The bumblebee conspiracy

Could the quest for ‘single touch’ environmental approvals spread a dangerous feral species?

By Peter Burnett

The Government is intent on pushing through its partial agenda on environmental reform — it’s so called ‘single touch’ approvals approach — even at the expense of pre-empting the current independent review of the EPBC Act. To do that it’ll need to buy a few votes from the Senate cross benches.

In anticipation of a Parliamentary debate I’ve been digging through some recent legislative history and I’ve started to hear a loud buzzing noise. There’s a bumblebee in this equation and if we’re not careful it may soon be pollinating a weed near you.

Before I reveal the bumblebee, some background.

The buzz of ‘green tape’

As most of our readers will know (because we’ve discussed it from many angles), Professor Graeme Samuel is conducting a 10-year review of the EPBC (Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation) Act and has released an Interim Report. He has recommended a new approach to environmental protection based on National Environmental Standards (which would be interim in the first instance).

One of the drivers for EPBC reform is duplication and overlap between Commonwealth and State environmental impact assessment (EIA) systems. This problem is real enough, although the Government is one-eyed about it, framing the issue pejoratively as ‘green tape’ and talking little of anything else in the environmental reform space beyond its response to this issue, ‘single touch approval’.

‘Single touch approval’ is the Government’s new name for the failed ‘one stop shop’ initiative.

The Government is so focused on this issue that it will be introducing hastily-drafted legislation, probably this week, to hand over most Commonwealth EIA decision-making authority to the States.

It says that this accreditation will be based on Professor Samuel’s Interim Standards, even though they do not exist yet.

In the meantime, Professor Samuel continues with his review. He has formed a Consultative Group to help develop an interim set of Standards. The Group consists mostly of major stakeholders such as the Business Council of Australia and Australian Conservation Foundation, but it also includes a couple of individuals (including me).

Enter the bumblebee

Apart from EIA, the EPBC Act also plays a significant part in dealing with landscape-scale threats, including weeds and pests.

One of the Threat Abatement Plans made under the Act deals with gamba grass and four other invasive grasses in Northern Australia. Ironically, many of these grasses were deliberately introduced as improved pasture plants that then escaped to become major environmental threats.

The EPBC Act also makes it an offence to possess a exotic plants or animals that are not on the Live Import List. This offence applies even to feral species that have become established here.

One such species is the large earth bumblebee (Bombus terrestris), which apparently was smuggled into Tasmania from New Zealand in the 1990s and has since become established there. (At this time, the bumblebee is not found on the mainland). The likely reason for smuggling is that the bumblebee is a very efficient crop pollinator and could be a boon to horticulture, including tomato-growing.

Several applications have been made by the horticulture industry to include the bumblebee on the Live Import List and so allow its use as a pollinator, but each application has been rejected because of the biosecurity risks, which include out-competing native bees and, through their efficiency as pollinators, exacerbating the impacts of weeds.

Could a bumblebee buy a vote?

Why am I linking weeds and feral animals with environmental review and reform? Well, as I write, the Commonwealth’s urgent Bill has yet to see the light of day. However, rumour has it that it will draw heavily on the Abbott Government’s ‘one-stop-shop’ EPBC Amendment Bill, which was introduced in 2014 and was allowed to lapse in 2016 after it became clear that it would not pass the Senate.

I went back over that 2014 Bill. Initially, I was puzzled by blandly described amendments in the proposed Bill that would allow people to apply for permission to possess live specimens of feral animals. These seemed to have no connection to the one-stop-shop reforms.

Further research revealed that this amendment was proposed by the Government to secure the support of Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie. The amendments would allow a two year ‘trial’ in Tasmania of the pollination of greenhouse-grown tomatoes by bumblebees.

Given previous assessments that this would pose unacceptable risks to biosecurity, I was shocked that Senator Lambie would seek, or worse, that the Government would agree to, such an amendment. It was only by luck that the ‘trial’ did not proceed because of opposition to the Bill on other grounds.

But some bad ideas just will not die. I was shocked again to find that even though the Bill had lapsed, the bumblebee proposal was later considered by a Senate Committee, which supported the idea unanimously! Even Senator Whish-Wilson of The Greens supported it!

The shock of the bumblebee

I also discovered that I was not the only one shocked. The Invasive Species Council, a non-profit advocacy group, published an article in the Feral Herald (best newsletter name ever!) expressing their shock that the warnings from the CSIRO and the Environment Department, together with opposition from the Honeybee Industry Council, the South Australian Government (plus bans in NSW and Victoria) and the Council itself, were not enough to deter the Committee from supporting the plan.

I’m raising all this because, once again, the Government are likely to need Senator Lambie’s support to secure passage of their hasty reforms. Given this, and the Government’s subsequent endorsement in 2019 of the Committee recommendations, I expect they will include it in their ‘single touch approval’ Bill.

As the Invasive Species Council has pointed out, legalising the use of feral bumblebees in Tasmania will create a perverse incentive for someone to smuggle them to the mainland.

A cost-benefit analysis taking this into account would find the small benefits in Tasmania to be vastly outweighed by the likely costs nationwide.

The contested arena of environmental reform is already littered with complexity, ideological conflict and vested interests. In case there was any doubt, now we can add irrationality to the list. And irresponsibility.

Image by Nel Botha from Pixabay

Happy Earth Overshoot Day!

For once it’s later in the year but that’s nothing to cheer about

By David Salt

In 2020, Earth Overshoot Day is Saturday 22 August.

What that means is that humanity has consumed all the biological resources that the Earth can renew during an entire year (365 days) in just 235 days.

In other words, humanity currently uses 64% more than what can be renewed – or as much as if we lived on 1.6 planets.

Of course, the world doesn’t shut down on Earth Overshoot Day, it continues to function by borrowing from the future. However, there’ll be a reckoning some day; no-one can overrun their account for ever. Today’s crop of political leaders are betting that reckoning will occur on someone else’s watch.

The date for Earth Overshoot Day is calculated by the Global Footprint Network, an environmental NGO that has been making this calculation since 2006. The Network calculates the Earth’s biocapacity (the amount of resources the planet’s land and seas can generate in a year) and compares this to humanity’s ecological footprint (that year’s demand for things like food and urban space, and forests to absorb our emissions of carbon dioxide). Researchers then calculate the gap and project the results onto the calendar.

According to their calculations, we use up Earth’s biocapacity this Saturday (tomorrow as I type this).

Not everyone supports these types of calculations but I reckon any effort to get humanity to reflect on its unsustainable trajectory is worth noting. And Earth Overshoot Day is something that brings together a lot of data and gets relatively widespread attention so it’s worth a little discussion.

Are we there yet?

So what does Earth Overshoot Day tell us?

The prime message is that we’re unsustainable, living beyond our means, and stealing from the future of our children.

What’s more, we’ve been stealing from their future for some time now – since the early 1970s according to the Global Footprint Network (see Figure 1). Back then the Earth had the capacity to renew all that we consumed.

Figure 1: Earth Overshoot Day; 1970-2020

Earth Overshoot Day is not a fixed calendar day (like, for example, World Wetlands Day on the 2 February) as humanity’s ecological footprint the planet’s biocapacity is not constant. Our use of resources increases as our population grows and decreases as resource efficiency improves. Indeed, you can see a flattening of the curve during the past decade (maybe that’s the efficiency dividend from technology). And the Earth’s biocapacity changes as the planet changes (see the postscript on how Australia’s biocapacity was much reduced by the wildfires of our Black Summer).

Back when the Network began making these assessments in 2006, Earth Overshoot Day occured in late August. For most of the past decade it’s been in early August. The earlier the calendar day the greater the ecological overshoot.

Of course, different parts of humanity make different contributions to this unsustainable overshoot. The Global Footprint Network has calculated how life styles in different countries use up the planet’s biocapacity to different degrees (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Overshoot Days country by country

For example, if the whole world consumed like the United States we would hit Earth Overshoot Day on the 14 March – a whopping six months earlier than if it’s calculated for humanity as a whole.

But before we Aussies gloat about America’s profligate overconsumption, if the whole world consumed like Australia then we’d reach Earth Overshoot Day two weeks later on the 30 March – nothing to be proud about.

An unprecedented shift

But the reason a lot of people are talking about Earth Overshoot Day this year is because it arrives more than three weeks later than it did last year – that’s movement in the direction we want; to be sustainable using this measure we want the smallest overshoot possible (New Year’s Eve would be great!)

That’s an unprecedented shift between years. It reflects the 9.3% reduction of humanity’s Ecological Footprint from 1 January to Earth Overshoot Day compared to the same period last year.

Of course, this result was due to an unprecedented disturbance in the form of a pandemic that has crushed economic growth around the world. The Global Footprint Network has calculated this ‘improvement’ in sustainability is a direct consequence of the coronavirus-induced lockdowns around the world. This caused decreases in wood harvest and CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel combustion.

“The fact that Earth Overshoot Day is later this year is a reflection of a lot of suffering, and the reflection of imposed changes to our lives,” says Laurel Hanscom, Global Footprint Network’s Chief Executive.

“I don’t think there’s a silver lining to that. One way or another, humanity will come into balance with the Earth. We don’t want it to be through disaster. We want it to be through intentional, designed efforts to make sure it doesn’t come at such a high and terrible human cost.”

Mind the overshoot

We’re all waiting for a vaccine for COVID. We all want international travel to recommence. We all want a job. Governments everywhere are promising to ramp up the economy as fast as they can (and they’ll cut back environmental regulation if they can to speed it up).

But we all want a quality future for our children too.

On Earth Overshoot Day 2020, maybe we should all reflect on exactly what it is we want and what we are prepared to sacrifice.

As Lauren says: “One way or another, humanity will come into balance with the Earth.”

Image by stokpic from Pixabay

PS: Australia Wildfires 2019-2020: Running a biocapacity deficit for the first time in its history According to the Global Footprint Network, the devastating fires of the Black Summer of 2019-2020 have turned Australia’s biocapacity reserve into a deficit. This is startling since Australia has long been considered a biocapacity giant. With its enormous landmass characterized by wide-open spaces and its relatively small population, it has been blessed with a significant biocapacity reserve: since record keeping started in 1961, its biocapacity was consistently estimated to be two to three times the size of its Ecological Footprint. But not for the year of the fire!

The schadenfreude of corona

and other lessons on intergenerational equity

By David Salt

It’s payback time for society; payback for the hypocrisy and self-serving twaddle that society cares about truth, freedom and justice. In practice we (as the individuals that collectively make up society) really only care about ourselves, our own resources and our own freedom; and we’ll do anything to hold onto the power to preserve our privilege. And the gulf between the lie we tell ourselves and what we actually do is now horrifyingly revealed as corona virus tears our communities apart.

Too strong? Well, you have to admit that there are many interesting intersections between the impact of corona and our notions of truth, freedom and justice. It also throws a wan light on society’s efforts on sustainability.

Truth

For starters, corona impacts are greatest in countries whose leaders have discounted or rejected medical expertise; think the US, Brazil and the UK.

There’s one classic graph going around (see figure 1) showing the escalating rates of infection in the United States over time. Next to the rising line are many of Trump’s tweets (with comments from other officials as well) constantly lying about the severity of the disease and the closeness of a cure. It’s surreal if you think about it. It’s also funny and very scary. It says something is quite rotten about the world’s ‘greatest democracy’, that blatant denial and lying can be the sustained response to a medical emergency that is seeing the needless death of tens of thousands of American citizens.

*Figure 1:* *A graph* *showing US COVID-19 cases over time, and the US Government’s truth-less commentary as the pandemic unfolds.*

Brazil’s President Bolsonaro is another agent of falsehood constantly downplaying the coronavirus as nothing more than a “little flu.” He refused to take measures to contain the infection and undermined the work of mayors and governors who had sought to do so. He sacked two health ministers with whom he disagreed while praising the effectiveness of antimalarial drugs that science said were useless.

And then he came down with COVID-19 himself causing many Brazilians to say it serves him right after he downplayed the dangers of the pandemic – the headlines screamed Schadenfreude in Brazil, and who could blame them.

Freedom

Who can forget the protests both here in Australia and overseas (and especially in the US) of crowds of people demanding their right to associate as they like; no bans on their movements and no forcing of wearing face masks. It was surreal again with the medical experts telling us this way lays folly, this path leads to a blossoming pandemic and widespread death.

And did these freedom fighters accept this advice on what was responsible community behaviour? Not at all. They crowded the beaches, the shopping malls and bars; and the pandemic ramped up, death rates soared and everyone looked for someone to blame.

Officials in many US states that had demanded the economy be opened up immediately were now saying they had acted too quickly. A little more schadenfreude possibly?

It constantly amazes me how people demanding freedom are blind to responsibilities that go with that right.

Justice

The burden of a pandemic is never shared equally. The poor, the old and the sick always suffer disproportionately, and so it has proved with corona virus.

The virus follows paths of least resistance; it breeds in places where people aggregate, places like migrant camps and ghettoes where social distancing is a physical impossibility. It’s spread by people who can’t afford to stay at home and self-isolate, so common now in our super-casualised workforce; or those who simply don’t know better, having not been included in government awareness programs. And once it takes hold it hits the most vulnerable the hardest.

The rich can lock themselves away, drive out of town to their beach homes, live on their savings while wagging their fingers at all those people they perceive to have done wrong, regardless of their circumstance. But, at some point, even the rich suffer as the economy freezes, their financial buffers drain away or they discover their friends, or parents or even themselves have been caught in the sticky web of infection.

Is this real justice then? We turn our backs on the plight of the poor and disadvantaged, and we’re surprised with the virus breaks out because people are going to work instead of isolating (or simply not doing the right thing because they were never told). Before we know it, it’s not just the poor; everyone is suffering as the economy goes into lockdown, and everyone is worried that it might be their parents next.

Intergenerational equity

Because that’s one feature about the COVID 19 pandemic that no-one can avoid. While it can lead to the death of younger people, overwhelmingly it’s killing the old.

And therein lies irony and possibly the ultimate schadenfreude.

Younger people aren’t as afraid of corona as older people. In many places younger people are breaking the rules, partying and mixing like there’s no tomorrow; and acting as the vector that spreads the disease. They’re also locked into low paying, insecure casualised jobs. They can’t afford not to turn up to work, so again the disease spreads.

Yes, they hear lectures about ‘doing the right thing’; but, increasingly, why should they care? The older generation clearly isn’t doing much to pass on a liveable planet, so why should they care about the older generation?

The older generation doesn’t seem to worry too much about the integrity of truth, or concerned about sharing their privilege, so maybe it’s only ‘fair’ that the older generation has to wear the cost of a pandemic disease that is disproportionately hitting older people.

There are many parallels here with climate change. Truth, freedom and justice are central to our effort to find some form of sustainable solution to the challenge of climate change. Yet our engagement with these ideas is mired in self-interest, the preservation of the status quo and holding on to existing power.

Humanity is on an unsustainable pathway. The science is clear but a meaningful moral response is absent. The rich and the elite will suffer as much as the poor and the vulnerable. And when the rich fall, some might say that’s schadenfreude*.

*[Justice-based] schadenfreude comes from seeing that behavior seen as immoral or “bad” is punished. It is the pleasure associated with seeing a “bad” person being harmed or receiving retribution.

Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay

Effective environmental reform: What are the prospects?

Change is in the wind. There is cause for hope but also for caution

By Peter Burnett

The Review of the nation’s premier environmental law, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act) is showing signs that it could reshape the environmental policy agenda in Australia.

The Review is being led by Professor Graeme Samuel. Despite having no background in environment, Professor Samuel has shown in his interim report (released last month) that he is well-across the problems of the environment and the failings of the EPBC Act. And he has taken a clear stance on solutions through his proposal for National Environmental Standards.

On the other hand, the Government has stuck to its very narrow focus on efficiency through its ‘green tape’ narrative. It is also in an unseemly rush (as I discussed last time), proposing to push legislation through the Parliament this month to accredit states to give federal environmental approvals on the basis of interim Standards, without even waiting for Professor Samuel’s final report, due on 31 October.

With a potential clash looming between policy-driven reform and politically-driven change, what are the prospects for effective reform, by which I mean reform that has reasonable prospects of halting Australia’s well documented environmental decline?

The positives

A cynic would say we’ve been pursuing environmental protection for fifty years now, with limited impact, so why would things change now? My response is that there are some significant new factors at play and that, as an optimist, I’m hoping some of them might carry the day.

First, there are some significant shifts taking place in business in terms of climate change. A number of major companies have adopted policies of ’net zero by 2050’, as has the Business Council of Australia, which represents Australia’s largest companies.

My own explanation for this change is that climate issues are now emerging over the business horizon. Factors such as shareholder concern, directions from business regulators to address climate risk and rising insurance premiums, not to mention the risk of being sued, all mean that climate change is, for them, no longer ‘out there’.

Second, Australia’s Black Summer of 2019-2020 confronted the nation not just with the impacts of climate change on humans, but with the impacts on nature as well. Initial reports were that the fires killed over a billion vertebrate animals, but a new report concludes that the figure is around three billion if the casualty list is expanded to include injured and displaced animals.

Third, Professor Samuel himself, appointed by a government of the political Right and coming from a background in law and business, is, through his report and public statements, helping to legitimise the environment as a concern of all rather than just those on the Left.

Significantly, Professor Samuel’s framing of environment policy in terms of desired outcomes and standards, across the board, could prove instrumental in shifting debate away from individual controversies such as the Adani coal project, towards policy-relevant questions like ‘what are we trying to achieve?’ and ‘what does a sustainable environment look like?’

If general environmental decline is socially unacceptable (which I think it is), then it is hard to argue against a goal of halting the decline and setting legally-binding standards to give it effect.

It’s also harder to get traction at a high level for a general ‘jobs-and-growth’ argument, than it is to make a project level claim that ‘this mine will create thousands of jobs in this region’.

And if a leading business person like Professor Samuel is driving a process to nail down exactly what halting that decline will require, political arguments about ‘green agendas’ and the like will not apply.

Negatives

Of course, it would be one thing to persuade a Professor writing a report and something else entirely to carry the day politically.

The influence of these positive factors may not extend beyond Samuel’s report. The Government may be unmoved and has already ruled out one critical element of the Samuel model, an independent compliance regulator.

Indeed, the Government may have its first (and possibly only) tranche of reforms enacted before he submits his final report.

In that regard, even if Labor and the Greens oppose the Government’s plan, it needs the support of only three cross-benchers to get its Bill through the Senate. The prospects of securing three votes from among two One Nation senators, two Centre Alliance and Jacqui Lambie, must be reasonably good.

At this stage then, the likely scenario is that Professor Samuel’s final report in October will make strong recommendations for National Environmental Standards and supporting measures, but the Government will pre-empt that by securing passage of EPBC Act amendments that will see States accredited to make the Prime Minister’s ‘single touch’ development decisions on the basis of ‘interim’ standards by Christmas.

And on balance?

What prospects then for major reform? If the Government wins over the Senate, the reform horse will have bolted. It will be very hard to implement Professor Samuel’s strategy of progressive development and tightening of interim standards while no longer holding the carrot of State accreditation.

Despite this, I remain hopeful. The Senate Cross-bench may be persuaded to insist on considering the final Samuel Report before legislating. And that final report may make a convincing case for comprehensive reform.

It is even possible that the Prime Minister meant what he said in May in his National Press Club address on post-pandemic recovery:

As we reset for growth, [we] will be guided by principles that we as Liberals and Nationals have always believed in, to secure Australia’s future and put people first in our economy...

Secondly, is the principle of caring for country, a principle that indigenous Australians have practiced for tens of thousands of years.

It means responsible management and stewardship of what has been left to us, to sustainably manage that inheritance for current and future generations.

We must not borrow from generations in the future, from what we cannot return.

This is as true for our environmental, cultural and natural resources as it is for our economic and financial ones.

Governments therefore must live within their means, so we don’t impose impossible debt burdens on future generations that violates that important caring for country principle.

Image: Image by christels from Pixabay