LitFuse

The UN project shows us how expensive biodiversity loss has become – but the danger is that it becomes something tradeable

• Economic report into biodiversity crisis reveals price of consuming the planet

“You can’t value nature per se, other than to say it’s priceless, and you’re part of nature and you would not exist were you not,” declares the man in charge of the biggest attempt ever to measure nature’s worth.

“But what you can do,” he continues, “is measure the economic value of services that come to you from nature.”

The speaker is Pavan Sukhdev, study leader of the UN’s three year project to measure The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB). The project should show us all how expensive the global destruction of the natural world has become and – it is hoped – persuade us to slow down.

Written by Paul Dalby, 23 May 2010

Trailer for RTS from water.org on Vimeo.

In his article in Punch, Leo Shanahan puts up a hilarious PowerPoint slide that the US Army used to explain to its top brass how it would win the war in Afghanistan. The article goes on to explain why trying to simplify complex arguments down to bullet points invokes the danger of creating the perception of knowledge.

To quote General McMaster in the article:  “It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control. Some problems in the world are not bullet-sizable.”

True.

Ideas, arguments and concepts are more readily tested through dialogue. Poor thinking and specious arguments can be quickly torn apart when a room of questioning minds has the chance to engage with the presenter in a discussion. This is why tutorials are more useful for learning than lectures. t is why scientific papers must pass through the test of peer review before they can be published in scientific journals. It is why debates are more interesting and enlightening that public speeches. And it is why new media is so powerful. Traditional media such as newspapers, television and websites are one way paths for information and ideas.

New media on the other hand, has allowed the audience to talk back, through comments on blogs, videos, audio and so on. Traditional media has caught on. The highest ranking radio shows are talk back. Television is shifting from talking heads, to talking heads with audience interaction. Online news sites allow comments on their articles. This is all very healthy, and is an antidote for the great concentration of media ownership around the world.

Back to PowerPoint. While PowerPoint can be a powerful and useful communication tool, it does not beat conversation. It’s a great way of getting a conversation going if done well, and I’ll seen some fabulous and appalling Powerpoint presentations. But providing sufficient time for the concepts in the presentation to be tested by a thoughtful audience is just as important as the presentation itself.

Written by Paul Dalby on 2 May 2010

The Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) has announced that 18 ‘indicator’ sites within the Murray-Darling river system will be made environmental priorities under the imminent Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

The 18 ‘indicator’ assets are:

• Lower Balonne River Floodplain System
• Narran Lakes
• Lower Goulburn River Floodplain
• Gwydir Wetlands
• Booligal Wetlands
• Great Cumbung Swamp
• Lachlan Swamp
• Lower Darling River System
• Macquarie Marshes
• Barmah-Millewa Forest
• The Coorong, Lower Lakes and Murray Mouth,
• Riverland – Chowilla Floodplain (including Lindsay, Mulcra and Wallpolla Islands)
• Edward-Wakool River System
• Gunbower-Koondrook-Pericoota Forest
• Hattah Lakes
• Lower Murrumbidgee River Floodplain
• Mid Murrumbidgee River Wetlands
• Wimmera River Terminal Wetlands

This is good, IF the Murray-Darling Basin Plan has as its target – regular flows out the end of the Murray Mouth so that the Mouth remains open most of the time, which will also ensure that the most biologically important wetlands in the Murray Darling system – the Coorong and Lower Lakes – are kept healthy. If the Authority accepts that the  Coorong, Lower Lakes and Murray Mouth are “indicator” assets, the only way the Plan can be seen as a success is if flows out of the Mouth are re-established. The only way this can be achieved is through a major reduction in extractions.

Written by Paul Dalby on 16 April 2010

In a recent address to the Australian Academy of Science, the Chair of the National Water Commission, Ken Matthews, discussed a range of far-reaching reforms to arrangements for water science in Australia.

Mr Matthews said that some of the key requirements were for less-fragmented water science institutions, optimisation of research infrastructure; and better user/provider connectivity.

In South Australia, there have several attempts to achieve this over the last few years, but the formation of a single Water Agency under Minister Paul Caica, and the proposed formation of a single, virtual water research “institute” in South Australia is an exciting new development and should be a huge leap forward in achieving the aspirations outlined by Mr Matthews.

Some of this article is quoted from EnviroInfo. Subscribe

Written by Paul Dalby on 16 April 2010

This article is from EnviroInfo. Subscribe

The Productivity Commission says much can be done to improve the Federal Government’s $3.1 billion Murray-Darling water buyback program in a recent research report.

The buyback and a larger irrigation infrastructure program are being used to recover water for the environment, and ease the transition to the much lower water diversion levels expected under a Basin Plan.

The report raises some concerns about aspects of the design and sequencing of the strategy, noting problems in having commenced the buyback before the Basin Plan is ratified. However, Commissioner Neil Byron said ‘There is still much that can be done to improve the recovery and management of water for the environment in the Basin’.

In particular, the Commission recommends that:

• the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) set ‘sustainable diversion limits’ under the Basin Plan in a way that balances environmental, social and economic tradeoffs (possibly requiring legislative amendment)
• The buyback is occurring before sustainable diversion limits (SDLs) are set under the Basin Plan, and before the liability for policy-induced changes to water availability has been resolved. This is creating uncertainty in the minds of irrigators and affecting the efficiency of the buyback.
• SDLs must be based on scientific assessments of the amount of water that is required to avoid compromising key environmental assets and processes. Good science is a necessary but not sufficient basis for optimising the use of the Basin’s water resources. The value people place on environmental outcomes, the opportunity cost of foregone irrigation, and the role of other inputs, such as land management, must also be considered. If the Water Act 2007 (Cwlth) precludes this approach, it should be amended.
• The same cost effectiveness tests should be applied to all water recovery options. Purchasing water from willing sellers (at appropriate prices) is a cost-effective way of meeting the Government’s liability for policy-induced changes in water availability. Subsidising infrastructure is rarely cost effective in obtaining water for the environment, nor is it likely to be the best way of sustaining irrigation communities.
• Other water products (for example, seasonal allocations and options contracts) are potentially valuable in meeting short-term environmental needs.
• Tenders are sound purchasing mechanisms where active markets for water entitlements do not exist. But where active markets do exist, acquiring water directly from those markets is likely to be more efficient.
• The 4 per cent limit on out-of-area trade of water entitlements should be eliminated as soon as possible. Limits on the amount of entitlements that can be sold to the Commonwealth through the buyback should also be eliminated.
• Using the buyback to achieve distributional goals, system rationalisation or to manage salinity is likely to compromise its efficiency and effectiveness. Other more direct instruments should be used to address these issues.
• Governance arrangements for the recovery and management of water for the environment are fragmented. Greater coordination of water recovery and environmental watering by Basin jurisdictions is required.

The report is available here.

Written by Paul Dalby on 16 April 2010

Gary White and friend Matt Damon set up a micro credit scheme for water infrastructure in India. It demonstrates the power of micro-credit, especially for women and children, in developing countries. Traditional charity and NGO organisations should take note.

This is a more effective use of a Hollywood actor’s time and resources than adopting children from Africa…

For more information, visit the Water Credit website.

Written by Paul Dalby on 13 March 2010

I love the smooth logic of Barry Brook. In his blogpost “Climate debate missing the point” Barry states that “real-world energy plans have to work in the real world. Does yours?”. Well, not the CPRS and not planting a few million trees.

When I ask around, even the climate skeptics see the need to shift from out currently energy mix to an alternative, for reasons other than climate change. the majority of Australians support nuclear power as an option. There are powerful vested interests who would like to stop alternatives being developed, but they are not so powerful that a strong government couldn’t push through their concerns. The real problem seems to be that the Federal Government in particular raises so much money from coal royalties that they a terrified of a loss in revenue. So a plan to move Australia’s energy mix forward must address this issue. A solution to the gap in revenue to pay for hospitals, roads and stimulus packages needs to be found that is economically viable and politically acceptable.

Written by Paul Dalby on 5 March 2010

Today I have invited Alistair Wood to write a guest post about the River Murray. Alastair is a local resident at Victor Harbour in South Australia and his article reflects the frustration of many people who live along and near the River.

The idea of a community driven plan for the River is a good one.

Alastair and I would love your thoughts.

“I attended the Murray-Darling Basin Authority meeting at Goolwa on Feb 2^nd and it was a total and utter waste of time. Scheduled to last for only two hours, it wasted the first forty five minutes on total trivia – nothing of substance was produced. I left.

The crisis that is the MDB needs action now. The River Murray is rapidly dying from its mouth upwards and twenty of the Basin’s twenty three rivers are listed as being in poor or very poor health. The time for endless consultation, discussion, review and debate is long gone. There is a wartime-like urgency for the MDBA to show leadership and take immediate action to address the long term causes of this crisis – gross over extraction of the Basin’s water, colossal losses associated with 13,000 kms of open channels, outdated, inefficient irrigation practices and dysfunctional/ non existent metering.

But the MDBA does nothing; its priorities are all wrong. It ignores these urgent causes and instead busies itself with trivial ‘community’ meetings that have all the urgency and relevance of a senior citizen’s tea party. It hides behind an endless, comatose bureaucratic process and puts its faith in a ‘Basin Plan’, a de facto code for continuing delay. A convenient escape clause that allows the authority to continue to avoid the hard decisions that are decades overdue. As a distraction, it puts forward obscure projects that address obscure problems and the Rudd government throws vast amounts of money at them, hoping they will go away. But they don’t and large portions of this money disappear into the black hole of bureaucracy, leaving little for the rivers.

The cold reality facing the Basin Plan is that it will be subjected to the same labyrinthine bureaucratic process and years will pass before actual results appear along our rivers, likely to be as late as 2014. These are critical years that our rivers cannot afford to lose.

And the reason for this appalling 40 yr paralysis?

Political parties operate entirely through a prism of self-interest. The Rudd government is paranoid that the solutions required will prove so unpopular they will be unelectable for a decade. So they put their narrow interests first, and nothing is done.

And the answer?

The communities of the Basin must bypass the politicians and bureaucrats and seize the initiative. They must become leaders and visionaries and take control of the Basin’s problems, leaving the politicians follow in their wake.

To do this they must produce a simple plan of action that can be adopted Basin-wide. When it has sufficient support, it should be taken to Canberra. If both major parties approved, the longstanding political paralysis and odium that has prevented progress for 40 years would be removed. Politicians would be relieved from the onerous task of finding solutions to the Basin’s problems. And the communities, the people who know the most about the rivers, would be free to forge ahead with their own remedies.”

Written by Alastair Wood, 8 February 2010