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Pandora : Australia's Web Archive National Library of Australia and Partners

In March 2019 PANDORA content became part of the Australian Web Archive searchable in Trove.

Since the PANDORA Archive was established in 1996 we have collaborated to build a rich and diverse collection of web content about all aspects of Australian life and society, including landmark events like election campaigns. Now, our collaborative efforts will be available to the public and accessible in one place, the Australian Web Archive. The Archive brings together the PANDORA Archive, the Australian Government Web Archive and the Library's .au domain harvest collections through a single interface in Trove.

View the complete listing of titles available within the PANDORA Archive or search titles alphabetically

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Pandora Archive - Preserving and Accessing Networked DOcumentary Resources of Australia

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Skip to content Skip to menu Pandora : Australia's Web Archive National Library of Australia and Partners In March 2019 PANDORA content became part of the Australian Web Archive searchable in Trove. Since the PANDORA Archive was established in 1996 we have collaborated to build a rich and diverse collection of web content about all aspects of Australian life and society, including landmark events like election campaigns.

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In regions prone to wildfire, a major driver of ecosystem change is increased frequency and intensity of fire events caused by a warming, drying climate. Uncertainty over the nature and extent of change creates challenges about how to manage ecosystems subject to altered structure and function under climate change.

Using montane forests in south-eastern Australia as a case study, we addressed this issue by developing an ecosystem state-and-transition model based on fire frequency and intensity. In this model, changes in fire frequency are linked to changes in vegetation communities.

With intense fires recurring at intervals of less than 20 years, it is likely that mountain ash and alpine ash will not regenerate because these trees only reproduce by seed and take about 20 years to become sexually mature. Ash forest is likely to transition to Acacia scrubland. With increasing fire frequency, Acacia scrubland is likely to transform to grassland. In contrast to the ash species, other forest eucalypts regenerate after fire by producing shoots either along the stem or from the base. These 'resprouter' species may exist in tall, closed forest configuration or more open woodland communities.

Each of the vegetation communities provides a different set of ecosystem services. The range and supply of these services is likely to change quite markedly as the forest becomes a mosaic of different vegetation communities, including those without forest cover, under increasing fire frequencies.

We then undertook an analysis of the interactions between societal values, scientific and management knowledge and institutional rules ( vrk) required to reframe the decision context for future management, and determined possible options for an adaptation pathway for management of montane forests under climate change.

Our approach is transferable to other ecosystems for which alternative states can be predicted under climate change.

For more information:

Colloff, M.J., Doherty, M.D, Lavorel, S., Dunlop, M., Wise, R.M. & Prober, S.M. (2016) Adaptation services and pathways for the management of temperate montane forests under transformational climate change. Climatic Change 138, 267-282. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1724-z

Doherty, M.D., Lavorel, S., Colloff, M.J., Williams, K.J. & Williams, R.J. (2016) Moving from autonomous to planned adaptation in the montane forests of southeastern Australia under changing fire regimes. Austral Ecology 42, 309-316. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/aec.12437

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Montane Forests - Transformative Adaptation Research Alliance

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In regions prone to wildfire, a major driver of ecosystem change is increased frequency and intensity of fire events caused by a warming, drying climate. Uncertainty over the nature and extent of change creates challenges about how to manage ecosystems subject to altered structure and function under climate change.

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Queensland's biodiversity under climate change: terrestrial ecosystems

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Queensland's biodiversity under climate change: terrestrial ecosystems

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Managing ecosystems and biodiversity - land and sea

On this page:

Australia's ecosystems

Australia's natural species and ecosystems are highly vulnerable to climate change and will have difficulty adapting to the rate and extent of projected changes. Many species are at risk because they are restricted in geographical and climatic range.

Alpine regions, south-western Australia, coral reefs and freshwater wetlands are likely to be particularly vulnerable. There are also likely to be significant changes to our marine ecosystems due to warmer water temperatures and the threat of ocean acidification.

To manage and conserve these ecosystems we need to be able to:

anticipate and measure the changes in species and ecosystems

understand their implications

design effective adaptation responses to minimise losses of species and services, and capture opportunities for positive change.

Value of Australia's ecosystems

While attempts to value our ecosystems in financial terms are difficult, the role that natural ecosystems play in maintaining human life is currently irreplaceable and beyond price.

About 80 per cent of Australia's vertebrate species and plant species are found nowhere else in the world.

The benefits of Australia's biodiversity include direct utilitarian values (food, timber, fibre and medicines) and ecosystem services (example, maintaining water quality) as well as aesthetic, recreational, scientific, educational and spiritual values.

The value of tourism alone to Australia is in excess of A$80 billion per year, with many visitors coming to enjoy our unique environments, such as the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu National Park.

Australia's biodiversity is also an important part of Earth's life support system as about 80 per cent of Australia's vertebrate and plant species are found nowhere else in the world.

Threats in a changing climate

Climate change poses a clear danger to Australia's natural ecosystems with more than 310 species of native animals and over 1180 species of native plants already at risk of extinction from invasive alien species and altered habitat, as well as resource harvesting and other human activities.

The scale and complexity of the threat is difficult to measure as there are few, if any, ecosystems where all the species present have even been listed and probably no ecosystems where all the interactions between species are fully understood.

Anything that can be done to reduce the negative impacts of climate change will provide great environmental, social and financial benefits.

Research areas

To identify and manage the threats facing our biodiversity and ecosystems CSIRO researchers have been working in two key areas:

1. Predicting the responses of natural ecosystems to climate change, and developing adaptation options to improve their resilience

2. Reducing the threats posed by invasive species, bushfires and habitat loss through development of well prioritised response strategies.

CSIRO's research is providing information for ecosystem managers and policy makers. By actively responding to requests from policy agencies, CSIRO is helping to improve how climate change adaptation is embedded into policy.

Responses and adaptation options

This area of work is developing improved models to predict the responses of species and ecosystems to climate change and help develop adaptation options to increase their resilience.

The work aims to provide managers, policy makers and researchers with better underpinning knowledge about how Australian species and ecosystems, both on land and in the ocean, will respond to climate change.

This includes assessing what changes can be expected, how naturally adaptable species might be, and the implications for ecosystem services as well as developing appropriate adaptation options.

Two key projects have examined likely impacts of climate change across the whole of Australia's marine and terrestrial environments as well as identifying appropriate adaptation options:
The implications of climate change for Australia's biodiversity conservation and protected areas
CSIRO's landmark Australia-wide assessment of the impacts of climate change on biodiversity and the National Reserve System to inform future management of Australia's protected areas.
Report card shows Australia's oceans are changing
The 2012 Marine Climate Change in Australia Report Card demonstrated that climate change is having significant impacts on Australia's marine ecosystems.

Other projects that examined specific issues in more detail include:

Threats to ecosystems in the Wet Tropics due to climate change and implications for management: This project examined how different climate change scenarios may affect particular forest types, summarising knowledge of how plant species vary with altitude and providing a unique baseline for monitoring future climate impacts.

When might assisted colonisation - actively moving species to introduce them to different areas - be appropriate? This research aimed to develop a framework to evaluate the risks associated with assisted colonisation as a climate adaptation strategy.

Weed response to cyclones in the Wet Tropics rainforests, impacts and adaptation: The project team studied recruitment, growth and mortality of nearly 20 000 seedlings in ten plots in the wet tropics world heritage rainforest in north Queensland affected by Cyclone Larry in 2006.

An integrated assessment of the impacts of climate change on Victorian alpine ecosystems and investigating ways to detect and manage ecological change: This project sought to predict how plants, soils and small animals will respond to warming and the associated increased risk of bushfire.

How the boundaries of rainforests are changing over time: Rainforests are likely to be affected by changed temperature and rainfall patterns in the future, and impacts are most likely to be observed at their margins where conditions are currently least favourable for their persistence. This research was an Australian component of an international program of study looking at climate impacts on vegetation boundaries. The work looked at how these boundaries change over time and how we can manage these areas best to cope with climate change.

Developing an approach for evaluating changes in compositional biodiversity associated with management responses to climate change in the Great Eastern Ranges.

Reducing threatening processes

This area of work aims to develop adaptations to reduce the threats posed under climate change by bushfires, invasive species and habitat decline.

Bushfires

How climate change may affect bushfire risk, behaviour and fire weather.

Understanding bushfire behaviour: this work included field validation of the findings from the earlier Western Australian based Project Vesta and experimental fires in South Australia and New Zealand.

CSIRO researchers were involved with the Bushfire CRC's Victorian Bushfires Research Taskforce. For example, CSIRO staff developed maps to reconstruct the spread of the Kilmore East fire.

Fire regimes and climate adaptation: how do different fire regimes affect our landscapes? The research team investigated the interactions between fire regimes and other disturbances such as weeds; the regional sensitivity of fire regimes to management actions such as prescribed burning; and the extent to which adaptive management of fire regimes may mitigate risks to people, property, and biodiversity.

Investigating the effectiveness of aerial fire-fighting for suppressing bushfires, for example the use of Very Large Aerial Tankers (VLATs) such as the DC-10 air tanker.

Testing of bushfire detection cameras and exploring how the data can be processed and included in warning systems.

Defining current boundaries of knowledge of the structural and compositional dynamics in key Australian vegetation types and identifying critical gaps in knowledge that are essential for an understanding of the long-term interactions between vegetation dynamics and bushfire behaviour.

A significant amount of the bushfire research carried out by CSIRO fed into the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre (CRC).

Invasive species

Climate change and invasive plants in South Australia: examined the potential impact of climate change on weeds in South Australia and adaptation options for weed management strategies.

Climate change implications for weed management in Western Australia: explored possible future weed distributions under climate change scenarios, with a risk assessment for the Northern Agricultural Region.

Plant invasions in Mediterranean climate 'hotspots' of Australia and South Africa: Can past invasions inform implications for future climate change?

Habitat decline

Developing a framework to help identify climate change impacts for biodiversity to integrate adaptation with other threats to biodiversity including biodiversity/production trade-offs, urbanisation, soil degradation and invasive species.

Applying this framework to the Great Western Woodlands of south-western Australia. This is the world's largest remaining Mediterranean-climate woodland about 16 million hectares. In this relatively intact region, maintaining inherent resistance and resilience by preventing degradation through human activities was considered the highest priority and lowest risk.

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Ecosystems and biodiversity - Climate Adaptation

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Australia's natural species and ecosystems are highly vulnerable to climate change and will have difficulty adapting to the rate and extent of projected changes. CSIRO has been working to find effective adaptation responses to help manage and conserve our ecosystems.

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Conserving biodiversity in agricultural landscapes - CSIRO

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We're researching the restoration of eucalypt woodlands, mallee and shrublands in temperate agricultural landscapes for the benefit of biodiversity and agricultural enterprises.

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New rust disease savages east coast trees

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New rust disease savages east coast trees

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Updated March 12, 2012 22:02:54

A newly arrived tree disease is spreading rapidly along Australia's east coast, and advocacy groups say it should serve as a wake-up call for the Government to overhaul its procedures for halting invasive species.

Myrtle rust originated in South America, where it probably evolved as part of a wider ecosystem and therefore did not pose much of a threat to local species.

But it has been on the radar as a potential problem for Australia for some time because it did have a significant impact on eucalyptus plantations there.

Spores of the strain in Australia most likely came in from Hawaii, maybe on the bottom of a pallet or possibly on someone's hiking boot. Nobody really knows.

But the impact could be huge because hundreds of Australian native species are susceptible to the rust, which infects and often kills off new leaves.

It was first discovered in Australia on the central coast of New South Wales.

Dr Angus Carnegie, a senior research scientist with the NSW Department of Primary Industries, is monitoring a patch of turpentine trees in the Olney State Forest, north of Sydney, where current conditions are ideal for the rust.

"It needs this sort of nice, moist weather - leaf wetness and good temperature are really good conditions for the rust," he said.

"But to help it spread it actually needs dry conditions... so if you have nice weather like we've had in the last couple of days in Sydney and then you get a string of really nice, hot days, then you can get the rust developing and producing a lot of spores, a lot of pustules."

Here to stay

Dr Carnegie says myrtle rust is here to stay, and the best the authorities can hope for now is to try and manage the problem.

"These old leaves that have been sitting on here for 12 or more months, they'll eventually drop off and all these new leaves are getting severely diseased and they die as well," he said.

"What we're trying to do here is compare the impact of the disease on a tree that has the disease and one that doesn't have the disease. And one of the things we're trying to look at here also is these trees that are severely diseased, do they flower, and therefore fruit, and then provide for the next generation of seedlings?"

But he says at this stage there is no indication one way or the other.

"We know that the fruit and flower are infected and Geoff Pegg, a colleague in Queensland, has been monitoring fruit infection of Rhodamnia up there, and what happens is the fruit gets infected and it's prematurely dropped," he said.

"So one of the things that we're hoping to look at is seeing how widespread that it, is there any viable seed within those fruit capsules and things like that."

Flow-on effect

Dr Carnegie says it may also have a flow-on effect to animals.

"Just looking around us here within a sort of 10-metre radius, there's several hundred of these plants here. So it's quite a dense understorey here," he said.

"If this all dies out, what replaces it? Is it a weed like lantana? Is it another native rainforest species? And what are the flow-on effects for the fauna - vertebrates and mammals, birds - that use the fruit and the flowers?"

Dr Matthew Crowther, a lecturer in wildlife management at Sydney University, says the fact the rust attacks freshly sprouted leaves suggests it could be a very serious problem for koalas.

"Attacking young leaves and basically getting rid of them is of particular concern - not just to the short term of the koalas eating those leaves but in the long term for the viability of that plant to support koalas," he said.

Anthony Kachenko, the environmental and technical policy manager for Nursery Garden Industry Australia, says there is potential for economic impact as well.

"We don't have data to actually pinpoint how much it has in fact cost the industry as a whole," he said.

"However, there are cases where individual growers, for example, have invested up to $50,000 in new spray rigs."

'Nuclear bomb'

One advocacy group says the authorities knew of its effect on South American plantations for years before its arrival in Australia, so they should have seen myrtle rust coming.

Invasive Species Council chief executive John Dejose says it is the equivalent of a nuclear bomb for Australian ecosystems.

"We just cannot understand the decision after only one week to declare the myrtle rust ineradicable," he said.

"In the event this was a decision that was reversed, and then reversed again, we can't get any straight answers out of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestries about the myrtle rust incursion response.

"They don't seem to want to talk about it. We think that there is a review needed."

The World Today approached the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry for a response. The Department did not provide comment.

First posted March 12, 2012 15:47:06

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New rust disease savages east coast trees

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Updated March 12, 2012 22:02:54 A newly arrived tree disease is spreading rapidly along Australia's east coast, and advocacy groups say it should serve as a wake-up call for the Government to overhaul its procedures for halting invasive species.

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Mass planting tries to reverse 'tree cemetery', after huge dieback episode on the Monaro

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Mass planting tries to reverse 'tree cemetery', after huge dieback episode on the Monaro

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Posted June 22, 2016 15:18:37

An ambitious tree planting program has begun on the Monaro in southern New South Wales to counter the effect of an extremely large tree dieback episode in the region.

Dieback has killed the native eucalypt species, leaving the hills south of Cooma scarred with the remains of thousands of dead gum trees.

Their skeletons stand as a stark reminder of what has been lost.

Over some 5,000 square kilometres between Cooma and Berridale almost every gum tree is affected by dieback.

"It's bad," Upper Snowy Landcare's Dieback Project manager Lauren Van Dyke said.

"Almost all the Eucalyptus viminalis species, known as manna or ribbon gum have died out, causing what appears to be like a tree cemetery in this region."

The cause is uncertain, but most suspect the decade-long drought weakened the trees, allowing more virulent attack by the eucalyptus weevil, which ultimately causes the dieback.

Whatever the cause, tree loss has fractured habitat connectivity, making it difficult for animal species such as small bush birds, reptiles and mammals to move under the safety of the tree canopy to feed and breed.

The tree loss has also opened up country to new erosion events and weed incursion, along with the danger of trees falling on people and fences.

Now four small plots are being replanted with a mix of species in the hope of bringing back the trees and creating a viable ecosystem.

New system to protect against future dieback

About 5,000 trees and shrubs are being planted across the four dieback revegetation plots, under the supervision of Michael Platts from Monaro Tree Nursery in Bombala.

"You can never recreate exactly what was there because it's always changing anyway," he said.

"But we are trying to put species back in that were occurring here naturally."

But there is no point replanting if those trees simply die as well.

To prevent future dieback, included in the mix are shrubs which act as a home for small birds - which in turn eat the eucalypt weevils.

Species being re-established will mimic what has been lost, whilst adding more diversity in a mix of eight eucalyptus species, four acacia species, along with five species of shrubs including tea tree and callistemon.

"There's been many factors that have caused the dieback ... one is that you haven't got the diversity of birdlife and natural animals," Mr Platts said.

"The dieback insect is always here, we're not going to get rid of it - so we've just got to have the right mix."

But Ms Van Dyke said there were also major benefits for landholders.

"The loss of trees has caused a reduction in shelter belts and shade for stock in this region," she said.

Mr Platts said most of the dieback occurred on farms.

"We'd like to show that environmental outcomes out of planting should also work in with production outcomes on farms because the farmers are the holders of the land where it's all happening," he said.

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Mass planting tries to reverse 'tree cemetery' on the Monaro

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Posted June 22, 2016 15:18:37 An ambitious tree planting program has begun on the Monaro in southern New South Wales to counter the effect of an extremely large tree dieback episode in the region. Dieback has killed the native eucalypt species, leaving the hills south of Cooma scarred with the remains of thousands of dead gum trees.

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Reading trees: Using cultural burning to reinvigorate dying landscape

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Reading trees: Using cultural burning to reinvigorate dying landscape

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Updated February 21, 2018 17:22:05

You can tell a lot about country by looking at trees, according to Indigenous authority on fire and environment Victor Steffensen.

Mr Steffensen believes "traditional fire practice is the answer to preparing our land and our community for climate change".

"There is a natural balance maintained by fire," he said.

"When traditional fire is applied properly, native plants return and flourish while weeds and pests are naturally decreased.

"The ecosystem becomes balanced, beautiful, and most importantly - a safe place to live."

Mr Steffensen was a speaker at Firesticks, a one-day forum located at Haunted Point on the Shoalhaven River property of Bundanon Trust.

Indigenous fire management

During Mr Steffensen's stay at Bundanon Trust he spent time looking at Australian artist Arthur Boyd's paintings.

"I saw in a painting, 1981, that there was a big fire here. He painted all the trees that were black. When I look at the landscape I can see how long ago a fire was by looking at the country," he said.

"You can see it was a long time ago because you don't see black on the trees anymore - it's all grown out but the one thing that you do see is that there's no grass and there's no vegetation on the ground."

Mr Steffensen suggested that, in the past, the wrong land management was used and the country became neglected, and now the country was stunted from a lot of its plants and animals.

Reading trees

Walking around country, Mr Steffensen said he could tell a lot about the country by reading the trees.

"When we look at fire management, each different tree or ecosystem has a different way to burn and a different time of year in which to burn," he said.

Boxwood, gums, bloodwood and stringy bark country were best burnt at the beginning of the year, but once spring arrived it was time to stop the burns.

"After summer when the rains come we start the storm burns and other burns in different countries," Mr Steffensen said.

"Only certain countries are allowed to burn in certain years to get the best out of that country and to make sure that you are burning for that system."

By adhering to this system every different tree and every place had its own diversity and difference for the ecosystem to survive.

"Animals could have gum country, stringy bark country, they could have paperbark country, swamp country, whatever. It gave them access to a wide range of countries," he said.

The people also benefitted as access to all the different countries provided a variety of medicine.

"Medicine would come from stringy bark country or they'd go over here to get a certain thing," he said.

"So if something was wrong with you they would say, 'Hey, you need this and you have to go to that country to get it'.

"What's happening today is that all that diversity is starting to change because it's all starting to turn into one country."

Mr Steffensen said the Bundanon site was a mixture of countries.

"You've got different country here and there and when we go over there there's more county - there's quite a lot of different countries here at Bundanon but you don't realise," he said.

"When we look at the parent trees here what we have is gumtrees and a mahogany box and blue gums, different trees all in the one place."

But each tree brings in its own characteristics.

Trees determine soil quality

Mr Steffensen explained soils and trees went hand in hand.

"When we look at the gumtree it brings in the black soil, that's where the darkness comes from. What happens when you get mixed trees is that the soil changes and mixes," he said.

"When you go to full blood gum country it's really dark soil but harder not sandy. And when you go to a full blood stringy bark or bloodwood it's really sandy county and not so dark."

Traditionally people looked at the landscape to determine a burning strategy for the country because all the grasses and vegetation in that system cured at different times of the year.

Reading the country is the key to understanding the land and understanding how to look after it. It also determines what it should look like in terms of cultural knowledge.

Mr Steffensen said that Bundanon's stretch along the Shoalhaven River, with its variety of trees and soils, should be a great place to get certain medicine and food, as it's quite a productive area.

"Now what should be here is grass but what do you see? You don't see any grass," he said.

"The reason for that is when they had the hot fires the soil heats up and it cooks all the seed banks. The fires were very hot. They burnt all the trees and scorched all the leaves. They burnt the canopy."

Mr Steffensen said the heat in the soil stunted the grasses.

"Because there was no shade the sun came pulsing down with more heat and all that mixed together and stunted the seed bank, and stunted the regrowth of the native vegetation. So now all we have is leaves on the ground."

"This whole area, all this country, has this syndrome where you have no food in the landscape, there's no grass, there's no seed, there's no fruit.

"There are signs here and there of some of it trying to poke through but they don't have the right conditions to make it happen."

Mr Steffensen said it took a long time for the canopy to recover.

"That's why people are a part of the landscape and that's why people are a part of looking after the country, the right way," he said.

"People stayed on country for thousands of years because they worked with the land and understood the land and they were a part of the land and a part of that system.

"Country like this can stay dormant for many years. We need to start burning this now."

Cool burning

Mr Steffensen recommended burning the gum trees and eucalyptus forest first, and then reading the country and the grasses.

"Here we have no grass so we'll burn at the right time of year and it will be a cool burn which burns off all the leaves," he said.

"Then we have the right fire for the trees, the soil and the country and bang! - it will sprout back up."

"It's not going to take much to start the return of all that tucker, all that food with the right management.

"It's a really important thing that we start to heal the landscape.

He said traditional burning methods would help the grass to grow back.

White smoke creates life

Mr Steffensen said a white-smoke burn-off pushed smoke up into the trees and triggered the environment into life.

Trees flowered, honey was made, seeds were triggered and were continuously triggered every year of burning.

White smoke comes from grass. Black smoke comes from burning the leaves, but Mr Steffensen said it was against lore to burn the canopy.

"When we burn the canopy we create black smoke and within that black smoke are chemicals, oils, poisons, and all the things that are used for medicines, all those special things. Black smoke turns them into poison that goes into the atmosphere."

"From there it plumes and stays up in the sky covering the whole horizon. When you see a bush fire that's what you're looking at. When you see the right fire you'll hardly see the smoke because it's a white smoke and that smoke will dissipate once it leaves the canopy."

He said white-smoke burn-offs were part of an important cycle - enabling the grasses to create seeds that the birds would come and eat. Then come the honey birds and insects that eat honey, and then lizards that eat the insects, followed by birds that eat insects.

"What you do between the trees, the grass and the fire is create life and create a cycle that makes this place really healthy," he said.

"In return the people get food and the people survive."

Hosting a National Firesticks workshop

The event organiser, Bundanon Trust's natural resources manager Michael Andrews said he was working with Mr Steffensen and other partners to host a four-day National Firesticks workshop in July.

"In 20 years of landcare this is the most exciting and important land management project I have ever worked on," he said.

The workshop will offer opportunities to:

train Aboriginal people in traditional burning techniques

involve interested non-Aboriginal people

help control weeds on the property

help stimulate native regeneration

produce a 'seasonal calendar' for Bundanon

produce training videos for future Firesticks groups

Topics: indigenous-culture, horticulture, community-and-society, land-management, gardens-and-site-elements, nowra-2541

First posted January 22, 2018 14:42:21

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Calls to use cultural burning to reinvigorate dying landscape

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Updated February 21, 2018 17:22:05 You can tell a lot about country by looking at trees, according to Indigenous authority on fire and environment Victor Steffensen. Mr Steffensen believes "traditional fire practice is the answer to preparing our land and our community for climate change". "There is a natural balance maintained by fire," he said.

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Ash to ashes – what could the 2013 fires mean for the future of our forests?

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Ash to ashes – what could the 2013 fires mean for the future of our forests?

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Victoria's alpine forest is burning more often, changing the landscape and reducing its ability to store carbon. AAP Image/Australian Workers Union

In the high country of Victoria, firefighters are presently battling a large bushfire that is moving through the forests south of Harrietville and past the second highest mountain in Victoria, Mt. Feathertop.

It has threatened small communities, hikers, come within 50m of the boundary of the Hotham Heights alpine resort, and - most devastating of all - sadly resulted in the loss of two firefighters' lives.

But aside from social impacts and blackened trunks, what have been some of the ecological costs?

Alpine Ash ( Eucalyptus delegatensis) is a tall forest tree species found near Mt. Feathertop and other areas of high rainfall and elevation in Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania (where a distinct subspecies is present).

Like its lower elevation relative, Mountain Ash ( Eucalyptus regnans), Alpine Ash is classified as an " obligate-seeder". This means in the event of high-intensity fire, the mature individuals of the species are invariably killed. The next generation of trees arise from seeds that fall and germinate - after a period of dormancy - in the nutrient-rich ash that follows the fire.

This is in contrast to a number of many other Eucalypt species which rely less on seed regeneration and more on post-fire resprouting from the trunk and branches.

When Alpine Ash regenerates from seed, it takes roughly 15 years before the trees are old enough to have their own seeds. This means the population of saplings is somewhat vulnerable to disturbance during that period.

As of mid-February 2013, the alpine fire burning near Harrietville has burned well over 31,000 hectares of the Alpine National Park. According to the forest type information provided by the Department of Sustainability & Environment, at least 11,000 ha of Alpine Ash have been burned so far.

Tom Fairman

Fire in Australian ecosystems is by no means a new concept, of course - the flora of Australia have been living and evolving with it for at least 60 million years. But it is important to consider not just the extent, but the frequency, intensity and timing of fire - what is known as the " fire regime ".

Over the past 10 years, at least 2.5 million hectares of the mountainous forested areas of Victoria, extending north into NSW, have been burned in bushfires of varying intensity. There are few forests one can visit without seeing a scorched and blackened landscape.

This is particularly significant when considering the 2013 season in Victoria. The area burning in the Harrietville region was burned in the 2003 and (in some places) 2007 bushfires. This means forest burned barely ten years ago has been burned again. Before 2003, it had not been burned since the 1939 Black Friday conflagrations.

The DSE has found over half (55%) of the Alpine Ash burned near Harrietville this year had severe crown scorch or crown burn in 2003, the two highest severity classes of bushfire.

The University of Melbourne looked at the severity of the 2009 wildfires and found that overstorey survival was close to nil for Alpine Ash in those two highest severity classes. For lower severity classes, overstorey survival tends to rely on terrain and forest age class. We can conclude that around 6,000ha of alpine ash burned this season were saplings regenerating from the 2003 fires, and not yet at seed-bearing maturity. Pending post-fire surveys to confirm the above assumptions, this could be the death knell for this forest type in those areas.

There are ecological consequences of fires such as these burning so frequently in tall mountain forests. And the consequences not just restricted to the Alpine Ash forest that we are using as an example here.

Researchers from the Australian National University recently postulated that with an increase in disturbances (they looked at logging) in certain ecosystems, a " landscape trap " could arise. That is, vegetation is converted to a type which perpetuates frequent fire. The forests' environmental services - such as water, carbon and habitat - are severely compromised or at least heavily modified.

Applied to the example here, we can argue that at least 6,000 ha of Alpine Ash forest is likely to be converted to shrublands or potentially even grasslands, unless the area is actively replanted.

It would be a potentially costly exercise for the managing authorities. But its arguably worth doing as the consequences are far greater than a mere shift in vegetation community.

The role of forests in sequestering carbon has received much attention over the past few years. Highly productive ecosystems such as Alpine Ash are gradually being recognised for the role that they play in storing carbon dioxide.

There is a reasonable degree of variation in how much they're estimated to store in above-ground carbon - anywhere from 197 to 339 tonnes of carbon per hectare, though much higher has been estimated. Shrublands, in contrast, have been estimated to store significantly less - around 60 tonnes of carbon per hectare.

Therefore, if that 6,000 hectares are converted from highly productive forest to shrublands, we will see a transition from a forest that could cumulatively store anywhere between 4.3 and 7.4 million tonnes of CO ₂ at maturity to shrublands that would store only a fraction of that (1.3 million tonnes of CO ₂).

Fire is often portrayed as a devastating force in the landscape. But this situation highlights it is not the mere presence of fire, but the regime in which it operates, that is one of the greatest threatening processes to the integrity of our forests.

Furthermore, this ecological shift is occurring within national parks - a landscape tenure many people would consider safeguarded from such threats. It also raises questions whether, presently and in the future, humans may need to intervene and actively manage certain ecosystems to ensure they retain the values we want them to have.

These are by no means easy questions or propositions, but that does not mean we should shy away from them. This example may seem localised and specific, but in a warmer and drier future, as predicted under climate change scenarios, could very well mean that it could become the parable of our future forests.

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Ash to ashes - what could the 2013 fires mean for the future of our forests?

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In the high country of Victoria, firefighters are presently battling a large bushfire that is moving through the forests south of Harrietville and past the second highest mountain in Victoria, Mt. Feathertop. It has threatened small communities, hikers, come within 50m of the boundary of the Hotham Heights alpine resort, and - most devastating of all - sadly resulted in the loss of two firefighters' lives.

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EcoCheck: Australia’s Southwest jarrah forests have lost their iconic giants

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EcoCheck: Australia’s Southwest jarrah forests have lost their iconic giants

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WA's eucalyptus forest

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Our EcoCheck series takes the pulse of some of Australia's best-known ecosystems to find out if they're in good health or on the wane.
When the first European settlers travelled into the jarrah forests of Australia's Southwest, they found a vast area of giant trees and imagined an inexhaustible forest. The timber industry took off. Within 100 years, Western Australia's Conservator of Forests, Charles Lane Poole, noted that: "Sentiment may dictate the preservation of a few ... as reminders ... but whole forests of giant trees will no longer be seen." How right this early conservation visionary proved to be.

Today only 5% of the Jarrah Forest bioregion consists of protected areas such as nature reserves or national parks, according to Australia's national land use database. Although the figures show that more than 45% is still natural vegetation (much due to Lane Poole's efforts), virtually none of the forest has escaped some degree of logging, and there are now few signs of the once iconic giant jarrahs. The timber industry and other disturbances have transformed the structure of the forest - what mostly remains now is low-growing jarrah saplings and woodland trees.

What's more, Australia's Southwest has been in the grip of human-triggered climate change since around 1970. Along with other Mediterranean-type climate regions, this area is rapidly drying due to global warming, with rainfall declines of 15-20%. This drying trend poses a major new threat to conservationists and industry in aiming to restore these unique forests.

What is to become of them, and what should we do about it? Under the present climatic regime, the jarrah forest is unlikely ever to return to the stature seen by early colonists. We can safeguard what remains, while acknowledging profound loss in many areas.

Hesperian/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Forest giants

Jarrah ( Eucalyptus marginata) naturally grows in low-fertility, gravelly soils in a highly seasonal Mediterranean-type climate. Depending on the conditions, it can grow into a shrub or a mighty tree, although in areas of low fertility, giant trees require access to a water table.

The declining rainfall, particularly in autumn and early winter, has shifted the region's creeks and streams from year-round to seasonal, and caused water tables to decline. There have been observed declines in groundwater in some catchments of half a metre per year since 1995, and the problem is forecast to get worse still over the coming decades.

So far, the result has been that most forest cover has been lost in lower-rainfall, inland margins, as well as in more intensively logged, high-rainfall zones. In 2010, an extremely dry year even by today's standards, even typically high-rainfall zones lost forest cover in areas where soils were shallow and couldn't retain as much water.

As these changes continue, the jarrah forest will become structurally unrecognisable. Many stands of trees will die, with jarrah persisting as a shrub or woodland tree. However, the understorey will remain incredibly diverse.

The dead and reduced trees will leave a great deal of dead wood around. Undoubtedly there will be a threat of increased bushfires to contend with.

Fire is a naturally frequent (and evolutionarily important) aspect of the Southwest's Mediterranean climate. But a warmer, drier climate with more extremes of fire weather will make bushfires more frequent and severe, as forest fuels dry more readily and burn for longer once ignited.

More intense bushfires will put extra stress on forest ecosystems, meaning that they take longer to recover. Habitats such as wetlands and rock outcrops, which in the past have provided refuges from fire, will be less able to do so.

Thin options

Thinning of the forest has been used as a management tool to increase yield into water supply dams. This approach also has potential to more rapidly restore pre-logging or pre-fire forest structure. However, recent thinning in the jarrah forest has failed to increase stream-flow.

Thinning is increasingly ineffective. This is because in a drying climate, it would first need to reverse decline in groundwater levels. Such treatment is not now likely to be achievable without a return to a pre-1970 rainfall regime.

The area also continues to be mined for bauxite (aluminium ore), and the rehabilitation of decommissioned mine sites will need to be done in a way that recognises the new, drier water regime. Restoring these areas with trees to provide future sawlogs would have been appropriate in a stable, high-rainfall climate, but not today.

Broader forest thinning is expensive and would probably result in the loss of forest carbon. But more targeted thinning, perhaps by culling invasive plants from the forest, could still be useful for increasing water flows. Leaving the remains of the culled plants on-site would also limit carbon emissions.

Together, unsustainable logging and the shifting climate has lowered the biomass and changed the structure of the jarrah forest. The only form of timber industry with any future in this environment is the collection of coarse woody debris. But this material is worth so much more to the environment and so much less to industry that it's questionable whether it can be justified at all.

A few remaining venerable "king jarrahs", and elements of old-growth characteristics, are all that remain of the original forests. But the rest of the mighty jarrahs are gone, and so the focus needs to shift to the importance of this area for the great biological diversity that does remain.

We need a new, wider vision for the vegetation of the jarrah forest. It now needs to be valued as a biologically diverse environment harbouring venerable trees from a former era.

Retention as public land allows maintenance of important conservation values. Thus, best practice rehabilitation focused on the understorey, should now target a resilient jarrah forest under changing environmental conditions. Prudence would reestablish understorey in future rehabilitation and reassess previous rehabilitation. Restoration of surrounding degraded forest may also be possible. These approaches may provide a future for this ecosystem, despite inevitable change.

Meanwhile, the increasingly scarce giant jarrahs that remain are the living museums of the forest - our irreplaceable Notre Dames.
Are you a researcher who studies an iconic Australian ecosystem and would like to give it an EcoCheck? Get in touch.

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EcoCheck: Australia's Southwest jarrah forests have lost their iconic giants

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Our EcoCheck series takes the pulse of some of Australia's best-known ecosystems to find out if they're in good health or on the wane. When the first European settlers travelled into the jarrah forests of Australia's Southwest, they found a vast area of giant trees and imagined an inexhaustible forest.

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Home " Ecosystem Change " Level 1

Context - Human well-being is highly dependent on ecosystems and the benefits they provide such as food and drinkable water. Over the past 50 years, however, humans have had a tremendous impact on their environment.

To better understand the consequences of current changes to ecosystems and to evaluate scenarios for the future, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has launched a comprehensive scientific study, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

What actions could be taken to limit harmful consequences of ecosystem degradation?

Latest update: 15 March 2005

1. How have ecosystems changed?

1.1 Virtually all of Earth's ecosystems have been significantly transformed through human actions. Changes have been especially rapid in the last 50 years and today the fastest changes are taking place in developing countries. Ecosystems are particularly affected by large-scale fishing, freshwater use, and agriculture. More...

1.2 Ecosystems depend on fundamental environmental cycles such as the continuous circulation of water, carbon, and other nutrients. Human activities have modified these cycles, especially during the last 50 years, through increases in freshwater use, carbon dioxide emissions, and fertilizer use. This in turn has affected the ability of ecosystems to provide benefits to humans. More...

2. How have ecosystem services and their uses changed?

2.1 Ecosystem services are the multiple benefits provided by ecosystems to humans. More...

2.2 uman use of all ecosystem services is increasing:

The use of resources such as food, water, and timber has increased rapidly, and continues to grow, sometimes unsustainably.

Human interventions have led to changes in the regulation of climate, disease, and other ecosystem processes.

The use of ecosystems for recreation, spiritual enrichment, and other cultural purposes is growing. However, the capacity of ecosystems to provide these services has declined significantly.

2.3 In the past, increases in the supply of resources were often achieved despite local limitations by shifting production and harvest to new, less exploited regions. These options are diminishing, and developing substitutes for services can be expensive. More...

2.5 When humans modify an ecosystem to gain something, it often has negative effects on other components of ecosystems, leading to trade-offs. For instance, increased food production tends to bring about reductions in biodiversity. However, conserving or enhancing particular components of an ecosystem, for instance creating an urban park, can also lead to positive synergies improving a variety of services. More...

3. How have ecosystem changes affected human well-being and poverty alleviation?

3.2 Ecosystem services, particularly food production, timber and fisheries, are important for employment and economic activity. Intensive use of ecosystems often produces the greatest short-term advantage, but excessive and unsustainable use can lead to losses in the long term. A country could cut its forests and deplete its fisheries, and this would show only as a positive gain to GDP, despite the loss of capital assets. If the full economic value of ecosystems were taken into account in decision-making, their degradation could be significantly slowed down or even reversed. More...

3.4 Some ecosystem changes such as increased food production have helped hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, but also have negative effects. Degradation of ecosystem services is harming many of the world's poorest and most vulnerable people, and is sometimes the main factor causing poverty. Poverty in turn tends to increase dependence on ecosystem services. This can lead to additional pressure on ecosystems and a downward spiral of poverty and ecosystem degradation. More...

4. What are the most critical factors causing ecosystem changes?

4.1 Natural or human-induced factors that change ecosystems are called drivers. Habitat change and overexploitation, for instance, are direct drivers that influence ecosystem processes explicitly. Indirect drivers affect ecosystems by influencing the direct drivers. More...

4.2 The main indirect drivers are changes in human population, economic activity, and technology, as well as socio-political and cultural factors. For example, world population has doubled in the past forty years, with most of the growth taking place in developing countries. Pressures on ecosystems have grown in absolute terms, but the growth has been slower than GDP growth. This is due to changing economic structures, increased efficiency, and use of substitutes for ecosystem services. More...

4.3 Important direct drivers include: habitat change, climate change, invasive species, overexploitation, and pollution. Habitat change occurs, for instance, when the area of land used for agriculture or cities is expanded. World climate has already changed and continues to change, affecting temperature, rainfall, and sea levels. Commercially exploited fish stocks are probably at a historical low. Intensive use of fertilizers has polluted ecosystems with excessive amounts of nutrients. Most direct drivers of degradation are currently staying constant or growing in intensity. More...

5. How might ecosystems and their services change in the future under various plausible scenarios?

5.1 In this assessment, four plausible scenarios were developed to explore the future of ecosystems and human well-being. The different scenarios are based on either increased globalization or increased regionalization, and an either reactive or proactive way of addressing ecosystem problems. More...

5.2 According to the scenarios, the indirect and direct drivers that will affect ecosystems over the next 50 years will be mostly the same ones as today. However, the relative importance of different drivers will change. Climate change and high nutrient levels in water will become increasing problems, whereas population growth will become relatively less important. More...

5.4 Three of the four scenarios predict improvements in at least some ecosystem services. In many cases, however, human uses of ecosystems will increase substantially. This will deteriorate ecosystems, particularly if they are used unsustainably. Overall, human health is expected to improve in the future in most scenarios. Only the scenario which combines regionalization with reactive ecosystem management might lead to a negative spiral of poverty, declining health, and degraded ecosystems in developing countries. More...

6. Why are both global and sub-global assessments of ecosystem change useful?

The importance of ecosystem services for human well-being around the world was investigated at local, national, and regional levels. Overall, the global and sub-global assessments gave similar results on the present state of ecosystems. However, local conditions were sometimes better or worse than expected from the global assessment, for instance for water resources or biodiversity. The assessments identified an imbalance in the distribution of the benefits and costs of ecosystem change, since these are often displaced or postponed.

Some ecosystem problems have been reduced by innovative local responses. However, the "threats" observed at a global level may be difficult to estimate from a more local perspective. Moreover, consequences of actions that go beyond the actor's immediate perspective are often overlooked. Therefore, institutions are needed at multiple levels to strengthen the adaptive capacity and effectiveness of sub-national and local responses. More...

7. How do ecosystems change over time?

7.1 The impacts of human actions on ecosystems are often slow to become apparent. In general, people manage ecosystems in such ways that short-term benefits are increased, while long-term costs go unnoticed or are ignored. This can transfer the costs of current changes to future generations.

Different drivers of ecosystem change take more or less time to react to changes. For example, some species might become extinct quickly when they lose their habitat, but for others, like trees, it can take centuries. This delay provides opportunities for restoring habitats and rescuing species. More...

8. What options exist to manage ecosystems sustainably?

8.2 The assessments identified many types of positive actions that would bring long-term benefits for both ecosystems and human well-being. Examples of actions include: increasing international coordination, developing and diffusing technology, and improving the use of information. More...

8.3 Decision-making processes and their effects on ecosystems and human well-being can be improved by a series of elements such as transparency and public participation. More...

9. What are the most important uncertainties hindering decision-making concerning ecosystems?

Reducing some important uncertainties about ecosystems and their services could significantly improve the ability of assessments to provide the information needed by policy-makers. Better theories and models are needed to understand the links between ecosystem change and impacts on human well-being and to assess the economic consequences of ecosystem change. More...

10. Conclusions: main findings

Four main findings on the links between ecosystems and human well-being: More...

10.1 Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems faster and more extensively than in any period in human history. This has been due largely to rapidly growing demands for food, freshwater, timber, fiber, and fuel. The result has been a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth. More...

10.2 The changes made to ecosystems have contributed to substantial gains in human well-being and economic development, but these gains have been achieved at growing costs. These costs include the degradation of many ecosystem services, increased risks of abrupt changes, and increased poverty for some groups of people. These problems, unless addressed, will substantially reduce the benefits that future generations get from ecosystems. More...

10.3 This degradation of ecosystem services could get significantly worse during the next 50 years. It is a barrier to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. More...

10.4 Reversing the degradation of ecosystems while meeting increasing demands for their services is a challenge. This challenge can be partially met in the future under scenarios involving significant changes to policies, institutions, and practices. However, these required actions will have to be substantial when compared to the actions currently taken. More...

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Home " Ecosystem Change " Level 1 Context - Human well-being is highly dependent on ecosystems and the benefits they provide such as food and drinkable water. Over the past 50 years, however, humans have had a tremendous impact on their environment.

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GLOBEC | Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics

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GLOBEC is the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) core project responsible for understanding how global change will affect the abundance, diversity and productivity of marine populations.

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Ecological Communities: Networks of Interacting Species

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Ecological Communities: Networks of Interacting Species

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Changes In Australian Ecosystems Tied To Arrival Of Exotic Animals

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Changes In Australian Ecosystems Tied To Arrival Of Exotic Animals

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A study of old and new emu eggshells collected from central Australia indicates a dramatic loss of grasslands beginning roughly 300 years ago was due to the arrival of Europeans and the introduction of exotic grazing animals, according to a new study.

The eggshells of the large, flightless bird are unique in that they can be dated by traditional radiocarbon methods and by a process known as amino acid racemization, said University of Colorado at Boulder Professor Gifford Miller. Racemization involves studying mirror-like changes in amino acids in the eggshells over time, which has proven to be an accurate time clock for dating events going back thousands of years.

"Because these eggshells can be dated by both radiocarbon methods and amino acids, they offer a unique opportunity to look back at ecosystem changes over the last 70,000 years," said Miller, a fellow of CU-Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research.

The study indicates that grazing mammals introduced in the last few centuries by Europeans have contributed to "a major change in ecosystems" in central Australia, said Miller. "We see a major reduction of plant biomass beginning in the 1800s, which looks like a result of overgrazing by pastoral animals and the introduction of rabbits."

The results of the study were presented at the fall 2000 meeting of the American Geophysical Union held in San Francisco Dec. 15 to Dec. 20. Other authors on the paper include Beverly Johnson, a former CU graduate student of Miller's now at the University of Washington, John Magee and Michael Gagan of Australian National University and Marilyn Fogel of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D. C.

The eggshells were collected by Miller and Johnson, who conducted lengthy north-south and east-west transects in south-central Australia over the past two years. Miller believes the introduction of rabbits about 150 years ago was a major contributor to the demise of grasslands in the region.

The emu eggshells were biochemically analyzed for two different carbon isotopes that reflect the birds' diet, said Miller, also a professor in CU-Boulder's geological sciences department. High proportions of the "heavy carbon," or carbon 13, in the eggshells indicate the emus were eating primarily grasses, while lower proportions of carbon 13 indicate their primary diet was bushes and trees.

To evaluate changes in vegetation in south-central Australia since European colonization, the team derived proportions of grasses compared to bushes and trees in the diet of emus that laid their eggs between 300 and 14,000 years ago. The team then compared eggshells collected in the past 25 years with those going back to the last glacial maximum 15,000 years to 30,000 years ago and even as far back as 65,000 years ago, he said.

"Not even at the last glacial maximum has the proportion of emu diet of grasses been so small," he said. "We suggest unprecedented changes in ecosystems occurred in south-central Australia within the past 300 years, resulting in a dramatic reduction in the proportion of grasses in the emu diet."

Eggs laid by emus during the last glacial maximum reflect a lack of grasses in their diet, he said. A 1997 study by Miller and colleagues indicated systematic burning by the earliest human colonizers altered the vegetation patterns enough to diminish the effectiveness of summer monsoons that periodically drenched northern Australia, triggering increased aridity over much of the continent's interior and decreasing grasses.

In January 1999, Miller and colleagues published a paper in Science magazine indicating the earliest humans who peopled Australia some 55,000 years ago inadvertently disrupted the continent's food chain by burning vast areas of native vegetation, resulting in the extinction of most large animal species. The study showed an ostrich-sized bird known as Genyornis -- as well as 85 percent of the Australian "megafauna" weighing more than 100 pounds -- disappeared about 50,000 years ago.

"Australia has a fragile ecosystem where the soils are significantly depleted in nutrients," said Miller. "I would speculate that even if all the exotic animals were removed, it would take the ecosystems a long time to recover because the soils lack resiliency."

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nature; ecology research; birds; animals

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Changes In Australian Ecosystems Tied To Arrival Of Exotic Animals

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A study of old and new emu eggshells collected from central Australia indicates a dramatic loss of grasslands beginning roughly 300 years ago was due to the arrival of Europeans and the introduction of exotic grazing animals, according to a new study.

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What is TERN?

TERN is Australia’s land ecosystem observatory.

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TERN - Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network: Home

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TERN is making some changes to its land observatory. We are re-shaping our structure to place more importance on the way in which data, derived from our local, regional and continental scale facilities, are integrated and made more accessible for your research on variation and change of terrestrial ecosystems in Australia.

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Building Nature's Resilience: A Biodiversity Strategy for Queensland

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biodiversity; strategy; resilence; queensland; nature; conservation; protected areas; ecosystems; species; threats; habitats; development; climate change

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Biodiversity Strategy (Department of Environment and Resource Management)

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Building nature's resilience: a draft biodiversity strategy for Queensland articulates key outcomes, strategies and priority actions for conserving biodiversity in Queensland. Through a whole of landscape approach the Strategy seeks to build resilient ecosystems by building protected areas, conserving species and managing extent and condition.

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Daintree, the oldest surviving rainforest in the world

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Cooper Creek Wilderness - Daintree Rainforest Tours Cooper Creek Wilderness occupies the centrepiece of the last fragment of the oldest surviving rainforest in the world. Cooper Creek Wilderness Daintree Rainforest Tours provide ethical access into the heart of the oldest rainforest in the world.

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Welcome to The RRRC

The Reef and Rainforest Research Centre (RRRC) is an enterprising Australian based not-for-profit organisation. Its purpose is to build the scientific knowledge base to underpin the conservation and sustainable development agenda in Tropical Queensland and beyond. We work at the intersection of conservation, Government policy development and community economic development in the tropics, providing services and promoting innovative solutions and community well being.

Across our portfolio of activity, the RRRC aims to translate science-based ecological knowledge into improved environmental outcomes, increased local and regional wealth and create regional jobs.

The results of the RRRC are already being used by more than 38 organisations, including the Australian and Queensland Governments, regional natural resource management groups, local governments, tourism industry, agricultural groups, fishing industry, conservation organisations and indigenous bodies.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

We are a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to sustainable natural resource management and community well being throughout the tropics.

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Reef & Rainforest | Reef & Rainforest Research Centre

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The Reef and Rainforest Research Centre (RRRC) is an enterprising Australian based not-for-profit organisation. Its purpose is to build the scientific knowledge base to underpin the conservation and sustainable development agenda in Tropical Queensland and beyond. We work at the intersection of conservation, Government policy development and community economic development in the tropics, providing services and promoting innovative solutions and community well being.

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The Australian Rainforest Conservation Society Inc aims to protect, conserve and restore rainforests in Australia.

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10 Daintree rainforest animals that are found nowhere else

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10 Daintree rainforest animals that are found nowhere else

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The Daintree Rainforest is one of the most biologically diverse rainforests on the planet. This truly wild place forms a small part of the much larger Wet Tropics World Heritage Area and is home to rare and unusual animal species that are found nowhere else on the planet.

Let's take a closer look at some of these unique Daintree Rainforest animals.

Southern Cassowary

Queensland's own big bird hails from the era of the dinosaurs and still roams the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area today. Often spotted from Mission Beach to the Daintree Rainforest lowlands, these stocky birds serve an important role in conservation.

The cassowary swallows seeds whole and as they travel long distances across the rainforest, these seeds are dispersed in other areas with its own built-in fertiliser. They really are a curious creature with a passion for gardening.

Bennett's and Lumholtz Tree Kangaroos

How cute are these little guys! The Bennett's and Lumholtz tree-kangaroos have adapted to spend their lives in the trees of the Daintree Rainforest and surrounding areas.

Lumholtz tree-kangaroos are not nocturnal, but are cathemeral, which means they are active for short periods of time day or night and after too much activity they will have a nap.

Spotting these interesting creatures in the wild is quite rare. Tree Roo Conservation Rescue works together with Wildlife Habitat in Port Douglas to care for tree kangaroos that aren't able to return to the wild. You can get a closer look at these gorgeous animals there.

Musky Rat-Kangaroo

A musky rat-kangaroo is one of a few animals in the region that don't mind being up during the day, so you might be able to spot them while they forage on the forest floor. At the Kangaroo family reunions, it might be the smallest 'roo but it is the most primitive member, having remained relatively unchanged over the last 20 million years.

Daintree River Ringtail Possum

This light coloured ringtail possum could be considered the hipster species of possums as they are only found in the cool Daintree River neighbourhood of the Wet Tropics region. They like to keep their habitat exclusive.

Buff Breasted Paradise Kingfisher

The colourful buff-breasted paradise kingfisher migrates to the Wet Tropics area from New Guinea between October and April to nest and breed. Despite their colourful feathers, these birds are quite difficult to spot in the rainforest which makes them popular with birdwatchers.

Lesser Sooty Owl

This owl is endemic to the Wet Tropics region and is commonly spotted in the Atherton Tablelands area.

Ulysses Butterfly

This brilliant blue and black butterfly is commonly seen in throughout rainforest openings, such as lookouts.

Boyd's Forest Dragon

These cool lizards are not only photogenic, and endemic to the Wet Tropics area of Tropical North Queensland, they are literally cool. They maintain a colder body temperature than any other rainforest reptile in the surrounding area so that they do not turn up on the amethystine python's heat-seeking radar.

Spotted-tailed Quoll

Australia's largest native carnivore, the spotted-tailed quoll calls the Wet Tropics home. It has been described as the most ferocious animal in the bush, an excellent hunter by both night and day.

White-tailed Rat

The area is also home to one of Australia's largest rodents, the white-tailed rat, weighing 500 to 890 grams and often seen at night feeding on leftovers on the forest floor.

Here's an infographic we prepared earlier if you are after more facts about the Daintree Rainforest and the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.

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10 Daintree rainforest animals that are found nowhere else

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The Daintree Rainforest is one of the most biologically diverse rainforests on the planet. This truly wild place forms a small part of the much larger Wet Tropics World Heritage Area and is home to rare and unusual animal species that are found nowhere else on the planet.

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25 Years Since Daintree Blockade Helped the Daintree Gain World Heritage Listing

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25 Years Since Daintree Blockade Helped the Daintree Gain World Heritage Listing

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25 Years Since Daintree Blockade Helped the Daintree Gain World Heritage Listing

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25 Years Since Daintree Blockade Helped the Daintree Gain World Heritage Listing. This year marks the twenty fifth anniversary of the blockade that led to the protection of the Daintree and the World Heritage listing of the Wet Tropics area in Far North Queensland. - PR10169572

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A really complicated issue: the threat of climate change on biodiversity in the wet tropics

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A really complicated issue: the threat of climate change on biodiversity in the wet tropics

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Some of the world's leading scientists went to the Daintree Rainforest this week to discuss how climate change will affect the wet tropics.

It's not easy saving the world but it can be fun. I'm in the Daintree Rainforest with around 25 of the world's leading scientists who have gathered to discuss creating a model that will help identify what tropical species are most threatened by climate change. The conference is being held outside on a verandah at an ecotourism centre. There's a flowing river nearby, a canopy tower and stunning tropical rainforest for inspiration. The day before the group also had a close encounter with a 'giant' female cassowary.

The mood is relaxed and soon after I arrive lunch is served but in-depth discussions are continuing in small pockets over lychees and sandwiches. Surprisingly, there's a reasonable though far from overwhelming contingent of scientists here under the age of 35. Still, the bearded, older male academics are also present and seem to do most of the talking. One of the scientists is wearing a The Phantom t-shirt and, standing in such a remote location, I feel as though I've been secretly whisked away to Skull Island.

The model being discussed could have huge repercussions. For example, if there isn't a model and money in the future is given to help save an animal or plant that may be able to adapt to climate change and another animal or plant is ignored but becomes extinct, then an entire rainforest's biodiversity could be compromised. Even more, it could cause a flow-on effect where other plants and animals are lost as well. Hence, a model to determine what's at risk is vital.

Recent scientific studies already suggest that some organisms have the ability to physiologically evolve with climate change. Latrobe University's Ari Hoffman, who is attending the conference has done studies that show the "Australian east coast fruit fly has genetically adapted to rising temperatures over the last 20 years". Paradoxically, other animals are struggling to adapt. The white lemuroid ringtail possum is one; a bushy-tailed animal that lives around 450 metres up in the rainforest and only between Ingham and Cairns. Instead of adapting and moving to lower parts of the rainforest as more and more of its natural habitat is cleared though, the lemuroid ringtail is simply dying out.

"It's a really complicated issue," says Dr Steve Williams of James Cook University's School of Marine and Biology. "Predicting what the impacts of climate change will be is incredibly complex and it needs a lot of different inputs, a lot of different expertise that needs to come together to make decent predictions. Hopefully we can make such good predictions [though] that we can be a lot more certain that what we predict is correct."

Craig Moritz, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, agrees. Originally from the University of Queensland, he says climate change research is especially important for rainforest in Far North Queensland.

"The net effect of [evolution] over millions of years [in Far North Queensland] is we have a lot of very unique diversity in this system and it's largely concentrated in the mountain tops and some of the adjacent lowlands, such as the Cape Tribulation area," he says.

"This is a very biologically unique area, many of the species that are here are related to groups that were around when Australia was much colder and wetter, millions and millions of years ago and they're sort of stuck up in these mountains, in this rain forest. So if you think about what future climate change could do, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to realise if all your really unique diversity is stuck on top of the mountains and it gets warmer, you're going to lose some of it."

This is likely, Craig adds, given the rate at which global warming is occurring.

"It's already warmer than it's been for most of the last two to five million years," he says. "The rate of change caused by humans is already much faster than most of the changes that occurred naturally in the geological record. So those two things combined are a double whammy.

"The other thing humans have done is chop up the landscape. So instead of a continuous gradation from eucalypt, woodlands, to rainforest to other types of vegetation, we've chopped it up with cane fields and pastures, cities and so on. That means a species can't move to accommodate climate change and that's not a good thing."

President of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation, Bill Laurance says 'thermal specialists' in the tropics are particularly vulnerable.

"A lot of what we hear is people worried about polar bears and they're worried about the arctic ice melting but in fact, we're really starting to think that a lot of species in the tropical rainforest are endangered and that's for a couple of reasons," he begins. "One is because there are more species in the tropical rainforest than anywhere else. Second, there are many species in the tropics that are very specialised for their elevational tolerances, in terms of their tolerance for temperature.

"Here in the wet tropics of Australia, there are at least 65 species of birds, mammals, lizards and frogs that only live up in these very cool, high elevation forests. As the temperature goes up, we think that their ranges are going to shrink and shrink and possibly, they're going to disappear altogether."

To properly gauge how climate change will affect tropical species, the scientists have come up with around 200 things they'd like to measure. Steve readily admits, that they won't be able to measures all of those indicators but it will start to provide better perspective.

"In the early predictions we haven't allowed for how much those species might evolve to actually cope with a hotter temperature but that's the idea of this workshop, to work out how all of these animals, will evolve," he says. "How protected are they where they live? [We want to know about] all of these varying components that need to be brought together to make really strong predictions about the future."

"So there are already demonstrated effects. There are thousands of publications around the world now showing effects that have already happened but we haven't always included everything we've need to include."

Some of those things Craig explains are often quite obvious. 'Intrinsic sensitivity' of species to temperature change as well as mobility are important. One of the more difficult problems will be understanding exactly how species interact as climate change continues.

"So if you lose a pollinator," Craig says, "how will the trees reproduce? If an ant loses a fungus it depends on and the ant provides ecosystem services to the forest, what's going to happen?"

If these scientists are successful though, their work will have international repercussions.

"We're asking general questions ... and it can help with climate change research all over the world," Craig says.

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A really complicated issue: the threat of climate change on biodiversity in the wet tropics

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Some of the world's leading scientists went to the Daintree Rainforest this week to discuss how climate change will affect the wet tropics. It's not easy saving the world but it can be fun.

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Cape Tribulation, Daintree National Park

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Cape Tribulation, Daintree National Park

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cape tribulation; daintree national park; cassowaries; fishing; camping; bushwalking; tracks; world heritage; great barrier reef; wet tropics; noah beach; eastern kuku yalanji aboriginal people; jindalba; marrja; dubuji; kulki; mount sorrow ridge trail

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Cape Tribulation, Daintree National Park (Department of National Parks, Sport and Racing)

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Cape Tribulation, in Daintree National Park, is within two World Heritage sites: the Great Barrier Reef and the Wet Tropics. Camping is permitted at the Noah Beach camping area and there are a number of walking tracks. The park is home to many near threatened and endangered animals.

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Climate change could empty wildlife from Australia’s rainforests

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Climate change could empty wildlife from Australia’s rainforests

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The mountain rainforests of Australia's Wet Tropics are extremely vulnerable to climate change. kara brugman/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges that the world's wildlife and those who want to conserve it have ever faced. To save wildlife, we are going to have to help animals, plants and ecosystems adapt. But first we need to know just how many species are at risk and why.

A paper published today in Science by Mark Urban, Associate Professor at the University of Connecticut, estimates on average we will lose about 17% (or about one in six) of all species on Earth by 2100.

This massive impact will be felt across all groups of species and ecosystems although it is predicted to be worse in South America, Australia and New Zealand. Australia is predicted to lose approximately 14% of its species.

Our research in the World Heritage rainforests of Queensland's Wet Tropics disturbingly shows this process has already begun. To stem the tide, we're going to have to mitigate climate change, and make sure species are able to move with the climate.

A warning

The new paper is very important, but not because it says anything new. In fact almost nothing in this paper is new, unknown or has not been said in many papers already.

What this paper shows is that criticisms of previous estimates of extinction risk make no difference to the conclusion: a vast number of species is likely to be lost and we need immediate and informed action to minimise this risk.

The amount of climate change is the most important factor for extinction risk. This highlights the importance of mitigation in minimising future extinction risk. Climate change will effect all types of animals, plants and other lifeforms, particularly those with small ranges. They will also be in trouble long before they finally disappear.

The threat to Australia's World Heritage

One of the problems in Australia, as noted by the new paper, is that for some places there are no climate analogues, leaving nowhere for species to go.

In a report to the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF), we showed that the climate in most of Australia is predicted to go far outside natural variability, indeed beyond the climates that most species have experienced in their entire evolutionary history.

Worryingly, many of the areas predicted to have the greatest climatic change correspond to some of the most important biodiversity areas in Australia, such as the Wet Tropics rainforests, southwest Australia, east coast wet forests, and the tropical far north of Cape York and the Northern Territory.

Joseph Smit

Endemic species - those found nowhere else - face a 6% higher risk of extinction than more widespread species. Australia's Wet Tropics are a globally important world heritage area due to the evolutionary unique biota and high endemism (ranked number three in the world in irreplaceability in a recent evaluation of global protected areas).

A very high number of endemic species are associated with tropical mountains. This is particularly true in the tropical Andes of South America, but also in the Australian Wet Tropics. These places are extremely vulnerable to climate change. Species adapted to a particular temperature can find themselves will no room to move.

Under the current, high emissions scenario that we're on, we predict that approximately a third of all rainforest mammals, birds, reptiles and frogs in the Wet Tropics would become either critically endangered or extinct by 2085.

For the endemic species, the very species the World Heritage Area was put in place to protect, it is much worse with an estimated 59% of species being at high risk of extinction. These risks would be significantly reduced with reasonable levels of global mitigation, reducing the extinction risk to 3.5% of species and 8.6% of endemic species.

These numbers are conservative as they are based on species being able to freely move and does not account for increasing habitat fragmentation. If species can't move the new paper shows that the extinction risk doubles.

Not just extinction

Climate change will also cause populations to decline and shrink. Our Wet Tropics data show that 91% of endemics and 69% of all vertebrates will suffer at least a 50% reduction in total population size by 2085 under a high emissions scenario.

David Cook/Flickr

There will also be some winners: 14% of Wet Tropics vertebrates could increase in population size (only one endemic species).

Even more worrying is that, over the last 10 years, our research program has documented declines in at least 50% of the species for which we have sufficient data for the analyses. These include many species of birds such as Golden Bowerbirds and iconic species such as the Lemuroid Ringtail Possum and Herbert River Ringtail Possum.

Species are moving up the mountains with distribution area and population size declining both faster and earlier than we predicted more than ten years ago.

There comes a point where a species has declined so far that it will not recover. This is known as "extinction debt". This extinction debt will depend on species-specific traits related to both their inherent resilience and the landscape context that they live within.

Our research shows that we can reduce the extinction risk by mitigating climate change, because after millions of years species have adapted to many shifts in climate. But higher emissions and greater warming will push species beyond what they can adapt to.

Australia has one of the worst records in the world for species extinctions due to human impacts. We need to halt this terrible trend and proactively minimise future extinction risk for our unique biodiversity and many existing threatened species.

This is indeed a grand challenge and a vitally important consideration for our new Threatened Species Commissioner. Hopefully, the new warning will increase the understanding and political will of governments around the world to take the necessary actions.

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Climate change could empty wildlife from Australia's rainforests

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Climate change is one of the greatest challenges that the world's wildlife and those who want to conserve it have ever faced. To save wildlife, we are going to have to help animals, plants and ecosystems adapt. But first we need to know just how many species are at risk and why.

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EcoCheck: Australia’s Wet Tropics are worth billions, if we can keep out the invading ants

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EcoCheck: Australia’s Wet Tropics are worth billions, if we can keep out the invading ants

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Our EcoCheck series takes the pulse of some of Australia's most important ecosystems to find out if they're in good health or on the wane.
The largest area of tropical rainforest in Australia - the so-called Wet Tropics - is a narrow strip along the northeast coast of the continent, totalling about 2 million hectares.

It represents just 0.26% of the continent, but is crammed with hugely diverse landscapes: rainforests, sclerophyll forests, mangrove forests and shrublands, as well as areas of intensive agriculture and expanding urban rural population centres.

Peter Bannink/Australian Tropical Herbarium, Author provided

The Wet Tropics are home to a dizzying array of plants and animals. These include at least 663 vertebrate species, 230 butterflies, 135 different dung beetles and a remarkable 222 types of land snail. The area is teeming with more than 4,000 plant species, including 16 of the world's 28 lineages of primitive flowering plant families.

In all, the Wet Tropics bioregion contains 185 distinct ecosystems. Of these, 18 are officially listed as endangered and 134 are of conservation concern.

Wild riches

Just under half of the region is covered by the Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Area, the world's second-most-irreplaceable natural world heritage area. A recent analysis listed it as the planet's sixth-most-irreplaceable protected area in terms of species conservation, and its eighth-most-irreplaceable when considering only threatened species.

Yet despite its global conservation significance, the Wet Tropics was recently described by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as a World Heritage Area of " significant concern ".

This is due to the threat posed to the area's biodiversity and endemic plants and animals by invasive species, diseases and predicted climate change impacts. Only two other Australian world heritage properties are listed as "of concern": the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu National Park.

Given these concerns, one might expect research dollars to be flowing towards the Wet Tropics. In fact, the opposite is happening: the new National Environmental Science Program has pledged a paltry A$10,000.

Rainforest CRC; MTSRF; NERP; CRC Reef Synthesis Report; Reef & Rainforest Research Centre, Author provided

While we're talking money, it's worth pointing out that the Wet Tropics are a goldmine. In its 2014-15 report, the Wet Tropics Management Authority calculated that this natural global asset is worth a whopping A$5.2 billion each year - roughly half of it from tourism.

A 2008 report found that the Wet Tropics create the greatest economic benefit of any of Australia's natural world heritage properties, excluding the Great Barrier Reef. It found that every dollar spent on management costs earned an A$85 return in tourism spending. Even in purely economic terms that makes a pretty compelling case for conservation.

Climate and conservation

But there are question marks over the Wet Tropics' future, not least because it is considered a hotspot for impacts from climate change. This is primarily due to the very large predicted declines in range size for almost all of the vertebrates that are unique to this part of the world, such as the iconic lemuroid ringtail possum. Climate change is likely to force some species to shift their geographic ranges, or face extinction.

Many of the species at greatest risk of extinction from climate change are confined to higher elevations and thus have very limited scope for dispersal. Of all the rainforest vertebrate species in the Wet Tropics, 30% live within the coolest 25% of rainforest. This gives them nowhere to go if things warm up. For unique species, that figure is even higher, with 45% living in these cooler areas.

Nor is the future too bright for many mountaintop plants, according to a study that modelled the future of suitable climate conditions for 19 species found only above 1,000 m elevation.

The study predicted that, by 2080, 84% of these species would have no suitable habitat anywhere in the Wet Tropics, and so would no longer be able to survive there.

Cat-ants-trophe

John Tann/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

The climate isn't the only problem. Another is the accidental introduction of one of the world's worst invasive species, yellow crazy ants, into two locations in the Wet Tropics.

Judging by the ants' impacts elsewhere, this is an impending natural catastrophe. Based on the small amounts of research in the region so far, ecologists Lori Lach and Conrad Hoskin predict that a large invasion of yellow crazy ants could affect most of the animal species in the Wet Tropics.

These impacts could be direct - through predation and harassment - or indirect, such as by the removal of invertebrate prey or disruption of processes such as decomposition, pollination and seed dispersal. The potential for knock-on effects in a system as complex and interconnected as the Wet Tropics rainforest is very high.

We have only a small window of opportunity - perhaps five years at most - to keep the Wet Tropics safe from yellow crazy ants. The cost of failure by the Australian and Queensland governments is unimaginable. Yellow crazy ants are also a threat to agriculture and urban areas, so we should anticipate a successful and properly funded eradication campaign - mirroring the papaya fruitfly eradication efforts in the same region back in the mid-1990s.

If the siege can be repelled, we can hopefully go on enjoying the Wet Tropics - not to mention the money it generates - for many years to come.
Are you a researcher who studies an iconic Australian ecosystem and would like to give it an EcoCheck? Get in touch.

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EcoCheck: Australia's Wet Tropics are worth billions, if we can keep out the invading ants

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Our EcoCheck series takes the pulse of some of Australia's most important ecosystems to find out if they're in good health or on the wane. The largest area of tropical rainforest in Australia - the so-called Wet Tropics - is a narrow strip along the northeast coast of the continent, totalling about 2 million hectares.

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The Battle for the Wet Tropics Rainforests

In 1988 a large section of the Wet Tropics Rainforests were declared a World Heritage Area. A separate piece legislation, the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area Act was created to provide legislative protection of the WHA under the Wet Tropics Plan. CAFNEC was instrumental in getting this, the world's oldest tropical rainforest, protected from the loggers axe.

Despite this protection, the area is still being degraded by a range of threatening processes. A number of conservation groups in the region are working together and with the relevant agencies to ensure this area is given proper management. Sadly both State and Federal governments are failing to provide any where near the amount of resourcing required to do the job. Until our political leaders begin to appreciate the environmental, social, cultural, spiritual and economic value of areas such as the Wet Tropics, they will slowly continue to degrade, leaving a diminished legacy for future generations.

The Role of Non-Government Conservation Organisations in the lead up to the 1988 World Heritage listing of the Wet Tropics Rainforests of north eastern Queensland

Due to the size constraints of her research project, the author, Mary Burg, took up the story from 1980 - the year Cairns hosted the World Rainforest Congress

Introduction

The pioneering ethos that had dominated North Queensland society since settlement in the 1860s overshadowed any substantial environmental movement till quite contemporary times. The principles of conservation were seen as of little consequence because of their agrarian conservation genesis. It was not until the 1960s that the ecological significance of the region began to be understood and valued. This resulted in calls from prominent scientists to set aside areas as National Parks for conservation purposes. With a growing interest in the unique flora and fauna of the region, fledgling conservation groups sprang up in the 1970s. Overriding any major ecological wins was Joh Bjelke Petersen, long time incumbent National Party Premier. Joh's overriding passion for development would be the thorn in the side of conservationists for many years to come. Despite this, the tide was slowly turning with many local citizens, along with prominent national and international scientists, calling for the cessation of logging of all tropical rainforests in North Queensland.

In 1980 Cairns hosted the second World Wilderness Congress. In that same year North Queensland would see its first confrontation between conservationists and loggers. Direct action of this type was unprecedented in the conservative north. This was the beginning of a long campaign to protect the north's biologically rich rainforests. The pressure was on and the next eight years would see a long drawn out campaign which would eventually culminate in the listing of the Wet Tropics Rainforests on the World Heritage Register in December 1988. During this eight year period the impetus to protect the rainforests generated a springboard for the growth and collaboration of new and existing conservation groups. As in most diverse group dynamics, there were at times differing approaches and strategies. Despite this, the collaborative effort of all the groups merged as one in their mutual goal of preserving the rainforests. This paper will discuss the involvement of these non-government organisations (NGOs) in the lead up to the Listing. The author wishes to highlight how instrumental these groups were, often against great political odds and with little acknowledgment, at managing to secure international protection for a large area of wet tropical rainforests in North Queensland.

1980

A new decade began in North Queensland with a hint of social and political change in the air. In June 1980 Cairns hosted the 2nd World Wilderness Congress where 500 people gathered to hear 42 formal papers given over 5 days. Twenty three of the speakers were Australian, nineteen from overseas. Over twenty resolutions were recorded including; -

'A call for the Queensland State Government to create a single, very large National Park to be largely preserved as Wilderness that would encompass the entire coastal, valley and mountain regions from Cooktown to the Daintree River'.

The Congress also called for the Federal and State Governments to devise a scheme to preserve all remaining areas of rainforest on the continent as part of The World Wilderness Heritage. Of particular interest also was the fact that delegates from the Congress urge the Australian Government to give consideration to funding non-government delegates to attend similar international forums.

Bill Sokolich, President on the Cape Tribulation Community Council (CTCC) presented a paper at the Congress lobbying for the creation of a new National Park at Cape Tribulation. The CTCC, made up of a dozen core individuals, was formed in the mid 1970s to lobby for the gazettal of new National Parks along with other relevant issues in the local area. Sokolich recalls how when the group first formed, they decided not to brand their organisation with a 'radical greenie' name. Understanding that the north was still very conservative, they choose not to alienate themselves from the local community.

On opening the Congress, Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen announced his Government's intention to create the new Cape Tribulation National Park. He is on record saying that: -

"The area provides a living museum of plants and animals in what is one of the few remaining examples of undisturbed coastal rainforests in the world. It is a breathtaking example of Nature's work."

In his official opening address, the then Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser paid tribute to the continuing interest of Mr. Bjelke-Petersen in conservation, stating how good progress was being achieved in Queensland (Fig.1). Fraser also highlighted how Bjelke-Petersen's support was well known and deserved acknowledgment.

The sentiments embellished by Bjelke-Petersen and Fraser at the Wilderness Congress were thought by many to be predominantly 'motherhood' statements. Whilst such sentiments may have been accepted in anticipation by some, others rejected such rhetoric outright. The North Queensland Land Council organised an alternative conference in the same week directly across the road from the Congress. This gathering, aptly named the 'Development without Destruction Conference', deliberately chose not to attend the Wilderness Congress. According to local conservationist Rosemary Hill, there were a number of people who opposed the Congress, mainly due to the fact that it was being sponsored by a development driven agenda (Hill 2000). Sokolich supported their stance, attending both forums. It was at the alternative forum that the idea of setting up a peak conservation group for North Queensland had its genesis. If conservation of the northern rainforests was to be achieved, it was apparent to the N.G.O.s they would have to be the driving force. This decision would lead them along a long and difficult road before their goals of rainforest logging cessation would materialise.

1981

Following on from the Development without Destruction Conference where the idea of a peak conservation group for the north was raised, a public meeting was called to test the acceptability of such a concept. At this meeting a steering committee was appointed to develop a structure and constitution. By January 1981 this first committee called a public meeting at which it presented a formula for an environment centre consisting of a sales outlet, library and office for environmental services. The proposal was accepted in principal and the constitution ratified. The name of the new organisation would be the Cairns and Far North Environment Centre (CAFNEC). The inaugural meeting of CAFNEC was held on the 13th March 1981. CAFNEC acquired an office space in Cairns and began the ongoing business of fund raising and education. As an umbrella organisation CAFNEC undertook the role of coordinating the existing non aligned groups which included:

· The Cape Tribulation Community Council · The Tablelands Nature Awareness Society · Wildlife Preservation Society (Cairns branch) · Wildlife Preservation Society ( Innisfail branch) · North Queensland Naturalist Club · Barron River Canoe Club · Society for Growing Australian Plants (Cairns branch) · Cooktown Conservation Committee · North Queensland Land Council · Cairns Underwater Association

When questioning the need for such an organisation in the north, Sokolich argued that North Queensland required a consolidated grass roots movement to reflect the growing disenchantment towards the rapacious resource consuming attitudes of the National Party. According to Hill it was time for a much more pro-active approach to conservation in the north. Many talented and dedicated individuals had been the 'trail blazers' of conservation in Queensland and will be remembered as the pioneers of the conservation movement. One outstanding person, prominent poet and environmental campaigner Judith Wright, passed away in June 2000. Ms Wright will be remembered as woman of egalitarian values as well as having strong environmental and social justice principles.

Whilst everyone agreed that the existing groups, ie, the Wildlife Preservation Society and the Naturalists Club did an excellent job of letter writing, field trips etc, they had little effect against the power of Joh and his Government. According to Sokolich you had to have a strong voice and a lot of lobbying power to get the ear of the Government. You couldn't be 'nice', the system in Queensland is that you are dealing with bullyboys, new tactics needed to be adopted. The metamorphosis of a younger, more radical voice was emerging; a new chapter in history had begun.

By this time the concept of a large protected area was taking shape. This so-called 'Greater Daintree' would link existing national parks and add as yet unprotected biologically important areas together (Fig. 2). The national conservation body, Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) believed that an unsurpassed opportunity existed to protect and manage the region in a manner which would avoid the overexploitation which the vast majority of the wet tropics had endured. In the Queensland Conservation Council's (QCC) newsletter in February that year, concern was raised in relation to the expansion of the sugar industry north of the Daintree. The Douglas Shire Council (DSC) had just increased ferry charges across the Daintree River for private vehicles, but reduced charges for carrying timber and sugar cane by 40% . An ominous sign indeed.

Other forces were gathering which could threaten the rainforests, this time from local real estate owner George Quaid. DSC. minutes note how Mr Quaid sought a deputation to Council to reach a 'compromise' over the zoning of his land in the Daintree area, from rural general farming to rural residential . It became apparent by March that Mr Quaid had achieved his goal. The next DSC minutes note that Part 5 of the Town Planning By-Laws be amended by deleting all provisions pertaining to 'Places of Scientific or Historical Interest or Natural Beauty' and that the 'Provisions of Utility Services' be a discretionary power of Council. The motion was carried with only one dissenting voice.

With mounting concern in relation to the future of the northern rainforests, the 'Rescue the Rainforests' campaign was launched by the ACF and given the highest national priority. This nation wide campaign would draw together the support of conservation groups and concerned individuals throughout the country. Letters of concern came flooding in from around the country but received little response from either the State or Local Government. In September the Cape Tribulation National Park was finally gazetted. Although welcomed, CAFNEC felt much of the best lowland rainforest remained in freehold tenure or vacant crown land. The ACF and Aila Keto from the Rainforest Conservation Society (RCS) published a paper entitled 'Critical Review of the Queensland Forestry Department'. In this report they argued that the timber industry was in decline, over subsidised and uneconomical. Not surprisingly the Forestry Department refuted this and no action was forthcoming.

The Rainforest Action Committee, a new sub-committee of CAFNEC, was set up to work specifically on the rainforest campaign. A Cape Tribulation Rainforest Fund was established for the purpose of purchasing land for preservation. Donations began to arrive but fell short of purchasing any substantial portion of land. Towards the end of the year it became increasingly apparent that direct action may be needed to halt the proposed intensification of logging of rainforest in the Mount Windsor Tableland area on the western side of the Daintree. It is of interest that the group's initial objective was not to stop all logging on the Mt Windsor Tableland, or in other north Queensland areas, rather to get a firm commitment that further logging intrusions would not be permitted into the remaining virgin rainforests of the north . Another driving force in the campaign, Rupert Russell, spent a lot of time disseminating information through regular newsletters as well as organising the imminent blockade.

This blockade was indeed symbolic, being the first of its type in North Queensland (Fig. 3). The Mt. Windsor direct action, in conjunction with the Terania Creek direct actions occurring in northern NSW were, according to Sokolich, the first recorded blockading of rainforests in the world. Not surprisingly, locals were quite shocked at these acts of resistance, but owing to the fact that the blockade was not prolonged, the action raised little publicity or controversy. Hill remembers fondly how the blockaders and loggers socialised together in the evenings with some loggers even agreeing that the resources were being over exploited. Nineteen eighty one was indeed a very active year for conservationists, the genesis of a peak environmental group brought cohesion to the growing voices of descent in the north. The formation of the 'Rescue the Rainforest' campaign created tangible lines of approach on education and lobbying. By the end of the year the conservation movement moved into a new more pro-active approach with the blockade at Mt. Windsor. A new generation of progressive activists were preparing to do battle with the entrenched conservative forces of the north.

1982

A rainforest campaign meeting held in Tully in February 1982 brought together all stakeholders concerned with rainforest conservation in the north. The news reported from the various groups was grim. Mike Berwick from Cape Tribulation reported that George Quaid was proceeding fast on subdivisions behind Cow Bay. Don Brooks from Innisfail reported that logging was close at hand in the Downey Creek area west of Innisfail. Meanwhile logging continued unabated in the Mt. Windsor area (Fig.4). The meeting acknowledged that job losses were the most contentious issues for the logging community. With this in mind, it was decided to allocate the recent grants which had been made to CAFNEC. and CTCC to a 'Jobs Alternative' Study of the Timber Industry. Funds would also be spent on the production of the 'Cape Tribulation Management Plan' as well as legal advice and educational pamphlets.

The Cairns Wildlife Preservation Society's (WPSQ) eleventh Annual Report gave full support to the 'Rescue the Rainforests' campaign. The Society also gave praise to CAFNEC and indicated that used effectively, this new organisation would be a tremendous aid to conservation in the north. WPSQ held a position on the Board of Management as well as helping 'staff' the centre . This proved a very useful merging of the old and new organisations as unity would be very important in the battle ahead. Politically, the conservatives were taking their own arguments to the populace. In a press statement released on the 16th March 1982, Minister for Forests and Lands, Mr. Glasson argued that Queensland was leading other countries in its conservation strategy for rainforests. According to Mr. Glasson the local foresters were more environmentally aware than the so-called conservationists. The Minister also called for large scale resorts along the coast and islands.

The proposed 'Greater Daintree National Park' concept was promoted at an international forum in Bali in October when ACF Director Geoff Mosley attended the World National Parks Conference. Mosley also attended the launching of the 'International Tropical Forests Campaign' organised by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The concerns of the NGOs were finally finding a voice in the international arena. Likewise, the voice of the conservative north was beginning to intensify. Martin Tenni, Local Member for Barron River as well as Minister for the Environment, inflamed the debate in question time in parliament when he stated;

"With so many Aboriginal Reserves and National Parks, if we are not careful there will not be enough land left on which to build a dance-hall. There are enough National Parks now. I am sick and tired of listening to Ms. Hills from Cape Tribulation who says that a road cannot be built through the Cape Tribulation National Park to Cooktown because a few trees will have to be destroyed. She goes overboard on conservation matters".

News that the Australian Bicentennial Authority might consider funding road works north of the Daintree River, heightened the concerns of the NGOs in relation to the proposed road through the newly gazetted National Park. The successes of 1982 can be attributed to the cohesion of new and existing groups and their ability to coordinate themselves through the peak umbrella organisation, CAFNEC. This appeared to be a much more effective way of working for conservation rather than one group attempting to fight all the issues. The battle lines were being drawn by the DSC over their proposal to build a road through the newly gazetted Cape Tribulation National Park. This would be seen as anathema to the growing forces of conservation in North Queensland.

1983

The proposed actions and strategies for 1983 were discussed at length at a meeting of 30 conservationists held in Townsville in March. Lobbying politicians and educating the public were seen as areas of high priority. A rally was held in Innisfail by the WPSQ protesting Forestry's intention to log in the Downey Creek catchment. This was an unprecedented event for such a conservative sugar town. There was a concerted push by Quaids Real Estate to sell their newly subdivided land in the Daintree. No irony was lost on the fact it was promoted as a 'green' choice (Fig. 5). Meanwhile many volunteers undertook an enormous amount of work to help out with the campaign. This included public meetings, workshops on non violent action in preparation for the possibility of direct action, displays and walks all directed at educating the community of the environmental assets we have and the threats they are under.

An alarm was raised in August 1983 when it was noticed that a paragraph on the 'Construction of a 4WD track from Cape Tribulation to Bloomfield' had been included on the works program issued with the DCS Rates Notice. Around this time CAFNEC members felt the need to formalise the structure of the organisation, creating sub-committees for specific campaigns. A Cairns branch of the Rainforest Conservation Society (RCS) was formed in May 1982 adding to the existing branches in Brisbane and Townsville. Weekly meetings of the newly formed RCS followed along with regular stalls at Rusty's Markets. The group also held educational seminars introducing a variety of speakers with the view of gauging the various attitudes within the community towards rainforest conservation.

The Cape Tribulation Management Plan funded by CAFNEC was produced as a suggested basis for rationalising the conflicts of land use in the Cape Tribulation area. This plan, according to Sokolich, was a great beginning to sustainable planning and a credit to non-government organisations . It was the process of setting up a framework, which may take years to come to fruition, but would be ready and waiting for the opportune time when the political landscape changes. The 'Greater Daintree National Park' proposal is refined and the concept relaunched at the National Wilderness Conference in September. The RCS called on the Federal Government to protect the area by using the Federal World Heritage Properties Protection Act, as had been done with the Franklin River Dam issue earlier that year. The argument over the proposed road then took an unexpected and bizarre twist. Tenni's assertion that the road was necessary to prevent drug trafficking and illegal immigration followed the rumour that the road opening was imminent. The following excerpts from an interview between CAFNEC representatives and the DSC Chairman Tony Mijo sums up the relationship between the two disparate groups:

Coleman - Will you announce when the proposed road is to be constructed? Mijo - No, we don't have to do that. Coleman - The public has demonstrated its concern by all its letters to the editor over the past 6 weeks. Mijo - Oh, all those letters are just propaganda from you people and do not require any response. A man would be a fool to answer letters like that. Hill. - Will a survey of the road be performed before construction? Mijo - No, that's not necessary Hill - Will the Council preform an EIS on the road? Who will do it? Mijo - Yes, we've already done it. The Shire Engineer did it. Hill - Has he any qualifications in ecology? Mijo - Everybody's an expert.

Part of CAFNEC's educational strategy was to hold public meetings in surrounding towns. It was at one such meeting in Mossman in September that the Wilderness Action Group (WAG) was formed. WAG brought together a diverse group of people with a fairly wide range of talents and resources. They would work in well with the CTCC having better infrastructure and access to better lines of communication. In late November while discussions were still taking place, the bulldozers crossed the river. According to WAG it was anger that drove people to the blockade, anger at the secrecy, arrogance and pigheadedness of the DSC, anger at the lack of democracy in this State. WAG members recall how it felt like we were at war, we were going to fight for our country in a non-violent fashion. Local resident Mike Berwick was elected spokesperson for the group. The first arrests came quick and fast. Labor politicians offered support but the Federal Government was hesitant to get into a States right bout with the Bjelke-Petersen Government. The blockaders had a growing outside support base with boats bringing in supplies and moral support. The turnover of protesters was impressive, WAG estimated that between 400-500 people all told physically protested the road over the whole blockade period.

The CAFNEC office in Cairns became the gravational centre for the blockade. It provided the logistical support, a contact for the media and a drop in centre for blockaders coming and going. By this time the green contingency, fresh from the Terania Creek campaign down south, had set up camp at the blockade site. This group, known as the Nomadic Action Group NAG caused a few raised eyebrows from some sectors of the conservation movement. Sokolich explains how these 'southern greenies' were more radical in their approach and not so worried about local hostilities. The NAG blockaders caused a few headaches for the organisers in the CAFNEC office in Cairns (Fig.6). Hill reflects back at how on the one hand they were receiving calls from some established groups saying 'get those bloody filthy blockaders off the television now!' Conversely, some blockaders were saying that CAFNEC was just a rubber stamp for the Government. This was a difficult time, full of heightened passions with differing 'factions' of the movement vying over tactics.

On the 17th December the D.S.C. claimed victory describing the near completion of the 32km track a victory for the Council and an historical event. Conservationists described it as round one in a fight they would eventually win. On the 20th December nearly 100 protesters attended a symbolic ceremony proclaiming a National Park covering the entire Greater Daintree area. Mike Graham of the RCS read the proclamation which said in part, "We ask the citizens of Australia to urge their elected representatives to preserve this area" (Fig. 7). Then, to the jubilation of onlookers and blockaders, Graham declared the roadworks closed and proceeded to move along the road planting over 100 native rainforest trees. The year was drawing to an end, the wet season had begun and the heightened anger at the destruction of the forest would resonate for many years to come.

1984

In early January a national meeting of all major conservation groups held in Brisbane resolved to pursue World Heritage Listing for the wet tropical rainforests of North Queensland and to focus on the Greater Daintree as a priority. The emphasis of the whole campaign was moving rapidly onto a national focus, becoming the priority issue for all national conservation bodies such as the ACF and the Wilderness Society (TWS). Differences in strategies appeared. Some group's felt that the emphasis should stay on the Daintree with the next blockade due to begin after the wet season. Others felt disappointed that rainforest areas further south, ie Downey Creek, were being left out of the equation. The Wilderness Society's Haydn Washington, still fresh from the win on the Franklin River in Tasmania, strongly advocated that the 'Greater Daintree National Park' proposal should be the first nominated for World Heritage. Washington's argument centred on his belief that 'in all probability the entire Wet Tropical rainforests would not be conserved even though that should not stop us from trying'. Aila Keto from the RCS in Brisbane believed that lobbying politicians would have a better outcome than blockading. Science, she argued, could win the day, not confrontation. Despite these differences, planning continued unabated with an enormous amount of work being undertaken by all groups. Slide shows, leaflets, banner making and videos were produced. Regular phone link ups between the disparate groups managed to keep cohesion and ideas flowing. The R.C.S. obtained some funding from the Australian Heritage Commission to produce a report to establish the World Heritage potential of the Wet Tropical Forests. At last a comprehensive scientific assessment was to be compiled on all the biological values of the rainforests. In February a Commonwealth Conference on rainforest conservation was held in Cairns, initiated by Barry Cohen Minister of Home Affairs and the environment. The meeting was fiery but conservationists came away enthusiastic that some progress may have been made. In June the Cairns branch of the Rainforest Conservation Society changed its name to the 'Tropical Rainforest Society'. This, according to Hill, came about due to differences between Brisbane and Cairns RCS. Keto had become very active and was asserting strong control over what RCS branches did. This wasn't seen as feasible what with the distances involved and voluntary nature of the workers. After a public spat in the Courier Mail it was decided that Cairns would go it alone, starting with a new name. Hill argues that this was not a major issue and that both groups went on to work successfully over the years. The blockade continued after the wet season with more protesters being arrested. Frustration is echoed in Greg McIntyre's president's report in CAFNEC's newsletter ECOTONE, where the strains of being at the 'centre' of the action are beginning to wear thin. Yvonne Cunningham from WPSQ Innisfail and Aila Keto continued to voice concern over the Daintree emphasis, feeling that the southern end of the Wet Tropics could remain unprotected due to political expediency.

Meanwhile the blockade had taken on a life of its own, new events were unfolding with the media full of graphic images of the more 'radical' southern greenies. The August blockade was generally felt to be less effective that the December blockade due to logistical difficulties between the blockade site and the office in Cairns, escalating fines, police brutality, image problems and overloading of CAFNEC's facilities. Eventually it was decided to end the blockade and Rosemary Hill and Mike Graham were given the unenviable task of reporting this to the blockaders. The morale after the blockade dissipated was understandably low, although Sokolich argued that the blockade had to happen no matter what and the game wasn't over in a long shot.

The road was officially opened in October with more than 50 vehicles reported to be bogged after heavy rain fell in the prior 24 hours. As reported in the Townsville Bulletin the DSC official party including the Chairman Tony Mijo, were among those stranded. Conservationists managed to find humour in the situation but ultimately knew that the rainforest and the reef would be the losers in the whole fiasco. The benchmark report commissioned by the RCS for the Australian Heritage Commission resulted in the Federal Government admitting that the Wet Tropics of Queensland was worthy of World Heritage Listing. The report concluded:

From the information compiled in this study, we conclude that the Wet Tropics region of North-East Queensland is one of the most significant regional ecosystems in the world. It is of outstanding scientific importance and natural beauty and adequately fulfils all four of the criteria defined by the World Heritage Convention for inclusion in the "World Heritage List".

International scientists endorsed the scientific integrity of the report. Despite this outstanding confirmation, the Federal Government remained firm believing they could not act without the support of the Queensland State Government. The end of the year signalled mixed emotions in many quarters. On one hand the issue of the Daintree road had escalated the campaign onto the national and international arena. On the other hand, the battle had been lost to stop the road through to Bloomfield. Group dynamics between the NGOs had at times been volatile, while all agreed that the issue was Australia's number one campaign and cohesion would have to be paramount. The scientific information indicated that the area was worthy of World Heritage. Intransigent politicians would be the next hurdle.

1985

Media saturation followed the blockade. The local papers were overflowing with letters to the editor voicing a plethora of opinions on the ongoing debate. Never before had an environmental issue raised such passion and interest in North Queensland. There was a strong belief that 1985 would be a turning point in the campaign and that the nomination of the rainforests was imminent. Wet Tropics 'Strategy Meetings' were set up with the intention of drawing up strategies for the coming year. World Heritage listing of all the Wet Tropics rainforests was being called for along with the co-operation of the Commonwealth/State Governments in management arrangements. It was stressed that more educational forums were needed, rallies, street marches and international speaking tours were suggested. The importance of economic alternatives was seen as paramount along with lobbying the Labor Government to support the concept of World Heritage Listing.

Reflecting the impetus of the issue nationally, the Australian Conservation Foundation employed two project officers to work solely on the Wet Tropics campaign. One officer was situated in Cairns and the other in Brisbane. These positions were invaluable in disseminating information to all groups as well as lobbying and organising political tours. On the local political scene, WPSQ President Dr. Leslie Clarke topped the poll in the State seat of Barron River, held by the National Party since 1974. Clague, long time member of WPSQ argued that such a successful win highlighted that conservation could influence election results. In the Douglas Shire, three members of WAG threw their hats in the ring. Mike Berwick door knocked 3,200 voters of the Douglas Shire and reported how many people were interested in discussing the 'road' (Fig. 8). Whilst none of the three WAG members were successful, analysis of the election results incite confidence they would have a better chance in the next local Government election.

With education being seen as a prominent plank of the campaign, a beautiful pictorial coffee table book was produced by Greg Borschmann and published by the ACF titled; 'Greater Daintree - World Heritage Tropical Rainforests at Risk'. At the books official launch, President of the ACF the Hon J.H. Wootten Q.C. affirmed that the conservation movement of Australia was united in its determination that the Wet Tropics would be saved from the greed, short-sightedness and obstinacy which threatened them., stating:

"Perhaps a few decades hence some of our grandchildren will read about this issue. Will they see it as a reminder of the wisdom and sensitivity of this generation whose foresight had enriched their lives? Or will they see it as an indictment of the vandalism that degraded their world and denied them the opportunity of rare physical, intellectual and spiritual experiences?"

The State Government dismisses any talk of World Heritage Listing as overseas control of our forests, anathema to parochial politicians. Meanwhile Downey Creek continued to be logged with further calls from all conservation groups for a cessation to all rainforest logging in the Wet Tropics.

It was made patently clear to Barry Cohen, Federal Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Environment, on a visit to Cairns that the Federal Government had an international obligation as a signatory to the World Heritage Treaty to find, list and protect areas of World Heritage status in Australia. The Australian Heritage Commission Report had shown beyond doubt, that the Wet Tropics Rainforests were worthy of such protection. In reply, Cohen justified his Government's stance by arguing that there was as yet insufficient support by the Australian public and that co-operation with the Queensland Government was paramount.

Despite these sentiments by the Federal Government, a motion was adopted by the State ALP Council meeting in September, calling on the Commonwealth to nominate, by December 31st 1985, the Wet Tropical Rainforests as a World Heritage Area. This motion was carried without opposition. Sokolich saw this move by the State Labor Party as positive, believing that something good could come out of it. Conversely, Gawler, the ALP Member for Leichhardt, still did not support the nomination believing that the Queensland Government would win any High Court challenge and that there would be an electoral backlash in his electorate.

Many gains were made in 1985, the conservationists felt that by the end of the year their ultimate goal of nominating the rainforests for World Heritage Listing would have been attained. It was now acknowledged that the area well and truly fitted all the criteria for listing. Conservation groups commissioned an opinion poll on the issues employing Spectrum Research P/L to carry out the survey. The poll carried out in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane resulted in an average 82% in favour of the Federal Government taking urgent action to protect the rainforests. The Hawke Government could act to save the forests if they had the political will. The political stalemate continued with another year slipping away while the chainsaws and bulldozers reigned.

1986

Little of the rhetoric generated from the World Wilderness Congress eight years earlier had materialised into any tangible outcomes. The fact that the Queensland Government refused to co-operate with the Federal Government was predictable but nevertheless disheartening. Despite these continuing frustration's, determination amongst the NGOs to obtain their goals remained high as shown in Figure 9. It was no longer necessary to prove the scientific significance of the north's biologically rich ecosystems. They indisputably met the criteria for listing. Also public opinion in the local area was changing as reflected by a television poll on the streets of Cairns conducted by FNQ 10. The poll found an overwhelming majority of locals wanted an end to logging. This change in community attitudes over the previous eight years reflected clearly in the attitudes highlighted in the major capital cities poll last year. State elections were due that year and the consensus view reflected the need to bring sufficient pressure to bear on the State Government. Intensified lobbying of the Queensland Cabinet would be needed along with harnessing the mounting opposition to rainforest logging worldwide. A co-operative effort by all conservation groups involved was necessary to marshal this support in the months ahead. On a strategic level it became increasingly critical that the campaign not become fragmented into competing claims for National Park status.

As reported by Keto, Barry Cohen had made a submission to Cabinet to allocate $10 million per year for 3 years to allow the implementation of the Commonwealths Rainforest Conservation Program. It was understood that Cabinet had discussed the issue of rainforest protection in North Queensland on a few occasions, but no decision had been made. Cohen did not have the numbers, all so crucial in the machinations of power play in Canberra.

A National Rainforest Strategy Meeting held in Townsville in July brought together all key NGO's involved in rainforest conservation North Queensland. These groups were:

Queensland Conservation Council Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland - Cairns - Innisfail - Tully -Hinchinbrook - Townsville - Brisbane North Queensland Conservation Council Cape Tribulation Community Council The Wilderness Society Rainforest Conservation Society of Queensland Rainforest Information Centre Tropical Rainforest Society Cairns & Far North Environment Centre

This meeting re-affirmed the goals of World Heritage Listing. It also endorsed the formalisation of a network 'alliance' of groups to be known as the 'Rainforest Action and Information Network' (RAIN) with the central focus being in Brisbane. A full time North Queensland Project Officer would be employed based in Cairns. The meeting also resolved that individual groups would not put up proposals for National Parks in isolation, not even as an interim measure. It was now agreed that no lines be drawn on maps to define isolated National Park proposals other than the whole 'Wet Tropical Forests, it was all or nothing.

After lots of negotiations the meeting managed to agree on their goals and now needed electoral support. The alliance would support any Government which abided by their goal, with hopes that the Labor Party would overturn the Bjelke-Petersen State Government. To the dismay of many conservationists, the National Party was returned to power and life goes on in Queensland. These results meant that those involved in conservation would need renewed energy to keep up the spirit and enthusiasm in 1987 if their goals of rainforest conservation would ever be achieved.

1987

The premier screening of the movie "Earth First" held at the Civic Centre in March proved an overwhelming success and a morale boost for many conservationists in the north (Fig. 10). Six hundred people attended the premier which presented a profoundly moving account of the conservation movement's fight to save the rainforests from Tasmania to North Queensland. Jack Thompson, narrator of the film, felt elated at the response claiming it lampooned the suggestion that those who cared about the environment were a "small minority group - a ratbag fringe of society' rather than the obvious cross-section who attended. However, the event which would overwhelm all others in 1987, came on World Environment Day, June 5th with the announcement by the Prime Minister Bob Hawke that his Government intended to nominate the Wet Tropics for World Heritage Listing. This announcement, on the eve of the Federal election, finally vindicated the calls of conservationists and scientists of the biological importance of the Wet Tropics. The re-election of the Hawke Government in July and the appointment of Graham Richardson as the new Minister for the Environment would set the course for bitter confrontation between the Federal and State Governments, the loggers and conservationists. Misinformation in relation to the listing was being fuelled by the logging industry and conservation groups were kept busy disseminating information, preparing submissions and attending meetings and rallies to press the positive outcomes of World Heritage Listing.

An incredible amount of work had previously been put into drawing up the proposed boundaries for the whole Wet Tropics by the TRS and RCS. Hill explained how vital this information was when it was put forward to the Australian Heritage Commission and published in their report, it finished up being the one that went to public consultation. When the Government announcement came in June 1987, it was the only proposed boundary .This proved incredibly fortuitous for when it came time for the Government bureaucrats to demand a boundary, there it was.

The original boundary was eventually changed during the public discussion period. According to Hill, all the Cape Tribulation lowlands were inside the original boundary but Aila Keto from the RCS agreed with the bureaucrats to put the Tablelands forests in instead. This led to much acrimony between Keto and Mike Graham who had put in an incredible amount of work on the original boundaries. According to Hill, if these changes had not been made, we would be in a much better position now to protect some of the most important areas in the Wet Tropics.

Senator Richardson flew to Cairns in August to announce the boundaries. He was welcomed by a human-sized white lemuroid possum being CAFNEC's latest envoy and media magnet (Fig.11). Whilst visiting the CAFNEC office, co-ordinator Lyn Wallace presented Senator Richardson with over 10,000 signatures on a petition calling for the cessation of logging. On his visit to the logging town of Ravenshoe to explain the likely effects of the listing, Richardson was attacked by a group of timber workers who feared the loss of their jobs. According to the editor of the Australian, Joh Bjelke-Petersen's support of the loggers violent behaviour was even more disturbing. This type of action, argued the editor, should have no place in the political life of Australia.

That same week Rosemary Hill was abused and threatened by timber workers at a rally in Cairns (Fig. 12). Hill explained that TRS had always believed there should not be a human cost for a particular section of society, those effected should be compensated. Regardless of these sentiments, Joh incited more violence when he announced at the rally that "all these greenies should be tarred and feathered and run out of town". This resulted in more abuse with the conservationists at the rally feeling very threatened.

Great progress had been made towards rainforest conservation in 1987. Public opinion was increasingly supporting World Heritage Listing. At last the Federal Government were making moves to protect the Wet Tropics. Whether this was genuine concern for the environment or political opportunism is open to conjecture. In the interim the area was still being logged. The battle was not over yet.

1988

The declaration on 19th January 1988 under the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act making commercial forestry operations illegal was met with jubilation from all conservation groups in Australia. According to the TRS this declaration was the most significant conservation event of the last ten years in North Queensland but warned its members not to become complacent just yet. World Heritage was not yet assured. The Queensland State Government intensified its lobbying of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the principle body facilitating World Heritage. A media statement released by the RCS in February, reflects how the State Government's stance failed in its first round of attempts to block the nomination at an International conservation meeting in Costa Rica. Dr. Keto, who represented NGOs at the meeting, reported how the Queensland Government's delegation tried to change the evaluation process and criteria for World Heritage nominations. Feedback from other delegates generally indicated overwhelming support for the Australian rainforest nomination.

The Federal Government flagged their intention of setting up a rainforest management authority similar to the one which protects the Great Barrier Reef. Within a few months Senator Richardson confirmed that the World Heritage Bureau had officially recommended the Wet Tropics for inscription, qualifying on all four criteria for listing. A nomination need only qualify on one of these four criteria, indicating the uniqueness of the Wet Tropics. Senator Richardson lambasted the Queensland State Government on its unprecedented campaign over the previous twelve months to unravel the Listing process. The announcement of International support was a momentous occasion according to Richardson and a victory that future generations would long celebrate.

As conservationists watch the World Heritage Listing coming closer to reality, many who have been at the 'coal face' for over eight years look to new chapters of their lives and hand over the helm to new faces in the organisation. One such person, Rosemary Hill, reflects in her final TRS President's Report how the demanding role she undertook all those years ago caused her much heartache but also a great sense of satisfaction. The campaign dominated a large part of her life and it was often difficult to see any results. The inevitable personality clashes were difficult but the friendships and support prevailed. In conclusion, Rosemary states 'it's damned hard to hang in there sometimes', but hang in she did, and her contributions to rainforest conservation in North Queensland are inspiring.

The Queensland Government continued to attempt to block the listing and in November an Anti-Heritage alliance was formalised in Brisbane. The alliance consisted of the State Government along with the Federal Liberal Leader John Howard and the Nationals Ian Sinclair. Together they planned an anti-delegation to attend Brasilia in December as ammunition for its case against the Federal nomination of the Listing. Despite the rhetoric and vitriol of the conservatives, the ultimate success was achieved on December 7th when the main advisory body for World Heritage recommended the Listing of the Wet Tropics. The Wet Tropical Rainforests of North Queensland were finally acknowledged for their outstanding ecological significance. This was an historical moment.

Individual groups had small celebratory get togethers, (Fig. 13), but there was never a unified celebration or acknowledgment of all the NGOs who battled long and hard to achieve such a monumental result. Hill remembers cracking a bottle of champagne in the office, but it wasn't until Bob Hawke came to Cairns to make the official announcement that the reality sunk in and she became quite emotional. On asking Sokolich if they celebrated, he responded that as the issue had consumed so many people's lives for so long that their first response was to finally relax. It was time to get one's life back to normal and concentrate on family.

In 1998 the Wet Tropics Management Authority organised the ten year anniversary of the Listing of the Wet Tropics. The vast majority of the NGOs who drove the campaign from the very beginning were not acknowledged. Upon questioning the Authority as to why this occurred, the author was told that the anniversary was not meant to be retrospective and that it was now time to look ahead. There is a very real concern that the people who fought valiantly for 'their country', could be whitewashed out of history as has happened time immemorial. When Sokolich was asked whether there would be a Wet Tropics World Heritage Rainforest in North Queensland without input from the NGOs, he emphatically responded "no way at all". The next chapter of the Wet Tropics involved the creation of a statutory authority to oversee the management of the area. Many vexed questions remained, such as Aboriginal involvement and managing a burgeoning tourist industry. Some NGOs would be involved in this chapter but the reigns are firmly taken over by the growing bureaucracy.

Conclusion

Under Australia's constitution, the responsibility for the conservation of lands has traditionally been held by the various state Governments. Queensland, being the long standing bastion of political conservatism with its strong pioneering frontier ethos, has historically undervalued its natural resources in the name of agrarian progress and utilitarian need. With the growing public understanding of the environmental, social and economic significance of wilderness areas came increased demands for the preservation of areas in perpetuity. The dynamic relationship between ecological and socio-economic forces would come to the fore during the 1980s in North Queensland.

As in many environmental debates in Queensland, the focus often shifts from a regional to a national and at times global sphere, where the Commonwealth becomes involved in the decision making process. This paper highlighted the heroic efforts of the N.G.O.'s, whose passion, diligence and sense of conviction successfully pressured the Commonwealth Government to use its foreign affairs powers to protect the biologically rich northern rainforests. The campaign demonstrated the capability of conservationists to organise themselves into a politically potent force and to change public attitudes towards preserving the natural environment. The 'campaign' covered a diversity of strategies over more than ten years from lobbying, direct action, mass mobilisation and political endorsements. The ability of all disparate groups to network towards a mutual goal, whilst being entwined in the dynamics of State versus Federal rights, is commendable.

As we forge into the new millennium it is imperative that we look back and examine the historical context within which the protection of wilderness has taken place. The legends and myths that surround our 'diggers' as cultural icons shaping the Australian psyche, are equally applicable to those who fought for their country domestically. It is implicit that all those who enjoy the wonders of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, whether aesthetically, ecologically, spiritually or economically, take into account the visionary conservationists who secured this majestic environment for future generations.

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The Battle for the Wet Tropics Rainforests In 1988 a large section of the Wet Tropics Rainforests were declared a World Heritage Area. A separate piece legislation, the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area Act was created to provide legislative protection of the WHA under the Wet Tropics Plan.

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Vanishing Vegetation of Far North Queensland 

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Vanishing Vegetation of Far North Queensland 

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world heritage; queensland; wet tropics of queensland world heritage area; wet tropics; rainforests; national parks; state forests; reserves; regional parks

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Wet Tropics (Department of National Parks, Sport and Racing)

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The Wet Tropics World Heritage Area extends from Cooktown to Townsville. The area, which was listed in 1988, includes Daintree, Barron Gorge and Wooroonooran national parks, and protects Australia's most extensive remaining area of wet tropical rainforest.

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The Wet Tropics World Heritage Area is a living natural wonder and a cultural landscape like nowhere else on earth. It hugs the coastal fringes from Townsville to Cairns like a long green ribbon.

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We all live downstream – it’s time to restore our freshwater ecosystems

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We all live downstream – it’s time to restore our freshwater ecosystems

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Freshwater covers a tiny area of the planet's surface, but is vital for our economies, environment and, of course, our survival. Yet freshwater is also among the most threatened ecosystems, where wildlife has declined faster than in the oceans or on land.

Faced with a barrage of human threats, how can we help our waterways? Our research, published in Biological Conservation, looks at the cheapest, most effective ways to restore our rivers.

After all, we all live downstream.

Water is life

According to the United Nations, more than 40% of the global workforce is heavily dependent on freshwater. There are strong links between water and jobs across all sectors of the economy - agriculture, fisheries and forestry, energy, manufacturing and transport.

All ecosystems are connected by water. As a result freshwater is worth trillions of dollars to our economy through various ecosystem services. These include power generation, food and medicine production, flood buffering and recreation and tourism.

People in the United States alone spend US$24-37 billion each year on tourism activities related to recreational fishing. Likewise, in Australia, freshwater recreation is worth billions of dollars to the economy.

Freshwater biodiversity loss

The role of healthy freshwater ecosystems in sustaining wildlife is less celebrated.

Freshwaters cover only about 0.5% of the earth's surface, but are home to nearly 10% of all known species, including a third of all vertebrates.

Despite this abundance of biodiversity, freshwater ecosystems are among the most threatened on Earth. According to the World Wildlife Fund's Living Planet Index, freshwater fish, birds, mammals and reptiles and amphibians have declined by a whopping three-quarters over the last 40 years. This is significantly more than the declines in ocean and land wildlife.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List reveals that 35% of freshwater amphibians are threatened or extinct, 46% of mammals and 38% of turtles.

Freshwater threats

Of all the Earth's ecosystems, freshwater ecosystems have been hit hardest by human activities. Key threats include dams, farming and industry, water extraction, pollution, flow change, invasive species, over-harvesting of species, and climate change.

To make the management of freshwater ecosystems even more challenging, these threats often interact in ways that are difficult to predict. These complex and interacting threats are often ignored, leading to poor decisions and ultimately the loss of species.

Habitat loss and degradation are primarily due to deforestation, farming activities and dams. When these activities occur in an upper-catchment area, sediment is carried into rivers and lakes, causing significant negative impacts on freshwater species.

Unsustainable water extraction - for irrigation, industry and urban consumption - is a major threat to freshwater species. Over-harvesting of freshwater species (particularly fish) is, in turn, a threat to these ecosystems.

Infrastructure development - including dams and levees - also modifies water flow. There are perhaps one million dams globally, fragmenting rivers into isolated sections. Freshwater species - including fish, molluscs and reptiles - often can't adapt to these changes and are at increased risk of extinction.

Pollution is another significant threat to these habitats. Fertiliser runoff from farming and the dumping of industrial pollutants directly into rivers and lakes have resulted in areas so poisoned that they can no longer support their normal range of species.

Invasive species have played a major role in disrupting freshwater ecosystems. The European carp ( Cyprinus carpio), for example, is a pest that out-competes native fish. It was first introduced to Australian waterways more than 100 years ago and has spread to every state and territory except the Northern Territory. The federal government has recently taken steps to control carp, by way of plans to introduce a herpes virus.

Climate change presents another threat to freshwater habitats, particularly to those species that can't migrate or compensate for higher temperatures. In Australia, extreme weather fluctuations and natural disasters such as floods and droughts are projected to become more common, placing freshwater biodiversity under further stress.

As threats intensify and interact in the coming decades, the risk to freshwater wildlife will increase. Vulnerable freshwater ecosystems in Australia such as the Murray-Darling Basin will be particularly susceptible to further loss of species.

So how do we decide what actions to take to best protect and restore our freshwater ecosystems?

Better bang for your buck

We've looked at the cheapest and most effective way to address threats, particularly climate change and land-use change. Our research shows that the best way to help freshwater species is to restore rivers. This might include fencing out livestock, stabilising river banks, removing weeds, replanting native vegetation and expanding floodplain areas.

But this can be expensive. We can make it cheaper to protect freshwater wildlife by including farm and land management - such as rotating pasture, reducing erosion through smart burning practices, and better management of pesticides and nutrients.

While changing farm and land-use practices around rivers can improve water quality "cheaply", these may have only a modest effect on biodiversity overall - especially if the land next to rivers is degraded.

We have seen such improvements in a few catchments throughout Australia such as in Queensland. Yet many other catchments nationally continue to deteriorate in water quality and biodiversity.

We therefore cannot just target best-practice farm management programs in the hope that our farmers will do what's best for the land and biodiversity. We all need to share in the cost of restoring our freshwater ecosystems.

Landholders need incentives to protect streamside vegetation, including payments to replant vegetation, alongside better farm and land management.

We all stand to benefit from protecting biodiversity and repairing our waterways.

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We all live downstream - it's time to restore our freshwater ecosystems

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Freshwater covers a tiny area of the planet's surface, but is vital for our economies, environment and, of course, our survival. Yet freshwater is also among the most threatened ecosystems, where wildlife has declined faster than in the oceans or on land. Faced with a barrage of human threats, how can we help our waterways?

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Effects of organic compounds on freshwater life

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Rising seas threaten to drown important mangrove forests, unless we intervene

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Rising seas threaten to drown important mangrove forests, unless we intervene

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Mangroves are some of the world's most important trees. They provide food and resources for people and animals, protect coasts, and store huge amounts of carbon. The world's largest mangrove forest - the Sundarbans in the Bay of Bengal - supports millions of livelihoods. In terms of the services they provide, they are worth nearly US$200,000 per hectare per year.

But these coastal forests are threatened by rising seas and human development. In a study published today in Nature, we show that some of these forests will drown unless we help them.

Getting to the root of it all

Mangroves grow along tropical coasts. Unique amongst the world's plants, they can survive in salt water and can filter seawater. The rain of leaf-fall from tropical mangrove forests provides food for crabs and other herbivores, the foundation of a food web that extends to fish (and therefore people) right across the tropics.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of mangroves are their roots, used to anchor the plant on unstable ground and buttress against wind, waves and currents. The form of root architecture varies greatly between families of mangrove, including the dense prop-roots ( Rhizophora), cathedral-like buttresses ( Bruguiera), and numerous pneumatophores - literally narrow breathing-tubes - of the common grey mangrove of southeast Australia ( Avicennia).

Ruth Reef

A high proportion of the living mass of mangroves exists below-ground. This means mangroves are the most efficient ecosystem globally in the capture and sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The uniquely oxygen-poor, salty characteristics of mangrove soil provides the perfect setting for long-term preservation of carbon below ground. The typical mangrove forest sequesters several times more carbon dioxide than a tropical rainforest of comparable size.

Mangrove roots trap sediment as currents carrying suspended particles are intercepted and slowed. Between the carbon sequestered below-ground, and the sediment trapped within the tangle of roots, mangroves are effectively able to raise the height of the land over time.

Keeping up with rising seas

Analysis of these sediments shows mangroves can deal with low to moderate sea-level rise by building up land. But how will mangroves respond to future rising seas when people are in the way?

We and other colleagues measured how fast mangrove forests in the Indo-Pacific region increase the height of the land. We used a tool called Surface Elevation Table-Marker Horizon, as you see in the video below.

Mangroves also build up land height by accumulating roots below ground. Previous studies have focused on this. Our study, using up to 16 years of data across a range of coastal settings, shows that sediment build up is also important.

We also compared the rate of land height increase in mangroves to local tidal gauges, to assess whether mangroves were keeping pace with the local rate of sea-level rise.

In most cases (90 out of 153 monitoring stations) mangroves were lagging behind. This is not an immediate problem if mangroves are already high enough to delay the effect of expected sea-level rise. However, mangroves at the low end of their elevation are highly vulnerable.

We used this insight to model how long mangroves might survive rising seas across the Indo-Pacific. We used a range of sea-level rise projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, including a low-range scenario (48 cm by 2010), high-range (63 cm by 2100) and extreme (1.4 m by 2100).

Mangrove forests with a high tidal range and/or high sediment supply such as Northern Australia, eastern Borneo, east Africa and the Bay of Bengal proved to be relatively resilient. Most of these forests will likely survive well into the second half of the century under low and moderate rates of sea-level rise.

The prospect of mangrove survival to 2070 under the 63 cm and 1.4 m scenarios was poor for the Gulf of Thailand, the southeast coast of Sumatra, the north coasts of Java and Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

Dams holding mangroves back

Our results imply that factors that prevent sediment building up may prevent mangroves responding to sea-level rise. This might include dams holding sediment within water catchments.

This impact is already being felt. An 80% reduction in sediment delivery to the Chao Phraya River delta has, for example, contributed to kilometres of mangrove shoreline retreat.

Similar developments are planned for the Mekong River. These threats compound those already being felt, including the widespread conversion of mangrove to aquaculture.

Appreciation of the financial contribution of mangroves has been slowing the trend of decline. However, long-term survival will require planning that includes both the continued provision of sediment supply, and in many cases the provision of retreat pathways, to allow mangroves to respond to sea level in ways they always have.

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Rising seas threaten to drown important mangrove forests, unless we intervene

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Mangroves are some of the world's most important trees. They provide food and resources for people and animals, protect coasts, and store huge amounts of carbon. The world's largest mangrove forest - the Sundarbans in the Bay of Bengal - supports millions of livelihoods.

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Extreme weather likely behind worst recorded mangrove dieback in northern Australia

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Extreme weather likely behind worst recorded mangrove dieback in northern Australia

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One of the worst instances of mangrove forest dieback ever recorded globally struck Australia's Gulf of Carpentaria in the summer of 2015-16. A combination of extreme temperatures, drought and lowered sea levels likely caused this dieback, according to our investigation published in the journal Marine and Freshwater Research.

The dieback, which coincided with the Great Barrier Reef's worst ever bleaching event, affected 1,000km of coastline between the Roper River in the Northern Territory and Karumba in Queensland.

About 7,400 hectares, or 6%, of the gulf's mangrove forest had died. Losses were most severe in the NT, where around 5,500ha of mangroves suffered dieback. Some of the gulf's many catchments, such as the Robinson and McArthur rivers, lost up to 26% of their mangroves.

The gulf, a remote but valuable place

The Gulf of Carpentaria is a continuous sweep of wide tidal wetlands fringed by mangroves, meandering estuaries, creeks and beaches. Its size and naturalness makes it globally exceptional.

An apron of broad mudflats and seagrass meadows supports thousands of marine turtles and dugongs. A thriving fishing industry worth at least A$30 million ultimately depends on mangroves.

Mangroves and saltmarsh plants are uniquely adapted to extreme and fickle coastal shoreline ecosystems. They normally cope with salt and daily inundation, having evolved specialised physiological and morphological traits, such as salt excretion and unique breathing roots.

But in early 2016, local tour operators and consultants doing bird surveys alerted authorities to mangroves dying en masse along entire shorelines. They reported skeletonised mangroves over several hundred kilometres, with the trees appearing to have died simultaneously. They sent photos and even tracked down satellite images to confirm their concerns. The NT government supported the first investigative surveys in June 2016.

In the end, the emails from citizen scientists nailed the timing: "looks like it started maybe December 2015"; the severity: "I've seen dieback before, but not like this"; and the cause: "guessing it may be the consequence of the four-year drought".

Our investigation used satellite imagery dating back to 1972 to confirm that the dieback was an unparalleled event. Further aerial helicopter surveys and mapping during 2016, after the dieback, validated the severity of the event extending across the entire gulf. Mangrove dieback has been recorded in Australia in the past but over decades, not months.

Mysterious patterns in the dieback

We still don't fully understand what caused the dieback. But we can rule out the usual suspects of chemical or oil spills, or severe storm events. It was also significant that losses occurred simultaneously across a 1,000km front.

There were also a number of tell-tale patterns in the dieback. The worst-impacted locations had more or less complete loss of shoreline-fringing mangroves. This mirrored a general loss of mangroves fringing tidal saltpans and saltmarshes along this semi-arid coast.

Mangroves were unaffected where they kept their feet wet along estuaries and rivers. This, as well as the timing and severity of the event, points to a connection with extreme weather and climate patterns, and particularly the month-long drop of 20cm in local sea levels.

Extreme weather the likely culprit

We believe the dieback is best explained by drought, hot water, hot air and the temporary drop in sea level. Each of these was correlated with the strong 2015-16 El Niño. Let's take a look at each in turn.

First, the dieback happened at the end of an unusually long period of severe drought conditions, which prevailed for much of 2015 following four years of below-average rainfall. This caused severe moisture stress in mangroves growing alongside saltmarsh and saltpans.

Second, the dieback coincided with hot sea temperatures that also caused coral bleaching along the Great Barrier Reef. While mangroves are known to be relatively heat-tolerant, they have their limits.

The air temperatures recorded at the time of the mangrove dieback, particularly from February to September 2015, were also exceptionally high.

Third, the sea level dropped by up to 20cm at the time of the dieback when the mangroves were both heat- and moisture-stressed. Sea levels commonly drop in the western Pacific (and rise in the eastern Pacific) during strong El Niño years: and the 2015-2016 El Niño was the third-strongest recorded.

The mangroves appear to have died of thirst. Mangroves may be hardy plants, but when sea levels drop, reducing inundation, coupled with already heat-and-drought-stressed weather conditions, then the plants will die - much like your neglected pot plants.

We don't yet know what role human-caused climate change played in these particular weather events or El Niño. But the unprecedented extent of the dieback, the confluence of extreme climate events and the coincidence with the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef mean the role of climate change will be of critical interest in the global response to mangrove decline.

What future for mangroves?

The future for mangroves around the world is mixed. Thanks to climate change, droughts are expected to become hotter and more frequent. If the gulf's mangroves experience further dieback in the future, this will have serious implications for Australia's northern fisheries including the iconic prawn fishery, mudcrab and fin fish fisheries. All species are closely associated with healthy mangroves.

We don't know whether the mangroves will recover or not. But there is now a further risk of shoreline erosion and retreat, particularly if the region is struck by a cyclone - and this may have already begun with recent cyclonic weather and flooding in the gulf. The movement of mangrove sediments will lead to massive releases of carbon uniquely buried among their roots.

Mangroves are among the most carbon-rich forests in the tropics and semi-tropics and much of this carbon could enter the atmosphere.

Now we urgently need to understand how mangroves died at large and smaller scales (such as river catchments), so we can develop strategies to help them adapt to future change.
Australia's top specialists and managers will be reviewing the current situation at a dedicated workshop during next week's Australian Mangrove and Saltmarsh Network annual conference in Hobart.

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Extreme weather likely behind worst recorded mangrove dieback in northern Australia

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One of the worst instances of mangrove forest dieback ever recorded globally struck Australia's Gulf of Carpentaria in the summer of 2015-16. A combination of extreme temperatures, drought and lowered sea levels likely caused this dieback, according to our investigation published in the journal Marine and Freshwater Research.

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The thin green strip of mangrove wetlands around the tropical coastlines of Australia and the world are the most carbon-rich forests on earth but they are at risk.

Professor Rod Connolly, a marine scientist from Griffith University's Australian Rivers Institute, is the co-author of new research that shows the vast reserves of carbon being sequestered by mangrove forests.

"This is the first comprehensive assessment of mangrove carbon stocks, country by country around the coastlines of the world", Professor Connolly said.

Mangroves and other coastal plants use atmospheric carbon to grow. Some carbon is locked up in their trunks, branches and roots. But even more is isolated in the forest soils.

The deep muddy soils that mangroves live in provide ideal conditions for preventing decomposition of carbon and thus keeping it locked up for millennia.

A new paper, Global patterns in mangrove soil carbon stocks and losses published in the journal Nature Climate Change, identifies areas of the world most vulnerable to losing this huge carbon store back to the atmosphere.

According to the research, losing the world's mangroves could release an extra seven million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per year.

The researchers looked at patterns of carbon storage in mangrove soils around the world and found Australia's soils have some of the highest carbon storage.

The findings may help countries consider the emissions impacts of mangrove deforestation.

At risk

Professor Connolly said the paper shows clearly where most urgent attention to mangrove conservation is required.

"We need to do all we can to prevent major losses in Australia, such as the massive die-off in northern Australia and the Gulf country in 2016," Professor Connolly warned.

Hundreds of kilometres of mangroves along the coast of Karumba in Queensland's Gulf Country and in the Northern Territory have turned a ghostly white affecting fish stocks, flora and carbon storage in the region.

Australia is home to 7 percent of the world's mangroves.

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The thin green strip of mangrove wetlands around the tropical coastlines of Australia and the world are the most carbon-rich forests on earth but they are at risk. Professor Rod Connolly, a marine scientist from Griffith University's Australian Rivers Institute, is the co-author of new research that shows the vast reserves of carbon being sequestered [...]

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'Insure' Great Barrier Reef for billions to protect and restore its ecosystem values: Nature Conservancy

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'Insure' Great Barrier Reef for billions to protect and restore its ecosystem values: Nature Conservancy

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In a world first, a recent Deloitte Access Economics report calculated the total economic, social and natural heritage value of Australia's Great Barrier Reef at $56 billion.

Now, Australia is being told that it's possible to 'insure' the Reef for tens of billions of dollars against damage from 'natural perils' like cyclones, or even coral bleaching.

The advice comes from Kathy Baughman McLeod, Managing Director of Coastal Risk and Resilience at the U.S. based Nature Conservancy.

She says this new kind of insurance policy has already been rolled out in Mexico to protect local reefs and tourism related businesses, and that it can also be used to protect and restore other natural ecosystems, such as coastal mangroves or even forests.

Kathy Baughan McLeod is currently in Australia and says local insurers have been initially 'stunned' by the idea of this unusual financial instrument, but pretty quickly got excited about the new markets that it could open up.

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'Insure' Great Barrier Reef for billions to protect and restore its ecosystem values: Nature Conservancy

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In a world first, a recent Deloitte Access Economics report calculated the total economic, social and natural heritage value of Australia's Great Barrier Reef at $56 billion. Now, Australia is being told that it's possible to 'insure' the Reef for tens of billions of dollars against damage from 'natural perils' like cyclones, or even coral bleaching.

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Climate change, overfishing and pollution - is there any hope?

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The Ecosystem and how it relates to Sustainability

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The Ecosystem and how it relates to Sustainability

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Sustainability and System Science - An ecosystem consists The example used at the start of class was to consider that I give everyone a dollar each time you come to class. The question was: Is that sustainable? In lecture we agreed that more information was needed to answer that question.

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From bees to coral reefs: How humans impact partnerships in the natural world

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From bees to coral reefs: How humans impact partnerships in the natural world

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Eureka Alert

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Mutually beneficial partnerships among species may play highly important but vastly underrecognized roles in keeping the Earth's ecosystems running, a group of evolutionary biologists suggests in a study.

The authors present evidence that human impacts may be forcing these mutualist systems down unprecedented evolutionary paths.

"With global climate change, evolutionary change can happen very rapidly, over a few years," said Judith Bronstein, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the UA's College of Science and senior author on the paper. "That can be a good thing or a bad thing, we don't know, but people need to start looking at those effects."

In an effort to distill out common traits underlying biological partnerships and to develop a set of lessons to guide future research and conservation efforts, the researchers sifted through almost 200 research studies on the effects of global change on mutualisms, or interactions between organisms that benefit both partners.

Experts from several fields joined forces in this study and published their conclusions in Ecology Letters, one of the most influential journals in the field of ecology.

"The alarmist view is that if you disrupt an interaction, you lose the interaction, you lose the community, and, ultimately, the ecosystem," Bronstein said. "We are trying to challenge people to make that explicit and to figure out whether their data support that. We need to ask, 'What is the range of possible things that can happen?'"

"It is not all doom-and-gloom," lead author E. Toby Kiers added. "There are clear cases in which mutualisms show a surprising ability to adapt to global change."

Even though the study of mutualistic relationships in nature is young, biologists have already discovered that every species is in one way or another involved in one or more partnerships, sometimes hundreds.

Some examples of mutualisms are well known from high-school biology textbooks, such as the fig wasp, which ensures the fig tree's propagation by pollinating its flowers and whose larvae get to use the fig fruit as a safe - and delicious - nursery in return.

Others are less obvious, but crucial for the health and functioning of entire ecosystems. Corals, for example, the tiny polyps they are, could never build their reef structures - massive hubs of marine biodiversity - without the help of microscopic algae living in their tissues. The algae, called zooxanthellae, use sunlight to make nutrients and help the polyps build their calcareous skeleton.

Despite the importance of mutualisms for ecosystems worldwide, Kiers, an evolutionary biologist at the Free University of Amsterdam, pointed out "there is a gaping hole in the current science, namely the ways that humans are disrupting the evolution of mutualisms."

Bronstein has observed a tendency to look at species interactions in the face of human-caused change in ways that are too simplistic.

"The idea of co-extinction has received a lot of press, meaning that if you lose one species, the other will invariably vanish, too. It's certainly a risk, especially if the mutualism is highly specific in the sense that one cannot exist without the other. But there are very, very few relationships that are that specific and vulnerable."

Kiers added that in contrast to co-extinction, small changes or shifts in mutualistic relationships are the most ubiquitous and possibly the most potent global disruptions.

"Unfortunately, because they are more subtle, these processes are harder to see and rarely discussed," she said.

The authors argue that because every species is involved directly or indirectly in mutualistic partnerships and mutualists act as key players in global carbon and nutrient cycles, pollination and seed dispersal, the breakdown of those relationships could accelerate and worsen effects of global change on biodiversity loss and ecosystem disruption.

Bronstein pointed to pollination, a type of mutualism that has received "90 percent of the attention, because there is absolutely no doubt that plants are flowering earlier due to global climate change."

"This is causing a lot of concern," she said, "because it means that at the time the flowers open, their pollinators may not yet be around. That would mean that pollination of these plants would fail. While that is definitely a possibility and there is some good evidence for it in some situations, it is not the only thing that can happen when pollination gets disrupted. For example, there are known cases in which pollinators have been lost from an island through overhunting, and the plants have evolved traits that allow them to be pollinated by other animals."

Seed dispersal is another example. Many plants rely on mammals catching their fruit in their fur and carrying them to new habitats. Where large mammals were forced out of an ecosystem through habitat destruction or hunting, the plants were found to evolve smaller and smaller fruit that could be carried by smaller mammals or birds.

As different as the relationship between a flower and a bee may seem from coral polyps that cultivate microbes in their tissue, Bronstein and her co-workers identified certain recurring themes.

For example, how a mutualistic relationships plays out depends a lot on its ecological setting, Bronstein explained.

"Many species of ants milk aphids for the highly nutritious honeydew they produce. In return, the ants protect them from predators and parasites. But if the ants get starved for protein, they will eat the aphids, very readily. So the effect the ants have on the aphids ranges from highly beneficial to detrimental. To assess any mutualistic relationship, you have to know its context."

The authors identify three scenarios that can happen over the course of evolutionary timeframes when mutualist relationships are disrupted by human doing, regardless of their specific nature: a switch to new partners, a shift from mutual benefit to antagonism or abandonment of the interaction.

"If one or both of the groups that were interacting come into contact with new partners and adapt to them, as in the example of flowers adapting to new pollinators, the mutualistic interaction persitsts, just with different partners," Bronstein explained.

How humans shape their environment can drastically change a mutual interaction: One of nature's most widespread and important mutualisms is between tree roots and certain fungi in the soil. The fungi help the plant grow by providing nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus to them, while the plant pays them back in carbohydrates.

"What happens when we dump a lot of nitrogen fertilizer into the system?" Bronstein said. "The plants no longer need their fungi and sever their connections with them. The fungi don't have an option and potentially just die or adapt to a more parasitic lifestyle. But what will happen if at some point in the future we stop using the fertilizer?"

"In the light of human-caused change, we have reason to be concerned about this, especially given the importance of these fungi to global carbon sequestration."

Kiers pointed to laboratory scale experiments suggesting that rapid evolutionary change can happen in very short timeframes.

"We have this wealth of knowledge from experiments looking at evolution on a short scale," she said. "Scientists have shown that it is possible for organisms to evolve in the lab. There is a lot to learn from these rapid evolution studies and it is time we start applying them to real world."

"There is an important message here," Bronstein added. "Throughout evolutionary history, habitats have changed enormously. Species have changed over these evolutionary time scales, but interactions have as well, and we expect this to continue. Our findings show that it is probably not enough to try and protect species on an individual level. We need to broaden our focus and start preserving mutualisms in the context of their ecosystems."

The co-authors on the paper are Todd Palmer (University of Florida, Gainsville), Anthony Ives (University of Wisconsin, Madison) and John Bruno (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill).

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From bees to coral reefs: How humans impact partnerships in the natural world

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Mutually beneficial partnerships among species may play highly important but vastly underrecognized roles in keeping the Earth's ecosystems running, a group of evolutionary biologists suggests in a study. The authors present evidence that human impacts may be forcing these mutualist systems down unprecedented evolutionary paths.

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Geographical

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Geographical's regular look at the world of climate change. This month, Marco Magrini looks at coral bleaching

As weird as it may appear, pink snow is nothing new. The Times wrote about its discovery in 1818, after Captain John Ross brought back a sample from Greenland. 'It is suggested that the colour is derived from the soil,' wrote the paper, only to discover later that it was due to cold-loving, microscopic algae that contained a red pigment.

While pinkish snow is not directly caused by climate change, it does, as a paper in Nature Communications argues, have the power to exacerbate its nasty effects on the Arctic. 'Melting is one major driver for snow algal growth,' the study says. 'Extreme melt events like that in 2012, when 97 per cent of the entire Greenland ice sheet was affected by surface melting, are likely to re-occur with increasing frequency in the near future as a consequence of global warming. Such extreme melting events are likely to even further intensify the effect of snow algae on surface albedo.' The smaller the albedo (the measure of a surface's reflectivity), the more heat is absorbed by glaciers, thus accelerating melting rates.

"It's not only that corals lose their enchanting colour, they are suddenly at risk of starvation and illness "

Unfortunately, we have another huge problem with white and pinkish hues. The planet's coral reefs are bleaching for an unprecedented third year in a row, warns the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. In April, about 93 per cent of Australia's Great Barrier Reef was discoloured, while the Maldives' underwater paradise is presently devastated by one of the biggest reef bleaching events in history. Unlike pink snow, whitish corals are caused by a warming climate.

Corals rely on the symbiotic relationship they share with the tiny algae that inhabit their tissue, providing them with food as well as that typical red tinge. The trouble is, warm ocean temperatures and pollutants make the algae flee their homes. It's not only that corals lose their enchanting colour, they are suddenly at risk of starvation and illness. The very role they play in providing food and shelter for many species of fish and crustaceans is in jeopardy.

Australian researchers have identified genes in algae that could allow corals to survive higher temperatures. It's a short-term trick that could buy us some time. After all, pink snow and white coral bring the same message - that there is yet another case for pushing forward the more well-publicised solutions to our hu(g)e climatic troubles.

This was published in the August 2016 edition of Geographical magazine.

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Geographical's regular look at the world of climate change. This month, Marco Magrini looks at coral bleaching As weird as it may appear, pink snow is nothing new. The Times wrote about its discovery in 1818, after Captain John Ross brought back a sample from Greenland.

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Tourists Try to See Great Barrier Reef Before It's Gone

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Tourists Try to See Great Barrier Reef Before It's Gone

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National Geographic

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A recent survey confirms that an unprecedented number of tourists are visiting Australia's Great Barrier Reef because they are afraid the World Heritage site will soon disappear.

A survey published this week in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism found 69 percent of recent tourists felt they needed to see the reef before it dies off.

Half of the reef has died over the past three decades thanks to warming ocean water, pollution, coastal development, and aggressive invasive species, such as starfish.

This year, the Great Barrier Reef has suffered its worst bleaching event on record, damaging more than 90 percent of the reef's 1,400 miles (2,250 kilometers).

Almost half of the coral in the reef's northern and central sections have been bleached so badly that they will likely take decades to recover, scientists have warned.

And the most recent government assessment of the reef's health predicted that unless the world makes good on plans to slash greenhouse gas emissions, ocean waters will continue to warm and bleaching will occur every year there by mid century. That will likely lead to the collapse of the ecosystem, the scientists warned.

To gauge tourist awareness of these issues, this week's survey asked tourists to rank 15 reasons for their trip to the reef. The response "to see the reef before it is gone" came in at fourth place, surprising the researchers.

This was just behind more typical reasons for the trip, including "to discover new places and things," "to rest and relax," and "to get away from the demands of everyday life." ( See other places that tourists hope to see before they are ruined.)

Corbin Forest, a student from Texas who visited the reef in July, tweeted, "Glad I can say I got to see it before it's all gone."

Tourism on the Great Barrier Reef generates $5.4 billion per year and employs some 60,000 people, all of which could be in jeopardy as the reef's health continues to deteriorate.

Follow Brian Clark Howard on Twitter and Google+.

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Tourists Try to See Great Barrier Reef Before It's Gone

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A recent survey confirms that an unprecedented number of tourists are visiting Australia's Great Barrier Reef because they are afraid the World Heritage site will soon disappear. A survey published this week in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism found 69 percent of recent tourists felt they needed to see the reef before it dies off.

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Pollution in Freshwater Ecosystems- Freshwater Ecology

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Pollution in Freshwater Ecosystems- Freshwater Ecology

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Sea snails could save Great Barrier Reef from starfish

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Sea snails could save Great Barrier Reef from starfish

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BBC

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A giant sea snail could be the answer to getting rid of coral-eating starfish from the Great Barrier Reef, Myles Gough reports.

Australian researchers are investigating whether the scent of a natural predator can help repel millions of crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) from corals on the Great Barrier Reef.

Crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) are native to reefs in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, but are one of the largest threats to corals outside of cyclones.

These animals, which are covered in hundreds of venomous spikes, feed on the flesh of corals until all that's left is a calcium carbonate skeleton. Between 1985 and 2012, they were responsible for 42% of all lost coral cover in Australia.

What makes the starfish so devastating is that they are prone to population explosions.

"It's a species a bit like locusts," says Dr Mike Hall, a marine biologist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. "They're always around somewhere at low numbers, but every now and then there are large outbreaks."

An outbreak in 2015 resulted in an estimated 7 million COTS living and feeding on corals throughout the Great Barrier Reef. Just one animal can eat about 10sqm (110sq feet) of coral in a year, and this tissue never grows back, Dr Hall says.

At present, the best way to manage these outbreaks is by killing individual starfish one-by-one with lethal injections, which are administered by divers.

"On small local scales, this can protect reefs of high eco-tourism value," Dr Hall says. "But trying to do it on a whole Great Barrier Reef scale - it would be like a military campaign. You'd have to put a lot more soldiers out there on the reefs, injecting away."

It's simply too costly. But with more outbreaks likely in future, and corals under increasing stress from climate change and bleaching events, better management strategies are needed.

Snail rescue

Hall's outside-the-box solution is to use the Pacific triton (Charonia tritonis), a large sea snail known for its beautifully coloured shell.

The Pacific triton is one of the only natural predators of COTS. Native to the same habitats in the Indo-Pacific region, this giant snail is adept at devouring the starfish, toxic spikes included.

But Dr Hall's not interested in their appetite. Instead, he wants to harness the chemical scent these snails send out into the marine environment to manipulate the behaviour of COTS.

His team has already demonstrated that COTS can detect the presence of a triton: "They rapidly try to get out of the way and go into hiding to avoid being eaten," he says.

This video shows how the normally slow-moving COTS react to the fear-inducing chemical scent released by its natural predator.

"In a terrestrial environment, a farmer might use a scarecrow," Dr Hall says. "In the marine environment, the same thing works by smell."

He's hoping to trick the COTS into fleeing their coral settlements.

Halting future outbreaks

Pacific tritons could be farmed and released onto reefs like "Swat teams" to drive an exodus of COTS, Dr Hall says. As they are slow-moving and colourful, they could later be collected and re-deployed elsewhere.

This might avoid the collateral damage of leaving the snails there permanently to eat other organisms, such as sea cucumbers.

Dr Hall's ultimate goal, however, is to identify, isolate and synthesise the fear-inducing chemical compound that's released by the triton in order to develop slow-dissolving capsules. The scent would linger and create the illusion of tritons being present on the reef.

Although these solutions wouldn't kill the starfish, Hall believes they could disrupt their breeding habits enough to "potentially break the outbreak cycle".

"They would be in panicked, alarmed state rather than concentrating on being close to each other and spawning," he says.

His team is also trying to understand the chemical signals released by the COTS themselves, including one that apparently causes the animals to cluster together.

If this scent could be manufactured, Hall says it could be used to force them into one location, where they could more easily be culled or collected in a trap.

Desperate times, 'far-fetched' measures

Dr Jon Brodie, chief research scientist at the Centre for Tropical Water and Aquatic Ecosystems Research at James Cook University, says we need a new management strategy for controlling the coral-destroying starfish.

"Manually killing tens of thousands of crown-of-thorns starfish each year simply can't have an effect on an entire population of up to 10 million."

Dr Brodie says it's "highly unlikely" that the chemical scent of tritons will be an effective deterrent for COTS but he says all options should be considered:

"I think it's a far-fetched solution, but times are desperate for the Great Barrier Reef," he says. "It's in terrible shape."

"I'm not against spending more money to investigate the option because it might just work."

Dr Brodie says there also needs to be more focus on managing water quality, including nutrient runoff from farms, which is believed to cause COTS outbreaks.

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A giant sea snail could be the answer to getting rid of coral-eating starfish from the Great Barrier Reef, Myles Gough reports. Australian researchers are investigating whether the scent of a natural predator can help repel millions of crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) from corals on the Great Barrier Reef.

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Coral bleaching in Okinawa – in pictures

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Coral bleaching in Okinawa – in pictures

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The Guardian

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As the worst global bleaching event on record stretches across its third year, coral reefs around Okinawa in Japan are being hit hard. Experts warn this type of bleaching event may become the new normal. These images from the XL Catlin Seaview survey reveal the devastating effect warming water is having on coral in the area

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Coral bleaching in Okinawa - in pictures

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As the worst global bleaching event on record stretches across its third year, coral reefs around Okinawa in Japan are being hit hard. Experts warn this type of bleaching event may become the new normal.

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Great Barrier Reef: Unesco pushes for tree-clearing controls

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Great Barrier Reef: Unesco pushes for tree-clearing controls

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The Guardian

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UN agency recognises 'importance of strengthening our vegetation protection laws', Queensland's Jackie Trad says

Unesco has acknowledged the importance of stymied tree-clearing controls in Queensland to efforts to protect the Great Barrier Reef, according to the state's deputy premier, Jackie Trad.

Trad has emerged from a meeting in Paris with a Unesco official, Fanny Douvere, to declare the state Labor government would restore clearing controls, one of its "key commitments" to the reef, if it won another term of office.

She indicated the defeat of Labor's clearing controls owing to crossbench opposition in a hung parliament last month had been raised during an otherwise "positive meeting" about the Queensland government's progress on a long-term conservation plan for the reef.

Australia's reef 2050 long-term sustainability plan, urgently updated with input by the Palaszczuk government after its election, spared the reef an "in-danger" listing by the UN's world heritage committee last year.

"While Unesco provided positive feedback on the work already under way, they recognised the importance of strengthening our vegetation protections laws - one of the Palaszczuk government's key commitments to protect the Great Barrier Reef," Trad said.

"Despite recent setbacks in parliament, the Palaszczuk government is still resolutely committed to protecting our reef and will reinstate our nation-leading vegetation protection laws if we are returned at the next election."

The Palaszczuk government argues that tree-clearing controls are critical for the reef by reducing farm runoff pollution and carbon emissions. They are opposed by the farmers' lobby and some traditional owners concerned about development hurdles.

Australia is due to lodge a formal progress report on its reef plan with Unesco's World Heritage Centre and the International Union for Conservation of Nature in December.

Trad said the World Heritage Centre would then carry out "a robust scientific assessment of this report" to hold both the Australian and the Queensland governments to account after their commitments made to a Unesco meeting in Bonn last year.

The reef suffered its world bleaching event on record this Australian summer, killing off 22% of its coral, according to government agencies.

Trad said the state had been "undertaking work to build the resilience of the reef and helping it recover from events like recent coral bleaching".

She cited the state's $22m boost in reef water quality programs in 2016 and its $33m investment over four years to target "pollutant hotspots" from grazing and sugarcane growing.
Topics

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Great Barrier Reef: Unesco pushes for tree-clearing controls

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UN agency recognises 'importance of strengthening our vegetation protection laws', Queensland's Jackie Trad says Unesco has acknowledged the importance of stymied tree-clearing controls in Queensland to efforts to protect the Great Barrier Reef, according to the state's deputy premier, Jackie Trad.

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Amazon Reef: First images of new coral system

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Amazon Reef: First images of new coral system

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BBC

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The first pictures of a huge coral reef system discovered in the Amazon last year have been released by environmental campaigners.

The Amazon Reef is a 9,500 sq km (3,600 sq miles) system of corals, sponges and rhodoliths, Greenpeace says.

The reef is almost 1,000 km (620 miles) long, and is located where the Amazon River meets the Atlantic Ocean.

Oil drilling could start in the area if companies obtain permits from the Brazilian government, the group warns.

"This reef system is important for many reasons, including the fact that it has unique characteristics regarding use and availability of light, and physicochemical water conditions," researcher Nils Asp, from the Federal University of Para, said in a statement.

"It has a huge potential for new species, and it is also important for the economic well-being of fishing communities along the Amazonian coastal zone."

Can 'super coral' save the Great Barrier Reef?

Scientists were surprised by the discovery, in April 2016, as they thought it was unlikely that reefs would be found it the area given unfavourable conditions," they said in a paper in the scientific journal Science Advances.

The reef ranges from about 25-120m deep (82-393ft)

Mr Asp now says that his team wants to gradually map the system. At the moment, only 5% of it has been mapped.

"Our team wants to have a better understanding of how this ecosystem works, including important questions like its photosynthesis mechanisms with very limited light."

But Greenpeace says drilling in the area means a "constant risk of an oil spill".

Campaigner Thiago Almeida said environmental licensing processes for oil exploration there are already under way.

"The Cape Orange National Park, the northernmost point of the Brazilian state of Amapa, is home to the world's largest continuous mangrove ecosystem and there is no technology capable of cleaning up oil in a place of its characteristics," the group said.

"In addition, the risks in this area are increased due to the strong currents and sediment that the Amazon River carries."

The group said that, so far, 95 wells have been drilled in the region, and 27 of them were abandoned as a result of mechanical incidents - the rest due to the absence of economically or technically viable gas and oil.

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The first pictures of a huge coral reef system discovered in the Amazon last year have been released by environmental campaigners. The Amazon Reef is a 9,500 sq km (3,600 sq miles) system of corals, sponges and rhodoliths, Greenpeace says. The reef is almost 1,000 km (620 miles) long, and is located where the Amazon River meets the Atlantic Ocean.

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Victorian Government website that allows you to search on ecosystems

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Search Results: human impact ecosystems - FUSE - Department of Education & Training

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The long reach of the past: did prehistoric humans shape today’s ecosystems?

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The long reach of the past: did prehistoric humans shape today’s ecosystems?

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Human and a reconstructed extinct Mastodon. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

We all know that humans are having a massive impact on the planet.

Our effects include altering the Earth's rotation by damming large amounts of surface water; changing the composition of the atmosphere by punching a hole in the ozone layer and adding vast amounts of CO2, methane and other pollutants; transforming the composition and temperature of the oceans; and clearing large tracts of land and removing or dramatically altering vast numbers of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in the process.

Plenty of these changes are plain for all to see; others are more obscure, but no less significant.

And, with the COP21 UN Paris Climate Change Conference just around the corner, politicians, policy makers and NGOs are again turning their attentions to reaching an agreement that aims to keep global temperature change to below 2° Celsius.

A major issue for scientists studying the Earth's physical and biological systems is just how great the influence of humans has been and for how long its been happening.

Our global destructive impacts mean that potentially any organism or ecosystem, and many of the earth's physical systems like erosion, soil formation and water cycles, carbon and nitrogen cycles, and climate, have been affected in some way by human activity.

But can we disentangle the effects of human activity on these systems and organisms from natural signals and cycles?

I'd argue we probably can't - that human impacts are just too wide ranging and too ancient, and that our disruptive and destructive effects have reached every part of the planet.

This means that probably every scientific study of any contemporary system or living organism catalogues the effects of our species and its economic activity in some way.

If we go back far enough to a time when humans didn't exist, we have the potential to understand how the world looked and how natural systems behaved before we were around.

Problem is that the information we get is from the very incomplete and often biased geological record, in the form of fossils and various archives of climate and environmental change like isotopes recorded in ice or cave stalagmites.

And, of course, many organisms alive in the past are now extinct: the planet looked very different even just 20,000 years ago at the peak of the last major cold stage of the Ice Age or Pleistocene epoch.

Scientists like me who study extinct organisms and long lost ecosystems wonder whether large scale human impacts like those we see today are truly confined to the period following industrialisation.

Did the 'Anthropocene' really begin 215 years ago?

Or does the environmental legacy of our Palaeolithic ancestors reach into today's world?

This issue is at the centre of one of the most hotly contested questions in palaeontology and archaeology, namely, the extinction of the Pleistocene 'megafauna'.

But its a lot broader than this issue of course and it cuts to the core of who we are as a species, the way we have evolved, and lengths we'll go to ensure our own survival; some would argue even our future survival.

Some scientists have also suggested that the Ice Age megafauna extinctions set the stage for the planet's sixth major extinction event, which is unfolding before our eyes.

During the last phase of the Ice Age, between roughly 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, almost 200 species of mammals went extinct across the globe.

That's half of the world's mammals weighing more than 44 kg perishing in what was an instant in the long history of life on the planet.

A growing body of highly contested research suggests that humans may indeed have dramatically shaped the diversity of living mammals in the deep past, just like today, leaving us an impoverished natural legacy.

And, let's not forget that humans with our average body mass of close to 70 kg are megafauna as well.

While our species is obviously still here, we remain the chief suspect in the extinction of our close cousins the Neanderthals, Denisovans, and probably other relatives around this time.

The megafauna debate has been highly polarised for decades: humans being blamed on one hand, and natural climate change on the other.

Environmentally altering activities like burning the landscape by ancient hunter-gatherers in places like Australia, for example, have proven very difficult to establish, and their possible impacts hard to separate from natural climate cycles.

Yet other studies suggest that Ancient Aborignal Australians were one of the major agents involved in dispersing baobab trees in northern Australia; so our environmental impacts can be quite surprising.

And the chronology of human settlement and timing of megafauna disappearance in Australia remain uncertain: significant barriers to resolving the extinction question with any certainty.

So again, a major difficulty is the poor quality of the information we have from the fossil, archaeological and ancient environmental records.

The spectre of the confounding effects of natural and human-induced environmental signals remain all too real even for the Ice Age.

Another way to approach the question of human environmental change in the past is to construct mathematical models to look at changes over time and the influences of natural cycles and changes compared to human facilitated ones.

A battery of such studies is beginning to point firmly to the prehistoric human colonisation of new parts of the planet as a major driver of extinction and environmental change; possibly the leading cause of the megafauna extinctions.

New research published over the last couple of months by Soren Faurby of the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales Madrid and Jens-Christian Svenning of Aarhus University has also pointed the finger squarely at humans.

In an interesting twist, they modelled what worldwide diversity patterns of mammals might look like in the absence of past and present human impacts, based on estimates of the natural distribution of each species (5,747 of them) according to its ecology, biogeography and the current environmental template.

They found that prehistoric human-driven extinctions in addition to recent ones were probably an important influence on present global mammal diversity patterns.

They even suggested that areas normally thought by ecologists to be biodiversity hot spots, like mountains, may in fact reflect their role as refuges for species otherwise affected by hunting and habitat destruction, rather than reflecting a natural pattern.

I'm satisfied that a strong case exists that humans did play a role in these extinctions and that there truly is a link between what our Palaeolithic ancestors were doing to the environment and what we're doing today.

The difference now of course is that with an expected almost 10 billion people by 2050 and the remarkably destructive technology we possess we're doing damage on an unprecedented scale and face a future on a planet with an irreparably damaged biosphere and dramatically altered atmosphere.

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The long reach of the past: did prehistoric humans shape today's ecosystems?

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We all know that humans are having a massive impact on the planet. Our effects include altering the Earth's rotation by damming large amounts of surface water; changing the composition of the atmosphere by punching a hole in the ozone layer and adding vast amounts of CO2, methane and other pollutants; transforming the composition and temperature of the oceans; and clearing large tracts of land and removing or dramatically altering vast numbers of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in the process.

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Climate change threatens entire ecosystems – let’s pick them up and move them

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Climate change threatens entire ecosystems – let’s pick them up and move them

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An ecosystem on the back of a truck. Solid Energy, Author provided

Climate change poses a major threat to the world's ecosystems. As the world warms, animals and plants will move to keep pace with their preferred climate, but many will be unable to keep up with the speed of change, particularly if humans are in the way.

Programs to move individual species to protect them from climate change already exist. But they are largely limited to those species that are conspicuous, large and charismatic (mostly mammals and birds).

In any given ecosystem, there could be thousands of species (many of which we still don't know about). Those capable of migrating may have a chance of reaching more hospitable conditions but most species will not be able to cover the large distances required to find a different climate in the short period of time it will take for their environment to change. These ecosystems are effectively fated to disappear, unless of course they could be moved to a safer location.

Picking up and moving entire ecosystems at risk of being wiped out by climate change could be one way to preserve vulnerable plants, animals and insects. It may sound far-fetched, but actually this technique has already been used to deal with other human impacts.

Moving ecosystems

On the West Coast of New Zealand lies Stockton, the country's biggest coal mine. Although mining activity has slowed down in recent years with the collapse of the market, the legacy of mining is still very visible.

Among the large areas of barren land, the enormous piles of soil and unsellable coal, there are small pockets of native vegetation. They look the same as the native vegetation outside the mine, but these little pockets of native grassland, shrubs or even forest are actually man-made.

Stéphane Boyer

Stéphane Boyer

They have been moved from an area that was about to be mined, to another area where mining had already been completed, using a process called ecosystem-scale translocation. Plants, soil and all microbes and animal communities they contain are picked up together in small soil sods that are moved out of the diggers' way and reassembled to create a uniform native vegetation cover.

Ecosystem translocation is a restoration technique that hinges on the principle that instead of destroying native ecosystems and trying to recreate them piece by piece, it is easier and more efficient to carefully lift intact pieces of land and transport them to a safe location.

Now, what if we could do this for ecosystems that are threatened not only by human activities (such as mining) but also by climate change?

Where should they go?

But where would they be safe? Climate change does not act at the same speed across the planet.

For example, in Madagascar, certain areas on the east coast will endure large increase in temperature while others such as central and north western Madagascar will remain relatively stable at least for the next 100 years.

So it may be a useful to move very precious ecosystems from climatically unstable areas to climatically stable one. But finding appropriate sites to receive climate migrant ecosystems may not be easy task. These sites must not already contain valuable biodiversity.

Ecosystems with little value such as marginal, abandoned, desertified or very damaged agricultural land could be used. These areas are characterised by low biodiversity, and low potential for production often because their soil has eroded or become infertile due to over-exploitation or bad management.

Such areas can be found all around the world and (unfortunately) their area is constantly growing.

A risky business

Moving ecosystems potentially also comes with great risks. An important consideration is the potential for invasive species to escape from the grafted ecosystem into the surrounding habitats.

Introducing a new species to a novel environment can have disastrous consequences on the local ecosystem. Here we are proposing to introduce thousands of species, at once.

Conversely, the precious translocated ecosystems may be the target of invasive species from the area they are moved to. This could cause the ecosystem to collapse despite being translocated.

It is however expected that intact ecosystems where all the space and resources are already being used are much more difficult to invade. So moving ecosystems, providing that they remain relatively intact, makes for more robust ecosystems than replanted ecosystems.

Finally, this method has been only used for relatively small areas over relatively short distances and many unknowns remain, particularly around its efficiency at conserving all levels of biodiversity and the risks of failure.

Many questions remain unanswered. We don't know how much it will cost, whether people will accept it, or even whether it will do more good than harm. But to protect ecosystems from climate change, we need to consider all the options.

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Climate change threatens entire ecosystems -- let's pick them up and move them

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Climate change poses a major threat to the world's ecosystems. As the world warms, animals and plants will move to keep pace with their preferred climate, but many will be unable to keep up with the speed of change, particularly if humans are in the way.

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Underwater health check shows kelp forests are declining around the world

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Underwater health check shows kelp forests are declining around the world

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Kelp forests are declining around the world and in Australia, according to two new studies.

The first, a global study published in the journal PNAS, found that 38% of the world's kelp forests have declined over the past 50 years.

The second, published in the same PNAS edition, investigated one cause of the declines. Kelp forests in eastern Australia are losing out to tropical species as the seas warm.

Together the studies show that we need local and global solutions to prevent our underwater forests from vanishing.

Deep trouble

Satirist Jordan Shanks recently argued that marine biologists may well have the worst job on Earth. Although most people think we spend our days diving in crystal-clear blue waters, spotting whales and sailing into the sunset, this is actually quite far from the truth.

More often than not, our job unfortunately involves documenting the depressing deterioration and decline of precious marine habitats.

While bleaching of coral reefs worldwide has been front and centre in the news over the past year, in fact all of our coastal ecosystems have been affected by human impacts.

One such ecosystem is the underwater forests formed by the large seaweeds known as kelp, which dominate temperate, coastal rocky shores worldwide.

Kelp forests are found in waters off all continents, and around Australia they form the Great Southern Reef which stretches from the Queensland border to near Kalbarri in Western Australia, and contributes more than A$10 billion annually to the Australian economy.

Clockwise from top left: A. Vergés, Creative Commons, J. Turnbull, A. Vergés

A health check for global kelp forests

In the first study, the authors provide the first ever global "health check" for kelp forests. A team of international experts compiled and analysed a data set of kelp abundance at more than 1,000 sites across 34 regions around the globe.

While 38% of the world's kelp forests have declined, it isn't all bad news. Just over 25% of kelp forests have actually increased in abundance.

But there is another big problem: there are many regions where kelp exists, but we have no data and simply no idea how it's doing.

T. Wernberg

Unfortunately, Australia's kelp forests feature heavily among the declining populations. Kelp forests have declined in Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania and New South Wales. The causes of this loss are diverse, but share a common factor: people.

In Western Australia kelp forests were wiped out during an extreme marine heatwave, which was probably a consequence of climate change. In South Australia, the kelp has succumbed to years of pollution from nutrient-rich wastewater.

And in Tasmania, warming has enabled a kelp-eating sea urchin to jump from the mainland and graze on local kelp forests. This was compounded by overfishing of large lobsters, which normally eat the urchins.

Turning tropical

The second paper shows that a phenomenon known as " tropicalisation " of ecosystems is now threatening kelp forests in New South Wales, and potentially globally.

Tropicalisation occurs as ocean waters warm and tropical species start making a home in habitats previously dominated by cold-water species. In the case of NSW kelp forests, these tropical intruders are herbivorous fishes that eat the kelp - sometimes down to the ground.

Our initial research has shown that, over ten years, lush kelp forests have completely disappeared in some key offshore sites at the Solitary Islands Marine Park. This region is famous for bringing together a unique mosaic of tropical and temperate habitats, but our data clearly shows that tropical species are winning and starting to take over.

Hamish Malcolm

We were able to quantify the year-by-year decline of kelp using a long-term video dataset collected by Hamish Malcolm from the NSW Department for Primary Industries.

The video footage revealed not only the gradual decline of kelp, but also helped us identify fish as central culprits behind this disappearance. Between 2002 and 2012, we saw both an increase in the number of fish bite marks on kelp and a clear rise in the abundance of warm-water seaweed-eating species.

We also ran a series of kelp transplant experiments, which identified two warm-water fish species that rapidly consumed transplanted kelp within hours: a rabbitfish and a drummer.

Interestingly, however, the species that we think had the greatest effect, surgeonfish, did not actually feed on the adult kelp. Instead, the surgeonfish rapidly consumed smaller carpet-forming seaweeds. This suggests these "tropicalising" fishes maintain deforested reefs by removing kelp while they are tiny, before they start making large fronds.

These NSW findings are by no means an isolated phenomenon. Voracious consumption by invading warm-water fish have also been linked to the loss or failure to recover of kelp forests in Japan and in Western Australia.

What can we do?

Both studies found a net decline in the abundance of kelp forests, from both local (nutrients, fishing) and global (ocean warming and its effects) effects of humans. If we want to arrest these declines, action is therefore required at both local and global scales.

Locally, water quality around some major cities has been improved. When coupled with active restoration efforts of damaged seaweeds, this can lead to conservation success stories like the return of crayweed forests to Sydney. Marine reserves, where fishing is prohibited, can also reduce the ability of warm-water species to colonise cooler habitats.

But of course, ultimately, global action is needed to prevent further climate change impacts. That includes reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions, in Australia and around the world.

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Underwater health check shows kelp forests are declining around the world

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Kelp forests are declining around the world and in Australia, according to two new studies. The first, a global study published in the journal PNAS, found that 38% of the world's kelp forests have declined over the past 50 years. The second, published in the same PNAS edition, investigated one cause of the declines.

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Use the search function to search your chosen ecosystem

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Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australian Government

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Australia's national science agency. We solve the greatest challenges through innovative science and technology.

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Updated November 07, 2011 12:05:55

Queensland's iconic Great Barrier Reef could be put at risk if authorities do not rethink plans to allow massive expansion works at ports along the Queensland coast, an expert says.

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority chairman Russell Reichelt has also told ABC TV's Four Corners he warned the Federal Government that huge dredging operations aimed at servicing Queensland's growing coal seam gas industry posed an unacceptable risk to marine life on the reef.

At least six major port developments are either planned or underway up and down the Queensland coast, but Mr Reichelt says officials need to change tack to protect the reef.

"We think that there's far better outcomes for the function of the Barrier Reef ecosystem if major activity is constrained to a few highly managed areas rather than spread every hundred kilometres up the coast," he said.

He raised particular concerns over two planned expansions: one at Port Alma, south of Great Keppel Island, and one in the pristine waters of far north Queensland at Bathurst Bay.

Both plans include the development of coal-loading facilities.

'Extreme concerns'

Mr Reichelt says the authority expressed extreme concerns to the Federal Government about the development of a liquefied natural gas hub and the associated dredging operation at Curtis Island, off Gladstone.

It is the largest dredging operation ever undertaken in the World Heritage area, and part of the spoil will be taken out to sea to a dump site within one kilometre of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

Marine life is already under enormous stress in the area from this year's floods and Cyclone Yasi, which have caused a record number of dugong and turtle strandings as well as significant damage to seagrass beds.

Our concerns filled many pages - and were related to any potential spill over into the marine park of dredging activity, the impact on migratory species, humpback dolphin, indo-pacifics and snubfin dolphins.

Mr Reichelt says he provided written evidence to the government that the scale of dredging associated with the building of four coal seam gas processing plants on Curtis Island would have an unacceptable impact on marine life.

"Our advice was to raise extreme concerns with it," Mr Reichelt said.

"We regarded it as not acceptable in the ... World Heritage property and gave that advice to the department at the time.

"Our concerns filled many pages, and were related to any potential spill over into the marine park of dredging activity, the impact on migratory species, humpback dolphin, indo-pacifics and snubfin dolphins."

In an attempt to allay these concerns, Environment Minister Tony Burke imposed guidelines to ensure water quality and protect marine life.

Mr Reichelt then agreed with the decision to go ahead.

The first stage of the Curtis Island development was given the go-ahead just six weeks after Mr Burke took office last year.

The United Nations World Heritage Committee rebuked the Federal Government for failing to notify it in advance of the approvals for LNG projects inside the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage area.

The failure was a breach of World Heritage guidelines, but Mr Burke says the process followed common practice.

"For decades governments of each side, as a matter of routine, have responded to any enquiries that came internationally but they haven't been providing notification in advance of decisions," he said.

"It's been the way the practice had been within the governments of both sides for many, many years.

"The moment this was raised by the World Heritage Committee, we undertook to change that process and make sure that there'll be a more routine method of notification."

A World Heritage mission will visit Queensland in the coming months, amid concerns the booming LNG industry could threaten the long-term health of the reef.

Dr Fanny Douvere, the World Heritage maritime co-ordinator, says Australia's go-ahead for the Curtis Island development triggered serious concerns at the World Heritage Centre in Paris.

"When we received the environmental impact assessment from the Government of Australia which is also online, it appears to have contradictory statements," she said.

"On the one hand, it states that the facilities and the measures taken for the protection of the environment make it unlikely there will be any significant negative impact on the outstanding universal value of the Great Barrier Reef.

"On the other hand, it also concludes there will be a direct and indirect impact on the coastal and marine habitats and species including seagrass, mangroves, dugongs and turtles."

Irreversible damage?

Gladstone and Curtis Island are microcosms of the resource development boom along Queensland' s coast that are raising concerns about long-term stress on Australia's natural living treasure.

The development of four coal seam gas plants and planned port expansions will create jobs and increase Australia's export earnings - but is it at the cost of irreversible damage to the reef?

In the next 20 years, the Gladstone Ports Corporation has permission to dredge 46 million cubic metres from within the harbour boundaries, which are in the World Heritage area.

The multi-billion-dollar projects that require dredging around Curtis Island will also dramatically increase ship traffic.

Gas companies Santos, Origin Energy and the Gladstone Ports Corporation - which was granted approvals to do the dredging work - have been required to undertake environmental impact studies to gain government approvals, resulting in a significant number of environment conditions.

Water quality has been an ongoing and highly contentious issue.

As of last week, the multi-million dollar dredging project in disease-hit waters near Curtis Island has been stopped while scientists determine if it is impacting the water quality.

A three-week fishing ban was imposed on the Gladstone harbour due to considerable water quality concerns after sick fish with skin lesions and cloudy eyes were found.

The ban was lifted on October 6 following water test results, released by the Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM), that indicated no deterioration in water quality since dredging began.

However, one of Queensland's leading independent water quality experts, Jon Brodie, told Four Corners the report has serious limitations.

"Water quality is a really complex business and there's lots of different contaminants," he said.

"So although you can do some water quality investigations and come up with some crude interpretation, if you've got biological effects still going evidently I'd say the fish tell a truer story than the water quality data does because of the complexity of the water quality data story and interpretation of it is very difficult."

On Friday, DERM released a second report on water quality in Port Curtis; this time, they included the testing that was originally omitted, for heavy metal contamination.

This latest report found levels of aluminium, copper and chromium did in fact exceed the safety guidelines at several sites in the harbour.

But the report found these were not "of significant environmental concern".

Credits

Reporter: Marian Wilkinson

Producers: Clay Hichens and Deborah Masters

Researcher: Anne Worthington

Cameraman: Neale Maude

Sound Recordist: Richard McDermott

Graphics: Lodi Kramer

Editor: Alec Cullen

Assistant Editor: Joshua Rathmell

Supervising Producer: Mark Bannerman

Executive Producer: Sue Spencer

Video Production: Eleanor Bell

Designer: Ben Spraggon

Reporter/Special Presentations Editor: Nikki Tugwell

Topics: great-barrier-reef, oceans-and-reefs, environment, conservation, government-and-politics, federal-government, oil-and-gas, industry, qld, port-curtis-4700, australia, rockhampton-4700

First posted November 07, 2011 11:22:54

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Updated November 07, 2011 12:05:55 Queensland's iconic Great Barrier Reef could be put at risk if authorities do not rethink plans to allow massive expansion works at ports along the Queensland coast, an expert says.

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Visit the St Benedict's College Resource Centre homepage for the link to Cosmos online

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Independent expert report on the Australian environment.

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Australia State of the Environment Report

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Australia's first Threatened Species Commissioner brings a new national focus to conservation efforts. The work is helping address the growing number of native flora and fauna in Australia facing extinction.

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Biodiversity, plants and wildlife | australia.gov.au

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Find government information about Australia's biodiversity, conservation and protection measures. Australia's first Threatened Species Commissioner brings a new national focus to conservation efforts. The work is helping address the growing number of native flora and fauna in Australia facing extinction. Department of the Environment and Energy

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Building Nature's resilience: a biodiversity strategy for Queensland

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Building Nature's resilience: a biodiversity strategy for Queensland

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