This blog is the summary of a presentation that I presented on 10 March at the Fenner Conference on the Environment titled "The Art and Science of Good Decision Making". I will prepare a journal article on this subject later this year.
“The question is not which refuge system contains more total species, but which contains more species that would be doomed to extinction in the absence of refuges.” Jared Diamond (1976)
Many metrics currently used to prioritise expenditure for conservation simply rank sites according to their habitat quality. That is, higher quality habitat are afforded higher scores.
This is not only a waste of money, but can be detrimental to conservation.
By prioritising funding based on habitat quality alone we may be funding sites in which additional investment makes little practical difference to conservation. For example, what is the point of investing in a remnant that is in good quality, is resilient, can't be cleared because of stronger land clearing laws and has poor capability for permitted land uses (e.g. stock grazing, logging)? This site will have the same conservation value whether it is funded for conservation or not.
The corollary of this strategy is that poor quality sites, which are often under considerable threat, remain unfunded for conservation, and thus continue to degrade over time.
I will demonstrate this with an example.
In a study I am currently preparing for publication with Anthony Weinberg and Stephen Bonser, 46% of remnants in an agricultural landscape contained no eucalypt regeneration. These are typically the smaller remnants on privately owned farmland that are grazed continuously. They are doomed to further degradation and loss under the status quo. Larger remnants and remnants on public land (regardless of tenure) typically supported regeneration.
A "conservation" strategy that prioritises funding to larger, high quality remnants in this landscape will result in the eventual loss of about half of all remnants (i.e. all the smaller remnants in which regeneration is not occurring).
The best conservation outcomes in this landscape will be achieved by funding a change to grazing regimes in the smaller remnants on private land - provided only sites are selected for investment if they are likely to respond to the change of management.
15 May 2009
Victorian fires - let evidence prevail
The following article was published in The Canberra Times on 23 Feb 09. It was written in response to the vast amount of poorly informed and value-laden critique of land management that we saw in the media post Black Saturday. If we do not base policy on evidence then we will risk repeating mistakes of the past. To this end, colleagues and I have commenced an objective and quantitative study on the links between land management and building damage experienced during the Black Saturday fires of 7 Feb.
This post fire period has seen many prominent commentators, including politicians, journalists, academics and even an expert on women’s rights observe that a lack of fuel reduction in our forests—by prescribed burning or clearing—is to blame for the devastation of 7 February 2009.
These comments paint a picture of fires that raged through forest of uniformly high fuel loads.
Mapping available on-line from the Victorian Government illustrates a different reality. These maps show the Victorian fires moved across a mosaic of forest that has been prescribed burnt and logged, converted to plantations and cleared. Marysville had a large area around it that was prescribe-burnt in 2008 over which the fire advanced. Callignee is surrounded by a mosaic of cleared land and forest.
Fires burnt destructively in these places in spite of areas of reduced fuel loads.
Forest fires spread due to a combination of wind, humidity, temperature, fuel load and slope. Research indicates that when weather conditions are extreme—as was the case on 7 February—the spread of fire becomes more responsive to wind than to fuel loads.
The suggestion that all forest should be prescribe-burnt also fails to recognise that this is not feasible. Ecologists, foresters and fire-fighters who have been associated with wet forests that occur in areas burnt by the Murrindindi complex of fires understand that these forests carry fire only in hot, dry seasons. In other words, they cannot be safely prescribe-burnt. The native vegetation in these wet forests has burnt and regenerated under a regime of infrequent intense fires for millennia.
Another argument aired in the media is the need to relax native vegetation clearing laws—and thereby enable landholders and public authorities to remove native vegetation from the land they manage. Bushfire regulations currently permit some clearing around infrastructure in Victoria and other parts of Australia.
However, relaxing vegetation laws further to permit broadscale clearing—clearing over larger areas—carries other risks.
Until recently Australia was one of the principal land clearing countries in the world—along with Brazil, Indonesia, The Democratic Republic of Congo and Russia. Land clearing laws in Australia have been tightened in several states over the last decade for several reasons.
Maintaining mature natural forests is the most cost-effective way to provide high quality drinking water. Major catchments in most cities of Australia, including Melbourne, remain forested for this reason.
Broadscale clearing leads to problems that affect agricultural production such as soil loss and salinity.
Ceasing broadscale clearing was reported by an advisory group appointed by the previous Howard Government as the most cost-effective way to conserve biodiversity in this country.
Land clearing globally accounts for 20% of human greenhouse gas emissions. Forest wildfires have a comparatively minor impact on greenhouse gas emissions because they do not incinerate the major carbon pools in forests and the forests regenerate.
A reduction in land clearing is the principal reason why Australia has met its Kyoto target and Australia now funds programs to reduce deforestation—and its attendant greenhouse gas emissions—in other countries such as Papua New Guinea.
It would therefore be ironic if the fires in Victoria result in an increase in land clearing that, in turn, contributes to further greenhouse gas emissions and ultimately a greater likelihood of extreme weather events like those on 7 February.
Forests are a major tourist attraction and therefore economic resource to many of the towns that have been affected by these fires.
And finally, the forest itself attracts many people to live in these areas.
What is the right balance between modifying forests and modifying the way people live in forests in order to improve public safety? Australia needs to have this conversation.
It concerns me that a disproportionate focus on fuel management in our forests will not guarantee life and property under extreme weather events such as those on 7 February and create a host of other problems for us with respect to water quality, biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions and the economies of forest communities.
Dr. Philip Gibbons is a Senior Fellow at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at The Australian National University and a former fire fighter for the Victorian Government.
This post fire period has seen many prominent commentators, including politicians, journalists, academics and even an expert on women’s rights observe that a lack of fuel reduction in our forests—by prescribed burning or clearing—is to blame for the devastation of 7 February 2009.
These comments paint a picture of fires that raged through forest of uniformly high fuel loads.
Mapping available on-line from the Victorian Government illustrates a different reality. These maps show the Victorian fires moved across a mosaic of forest that has been prescribed burnt and logged, converted to plantations and cleared. Marysville had a large area around it that was prescribe-burnt in 2008 over which the fire advanced. Callignee is surrounded by a mosaic of cleared land and forest.
Fires burnt destructively in these places in spite of areas of reduced fuel loads.
Forest fires spread due to a combination of wind, humidity, temperature, fuel load and slope. Research indicates that when weather conditions are extreme—as was the case on 7 February—the spread of fire becomes more responsive to wind than to fuel loads.
The suggestion that all forest should be prescribe-burnt also fails to recognise that this is not feasible. Ecologists, foresters and fire-fighters who have been associated with wet forests that occur in areas burnt by the Murrindindi complex of fires understand that these forests carry fire only in hot, dry seasons. In other words, they cannot be safely prescribe-burnt. The native vegetation in these wet forests has burnt and regenerated under a regime of infrequent intense fires for millennia.
Another argument aired in the media is the need to relax native vegetation clearing laws—and thereby enable landholders and public authorities to remove native vegetation from the land they manage. Bushfire regulations currently permit some clearing around infrastructure in Victoria and other parts of Australia.
However, relaxing vegetation laws further to permit broadscale clearing—clearing over larger areas—carries other risks.
Until recently Australia was one of the principal land clearing countries in the world—along with Brazil, Indonesia, The Democratic Republic of Congo and Russia. Land clearing laws in Australia have been tightened in several states over the last decade for several reasons.
Maintaining mature natural forests is the most cost-effective way to provide high quality drinking water. Major catchments in most cities of Australia, including Melbourne, remain forested for this reason.
Broadscale clearing leads to problems that affect agricultural production such as soil loss and salinity.
Ceasing broadscale clearing was reported by an advisory group appointed by the previous Howard Government as the most cost-effective way to conserve biodiversity in this country.
Land clearing globally accounts for 20% of human greenhouse gas emissions. Forest wildfires have a comparatively minor impact on greenhouse gas emissions because they do not incinerate the major carbon pools in forests and the forests regenerate.
A reduction in land clearing is the principal reason why Australia has met its Kyoto target and Australia now funds programs to reduce deforestation—and its attendant greenhouse gas emissions—in other countries such as Papua New Guinea.
It would therefore be ironic if the fires in Victoria result in an increase in land clearing that, in turn, contributes to further greenhouse gas emissions and ultimately a greater likelihood of extreme weather events like those on 7 February.
Forests are a major tourist attraction and therefore economic resource to many of the towns that have been affected by these fires.
And finally, the forest itself attracts many people to live in these areas.
What is the right balance between modifying forests and modifying the way people live in forests in order to improve public safety? Australia needs to have this conversation.
It concerns me that a disproportionate focus on fuel management in our forests will not guarantee life and property under extreme weather events such as those on 7 February and create a host of other problems for us with respect to water quality, biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions and the economies of forest communities.
Dr. Philip Gibbons is a Senior Fellow at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at The Australian National University and a former fire fighter for the Victorian Government.
13 May 2009
Exploiting forests to reduce carbon emissions
This article (co-authored with David Lindenmayer) appeared in The Canberra Times 21 Nov 07 which was in the last week before the federal election.
The Rudd government is also putting disproportionate emphasis, I believe, in forest sinks while letting emissions from the energy sector continue to grow. The danger in this is that it is harder, slower and more expensive to curb the latter, so when forest sinks are exhausted, which I believe will happen quite quickly in developing countries - and we are still well short of our targets - where will we then find rapid reductions in CO2 emissions?
Despite refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the expectation that Australia will meet its Kyoto Protocol target—when many other countries will not—is a key plank in the government’s bid for re-election.
However, Australia’s ability to meet its Kyoto target has been achieved through a retrospective change in the pattern of land clearing and some clever diplomacy rather than permanent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions which is the aim of the Kyoto Protocol.
Australia successfully negotiated an 8% increase in emissions relative to 1990 levels in the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol because our energy generation heavily relies on carbon-intensive fossil fuels, particularly coal, and it was argued that rapidly decarbonizing these industries was economically unacceptable.
All but two other Annex 1 countries—Iceland and Norway—committed to reduce, or keep constant, their emissions. Fifteen countries of the European Union collectively committed to a target of -8%, the United States (who did not ratify Kyoto) -7%, Canada -6% and the Russian Federation 0%.
Australia will only meet its Kyoto Protocol target because of a major change in the pattern of land clearing that occurred before the current government was elected. Between 1990 (the Kyoto baseline year) and 1996 there was a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from land clearing. This had nothing to do with climate policy.
Armed with this information Australian diplomats went to Kyoto in 1997 to cleverly and successfully argue that emissions from land use change should be included in each Annex 1 country’s baseline if it represented a net source of emissions in 1990. Australia’s emissions from land use change at the time were 24 times the next highest emitter in this sector. There was resistance from other countries to this change, but the new article was eventually inserted to the Protocol in the early hours of the morning of the last session of the Kyoto conference.
The inclusion of this article meant that the Australian Government inherited a 6% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions relative to 1990 levels when it signed the Kyoto Protocol – without having to do anything.
This was a good platform from which Australia could buy time to institute changes that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from other sectors, particularly its carbon-intensive energy sector which represented its largest source of emissions. However, since the Kyoto Protocol negotiations in 1997 emissions from most other sectors in Australia have grown unabated.
Australia’s rate of growth in greenhouse gas emissions for many sectors is substantially greater when compared with other Annex 1 countries, which includes most countries of the European Union, USA, Canada and the Russian Federation. In particular, greenhouse gas emissions in Australia’s energy sector grew 38% between 1990 and 2004 compared with a 5% increase in this sector over the same period for all other Annex 1 parties combined. Australia’s energy sector now emits the world’s highest greenhouse gas emissions per capita.
The Australian Government’s own projections indicate that its greenhouse gas emissions will increase by 9% between 1990 (the Kyoto baseline year) and 2010 (the Kyoto commitment period) and by 27% between 1990 and 2020. However, if we change the baseline to 1996 (the year the current government was first elected), then Australia’s emissions will have increased 16% by 2010 and 34% by 2020.
The current government keeps highlighting that Australia will meet its Kyoto target. However, neither the target for greenhouse gas emissions the current government negotiated at Kyoto relative to 1990 (+8%), nor projected emissions between the year this government was first elected and the Kyoto commitment period in 2010 (+16%), nor projected emissions between 1990 and 2020 (+27%) demonstrate a commitment by Australia to the spirit of Kyoto and the deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions (60% of 1990 levels by 2050) that are required to stabilise global warming.
Dr Philip Gibbons is a Senior Fellow and Dr David Lindenmayer a Professor at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at The Australian National University.
The Rudd government is also putting disproportionate emphasis, I believe, in forest sinks while letting emissions from the energy sector continue to grow. The danger in this is that it is harder, slower and more expensive to curb the latter, so when forest sinks are exhausted, which I believe will happen quite quickly in developing countries - and we are still well short of our targets - where will we then find rapid reductions in CO2 emissions?
Despite refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the expectation that Australia will meet its Kyoto Protocol target—when many other countries will not—is a key plank in the government’s bid for re-election.
However, Australia’s ability to meet its Kyoto target has been achieved through a retrospective change in the pattern of land clearing and some clever diplomacy rather than permanent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions which is the aim of the Kyoto Protocol.
Australia successfully negotiated an 8% increase in emissions relative to 1990 levels in the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol because our energy generation heavily relies on carbon-intensive fossil fuels, particularly coal, and it was argued that rapidly decarbonizing these industries was economically unacceptable.
All but two other Annex 1 countries—Iceland and Norway—committed to reduce, or keep constant, their emissions. Fifteen countries of the European Union collectively committed to a target of -8%, the United States (who did not ratify Kyoto) -7%, Canada -6% and the Russian Federation 0%.
Australia will only meet its Kyoto Protocol target because of a major change in the pattern of land clearing that occurred before the current government was elected. Between 1990 (the Kyoto baseline year) and 1996 there was a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from land clearing. This had nothing to do with climate policy.
Armed with this information Australian diplomats went to Kyoto in 1997 to cleverly and successfully argue that emissions from land use change should be included in each Annex 1 country’s baseline if it represented a net source of emissions in 1990. Australia’s emissions from land use change at the time were 24 times the next highest emitter in this sector. There was resistance from other countries to this change, but the new article was eventually inserted to the Protocol in the early hours of the morning of the last session of the Kyoto conference.
The inclusion of this article meant that the Australian Government inherited a 6% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions relative to 1990 levels when it signed the Kyoto Protocol – without having to do anything.
This was a good platform from which Australia could buy time to institute changes that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from other sectors, particularly its carbon-intensive energy sector which represented its largest source of emissions. However, since the Kyoto Protocol negotiations in 1997 emissions from most other sectors in Australia have grown unabated.
Australia’s rate of growth in greenhouse gas emissions for many sectors is substantially greater when compared with other Annex 1 countries, which includes most countries of the European Union, USA, Canada and the Russian Federation. In particular, greenhouse gas emissions in Australia’s energy sector grew 38% between 1990 and 2004 compared with a 5% increase in this sector over the same period for all other Annex 1 parties combined. Australia’s energy sector now emits the world’s highest greenhouse gas emissions per capita.
The Australian Government’s own projections indicate that its greenhouse gas emissions will increase by 9% between 1990 (the Kyoto baseline year) and 2010 (the Kyoto commitment period) and by 27% between 1990 and 2020. However, if we change the baseline to 1996 (the year the current government was first elected), then Australia’s emissions will have increased 16% by 2010 and 34% by 2020.
The current government keeps highlighting that Australia will meet its Kyoto target. However, neither the target for greenhouse gas emissions the current government negotiated at Kyoto relative to 1990 (+8%), nor projected emissions between the year this government was first elected and the Kyoto commitment period in 2010 (+16%), nor projected emissions between 1990 and 2020 (+27%) demonstrate a commitment by Australia to the spirit of Kyoto and the deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions (60% of 1990 levels by 2050) that are required to stabilise global warming.
Dr Philip Gibbons is a Senior Fellow and Dr David Lindenmayer a Professor at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at The Australian National University.
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