community – Page 21 – ANGFA Queensland

Why has nature become a niche issue?

community, environment, government, threatened species

Jul 192013

By Stephen Garnett, Charles Darwin University at The Conversation

It will be no surprise that a recent analysis of biodiversity funding round the world found that Australia was among the 40 countries spending least in comparison to our global legacy of species. Now, thanks to the axing of the Biodiversity Fund to compensate for lost income from shifting to a floating carbon price, we may join countries like Iraq and the Congo at the very bottom of that list.

Australia used to care about conservation but do cuts to the Biodiversity Fund show we’ve turned our back on nature? Photo: Peter9914/Flickr

The tragedy for Australia’s animals and plants, and for those who value their persistence, is that this is seen as politically possible. How is it that a country in which stopping the damming of the Franklin River and the logging of Queensland’s rainforests were once seen as winning political causes, can now cut A$213 million for biodiversity conservation as an act of political expediency?

There certainly seems to be little resistance from the conservative parties. To do so would confuse an image that is increasingly anti-environment. The Opposition cannot wait to return control of environmental decision-making to the states, regardless of the consequences. Similarly one cannot imagine their colleagues in Queensland, NSW or Victoria would greatly mourn the loss of a program that could possibly impinge on their aspirations for resource development and the primacy of grazing over other environmental values.

So will there be any backlash for the cuts? Where are today’s Liberals for the Forests who brought down the Court government in Western Australia? Has the rump of a green Labor faction any traction under the new Rudd hegemony? One suspects not. Biodiversity, at its cost, has gone from being a mainstream issue for which all parties felt a need to pay at least a token interest to one now seen as increasingly the province of the Greens. And the Greens, naturally, are happy to represent it as strongly as they can.

Ironically, however, I suspect the very strength of the Greens has weakened the political voice for environmental issues further along the political spectrum. Branch meetings of the National party may hear even less often from farmers concerned about rare species on their properties. Unionists who once led campaigns for green space must now get short shrift in Sussex Street.

Over-egging of the pudding by conservation advocates has not helped. Claims of impending environmental catastrophe have often failed to eventuate in a political timeframe. Climate change is coming but we are not going to cook or drown tomorrow. Peak oil seems perpetually postponed. These are desperate, real issues, but they are not The Day after Tomorrow.

The vulnerable Honey Blue-eye, Pseudomugil mellis. Photo: ©Gunther Schmida

In the same vein some groups unhelpfully exaggerate to get money. A recent TV advertisement claimed orang-utans will be extinct in the wild by 2015. This is untrue and those giving money to the appeal will have done so under false pretences.

Exaggeration detracts from real environmental tragedies, like the first extinction of an Australian mammal in 40 years. Loss of the Christmas Island Pipistrelle was predicted, preventable and on land managed by the Commonwealth for conservation. When it went there was no coronial inquiry, no heads rolled, extinction became politically possible.

At the same time the conservation movement rarely leavens warnings with messages of hope. Understandably, school children dread their gloomy environmental classes. Conservation is in danger of replacing economics as the dismal science. Yet Australia has been extraordinarily successful in some areas of conservation. For instance the rescue of Macquarie Island from feral animals by the Tasmanian Parks service has been nothing short of extraordinary. Politicians, of whatever stripe, need praise and reinforcement for their achievements.

Scientists have also contributed. Conservation biologists tend to paint the bleakest picture of the future. And we alienate with our language. We talk of biodiversity when the public worries about koalas and animals and plants they can see and touch and imbue with human qualities. Most of the political strength of animals and plants comes from a feeling of moral outrage at the impending loss of something loved. A “Biodiversity” Fund is evidently expendable. I wonder if a fund that reflects society’s real affection for nature would have been less so.

Finally I think our primary piece of environmental legislation, the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, has been letting down conservation by heavily enforcing the trivial at the expense of the important. Certainly recent moves to expand strategic assessments should lead to more sensible planning, and the Act has proved critical to constraining some potentially disastrous developments. Nevertheless a history of irritating and expensive conditions placed on localised developments has created incentives for companies to lobby for far weaker environmental laws.

The Greens will fight hard to recover the lost Biodiversity Fund. However the Greens do not own the environment, and their vote may have peaked. For me at least, protecting animals and plants is fundamental to civilization, a unique privilege and responsibility of humanity. Like the empowerment of minorities and the expression of creativity through the arts, it should be an ideal above party politics, and an aspiration of all political parties.

A fund for preventing extinctions and keeping precious common species common should be a core responsibility for government, an appropriate locked-in use of our taxes, and a mechanism to leave a healthy diverse landscape to our descendants.

Stephen Garnett receives funding from the Australian Research Council and has consulted to or worked closely with government, industry and conservation NGOs

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Indigenous land managers to help with turtles, dugongs conservation

community, government, wildlife

Jul 182013

Original story by Allyson Horn, ABC Indigenous

The Federal Government has given $1 million towards the conservation of sea turtles and dugongs in northern Queensland.

Mother and baby dugong carved from rain tree timber by Dennis Nona, on display in Bipotaim. Photo: National Museum of Australia.

The money will be split between eight groups in the region for them to maintain marine environments and raise community awareness about the species.

Federal Environment Minister Mark Butler says the Indigenous land managers are some of the best people to carry out the work.

Mr Butler says it is important to use the generations of local knowledge.

"They've been living in this part of Queensland for literally thousands and thousands of years," he said.

"They understand the topography and the habits of dugongs, sea turtles, other endangered species in this area that they have been sustainably harvesting for literally hundreds of generations.

"Building on that understanding, so that all of us in this part of Queensland and Australia can understand a sustainable way in which to live along the reef is going to be for the betterment of us all."

Using national pride to protect our environment

community, environment, government

Jul 172013

Original story by Nadine Marshall, CSIRO and Jeremy Goldberg, James Cook University at The Conversation

Australia’s natural resources are reaching a crisis point as they struggle to support and sustain our lifestyles. But while degradation of these systems continues, research suggests the level of concern for the environment is falling. So could encouraging some national pride in our natural resources help improve the environment’s outlook?

Our environment is an important part of Australia’s national identity. Photo: Shawn Smith

Not our concern

Australia’s environment is under stress from increased salinity, erosion, ocean acidification, loss of biodiversity and climate change. While in 2007, 78% of Australians were seriously concerned about environmental problems such as these, by March 2013, only 59% of Australians reported similar unease.

It is not just concern that is wavering. Australians are exerting less personal effort in their daily lives in order to protect the environment. Indeed, in 2007 about 25% of Australians made effectively no effort to purchase “green” products. In March 2013 this figure rose dramatically to 41%.

These findings do not only pertain to Australia. Concern for the environment has decreased markedly across the globe during the last two decades. Polls continue to reveal widespread denial of environmental problems as well as resistance to adopting behaviours to sustain natural resources.

This recent decline in environmental concern could have a critical impact on public policy. With an indifferent population, governments are likely to face substantial difficulty securing public support for implementing environmental protection measures.

If we cannot rely on individuals to strategically manage private or public natural resources themselves, then there may be a need for increased regulation. But with regulation comes intense conflict; proposed policies are often opposed, goals are frequently contested, public dissatisfaction spills over, people refuse to participate or comply, animosity and distrust toward the government grows, appeals and litigation increase, and occasionally even physical threats and violence occur.

We know the decline in environmental concern is lower in countries with improving economic conditions, suggesting that economic growth helps to maintain higher levels of environmental concern. We also know that people with a poor understanding of environmental realities are less committed to environmental action. Poor environmental education and developing economies may explain environmental attitudes in other parts of the world but in Australia the reasons for the decline in concern are harder to pinpoint.

In America, conservation behaviour among young people has declined, as they appear to attribute responsibility for the environment to the government and to consumer behaviour rather than to themselves. The findings are similar in Australia, particularly in relation to climate change.

But recent studies suggest the public do not think that the government is acting adequately to protect natural resources. As a case in point, only 2% of Australians think that the Great Barrier Reef is looked after well enough to give a 10 out of 10 score for reef management.

Despite being an icon for conservation, koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus) are under increasing threats throughout most of their distribution and was listed as Vulnerable in Queensland and New South Wales by the EPBC in 2012. Photo: Diliff, Wikimedia Commons

Pride in our environment

Imagine if Australians believed that the greatness of our country depended on the condition of its environment.

Recent research suggests that people who identify strongly with their country and are more invested in its success, are likely to accept the socioeconomic system of that country and recognise when things aren’t quite right.

This may be important when we consider how environmental realities are perceived. If people can recognise the actual state of our natural resources, then they may be more interested in their management.

Perhaps a focus where the environment is associated with patriotic qualities could motivate those who are inclined to dismiss environmental problems. Through tying together national identity and environmental condition we might encourage Australians to recognise the realities of the state of our natural resources and how this reflects who we are as a nation.

Our research shows Australians still have a connection with many of our natural places. In particular, almost 90% of Australians recognise the Great Barrier Reef as integral to their identity and the majority believe it to be Australia’s most inspiring national icon.

In fact, 53% of Australians believe they would be personally affected if the health of the Great Barrier Reef declined.

Perhaps these are the sorts of relationships we ought to be encouraging government to focus upon, as a way to generate support for environmental policies. When weighed against the shorter term economic benefits that our resources provide, surely our national identity needs to be considered?

Australians might be losing interest in the condition of the environment – but not in the environment itself. It is important to remember that our environment is a part of who we are, and to show concern.

Concern for the environment and the constructive conservation action that accompanies it may be able to save our natural resources – reinforcing their integral value to our nation.

The authors do not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article. They also have no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Campaign to ‘demystify’ climate change

community, environment

Jul 152013

Transcript from ABC, World News Australia Radio

The Australian Red Cross, together with regional scientific agencies, is launching an information campaign to help educate Pacific Island residents about the effects of climate change.

It's well known that low-lying Pacific Island nations are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather.

But research by the Australian Red Cross has found that there's limited local knowledge about how to deal with it.

To try to address this, the agency is launching a new information campaign, in conjunction with several regional scientific agencies.

The Red Cross says Pacific countries such as the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea are among the most vulnerable to natural disasters in the world. Photo: AAP

The Red Cross says Pacific countries such as the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea are among the most vulnerable to natural disasters in the world.

So the Australian Red Cross, together with Australia's CSIRO and other regional groups, has developed a series of videos and related material that aims to take the mystery out of climate science and extreme weather patterns.

It has its sights on El Niño, which can cause drier conditions and drought and La Niña, which can cause heavier rainfall, cyclones and floods.

One of the new videos uses what the Red Cross describes as a comical climate crab to make climate science more easily understandable.

(Video excerpt) "In some countries close to the equator such as Tuvalu and Nauru, La Niña can bring less rain and even drought. This can affect locally grown food sources such as taro, banana and grape fruit and sometimes lead to water shortages. In other countries like Fiji and the Solomon Islands, La Niña usually brings warmer oceans, more rain and can cause flooding. This can lead to coral bleaching, waterlogged crops and increased risk of diseases like typhoid and dengue fever. In the Solomon Islands, La Niña also brings higher sea levels."

El Niño and La Niña occur every two to three years.

But a program coordinator for the Pacific Disaster Management Partnership at the Australian Red Cross, Tom Bamforth, says weather variances are becoming more extreme.

So, he says, it's important to try to create more understanding about how to manage and adapt to these changes.

"Some of those scientific concepts if you like are not readily understood at the local level by people who are most affected by them. So the idea is to translate between scientific knowledge and local knowledge to come up with adequate ways we can prepare for those sorts of predictable events."

Senior research scientist at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Doctor Brad Murphy, says severe weather patterns can be particularly devastating in Pacific Island countries because the limited capacity to deal with them.

Dr Murphy says spreading the message that these weather patterns can be predicted about six months in advance might help local communities prepare.

"In Vanuatu for example the people in the region, every year they have a pretty strong wet season and then a dry season. And their cropping cycle -- when they can plant crops and harvest them -- is really closely tied in to this natural variability in the climate. And for them when this cycle is disrupted through things like El Niño which causes long droughts which means they miss out on the wet season, it has big impacts on their lives and that's a way for us to see how they understand how important the climate is in their day to day lives and their existence in the Pacific."

Research by the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre found there is a lack of simple materials and educational tools about climate variations in the Pacific.

Tom Bamforth says these new videos will be distributed to humanitarian groups, schools, government departments and communities across the region.

"The people who watch the film, at the end of it, there's a practical section which promotes some more practical things that people can do and this is to do with things like water harvesting, water conservation, promotion of hygeine and sanitation. And things like in rainier periods of preparing their houses well, securing their roofs, digging water trenches if there's going to be increased rainfall. So these are quite practical things which should go toward making people more resilient to the effects of El Niño and La Niña."

Mr Bamforth says other work also needs to be done in the Pacific to ensure there is greater awareness about other weather-related events.

For example, he says, knowledge about sudden onset natural disasters like tsunamis and typhoons needs to be improved.

"We have had examples of the Pacific of people walking down to the beach when they see the sea go out thinking this is a curiosity and they're interested in this. And the consequence is they get swept away on the incoming tsunami and that happens precisely because they're not aware of the signs and their local environment so there's a lot of work to be done around those sorts of issues."

Meanwhile, the videos do, however, try to clear up some other common misconceptions.

Samford goes all out to use anything other than plastic shopping bags

community, environment, waterways/wetlands, wildlife

Jul 112013

Original story at Queensland Conservation

Queensland Conservation welcomes the “Changing our Bag Habits” program, which is being launched in front of the Samford IGA, in Samford Village at 11am this Saturday.

Plastic Bag Free Queensland. Qld Conservation

As of 13 July, Stamford will strive towards becoming a plastic bag free shopping environment, with participating retailers offering shoppers a free alternative to plastic bags during the transition.

Samford’s largest retailer, Drakes IGA is making the shift to IGA’s other environmentally friendly shopping bags. Other retailers will provide free re-used shopping bags and a fully compostable shopping bag for an introductory period. Some of Samford’s longtime environmentally friendly retailers, such as Four Seasons Organics will continue their plastic bag free practices.

So why has Samford decided to change their plastic bag community shopping habit?

On average, plastic bags are used for a minute, yet they take up to 1000 years to decompose and are responsible for the death of millions of animals, and for clogging and polluting our waterways.

Samford Project Coordinator, Howard Nielsen said, “People are well aware that using plastic bags is not a sustainably good idea, but remembering to bring shopping bags is a bit of a problem for all of us. So for an introductory period, alternate shopping bags will be made available, as well as a door-handle reminder sign.

To assist shoppers further, signs will be posted in public places and in participating retailers to explain how the “Changing our Bag Habits” program will work, Howard said.”

Bag alternatives are being provided courtesy of funds and other support from the Moreton Bay Regional Council, the Pine Rivers Climate Action Network, Samford Green Street, Samford Chamber of Commerce and the Samford Sustainability Hub.

Toby Hutcheon, Executive Director Queensland Conservation said, “Since we launched our ‘Plastic Bag Free Queensland’ campaign in October 2012, we continue to be encourage by communities such as Samford who get the message – this being that ‘Plastic Bags are wasteful and deadly’ and that they can be easily replaced with less harmful alternatives.”

Queensland Conservation continues to call on the Queensland Government to become a Plastic Bag Free State by 2015.

Pledge to go Plastic Bag Free in Queensland www.PlasticBagFreeQLD.com.au

For more information, contact the ‘Changing our Bag Habit’ Project Coordinator,

Howard Neilsen on 0407 190 162, or mail Howard@greenstreet.net.au.

Protect Barrier Reef or face catastrophe, say environmental groups

community, government, waterways/wetlands

Jul 102013

Original story by Amy Remeikis, BrisbaneTimes

Conservation groups are calling for both the state and federal governments to commit to greater action to avoid an irreversible catastrophe on the Great Barrier Reef.

The World Wildlife Fund said 72 per cent of the reef's hard coral had died since the 1960s and strong action was needed to ensure what was left survived.

Striped Surgeon (Acanthurus lineatus) on Flynn reef (near Cairns), Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia.
Photo: Toby Hudson, Wikimedia Commons

“The outlook for the reef is not good, but the situation isn't hopeless, WWF spokesman Nick Heath said in a statement.

“Solutions do exist. We just need more investment, more targeted action in the most dangerous pollution hotspots.”

The state and federal governments jointly released the 2011 Great Barrier Reef report card on Wednesday.

The report found that the overall condition of the reef had deteriorated from a moderate to a poor condition, with extreme weather events like cyclone Yasi and agricultural runoff having the biggest impacts.

Mr Heath said the WWF recognised the progress farmers had made to improve their land management practices and praised the two governments, which have been at loggerheads over how to manage the reef, for striking an agreement on how to fund the Reef Management Plan.

But Mr Heath said the plan fell short and fertilisation reduction targets had been deferred for another five years.

Felicity Wishart of the Australian Marine Conservation Society said the governments had “missed an opportunity” to slow industrial development along the Queensland coast.

“The Queensland government is fast-tracking approvals for increased port, rail and mine developments which will threaten the reef and the federal government appears to be backing them,” she said.

Ms Wishart said while initiatives to improve water quality should be commended, the threat from expanded industrial developments and dredging overshadowed any gains.

Greens Senator Larissa Waters said any gains from the Reef Rescue program were dwarfed by the impact from mining and industrial projects which dotted the coastline.

"We've seen some reduction in chemical runoff from some reef catchments reported today but the old parties are continuing to ignore the major threat to reef quality - the scourge of dredging and dumping to build coal and gas ports," Ms Waters said in a statement.

"Labor has approved the dumping of 17.5 million cubic metres of sediment into the Great Barrier Reef – that's 193 times the amount of sediment the Reef Rescue program has prevented from running off into the reef."

The federal government is due to make a decision on the expansion of the Abbot Point coal terminal in August. UNESCO, the body which lists world heritage areas, will consider whether to downgrade the reef to “in danger” again early next year.

Artificial photosynthesis could extend rights to nature

community, environment, government

Jul 062013

By Thomas Faunce at The Conversation

Should ecosystems have legally enforceable rights? It might sound like a ridiculous idea, but a global debate on this is in full swing. The Constitution of Ecuador now recognises rights of nature. Environmental activists have called for a “United Natures” to replace the “United Nations”. And New Zealand has given “personhood” to the Whanganui River to help protect it.

Artificial photosynthesis may lead to a world that no longer bludges off the environment and accords nature its own rights. Shutterstock

In the great conflicts about abolition of slavery, child labour or enfranchisement of women, new economically valuable technology played a critical role in converting humanitarian ideals against such oppression into enforceable legal obligations. It did this in large part by replacing the need for manual labour in fields, factories and the home.

The same is likely to prove true for ideals about giving natural ecosystems legally enforceable rights. This is primarily because new technology may replace our need to exploit the environment, allowing us to grant ecosystem rights without fear of economic ruin.

But timing will be crucial. As a result of human exploitation and indifference, our supporting ecosystems are close to collapse; yet calls to legislate “safe” boundaries for planetary “physiological” processes like biodiversity, access to water, land use, atmospheric carbon dioxide, nitrogen, phosphorus and pollution levels are considered economically impractical.

When a river can sue

As a “rightless” object, the environment has few if any legal remedies to protect its interests. Nonetheless, already new governance models are emerging to challenge this understanding.

The Whanganui River on the North Island of New Zealand. Photo: James Shook, Wikimedia Commons

In August 2012, the New Zealand Government announced it would grant legal standing and personality to the Whanganui River (“Te Awa Tupua”). The decision was part of a settlement with certain Maori tribes, and guardians were appointed under a trust to act in the river’s interests. Te Awa Tupua can now lodge an objection to a mining or hydroelectric dam proposal, initiate proceedings in the Land and Environment Court, and apply for a mandatory injunction requiring remediation of pollution or financial compensation.

In 1972, Christopher Stone presented the case for conferring legal personality and rights on the environment, in the article Should Trees Have Standing? The natural object would have a legally recognised worth and dignity in its own right; it would not merely serve as a means to benefit present or future generations of humans.

To achieve rights-holder status, the natural object had to satisfy three criteria:

that the thing can institute legal actions at its behest
that in determining the granting of legal relief, the court must take injury to it into account
that relief must run to the benefit of it.

It is ironic that just as steps are being taken to expand legal personhood to include ecosystems, measures are being introduced to strip that status from the artificial persons – particularly multinational corporations – who in their single-minded quest to increase shareholder profit and directorial bonuses bear much responsibility for harming local communities and the environment.

In contrast to the ceaseless march of corporate rights, recent proposals to confer legal standing on natural objects seem innocent and innocuous. But this beneficient transformation of our collective conscience requires a technological revolution that reduces the economic and societal need for human over-exploitation of nature. That technological revolution may be artificial photosynthesis.

Why will artificial photosynthesis make the difference?

Photosynthesis can be viewed as the planet breathing: taking in carbon dioxide, releasing oxygen and making hydrogen by using sunlight to split water. Hydrogen is a great fuel for a sustainable future because when burnt it makes fresh water. Most people today are locked into the old idea that only plants can “do” photosynthesis. But scientists are on the verge of not only replicating photosynthesis, but improving it through nanotechnology and material sciences approaches in large national projects, such as Caltech’s Joint Center on Artificial Photosynthesis, the European Solar H2 network, the Dutch and South Korean solar fuels projects, Dan Nocera’s work at Harvard and Wasielewski’s work at Northwestern.

Such research needs just a little more funding and coordination to make a transformative global breakthrough that will alleviate our need to over-use, pollute and destroy nature. Once the new technology of artificial photosynthesis becomes as ubiquitous as the mobile phone or internet, human societies will no longer be constrained by fears of collapse and ruin if they give rights to ecosystems.

The Sustainocene

Imagine a world where every road, vehicle and building ceases to “bludge off” nature and “pays its way” by doing photosynthesis more efficiently than plants including producing its own hydrogen fuel and making its own basic starches from absorbed carbon dioxide. This is a world ripe to allow the emergence of environmental sustainability as social virtue at the heart of legal systems, alongside the more traditional, human-centred justice and equity.

The Pixel building, Melbourne. Australia's first 'carbon neutral' building, under construction in 2009. Invest Victoria

Such a multimillion-year era of stewardship has been termed the Sustainocene. It may need to last for millions of years if humanity is to morally repay its debt to nature. In the Sustainocene, instead of the cargo-cult ideology of perpetual economic growth through corporate pillage of nature, globalised artificial photosynthesis will facilitate a steady state economy and further technological revolutions such as domestic nano-factories and e-democratic input to local communal and global governance structures. In such a world, humans will no longer feel economically threatened, but rather proud, that their moral growth has allowed them to uphold rights of nature.

Prof. Thomas Faunce receives funding from the Australian Research Council under a Future Fellowship focused on nanotechnology and global public health. He has also awarded funding from the Hooke Committee of the UK Royal Society to conduct a residential meeting of leaders of all the national artificial photosynthesis projects in 8-9 July 2014.

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Kicking veg goals

community, environment

Jul 042013

Original story at Stock Journal

AUSTRALIAN farmers revegetated almost 70 million hectares of agricultural land in 2011-12, mainly for livestock production.
The figures are contained in a new report released by the Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS) titled "Agricultural Resource Management Practices, Australia, 2011-12".

Stock Journal

ABS director of the Rural Environment and Agricultural Statistics Branch, Helen Baird, said while the ABS had published farm land management statistics in the past, this report was the most comprehensive stocktake of land management practices to date.

"We found that 3.7 million hectares of agricultural land had soil enhancers applied to improve the soil, this was mostly in Western Australia,” Ms Baird said.

According to the report, a total of 68.9 million hectares of agricultural land had some sort of vegetation management practices applied.

Of this total, around 43.8 million hectares, or 64 per cent of the total, had a reduction in grazing pressure as the method to protect or regenerate vegetation.

Of that, 16.9 million hectares, or 39pc of all agricultural land with reduced grazing pressure, was in Queensland.

Weed management was undertaken on around 14.7 million hectares, with just under 3 million hectares being managed in NSW and around 2.7 million hectares in the Northern Territory (20pc and 18pc respectively).

Fencing off or excluding stock was undertaken on around 3.8 million hectares of agricultural land in Australia, with around a third being undertaken in Western Australia.

The report states that based upon land area, the main purposes for revegetation of land were livestock production (54pc), environmental purposes (44pc) and plantation for harvest (1pc).

Some 8200 agricultural businesses or 6pc of total agricultural businesses in Australia reported converting land to be used for a different purpose.

Of the 1.8 million hectares converted, around 874,000 hectares of pasture were converted to crop, or 48pc of land converted.

The report also includes information on fertiliser use, livestock, crop and pasture management as well as more unique topics such as feral animal management practices.

The data will be used in conjunction with other information to assist with developing and implementing policies and programs on agricultural land management practices and decision making in relation to the federal government’s Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI).

National Farmers’ Federation CEO Matt Linnegar said that the data shows just how important a role Australia’s 157,000 farmers play in managing the natural environment.

“70 million hectares is 10 per cent of Australia’s landmass, or almost the size of NSW – all of which, says the ABS report, has had its vegetation protected or regenerated by farmers,” Mr Linnegar said.

“The two main reasons for this were for livestock production and for environmental protection, which shows that agricultural productivity and looking after the environment can go hand in hand.

“The report also shows that weed management and fencing off or excluding stock are both important practices that farmers undertake on their farms to help look after their land.

“A second report, also by the ABS, has found that almost one third of Australian agricultural businesses set aside 8.4 million hectares, or an area bigger than Tasmania, on their own properties for conservation – and where natural environments existed, over half of all these businesses protected these areas for conversation purposes.

“These two reports reaffirm what we already know: that farmers care deeply about the land they work on, and that the sustainability of the natural resources that farmers rely on – land, water and air – are critical factors for Australia’s agricultural sector.

“All up, Australian farmers own, manage and care for more than half of Australia’s land, which means they really are at the frontline of delivering environmental outcomes on behalf of the Australian community.

“Farmers are active participants in programs like the national Landcare program - founded 24 years ago by the NFF and the Australian Conservation Foundation – undertaking sound land management practices and sustainable productivity.

“In fact, according to a recent survey by the National Landcare Facilitator, some 93 per cent of Australian farmers practice Landcare on their farms.”

Repairing Australian landscapes

community, environment, government

Jul 042013

By Peter Eckersley, On Line Opinion

Landscapes matter. Landscapes reflect the living synthesis of people and place vital to local and national identity, says Wikipedia. They help define the self-image of a region; they are the dynamic backdrop to our lives.

Or, as historian Simon Schama succinctly put it: 'Landscape is where nature meets culture'.

And, of course, landscapes supply the soil, water and other services and resources essential to our lives.

Planted Eucalypts on a Koala Nature Refuge

In 1989, CSIRO published my report, 'Regreening Australia: The environmental, economic and social benefits of reforestation'. The report was a preliminary investigation into a large national program to 'regreen' our landscapes through massive reforestation and revegetation over a period of 10 to 20 years.

The main justification for the proposal was to combat land degradation, regarded then as Australia's most serious environmental problem. However, the report outlined other potential benefits, including mitigating and adapting to climate change; protecting biodiversity; increasing the sustainability and productivity of Australian agriculture; boosting timber resources; building environmental management expertise and innovation; creating many useful jobs; and boosting national morale.

The proposal attracted a great deal of public, political and professional interest. A parliamentary inquiry into land degradation recommended its adoption, and it influenced government policy. However, it was never implemented on the scale envisaged and necessary to realise the potential benefits.

Last year, the Board of Australia21, a non-profit, strategic research company, agreed to re-examine the topic, given almost 25 years had passed; greater recognition of the seriousness and urgency of climate change; and heightened global economic instability, making job generation potentially important to maintaining economic and social stability.

Volunteers transform Dawn Street Park Dawn Street Park in Bardon was transformed on Clean Up Australia Day by 135 keen volunteers who planted 1257 native plants, pulled masses of rubbish out of Ithaca Creek and did a substantial amount of weeding too. Save Our Waterways Now.

Australia21 conducted an expert roundtable at the University of Melbourne last February, attended by 27 farmers, foresters, researchers, business people, former government officials and others. The central question discussed was, 'What are the benefits of large-scale reforestation and revegetation, and how can they best be achieved?'. The report of the roundtable was released in June.

A central theme of the roundtable discussion was that, for all that had been achieved over the past few decades in managing its landscapes, Australia was failing to close the gap between the magnitude of the challenges and the scale of its responses. As a result, we are squandering our natural heritage and betraying future generations. It is an indictment of our society as a whole, and governments in particular, over many decades.

Australia needs to look at its landscapes in new ways if it is to meet the 21^st Century challenges of climate change and food, water and energy security. Without a new vision for creating healthy, resilient landscapes, we will experience continuing environmental decline and degradation.

Repairing Australian landscapes and preparing them for global change, with respect to both potential benefits and impacts, requires: acknowledging climate change as a 'game changer'; moving beyond a narrow, conservation agenda; building an 'industry' to provide the necessary capacity, professionalism and expertise; stimulating more private investment through instruments such as carbon and water pricing; better integration of planning, design and implementation across national, regional and local scales, including greater devolution of governance to the local level; stronger linkages between policy, science and action; and enhancing the capacity of existing structures such as the Landcare groups and regional natural resource management organisations.

Indooroopilly State School Grade 5 students planting at Moore Park. SEQ Catchments

The reasons for the lack of progress are not, now, primarily to do with poor policy or lack of public funding. The reasons include cultural features such as the divide between urban and rural Australians and our growing disconnection from nature and all it provides for us (except in recreation). The threat to our landscapes concerns urban parks and suburban gardens as well as our farmlands and national parks. It poses a challenge for all Australians, including urban populations, not just those who 'work the land'.

Public concern about the environment, including climate change, has receded in recent years. According to one regular poll series, the top concerns are healthcare, cost of living, crime, the economy, immigration and education. These issues are not necessarily the most important: they are the topics that dominate public and political debate, the ones that politicians and media commentators keep talking about.

All Australians - and especially our political leaders - should be having a lot more to say about the health and resilience of our landscapes and ecosystems. This cultural resonance and reinforcement is particularly important if community organisations such as Landcare groups are to flourish.

However, the explanation also goes beyond attitudes to landscapes. The widening gulf between what we are doing and what we know we need to do is also true of other major issues facing the country. All relate to a failure, not just of political vision or will, but of political philosophy: an inability to see and accept that focusing too narrowly on economic growth and material prosperity and opportunity is creating growing social and environmental costs that jeopardise our future as a nation. If environmental and social goals are always seen as secondary and subsidiary to economic priorities, we will never 'fix the place' (to use one participant's phrase). This is another reason why this is a challenge for all Australians.

A new vision and language of landscape management is now being reflected in policy, but few outside the sector would know this. Without a new narrative or vision to give policy a broader, compatible philosophical rationale and cultural context, we will always come up against the failure to translate policy, however well formulated and well intentioned, into effective capacity to deliver the results we seek. That was the case 25 years ago; it remains true today.

Conversely, what we have achieved in the last 20 to 30 years of landscape management provides the foundation for a bigger and bolder endeavour to protect and regenerate our unique environments. In doing that, it could become a symbol of a broader transformation of Australia into a genuinely sustainable society - environmentally, socially and economically. In inspiring this vision, the benefits would incalculable.

Teaching climate change to the young

community, environment, government

Jul 042013

By Hilary Whitehouse, James Cook University at The Conversation

Recently the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for Today’s Students and Tomorrow’s Workforce were released to guide American state education authorities in redeveloping their science curriculum from Kindergarten to Grade 12.

The US plans to introduce sweeping science education reforms. Does Australia need to open up the same discussion? Flickr/Sidereal

Unlike Australia, the U.S. Federal Government is not responsible for the national school science curriculum. The NGSS project is privately funded and was developed by a group of 26 American states. The standards are strongly endorsed by the National Science Teachers Association.

The NGSS are intended to counter “widespread” scientific ignorance among the American public and reveal how “real life” science is done. US state education systems decide whether or not to implement these standards on a state by state basis, though science teachers remain optimistic that they will be accepted nation-wide. But the matter of teaching climate change, and the age at which the topic of climate change is introduced, is still cause for controversy.

One of the reasons for this controversy is that the standards place emphasis on the matter of scientific evidence: What evidence is; how to distinguish between weak and strong evidence; how evidence can be tested; and how “insights from many disciplines fit together into a coherent picture of the world”. Denial toward the science of climate change and general confusion over the evidence are two of the reasons that there is still a debate in both the US and Australia.

American states will ask students in grades six, seven and eight to “clarify the evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century”. Examples of this evidence are “tables graphs and maps of global and regional temperatures, atmospheric levels of gases such as carbon dioxide and methane and the rates of human activities [such as] fossil fuel combustion, cement production and agricultural activity”.

High school students will learn how to “use a model to describe how variations in the flow of energy into and out of Earth systems result in changes of climate” and then “analyze geoscience data and the results from climate change models to make evidence based forecasts of the current rate of global and regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth systems”.

The standards are framed within socio-ecological systems thinking. Students at all grade levels learn seven, cross-cutting principles: patterns; cause and effect; scale, proportion and quantity; systems and systems models; energy and matter; structure and function; and stability and change. By grade three, students learn “a system is a group of related parts that make up a whole and can carry out functions its individual parts cannot” and they are tasked to “describe a system in terms of its components and their interactions”, such as plants and animals.

It is not hard to see how climate change, as a cause for environmental change, would come into such classroom discussions.

Who wants to challenge preconceived notions? AAP Image/Dan Peled

Climate change in the Australian Curriculum

Unlike the US, the Australian federal government is highly invested in determining a national curriculum, though the many problems of whole-scale state implementation are not yet solved. In the Australian Curriculum: Science version 5.0, the three most controversial elements of a school science curriculum — the origin of the universe, evolution by natural selection and climate change/global warming – are explicitly taught at Year Ten.

However, the language of environmental change and global human impacts in the curriculum from Foundation Year to Year Nine is unclear and tentative. The impacts humans “can have” on environments are cautiously positioned around personal choice and actions. Science contributes to the general capabilities fostered by the Australian Curriculum, where “students use their scientific knowledge to make informed choices about issues that impact their lives such as health and nutrition and environmental change, and consider the application of science to meet a range of personal and social needs.” This is not robust language for addressing a global crisis.

There is nothing to prevent an educator from actively teaching climate change to younger children. Students can learn about conservation of natural resources and recycling in Year Two and pollution in Year Three. One theme in Year Four is that the “Earth’s surface changes over time as a result of natural processes and human activity”. Sustainable energy (solar panels, etc.) and disasters are introduced in Year Six, where students “describe and predict the effect of environmental changes on individual living things”. By Year Nine, students can consider “how choices related to the use of fuels are influenced by environmental considerations”.

Teachers can also implement the Sustainability cross curriculum priority that promotes “individual and collective endeavours shared across local and global communities [to] necessitate a renewed and balanced approach to the way humans interact with each other and the environment”. However, there are few practical incentives to do this, and most classrooms concentrate on implementing the key disciplines of the Australian Curriculum at present.

Australian curriculum developers are still looking to a Holocenic past rather than the Anthropocenic future. Their caution is understandable in the current political climate (especially in Queensland) where education about climate change unfortunately remains contentious. Educators work within settings where there is remnant apathy (or even hostility) towards educating young people about the likely shape of their lives. However, young people at school today will not have the luxury of making “informed choices” about environmental change. They are going to have to deal with severe and disruptive changes in their lifetimes no matter what cautions are deployed in the curriculum.

Hilary Whitehouse does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.

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