Yesterday I wrote that the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and the Murray Darling Basin (MDB) are the big ticket/big budget environmental issues. Well the Treasurer has even made special allocations for both in this year’s budget.
There is only ever going to be so much money for the environment.
Can we have confidence that budget allocations are determined on the basis of need i.e. that the MDB and GBR are areas of greatest environmental need?
A functioning peer review process could assist prioritization by helping to ensure correct information as a basis for public policy decision making (see my yesterday’s blog-post).
To what extent is the peer reviewed literature setting the public policy agenda? To what extent is the peer reviewed literature relied upon by research leaders?
When it comes to the GBR and MDB, I will contend that research leaders increasingly rely on government reports and the non-peer reviewed literature rather than publications in reputable scientific journals to influence public policy decision making.
As an example, when John Quiggin reacted to my review paper ‘Myth and the Murray: Measuring the Real State of the River Environment’ in his much quoted 24th March 2004 blog-post he made much of a graph within a government report (rather than something peer reviewed) to suggest a Murray River salinity problem that was likely to get much worse.
I wonder whether the graph would have made it through a peer review process? It represents 40-50 years of daily salt readings stretched and smoothed over an 80 -90 year period with this trend line then merged into a projection from a computer model that as far as I can tell has never given a correct forecast. Certainly the model has been predicting in the wrong direction for the last 6 years.
I suggest the graph is a disgrace and designed simply to perpetuate the myth of a worsening salinity problem. Salinity levels are in fact significantly less than suggested by the graph and have been reducing, not increasing over the last 20 years.
But perhaps the worst all time unpublished, non-peer reviewed report that has significantly influenced public policy decision making in the MDB is The NSW River’s Survey by the CRC for Freshwater Ecology and NSW Fisheries.
The report’s principal conclusions include 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.”
Most remarkably at the same time, in the same years and regions, that the scientists were undertaking their now much-quoted survey that found no Murray cod, commercial fishermen harvested 26 tonnes of Murray cod!
Criticism of the report’s findings from a local fisherman 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.”
This is some of the non-peer reviewed literature driving public policy decision making in Australia – including how our money is allocated for the environment as part of the budget process.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Jennifer, for completeness on the cod issue, you might want to include the sentence immediately following the one you quote :
“While it is well known that Murray cod do remain in some parts of the Murray region which were not sampled in the Rivers Survey, and even continue to support fisheries in some areas, the results emphasise that the populations of this keystone species are now fragmented and patchy, and their overall abundance is worryingly low. ”
John,
I would be interested in any data that gives an indication of current Murray cod levels and trends over the last few decades.
I searched high and low in 2003 and was in contact with MDBC officers and the best information seems to be the Torrumbarry Weir data as per my IPA backgrounder and ofcourse the commercial fisheries information.
I don’t have anything recent, but this site
http://www.nativefish.asn.au/cod.html
states
“Murray cod were grotesquely overfished by commercial fishermen in the latter half of the nineteenth century. For instance, in year 1883, more than 147 tons of Murray cod were sent to market from just one port (Moama). It is staggering to think that that real figure, incorporating unreported catches, was probably at least double that. It boggles the imagination to think what the total catch for all ports may have been.
During this time, recreational fishermen also massively overfished the species. Old photographs abound of recreational anglers stringing up literally dozens of massive Murray cod at a time. The fishery must have seemed inexhaustable. Sadly today we know that it was not.
By the very early 1900s, alarm was expressed at the decline of Murray cod and a Royal Commission was held on the decline of Murray cod. Unfortunately, no decisive action resulted.”
So a catch of 26 tons (over two years?) is a tiny fraction of what was once there.
26 tonnes was NOT all the Murray Cod that was in the river. 26 tonnes was the catch from a fishery being closed down by government (there were 280 fishing licences in 1971, reduced to 40 licences in 1996-97 which was the year 26 tonnes was harvested, and 0 in 2001 when the fishery was completely closed). as far as I can tell there was and is NO proper monitoring program in place. this is my issue, that good data is not being collected – but lots of money is being spent. I am also concerned that the restocking effort may not be helping – we are making decisions on the basis of no good data/information when it comes to native fish and their population dynamics and how river regulation is/might be impacting. but as i have written I believe that there was a crash in the cod fishery in the early 1960s.
Jennifer, the sentence you quote is also incomplete. The full sentence reads “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, although more than 50 of each species were found at Darling-region sites. ”
The last clause, omitted from your quote, refutes your suggestion that the scientists don’t know how to catch fish. It would appear that, if the fish are there, they can indeed catch them.
I don’t see that you have any basis for rejecting the conclusion reached by this report that Murray cod are absent from significant parts of the Murray, though still present in others. Given the vigour with which you have criticised the report, you ought to either back up your claims or retract them.
On salinity, I think we’re all agreed that salinity trended upwards until the late 1980s, and declined after 1998, with the implementation of the Salinity and Drainage strategy.
The people who implemented that strategy (MDBC) say that its benefits are temporary, because the schemes will eventually reach their capacity
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/16/1082055646879.html
and this is what’s projected in the graph. You deny this, and call the graph a disgrace, but I haven’t seen any basis for your rejection.
John,
Re. Fish
The scientists were fishing but not catching cod in the same regions in the same years that the commerical fishery was operating and cathing 26 tonnes. There were also rec fishing competitions in these regions catching cod and recording their catches.
Re. Salt
I detail on pages 7-9 of ‘Myth and the Murray’ why salt levels are unlikely to climb. I also cite the relevant CSIRO technical reports. I will explain further perhaps by way of a new blog post when I get back from Tassie. I note you cite a newspaper article above to support your claims.
Jennifer, could you clarify what you mean by “the same regions” here? Do you mean that commercial fisheries were operating successfully at the same sites used in the survey?
John,
Don’t have the reports at hand as I am travelling, but from memory the commercial effort focused on what is know as the lower Murray that includes Menindee Lakes and Edward River complex. The survey included these regions and also the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee.
One of the main reason the scientist caught no fish is that they broke some of the basic rules of samplying animal populations; the rules you used to learn in 101 Zoology including do not assumed a random distribution.
There basic assumptions were equivalent to say samplying the popultion of Australia assuming there are likley to be as many people in central Australia as along the coast i.e. ignoring that most people are concentrated in the cities.
John,
obviously you have little experience of fishing for fish in rivers. I, in open waters., might disagree. In Inland waters, hmmn,
Your problem is specifying data points from which the statistics were compiled. Jennifer needs to complement that.
What the discussion on the fate of Murray Cod has failed to point out to date is the fact that the habitat for the murray cod has undergone substantial expansion over the past half century.
Yes, you did read that correctly. Total flows in the original Murray Darling rivers has actually increased due to the impact of land clearing in the basin.
The addition of dams in this system has resulted in more regular flows as confirmed by MDBC chief Executive, Don Blackmore’s testimony to the House Of Reps Inquiry into future water supplies etc,(p18) to the effect that under natural conditions the Murray would have stopped flowing at Albury during 2003 due to the severe drought. It did not.
He said, “So the river would have stopped. That is not a service any of us want. We do not want to go back to ‘natural conditions.”
This substantial increase in dry season flows has expanded the time frame in which Murray Cod can thrive.
But to this we must also add the volume of water that now flows in chanels. This is listed in most ecological accounting reporting as a loss to the system but someone forgot to tell the Cod, the ultimate experts in cod ecology, who now have a significantly expanded (anthropogenic) habitat in which they continue to thrive.
But of course, the survey did not include the population within and passing through irrigation chanels. Why bother with the whole truth when a partial and fragmentary assemblage of facts will bring in the required funding.
A good source of barramundi is now the irrigation channels of the Ord Scheme at Kununurra.
Mind you the Barramundi harvesting enterprise at Lake Argyle suggests we also have much to learn about managing estuarine inhabitants.
John Quiggin’s response to the questions posed by Dr Marohasy about the integrity of the scientific support for the notion that the Murray is dying is comfortably predictable.
We have seen no new information presented to support the widely held notion that the river is declining in health, and is in an unsustainable condition. Rather than nitpicking the information Dr Marohasy has presented, Prof Quiggin could add something to the debate by explaining why 11 of the 12 members of the House of Representitives Standing Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry found the science to date was wanting to the extent that
“In the Committes view, at this stage the science is not adequate on which to base far reaching decisions, possibly including reallocation of water from irrigation to the environment.”(Getting Water Right(s):The future of rural Australia. June 2004. P7)
Amazingly, 2 of the 3 Labor Members of the Committee signed off on this report, and in doing so went against their party policy of an extra 1500GL of e-flow for the Murray.
One imagines it must be a pretty compelling argument that causes 2 out of 3 politicians to ‘cross the floor’.
While this finding does not impicitly back Dr Marohasy’s claims, it speaks volumes about the integrity of what Don Blackmore (then C.E.O. of the M.D.B.C.) promised would be “overwhelming scientific evidence” that extra water was needed to save the Murray.
Why would the Standing Committee be so sceptical of the ‘consensus view’ put forward by some 60 scientists?
Maybe they had no axe to grind with Dr Marohasy.
Maybe they noted that there has been no attempt to quantify the uncertainties associated with the analysis put forward.
Maybe they noted the findings of Dr Lee Benson that as little as 10% uncertainty in many of the assumptions used in the scientific analysis backing the calls for extra e-flow in the Murray resulted in at least 90% of the modelled findings supposedly supporting the case becoming statistically irrelevant.
If Prof Quiggin can shine some light on these matters, he will be adding some value to the debate on how best to improve the health of the River Murray
As I’ve pointed out in this thread, the arguments accepted by the Committee look a lot more compelling if you don’t check the accuracy of the quotes used to back them up.
But if we’re going to quote politicians as scientific authorities, I’ll turn the question around and ask you: Why did the Prime Minister junk the Committee’s report, and continue to rely on the evidence provided by expert professionals?
JQ quotes – “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, although more than 50 of each species were found at Darling-region sites. ”
Expressing sampling rates in terms of 220 person days is essentially weasel statistics.
It could mean 1 person sampling for 220 days, or 220 people sampling for 1 day. The difference is not trivial.
The term is used by those who wish not to invite close scrutiny of the actual data.
JQ,
You produced the quotation for the reduced levels of Cod in the Murray, and you now refute those because they were (so I am led to understand) made by politicians?
Interesting.
John,
The committee was so concerned by the issues raised in my report ‘Myth and the Murray’ that it did not only check ‘the quotes’ it asked one of main authors of the Fisheries survey, plus Head of CSIRO Land and Water, and Head of CRC for Freshwater Ecology, to review my evidence.
At the end of a round table discussion that followed, the committee were more than ever convinced that we have major problems with the science/lack of, that the Australia public is being mislead, and important decisions are being made by government on the basis of false assumptions and misinformation.
It would seem you haven’t read the various reports and don’t understand the history.
Jennifer, if the inaccuracy/incompleteness of the quotes has been drawn to your attention before, why haven’t you corrected them?
John,
Which quotes are you asking me to correct?
Are there some things we can agree on:
1. That sampling a non-randomly distributed population on the basis of a grid can give an erroneous result?
2. Longitidunal studies are necessary to determine change?
3. The base line data does not exist to adequately understand fish population dynamics and develop appropriate management plans?
By-the-way interesting to see you citing the Prime Minister as a source. Does this mean you are changing your view on T3?
Jennifer, there are only two quotes in your post. Those are the ones I’m asking you to correct.
The quotes are correct. Are you asking I change the words of the fisherman or change the words from the report?
Do you think we could move on from nitpicking and discuss some serious science? I know a lot of people are reading these posts, and I don’t think we would be being fair to them not to deal with the substantive issues.
Jennifer, if you can’t see what is wrong with the way you’ve handled these quotes, and how damaging it is to the credibility of your report, I’m obviously not going to be able to explain it to you. It’s simply impossible to engage in serious debate while you persist with this kind of thing.
I’ve spelt my response out at length on my blog, along with some further points.
http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2005/05/17/marohasy-on-cod
What about European Carp???
What about “Blue Green Algae”??
Our river system has got more problems then the inability of people to catch fish!!! No trouble counting fish in our river as there is no bloody water in it……