State plan admits to lack of climate research for heritage listed Jenolan Caves

There is little research on how climate change, floods and bushfires will affect the Jenolan Caves, a vast 40 km system of limestone caves in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney in New South Wales, an Australian state government conservation management plan says.

 

Data quoted by the plan also appears to suggest the NSW government has not acted on a 2010 report that called for a “major research effort” to assess the impacts of climate change on soils, vegetation, flooding and fire risk across the 3,083 hectare reserve where the caves are located.

Scientific tests of clay samples by the CSIRO, Australia’s leading research agency, have estimated the age of the Jenolan Caves at around 340 million years, making them the world’s oldest known open caves system.

The Jenolan Karst Conservation Reserve is one of eight areas that are protected under a UNESCO World Heritage listing for the Blue Mountains that was announced in 2000. The caves are also on the Australian National Heritage and were added to the NSW State Heritage Register in 2004.

However, despite their heritage status, the NSW government’s newly published conservation plan for the Jenolan Caves says it “is unknown how predicted changes in climate in this region will affect fire frequency.”

“Under future predicted climate change it is predicted that temperatures will be higher and seasonal rainfall patterns will change” the plan says. And yes, it’s a frustrating plan that offers little detail to members of the public. There’s more to government transparency, accountability and public accessibility than plonking a plan up on a website.

Many of the scientific references quoted by the plan date back almost a decade and indicate that scientists working with the state’s National Parks and Wildlife Service have repeatedly called for more research into climate change impacts across the Blue Mountains.

“Major research effort is required to resolve future effects of changes in moisture and elevated carbon dioxide on vegetation characteristics. The degree to which these characteristics will change and affect fire regimes is unknown,” the plan says, quoting a 2010 scientific report.

In its recommendations, the plan says the state Office of Environment and Heritage will “update and implement the reserve fire management strategy in accordance with NPWS policy.”

It does not give details of what this will involve but says “an adaptive management approach to fire management will be adopted as the effects of climate change are realised or as new information on best practice management of fire on karst becomes available”.

What does that mean?

It also refers to an Australian National University study from 2009 which warned that climate change could significantly impact the karst environment of the caves.

“More variable and extreme rainfall and wildfire events can directly damage surface karst features and alter the hydrological regimes and chemical processes which are crucial to the maintenance of a healthy karst environment, ” the plan says, attributing these observation to the ANU study.

Back in 2010, the government was also told by its own conservation scientists that “assessment of climate change impacts on flood-producing rainfall events is necessary for specific locations” in the Jenolan Caves reserve.

That study also warned that “research needs to be undertaken to provide more specific advice on the potential scale of changes to flood-producing rainfall events”.

And back in 2012, the department was told that “based on overseas research, the threatened flame robin and gang-gang cockatoo, both altitudinal migrants, may be particularly at risk from climate change” affecting the Blue Mountains.

That study also said preliminary modelling suggested the eastern bentwing-bat, eastern false pipistrelle and greater broad-nosed bat were likely to be affected by climate change.

Fire hazard mapping of the reserve in 1989 estimated that 70 per cent of the Jenolan Caves reserve had a high fire hazard risk. What are the 2019 estimates?

“A reserve fire management strategy which defines the fire management approach for the reserve has been prepared and will updated as required,” the management plan says.

Good, because the fire strategy it’s referring to was prepared in 2009.

“Fire in bushland areas can result in erosion and landslips which can destroy habitat. Apart from direct impacts on biodiversity values at the surface, smoke, decreased oxygen and elevated temperatures associated with fire can affect cave-dwelling fauna,” the plan says.

“The sensitivity of karst environments to frequent fire requires ongoing monitoring and review.”

Sadly, it’s a report that offers a snapshot of a government department struggling with staff cuts and a gradual loss of research expertise. Many NPWS scientists have been made redundant or had their job descriptions simplified and downgraded – and that may possibly explain why this plan had had to rely on data & research dating back to an era when the NPWS had more scientific staff.

It also raises questions about the value placed on our World Heritage listed sites by state and federal governments. And yes, it also shows the recklessness of government ministers and bureaucracies in failing to address climate change.

Fish that stop algae killing coral reefs gaining little benefit from offshore ‘paper parks’ says Hawai’i study

Marine protected areas risk becoming ‘paper parks’ that fail to provide adequate protection for fish and sea urchins controlling the growth of algae that can damage coral reef ecosystems, according to a study by the University of Hawai’i.

It calls for better management of the state’s marine protected areas, ahead of government plans to expand the number of MPAs in Hawai’i’s waters over the next 10 years. These areas are intended to protect marine ecosystems and habitat from over-fishing and commercial exploitation but the study argues that a review of management objectives – including enforcement of sustainable and no-take fisheries regulations – is needed

The researchers looked at populations of more than 20 herbivorous fish and sea urchin species in four marine protected areas in waters off Oahu – the third largest, most populated of the Hawaiian islands and home to the state capital Honolulu. It compared these populations to those found in waters outside of the MPAs. The species included fish described as grazers, scrapers and browsers of algae – such as parrotfish fish and surgeonfish – that are critical to maintaining the health of coral reefs.

The study is published online in the journal Coral Reefs .

Data analysis found three of the protected areas in Oahu’s waters – Pūpūkea, Kāne‘ohe Bay and Waikīkī – did not provide “biologically significant benefits for herbivorous fish populations compared to reefs outside these areas.” The fourth, in Hanauma Bay, showed some positive effects but fish diversity was limited.

Erik Franklin , one of the co-authors and associate research professor at the Hawai’i Institute of Marine Biology, said the study revealed herbivorous fish diversity was lower than expected across all the MPAs.

” Marine protected areas are a fishery management tool to limit or prevent fishing to help the recovery and maintenance of fish abundance and biomass inside the MPA,” he said in a University of Hawai’i statement.

“An effective MPA should lead to a considerably higher abundance and biomass of fishes inside the MPA boundaries that would otherwise be caught by fishers but that wasn’t what our study found.”

The study says the “limited benefits of MPAs for herbivorous fish and urchin populations around Oahu suggest a general need for improved fisheries management and enforcement, especially prior to the consideration of an expansion of the existing MPA network”.

Lead author and University of Hawaii marine biology postgraduate Noam Altman-Kurosaki said the research suggests there should be an increased focus by state government agencies on improved management of marine protected areas in Hawai’i.

“Our results suggest that prior to an expansion of MPAs in Hawaiian waters, more effort should be directed to effectively manage the existing MPAs to see if they meet the desired management objectives,” he said in a university statement.

“The addition of more MPAs throughout the state that have similar performance to the O’ahu MPAs would just lead to a series of paper parks that don’t provide biologically significant conservation benefits while decreasing fishing opportunities.”

Researchers compared the biomass, diversity and size of fish and sea urchin populations that contribute to the health of coral reef ecosystems by eating algae that can deplete oxygen and cause corals to die off.

“Herbivorous fishes and sea urchins contribute to the long-term health of coral reef ecosystems by eating algae that are competitive with corals, yet herbivorous fishes are frequently targeted by fishers. The deleterious effects of fishing on coral reef herbivore populations are thought to be decreased through the establishment of no-take marine protected areas,” the study says.

“The small size structure and densities of herbivorous fishes in MPAs across all regions limits their population-level functional and reproductive contributions. While MPAs serve as a popular fisheries management tool for coral reef environments, the limited benefits of MPAs for herbivorous fish and urchin populations around O‘ahu suggest a general need for improved fisheries management and enforcement, especially prior to the consideration of an expansion of the existing MPA network.”

The state government wants to expand marine protection by 2030 with an additional 25 per cent of Hawai’i’s ocean waters established as marine management areas. Currently, five percent of waters within three nautical miles of shore have some form of state conservation management, but no-take MPAs that ban fishing make up less than one-half of one percent of these protected waters.

Australia’s political leaders dither over climate policy as inventors sign deal to help Europe switch from coal to renewables

A team of Australian engineers will work with a Swiss energy industry company to advance the rollout of a world-first thermal storage technology that will allow coal-fired power stations in Germany to run on steam turbines.

The technology uses a system of stackable Lego-like blocks to store energy generated by renewables but at a fraction of the cost involved in battery storage. These Miscibility Gaps Alloy (MGA) blocks can be retrofitted to coal-fired power plants to transform them into fossil-fuel free power generators. The system is cost efficient, reduces industrial waste and is quick to install.

It’s a remarkable technology and engineers at the University of Newcastle in the Hunter Valley coal mining region of New South Wales have spent eight years designing and testing it. The team is led by Newcastle materials science professor Erich Kisi, who has set up a spin out company, MGA Thermal, to commercialise the energy storage system.

The Swiss partnership with E2S Power will help MGA Thermal build a demonstration plant which will show how the system can be integrated into coal-fired power stations. Germany has pledged to close its 30 coal-fired power stations by 2038 under a $47 billion clean energy transition plan. And, it’s possible the MGA Thermal system will play a major role in achieving this goal for Germany. If it’s successful – and that seems highly likely – there are more than 6,000 coal-fired power stations across the world that could use this Australian technology.

But as Australia’s major political parties – the Liberal Nationals and the Australian Labor Party – dither and squabble over weak, incremental climate policies there’s a chance that this radical technology will be yet another renewable energy innovation (like so many solar & lithium battery inventions) to leave our shores.

So far, MGA Thermal has received a $495,000 federal government Accelerating Commercialisation grant and $500,000 in seed finding from CP Ventures – a venture capital investment company that works in partnership with federal agencies. So, just under $1 million to support energy innovation that could save hundreds of jobs across regional mining regions and create more jobs in manufacturing and installation.

“We’re aiming to bridge the gap between cheap and abundant renewable energy, which is generated in peaks, and the ability to store and dispatch energy at any time of day or night, to meet consumer needs,” professor Kisi says in a university statement.

“Unlike coal-fired power, which is regulated and controlled, renewable energy is a challenge because it is less predictable and inconsistent. The grid, which includes the poles and wires you see on streets connecting to houses and buildings, was not designed to receive large spikes associated with renewable energy.

“Redesigning the whole grid is simply too expensive so we’ve created MGA as an energy storage solution to marry with existing infrastructure.  We’ve made renewable energy compatible at grid-scale.”

How does the MGA system work?

The stackable blocks are made from non-toxic, recyclable materials that have high thermal conductivity.

“The MGA blocks are made of two components. One component melts when heated to store huge amounts of energy, and the other acts as a matrix, keeping the block in solid form and embedding the melting particles,” Kisi says.

“We’ve sourced abundant and readily available starting ingredients for our block so that it can be produced at a very low cost to accommodate for the scale of energy storage that’s required – they are 10 per cent of the cost of a lithium battery of the same size, yet produce the same amount of energy.”

Kisi says the MGA blocks can help coal-fired power plants transition “to deliver clean baseload power, while also helping to prevent job loss from power plant closures”.

In a recent intreview, MGA Thermal business development manager Arden Jarrett said the project to retrofit power stations in Germany could dbe “a proving ground” for the energy storage technology.

“We need to look at repurposing what we already have available,”she says.

“In this case, that means all of the infrastructure of thermal power stations, which are already connected to the grid, and in many cases are being closed before end of life due to shifting policy away from fossil fuel use. This means that there are trillions of dollars in functioning infrastructure sitting on the grid or costing vast amounts of money to decommission.

“These resources that we already have available can be repurposed into clean energy storage centres, to provide an immediate large-scale solution and create even more value. Why not take the grid connection, infrastructure, and workforce and create our clean energy future with it?”

Kisi says the cost of decommissiong a power plant is “incredibly high, so their life-cycle management is a huge challenge”.

“MGA blocks are an opportunity to re-deploy retired or stranded plants, turning a liability into a high value asset.”

In a recent federal shadow cabinet reshuffle, Chris Bowen was moved from the opposition health portfolio to climate change, ahead of a possible early federal election in 2021 – possibly in August or September, instead of May 2022. He was quick out of the blocks to pledge a policy mix of jobs and emissions reduction policies.

“I see my key role as winning the debate that good policy on climate change is good jobs policy and good economics policy, which then gives you the ability to prosecute the case for a good, sensible climate change policy,” he said.

But the problem of coal-fired power as a divisive and contentious issue within the ALP will remain a challenge for Bowen. Australia has been a long-term leader in renewables innovation – from electric vehicle technology and lithium batteries to micro-turbines and hydrogen fuel cells – but lack of support from both major parties at the federal level has led to these technologies being picked up – and picked off – by the United States (pre-Trump), Japan, China,Germany and other countries. The drain of scientific talent has been phenomenal.

It will be a tough call for Bowen to tackle this, especially given the party and policy influence of climate conservative Joel Fitzgibbon – the Labor MP for the Hunter Valley, who has been very vocal in his support for coal-fired power. However, there was a swing of 9.5 per cent against Fitzgibbon in the 2019 federal election, which suggests an independent could take the seat if they ran a strong and articulate campaign on local issues such as renewable energy transition and manufacturing.

A renewable energy engineer would be perfect and highly credible candidate.

Falling water levels in world’s freshwater lakes need global climate action taskforce

Global climate change is causing falling water levels in many of the world’s freshwater lakes systems, with devastating impacts for regional economies and ecosystems, according to research by scientists in Germany and the Netherlands.

They say rising surface temperatures have intensified evaporation from inland lakes, and lack of rainfall has added to the problem.

In a paper published in the open access journal Communications Earth & Environment, the researchers have called for “a global awareness campaign concerning future climate-driven lake level changes”. They also want a global task force set up to develop and lead climate adaptation strategies.

“The environmental, economic, and political impacts of falling lake levels will be devastating. A global task force is urgently needed to develop and coordinate transboundary mitigation and adaptation strategies,” the paper says.

Lead author Matthias Prange, from the University of Bremen, says the impact of climate change on the world’s freshwater lakes systems has received less attention than rising sea levels in developing global policy responses. The paper focuses on falling water levels for the Caspian Sea – the world’s largest inland body of water with borders in five countries, including Russia and Iran.

“The Caspian Sea can be viewed as representative of many other lakes in the world. Many people are not even aware that an inland lake is dramatically shrinking due to climate change, as our models indicate,” says Prange.

He says a recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change failed to mention inland lakes and the potential social, political and economic consequences of falling water levels for countries bordering the Caspian Sea.

“This has to change. We need more studies and a better understanding of the consequences of global warming in this region.”

The research paper says that while “climate-driven drying of continental interiors is recognized as an important problem in terms of fresh water scarcity, its impact on lake levels will have many other far-reaching consequences that are underappreciated, but affect the livelihoods and economies of millions of people all over the world”. 

Prange and his co-researchers Thomas Wilke (Justus Liebig University) and Frank Wesselingh (Utrecht University), argue that “not enough space has been devoted to the issue of falling water levels in inland seas and lakes worldwide” by international organisations and programs such as the IPCC, the United Nations sustainable development goals and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

“The environmental, economic, and political impacts of falling lake levels will be devastating. A global task force is urgently needed to develop and coordinate transboundary mitigation and adaptation strategies,” their research paper says.

“Sea level in the Caspian Sea is projected to fall by 9–18 metres in medium to high emissions scenarios… caused by a substantial increase in lake evaporation that is not balanced by increasing river discharge or precipitation. According to these new projections, twenty-first century Caspian sea level decline will be about twice as large as estimates based on earlier climate models.”

The researchers suggest the Caspian Sea is a “poster child” example of the impacts that will affect freshwater lakes systems across the world.

“A growing number of scientific studies predict climate-driven drying in many regions of the world, which will inevitably entail substantial lake level drops in Asian, African, and American basins,” the paper says.

“Lake levels are also affected by human water withdrawals, river damming and diversions… which often mask climate impacts.”

The paper doesn’t mention Australia but the impact of drought on many of the country’s lakes has been well documented by scientists and state water management agencies. Systems such as the Gippsland Lakes in eastern Victoria and Lake Eppalock in the state’s central farming region, have recorded falling water levels in recent years.

Even the nation’s capital – and its 11k long ornamental lake in the city’s centre – has been affected. In January 2020, the Australian Capital Territory government in Canberra announced the water level for Lake Burley Griffin had “dropped down to approximately 300mm below normal lake level over the last 8 weeks”

“This is primarily due to low flows into the lake combined with evaporation and abstraction from the lake for irrigation,” a government statement said.

Wine climate change research could be casualty or circuit breaker in Australia’s latest tariff row with China

Vital climate change adaptation research for Australia’s $45 billion wine industry could become a cost-cutting casualty of the federal government’s rapidly deteriorating diplomatic relations with China.

But it could also offer a way to repair those relations by supporting China’s ambitious plans for a “green recovery” from the economic impact of Covid-19.

Wine industry research grants – which are linked to grape and wine production levies – are likely to be affected by import tariffs of up to 200 per cent imposed by China on Australian wine in response to the preliminary findings of an inquiry into dumping or deliberate under-pricing. Australian Grape & Wine chief executive Tony Battaglene has made a submission to the inquiry which shows the complexities – and history – of the issues involved.

Federal trade and finance minister Simon Birmingham – who worked with the South Australian wine industry prior to entering federal politics – told Australian media the tariffs will create “real business pressures” for many wine producers.

“I wouldn’t describe [China] as a lost market, but it is an incredibly challenging market now for the Australian wine industry so long as these tariffs remain in place,” he said in a radio news interview.

“We’re going to work with the wine industry as hard as we can to try to overturn this decision by China and to try to ensure that we get those unfair and unjustified tariffs removed. But in the interim, yes, it is going to be a hellishly tough time for Australia’s winemakers.” 

At an international wine conference in Portugal in 2019, Australia’s wine industry was praised by participants as a global research leader in climate change adaptation and the use of renewable energy in wine production processes.

Other climate research includes the use of drones to map heat stress and wind temperatures across vineyards; mobile phone apps to monitor water use; soil nutrient management; an online 100-year climate change atlas for vineyards across Australia; and strategies to deal with shorter harvesting seasons, known as vintage compression.

These projects are funded by Wine Australia , one of 15 rural R&D corporations co-funded by farm production levies and matching government funds. The rural R&D corporation program is Australia’s biggest funder of agricultural research, and is the country’s third largest source of research grants for universities, government research agencies and farm industry organisations.

However, funds available for wine industry research have already been affected by the devastating 2019-20 bushfires which destroyed vineyards in the Adelaide Hills and rural Victoria. Other wine regions were affected by smoke taint, which can alter the taste and reduce the quality of wine.

A recent study commissioned by Wine Australia found the industry supports around 163,790 jobs and is worth $45.5 billion to the country’s economy.

Wine Australia’s most recent export report – published on 28 October – estimates there has been a 4 per cent increase in the value of wine exports to $2.99 billion. Exports to China are worth just over $1 bn annually.

Geoff Raby, a former Australian ambassador to China, suggets the federal government’s relations with China “went from bad to worse” following prime minister Scott Morrison’s call in May for an international inquiry into the origins of the Covid-19 global pandemic.

Raby described Morrison’s call for the inquiry as “ill-judged” and said Beijing reacted with “wolf warrior diplomacy and the threat of economic coercion”.

In a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra on 11 Nov Raby said Australia’s diplomatic relations with China “had continued to spiral down” and reflected an inability to deal with China’s increasing global influence as a “a prosperous and confident” economy.

He also warned that the Australian government and its policy makers need to develop a “grand strategy” that resolves whether China is to be regarded as an economic competitor or a strategic partner in the Asia Pacific region. One of the steps involved could be a public – and diplomatic – recognition of China’s role in our own economic development, he said.

Raby stressed that Australia must work on improving relations with China and “a circuit breaker” is needed to create an opportunity to work together.

And that’s where the wine industry’s expertise in climate science could play a role. Raby suggested a major cultural event, such as art exhibition, might be a way of rebuilding relations but climate change is also an important part of China’s global and regional policies.

And, US president-elect Joe Biden has also made it clear that climate change will be a top priority for his administration.

However, the Morrison government has few policy champions in this area. In a Senate public hearing in April 2019, Wine Australia chief executive Andreas Clark was forced to defend the agency’s commitment to climate change research.

Barry O’Sullivan, a conservative Liberal Nationals Party senator from Queensland, told Clark that he “did not accept” the role of climate change in influencing research conducted by Wine Australia.

Clark explained that the R&D agency is funded by grape growers and wine producers, and they decide which research is essential.

“They’re the people who pay us and want to see results…We’re focused on the reality, what’s happening on the ground and how we can assist them,” he said.

In his National Press Club speech, Raby argued that Australia needs to send a signal to China that it wants to engage in rebuilding relations, and needs to move on from the simplistic notion that there’s a binary choice “between hostility or sycophancy”.

Wine-related climate change research could be a circuit breaker with mutual benefits for both countries, but would the Morrison government be up to the challenge? Or will ideological bluster continue to undermine diplomacy and world-leading science……

West Africa survey reveals “massive decline” in Côte d’Ivoire elephant numbers over past 20 years

A six-year field survey has shown a catastrophic and massive decline of Côte d’Ivoire forest elephants over the past 20 years, with a 90 per cent drop in populations across the West African nation’s protected areas.

Elephants were found in only four of the 25 protected areas which extended across more than 3,680 square kilometres. Areas of suitable forest habitat were also found to have declined by around 80 per cent over the past two decades. More than half of the protected areas included in the survey had been “completely converted to farms and human settlement”.

The research was conducted by a team of seven scientists from the Laboratoire des Milieux Naturels et Conservation de la Biodiversité at the Université Félix Houphouët Boigny d’Abidjan-Cocody in Abidjan, the economic capital of Côte d’Ivoire.

The results are published online in the open access journal Plos One. The research paper’s lead authors are conservation biologists Jean-Louis Kouakou, Sery Gonedelé Bi and Eloi Anderson Bitty.

“In pre-colonial and colonial times Côte d’Ivoire probably hosted one of the largest elephant populations in West Africa, resulting in the country’s name,” the study says.

“We present updated information on the distribution and conservation status of forest elephant in Côte d’Ivoire based on multiple sources—dung counts on line transects, records of human–elephant conflict, media reports, sign and interview surveys—obtained during the period 2011–2017.”

The research team found forest elephant populations were isolated, small in numbers, highly vulnerable and faced an uncertain future.

“Forest elephants will be extinct in Côte d’Ivoire unless immediate actions are implemented to safeguard the remaining population,” the study says.

It calls for the global conservation status of Côte d’Ivoire’s forest elephants to be urgently upgraded to Critically Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The IUCN’s Red List of threatened species currently classifies the elephants as Vulnerable.

“During the three last three decades, elephant populations have been sharply reduced, mainly because of forest agricultural clearing,” the study says.

“Aggressive conservation actions including law enforcement for the protection of their remaining habitat and ranger patrolling are needed to protect the remaining forest elephant populations.”

It says warnings “that this species might be lost were put forward in 1984” but there has been little data collected to track population and forest habitat declines.

“At the outset of the 20th century, there were sixteen million hectares of high canopy forest existed in Côte d’Ivoire; today, that number is four millions ha and declining due to an annual deforestation rate of approximately 1 per cent.

“The remaining forest of Côte d’Ivoire is highly fragmented and largely consists of nominally protected national parks and forest reserves. Wildlife in these protected areas is threatened by hunting, the encroachment of cocoa plantations on reserve borders, and expansion of illegal cocoa farming within the parks and reserves themselves.”

The most recent data on the population of Côte d’Ivoire elephants were collected at least a decvade ago “and most of these data did not follow a standardized protocol”.

The six-year survey found that over the past 20 years, the number of forest elephants in Côte d’Ivoire had declined by 90 per cent.

“In the same time, the number of [protected areas] harboring forest fragment fell by 80 per cent. The large majority of the PAs has lost its entire elephant populations as a consequence of the lack of conservation measures, conversion of protected areas into plantations, human settlement and poaching.”

The study says habitat loss has been “a dominant factor shaping population change” and distribution of forest elephants. It has led to increased conflict with human populations outside of protected areas, and exposed elephants to poaching. The rapid expansion of cocoa plantations has also increased vulnerability, with remaining populations “isolated in PAs surrounded by agriculture plots.”

But the researchers say the study has also shown the country’s conservation programs have made a difference.

“Our study has shown that the commitment of highly motivated government field staff, and the continued support by international organizations to provide some protections on the ground, made a difference for their survival as revealed by the survival of forest elephants in protected areas such as Dassioko Sud and Port Gauthier.

“In sites where this protection could not be provided, elephant populations have been extirpated. Therefore, even limited efforts to invest in conservation during periods of political turmoil have benefits for biodiversity.”

Sea level rise creating coastal ‘ghost forests’ that cut carbon storage potential

Sea level rise linked to climate change is creating ‘ghost forests’ in coastal areas of the United States and reducing the landscape’s ability to store carbon, according to a study led by researchers from North Carolina and Florida.

It says saltwater intrusion is killing coastal trees, which are being replaced by low-growing, salt-tolerant shrubs and grasses. A survey of around 4,000 sq kilometres of the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula region of North Carolina found that 15 per cent of this area (167 sq km) had changed to dead trees or ‘ghost forests’ in just over a decade.

The study is published online in the October edition of the international journal Environmental Research Letters.

The research team was led by geospatial analyst Lindsey Smart from North Carolina State University and Paul Taillie, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Florida. They used satellite images and light detection ranging (LiDAR) surveys to map the ecosystem changes and to estimate their impact on landscape carbon storage.

“Although recent research has investigated the drivers and rates of coastal forest decline, the associated changes in carbon storage across large extents have not been quantified,” the study says.

“Ours is the first study to examine landscape-scale aboveground carbon dynamics related to ghost forest proliferation, a phenomenon unique to temperate regions. Our objectives were to map the 13-year spread of ghost forests in a large low-lying coastal region, quantify the associated loss in aboveground carbon, and compare forest loss from ghost forest spread to other sources of disturbance e.g. wildfires and forestry activities.”

The study builds on earlier research by Paul Taillie on the impact of ghost forests on North Carolina bird species which was published in Plos One in May 2019. It found that the birds most affected by the loss of coastal forest habitat were “canopy-dwelling species, such as black-throated green warbler, eastern wood-pewee, and pine warbler”.

In the most recent study, mapping surveys showed coastal forest ecosystems were “shrinking precipitously” due to the impacts of climate change and human pressures such as land clearing for urban development.

“In response to increased salinization and inundation, freshwater-dependent coastal forests are retreating upslope, leaving behind dead trees surrounded by salt-tolerant shrubs and herbaceous plant species,” it says.

“These ‘ghost forests’ are common along the North Atlantic Coast and Gulf of Mexico, varying geographically in extent and conversion rates due to spatial variation in plant community composition.”

The study says these ‘multi-layered and structurally complex” coastal forest ecosystems are being replaced by marshes with low-growing shrubs and grasses.

“Losses in structural complexity have important implications for carbon storage. Because aboveground carbon is closely linked with plant height, we expect that conversion from forest to marsh will decrease aboveground carbon storage.

“As evidenced in other biomes, the transition from forest to herbaceous plant communities (e.g. grasslands) decreases aboveground carbon storage and increases albedo, which exacerbates the effects of greenhouse gases. In coastal systems, the impacts of ghost forest proliferation on ecosystem services, particularly carbon storage, are understudied.”

But what about Australia? Hasn’t there been research into saltwater intrusion in Kakadu National Park wetlands and other coastal areas in the Top End? Well, you could weep with frustration and anger when the top item produced by a Google search is an October 2004 (that’s the climate change denying Howard government) leaflet published by the federal Department of Environment that’s headed “Saltwater Intrusion – A Natural Process”.

“Saltwater intrusion appears to be linked to climatic and oceanographic processes such
as wet season floods, stronger than average monsoonal activity, storm surges, higher
than average sea level conditions and very high tides,” it says.

According to this leaflet, “more than half the paperbark forest” at Point Farewell in Kakadu has been killed by saltwater intrusion but this loss is dismissed as part of “a natural process”.

The US study led by Smart and Taillie argues that saltwater intrusion caused by rising sea levels ” is often considered an ‘invisible’ threat because shifts in soil chemistry are difficult to measure at large spatial scales and are not generally perceived by the public.”

“Because coastal forests serve as buffers against storm surges, provide habitat for wildlife species, and preserve productivity of lands in coastal communities, the ability to identify landscape-scale transitions from forest to marsh is ecologically and economically important,” it says.

“This study highlights potential opportunities for targeted human interventions to preserve the region’s carbon sink.

“Studies in highly dynamic coastal systems at fine scales across broad spatial extents are rare, posing challenges for monitoring and forecasting coastal ecosystem change. However, with increasing availability of data from aerial- and satellite-based LiDAR platforms, our methods can be applied in other low-lying coastal plains to develop landscape-scale measurements of historical impacts from sea level rise and identify areas most vulnerable to future impacts.”

Squat lobster & corals studies reveal deep research needed for NZ marine science

A decade-long research project by New Zealand-based marine taxonomist Kareen Schnabel has identified and described 26 new species of  decapod crustaceans called squat lobsters.

This long-haul study, a Biodiversity Memoir published by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, has more than doubled the number of squat lobster species (members of the Chirostyloidea superfamily) that were previously thought to exist in NZ ocean regions. It also lists 23 species that occur elsewhere but have been scientifically recorded in NZ waters for the first time.

These colourful sea creatures  – carrot-orange, reddish purple, apricot, pale seashell pink, red bands & white spots are some of the markings mentioned –   range in size from 3mm to 42cm and are found in shallow coastal waters as well as ocean seamounts and deep-sea ridges.

They’re not related to the common lobster (Nephropidae) and their idiosyncratic common name refers to their habit of tucking their tails under their bodies.So yes, they look like they’re squatting on sponges and corals…

“Squat lobsters are small, flat, lobster-like crustaceans with long claws, differing from true lobsters in having only three pairs of walking legs and a short ‘tail’ or abdomen that folds under the body,” the study says.

“They play an important role as recyclers of organic matter. They display variable and sometimes opportunistic feeding types including suspension feeding, deposit feeding, scavenging, predation, and occasional cannibalism, and in this process, contribute
to local nutrient cycling.”

It’s been a meticulous, labour intensive research project for Dr Schnabel, who was previously the manager of NIWA’s invertebrate collection from 2006 to 2015. According to a NIWA statement, “the review process alone took two years”.

Most of the samples  were collected during NIWA surveys, but Schnabel also analysed more than 1,700 museum specimens collected during research conducted in NZ waters over 150 years. These include the first global research expedition by HMS Challenger in 1873, and the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition to the Antarctic, (1910-13) led by Robert Scott.

“This work provides the first comprehensive monographic account of the New Zealand Chirostyloidea, spanning nearly 150 years of collections [from]1874 to 2017. Prior to this study, 38 species from two of the four families of the Chirostyloidea were known from the New Zealand region. The New Zealand chirostyloid fauna now covers three of the four families…and comprises 86 species,” the study says.

But it also highlights the need for NZ to expand marine science research as a priority area. Long-term research has revealed “a considerably higher species richness than previously known” but the study also notes that “live coloration remains unknown for many species” that are only known from museum specimens. It suggests seafloor imaging systems – submersibles, remote operated vehicles – could be used to improve visual identification.

Recently,  NIWA also published a report that reviewed the scientific impact of 20 years of marine research in understanding the biology and ecology of NZ’s deep-sea corals. So, the squat lobster study (Marine Fauna of New Zealand) can be read as a companion volume to The State of Knowledge of Deep-Sea Corals in the New Zealand Region.

But, while the squat lobster biodiversity memoir provides a fascinating insight into the  detail of taxonomy and the importance of long-term research, the deep-sea corals report outlines the challenges facing NZ’s underfunded marine biologists.

There’s  “a long and somewhat daunting list” of  research and data gaps (see appendix 4) that range from climate change to the basic need for more ocean surveys.

This list was compliled at a workshop on NZ coral research held in October 2017, which  identified 58 knowledge gaps that needed to be addressed to improve protection and management of deep-sea corals. They include updating risk assessments to identify threatened coral species, better modelling systems and more research into the regional impacts of ocean acidification and seabed mining. There’s also the question of how to convince governments, universities and the public of the value and importance of marine research.

The report warns that NZ’s deep-sea corals are ” potentially under threat because of the increase of human activity, climate change, and use of deep-sea resources, which has outstripped the pace of scientific research.”

“Deep-sea corals are at risk from activities such as bottom trawling, oil and gas exploration and extraction, the laying of cables and telecommunications links, plastics, waste disposal as well as from anthropogenic climate change and ocean acidification.”

It says radiocarbon dating of deep-sea black coral species found in NZ waters ” indicates ages of well over 1,000 years” and long life-spans have also “been determined for shallow(fiord) cold water black coral”.

“As coral structures are often fragile and long-lived, with recovery time appearing
to be very slow, they are vulnerable to physical disturbances such as from fishing, mineral exploration but also natural oceanographic process and geological activity from storms and undersea mudslides.

“In shallower water, black corals are vulnerable to damage by anchors, droplines, scuba divers and rock lobster pots.”

Photo credit: NIWA

 

Soil research needed to protect habitat of ground-nesting bees says US farm study

Farmers and other land managers  should learn to identify the nesting sites of ground-dwelling bees so the habitat of these wild pollinators can be protected, an Oregon State University research paper has said.

The study says US farmers  who want to attract wild bees as alternative crop pollinators to introduced honey bee colonies are faced with a major challenge – so little is known about the habitat requirements of the country’s wild bee species that it’s difficult to come up with a detailed and meaningful bee conservation strategy for farms.

There are around 5,000 native bee species in North America and many are in decline due to loss of foraging habitat, industrial-scale farming and over-use of pesticides. The rusty patched bumble bee (Bombus affinis) previously occurred throughout the eastern regions of the US and south east Canada, but its populations have declined by around 91 per cent over the past two decades.  It’s now listed as an endangered species in 48 states.

So little is known about these native bees  – including how to provide suitable nesting areas that won’t be destroyed by agricultural and urban development.

“The soil habitat preferences for many wild bees are understudied, yet 70% of wild bee species nest in soil,” the Oregon State University study says.

“This obstacle presents an opportunity for soil scientists to partner with entomologists and growers to identify soil properties and nesting site features associated with ground‐dwelling bee activity in agricultural settings.”

The paper’s lead author, crop and soil scientist Rebecca Lybrand, says the research team looked at physical and chemical properties of soils collected from bee and wasp nesting sites in the Willamette Valley of western Oregon. The study included seven farm sites and one recreational park.

“We focused on ground‐dwelling bees, predominantly native bees, with sand wasps included as indirect pollinators,” Lybrand says.

“Soils from 17 bee and sand wasp nests were analyzed for pH, particle size distribution, and carbon and nitrogen content. We visually confirmed that eight of the nesting bees were sweat bees from the Halictidae family.”

The researchers distributed a flyer to local farmers to help them identify potential evidence of ground‐nesting bees. The signs included small emergence holes in the soil and small mounds of soil – known as tumuli – around these holes, which indicated the nests were active.

“We surveyed for bee activity by monitoring transects established along the edges and rows of agricultural fields to ensure that we did not disrupt crops or farming activities,” the study says.

The researchers found that instead of nesting in sandy, well-drained soils, the Oregon bees preferred soils “with unexpectedly high proportions of silt and clay”. Active nesting sites were found in patches of bare ground, with little vegetation, organic matter or rock cover.

“One of our observations confirmed that active emergence holes remained open throughout the year.They didn’t swell shut during the wetter, cooler seasons – despite having clay in the soils that might cause shrinking and swelling,” Lybrand says.

The study detected lipids in soil nest linings which suggested they may provide a type of waterproofing for the bees. It also confirmed previous studies in 2005 and 2014 that observed ground‐dwelling bees “prefer to nest in bare‐ground soils with minimal vegetation cover, likely due to the need for warm temperatures to enhance larval development”.

“Because the large majority of wild bee species nest in the soil, studies about how to best attract them to farms are important,” says Lybrand.

“Soil scientists and entomologists can partner with growers to identify soil habitats that support and attract more of these pollinators to agricultural lands. Improving our understanding of the connections between agriculture and the soils that bees, crops, and living organisms rely on to survive is important. Our research also provided a framework for studying ground-nesting organisms – an area of soil science that is underrepresented.”

Audit exposes multiple flaws & failures of Australia’s weak environment laws

Australia’s environment protection laws are not effective, are poorly administered and lack appropriate measures to monitor compliance, a report by the federal auditor general says.

The Australian National Audit Office – a federal agency which acts as a watchdog for government policy implementation – has published a damning report on the failure of successive governments to use the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to protect the country’s natural heritage.

The Act is meant to be used to assess – and refuse – development applications if they will degrade or damage ecosystems, destroy wildlife habitat or affect the survival of threatened species. If a development is approved, the Act is used to set the conditions it must meet.

But that hasn’t been happening for about 20 years…..

Both major parties – Liberal and Labor – have contributed to this policy mess. As the ANAO report says, from the introduction of the EPBC Act in 1990 to the present year, there have been “multiple reviews, audits and parliamentary inquries” into its administration.

These have included four parliamentary inquiries, several previous investigations by the ANAO, an independent review by Dr Allan Hawke – a former diplomat and senior public servant – and a review in 2016 by environmental regulator Joe Woodward . A review by the federal Productivity Commission – which advises the government on policy – is expected to be finalised by August 2020, and a second independent review led by Graeme Samuel – the former chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission – will be published in October.

The implementation of the EPBC Act and its many flaws have been well and truly picked over for two decades but with little commitment to genuine reform by the Howard, Gillard, Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments. There was a brief flicker of interest in reform by the Rudd government, but the events of 24 June 2010 put an end to that faint glimmer of  hope.

Can this latest ANAO review achieve anything other than a cackle of clickbait outrage in Australia’s mainstream media?

Peter Burnett, a law academic at the Australian National University, was a senior public servant responsible for management and reform of the EPBC Act from 2007 to 2012.

“I encountered some of the issues identified by the audit, in milder form,” he writes in an editorial for The Conversation.

“But I was still shocked by [the ANAO] report. It’s so comprehensively scathing that the department barely took a trick.”

The report is relentless in its criticisms. The relevant department – which has been through many name changes over the years,  but is currently the Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment – is lambasted for its inefficiency, inadequate training of departmental staff who are tasked with assessing development applications and referrals, poorly written approval conditions, chaotic data management, lack of procedures to manage conflict of interest, the absence of compliance risk strategy…..it’s a long list.

The ANAO scrutinises policy implementation. And in this case, the report cities evidence that suggests there’s been 20 years of policy failure. “Morrison government has failed in its duty to protect the environment, auditor general finds” was The Guardian’s somewhat misleading headline. Ah no, this debacle has been going on for a lot longer than the 22 months that Morrison has been prime minister.

Morrison has said that he wants to “cut green tape” but the ANAO report shows that there is actually – surprise! –  an absence of green tape. The EPBC Act is an empty threat, a toothless tiger and a pushover for developers.

“From the commencement of the EPBC Act to 30 June 2019, 6,253 proposed actions have been referred to the Minister, with 5,088 of those actions approved and 21 actions not approved. Referred actions include small-scale agricultural grazing, residential and tourism developments, and the construction of large mining developments worth over $1 billion,” the report says.

“Governance arrangements to support the administration of referrals, assessments and approvals of controlled actions are not sound. The department has not established a risk-based approach to its regulation, implemented effective oversight arrangements, or established appropriate performance measures.”

And there’s more…

“The department is unable to demonstrate that conditions of approval are appropriate. The implementation of conditions is not assessed with rigour. The absence of effective monitoring, reporting and evaluation arrangements limit the department’s ability to measure its contribution to the objectives of the EPBC Act.”

It’s a textbook lesson in policy implementation failures and here are two examples.

The first involves a conditional approval for a tourism development in north Queensland in 2017.

“It was determined to have a likely significant impact on the EPBC-listed spectacled flying-fox due to disturbance during construction and the removal of roost trees,” the report says.

“To reduce the impacts on the spectacled flying-fox, the department attached a number of conditions to the approval. These included restrictions on how vegetation can be cleared, prohibition of construction when the flying-foxes were vulnerable and requirements to monitor the impacts. However, a number of conditions were non-compliant with procedural guidance or contained clerical or administrative errors.”

As a result of these errors , the department “received multiple allegations of non-compliance with the conditions, including the wildlife carers who attended the site reporting that they had found 426 abandoned juvenile and 334 dead flying-foxes.”

The report says that Australia’s top science agency, the CSIRO, subsequently advised the department “that the number of deaths was ‘significantly higher than previous years’ and there were ‘no reports or evidence of similar impacts occurring at other roost sites.”

The second examples concerns koalas, and environmental offsets for two projects in Queensland which were approved in 2015 and 2018.

“The 2015 offset was initially assessed by the department to not adequately compensate for the impacts on the koala, as it was not consistent with the offset policy and the risk of loss had not been correctly calculated,” the report says.

“Following extensive negotiations and engagement with the Minister’s office, the department accepted the offset. Departmental notes stated that the regulated entity knew of the department’s ‘inconsistent application of the … offset policy’ and used it to support its proposal.”

So, a weak department and poor procedures led to yet another habitat loss for koalas….

The report also raises questions about the training and competency of public service staff to assess environmental approvals.

“Departmental documentation does not demonstrate that conditions of approval are aligned with risk to the environment. Of the approvals examined, 79 per cent contained conditions that were non-compliant with procedural guidance or contained clerical or administrative errors, reducing the department’s ability to monitor the condition or achieve the intended environmental outcome,” the report says.

Some media reports have mentioned the possible impact of departmental job cuts but the ANAO notes that “as at February 2020, a total of 141 staff are allocated to referral, assessment and approval related work”. There needs to be a Senate inquiry, but who will call for one?

The report has made eight recommendations. These include: improved data collection and infirmation management; procedures to identify conflict of interest risks; controls to ensure approval conditions are enforceable; and developing a system to prioritise assessments.

It’s a landmark report but who or what will ensure it’s recommendations are implemented? At the moment, Australia has a weak federal opposition that has been complict in undermining the EPBC Act. Think not? Then have a look at the attempt to secure national heritage protection for the Tarkine wilderness in 2011 and 2013…..

The Australian Greens have had little to say other than a quick burst of performative outrage for social media. Nothing of substance. “Heads should roll” was one comment from the party, but this is little more than bombast. Whose head? This is failure that has been 20 years in the making…..

Games can be ‘game changers’ to break deadlock of stalled eco-policy debate says research paper

Board games designed to breakdown stubbornly entrenched roles and conflicts over conservation issues such as climate change and land clearing can break deadlocks and drive urgently-needed policy change, according to a journal paper by 23 researchers from 13 countries in Europe and North America.

They argue radical change is needed – it’s time to move beyond the rhetoric of global policy forums and try something different.

Lead author Claude Garcia, an ecologist with the  French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) in Montpellier, gave a TED talk on the subject in 2019. He argued that little progress was being made on critical conservation issues and a shake up was needed.

“If properly thought out and conducted, games can be a powerful tool to understand how women and men make decisions, to explore alternative strategies, to attempt to counter them, to negotiate new agreements and to understand the limits of our knowledge and the flaws in our reasoning. It is so much easier to play chess with the board and pieces in full view than blindfolded,” he said.

In a paper published this month in the journal One Earth,  the group of 23 researchers argue that global agreements intended to halt deforestation and restore forest ecosystems are missing their targets.

“According to Global Forest Watch, annual tree-cover loss reached 29.7 million hectares globally in 2016, a 51 per cent increase since 2015. In the tropics, 12 million hectares—an area the size of Belgium—were lost in 2018 alone,” the paper says.

“We hypothesize that a key reason for ineffectiveness lies in a failure to recognize the
agency of the many stakeholders involved—their capacity to act independently and to make their own free choices—and the adaptive capacities of the systems we seek to steer. Landscapes do not happen; we shape them.”

There’s also been a loss of trust in the ability of global “talkfests” to achieve serious policy change. The Pacific Islands Forum, held in Tuvalu in August 2019, showed what happens when a participant (in this case Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison) won’t budge from an entrenched policy position (support for coal-fired power). And, the game that’s played out is about regional power dynamics and political party dominance, not climate policy.

How can the game at these talkfests be changed?

The paper suggests that trying to agree on a common vision is “difficult, exhausting, and possibly impossible if the values held are at loggerheads.”  Ah yes Australia, that’s the current state of play with the increasingly toxic debate over management of wild horses in alpine national parks in Victoria and New South Wales. The debate has become so  polarised and vehement that there’s little, if any, middle ground for more moderate voices to suggest ideas. And it’s a conflict that’s been raging on and off for decades…..

How do you break a deadlock like that? Here’s what the One Earth paper suggests in relation to land clearing and forest conservation…..

“Given that definitions of forests are political statements, simply agreeing on what to
monitor already proves a challenge,” it says.

“Deforestation happens because locally, and in the short run, it is the most logical and rewarding course of action.”

However, games can cut across these stubborn views by asking participants to take on roles that require them to listen to others, and to negotiate an inclusive solution. No, you can’t hide behind your title, policy position or bland management phrases.

“A game session allows the game to become a tool for establishing an inclusive, engaging, and constructive dialogue and facilitate the negotiation process, leading to an agreement when none was previously in sight,” the paper says.

“Why should we focus on games particularly? Because to overcome the cognitive biases that prevent changes to our mental models, there are few better ways than to force people to take a new vantage point and to look carefully at what can be seen from that point. When faced with a situation that is beyond their control yet in a safe environment, participants become alert, a state that makes it easier for them to reflect and learn.”

In his TED talk, Garcia argues that these games allow participants to become more aware of how they make decisions and to reflect on how this affects others. And it’s not just theory.  He says the use of games proved to be “particularly successful” in2018, when it broke a two-year deadlock over forest management in the Congo Basin.

“The game acted as a model to clarify key concepts, to illustrate the different situations they were discussing, and to explore the potential impacts of the options they were considering,” Garcia wrote in an editorial for Mongabay, an independent environmental news service.

“In three days, we helped the participants move from gridlock to a joint declaration on five points, four of them accepted through unanimous votes… the game became a tool to not only create a better understanding of the system, but also to establish a dialogue and facilitate the decision-making process.”