Address to the 2004 combined Annual General Meeting and Conference of
Property Rights Australia,
Roma, Saturday 14th February 2004.
"Saints should be presumed guilty until proven innocent."
George Orwell, 1949
INTRODUCTION
A prominent objective in the Property Rights Australia (PRA) Constitution is, "Ensure detailed scrutiny of any scientific basis quoted by government in support of its policy decisions".
At your first Annual General meeting in July last year, I focused on how science is being prostituted to undermine the legitimate property rights of primary producers. I gave examples illustrating the extent to which environmental campaigns, supported by government scientists, are increasingly appealing to science to force government policy decisions for the protection of the environment -- all the while telling whopping lies.
Thank you for the opportunity to return and address this second annual general meeting of PRA. Today, I want to consider how it is that environmentalists get away with telling such big lies. I will begin with the big issue for PRA -- that is, restrictions on tree clearing in western Queensland. I will then touch on some of the Murray-Darling Basin issues that I have researched over the last six months before considering the nature of environmental fundamentalism.
TREES HAVE BECOME SACRED IN
AUSTRALIA -- LIKE COWS IN INDIA
The way we define a problem will have a powerful effect on the way we think about solutions to that problem.
The Productivity Commission recently released its Draft Report on the Impacts of Native Vegetation and Biodiversity Regulations. [1] The report defined the policy problem thus: "The problem that prompted this inquiry is that private landholders are perceived as providing too little native vegetation and biodiversity conservation on their land."
If this were the case, the native vegetation regulators across Australia would target those who have no trees on their properties and, for example, suggest that they replant. The Productivity Commission's definition of the problem side-steps the real issue: across Australia, landholders with heavily timbered properties are the ones most affected by the regulations because it is the act of clearing that is the real issue.
The bottom line is that trees have become sacred in Australia, like cows in India. It is the act of cutting down trees that most offends environmental fundamentalists -- it is the ultimate sin.
But environmentalists confuse us, they give the impression that they are all about science and they appeal to the authority of science. They claim that trees need to be protected to prevent land degradation, protect biodiversity and prevent global warming.
The Productivity Commission's report, reflecting this popular but naïve assessment of the problem, states: "the reasons for increasing conservation on private land, and the benefits of doing so, will vary by region depending on issues such as how much native vegetation exists, what habitat it provides, and what key objectives the government wants to pursue (for example, salinity, climate change or biodiversity)". [2] Yet the reality is that for any one region the objectives (salinity, greenhouse, runoff, biodiversity) have been promoted at different times depending on what the conservation movement believes will give it most political leverage at that point in time. For example, in South West Queensland, restrictions were introduced with the Queensland Vegetation Management Act 1999 on the basis that there was a need to conserve biodiversity. It soon became evident, however, that there was still potential for clearing, so the need to stop clearing to prevent salinisation of the landscape was promoted, culminating in additional restrictions based on flawed salinity hazard maps in July 2002. [3] When it was evident that even with the biodiversity and salinity restrictions there would still be potential for some clearing, there was a push for controls for greenhouse reasons, culminating in the moratorium on new permits introduced in April 2003.
The latest campaign, launched by the Wilderness Society in December 2003, is focused on a series of television advertisements shown, "on the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast over the busy summer holiday period to bring the problem of land clearing into people's lounge rooms". [4] It ran with the slogan, "Land Clearing -- Turning Queensland into Wasteland".
The Queensland Herbarium recently completed analysis of data from 2001 which showed that 81.3 per cent of Queensland remains covered in what is classified as remnant vegetation. [5] The figure for 1997 was 82.3 per cent and for 1999 is 81.8 per cent. So while it may seem hard to believe, the reality is that most of Queensland is covered in remnant vegetation -- Queensland is not being turned into a wasteland!
Yet the clear impression from the campaigners, via the media, is that landholders are irresponsibly clearing large areas of native vegetation -- resulting in irreparable damage to the environment. Even during the height of clearing in 1999-2001, however, the annual clearing rate was only 0.7 per cent of the 81 million hectares of woodland and forest ecosystem in Queensland. [6] Furthermore, the 2001 estimate that forests covered 81 million hectares of Queensland is an increase of 5 million hectares over a 1992 estimate that put forest cover in Queensland at 76 million hectares. [7] The Australia's State of the Forests Report 2003 also suggests an increase, rather than a reduction, in the area of Australia covered in forest.
No-one, however, is reporting the net increase. The media and even the Australian Bureau of Statistics are only interested in reporting the clearing. [8]
The general impression, reinforced by the jargon used in the Queensland Vegetation Management Act (VMA), is that trees don't re-grow. There is constant reference to the protection of remnant vegetation. Yet the detail of the legislation accommodates and includes "re-growth" in the definition of "remnant" where re-growth is at least 50 per cent of cover and 70 per cent of the height of what would have been its undisturbed state. As a consequence, "remnant" can include vegetation less than a decade old.
The general impression, supported by the legislation, is that remnant ecosystems are fixed in time and place and steadily disappearing. It is assumed that the maintenance of these remnant ecosystems simply involves the exclusion of human activity. Yet the reality is that the Australian landscape is constantly evolving and changing and has been actively managed for thousands of years -- predating European settlement. Along the coast, the fire regimes of the Aborigines created open eucalypt woodland where rainforests would have otherwise developed. [9] In the semi-arid rangelands, remove fire and introduce cattle and the tendency in Australia (and other parts of the world) is for woodlands to thicken and acacia thickets to replace once open grasslands. [10] Despite the phenomenon of vegetation thickening being well documented in the scientific literature, its existence as a phenomenon and its potential impacts on farm viability continue to be ignored.
The phenomenon is ignored because the concept of an "Eden" is so important to environmentalism as a religion, along with the idea that because broad-scale tree clearing occurs, Queensland must be turning into a wasteland. We have cut down trees, therefore we have sinned and therefore everything must be going to hell. Never mind that trees grow back and never mind the statistics which, on scrutiny, might indicate our grasslands are more at risk than our forests. Interestingly, Queensland satellite data show that 26 per cent of all clearing in 2000-2001 was of land that had no trees in 1991. [11]
PROPAGANDA EVERYWHERE
The Australian Conservation Foundation media release of 19th February, 2003, stated: "The scale of commitment to landclearing and woodlands protection issues from national state and local (environment) groups has now reached a high level, comparable to the native forest protection campaigns of the eighties and nineties". In the same way that metropolitan Australia has been led to believe that graziers are turning western Queensland into a "treeless wasteland", environmental fundamentalists have created propaganda about the activities of other resource users -- foresters, fishers and miners.
You may believe that environmental campaigns are justified in southern Australia, where so much environmental harm has allegedly been done. However, I have just spent the last six months searching for evidence to support the widespread belief that the Murray River is getting saltier, that the area of land affected by dry-land salinity is increasing, that thousands of 300-year-old River Red Gums are dying in southern Australia -- but all I have found is just more propaganda. Salt levels in the Murray River have actually halved over the last 20 years, the area at risk of irrigation salinity has reduced by over 90 per cent in the NSW section of the Riverina, and I can find no evidence to suggest that the area currently affected by dryland salinity is increasing. [12] Despite claims that River Red Gums forests are dying from lack of water as a result of river regulation and extensive logging, the data actually show that, for example, in the Barmah forest the trend was one of increasing saw log volume and growing stock during the twentieth century.
Murray Cod was listed as a threatened species in July last year on the basis that there had been a 30 per cent decline in numbers over the last 50 years. However, there are no data supporting such claims. The most widely quoted source of information on native fish status in the Murray-Darling Basin is a survey undertaken in 1995-96 that did not provide any data from which trends with respect to improvement or deterioration in fish numbers could be determined. [13] The report's principal conclusions include the statement that: "A telling indication of the condition of rivers in the Murray region was the fact that, despite intensive fishing with the most efficient types of sampling gear for a total of 220 person-days over a two-year period in 20 randomly chosen Murray-region sites, not a single Murray cod or freshwater catfish was caught."
It is evident, however, from fishing magazines and the results of local fishing competitions that Murray cod are present. The annual Deniliquin Yamaha Fishing Classic, for example, registered a record 48 Murray cod in 2003. [14] A feature in the winter 2003 edition of Freshwater Fishing Australia's titled "Riverina Revival" included comment that, "The mainstay of the Edward River fishery (an anabranch of the Murray) is the Murray cod and numbers at present are high ... the number of juvenile fish of 45-50 cm just short of legal length of 50 cm, can be frustratingly high for anglers looking for a keeper." [15] But perhaps most remarkable is that at the same time, in the same years, that the scientists were undertaking their now much-quoted survey that found no Murray cod, commercial fishermen harvested 26 tonnes of Murray cod from the same region! [16]
The local retort to the scientist's declaration that they didn't catch any fish goes something along the lines, "The scientists, although having letters behind their name, spending some $2million on gear, and 2 years trying, evidently still can't fish." ... or perhaps they just didn't want to catch any fish. I have observed that while environmental fundamentalists, often with scientific qualifications, express great concern over a problem, they also seem very committed to the problem and to its continued existence.
It may seem counter-intuitive, but most statistics show that the condition of the environment in developed countries, including Australia, is actually improving. [17]
ENVIRONMENTAL FUNDAMENTALISM
I was emailed an article by Henry I. Miller [18] some weeks ago, titled "Applying science by public vote". It began with a teacher asking her third-grade class, "How can you tell whether a whale is a mammal or a fish?"
"Take a vote," suggested one of the pupils.
"This idea might be amusing coming from a child, but it is a lot less funny when applied by governments to the formulation of complex policies that involve science and technology. And it's an approach becoming increasingly common around the world," wrote Miller.
Voting is the hallmark of a democratic process -- and democracies are founded on the laudable principles of liberty and equality. But democracy has nothing to do with the scientific process. Science is a way of attempting to understand the world in which we live from a rational point of view, based on observation, experiment and tested theory. History has shown that it is often mavericks, who determinedly ignore the consensus opinion and "swim against the tide" in pursuit of the truth, that have contributed most to our understanding of the natural world.
If we consider the history of humanity, we find that societies that tolerate both the unencumbered pursuit of knowledge and the democratic process are rare. Humankind has often existed under regimes where religious belief dominates the cultural and political landscape and scientific research is constrained. Religion is about faith, while science is about observation. Science requires discipline, but has no respect for authority or consensus.
A new religion has emerged in the West over the last few decades. Environmentalism has been described as the preferred religion for the urban atheist. In a speech given in San Francisco last September, Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park, said, "Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.
There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe." [19]
Although Christians, for the most part, now accept an independent role for science, Environmentalists increasingly appeal to science to give authority to their policies. This apparent strength is also a significant weakness. Environmentalism is very vulnerable to the evidence because, unlike many of the "old religions" that invoke faith, environmental fundamentalists claim that science supports their policies -- the same policies that, for the most part, have no basis in observation or tested theory. So, increasingly, situations arise where the evidence, the facts, contradict the rhetoric and also the plan that is meant to deliver "Ecologically Sustainable Development".
Rather than accepting the evidence and throwing out the policy -- and admitting that the emperor never had any clothes -- governments are increasingly sponsoring committees to find a solution to this dilemma that they can claim represents the consensus view. Propagandists have long used the notion of consensus to draw the doubting individual into agreement by presenting their view as the unanimous opinion of all right-thinking people. [20]
There is a growing awareness, particularly in rural and regional Australia, that science in the context of environment is being abandoned for propaganda. Propaganda is the antithesis of honest education and information.
There is a need for people to stand up and be counted and point out that the evidence does not support the rhetoric -- that the emperor indeed has no clothes. This is beginning to happen. I have met courageous individuals who really do care about the environment and the truth. They are a diverse group including fishers along the Murray, rice growers from the Riverina, a bush woman from the High Country (who suffered so much during the bushfires last year), graziers in western Queensland and north all the way to the Daintree and Cape York. Let us, together, fight ignorance with evidence.
Thank you.
ENDNOTES
1. "Impacts of Native Vegetation and Biodiversity Regulations". Productivity Commission Draft Report. December 2003. Page 159.
2. Ibid, page 160.
3. The Salinity Management Handbook, Queensland Department of Natural Resources 1997 explains that areas receiving less than 600mm per year in Queensland are not at risk of salinity because insufficient rain falls to satisfy plant demand and recharge ground water -- in southern Australian where most of the rain falls in winter the equivalent situation occurs at around 200mm annual rainfall.
4. Land clearing -- turning Queensland into wasteland: TV Ad campaign brings bulldozers into lounge rooms. Wilderness Society Media Release. 26th December 2003.
5. Dr Gordon Guymer, Director, Queensland Herbarium, Queensland Environmental Protection Agency, personal communications, 29th January 2004.
6. Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines. Land Cover Change in Queensland 1999-2001. Issued January 2003.
7. Ibid., page 14.
8. Marohasy, J. 2003. "How useful are Australia's Official Environmental Statistics?" IPA Review. 55: 8-10.
9. Neldner V.J., Fensham, R.J., Clarkson, J.R. and Stanton, J.P. 1997. "The natural grasslands of Cape York Peninsula, Australia. Description, distribution and conservation status". Biological Conservation. 81: 121-136
10. Burrows, B. 1999. "Tree clearing -- rehabilitation or development on grazing land?" IV International Rangelands Conference. Townsville, Australia. Fensham, R.J. & Skull, S.D. 1999. "Before cattle: A comparative floristic study of Eucalyptus savanna grazed by macropods and cattle in North Queensland", Australia. Biotropica 31, 37-47. Fensham, R.J. 1998. "The influence of cattle grazing on tree mortality after drought in savanna woodland in North Queensland". Australian Journal of Ecology 23, 405-407. Fensham, R.J. 1998 "Resolving biomass fluxes in Queensland woodlands". Climate Change Newsletter 10, 13-16.
11. Land Cover Changes in Queensland 1999-2001, Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines, January 2003. (See pg 26. Table 6. http://www.nrm.qld.gov.au/slats).
12. Marohasy, J. 2003. "Myth & the Murray: Measuring the Real State of the River Environment". IPA Backgrounder. Vol 15/5.
13. Fish and Rivers in Stress: The NSW Rivers Survey, J.H. Harris and P.C. Gehrke (eds), CRC for Freshwater Ecology, Canberra, 1997. (See http:enterprise.canberra.edu.au/WWW/RiverSurvey.nsf)
14. "Good Cod! Anglers refute threatened species claim", Deniliquin Pastoral Times, 4th July 2003.
15. "Riverina Revival" by M. Auldist in Freshwater Fishing Australia. Issue 63, Winter 2003, pg 32.
16. Reid, DD, JH Harris, DJ Chapman. "NSW Inland Commercial Fishery Data Analysis", FRDC Project No. 94/027. December 1997
17. The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World. Bjørn Lomborg. Cambridge University Press, 2001.
18. "Applying science by public vote". Henry I. Miller. The San Diego Union-Tribune. 2 December 2003.
19. "Remarks to the Commonwealth Club". Michael Crichton, San Francisco, 15 September 2003.
20. Davies, N. Europe: A History. Pimlico. 1997
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