Lovely random picture of two Superb Fairy Wrens - they are aren't they! by Elizabeth Kay Russell (Thank you, Elizabeth)
Dear friends,
It’s Tax time in the Land of Oz, so I will be very quiet
this week, (no cheering!) while I shuffle through my assorted paperwork. At least it shouldn't take long this year, which will alas, be true for many thanks to COVID 19, especially for anyone connected with the arts, the media, in hospitality, tourism or any other casual employment.
To paraphrase Thomas Dewar slightly,
“The only thing sadder
than having to pay income tax, is not having an income to pay taxes
on.”
I also rather like this quote by Herman Wouk:
"Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction
being written today."
Or this one by George Bernard Shaw:
"A government
that robs Peter to pay Paul can always rely on the support of Paul." -
[All these are from investment
advisor Motley Fool which has lots of other seasonally appropriate quotations].
Lastly, to those who think
paying taxes is a mortal sin to be avoided at all costs.
Meanwhile, the weather is getting better, nature is thriving without all those pesky humans and I'm really looking forward to getting out and seeing some fungi. They seem to be especially good this year too.
I thought I was on to something here, but when I got the binoculars it turned out to be an island
It was beautiful weather here on Sunday, so off I went for a
spot of whale viewing. Between April and June is the time of the year when
large numbers of whales – particularly Humpbacked Whales and Southern Right Whales,
pass by this region on their way to the tropics to breed. Alas, I didn’t have much luck, but the next
night on the news, they said that over a thousand Humpback Whales had been seen
off the East Coast of Tasmania. It’s estimated that in total there are now
around 35,000 of them again, which is excellent news because thirty years ago
their numbers had fallen to just over 100 individuals.
This represents a great win not just for the Whales but also for conservation efforts. Hunting of Humpback Whales stopped in 1963 after catches had declined worldwide and in 1965 they were formally protected. The creation of marine reserves around their breeding grounds
has also helped.
Between January and June, these magnificent creatures up to 18 metres long and weighing around 40 tons, travel around 5000 kilometres from Antarctica to the warm waters around
The Great Barrier Reef. After calving,
they return to Antarctica again between October and November taking their
youngsters with them. Learn more about our Whales here.
Still enjoyed a lovely peaceful day at the beach
Humpbacks aren’t the only success story. The other baleen
whale (no teeth and feeding only on krill) often seen in these waters and almost as large, the Southern Right Whale, was also almost hunted to extinction and is now making a recovery moving
from the ICUN ‘s Red List from vulnerable to “ least concern. “ Unfortunately not all
whales have shown such splendid signs of recovery. The Blue Whale, - the world's largest mammal is slowly returning but still only
at 2% of its pre -whaling numbers and remains on the endangered list, as is a sub -population of South Pacific
Humpbacks. For many others, there is simply insufficient data. Whales of all kinds are also at risk from things like
propeller damage, “scientific whaling,” pollution - especially plastic pollution,
ropes and fishing tackle, ocean noise, excessive tourism and climate change. The biggest risk for juveniles which take over
a year to mature, are predators such as killer sharks.
Unfortunately most of us can’t travel to another state, let alone the other side of
the world just now, but check the calendar below to see if there are any whale watching
opportunities near you. If not this year, then maybe next year or the year after. They are a definitely an awe -inspiring sight.
If you are lucky enough to come close to a whale on the
water, stay at least 100 metres away. Don’t travel fast if you are in a boat
and don’t touch them or feed them. Much the same holds if you find one stranded
on a beach. Don’t feed or touch it, just call the nearest Wildlife office or
Environment Agency. NSW has a special rescue service for whales and dolphins ((02)
9415 3333). Call the local police if you
don’t know who to call, and please, please don’t leave your rubbish behind.
Although Refugee Week finished on the 20th, many of the
videos and online events will be available until the end of the month. I’ll
include one or two here, just in case. It’s never too late to share a meal, recipes or inspiring stories or to make people feel welcome.
Currently there are around 70.8 million displaced people in
the world, the highest number in recorded history. Some are displaced within
their own country (40.3 million) because of land degradation or conflict. We
have already encountered some of those who must leave the countryside and move
to cities because the land can no longer support them, or because of conflict –four
million in Yemen alone, or natural disasters. Others seek asylum in other countries because
of religious or political persecution, such as the Muslim Rohingyas in Myanmar,
because of their race or ethnicity such
as the Hazara in Afghanistan, or even because of their sexual preferences (Nigeria).
This places great pressure on host countries, particularly
if the needs of their own populations for food, work, housing or land, have not
been met. This also at least partially explains growing resentment, the rise of
nationalistic sentiment, the swing to far right politicians and the rise of
groups such as Neo Nazis in parts of Europe. [Similar mass population movements
in the 1920s and 30s alsoled to border closures
and contributed to the start of World War II].
After World War Two, 11 million people were displaced, far fewer than we have now, and at the time, places like Australia were in desperate need of
skilled workers. There was more than enough work to go around, for locals as
well as migrants. The political landscape was very different too. With the war still fresh in people’s minds, when Japan had come perilously close to
occupying Australia, the attitude of policy makers was “Populate or Perish,” or they would
soon be overtaken by waves of immigrants from Asia. Although migrants faced
many challenges, most were able to succeed eventually and Australia gained culturally
and economically. How boring would life be without good coffee, pizza,
curry and sushi?
The times are harsher now and Covid 19 with its job losses
and uncertainty has made acceptance of newcomers more difficult, but
imagine having to leave behind your home and your loved ones with no idea
whether you will see them again, or where you will end up. Few people would
choose this life. Refugees aren’t just numbers, or more people with
strange customs and clothes competing for
jobs and houses and crowding public transport. Each has a very personal story which will surely
break your heart.
Listen to Jamal from Pakistan talk about his gratitude but
also his loneliness below.
Immigration detention
happens when people from other countries arrive without prior approval, or they
come on a tourist visa or by illegal means and then decide to stay.People who arrive by boat or with people
smugglers have been sent to offshore islands Manus, Nauru or Christmas Island until
their case is proven and someone decides their fate. Unfortunately neither
journalists nor other Australians are allowed to visit and thus we hear very
little about them. At least all but three of the children in those
circumstances have now been released so they can go to school and lead
relatively normal lives. Alas, for adults, the picture is not so rosy. While
some have been sent to the USA and some have been moved to onshore detention
facilities or been returned to their country of origin, only 6,597 of the
27,626 refugees who came to Australia in 2016, have been recognised as asylum
seekers, with 29, 590 cases still pending at the time of the 2018 -2019 report.
Australia and no doubt other countries do first need to investigate
whether people’s stories of hardship are true and whether they are of good
character or criminals or terrorists, but the process can be extended almost
indefinitely. Those who come by boat or without
papers face the longest delays and uncertainty as Australia seeks to
discourage this and especially people smuggling. For this reason it is far
better to go via official channels such as the UNHCR (United
Nations High Commission for Refugees) though queues may also seem
impossibly long.
For a success story watch the video about Dr Aameer Sultan, who received a humanitarian award for his work while in detention.
Any Australians who haven’t seen the ABC drama “Stateless,”
(trailer below) should do so now.
In limbo
More problematic is the situation of 2000 or
so young women and children – from several countries, including the UK and other European nations and also Canada and Australia, who are now stranded in
places like Turkey and Syria because they or their husbands decided to fight
for rebel organisation ISIS, with whom Australia and other countries have been
in conflict. This has been the case since the fall of Mosul, one of the Caliphate’s last
strongholds. Some have had their former citizenship
revoked. Other countries aren’t sure if they can trust them and don’t really
want them back, but the plight of the children is a major concern, particularly if they have relatives in their country of origin.
Some 200 refugees who arrived by boat in 2013 remain on the island of Nauru
Another ongoing tragedy is the case of a Tamil family
from Sri Lanka. The parents Priya and Nades, arrived separately but
illegally during the peak of civil war in Sri Lanka in 2013. They married,
worked hard and made a home for themselves in the country town of Biloela in
central Queensland and then had two little girls. Three years later, after a
predawn raid, the government sought to deport them back to Sri Lanka. Fortunately,
they had made many friends in the town who were able to halt the immediate
deportation, but instead of being allowed to return, the family was banished to immigration
detention on Christmas Island, pending an appeal. Despite government assurances
that fighting in Sri Lanka has officially ceased, persecution of and
discrimination against Tamils continues.
Another controversial case concerns Nauroze Anees, a Pakistani
detainee, who came here on a student visa in 2007. When his Australian partner
became ill, he became her full time carer and neglected his studies.In 2011 immigration authorities cancelled his
visa for non -compliance and refused him a partner visa. Admittedly Nauroze had
committed some offences while homeless in 2011, but over two years ago the
Australian Human Rights Commission found that his prolonged detention under the
Immigration Act was ‘arbitrary’ and thus not lawful, but he still hasn't been released. Now Border Security wants the right to strip search detainees, use
sniffer dogs and seize mobile phones, computers and any other article it sees
fit, ostensibly to prevent criminal activity in detention centres. While there are public telephones in detention centres, this would limit the ability
of detainees to communicate with lawyers or loved ones in private, as well as
denying them a way to record their experience. As it is, we see little enough
of what goes on in our name and there are fears that detention services which are run by private contractors are becoming more secretive and more punitive.
On economic grounds alone, we should try to keep people out
of detention, especially off -shore detention. According to the Refugee Council of Australia, offshore processing costs around $1 billion a year, while being in an
onshore detention facility costs around $346,000. Living in the community while their claims are assessed and provided they aren't a threat, costs one tenth of that and is better for the individual too. Not surprisingly,
many asylum seekers in detention become depressed, even suicidal or develop other long term mental
health problems.This seems like a terrible
waste of human potential. Indefinite
detention has been criticised, as has returning people to places without
independent confirmation that they will be safe.
How much better would it be if people didn’t need to leave
their homes at all? Instead of spending vast sums of money on keeping people
out or in detention, what if we could spend this money on aid and diplomacy to
prevent the mass exodus of people in the first place? Imagine if the cost of
Trump’s border wall and law enforcement could be used to improve living conditions
within Mexico, Central America or Venezuela. Aid to
developing countries could be contingent on their governments helping people within their borders
to live in peace, even if their beliefs differ.
Just a fraction of the global arms budgets (around $1.7 trillion I heard recently) would be an even bigger boon, but as the world sinks deeper into economic
recession, many countries seem to be moving in the opposite
direction. The US for example, has deeply cut both its intake of immigrants as
well as its foreign aid, leaving a great deficit both in humanitarian placement and
support. This results in crowding and reduced rations in the refugee camps, which also lack among other things, adequate hand -washing facilities to
ward off Covid 19. One way for ordinary
citizens to help is to donate to UNHCR or if you specifically want to
help children, to UNICEF. According to the 2018 report by the Australian Refugee Council, the number of unaccompanied children seeking asylum had risen to 100,000 by 2017. Another way to help is for communities, employers or charities to get
together to sponsor individual refugees. See the Refugee Week website for details.
Lastly, a couple of words about Australia, and this is mainly for the benefit of distant authorities who think of
it as a vast empty space that needsfilling up. As it stands, it has little arable land and little water and can barely accommodate the current and projected populations it already has. Nor
is it the easy- going, palm -fringed paradise which is often portrayed on
television. Repeated references to it being a rich country also ignores vast
disparities in wealth and the fact that it takes thirty years or more to pay
off even a modest home.
Although it has managed to assimilate large numbers of immigrants from disparate cultures over many decades, this will not work if we try to assimilate too many people from very different cultures at once. We do not want to recreate the very problems which people are now trying to escape. Despite these reservations, Australia still ranked third among receiving nations in 2016, after the USA and Canada, and accepted almost ten times more than European countries such as Germany (1239)* or Denmark (309) and also New Zealand (404) during the same period. It's also still a only a drop in the ocean of the 1,190,000 or so who were awaiting urgent resettlement.
* There is some confusion here. The above figures come from the UNHCR, yet according to a 2016 report by the BBC, Germany accepted 476,000 refugees in 2015, mostly from Syria and there are thought to be more than a one million immigrants of various categories in Germany in that year. The UN's figures most probably refer to those who sought formal asylum under their auspices, while others await recognition or resettlement before making claims for asylum. There is also a difference between obtaining temporary protection and being allowed to remain permanently. A more recent article in the Washington Post (May, 2019) says that 1.5 million people have arrived in Germany in the past four years. However, it also states that they are now starting to benefit the German economy which is working hard to integrate them, which seems like a much better idea than simply wasting people's lives (and a great deal of money) by keeping them locked up indefinitely.
Drought: There are many definitions of Drought, the simplest being. "A prolonged period of abnormally low rainfall, leading to shortages of water." However, drought also refers to a lack of soil moisture, causing crops to fail and surface vegetation to die.
Desertification: A process whereby land becomes progressively less fertile usually as result of prolonged drought, deforestation or land degradation. Read More...
Lessons from history
Someone once told me that the Sahara Desert started because of a ship -building frenzy around the
Mediterranean especially by the Romans, two thousand years ago, but I couldn’t
find any further reference to that until now. Today I read on Wiki, that it was
the result of the rapid expansion of the Roman Empire (beginning with the formation of the Roman Republic in 500 BC), and its insatiable demand for timber -
not just for ship building, but for housing, for fuel, for heating homes and bathhouses, for the manufacture of goods
such as ceramics and glass and also for mining and smelting, which led to the removal of tree cover over ever wider
areas including the coastal regions of North Africa.
Agriculture which followed once the trees were gone, delivered
the final blow. Until the Romans came along, the world’s population had grown
only slowly and had reached only around 6 million prior to 10,000 BC with a
life expectancy of 20 (Livi-Bacci: 1997)*, but the Roman Empire grew to 58.6
million and Rome itself was home to one million, a number not attained by any
other city until London did so in the mid 1800’s. The Romans needed to feed
this large population and soils were
soon exhausted. Grazing by livestock prevented natural regeneration of vegetation,
leaving bare hillsides. By the 3rd century BC rapid run off had resulted
in serious erosion, the creation of unusable marshlands, the silting of
harbours and serious flooding, first noted in 241 BC.
Not everyone agrees with this interpretation. Some argue that climate
change, internal divisions and other factors such as slash and burn agriculture
also played a role, but the lessons are instructive non -the -less (see Jared
Diamond’s “Collapse” 2005)** and deserve serious consideration as desertification
threatens to take over more of the world’s arable land. Luckily, the Romans did
not yet use electric light, cars or fossil fuels, or their demise may have come
about sooner.
How to make droughts worse
Deforestation and desertification
themselves are believed to contribute to global warming, future droughts and
erratic weather. Cutting down trees releases a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere. Just the loss of vegetation is believed to account for 4% of
global emissions of CO2 as well as increasing wind velocity and dust storms
(see below).
Spectacular dust storm over New South Wales, Jan 2020
Warming causes more rapid evaporation from the soil and more rapid
transpiration (moisture loss through leaves). With less rainwater captured
by vegetation, there is less water in the ground to evaporate, make clouds and form make rain - this is particularly true of tropical rainforest in the Amazon, the Congo and Indonesia and as the air becomes hotter and dryer, it contributes to forest fires, drought, fewer crops and ground cover and more desertification. Simply put, less vegetation means less moisture in the soil, and therefore less
rainfall, and farmers would need to clear and cultivate even more land just to produce the same a yield, thus perpetuating a vicious cycle.
Periodic water stress already affects one third of the world’s
people – in other countries it is sometimes disguised by intervening floods, and whether we want to believe it or
not, warming is now undeniable, so how can we prevent further drought and desertification?
Drought Prevention
The above lesson about the Romans does provide some clues
as to what we need to do to stop desertification and future droughts
Stop felling trees. Restore degraded lands and
wetlands. Stop overstocking to avoid trampling and compaction. Plant those
trees. Save native seeds. Plant ground cover or cover crops. Return organic
matter to the soil to keep soils porous, hence more able to absorb and retain more moisture. Keep the moisture in by mulching and shading. Experiment with
more drought tolerant crops and crops that use less water.
Better management of water resources. Keep irrigation to a minimum because surface water can increase erosion, and when groundwater is used, it tends to bring salts to the surface which also destroy vegetation and fertility. Use drip irrigation or sensors. If dams must be built make
them deep rather than wide, to minimise loss through evaporation. Women in rural
Iran are using revenue from handcrafts to restore ancient qanats, the traditional deep wells inside hillsides used to capture
floodwaters during the monsoon. Restore watersheds to delay run-off as long as
possible. Terracing and contour ploughing reduce run -off and erosion. See for example what Tony
Coote and Peter Andrews are doing to drought proof land. Note also the usefulness of weeds and willows, despite what I say further down about introduced species. native vegetation would be better, but almost anything is better than nothing.
Why we need 'environmental water'
Two small footnotes here regarding profligate water
use. The giant mine mentioned in the previous post was given an unlimited
licence to draw water for 60 years, without a full impact assessment and
without regard for future conditions. As one preliminary report notes:
".. some lagoons in the floodplain will be
filled less often if Adani is granted the licence, which will threaten
endangered ecosystems.
"This potentially indicates an additional risk
not only to the lagoon aquatic ecosystems, but also to other long-lived
floodplain water-dependent ecosystems (e.g. floodplain vegetation communities,
including some of-concern and endangered remnant regional ecosystems,"
Further north, Cubbie station, the largest
irrigated farm in Australia at 230,000 acres, claims to only draw flood waters
in flood years. However, its dams hold 480 gigalitres (184,000 Olympic Swimming
Pools worth to put that in perspective). That water not seeping into the
surrounding land means that it too could change the ecology of the region, by
for examplelowering the water table and leaving less to flush the river and
recharge aquifers. With other cotton farms in the region also taking water
legally and illegally from the troubled Murray - Darling river system, they
collectively create a true “tragedy of the commons.”
Remove introduced species – rabbits, camels, brumbies and feral goats in Australia’s case, which do great damage to fragile soils and vegetation and compete with native species. However, in the case of vegetation, not before planting something else, preferably native species.
Here an introduced weed, colloquially known as "Salvation Jane" or "Paterson's Curse" is about the only thing stopping the soil from deteriorating further under predadation by rabbits, though native species would be better
Dry and semi -arid lands are the most vulnerable. In some cases, it would be better to pay farmers
to stop attempting to farm in such regions, since poverty forces people to over -exploit
the soil and they have fewer options to recover financially or seek alternative employment. Income support of this kind has proven effective in parts of rural Brazil. In Africa alternative livelihoods are encouraged such as producing handcrafts or learning trades to enable people to
reduce their dependence on the land.
Use local knowledge where possible. The
traditional African method of mixed planting with trenches to hold water, has proven
far more effective in holding back the spread of the Sahara than the great
green wall of trees which has been planted, but of which a large number of
trees died soon after planting.
Sand encroaches on the old telegraph station at Eurcla on the Nullabor Plain, Australia once dune cover is gone
On the other hand -a word of caution here. In
drought -prone Australia, there are frequent calls to return to Aboriginal land
management. This may have been possiblewhile populations
were small -it is estimated that there were only around 750,000 people in
scattered nomadic bands at the time of white settlement in 1778), but we should perhaps consider why it remained so after 60,000 years, while populations in the
rest of the world burgeoned. Hint: Australia simply cannot naturally support
large numbers of people without large inputs of fertiliser and technology. Nor did our First Nations people have large scale mining and mechanised broadacre farms.
Only salt bush still thrives on this marginal land once the tree cover is gone or livetock tramples the ground (Mallee region, North Western Victoria)
Prepare for the next drought. Rather than simply picking up the pieces after
the latest round of drought, fires, floods, dust and hailstorms and the
like, or merely reacting to the next one, the UN recommends that we start planning now
to prevent and prepare for the next one.
This involves analysing past weather patterns and droughts and taking advantage
of the excellent meteorological services and technologies available which allow prediction to a high degree of probability. Ocean temperatures alone, for example, give a fairly reliable warning 3-4
months ahead, which would at least give farmers some idea about whether to plant or how much cattle they could stock
without running out of feed or water. Such studies should be done at the national,
regional, watershed, municipal and local level with appropriate feedback from
those on the ground. Knowledge sharing, education and capacity building are also important.
All agencies affected - including power generation, forestry, farmers, the insurance industry, tourism and fire services should be involved and looking at things like - How much water is available? What is the fire risk? Which industries
will be vulnerable? How can we overcome shortcomings? And how adequate are our
emergency responses? Read more here. Learn how the Australian wine industry worth $2.78 billion a year is already making plans in response to a warming world here.
Oh yes, and stop Global Warming. Bring on
the renewables and stop burning fossil fuels. Reduce consumption and waste. You have heard enough from me about these things. If we don’t stop doing what we've been doing, we can only expect more unrest and conflict, higher food
prices, waves of immigrants, and possibly famine and hunger without even counting the economic cost, loss of productivity, or loss of biodiversity, not to mention adding to further warming.
It's difficult for poor people and small nations to take on more powerful actors such as bigger countries or large corporations, so here are some ways in which people are trying to adapt to conditions beyond their control. See for example what Bangladesh is doing, as well as planting billions of trees, or what one company in South Australia is doing with seawater and solar energy to produce tomatoes all year, regardless of rainfall. (below).
There's just one more thing which I would like to add. Would those countries which are presentlypreserving their own forests or claiming to
be carbon neutral or close to it, but which are doing so by transferring their ecological
footprint or manufacturing to countrieswhich are exempt from carbon accounting,
please stop doing so. I won’t name
names, but you know who you are. You are not doing us, yourselves, the rest of the
world or future generations any favours.
*Livi- Bacci, M. (1997) “A Concise History of World Population
Second Edition” Blackwell Publishers, Malden USA
**Diamond, J. (2005) "Collapse - how Societies choose to fail or survive" Penguin, London
