May | 2013 | ConservationBytes.com

Conservation hypocrisy

28 05 2013

telegraph.co.uk

Another soul-searching post from Alejandro Frid.

—

Confession time. This is going to be delicate, and might even ruffle some big feathers. Still, all of us need to talk about it. In fact, I want to trigger a wide conversation on the flaws and merits of what I did.

Back in March of this year I saw a posting for a job with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) seeking a ‘conservation biologist to provide expert advice in the design and implementation of a Biodiversity Monitoring and Assessment Program (BMAP) in northern British Columbia, Canada’. The job sounded cool and important. I was suited for it, knew northern British Columbia well, and loved the idea of working there.

But there was a catch. The job was focused on the local impacts of fossil fuel infrastructure while dissociating itself from the climate impacts of burning that fuel, and involved collaborating with the fossil fuel company. According to the posting, this was not a new thing for the Smithsonian:

Guided by the principles of the Convention on Biological Diversity, SCBI works with a selected group of oil and gas companies since 1996 to develop models designed to achieve conservation and sustainable development objectives while also protecting and conserving biodiversity, and maintaining vital ecosystem services that benefit both humans and wildlife.

Given that climate change already is diminishing global biodiversity and hampering the ecosystem services on which we all depend, the logic seemed inconsistent to me. But there was little time to ponder it. The application deadline had just passed and my soft-money position with the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre was fizzling out. So I applied, hastily, figuring that I would deal with the issue later, if they ever got back to me. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 20 Comments »
Tags: British Columbia, Carbon dioxide, climate change, Convention on Biological Diversity, ecosystem services, environment, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, sustainability
Categories : biodiversity, boreal, Canada, carbon, climate change, conservation, ecosystem services, environmental science, ethics, reserve

Our national parks must be more than playgrounds or paddocks

24 05 2013

It’s interesting when a semi-random tweet by a colleague ends up mobilising a small army of scientists to get pissed off enough to co-write an article. Euan Ritchie of Deakin University started it off, and quickly recruited me, Mick McCarthy, David Watson, Ian Lunt, Hugh Possingham, Bill Laurance and Emma Johnston to put together the article. It’s a hugely important topic, so I hope it generates a lot of discussion and finally, some bloody action to stop the rapid destruction of this country’s national parks system.

Note: Published simultaneously on The Conversation.

—

It’s make or break time for Australia’s national parks.

National parks on land and in the ocean are dying a death of a thousand cuts, in the form of bullets, hooks, hotels, logging concessions and grazing licences. It’s been an extraordinary last few months, with various governments in eastern states proposing new uses for these critically important areas.

Australia’s first “National Park”, established in 1879, was akin to a glorified country club. Now called the “Royal National Park” on the outskirts of Sydney, it was created as a recreational escape for Sydney-siders, with ornamental plantations, a zoo, race courses, artillery ranges, livestock paddocks, deer farms, logging leases and mines.

Australians since realised that national parks should focus on protecting the species and natural landscapes they contain. However, we are now in danger of regressing to the misguided ideals of the 19th Century.

Parks under attack

In Victoria, new rules will allow developers to build hotels and other ventures in national parks. In New South Wales, legislation has been introduced to allow recreational shooting in national parks, and there is pressure to log these areas too. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 16 Comments »
Tags: Alpine National Park, Australia, biodiversity, conservation, fishing, grazing, hunting, logging, marine parks, marine protected areas, national park, reserves, shooting
Categories : Australia, biodiversity, connectivity, conservation, conservation biology, decline, deforestation, ecosystem, ecosystem function, ecosystem services, environmental policy, exploitation, extinction, fragmentation, habitat loss, harvest, logging, management, marine, marine protected area, protected area, threatened species

A carbon economy can help save our species too

20 05 2013

We sent out this media release the other day, but it had pretty poor pick-up (are people sick of the carbon price wars?). Anyway, I thought it prudent to reprint here on CB.com.

—

Will Australia’s biodiversity benefit from the new carbon economy designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Or will bio-‘perversities’ win the day?

“Cautious optimism” was the conclusion of Professor Corey Bradshaw, Director of Ecological Modelling at the University of Adelaide’s Environment Institute. He is lead author of a new paper published in the journal of Biological Conservation which reviewed the likely consequences of a carbon economy on conservation of Australian biodiversity.

“In most circumstances these two very important goals for Australia’s future – greenhouse gas emissions reduction and biodiversity conservation – are not mutually exclusive and could even boost each other,” Professor Bradshaw says.

“There are, however, many potential negative biodiversity outcomes if land management is not done with biodiversity in mind from the outset.”

The paper was contributed to by 30 Australian scientists from different backgrounds. They reviewed six areas where Australia’s Carbon Farming Initiative could have the greatest impact on biodiversity: environmental plantings; policies and practices to deal with native regrowth; fire management; agricultural practices; and feral animal control.

“The largest biodiversity ‘bang for our buck’ is likely to come from tree plantings,” says Professor Bradshaw. “But there are some potential and frightening ‘bioperversities’ as well. For example, we need to be careful not to plant just the fastest-growing, simplest and non-native species only to ‘farm’ carbon.

“Carbon plantings will only have real biodiversity value if they comprise appropriate native tree species and provide suitable habitats and resources for valued fauna. Such plantings could however risk severely altering local hydrology and reducing water availability.”

Professor Bradshaw says carefully managing regrowth of once-cleared areas could also produce a large carbon-sequestration and biodiversity benefit simultaneously. And carbon price-based modifications to agriculture that would benefit biodiversity included reductions in tillage frequency, livestock densities and fertiliser use, and retention and regeneration of native shrubs. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: Australia, biodiversity, carbon, Carbon pricing, Carbon tax, environment, Greenhouse gas, Introduced species
Categories : Australia, biocarbon, biodiversity, biosequestration, carbon, carbon trading, climate change, climate shift, connectivity, conservation, deforestation, ecosystem function, ecosystem services, environmental policy, fire, fragmentation, habitat loss, harvest, invasive species, kangaroo, livestock, logging, reforestation, restoration

Learning from danger

13 05 2013

Study vehicle, a group of vicuñas and a guanaco in San Guillermo National Park (San Juan, Argentina) [courtesy of Marco Escudero]. Guanacos and vicuñas are native to South America, and are the ancestors of domesticated llamas and alpacas – which are exploited for their meat, milk and wool. Both species form monotypic genera. They have discontinuous distributions in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru, with introduced populations in Paraguay (guanaco) and Ecuador (vicuña). Population estimates are > 500,000 (guanaco) and > 300,000 (vicuña), the latter restricted to high-altitude ecosystems. They are ‘Least Concern’ for the IUCN but, given their low population growth rates (fertility = 1 offspring/female/yr), guanacos and vicuñas are targeted by conservation programs in all their native countries.

Many of us might have stumbled twice on the same stone, yet learnt to be wary of future situations of similar risk. Likewise, wild animals can be predisposed to flee when faced with already known predators (or threats in general). The type and magnitude of their evasive response depends on predator distance, speed and body size (1). Regardless, prey need to assess predation risk in a matter of seconds (or even shorter than that), i.e., balancing the benefits and costs of fleeing.

The benefits all boil down to survival, but the costs might include moving away from offspring, loss of access to fresh and abundant food, or spending precious metabolic energy (2). The methods ecologists use to study animal flight behaviour in the wild are rife with nuisances (3), yet they represent a tool for quantifying wildlife stress resulting from a variety of human activities.

Equipped with our modern technological kit (weapons, vehicles, GPS, etc.), humans behave like genuine predators and can trigger the range of flight behaviours displayed by their potential prey. In that context, Emiliano Donadio and Steve Burskirk (4) studied flight behaviour of guanacos (Lama guanicoe) and vicuñas (Vicugna vicugna) in the Argentinean open plains (‘llanos’). They monitored 2 protected areas under weak surveillance and subject to illegal hunting: the Laguna Brava Provincial Reserve and the San Guillermo Biosphere Reserve (treatment = H); and one area free of hunting and only exposed to guided visits with strict entry/exit times: the San Guillermo National Park (treatment = NH). The ecologists did 3 transects per study area. When they encountered a group of camelids, they classified three types of flight behaviour (alert without fleeing, walking away, galloping away), and measured flight time (between vehicle detection and initiation of flight behaviour) and flight distance (between the vehicle and the individuals when initiating flight behaviour). Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: Argentina, Chile, fear, flee, flight, Guanaco, San Guillermo National Park, South America, Vicuña
Categories : conservation, harvest, predator, protected area, South America

Take credit for your work

6 05 2013

If science is the best way to reduce subjectivity when asking a question of how something works, then an inherently essential aspect of this is getting your message across to as many people and as clearly as possible. And as CB readers will know, I’m all about ‘getting the message out’.

As such, when asked by a stranger about what I do, I often respond ‘writer’, because perhaps next to maths, I spend most of my time writing. I tend to argue that without good oral and (especially) written communication skills, even the most brilliant scientist is functionally useless to the rest of society.

So being a writer means that focussing on what some would describe as mundane – spelling, grammar, writing style and clarity – is an essential preoccupation. I’ve written about grammatical and style issues before (see here and here), and in the spirit of providing tips to young scientists out there, here’s another suggestion.

Please, please, please use your own voice.

I’m talking about that archaic style of zombie writing that has plagued scientific writing since its inception – the passive voice.

Read the rest of this entry »