Gambling with Australia’s future – casinos before unis?

Building a resilient future requires supporting our higher education sector

By David Salt

Australia’s university sector has been hit hard by the CoVID pandemic. The Government’s response has been to look the other way. The Government claims it wants to build a resilient future, but then it does nothing when our unis, which lie at the heart of our nation’s research, higher education and innovation infrastructure, are crippled by the closing of our national borders.

Down by 99.7%

Of course, closing our borders was necessary to manage this horrific pandemic but it also prevents international students from attending and enrolling in our institutions of higher learning, institutions which now depend on that money stream to operate.

According to Peter Hurley from Victoria University, in October 2019 almost 51,000 new and returning international students arrived in Australia. In October 2020, following the lockdown, this figure had fallen by 99.7% — to just 130!

Australia’s universities could lose $16 billion in revenue between now and 2023 according to new modelling by Universities Australia.

To much applause, the Government set up Job Keeper to help employers hold onto workers and shore up the economy as the CoVID lockdown bit hard. For some reason, universities were left out of this equation.

Crown Casino, for example, received $115 million in Job Keeper payments in the first four months of the scheme while the university sector received zero.

As economist Ross Garnaut (from the University of Melbourne) recently pointed out in The Australian Financial Review, Crown Casinos employed 15,000 people compared with 130,000 in universities (though unis contribute indirectly to hundreds of thousands more jobs). That’s right, the disgraced gambling behemoth Crown Casino is seen as a more worthy recipient of taxpayer’s dollars than our respected university sector.

Garnaut also noted the Biden administration’s initial CoVID stimulus package to Congress included a $US35 billion funding boost to the higher education sector, the equivalent of $3.6 billion to the Australian sector.

So why the enmity towards universities from our conservative national government? According to Gavin Moodie at RMIT University there are many reasons for this lack of support – cultural, ideological and structural. And it has manifested itself in many forms in the past from interfering with supposedly independent grant processes, rejecting peer-reviewed science on climate change and attacking universities when they seek to divest themselves of fossil fuel interests.

And now, when a global disturbance in the form of a pandemic threatens to rip asunder our economy and society, the Government finds a new way to disabling the university sector’s capacity to function; by ignoring it.

Navigating an uncertain future

The future looks increasingly uncertain. A resilient society would be investing in learning, experimentation and adaptation, all capacities cultivated and made available to the broader society via the university sector. Leaving this sector to wither is tantamount to nobbling our nation’s capacity to navigate through an uncertain future, to prosper in an age of rising disturbance. It simply doesn’t make sense.

That our national Government boasts at every turn how our success in this time of pandemic is because their policy is ‘science led’ is just doubling down on their hypocrisy. As with their stance on climate change, they cherry pick whatever information suits their short term political advantage. (I’m firmly of the belief that our nations’ success in containing the pandemic had more to do with luck and our exposure to the existential threat of the wildfires of the Black Summer than our governments listening to the science.)

In any event, the ‘science’ they listen to and fund is the science they believe feeds most directly into their own electoral fortunes. Medical science trumps environmental science, and always has (regardless of the complexion of the government).

If you’re in any doubt about this, check out the ‘quick guide’ to university research released by the Australian Parliamentary Library last month. It explains how Australian universities resource research activities. Based on key Australian Government data, it sets out the major sources and distribution of university research funding.

It shows, for example, that medical and health sciences get 30.6% of the available funding (in 2018) but environmental sciences gets only 3.5%; and this breakdown is quite consistent over the past decade.

And ‘the regions’ get the short end of the stick (again)

The Library’s quick guide also reveals another piece of hypocritical posturing from the Coalition, the party that says it stands for regional Australia. It shows that the Group of Eight (Go8, Australia’s top eight universities, sometimes referred to as the ‘Sandstone’ universities) get two thirds of all available research funding while the other 35 regional unis battle it out for the remaining third. This is not an argument to redistribute the little funding that’s available; it’s a good reason to increase the overall funding.

A recent report from the Gonski Institute for Education (at the University of New South Wales) shows that regional Australia is doing woefully on basic primary school educational attainment. So the Government is failing many of their key constituents at both the beginning and the end of the educational and research spectrum.

That’s something our political leaders (of all persuasions) would do well to take note of. Rural and regional communities are disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change. What’s more, rural residents are waking up to this truth (as documented in recent research led by the University of Newcastle, one of those regional universities).

Another inconvenient truth for our Government to deal with as they gamble with our future.

@davidlimesalt

Image: The University of Sydney, Australia’s oldest uni. Australia’s university sector is the keystone of our nation’s resilience, and it has been forsaken by our national government.

Did farmers do the ‘heavy lifting’ under Kyoto?

Did anyone?

By Peter Burnett

My ears pricked up last week when I heard Michael McCormack, Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the National Party, say that farmers should be exempt from any commitment Australia might make to a Net Zero by 2050 emissions target because farmers had done the heavy lifting under Kyoto.

My ears were not to deceiving me because the Agriculture Minister, David Littleproud, would soon repeat the comment (Regional Australia ‘should not pay bill for climate target‘).

Australia’s Kyoto policies

This struck me as passing strange, since I had been researching the Howard Government’s Kyoto policies, which were based on a principle of ‘no regrets’ – ie, that policies to abate emissions of greenhouse gases should not place a significant burden on the economy, the budget or key stakeholders.

And farmers are certainly key stakeholders.

Over time, this ‘no regrets’ principle started to fray at the edges. First, the government enacted a Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET) in 2000. And in 2004, it committed a non-trivial $700 million for emissions reduction programs, although the lion’s share of this was aimed at fossil fuel industries, who were key government supporters.

Finally, in 2006, the government announced a domestic Australian cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme to be established by 2012, although it lost office before the scheme was fully developed.

Anyhow, the point is that even though the Howard Government did start to move away from ‘no regrets’ as public opinion shifted, at no time did any of their Kyoto- or climate-badged policies place any significant obligations on farmers (or on anyone for that matter).

They were some programs aimed at supporting farmers to take voluntary action, such as the Farm Forestry Program, which sought to encourage the incorporation of commercial tree growing and management into farming systems, but of course these don’t count as burdens.

So, if there were no Kyoto regrets, might ministers McCormack and Littleproud been thinking of something else?

Maybe the heavy lifting was for the EPBC Act?

Perhaps they were thinking of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act)? Many farmers were outraged in 2001 when Environment Minister Robert Hill listed the Brigalow Ecological Community in Queensland as endangered. This meant that a farmer could not clear a significant area in brigalow country without an approval under the EPBC Act.

In practice, however, very few farmers seek land clearing approvals under the EPBC Act. Between the commencement of the Act in July 2000 and July 2008 (ie, early in the first Kyoto commitment period) the EPBC Act was only applied to 10 agricultural-related land clearing projects involving the removal of 6,200 ha of vegetation, constituting less than 0.2% of total national land clearing over the period (Macintosh 2009).

In any event, the EPBC protects biodiversity, not the climate.

Perhaps they were thinking of state land clearing laws? Certainly, several states did pass land-clearing laws in the 1990s. The most significant states here are Queensland and New South Wales, because that is where most of Australia’s land clearing was occurring at the time.

New South Wales began to limit the land clearing in a significant way in 1995, initially by policy and then by law, passing the Native Vegetation Conservation Act in 1997 and replacing this with the Native Vegetation Act 2003.

Land Clearing in Queensland in the First Kyoto Commitment Period

Queensland also began to restrict land clearing in 1995, enacting the Vegetation Management Act in 1999 and introducing a new regime in 2003-2004 with the aim of ending broad-scale land clearing by 2006. This new regime was apparently extremely effective, so, as a case study, it is the more interesting of the two states.

Andrew Macintosh from ANU has explained that when the Queensland reforms of 1999 and 2003-2004 were introduced, the Australian Government was engaged in negotiations with Queensland over the design of the laws and financial assistance for affected landholders.*

These negotiations were acrimonious and failed. As a result, the 1999 laws were watered-down and their commencement delayed, and there was no financial assistance, federal or state.

In fact, the Australian Government wasn’t just negotiating with Queensland, but with all states and territories. And its objective, at least on the surface, was not to support Kyoto but to strengthen the National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia’s Biodiversity, which had just received a poor review.

But back to Queensland, which rolled out a $150 million package to support the 2003-2004 laws. Macintosh found that while this helped farmers, it by no means eliminated their opposition and there were ongoing complaints about the scheme in operation.

Interestingly, Macintosh interviewed Peter Beattie about the Queensland scheme some years later. Mr Beattie, who was Queensland Premier at the time, said that there was little doubt the laws would have been introduced irrespective of concerns about climate change.**

Apparently it’s the same story with New South Wales; the laws made no mention of climate change and it was not raised as a significant issue when the laws were being designed.**

Who’s been doing the heavy lifting?

So, did farmers do the heavy lifting under Kyoto? The answer is ‘no’, because nobody did any heavy lifting under Kyoto. It is certainly true however that environmental laws have had an impact on farmers and that this has been the cause of considerable grief over the years, although sometimes affected farmers have been compensated.

The underlying and more difficult question is whether it is fair to curtail or even prevent land clearing, in the interests of protecting and conserving the environment?

For my own part, although I would not acknowledge an absolute right to clear land, as some farmers claim, I do argue that environmental laws are for the benefit of all. As a result, where they have a disproportionate impact, for example by removing from farmers a right to clear land, I believe we should spread the burden of those impacts across the entire community.

This might mean that we should be making structural adjustment payments to some farmers.

Or perhaps we should pay them for ecosystem services from their properties.

In that regard, the government is currently developing (again)*** trials for an Environmental Stewardship Program. If the trials are successful, we may see farmers being paid to protect or restore biodiversity on an ongoing basis.

In my view this would be a welcome development.

*Andrew Macintosh, ‘the Australia clause and REDD: a cautionary tale’, Climatic Change, 2012, Volume 112, Issue 2.

** Andrew Macintosh, ‘Mitigation Targets, Burden Sharing and the Role of Economic Modelling in Climate Policy’, (2014) Australian Journal of Public Administration, Volume 73 No 2.

*** An earlier Environment Stewardship Program was closed down.

Image by Alistair McLellan from Pixabay

We scored a ton! Open the champagne (?)

Confessions of a (now slightly less) befuddled blogger

By David Salt

A standing joke between Peter Burnett and me is the line: “First we take Manhattan…”

By that we mean this blog Sustainability Bites will change the world one reader, one group, one city at a time (“First we taken Manhattan, then we take Berlin*”).

Of course, ‘converting’ your first million people is the hardest bit.

I share this with you because Peter and I (and Sustainability Bites) have just scored a couple of milestones. Last we week we posted our 100^th blog**! We also signed up our 200^th follower! Do the math yourself; we’re still some 10 million short of taking Manhattan, and at this rate Manhattan will have sunk under the rising seas before we even reach its shores.

The magical ton

Sustainability Bites has been going now for two years. Peter and I began this project in an effort to explore our own ideas on ‘sustainability’ and, in so doing, maybe contribute to the debate. The stretch goal was that we might even influence a few people in their thinking and, by extension, possibly have an impact on sustainability policy. Our thinking on this is spelt out on Sustainability Bites’ About page, and I reckon the description there (which we’ve never altered) still sums up our intent and ambition quite well.

I’m delighted and not a little surprised that we have lasted as long as we have. And I say that having been associated with several blogs where the initial enthusiasm and optimism faded as the blog creators (usually a group of early career researchers) discovered blogging takes a bit of effort and gaining a sizeable audience doesn’t happen overnight.

What’s more, I’m happy to say that Sustainability Bites has been pretty consistent in running a blog most weeks (there’s two of us, so that’s one blog per person per fortnight). Almost all of these blogs are original but a handful are repostings of our own stories from other places; last week for example both of us reposted our blogs from other sites.

When we reached blog #33 (Have we bitten off more than we can chew?) I reflected on what we were doing and asked if there were any themes emerging from our stories. I could see five emergent themes (and these are listed below in Appendix 1).

When we reached blog #66 (Joining the dots (again) on Sustainability Bites) I again reviewed our collection of stories, and commented on how the second set of 33 stories was more influenced by the disasters and disturbances we were seeing unravel around us.

Even in the selection of my points of reflection (#33 and #66 – one and two thirds of the way to 100), it’s clear I had in mind that we were aiming for the big century, that magical ton**. And, as I did in those earlier review blogs, I have included a list at the end of this post of all of our blogs with the themes they relate to (see Appendix 1).

I could spend the rest of this blog talking about how the world has changed in the last 33 blogs but in actual fact, they’ve stayed much the same. The pandemic has revealed many of the cracks in our society, it’s one of the biggest disturbances to hit the world; and yet in most ways we remain heedless of the mounting evidence that our species is on track for ecological disaster. Bleaching coral reefs, mass wildfires in our forests, freaky weather and collapsing biodiversity don’t appear to be enough to convince our political leaders that massive transformative change is needed. What’s happening to the planet and how we as a society respond (though mostly it’s not responding) is the content of most of our blogs (see Appendix 1).

Rather than reflect on how the sustainability debate isn’t changing, I’d like to instead briefly reflect on the blog (and blogging) itself.

Well, we’ve made 100. Was it worth the effort?

Most of our blog articles run for between 1,000-2,000 words; so in 100 blogs we’ve racked up around 100,000 words. That’s enough words to fill a decent sized book, and they took many many hours to produce. Has it been worth it? And where to from here?

In terms of directly influencing the world by the sheer weight of readers of our blog, possibly it hasn’t been worth it. We have 200 followers (which includes our close friends and family who ‘have to’ follow us but probably don’t actually read the blog) and in a good month we’ll get over 700 visitors.

That’s not bad, and it’s taken two years to build this following. However, by the same token, it’s not Manhattan, and most of our readers probably don’t need convincing on environmental protection and sustainability (and the need to do better). In many ways we’re probably singing to the converted.

Beyond our direct readership, our blogs have influenced lectures both I and Peter have delivered in the past two years, and informed submissions that Peter has made into government enquiries, especially those relating to the review of the EPBC Act. And I have anecdotal evidence of our blogs having informed the thinking of many of our readers, some of whom are influential people. So there has probably been a ripple impact from our efforts, though measuring that value is difficult.

However, for me, the real value in Sustainability Bites has been the opportunity to put down in writing what I believe are the important dimensions of sustainability, and how they play out over time. Sustainability Bites is a space in which I discuss how I think the world works (my mental model) and attempt to rationalise that model against events as they unfold.

For example, how can President Trump so easily get away with denying the science behind the massive Californian bushfires last year as they turned people and livelihoods to cinders? (“I don’t think science knows actually,” said Trump at the time; I discussed this in Trust lies bleeding)? Or why does Prime Minister Morrison seem to listen to medical experts while turning his back on ecological experts? (I discussed this in Health trumps economy; economy trumps environment) And how can we acknowledge the idea of the ‘new normal’ and then believe we’ll simply apply old economic levers to restore service as usual? (I discussed this in 2040 foresight – humanity’s shifting niche in the Anthropocene) And don’t get me started on the widespread abuse of the quest for resilience (see On ‘resilience’ as a panacea for disaster).

I’m not saying my take in these stories is right but my efforts to assemble the evidence, articulate the case and engage readers with the arguments has generated some genuine insights for me. All these examples just mentioned relate to complexity, feedbacks, power, politics and dissonance; and these elements lie at the heart of sustainability.

Where to from here?

Good question. I hope I have another 100 stories in me but I don’t want them to be a simple rehashing of what I’ve already done. But I’m confident they won’t be because I honestly feel the process of being part of Sustainability Bites has changed the way I think and speak about sustainability, biodiversity conservation and science in general. And maybe that’s the most important value emerging from this blog, it keeps me thinking and it changes the way I view the world.

And sometimes, not always but sometimes, I finish a story and think to myself: “that wasn’t half bad.” Even if it doesn’t change the world, and even if no-one reads it, I have created prose that I’m quite proud of. That’s reward enough in itself.

Now, see if I can do it again, and again; and, who knows, maybe taking Manhattan isn’t a pipe dream.

Image by PDPics from Pixabay

*Of course, First we take Manhattan is a song by Leonard Cohen, one of his most famous. The first verse might be a mantra for a sustainability warrior. It reads:
They sentenced me to 20 years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

**For our overseas readers (and we know we have several), to ‘score a ton’ is a term often used in the game of cricket (Australia’s national summer pastime) meaning to make 100 runs or a century. Sustainability Bites has racked up 100 blogs. We’ve scored a ton!

Appendix 1: Topics and themes in Sustainability Bites

Five themes emerging in our commentaries:
1. The challenge of change (and the importance of crisis);
2. The culture of science (and its failure to influence policy);
3. The burden of politics and ideology (frustrating the development of good policy);
4. The value of good policy; and
5. The importance of history.

[Blogs in order of appearance with themes in brackets]

1. Environmental Sustainability: a thoroughly Conservative notion – [Ideology; history]
2. Sustainability, ‘big government’ and climate denialism [Ideology, science]
3. Why Can’t We Agree on Fixing the Environment? Tribalism & short termism[Politics, crisis]
4. Wishing for a ‘Goldilocks’ crisis’A crack in the Greenland Ice Sheet [Change, crisis, history]
5. How are we going Australia’s OECD decadal Environmental Report Card [Good policy]

6. Throwing pebbles to make change:is it aim or timing?[Crisis and change]
7. The BIG fixWhy is it so hard [Crisis, politics]
8. Duelling scientists: Science, politics and fish kills [science culture, politics]
9. Making a difference without rocking the boat The FDR Gambit [Crisis, good policy, politics]
10. Throwing pebbles and making waves: Lake Pedder and the Franklin Dam[Crisis, history]

11. Ending duplication in Environmental Impact Assessments [Policy, history]
12. Is science the answer? Technology is not the solution[Science, ideology]
13. Environmental Impact Assessment and info bureacracy [Policy, politics]
14. Confessions of a cheerleader for science: delaying action because science will save us[Science, ideology]
15. Caldwell and NEPA: the birth of Environmental Impact Assessment[History, policy]

16. This febrile environment: elections, cynicism and crisis[Politics, crisis]
17. 20 Year review of the EPBC – Australia’s national environment law [Policy, politics, history]
18. Saving the world’s biodiversity: the failure of the CBD and the need for transformative change[Policy, history, politics]
19. The value of Environmental Impact Assessment [Policy, history]
20. Retreat from reason – nihilism fundamentalism and activism [Ideology, crisis, politics]

21. Too late for no regrets pathway: a pathway to real sustainability[Politics, policy, history]
22. A short history of sustainability: how sustainable development developed[History, policy, crisis]
23. Kenneth Boulding and the spaceman economy: view from Spaceship Earth[History, policy]
24. A real climate change debate: science vs denialism[Science, politics, ideology]
25. Craik Review on green tape: environmental regulation impact on farmers[Policy, politics]

26. Trinity and the dawn of the Anthropocene [History, science]
27. An environmental accounting primer [Policy, history]
28. Displacement activity – it’s what you do when you don’t have a real environmental policy [Politics, policy]
29. The Productivity Commission and environmental regulation [Policy, politics]
30. Framing climate change: is it a moral or an economic issue [Politics, ideology]

31. The Sustainable Development Goals: game changer or rehash [Policy, history]
32. The Great Barrier Reef: best managed reef in the world down the drain [Science, policy, politics]
33. Doing the Tesla Stretch electric cars to our economic rescue [Policy, politics]
34. Joining the dots on Sustainability Bites – looking back on 33 blogs[reflection, history]
35. What’s in the EPBC Box? – Unpacking Australia’s primary environmental law [policy, EPBC Act]

36. I’ll match your crisis and raise you one Armageddon – playing the crisis game [crisis, politics]
37. Federal environmental planning – planning should be strengthened in the EPBC Act [policy, EIA]
38. Shame Greta Shame – the use of ‘shame’ to affect change [politics, shame, denialism]
39. Is Corporate Social Responsibility an environmental ‘Dodge’? – [business, social responsibility]
40. On the taboo of triage – why politicians don’t talk about triage [politics, policy, denialism]

41. 2019 Senate Environment Estimates – [politics, policy, news]
42. I’m so angry I’m going to write a letter!! – the value of the ‘letter’ from experts [politics, science culture, denialism]
43. Supplementary Environmental Estimates – [politics, policy, news]
44. The script that burns us – predicatable responses to wildfire [politics, ideology, denialism]
45. Announcing ‘Australia’s Strategy for Nature’ – what’s in this new policy [politics, policy]

46. But we’re only a tiny part of the problem! – unpacking denialist cant [politics, policy, denialism]
47. Will next year be a big one for biodiversity? – the importance of 2020 [policy, environmental accounts]
48. Positioning ‘The Environment’ – rearranging government departments [policy, politics]

49. Insights on government thinking from 20 years ago – release of parliamentary papers[policy, history]
50. Five lies that stain the nation’s soul – the government’s worst lies [politics, denialism]

51. Now is the summer of our discontent – reflecting on an awful summer [politics, disturbance]
52. On ‘resilience’ as a panacea for disaster – hiding behind notions of resilience [politics, disturbance, resilience]
53. By all accounts, can we manage to save biodiversity? – environmental accounts to the rescue [policy, environmental accounts]
54. Conversations with the devil – false news is amplified by tribalism [polarization, tribalism]
55. A tale of two climate bills – laws proposed by an independent and the Greens [policy, politics]

56. Dawn of the new normal (?) – when will we acknowledge climate change [policy, politics, disturbance]
57. Insensible on coal – why is coal the elephant in the room[policy, politics, disturbance]
58. The zero sum game – from biodiversity to emissions – ‘net’ zero carbon emissions[policy, politics, offsets]
59. ‘Practical Environmental Restoration’– the Government always talks about ‘practical’ [policy, politics, offsets]
60. A good decision in a time of plague – the process is more important than the decision itself [policy, governance]

61. A pathway for the Coalition to improve its climate change act – the 2020 climate policy toolkit [policy, politics, climate change]
62. Entering a no-analogue future – Covid 19 is giving us the world to come [Anthropocene, Covid 19]
63. Who’s the BOS? – Biodiversity offsets – state vs commonwealth [policy, politics, offsets]

64. Three letters on the apocalypse – putting a human frame on disaster [climate change, communication]
65. Washing off the virus – what happens to environmental regulation after the plague [policy, politics]

66. Joining the dots (again) on Sustainability Bites– two thirds of the way to a ton [reflecting on Sustainability Bites]
67. Is a positive environmental narrative possible?– [policy, politics, history]
68. The man who shamed the PM – Aust govt follows pandemic science only after fire crisis [crisis, politics, good policy]
69. Saving the environment via human rights – using human rights to stop a coal mine [politics, ideology, policy]
70. Cultural vandalism in the land of Oz – heritage governance and the destruction of Juukan Gorge [policy, crisis, history]

71. Have I got a (new green) ‘deal’ for you – a Green New Deal [policy, politics, history]
72. For my next techno-trick – I’m going to make you forget about the problems facing the Reef – the delusion of the technofix [science, policy, politics]
73. All’s fair in love and law? – green tape and lawfare [politics, policy]
74. A bluffer’s guide to Australia’s premier environmental law – the EPBC Act and review [policy, politics, history]
75. It’s time: for a national conversation on the environment – environmental goals and information [policy, politics]

76. Health trumps economy; economy trumps environment – political priorities around health and environment [politics, policy, crisis]
77. Environment Minister Sussan Ley is in a tearing hurry to embrace nature law reform – and that’s a worry – EPBC review [politics, policy]
78. The choir – lobbyists and powerbrokers – lobbying on the environment [politics, policy]
79. Effective environmental reform: What are the prospects?– [policy, politics]
80. The schadenfreude of corona – intergenerational equity [politics, crisis]

81. Happy Earth Overshoot Day! – tracking global sustainability [history, crisis]
82. The bumblebee conspiracy – political horse-trading over environmental law [politics, history]
83. Last chance to see – sustainable tourism in a post pandemic world [crisis, science, change]
84. Trust us? Well let’s look at your record – trusting the government’s promises [politics, history, policy]
85. On target for disappointment – biodiversity targets as policy [policy, politics, science, history]

86. Environmental Standards: are they really the treasure at the end of the rainbow? – environmental standards as policy [policy, politics]
87. Trust lies bleeding – why we don’t trust in science [science, politics]
88. Australian court calls into question Regional Forest Agreements– forestry vs threatened possums [politics, policy, science]
89. Dissonance and disaster – disasters on the increase, climate change to blame [politics, science, crisis]
90. Game of Species: Budget Estimates October 2020– accountability on threatened species [policy, politics]

91. The frog in the equation – metaphors to understand how we deal with change [science, politics]
92. 2020 hindsight – changing planet in last two decades [science, history, policy, crisis]
93. Reforming national environmental law: first get rid of it, then fix it? – [policy, politics]
94. 2040 foresight – humanity’s shifting niche in the Anthropocene – change is the new normal [politics, crisis, science]
95. Red lines for green values – environmental standards and what they mean [policy, politics]

96. We need a BIG win for the environment – historical environmental victories [history, politics]
97. From Silent Spring to the Franklin and back to Lake Pedder? – [history, policy]
98. Saving the Environment in a Day – the value of celebratory days for the environment [policy, history]
99. World Wetlands Day & Ramsar– the good, the bad & the ugly – [history, policy]
100. A major report excoriated Australia’s environment laws. Sussan Ley’s response is confused and risky – [policy, politics]

A major report excoriated Australia’s environment laws. Sussan Ley’s response is confused and risky

By Peter Burnett

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

It’s official: Australia’s natural environment and iconic places are in deep trouble. They can’t withstand current and future threats, including climate change. And the national laws protecting them are flawed and badly outdated.

You could hardly imagine a worse report on the state of Australia’s environment, and the law’s capacity to protect it, than that released yesterday. The review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity (EPBC) Act, by former competition watchdog chair Professor Graeme Samuel, did not mince words. Without urgent changes, most of Australia’s threatened plants, animals and ecosystems will become extinct.

Federal environment minister Sussan Ley released the report yesterday after sitting on it for three months. And she showed little sign of being spurred into action by Samuel’s scathing assessment.

Her response was confusing and contradictory. And the Morrison government seems hellbent on pushing through its preferred reforms without safeguards that Samuel says are crucial.

A bleak assessment

I was a federal environment official for 13 years, and from 2007 to 2012 was responsible for administering and reforming the EPBC Act. I believe Samuel’s report is a very good one.

Samuel has maintained the course laid out in his interim report last July. He found the state of Australia’s natural environment and iconic places is declining and under increasing threat.

Moreover, he says, the EPBC Act is outdated and requires fundamental reform. The current approach results in piecemeal decisions rather than holistic environmental management, which he sees as essential for success. He went on:

The resounding message that I heard throughout the review is that Australians do not trust that the EPBC Act is delivering for the environment, for business or for the community.

A proposed way forward

Samuel recommended a suite of reforms, many of which were foreshadowed in his interim report. They include:

national environmental standards, legally binding on the states and others, to guide development decisions and provide the ability to measure outcomes
applying the new standards to existing Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs). Such a move could open up the forest debate in a way not seen since the 1990s
accrediting the regulatory processes and environmental policies of the states and territories, to ensure they can meet the new standards. Accredited regimes would be audited by an Environment Assurance Commissioner
a “quantum shift” in the availability of environmental information, such as accurate mapping of habitat for threatened species
an overhaul of environmental offsets, which compensate for environmental destruction by improving nature elsewhere. Offsets have become a routine development cost applied to proponents, rather than last-resort compensation invested in environmental restoration.

Under-resourcing is a major problem with the EPBC Act, and Samuel’s report reiterates this. For example, as I’ve noted previously, “bioregional plans” of land areas – intended to define the environmental values and objectives of a region – have never been funded.

Respecting Indigenous knowledge

One long-overdue reform would require decision-makers to respectfully consider Indigenous views and knowledge. Samuel found the law was failing in this regard.

He recommended national standards for Indigenous engagement and participation in decision-making. This would be developed through an Indigenous-led process and complemented by a comprehensive review of national cultural heritage protections.

The recommendations follow an international outcry last year over mining giant Rio Tinto’s destruction of 46,000-year-old caves at Juukan Gorge in Western Australia. In Samuel’s words:

National-level protection of the cultural heritage of Indigenous Australians is a long way out of step with community expectations. As a nation, we must do better.

Confusing signals

The government’s position on Samuel’s reforms is confusing. Ley yesterday welcomed the review and said the government was “committed to working through the full detail of the recommendations with stakeholders”.

But she last year ruled out Samuel’s call for an independent regulator to oversee federal environment laws. And her government is still prepared to devolve federal approvals to the states before Samuel’s new national standards are in place.

In July last year, Ley seized on interim reforms proposed by Samuel that suited her government’s agenda – streamlining the environmental approvals process – and started working towards them.

In September, the government pushed the change through parliament’s lower house, denying independent MP Zali Steggall the chance to move amendments to allow national environment standards.

Ley yesterday reiterated the government’s commitment to the standards – yet indicated the government would soon seek to progress the legislation through the Senate, then develop the new standards later.

Samuel did include devolution to the states in his first of three tranches of reform – the first to start by early 2021. But his first tranche also includes important safeguards. These include the new national environmental standards, the Environment Assurance Commissioner, various statutory committees, Indigenous reforms and more.

The government’s proposed unbundling of the reforms doesn’t pass the pub test. It would tempt the states to take accreditation under the existing, discredited rules and resist later attempts to hold them to higher standards. In this, they’d be supported by developers who don’t like the prospect of a higher approvals bar.

A big year ahead

Samuel noted “governments should avoid the temptation to cherry pick from a highly interconnected suite of recommendations”. But this is exactly what the Morrison government is doing.

I hope the Senate will force the government to work through the full detail of the recommendations with stakeholders, as Ley says she’d like to.

But at this stage there’s little sign the government plans to embrace the reforms in full, or indeed that it has any vision for Australia’s environment.

All this plays out against still-raw memories of last summer’s bushfires, and expected pressure from the United States, under President Joe Biden, for developed economies such as Australia to lift their climate game.

With the United Nations climate change conference in Glasgow in November, it seems certain the environment will be high on Australia’s national agenda in 2021.

Peter Burnett, Honorary Associate Professor, ANU College of Law, Australian National University

Image by pen_ash from Pixabay

World Wetlands Day & Ramsar– the good, the bad & the ugly

Happy World Wetlands Day. On the whole, our wetlands are anything but happy.

By David Salt

Last week I wrote about the value of ‘days for the environment’ in general. That story was inspired by a story I wrote for the Global Water Forum for World Wetlands Day. Well, today (Tuesday, 2 February 2021) is World Wetlands Day. Given the parlous and declining state of the world’s wetlands, is this ‘day of celebration’ a help or a hindrance in getting appropriate action to save these vital waterscapes? The Ramsar Convention, which is tightly linked to World Wetlands Day, was enacted on the 2 February 1971. Fifty years on, how is it going, and how does it measure up to the looming challenges facing us in the coming half century? The post below originally appeared on the Global Water Forum.

The 2^nd of February was chosen as the date for World Wetlands Day because it marks the day that the Convention on Wetlands, also known as the Ramsar Convention, was adopted back in 1971 – so named because the adoption ceremony took place in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea.

So that means that in 2021 the Ramsar Convention is 50 years old, making it the oldest international treaty for wetland and waterbird conservation, and one of the world’s most enduring and significant international environmental agreements. It’s been responsible for establishing the world’s largest network of protected areas, and has been used as a basis for other international conservation policies and national wetland laws.

And with the creation of World Wetlands Day, which kicked off in 1997 and is supported by the Ramsar Secretariat, it has served as a catalyst for many education programs, citizen science projects and community activities to raise awareness and help protect wetlands. Since 1997 the Ramsar website has posted reports from over 100 countries of their World Wetlands Day activities.

There was a time when a wetland was synonymous for ‘swamp’, a patch of water-soaked land ideal for reclamation and development; a place to be avoided. World Wetlands Day has played a significant role in alerting the broader community to the many values sustained in and around wetlands, and what is lost when they are transformed; which normally meant being drained, cultivated or built on. But is this annual celebration of wetland values actually contributing to saving them? There is much to celebrate but there is also so much more we need to do to secure the future of our precious wetlands as the planet moves into an increasingly uncertain future.

So, the question is: Fifty years on from the adoption of the Ramsar Treaty, is World Wetlands Day saving wetlands or providing governments with an opportunity to window-dress conservation efforts through tokenistic listings? Of course, it’s not a clear ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. But consider the following.

The good

The Ramsar Convention has been going for 50 years and is widely respected. One hundred and seventy countries have signed up to it. In signing up, a country agrees to conserve and wisely use all wetlands, prioritise the conservation of ‘Wetlands of International Importance’ (Ramsar Sites), and cooperate across national boundaries on transboundary wetlands, shared wetland systems and shared species (for example, migratory water birds). There are currently over 2,300 Ramsar Sites, covering almost 2,500,000 km².

The Ramsar Convention Secretariat also produces the Global Wetland Outlook which summarises wetland extent, trends, drivers of change and the steps needed to maintain or restore their ecological character.

The first Outlook was released a couple of years ago. It reports that the accuracy of global wetland area data is increasing. Global inland and coastal wetlands cover over 12.1 million km², an area larger than Canada, with 54% permanently inundated and 46% seasonally inundated.

And, as we get a clearer idea on their extent, we also are able to more accurately value the ecosystem services they provide. In 2019, Nick Davidson and colleagues recently updated our best estimates of the value of natural wetlands and found that the (2011) global monetary value of natural wetland ecosystem services as being a staggering $47.4 trillion per year.

In area, natural wetlands are only a small percentage of all natural biomes, around about 3%. And yet the ecosystem services they provide (for example, water purification, fish nurseries, carbon storage and storm protection) represent 43.5% of the total value of all natural biomes – small in area, big on services to humans.

Indeed, the ecosystem service of water provision is the theme of this year’s World Wetlands Day. Wetlands hold and provide most of our freshwater. They naturally filter pollutants, leaving water we can safely drink. (Each year World Wetlands Day focusses on a different part of the value provided by wetlands. In recent years the themes have been biodiversity, poverty alleviation and protection from natural disasters.)

In many places around the world efforts are now going into restoring and recreating urban wetlands to improve water quality and amenity. Such restoration efforts are expensive but underline just how valuable the ecosystem services provided by wetlands can be.

The bad

So, all this is good. Most of the world has signed up to the Ramsar Convention, and we’re really beginning to document the extent and the value of our natural wetland systems with growing precision (though we are still to incorporate this information into our national decision making systems in a meaningful way; environmental accounts would be a good start).

But the growth of the human population, the development of our coastal zones and river deltas, and our disruption of the Earth system (for example climate change) are exacting a horrible toll which is being disproportionately felt by our wetlands.

The following figures come from the Global Wetland Outlook (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, 2018), and are worth reflecting on. Wetlands have been in steep decline for centuries as the human population has grown and spread. Up to 87% of the global wetland resource has been lost since 1700 in places where data exist.

Unfortunately this isn’t a case of ‘we didn’t know better’ because the losses have accelerated more recently. Approximately 35% of the world’s wetlands were lost between 1970-2015 with annual rates of loss accelerating from the year 2000.

As we lose our wetlands so we also lose the biodiversity that depends on them. More than 25% of all wetland plants and animals are at risk of extinction.

And it’s not just the declining extent of wetlands that’s the problem. It’s also about the degradation of the wetlands that remain. According to the UN, more than 80% of waste water is released into wetlands without adequate treatment. In catchments that feed these wetlands, fertilizer use in 2018 was estimated to be 25% higher than in 2008, exacerbating nutrification and levels of decomposition resulting in declining water quality with impacts for flora and fauna alike.

And the ugly

Our wetlands are important. They provide a range of ecosystem services that are extremely valuable to humans. Indeed, many scientists believe wetlands are critical to our very survival and central to our quest for sustainability. Wetlands contribute to 75 indicators contained in the Sustainable Development Goals.

Despite this, wetlands remain dangerously undervalued by policy and decision-makers in national plans. How can this be? Given the pivotal role wetlands play in delivering global commitments on climate change, sustainable development, biodiversity and disaster risk reduction, how is it they are given such low priority?

And if that wasn’t ugly enough, the spectre of climate change hangs over our (inadequate) efforts to save these vital ecosystems. Climate change promises to reconfigure our coasts and drown many of our low lying coastal systems, while drying out many of our inland wetlands through higher temperatures and changed precipitation. Then there’s the impact from the growing frequency of extreme events such as intense heatwaves and severe storms.

In my country, Australia, we have witnessed mass destruction of seagrass meadows and mass dieback of our extensive mangroves in recent years from elevated temperatures; and this is but a foretaste of what is to come.

Rising sea levels are even now visibly transforming the floodplains in and around Kakadu National Park in northern Australia, the jewel in the crown of my country’s National Reserve System. Kakadu is one of the best managed and resourced national parks in Australia and the world. It’s a World Heritage site and contains two Ramsar Sites. But good management on site and world recognition is not saving it from climate change and rising sea levels.

Talk less, do more

To underline the existential threat facing so many of the world’s remaining wetlands, consider the situation of the town of Ramsar, the place where the Wetlands Convention was adopted half a century ago and which now carries its name. The level of the Caspian Sea, on whose shore Ramsar sits, is dropping 7 cm every year due to evaporation, a trend expected to increase as temperatures rise with climate change. As the sea recedes, the town is becoming landlocked and the surrounding wetlands will be gone within decades. What does that say about the dire outlook for these vitally important waterscapes that wetlands around Ramsar itself will simply disappear in the coming years.

It’s steadily shrinking size combined with pollution and invasive species has many researchers believing the Caspian is headed for ecocide on a massive scale, with nature and people paying the cost. What stronger signal could there be that the Ramsar Convention in and of itself is not enough to protect our wetlands?

And what about World Wetlands Day, a celebration on the day the Ramsar Convention came to life? I’m not saying it doesn’t generate great activity and build valuable awareness. But since it’s running in 1997 we have only seen an acceleration in the loss and degradation of our wetlands. It’s hard to argue the convention is turning the situation around.

Governments around the world happily host World Wetlands Day events and put out glossy brochures describing how wonderful their wetlands are (consider this from the Australian Government). These same governments are signatories to the Ramsar Convention (and the Paris Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity) yet they are never held to account when they fail to live up to the commitments they have made to ensure that our precious wetlands are being protected for current and future generations.

The 2^nd of February should be a day of celebration of wetlands. However, fifty years on from the adoption of the Ramsar Convention, it should also be a ‘call to arms’ that so much more needs to be done to protect these precious ecosystems.

As the Secretary General of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (Rojas Urrego) says: “Without the world’s wetlands, we all hang in the balance.”

Banner image: The famous mangrove boardwalk in Cairns (Queensland, Australia). World Wetlands Day celebrates the many values of our precious wetlands. Unfortunately, wetlands are being lost and degraded at an accelerating rate. (Image by David Salt)