Showing posts with label sustainability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sustainability. Show all posts
Wednesday 23 January 2019
Australian Water Wars 2019: how NSW rivers were running on 22 January
The news cycle is such that even the dire straits the Murray Darling Basin finds itself in, with regard to environmental, cultural and township water flow security, is already fading into the background.
If we let it do so then it will be business as usual for the Federal, Queensland, New South Wales, Victorian and South Australian governments and, it is business as usual which is causing an ecological crisis in Basin waterways.
This is a snapshot of an interactive map supplied by NSW Water showing river flows on Tuesday 22 January 2019.
Every red marker against a river or section of river indicates that at that point the flow was less than 20 per cent of the natural flow.
You will note that even the coastal rivers of Northern NSW are running at less than 20 per cent of their natural flow.
Along the length of the Darling/Barka River many points like Brewarrina, Bourke and Wilcannia recorded zero natural flow passing on 22 January.
This was also a day when land surface temperatures were still uncomfortably high, with parts of the Murray-Darling Basin predicted to reach temperatures of 42-45+ Celsius.
Remind your local MP that they still need to stand up and be counted when it comes to legislating measures to mitigate climate change and need to be persistent in demanding their political parties bite the bullet on water management reform.
Tuesday 15 January 2019
Ecological Disaster in Murray-Darling River Systems January 2019: Trump-lite Scott Morrison blames Labor and the drought
@michaeldaleyMP, 13 January 2019 |
In March 2012 it was the O’Farrell Liberal-Nationals Coalition Government who received the above Memorandum on the Water Sharing Plan for the Barwon-Darling Unregulated and Alluvial Water Sources which covered both the Barwon-Darling unregulated river water source and the Upper Darling Alluvial groundwater source.
This NSW water
sharing plan was clearly prefaced on creating a market for the sale of water
rights and the needs of commercial irrigators and the mining industry:
2.0 Purpose of the plan (at Page 3)
2.1
Why are water sharing plans being prepared? Expansion of water extraction
across NSW in the 20th century has placed most valleys at or close to the limit
of sustainable water extraction. This has seen increasing competition between
water users (towns, farmers, industries and irrigators) for access to water.
This has also placed pressure on the health and biological diversity of our
rivers and aquifers.
Plans
provide a legal basis for sharing water between the environment and consumptive
purposes. Under the Water Management Act 2000, the sharing of water must
protect the water source and its dependent ecosystems and must protect basic
landholder rights. Sharing or extraction of water under any other right must
not prejudice these rights. Therefore, sharing water to licensed water users is
effectively the next priority for water sharing. Among licensed water users,
priority is given to water utilities and licensed domestic and stock use, ahead
of commercial purposes such as irrigation and other industries.
Plans
also recognise the economic benefits that commercial users such as irrigation
and industry can bring to a region. Upon commencement, access licences held
under the Water Act 1912 (WA 1912) are converted to access licences under the
Water Management Act 2000 and land and water rights are separated. This
facilitates the trade of access licences and can encourage more efficient use
of water resources. It also allows new industries to develop as water can move
to its highest value use.
In
conjunction with the Water Management Act 2000, plans also set rules so that
commercial users can also continue to operate productively. In general,
commercial licences under the Water Management Act 2000 are granted in
perpetuity, providing greater commercial security of water access entitlements.
Plans also define the access rules for commercial users for ten years providing
all users with greater certainty regarding sharing arrangements.
The warning
in the Memorandum was ignored by the O’Farrell. Baird and Berejiklian Coalition Governments and, by the Murray-Darling
Basin Authority when it drained 2,000 gigalitres of water from the Menindee
lakes in 2017.
Obviously
fearing the electorate will remember: a) that when the Abbott Coalition Government
came to power it handed even more power over water resources back to the states & abolished the independent National Water Commission1 and b) then recall the rampant abuse of water resources under then Deputy PM and
Nationals MP for New England as Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources Barnaby Joyce as well as multiple allegation of water theft; Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison sought to wrongly blame first Federal Labor and then the drought for the
ecological devastation which is occurring in the NSW section of the Murray-Darling river systems.
ABC News, 14 January 2019:
The State
Government is bracing for another mass fish kill in the Darling River this
week, with soaring temperatures forecast in western NSW.
The mercury is expected
to reach up to 46 degrees Celsius in the town of Menindee, where up to 1 million native species were killed in an
algal bloom over the New Year.
The Bureau of
Meteorology said a heatwave, caused by hot air being blown from Central
Australia, would persist until Saturday and could break temperature records
around Broken Hill.
Primary Industries
Minister Niall Blair said state and local governments would work with the
community to manage the possibility of another ecological disaster.
"Well we know that
we've got high temperatures right across the state and a lot of poor water
quality situations particularly brought on by the extended drought so
unfortunately we are expecting that we may see more fish killed," Mr Blair
said.
The warning comes
as contractors prepare to clear the 40-kilometre stretch of
the Darling River of dead fish before their rotting carcasses compound the
situation.
Federal Agriculture
Minister David Littleproud will convene a meeting of State and Federal
environmental and water stakeholders working under the Murray-Darling Basin
Plan.
Mr Littleproud proposed
using $5 million for a native fish recovery strategy and will seek agreement
for the money to come from Murray-Darling Basin funds.
"The reality is
we're in a serious drought and the only silver bullet is rain," he said.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison refuted a report released
by NSW Labor at the weekend claiming the Liberal Government ignored warnings
about low water levels.
"I'm concerned today that some might want to play
politics," he said.
"There were reports done by scientists under Labor's
contribution to that plan back in 2012, the plan has been operating in
accordance with that advice and so we need to just keep on working on the
issue."
Mr Morrison said the fish kill was because of the
drought.
"It's a devastating
ecological event, particularly for those all throughout that region the sheer
visual image of this is terribly upsetting," he said.
However, that is
disputed by many people in Menindee, who argue poor water management has
compounded the mass kill. [my yellow highlighting]
Morrison in blaming everyone but successive Federal (since September 2013) and NSW (since March 2011) Coalition governments forgets that Australian voters can read and, as late as June 2018 the Commonwealth Environmental Water Office as part of the NSW Interagency Working Group for Better Managing Environmental Water offered advice on the Barwon-Darling which both the current Australian Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Drought Preparation and Response & Liberal MP for Maranoa David Littleproud and current NSW Minister for Primary Industries, Minister for Regional Water & Nationals MLC Niall Blair appear to have ignored until it was too late.
Footnote
1. One of the last things the National Water Commission (NWC) did before then Liberal Prime Minister Tony Abbott abolished it was to inform the Abbott Coalition Government that:
"Ten years on from the
signing of the NWI, water reform in Australia is at a cross roads. Many reform
gains are now taken for granted and the multi-party support that has been a
hallmark of this historic agreement is at risk of breaking down.
Given the substantial
government investments and hard-won progress so far, and the valuable but
challenging gains yet to be realised, it is critical that there is no
backsliding from reform principles.
Strong leadership is
essential to realise the full benefits of water reform and to embed proven NWI
principles into the decision making of all Australian governments."
NWC also wrote to the prime miniser warning of the perils which lay ahead it governments didn't learn from past mistakes.
Thursday 3 January 2019
Murray-Darling Basin Plan: a $13 billion fraud on the environment
Some home truth about the current Murray-Darling Basin Plan to remember as we enter into the morass of competeing claims in NSW State and Australian Federal election campaigns in the first half of this year....
IN THE MATTER OF THE
MURRAY-DARLING BASIN ROYAL COMMISSION, Adelaide South Australia, 23 October 2018:
MR R. BEASLEY SC, Senior
Counsel Assisting:
….Commissioner, the
Water Act and the Basin Plan have been hailed as ground-breaking reform. They
are. What this Commission has learnt, however, from the evidence it has
gathered, and from the witnesses that have informed us, is that it’s one thing
to enact transformative legislation like the Water Act and the Basin Plan, it’s
quite another thing to faithfully implement it. Sadly, the implementation of
the Basin Plan at crucial times has been characterised by a lack of attention
to the requirements of the Water Act and a near total lack of transparency in
an important sense.
Those matters have had,
and continue to have, a negative impact on the environment and probably the
economies of all the Basin Plan states but the state that will suffer the most
is the state at the end of the system, South Australia. The Water Act was a
giant national compromise. At its heart was a recognition that all of the Basin
states – Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia – were taking too much
water from the system and had been for a long time. That, as a matter of
statutory fact in the Water Act, and as a matter of reality, has led to serious
degradation of the environment of the Basin. The Millennium Drought of 2000s
underscored the fact that, if nothing was done, over-allocation of the water
entitlements in the Basin would inevitably and quickly lead to irreversible
damage to the Basin environment.
The Water Act was a
response to that. It was the statutory means by which the process of
restoration and protection of environmental assets would begin. I say the Water
Act was a compromise because the Act contemplates that water will be taken from
our rivers and used consumptively for irrigation, the growing of crops and
permanent plants. Of course, also for human water needs. But it sets a limit.
That limit is that no more water can be taken beyond the point where key areas
of the environment and its ecosystems might be damaged. In an environment
that’s already degraded, that means the Water Act requires the environment to
have both enough water to restore degraded wetlands and the like and also, of
course, to maintain them.
That’s not just the
right thing to do. It’s what Australia’s international obligations require.
That task, setting a limit on the extraction of water, is to be based on the
best available science. Not guided by the best science, not informed by the
best science but based on the best available science. It also has to be
achieved by taking into account the well-known principles of ecologically
sustainable development. What the Commission has learnt from the evidence presented
to it is that the implementation of the Basin Plan, at crucial stages, has not
been based on the best available science. Further, ecologically sustainable
development has either been ignored or, in some cases, in relation to supply
measures, actually inverted.
I want to read to you a peer review of the
Guide to the Basin Plan from some international scientists in 2010 because it
demonstrates that they were well aware, even back then, of what was actually
going on in the early stages of drafting the Basin Plan. This is a peer review
report by Professor Gene Likens of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Mr
Per Bertilsson of the Stockholm International Water Institute, Professor Asit
Biswas from the Third World Centre for Water Management and Professor John
Briscoe, Gordon McKay Professor from Harvard University. What they said was
this, in reviewing the Basin Plan, at page 34 of what became exhibit RCE38:
It is a fundamental tenet of good
governance that scientists produce facts and the government decides on values
and makes choices. We are concerned that scientists in the Murray-Darling Basin
Authority, who are working to develop the facts, may feel they are expected to
trim those so that the sustainable diversion limit will be one that is politically
acceptable. We strongly believe that this is not only inconsistent with the
basic tenets of good governance but that it is not consistent with the letter
of the Water Act. We equally strongly believe that government needs to make the
necessary trade-offs and value judgments and need to be explicit about these,
assume responsibility and make the rationale behind these judgments transparent
to the public.
If all the MDBA had been
done in the past eight years since that review was written is “trim the facts”,
that would be bad enough. But it’s worse than that. The implementation of the
Basin Plan has been marred by maladministration. By that I mean mismanagement
by those in charge of the task in the Basin Authority, its executives and its
board, and the consequent mismanagement of huge amounts of public funds. The
responsibility for that maladministration and mismanagement falls on both past
and current executives of the MDBA and its board. Again, while the whole of the
Basin environment has and will continue to suffer as a result of this, the
state whose environment will suffer the most is South Australia.
The principal task of
those implementing the Plan is to set the Basin-wide sustainable diversion
limit. How much water can be taken from the rivers before the environment
suffers? You’ve heard evidence that has been unchallenged that this task was
infected by deception, secrecy and is the political fix. The modelling it has
been said to have been based on is still not available seven years later. The
recent adjustment of the sustainable diversion limit by raising it by 605
gigalitres, on the evidence you’ve heard, is best described as a fraud on the
environment. That’s a phrase I used in opening. It was justified then. It’s
re-enforced by the evidence you’ve heard subsequently. The so-called 450
gigalitres of upwater, the water that the then South Australian Government
fought for, for this State’s environment, is highly unlikely to ever eventuate.
The constraints to the system are just one major problem in the delivery of
that water.
Like all aspects of the
implementation of the Basin Plan, efficiency measures or infrastructure
projects that form the basis of how the 450 gigalitres of water is to be attained,
and which are funded by public money, lack any reasonable form of transparency
and, as the Productivity Commission recently, and witnesses to this Commission,
have noted, are hugely more expensive and less reliable than purchasing water
entitlements. I will discuss this in detail but I will give you one quote from
an expert who can talk with real authority about the extra 450 gigalitres
proposed for South Australia under the Basin Plan. That’s the former
Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, David Papps. In his evidence to you
said:
I would
bet my house that South Australia is not getting that water.
Mr Papps’ prediction
seems safe when one considers the proposed amendments to the Basin Plan by the
governments of NSW and Victoria concerning the 450 gigalitres that I will come
to shortly. Everything that I have just said to you is based on the views of
eminent scientists and other people who have given evidence and lodged
submissions. However, neither the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture and
Water, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, or any Commonwealth government
agency has provided any answer to anything I have just said or to the evidence
before the Commission that I will refer to shortly. They have no answer. The
submissions provided to you very recently by the Murray-Darling Basin
Authority, and the DAWR, Department of Agriculture and Water Resources,
demonstrate, as did their unwillingness to give evidence, culminating in
proceedings to the High Court, that they do not have any answer.
The MDBA, you will
recall, were even too busy to meet you. The States also have no answer, as
demonstrated in their somewhat thin submissions to you, with the exception of
the South Australian Government. When I say the MDBA has no answer to the
expert evidence given in this Commission, I should emphasise also that it
clearly has no answer to the maladministration and unlawfulness of its
implementation of the Basin Plan. It is nevertheless a great pity that relevant
persons from the Basin Authority, and other Commonwealth agencies, were not
required to give answers to you under oath concerning the scientific evidence
the Commission gathered.
The opportunity may have
been there had the High Court decided those proceedings in your favour. I’m not
going to speculate on what the High Court would have done but, regrettably, the
South Australian Government chose not to extend your Commission in order to
provide you with the opportunity that may have been available to you to
question those relevant people. You made it clear to the South Australian
Government that was your strong preference. You advised them that the
Commission had potential witnesses that wanted to give important evidence,
evidence relevant to the South Australian environment, but only if they were
compelled by summons. In other words, they were too scared to talk about the
implementation of the Basin Plan without the force of a summons. Why the
Commission was not extended to explore these crucial matters is something upon
which you can draw inferences as you see fit. I will only say that it’s a great
opportunity lost……
Sunday 28 October 2018
On past performance it will only take state and federal National Party politicians and their mates a couple of years to drain Morrison's $5 billion Drought Future Fund
On 26 October 2018, in the face of ongoing allegations of financial gouging of the public purse and mismanagement of water resources in the Murray Darling Basin, Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison unveiled his $5 billion Drought Future Fund at a summit attended by farmers, economists, industry bodies and state and federal ministers in Canberra....promising measures to drought-proof the nation's agriculture sector. The first $3.9 billion of the scheme, which would operate similarly to the Medical Future Fund, is to be paid for out of a pool of money originally intended for the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
What a brilliant idea.
Rob an already underfunded disability sector and the vulnerable people who depend on its services in order to beef up a proposed drought future fund,
What can possibly go wrong?
Well, on past history it will likely take National politicians and their mates about two years to empty this new fund - with little to no drought-proofing to show for the taxpayer dollars they manage to redirect towards their own businesses.
The
Age, 26
October 2018:
The Nationals' federal
treasurer Peter Schwarz is accused of gouging much of the $850,000 he was
paid by Australia’s largest drought-proofing project and calling
in favours when pressed to account for the taxpayer cash.
As Prime Minister Scott
Morrison launches his drought summit, leaked government files reveal that Mr
Schwarz banked the taxpayer subsidies in November 2011 and then spent years
resisting efforts from water officials to get him to or use it for its intended
purpose – saving water.
The frustration of the
Goulburn-Murray Water authority with the conduct of Mr Schwarz – who as well as
being the Nationals key federal fundraiser is also running in next month’s
Victorian election – is exposed in dozens of damning leaked authority files.
The files provide a case
study of issues which are front and centre at Mr Morrison’s drought summit and
which are being examined by drought envoy and Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce: using
taxpayer funds to help farmers deal with drought, and, questions about whether
backroom favours or mismanagement are undermining drought-relief efforts.
Among the leaked files
is a July 15, 2016 memo from a water authority lawyer summing up his view of Mr
Schwarz’s conduct after he joined hundreds of other farmers given cash incentives
as part of Australia’s largest water saving initiative, the Connections
Project. The project aims to help restore the Murray Darling water system.
The lawyer stated that
after Mr Schwarz received $850,505 in 2011 – divided into $473,000 for on-farm
water-saving measures and $300,000 to buy a neighbouring property – he ‘‘failed
to perform any of the obligations despite having received the payment … in
full.’’
‘‘The Schwarzes have
spent much of the ensuing period attempting to make a case that, notwithstanding
they entered into the agreement and received payment, they should not be bound
to perform,’’ the July 2016 legal memo states.
The leaked files also
reveal that Mr Schwarz sought to call on his personal relationship with a
controversial high-ranking water official, Gavin Hanlon, and an unnamed
‘‘minister’’ to ‘‘support [his] cause’’.
Mr Hanlon was a senior
Victorian water official who was headhunted by the NSW government as its
irrigation chief. He quit his NSW post in 2017 after revelations of questionable
dealings with farm lobbyists, sparking an ongoing
investigation by the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption……..
In a statement to
Fairfax Media, the water authority said that seven years after it gave Mr
Schwarz the funds, the stand-off over with him has been "substantially
resolved." It is understood that Mr Schwarz and Goulburn-Murray Water have
finally agreed that he will use the funds for water savings, but no work has as
yet been done.
The files reveal intense
frustration inside Goulburn-Murray Water not only about Mr Schwarz’s conduct
but the authority’s inability to recoup taxpayer funds.
A note written by an employee
in April 2014 states that: ‘‘Peter told me on a number of occasions he would
prefer to deal with higher GMW management and would not be accepting the
agreement he had previously signed.’’.......
BACKGROUND
SBC
News, 1
December 2018:
The NSW public has a
right to know whether a senior government executive, fired over her alleged
involvement in the Murray-Darling water theft scandal, received a six-figure
payout, the opposition says.
A report into water
theft in the Murray-Darling Basin, released on Thursday, confirmed that along
with top bureaucrat Gavin Hanlon's public resignation, a second executive was
fired for her role in the alleged misconduct.
AAP understands the
senior executive is a former National Party staffer and irrigation lobbyist,
who was appointed to a senior job within the Department of Primary Industries
in 2015.
Opposition water
spokesman Chris Minns said the Berejiklian government should confess whether
the executive had received a golden handshake on her way out the door......
In September, NSW
Minister for Primary Industries Niall Blair said misconduct proceedings had
started against Mr Hanlon.
Mr Hanlon was forced to
resign as the Department of Industry director general in September following
allegations of misconduct, including promising to share internal government
documents with irrigation lobbyists in 2016.
Thursday's independent
investigation into NSW water management and compliance report, authored by Ken
Matthews, said the second senior executive is alleged to have also been
involved in the teleconference.
According to her
LinkedIn profile, the executive was a policy officer for lobby group Southern
River Irrigators between 2011 and 2013 before becoming an advisor to federal
senator Simon Birmingham for a year......
Thursday's report comes
less than a week after both NSW and Queensland were slammed by a Murray-Darling
Basin Authority (MDBA) review into water theft and regulation.
That inquiry found both
states regularly failed to make sure irrigators complied with the
Murray-Darling Basin Plan, and weren't transparent about their failures......
The
Guardian, 27
September 2018:
A former water industry
lobbyist preselected by the New South Wales National party to
lead its Senate ticket in the next federal election has suggested examining
Barnaby Joyce’s proposal to release more water for irrigators.
Once a lobbyist for
Murray Irrigation, Perin Davey won the No 1 spot on the NSW National party’s
Senate ticket earlier this month, after the longtime Nationals senator and bank
campaigner John “Wacka” Williams retired and the former Nationals deputy leader
Fiona Nash resigned over her dual citizenship.
Davey was part of the
teleconference with NSW government water official Gavin Hanlon, when he
allegedly offered documents stripped of the department logo to help irrigators
lobby against the Murray-Darling basin plan.
Hanlon resigned
following the revelations, which were referred to the NSW Independent
Commission Against Corruption. The former water minister Kevin Humphries was
also referred to the state watchdog. Icac makes it a practice not to
comment any current investigations. Davey said she had not been interviewed by
Icac and Guardian Australia does not allege any wrongdoing.
The meeting was exposed
in the 2017 Four
Corners episode that reported allegations
that water was being harvested by some irrigators in the
Barwon-Darling region of the Murray-Darling
basin to the detriment of the environment and downstream communities.
Joyce, the former
agriculture minister, had nominated
Davey to the board of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority but, as a
result of the fallout from the program, Davey
asked Joyce to withdraw her nomination.
Davey, who now runs her own government
relations company, said she was simply participating in a teleconference
and that it was not unusual......
North Coast Voices:
13 MARCH 2018
Only
a handful of NSW landowners to face court over Murray-Darling Basin water theft
allegations? The NSW Government will prosecute several people over alleged
water theft on the Barwon-Darling, eight months after Four Corners investigated
the issue. WaterNSW has named the people it is taking to the Land and
Environment Court over alleged breaches of water management rules.
13 APRIL 2018
Alleged
irrigator water theft heading for the courts? A
cousin by marriage of the current Australian Minister for Agriculture and
Water Resources David Littleproud, John Norman, finds his agricultural
business practices under scrutiny...
30 APRIL 2018
What
the Australian Government didn’t want the UN to publish During Nationals
MP for New England Barnaby Joyce’s disastrous sojourn as Australian Deputy
Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources the federal
government began a successfull campaign to have the United Nations delete
all criticism of Australia’s $13bn effort to restore the ailing Murray-Darling
river system from a published study.
Thursday 13 September 2018
Blatant water theft by miners being allowed under Berejiklian Government rules?
IMAGE:
Ros Druce. Maules Creek Mine, January 2016 in New Matilda
ABC
News, 10
September 2018:
A New South Wales coal
mine is being accused of inappropriately taking more surface water than it is
entitled to.
A review of Whitehaven
Coal's Maules Creek Mine near Narrabri by the campaign group Lock the Gate
showed it captured 1,800 million litres (ML) of surface water in 2016, despite
being licenced to take 30 million litres.
Surface water is water
that is collected from rainfall and run off.
An examination of
surface water licences in New South Wales has been unable to find any other
surface water licences held by the mine to justify the additional water.
"It does appear
that the take is much higher than the licence they have explained to the
community," Maules Creek farmer Lochie Leitch said.
Whitehaven Coal declined
to be interviewed.
The company issued a
statement saying it was in compliance with its water licences, and the use of
rainfall and runoff is permissible under legislation.
Farmers whose properties
neighbour the mine have joined forces with the campaign group, Lock the Gate
Alliance, to lodge a complaint with the state's new water watchdog, the Natural
Resources Access Regulator.
The NRAR was set up in
April 2018 following a review of water management and compliance which was
prompted by a story
by the ABC's Four Corners.
The farmers are worried
that the alleged collection of this extra surface water is affecting the
environment.
"[It's] simply
capturing too much water that would otherwise be recharging groundwater and
flowing into surface water systems," Maules Creek farmer Sally Hunter
said.
Labels:
mining,
sustainability,
water wars,
water policy politics
Sunday 10 June 2018
The political endorsements of extinction by Turnbull, Berejiklian and Palaszczuk governments continue
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
5 June 2018:
Wild fish stocks in
Australian waters shrank by about a third in the decade to 2015, declining in
all regions except strictly protected marine zones, according to data collected
by scientists and public divers.
The research, based on
underwater reef monitoring at 533 sites around the nation and published in
the Aquatic Conservation journal, claims to be the first
large-scale independent survey of fisheries. It found declining numbers tracked
the drop in total reported catch for 213 Australian fisheries for the 1992-2014
period.
The biomass of larger
fish fell 36 per cent on fished reefs during 2005-15 and dropped 18 per cent in
marine park zones allowing limited fishing, the researchers said. There was a
small increase in targeted fish species in zones that barred fishing
altogether.
"Most of the
numbers are pretty shocking," said David Booth, a marine ecologist at the
University of Technology Sydney. “This paper really nails down the fact that
fishing or the removal of large fish is one of the causes” of their decline.
Over-fished stocks
include the eastern jackass morwong, eastern gemfish, greenlip abalone, school
shark, warehou and the grey nurse shark. The morwong catch, once as common as
flathead in the trawl fishery, dived about 95 per cent from the 1960s to 109
tonnes in the 2015-16 year to become basically a bycatch species……
…Peter Whish-Wilson, the
Greens ocean spokesman, said the new research was largely based on actual
underwater identification – including the Reef Life Survey using citizen
scientists. It suggests fishing stocks "are not as rosy as the industry or
government would like us all to think".
"This study also
shows that marine parks can be successful fisheries management tools but we
simply don’t have enough of them or enough protection within them to deliver
widespread benefits," he said.
"The new
Commonwealth Marine Reserves are woefully inadequate and won’t do anything to
stop the continuing decline in the health of our oceans."
Environmental Defender's Office NSW, July 2017:
Humane Society
International Australia (HSI), represented by EDO NSW, is seeking independent
review of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority’s (GBRMPA) decision to
approve a lethal shark control program in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
HSI has lodged an appeal
in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) which will require a full
reconsideration of the approval of the shark control program. The 10 year
lethal control program targets 26 shark species in the Marine Park, including
threatened and protected species. The appeal is based on the public interest in
protecting the biodiversity of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.....
As apex predators,
sharks play a vital role in maintaining the health of the Great Barrier Reef.
HSI is concerned about the ongoing impacts caused by the use of lethal
drumlines which are known to impact not only on shark species but also
dolphins, turtles and rays. HSI is calling for non-lethal alternatives for
bather protection.
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
27 May 2018:
Forest covering an area
more than 50 times the size of the combined central business districts of
Sydney and Melbourne is set to be bulldozed near the Great Barrier Reef,
official data shows, triggering claims the Turnbull government is thwarting its
$500 million reef survival package.
Figures provided to
Fairfax Media by Queensland’s Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy
show that 36,600 hectares of land in Great Barrier Reef water catchments has
been approved for tree clearing and is awaiting destruction.
The office of
Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg did not say if his government was
comfortable with the extent of land clearing approved in Queensland, or if it
would use its powers to cancel permits.
The approvals were
granted by the Queensland government over the past five years. About 9000
hectares under those approvals has already been cleared.
Despite the dire
consequences of land clearing for the Great Barrier Reef – and billions of
dollars of public money spent over the years to tackle the problem – neither
Labor nor the government would commit to intervening to stop the mass
deforestation.
Environmental Defender's Office NSW, 25 May 2018:
Freedom of information
laws are an important mechanism for making government decisions transparent and
accountable. But the existence of such laws doesn’t mean access to information
is easy.
It took a three-year legal
process for the Humane Society International (HSI), represented by EDO NSW,
to access
documents about how the Australian Government came to accredit a NSW
biodiversity offsets policy for major projects.
The NSW policy in question
allowed significant biodiversity trade-offs (that is, permitting developers to
clear habitat in return for compensatory actions elsewhere) seemingly
inconsistent with national biodiversity offset standards. HSI wanted to know how
the national government could accredit a policy that didn’t meet its own
standards.
Despite Australia being
a signatory to important international environmental agreements and accepting
international obligations to protect biodiversity, in recent years it has been
proposed that the national government should delegate its environmental
assessment and approval powers to the states, creating a ‘one stop shop’ for
developers.
The original FOI request
in this case was submitted in early 2015, during a time when Federal and State
and Territory Governments were actively in consultation on handing over federal
approval powers under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity
Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). This was to be done in the name of
efficiency, with the assurance that national standards would be upheld by the
states.
Over 60 documents
finally accessed by HSI show this was a false promise. The documents reveal
that federal bureaucrats in the environment department identified key areas of
the NSW policy that differed from federal standards.
Despite this, the policy
was accredited.
Accreditation meant that
the NSW policy could be used when approving developments with impacts on
nationally threatened species found in NSW, instead of applying the more
rigorous national offsets policy.
In the time it took to
argue for access to the documents, NSW developed a new biodiversity offsets
policy as part of broader legislative reforms for biodiversity and land
clearing. Unfortunately, the new NSW biodiversity offsets policy continues to
entrench many of the weaker standards. For example, mine site rehabilitation
decades in the future can count as an offset now; offset requirements may be
discounted if other socio-economic factors are considered; and supplementary
measures - such as research or paying cash - are an alternative to finding a
direct offset (that is, protecting the actual plant or animal that has been
impacted by a development).
While there have been
some tweaks to the new policy for nationally listed threatened species, there
is still a clear divergence in standards. The new policy, and the new NSW
biodiversity laws, are now awaiting accreditation by the Australian Government.
How our unique and
irreplaceable biodiversity is managed (and traded off) is clearly a matter of
public interest. And on the eve of a hearing at the Administrative Appeals
Tribunal, the federal environment department agreed and released over 60
documents. While it was a heartening win for transparency and the value of FOI
laws, it was a depressing read when these documents revealed the political
endorsement of extinction.
Thursday 31 May 2018
The people of the Liverpool Plains versus Santos and its irresponsible domestic and international shareholders
Oil and gas mining corporation Santos Limited is currently seeking approval to drill up to 850 natural gas wells on est. 425 sites over 95,000 hectares in the Pilliga Forest region of north-west New South Wales.
Pilliga Forest is consdered a rare example of intact temperate forest and covers an est. 300,000 hectares sitting atop a recharge area of the Great Artesian Basin.
Santos presents itself as an Australian company, yet two affilated Chinese companys hold over 624 million voting shares in the company1 and its top institutional shareholders contain the usual mix of international banks, finance and investment companies2.
In its 2017 annual report Santos admits; A range of environmental risks exist within oil
and gas exploration and production activities3.
This is the response of the people living on the Liverpool Plains.
The backyard of New
South Wales is facing its biggest threat yet – invasive gasfields. Betrayal by
governments has meant protectors are fighting to save the things they love. The
Pilliga, Great Artesian Basin, Liverpool Plains – all are at risk. This is a
David and Goliath battle to save our land, air and water from destruction. It’s
also a fight for the soul and future of Australia. In this film we meet the
experts and people living in the sacrifice zone and uncover the truth behind
the real gas crisis confronting ordinary Australians.
https://youtu.be/h3h1FxwI1CE
Footnotes
1. As of 27 June 2017 Hony Partners Group, L.P and ENN Ecological Holdings Co Ltd acting in concert
2. At Page 130 https://www.santos.com/media/4319/2017-annual-report.pdf.
Footnotes
1. As of 27 June 2017 Hony Partners Group, L.P and ENN Ecological Holdings Co Ltd acting in concert
2. At Page 130 https://www.santos.com/media/4319/2017-annual-report.pdf.
3. 15 February 2017 Queensland Department of Environment and
Heritage Protection fined Santos $12,190
for non-compliance with a Soils Management Plan.
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