A passionate letter from the heart about our forests.

(Rushworth’s Lou Costa is passionate about protecting our environment and equally passionate about not creating situations that weaken our environmental protection and biodiversity conservation laws. Subsequently, she has written to the Victorian Premier Dan Andrews articulating her feelings and pointing out to the Premier that while humans are suffering because of the present COVID-19 pandemic the environment is benefitting.
Here is a copy of the letter Lou has written to Dan Andrews)

Rushworth's Lou Costa.

Dear Premier Andrews

I am writing to you to strenuously object to the decision that RFA’s (Regional Forestry Agreements) will be extended for another ten years with EPBC (Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation) exemptions.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read the news today.
Another ten years of logging? 

Due to the most recent global disaster, it’s easy for some to trivialise the events of Summer past but we must remember that the world watched in horror only a few months ago while our precious forests incinerated; taking with them an immeasurable number of animal lives.
The news of the loss of our unique landscapes and species resonated with tourists from home and abroad as people cancelled their bookings, flights and tours of Australia, afraid there wouldn’t be any natural places left to visit. Many people’s primary concern was the fate of Australia’s animal species.

My husband and I run an eco-retreat in north-central Victoria, far from the nearest fire ground, and even we experienced cancellations and loss of income due to this event which is now being exacerbated by recent COVID 19 restrictions.
Indeed, we promote our business by highlighting Victoria’s natural environment and in a typical year, host guests every single weekend who’s main objective is to be immersed in the natural environment. They all contribute to the local economy while they are here.

Premier Andrews, in November your government made some enlightened and progressive announcements about phasing out logging in Victoria. Protections were given to some areas and hope was given to others. But that was before the bushfires and ‘phasing out’ seemed reasonable.

Now, with so little remaining unburnt forests, especially across the east of Victoria, a decision to continue logging seems ludicrous at best and irresponsible at worst.
We don’t even know yet, what lasting effect the bushfires will have on Victorian biodiversity and the affected ecosystems.
This announcement seems to be more a Liberal government directive than a Labour attitude and an incredible shame that the legacy of a Bob Hawke-style Labour government is not being defended.

I am deeply alarmed by the hypocrisy around your government’s attempts to protect native species affected by bushfires.

A recent statement by Environment Minister, Lily D’Ambrosio leads us to believe that all care is being given to help native species’ recovery.

“While we’re all working hard to slow the spread of coronavirus, it’s good to know our bushfire affected wildlife hasn’t been forgotten and resources are continuing to hit the ground.

The Federal Government has allocated $3 million for a range of projects that boosts the $17.5 million our Government is already investing and will help us continue supporting the recovery of the state’s wildlife and biodiversity through these tough economic times.

We’re partnering with Zoos Victoria to support the captive breeding aspects of population management and long-term resilience should they be needed in the wild. And with Greening Australia and the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria for reseeding in key areas.”

How can we support wildlife recovery whilst simultaneously destroying its remaining areas of refuge?

We’re spending so much money on piecemeal solutions only to ignore the single most effective way to aid wildlife recovery - to leave it alone to recover naturally and to protect areas of intact, unburnt bushland.
Long term resilience in nature can only be achieved if we don’t interfere.

Indeed you could infer that the coronavirus is an indication of what happens when we do interfere with the natural balance.

Extracted from The Conversation article March 31 2020 - ‘
Coronavirus is a wake-up call: our war with the environment is leading to pandemics.

“The COVID-19 pandemic sweeping across the world is a crisis of our own making.

That’s the message from infectious disease and environmental health experts, and from those in planetary health – an emerging field connecting human health, civilisation and the natural systems on which they depend.

They might sound unrelated, but the COVID-19 crisis and the climate and biodiversity crises are deeply connected.

Each arises from our seeming unwillingness to respect the interdependence between ourselves, other animal species and the natural world more generally.

To put this into perspective, the vast majority (three out of every four) of new infectious diseases in people come from animals – from wildlife and from the livestock we keep in ever-larger numbers.”

Logging cannot be undertaken without upsetting the natural world, no matter how sensitive the technique and many more animals and species will lose their lives if this forestry agreement goes ahead.

Is this the legacy we want to to leave to our children who are already facing a grim future of economic gloom and climate catastrophe?

Premier Andrews, while we’re all working hard to slow the spread of coronavirus, the environment is breathing a sigh of relief.

Humans may be suffering right now but the environment is recovering.

It seems to me to be an excellent opportunity to contribute to that recovery by doing everything we can to ensure the state of the environment is as healthy as possible so that when we come out of this pandemic, we will have a tourism industry to fall back on and an intact environment from which to tackle the even bigger global disaster, climate change.

Shorebirds, the World’s Greatest Travelers, Face Extinction

A worldwide catastrophe is underway among an extraordinary group of birds — the marathon migrants we know as shorebirds. Numbers of some species are falling so quickly that many biologists fear an imminent planet-wide wave of extinctions.

A common snipe caught in an illegal net. Thousands of shorebirds
 like this one are entangled this way along the coast of China.

These declines represent the No. 1 conservation crisis facing birds in the world today. Climate change, coastal development, the destruction of wetlands and hunting are all culprits. And because these birds depend for their survival, as we do, on the shorelines of oceans, estuaries, rivers, lakes, lagoons and marshes, their declines point to a systemic crisis that demands our attention, for our own good.

No doubt you’ve seen some of these birds while on vacation at the beach, skittering back and forth along the cusp of waves as they peck with their long beaks for tiny sand flies or the eggs of horseshoe crabs. They can seem comic in their frenetic exertions, tiny Charlie Chaplins in bird suits.

But these birds are remarkable in ways that defy not only belief but scientific understanding: They are, by far, the planet’s most extraordinary global travelers. Worldwide, about 70 shorebird species travel from the top of the world to its very bottom and back each year. The smallest weigh barely an ounce. Each species has its own story, but in every case these annual migrations are among nature’s most epic dramas.

Read the opinion piece from The New York Times - “Shorebirds, the World’s Greatest Travelers, Face Extinction.”

5 Plants and Animals Utterly Confused by Climate Change

Every year, as the seasons change, a complex ballet unfolds around the world. Trees in the Northern Hemisphere leaf out in the spring as frost recedes. Caterpillars hatch to gorge on leaves. Bees and butterflies emerge to pollinate flowers. Birds leave the Southern Hemisphere and fly thousands of miles to lay eggs and feast on insects in the north.

Lauren Kolesinskas for The New York Times

All of these species stay in sync with each other by relying on environmental cues, much as ballet dancers move to orchestral music.

But global warming is changing the music, with spring now arriving several weeks earlier in parts of the world than it did a few decades ago. Not all species are adjusting to this warming at the same rate, and, as a result, some are falling out of step.  

Read the story by Livia Abeck-Ripka and brad Plumer from The New York Times - “5 Plants and Animals Utterly Confused by Climate Change.”

‘Rather startling': Study finds rapid increase in frequency of coral bleaching

The frequency of severe coral bleaching events has increased fivefold in four decades because of climate change, a pace already exceeding the time needed for some species to recover, a new global study has found.

Coral reefs are bleaching at shorter intervals around the world. 

Of 100 reefs examined worldwide, just six have escaped severe bleaching since 1980.

Read the story by Peter Hannam on today’s Melbourne Age - “‘Rather startling': Study finds rapid increase in frequency of coral bleaching.”

We don’t need to save endangered species. Extinction is part of evolution

Near midnight, during an expedition to southwestern Ecuador in December 2013, I spotted a small green frog asleep on a leaf, near a stream by the side of the road. It was Atelopus balios , the Rio Pescado stubfoot toad. Although a lone male had been spotted in 2011, no populations had been found since 1995, and it was thought to be extinct. But here it was, raised from the dead like Lazarus. My colleagues and I found several more that night, males and females, and shipped them to an amphibian ark in Quito, where they are now breeding safely in captivity. But they will go extinct one day, and the world will be none the poorer for it. Eventually, they will be replaced by a dozen or a hundred new species that evolve later.

Mass extinctions periodically wipe out up to 95 percent of all species in one fell swoop; these come every 50 million to 100 million years, and scientists agree that we are now in the middle of the sixth such extinction, this one caused primarily by humans and our effects on animal habitats. It is an “immense and hidden” tragedy to see creatures pushed out of existence by humans, lamented the Harvard entomologist E.O. Wilson, who coined the term “biodiversity” in 1985. A joint paper by several prominent researchers published by the National Academy of Sciences called it a “biological annihilation.” Pope Francis imbues the biodiversity crisis with a moral imperative (“Each creature has its own purpose,” he said in 2015), and biologists often cite an ecological one (we must avert “a dramatic decay of biodiversity and the subsequent loss of ecosystem services,” several wrote in a paper for Science Advances). “What is Conservation Biology?,” a foundational text for the field, written by Michael Soulé of the University of California at Santa Cruz, says, “Diversity of organisms is good . . . the untimely extinction of populations and species is bad . . . [and] biotic diversity has intrinsic value.” In her book “The Sixth Extinction ,” journalist Elizabeth Kolbert captures the panic all this has induced: “Such is the pain the loss of a single species causes that we’re willing to perform ultrasounds on rhinos and handjobs on crows.”

Read the perspective piece by R. Alexander Pyron on The Washington Post - “We don’t need to save endangered species. Extinction is part of evolution.”

‘Completely unlivable': Climate change pushing humans, other species to the brink

Human societies and a multitude of species are going to be tested by climate change in ways that are barely understood, a wide-ranging study involving researchers from 44 institutions around the world has found.

Malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases
are spreading as temperatures warm. 

Species in every ecosystem are being affected by rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns, with marine animals moving poleward at the average pace of 72 kilometres and land-based ones 17 kilometres a decade, according to the paper published on Friday in the journal Science.

Read Peter Hannam’s story in the Melbourne Age - “‘Completely unlivable': Climate change pushing humans, other species to the brink.”

Here’s Where Species Will Flee Because of Global Warming

Some animals, like people with second homes, travel seasonally in search of more hospitable climes. Scientists have mapped these migratory patterns for years, confirming along the way that they are, in fact, patterns. Some species even pass down migration routes via their genes.

But Migrations in Motion predicts a new kind of migration—one forced by climate change. The new data-visualization project is based on research from The Nature Conservancy and the University of Washington, and depicts how more than 2,900 species of birds, mammals, and amphibians might migrate in response to rising sea levels and temperatures.

Read the Wired story - “Here’s Where Species Will Flee Because of Global Warming.”

Seemingly infinitely bountiful, ever awe-inspiring, our blue planet's in crisis

O

ur ocean – that seemingly infinitely bountiful, ever awe-inspiring blue that defines our planet from space – is in crisis.

When I wrote the foreword to the 2014 edition of WWF’s Living Planet Report, I said it was not for the faint-hearted. This edition – a deep dive into the health of marine species and the habitats on which they depend – is equally if not more sobering.

The marine Living Planet Index (LPI) presented here is roughly in line with the global LPI, which shows a 52 per cent decline in vertebrate populations since 1970. That alone should set off alarm bells. But it’s what’s hidden in the overall marine LPI that foretells an impending social and economic crisis.

Read more of what the Director General, WWF International, Marco Lambertini, had to say in the forward to the 2015 report and then, beyond that, the whole report -  “Living Blue Planet Report: Species, habitats and human well-being.”

Nearly 100 Australian species threatened by climate change

N

early half of 200 Australian species are threatened by climate change, according to our research published today in PLOS ONE.

Climate change is one of the major contributors to global biodiversity loss, and plant and animal species can be affected by climate change in different ways. Some may be directly affected by sea level rise or snow melt, whereas some may lose a pollinator or prey species that they rely on.

Species that cannot move to more suitable habitats, or who have no suitable habitat left, risk becoming extinct. Understanding how each of our species is affected by climate change means we can help them survive it.

Read the story - “Meet the Australian wildlife most threatened by climate change” – on The Conversation.

'One in six species extinction' - climate change in action

J

ames Dyke writes on The Conversation that “One in six species faces extinction as a result of climate change”.

James Dyke.

The lecturer in Complex Systems Simulation at University of Southampton says the Earth is on course to lose up to one in six of all its species, if carbon emissions continue as they currently are.

“This global extinction risk masks,” he says “very large regional variations. Up to a quarter of South American species may be doomed.”

“We are now detecting species loss due to this climate change and the message from Urban’s and other studies is unambiguous. We must leave most of the Earth’s fossil fuel reserves in the ground if we are to avoid consigning a significant fraction of its species to extinction,” he writes.

A warming climate looks and sounds good, but is a harbinger of death

Those who welcome our warming climate arguing they enjoy the warmer weather are either ignorant or sadly grossly misinformed.

All earth’s species, including humans, have adapted to live in what exists.

The Snow Leopard is one species
threatened by climate change.

Change the climate too quickly and many of earth’s species, including most humans, will die.

The speed of evolution among species varies, but even those which change the quickest are locked in a life and death struggle with a shifting environmental landscape arising from human-induced climate change.

The Guardian reports, in a story headed: “Climate change is happening too quickly for speciesto adapt”, that the speed of evolutionary change is far outstripped by the rate of global warming, meaning many species will face extinction.

“Past transformations that saw planetary temperatures soar took millions of years to occur,” The Guardian said.

“The one we are creating will only take a few generations to take place. Either evolution speeds up 10,000-fold, which is an unlikely occurrence, of there will be widespread extinctions,” the newspaper reported

Coal - largest exporter, biggest user - the scary facts

Australia is the world’s largest exporter of coal and China is biggest user.

Time Magazine
 tells us
about scary
facts.

Such exports are justified economically, but considering and ramifications and implications or such sales, Australians are teetering on the edge of committing a crime against humanity.

The direct damage caused to human life by coal is clear and now it has been unquestionably and scientifically shown to be among the worst of contributors to climate change – the transformation of our atmosphere that will dislodge and kill many species on earth, including humans.

Should we reduce this scenario to illicit drugs – Australia is the “pusher” and China the “user” and so both would go to jail.

Time magazine told us about coal use, point out that China is about to eclipse all other “users”.

The story – “The Scariest Environmental Fact in the World” telling about what is happening in China appeared in the January 29 edition.

Fred Guterl gives us reason to pause and consider

Fred Guterl’s writing gives us reason to pause and consider.

Fred Guterl.

Guterl, a senior editor at Newsweek International who directs the magazine’s coverage of science, technology, health, medicine and the environment.

“The Fate of the Species: Why the Human Race May Cause Its Own Extinction and How We Can Stop It” written by Guterl and published in May this year is both a thoughtful book and thought provoking.

Guterl considers extinctions and why they happened and early in the book he writes:

“Sometimes, though, change happens all at once, too quickly for species to adapt. Many biologists believe that is happening now. They believe that humans are changing the planet at a rate too quick for many of the planets’ species to keep up. Eventually, they fear, species will die off suddenly en-masse, triggering a cascade of extinctions, which could have a devastating effect on the planet’s intricate web of life. It’s the Large Blue phenomenon multiplied throughout all the ecosystems on the planet. It’s nature’s way of wiping the slate clean to begin again. It’s happened at least five times since life began on the planet about four billion years ago.

“Is it happening now? The question is important because if the answer is yes, the likelihood that humans will survive is slim.”

One Amazon.com reviewer said: “There are many books out there discussing this topic, most of them in a very sensationalist and wildly exaggerating style. Luckily for me, this isn't the case here as the author sets a matter of fact tone which I was immediately taken with. Written in a conversational style and painting both vivid and plausible scenarios of what could happen, he takes the reader from super viruses past climate change straight to what he obviously sees as the most likely culprit of all - scientific and technological progress. Our own inventions as source and cause of our possible extinction might not sound quite as exciting as a meteor striking, but according to this survey it's scarily likely.

“Regrettably, it's the minutely detailed examples, highlighting present day research, which create an imbalance, sometimes long-winded enough to break up a chapter, and often reducing the fascinating question of what might happen to a mere afterthought. Another thing I found slightly unfortunate were the thoughts on solutions being pooled into the last chapter instead of complementing the individual chapters. A general conclusion would have been more fitting in my opinion”.

The reviewer concluded in saying: “In short: Technology as our downfall - an interesting excursion into what may cause the next mass extinction event on our planet!”

The implications of what Guterl discusses pretty much exceed the understanding and imagination of most, just as do the matters discussed by those who gather Beneath the Wisteria in Shepparton each month.