New PNF Codes fail threatened species
MEDIA RELEASE 3 May 2022
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.
Media - North East Forest Alliance
Geoff Provest thanked for threatening to cross the floor
Posted by Dailan Pugh · November 14, 2022 10:14 PM
Selling out Koalas
Posted by Dailan Pugh · November 14, 2022 10:05 PM
Making Money from Stopping Logging
Posted by Dailan Pugh · October 31, 2022 5:41 PM
Forest News
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