Death of the Bogong – another of Nature’s icons bites the dust

And this time it’s personal

By David Salt

“Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”

So opined Jodi Mitchell back in 1970 when she protested against the paving of paradise to put up a parking lot, an anthemic reflection on the price of progress.

But the line seems particularly apposite today, fifty years on, as we consider the latest victim of ‘progress’, the seemingly ubiquitous Bogong moth. The IUCN (the international body that monitors planetary biodiversity), has just placed the Bogong moth on its Red List of Threatened Species, not a list any organism wants to join.

Of course, the Bogong is a migratory moth so it’s not actually ubiquitous. For much of the year you never saw them but come migration time in and around Canberra, where I live, they suddenly appeared everywhere; in your cupboards, around your lights, behind pictures, everywhere.

They were once so common that their swarms were said to “block out the moon”. Twenty years ago, hundreds of thousands of them disrupted the Sydney Olympics when they were attracted to stadium floodlights; and many times they’ve invaded Parliament House in Canberra where “they land in your tea, your hair, your handbag and litter office ceilings, walls and windows.” This account, I’m sad to say, was only eight years ago.

From boom to bust

It’s believed Bogong moths have been migrating to the Australia’s snowy mountains every year for thousands of years. They do this around Christmas to escape summer’s baking heat by aggregating in cool mountain caves, literally coating the rocky cave walls like the scales of a fish.

The moths provided a rich source of food for other animals like the Critically Endangered mountain pygmy possum. They are also eaten by humans. First Nations people used to come together from all over the region to feast on the moths. It was a time of celebration, to have a big eat up and strengthen relationships. These ceremonies stopped with European colonisation; though the moths still continued their yearly journey in their billions.

Since the 1980s, however, scientists have detected steady declines in numbers of bogong moths. Then, in 2017 and 2018, their numbers crashed. Ecologists visiting caves at Mount Gingera in 2018 near Canberra reported that this site that had been known to house millions of the moths (17,000 moths per square metre), now only contained three moths! Not three thousand or three million, just three moths. Searches of another 50 known sites have turned up similar catastrophic absences.

Of course, if you look back through the environmental records for this time (and you don’t have to look far, it was only a few years ago) you’ll discover the Great Barrier Reef was undergoing another mass bleaching event, kelp forests were disappearing along with mangroves, and the nation was suffering an unprecedented drought (which gave us our Black Summer in 2019/20).

The decline of the Bogong moth is being connected to extreme drought (associated with climate change), pesticides and changes in agricultural practices. Last summer (2020), numbers were a bit better however, at best, they are only at 5% of what they used to be.

A connection severed

With their loss, we lose a tangible cultural connection to the history of our First Nations people. With their loss it’s likely we will also see the demise of the mountain pygmy possum which depended on the moths as a primary food source. Checks on the pygmy possum, which exist only in Australia’s alpine regions, have revealed dead litters in the pouches of females.

And while we found the Bogong moth a bit of a pest when they invaded our homes, stadiums and gathering places, they have become a creature of our own folklore; their presence signalling one of nature’s miracles in progress. I’ve never thought of them as beautiful (or cuddly) but their existence and behaviour filled me with a sense of awe and joy for the ineffable wonder of the natural world.

In 2018, scientists revealed one more facet of the amazing story of the Bogongs. Apparently they use the Earth’s magnetic field to help them navigate from the grasslands in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland to reach the mountains – sometimes at distances of 1,000km. Their use of magnetic fields for migratory navigation is believed to be a first for insects. Ironic, isn’t it. A miracle partially understood just at the species itself appears to be moving into the twilight of extinction.

Again and again

This is not the first time a populous species that we thought would be with us forever has disappeared. In the 1800s the passenger pigeon in North America formed flocks that darkened the skies for several days at a time. With a population in the billions, no-one believed it could be at risk. But it was hunted in large numbers and its forest habitat was cleared. Its population collapsed over a few decades. Even when it was realised the species was in decline, 250,000 birds – the last big flock – were shot on a single day in 1896! The last individual passenger pigeon, a female named Martha, died in Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.

The large grasshopper (Melanoplus spretus) from the western US suffered the same fate. It went from a population of several trillion to zero in a few decades, when farmers destroyed its breeding grounds.

In Norway and across the whole of the North Atlantic, the great auk (Pinguinus impennis) died out after people harvested them in large numbers.

We took all these species for granted and now they are gone – forever.

You don’t know what you’ve got

The loss of species and ecosystems is accelerating. It is not just the Bogong moth that has been added to the IUCN Red List. A number of other Australian species have gone on including the Grey-headed flying fox and the Arcadia velvet gecko.

Scientists have given us multiple warnings about the parlous and worsening state of biodiversity on planet Earth. Many believe it is a problem even more serious than climate change though the two issues are strongly interlinked. As with climate change, the collapse of biodiversity never seems to be a high priority with any government. It’s framed as a problem for tomorrow.

I grieve at this ongoing loss, but the demise of the Bogong is especially poignant. I have trekked up into nearby mountains to witness their summer cave refuges. I have seen them in their abundance, marvelled at their ancient life cycle and enjoyed eating a few cooked in the ashes of a camp fire (they taste like crunchy pine nuts). I have always looked forward to the yearly return of these large, ponderous brown moths. These simple experiences, however, are now no longer available.

What’s more, these experiences are unlikely to ever be available to my children or their children.

The idea that we will see Bogongs no more is an assault to our very identity.

‘You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.’ What does it take for our political leaders to acknowledge this loss and do something before its irreversible?

Banner image: Around Canberra there are several works of art celebrating the Bogong moth and its significance to our past and present. The one pictured here can be found on the grounds of the Crawford School at the Australian National University. I used it as a prop when lecturing to overseas students in an introduction to the Australian environment.

The bitter irony in the images shown here is that even as I was discussing this amazing insect with students (in 2017), ecologists were struggling to find any moths in the adjacent mountain range; a place they had over-summered in massive numbers since time immemorial.

Could anything be ‘New’ About Capitalism and the Environment?

An opening for ‘environmental debt’

By Peter Burnett

Capitalism is a popular theme in Australian environmental policy at the moment, at least for Liberal governments.

Hardly surprising I suppose. The Liberal Party prides itself on being the natural home of free enterprise.

Addressing a business breakfast last month, Prime Minister Scott Morrison told his audience that ‘We believe climate can be ultimately solved by “can-do capitalism” not “don’t do governments” seeking to control peoples’ lives.

As a three word slogan, ‘can-do capitalism’ would not have rated a further mention in this blog if it were not for the fact that, shortly afterwards, Matt Kean, recently-appointed NSW Treasurer (who also remains, for the time being, Environment Minister) popped up in a media interview spruiking ‘New Capitalism’ as the solution to environmental and other problems.

At first blush, this seemed like nothing more than a bit of political jockeying between two Liberal politicians who have a bit of form in the needling department, as Mr Kean seemed to be taking aim at Morrison.

“I think it [New Capitalism] is very different [to Can-Co Capitalism],” Mr Kean told the Australian Financial Review. “I don’t want to make policies just for a news cycle, I want to make policies for a generation that will build a stronger and more prosperous nation for everyone,” Mr Kean said.

Kean’s ‘New Capitalism’

But there was more to it than that. Mr Kean went on to say that ‘I guess “New Capitalism” is looking at the environmental and social benefits of the decisions we take, not just the financial benefits.’

Still fairly ho hum and hardly new. This amounts to a very weak form of sustainability: ‘sustainable’ in a sense of requiring economic, social and environmental factors to be taken into account, but very weak because it does not require any particular weight to be given to social or environmental factors. Indeed, this formula doesn’t require any weight at all!

However, Kean continued, outlining “five pillars” of his economic portfolio, including “climate and sustainability”. A little more substance, but still just a topic and not really a policy.

Then it got interesting. Kean started talking about there being a once-in-a-generation opportunity to address the big structural issues in the economy. ‘There’s no point leaving our kids with a bucketful of money if we’ve left them with a mountain of environmental debt,’ he said.

What’s ‘environmental debt’?

Now you’re talking Matt. I’ve always thought ‘environmental debt’ was a useful concept, conveying clearly that we have borrowed someone else’s share of nature (the ‘someone else’ being future generations) and must pay it back.

But the term hasn’t been used much in our political discourse, perhaps because it is potentially so powerful and, to my mind, policy-specific.

In fact, the only serious mention of environmental debt I can recall in Australian political discourse comes from 30 years ago, when the Hawke government made reference to the importance of not saddling future generations with environmental debt, in the course of developing the now-long-forgotten National Strategy on Ecologically Sustainable Development.

But why does using up nature create a debt? Because Nature can only produce what each generation of humans needs if there is enough of each of its component ecosystems, its ‘natural capital’, to do so.

Call it ‘critical mass’ if you like. That’s just the way Nature works. Drop below critical mass in any ecosystem and you are in trouble.

This phenomenon has been explained by comparing Nature to an inheritance, coming in the form of a large fund that has been invested.

We can live off the natural ‘dividends’ or ‘ecosystem services’ forever, but if we draw down more than just the dividends, we start eating into the natural capital, condemning future generations to receiving fewer ‘dividends’ (and more trouble) from Nature than we have.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what we have done.

So, if we value our children and grandchildren as much as ourselves, we owe it to future generations to pay back our over-consumption. (As an aside, try arguing against that proposition: Groucho Marx is reported to have said ‘What has posterity ever done for me?’ But he was a comedian.)

And how do we pay back environmental debt? Through environmental restoration. Restoration can come from doing things that build Nature’ capacities (like planting trees) or from reducing things that harm Nature (like carbon emissions).

Don’t forget the accounts

And if Kean is serious about repaying environmental debt, there’s another implication: we need a way to measure it. Banks keep track of their loans by keeping accounts. As I’ve explained before, there is an now an internationally recognised way of keeping environmental accounts, the System of Environmental-Economic Accounts, or ‘SEEA’.

By recording the extent and condition of our ecosystems, and then identifying the minimum of such extent and condition (‘critical mass’) needed to produce the ecosystem services on which we all rely, we can then identify any shortfall as our accumulated ecological debt.

Environmental accounts could also be used to keep track of the gains achieved through environmental restoration, as we reduce the debt.

Going somewhere?

As you can see, that this is dangerous territory for a politician. Talk of environmental debt raises issues that are moral (always tricky), long-term (when most politics goes for the quick fix) and specific (raising the risk of being boxed in, to a potentially-unpopular policy).

But Matt Kean is a highly unusual politician, not only because he comes from the political Right but outdoes the environmental commitment of many on the political Left, but also because he’s been unusually successful in bringing his conservative colleagues along with his pro-environment policies.

In deploying the language of environmental debt, Kean may now be striking out further, into waters that, while not newly discovered, are rarely sailed.

Let’s hope his boldness pays off. Not only for ourselves, but for our children.

Image by geralt at Pixabay

The slippery slopes of failed environmental governance: Who accounts for the regulators?

By David Salt

Liberia is having problems with its environmental governance. And so are we.

Deforesting a biodiversity hotspot

Logging companies are exploiting weak monitoring and enforcement of Liberia’s forestry laws. Apparently, a 2019 audit had found that around 14,000 cubic metres of timber supposedly harvested legally was actually untraceable (and therefore probably illegal) yet permits for the sale and export of much of the timber were still approved. Authorities have known about the case for more than two years, and done nothing. What’s more, the logging company responsible has a long and troubled history of violations.

Well, is anyone surprised? Liberia, a biodiversity hotspot, is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. It’s been ripped apart by civil war and disease, and corruption is endemic at every level of the Liberian government. Illegal timber harvesting has, in particular, been an ongoing running sore; as is the case in so many developing countries (like our nearest neighbours, PNG).

Thank God we can trust environmental governance in Australia.

Or can we?

Too steep to log

Over the last year it’s come to light that Victoria’s state-owned timber corporation, VicForests, has been illegally harvesting timber on some of the Central Highland’s steepest slopes, thereby risking the quality of water flowing from these landscapes. This is not a metaphorical slippery slope we’re talking about here.

If that wasn’t bad enough, an investigation undertaken by the ABC suggests the government regulator, whose job it is to monitor VicForests, was alerted to the breaches but failed to properly investigate.

Unfortunately, it’s not the first time the timber corporation has been accused of illegal logging, nor the first time the regulator has been accused of ignoring it.

According to leading ecologist Professor David Lindenmayer, who has been researching these forested landscapes for decades, it’s the story of Australia’s “lawless” loggers, and a regulator failing to regulate.

Buried without consent

And then there’s the sad tale of the mining company Whitehaven Coal attempting to carry out the mass disposal of its mining tyres by burying them in the Leard Forest Precinct, on the ancestral lands of the Gomeroi traditional owners. The land is under a Native Title claim. Under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2000, approval of the NSW Aboriginal Land Council is required. Whitehaven has no such approval, something the Land Council has pointed out to them. Allegations have been circulating in the region that Whitehaven attempted to threaten Gomeroi with loss of jobs if they do not sign off on the tyre landfilling.

Sad as this sounds, the more worrying aspect of this story is that the primary environmental regulator for New South Wales, the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA), has given the okay to conduct the mass burial of mining tyres. While technically termed “agency advice” and not “approval”, the NSW EPA’s approval of Whitehaven Coal’s application to bury off-the-road mining tyres for the life of the Maules Creek mine, would be subject only to a “review” every two years.

This has led some to suggest that the NSW EPA has been captured by the coal industry in north west NSW.

Against the flow of law

Maybe you think a few thousand giant tyres buried on Aboriginal land against its owners wishes is small beer not worthy of losing any sleep over. If so, what’s your view on the state’s water supply being governed for the interests of irrigators and not the public interest? Impossible you say? Well, not according to the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). It found that the New South Wales Government was favouring irrigators over other water users in a manner that went against its own laws!

In November of last year, ICAC released a damning report on water mismanagement in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The report detailed a history of water agencies’ ‘undue focus on irrigator’s interests’, including more than a decade of failure to give ‘proper and full effect to the objects, principles and duties’ of the Water Management Act 2000.

For example, the ICAC found that one of the State’s former top water bureaucrats had held a clear bias in favour of irrigators. It confirmed that this person had provided a select group of irrigator lobbyists with confidential legal advice as part of a strategy to undermine national water laws; that he conflated the commercial interests of certain irrigator groups with the broader interests of the entire state; and that he assumed that the interests of ‘direct’ water users trumped those of ‘indirect’ users (whom he helpfully identified as the environment and First Nations peoples).

Despite this clear finding, the Commission did not find that this approach (let’s call it ‘business-as-usual’) was ‘corrupt’ behaviour. This has led many to suggest that anti-corruption watchdogs are perhaps unable – or unwilling – to take on ‘regulatory capture’ of entire agencies. Regulatory capture might be defined as decision making by public servants that favours particular and regulated interests, rather than incorporating the broader public interest, or the objects of the relevant legislation.

A slippery slope

Corruption is a slippery slope.

There will always be bad actors out there attempting to get the most they can out of a system. That’s why we have laws to constrain them. But those laws are meaningless unless there is monitoring and enforcement to ensure they are respected. And that’s why we have environmental regulators established with these powers.

But we kid ourselves if we believe you can simply set up an environmental regulator and then just leave it – set and forget – because over time things change. Environmental regulators often face funding cuts making it difficult for them to fulfil their mission. Lobbyists influence political parties to modify regulation and oversight to benefit their industry groups, and companies do everything in their power to get the regulators to smile on their enterprise.

The examples I cite here are just those that have come to light in recent months, but it’s happening all the time. That’s why, with the best will in the world, it’s not enough to believe our environmental regulators can be left alone, out of sight, to get on with the job.

Their accountability, transparency and capacity to operate at arm’s length from companies they regulate all need to be constantly reviewed and tested. They need to be examined by a robust free press, questioned by an enquiring general public, and audited and interrogated by anti-corruption government agencies (auditors and independent corruption commissions).

And even if this all happens, things can still turn rotten. It’s a big challenge.

However, in Australia, our national leaders are still unable to create a decent anti-corruption agency despite years of promises. It’s clearly not a priority despite multiple failures over time.

There are so many reasons to feel sorry for Liberia and its attempts curb environmental degradation.

We don’t have those excuses. And we kid ourselves if we believe our environmental regulators are fit for purpose.

Banner image: tmcreynolds at Pixabay