Where to start. The Professor calls for the use of a new aid which like new electricity meters showing how much various activities in the house are costing is designed to trigger rational action on the part of the operator. In the light of parameters relating to the health of the system. (capable of perversion but what is new?) In one case love of land and in the other love of being not too hot and being able to breath.
Maybe a gadget with a display of data will trigger better or less self destructive behaviour but good farmers who cared for their land, and there are some left after the advent of profit as motive those on better country in which the drive for profit can be sustained longer, (Darling Downs?), noted the state of their soil, water movement, foliage symptoms and of course yield. For the latter an out of the box fix, Nitrogen since it is the most commonly limiting mineral, but others as well applied, with at least business principles in mind, that is it profitable in the short term. Being profitable may not, does not equate with good farming. Will a wireless sensor network in some way order what is done?
Malthus, Vogt, Club of Rome, Earlich and now Jared Diamond in “Collapse” and so many more for so long have warned man of his danger. So far it has not happened. God has intervened, creating through man new gimmicks to stave of the inevitable. We have treasurers, shades of Nazi Germany, Kinder, and the competition of prostitution suggesting Mum’s have one for the nation with of course some government funding.
If people in your position did not warn, did not devise palliative tools society would castigate you as the Climatologists have been derided for supposedly securing their jobs and seeking glory. But because you warn do not expect to be other than shot as an unwanted messenger.

Is the story of the frog in the heating water just a story exemplifying population tipping point?

What a pathetic load of breathtakingly ignorant cobblers, Aila. Your quote;

"To restore even 1 per cent of habitat needed for viability and ongoing evolution of Queensland’s unique flora and fauna would cost between $25 and $100 billion by traditional means." Indicates that you have only a rudimentary understanding of ecological processes, especially here in Queensland.

Have you never heard of "native regrowth"? The 2001 SLATS report reveals 26.2% of all clearing was on land not mapped as woody vegetation in 1991. That Table 6 has been left out of the 2004 report so the proportion must be even higher. Bare paddocks all over Queensland have returned to remnant status within 10 to 15 years. And there is no evidence that any forest dependent wildlife refuse to repopulate 20 year old eucalypt, brigalow or mulga regrowth.

In fact there is a preference on the part of most leaf, sap and bud based food chains, for the improved food volume and nutrient value found in regrowth forest. And it needed only the goodwill of the landowners and strategic assistance to achieve this unambiguous RESTORATION at minimal cost.

Reasonable men and women in possession of the facts, and unencumbered by ideology, would be gobsmacked when you say;

"The hundreds of millions already spent, if on wrong species mixes, may impede long-term recovery."

For wasn't it your own vacuous whimsy, incorporated into the SEQ Regional Forestry Agreement that has wasted millions planting thousands of hectares of plantation monoculture which has minimal biodiversity value and carries a very serious risk of being wiped out by rampant introduced pathogens? And for what? To turn existing regrowth in State Forests into fire traps of ever diminishing biodiversity value.

And you have the gall to state;

"If one thinks in ecological timeframes, WSN could help us learn from and assist nature to recover, affordably, on a scale that matters."

Please! [Deleted for flaming.]

I feel sure the professor is aware of the rapidity of regrowth and has figures for the probable time taken to reach climax vegetation, which maybe now less productive and resilient than the original, and even has figures on the amount of C stored (sequester, to use the positive warm glow of language as stand in for action) as a measure of organic matter.
The question. Is the observed as resilient and productive? The prairie of N America has been sod busted and in some places restoration has been tried but the level reached as measured by productivity and resilience is lower. I know of no data showing these parameters for the efforts at restoration, much praised, in S E China. I suspect that in the time frame limited by the needs of a swelling population the level is lower and the system vulnerable to any chance mismanagement such as might be needed to achieve previous levels of profit for any period.
Here sensors showing undesirable changes (presumed undesirable?) might help but would not spatial variation mean guesses rather than hard predictive data as seems to be suggested? Again would not human desire (need?) for profit and power lead to perversion?
Possibly research might be more productively directed at finding the gene mix, itself presumably a consequence of long selection, that allows man to live denying long term consequences, seeking immediate gratification. Warrior macho as in Iraq or a benevolent god being apparently surrogate for fear of any consequence.
Indeed Reg Morrison in Plague Species raises just such a question.
Easily slated as negative in approach, it and the article, are however better than anger, a self serving belief or derision.

I have absolutely no background in forestation, biodiversity, agronomy, horticulture and the rest, but I do know a little about technology.

And in that capacity I should solemnly warn the author of this article that if she believes that WSN is going to help her with her problem, she is destined to be bitterly disappointed with the results, and will have spent a great deal of OPM in the process.

Let's say we put some sensors in a river to measure turbidity and salinity. Presumably the only advantage the readings would give us is time - i.e. instead of testing the water with a test tube every four weeks, or whatever, you could get a thousand readings every second. What would you do differently with this information? How would you react to abnormalities caused by weather? How would you check for false positives, if these were to occur as the result of a system malfunction?

Rest assured, the same will apply to all those farmers on whom it is intended to foist these little chips. Data is easy, technology will collect that for you by the truckload. Information (processed data) upon which to base decisions is a lot tougher to come by, quite often because the sheer volume of information available prevents you from seeing the wood for the trees (sorry!).

Also, when telling the technology what to look for, you are already putting limits on what it can find for you - i.e. you are programming the problem definition with a preconception of what the solution might be.

Data is easy. Information is tougher. Wisdom is an entirely different ballgame.

Well, I am pleased to see Aila write about human population pressure in blunt terms. Of course everyone who cares about environment and sustainability should be willing to do the same, but such expression is rare amongst environmentalists.

But then she loses it completely. WSN is well and good, but it is just another tool to measure the obvious damage exerted by human numbers and practices, both of which we all know need to be very solidly dealt with, head-on.

She writes; “Assuming we get our population policy right can we harness smart technologies now to spare and heal the land?”

Oh dear. There is absolutely no hint of us getting our population policy anywhere near right, neither in Australia not globally. SURELY this should be Aila’s number one concern and number one campaign, starting with the most vehement condemnation of Howard’s policy of very high immigration and Costello’s baby bonus and call for us to have more kids.

A really good place to start with this stuff is Sustainable Population Australia (http://www.population.org.au/).

Any environmentalist that doesn’t put at least 50% of their effort into this aspect on environmentalism is really only a pseudo-environmentalist at best.

Ludwig, pray tell, how does an expanding population in Brisvegas have a major impact on the maintenance of biodiversity in grassland ecosystems in the desert uplands?

Apart from supplying an ever more gullible electoral majority to deliver fraudulent mandates to enable Keto's sleazy mates to implement gonzo science, there is no link at all. Separate the political constituencies and the bush would have no problems with restoration of ecological values.

For a start there would be none of Keto's moronic tree fetish that seeks to preserve recent tree encroachment at all costs in what were originally grassland ecosystems.

Perseus, expanding population in SEQ doesn’t have a major impact on the maintenance of biodiversity in grassland ecosystems in the desert uplands. I did say “…obvious damage exerted by human numbers AND PRACTICES, both of which we all know need to be very solidly dealt with, head-on.”

Some environmental issues do not have a human population pressure component, or only a small one. Such issues include damage due to grazing, changed fire regimes, weeds and feral animals. However, in more heavily populated areas, the number of people and extent of humanised environment does affect these factors much moreso than right out in the sticks.

Incidentally, there are practically no grassland ecosystems in the Desert Uplands, and those that do exist on the western side are effectively outliers of the adjacent Mitchell Grass Downs bioregion.

The point remains: addressing overall environmentalism without dealing very strongly with human population size and growth is just wonky stuff.

This article and these comments make me think that the idea of sustainability is being pursued in the wrong way. It seems like the only people who are concerned about sustainability are scientists and people that are technically trained. Scientist types can see that you can’t just keep taking and taking and taking from the earth without putting something back or pretty soon bad things happen to the organisms (including humans) who depend on the earth’s ecosystems. Most year 11 science students would see it as obvious. The first half of the article lays it out quite eloquently.

Then we get a quick blurb “Assuming we get our population policy right . . . . “ and then it is on to the latest techno miracle that might sort out one aspect, of one part, of the overall problem.

Scientists understand that the most critical environmental issue is population. They understand that high population makes every environmental problem harder to solve. But scientists are unable to offer solutions to that critical issue because population stabilisation goes outside their expertise. Population stabilisation seems to be seen by most scientists as the domain of the economist, the politician and the businessman. All who see the world in a shorter time frame than the scientists. That leaves the scientists to go back to their areas of expertise and develop solutions for the little problems within problems just as Dr. Keto does with Wireless Sensor Network technology.

Until scientists start saying “Look we could implement WSN and other technologies and it might have a minor impact, but lets face it, unless we get population policy right it won’t make much difference.” To give Dr. Keto credit she almost says it in the last sentence. “But in the end, WSN is just a technology: respect for the earth and a passion to heal it is fundamental.”

Now if we can just get Dr. Keto and other scientists working on the more critical problem instead of working around the edges of it.

Whenever I see a post rabbiting on about scientists I reach for my shovel. For bull$hit will be soon to follow. The way you population fetishists have swooped on this particular deposit like blowies suggests you must have had your AGM and a good rev-up for the cause.

Keto is no scientist. She is the wife of a senior bureaucrat and personal friend of the premier who has had real, dedicated and professional departmental scientists jumping to attention to her every whim because Beattie is the kind of boorish goon who would allow personal friends to exploit their relationship. A crony by any other name would still offend the sinuses.

Sorry Perseus let me us try to better understand your arguments.

I agree there are mistakes in Dr. Keto’s calculations. I estimate that for $100 Billion you could revegetate over 10% of all of Queensland (18 million hectares) without even considering native regrowth. Ten million hectares would be hundreds of times the area you would need to restore the “habitat needed for viability and on-going evolution of Queensland’s unique flora and fauna.”

I am willing to trust you that there have been mistakes in the Queensland government's management of the State Forests and in the general management of regrowth in Queensland rural areas.

Are you then saying that high population does not put a strain on ecosystems? Are you saying that five million more people in Australia in the next 20 years, won’t put more pressure on farming and grazing land in Queensland? Are you saying that the environment in rural Queensland will be better off if we have significantly more people in Australia?

Not in absolute terms, Eric. An extra 5 million people under the existing system would only add to Sydney, Melbourne, SEQ and Perth's footprint with minimal direct impact on regional Australia. They would have an indirect impact in that it would add another 25% more voters who have zero knowledge of the bush and who would believe everything they read and hear about the bush in the mainstream media.

And it is a fact, confirmed to both me and others by news editors, that the "truth" (the perspective from the bush itself) is not "newsworthy" enough to get a mention. So a large portion of the extra voters will be capable of handing an ignorant, even fraudulent, mandate to governments elected by urban majorities.

A lot of regional infrastructure is undermaintained because populations are static and no longer justify the higher cost of replacement infrastructure. And this has adverse environmental impacts. A good example is the road to cape york. It is a bog for much of its length and, especially at creek crossings, is a known source of erosion and stream turbidity. A higher population in that region would both demand and justify a sealed road with bridges with greatly reduced erosion and sedimentation.

The CRC for catchment hydrology found that an unmaintained gravel road will produce 100 times more sedimentation than an equal area of clearfelled forest.

This is not to say that a population increase in the bush will have no impact but in terms of character, scale and intensity of impacts, a doubling of the bush population would have only a fraction of the environmental impact of a similar population increase in the city.

My thought is that city people eat the food and use the fibre grown in the bush.
• If there are more city people, they demand more food and fibre from the bush and the bush responds by trying to produce more. Investors put more pigs and cattle into the feedlots, more cattle and sheep on the land.
• Land that is not as well suited to farming or grazing gets developed because there is high demand and there is money to be made.
• Good quality farming land near the cities gets purchased for residential and commercial use and that food must be grown further into the bush.
• Catchments that once were earmarked for grazing and farming land are now set aside for city dwellers meaning that rural water users must look elsewhere to find water to grow an increasing amount of food.
• City dwellers demand that food prices be low, but also that the rivers have sufficient “environmental” flows. More people means farmers may have to produce food with less water.
• City dwellers demand that farmers manage their land sustainably but won’t compensate farmers who leave paddocks fallow or revegetate areas that are sensitive, even if the cost benefit over time is positive.

Do these things happen as demand increases or is this just city dweller economic theory gone awry? If there are 100 million hectares of good farming and grazing land in Australia isn’t it easier for farmers to sustainably supply the needs of 20 million people using that 100 million hectares than 30 million people? On the same tack there is only a certain amount of water. Coal, oil and gas are not renewable. Doesn’t more people make the farmers job harder?

An increase in population in a rural area may not have the impact that an increase in the city would have, but why must we try so hard to have an increase in both the city and the bush?

This is good Perseus. I am pleased to see you really entertain the population issue and give it a lot of careful consideration. I don’t want to be provocative or trigger another brawl but you have been condemning in literally hundreds of posts of those are concerned about population issues. So excellent.

And what’s more, I largely agree.

It is true that some regional areas could do with population increases in order to justify maintenance of all sorts of services in small towns and roads and other infrastructure.

It is also true that in many cases a population increase could actually lead to improved management and decreased environmental damage.

But an extra 5 million people or whatever would add a lot of pressure to areas other than Sydney, Melbourne, SEQ and Perth. Coastal north and central Qld, coastal SW WA, coastal northern NSW, Darwin and others would continue to feel the pressure.

It is not a straightforward story. We always have to consider economies and diseconomies of scale. But one thing is for sure, continued overall rapid increase in population, given our knowledge of resource and sustainability issues, is just madness.