I live in Brisbane in south eastern Queensland (Australia) and we are now on what are called level 3 water restrictions. This means if you want to water your garden you have to use a bucket. It is illegal to use a sprinkler or even a hose at any time.
South east Queensland is one of the fastest growing regions in Australia and we have had a few dry years. There is no water recycling, no desalination plant and we have not traditionaly pumped from groundwater, we have relied almost exclusively on three dams that were build decades ago.
As dam levels continue to fall and the population continues to grow the Labor state government recently committed to building a dam on the Mary River. A group has formed to opposed the dam with a website called SaveTheMaryRiver.com .
Following is an article from a local aboriginal elder about the Queensland lungfish and why the Mary River should not be dammed:
“Imagine being able to link your history back 380 million years? Impossible you say? Yes, for humans, but we have one resident of Queensland who can do that – The Queensland lung fish (Neoceratodus forsteri).
The lung fish appeared on earth 180 million years before the dinosaurs and found a habitat which enabled it to live into our days. Is it right that we humans are contemplating the destruction of this pre-historic example of evolution because of five years less rainfall than we used to have? This living fossil link is the evolution of all our feathery and hairy fellow creatures with fishes
There are six species of lung fish in the world belonging to two families. One family contains a single species only, and this is our Queenslander, making it a very rare species indeed. What is special about our lung fish is that it has only one lung, while all other species have two (paired) lungs. World-wide lung fish are very rare and endangered because they rely on special habitats that increasingly are occupied by humans. The natural habitat of the Queensland lung fish is restricted to the Burnett and Mary River systems.
The Queensland lung fish is unique in the world, making it a creature of highest biodiversity value and significance. It is a rare natural asset which we have a duty to protect.
Its uniqueness, the links to the past, afforded by its natural habitat confined to our State, should be sufficient reasons in themselves for highest protection priorityf or this creature and the habitat on which it depends to ensure the survival of a viable population – the only one of its kind on the planet.
However, another important reason to protect it, is that it is a sacred (totemic) fish of the Gubbi Gubbi people. We never killed or ate the fish, and saw it as important to protect it. We call it “Dala” and for reasons associated with its important place in our culture, we were often referred to by other Aboriginal groups, as “the Dala” people. Our traditional land encompasses the Mary River basin and its catchments.
The Mary Cod is an important economic fish, but the Dala (lung fish) are not to be killed but protected from harm.
The lungfish’s longevity of life and occupancy of our waterways, is undoubtedly due in part, to its protection by our people over tens of thousands of years. We are still bound by this duty of care – the reason for my penning this document in an appeal for help for the survival of “Dala”.Through the Integrated Planning Act (1997), now embodied in the South East Queensland Regional Plan (2005), the State government committed itself to “recognise, protect and conserve Aboriginal values in land, water and natural resources” (section 7.4). It also recognises the principle and policies to “conserve and manage the region’s biodiversity values” and “ensure land use planning and development activities “..respect identified biodiversity values” in order to “protect, manage and enhance areas of ..biodiversity significance: (section 2.1).
The proposed dam on the Mary River clearly violates the SEQ Regional Plan because the Mary-Burnett basin is known to be the only natural habitate of the Queensland Lungfish. It also ignores the Gubbi Gubbi cultural heritage values and the reverence we give to this creature.
Studies to date give sufficient reason to not dam the river, however, if further studies are undertaken for developments which involve use of water from the Mary River, the following should be given special attention:
Studies must involve fresh-water stream ecologists and other scientists using the most up-to-date technologies and methodologies. The issue is too critical to rely on outdated practices. (Data to date indicates that our lung fish transported to other catchments have not done well, so tranportation is not an answer).Its eggs are attached to specific aquatic plants during August to December. However, it is slow growing, taking 2 years to reach 1.2 cm. and 100 years to reach its maximum size of 1.5 m. The plants on which eggs are laid, should also be the subject of study and care. With its long life span, the fact that Dala fails to reproduce under altered conditions such as those caused by a dam will go unnoticed for years – but then it will be too late to rectify the mistakes we make today, which will destroy Dala forever.Effects of dams on Queensland Lung Fish (“Dala” to the Gubbi Gubbi people):
• Dams prohibit the possibility of migration over the long distances they need during spawning
• Dala requires shallow, flowing riffles and glides amongst dense beds of submerged aquatic plants to lay its eggs – these do not exist within a dam.Breeding cannot occur in the deep waters of a dam. There are many issues associated with the need for riffles, optimum water quality, and so on, but the bottom line is: Dala will become extinct if it cannot breed.”
By Eve Mumewa Doreen Fesl,OAM,CM,PhD (nee Evelyn Serico), Gubbi Gubbi Elder
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Thanks Jennifer for this post. There have been issues with the Paradise Dam, yet it seems the same mistakes are willing to be made by Beattie. It will be interesting to see if Campbell wants to save these pretty impressive fish, along with orange-bellied parrots and whales.
Readers may be interested to learn that contrary to what we are being told by government, Brisbane is not in water crisis and is not even in drought. The past 12 months has seen rainfall of 118% of the annual mean at Logan City and similar for Strathpine. Check out “Crisis? What Water Crisis?” at;
http://onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4604
The only reason perhaps is that they arent nice to eat, pretty muddy perhaps.
Also firestick farming wouldnt have effected them like the mega fauna.
Another smokescreen. The mary river floods. Do the lungfish drown.
Give me science and drop the sacred protector crap.
Argue proposals and benefits and costs but all of them.
Sacred fire put more animals into extinction than the white man ever did on this continent.
This is not racism this is one view of history.
They can farm endangered animals elsewhere but we cant dam because we need it.
Oh and the big voice on the Mary issue, her husband what did Mr Latham call him, Ivan Millat or something because of ties in Mindano or some such.
I like fruit loops for breakfast not in a serious debate.
The Mary catchment is outside SEQ.
Jack,
The “Sacred fire put more animals into extinction than the white man ever did on this continent” is not a forgone conclusion
(http://www.smh.com.au/news/science/aborigines-were-no-giant-killers-say-scientists/2006/06/04/1149359612882.html)
“They can farm endangered animals elsewhere..”
Endangered species are often just that because they can’t easily adapt to other locations and situations.
“The only reason perhaps is that they aren’t nice to eat, pretty muddy perhaps.”
The eggs were eaten by indigenous people.
“Another smokescreen. The mary river floods. Do the lungfish drown.”
At what time of year does the Mary River usually flood?
“Give me science and drop the sacred protector crap.”
I am sure you will find science if you bother to look.
Obviously!
Seems to me that the best way to save the lungfish is to make them popular as pets. And if they’re sacred to you, you could worship them in the privacy and convenience of your home.
Good luck Libby, the article above has no science except mythology, prove the 10,000 year protection issue. Oh thats right take my word for it.
Just the usual tactics, but the article does not prove that the dam will kill the lungfish, nor does it suggest a way for the state’s water needs to be met unless we put an airway under the dam (kinda like a walkway under a highway for native species).
The lungfish is a very old fish, this is a known, so its adaptability or specialisation must be pretty adquate in a lot of conditions.
It’s short on solution and big on bullshit hype.
And no I’m not going to wade thru your link not interested and don’t have the science, not my expertise and sorry to say it, but this is what proponents like you do, grab one piece of science and say this is proof, the final proof.
But I did say one view of history, not popular with eco vandals and noble savage mythology, protectors of nature supporters, which is very nice, they get to kill and eat dugongs and other endangered species anybody else is not allowed to, It’s called cake and eating it too.
Precious.
Oh and on the Mega fauna issue I saw it on the ABC, some program, so it must be true it being a bastion of the greens and left.
Show us where the water is to come from.
(Aside to Porfessor Jen, I was expecting a sin bin for first post, I am disappointed me being the lad and all).
I am sure provision could be made within the design of the proposed dam to accomodate the QLD lung fish, perhaps a wetland structure adjacent to the main water body;
“..Studies have shown that there has been a marked decline in the quality and extent of breeding habitat of the Australian Lungfish because of impoundments (impoundments are dams & weirs).
While impoundments provide feeding habitat for the species, conditions suitable for successful spawning rarely occur within them, as the species has highly specific requirements for spawning.
Generally, spawning habitat is characterised by relatively shallow water and dense macrophyte (aquatic plants) coverage.
Impoundments tend to be steep-sided with deep water and fluctuating water-levels, conditions that are not suitable for the dense growth of macrophytes.
In addition, impoundments do not provide suitable nursery habitat for the species as the young also require a cover of macrophytes..”
http://www.deh.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/species/n-forsteri.html
http://www.qccqld.org.au/rivers_alive/Lungfish.htm says:
Since the 1890s they have been transferred to other rivers and dams. Today they can also be found in the North Pine, Brisbane, Logan and Coomerah Rivers, Enoggera and Gold Creek Reservoirs, Lake Manchester and the Condamine River west of the Great Dividing Range. How viable the populations in these new habitats are is debatable. They are likely to be small and not expanding, and possibly vulnerable. Thus there is great concern with safeguarding the populations in the original habitats.
SO it would be good to have some information on how well lung fish are doing in other systems.
The Mary River also has another rare and endangered fish – the Mary River Cod which relies on snags and logs for breeding.
Jack,
“And no I’m not going to wade thru your link not interested and don’t have the science, not my expertise and sorry to say it, but this is what proponents like you do, grab one piece of science and say this is proof, the final proof.”
Actually Jack, I work with Queensland lungfish, so I have more than this one piece to grab. Suits me fine that you don’t wade through my link or any other information. Says something I think.
“Show us where the water is to come from.”
Show me that this dam will solve the water problems, like the Paradise was s’posed to do.
Humans, being the innovative species that they are, can surely think outside the old view of dams solving all their water problems. That is not my area of expertise, but I am sure you will find a number of clued in folk on the blog to educate you along Jack.
Ashley,
Yes, the fish were transerred to a small number of other locations, but there is nothing to show that these populations are as robust as those in the Mary are (or the Burnett were), including having adequate recruitment. I wrote some stuff about it on a pevious post of Jennifer’s.
As you pointed out, other species will be effected, including land holders in the area.
Friends,
Obviously keeping lungfish as pets is not a popular idea, although quite obviously it would be a quite adequate measure and may well even result in a vast increase in the lungfish population.
A very credible campaign to save the lungfish would be an “rescue the lungfish” project, involving the purchase of a fish tank of appropriate size and activists delivering, say, a breeding pair along with submersible objects deemed appropriate to the fishes’ requirements for daily amusement.
To those who scoff at the idea, I will point out that this rationale is often put forward as justification for zoos. And adoption as housepets has saved a subspecies of hamster from extinction.
Since there is actually little interest in direct measures to save lungfish, the conclusion is obvious: people don’t actually want to save lungfish, they just want to mess with the dam project.
Schiller,
They are a protected species, are in no way as appealing as exotics (like many native fish), and where is little Tommy going to house his 40+ kg, 1m + long pet? Perhaps he can dump it in a local river when he tires of it.
“Since there is actually little interest in direct measures to save lungfish, the conclusion is obvious: people don’t actually want to save lungfish, they just want to mess with the dam project.”
Perhaps there is little interest from you Schiller. Like you, many people are ignorant of the issues facing non-sexy species like lungfish. Hamsters are cute and fluffy and obviously prove useful to humans when kept in little cages as pets. I would assume that hamsters breed a lot more readily than lungfish do too.
Your conclusion that people just want to mess with the dam is typical of the tripe you turn out on this blog.
Libby,
I know people who keep alligator gar as pets. These are quite ugly, toothy, aggressive carnivorous critters. They grow up to 6 1/2ft and over 100 lbs, but have been reported to grow up to 350 lbs. and around 10 ft. in length.
For reasons not entirely understood, fish limit their growth according to the size of their container and I have seen a six-year-old gar which was at best seven inches long.
Since endangered species are by definition “appealing,” there should be no shortage of those interested in rescuing them.
Schiller.
I should have added: regardless of whether rescued lungfish have popular appeal due to their endangeredness, we should be able to rely on a solid market among those who already worship them.
The irony in the Mary River Dam proposal is that the capital cost of the dam will be lumped into the “country” segment of the capital budget so it will look like Beattie is actually overspending on regional capital works.
This is standard shonkaccounting to give the SE Corner the impression that they are doing the bush a favour while deluding the bush that they get more than their fair share of the pie.
The do the same with power stations, coal rail lines etc that deliver royalties to consolidated revenue (ie 2/3rds to SEQ) or deliver electricity directly to SEQ consumers.
I bet Beattie even thinks those Mary Valley farmers have, in the words of Graeme Greens Ugly American, got “no damned gratitude”.
Schiller – obviously you’re not a local and spend much time vocalizing right wing drivel from your rear end.
http://www.ceratodus.com/index.html shows the breeding operation.
You will lungfish in aqaurium shops. People are fascinated in the fish and it is very popular in zoo and museum exhibits. So don’t be theorising about our fauna “mate”.
There’s even a town called Ceratodus.
The species is bred for aquaria – microchipped in fact. CITES listed. However it’s a fairly big fish which most people will find difficult to keep. Keeping a few fish is one thing but having a captive breeding program is another. Many aquarium fish die from their owner’s neglect.
It’s unforunate to think that a living fossil surviving millions of years of change – a textbook example of an evolutionary link – is endangered through the rampant growth demands of BrisVegas with 1000 dudes migrating every week loving to death the region and suffocating the place with demands for resources. Mandate rainwater tanks a la Ian Mott and dispense with the dam. Get suburbia to take some responsibility for resource use. Interestingly the Mary River is not even in the Brisbane River catchment system – it discharges into the waters behind Fraser Island. It’s not even in Brisbane’s region. Briso’s go home !
Schiller,
None of the lungfish I have worked with have limited their growth to their container, they have continued getting longer, and serious spinal problems would have resulted if the container were not subsequently enlarged to accomodate them.
There are obvious issues with people keeping protected and endangered species as pets, such as poor husbandry and so on, and I am not sure that this is the way to go.
Macquarie University does have a breeding group of lungfish which has taken over a decade to become established, and even now is not stable. These captive poppulations would in no way be considered for re-introduction into the wild in the event of disease transmission.
Instead of people having them as pets and introducing a swathe of new problems for the species, perhaps it would be better if Beattie got off the vote-popular water campaign and devised a more reliable, and environmentally and economically sound way of fixing the state’s water problems, letting the lunfsh do what they have been doing already for a very, very long time.
Jennifer alluded to alternatives in her post, and I think Ian did in his first post suggesting their wasn’t a water crisis too.
What are the alternatives?
It makes sense to spend some time considering the best way to deal with the issue
We have
Water restrictions
Subsidies for water efficient appliances
Free efficient showerhead handouts
Rainwater tanks
Large scale water recycling
Separately reticulated not-drinking-quality water
Desalination
New dam
These all need to be weighed up in terms of the following at the minimum:
Cost
Time to implement
How much water is effectively saved
and then also
impact on people
environmental impact
and probably a bunch of other stuff too.
I’m no expert, but i’m guessing that
* large scale water recycling would come out great on cost, but some people might feel they are impacted because they have concerns about water quality.
* free showerheads would come out great on cost and time to implement, but less good on impact on people
* rainwater tanks would be great on time to implement, but are sketchy on cost, and not very good on impact on people
* desal not good on cost, average on time to implement, good on quantity of water, good on impact on people, at least in the short term, not good on environmental impact if you think greenhouse is an issue
* new dam good on on quantity of water, good on impact on people (except for making some environmentally minded people upset), bad on cost, time to implement, impact on environment
This is a very simple analysis, and i’m sure you could debate aspects of it too. My point is that we should be thinking along these lines.
Debates about lungfish sound like a lot of detail, and im not sure the big picture has been well canvassed yet. Are we up to detail yet?
Steve
SE Qld is being told they need “option (e) – ALL OF THE ABOVE”. New dams, desal, recycling, tanks and water conservation. The government is well into the detail and seems to be doing every option.
Rainwater tanks probably have a lot more impact than people think but being lazy – why bother. Brisbane’s rain itself has been OK – just none in the more western dam catchment.
A pet lungfish is an unhappy lungfish.
To keep wild animals captive should be banned.
There is this one good thing with Norway they have banned all dolphinariums on cruelty grounds, a wild animal needs some space and for example it is equal to keep a golden eagle in a cage and a cod in a fish farm.
Ann – it’s two edged sword – aquarists have done some good things like saving the Lake Eacham rainbow fish (North Qld freshwater crater lake) but also reponsible for introducing species into systems that they should not e.g. Tilapia and Mosquito Fish.
Some people should never keep fish – just a life of cruelty – but others have species including specialist lungfish alive for decades. All depends on quality of husbandry. If you want to get into lung fish you need lots of room. That counts most people out. You can tame them to take food from your hand.
Luke” You can tame them to take food from your hand”.
That’s cool!
I’ve felt my blood pressure elevate as I scrolled slowly down the posts. Forgive me Jack, but I live by the Mary, and as I watch these ancient creatures, the lungfish, I just get a totally different view of this planet and our place in it. I certainly don’t see them as a straw to be clutched at to stop a dam.
Would I still get this same feeling if I had my own pet N. forsteri in an aquarium in the living room? I spose it’d be a great converstion piece for parties, but hell aren’t we missing something here.
Heaven’t we learnt enough of our folly in making some pretty major changes to this planet already. Remember the Australia, the dry country, just add water, so we stopped the Snowy running wastefully into the sea and turned it inland …. a triumph they called it when i was in primary school. In my adoloescence I did a high school trip around Australia and I still remember seeing paddocks of dead trees along the Murray. They weren’t too sure why, didn’t want to burst the “triumph” bubble I guess but eventually we got the s word.
A few weeks back I listened to Prof Peter Cullen at a Natural Resources Confernce. Concern about rising salinity in the Mary Valley. Later I learnt farmers had been advised not to build big dams there.
Maybe Jack’d say I’m just using this to try to stop the dam. I always felt good that in queensland we could maybe learn from other’s mistakes. It’s a lot of money involved and you can’t just lift all the N. forsteri and the Mary River Cod and the Mary River turtles out and despatch them to in-home aquaria around the country and feel you’ve addressed the situation.
Mr Beattie referred on the 7.30 Report the other night, to the fish ladder at paradise dam. More like an elevator, really, great visual of the cage thundering upward from base of wall to top.
Lungfish carried from one place where they can’t breed to another.
They’re long -lived and do seem to live happily (how can you tell if a lungfish’s happy?) in impoundments. They’ve taken all the vagaries of million of years of whatever the planet’s climate tossed at ’em, flood, drought, stagnant pool, just mud….. always in the hope that there’d be a time when condition’s ‘d be good to breed, nice shallow riffles, running water, good oxygen levels. In all their millions of years they’ve never had to deal with anything quite as obstructive, dare I say monumental, as a dam.
So are there alternatives? An earlier writer listed a number and went through problems with each…. sort of inferring a dam as some sort of default position that didn’t come with its own set of problems.
Try cost for example. I was always told that water from any of the “alternatives” was more costly than water from a dam and only recently found out that the cost of resuming the land for a dam isn’t factored into those costs, nor of replacing roads, schools, powerlines etc.
Figures for Traveston lie somewhere between 1 and 3 billion dollars. That’s just to resume, replace and build. What about ongoing lost income for the local economy? And what if Peter Cullen’s salinity fears are realised, what cost there?
But that’s a time frame outside the political short-term imperative.
So thanks Dr Eve. You say DALA is sacred. I say we treat, not just DALA but the river it lives in, with respect, because, as they say, we didn’t inherit this earth from our forebears, we borrowed from our kids.
May they too be able to look and ponder at N.forsteri swimming freely and breeding successfully, in one of our planet’s arteries, the Mary River.
Hi
I’d just like to comment that whilst everybody is talking of water conservation and building dams,is Peter Beatty doing a knee jerk reaction to a problem that is not really there. Have a look at the following link: http://thecouriermail.com.au/extras/blogs/water/2006/06/seed-clouds.html
Dams may not be the answer. Could seeding rain bearing clouds be the answer?
Food for thought
Lungfish aside, I might have overlooked it, but has nobody mentioned the endangered Mary River Cod (Maccullochella peelii mariensis)? I understand the species has been successfully stocked into lakes in the area, but like the Murray Cod, breeding in impoundments is unreliable.
On the dam issue, I’m looking at the costings, both initial, and long-term, and I’m still wondering how the scheme even got past the preliminary planning stages.
With an average soil depth of over ten metres, and an expansive shallow area, leaching and evaporation would see the flooded ground laid bare and unproductive for at least half of the year.
Like Lake Tinaroo in NQLD, any species surviving the initial damming, will perish in the oxygen-starved silt-laden shallows every year.
The lungfish will probably survive this. I don’t know for sure. Other species like the Mary River Cod will not.
Not to mention the fact that our major highway will need to be reconstructed and diverted around the flooded ground, at enormous cost, and a pipeline, connecting the new dam with all the existing impoundments on the Sunshine coast will cross the landscape, dissecting the remaining tracts of bushland.
Get all the information already collected together, and let the people see it. We paid for those studies with our tax dollars. We are entitled to see the results.
Dams like Coololabin, and Wappa, need to be replicated. Smaller dams, in narrow passes higher in the mountains. Deeper, and closer to the bedrock, and less cash to construct.
The pipeline is what Beattie really wants. Traveston dam is not.
Cheers,
Norm from Yandina North Arm.
So it seems my that my initial disbelief at the costings for the proposed dam are founded in fact.
The estimate of 1.9 billion was a ball-park figure, and admissions have been made that it was not an estimate based on factual appraisal. The pipeline costs alone would eat up that amount, and then some, and the 50 million dollars allocated for land resumptions, as Premier Beattie admitted, would not even approach a percentage of the actual costs involved in repatriating those property owners affected by stage one of the proposal.
Also of interest is the call for all information and technical assessment outcomes to be tabled for public perusal. Why should we have to call for it? If the Beattie team has something to hide, the question is; WHY?
There is nothing untoward in people protesting such a proposal, considering the impact it may have on their lives, family history in the region, or personal attachment to their property, and there is surely nothing anti-establishment in the search for truth, in what is becoming a rather dictatorial approach to an issue that has so many question marks surrounding it.
What is required is transparency in Government decisions, factual evidence or research data backing the dam proposal (none so far), and the names of the obviously successful tenderers for the dam construction, pipeline installation, highway reconstruction, and technical data on the proposed absorption and evaporation rates for the dam.
So far, all we get from Mr. Beattie is, “The Traveston Dam will be built, no matter what.”
Well I’m sorry to say, but that is not enough “evidence” for this little brown duck.
look, we’ve fucked with the indigenous people too much in the past. let them have their lungfish and land!
I have just heard the story of the lung fish and the proposed Queensland dam on the BBC World Service. Although I am on the other side of the world, Essex in the UK, I am greatly concerned re the negative effect of the dam on both the local people and the ecology. If this goes ahead history will one day write this generation off as much as we are now critising the slave trade of the 18th Century. An alternative must be found. Dave Bolton