If Robert Ellison is worried about biodiversity, why isn't he focussing on the scandalous escalation of mining as a major problem ? In NSW alone, 15 river systems have been cracked, polluted and/or drained as a result of irresponsible government regulation and greedy mining companies. Seven more are under threat right now. Three major creeks have dried up altogether - Wambo, Diega and Bowmans. The upper Nepean and its major tributary the Bargo River, are both about to be cracked. Ditto the Georges. These are Sydney's iconic rivers. Last year the NSW Scientific Committee determined that longwall mining is a threat to threatened species - but so few care. Rivers SOS is an alliance of 30 groups around NSW who want to preserve our river systems, but despite appeals to all universities for support, however minimal, from scientists and academics like Robert Ellison, we have had zilch response. Except one letter from Sydney University saying that academics should be more formally addressed. Hey guys, this is urgent ! the rivers and the threatened species need saving now,with organised actions and campaigns, not more essays and committee meetings.

Oh how depressing.

But I think it’s a pretty accurate assessment…. which only makes it all that more depressing!

(:>(

Very interesting article with suggestions for methods that could improve biodiversity. Not just a whinge. Well done.

We tend to see biodversity as only the count on extinctions. That way a population of 20,000 of a species or a populaiton of 500 is all the same thing. They have not gone extinct, so who cares. Mammals and birds are declining in 45% of Australia, reptles in 30%. Are we happy with this? Is this the world we want to leave our kids?

A $10 per tonne carbon tax would raise the price of petrol less than one cent per litre but would raise the money needed for the improvements described by Robert Ellison to start protecting our biodiversity. It would also show the rest of the world that we are trying to do something about global warming and biodiversity.

Kang - Perhaps you could prepare an article for OLO on the impact of mining on river flows and the associated impact on biodiversity. Sounds like a really good article.

The article is fairly Queensland specific but Ellison seems to go soft on land managers(=farmers)who from his figures control the vast majority of land at risk. What happened to the Productivity Commission's report a few years ago on land degradation where they proposed land managers be legally bound by a 'duty of care' to maintain ecology/biodiversity? For my money I would annul all Western Division leases in NSW and put anyone who wanted to remain in that sensitive fragile environment on a remediation payroll. As Ellison says land management is all development oriented - cash cropping in other words - without the ability to sustain it. Forego drought assistance, dam subsidies, etc go with the PC's recommendation that land managers only be compensated (ie paid) for efforts to restore threatened species habitat. A carbon tax would be a good start toward funding. As far as non western division freehold land managers go, watch what Minister Frank Sartor does in the Centennial Coal bid for open cut mining at Anvil Hill near Muswellbrook, surely a touchstone area of threatened species, even in his view.

99% of all species which have ever lived are extinct, mostly before man arrived on the scene. Extinction is often a natural process which allows the development of newer better adapted species. Artificially prolonging the life of maladapted species is fraught with problems and essentially "unnatural".

If man is able to prevent the UNTIMELY demise of a species this is a different situation but to think extinction is solely a man made phenomenon or should be actively resisted is a current nonsense thinking.

I’m a biologist with a particular passion for plants and birds.

It is not only our fauna that has suffered greatly, but also the flora, especially in the just about entirely cleared Western Australian wheatbelt, which just happens to coincide with one of the world’s megadiverse botanical provinces.

I explored this area as a botanist in the 70s, collecting many unnamed species in areas where bushland had been reduced to narrow road verges.

My heart has ached over the years due to this extraordinary lack of regard for our natural heritage.

But now I take a more pragmatic approach:

We are here to stay. Our presence has meant a major change to the Australian landscape, and that has favoured some animals and plants and disadvantaged others. The same thing happened with the Aboriginal occupation of this continent. I think it is pretty clear that their presence led to the extinction of the megafauna, and no doubt many plant species as well.

I think we basically have to learn to accept the new regime and just come to terms with it.

Ok let’s work on saving the bilby, woylie, black-eared miner, orange-bellied parrot, and the many critically threatened plants in WA. That is all honourable stuff… and I’d hate to see any of them go. And a healthy society should promote that sort of work. But let’s also accept the radical changes that we have caused and not try to turn back the clock.

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We have actually added a lot to our biodiversity by way of weeds and feral animals, many of which are rather benign and have already come into harmony with the other critters in their new environments.

As Tim Low, author of ‘Feral Future’, says, we should accept the change and not try to recover a pre-1770 Australia.

Our energies are much more urgently needed on directing us onto a sustainable basis on this continent. If we don’t do that, we can forget about any funding or significant effort going towards the protection of endangered species.

Ludwig
You make some cogent points on environmental issues.
I would be interested to hear your views re the topic/thread 'The Business of Beneficence'.
From an environmental angle.

Thanks Horus

Please see my post under The ’business of beneficence’

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4849#53661

All posts on this topic have failed to acknowledge that we have government departments, established decades ago, to protect the environment and human and animal health from pollution. They have failed abysmally!

In addition, they continually refuse to enforce regulations because of their zeal to share their beds with pollutant industries whilst totally ignoring the Precautionary Principle.

Until communities publicly denounce these departments and their ministers, and expose them for what they are - defenders of polluters, the status quo will remain. These tossers must take responsiblity for the serious degradation of human health through excessive, toxic air emissions and the continuing destruction of the environment!

Intellectual argument will not achieve results - actions will!

When you are concerned about an environmental problem, ring your local department of environment and ask what they are doing about it. You will be inundated with heaps of "bureau speak" which actually translates to "zilch!"

Biodiversity is the third element of sustainability after ensuring the welfare of current and future human populations. While accepting that many of the changes to landscape are permanent and essential to maintaining the economic systems on which our lives depend, I believe that we must do what we can to reverse the degradation of ecological systems leading to loss of biodiversity.

The causes of the continuing decline are land clearing, destabilised rivers, feral species, changed fire regimes, land salinity and fragmented habitat. Addressing all of these issues in an holistic framework, and at a local level, is required to turn around the continuing degradation of our landscapes.

Despite expending significant resources on the environment, our existing systems have failed to reverse ecological decline. I argue that this is a result of a systemic failure. We don’t need a lot more money – we need a new system.

I've learnt to be just a little skeptical of activists, be they working in the environmental or any other field of human interest. In the 1960s, the Northern Terrtitory Conservation Commission spent taxpayer money warning that the Amazon rainforest would disappear by 1980 thanks to agricultural clearing. During the forestry and RFA debate we had here in WA in the late 1990s, the point was never publicised that, in spite of 150 years of logging, all except a very small number of plant and animal species recorded in the early days of settlement were still present in the forests.

Only a few years ago, the WA Herbarium listed over 50 species of south west WA plants as being extinct. After a 10 year program to go back to the original collection areas and see what was there, over 30 of these 'extinct' species were found, so the list of 'lost forever' plants has now reduced to less than 20.

Of course we must be aware of the huge impact that human beings are having on the planet, but the type of scaremongering that activists like Robert Ellison used in the beginning of his article should not be relied upon when people have to make calm, rational decisions about our future.

Bernie , that's a pretty good strike rate for your skeptics in the SW of WA ,finding that ONLY 20 of the "extinct" 50 species are REALLY EXTINCT .
I'd be skeptical of environmentalists predictions and science too , if that's the best they can do .

ONLY 20? Oh well, that's alright then. I can sleep now, knowing that ONLY 20 plant species have become extinct in SWA as a direct result of human activities. And ONLY every ten years losing ONLY 20 in the South West. Its not like its ALL of Australia. Wonder what the stats are for the entire country, or the entire planet.

So lets stop being concerned, we're ONLY losing 20 species EVERY 10 years in a tiny part of Australia, so it really doesn't matter.

DOES IT?

I think the problem is too many greedy people !!