Despite the odds, individuals and groups continue to focus on what needs to be done, stemming the catastrophes that surround us. However, when we start in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, battered as we are by lockdowns and stories of death, despair, doom and disaster, it’s pretty hard to find the positive and hopeful.
And the same is true when we turn our gaze to what normally sustains us, nature. The pattern repeats. Death, destruction, devastation and doom. Positive, hopeful? How so?
Nearly three billion animals were severely impacted by Australia’s unprecedented 2019-2020 bushfires according to the World Wildlife Fund report. However, when you lift the stone and look more deeply, even WWF can find the ‘silver lining’.
‘There is hope. After the bushfire devastation, Australians want to see their nation rebuilt in a way that treasures and protects our unique wildlife.’
WORLD WILDLIFE FUND REPORT 2020
And that’s where communities like those in www.theBeats.org ‘Map of Heroes’ Link need to be celebrated. People like ‘Majella’ up Charleville way, who started caring for an orphaned possum 20 years ago. And now living some 200kms from Cunnamulla, on the road to Longreach, Majella is caring for two big red kangaroos, a joey, six grey bucks and five does of various sizes, as well as woolly buck wallabies. Oh, and her pensioner husband!
And there are a few echidnas and possums on their three acres to care for too, where, Majella says: “There’s not a skerrick of grass.” So, she’s eking out her pension to buy pony pellets and some lucerne hay (a $32 bale lasts 2-3 weeks).
Majella is matter of fact. As far as she is concerned, that’s just what country people do.
“There’s a lady in town who cares for the birds that are hit on the roads.” And there’s Heather, with a fair-sized paddock, 90kms east of Majella who looks after the ‘roos that have escaped either the wild dogs or the shooters, or got caught at the dog and dingo fences.
As post-doctorate conservation biologist at the University of Queensland, Michelle Ward says: “Loss of habitat is the most important destroyer of wildlife.” (See Money Does Grow on Trees).
Dr Ward has worked in various parts of the world including Turkey, Qatar and South Africa promoting sustainable development, recycling, waste management, green energy, and conservation of the environment and our natural resources. For her PhD, she is now focused on assessing dynamic species, ecosystems and ecosystem services under a variety of cumulative threats.
“It’s all about measurement, what we can do, what we need to do and how to implement new innovative ideas to assist that,” Michelle explains. That’s another end of the positive spectrum.
Watch this space for more on Dr Ward and her work with Professor James Watson.
WA cattle farmer David McQuie says revenues from carbon offsets far outweigh lost income from livestock. Victoria McQuie
And to keep on our theme of connectivity and positivity, as the CEO of Land to Market, Tony Hill told www.theBEATS.org when it comes to carbon: “You need to see carbon in the context of an ecosystem. In the soil it is food for micro and macro-organisms. A single-minded focus on carbon as a commodity won’t solve the problem.
“You need to focus on healthy ecosystem processes. You have to have everything functioning properly, to reverse the damage. You can’t get the climate benefits you want from carbon drawdown, without effective biodiversity and healthy ecosystems systems.”
See more here Land to Market and our upcoming interview with Tony Morris.
As an aside, it is also worth checking out the OECD report which shows the connection between enhancing environmental health and reducing vulnerability to pandemics
A report by Deloitte Access Economics for the Australian Academy of Science found that for every $1 invested in discovering all Australia’s remaining species will return between $4 and up to $35 worth of benefits to the nation.
This is a first. Putting a dollar value on discovering and documenting Australia’s species has never been attempted in Australia. To date only 30% of the estimated 750,000 species of Australia’s rich biodiversity has been named and documented.
Australian Academy of Science’s Director of Taxonomy Australia, Adjunct Associate Professor Kevin Thiele explains getting the 30% has taken more than 300 years of Western scientific exploration!
TAXONOMY ON STEROIDS: “Without this 25-year mission, it’s likely to take more than 400 years to discover all remaining Australian plants, animals, fungi and other organisms.
“By combining the skills of our current and future scientists with new technologies such as genome sequencing, artificial intelligence and supercomputing, we will be able to make this ambitious goal achievable by 2050.
“The successful completion of this mission will help build a path to a sustainable and prosperous future and place Australia among the first nations in the world to benefit from a fully documented biodiversity.”
Adjunct Associate Professor Kevin Thiele,
AAS Director of Taxonomy
The mission is also expected to:
reduce green tape by providing more certainty to the resources sector
help protect Australia’s agriculture and the environment from imported pests and diseases by reducing bio-security risks
stimulate new opportunities in agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture, pharmaceuticals and environmental management
help ensure that conservation investments are targeted and effective
lead to new industries in emerging fields such as industrial food technologies and bio-engineering.
The estimated cost of building capability needed to document the remaining estimated 600,000 Australian species yet to be discovered is $824 million over 25 years.
Could this Aussie Ark success story be the first step to bringing them back?
A group of Tasmanian devil joeys have been born in a ‘wild sanctuary’ in Barrington Tops, just north of Sydney. But is it a good idea to rewild them on the mainland?
See below the ABC #FourCorners in-depth expose? of Tasmania’s ever-expanding salmon farms. And Channel 7 News morning breakfast interview with Booker prize-winning author Richard Flanagan who slams the Tasmanian salmon industry in his book, ‘Toxic’.
The pollution from the from the ever-expanding fish farms now beginning to clog the pristine coastline of Tasmania, the murky filth from the salmon pens and the millions of feed pellets that drift into the ocean and the ocean floor is disastrous for the environment.
And there’s more. See what you think from the links below.
Four Corners report on Tassie’s salmon farming asking: Does the industry’s ‘green image’ stack up?
ENVIRONMENTAL CARBON CREDITS TO W.A. CATTLE STATION
April 2021: Bulga Downs station WA reached a major milestone this month when it received its first carbon credits and related payments from the Commonwealth Emission Reduction Fund (ERF). This follows a two-year period of implementing a ‘Human Induced Regeneration’[i] carbon project on the cattle property, south of Sandstone in the mid-west region of Western Australia.
In 2019, the WA State Govt formally consented to WA pastoralists generating carbon credits through regenerating Australian native tree species indigenous to a project’s local area, thanks to the efforts of WA Agriculture Minister, Alannah MacTiernan.
Following the announcement, Bulga Downs owner, David McQuie and his family were one of the first to look into the benefits of carbon farming on their cattle property.
“I took my time investigating how Human Induced Regeneration (HIR) practices can raise the long-term productive base of my grazed country, while at the same time delivering a solid commercial return,” said McQuie.
“After scanning the market for knowledgeable project developers, I formed a partnership with RegenCo, a Natural Capital management company that worked with us to set up, register and execute the carbon project.
“RegenCo advised us how best we could improve my cattle herd and the property, at the same time as building in management changes to assist us generate carbon credits.”
RegenCo’s CEO Tim Moore said: “We formed a true partnership with Bulga Downs, spending the time we needed with Dave and the team to plan and work through the detail of a new pastoral management plan for the family’s 2,870-square-kilometre property.”
The McQuie family bought the property in 1984 and converted the station from grazing sheep to Angus cattle. The property had been a sheep station as far back as 1921. It is primarily on sand-plain country with outcrops of granite and ironstone, with an annual rainfall averaging 225 millimetres.
Dr Moore said: “Given Bulga Downs’ history, and the fact that the carbon project will run for 25 years, we knew we had to get the project just right. Working in partnership with the family we built the plan together. RegenCo is engaged as the project’s proponent which will relieve the owners of the work involved in running and delivering the carbon credits back to the ERF.
“In its first two years of operation, the Bulga Downs project created and sold more than 125,000 credits . At today’s market rates, that’s a revenue stream in excess of $2 million. That’s a really positive outcome for Dave, diversifying his income stream while enabling additional development of the property with new pastoral infrastructure to further enhance resilience to dry times.
“The interest we are seeing from credit buyers and off-takers, reflects a confidence in carbon credits as a base for a long term commercial market. The value is to provide additional financial resources to rangelands food and fibre producers to enable them to be more profitable, productive and resilient.
“At RegenCo, we passionately believe Australian pastoralists can continue to run cattle while improving the country and generating valuable credits.
“As Bobby Gill, Savory Institute Director of Development & Communications, famously said in his TEDxBigSky talk, ‘It’s not the cow it’s the how!’
“This is a terrific commercial outcome for both the pastoralist and the environment. We are truly excited at the potential across Australia’s rangelands to replicate our approach.”
[i] The human induced regeneration (HIR) method is designed to achieve forest cover by carrying out eligible activities that encourage regeneration of Australian native tree species that are indigenous to a project’s local area.
