environmental policy | ConservationBytes.com

The only constant is change

27 07 2020

I just wrote a piece for the Flinders University alumnus magazine — Encounter — and I thought I’d share it here.

encounter-2020_Page_01

As an ecologist concerned with how life changes and adapts to the vagaries of climate and pervasive biological shuffling, ‘constant change’ is more than just a mantra — it is, in fact, the mathematical foundation of our entire discipline.

But if change is inevitable, how can we ensure it is in the right direction?

Take climate change for example. Since the Earth first formed it has experienced abrupt climate shifts many times, both to the detriment of most species in existence at any given time, and to the advantage of those species evolving from the ashes.

For more than 3.5 billion years, species have evolved and gone extinct, such that more than 99% of all species that have ever existed are now confined, permanently, to the vaults of the past.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: Australia, biodiversity, bushfire, climate change, environment, environmental damage, extinction, fire, Global warming
Categories : agriculture, anthropocene, Australia, biodiversity, biowealth, carbon, climate change, conservation, conservation biology, deforestation, development, economics, ecosystem, ecosystem services, education, environmental policy, exploitation, extinction, Flinders University, habitat loss, invasive species, recovery, reforestation, reserve, restoration, sustainability

A brief history of environmentalism in Australia since European invasion

29 06 2020

A (heavily) modified and updated excerpt from our 2015 book Killing the Koala and Poisoning the Prairie

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The Australian awakening to its environmental dilemmas was a little more sluggish than elsewhere in the New World. Not only did Europeans arrive in Australia en masse only about 250 years ago, they had a more limited view of their new landscape, and were, at least initially, constrained by the harshness of their new home. Those mostly British settlers brought with them the fully formed ideas of development and progress shaped by centuries of land use in the Motherland. That ideal of conquering wilderness and transforming it into the bucolic landscape typical of the English countryside was their driving force.

The early settlers viewed the Australian bush as ugly and monotonous, features that could only be overcome by human occupation and cultivation. This neo-classical view, homesickness and the Romantic desire to transform their homes and farms into an image of those from their homeland, were defining forces in early Australian history. Unlike in Europe, though, where there were cultural taboos associated with forest degradation — bound in mysticism, spirituality, folklore and politics — no such restrictions applied to the unfamiliar Australian bush.

In fact, the Australian government passed the Crown Lands Alienation Act in 1861, which was designed to ‘open up’ the colony to settlement, and penalized landholders for not clearing the land (via a forfeit of the land back to the Crown). That single Act guaranteed the deforestation wave would continue for over a 100 years. That, and the persistent desire to make the new land look as much as possible as the old, has ensured that continuing demise of Australia’s biodiversity.

Clearing for agriculture in early settlement. Anonymous, Government Farm at Castle Hill, circa 1803. Watercolour, 24×35 cm. Permission to reproduce courtesy of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

Interestingly, clashes over land use between the settlers and Indigenous peoples were probably some of the first demonstrations of what today we would call ‘environmentalism’ in Australia. Aboriginal nations were intent on preserving their way of life (and indeed, their lives) in the face of the settlers’ onslaught. But this was seen, at most, as a mild inconvenience for the new Australians who in response invoked the idea of terra nullius — that no one owned the land, making it available to anyone (white) who wished to ‘improve’ (clear) it. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: Australian history, conservation history, Environmentalism, history of environmentalism, national parks
Categories : agriculture, anthropocene, Australia, biodiversity, biowealth, book, conservation, coral reefs, deforestation, development, environmental policy, exploitation, extinction, habitat loss, harvest, livestock, logging, planning, preservationist, protected area, reserve, threatened species, University of Chicago Press

Extinction Anxiety

21 05 2020

Earlier this week, the SBS show The Feed did a short segment called ‘Extinction Anxiety’ where I talked with host Alice Matthews about biodiversity extinctions. Given that it has so far only been available in Australia, I made a copy here for others to view.

For more information on the state of global biodiversity, see this previous post.

CJA Bradshaw

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Tags: biodiversity, extinction, extinction anxiety, extinction rate, mass extinctions
Categories : agriculture, anthropocene, biodiversity, biowealth, climate change, conservation, deforestation, development, environmental policy, evolution, exploitation, extinction, fragmentation, habitat loss, harvest, human overpopulation, invasive species, logging

Never let a good crisis go to waste

11 05 2020

pandemic

First published in the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere Blog on 5 May 2020.

by Professor Dan Blumstein (University of California at Los Angeles), Professor Paul Ehrlich (Stanford University), and Corey Bradshaw (Flinders University)

—

Winston Churchill’s words have never been more important than today as we experience the society- and life-changing consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The extent and severity of the disease is a result of ignoring decades of warnings by scientists about the general deterioration of humanity’s epidemiological environment, and specific warnings about confining live, wild animals in markets. The situation was made even more lethal by ignoring the warnings from epidemiologists and disease ecologists once it became clear that an imminent pandemic most likely arose from this practice. Many countries, including the United States, are still ignoring those warnings and the required actions to lessen the impact.

Accordingly, we should ask ourselves, “what else are we missing?” What other huge problems are hiding in plain sight where science could guide policy to avoid catastrophic future failures? For instance, there are two principal health threats that must be addressed immediately, and we must strike while the iron is hot.

The overuse of antibiotics in agriculture will cause widespread deaths from formerly treatable bacterial diseases because of the evolution of antibiotic resistance in microbes. The evolution of resistance is well-known, predictable, and obvious — not in retrospect, but now. By feeding antibiotics to otherwise healthy livestock, animals can be housed in higher densities and they grow faster. Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: agriculture, biodiversity loss, climate change, COVID-19, covid19, disease, Extinctions, Global warming, human disease, pandemic, reset, sars-cov2, wet markets
Categories : agriculture, Australia, biodiversity, climate change, conservation, disease, environmental policy, exploitation, habitat loss, health, human overpopulation, livestock, logging

Shifting from prevention to damage control

5 05 2020

time Back in March this year before much of the world morphed into the weirdness that now dictates all facets of life, I wrote an update for the Is This How You Feel project led by Joe Duggan.

It was an exercise in emotional expression not necessarily grounded in empiricism. But in that particular piece, I had written the following line:

Few scientists in my field are still seriously considering avoidance of environmental collapse; instead, the dominant discourse is centred on damage control.

But is this correct? Is this how most scientists in conservation feel today? In a way, this post serves both as a rationale for my expectation, and as a question for the wider community.

My rationale for that contention is that it is undeniable that biodiversity is going down the toilet faster than even some of the most pessimistic of us could have predicted. We are without doubt within the sixth mass extinction event every experienced on the Earth for at least the last 600 million years.

Yet, there have never been more conservation biologists and practitioners. There have never been more international treaties and accords that expressly aim to protect biodiversity.

To assert that we have failed is unhelpful fatalism, yet it cannot be ignored that biodiversity’s predicament and those charged with turning around its fate are not exactly replete with successes. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: Anthropocene, biodiversity, conservation, emotional state, fatalism, future, mass extinction, Sixth Mass Extinction
Categories : anthropocene, biodiversity, climate change, conservation, conservation biology, environmental policy, extinction, human overpopulation

South Australia is still killing dingoes

14 04 2020

As we did for Victoria, here’s our submission to South Australia’s proposed changes to its ‘wild dog’ and dingo policy (organised again by the relentless and venerable Dr Kylie Cairns):

14 April 2020

The Honourable Tim Whetstone MP, Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, South Australia

cc: The Honourable David Speirs MP, Minister for Environment and Water, South Australia
cc: Primary Industries and Regions South Australia
cc: Dr Bradley Page, PIRSA Wild Dog Program

RE: PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE SA WILD DOG AND DINGO POLICY

Dear Minister,

The undersigned welcome the opportunity to comment on the proposed changes to the South Australian (SA) Government’s ‘Wild dog and Dingo’ declared animal policy under section 10 (1)(b) of the Natural Resources Management Act 2004. The proposed changes raise serious concerns for dingoes in SA because it:

1. Requires all landholders to follow minimum baiting standards, including organic producers or those not experiencing stock predation.

Requires dingoes within Ngarkat Conservation Park (Region 4) to be destroyed, with ground baiting to occur every 3 months.
Requires ground baiting on land irrespective of whether stock predation is occurring or not, or evidence of dingo (wild dog) presence.

2. Allows aerial baiting of dingoes (aka wild dogs) in all NRM regions – including within National Parks.

3. Uses inappropriate and misleading language to label dingoes as “wild dogs”

We strongly urge the PIRSA to reject the proposed amendments to the SA wild dog and dingo policy. Instead the PIRSA should seek consultation with scientific experts in ecology, biodiversity and wildlife-conflict to develop a policy which considers the important ecological and cultural identity of the dingo whilst seeking to minimise their impact on livestock using best-practice and evidence-based guidelines. Key to this aim, livestock producers should be assisted with the help of PIRSA to seek alternative stock protection methodology and avoid lethal control wherever possible. On the balance of scientific evidence, protection of dingoes should be enhanced rather than diminished. Widespread aerial baiting programs are not compatible with the continued persistence of genetically intact and distinct dingoes in SA.

In this context, we strongly emphasise the following points: Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 19 Comments »
Tags: 1080, control, dingo, environmental policy, poison, predator, shooting, South Australia, wild dog
Categories : Australia, biodiversity, cat, community ecology, conservation, dingo, ecosystem function, ecosystem services, environmental policy, ethics, exploitation, fox, function, genetics, harvest, human-wildlife conflict, invasive species, kangaroo, mammal, management, meso-predator release, predation, predator, recovery, science, South Australia, sustainability, threatened species, top-down ecology

Amphibian conservation in a managed world

1 04 2020

Crinia parinsignifera (top) and Limnodynastes tasmaniensis (bottom). Photo: Kate Mason

The amphibian class is diverse, and ranges from worm-like caecilians to tiny frogs that live their entire lives within bromeliads high in the rainforest canopy. Regardless of form or habit, all share the dubious honour of being cited as the world’s most endangered vertebrate taxon, and 41% of the species assessed are threatened with extinction. Rapidly changing climates will further exacerbate this situation as amphibians are expected to be more strongly affected than other vertebrates like birds or mammals.

This peril stems from a physiological dependence on freshwater.

Amphibians breathe (in part) through their skin, so they maintain moist skin surfaces. This sliminess means that most amphibians quickly dry out in dry conditions. Additionally, most amphibian eggs and larvae are fully aquatic. One of the greatest risks to populations are pools that dry too quickly for larval development, which leads to complete reproductive failure.

This need for freshwater all too often places them in direct competition with humans.

To keep pace with population growth, humans have engineered a landscape where the location, and persistence of water is tightly controlled. In seeking water availability for farming and amenity, we all too often remove essential habitats for amphibians and other freshwater fauna.

To protect amphibians from decline and extinction, land managers may need to apply innovative techniques to support vulnerable species. With amphibians’ strong dependence on freshwater, this support can be delivered by intelligently manipulating where and when freshwater appears in the landscape, with an eye to maintaining habitats for breeding, movement and refuge. A range of innovative approaches have been attempted to date, but they are typically developed in isolation and their existence is known only to a cloistered few. A collation of the approaches and their successes (and failures) has not occurred.

In our latest paper, we used a systematic review to classify water-manipulation techniques and to evaluate the support for these approaches. Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: amphibian, conservation, conservation evidence, environmental flow, flow, frog, pump, restoration, salamander, spray, spraying, Toad, water, wetlands
Categories : amphibian, climate change, conservation, conservation biology, disease, drought, environmental policy, extinction, fish, frog, habitat loss, management, pollution, predation, predator, recovery, restoration, water

How I feel now about climate change

10 03 2020

‘Bleak No. 2’ by David Vogler

Five years ago I was asked by a researcher at the Australia National University, Joe Duggan, how I ‘felt’ about climate change.

This was part of an original initiative that put a human face on the scientists working on elements of one of society’s greatest existential threats.

Thus, Is This How You Feel? became a massive success in terms of bringing to the world the idea that scientists are also deeply affected by what they see happening around them.

Five years later, Joe asked me and all the other scientists who participated to provide an update on how we feel.

Here’s what I wrote: Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: anger, climate disruption, democracy, depression, desperation, emotions, feelings, Global warming, plutocracy, politics
Categories : Australia, biodiversity, climate change, conservation, corruption, development, economics, Endarkenment, environmental policy, exploitation, governance, human overpopulation, recovery, science, sustainability

In pursuit of an ecological resilience in the Anthropocene

3 03 2020

An excerpt from Alejandro Frid‘s new book, Changing Tides: An Ecologist’s Journey to Make Peace with the Anthropocene (published first in Sierra, with photos courtesy of New Society Publishers)

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The birth of my daughter, in 2004, thrust upon me a dual task: to be scientifically realistic about all the difficult changes that are here to stay, while staying humanly optimistic about the better things that we still have.

By the time my daughter turned eleven, I had jettisoned my nostalgia for the Earth I was born into in the mid-196os—a planet that, of course, was an ecological shadow of Earth 100 years before, which in turn was an ecological shadow of an earlier Earth. The pragmatist in me had embraced the Anthropocene, in which humans dominate all biophysical processes, and I ended up feeling genuinely good about some of the possible futures in which my daughter’s generation might grow old.

It was a choice to engage in a tough situation. An acknowledgement of rapid and uninvited change. A reaffirmed commitment to everything I have learned, and continue to learn, as an ecologist working with Indigenous people on marine conservation. Fundamental to this perspective is the notion of resilience: the ability of someone or something—a culture, an ecosystem, an economy, a person—to absorb shocks yet still maintain their essence.

But what is essence? Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: Anthropocene, biodiversity, extinction
Categories : anthropocene, biodiversity, birds, climate change, conservation, deforestation, ecology, environmental policy, ethics, extinction, fish, habitat loss

Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss LIX

24 02 2020

The second set of six biodiversity cartoons for 2020. See full stock of previous ‘Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss’ compendia here.

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Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: climate change, climate emergency, collapse, conservation, environment, Global warming, sustainability, this is what climate change looks like
Categories : Australia, cartoon, climate change, climate shift, drought, Endarkenment, environmental policy, fire

Unlikely the biodiversity crisis will improve any time soon

6 02 2020

hopeless Around a fortnight ago I wrote a hastily penned post about the precarious state of biodiversity — it turned out to be one of the most-read posts in ConservationBytes‘ history (nearly 22,000 views in less than two weeks).

Now, let’s examine whether this dreadful history is likely to get any better any time soon.

Even if extinction rates decline substantially over the next century, I argue that we are committed to an intensifying biodiversity extinction crisis. The aggregate footprint from the growing human population notwithstanding, we can expect decades, if not centuries, of continued extinctions from lag effects alone (extinction debts arising from previous environmental damage engendering extinctions in the future)¹.

Global vegetation cover and production are also likely to decline even in the absence of continued habitat clearing — the potential benefit of higher CO₂ concentrations for plant photosynthesis is more than offset by lower availability of water in the soil, heat stress, and the frequency of disturbances such as droughts². Higher frequencies and intensities of disturbance events like catastrophic bushfire will also exacerbate extinction rates³.

However, perhaps the least-appreciated element of potential extinctions arising from climate change is that they are vastly underestimated when only considering a species’ thermal tolerance⁴. In fact, climate disruption-driven extinction rates could be up to ten times higher than currently predicted⁴ when extinction cascades are taken into account⁵. Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: Aichi Targets, Anthropocene, biodiversity, biowealth, CBD, conservation, conservation biology, Convention on Biological Diversity, decline, ecological footprint, extinction, habitat loss, harvest, human overpopulation, kelp, SDG, Sustainable Development Goals, threatened species
Categories : anthropocene, climate change, conservation, development, ecosystem, ecosystem services, environmental policy, extinction, extinction debt, living dead

Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss LVIII

4 01 2020

The first set of six biodiversity cartoons for 2020. This special, Australia-is-burning-down-themed set is dedicated to Scott Morrison and his ilk. See full stock of previous ‘Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss’ compendia here.

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Tags: Australia burns, Australian fires, climate change, climate emergency, collapse, conservation, environment, extinction, fire, Global warming, Scotty from marketing, scumo, sustainability, this is what climate change looks like
Categories : Australia, cartoon, climate change, climate shift, drought, Endarkenment, environmental policy, fire

Influential conservation ecology papers of 2019

24 12 2019

As I’ve done for the last six years, I am publishing a retrospective list of the ‘top’ 20 influential papers of 2019 as assessed by experts in F1000 Prime (in no particular order). See previous years’ lists here: 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013.

Decline of the North American avifauna — … the first comprehensive assessment of population change in the North American avifauna.

Scientists’ warning to humanity: microorganisms and climate change — … [highlights] the crucial role of microbial transformations in determining set points for sea temperature, pH and ocean productivity … [identifies] microbial activity as the “life support system of the biosphere”.

(Note: Lots of people hated this one, basically because it appears to be severely flawed; nonetheless, it received several recommendations on F1000): The global tree restoration potential — … illustrates the substantial potential of capturing some of the excess carbon dioxide present in the earth’s atmosphere by planting trees.

Managing the middle: a shift in conservation priorities based on the global human modification gradient — … probably the best global assessment of spatial extent of human modification of natural terrestrial environments published to date.

Five decades of northern land carbon uptake revealed by the interhemispheric CO₂ gradient — … [concludes] that northern hemisphere [sic] vegetation and soil account for the majority of the terrestrial carbon sink, rather than tropical forests (not trying to display too many sour grapes here, but we’ve already reported this for the boreal forest, and they didn’t even bother to cite us — sad panda)

Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: agriculture, biodiversity, birds, carbon, carbon uptake, climate change, climate emergency, CO2, conservation, declines, drought, extinction, Fish, fisheries, forests, insects, marine ecology, microorganisms, pesticides, range edges, trees, urban biodiversity, wilderness
Categories : agriculture, anthropocene, biodiversity, biogeography, biowealth, birds, carbon, climate change, climate shift, community ecology, connectivity, conservation, conservation biology, conservation ecology, decline, deforestation, demography, ecology, economics, ecosystem, ecosystem function, ecosystem services, environmental policy, environmental science, exploitation, extinction, extinction debt, fish, fisheries, function, habitat loss, harvest, marine, planning, pollution, protected area

Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss LVII

6 11 2019

The sixth set of six biodiversity cartoons for 2019. See full stock of previous ‘Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss’ compendia here.

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Tags: biodiversity, civilisation, climate change, collapse, conservation, environment, extinction, hunting, sustainability
Categories : biowealth, cartoon, conservation, environmental policy, extinction

The politics of environmental destruction

22 10 2019

C_SE 409521698 Paul Ehrlich Lecture Event - Eventbrite2

You’d think I’d get tired of this, wouldn’t you? Alas, the fight does wear me down, but I must persist.

My good friend and colleague, the legendary Professor Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University, as well as his equally legendary wife, Anne, will be joining us in Adelaide for a brief visit during their annual southern migration.

Apart from just catching up over a few good bottles of wine (oh, do those two enjoy fine wines!), we have the immense privilege of having Paul appear at two events while he’s in town.

I’m really only going to be talking about the second of the two events (the first is a Science Meets Parliament gig with me and many others at the South Australia Parliament on 12 November): a grand, public lecture and Q&A session held at Flinders University on Wednesday, 13 November.

Haven’t heard of Paul? Where have you been hiding? If by some miracle you haven’t, here’s a brief bio:

Paul Ehrlich is Bing Professor of Population Studies Emeritus, President of the Center for Conservation Biology, Department of Biology, Stanford University and Adjunct Professor, University of Technology, Sydney. He does research in population biology (includes ecology, evolutionary biology, behavior, and human ecology and cultural evolution). Ehrlich has carried out field, laboratory and theoretical research on a wide array of problems ranging from the dynamics and genetics of insect populations, studies of the ecological and evolutionary interactions of plants and herbivores, and the behavioral ecology of birds and reef fishes, to experimental studies of the effects of crowding on human beings and studies of cultural evolution, especially the evolution of norms. He is President of the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere and is author and coauthor of more than 1100 scientific papers and articles in the popular press and over 40 books. He is best known to his efforts to alert the public to the many intertwined drivers that are pushing humanity toward a collapse of civilization – especially overpopulation, overconsumption by the rich, and lack of economic, racial, and gender equity. Ehrlich is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Entomological Society and the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, and a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He is a Foreign Member of the Royal Society, an Honorary Member of the British Ecological Society and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society. Among his many other honours are the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Crafoord Prize in Population Biology and the Conservation of Biological Diversity (an explicit replacement for the Nobel Prize); a MacArthur Prize Fellowship; the Volvo Environment Prize; UNEP Sasakawa Environment Prize; the Heinz Award for the Environment; the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement; the Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences; the Blue Planet Prize; the Eminent Ecologist award of the Ecological Society of America, the Margalef Prize in Ecology and Environmental Sciences, and the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Ecology and Conservation Biology. Prof Ehrlich has appeared as a guest on more than 1000 TV and radio programs; he also was a correspondent for NBC News. He has given many hundreds of public lectures in the past 50 years.

I hope your jaw just dropped.

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Tags: Anthropocene, climate change, climate disruption, environment, Flinders University, Paul Ehrlich, politics, public event, public lecture
Categories : anthropocene, Australia, biodiversity, biowealth, celebrity, climate change, conservation, conservation biology, conservation scholars, corruption, decline, deforestation, development, economics, ecosystem, ecosystem services, education, Endarkenment, environmental economics, environmental policy, ethics, exploitation, extinction, extremism, Flinders University, food, governance, habitat loss, health, human overpopulation, impact, investment, media, pollution, poverty, science, science communication, South Australia, sustainability, synergies, threatened species, toxification

Victoria, please don’t aerial-bait dingoes

10 10 2019

Here’s a submission to Victoria’s proposed renewal of special permission from the Commonwealth to poison dingoes:

dingo with bait

08 October 2019

Honourable Lily D’Ambrosio MP

Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change
Level 16, 8 Nicholson Street, East Melbourne, VIC 3002

lily.dambrosio@parliament.vic.gov.au

cc:

The Hon Jaclyn Symes, Minister for Agriculture, Victoria

(jaclyn.symes@parliament.vic.gov.au)

Dr Sally Box, Threatened Species Commissioner

(ThreatenedSpeciesCommissioner@environment.gov.au)

The Hon Sussan Ley MP, Minister for Environment, Australia

(Farrer@aph.gov.au)

RE: RENEWAL OF AERIAL BAITING EXEMPTION IN VICTORIA FOR WILD DOG CONTROL USING 1080

Dear Minister,

The undersigned welcome the opportunity to comment on the proposed renewal of special permission from the Commonwealth under Sections 18 and 18A of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Commonwealth) to undertake aerial 1080 baiting in six Victorian locations for the management of ‘wild dogs’. This raises serious concerns for two species listed as threatened and protected in Victoria: (1) dingoes and (2) spot-tailed quolls (Dasyurus maculatus).

First, we must clarify that the terminology ‘wild dog’ is not appropriate when discussing wild canids in Australia. One of the main discussion points at the recent Royal Zoological Society of NSW symposium ‘Dingo Dilemma: Cull, Contain or Conserve’ was that the continued use of the terminology ‘wild dog’ is not justified because wild canids in Australia are predominantly dingoes and dingo hybrids, and not, in fact, feral domestic dogs. In Victoria, Stephens et al. (2015) observed that only 5 out of 623 wild canids (0.008%) sampled were feral domestic dogs with no evidence of dingo ancestry. This same study determined that 17.2% of wild canids in Victoria were pure or likely pure dingoes and 64.4% were hybrids with greater than 60% dingo ancestry. Additionally, comparative studies by Jones (1988, 1990 and 2009) observed that dingoes maintained a strong phenotypic identity in the Victorian highlands over time, and perceptively ‘wild dog’ like animals were more dingo than domestic dog.

As prominent researchers in predator ecology, biology, archaeology, cultural heritage, social science, humanities, animal behaviour and genetics, we emphasise the importance of dingoes in Australian, and particularly Victorian, ecosystems. Dingoes are the sole non-human, land-based, top predator on the Australian mainland. Their importance to the ecological health and resilience of Australian ecosystems cannot be overstated, from regulating wild herbivore abundance (e.g., various kangaroo species), to reducing the impacts of feral mesopredators (cats, foxes) on native marsupials (Johnson & VanDerWal 2009; Wallach et al. 2010; Letnic et al. 2012, 2013; Newsome et al. 2015; Morris & Letnic 2017). Their iconic status is important to First Nations people and to the cultural heritage of all Australians. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 8 Comments »
Tags: 1080, 1080 poison, cat, dingo, environment, environmental policy, fox, policy, quoll, Victoria
Categories : alien species, Australia, biodiversity, cat, community ecology, conservation, decline, demography, dingo, ecology, ecosystem, ecosystem function, environmental policy, extinction, fox, genetics, harvest, human-wildlife conflict, introgression, invasive species, mammal, management, meso-predator release, predation, predator, science, southern Australia, threatened species, top-down ecology, trophic cascades

The Great Dying

30 09 2019

Here’s a presentation I gave earlier in the year for the Flinders University BRAVE Research and Innovation series:

There is No Plan(et) B — What you can do about Earth’s extinction emergency

Earth is currently experiencing a mass extinction brought about by, … well, … us. Species are being lost at a rate similar to when the dinosaurs disappeared. But this time, it’s not due to a massive asteroid hitting the Earth; species are being removed from the planet now because of human consumption of natural resources. Is a societal collapse imminent, and do we need to prepare for a post-collapse society rather than attempt to avoid one? Or, can we limit the severity and onset of a collapse by introducing a few changes such as removing political donations, becoming vegetarians, or by reducing the number of children one has?

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 3 Comments »
Tags: Anthropocene, climate change, climate emergency, collapse, extinction, extinction emergency, food supply, human-caused global warming, sustainability, The Great Dying
Categories : Australia, biodiversity, biowealth, carbon, climate change, conservation, conservation biology, corruption, decline, deforestation, development, drought, economics, ecosystem, ecosystem function, ecosystem services, education, environmental economics, environmental Kuznets curve, environmental policy, environmental science, exploitation, extinction, extinction debt, Flinders University, flood, food, fragmentation, function, governance, habitat loss, harvest, health, human overpopulation, impact, invasive species, livestock, logging, management, modelling, palaeo-ecology, pollination, pollution, poverty, recovery, reforestation, research, restoration, science, sustainability, synergies, threatened species, trophic cascades, video

Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss LVI

4 09 2019

The fifth set of six biodiversity cartoons for 2019. See full stock of previous ‘Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss’ compendia here.

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Tags: biodiversity, civilisation, climate change, collapse, conservation, environment, extinction, hunting, sustainability
Categories : biowealth, cartoon, conservation, environmental policy, extinction

The (not-so) funny question of whether scientists should be political leaders

15 08 2019

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At the risk of precociously setting fire to my powder keg, I thought it would be interesting to discuss the very real question of whether there should be more scientists in politics.

The reason I’m contemplating this particular question is because I’ve been forced to. Perhaps contrary to better judgement, I’ve agreed to take part in a the SciFight Science Comedy Debate in Adelaide on 31 August. Organised by scientist-comedian Alanta Colley, the event will pitch two scientist-comedian teams against each other to argue either in the affirmative or negative regarding this — scientists should rule the world.

Of course, the primary goal of the evening is to make people laugh (which still has me wondering whether I was a worthy choice for the role — thank Cthulu there will be some actual, live comedians there too).

But there’s a serious side to this question that I don’t think has any simple answers. Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: comedy, debate, governance, government, policy, politicians, politics, science, SciFight, understanding of science
Categories : environmental policy, science, science communication

“Overabundant” wildlife usually isn’t

12 07 2019

koalacrosshairs Late last year (10 December) I was invited to front up to the ‘Overabundant and Pest Species Inquiry’ at the South Australian Parliament to give evidence regarding so-called ‘overabundant’ and ‘pest’ species.

There were the usual five to six Ministers and various aides on the Natural Resources Committee (warning here: the SA Parliament website is one of the most confusing, archaic, badly organised, and generally shitty government sites I’ve yet to visit, so things require a bit of nuanced searching) to whom I addressed on issues ranging from kangaroos, to dingoes, to koalas, to corellas. The other submissions I listened to that day were (mostly) in favour of not taking drastic measures for most of the human-wildlife conflicts that were being investigated.

Forward seven months and the Natural Resources Committee has been reported to have requested the SA Minister for Environment to allow mass culling of any species (wildlife or feral) that they deem to be ‘overabundant’ or a ‘pest’.

So, the first problem is terminological in nature. If you try to wade through the subjectivity, bullshit, vested interests, and general ignorance, you’ll quickly realise that there is no working definition or accepted meaning for the words ‘overabundant’ or ‘pest’ in any legislation. Basically, it comes down to a handful of lobbyists and other squeaky wheels defining anything they deem to be a nuisance as ‘overabundant’, irrespective of its threat status, ecological role, or purported impacts. It is, therefore, entirely subjective, and boils down to this: “If I don’t like it, it’s an overabundant pest”. Read the rest of this entry »