic cats, including such measures as increased support for desexing, registration and microchipping, a consideration of night curfews, and a national cat ownership education campaign”.
“Feral cats kill over three billion native animals a year which equates to a kill rate of more than 1100 per cat”, said inquiry chair and Member for Fairfax Ted O’Brien.
Cats kill a staggering 1.7 billion native animals each year, and have played a major role in most of Australia’s 34 mammal extinctions. They continue to pose an extinction threat to at least another 120 species.
A recent parliamentary inquiry into the problem of feral and pet cats in Australia has affirmed the issue is indeed of national significance. The final report, released last week, calls for a heightened, more effective, multi-pronged and coordinated policy, management and research response.
The report recommends Australia’s 3.8 million pet cats be subject to night-time curfews. This measure would benefit native nocturnal mammals, but won’t save birds and reptiles, which are primarily active during the day.
Pet cats kill 83 million native reptiles and 80 million native birds in Australia each year. From a wildlife perspective, keeping pet cats contained 24/7 is the only responsible option.
Stopping pet cats from roaming is also good for the cats, which live longer, safer lives when kept exclusively indoors. It would also substantially reduce the number of people falling ill from cat-dependent diseases each year.
One of the inquiry’s flagship recommendations is a national conservation project dubbed “Project Noah”. This would involve an ambitious expansion of Australia’s existing network of reserves free from introduced predators, both on islands and in mainland fenced areas. The reserves provide havens — or a fleet of “arks” — for vulnerable native wildlife.
This measure is vital. 2019 research found Australia has more than 65 native mammal species and subspecies that can’t persist, or struggle to persist, in places with even very low numbers of cats or foxes. This includes the bilby, numbat, quokka, dibbler and black-footed rock wallaby.
But in many parts of Australia, broad-scale habitat management is a more cost-effective way to reduce cat harm. This involves making habitat less suitable for cats and more suitable for native wildlife, for example, by reducing rabbit numbers, fire frequency and grazing by feral herbivores such as cattle and horses.
Governments fail the environment:
CONSERVATIONISTS are often referred to as ‘greenies’ with the implication that they don’t understand the realities of living in the country.
However, these greenies, and many ‘ordinary’ people, who are frustrated with Federal and State inaction and lack of coordination to combat climate change and protect forests and biodiversity, have enjoyed some validation in recent government commissioned reviews.
At a state level, the Auditor General’s review of planning for securing regional water supply found that, since 2014, the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment has “lacked a strategic, evidence-based approach to target investments in town water infrastructure”
The Bellingen Shire Council recently passed a resolution to ask the State Water Minister to respond to this review because the Council wants to see a positive response that helps local government keep water supply secure and affordable.
He found that Federal environmental laws have failed to protect Australia’s unique wildlife, plants and ecosystems from land-use change, habitat loss, feral animals and invasive plant species.
Professor Samuel wrote, “The impact of climate change on the environment will exacerbate pressures and contribute to further decline.”
Both Federal and NSW State Governments have their own reports that recommend that improvements must be made to protect the environment, and surveys indicate that up to eighty percent of Australians also want effective protection.
One could be forgiven for believing that Australia’s state and federal governments have a pathological hatred for not only koalas but any policy that insists on environmental protection for wildlife.
The Queensland Government’s koala management policy can be readily identified. It consists of producing endless koala strategies which are not implemented but useful for policy propaganda as koala habitat destruction grows exponentially.
No amount of hype can take away from the simplicity of the environmental dilemma facing koalas. Bulldoze koala habitat and the result will be no koalas. It’s that simple.
Berejiklian’s first action after her election was to abolish the Office of Environment and Heritage, leaving the environment in the portfolio of Planning Minister Rob Stokes. This represents a clear conflict of interests.
No changes in government policy or forestry activities resulted in response to Dr Smith’s report.
The Forestry Corporation has been allowed to continue logging in “lightly" burned forests, targeting primary koala hubs according to local ecologists. NSW forests are also being logged for 'renewable energy'.
No amount of public protest, scientific concern and the sheer extent of devastation left by the bushfires has raised one iota of legitimate response by governments.
https://www.sydneysun.com/news/267783370/governments-across-australia-failing-koalas
Feds washing hands of threatened species
Federal officials warned against transferring environmental approval powers to state governments before a major review of conservation laws was complete, saying it could undermine hopes of substantial reform.
Documents obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws detail meetings between senior federal environment department officials and the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia in late 2019 and early 2020.
The documents show the chamber lobbied for a handover of federal decision-making powers to Western Australia before the once-in-a-decade review of national environmental laws was complete.
Officials said the department did not believe a transfer of approval powers was the best way to make the environmental assessment process more efficient.
They instead recommended making improvements to streamlined assessment processes – known as bilateral assessment agreements, under which the commonwealth retains its decision-making powers.
A spokesperson for the environment minister, Sussan Ley, said the documents pre-dated the review. He said departmental discussions “by nature canvass a variety of options” and were not advice to a minister, and that all states and territories now supported a transfer of approval powers.
Making agriculture carbon neutral:
Prime Minister Scott Morrison might be warming to the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, but federal Nationals leader Michael McCormack has thrown a spanner in the works by suggesting agriculture be excluded from the target.
But the Nationals’ push is deeply misguided. …
Livestock such as cattle and sheep produce methane when they digest plant material. This gas makes up about 70% of Australia’s agricultural emissions.
In 2019, agriculture produced almost 13% of Australia’s national emissions, or 69 million tonnes. Land clearing for agriculture also drives deforestation in Australia, which is responsible for about 30 million tonnes of greenhouse gases a year. Combined, the emissions comprised about 18% of annual emissions in 2019 – equal to the transport sector.
Research I published last year proposed one solution: pairing agriculture emissions with forestry “sinks” – an area of trees and soil that suck up carbon dioxide.
Research has shown the land sector could potentially achieve net-zero emissions by 2030, using carbon sinks and a mass reduction in land clearing.
But even with the carve out of agriculture, and other aid for farmers, a move to the target is being strongly resisted by former resources minister Matt Canavan and some other Nationals backbenchers. Canavan, interviewed on Sky, said he was prepared to “fight like hell”.
“I don’t think we should be talking about the weather in 30 years time” but instead concentrating on more pressing matters, he said.
The National Farmers Federation reiterated on Monday “farming and agriculture cannot be worse off going forward with any carbon commitments or emissions reduction schemes”.
“Care needs to be taken that agricultural land does not get transferred into carbon sinks that are subeconomic, havens for feral plants and animals and a fire risk.
Federal ministers are planning to neutralise a backbench threat on climate change by making sure a new carbon target will not be mandated by law, avoiding a vote in Parliament that could rock the government.
Australian National University Professor Warwick McKibbin said a binding emissions target was one of several critical policies required to achieve lower emissions with the least economic harm.
The warning came as three former Nationals ministers – Barnaby Joyce, Matt Canavan and Bridget McKenzie – warned they would reject a net zero target that imposed costs on rural Australia.
Trees are better than we thought:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210208185117.htm
New research from West Virginia University biologists shows that trees around the world are consuming more carbon dioxide than previously reported, making forests even more important in regulating the Earth's atmosphere and forever shift how we think about climate change.
In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Professor Richard Thomas and alumnus Justin Mathias (BS Biology, '13 and Ph.D. Biology, '20) synthesized published tree ring studies. They found that increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the past century have caused an uptick in trees' water-use efficiency, the ratio of carbon dioxide taken up by photosynthesis to the water lost by transpiration -- the act of trees "breathing out" water vapor.
"We've shown that over the past century, photosynthesis is actually the overwhelming driver to increases in tree water use efficiency, which is a surprising result because it contradicts many earlier studies," Mathias said. "On a global scale, this will have large implications potentially for the carbon cycle if more carbon is being transferred from the atmosphere into trees."
Since 1901, the intrinsic water use efficiency of trees worldwide has risen by approximately 40% in conjunction with an increase of approximately 34% in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Both of these characteristics increased approximately four times faster since the 1960s compared to the previous years.
Weighing in on the world’s forests:
https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2021-02-12/new-satellite-aims-to-help-see-the-forest-for-the-trees
A new satellite which will 'weigh' the world's forests is being built at a Stevenage space technology firm.
Airbus Space and Defence is currently building the European Space Agency (ESA) Biomass probe.
Biomass is due to launch next year and will measure forest biomass to assess terrestrial carbon stocks and fluxes for five years.
The spacecraft will carry innovative technology to provide exceptionally accurate maps of tropical, temperate and boreal forest biomass that are not obtainable by ground measurement techniques.
A plethora of plagues:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/06/opinion/epidemic-invasive-species-trees.html
It’s not just humans. Trees also suffer plagues.
In the past 120 years, voracious insects and fungi have swept across North America with frightening regularity, laying low the chestnut, the elm, the hemlock and, most recently, the ash. Each of those trees anchored natural ecosystems, and human economies and cultures. And while climate change and wildfires grab the headlines, invasive species have so far proved to be a far greater threat to forest biodiversity in the temperate world.
These plagues have also amplified climate change. Research has found that rotting trees killed in the United States by forest pests release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a rate within the same order of magnitude as wildfires.
But far less attention has gone to stemming the expanding tide of plagues that humans, through ballooning global trade, weak regulatory systems and sheer carelessness, have inflicted on trees. If we want forests to protect us, we first need to protect them.
Rainforest fruit production crashing:
https://theconversation.com/fruit-famine-is-causing-elephants-to-go-hungry-in-gabon-152757
[Gabon] In our recently published paper we analysed 32 years of valuable data about tree behaviour and found that – between 1986 and 2018 – there was a massive collapse in fruiting events.
This has resulted in a fruit famine and, based on a body condition score applied to archived photographs, an 11% decline in the physical condition of the elephants at our study area since 2008.
Our analysis found that there was an 81% decline in the probability of encountering ripe fruit. This means that, on average, elephants and other animals would have found ripe fruit on one in every 10 trees in the 1980s, but need to search more than 50 trees today. We found matching declines in flowering too, indicating that the problem is not pollination or fruit maturation but something earlier on in the chain of fruit production.
Caroline Tutin. In 1993 she discovered that some Lopé tree species depend on a critical drop in night-time temperatures during the long dry season to trigger flowering. In years when temperatures in the dry season did not dip below 19ºC these species produced no fruit and in an unusual year when this same drop in temperature occurred outside the dry season, some of these species produced fruit out of season.
Clearing dries and heats regions, more so with intensive agriculture:
https://www.miragenews.com/large-scale-commodity-farming-accelerating-511421/
Eduardo Maeda from the University of Helsinki and colleagues used satellite data to compare areas dominated by different land uses and farm sizes to evaluate their impacts on the regional climate. Although small rural settlements experienced no clear changes in rainfall during recent decades, areas dominated by commodity farms have become significantly drier. Areas of commodity farming also experienced a much higher increase in temperature, in comparison with small-scale rural settlements, largely due to intense management of commercial crops leading to reduced vegetation cover throughout the year and decreased plant transpiration. According to the authors, mitigating climate change in the Amazon basin will require alternatives to current commodity farming practices.
Tropical forests act as a water pump, getting water from the land surface and throwing it back into the atmosphere. Because this process requires energy, it causes a reduction in the surface temperature. The water that returns to the atmosphere, often falls back into the forest in the form of rain. The trees then becomes a critical component of a complex water recycling machine, which guarantee that the forest is kept always moist. When the forest is removed, the water returning to the atmosphere is reduced, and the unused energy contributes to increase local temperatures.
The research by Maeda and colleagues demonstrate that this process is further aggravated by large commodity farms.
Although areas dominated by small rural settlements also experience temperature increase, the magnitude of the changes are substantially smaller than those observed in big commodity farms. The authors of the study argue that the main reason is because these small rural settlements are often less managed, leaving a denser and more continuous vegetation cover than in the large monoculture farms.
According to the research, this means that agricultural activities need to be better integrated with the natural Amazon ecosystem. Agroforestry is for example an interesting alternative, as it seeks to manage forest services and agriculture at the same time, improving soil fertility, increasing water availability, while preserving vegetation cover and microclimate. Reforestation of abandoned pastures and areas of illegal deforestation are also important pathways to mitigate environmental changes.
… increasing water benefits of plantings:
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/f-spt020121.php
Efforts are now underway across the world to rectify the mistakes of the past, with the UN Strategic Plan for Forests setting out the objective for an increase in global forest coverage by 3% by 2030.
With time being of the essence, one of the most popular methods of reforestation in humid, tropical regions is the planting of a single fast-growing species (monoculture) in a large area. This is especially important as a means of quickly preventing landslides in these regions that experience frequent typhoons and heavy rains.
However, new research published to Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution by a team from Hainan University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences has not only found this practice could have a detrimental effect on the surrounding soil water content, but it has developed a three-step method to remedy it.
Testing showed that the transpiration rate and transpiration-related trait values were between 5 and 10 times greater in the fast-growing species than slow-growing species in the rainy and dry seasons.
It also found that soil water content surrounding the dominant slow-growing species in a nearby forest was between 1.5 and 3 times greater than fast-growing species for both the rainy and dry seasons.
"Past and current human disturbances - such as ore mining and the plantation of commercial trees - have resulted in high rates of deforestation and ecosystem degradation across the world," said Dr Wang, based at the South China Botanical Gardens in Guangzhou, China.
"These, in turn, result in a major threat to the global supply of freshwater. It is therefore urgent to initiate and maintain reforestation projects aimed at recovering soil water content and increasing freshwater supply to human society."
Rewilding:
https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/why-rewilding-success-stories-make-us-hopeful-for-the-future/
In this week’s episode of the Science Focus Podcast, we speak to Dr Andrea Perino, a scientist from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research and an expert on rewilding. She tells us about the benefits of rewilding, whether it’s acres of forest or just a tiny patch in your back garden.
Valuing Nature:
This week the UK Treasury published the Dasgupta review on the economics of biodiversity, in which Sir Partha Dasgupta, professor at the University of Cambridge, called for a new measure of inclusive wealth. Economic growth has been achieved at the expense of the natural world, he argued. …But the stock of natural capital, like rainforests and fisheries, has declined by nearly two-fifths.
We’ve depleted the world’s resources to maintain a standard of living while kidding ourselves that technological innovations have made it sustainable. We are able to kid ourselves because we look only at GDP flows. But set those against balance sheet stocks and it is clear that growth is unsustainable. To maintain our living standards we need 1.6 Earths.
… To produce an inclusive wealth measure, we need to put a price on nature. We need to value all the elephants and insects and ecosystem services provided by soil and the seas. One of those assets is biodiversity. Like a fund manager who spreads his risk, biodiversity is nature’s resilience against shocks.
Free markets fail to price nature’s assets and services. Yet governments across the world provide $US4 trillion ($5.2 trillion) of annual energy, fossil fuel, fisheries and agriculture subsidies to exploit natural resources…
A study in 1996 estimated that ecosystem services, such as food, water, waste and air purification, were worth $US33 trillion annually, nearly twice global GDP at the time. An IMF study last year concluded each forest elephant was worth $US1.75m.
Yet the idea is now mainstream, as evidenced by the high profile Economics of Biodiversity: Dasgupta Review commissioned by the UK government and lead by the economist Partha Dasgupta.
Proponents of the economic approach argue that if we don't give nature a price then we essentially treat it as having zero value. In contrast, if we articulate value in monetary terms then this can be factored into government and business decisions. Harmful costs to the natural world are no longer "externalised", to use the economic jargon, and instead the value of "natural capital" is incorporated into balance sheets.
There is certainly some merit to this approach, as shown in pilot projects where land owners are paid to improve water quality or reduce flooding.
To give an example, consider the EU-funded NatureTrade project, in which computer algorithms are used to quantify benefits from nature (such as carbon storage, pollination, recreation) derived on someone's land. Landowners are then helped to draw up a contract so they can be paid for these, in an auction the researchers behind the project describe as an "eBay for ecosystem services". This may seem a great idea, but studies have found that many landowners already protect nature simply because it's the "right" thing to do, and paying them "crowds out" these social norms.
Sometimes the language used by economists doesn't help. The Dasgupta Review provocatively states: "Nature is an asset." Yet the boundaries between our self and the natural world are more fuzzy than they may first seem, as I evidence in my book The Self Delusion. As Sigmund Freud realised in 1930, when we feel kinship with - or to use the non-scientific term "love" - something, then we don't objectify it. Instead, boundaries disappear and it merges with our sense of identity. It is antithetical to many people to refer to a dancing swift, an elegant swan or friendly-looking robin as an "asset".
Words matter, and there is also danger that such language of commodification can encourage psychological distancing. People who feel less connected to nature do less to protect it. This is why there is a growing movement involving organisations such as the RSPB (the UK's largest bird charity), to restore a sense of connection to nature, especially in children.
ABC Country Hour a National Party echo chamber:
At its 2018 federal party conference, the Liberal Party supported a motion to privatise the ABC, with the exception of its Rural Department. It was exempted on the grounds it works in the ‘national interest’.
A detailed look at the Rural Department’s flagship program and the ABC’s longest running radio program, Country Hour, shows just why the right of Australian politics is so supportive of the Rural Department.
Our detailed research has revealed that Country Hour continues to boost the views of the Liberal and National party powerful backers among the rural lobby groups and the Liberal and National parties on topics such as climate change and land-based regulations.
While it continues to normalise all manner of questionable activity and profit-taking in the rural space Country Hour will be doing the bidding of its influential supporters. This may keep it safe from being privatized but it comes at a cost to the social and natural environment as well as the credibility of the ABC.
Forest Media 5 February 2021
The Great Koala National Park received a boost with a University of Newcastle report identifying it would generate $412 million in visitor expenditure and create 9,810 full-time-equivalent jobs, with a biodiversity value (Willingness to Pay) estimated to be $530 million for the NSW population and $1.7 billion for all Australians. The industry complained the sky was falling. Fairfax media have run a great background article in Good Weekend on the plight of Koalas. Labor speaks out, while at Crescent Head locals are complaining about impacts of a road upgrade, and at Bangalow about unapproved clearing of a corridor. Meanwhile Koalas are being enlisted to save flying foxes.
With more water and without predators, kangaroos are eating other species out of house and home. Habitat modification can force animals to move further, or hinder their movements, though people have the biggest effect.
Bob Brown’s legal challenge to RFA fails, as the industry and Governments gloat, he announces he will appeal. Discussion on the future of the EPBC Act continues in the wake of the damning Samuels report, though its seems the Feds aren’t listening as a crossbencher demands accountability. The need to cut our emissions by more than 50% by 2030 is repeated, and while the Feds aren’t listening, market forces are beginning to have some effect. In Western Australia over 80 houses have burnt as fires worsen under climate heating, and yet another study warns of worse fires to come in the south-east.
Dailan Pugh
Koala Park Great for the Economy
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2021/02/02/great-national-koala-park-report-released/
An ambitious plan to create a 180-kilometre koala conservation reserve along the NSW Mid North Coast could generate thousands of jobs and add more than $1 billion to the state's economic output over the next 15 years, a study has found.
The Coffs Harbour and Bellingen councils, along with Destination North Coast, commissioned the University of Newcastle to undertake an economic and environmental analysis of the proposed Great Koala National Park (GKNP).
Lead researcher Roberta Ryan said it was estimated the park would generate $412 million in visitor expenditure and create 9,810 full-time-equivalent jobs.
State forest native logging would be hard hit, according to the report, and could see as many 675 jobs axed in the region.
But Timber NSW said job losses would exceed 1,500 and that the move would cost the region's economy at least $700 million a year.
A landmark study into a proposed national park on the Mid North Coast dedicated to protecting koalas says it will increase regional economic output by $1.2 billion over the next 15 years and create more than 9,800 full-time equivalent jobs.
Professor Roberta Ryan said the research demonstrated clearly that the Great Koala National Park would deliver a significant uplift in jobs and revenue for the Mid North Coast region.
The employment projections estimated the phasing out of approximately 675 direct and related forestry full-time equivalent jobs over a 10-year state forest native logging industry transition period.
"The research found that the loss of jobs in the medium-term in the state forest native logging industry would be more than compensated by the creation of new jobs in the management of the national park and in eco-tourism."
"The research estimates conservatively that the Great Koala National Park would boost the tourism sector by an additional 1 million visitors to the region by the end of 15 years who will spend $412 million," she said.
"The biodiversity value of the koala is estimated to be $530 million for the NSW population and $1.7 billion for all Australians."
[Ms Faehrmann ] "If there are two things the people of NSW want to see more of, it's jobs and koalas. The government has now been gifted a project that does both, and I urge them to not reject it for the sake of continuing to prop up the dying native forest logging industry.
"Koalas can't wait another two decades for governments to act. It's now or never for our koalas and this Great Koala National Park plan is a lifesaver, " said Ms Faehrmann.
The Great Koala National Park economic impact assessment and environmental benefit analysis is available at www.hrf.com.au/gknp
In NSW, we need urgent action to protect Koala habitat on public lands on the Mid North Coast, where approximately 20 per cent of the NSW Koala population still survive. The Great Koala National Park (GKNP) proposal would add 175,000 hectares of publicly owned native state forests to existing protected areas to establish a 315,000-hectare reserve. The GKNP proposal excludes both private and plantation forests.
So far, however, our governments have not been moved enough by the rapid reduction of Koala populations to support the proposal. However, that indifference may soon change with a landmark study by the University of Newcastle (UON) into Australia's proposed first large national park dedicated to protecting Koalas projecting the GKNP would bring an additional regional economic output of $1.2 billion over the next 15 years, deliver 9,000+ jobs for the Coffs Coast region and contribute $1.7 billion in biodiversity value.
Daily Telegraph 5/2/2021
Between August and October 2020, close to 50 per cent of all koala admitted to the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital either died in care, were dead on arrival or were required to be euthanised due to sufferance.
Admissions via motor vehicle accidents (20) accounted for the highest number of hospital treatments. …
Chlamydia (11) and other injuries or diseases (13) were the other reasons behind the admissions.
[Scot Castle] “The increasing human population creates stressors which begin with habitat loss, and lead to car strikes, dog attacks and increased occurrence of disease.”
According to a University of Newcastle research program, the Great Koala National Park could see the establishment of up to 9000 jobs, creating a significant boost to the Coffs Coast tourism economy.
https://www.miragenews.com/new-national-park-wont-help-koalas-but-will-508942/
AFPA CEO Mr Ross Hampton said previous independent economic modelling of the impact of the so-called Great Koala National Park on the NSW North Coast found it would lead to a $757 million-a-year hit to the NSW economy and cut almost 2000 jobs, devastating communities across the region where the timber industry is a major employer. This conservative estimate by respected economic modeller Ernst & Young would amount to billions of dollars and thousands more down-stream jobs over the 15 years than the report published today considered. The report was commissioned by the Greens aligned Bellingen and Coffs Harbour Councils
“The flawed report fails to recognise their plan would mean the closure of the native forestry industry on the North Coast, and with it thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic activity in our regions,” Mr Hampton said.
… but Koalas aren’t faring well:
But if the numbers aren’t firm, one thing is: even before the fires, koala populations had been declining precipitously. Studies carried out in 2020 by Dr Steve Phillips, principal research scientist at environmental consultancy Biolink, found that in the past two decades, Queensland had lost half its koalas, and NSW a third. Experts are still trying to tally the full extent of Black Summer’s carnage but University of Sydney research found 61,000 koalas nationally and 8000 in NSW were injured, displaced or died during the fires.
Above all else, our insatiable needs have led to the greatest threats koalas face: climate change and its handmaidens, more extreme droughts and bushfires. But despite the international spotlight the 2019-20 fires threw on the urgency of the species’ plight, one year on, governments have taken little meaningful action to protect the marsupial and its habitat.
The NSW Environment Minister, Matt Kean, says he wants to double koala numbers in the state by 2050 but in January his government announced it would fully commit to only 11 of the upper house inquiry’s 42 recommendations designed to protect koalas. Conservationists and koala scientists were horrified. “It’s really disheartening that the response to the vast majority of recommendations were ‘Support in principle’ or ‘Noted’, which to me is saying, ‘We’re doing nothing’,” Port Macquarie Koala Hospital clinical director Cheyne Flanagan says. “In koala circles, everyone’s disgusted.”
Given that fact, perhaps we should ask an inverse question: if we can’t save koalas, what can we save? And if we can’t save koalas, can we save ourselves?
In November, Ley announced an $18 million koala package, which will include a national audit of populations, health research and habitat restoration. But within days, 23 conservation groups had signed an open letter slamming the audit as a diversionary tactic and a waste of money. Research scientist Steve Phillips agrees. “It’s garbage … The numbers don’t matter, it’s about the rate of change that’s occurred. We already know what that rate of change is and the science is very strong that the animal is very clearly on a trajectory towards extinction.”
The machinations continued through spring as a bill amending the Local Land Services act (LLS), which regulates native vegetation management on private land, was passed by the lower house of Parliament but blocked in the upper house when Liberal MP Catherine Cusack crossed the floor to vote with Labor, the Greens and other crossbenchers. She told the chamber that she had never seen “such poor integrity of processes” which had “zero to do with protecting koalas”. She said: “It is to try to patch up a political disagreement … Far too many mistakes have been made already, many buried in regulatory complexity. But the trends, the science and the outcomes are very clear. We are failing, and this bill cannot possibly assist.”
Multiple koala experts I spoke to for this story noted that despite layers of bureaucracy and multiple koala plans and strategies, the hard decisions needed about the most important measure to save koalas aside from reversing climate change – habitat protection – are still not being taken.
What he says next makes me shiver. “I could go out into the Pilliga at night 15 years ago and drive along the road with a spotlight and see four koalas and three brushtail possums and a couple of ringtails and possibly a carpet snake and various other things. Now I can do that and I see nothing.” A night in the Australian bush, and there is no life.
https://www.watoday.com.au/national/good-weekend-talks-how-good-were-koalas-20210204-p56zkh.html
In this episode of Good Weekend Talks, award-winning feature writer Stephanie Wood chats with Stuart Blanch, a conservation scientist with WWF-Australia, about the plight of our cuddly national icon: the koala.
… need to act with urgency:
https://www.theleader.com.au/story/7109357/opinion-we-need-action-to-save-our-koalas-now/
Our beloved Koala population is set to become extinct by 2050. As a member of Parliament, I participate in a number of committees throughout the year that conduct inquiries into issues that impact our state. Along with members from different political parties, I took part in a year-long inquiry where we were responsible for reporting on the actions, policies and funding by the State Government, which is meant to ensure healthy koala populations and habitat.
My Labor party colleagues and I, led by our Shadow Minister for Environment, Kate Washington are calling for stronger action to save our Koalas. Even a Liberal Party member of the committee, the Honourable Catherine Cusack MLC, spoke out in Parliament and crossed the floor to vote with us against deeply flawed Government legislation that would have further weakened protections for Koalas. For this honourable act in trying to protect our Koalas, Premier Berejiklian sacked Ms Cusack from her position as a Parliamentary Secretary.
There is no time to waste, the Government must take strong action now or our Koala population will be extinct in a matter of decades. If this issue continues to be ignored, part of Premier Berejiklian's legacy will be the extinction of Koalas in NSW.
… roading threat:
Tarring of Point Plomer Road at Crescent Head begins on Monday, but residents and Dunghutti elders say Council has ignored their concerns about koala habitat and Aboriginal heritage sites.
Mr Palise said: ‘It doesn’t make sense why state government would give them funding for a road through pristine koala habitat.’
However, Dunghutti elder James Dungay said Council had not consulted with the Dunghutti Elders Council or the Kempsey Local Aboriginal Land Council before the decision was made to tar the road.
Dunghutti people have opposed tarring the road since it was first proposed in 2004.
… corridor threat:
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/02/bangalow-locals-need-help-to-protect-koala-corridor/
Sunday saw between 60 to 80 people gathered, with Bangalow Koalas, on Rifle Range Road in Bangalow to highlight the dangers of the unapproved clearing done by the owner of 99 Acres on the local koala corridor.
The owner of 99 Acres started clearing within the koala corridor, on crown land, without consent just under two weeks according to Bangalow Koalas president, Linda Sparrow.
‘A stop work was issued personally by council yesterday (Thursday, 28 January) – late [that day] work was still continuing and council were alerted. This landowner was serially non-compliant under the previous DA they had for four tourist cabins in 2017.
During the 200m that the group walked they spotted two koalas. The second one, which was ill with conjunctivitis, was in a camphor tree next to the area that had been cleared.
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2021/01/30/outrage-as-trees-cleared-in-bangalow-koala-habitat/
… where would they be without flying foxes:
Some locals love them, others hate them, but flying foxes remain a vital part of the ecosystem.
"They are the night-time pollinators of the Australian hardwood forest.
"They make forests, to put it very simply, and those forests in turn are home to others species like koalas.
"If you like koalas, we need flying foxes."
But in the face of urbanisation, predation from feral animals, and climate change, Ms Nicolai said flying foxes populations were delicate, with 23,000 dying during a heatwave in 2018.
Beyond the noise, smell, and mess, debate around the potential disease risk posed by flying foxes has been constant.
Flying foxes can be infected with Australian bat lyssavirus and while it's transmissible to humans, less than 1 per cent of wild bats carry it, according to Queensland Health.
Kangaroo Threat:
With its natural predator in decline, roo numbers are growing – and research suggests the marsupial is doing more damage than rabbits in the country’s interior
But new research Letnic is involved in highlights a worrying trend for areas of Australia’s semi-arid interior that are being protected for conservation. Changing the landscape for livestock farming has given kangaroos an unnatural advantage, adding convenient watering holes and extra grass.
But crucially, Letnic says, the historic culling and exclusion of dingoes has seen the kangaroos’ natural predator all but disappear. “Across vast areas of the country, kangaroos have increased in number.”
The study, in the journal Global Ecology and Conservation, looked at three conservation areas in NSW and one in the central east of South Australia…
The problem is likely to be far more widespread, the study says, and grazing by kangaroos “may jeopardise conservation efforts across a large region of semi-arid Australia”.
Bush Heritage Australia has worked to decommission the old watering holes on the property to keep kangaroo numbers down. It helps, but is not enough.
Coulson says that with the dingo mostly gone, the shooters and park rangers are acting as the defacto predator for the kangaroo. “What’s missing is the dingo and Indigenous hunting. That, coupled with the provision of agricultural water, is what’s allowed the kangaroo to get up to the numbers they have.”
Moving with the times:
Our latest research published today in Nature Ecology and Evolution has, for the first time, quantified the repercussions of logging, pollution, hunting, and other human disturbances, on the movements of a wide range of animal species.
Our findings were eye-opening. We found human disturbances, on average, restricted an animal’s movements by 37%, or increased it by 70%.
The ability to travel is essential to animal survival because it allows animals to find mates, food and shelter, escape predators and competitors, and avoid disturbances and threats.
And because animal movement is linked to many important ecological processes — such as pollination, seed dispersal and soil turnover — disruptions to movement can cascade through ecosystems.
Animals may run away from humans, or move further in search of food and nesting sites. For example, a 2020 study on koalas found their movements were longer and more directed in areas where habitats weren’t well connected, because they had to travel further to reach food patches.
Likewise, the daily movement distances of mountain brushtail possums in central Victoria were 57% higher in remnant bushland along roadsides, compared to large forest areas.
In the United States, for example, researchers played a recording of humans talking and found it caused a 34% decrease in the speed that mountain lions move.
But we found human activities caused much stronger increases in animal movement distances (averaging +35%) than habitat modifications (averaging +12%).
Bob Brown case goes down:
https://www.examiner.com.au/story/7111373/bob-brown-foundations-federal-court-action-fails/?src=rss
The Bob Brown Foundation's legal challenge to test the validity of the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement and attempt to end logging in Tasmania's native forests has failed.
The case by the Bob Brown Foundation, lodged in the federal court in August and billed by the group as “the great forest case”, argued an effective exemption from environment laws granted to logging meant a regional forestry agreement between the federal and Tasmanian governments was not legally valid.
Lawyers for the foundation said the agreement lacked an enforceable requirement that the state must protect threatened species, particularly the critically endangered swift parrot.
In a judgment on Wednesday, the full federal court said the forestry agreement was legally binding.
Forestry’s exemption from the national Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act has been contentious since regional forestry agreements were introduced in the 1990s.
An official review of the laws by the competition watchdog, Graeme Samuel, last week called on the Morrison government to abolish the exemption as part of a major overhaul of the EPBC Act.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/friday-analysis-gotcha-bob-brown-foundation-you-failed/
It was a “Gotcha” moment for Bob Brown. Despite throwing almost everything it could, his Bob Brown Foundation failed in its Federal Court bid to shut down the native timber industry in Tasmania. Source: Bruce Mitchell
The court in its wisdom ruled that Tasmania’s Regional Forest Agreement did not contradict federal laws and was therefore valid.
Gotcha.
The court also agreed that Tasmania’s RFA as well as a broader suite of protective measures (such as STT’s Swift Parrot Public Authority Management Agreement) existed in Tasmania to protect endangered species.
Gotcha again.
Tasmania’s Resources Minister Guy Barnett described the day as historic.
“We won. The forest industry has won. The workers of Tasmania have won. The Bob Brown Foundation has lost,” he said.
And here’s where the Forest & Wood Communities Australia may have just one more card to play in the “gotcha” moment.
FWCA has formally requested prosecutions of the Bob Brown Foundation by the work safety regulator WorkSafe Tasmania.
The requests, made under the Work Health and Safety Act 2012 (Tas), are for the reckless and dangerous actions engaged in by the foundation during workplace invasions in Tasmanian timber harvesting coupes in 2020.
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/bob-brown-foundations-great-forest-case-fails-3-0/
In its judgement, the Federal Court found that the Tasmania’s RFA is valid, rejecting the two legal arguments put forward by the Bob Brown Foundation.
In dismissing the foundation’s case, the Federal Court judges said that even though some of the provisions in the RFA were not legally binding, that did not mean the agreement itself wasn’t “in force”, and agreed with Mr Shaun McElwaine SC, acting for SST, who argued that “there is a broader suite of protective measures in force in Tasmania”.
The Federal Court’s judgement means that the BFF’s injunction to halt logging in 19 coupes in Tasmania also ended on Wednesday.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/bob-brown-fights-native-forest-case-163100200--spt.html
The Bob Brown Foundation is taking its legal battle to stop native forest logging in Tasmania to the High Court.
Tasmania's Liberal government, Labor opposition, peak forestry body and state-owned forestry company Sustainable Timber Tasmania (STT) all support the Federal Court's ruling.
Dr Brown has twice been arrested in recent months at separate protests at logging coupes in the island state's northeast.
The fix is in on the EPBC Act, but will they fix it?
Samuel’s report concluded Australia’s biodiversity is in decline and the law (the EPBC Act) “is not fit for current or future environmental challenges”.
The findings are no surprise to us. As ecologists, we’ve seen first hand how Australia’s nature laws and governance failure have permitted environmental degradation and destruction to the point that species face extinction. Even then, continued damage is routinely permitted.
And the findings aren’t news to many other Australians, who have watched wildlife and iconic places such as Kakadu and Kosciuszko national parks, and the Great Barrier Reef, decline at rates that have only accelerated since the act was introduced in 1999. Even globally recognisable wildlife, such as the platypus, now face a future that’s far from certain.
Biodiversity offsets, which aim to compensate for environmental damage by improving nature elsewhere, have for the most part been dreadfully ineffective. Instead they have been a tool to facilitate biodiversity loss.
Vital features of the standards Samuel recommends include:
- avoiding impacts on the critical habitat of threatened species
- avoiding impacts that could reduce the abundance of threatened species with already small and declining populations
- no net reduction in the population size of critically endangered and endangered species
- cumulative impacts must be explicitly considered for threatened species and communities
- offsets can only be used as a last resort, not as a routine part of business like they are at the moment.
Samuel’s report states the minister can make decisions that aren’t consistent with the National Environmental Standards — but only as a “rare exception”. He says these exceptions must be “demonstrably justified in the public interest”, and this justification must be published.
Samuel urges improved resourcing because to date, funding to protect species and the environment has been grossly inadequate.
Engaging experts is key to achieving Samuel’s long-overdue proposed reforms. He calls for the immediate creation of expert committees on sustainable development, Indigenous participation, conservation science, heritage, and water resources. This will help support the best available data collection to underpin important decisions.
For example, while we know logging and fires threaten greater gliders, there’s still no recovery plan for this iconic forest possum. And recent research suggests there are actually three — not simply one — species of greater glider. Suspected interactions between climate change, fire and logging, and unexplained severe population declines, means significant new effort must be invested to set out a clear plan for their recovery.
A key independent senator says he will not support a government plan to shift environmental approval powers to the states before the Coalition responds to a “scathing” review of conservation laws.
A majority of senators signalled they would block the bill last year and Patrick was among a crossbench group that tabled a dissenting report to an inquiry examining the legislation.
Patrick said on Friday that the government still had not addressed key concerns outlined in that dissenting report, which called for documents detailing the agreements between the states and the commonwealth as well as how state authorities would be accredited with the commonwealth to make decisions on its behalf.
Australia needs to cut emissions by 50% by 2030:
An expert report released last week warned Australia must cut emissions by 50% or more in the next decade if it’s to meet the Paris Agreement goals. Meeting this challenge will require everyone to do their bit.
In fact, a report last year found Australia’s big four banks loaned A$7 billion to 33 fossil fuel projects in the three years to 2019.
Globally too, investors are starting to wake up to the cost of nature loss. Last month, investors representing US$2.4 trillion (A$3.14 trillion) in assets asked HSBC to set emissions reduction targets in line with the Paris Agreement.
Climate change is not the only threat to global financial security. Nature loss – the destruction of plants, animals and ecosystems – poses another existential threat. Last year, the World Economic Forum reported more than half of the global economy relies on goods and services nature provides such as pollination, water and disease control.
It is nonsensical that various Australian governments send competing signals about whether, say, forests should be cleared or restored. And at the federal level, biodiversity loss and climate change come under separate portfolios, despite the issues being inextricably linked.
Last week, a major report was released highlighting grave failures in Australia’s environmental laws. The government’s response suggested it is not taking the threat seriously.
West Australia goes up:
February has already been a bad month for Perth. Bushfire has destroyed 81 homes and burned more than 10,000 hectares northeast of the city. Residents in the midst of a COVID-19 lockdown were told to abandon their homes and seek shelter as the bushfire raged.
The disaster calls to mind the unprecedented Black Summer fires that devastated eastern Australia last summer. But the tragedies are very different beasts.
Weather played a major role. The fire started during one of Perth’s typical summer easterly wind events, involving strong gusts, high temperatures and low relative humidity.
And as southwestern Australia continues to warm and dry under a changing climate, the period of bushfire risk is now getting longer. That means bushfires in spring and autumn will become more common.
And the shifting climate will bring make bushfires worse both in the west and across Australia. Bushfires may escape more quickly, burn more intensely, resist control and occur over a greater part of the year. Plants will have drier foliage, further increasing bushfire intensity.
Another warning – Bushfires getting worse:
https://aboutregional.com.au/bushfires-a-wake-up-call-for-the-future-say-anu-scientists/
A new study from a group of ANU scientists has painted a clear picture of future bushfire events, with a stark warning that more Black Summers are on the way because of climate change.
“Our new work highlights the strong evidence that south-east Australia’s climate has shifted, and that this type of fire weather is becoming more frequent, prolonged and severe.”
“When we look to the future, we see south-east Australia continuing to become even hotter because of human-caused climate change. On top of that, climate change is altering our patterns of year-to-year climate variability so that we expect extremely hot and dry years to occur more often.”
Professor Abram said while the current La Niña weather pattern of a wet winter followed by increased rainfall during summer is an indication that not every summer will be like 2019/20, their study showed a clear risk of more severe bushfires if the human-made effects of climate change are not addressed.
The Bureau of Meteorology has also warned that the La Niña weather pattern is already beginning to weaken.
This new work follows an open letter, released during the height of Australia’s Black Summer fire crisis and signed by more than 400 climate and fire experts from across the world, warning of the ways climate change is increasing bushfire risk in Australia.
Professor Abram said climate change indicators point towards a rapidly increasing risk of catastrophic bushfires beyond anything we have experienced in the past.
The research has been published in Communications Earth & Environment.
Mapping forest structure:
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-forests-world-d-team-analyses.html
Primeval forests are of great importance for biodiversity and global carbon and water cycling. The three-dimensional structure of forests plays an important role here because it influences processes of gas and energy exchange with the atmosphere, whilst also providing habitats for numerous species. An international research team led by the University of Göttingen has investigated the variety of different complex structures that can be found in the world's forests, as well as the factors that explain this diversity. The results have been published in Nature Communications.
They found that the global variability of forest structures can be explained to a large extent by the amount of precipitation and thus by the availability of water in the different ecosystems. Based on these findings and with the help of climate data, they were able to create maps of the world's forests showing the global variability of structural complexity.
Forest Media 29 January 2021
NSW’s Renewable Energy Plan lets in a trojan horse as one of the worlds 10 largest biomass plants, with the release of over 1.8 million tonnes of CO2 set to be fast-tracked. The European Union wakes up to the truth that forest biomass produces more greenhouse gas emissions than coal, oil and gas, and its not going away anytime soon.
Government invests in Koala surveys in Port Macquarie and Kempsey, with Kean repeating "If you want to protect koalas, you need to protect their habitat,". Peta join the fight, focusing on clearing of Koala habitat for livestock. Biobanking comes under attack as Lendlease begin clearing Koala habitat for its 1700-home Figtree Hill estate at Gilead. The Koala geome has been remapped making genetic work easier. Lismore’s Lorraine Vass awarded an OAM for Koala advocacy, and Tweed’s Jenny Hayes made Citizen of the year for her efforts.
Wild bees disappearing. The Black Summer bushfires are estimated to have killed 180 million birds, compared to domestic cats killing 61 million, and feral cats 300+ million, each year. While in 2020 Scomo refused to sign a global pledge endorsed by 64 countries committing them to reverse biodiversity loss, and in 2021 refused to join 50 countries committing to protecting 30 per cent of land and sea by 2030, at least there is a Federal inquiry into cats. The Guardian have done an environmental roundup. After sitting on it for 3 months, the Federal Government released Samuel’s damning review of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity (EPBC) Act. It identifies that Australia's natural environment and iconic places are in deep trouble and the laws inadequate, with the provisions for RFAs the most unacceptable and in need of immediate reform, including conformity with National Environmental Standards.
The Federal ALP are in a shambles, loggers welcome Tasmanian Julie Collins as a replacement for Fitzgibbon as shadow Forestry spokesperson, and Fitzgibbon’s insistence that Butler be dropped from climate and energy lead to him being replaced with Bowen and a greater emphasis on jobs. The Climate Council found that climate-driven extreme weather disasters have cost New South Wales $9 billion in the past decade, with increased burning or Gondwana rainforests and ‘flash droughts’ highlighted. Its not all bad, aside from wiping out flying foxes, possums and a host of others, heatwaves can also devastate insect pests and mistletoes. And trees can bounce back from drought, some trees can go into overdrive, though it’s the older trees that are worst affected.
A new interactive map of carbon sources and sinks worldwide is now publicly available on Global Forest Watch , it can be assessed from the global down to the local government level. Between 2001 and 2019, forests emitted an average of 8.1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year from deforestation and took up 16 billion tonnes. The conclusion: protecting primary and mature secondary forests today is most important for curbing climate change. Forest carbon trading is growing. Britain is wrestling with natural carbon solutions, while they intend planting trees, some say it would be better to encourage natural regeneration, and others remind them to account for the deforestation being undertaken to grow the soyabeans they use for stockfeed. America’s adaptions include planting genetically modified trees and species outside their natural ranges. Meanwhile Scomo is putting his fossil fools in charge of Australian emission reductions.
Another study says that over the next 40 years the risks of extreme wildfire will double in many countries, though the good news is that it only increases by 50% in Australia. In America there is a realisation that climate heating is driving increased burning, though there is similar debate to here on what to do about it.
Dailan Pugh
NSW’s Renewable Energy Plan fatally flawed:
Byron Shire Echo (print) 27 January 2021
https://issuu.com/explore?embed_cta=logo&embed_context=embed&embed_domain=www.echo.net.au
North coast conservationists have described NSW’s renewable energy plan as an ‘environmental tragedy’ owing to its intent to replace coal burning with native forests to fuel biomass power stations.
North Coast Environment Council (NCEC) say the NSW government is attempting to expand the burning of native forest under the pretence that it is renewable energy, which is ‘more polluting than coal’.
NCEC vice-president, Susie Russell, says, ‘Burning native forests for electricity will increase CO2 emissions and contribute to the rapidly worsening climate and biodiversity emergencies and take money from genuine renewable projects’.
… Mr. Pugh. ‘This Government has changed the rules to allow the burning of native forests for electricity, changed the rules to increase land clearing, and recently changed the logging rules for State Forests and private forests to halve the number of trees that need to be retained, while zoning 140,000 hectares of public coastal forests from Grafton to Taree for clearfelling’.
Northern Rivers Times (print p14)
https://issuu.com/heartlandmagazineaus/docs/heartlandnrt210125p0
North coast conservationists have described NSW’s renewable energy plan as fatally flawed and an environmental tragedy due to its intent to fast track the replacement of coal with local native forests as fuel for power stations under the pretence it is renewable energy.
“This means it is likely to receive Government funding as well as Renewable Energy Credits, and that the Government will “cut red tape” to speed up its approval” Mr. Pugh said.
“This needs to be seen in the context of the attempt by the Government last year to remove protections and allow koala habitat to be logged and cleared and to give 30 year logging permits. Temporarily thwarted by Liberal MP Catherine Cusack crossing the floor to vote against her government” Ms Russell said.
“The community needs to urgently speak up to stop the NSW Government from allowing this environmental disaster” Mr. Pugh said.
Biomass bad:
https://www.eubusiness.com/Members/WWF/forest-biomass/
A European Commission report concludes that most forest biomass produces more greenhouse gas emissions than coal, oil and gas.
Indeed the report, published yesterday, finds that most of the forest biomass currently being burnt for energy in the EU not only increases emissions compared to fossil fuels, but does so for decades - which would imperil the EU's net zero target for 2050 and chances of stopping runaway climate change.
The report also finds that:
- Only one of the 24 scenarios for forest biomass use that Commission scientists looked at - the limited use of 'fine' harvest residues - was judged likely to provide short term emissions reductions compared to fossil fuels without compromising biodiversity. And even in that case 'short term' means emissions would be higher than fossil fuels for as long as twenty years.
- What matters from a climate perspective is what is being burned, not how sustainably it was produced nor what's happening to forest carbon stocks overall. But this issue - any restriction on feedstocks - is precisely what is lacking from the Renewable Energy Directive currently. Nearly 800 scientists made exactly this point to EU legislators in 2018.
Koala Karaoke:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-23/koala-karaoke-planned-for-mid-north-coast/13081612”
The program would distribute audio devices to citizen scientists to record the bellows of male koalas in breeding season.
Rebecca Montague-Drake, from the Hastings-Macleay Koala Recovery Partnership, said she was working on the project with a colleague in the state's Southern Highlands.
"We're calling our program Koala Karaoke and the intent is, once we've done this initial legwork, it can be rolled out as a citizen science program where particularly interested people can be part of this and track koala populations over time," Dr Montague-Drake said.
Dr Montague-Drake said the group surveyed 264 sites across the two local government areas in the spring and summer of 2020.
"Some of the key results that we've seen so far found that 55 per cent of our sites were actually occupied by koalas," she said.
Koala research in the Hastings and Macleay will benefit from a $100,000 state government injection.
The funding will go towards the Koala Recovery Partnership's science-based survey of koala occupancy across the Port Macquarie and Kempsey area of regional koala significance.
The research includes tracking koala movements using specially trained dogs to sniff out scats on the ground as well as the use of acoustic monitoring devices to tap into koala calls.
Mr Kean said if we could better understand the movements and habitat of our koalas, we were better placed to protect them.
"If you want to protect koalas, you need to protect their habitat," he said.
"That's why we in NSW are determined to protect our habitat by increasing our national parks estate."
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2021/01/21/detection-dogs-help-track-koalas-near-port-macquarie/
… eating them out of house and home:
https://www.peta.org.au/news/koalas-australia-day-protest/
Ahead of the country’s national day, protesters dressed as one of Australia’s most iconic animals – the koala – rallied outside New South Wales’ premier’s office with signs that read, “It’s Me or Meat” and “Eating Meat Kills Koalas.”
The message comes after months of debate in the NSW parliament about land clearing laws and a recently released report that identified Australia as one of the world’s worst deforestation hotspots – largely because of the creation of pastureland for cattle and sheep.
… paying blood money:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-25/do-offsets-and-biobanking-protect-diversity/13085628
Biodiversity offsets have become a widely-accepted way to attempt to compensate for the destruction of endangered habitat and species in mining and other large scale development projects, but do they work?
Before a project gains approval under the NSW planning system, the extent of environmental damage – for instance, through vegetation clearing or damage to upland swamps by mine subsidence – is negotiated upfront.
Typically the proponent negotiates damage to a section of land by offsetting it with enhancements to another, usually larger parcels of similar land located nearby.
The process, known as biobanking, is regulated by both state and Federal governments.
This is happening at Gilead, on the south-west outskirts of Sydney, which is home to a vibrant chlamydia-free colony of koalas.
As part of the approval, Lendlease biobanked 21 hectares of koala habitat in the registered Appin West Offset area and land in the adjacent Noorumba Reserve Biobank site.
"The credits retired from these biobank sites will permanently protect and manage 64.65 hectares of koala habitat" at a cost of $857,800 over five years, the company's Mount Gilead Koala Plan of Management said.
Saul Deane from the Total Environmental Centre … said nominated biobanked areas were too far away, not correctly zoned, include areas already set aside for koala protection, and perhaps most concerning of all "aren't connected to existing wildlife corridors".
Another site using offsets and biobanking to achieve biodiversity conservation outcomes is the Dendrobium Coal Mine Extension Project in the Illawarra.
The Dendrobium mine extension is expected to result in damage to 25 upland swamps feeding the Special Areas of Sydney's drinking water catchment and result in the direct clearing of up to 28.5 hectares of native vegetation where threatened koalas, eastern pygmy-possums and Rosenberg's goannas live.
The 2016 South32 Illawarra Coal Strategic Biodiversity Offset plan says the company will transfer 598 hectares of a biobanking site at Maddens Plains into government ownership to compensate for biodiversity losses.
NSW Greens MP Cate Faehrmann … "I think people would be extremely alarmed to know that we have a system that allows developers or other proponents of big projects to simply pay money to be allowed to clear threatened species habitat," she said.
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/lendlease-housing-development-threat-koalas
A funeral procession for koalas was organised on January 27 by Extinction Rebellion and other supporters of the endangered native.
The protesters are campaigning for developer giant Lendlease, the New South Wales government and Campbelltown City Council to pull back from plans to bulldoze one of the country’s healthiest koala populations for a housing estate.
Lendlease has begun clearing trees at Gilead, in the Macarthur region, after the council approved work on the first stage of its 1700-home Figtree Hill estate in December.
… mapping their geome:
Today, many koala populations across Australia are in decline, due to habitat destruction caused by agriculture, urbanisation, droughts and bushfires intensified by climate change, and diseases such as chlamydia and koala retrovirus.
We have created a new “chromosome-length” sequence of the koala genome, which will allow researchers to study its three-dimensional structure and understand its evolution.
The modern koala is the only living representative of the marsupial family Phascolarctidae, a family that once included several genera and species. During the Oligocene and Miocene epochs (from 34 to 5 million years ago), the ancestors of modern koalas lived in rainforests and didn’t eat only leaves.
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-climbing-koala-family-tree.html
The koala is the latest species to have its DNA digitized and uploaded to the cloud.
"They are one of the things which make Australia Australia. They're very, very important from a tourism economy point of view—but they're actually listed as vulnerable to extinction on the IUCN Red List," says Parwinder Kaur, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Science at UWA and Director of DNA Zoo Australia.
The koala is so unique, says Parwinder, that its closest living relative is the wombat.
If that one food source is threatened, either by deforestation or by bushfire, the koala has nowhere else to go. Even where pockets of suitable trees are left, they may not be able to support a large enough population of koalas to maintain genetic diversity.
… OAMs and citizens of the year:
A conservationist who has spent decades fighting to protect koalas in the NSW Northern Rivers has been made a member of the Order of Australia.
Lorraine Vass, who was president of community group Friends of the Koala for 15 years, was acknowledged in this year’s Australia Day honours for significant service to wildlife conservation.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/01/koala-advocate-is-tweed-citizen-of-the-year/
Murwillumbah local Jenny Hayes was named the 2020 Tweed Shire Citizen of the Year at Tuesday’s Australia Day Awards and Citizenship ceremony.
The award recognises Ms Hayes’s community work over many years, particularly her dedication to the protection of the Tweed’s endangered koala population, culminating in the founding of Team Koala in 2009.
Wild bees declining:
The number of wild bee species recorded by an international database of life on Earth has declined by a quarter since 1990, according to a global analysis of bee declines.
They found a steep decline in bee species being recorded since 1990, with approximately 25% fewer species reported between 2006 and 2015 than before the 1990s.
Although this does not mean these species are extinct, it may indicate that some have become so scarce that they are no longer regularly observed in the wild.
Cats more devastating than bushfires, and they do it all the time:
While cats provide much-needed companionship, they are also genetically programmed killers. Cats have devastating effects on biodiversity, which is vital for food security. .. Estimates are that domestic cats kill 61 million birds a year and those becoming feral kill more than 300 million birds plus countless small mammals and reptiles. By contrast the recent Australian bushfires killed 180 million birds.
The same life support systems are provided to humanity by a stable climate, clean air, adequate water and the biodiversity of productive land. All are increasingly harmed by our failure to act on solid scientific evidence that we are harming them irrevocably.
A report card for each of these environmental life support systems would focus most attention on biodiversity because its importance is poorly understood and little is being done to maintain it. On most measureable environmental criteria, Australia’s environment is fast deteriorating.
By contrast, there is insufficient public or government understanding of the dire consequences of the continuing loss of plant, animal and reptile species from the direct damaging actions of industry, governments, and individuals.
Despite this, in 2020 the Morrison government refused to sign a global pledge endorsed by 64 countries committing them to reverse biodiversity loss because it was inconsistent with Australia’s policies presumably on resource development. And this year Australia was not one of 50 countries committed to protecting 30 per cent of land and sea by 2030.
Therefore, it was perhaps surprising that last year the Minister announced a Parliamentary Inquiry into the problem of feral and domestic cats in Australia. It will report later this year. The task of stopping the devastating effect of cats on biodiversity seems insurmountable but the inquiry may serve the purpose of showing government interest in the topic.
Reform will require skills not yet displayed by most governments for we might envisage thousands of incensed and devoted cat owners protesting by storming our “Capitol” hill in Canberra. In terms of attitudes and regulation little has changed since 1994.
The skills required are the sympathetic recognition of the companionship that cats provide many people particularly the lonely, while educating that every cat is a genetically programmed killer outside its home.
The Guardian’s environmental roundup:
The focus ahead of the November climate conference in Glasgow will increasingly be on what Australia – with no meaningful policies to reduce emissions from transport or major industry and which is still promising a “gas-led recovery” and approving new coal projects – will do before 2030 to live up to the commitment it made in Paris five years ago.
An interim report in July found Australia’s environment was in an unsustainable state of decline, and that the national conservation laws – the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act – were ineffective and needed substantial change.
Meanwhile, the auditor general’s office found the government and federal environment department were failing in their duty to protect nature.
Funding for environment programs was cut by more than a third after the Coalition was elected in 2013. Some was restored last year, much of it directed to “congestion busting” – increasing the pace at which industry and business development proposals were assessed.
It is still yet to release Samuel’s final report, which it has been sitting on since October.
Australia’s most globally recognisable natural landmark suffered through its third major coral bleaching event since 2016 last year. Most of the damage was near the southern end around Mackay – an area that was mostly left untouched in 2016 and 2017. It means reefs along the full length of the 2,300km wonder have been severely affected over the past five years.
The Ningaloo Coast and Shark Bay, both world heritage listed areas, are threatened by warming ocean temperatures that could affect ecosystems and fisheries that have not recovered since a marine heatwave in 2011.
The capriciousness of New South Wales politics was on full display last year when the deputy premier, John Barilaro, threatened, but failed to resign ostensibly over a policy designed to protect koalas, just months after the iconic species was devastated by the summer bushfires.
It is a similar story at state level. The NSW environment minister, Matt Kean, has set a target to double the state’s koala population by 2050, but forestry operations and mining proposals in koala and other threatened species’ habitat continue, and the state government has continued to weaken land-clearing laws.
Court decisions loom large over native forest logging in two Australian states this year, and an industry that spent much of last year under siege.
Major retailers are increasingly refusing to sell paper logged by agencies without forest stewardship council, or FSC, certification - and both the Tasmanian and the Victorian agencies have failed to get it.
It means the court decisions could have significant ramifications for plans to continue native forest logging at current levels until 2030, in Victoria’s case, or indefinitely in Tasmania. And they could have major ramifications for threatened species protection.
Australia’s failed federal environment laws:
It's official: Australia's natural environment and iconic places are in deep trouble. They can't withstand current and future threats, including climate change. And the national laws protecting them are flawed and badly outdated.
You could hardly imagine a worse report on the state of Australia's environment, and the law's capacity to protect it, than that released yesterday . The review of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity (EPBC) Act, by former competition watchdog chair Professor Graeme Samuel, did not mince words. Without urgent changes, most of Australia's threatened plants, animals and ecosystems will become extinct.
Federal environment minister Sussan Ley released the report yesterday after sitting on it for three months. And she showed little sign of being spurred into action by Samuel's scathing assessment.
… applying the new standards to existing Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs). Such a move could open up the forest debate in a way not seen since the 1990s
The Morrison government must overhaul Australia’s environmental laws, including establishing new independent bodies to take on responsibility for monitoring the environment and enforcing compliance with the law, a once-in-a-decade independent review has found.
The final report from the review of the laws finds the environment is suffering from two decades of failure by governments to improve protection systems meant to ensure the survival of the country’s unique wildlife.
In a major shift, Samuel also called on the government to abolish the effective exemption from environment laws granted to all native forest logging covered by regional forestry agreements between the federal and state governments.
Samuel said the government would be accepting “the continued decline of our iconic places and the extinction of our most threatened plants, animals and ecosystems” if it shied away from the fundamental reforms recommended by the review.
https://epbcactreview.environment.gov.au/resources/final-report/recommendations
Recommendation 15
Increase the level of environmental protection afforded in Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs).
- The Commonwealth should immediately require, as a condition of any accredited arrangement, States to ensure that RFAs are consistent with the National Environmental Standards.
- In the second tranche of reform, the EPBC Act should be amended to replace the RFA 'exemption' with a requirement for accreditation against the National Environmental Standards, with the mandatory oversight of the Environment Assurance Commissioner.
The EPBC Act does not specify the environmental benchmarks against which the RFA must be consistent for the exemption to apply.
The Review considers that the environmental considerations under the RFA Act are weaker than those imposed elsewhere for MNES and do not align with the assessment of significant impacts on MNES required by the EPBC Act. Submissions from stakeholders indicated concern around the effectiveness of the RFAs to protect threatened species that rely on the forest areas covered by RFAs. There is also great concern that the controls on logging within forests have not adequately adapted to pressures on the ecosystem such as climate change or bushfire impacts (WS 2020).
There is insufficient Commonwealth oversight of RFAs and the assurance and reporting mechanisms are weak…
… The EPBC Act does not require reporting on the environmental outcomes of activities conducted under RFAs. The Review considers that Commonwealth oversight of environmental protections under RFAs is insufficient and immediate reform is needed. The National Environmental Standard for MNES should be immediately applied and RFAs should be subject to robust Commonwealth oversight.
Of all streamlining processes provided for under the EPBC Act, the Review considers that the provisions for RFAs are the most unacceptable and require immediate reform. Specifically, RFAs should be required to demonstrate consistency with the National Environmental Standards and have greater Commonwealth oversight.
In the immediate term, and as a condition of accreditation (Chapter 7), States and Territories should ensure, and the Commonwealth expect, RFAs be consistent with National Environmental Standards.
Following this immediate step, the RFA provisions in the EPBC Act should be amended as part of the second tranche of comprehensive legislative reforms recommended by this Review. These amendments should replace the current exemption with the ability for the RFA process to be accredited where it can be demonstrated to be consistent with the National Environmental Standards.
Federal ALP promises more of the same:
The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) congratulates Member for Franklin Julie Collins MP on her appointment today as Shadow Agriculture Minister, which includes the forestry portfolio.
“As a Tasmanian MP representing an electorate where forestry is a major industry, I have no doubt Ms Collins understands its importance,” Mr Violante said.
“AFPA has a positive working relationship with the Federal Labor Party and its MPs and Senators, and I have no doubt this will continue with Ms Collins in this important role.”
For the most part, it’s not the shadow ministers who’ve been coming under fire – leaving aside Joel Fitzgibbon’s attacks on climate spokesman Mark Butler.
The most significant and controversial of the changes is moving Butler out of climate and energy, replacing him with Chris Bowen.
Albanese previously insisted he wouldn’t shift Butler. He casts the Bowen move in terms of greater emphasis on jobs.
But some may reckon Labor has become spooked on climate policy just when it’s in tune with the times, as the Biden administration, labelling climate change an “existential crisis”, advances very robust policies.
Fitzgibbon has achieved the shift of Butler but he will go on stirring. Asked about Butler, he said: “A change of jockey alone will not be enough. We really do need to change the policy trajectory and to recalibrate.”
Paying for climate inaction:
https://www.miragenews.com/new-report-nsw-takes-massive-financial-hit-from-climate-change/
A NEW REPORT from the Climate Council has found that climate-driven extreme weather disasters have cost New South Wales $9 billion in the past decade, and it is only going to get worse.
The Hitting Home: The Compounding Costs of Climate Inaction report says all the types of extreme weather events that affected NSW in 2020—bushfires, heatwaves, drought, storms, coastal erosion, and flooding—will worsen due to climate change.
- Climate change is increasing fire danger across NSW, including in ancient Gondwana rainforests, which were previously considered too wet to burn, but were razed during Black Summer.
- ‘Flash droughts’ are a newly recognised phenomenon affecting NSW—a sudden onset and rapid intensification of drought conditions over a period of weeks or months.
… benefiting from heatwaves:
In the complex world of plant ecology, however, heatwaves aren’t always a bad thing. Rolling days of scorching temperatures can kill off plant pests, such as elm beetles and mistletoe, and even keep their numbers down for years.
In the days following Black Saturday, botanists, horticulturists and arborists noticed a curious heatwave side-effect: the foliage of native Australian mistletoes (Amyema miquelii and A. pendula species) growing on river red gums lost their green colour and turned grey.
During the Black Saturday heatwave, many mistletoes growing on river red gums died. The gums not only survived, but when record rains came in 2010, they thrived. A decade on, the mistletoe numbers are gradually increasing, but they’re still not high enough to threaten the survival of older, significant red gums.
Moreton Bay figs are prone to insect infestations of the psyllid, Mycopsylla fici, which can seriously defoliate trees under certain conditions.
In Melbourne, psyllid numbers that were high before Black Saturday fell to undetectable levels in the following month.
… the drought bounce:
Droughts can stunt forest growth, kill trees and even change how forests function, or what species they’re made up of.
What we found suggests that some trees could rebound from difficult periods with more vitality than we might have imagined, which could be good news for forests facing a drier future.
Scots pine … We found that even trees of the same age and species growing in the same place took very different lengths of time to recover from drought. On average, the rate of tree growth took four years to recover to levels that might have been expected if no drought had occurred, with most trees taking between one and six years – though some trees still hadn’t recovered this growth rate nine years later.
Fast growing trees bounced back quicker, but larger trees took a longer time to achieve growth rates that would have been expected if no drought had happened. …the growth of some trees went into overdrive, and these trees actually started growing faster than in our modelled scenario where no drought had occurred. … Compensatory growth happens elsewhere in nature – it’s been recorded in species of fish, grasses and moths.
Forests still sequestering more carbon, but we have to stop clearing and logging releasing it:
https://www.miragenews.com/worldwide-forest-carbon-sources-and-sinks-mapped-in-unprecedented-detail/
A new interactive map of carbon sources and sinks from forests around the world confirm that forests take up twice as much carbon as they release. In a new study published in Nature Climate Change Wageningen researchers cooperated with an international team to combine numerous databases with forests measurements on land and from satellite observations. The resulting new zoomable world map reveals forest carbon changes in the last two decades ranging from forest stand scale, the level of communities, provinces, countries to an entire continent.
The forest carbon flux map, now publicly available on Global Forest Watch, shows that between 2001 and 2019, forests emitted an average of 8.1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year from deforestation and other disturbances, while (re)growing forests took up 16 billion tonnes. These substantial amounts of global carbon indicate that forests are net carbon deposits. Forests absorb twice as much carbon as they emit each year, says Prof. Martin Herold of Wageningen University & Research. “But it also means that we cannot miss those sinks in global climate control”. He is referring to the fact that in 2019 alone, the world lost 11.9 million hectares of tree cover: “Healthy forests, soils and oceans help keeping carbon sinks in function. We cannot afford to lose the CO2 absorption capacity of forests”, he adds.
The downloadable underlying data can be used by everyone: regional and national governments, the EU, or environmental NGOs and social organisations. For instance to give a complete picture in the condition and changes of forests in an area.
[For NSW the data show (note that a lot of this is 2019 fires), this is also available at the local Government level]
From 2001 to 2019, New South Wales lost 1.66Mha of tree cover, equivalent to a 13% decrease in tree cover since 2000, and 441Mt of CO₂ emissions.
In New South Wales, the top 11 regions were responsible for 53% of all tree cover loss between 2001 and 2019. Clarence Valley had the most tree cover loss at 167kha compared to an average of 10.9kha.
In 2010, New South Wales had 11.8Mha of natural forest, extending over 15% of its land area. In 2019, it lost 910kha of natural forest, equivalent to 247Mt of CO₂ of emissions.
From 2013 to 2019, 94% of tree cover loss in New South Wales occurred within natural forest. The total loss within natural forest was equivalent to 324Mt of CO2 emissions.
The world's forests are still soaking up billions of tonnes of planet-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) every year, a global study has found, despite millions of hectares being burned and cleared for agriculture.
The findings show that forests remain a key brake on the pace of climate change by locking away large amounts of CO2 from industry, power stations and cars even after decades of destruction.
But the analysis shows that some forests, especially in South-east Asia and the Amazon, are in trouble, becoming major sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
"Over the past 20 years, forests across South-east Asia have collectively become a net source of carbon emissions due to clearing for plantations, uncontrolled fires and drainage of peat soils," co-authors Nancy Harris and David Gibbs of WRI said in a blog post.
According to the study, the Amazon now locks away a net 100 million tonnes of CO2, or roughly twice Singapore's annual CO2 emissions, but is also a huge source of emissions. Of the world's three largest tropical rainforests, only the Congo Basin in Africa remains a strong net carbon sink, sequestering 600 million tonnes more CO2 a year than it emits.
“Unlike secondary forests or fast-rotation pine or eucalyptus plantations, harvesting in old-growth forests releases CO2 that has taken centuries to accumulate — carbon that, once lost, is irrecoverable in our lifetime,” the paper’s authors write.
Forests lapsing into net producers of carbon emissions is terrible news for the planet, but it is also bad news for the forests themselves. Climate change is known to contribute to intense fire seasons and prolonged droughts that can prove fatal to trees.
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/01/21/forests-absorb-twice-as-much-carbon-as-they-emit-each-year/
Overall, the data show that keeping existing forests standing remains our best hope for maintaining the vast amount of carbon forests store and continuing the carbon sequestration that, if halted, will worsen the effects of climate change.
While planting new trees (the right way) or letting them regrow naturally can play a role in mitigating climate change (and helping communities adapt to its effects), the new data show that forests that have sprouted up in the past 19 years represent less than 5% of the current global forest carbon sink.
Although important to give these young forests the chance to grow into old ones, protecting primary and mature secondary forests today is most important for curbing climate change.
… Scomo backs false prophet to hasten Armageddon:
Critics have raised concerns about whether some appointees to the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee may have a potential conflict of interest that could leave its decisions open to legal challenge.
The overhaul of the committee follows the government indicating it plans to expand the industries that can access its $2.5bn emissions reduction fund, including opening it to carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects by oil and gas companies.
The new chair of the committee is David Byers, a former senior executive at the Minerals Council of Australia, BHP and the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, who now runs CO2CRC, an industry and government-funded CCS research body.
Byers is joined by the economist Dr Brian Fisher, a former head of the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics who has authored reports warning of the economic impact of emissions reduction targets and been accused of overestimating the cost of combating climate change.
… forest carbon trading growing:
https://www.greenbiz.com/article/why-forest-based-carbon-trading-poised-go-mainstream
Ten years after it dropped off the sustainability radar, forest-based carbon trading is finally poised to get off the ground for real.
The international market for climate finance is projected to reach $640 billion this year, according to NatWest Markets, and companies such as Walmart, Amazon, Nestlé, Alibaba and Mahindra Group are pledging to slash emissions and invest in nature as a carbon sink. Demand for forest carbon offsets could outstrip supply by 2025, carbon prices could quadruple by 2030 and offset values could be worth $125 billion to $150 billion a year by 2050.
Voluntary carbon trading is about to go mainstream, and we believe it can have a key role in safeguarding the future of our planet.
Britain grappling with natural climate solutions:
A key part of combating climate change is tackling deforestation, which accounts for 8 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. If it were a country, deforestation would rank third in CO2 emissions, after China and the US. Forests are vital carbon sinks and preserving them is critical to cool our planet, and to safeguard the rights of the local communities and indigenous peoples who depend on and defend their forests.
The UK has announced a series of restorative tree-planting programmes at home, but we still play a large role in their destruction abroad
In just 13 years, an area almost double the size of the UK – around 43 million hectares – was wiped out due to deforestation, according to the WWF. These figures come weeks after a joint investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Greenpeace Unearthed, ITV News, and the Guardian found that one million tonnes of soya used by UK livestock farmers to produce chicken, and other food, could be linked to deforestation in the Amazon. So, although pictures of burning rainforests may seem far removed, these statistics clearly demonstrate the UK’s role in driving this destruction.
When trees are felled and either burned or left to rot, the carbon that was stored inside them enters the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Preserving existing mature trees can offer greater benefits to the climate than felling and replanting – as well as being rich in biodiversity, mature trees sequester far more CO2 than younger ones, offering irreplaceable ecological functions.
Though the government can be commended for their tree-planting initiatives, the threat to those rich forest habitats that already exist must not be ignored. If the government wants to lead by example, it must step up and go further to address the UK’s international contribution to climate change, and provide proposals that live up to the scale of the challenge. As the UK prepares to host COP26 this year, we must act to prevent the import of habitat destruction, and encourage other major economies to implement ambitious plans, to achieve a true global green recovery.
https://www.intelligentliving.co/restore-forests-let-trees-plant-themselves/
Ecosystems have been growing themselves for hundreds of millions of years, and forests that plant themselves are better and most diverse. That’s why a group of environmental advocates in the UK from a charity called Rewilding Britain say we should let nature do its thing instead of manually mass-planting trees. Natural dispersal of seeds boosts biodiversity, costs a lot less, and may even sequester more carbon.
People have this mindset that woodland expansion means planting trees, and that’s across the conservation sector as well. Nature is pretty good at doing this itself. Natural regeneration brings multiple potential benefits – you get the right tree in the right place, you don’t get the potential carbon emissions you get with planting on peaty soils, and you boost the complexity of the ecosystem, which builds resilience. Natural regeneration also helps species to shift and adapt to climate change. There’s growing evidence that it can sequester more carbon, although there isn’t a broad research base yet because natural regeneration is not on people’s radars.
Adaption the American way:
… GMOS trees set to be released into the wild:
https://watershedsentinel.ca/articles/into-the-wild-gmos-head-for-the-forest/
The first genetically engineered forest tree is now being considered for release into the wild. The US Department of Agriculture is now assessing a proposal from university researchers to plant a GE American chestnut tree in forests. The researchers have genetically engineered the tree to tolerate the blight Cryphonectria parasitica that decimated American chestnut populations in Canada and the US in the 1900’s.
This GE tree is engineered with a gene from wheat, key to creating the blight-tolerant trait, as well as genetic material from four other species: a plant related to mustard, two different bacteria, and a plant virus. Together, the use of this new genetic material has resulted in the “Darling 58” GE American chestnut tree.
… and replanting for climate adaptation:
Mattsson explained while climate change is already having an impact on the province’s plant species, it could open new habitat for ponderosa pine.
Ponderosa pine, known as western yellow pine (Py), is a dominant tree species in hot, dry environments like the southern interior of the province and south of the border into Washington state. It is also highly desirable and commercially important as a building material for homes, furniture and more.
“The ministry is adjusting seed planting zones to accommodate for global warming,” said Mattsson. “Changes are already happening. But while this is a risk, it is also an opportunity for ponderosa pine.”
[Federica Di Palma] “These tools will ensure that we are capitalizing on trees that will flourish in a hotter climate to enhance harvest yields in the future and help to secure B.C.’s forest industry.”
Droughts and fires increasing:
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/extreme-drought-and-fire-risk-may-double-by-2060/
One study has found that human numbers exposed to the hazard of extreme drought are likely to double in the decades to come, as global heating bakes away the groundwater and limits annual snowfall.
Another team of researchers says the risks of extreme wildfire could also rise twofold in the next 40 years in the Mediterranean, southern Africa, eastern North America and the Amazon. In those places already severely scorched by frequent fire − western North America, equatorial Africa, south-east Asia and Australia − hazards could rise by 50%.
And a third, separate study warns that global temperature rise will shift the patterns of rainfall around the tropics − with the consequent risks to tropical crop harvests and to equatorial ecosystems such as rainforest and savannah.
… all the rage in America:
https://www.laprogressive.com/pacific-northwest-forests/
We know that climate change worsens the conditions that encourage wildfire, like drought and hotter, drier weather. We also know that logging releases carbon stored in trees, plants, and soil, further driving climate change, and replaces native forests with monoculture plantations, increasing fire risk. It’s a vicious cycle: logging increases fire risk and logging drives climate change, which drives wildfires; wildfires lead to more logging, which increases future fire risk and further drives climate change, and so on.
On the other hand, research has shown that the iconic forests of the Pacific Northwest have the potential to store more carbon than almost any other place on earth. Though logging interests would have you believe otherwise, burned forests are great at storing carbon, too. But neither is true if these forests are logged — before or after wildfire.
Pacific Northwest forests offer humanity another hedge against the climate crisis, but not if we allow them to be “salvaged” by corporations. We can no longer afford to view our forests as mere sources of timber — instead, we must enact policies based on science and traditional ecological knowledge that will prioritize carbon storage and ecological over short-term profit.
https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article248698865.html
Despite the terrible forest fires the West, particularly California and Oregon, suffered this past year, several environmentalists’ groups have filed a notice of intent to sue the U.S government to block approximately 11,000 miles of fuel breaks. They contend this would violate the Endangered Species Act in what they call a misguided effort to slow the advance of wildfires in six Western states.
They say the fuel breaks, in conjunction with proposed widespread clear-cutting, herbicide spraying, grazing and prescribed fire could threaten the survival of more than 100 rare wildlife species across potentially more than 340,000 square miles of federal land.
These groups fail to accept well recognized and scientifically documented evidence that the Western forests are unhealthy, overly dense and carry a huge fuel load.
https://www.denverpost.com/2021/01/24/colorado-forest-management-wildfire-drought/
Federal officials entrusted with managing millions of acres of forest in Colorado and surrounding states say they’re facing accelerated decline driven by climate warming, insect infestation, megafires and surging human incursions.
Yet this work has lagged, particularly under President Donald Trump, who tilted forest management toward logging extraction of profitable volumes of timber, mining and energy development, rather than the often-costly selective thinning that ecologists recommend to replicate nature’s resilient, multi-species mosaics. Trump also asserted, as ruinous wildfires ravaged federally-managed forests in California, a need to “rake” forests — the thinning that ecologists recommend — as part of his political argument that poor forest health was more to blame than climate warming in causing megafires.
Forest Media 22 February 2021
Forestry Corporation are still fighting to over-turn the EPA’s site specific logging conditions for burnt forests, inadvertently admitting that just 850 direct jobs are related to public native forests before publicly denying it. The combination of drought and fire has jeopardised the recovery of many forests. Forestry have had a bonus from salvage logging of plantations, though they too will struggle to recover with before tax losses of $15 million per annum going forward (despite tens of millions in additional subsidies). Loggers are objecting to being classed as landclearing in WWF report – though the NSW Government calls it land clearing too.
Koalas are picky eaters though prefer the same flat fertile land we have mostly cleared and logged – but watch out for dropbears. New bait has been released for feral pigs. Feds failed threatened species plan due for renewed failure. As a bushfire recovery measure the Feds are funding a biomass pellet plant on Kangaroo Island.
Indonesia shifts rainforest deforestation front for palm oil to West Papua, aided by a regulatory mess and fostering community division. Another article emphasises that as it is the forests that are standing now that can sequester carbon most effectively in the near term so it is these we most need to protect – this is proforestation. One study finding if currently regenerating secondary forests were allowed to grow worldwide, they could sequester 120 billion metric tons of carbon by 2100—the equivalent of 12 years of global fossil fuel emissions.
Dailan Pugh
Forestry in the spotlight:
… attempt to overturn EPA’s site specific logging conditions, as they admit to NSW’s native State Forests supporting just 850 direct jobs – before publicly denying it:
The state-owned logging company has warned in a letter to the environmental watchdog that hundreds of forestry jobs are at imminent risk because of the lack of available timber following last summer's bushfires.
In a letter to the Environment Protection Authority last September, the acting head of Forestry Corporation and a Regional NSW official said the creation of so-called site-specific operating conditions for hardwood forests affected by fire had been "challenging" and were not providing enough supply to meet industry needs.
"The restricted timber supply means significant impacts on the hardwood industry are now imminent, with only a few weeks remaining before job losses are expected," the letter by Anshul Chaudhary, Forestry Corp's acting chief executive office and Gary Barnes, the department secretary, said.
Last January, for instance, Forestry Corp told the EPA "direct employment" totalled 290 for the Eden/South Coast/Tumbarumba area and 560 for the North Coast.
In response, a senior EPA official told a colleague in an email the information provided by Forestry Corp was "not useful and still gives us no ability for us to prioritise areas or what we do [post bushfires]. It's a bit disingenuous."
A spokeswoman on Monday sought to qualify those figures saying they related to those employed by Forestry Corp, and not the wider industry.
"The industry directly employs 4360 people in northern NSW and towns in southern NSW like Eden, Tumut and Tumbarumba are heavily reliant on the timber industry for a significant proportion of their employment," the Forestry Corp spokeswoman said.
"The fires provide a catalyst for an urgent rethink of the future of our public native forests across the South Coast and more broadly in NSW," Mr Field said.
Susie Russell, a spokeswoman for the North East Forest Alliance, said there was no sign of a major decline in logging operations, with Forestry Corp shifting some operations from state forests to plantations.
… logging unburnt forests:
In NSW, remaining unburned forests are being logged in spite of an estimated 25% loss of primary koala habitat. Around 60% of the areas zoned for timber production were affected by the fires but logging resumed with only minor changes to conditions.
With no let-up in the logging of native forests, bulldozing of remaining habitat for major urbanisation projects, infrastructure combined with ongoing failure by governments to adopt any policies of habitat protection, the koala is left in dire straits.
Identified as one of the ten most vulnerable species to climate change, globally, by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List and the Australian Academy of Science, governments continue to reject developing policy to establish climate change refugia.
The number of environmentally concerned Australians is growing exponentially. It’s almost impossible to understand or make sense of the complete lack of attention by governments and major parties to the most significant issues of our time.
Campaigns to save koalas need to focus on the outcomes of climate change and biodiversity loss.
… some forests struggling to recover:
But ecological experts from Griffith and the Australian National University, who are conducting a meta-study into research on last year’s devastating bushfires, warn that despite a break in drought conditions the appearances of recovery can be deceiving.
The drought that preceded the record-breaking blazes was so intense that forests’ capacity to bounce back to health has been greatly reduced.
The fires burnt over such a vast range of more than 10 million hectares there were few unburnt refuges from which plants and animals can emerge to repopulate the fire grounds.
Logging has also taken a toll, by reducing the overall condition of the forest estate, removing the ecologically significant large trees and disrupting old growth forest.
Ongoing salvage logging in burnt forest also takes a heavy toll on soil health and streams as well as removing logs that are important habitat for native animals.
"There’s a big risk now the wetter forests across huge swathes of Victoria and southern NSW won’t be able to recover," Professor Lindenmayer said.
In fact, most tree species in wet eucalypt forests re-sprout from seeds. The lack of big trees, which are only found in old growth forests, is a key risk to forest recovery.
Big trees produce the vast majority of a species’ seeds, pollen, flowers and nectar, as well as create the habitat relied on by more than 300 species of vertebrate animals.
Trees in dry eucalypt forests, which are adapted to hotter and more frequent fires, don’t shed seeds like their relatives in the wetter forests - they re-sprout shoots from their trunks - which is known as epicormic growth.
But in some places even these trees are struggling now.
"There is a limit to the number of times it can be cooked and re-sprout. Younger, smaller trees are particularly vulnerable," Professor Lindenmayer said.
… Forestry unable to recover as mega-losses loom:
State-owned Forestry Corporation says last summer's record bushfires scorched half of the native forest estate and a quarter of its softwood plantations, setting the agency on track for a sharp drop in revenue in coming years.
The corporation's latest annual report for 2019-20 showed revenue from hard and softwood operations was slightly higher than previous years but mostly because of urgent operations to salvage timber from burnt forests.
While fiscal years 2020 and 2021 still had "fire-salvage volumes, revenue is set to decline by $100 million or 25 per cent [from about $425.2 million] from fiscal year 2022 onwards," it said in its Statement of Corporate Intent.
The volume drop in sawlogs and fire-related expenses mean "the earnings drop to a deficit position", it said. An accompanying chart put projected losses before interest and tax at about $15 million in each of the three years from 2022 to 2024.
The widespread blazes have revived the long-standing issue of how much native logging is subsidised and whether it should even continue in state forests where habitat for koalas, greater gliders, owls and other wildlife was suddenly significantly reduced.
“It is madness that taxpayers would pay hundreds of millions of dollars to prop up the unnecessary destruction of our native forests and wildlife from logging," Mr Field said.
Loggers object to being classed as land clearing:
Leading figures in the forest industry have hit out at the WWF for what they say is "misleading commentary" regarding deforestation in Tasmania.
A WWF report, released this week, found that new deforestation hotspots were emerging in Tasmania.
Eastern Australia was identified in the report as a so-called deforestation front - making Australia the only developed nation in the world to be included in the list of 24 fronts, which are defined by a significant concentration of deforestation hotspots.
Institute of Foresters of Australia president Bob Gordon said timber production involved harvesting and then regenerating areas of forest, so it didn't cause permanent removal of tree cover. "Therefore it cannot be classed as deforestation as per the internationally accepted definition of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations," he said.
WWF conservation scientist Martin Taylor said "knee-high regrowth doesn't a forest make" and "you've got to let about 300 years go by and then you might get forest".
Koala notes:
But if you try to touch a wild koala, it can viciously lash out, says Alistair Melzer, a koala ecologist at Central Queensland University.
"There's a cooling effect of tree trunks, so on hot days you'll have koalas hugging tree trunks, sitting in the cool," Dr de Villiers says.
So while in some areas there may only be one species of eucalypt they regularly eat, in others it can be more.
And koalas also nibble on other trees including wattle, casuarina, pine trees, camphor laurel, paperbarks and brush box, or tasty new shoots on paper bark trees (Melaleuca).
They pick and choose leaves according to how juicy and nutritious they are, which can depend on the area's soil moisture levels and the season, Dr de Villiers says.
But koalas don't only need suitable trees to feed on at night. They also need trees that give them good shelter while resting and digesting during the day.
During droughts and bushfires they also seek water from sources like dams, swimming pools, bird baths, water bowls and even hand-held bottles.
"When you see koalas going to water bowls and swimming pools or approaching people, they're in distress."
As ecologist Matthew Crowther from the University of Sydney says, koalas like fertile flat land — which is also popular with humans.
As a result, the animals often live in urban environments, on the outskirts of big cities or sometimes in the middle of small towns.
You may have heard the koala has a relative, called Thylarctos plummetus, that "drops" down from as much as 8 metres on unsuspecting tourists and bites them on the neck.
New bait for feral pigs:
One of the nation's most destructive pests, there are an estimated 24 million pigs spread over 45 per cent of Australia's mainland, causing significant environmental damage
"Sodium nitrite is a food preservative which is safely used in low concentrations - people and most animals can tolerate modest amounts of sodium nitrate, but pigs lack the protective enzyme that is present in other species," Dr Staples said.
"HOGGONE renders pigs unconscious before they die, typically within one to three hours, without suffering."
It breaks down very quickly in the environment, leaving no toxic residues.
Feds failed threatened species plan due for renewal:
Australia’s Threatened Species Strategy — a five-year plan for protecting our imperilled species and ecosystems — fizzled to an end last year. A new 10-year plan is being developed to take its place, likely from March.
It comes as Australia’s list of threatened species continues to grow. Relatively recent extinctions, such as the Christmas Island forest skink, Bramble Cay melomys and smooth handfish, add to an already heavy toll.
The midterm report in 2019 found only 35% of the priority species (14 in total) had improving trajectories compared to before the strategy (pre-2015). This number included six species — such as the brush-tailed rabbit-rat and western ringtail possum — that were still declining, but just at a slower rate.
In fact, 2018 research found agricultural activities affect at least 73% of invertebrates, 82% of birds, 69% of amphibians and 73% of mammals listed as threatened in Australia. Urban development and climate change threaten up to 33% and 56% of threatened species, respectively.
Protecting our natural heritage is an investment, not a cost. Now is the time to seize this opportunity.
Feds fund Kangaroo Island biomass plant:
http://biomassmagazine.com/articles/17662/proposed-wood-pellet-plant-in-australia-awarded-5-5m-grant
Australia-based Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers has been awarded a $5.5 million bushfire recovery grant from the Australian government to support the development of a biomass pellet plant and small-scale biomass power plant.
Once operational, the pellet plant will be capable of accepting fire-damaged logs and any other logs that cannot be sold into export markets. Pellets produced at the plant are expected to be exported using the chip-handling facility at the proposed Kangaroo Island Seaport at Smith Bay.
The project will also include a small-scale power plant to support the pellet mill. That facility will be capable of dispatching base-load power to the electricity grid.
Additional information is available on the KIPT website.
Indonesia’s regulatory mess and community division facilitates clearing rainforests for palm oil:
JAKARTA — Indigenous people in Indonesia’s easternmost Papua province are protesting against a company that’s preparing to raze their ancestral forest for a plantation megaproject plagued by allegations of irregularities and wrongdoing.
If developed in full, the Tanah Merah project would result in the clearance of 280,000 hectares (692,000 acres) of the third-largest stretch of rainforest on the planet, to be replaced with several contiguous oil palm estates run by various companies — some of which are owned by unknown investors hiding behind anonymously held firms in the Middle East.
Palm oil, used in everything from snack foods and cosmetics to biofuels, is one of Indonesia’s leading export commodities. But its production is associated with a range of problems, from climate change and wildfires to labor rights abuses and land grabbing.
Some of the permits for the project were signed by a politician who was serving out a prison sentence for corruption. Others were allegedly falsified, with a signature of a high-ranking official said to have been forged on key documents.
Egedius himself has reported receiving death threats over his resistance to IAL’s plans. Now, he says, the company’s presence has divided the Auyu, with some people continuing to oppose the company and others supporting it.
“Before the company came, we lived a peaceful life,” Egedius said. “But because of its presence in our ancestral territory, we have become enemies with our own brothers and sisters.”
A 2019 government audit found that 81% of Indonesia’s oil palm plantations are in breach of a range of regulations, including by not holding the required permits and encroaching into areas designated as protected.
Much of the areas earmarked for plantations are still forested. Madani data show there were still 1.7 million hectares (4.2 million acres) of rainforests within existing oil palm concessions in the Papua region that have yet to be torn down. Revoking the permits could prevent the forests from being cleared.
Promotion of proforestation as the most urgent necessity to begin reducing atmospheric carbon:
https://www.ehn.org/forest-carbon-sequestration-2649749746/particle-8
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 1.5°C special report released in 2018 found that, in addition to dramatic emissions reductions, humans must quickly find a way to remove a tremendous amount of existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in order to stay below a 1.5°C rise in average global temperatures and avoid the worst climate change related harms.
But as talks of massive tree planting ventures get under way, Leverett and other researchers are attempting to make an important distinction. They say that, while tree planting campaigns can play a role in climate change mitigation, it is the forests that are standing now that can sequester carbon most effectively in the near term.
They also warn that these invaluable assets are being squandered as forests are cleared worldwide.
In 2019, Moomaw and his co-authors published a scientific review finding that the capacity of forested lands to sequester carbon dioxide could be increased significantly. They say the fastest way to do this is through what they call "proforestation," the natural growth and development of standing forest ecosystems.
They devised the term because, unlike forest-based interventions currently being evaluated for their climate change mitigation capacity, such as reforestation or afforestation, there was not a succinct term that scientists and policymakers could use to discuss the carbon value of naturally developing, undisturbed forests.
"Proforestation will sequester more total carbon in the near term, when…it's most important to do it, than anything else that is out there," he said.
One reason for this is that newly planted forests may take "decades to a century before they sequester carbon dioxide in substantial quantities," according to the proforestation review.
Another study found that if currently regenerating secondary forests were allowed to grow worldwide, they could sequester 120 billion metric tons of carbon by 2100—the equivalent of 12 years of global fossil fuel emissions.
Any distraction from forest preservation goals is particularly consequential right now as global tree cover is lost at a rate of about 78,000 square miles per year, according to Mikaela Weisse, a project manager at Global Forest Watch. This is an area about the size of Nebraska. Old, intact forests, those that are relatively free from industrial extraction and typically have high carbon sequestration and biodiversity values, are being lost to cutting and fragmentation at a pace of about 80 square miles per day.
The consequences of these losses include both the forfeiture of future sequestration potential and also the release of ancient carbon stores back into the atmosphere. When a forest is cut, it becomes a greenhouse gas emitter instead of a sink.
Nurse logs, fallen, slowly decaying trees, serve multiple ecological purposes, including a special habitat for more trees to grow and a moisture repository to cool the forest and sustain it through drought. Snags are another classic old forest feature, long dead trees, still standing, providing nutrients and habitat. Unlike the bulk of extracted wood products, researchers have found these features can hold on to their carbon for hundreds of years in temperate regions.
Forest ecology influences rates of decomposition and also the ultimate destination of stored carbon. Interconnected systems of biological decomposers such as bacteria, fungi, and invertebrates facilitate the transfer of carbon from decaying material into the soil.
Carbon is still released to the atmosphere when woody material decays in a forest, but Moomaw and his team report that in old, intact forests, more than half of total carbon stores may be located in the soil, nurse logs, snags, and other woody debris.
Just like the carbon sequestered in trees, soil carbon is often lost to the atmosphere after logging, which researchers say may be due to disturbance related changes in physical, chemical or microbial make-up of the soil.
But if a 140-year-old forest is cut, the majority of its sequestered carbon would be released into the atmosphere.
"You've got so much there that you're holding on to, the last thing you want to do is release it all," said Leverett. "You can't make it up for a long time."
There is an open question as to whether, when, and how old forests finally stop increasing carbon stores and the answer seems to be at least partially related to species composition. In Pacific Northwest Douglas fir forests, researchers found negligible net carbon addition after 400 years.
However, redwood stands of northern California persist for many thousands of years and Robert Van Pelt, forest ecologist and affiliate professor at the University of Washington, said that it would take at least 1500-2000 years for a redwood stand to reach a "steady state." Even after this time, carbon dynamics would continue to fluctuate depending on stand density, canopy gaps, and fire history.
Moomaw and his co-authors conclude their review with policy recommendations that include inventorying American forests to identify the best areas for proforestation and practicing proforestation on suitable public land. They also wrote that private landowners could potentially be incentivized to maintain carbon sequestering forests on their properties.
Forest Media 15 January 2021
The Central Coast community is ramping-up its campaign to have its Koalas recognised and protected, though the Government isn’t listening. In rejecting 31 of the 42 recommendations of the NSW Koala Inquiry the NSW Government is promising more of the same. With this and the Koala SEPP debacle (and an apparent deal over the Redbank Power Station) it is no wonder Matt Kean and John Barilaro are making-up. The Wollemi Pine is the first to be classified as an “asset of intergenerational significance”.
In Tasmania the Swift Parrot moratorium has been extended to include more forests, pending the outcome of the federal court case. As in NSW, the Federal Government is increasing frustrating freedom of information requests.
Scientists are becoming increasing outspoken about “the ghastly future of mass extinction, declining health and climate-disruption upheavals” that threaten human survival because of ignorance and inaction. 2020 rivalled 2016 as the hottest year ever recorded. While Australia has warmed 1.44oC since 1910, the arctic has risen more than 6oC. This year will witness a 50% increase in atmospheric CO2 above the average for most of human history, and its exponentially increasing. A new study finds we have already released enough CO2 to lock in 2o warming, its just a matter of how long it takes. Forests take-up 30% of our CO2 emissions, though they are rapidly losing their ability to do so, and may become net carbon emitters within a few decades.
Kakadu’s floodplain forests are being inundated by rising seas, Many insect populations are crashing at a rate of 1-2% each year. Even deep in the intact Amazon rainforest most understory birds are in decline. As forests degrade, and trees dies, they become more vulnerable to burning. And in India a bird flu pandemic is gathering momentum amongst wild birds, including migratory species.
Australia is predictably missing as more than 50 countries commit to protect almost a third of the planet by 2030 to halt the destruction of the natural world and slow extinctions of wildlife – though actions rarely match words. Meanwhile we have lost our ranking as one of the world’s 10 worst deforesters (not by much), slipping to 14th – though we are increasing, with forestry in NSW a major contributor – at least we have the distinction of being the only developed nation on the list. The great fix of Carbon Capture and Storage is failing dismally.
Dailan Pugh
Central Coast community call for Koala protection:
Coast Community Alliance (CEA) is calling on local politicians to unite in having the Central Coast region recognised as a koala sanctuary.
“We need to ensure their habitat is urgently protected and that wildlife corridors between these populations are not fragmented through development.
“More recently there have been sightings at McMasters Beach, Ourimbah and in the Basin camping area in the Watagans, only a few hundred metres from where logging is taking place in Olney State Forest.”
“The Coast can play a pivotal role in the overall survival of this iconic and extremely vulnerable native animal, but our elected leaders need to act now and put a stop to development in or around koala habitat in our region,” Cassar said.
“CEA has written to local State MPs in the hope that they will lobby the State and Federal Governments to urgently make it a priority to protect our local koala population, but so far we have not received any support.
Government’s response to Koala Inquiry, business as usual:
Koala advocates say the NSW government is not doing enough to save the animal from extinction after it backed without qualification a quarter of the recommendations of an upper house inquiry into the marsupial's populations and habitat.
In its formal response into the koala inquiry, the government supported 11 of the 42 recommendations, while offering "support in principle" to 17 others. It "noted" the remaining 14.
Among the recommendations supported was the suggestion the government rule out opening old-growth forests within the state reserve for logging, and that it create Georges River National Park to secure habitat on Sydney's southern fringe.
However, it only "noted" the call to investigate setting up a Great Koala National Park in northern NSW.
[Cate Faehrmann] “Many of the key recommendations, the vast majority of which were supported by all committee members because they are what needs to be done to save koalas from extinction, seem to have been rejected outright."
Separately, Prince Charles on Tuesday will use his Sustainable Markets Initiative to launch a global fund to raise $US10 billion ($13 billion) to support biodiversity, including in Australia, by 2022.
It's a symbol of Australia and at risk of becoming extinct. But the NSW government won't commit to most of the recommendations made by a parliamentary inquiry into saving the animal. Sarah Gerathy reports. [interviews Kate Washington, Gladys Berejiklian, Jacqui Mumford]
Port Macquarie Koala Hospital clinical director Cheyne Flanagan said she was bitterly disappointed but not surprised.
"To me it's just a lot of smoke and mirrors and not much grunt behind it," she said.
"There's just a lot of supporting in principle or duly noted, which is basically saying nothing's going to be done and some of the things they said that they're actually doing are very loose.
Environment Minister Matt Kean said in a statement that he had asked the Chief Scientist and Engineer, Hugh Durrant-Whyte, to assemble an expert panel to advise on how to double the state's koala population.
"This advice will be used to develop a new NSW Koala Strategy, due for release in the coming months."
[Flanagan] "We need to tighten the legislation to protect all these native fauna that are so precious to this country … this document just smacks of no change."
Matt Kean and Barilaro make-up:
If Matt Kean, NSW's Energy and Environment Minister, thought conservation groups would cut him some slack in 2021 after last year's successes, he might be disappointed.
Yes, his energy road map sets the state on track to lure three times as much renewables into the grid than the existing Snowy Hydro scheme. And Kean is well on the way to adding 400,000 hectares of land to the national parks estate after doubling his early goal.
Kean, unusual for a Liberal minister anywhere in Australia, says "the number one issue is climate change" and dealing with it – the implementation of his new energy policy will be a top priority in 2021.
(Garnaut) "[The energy plan] sets the state up to be a leader of the development of zero-emissions industry."
Another unresolved issue potentially putting Kean at odds with the Nationals is habitat destruction. It threatens koalas and other species already left more vulnerable after last summer's record-breaking bushfires.
Chris Gambian, chief executive of the NSW Nature Conservation Council, says groups like his "won't let [Kean] rest on his laurels", with "vast amounts of land clearing" still going on.
"One core challenge for 2021 is what happens with koalas," Gambian says. "We've got an extinction crisis. What are they going to do to make sure koalas don't go extinct by 2050?"
The formal creation of a Great Koala National Park near Coffs Harbour and stopping logging in state forests would be "a good next step but it won't be enough", he says.
Barilaro, who is also forestry minister, indicates he is open to change.
"After last year's fires, there's no question there's been an impact on both national parks and all our floral resources, including our timber resources," he tells The Sun-Herald. As a result, he's prepared to "revisit all that".
Assuming the Premier keeps her role, a reshuffle is expected by March, with speculation swirling that Kean could be shifted out of energy and environment into the transportation portfolio.
Deputy Premier and Nationals leader John Barilaro says he is open to ending logging in state forests as part of improved relations he has struck with Energy and Environment Minister Matt Kean.
Ties between the two senior ministers in the Berejiklian government frayed last year over issues such as land-clearing and feral horse numbers in Kosciuszko National Park. Since taking a month off for health reasons last September, however, Mr Barilaro says he found new areas of common ground.
"I've decided to do things a bit differently," Mr Barilaro told The Sun-Herald. "I've found it's been easier [to work with Kean] since I got back."
An improved relationship between Mr Barilaro and Mr Kean could help resolve some of the issues that Nationals and Liberals have clashed over since coming to power in 2011. These include habitat-clearing curbs on farmers and whether old-growth logging should be phased out in state forests, particularly after the bushfires.
Mr Barilaro, who is also forestry minister, said that "after last year’s fires, there’s no question there’s been an impact on both national parks and all our floral resources, including our timber resources". As a result, he's prepared to "revisit all that".
Wollemi Pine an “asset of intergenerational significance”:
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/science/environment/2021/01/15/wollemi-pines-protection/
The ancient Wollemi pine, nicknamed the dinosaur tree, has been declared an “asset of intergenerational significance” in NSW, bolstering efforts to shield the species from future bushfires.
Some of the adult trees are estimated to be up to 1000 years old, and the species may be up to 90 million years old.
The secret site in the Blue Mountains where the Wollemi grow is the first to receive the NSW government’s protection label.
The designation means the government can take extra measures to protect the “living fossils” from bushfires, protecting them for future generations.
“Despite the incredible efforts by the NPWS and RFS teams last summer, several hundred juvenile trees in the protected site were impacted and are yet to resprout,” Environment Minister Matt Kean said.
Tasmanian moratorium extended pending court outcome:
https://www.timberbiz.com.au/stt-agrees-to-halt-logging-in-49-coupes/
Sustainable Timber Tasmania and the Bob Brown Foundation have reached an agreement with STT agreeing to halt logging in 49 coupes in the North Eastern tiers. Sources: Mercury, Timberbiz
The agreement means a Federal Court injunction battle scheduled for Monday this week did not go ahead.
STT had already agreed to halt logging in 19 coupes, but has now added a further 30 to its no-go list after coming to an agreement this week.
The Mercury in Hobart reported this week that the injunction application had been an interim measure to stop logging the coupes in question while both sides awaited a decision from the full bench of the Federal Court over the legality of Tasmania’s Regional Forest Agreement (RFA).
Australia losing its freedom:
New analysis by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) has found that environment minister Sussan Ley refused outright 39 freedom of information requests in the last financial year, while granting just one in full and three in part.
The audit Access denied: How Australia’s freedom of information regime is failing our environment examines government FOI data, as well as more than 100 FOI requests made by ACF, over the past five years.
It is one of the first major pieces of research to look at freedom of environmental information in Australia, and reveals an increase in refused FOI requests, more redactions, higher charges and longer delays for access to government documents.
Scientists get bolshie as climate crisis worsens:
The planet is facing a “ghastly future of mass extinction, declining health and climate-disruption upheavals” that threaten human survival because of ignorance and inaction, according to an international group of scientists, who warn people still haven’t grasped the urgency of the biodiversity and climate crises.
The 17 experts, including Prof Paul Ehrlich from Stanford University, author of The Population Bomb, and scientists from Mexico, Australia and the US, say the planet is in a much worse state than most people – even scientists – understood.
“The scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms – including humanity – is in fact so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well-informed experts,” they write in a report in Frontiers in Conservation Science which references more than 150 studies detailing the world’s major environmental challenges.
“Ours is not a call to surrender – we aim to provide leaders with a realistic ‘cold shower’ of the state of the planet that is essential for planning to avoid a ghastly future,” it adds.
Dealing with the enormity of the problem requires far-reaching changes to global capitalism, education and equality, the paper says. These include abolishing the idea of perpetual economic growth, properly pricing environmental externalities, stopping the use of fossil fuels, reining in corporate lobbying, and empowering women, the researchers argue.
The report follows years of stark warnings about the state of the planet from the world’s leading scientists, including a statement by 11,000 scientists in 2019 that people will face “untold suffering due to the climate crisis” unless major changes are made. In 2016, more than 150 of Australia’s climate scientists wrote an open letter to the then prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, demanding immediate action on reducing emissions. In the same year, 375 scientists – including 30 Nobel prize winners – wrote an open letter to the world about their frustrations over political inaction on climate change.
The planet is facing a “ghastly future of mass extinction, declining health and climate-disruption upheavals” that threaten human survival because of ignorance and inaction, according to an international group of scientists, who warn people still haven’t grasped the urgency of the biodiversity and climate crises.
The 17 experts, including Prof Paul Ehrlich from Stanford University, author of The Population Bomb, and scientists from Mexico, Australia and the US, say the planet is in a much worse state than most people – even scientists – understood.
“The scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms – including humanity – is in fact so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well-informed experts,” they write in a report in Frontiers in Conservation Science which references more than 150 studies detailing the world’s major environmental challenges.
“Ours is not a call to surrender – we aim to provide leaders with a realistic ‘cold shower’ of the state of the planet that is essential for planning to avoid a ghastly future,” it adds.
Dealing with the enormity of the problem requires far-reaching changes to global capitalism, education and equality, the paper says. These include abolishing the idea of perpetual economic growth, properly pricing environmental externalities, stopping the use of fossil fuels, reining in corporate lobbying, and empowering women, the researchers argue.
The report follows years of stark warnings about the state of the planet from the world’s leading scientists, including a statement by 11,000 scientists in 2019 that people will face “untold suffering due to the climate crisis” unless major changes are made. In 2016, more than 150 of Australia’s climate scientists wrote an open letter to the then prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, demanding immediate action on reducing emissions. In the same year, 375 scientists – including 30 Nobel prize winners – wrote an open letter to the world about their frustrations over political inaction on climate change
While the problems are too numerous to cover in full here, they include:
- a halving of vegetation biomass since the agricultural revolution around 11,000 years ago. Overall, humans have altered almost two-thirds of Earth’s land surface
- About 1,300 documented species extinctions over the past 500 years, with many more unrecorded. More broadly, population sizes of animal species have declined by more than two-thirds over the last 50 years, suggesting more extinctions are imminent
- about one million plant and animal species globally threatened with extinction. The combined mass of wild mammals today is less than one-quarter the mass before humans started colonising the planet. Insects are also disappearing rapidly in many regions
- 85% of the global wetland area lost in 300 years, and more than 65% of the oceans compromised to some extent by humans
- a halving of live coral cover on reefs in less than 200 years and a decrease in seagrass extent by 10% per decade over the last century. About 40% of kelp forests have declined in abundance, and the number of large predatory fishes is fewer than 30% of that a century ago.
Essentially, humans have created an ecological Ponzi scheme. Consumption, as a percentage of Earth’s capacity to regenerate itself, has grown from 73% in 1960 to more than 170% today.
Then there’s climate change. Humanity has already exceeded global warming of 1°C this century, and will almost assuredly exceed 1.5 °C between 2030 and 2052. Even if all nations party to the Paris Agreement ratify their commitments, warming would still reach between 2.6°C and 3.1°C by 2100.
Financed disinformation campaigns against climate action and forest protection, for example, protect short-term profits and claim meaningful environmental action is too costly – while ignoring the broader cost of not acting.
Scientists must not sugarcoat the overwhelming challenges ahead. Instead, they should tell it like it is. Anything else is at best misleading, and at worst potentially lethal for the human enterprise.
https://westender.com.au/on-track-for-a-ghastly-future-experts-grim-prognosis-for-the-planet/
… the world becomes more feverish:
Last year tied with 2016 as the world's warmest on record, rounding off the hottest decade globally as the impacts of climate change intensified, the European Union's earth observation program says.
In 2020, temperatures globally were an average of 1.25 degrees Celsius higher than in pre-industrial times, Copernicus said.
Although COVID-19 lockdowns meant global emissions of CO2 dipped in 2020 compared with recent years, the concentration of the gas accumulated in the atmosphere continued to rise.
Last year also saw the highest temperature ever reliably recorded, when in August a California heatwave pushed the temperature at Death Valley in the Mojave Desert up to 54.4C.
The Arctic and northern Siberia continued to warm more quickly than the planet as a whole in 2020, with temperatures in parts of these regions averaging more than 6C above a 30-year average used as a baseline, Copernicus said.
The State of the Climate report released by the BOM and the CSIRO in November reported that Australia's warming is now up to 1.44 plus or minus 0.24C since 1910.
… 2oC warming may now be locked in:
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/earth-is-now-committed-to-a-2c-hotter-future/
Some time this year, thanks to fossil fuel combustion and the destruction of natural ecosystems, the levels of carbon dioxide in the planetary atmosphere will be half as high again as the average for most of human history. That is, they will be more than half-way to doubling.
“The human-caused build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere is accelerating,” said Richard Betts, of the Met Office. “It took over 200 years for levels to increase by 25%, but now, just 30 years later, we are approaching a 50% increase.”
A third study warns that yet more warming is now inevitable: the greenhouse gases already released must take average planetary temperatures from the present rise of more than 1°C to beyond 2°C − the limit that 195 nations vowed not to exceed when they met in Paris in 2015.
Chinese and US researchers report in Nature Climate Change … Chen Zhou of Nanjing University, the lead author. “After accounting for this effect, the estimated future warming based on the historical record would be much higher than previous estimates.”
And his co-author Andrew Dessler, of Texas A&M University, said: “The bad news is that our results suggest we have most likely already emitted enough carbon to exceed 2C.”
But this could be delayed by urgent action. “If we can get emissions to net zero soon, it may take centuries to exceed 2°C.”
… forests losing ability to take up CO2:
Forests and other land ecosystems today absorb 30 percent of humanity's CO2 pollution, but rapid global warming could transform these natural 'sinks' into carbon 'sources' within a few decades, opening another daunting front in the fight against climate change, alarmed researchers have said.
Under current greenhouse gas emission trends, plants across half the globe's terrestrial ecosystem could start to release carbon into the atmosphere faster than they sequester it by the end of the century, researchers reported this week in Science Advances.
Ecosystems that store the most CO2 - especially tropical and boreal forests - could lose more than 45 percent of their capacity as carbon sponges by mid-century, a team led by Katharyn Duffy from Northern Arizona University found.
"Anticipated higher temperatures associated with elevated CO2 could degrade land carbon uptake," said the study, based not on modelling but data collected over a period of 25 years.
"The temperature tipping point of the terrestrial biosphere lies not at the end of the century or beyond, but within the next 20 to 30 years."
… Kakadu’s floodplain forests disappearing:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-13/rising-sea-levels-visible-in-kakadu-national-park/12292646
Floodplains around Australia's largest national park are undergoing a visible transformation as rising sea levels push saltwater further from the coast into its freshwater river systems.
If emissions continue to rise, modelling by the CSIRO from 2017 shows almost half of Kakadu's freshwater wetlands could be inundated with saltwater within 50 years, spelling out drastic repercussions for biodiversity.
Due to a process that began decades ago, evidence of saltwater inundation is plain to see in areas of the park and beyond, where mangroves — shrubs that thrives in brackish water — have taken over as far as the eye can see.
At Tommycut Creek, a remote channel off the Mary River near Kakadu's western boundary, what was once a paperbark forest is now a graveyard of bleached and stricken trunks.
The "dead forest" offers a glimpse into the future for similar low-lying coastal areas along the Top End coast, which are most vulnerable to rising sea levels.
… insect life collapsing:
Insect populations are suffering “death by a thousand cuts”, with many falling at “frightening” rates that are “tearing apart the tapestry of life”, according to scientists behind a new volume of studies.
The insects face multiple, overlapping threats including the destruction of wild habitats for farming, urbanisation, pesticides and light pollution.
The 12 new studies are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Nature is under siege [and] most biologists agree that the world has entered its sixth mass extinction event,” concludes the lead analysis in the package. “Insects are suffering from ‘death by a thousand cuts’ [and] severe insect declines can potentially have global ecological and economic consequences.”
Prof David Wagner of the University of Connecticut in the US, the lead author of the analysis, said the abundance of many insect populations was falling by 1-2% a year, a rate that should not be seen as small: “You’re losing 10-20% of your animals over a single decade and that is just absolutely frightening. You’re tearing apart the tapestry of life.”
“Insects are really susceptible to drought because they’re all surface area and no volume,” Wagner said. “Things like dragonflies and damselflies can desiccate to death in an hour with really low humidity.”
Another of the papers sets out actions that can protect insects. Individuals can rewild their gardens, cut pesticide use and limit outdoor lighting …
The biggest systematic assessment of global insect abundances to date, published in April 2020, showed a drop of almost 25% in the last 30 years, with accelerating declines in Europe. It indicated terrestrial insects were declining at close to 1% a year. The previous largest assessment, based on 73 studies, led the researchers to warn of “catastrophic consequences for the survival of mankind” if insect losses were not halted. It estimated the rate of decline at 2.5% a year.
Other PNAS papers found both declines and rises. Butterfly numbers have fallen by 50% since 1976 in the UK and by 50% since 1990 in the Netherlands, according to one. It also showed the ranges of butterflies began shrinking long ago, dropping by 80% between 1890 and 1940.
… impacts extending deep into the forest:
- Researchers looking at the abundance of insect-eating birds in a pristine patch of forest deep in the Brazilian Amazon have seen populations of dozens of species decline over the past 35 years.
- The remoteness of the site and the still-intact tree cover rule out direct human activity as a factor for the population declines, with researchers attributing the phenomenon to the warmer and more intense droughts caused by climate change, which in turn puts stress on the birds and their food sources.
- A similar phenomenon has been observed in the Caatinga shrubland ecosystem of northeastern Brazil, where rising temperatures, severe droughts, and irregular rainfall may lead to the extinction of birds and mammals over the next 60 years, even inside national parks.
The data comparison indicated that the birds that experienced the greatest population decline since the early 1980s are the terrestrial insect-eating ones and those that live close to the ground …
Of the 79 species of birds captured, the study indicated that 52 had seen their populations decline, while 24 saw an increase. Three remained stable.
[Stouffer] “They are not in danger of extinction while there are many intact forests, but our data suggest that their populations are decreasing, which makes it crucially important to protect as much forest area as possible,” he said. This becomes even more urgent when considering that these birds do not tolerate small fragments of forest, and the regeneration of degraded areas takes more than 30 years to provide adequate habitat for them again.
… as trees die forests become more fireprone:
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-highlights-role-forest-fuels-climate.html
California's drought of 2012-2016 killed millions of trees in the Sierra Nevada—mostly by way of a bark beetle epidemic—leaving a forest canopy full of dry needles.
In the study, published in the journal Ecological Applications, scientists found that the presence of recently dead trees on the landscape was a driver of wildfire severity for two large fires that occurred toward the end of the drought: the 151,000-acre Rough Fire in 2015 and the 29,300-acre Cedar Fire in 2016.
It identified pre-fire tree mortality as influential on all measures of wildfire severity on the Cedar Fire, and on two of three measures on the Rough Fire. For the Rough Fire, it was the most important predictor of trees killed by fire. For the Cedar Fire, weather conditions during burning had the strongest influence on fire severity.
… bird flu pandemic starts in India:
The Gujarat government sounded a bird flu alert on January 5.
In the following days, districts like Surat, Vadodara,Tapi, Kutch, Narmada, Valsad, Mehsana etc. recorded deaths of birds, especially crows, ducks, pigeons, peacocks and lapwings, the health department said.
''Avian influenza is a low pathogenic virus, meaning itis less lethal than other bird flu viruses. Not a single case of avian influenza has been reported in humans so far,'' it said.
As of Thursday, the number of districts recording unexplained bird deaths in Maharashtra has now gone up to over 250.
While, Sachindra Singh, commissioner of animal husbandry (state), added, “We are culling birds on a large scale to stop the virus from spreading.”
The animal husbandry department of Maharashtra confirmed that 238 bird deaths were reported in the state on Wednesday, … Close to 2,100 birds have died in the state since January 8
Australia an international laggard:
… missing in action:
A coalition of more than 50 countries has committed to protect almost a third of the planet by 2030 to halt the destruction of the natural world and slow extinctions of wildlife.
The High Ambition Coalition (HAC) for Nature and People, which includes the UK and countries from six continents, made the pledge to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and oceans before the One Planet summit in Paris on Monday, hosted by the French president, Emmanuel Macron.
In the announcement, the HAC said protecting at least 30% of the planet for nature by the end of the decade was crucial to preventing mass extinctions of plants and animals, and ensuring the natural production of clean air and water.
Greta Thunberg tweeted: “LIVE from #OnePlanetSummit in Paris: Bla bla nature Bla bla important Bla bla ambitious Bla bla green investments…”
… slips to 14th worst deforester in world (as NSW lifts clearing rates):
https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/california-sized-area-of-forest-lost-in-just-14-years/
The report, titled Deforestation Fronts: Drivers and Responses in a Changing World, looks at the state of forests and causes of deforestation in 24 “active deforestation fronts” (MAP), which account for over half of all tropical and subtropical deforestation that occurred over the 14-year period.
Using five satellite-based datasets, the report finds 43 million hectares (166,000 square miles) of deforestation during the period [2004-2017].
“We know what has to be done: protect critical biodiversity areas and sustainably manage forests, halt deforestation and restore forest landscapes, recognize and protect the tenure rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, support local people to build sustainable livelihoods, enhance landscape governance, and transform our economies, food and financial systems to better account for the value of nature,” wrote Marco Lambertini, Director General WWF International, in the report’s preamble.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/forest-loss-hotspots-bigger-germany-000102100.html
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a groundbreaking report on land use in 2019, in which it outlined a string of looming trade-offs in using land.
In that same year, the UN's biodiversity panel said that 75 percent of all land on earth had been "severely degraded" by human activity.
Forests are an enormous carbon sink, together with other vegetation and soil sucking up roughly a third of all the carbon pollution humans produce annually.
Yet they continue to disappear rapidly, threatening irreparable losses to Earth's crucial biodiversity.
Australia is the only developed nation on the list of the world's deforestation hotspots, according to a new report by WWF, previously known as the World Wildlife Fund.
"Nearly a million hectares of forest has been cleared just in Queensland and New South Wales and just in the hotspot areas," Dr Martin Taylor, Senior Scientist with WWF Australia, told Hack.
But in Eastern Australia, agriculture is by far the biggest driver of deforestation.
"Eighty-five per cent of it is just for beef cattle pasture or for sheep pasture," Dr Taylor said.
"People do see their local favourite patch of bush being bulldozed for a housing or industrial estate, or a road... That turns out to be a small percentage of the total destruction in Eastern Australia. Most of it is out bush, far from the public gaze, and most people don't know it's going on," he explained.
[The report identifies eastern Australia as a major deforestation front due to cattle ranching and large scale logging. Australia has been squeezed out of the top ten countries to 14 th worst deforester in the world].
Drivers of deforestation
Development of livestock pasture is the chief driver of forest loss in Eastern Australia, accounting for 75%[8, 9]. There was a spike in large-scale clearing for crops in Queensland after laws were weakened in 2013, but these crops were primarily grain and fodder for livestock[10]. This loophole was closed in 2018[
Harvest for timber is a minor driver of loss, accounting for 16%, mostly in the state of New South Wales (NSW). Intensified logging of state forests, in addition to significant private native forestry[12], make it the primary driver of deforestation and degradation in NSW[13].
Forest loss 2004-2017
0.7Mha of forests (3.5% of forest area in 2000) when looking only at estimates from Terra-I; ~2Mha 2004-17 (4%), up to 5Mha including secondary forest clearing based on SLATS[5]
Main outcomes
Growth of protected areas has largely stalled due to lack of government interest, except for rapid growth of indigenous protected areas, which are largely in unforested arid areas[17]. Vegetation laws are governments’ preferred approach to reduce deforestation but have had a chequered history and are now universally weaker than they were in the mid-2000s.
Underlying causes
Grazing land capital value is increased greatly with forest clearing; landholders are often mortgaged to banks and are under pressure to extract more value by clearing[15]. Climate change is a significant and growing cause of deforestation because of increasingly severe droughts, fires and low humidity affecting production and driving forest loss[16].
Recommended future actions
- Increase investments in protected areas and strengthen forest protection laws.
- Promote verifiable progress in deforestation-free supply chains, especially for beef.
- Enhance funding to support farmers and graziers to regenerate forests, with incentives for those who demonstrate improved forest condition.
- Develop policies and structures to support a transition from native forest logging to plantations and independently certified forest management.
… industry’s solution of artificial Carbon Capture and Storage a sham:
The vast majority (81%) of carbon captured globally to date has been used to extract more oil via the process of Enhanced Oil Recovery, according to a new report conducted by the Tyndall Centre and commissioned by Friends of the Earth Scotland.
Globally, there are just 26 CCS plants in operation, with capacity currently at around 39MtCO2 per year, this is about 0.1% of annual global emissions from fossil fuels.
Friends of the Earth Scotland’s climate campaigner Jess Cowell said: ‘The world needs urgent cuts to climate emissions every year of this decade but CCS can’t deliver anything meaningful until the 2030s, if at all. Politicians and CCS backers in the fossil fuel industry want us to trust them with a technology with a long history of over-promising and under-delivering.
‘This report makes it clear that Carbon Capture and Storage is a dangerous distraction from the necessary action to cut climate emissions from our energy sector in this crucial decade.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/carbon-capture-and-storage-wont-work-critics-say/
Forest Media 8 January 2021
Another study of species’ particular tree hollow requirements shows the limiting availability of suitable hollows, for Superb Parrots finding that their preference large hollows with specific attributes means only 0.5% of potentially available hollows are structurally suitable, noting there is already a shortage with access further limited by more aggressive competitors and the need for this colonial nester for clusters of trees. They recommend protecting hollow-bearing trees with DBH >77 cm.
An invertebrate expert warns that with only 25-33% of Australia’s terrestrial invertebrate fauna formally described we can’t assess the dramatic impact of the bushfires on trillions of invertebrates, highlighting that the wet forest refugia along the Great Dividing Range has led to high edemicism. Lest we forget, the Conversation has taken a retrospective review of the fires affects on vertebrate fauna and plants, highlighting cases such as the Smoky Mice that ironically died from smoke inhalation, the risk of the loss of endemic native bees, spiders and plants due to frequent fires, and the massive impact of runoff after the fires on fish, such as the Macquarie perch.
In America climate heating is fostering increases in the frequency and intensity of wildfires, with massive impacts on wildlife and watersheds, and changing microclimates affecting recovery. Like in NSW, American politicians are pushing for inclusion of biomass as renewables despite the overwhelming evidence of its deleterious impacts. Meanwhile in British Columbia (Canada) 140,000 hectares of old-growth forests continues to be clearfelled each year, as public debate intensifies and minor concessions made. Concerns that the conversion of natural grasslands to tree plantations is having major impacts.
2020 was Australia’s 4th warmest on record,1.15oC above average. A study of the Black Summer bushfires found they were “unmatched” because 2019 was the hottest and driest year on record, with temperatures 2oC above average. If current climate trends continue, we can expect “catastrophic” bushfires that would be “beyond anything we had experienced in the past” to become more frequent, with Australian temperatures as much as seven degrees above average before the end of this century if emissions are not reduced. An international study warns the world could soon undergo irretrievable change, with it possible the 1.5oC average warming could be reached within the next seven years as the ‘worst case’ scenario unfolds. There are concerns that the worldwide trend for shifts to mega fires may represent passing of another tipping point.
Dailan
Only the best for Superb Parrot, and there’s not enough:
New research indicates superb parrots are so fussy about the tree hollows they choose to lay eggs in that they are limited to about one in 200 available nesting sites — far fewer than previous studies suggested.
Superb parrots are a migratory bird that range over a large part of south-eastern Australia and choose only certain eucalypt species that are large enough to host multiple tree hollows.
It is thought there are somewhere between 5,000 and 8,000 of the birds living in the wild.
"We found that of all the trees we climbed, and all the hollows we surveyed, there was 0.5 per cent that were suitable for superb parrots," Ms Rayner said.
"Our study just shows what's present, it doesn't go into 'can they access that hollow, can they actually nest there, are there other constraints on them?'
"Whether they'll actually secure that hollow and be able to nest in it is yet another battle that they'll have to face."
Ms Rayner said superb parrots were generally a timid species, which often lost the fight for tree hollows against bossier birds like crimson rosellas and introduced feral pests like starlings.
After climbing 75 of the oldest trees, and inspecting 487 hollows, Ms Rayner said the situation for the little parrot was actually much more dire.
"There is a much greater demand for hollows than there are hollows in the landscape that meet their needs," she said.
But the new research showed that it was not good enough just to leave a few large trees in housing estates — because the superb parrots are so sociable.
"Superb parrots will nest in colonies, so they don't just look for individual trees … they also need a cluster of trees, because come the end of the breeding season, they flock together and help each other raise the young," Ms Rayner said.
"So they're not looking for individual trees, they're looking for landscapes that have multiple suitable nest trees.
"Actually finding an area where a colony has established is a precious, precious thing."
Superb parrots selected cavities that were deeper, with wider floors and entrance sizes than random cavities. Cavities with the combination of selected traits comprised only 0.5% of the standing cavity resource.
Our results reveal that superb parrots are highly selective in their choice of cavities that they use for nesting. Superb parrots selected trees with the most abundant cavities, and their nests were deeper, with wider floors, wider entrance sizes and in larger stems than random cavities. This particular combination of traits was extremely uncommon in the study area. Our results confirm those of other studies that show parrots strongly select for the traits of cavities … and adds to the evidence that suitable cavities for wildlife are rare in degraded landscapes.
We suggest that a precautionary approach to conservation management of superb parrot nesting habitat should focus on protecting cavity-bearing trees (where at least one cavity is detected from the ground) with DBH >77 cm (i.e. two standard deviations below the mean nest tree DBH). Enhanced conservation outcomes may also be gained from protecting trees with 10 or more potential cavities as these trees are more likely to be a nesting site than not (i.e. probability >0.5, Fig. 2).
What we don’t know:
Australia’s terrestrial invertebrate multitude contains several hundred thousand uniquely Australian organisms. Most remain poorly known.
Hidden from view, many trillions more invertebrates burned or were displaced by the fires. And yes, invertebrates are animals too.
Most invertebrates are poorly known because there are so many species and so few people working on them. In fact, it’s likely only a quarter to one-third of Australia’s terrestrial invertebrate fauna is formally described (have a recognised scientific name).
Every species has an evolutionary history, a particular habitat, a set of behaviours reflecting that history, and a role to play in the ecosystem. And many terrestrial invertebrates belong to especially ancient lineages that record the deep history of Australia’s past.
The moss bug family Peloridiidae, for example, dates back more than 150 million years. For context, the kangaroo family (Macropodidae) is likely 15-25 million years old.
This continent-wide drying fragmented wet forests that covered much of the continent, resulting in the restriction of many invertebrate groups to pockets of wetter habitat, especially along the Great Dividing Range and in southwestern Australia.
You can join iNaturalist, a citizen science initiative that lets you upload images and identify your discoveries.
Lest we forget the bushfires:
Click through below to explore the impact Australia’s summer of fires had on an already drought-ravaged landscape and the work being done to rescue and recover habitats.
… smoking is bad for the Smoky Mouse:
Some 119 animal species were identified for urgent conservation intervention following the fires. The smoky mouse was among them. Modelling showed 26% of its distribution overlapped with burnt areas, and in NSW more than 90% of the species’ habitat burned.
In a note attached, the vet suggested bushfire smoke had killed the smoky mouse – and asked, in a nod to the species’ name, if this was a case of “death by irony”.
Canberra, like many other cities and towns, was shrouded in thick smoke in January. But the breeding facility was more than 50 kilometres from the nearest fire zone, so I thought the vet’s theory was unlikely.
Over the following month, eight more smoky mice died. I inspected the lungs of one – to my shock, it contained thousands of brown smoke particles. Once I knew the distribution of particles to look for, I found them in most of the other dead mice too.
The mice didn’t die immediately after inhaling the smoke. They hung on, but when temperatures in Canberra spiked at more than 40℃, they went into respiratory distress and died.
There is hope for the smoky mouse. Motion-sensing cameras set up in Kosciuszko National Park after the fires have recorded smoky mice at seven burnt sites.
But as global warming escalates, fires in Australia are predicted to become even worse. Now more than ever, the future of the smoky mouse, along with many other Australian animals, hinges on decisive climate action. Captive breeding programs and blind hope will not be enough.
… to bee or not to be:
Many native plants, such as guinea flowers, velvet bushes, Senna, fringe, chocolate and flax lilies, rely completely on buzz-pollinating bees for seed production. Introduced honey bees do not pollinate these plants.
There are several reasons green carpenter bees are vulnerable to fire, including:
- the species uses dead wood for nesting, which burns easily
- if the nest burns before the offspring matures in late summer, the adult female might fly away but won’t live long enough to reproduce again, and
- the bees need floral resources throughout the year.
Grass trees flower prolifically after fire, but the dry stalks are only abundant between two and five years after fire. Banksia species don’t survive fire, and need to grow for at least 30 years to become large enough for the bees to use.
With increasingly frequent and intense fires, there’s not enough time for Banksia trunks to grow big enough, before they’re wiped out by the next fire.
We were horrified to see the intensity and speed of the fire that turned our efforts to ash, along with most of the remnant, long (more than 60 years) unburnt Banksia habitat the bees rely on. In New South Wales, much of the species’ natural range was also burnt.
The carpenter bee is not the only species facing this problem. Many Australian plants and animals are not resilient to high frequency fires, no matter their intensity or time of year.
The ecological importance of longtime unburnt forest needs urgent recognition, as increased fire frequency – both of natural and “managed” fires – is likely to drive a suite of species to extinction.
… for whom the bells toll:
The Stirling Ranges were ravaged by this summer’s fires, and three-quarters of this WA national park now experience fire cycles twice as frequent as species recovery rates.
With an astonishing range of colours, the Stirling Range mountain bells are the glamour plants in WA’s floral bouquet.
Many plants and animal species here may never recover. Yes, many Australian plants evolved to cope with bushfire - but not with how frequently these fires are reoccurring.
Contemporary fire is now one of the single greatest threats to what remains of this extraordinary ecosystem.
The mountain bells need more than 15 years or more to rebuild their soil seed bank, as these plants are killed by even the mildest of fire.
… muddying the waters:
When the rains finally arrived, the situation for many fish species went from dangerous to catastrophic.
A slurry of ash and mud washed into waterways, turning freshwater systems brown and sludgy. Oxygen levels plummeted and water quality deteriorated rapidly.
Hundreds of thousands of fish suffocated. It was akin to filling your fish tank with mud and expecting your goldfish to survive.
Macquarie perch like rocky river sections with clear, fast-flowing water, shaded by trees and bushes on the banks.
Massive change wrought on our rivers over the past century means Macquarie perch are now only found at a handful of locations in the Murray-Darling Basin.
A study in 2017 found a Macquarie perch population that was restricted to a 9km section of the creek but was doing quite well.
To our surprise, some Macquarie perch had survived. But with most of the catchment fully burnt, and no vegetation to stop runoff, we knew it was a ticking time bomb.
They rescued ten fish. Days later, rain washed ash and silt into the channel. Within hours, the once-pristine creek became flowing mud with the consistency of cake mix.
While maintaining the rescued populations, we must redouble our efforts to improve their natural habitats.
… some losses unaccountable:
Kangaroo Island Micro-trapdoor spiders exist only on Kangaroo Island. They live in short, 6cm burrows, built neatly into creek banks. They are slow, calm spiders, spending most of their time in their burrow, determinedly holding the door shut with their fangs.
Sadly, all the known western populations of this enigmatic spider were destroyed. I am yet to find any survivors in the fire ground, but it is early days.
But the majority of Australia’s invertebrate species are yet to be discovered. Many will be similarly at risk, but we have no way of measuring the scale of risk or the repercussions. That’s a fact we should all find scary.
As California burns their crisis reflects ours:
The primary lesson: Because we are confronted with climate-driven dangers beyond our immediate control, coupled with decades of management that has left our forests and rangelands in an unnatural state, we must take urgent action to address things we can control – forest health, the condition of our landscapes and the resiliency of communities in fire-prone areas.
We know what this fire season has wrought. In the months of August and September five of the six largest wildfires in history scorched this state. Combined, those five megafires burned parts of 22 of our 58 counties. All told, more than 8,200 fires blackened more than 4 million acres – more than doubling the previous record for any year. Even now in December, wildfires are searing parts of Southern California.
The toll on wildlife habitats and watersheds has been no less severe.
We know that the effects of climate change have made every fire season increasingly dangerous, as temperatures keep rising, our wildlands become more parched, and extreme wind events become more common.
Right now we can control our natural landscape. Urgent action is needed.
https://www.theweek.com/articles/956874/how-rebuild-california-forests-climate-mind
The Creek Fire, which burned east of Fresno in the western Sierra Nevada, flamed with such frenzy that it produced a cloud resembling an atomic bomb blast, with smoke reaching the stratosphere. That fire and others, like the huge, lightning-sparked North Complex fires in the Sierras north of Sacramento, didn't burn in the usual patchy fashion of wildfires, leaving lightly singed spots mixed with more intensely burned islands. They torched much of the acreage within their boundaries, killing even large trees that would have withstood smaller blazes.
The resulting charred landscapes, a consequence of decades of fire suppression policies and a warming climate, may represent a funeral for some forests, which struggle to regenerate on their own after such severe conflagrations. This new regime of ferocious flames threatens to completely change familiar forest ecosystems, tipping towering pine stands into lands dominated by squat scrub species. Forest ecologists warn that this may harm biodiversity, lower the capacity of forests to store carbon, and even threaten water supplies.
Among foresters, the general rule is that seeds can move a maximum distance that's twice the height of the mother tree. "The seeds of the conifer trees are too heavy to disperse out into that area," says Matthew Hurteau, a forest ecologist at the University of New Mexico. "And then the other thing is, when you burn off all the tree cover, it gets a hell of a lot hotter and drier in that environment." That means the seeds that do sprout may have trouble surviving.
The clearest evidence for such specialization comes from experiments called provenance tests that were done starting in the 1930s, in which researchers planted tree seeds at various elevations. The general pattern that came out was that plants grew best within about 500 feet up or down from their source. "Anything more than 500 feet was really moving them more than what was optimal," says North.
For that reason, the U.S. Forest Service has a rule of thumb that trees should not be replanted outside their original 500-foot elevation band. The rule is codified in the California tree seed zone map, first published in 1946. It's had a couple of revisions since then, but it's still the document that silviculturists refer to when sourcing their seeds.
In their efforts to revegetate with the most local seeds possible, reforestation workers found the 500-foot rule satisfactory — until the impacts of climate change began to reveal themselves. As temperatures warmed, trees' historic habitats sometimes no longer matched their preferred climate.
Biomass under fire:
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-12-28/wood-burning-power-plants-clean-energy
The mammoth pandemic stimulus and spending bill Congress passed last week includes billions of dollars to expand solar, and wind energy. These are good measures to address greenhouse gas emissions. But the bill also contains a rider that would undercut those efforts.
A provision added to the bill, pushed for by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), declares that cutting down trees and burning them for energy is carbon-neutral. This, of course, makes no sense. Burning wood will add to global warming — even if the wood replaces coal or natural gas, as scientific organizations and hundreds of scientists have long argued.
In recent years, however, there has been a bizarre but dangerous push to retrofit power plants and factories to burn wood. The European Union has spurred this effort by adopting laws to require more low-carbon renewable energy (which by themselves are good), but then simultaneously allowing wood to count as a carbon-free, renewable fuel. Countries in the EU responded by subsidizing power plants to burn wood. Utilities lobbied for this shift after realizing that their coal-fired power plants could stay in business if modified at public expense to mix in some use of wood.
But the process of burning wood results in more carbon being released into the atmosphere than burning coal. This happens in two ways. Trees in a forest store carbon and keep it out of the atmosphere. When trees are cut down, more than half the wood is left to rot or burned in producing a usable form of fuel (usually wood pellets), which releases carbon into the air. The wood fuel that is ultimately burned in power plants generates still more carbon. Overall, using wood produces two to three times as much carbon per kilowatt hour as burning coal or natural gas.
Burning wood for energy is accelerating with alarming speed in Europe. One study in the journal Nature found a 70% increase in Europe’s tree-cutting since 2015. And much of Europe’s wood is coming from the U.S. If the world tried to pursue this strategy at even a small scale, the consequences would be dire for the world’s forests. To replace just 2% of the world’s fossil fuels with more wood would require doubling the commercial harvest of trees.
The battles to stop destroying Canada’s oldgrowth continues:
"There's active logging going on right now, taking our old growth out and leaving a big mess" said Knox. "When they put in the roads on the mountainside, and after they log there is erosion and it causes landslides into salmon bearing rivers."
Conservationists along the south coast who have blockaded logging roads to try and keep B.C.'s ancient trees from being felled want a further commitment from the province to protect B.C.'s biodiversity. Communities that rely on the sector for their livelihood also want assurances new rules won't put an end to life as they know it.
In September 2020, the B.C. government released its Old Growth Strategic Review (OGSR) titled A New Future for Old Forests, which lays out an ambitious set of recommendations meant to help the province change its forest management policies on a systemic level to better protect endangered ancient ecosystems as well as support a sustainable, long-term forestry industry.
The report asked that immediate action be taken to defer logging in areas where significant old growth trees are.
Sierra Club B.C. estimates that more than 140,000 hectares of old-growth forests — those with trees at least 120 years old — are logged each year along the B.C. coast and in the Interior.
Concern that natural grasslands are being converted to plantations:
This is a potential threat to drylands, grasslands, savannas and the rangelands they support. Large areas targeted for forest restoration in Africa, Asia and South America are covered by savanna and grassland.
They are in fact ancient, productive and biodiverse and support millions of livelihoods. They also provide many important ecosystem services, which would be lost if converted to forests.
Savanna and grassland store up to a third of the world’s carbon in its soils. They keep streams flowing, recharge groundwater, and provide grazing for livestock and wildlife.
Grasslands can store carbon reliably under increasingly hot and dry climates. The same conditions make forests vulnerable to die-back and wildfires. Restoring grasslands is also relatively cheap and has the highest benefit-to-cost ratio of all the world’s biomes.
Meeting the international targets for forest restoration requires large-scale afforestation. Nearly half the land pledged for forest restoration is earmarked for plantations, mostly of fast-growing exotic species. These provide a fraction of the ecosystem services of the natural vegetation they replace. And they store 40 times less carbon than naturally regenerating forests.
No amount of ecosystem restoration will solve the climate crisis if its underlying causes are not addressed. The clearing of forests and other ecosystems for commodity agriculture and timber urgently needs to be regulated. Emissions from burning fossil fuels need to be drastically reduced.
Time is fast running out:
A new Bureau of Meteorology report has confirmed 2020 saw the highest temperature ever recorded in the Sydney basin —reaching 48.9 degrees Celsius in Penrith Lakes on January 4 last year.
The Annual Climate Statement 2020 also confirmed last year was Australia's fourth-warmest year on record, with the annual national mean temperature coming in at 1.15C above average.
The report explores the droughts, bushfires, floods and heatwaves the country experienced following Australia's driest year on record in 2019.
Last year’s fire season was “unmatched” because 2019 was the hottest and driest year on record, a study of factors behind the Black Summer bushfires found.
The study warns horror fire seasons are likely to continue as well as “rapidly intensify” because of climate change.
More fires and more intense fires are predicted to become a feature of southeast Australia, lead author Nerilie Abram from the Australian National University said.
The Black Summer bushfires were in many respects the worst Australia has seen.
But Professor Abram said we could expect to see “catastrophic” bushfires that would be “beyond anything we had experienced in the past” as current climate trends continued.
But in southeast Australia in 2019 it was two degrees warmer than the historical mean temperature, Professor Abram said.
Temperatures in Australia could be as much as seven degrees on average above pre-industrial levels before the end of this century if emissions were not reduced, she said.
“Our new work highlights the strong evidence that southeast Australia’s climate has shifted and that this type of fire weather is becoming more frequent, prolonged and severe.”
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/seven-years-to-ground-zero-for-the-climate-crisis/
LONDON, 4 January, 2021 − Within the next seven years, the world could undergo irretrievable change. It could emit enough greenhouse gases from fossil fuel combustion to cross the threshold for dangerous global heating in the year 2027.
Or it could exceed what is supposed to be the globally-agreed target for containing catastrophic climate change − just 1.5°C above the average level for most of the last 10,000 years − a little later, in the year 2042.
But on present trends, according to new research, the world is committed, whatever happens, to the crossing of its own threshold for irreversible climate change within that 15-year window.
Again and again, last year alone, scientists found that conditions initially proposed as the unlikely “worst case outcome” are already taking shape.
On the evidence of the latest study in the journal Climate Dynamics, however, they now have even less time in which to enforce dramatic cuts to fossil fuel use.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-020-05521-x
Awareness of climate tipping points has grown in policy circles in recent years …
“Some of the tipping elements are changing more rapidly than others,” Lenton told Mongabay during a December 2020 interview. “The most concerning include the West Antarctic Ice Sheet – part of it looks to be in irreversible retreat – and the Amazon rainforest – where droughts and changing fire regimes are accelerating forest loss, alongside renewed human pressures.”
Lenton says the the rate at which we appear to be approaching several tipping points is now ringing alarm bells, but “most of our current generation of politicians are just not up to this leadership task”.
Tim Lenton: Fires generate their own reinforcing feedbacks – drying the fuel load, creating local convection and winds, and even thunderstorms – and such self-amplifying feedbacks are the vital ingredient for creating tipping point dynamics.
Fire regimes in the wet tropics can pass a tipping point from localized fires to much larger ‘mega fires’ – a bit like a phase transition in physics. Such mega-fires now seem to be happening in the American West, Australia and even the Arctic. So there looks to be a localized fire tipping point, and some signs that it is being passed at similar times across large areas – making for a bigger tipping point.
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