The ever-changeable stalwart, La Pantera Rosa asked if I was game to open a new thread on ‘if, how or why biodiversity matters’?
Certainly, the challenge has been begging in many threads across a variety of subject categories. Quite recently I posted that a two-week old cassowary chick was savaged to death by marauding pig-dogs. At the same time, future prospects of the polar bear were under discussion. The former is a federally listed endangered keystone species with fewer individuals in its remaining population than there are Giant Panda in the wild; the latter, has purportedly 20,000 to 25,000 animals remaining.
Quite apart from the context of the two issues, not one comment was received concerning the cassowary, whereas the PB is still enjoying lively debate. Why is one species of greater interest than another in its conservation importance and what are the implications of these predilections for preferential concern?
Agenda 21 – Chapter 15.2: Our planet’s essential goods and services depend on the variety and variability of genes, species, populations and ecosystems. Biological resources feed and clothe us and provide housing, medicines and spiritual nourishment. The natural ecosystems of forests, savannahs, pastures and rangelands, deserts, tundras, rivers, lakes and seas contain most of the Earth’s biodiversity. Farmers’ fields and gardens are also of great importance as repositories, while gene banks, botanical gardens, zoos and other germplasm repositories make a small but significant contribution. The current decline in biodiversity is largely the result of human activity and represents a serious threat to human development.
15.3. Despite mounting efforts over the past 20 years, the loss of the world’s biological diversity, mainly from habitat destruction, over-harvesting, pollution and the inappropriate introduction of foreign plants and animals, has continued. Biological resources constitute a capital asset with great potential for yielding sustainable benefits. Urgent and decisive action is needed to conserve and maintain genes, species and ecosystems, with a view to the sustainable management and use of biological resources. Capacities for the assessment, study and systematic observation and evaluation of biodiversity need to be reinforced at national and international levels. Effective national action and international cooperation is required for the in situ protection of ecosystems, for the ex situ conservation of biological and genetic resources and for the enhancement of ecosystem functions. The participation and support of local communities are elements essential to the success of such an approach. Recent advances in biotechnology have pointed up the likely potential for agriculture, health and welfare and for the environmental purposes of the genetic material contained in plants, animals and micro-organisms. At the same time, it is particularly important in this context to stress that States have the sovereign right to exploit their own biological resources pursuant to their environmental policies, as well as the responsibility to conserve their biodiversity and use their biological resources sustainably, and to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the biological diversity of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.
Australia ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity on 18 June 1993. The National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia’s Biological Diversity aims to bridge the gap between current activities and the effective identification, conservation and management of Australia’s biological diversity.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Thematically, biodiversity is like global warming. The desirable quantities extend in opposite directions, but the intent is the same.
In other words, the most biodiversity possible is the best, and the ideal state is where every plant, animal and microbe is the sole member of its species, all of which are innumerable. At the same time, the best of all possible climates is the coldest.
Of course, these are mutually exclusive ideals, and neither is ideal by itself. But so long as ideology takes the place of science and reason, we’ll have to discuss the viability of trillions of frozen species incapable of reproduction.
The ideal number of species is probably as certain as the ideal planetary temperature.
Graduate trained as I am in life sciences and ecology, I am of the opinion that of course biodiversity matters.
But I guess some folks and some economists would say, “Who cares? As long as we can make a buck out of it! Do we really need so many creepy-crawlies for a start, and don’t even get me started on all those endangered species locking up prime forests and real estate just begging for development?”
Thanks Neil. Not a fan of pig dogs, wasn’t much to say on the cassowary checks. Probably no-one here disagrees with killing feral animals and rampaging dogs in Aust. Cute little hunting pussycats might be more contentious for some. The PBs are getting a lot of attention because of the direct link to global warming. I won’t discuss the PBs (or AGW) at this thread.. but considering earlier discussion on pre-mating behaviours, interesting that Giant Panda breeding reluctance was overcome with pandy-porn mood TV.
Schiller as Russell mentioned on other thread, there are lumpers & splitters among biologists. The combined effect is often reasonably balanced. If it highlights anything, it’s not about how many species but the nuanced interpretations of what constitutes a species and how much we still have to learn and decide.
Is biodiversity something we can blissfully ignore and let take care of itself, even where it’s under human pressures? On science and reason, we’ve seen a reluctance by many commenters here to accept the science as just science. Why care if a few more marsupials or birds go extinct? Who feels a sense of stewardship? Is it stronger where a species is the only surviving one of its kind?
Slim – why?
Good starter Neil, not so good Schiller.
This will likely become a 50+ post page cluttered with a range of valid and inaccurate observations, views, bits of science, statistics and links in not much time. Amusing, as those who rail against biodiversity here will be ensuring that, digital though it may be, some will be created here. Why contribute to something which you oppose in principle? I preemptively ask them. “Greenie”, “hippy”, “far left scum”, and “something about your mother” will pepper the responses. Now that you’ve all been saved some typing, consider this before we plunge into a range of detail-related discussions.
Somebody gives you an amazing machine. You’re not sure exactly what it is ultimately about, why it exists, or why it’s the only one like it you’ve ever seen or had. Everyday it changes – sometimes undetectably, sometimes massively. A variety of colours and textures cloak its surface, and sometimes you find it soothing just to look at, listen to, or even smell. The machine starts to do even more amazing things – it produces food each day, it provides clothing, sometimes it even rains on you and sometimes it keeps you dry when it rains all around you. Truly bizarre.
Although these things are at first stunning to you, after some years you decide you want to see wha else it can do, and sure enough it starts to give you materials to make things you want to make, energy of various sorts, and you even find it’s a good way to meet new and interesting people. They’re curious and amazed by your machine. Some of them offer you a lot of money for a tiny scraping of it to take home as a souvenir. You think about it, and even though you don’t completely understand your machine, you decide it can’t hurt. And it doesn’t. A little scrape here, it repairs itself, a little scrape there, again it repairs itself. Wow!
One day, you notice a new and incredible colour – just a little patch. You scrape that off, and think nothing more of it. A week later, the food doesn’t taste so good and you wonder why. After a month, the building materials that magically flow from it seem more brittle than usual. A year later, the colours aren’t so bright, and it’s even starting to smell a bit funny. You can’t get as much energy out of it either. You get online and put questions all over message boards, write to DIPNR, Boral, Toyota – anybody that you can think of asking what to do.
Finally you get a letter from one of the smartest people in the world saying that they can fix it for a huge fee. Fortunately, you invested your scrapings money wisely in Alliance Resources and Silex shares so you can afford the fee. You send it off for repair and anxiously wait for 6 months. One day a package arrives – how exciting!! Inside is your wonderful machine, but it’s in pieces and not doing anything special or colourful or useful at all.
There’s a note from the smartest person in the world attached to it saying:
“Wow, I’ve never seen anything like this before. It was unique and we’d never seen anything like it before, the things it could do were incredible. We thought we knew what we were doing when we took it apart, but it just ended up as a bunch of pieces which didn’t quite fit together anymore and produced an effect that was far less wondrous than the sum of its parts. Perhaps you should look at the instructions before you mess with it next time.
PS Thanks for all the money.”
A corker from Carbon Sync. Any other punters?
Just found a beginner’s guide here:
http://www.globalissues.org/EnvIssues/Biodiversity/WhoCares.asp
Who is opposed in principle to biodiversity & why? (Hopefully we can move beyond lefty commo conspiracies).
La Pantera Rosa asks “Slim – why?”
I’m presuming that’s ‘why do I believe biodiversity matters?’
Unless the science has changed since I studied, the logic and evidence is that diverse ecosystems are inherently more stable and productive than less diverse ones, and hence more sustainable. That idea that the biosphere is a dynamically balanced, interactive and fragile film of life clinging to a possibly unique and utterly insignificant tiny blue-green planet at the outer edge of the spiral arm of a tiny galaxy at the arse-end of the universe. Break it and it might never work again. But what they hey – as long as we have fun doing it, who cares!
As I suggested tongue in cheek, this debate will be clouded by biodiversity skepticism, less motivated by consideration of science, common sense and humility before the profoundly complex biosphere, than by a desire to not have to do anything about it which might impinge on my personal wealth, convenience or capacity to consume.
Then there’s always the old Biblical injunction of God exhorting us to go forth and have dominion (exploitation) over all the plants and animals and get rich doing it…
I am sorry for your cassowary chick Neil. Perhaps it comes down to like and like? Many people feel more empathy for a mammal than a bird, because we are mammals and can relate more to their biology and behaviour. Polar bears are also charismatic mega-fauna and have the danger element. Sure, an adult cassowary can disembowel you with one left hook, but they are still possibly viewed as pyscho-chickens on steroids. Now if they had good PR agents, then there could be money made from them instead of people dressed up in dinosaur suits.
Of course biodiversity matters. It is here for a reason, and I refuse to believe as the Good Book suggests, that is for our use and misuse. Who are we to decide what that reason is and if it is good enough? But then looking at the way humans treat others of a different race, colour, religion, gender is it any wonder we can’t cope with different species of other animals?
La Pinxera,
If ‘biodiversity’ is not only the number of genes, species and ecosystems, but also the interaction between and within, then it frightens me. Have a look at the sum of the nth row of Pascal’s Triangle, as n approaches even a modest number, such as 100. Ooer!
The concept is bigger than we know, or even than we can know. Asking ‘how much biodiversity?’ is like asking ‘how big is the universe?’. Perhaps the answer is an irrational number, or a singularity.
I would rather ask more modest research questions, which can actually be answered in the field, such as ‘what is the number of plant species in this area?’
There is a danger that ecology will disappear up its own intellectual bottom, and so lose public respect. The Emperor’s New Suit of Clothes is a fascinating tale.
Biodiversity used to be biological diversity until some one , probably aware of how the mass media works, renamed it Biodiversity.
Its amazing how effective “advertising” techniques are in creating new streams of community debate!
Slim, I believe the Bible forbids the worship of God’s creations and rather tells Christiandom to take care of his beautiful planet that he created, by loving and caring for it as he would; not abusing it by mistreating animals, wasting trees and squandering resources.
Yeah, biodiversity is very important IMO, despite that some polls have indicated that many people are not willing to donate or fund some exotic species they never heard of…
People have in all times been keen of different animals, we have the dog people, the horse people, the cat people, the marine mammal people, the bird people etc.
However since ancient times some animals have always been symbols and status symbols for kings and chiefs. I mean animals like eagles, bears, polar bears, lions and tigers etc.
People in all cultures have been named after charismatic animals.
Funny though that one of the oldest and noblest families in Sweden are named after pigs, roughly translated ” pighead”.
Neil – I’m with you on your interpretation of the Bible. Hell, I’d even go so far as to say that “Thou shalt not kill!’ means just that, not “Thou shalt not murder (unless they’re terrorists, cows, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, or won’t share their oil with Haliburton)!”
Unfortunately, from my experience, many ‘good’ god-fearing Christian folk don’t share your understanding – some apocalyptic types actually advocate environmental destruction as it brings us closer to Armageddon when we can all rise up in Rapture to the heavenly realm (a bit like those who believe being a suicide bomber will get them a whole mess of vestal virgins to play with after the bomb goes off).
Anyone would be hard pressed to argue against diversity. Our whole planet is a living demonstration of evolution at work. If there were no advantages in biodiversity then nature,which has had plenty of time to homogenise, would have easily economised by now. But evolution does not help in sudden environmental change. Diversity does.
Biodiversity allows a short term response to change. For instance if the world gets hotter then Grizzly populations could expand and take up new territory, conversly when it cools again Polar bears have the natural advantage and reinhabit old haunts. Maybe a simplistic analyisis.
When we champion the polar bear do we take into account the worth of the species that takes it’s spot.
Com’on Davey, pluck up, I want more from you than that! Hand on heart, lift your gaze. Direct & immediate benefit for human needs aside, eg agric, aside, why assess even those practical and easily defined questions? Why give a hoot, why be funded, why measure? Don’t fret over the near future of ecology as a discipline but have a crack at the why man! Where would humankind be if difficulties in making sense of it were a reasonable enough excuse for not trying? Not ‘how much’ but what & why bother trying to assess it?
There is also the issue of key species. How some species are more important than others. Is true ,or is it a myth? I dunno, I’m not a biologist….and which species is the most important species in our eco-system.
Is it the earth-worm, plankton or krill or some species that are involved in the photosynhesis?
Libby,
I was more surprised by the lack of outrage; not so much in terms of the birds’ lack of inherent appeal, but its far greater vulnerability, endemicity, endangered status, decalred World Heritage protection and the outrageous impropriety of local poachers.
If the purpose of our dialogue on this weblog is to influence, in some small way, the politcs of environmental policy and procedure, then I guess I would have thought that relieving polar bears from the diasadvantages of ice retraction was more pie-in-the-sky than rescuing cassowaries from poachers (at least in Aussie WH rainforest).
I’d prefer to see more time spent constructively on native animals but nearly all the topics that get raised and then get frenzied attention have forestry, ag or mining rights at heart and greenies & bureaucrats (same thing) in the crosshairs. Graziers too. There have more fuzzy animal posts since they’ve been requested and submitted and since Libby and others have asked why the kind of posts we see here often bypass opportunities to engage in constructive input… at this point I should shut up.
re Neil’s last:
yes and no, IMO. And before everyone goes into polarised bear mode again, don’t miss the point – yes, that’s surprising about the cassowary, and yes, human nature means that there will always be a bigger fuss over pandas, koalas, polar bears, and penguins than over sloths, cassowaries, rhinoceri, and snakes. That doesn’t make it right, but it also doesn’t make it wrong. If people get wooed into giving a damn about environmental destruction because of cute and fluffy endangered species, that’s one thing. If they can’t extend that concern to a recognition that all life in some way matters in a way that we can’t claim to fully understand, then that’s the kind of retarded feelgood fashionable eco-trend that has as much to offer in terms of comprehensive engagement with the issues as John Howard has regarding indigenous policy.
As far as pie-in-the-sky…well, you’re being relative. Fair call. And you’re right – in the same way that most people in Australia show more concern over social and cultural tragedies abroad than the ones on our doorstep, ones that we not only can address, but need to, we should be more aware of and engaged with local issues. But it needn’t be one or the other. There are mistaken linkages between one crisi and another made in terms of the most headline grabbing eco-fad, but to dismiss all concerns as a result, as some do, is throwing the baby out with the bathwater before dropping the tub on its head.
The polar bear issue is a signifier, not a total concern in itself. Just as the destruction of eagles in America in the ’40s and ’50s was about animals at the top of the foodchain being decimated by concentration of DDT, loss of krill and plankton is a concern as they are at the bottom of a significant foodchain, and frogs populations in wetlands can alert us to pollution just like canaries in a coalmine, the point is that these problems go beyond the species itself or direct activities affecting their habitat.
Everything is pointing to a much greater need to embrace holistic thing if we’re going to return the planet to any kind of the homeostasis which is so evident when it occurs in our own bodies by our being healthy and able to function effectively. Plankton, tuna, frogs, algae, fungi, water, fire, ugly birds and cute bears all have a part to play in our total understanding of our world and ourselves.
We’re destroying the reference section of the library because it lacks the immediate gratification of the periodicals.
The Federal Government has recently invested $6million into the Australian Rainforest Foundation (ARF) to buy Daintree freehold rainforest.
Kept deliberately freehold, the biodiversity values of the priority (Cooper Creek catchment) acquisitions are lauded for their attractiveness to bio-prospecting investors, who are otherwise obligated to the state through the Biodiscovery Act 2004.
Most diverse systems = reef, rainforest, and SW WA heath communities. Some systems are surprising in their diversity.
The biodiversity = stability thing doesn’t always work. One of the great ecological debates but I reckon the real world does not demand diversity (or intelligence as this blog often demonstrates)
You can have fairly simple systems – e.g. desert communities that are quiet stable but not that diverse
There are savanna eucalypt woodlands which you can argue are a fire mediated sub-climax between trees and grasses. Changing biodiversity. Does really biodiversity fit in here or is it along for the ride?
Why do we crave biodiversity – something like we want to see some representative fauna and flora left from human development (wall to wall land clearing for grazing, crops, suburbs).
I guess there are indicator or keystone species… said to be “critical” for the success of “the biodiversity”
Do we prefer charismatic megafauna over earthworms and insects? Let alone cryptogram crusts at Boulia… Are reptiles the public limit of tolerance? Insects who cares?
Why do we value boutique biodiversity? e.g. the Baiji – probably not critical for ecosystem function
Do we want biodiversity or representative ecosystem function left = representative = genetically viable long term which piddly little remnants are not
There’s an argument about potential new things we might harvest/develop from reef/rainforests/Antarctic organisms – new drugs etc. Future useful biodiversity. Selfish biodiversity.
Or perhaps we want to be “stewards” of biodiversity simply because urban life leaves us feeling disconnected with the “real” world.
Reality is that much of our Australian biodiversity is on private property or leasehold land – so without landholder cooperation one can only expect so much.
Just a brief comment on the phrase “the latter, has purportedly 20,000 to 25,000 animals remaining”…
This “remaining” word is kind of misleading for the ignorant people who think that humans manufacture animals, as opposed to animals having the capacity to reproduce and potential increase in numbers, all without our kind assistance.
G’day David,
Of one thing that I am entirely certain, animals will reproduce in the wild without regard for human kindness.
Their breeding capacity, however, may be somewhat trivialised by the decreasing limitations of habitat.
Luke: “You can have fairly simple systems – e.g. desert communities that are quiet stable but not that diverse.”
But a stable desert community, I would argue, shows greater biodiversity than an unstable desert community. Therefore diversity is correlated with stability, whichever way you more qualifiedly wish to describe the relationship.
You present an interesting array of the reasons why people are instinctively drawn to thinking biodiversity is a good thing. But not comprehensively.
The most important reason is that it’s the prudent, responsible thing to do, which I know is currently unfashionable in our go-ahead economy consciousness. Maybe that’s why it’s easy to overlook for those who wish to underplay the issue.
How about a summary of reasons why people might be skeptical about the importance of biodiversity? I’m sure that would be equally illuminating.
“Why do we crave biodiversity?”
A rather limited assessment of one’s motivation to sustain biodiversity. But of itself, it suggests an instinctive or primal urge to biodiversity.
“Why do we value boutique biodiversity?”
Because this approach is favoured by the media. ‘Ah, look! We’ve saved the habitat of the Great Crested Tit in East Anglia’ plays well with the political spin that the government and corporate sector take environmentalism seriously when in fact they are reluctant or even averse to acting in any kind of globally coherent way to move toward a globally sustainable environment and economy, and such stories also make people feel as though every thing’s going to be all right. Nothing to see here folks, move along!
You finish with a good plug for biodiversity on private property or leasehold land, which I applaud, for that is as it should be to survive sustainably in competitive economy. However, that is not an excuse for the way in which corporations are permitted, indeed encouraged, to enagage in clear-felling of old-growth, heritage forests, regardless of whether they’ve been logged previously or not.
Morevoer, it underscores the principle that if biodiversity is important at a local level, then it must equally, if not more profoundly, be important at a gobal level, where the ineraction between ecological sub-systems is more complex and poorly understood. And the science of this which is known suggests it’s profoundly complex and therefore something which we should approach with prudence.
As someone mentioned, we all are acutely aware of ourselves when our biological homestatus is threatened. We feel like shit, and may even become permanently incapacitated or die. As it is with the biosophere. Why should we expect it to be any different?
Anybody care to define “bio diversity”?
Sounds like another piece of yippy hippy feel good jargon.
Is biodiversity important? What are the most diverse ecosystems?
Truth is that for the latter we still realy do not know. Hav a look at what passes as vegetation mapping in this country and ask yourself is it good enough that in this day and age so little has been expended on veg maping that the best we have is NVIS?
As for the former I reckon that it is, others may choose to differ, thats their choice and is neither right nor wrong.
If we accept the changes that have occured over geological time to “biodiversity” then any changes that are evident today are either insignificant or irrelevant. Species come and species go! If they are going quicker today then in the past the first question we should be asking is how accurate and precise are our proxies for determining time scales, BEFORE we all jump to conclusions about whether today’s extinctions are occurring faster than in the past.
I have always found it strange that there is a ready acceptance of dating processes that are untestable and will always remain untested. ALL proxy data that I have seen published always appear smoothed to the point that much meaning has been lost.
Slim – perhaps greater species diversity is not the same as biodiversity. In any case I don’t think number of different species in an ecosystem is necessarily correlated with stability. We need some examples I think.
Rog – what’s biodiversity – use Wiki and educate yourself with a summary of issues.
If BD is to equal all known life within a certain specific area – nobody knows ‘all life’ in any area particularly insects and some flora and especially micro organisms like bacteria – its a nebulous concept with token icons like PBs and whales.
Fascinating debate really – seems loss of species from stable systems may matter.
http://discuss.santafe.edu/files/paleofoodwebs/McCann2000Nature.pdf
http://www.elet.polimi.it/upload/casagran/teaching/ecologia1/materiale/BiodivTilman.pdf
http://www.int-res.com/articles/meps_oa/m311p179.pdf
“Sounds like another piece of yippy hippy feel good jargon.”
Nah… it’s a sound scientific principle of ecology, which is the study of life systems and the environmental systems in which they reside. Well and truly accepted as sound science by the pre-eminent biologists of the 50s – 70s.
Not quite your standard wikipedia definition of yippy hippy feel good jargon. A for effort.
Belief in the importance of biodiversity is a “choice and is neither right nor wrong”? Excuse me? Biodiversity is either important or it isn’t. Our belief about whether it is or isn’t, that’s a choice and it’s being clearly exercised here.
“Species come and species go!” It’s just nature, and we’re more than obliging in giving her a helping hand. This is the ultimate intellectual bastardry of our age, a legacy of the neo-darwinian social theory favoured by capitalism. ‘Hey, it’s all survival of the fittest. So if someone gets screwed over by my actions I’m doing old Mother Nature a favour, ensuring the survival of the species, he he…’
A great paradigm for free-market capitalism. Fits like a glove and rationalises oppression and exploitation in the name of growing a corparate consumer economy which has the remarkable ability to put 90% of the world’s resources into the ownership of about 10% of its population. Not a good recipe for any kind of biodiversity or economic and environmental sustainablity, I would think.
“If they are going quicker today…” No doubt about it. Basic arithmetic really. Not hockeystick graphs. 4 billion people are going to impact their environment at least four times faster than one billion people. Go figure.
It’s like a biological fire. As the fire grows, it’s demand for fuel increases, otherwise it eventually goes out. Again, this fits nicely with the neo-darwinian paradigm. A nature-given imperative to expand at all costs. Who needs the morality of a civil society?
As long as we’re making a buck out it, who cares?
I once resolved to learn how to distinguish the various different species of rainforest skink.
When I openend my reference material and found that there were four-hundred an fifty of the similarly designed critters, I settled for the familiarity of ‘rainforest skink’.
I wonder, in the context of our current discussion, would it really matter, that one of those 450 species fell by the wayside?
I would have to say yes, to every other species to which it is interdependent and no, when we consider that 99% of all species have succumbed to extinction throughout the ravages of time.
But still there is life and in my humble opinion – biodiversity value beyond extinction.
Evolution is enigmatic, in the sense that is contradicts the erosion of time. I suspect that every living thing is vested with the genetic imprint of its forebears’ adaptive failures. Its capacity to decipher is no doubt limited to its phenotypic capabilty, but life progresses, in its adaptability and has done since time immemorial, except for the aberation of humankind.
Don’t get me wrong; humankind has obviously been blindsided by the grandeur of its cognitive capability, which appears to have completely eclipsed the wisdom of its evolutionary adaptability, IMHO.
But nature will prevail.
“perhaps greater species diversity is not the same as biodiversity”
Yeah..na… Species diversity is one component of biodiversity. There is also diversity of geography, terrain and climate involved as well. Together they make a biosphere. Ecology is the science of the biosphere. Astrophysicists do planets and stars and the natural laws of physics and can put a man on the moon. Ecologists are like that, except about the biosphere thing. Same process of enquiry, hypthesising, analysing, identifying patterns and understandings that is the scientific method. Equally worthy of our consideration as space exploration, although it doesn’t quite have the payoff for the military industry favoured by many national governments.
Our failure to comprehend the science on biodiversity, or global warming or clmate change for that matter may well have dire consequences for us and our descendants. Economic, social, and civil breakdown will be the likely outcome. A bit like the Dark Ages all over again really. But hey, we’ll have done our bit to ensure the survival of our species through elimination of the weak.
In my student days, my friend Tim said, “That’s the trouble with you hippies. Don’t worry about trying to change the world, humans will become adapted to living in a garbage dump.”
A philosophy attractive to many, I’m sure, but not to one with a scientific outlook on life in all its varied forms and manifestations.
Nice one Neil! Good call IMHO.
And of course you’ve got ya alpha, beta and gamma bidiversity too.
http://cnx.org/content/m12147/latest/
I think Panther-girl likes gamma myself.
But anyway la de dah – does greater species diversity of a system in a reasonably natural state (i.e one untouched by Ian Mott, TCA or David@Tokyo) in general confer greater stability.
Well that about covers biodiversity.
Yep, Chapter 15.2 pretty much says it all, if you bother to read it. I guess that’s why in the name of good governance, our nation has signed such a convention. Because it represents concisely what ecologists have understood about biosystems through the scientific method. Received wisdom of our time, if you like. You may not like. That is your choice. But it ain’t good science. Or maybe that’s the general idea.
Agenda 21 (with all its endorsements) represents the greatest collective intellectual expression of human desire to redirect towards a sustainable future; ever.
However, fifteen years have elapsed and direction has irrevocably followed the road to corruption.
Despite our ethical capabilities, we seem to be imprevious to our collective cognicative corruptablities.
What about natural ecological threatening processes and biodiversity. Threatening processes from mother nature herself.
Mt. Hotham in Victoria is 1890M high. It is capped, on average, with 600-800ft of basalt. At various locations beneath this cap are old river beds, which exit at a number of points on the mountain’s sides. The current rivers which drain this country (Dargo, Cobungra, Kiewa, etc.) are way down below this point, 1.75 kilometres below, approx. An odd sight to be roaming way up in the Alps and come across an old river bed sticking out the side, with the valley way below.
The rivers were of a type similar to what are in the mountains now, with a bed of coarse river sediment overlying bedrock, although they were much wider and probably ran in the opposite direction. Many remnants of this system lay around (under) Victoria.
Obviously what occurred here many moons ago was that enormous volcanic eruptions spewed lava over vast areas, where it flowed into this (and other) river system(s), filling it over hundreds of kilometers to a great depth. A catastrophic natural event with a permanent outcome. A vast river system, there one minute, was buried the next (give or take a few days).
The area of course, has now developed into a completely new ecological landscape with completely different contouring and drainage lines.
A man I knew tried to get a mining claim on the buried river wash (tunneling from the sides with pick and shovel), as many points of exit carry good gold. Even though he is a careful and responsible human being, with the deepest respect for mother nature, he was told this was forbidden as it was National Park and may threaten the Pygmy Possum, an endangered species.
Some historic mining had taken place in the area, with most having melted back into the natural landscape.
This man knowledge of the mountains was immense, in fact he showed some ‘scientists’ in the first instance, where the pygmy possum could be found (although they never acknowledged him and took the credit).
On top of the mountain now we have skiing facilities (runs, lifts, trails, shops, carparks, etc.) and a billion dollar complex about to be built there. All in the name of tourism.
What is wrong with this story?
Another observation regarding threats to biodiversity caused by Mother Nature, I heard as recently as today, from an ‘official expert’ who assured the concerned public that everything was alright. He was referring to the millions of native fauna that have been fried (so far) in the on going wildfires in Victoria. He said that fire was a natural part of Australia and that the fauna were used to it. They’ll be right mate.
This event is similar to the above mentioned. There one minute gone the next.
What is wrong with this story?
How does biodiversity fit into the above scenarios?
Of course not all biodiversity is terrestrial
Biodiversity concerns in the world’s oceans are reaching critical.
The latest being this 2007 Science article on “Anchovy Fishery Threat to the Patagonian Ecosystem”
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070101/full/070101-4.html
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/315/5808/45.pdf
Human-dominated marine ecosystems are experiencing accelerating loss of populations and
species, with largely unknown consequences.
http://myweb.dal.ca/bworm/Worm_etal_2006Science.pdf
and Global Patterns of Predator
Diversity in the Open Oceans – severe declines
myweb.dal.ca/bworm/Worm_etal_2005.pdf
There’s no doubt humans can get stuck into biodiversity if we put our minds to it !
Right up to the point the system collapses e.g. the Newfoundland Cod debacle.
Diversity is important period!
Biological and cultural diversity are as necessary as each other and more often than not come hand in hand.
It seems we have a consensus. Whatever biodiversity might be, it’s at least good, and most certainly bad to be against.
Re Agenda 21, the Preamble states we are confronted with -“a worsening of poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy, and the continuing deterioration of the ecosystems on which we depend for our well-being.”
This is in the first couple of lines and it is wrong. Does the rest of it get any better?
“a worsening of poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy, and the continuing deterioration of the ecosystems on which we depend for our well-being.”
Hey, Paul, please explain which part of this is wrong, and if it is, why that would negate the rest of the convention? Or is it just a general discomfort with whole concept?
This is a pointless thread really. To broad. One could go on infinitum about biodiversity, especially on a global context and especially if one just has to cut and paste from the web.
It takes the saying “I’ll just have to take your word for it” to a whole new level.
Why don’t we concentrate on individual local species more. Sooty Owl, Pygmy Possum, Sugar Gliders, Koalas, Powerful Owls, etc. Or maybe the threatening processes like increased sedimentation in streams, removal of hollow logs, frequency of fires, tourism, etc.
It has been noted that previous individual species posts were quiet. Does this show how little people really know about their ‘local’ environment when it is broken down to defined elements of it?
The U.N. and its Agenda 21 is a load of crock. A bureaucratic nightmare really.
When it comes to biodiversity keep it local.
Maybe we could start with the Koalas sitting out the back of our town, with feet and bodies so badly burnt, they pose a question (or two). Some have young on their back.
Considering the principles of sustainable biodiversity, do we leave them in the trees to die a slow death or do we shoot them?
I suppose this comes down to whether or not these fires are seen as ‘natural’ or not.
Then again, we could just ignore them.
Slim: Like Cinders, I also do a ‘who are these people? (Tasmanian bred curiosity). Thanks for dropping in.
Biodiversity: A manufactured thing and I was going to give it a big miss till she the practical one more interested in rising later and another cup of tea said “enjoy it while you can”.
Years ago when I was with a bunch of scientists’ farewelling a friend they pulled apart our gardening styles in their combined eulogy. Together we had done some makeovers round the town. We are creatures of our background cultures it seems, hers related to finding satisfaction in groundcovers, bulbs, flowers, and an absence of tiny foraging creatures; mine, rocks, soils, trees and landscaping for water runoff.
What makes up each of our private worlds and personal expectations of the environment depends on a few factors though. In another thread I partially outlined for Cinders benefit one family structure with a number of uncles who loved working in forests. That usually meant pushing it all around a bit with their dozers. What I did not say however was the younger one frequently returned from his great forest expeditions with fresh specimens for Grandma’s large flourishing cottage garden.
From a very early age I had some serious lessons in caring for native transplants including orphaned creatures and their success or failures in our domestic environment. At Grandma’s zoo like menagerie the most tragic thing was the accidents when other peoples “lost” hunting dogs also recovered from the bush reverted to their natural ways.
The most successful adult survivor I can recall was the Christmas bush and native pepper. One of my aunties also had a big huon pine growing beside the sea.
The other lesson comes from watching such forests regrow after near annihilation. Although on the domestic front I can establish a native forest quickly after random selection of suitable sized seedlings; my observations over decades of recovery in vast tracts of say the West Coast of Tasmania leave me wondering of what we have truly learned. On that score I only have to revisit Queenstown (total forest destruction and soil loss after fumes and fires) to see how we have converted rainforest to a funny sort of scrubland but that’s our most extreme example.
I see a tree as a triangle with roots at the bottom and flowers on top for a proper balance over its life. I see a forest as a triangle with soil and nutrients at the base over rocks and upper level creatures eating honey on top over a millennium. That’s about our mutual dependence. It leads me to an overview like Gaia.
stewie go ahead, define it as you see fit and address that. I reckon Neil made the thread sufficiently open so you’re not railroaded at the very start (or should it be more controversial?). We can keep it local and please do, but remember that a few species don’t respect local or national borders and some may suffer the effects of manmade activities that aren’t just local or national. (Hence ecology and international agreements get raised, but leave them aside for the moment).
Is it helpful to focus on single species and ignore the system of which they’re a part as you suggest stewie? You might respond ‘well to focus on that species we have to ensure they at least have nesting places and food too’ but where do you then limit that series of questions? It leads to system considerations – an old realisation. The koala question isn’t the most appropriate to the topic if they’re certain to die from burns anyway, but it’s in front of you and cuts to controversies over forest & fire management (I said many of the the frenzied discussions are about forestry). You might like to say more on biodiversity itself stewie.
Like others have requested, I’m keen to hear the rationale of those who are uncomfortable with or reject the concept. Not just the politics or the policies but biodiversity itself. So far a few dissenters have made isolated, vague remarks or nitpicked the label. Will they volunteer same brave views on the subject like that last paragraph from Gavin and several others above?
I hope Davey Esq. will chime in again too. And Boxer?
Slim, all of that sentence is wrong. You can find extensive documentation that it is wrong in “The Sceptical Environmentalist”, by Bjorn Lomborg. Have you read it?
I haven’t read the Agenda 21 document, hence my question, is the rest of it any better than the opening sentences? Have you read it, or are you happy that anything with “United Nations” and “sustainable” in it must be good?
Paul can you please tell us Lomborg’s best points against?
Luke:
While I don’t doubt the value of biodiversity I do find the three marine examples of critical concern that you cite to be highly dubious. The Patagonian anchovy fishery does not yet exist and the massive Peruvian anchovy fishery which has long existed has not resulted in such problems.
The Worm et al. example is more an assertion than a fact. Although Worm has attracted a lot of attention by marine doomscrying the validity of his methods and claims have been strongly criticized by a number of leading fisheries biologists. As for the species loss you mention can you name any marine fish or invertebrate anywhere, ever, that has been lost through human causation?
The Newfoundland cod situation is better described as an ecosystem shift than as a collapse. While cod populations have been greatly reduced large increases in the populations of northern prawns, snow crabs, capelin and Maine lobster have all been attributed to the decline in predation by cod. Large increases in the harp seal population have also resulted from an increase in their food supply. The increased value of the northern prawn and snow crab fisheries alone is now greater than the cod they have replaced. In terms of both economic value and biodiversity this change is arguably a better example of an improvement than of a system collapse.
Walter – How did I know you would have that opinion? IPA’s interest is well served in making sure that all fisheries and Reef exploitation just keep on going.
I find your Cod benefits story outstanding.
La Panter, you keep demanding the rationale of those against biodiversity, but you, & the others have yet to offer me any rationale, other than vague, psuedo religious claptrap, beloved of greenies, in favor. The same rubbish that sees a man, refused permission to remove the tree, which later destroys his house.
I wonder if it will be me, or my kids, who have their can of fly spray taken off them, in the name of biodiversity.
If I were a little younger, I would be terrified of biodiversity, because of the fevor of its disciples, but its my kids who have to be worried.
Will it take a major catastrophe to finally get some sense into the “green” people?
Hopefully, it could be as minor as the urban water shortage, which has seen the urban greenie rabid resistance to dams, dry up, along with their water supply.
Finally, you tell me, what harm it would do to the biosphere, if I were to eliminate the tick which kills my pet, or my cattle. Or even better, the mosquito that kills millions of people with
malaria.
Just because an organism has found a niche does not make it “GOOD”, or desirable.
Pinxi,
Lomborgs best points against the Agenda 21 preamble that I quoted are his references, of which he has about 70 pages.
Rather than try to summarise a 350 page book, can I ask whether you have read it? It covers many topics.
Hasbeen,
The mosquito plays a vital role is sustaining a diversity of insectivores, like bats. In the Daintree rainforest alone, occupying around 10% of the biomass of all fauna, twenty-eight species consume up to their individual body-weight in insects per night (the bats can distinguish different species of insect through echolocation from their wingbeat in flight). At the end of the night, the bats retrun to their caves and displace a community of white-rumped swiflets that spend the entire day on the wing, eating mosquitoes also found through echolocation. Pythons and treefrogs eat bats and probably swiflets too.
Perhaps mosquitoes are biological control for humans? As Neil pointed out, many, many organisms rely on mosquitoes, flies, ticks, and so on for food, and in turn others rely on them for food. You would not just be eliminating one species (mosquitoes) so that another species (humans) doesn’t suffer. Besides, mosquitoes are a carrier for the protozoan parasite that causes malaria.
Neil, I for one, am in agreement with the million or so Africans who would say, that their lives are more valuable, particularly to them, than the full bellies of any number of bats.
Are you one of those who would rob me of my fly spray?
LPR notes “many of the frenzied discussions are about forestry” and I say why not? because most of what we are today comes from our understanding of forestry or lack of it as the case may be.
Our focus on the fate of a single species, although sometimes it will be highly controversial (eg PBs) is more of a distraction than a quiet look at a range of subjects in our picture. Balance is best viewed when we see each picture in an exhibition from a distance. Another artist trick is to turn the chosen one upside down for a while.
Having said that I note none of our forestry discussions involve the function of our woods as hosts to world wide species like a whole variety of fungi and say bracken fern or our obligation as managers to keep them in any state other than clean. Its through observation of fine detail included that I relate to the validity individual contributions on these matters
We each lost touch through scientific versus legal jargon. Even stewie’s golden flashes are more revealing than any pages from some conference notes or UN journal.
For another angle; with the advent of wilderness photography the power of our arguments changed dramatically. That snapped many of us back into the visual. When a retiring secretary handed me the residue of Jim England’s Lake Pedder post cards I was jolted back to a wetlands in a wilderness like no other.
At what price do we gain power over nature in all its glory? Some things are worth keeping for their own sake but its often neither dune, nor lake nor fish.
Gavin,
‘At what price do we gain power over nature…?’
I am utterly convinced that we cannot, regardless of price. Nature is all-powerful. Any attempt to assume dominion, even from millenia of anthropogenic impacts, is delusional, IMHO.
I found this article very interesting: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5278
From a detached perspective, the global human picture looks self-defeating.
Another point best illustrated here by Jim
http://www.view.com.au/discover/aadjf.htm
The marine extinction story is quite interesting – it’s problematic – a sampling problem, a detection problem and a frequency of study issue.
Indeed North American freshwater fauna have had a sizeable number of extinctions.
Perhaps some skates are locally extinct in some areas.
I find it difficult to not believe that the world’s marine resources are not under serious pressure and that all these researchers are having themselves on. The United Nations themselves are concerned about population collapses and an indeterminate time for recovery if ever.
Conservation Biology 13 (5), 1220–1222.
doi:10.1046/j.1523-1739.1999.98380.x
Extinction Rates of North American Freshwater Fauna
Anthony Ricciardi**Department of Biology , Dalhousie University, Halifax (NS), B3H 4J1, Canada,
email and
Joseph B. Rasmussen††Department of Biology , McGill University, Montreal (QC) H3A 1B1, Canada
*Department of Biology , Dalhousie University, Halifax (NS), B3H 4J1, Canada,
email ricciard@is.dal.ca
†Department of Biology , McGill University, Montreal (QC) H3A 1B1, Canada
Abstract
Abstract: Since 1900, 123 freshwater animal species have been recorded as extinct in North America. Hundreds of additional species of fishes, mollusks, crayfishes, and amphibians are considered imperiled. Using an exponential decay model, we derived recent and future extinction rates for North American freshwater fauna that are five times higher than those for terrestrial fauna. Assuming that imperiled freshwater species will not survive throughout the next century, our model projects a future extinction rate of 4% per decade, which suggests that North America’s temperate freshwater ecosystems are being depleted of species as rapidly as tropical forests.
High Rates of Extinction and Threat in Poorly Studied Taxa
Conservation Biology 13 (6), 1273–1281.
doi:10.1046/j.1523-1739.1999.97393.x
High Rates of Extinction and Threat in Poorly Studied Taxa
Michael L. McKinney
Departments of Geology and Ecology/Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, U.S.A., email mmckinne@utk.edu
Abstract
Abstract:
Mass extinctions in the past have been characterized by abnormally high species extinction rates within almost all taxa. Attempts to estimate relative rates of extinction and threat among modern taxa, such as insects, plants, and vertebrates, are impeded by differences in the quality of information about each group. Insects and marine groups, for example, have much smaller percentages of known threatened species but also have many more undescribed species than do plants or vertebrates. I tested the possibility that all major groups have equally high rates of extinction and threat. The first test was a model assuming that differences in apparent global extinction and threat rate are caused by two sampling biases that produce artificially low rates in understudied taxa: (1) a common-species bias in which taxonomists tend to record common (more extinction-resistant) species first and (2) evaluative neglect, which is a tendency to spend relatively less effort evaluating the extinction and threat status of recorded species in understudied taxa. Global extinction and threat data from a number of groups generally follow the pattern predicted by this model. The second test shows that in direct measurements of extinction and threat between taxa in well-studied regions, such as the United States and United Kingdom, the apparent global disparity among taxa is greatly reduced. Indeed, many globally understudied taxa, such as insects and other invertebrates, have higher rates of threat than many other taxa, including mammals, in these well-studied areas. These two tests provide quantitative support for previous suggestions that the wide disparity in rates of species extinction and threat among groups represents an artifactual distortion of the actual rates. Specific suggestions for improved estimates of actual threat include (in order of increasing accuracy): use of well-studied proxy taxa such as mammals; comparison of threat data among taxa only in well-studied regions; and, especially important, increased efforts to evaluate the threat status of recorded species of understudied taxa.
Marine Fish Population Collapses: Consequences for Recovery and Extinction Risk
JEFFREY A. HUTCHINGS, JOHN D. REYNOLDS
Rapid declines threaten the persistence of many marine fish. Data from more than 230 populations reveal a median reduction of 83% in breeding population size from known historic levels. Few populations recover rapidly; most exhibit little or no change in abundance up to 15 years after a collapse. Reductions in fishing pressure, although clearly necessary for population recovery, are often insufficient. Persistence and recovery are also influenced by life history, habitat alteration, changes to species assemblages, genetic responses to exploitation, and reductions in population growth attributable to the Allee effect, also known as depensation. Heightened extinction risks were highlighted recently when a Canadian population of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) was listed as endangered, on the basis of declines as high as 99.9% over 30 years. Unprecedented reductions in abundance and surprisingly low rates of recovery draw attention to scientists’ limited understanding of how fish behavior, habitat, ecology, and evolution affect population growth at low abundance. Failure to prevent population collapses, and to take the conservation biology of marine fishes seriously, will ensure that many severely depleted species remain ecological and numerical shadows in the ecosystems that they once dominated.
Keywords: Conservation biology, biodiversity, Atlantic cod, endangered species, population ecology
DOI: 10.1641/0006-3568(2004)054[0297:MFPCCF]2.0.CO;2
Conservation Biology 14 (1), 283–293.
doi:10.1046/j.1523-1739.2000.98540.x
Fishery Stability, Local Extinctions, and Shifts in Community Structure in Skates
Nicholas K. Dulvy,**School of Biological Sciences , University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom
‡‡ Current address: Department of Marine Sciences and Coastal Management, Ridley Building, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE1 7RU, United Kingdom, email n.k.dulvy@ncl.ac.uk
Julian D. Metcalfe,††Centre for Environment , Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Pakefield Road, Lowestoft, NR33 OHT, United Kingdom
Jamie Glanville,**School of Biological Sciences , University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom
Mike G. Pawson,††Centre for Environment , Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Pakefield Road, Lowestoft, NR33 OHT, United Kingdom and
John D. Reynolds**School of Biological Sciences , University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom
*School of Biological Sciences , University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom
†Centre for Environment , Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Pakefield Road, Lowestoft, NR33 OHT, United Kingdom
Abstract
Abstract:
Skates are arguably the most vulnerable of exploited marine fishes. Their vulnerability is often assessed by examining fisheries catch trends, but these data are not generally recorded on a species basis except in France. Aggregated skate catch statistics tend to exhibit more stable trends than those of other elasmobranch fisheries. We tested whether such apparent stability in aggregated catch trends could mask population declines of individual species. We examined two time series of species-specific surveys of a relatively stable skate fishery in the northeast Atlantic. These surveys revealed the disappearance of two skate species, long-nose skate ( Dipturus oxyrhinchus) and white skate ( Rostroraja alba) and confirmed a previously documented decline of the common skate ( D. batis). Of the remaining five skate species, the three larger ones have declined, whereas two smaller species have increased in abundance. The increase in abundance and biomass of the smaller species has resulted in the stability of the aggregated catch trends. Because there is significant dietary overlap among species, we suggest the increase in abundance of the smaller species may be due to competitive release as the larger species declined. A consequence of this kind of stability is that declining species cannot be detected without species-specific data, especially in taxa exhibiting competitive interactions. This may explain why previously documented disappearances of two species of skates went unnoticed for so long. The conservation of skates and other elasmobranchs requires species-specific monitoring and special attention to larger specie
Great Barrier Reef sharks in collapse
TOWNSVILLE, Australia, Dec. 5 2006 (UPI) — Australian scientists say coral reef shark populations on the Great Barrier Reef are in a catastrophic collapse.
Research — conducted by William Robbins and colleagues at James Cook University and the Australian Research Council’s Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies — found grey reef shark numbers have declined to around 3 percent of unfished levels and are falling so quickly they could collapse to 1-1,000th of unfished levels within 20 years.
The study is the first of its kind to combine direct underwater counts of shark abundance with mathematical models that project future population trends.
“Our research indicates current reef shark abundances and levels of fishing pressure are simply not sustainable,” said Robbins, the study’s lead author. “Reef sharks are effectively on a fast track to ‘ecological extinction’ — becoming so rare that they will no longer play their part in the ecology and food web of the reef.
“It also suggests that immediate and substantial reductions in fishing pressure will be needed to give threatened populations any chance of recovery,” he added.
The research appears in this week’s issue of Current Biology.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20061205-11111900-bc-australia-sharks.xml
Certainly Boris Worm is despondent about global marine resource biodiversity in serious decline.
‘Only 50 years left’ for sea fish
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6108414.stm
There will be virtually nothing left to fish from the seas by the middle of the century if current trends continue, according to a major scientific study.
Stocks have collapsed in nearly one-third of sea fisheries, and the rate of decline is accelerating.
myweb.dal.ca/bworm/Worm_etal_2006Science.pdf
similarly about large predator fish numbers
myweb.dal.ca/bworm/Worm_etal_2005.pdf
Overfishing responding way out of line with the ability of regulatory agencies to respond.
myweb.dal.ca/bworm/Berkes_etal_2006.pdf
myweb.dal.ca/bworm/Hughes_etal_2006.pdf
This blog heard the pros and cons of tuna harvest fudging in August this year.
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001538.html
The Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna now reports:
http://www.ccsbt.org/docs/news.html
Reviews of SBT farming and market data during 2006 suggest that southern bluefin tuna catches may have been substantially under-reported over the past 10-20 years. The impact of unreported catches on the estimates of past total catch and CPUE meant that it was not possible to proceed with the current Management Procedure, and that the Management Procedure needs to be re-evaluated.
Scenario modeling showed that in order to reduce the short term risk (to 2014) of further declines in stock size, a meaningful reduction in catch below 14,925 tonnes was required.
The CCSBT agreed to a 3 year total allowable catch of 11,810 tonnes, which is a TAC reduction of 3,115 tonnes. In addition, Taiwan and the Republic of Korea have undertaken to maintain their actual catch below 1,000 tonnes for a minimum of 3 years, giving a total actual catch level that should be below 11,530 tonnes for a 3 year period.
South Africa and the European Community have joined the Commission as Cooperating Non-Members. Indonesia has indicated that it intends to lodge an application for Cooperating Non-Member status in the near future.
Total fish tagged in the CCSBT tagging program is now 63,740. Recoveries of tags from all components of the SBT fishery are occurring.
The CCSBT will review its Scientific Research Program in 2007.
Calls for bans on destructive bottom trawling practices
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6181396.stm
North Sea cod fishing ban urged
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6069750.stm
A complete ban on cod fishing has again been recommended by experts until severely depleted stocks recover.
If Cod is so scare why can I still buy it.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6061872.stm
Albatross deaths prompt action from New Zealand
01-12-2006
http://www.birdlife.org/news/news/2006/12/swordfish_ban.html
The New Zealand government is considering imposing a temporary ban on surface longline fishing in the Kermadec Islands after a fishing vessel was reported to have killed 51 albatrosses in a single trip. Conservationists hope the ban will give the government time to implement mitigation techniques in the fishery, to reduce levels of seabird bycatch.
Prominent Scientists Join Call for UN Moratorium on Longline Fishing
705 International Scientists from 83 countries Have Signed
baltimorechronicle.com/020205SeaTurtle.shtml
Without more protection, global oceans will not be able to recover from shrinking fish populations, General Assembly told. Drift net fishing, by-catch etc.
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/ga10548.doc.htm
Neil, you need cheering up if you’re feeding your mind on that depressing bilge. 200 year war my foot!
Are we supposed to live like Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, with a life span of about 20 years? Although even that didn’t save Australia’s mega fauna. What percentage of GDP do you suppose pre-European Aborigines spent on conserving the giant wombat?
And for a country described like this;
“Over 200 years later, we are witness to widespread salinisation from misguided irrigation projects, streams and rivers filled with poisonous algal blooms because of the extensive use of fertilisers, and the environmental devastation wreaked by rabbits, cane toads and hoofed animals.”
we sure manage to feed a lot of people.
I’d suggest a soothing glass of Coonawarra red, but the thought of all that lost biodiversity that is now a vineyard is just too depressing;)
Gawd, Luke is mainlining google again; from Lancet –
BMJ 2003;327:1459-1461 (20 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7429.1459
Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials
Gordon C S Smith, professor1, Jill P Pell, consultant2
1 Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Cambridge University, Cambridge CB2 2QQ, 2 Department of Public Health, Greater Glasgow NHS Board, Glasgow G3 8YU
Abstract
Objectives To determine whether parachutes are effective in preventing major trauma related to gravitational challenge.
Design Systematic review of randomised controlled trials.
Data sources: Medline, Web of Science, Embase, and the Cochrane Library databases; appropriate internet sites and citation lists.
Study selection: Studies showing the effects of using a parachute during free fall.
Main outcome measure Death or major trauma, defined as an injury severity score > 15.
Results We were unable to identify any randomised controlled trials of parachute intervention.
Conclusions As with many interventions intended to prevent ill health, the effectiveness of parachutes has not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by using randomised controlled trials. Advocates of evidence based medicine have criticised the adoption of interventions evaluated by using only observational data. We think that everyone might benefit if the most radical protagonists of evidence based medicine organised and participated in a double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial of the parachute.
Paul,
Imagine what might be achievable … taking the best from each extreme; a synthesis of the ecological integrity and unparalleled sustainability of pre-colonial Oz with the ingenuity of the other.
Neil: Although I don’t believe in absolutes outside our verbal structures I grew up where I could occasionally watch a great hulk of a man who had been to Japan and returned with all his pre war black belts regraded. He became again and again a tenth dan in something or other and when he stood up on a mat all his students crashed over and over. But his body, limbs and everything else hardly moved. The Japanese attention to detail in any craft has fascinated me ever since.
Returning to OLO where I hardly ever go these days I found this from Ludwig under your link (Neil: keep an eye on the mainliners ) –
“So what do I do for the environment? Not as much as I used to. These days it is just posts on OLO, over a thousand now, most of which have an environmental bent, and keeping the message coming regarding population growth, coastal development and land clearing within my job and wherever I can”
Ludwig (ex northern QLD and zero pop top it seems) as a real person is unruffled by taunts over our feral cats.
My old tabby is still asleep on my bed after being out all night avoiding the hot house after a genuine 41C yesterday arvo and No AC!!!
My dear departed was once a breeder and judge of more refined short haired monsters. She also studied their vision from the inside but that’s another story. See how I too can move on to ethics and tolerance?
Thanks Neil for your link to that quality article, but what have we on this blog learned?
Michael Paton: “I argue that the ethical responsibility of our “southern” culture is to point out the delicacy of ecology to regional partners whose comparatively fecund environments and economic circumstances do not encourage them to see past the short term to the real effects of such practices as widespread deforestation”
Japan uses our wood and other stuff as we import odd bits of their post war culture including personal affiliations with machines.
But I can see on the www from private albums they also have lots of pussy cats in Japan.
That’s how some of us become human again.
Hasbeen there have been a number of explanations presented above on the importance of biodiversity. Dismiss all of those if you will, especially if you’ve taken the time to understand them, but I politely ask yourself, Paul W and others who agree with you if you can explain your position. Simply dismissing it as claptrap or without adding more than ‘I don’t support this because Lomborg doesn’t although I can’t recall his arguments but he provided a long list of references that I haven’t read myself’ is shallow and deprives us the opportunity to examine our position. Please tell us why the notion of biodiversity is crap/nonsense/overrated or whatever you believe. Paul if Lomborg’s arguments were that convincing then surely you can recall & summarise something, ANYTHING, from his compelling arguments (beyond telling us he had a long impressive list of references – Luke gives you those all the time but you don’t swallow his views).
Walter have the gains you made out from the cod collapse produced greater net economic benefits, or a greater quantity of food and a greater number of human livelihoods? Lots of people still fretting over the cod are unlikely to agree with you. Who else believes the current situation is an improved outcome? Haven’t seen any claims of “gee glad we overfished those nuisance cod”.
Walter Starck:” The Newfoundland cod situation is better described as an ecosystem shift than as a collapse. While cod populations have been greatly reduced large increases in the populations of northern prawns, snow crabs, capelin and Maine lobster have all been attributed to the decline in predation by cod. Large increases in the harp seal population have also resulted from an increase in their food supply. The increased value of the northern prawn and snow crab fisheries alone is now greater than the cod they have replaced. In terms of both economic value and biodiversity this change is arguably a better example of an improvement than of a system collapse.”
Hi Walter,
This is really the very first time I hear a version like yours.
Don’t think any fisherman in NewFoundland finds your position as correct.
The Canadian Gov’t and the NewFoundland fishing communities are grieving at the loss of the cod fishery.
The whole ecosystem has collapsed.
Some cause to the ecosystem collapse and cod fisheries collapse were that bottom trawlers or draggers ruined the seabottom.
Fish nurseries and spawning areas together with sponge communities ,cold water corals etc. were completely destroyed.
Still the groundfish fishery is still completely ruined despite a decade long moratorium.
And it doesn’t help to cull harp seals to improve the situation…
Neil, I’m not sure I agree with describing pre-colonial Australia as a land of “ecological integrity and unparalleled sustainability”.
The ingenuity of modern civilisation and the wealth gained from technological advances allows us a surplus to fund National Parks and United Nations agreements on sustainability and other ecology sustaining activities. I think we’re getting it pretty right, more often than not.
I would suggest Bjorn Lomborg’s book as an anti-depressant after reading Michael Paton’s article!
Pinxi, there you go misrepresenting what I said. The Agenda 21 statement I quoted “a worsening of poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy, and the continuing deterioration of the ecosystems on which we depend for our well-being.” is a good summary of what Lomborg calls The Litany. That is, the environment is getting worse, we are destroying the biosphere and will end up killing ourselves. Sound familiar?
Then he looks at a number of indicators of human welfare, environmental factors, resources, pollution (even biodiversity) and shows, from the available records, that things are better than the Litany admits, and are generally getting better. He doesn’t say everything is perfect.
If you haven’t read it, you should, in my opinion. I don’t think Lomborg uses Google as much as Luke, but you never know.
Rog is traumatised by what is called relevant scientific literature again. Have have a rest on something more naturale for you like Tim Blair where you can fabricate stuff from thin air and avoid reading anything that might cause advanced cognitive dissonance.
Paul – yes we may be getting it right in some areas but only due to conservation advocacy by an enlightened and green possessed few but now enjoyed by many. How do many of our national parks get there – fought for by the IPA and TCA perhaps?
Witness the influx of families to our national parks at Easter and school holidays if partaking in representative remnant ecology is unpopular. Neil would you like logging trucks still wandering through your part of FNQ?
Left without balance there are many examples of over-exploitation or lessons perhaps learned historically about unsustainable use.
The tragedy of the commons is take, take, take if you can get away with it.
And if you read one of my GOOGLES (selected from a very longer list) people will still say “I’m getting my Cod in fish and chips – so gee things can’t be that bad can it” ! Well yes it can actually.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6061872.stm
I think that we need to be very careful about embracing the cause of biodiversity. There are arguments both for and against, and having been involved for a while in the periphery of the biodiversity issue, I am, as usual, stunned by the hypocrisy of the pro diversity group.
If we truly believe in the essential preservation of all forms of all organisms, then we need to reappraise a number of our national and international priorities.
Malaria is a living organism, and one component of bidiversity. How can we justify the current world wide program to eliminate malaria?
Similarly, a brand new organism appeared recently, and the species of homo sapiens mounted a global campaign to eliminate it. It is called SARS.
We have conducted a campaign over many years in Australia to eliminate brucellosis in our cattle herds. How can we justify this?
So we must ask ourselves, do we really believe in biodiversity, or do we actually believe in “selective biodiversity”, where the differentiation lies in its convenience to the species of homo sapiens? Is the malaria organism more important to planet earth than the human organism? Is the rubella organism more important to planet earth than the human organism? If we truly believe in biodiversity, we must say that they are of equal importance, and hence we should abandon all programs aimed at eradication of selective organisms based solely on their inconvenience to the species of homo sapiens.
Similarly, when we get sick, and go to the doctor to get fixed, often that fix consists of elimination or overcoming a living organism in our body which is causing the sickness. Should we stop this premeditated attack on these organisms?
Or maybe we like the popular idea of biodiversity because it involves preserving nice fluffy animals like pandas.
Let’s go back to the beginning of this thread and start this discussion again.
Like amen in the church, those who are opposed to biodiversity starts to talk about different viruses, bacteria and other pathogens.
Of course this is stimulating for the debate and makes you wonder where the limits should be drawn….
Lomborg could quote percentage improvements in poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy but if you take total numbers…? We’re getting worse on total population for many of these factors. Is Lomborg a credible source of scientific input on biodiversity or peer-reviewed? Where there are improvements, what has improved and why – who fought for it. There have been reviews of his cherries before and I don’t think a Lomborg debate is on topic. Paul it wasn’t clear what you were saying on the basis of his popular science book. What’s the case for/against biodiversity or if that’s inaccurate portrayal, what’s the slant?
Dan, ‘selective biodiversity’ is a good question. Human interest will prevent us from putting the survival of a pathogen that affects us above ourselves. That would defeat one of the arguments for protecting biodiversity to ensure our own survival. How often do we actually eradicate such a species or strain entirely ie send it extinct?
Pinxi,
-if we take total numbers– there is improvement. Your own argument even says that, a percentage improvement in a larger population MUST be an improvement in total numbers, or don’t they teach sums on the collective.
-yes, credible and peer-reviewed (he uses official national and UN figures, for heavens sake!)
-read it if you want to know what he says, nothing I can say in his defence will convince you (a prediction, – you wont read it)
-I wasn’t commenting on biodiversity, but on Agenda 21, prompted by Neil’s comment that “Agenda 21 (with all its endorsements) represents the greatest collective intellectual expression of human desire to redirect towards a sustainable future; ever.” I think it’s based on a false premise.
Luke, why don’t you read Lomborg, then maybe you would have a basis for arguing about his book. Who knows, he might even convince you.
Well Ann, those who seek diversity should practice what they preach and embrace the many diverse philosphies and cultures, including conservatism and Lukes “right wing scum”.
Be honest, this stuff about BD is just another way of getting some traction on the street.
Who would have thought, a hundred years ago, that a mould would give rise to Penicillin or that aggressive viruses would be medically harnessed to fight cancers?
The value to humankind of protecting biological diversity from diminishing is quite a different matter to protecting humankind from danger.
No doubt the gazelle suffers from the greater prowess of the lion, but its vulnerabilities are offset by a greater population. Each species, though, is secure in its competitiveness.
The over-competitiveness of the human animal is causing extinctions. Just consider Australia’s record over the last two centuries, alone.
I suspect that human mortality weighs heavily in this debate, where biodiversity may be considered as both an asset and a liability.
We’re really down to the nit picking now.
To reiterate, biodiversity is a natural phenomenon which has attracted lots of scientific investigation – as it should.
As with global warming and climate change, the science suggests that all is not well. This is not welcome news to those of us who regard dealing with whatever issues may arise as likely to impact on the quality of the lifestyle to which we are accustomed, and generally desirous of having more of the same. It is not surprising that denial, obfuscation, detraction and distraction is the way some of us respond to this threat.
‘Belief’ in BD is an individual perogative, but it is separate from the science. You don’t have to believe in aerodynamics to fly in an aeroplane. The science is sound and the plane flies.
As I requested earlier in this thread, it would be great for BD skeptics to elighten us with a list of reasons why people want/need to be skeptical, or explain coherently why biodiversity is not important.
Oh I thought the new blog standard was abo, spiv, scum etc – bullocky’s daughter, goons and shonks were par for the course – so just trying to be one of the boys – blend in etc. OK Rog I’m sorry – I will learn to be more considerate.
But anyway back to Lomborg – Paul the issue is that given we’re discussing biodiversity/extinction etc – Lomborg has been severely criticised on that issue.
“The chapter on biodiversity is rife with careless errors. In addition to careless errors, we found a number of serious problems with Lomborg’s treatment of biodiversity. We disagree with his assessment of its importance and value, and find that he does not understand or misrepresents basic ecological concepts. His bias is evident in the sources he cites, the examples he selects, and in his misinterpretations of the data. Flawed logic in both his analyses and main arguments render his “no need to worry about the future of biodiversity” and extinction rate theses implausible. Below we describe a sampling of these problems and provide a brief description of the current scientific consensus of extinction rate estimates.”
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/ACFiQthze.pdf
But nevertheless I will place the said book on my reading list.
Reflecting on Paul’s “we sure manage to feed a lot of people.” comment of before – it is true.
And Australian farmers are quite efficient producers, heavy adopters of improved agricultural and natural resource management science over 200 years.
Many people undertook agricultural science to improve rural Australia by helping make an extra buck with applied science and technology while leaving resources in a more sustainable state. Seemed a noble and just cause. But the native biodiversity and greenhouse considerations had been left from the mix. Well perhaps more in urban eyes than elsewhere. Expansion of irrigation and greater access to clearing machinery after WWII changed things dramatically.
So before Queensland and NSW set relations with the rural sector back 100 years with mismanaged introductions of land clearing policies after 2000 I think there was innovative progress being made in regional working groups to put some more biodiversity considerations back into the system, develop wildlife corridors, sink some more carbon through sustainable practices, experimentation with tree strips etc.
And a recognition how important biodiversity conservation on private land is.
But in the way that it has been done, and noting Ian Mott’s ire as a bellweather, we have missed a major opportunity for improvement. I think we have missed the opportunity for this generation to adopt a genuine 3rd way mixed use model. It’s surprising how cooperative landholders can be if approached with respect and dealt with fairly.
The replacement is a bitter property rights dispute and sourness to destroy or mismanage environmental assets rather than have their management usurped by government. All I can say is that policies implanted were not necessarily the doing of Australian science.
To Neil: Knowing what we do about penicillin; when do we all start eating blue mould?
To Dan: When do we defend again against say the Japs and their fishing fleets?
To rog: How do you describe your garden?
To everybody: How do you handle every day; say slime? Selective elimination and conditioning play a large part of our modern environment control strategy and we pay a price for it in terms of demands on ever increasing forms of technology
To Luke: A lot of what we write in any thread is just personal nonsense. The ones that can’t smile about it are a worry hey.
My other tabby is currently sleeping in a green shopping bag behind me but does it make her environmentally safe? I rest my case.
Luke, if the Union of Concerned Scientists says Lomborg is wrong, that increases his credibility. You can make up your own mind, of course, if you read the book.
Paul – I’ll read the book if you read the reviews ! Deal ?
Luke, you can find most of the critiques here
http://www.lomborg.com/critique.htm
I’ve read some, and don’t really want to spend time reading more about an issue that has been resolved (in my mind).
I’m still ploughing through the Proceedings of the Polar Bear Specialist Group, I’m going to learn more about “Bundy” for the next few weeks.
If I can get a word in edgewise, I loved Rog’s parachute example. Much of the argument against controlled burning is of the same nature, but that’s another matter. For other readers, including La Pinxera (cara mia), I am not against the diversity of life on earth, nor do I oppose it. That would be silly. I just don’t find it a useful parameter, since it is, as Rog has pointed out, undefined. Thousands of words about it don’t make it defined. The best some people can do is to say that ‘biodiversity is the variety of life’. That is not a definition, just a translation.
For somebody who asked (Rog?) the word is usually attributed to Edward O. Wilson, a mate of Paul Ehrlich, and an academic with a fine sense of rhetoric. He borrowed the idea from an English biologist, who talked about ‘biological diversity’. Journalists and politicians quickly adopted it. Usually when they use it they actually mean simply ‘biota’.
Does biodiversity matter? I am compelled by reason to say yes. What biodiversity matters? AAAHH! herein lies the crux of the issue. If we believe much of what we read (and if its written by Paul Ehrlich then we DO NOT believe a word of it, has there ever lived a greater scaremonger?), then we accept that the biological life on Earth today is just a few percentage points of what has been over time. Therefore does it matter is individual species become extinct when history would suggest that something else will take its place in the pecking order (it may not be as pretty or sing as well).
Eucalypts are a good example of this. Once upon a time when the climate was colder and wetterspecies such as Eucalyptus viminalis were widespread and the dominant species from the Brindabella’s to the coast. As the climate dried and temperatures increasedE.viminalis retreated into the niche’s it occupies today. It is water demanding and prefers moist gullies and proximity to drainage features. Its place inteh landscape has been taken by a multitude of other Eucalypts.
E. viminalis became locally extinct and retreated to just a fraction of its former distribution. We know it from its current habitat preferences. No one I know is regretful that its geopgraphis range has shrunk or that it has become locally extinct in many areas. As this was a natural change in distribution should we lament it given the arguments already put forward or do we only lament the species that have gone extinct (locally or otherwise)during our time?
Spot on Davey Gam Esq. Certain politicians and journalists have played on the term and tried to imply a deeper meaning to it than is justified. It’s disturbing how politicians get away with it.
I find the description of fauna under Victorias Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act more disturbing. It describes all animals that are fauna, with the qualifying end description of “except human beings”.
I find this disturbing if one considers the potential affect on evolutionary ecology (incl. its biodiversity) that Aboriginals may have had through habitual burning of forests. This leaves the only ‘natural’ source of ignition as lightning strikes and hence provides a frequency of fire unable to cope with the accumulation of fuel, in an environmentally sustainable timeframe.
Maybe that was the idea but I suppose we must then conclude that Aboriginals are not part of the biodiversity or a native species.
Perhaps we need to look at it from the perspective of harm, and self defence. We should be concerned with protecting species that we harm directly/indirectly for human benefit or as a side effect of . It is no fault of that organism that we impact upon it.
Conversly when we think of Rubella, Malaria etc we are acting in self defence against that which will do us harm.
“and don’t really want to spend time reading more about an issue that has been resolved (in my mind). ”
So you’ve discounted their criticisms of his biodiversity analysis then. Or does Lomborg simply sit easier on the paradigm.
Davey – yes Rog’s parachute quip was tres humourous but I hadn’t actually Googled most of my marine stuff as he assumed – it was saved in my little library. I find it incredulous that people can say there is no problem with marine biodiversity in the light of all that evidence (hence tabled). And I haven’t even started on cyanide and the ornamental trade yet. 1000s of peer reviewed words are surely better than preferential ideas pulled out of thin air or sample sizes of one.
And as for extinctions – Brisbane River Cod is extinct – probably 1930s – does anyone really care – nope ! Except a few native aquarists who bemoan the total lack of interest in many small Australian fish species except pretty rainbow fauna.
La PR, & Slim, again you demand that I justify my position, in view of all your arguments, when as I said before, you have only given me your pseudo religious beliefs. [You may prefer this to claptrap].
The only person with an argument was Neil, with his interest in mosquitoes to feed his bats. But, you see, I have no requirement for bats either.
In fact, I would love to be free of fruit bats, which damage my fruit, pollute my roof, where I catch my water, & carry a deadly virus, which could kill me.[No loss I hear you mutter].
However, I am also not against biodiversity either, just not convinced of its importance in the scheme of things.
So you see, you have done a lousy job. I was willing to be convinced, if anyone had an argument, of any merit.
I believe the arrogance of those who think the world is now perfect, & they are entitled to demand it remain forever unchanged, truely breathtaking.
In fact, I’m sick of academic twits, in their hunt for grants, inventing problems, which are then used by the politians to belt me into even further submission.
The earth has had numerous mass extinctions, & still you tell me that every niche is filled with a unique, & indispensable organism. Well, I don’t buy it. Many have reached their dead end & must now go, thats how it works.
There will be more mass extinctions, but the niches will be filled, long after we are gone.
LOL! Hasbeen,
Probably the nisches fill be filled by your thriving fruit flies…
Ooops… will be filled by
Sorry guys,
Of course I meant Haspy’s fruit bats will fill the niches after we are gone ….but there is a big possibility IMO that the planet will be overtaken by insects, yeah, dead serious….
Paul on poverty, etc: “-if we take total numbers– there is improvement. Your own argument even says that, a percentage improvement in a larger population MUST be an improvement in total numbers, or don’t they teach sums on the collective.”
Errrr, sure Paul, if you believe so. Pls quantify. Can you illustrate with some real human development egs? In response to the question whether Lomborg was peer-reviewed you say his sources were! You haven’t explained any specific points of his that you support. Lomborg is hardly the credible source on this subject, particularly if you can’t explain which of his views is so compelling or what the point is.
Davey you’ve chickened out. There are plenty of human concepts that are imprecisely defined. Biodiversity though has very specific definitions if you move beyond the summary tags. Is the concept evolving? Yes, but what aspect of human understanding isn’t? You’ve quite a developed intellect and a developed understanding of philosophy. For someone who finds ecology too intellectual – from you that’s taken the kind of thought that rog has never provided on this forum – that’s quite some irony. E O Wilson, btw, not just an academic + rhetoric, but a fine field researcher who advanced our understanding of ant behaviours & social insects. Someone Neil’s skink story reminded me of. He’d rarely get far on his walks, always dropping to his knees to spend hours studying ants & their fellows. What’s your ‘why’ Davey, referring to my question to you above? Why research the specific, what’s the point?
No-one here has provided a cohesive criticism of the concept. Instead we’ve got nitpicking over labels and summary layman definitions. Please define the problems and provide a reasoned, cohesive criticism.
Hasbeen you’d benefit from reading a little to understand better the concepts you’re trying to criticise because your generalisations and assumptions don’t accurately represent the concept, therefore you’re inadvertently making strawman arguments. eg It’s not about maintaining everything unchanged or about every niche as you so simplify it. It’s not purely from academia either as there are traditional non-scientific groups who have a similar outlook. There may be some dumb greenie groups whose politics you’ve suffered from and resent but don’t extrapolate on that basis or you’re as dumb as they are.
The main difficulty in discussing biodiversity and its value appears to be deciding whether it is valuable in and of itself, or valuable because humans have declared it valuable.
Any competent philosopher will tell you that a thing “valuable in itself” is an epistemological impossibility. The only notable exception to this general agreement is found in Kant’s categorical moral imperative, which is grounded in the notion that persons are ends in themselves, not means–thereby making *persons* valuable in themselves.
This has largely come to be generally accepted by ethicists as fundamental.
However, until someone presents a cogent argument in the form of the categorical moral imperative which extends it beyond persons to embrace living things generally, the notion that biodiversity is valuable in itself will run aground on the phenomena/noumena disparity and remain an epistemological impossibility.
Until then, it can only reasonably be said that biodiversity is valuable merely to the extent that persons *say* it is valuable. Since that is a value statement, rather than a factual claim, it will remain in dispute for so long as any person is willing to dispute it.
So Hasbeen – which academic twits would they be exactly? Like who?
So I guess you don’t give a rats if any number of species kark it as a result of human activities. Rhinos – too bad so sad ? Tigers, gorillas, orangutans, freshwater dolphins, Tasmanian Devils – fuck-em basically? Probably doesn’t matter all that much given massive past extinctions.
OK Think-Sphinx – I reckon Wiki has done a good enough job of defining biodiversity and the basic concepts.
There are 2 questions – is it important for ecosystem function – how many critters/plants do you have to remove before the system transmorphs into something “we don’t like”. Incidentally tree clearing – does this quite well – bugger all biodiversity in well managed spear grass paddocks but they’re VERY sustainable?!?
Second question – if the said beastie is not critical for ecosystem function – like a silly Baiji or one of Peter Lezaich’s God-foresaken mesomorphic piss-weak eucalypts – why do we give a stuff – and strangely many of us do !
And for all “this biodiversity is b/s stuff ” a vast majority of us like camping in it and generally mucking about in it at some cost and physical incovenience.
But maybe we’ve devolved and getting all greenie-mushy – my father says in his day we used to go the toilet downstairs and eat upstairs.
Schiller if biodiversity is nothing other than a factless value statement, tell us how would you live without it? It includes your genetic material and the essential ecosystem services on which your life depends. It’s also been valued in economic market terms eg New York water supply. For that purpose you could say that economies and currencies have value *only* because people say so. Ditto for love, fashion, cars, jobs, condos, etc.
Not many like camping – annual tourism stats show that caravan parks or commercial camping grounds are used for 10% of visitor nights with almost 10% of caravan parks or commercial camping grounds being located in capital cities.
Lukes *vast majority* dwindles to a few…
rog: When did you last put a tent up in a national park by the beach over the Christmas or Easter holidays?
Macgill define biodiversity
“..Biodiversity has been most generally defined as the “full variety of life on Earth” (Takacs, 1996). More specifically, biodiversity is the study of the processes that create and maintain variation. It is concerned with the variety of individuals within populations, the diversity of species within communities, and the range of ecological roles within ecosystems (Graham Bell, pers. comm.).
If this seems like a vague definition, that’s because it is. There is no agreement on what exactly biodiversity means. It can refer to genetic diversity, to species diversity or to the diversity of environments or habitats. Some believe that it has simply replaced the terms “nature” or “wilderness” (Chadwick, 1993 ).”
Neil says early on: “But nature will prevail” If we look at some of the extremes I mentioned that’s exactly what happens. One only has to see the constant wear and tear in that SW Tas suite of photos to know we just visit and wonder at it all.
rog found this on the www with out a visit to the coast re BIODIVERSITY “Some believe that it has simply replaced the terms “nature” or “wilderness” (Chadwick, 1993 ).”
rog may never know quite what’s at the margins like we have in Jim England’s view of the world. I chose his example of intersecting eco systems deliberately from knowing how he thinks about introducing others to the overall experience of nature at its best.
Hasbeen: “I was willing to be convinced, if anyone had an argument, of any merit.”
I wonder if that is so? It doesn’t strike me that people come here to be persuaded by argument. There have been many discussed here, but as the old saw goes ‘a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still’.
And you still haven’t justified your position, let alone explained it, preferring to regard the arguments of others as merely beliefs. Atheism is as much a belief as gnosticism, so enviroskepticism is also a belief system, favoured by those with a narcissistic belief that humans (and more particularly me) is all that matters and therefore we can not possibly do any lasting harm to our environment, let alone any that might actually impact adversely on human survival. “But, you see, I have no requirement for bats either.”
As long as we can make a buck out of it, who cares?
‘Not many like camping – annual tourism stats show…’
Rog, I don’t use these commercial facilities therefore I would not show in the stats. I am betting that many people would be the same.
Hasbeen,
I assume you are aware of the benefits of organisms such as fruit bats. However, you seem to have made up your mind that these organisms are detrimental to you and therefore have no benefit. Nothing anyone writes here is likely to change your mind.
Slim – the right wing extremists here haven’t got the mental capacity to be convinced by rational argument. They also believe that homo sapiens lives by bread alone, only briefly looking up from the shares portfolio spreadsheet to ponder what they can cut down, dig up, plunder, restructure, exploit or tax dodge next. He who gets to the end with the biggest heap wins.
CARAVAN PARKS – hello ! (Jeez – some people have noticed that caravan parks have lots of cultural diversity like Rog’s rellies but not much biodiversity).
All major national parks in SEQ are standing room only at Easter – Girraween, Lamington, Fraser Island etc. Same Carnarvon Gorge Central Qld. Get a grip.
The populus loves a bit of a frolick in the old biodiversity. And if you can do it in a bloody big whopping V12 SUV with a Waeco fidge so much the better.
Incidentally isn’t it about now we have a Greenpeace beatup – do Greenpeace define biodiversity. What would they know eh?
There is no agreement on exactly how general anaesthetic works yet we’re happy for medical scientists to study it and to use it. We can’t precisely measure or monitor the economy and there are disagreements about definitions and measures of the economy but we use it anyway. There are many aspects of human life and society that we don’t fully understand and can’t completely measure – should we stop exploring those frontiers until we’re all agreed on the meaning and origins of life? Should we ignore biodiversity but continue to invest in manmade technological developments even though we don’t always fully understand the methods or physics or agree on definitions or the exact formulae?
Very weak points and still no sceptical explanation of why biodiversity is unimportant or shouldn’t be explored or whatever the argument is (still undefined). Is it just a dislike for the label? That doesn’t dismiss the thing itself unless you mistake the map for the territory. We depend on biodiversity everyday for our survival. General scientific consensus gets dismissed on this blog anyway so what do the biodiversity sceptics want and are they applying the same standards to everything else in their life? They’ve shown no attempt at a genuine reasoned exchange. *If* we don’t properly understand biodiversity but we can’t make an argument that it’s not important and our lives and wellbeing don’t depend on it then we’d better invest all of our best resources in understanding it better.
Well it’s pretty basic – ya biodiversity gets in the way of ya economic development (unless you’re a biodiscovering GM outfit).
We don’t want annoying rare butteflies, frogs and fish stopping making a buck.
Man lives by bread alone.
The values of this blog are that economic development always trumps the environmental. Environmental is the feel good/PR bit that’s left.
And anyone who knows about synecology, autoecology or ecophysiology is politically sus.
Biodiversity is for whinging greenies and all those wallowing in HUGE research grants.
Fair call, Luke! I figured as much.
This blog has a diversity of contributors, using a diversity of styles and vocabulary. Each post has a diversity of words, and even of letters of the alphabet. We could use the Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index to calculate a score. I think Claud Shannon and Norbert Wiener would be happier with that than with the crackpot use ecologists make of their index. We might even calculate alpha and beta diversity. Woopy-do!
I think I will coin the word ‘verbodiversity’ and declare it to be very important concept. Neglect it and we are doomed, DOOMED I say. Politicians will take up the cry. Verbodiversity is declining due to Global Warming.
I will publish a hundred papers on it, in Austral Verbology, or Verbological Conservation. I will attend many overseas learned conferences (trailing tons of carbon), and win an honorary chair.
But will we all be any wiser? I am very much reminded of Professor Dr von Iggelfeld (sp?) with his famous book on Portuguese irregular words. Or the Emperor’s suit of clothes?
As an expression of importance, clinging to life ranks highly across all species. Biodiversity is its net global expression.
To humankind, its importance varies a great deal. Reading about the Grollo dynasty in yesterday’s Australian magazine revealed “Bruno was overseas, chasing herbal remedies for diseases in a quixotic quest to live forever.”
In the same magazine, an account of an extraordinary survival, by eating, amongst other things, leeches. ‘They tasted good but he had to chew fast before they suckered onto his mouth. (Incidentally, the much-maligned leech is perhaps most valuable to aficionados of cosmetic surgery).
I previously wrote that I suspect that human mortality weighs heavily in this debate, where biodiversity may be considered as both an asset and a liability’. I then had to go to work; guiding travellers through the Daintree Rainforest, first at night and then again this morning, in an interpreted celebration of biodiversity that sustains our very modest income.
In the meantime, I see that Luke has volunteered the ‘recognition of how important biodiversity conservation on private land is’.
Two-thirds of Australia’s landmass is held under private interests in one form or another and yet the vast majority of resources allocated for biodiversity conservation is absorbed into bureaucracy for lands that have already been reserved (supposedly) for conservation purposes.
If biodiversity matters, why should tenure have any relevance?
Rog:” Be honest, this stuff about BD is just another way of getting some traction on the street.”
Well rog, perhaps not completely untrue… methink a big majority of NGOs have the biodiversity issue high on their agenda. And true, it seems to be a word in fashion( methink that many people actually don’t know what it exactly mean). The other word in fashion is ” sustainability”
Their are many fine and nice word written on these concepts but when it comes to financial outcome , the politicians don’t give a damn.
Thinking about the Baltic Sea harbour porpoises, despite being a species of icon value, the politicians have caved in… methink also, the porps don’t offer any photo-opportunity( they can hardly never be spotted, that’s why thre ain’t no outcry…
And some projects are heavily funded by the EU, thinking about some Arctic snow geese, so go figure.
One trend seems certain… where fisheries are involved, economical or finacial interests are more important than BD.
Went up the road yesterday to look at how the wildfires affected the biodiversity in our local Special Protection Zone. Wasn’t much there to see really. More like dio-diversity.
A precursory glance in the burnt out remains of the fringes revealed all ground flora gone, a dead sugar glider, wombat and sambar deer.
Also it revealed a number of old gold diggings I never new existed. Can’t wait to get my metal detector on to them, although I’d better be quick before they ban it, in the name of sustainable biodivertsity management.
Davey Woopy-do! tone, you “would rather ask more modest research questions, which can actually be answered in the field, such as ‘what is the number of plant species in this area?'” You’ll use one of those maligned measures for that yet be none the wiser apparently so why bother? Direct & immediate benefit for human needs eg agric, aside, why assess even those practical and easily defined questions? Why bother trying to assess the local, where do you draw the boundaries and how can you justify those boundaries?
Now now Luke don’t pick fights. In the moments of clarity between medication doses they know money can’t buy happiness or they’ll never have enough of it. Give the biodiversity sceptics a chance to find and explain their position, I’m sure their brains are doing overtime and they’ll form a coherent thought on the subject sooner than you can say ‘caravan park scum’.
On personal responses Neil, I think human mortality is a factor, plus identification & awe too.
The question reframed then: How and why is biodiversity unimportant?
Pink Pants,
One issue that is important as well, is the issue if some species are unimportant….we have touched this, for example pathogens.
There is this ecosystem management, removal of one or two species to make some financial profit or if we consider some animals as pests.
The pest animals differ from every nations.
Some nations( or at least some people) look at whales as pest, yes, David, it is true, we can argue about this!
Other pest species are cormorants, seals ( all of them competing with the fisheries).
Curious enough rats are a holy species in some parts of India, and have temples…
” We review the evidence of regime shifts in terrestrial and aquatic environments in relation to resilience of complex adaptive ecosystems and the functional roles of biological diversity in this context. The evidence reveals that the likelihood of regime shifts may increase when humans reduce resilience by such actions as removing response diversity, removing whole functional groups of species, or removing whole trophic levels; impacting on ecosystems via emissions of waste and pollutants and climate change; and altering the magnitude, frequency, and duration of disturbance regimes. The combined and often synergistic effects of those pressures can make ecosystems more vulnerable to changes that previously could be absorbed. As a consequence, ecosystems may suddenly shift from desired to less desired states in their capacity to generate ecosystem services. Active adaptive management and governance of resilience will be required to sustain desired ecosystem states and transform degraded ecosystems into fundamentally new and more desirable configurations.”
As evolving hominids in a African savanna woodland pre-Eden, perhaps benefits have derived from selecting traits that appreciate the opportunities and interactions of a diverse species set in a landscape. An eye for biodiversity built into your Fortran? So the recent development of right wing resource gobblers needs to be viewed as an undesirable mutation hazardous to most ecosystems.
Biodiversity? Does it matter?
What, in the first place, does it mean.
(walks from podium after throwing this intellectual hand-grenade).
Read posts, quotes and links above to get started Louis. Remember to hold the pin between your teeth not the grenade itself which you throw away even though it’s valuable. Your ‘intellectual’ side haven’t put anything together yet. Just picking on the label or dismissing the entire package without saying why. No explanation, no indication of research or comprehension, just outright rejection. Next you’ll be talking about faith. How and why is biodiversity unimportant?
Louis – there are several workable explanations in this thread defining biodiversity. But there are none so blind as those who will not see. And I guess if one begins from the premise of not ‘believing’ that there is such a thing as BD or that it has any importance or value, then no amount of definitions or explanations will ever persuade you.
It’s an individual’s prerogative to believe what they will – it has no bearing whatsoever on the underlying reality. In our culture, that role usually falls to science. You may believe that a disease is caused by bad karma, evil spirits, or pathogenic processes – it makes no difference to the progress of the disease. But a rational person will usually go with a scientific approach to dealing with the disease.
As LPR argues, we’ve heard a lot of criticism and nit-picking about BD, but let’s hear a coherent and logical explanation of why BD isn’t true/important/of value from the enviroskeptics, not just variations of unsubstantiated denial.
And if you think that concern for BD will get in they way of our economic development then be honest enough to say so. My concern is that ignoring the serious science of BD may well undermine our capacity for economic development, and that would indeed be unfortunate. It would be irresponsible, selfish and imprudent.
Perhaps naively, I assumed this site was dedicated to the notion of good evidence-based science, but it seems that it’s more about obfuscation than genuine inquiry.
Given that there are in excess of 9.2 million ‘travellers’ (domestic and international, hotels and campers) per year in Australia a whole heap of QLDers during easter might smell big but still are only a comparative few.
I’m starting to understand the sceptics:
What is common opinion? For US, have a look:
http://www.biodiversityproject.org/02toplines.PDF
Americans and Biodiversity:
New Perspectives in 2002
Questionnaire and Topline Results
anyone got a similar survey in Aust?
Fascinating ‘stat’ about QLD campers, especially the comparative bit showing the relationship of one to the other.! Must make a note of that one.
So, um, like… is the test of science validity, um.., like a popularity competition, um…only the scientists don’t get a vote?
Slim, La PR, your both still at it.
You are the ones trying to sell your point of view. Its for you to produce the arguments to convince me.
You will have your work cut out now.
You see, I have managed, dumb as I am, to read a little between the lines of your fustrated posts.
Your manipulation of the argument will not work with me, & your rising antagonism, indicates you have nothing more to offer.
I now see that all you want is another gravy train, like GW, with its jobs for the boys. If it was real you would have had some arguments. When it comes to jobs for the boys, you academics leave the pollys for dead.
I’m a B.Sc. but I wouldn’t want it known in my district, I’d loose all credibility. Every time one is seen around here, somebody is going to loose another time honored right.
So can we have some solid gravy train examples and examples of jobs for the boys? Or is that just a fashionable notion in your district.
Funnily enough Hasbeen B.Sc with prejudice against learning, I’m no academic & I haven’t sold a view or tried to persuade, I’ve held back because I wanted to hear what others said. Unfortunately the criticism hasn’t been solid enough to cast a shadow, it’s just resorted to petty dismissals. You’re still welcome to post your explanation of what you reject about biodiversity. The points you have attempted indicate that you don’t understand the concept very well but you wish to deny it anyway.
Other than blanket denial, nobody has explained how or why biodiversity is unimportant. Seems you don’t have an answer beyond I like to log/farm/hunt/irrigate/mine as selfishly as I see fit for mine own business and I hate greenies and change and ideas. Unlikely to provide an explanation at this point so let it rest with the conclusion that there is no good explanation why biodiversity is unimportant.
Pantera,
Of course it’s impossible to live without biodiversity. Which means you have assigned *instrumental* value to biodiversity. From there, it is possible to discuss biodiversity on a factual basis.
However, since it’s been assigned an instrumental value, that means its value is its usefulness to achieve human goals. If certain aspects of biodiversity do not serve human goals, they are dispensable.
That is, interestingly, the moral of the story of Noah and the flood. God was going to wipe out all people. Animals would be wiped out as “collateral damage,” signaling that with no humans, their continued existence was pointless.
Where do you draw the line Schiller between useful/important & not? You have to safely rule out systems factors, unforeseen consequences and future uses too. Based on science I mean, not based on the Bible or direct conversations with God.
Look at the data, 43 million ‘overnight trips’ p.a. in Australia (hotel, resort, motel, motor inn, guest house, bed & breakfast, self catering cottage or apartment, caravan park, commercial camping ground, caravan or camping on private property) – no wonder the growth in hotels with more and more existing camping grounds putting up luxury cabins.
Pretty diverse bunch yet there are no new camping grounds being built – low annual attendance rates are not economic.
Schiller is correct:”If certain aspects of biodiversity do not serve human goals, they are dispensable.”. How many citizens of the globe felt sorry when smallpox was eradicated? The same number I guess who will weep when other bacteria and viruses deadly to humans are gone. Yet bacteria and viruses constitute biodiversity.
Blair
Like climate, biodiversity changes; always has, always will. And like climate also, changes to biodiversity occur naturally and (more concerningly) anthropogenically.
Blair reminded us of the eradication of smallpox as an example of strategic anthropogenic biodiversity decline for human gain. But let me also reiterate the butterfly effect, where small variations of the initial condition of a dynamic system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system.
Does the vacancy of the niche brought about by the eradication of smallpox provide an opportunity for a genetically advanced occupancy, perhaps something more dangerous to humankind and less eradicable?
Truth is, we cannot know with absolute certainty, but we can constrain our impacts to minimise unforseen consequences through anthropogenic species loss. At the present time, those constraints are inadequate in their global effectiveness and could be/should be tightened up.
In Australia, we have the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment http://www.deh.gov.au/esd/national/igae/ which is supposedly binding on all states and territories and which advises policy making and program implementation that conservation of biological diversity and ecological integrity should be a fundamental consideration, but alas, it has no complaince requirement.
Nevertheless, if clinging to life, as an expression of importance, ranks highly across all species and biodiversity is its net global expression, it would be hypocritical for humankind to do not unto others…
Smallpox isn’t actively infecting us but it’s not eradicated (extinct). Could be a terrorist threat. It’s still kept in labs and there have been warnings about those risks. What human pathogen have we sent extinct?
Even though some people have dismissed all the pro-biodiversity arguments as religious claptrap, I think we’ve all agreed that biodiversity needs to serve human interests. Yes we all like to defend ourselves, our crops, gardens and domesticated animals against pathogens and disease vectors. We’d like to do the same for cute threatened wild species eg koalas & devils. Does that show us that biodiversity isn’t important or relevant? No, only that our interest in biodiversity is subordinate to human interests. Moving beyond that then…
Macro species, particularly our cousin mammals, hold more appeal for us than things we can’t see with the naked eye. We’ve already agreed on that too I think. Note that we seem to be better at eradicating our animal cousins than the barely visible lurker species that get in our bodies and make us sick or hide in our homes. Cute, furry, visible beats ugly, dangerous, invisible, especially when you want public donations. But is that a good reason to recklessly let or send species extinct, or not even monitor them? Eradication isn’t something that’s done lightly as Neil points out.
If you’re making or letting species get threatened with possible extinction, where do you safely draw the line between useful/important & not? How do you safely rule out systems factors, unforeseen consequences, tipping points, and future uses too?
Hasbeen: There is no manipulation of the argument. What we have is description of the scientific premise and various shades of denial. No amount of science will convince a determined denialist.
Your comments about gravy trains and jobs for the boys seems to an irrational conclusion to draw from this thread, but at least it sheds some light on your fears about AGW and BD.
FYI I am not an academic, so better not to jump to conclusions, but nor have I abandoned what I have learned from my scientific training and methodology. Are academics bad now (except for economists and the ones at the IPA)?
“I’m a B.Sc. but I wouldn’t want it known in my district, I’d loose all credibility. Every time one is seen around here, somebody is going to loose another time honored right.”
OK…, so scientists are the new terrorists? Lurking in our neighbourhoods ready to take away another time honoured right?
If science has low credibility, as you suggest, I think it has more to do with the politics of denial and denigration of scientists than with the science itself.
Let’s finish with Frank Luntz’s advice to the Republicans:
“Should the public come to believe the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate, and defer to scientists and other experts in the field.”
Frank would be proud of the job being done here!
Rog – get over it – you can only see the commercial side. National Parks (NOT commercial camping grounds) are super popular in certain peak holidays resulting in booking systems and turning people away. THAT is the measure the intensity of enjoyment in a frolic in the old biodiversity not what Mum & Dad’s Cara Park is up to !
Admit it, La Pinxera, you haven’t read about Professor Dr von Iggelveld’s Portuguese Irregular Verbs. It’s worth a read for an accurate insight, written by a first class academic, into the workings of academic careerism. Try Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency too. Feminism with a sense of humour, written by the same man, Professor Alexander McCall Smith. To von Iggelveld (Hedgehog field) and the Emperor’s new clothes, I add Much Ado About Nothing. Hey, I’ve discovered metaphorodiversity. Quick, email the Nobel committee in Stockholm. Can I build a career path on that … let me see…
P.S. Why use ‘biodiversity’ (12 letters) if you mean ‘nature’ (6 letters) or ‘biota’ (5 letters)?
P.P.S. I like your stylish nominodiversity, previously known as alias, or, as Louis would put it ‘noms de plumes’. Luke seems to be a nominodiversologist too.
Admitted. Sounds too intellectual for my feeble faculties, that reading diet Davey. I couldn’t walk in so many heavy skirts without falling down stairs. I can’t ride sidesaddle either.
All disciplines become more specialised and diverge as we learn more. So? Long ago they were all lumped together as “üggrrlg” and a standardised policy response of ‘hit with club’. I see a (luddite-like, fear of change?) tendency to reject nuances and specialisations that have arisen during one’s own career lifetime but not those familiar ones that arose before one entered their own specialist career (which might have been poo-pooed by those before them such as the days when Geology was for wackos). ‘It was all so much simpler back in my day when we didn’t ask too many questions and wars were noble things’.
Do you refuse to consider that biodiversity arose out of genuine, more specific why/when/how questions to assess, monitor, measure and understand more precisely and scientifically that general, unscientific concept of nature and that regionally-focused lumpy idea of biota?
Is amateur, unscientific naturalism adequate for our modern times and pressures? Where shall we decree the end of its developmental path: agricultural, fisheries and forestry driven biology only?
Will you accept bios + logia but reject bios + logia + diversity truncated? That would be a small quibble if ever!
Just taking the concept at face value, without path-dependent intellectual quibbles over label/branding, all those fancy points and yet you still won’t (BOO) tell me why why why oh why you’d research local biodiversity. Narrowly-focused biological careerism? I think more of you dear Davey, with or without the evidence. Self-interest can and usually does rule anywhere, everywhere, even (SHOCK HORROR) within lobby groups, guvmint and businesses. That line of reasoning leaks.
Dear Pantera (grrreeow!),
Those books are actually very light reading, but, like all good literature, open a few doors, and stimulate some centre of the brain, probably in the limbic system.
My own career path (such as it was) was long ago overgrown by the pricks and stinkweeds of the bureacratic jungle. I now sit cross legged on the mountainside, and meditate upon the truth.
I think diversity of life is wonderful, as is diversity of cultures, words, thoughts, personalities, physical appearance, cooking etc.
It’s just the glib use of that word ‘biodiversity’ that sticks in my throat. It sounds quasi-religious, and I think we agree that nobody knows more about God than anyone else. We should beware of those who claim to. They’re up to no good.
OK, I’ve come in a little late with this topic, but here goes. I’m not an expert in this field and the following are just my personal thoughts.
Louis asks what is biodiversity? In my view, it’s simply an extension of genetic diversity (and epigenetic diversity, but I won’t go into that as it complicates things a little). Within a species there is often, though not always, genetic variation (i.e. different forms or alleles of the same genes). Whether you take a cubic metre of soil, a paddock, the Great Barrie Reef, of the earth in its entirety, you get a series of genetic interactions mediated by direct or indirect interactions at the organism level. So even though genes encoded by the DNA of different organisms never come into direct contact, genes are changed by the evolutionary pressures resulting from interactions between organisms.
When it comes to pathogen-host interactions, the gene-for-gene hypothesis is fairly well accepted (it’s worth googling). In my view, there’s no reason to limit this hypothesis to pathogen-host interactions as it works equally well with all interactions, whether they be mutually beneficial, predator/prey etc.
So how does this explain why biodiversity is important?
Firstly, look at why genetic diversity is important to a species. When an organism’s environment is unchanging it’s actually not that important. But when an organism’s environment is variable, genetic diversity allows the species as a whole to cope with change, though individuals with the ‘wrong’ genes loose out. If this concept is extended to all species, biodiversity makes the Earth’s biological systems as a whole more robust.
If climate change, for example, knocks out one species of nitrifying bacteria, bacterial genetic diversity will hopefully allow another species to fill its place and keep the nitrogen cycle going happily on its way. Reduce the amount of diversity and you reduce the amount of raw material you have available to compensate for change, to act as a buffer as it were.
Talk of previous mass extinctions as normal is not helpful from a human viewpoint. A collapse of the nitrogen or carbon cycles, for example, would be catastrophic. The reason why this is unlikely to happen is that there is plenty of natural redundancy built in to the system. The redundancy comes from biodiversity, which is really genetic diversity, and genetic diversity is self-promoted by interactions with genetically diverse organisms (and diverse non-organic environments).
By artificially reducing both genetic and non-organic environmental diversity, we are making adaptation in a changing world more difficult. Instead of small, gradual changes to the environment, you get sudden lurches to extremes as the natural buffering capacity is no longer sufficient. This isn’t a good thing for human civilization or the large cuddly, furry animals we hold near-and-dear.
Thought so Davey. Too many pricks.
Note: ‘bios’ not ‘dios’ + diversity!
Only weighty, dispassionate, joyless scientific use of the term, not glib. Definitely no engaging in direct experience over analytical thought.
Oh if I must I’ll add those to my reading list.
You oughta emphasise the distinctions in your position and be careful who you appear to lend support to if your true path is the enlightened middle way. They’ll wish you happiness in pergatory not hell. I wish you happy levitations, may your mountain be reserved.
Good post Nexus. There’s some agreement on the principle but likely to be more hearty disagreement on the methods (an even bigger can of worms).
Pantera,
The notion that we should be “taking the concept [of biodiversity] at face value, without path-dependent intellectual quibbles” is precisely why reason is on a collision course with passionate fashion.
Surely there is better advice.
Nah – infidels !
Nature can just be the physical world. Too general. And implies the existence of a “further force”. i.e. Nature finds a way (bolsh!)
Biota is just species diversity.
There are species interactions, ecology, genetics, and patch to ecosystem/bioregion size too.
http://www.deh.gov.au/biodiversity/publications/series/paper1/
I expected such a misinterpretation Schiller but left it as was anyway. The point was let’s discuss the concept itself not the label (take the word at face-value so you can discuss the issue rather than confusing the map with the territory).
That dealt with, were you about to give your science not religion-based responses? (see questions to you above)
I do think ‘nature’ has more god-concept in it than biodiversity (which has scientific use).
Some extracts from recent National Geographic news:
Porpoises and seabirds are starving to death in European waters because of fish shortages linked to ocean warming.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070110-porpoises.html
An entirely new group of tiny and bizarre marine algae has been discovered in the Arctic Ocean. .. the divergence of this group from known organisms is as great as the difference between land plants and animals,
..a two-year-old male right whale on the northern Florida coast on December 31. Slashed repeatedly by a ship’s propeller, the 41-foot-long (13-meter- long) whale is the sixth known North Atlantic right whale fatality of 2006. Listed as endangered by the U.S. government, the species numbers only around 350, making 6 a heavy toll—but not an unusual one.
Shooting crows in Singapore. House crows were first introduced to Singapore to control rhino beetles on oil palm farms. Warm weather increased reproduction.
Wild populations of Australian dingoes may go extinct within 50 years unless steps are taken to prevent crossbreeding with domestic dogs
And stuff about devils’ disease.
Why shouldn’t we care?
Luke,
Nature includes both phenomena and noumena, and all interactions. Remember the ‘Balance of Nature’?
Which brings me to another of your points, the ‘further force’. I believe there is such a force, that of ‘self organisation’. (See fractals, chaos theory, economics, and even chemistry – showing off, but I was at Brussels University when Ilya Prigogine was there) We will do better to work with it, than against it.
On interactions, that was what I was getting at earlier with Pascal’s Triangle. You seem to like maths – have a fiddle with it, remembering that each term is a combinatorial. I suspect that the future of ecology lies in combinatorial mathematics. 100! is frightening, or perhaps startling. Puts us in our place, like being dumped by a big wave.
Anyway, you have obviously thought about it, which is more than those stinkweeds who use ‘biodiversity’ as a cheap eco-political mantra, or a career path buzz-word.
P.S. Cara Pantera, I was not entirely honest in my previous. Sometimes I sit cross legged contemplating truth, but most of the time I wonder what to have for supper, should I rake up the leaves, when are my grandchildrens’ birthdays, etc. Sometimes I simply pick lint out of my navel.
Davey (& Luke) have you looked into Wolfram’s new kind of science as well? What practical applications do you see for this and emergent order? There are others who are trying to apply a more rigorous physics type methodology to understanding patterns in biological forms. Still early days and it’s the type of exploration that often attracts criticism.
Rubbish Luke, “Caravan or camping accommodation is defined as accommodation in caravan parks or commercial camping grounds sites or caravan or camping by side of the road, on private property, on crown land or in a national park on non-commercial sites.”
Check your sources, NP monitor and control camping activity through the issue of permits and have complete records.
“In 2005 there were 8M domestic visitors and 283,000 international visitors who spent at least one night in caravan or camping accommodation. Data revealed 60% of domestic visitors and 80% of international visitors stayed on commercial sites.”
Thats about 1.2M of 43M traveller nights spent in a NP mixing it with all that biodiversity, whats that add up to, about 3%?
In view of the available facts Lukes majority is SFA.
Pantera mia,
I don’t know Wolfram’s work. A quick google suggests that it is part of the same idea that Prigogine noted in chemistry. Namely, that order can arise ‘spontaneously’, and that’s a very hopeful thing. Too little chaos is boring, but too much is alarming. I will keep an eye open for more info on Stephen Wolfram. Perhaps you should start another thread to pool our knowledge.
A brief read of ecological journals suggests that ecology certainly needs all the help it can get. In my worst moments I think that it falls into Lord Kelvin’s category of ‘stamp collecting’. Chanting ‘biodiversity’ won’t solve that.
Thanks for this thread – it certainly attracted a bit of debate.
P.S. One critic said “I don’t believe Wolfram’s proposal for a deterministic model underlying quantum mechanics can be made compatible with both special relativity and Bell inequality violation.” I’m sure you would agree? At meetings within the Department of Consternation & Long Meetings I always found a sage nod of the head, with a slightly worried expression, and possibly a chinstroke, was safest. One could follow up with an obscure statement involving the words biodiversity, ecosystem, and sustainability, then quickly leave the room to answer a mobile phone call.
There is increasingly convincing scientific evidence that diverse ecosystems are more productive and sustainable.
We can argue all we like about iconic species such as the polar bears but ecosystems are so complex that we do not know which species are more critical than others. As biodiversity decreases productivity decreases probably exponentially.
At this stage the best we can say is that the richer the diversity the more stable and productive will be the ecosystem.
Sounds as if we should value biodiversity as both an economic and ecologic asset and a good insurance policy as well. Rich biodiversity responds to damage much better than poorly biodiverse environments. Monocultures seem like enormous gambles with all or nothing. Nature never seems to work like that.
A very good post, nvg…a real summary!
Rog as usual you’re banging on about drivel – so why then every year in cool season holidays (esp Easter) are large national parks in SEQ being Lamington rainforest (both Binna Burra and O’Reillys), Girraween granite belt (Stanthorpe way), Bunya Mountains (Auricaria emergent rainforest), Fraser Island, and Carnarvon Gorge (sandstone gorges, Central Qld) are booked out to the dunnies.
We’re talking overcrowded, booking systems, loved to death – avoid parks at this time !!
Fraser itself is a major management dilemma.
People get off on quality biodiversity in an essentially intact ecosystem.
Go micro analyse your stats.
BTW If you data source is ABS it’s not worth zip !
Dave – self organisation is fine (but over-rated). Just don’t get all supernatural about “nature” though and start talking as if it’s a deity or something !
Davey G deep thinker on ‘further force’. I believe there is such a force, that of ‘self organisation’ etc. is probably getting wound up on natural rhythms, feedbacks and other things that drive our best known eco systems like the once rich Nile and its delta.
Unfortunately these great intersecting, marginal, overlapping interacting, compounding whatever wild “life” processes get civilized by us particularly over recent times. The next stage is “dissociation” by us from all the more difficult impacts that nature may inflict on us as we go merrily on in our blissful ignorance.
Math is a beautiful language and beats science any time Dave. New understandings are likely to be everywhere provided we don’t expect an opening via perfection.
Davey you can play with Wolfram’s programmes yourself.
Big thanks Neil, job well done.
I am with nvg and I dont have a mechanism for self-organisation.. Means only seem to matter when the end is not predictable so it would seem sensible to treat our ever evolving BD as ultimately a means to our survival. But if that is not a pressing issue we will continue to be curious, pretend it is static, and sometimes in the process get a better handle on more of the biodiversity issues and principles that matter. Ironically pre Environmental Impact Statements, our still limited ecological understanding used to come mostly from weird wiring of our brains, feeding curiosity with a dash of the aesthetic and the collecting bug. Our brains are evolution’s answer to unpredictability but as we read above, intelligence creates unpredictability of its own through the complex behaviour it generates. Lets hope the planet humans eventually have to migrate to got it right. We can only speculate how other universes are evolving. They might have stayed with single cells.?
Big thread, truly. Neil, you filthy gecko-luvvin tree-hugger : )
For anybody still going, here is a bit of context that doesn’t appear to have yet surfaced but is entirely relevant. The Earth Summit in Rio which spawned the Global Convention on Biodiversity in 1992 was an unprecedented event in terms of preparatory working groups and committees joined by nearly every country around the world. In the context of the time, with regard to environment, there had been credible talk around 1987, when the Summit was announced, that the United Nations Environment Program, rather than remaining the responsibility of the General Assembly with their limited decision making powers and slow response times, would be elevated to the domain of a new UN Council which would be comparable in authority to act to the UN Security Council. This may sound “off the wall” but this was not long after Chernobyl, the ozone hole was a fresh and frightening global problem, and environmental concerns and potential impacts had clearly transcended national borders and concerns about basic industrial pollution.
The International treaty and convention process basically follows this path: negotiation, creation, signing, ratifying, implementing, enforcing. Treaties tend to follow wars as they are stronger agreements, usually between a handful of countries. Then there are conventions, usually involving more Parties and therefore more difficult to negotiate in a way that sees the agreement honour both its original objective and the needs, wants, or abilities of all concerned. Protocols are additional, specific sub-agreements with clearer detail and usually follow a Convention after more science and understanding is in and a more clearer way forward in honouring the original agreement becomes clear.
Once the wording of a Convention is agreed upon, the text is presented and it is open for signatures – usually on the last day of negotiations, and usually with most Parties signing. And here is where it gets messy. Once a nation’s representative signs, they return to their oown ountry. The parliament/administration/monarchy haggle back and forth and with local interest groups over what the agreement requires them to do and how best to achieve it. Once the way forward on a national level becomes clear, they ratify the Convention. When enough countries have ratified, or a large enough number of the world’s population are represented by ratifications the Convention enters into force, binding on either all who have signed or all who have ratified, depending on what was negotiated in the final text.
The next step for each nation is to implement their obligations through the creation of national law – which may just be a piece of legislation saying “We, the people of Wherever adopt the Whatever Convention as a legally enforceable instrument within the boundaries of Wherever”, or, more typically, they will make their own law/s appropriately. And finally, enforcement. Creating departments to inspect, monitor, and encourage compliance, and, eventually, penalise non-compliance.
The way that governments negotiate, how they respond to, implement, and enforce a convention says equal parts about their concerns, sincerity, and capability. With regard to the Convention on Biodiversity – America haggled ferociously and was largely concerned about access to the rights over genetic material. After several concessions from almost all other Parties, they signed the Convention but didn’t ratify it – meaning that all who ratified would be bound by conditions they had demanded, while they wouldn’t be. South America, like Africa and Australia, is referred to as a “megabiodiverse” continent. Brazil, like Australia, is a “megabiodiverse” country. Brazil, home to the world’s largest bodies of fresh water and rainforest (not outright, but top 2 in each category), created 7 forward-looking and landmark new laws relating to matters of significant concern in an attempt to implement their obligations and they were all approved and created within 2 years of the Convention’s creation. But, the ability to enforce these laws was restricted because of poverty, debt, and desperation.
Australia on the other hand, not faced by the problem of 20+ million people facing starvation on a daily basis, could talk up its commitment to environmental concerns while delaying implementation until 1999, bunching obligations to protect and manage biodiversity with agreements on migratory birds, wetlands, nuclear hazards etc. under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
The reason that discussion and argument regarding the Convention and biodiversity frequently turns to forests is twofold. Although ocean covers about 65% of the planet’s surface, 55-60% of known and estimated species on the planet live in and depend upon forests. That’s one reason.
The other is that although there had been talk of an international convention on forests for 15 years when the Convention on Biodiversity was created, and largely muted talk has continued in the last decade there has been little movement in this direction and even once there is, it will take, on past efforts, at least 7 years before any potentially binding agreement is arrived at. The Convention is pointed to by many of those saying that there is no need for a specific forest agreement as an agreement which should be sufficient, but then rejected as either too general or naive when efforts are made to follow through on biodiversity commitments in terms of practice or enforcement.
Basically.
If biodiversity does not matter, somebody should have told the 190 countries who have ratified it that it is of little concern. Who didn’t ratify? Andorra, Brunei, the Holy See (Vatican Land), Somalia, and, um, let me see… ah yes, the US.
How does biodiversity matter? Mosquitos as both a nuisance and essential food source was a good example. Algae and moss kept in balance filtering the water that most life on Earth needs to exist is also a good one. Animals spreading particular seeds with their dung, trees cleaning air, cycles of nutrients, complicated and unlikely processes which are discovered every now and again, all these seem like good ways in which biodiversity – not as a meaningless slogan but as a field for understanding interrelationships – asserts its validity as a whole far greater than the sum of its parts.
Why does biodiversity matter? Is there any single answer possible? Would a shopping list of answers really scratch the surface? Because, seriously, if we can say for any particular reason that we, humans, one species, matter, then that reason will apply, if not a thousand fold, at least equally to the complex interrelation and developmental process of ALL life. If we think that we can rationally dismiss biodiversity, we must by that same logic dismiss ourselves, and the fact that we live and breathe by will and action suggests strongly that deep down, whatever we may say, we refuse to do that. If the question “why are we here?” holds no interest whatsoever, then maybe there is no reason in the eye of the beholder to consider that this unified but chaotic arc of nature may hold, if not the answer, then guidance for those seeking to understand the question.
I reckon.
Hey Luke, you only have to look at NP data from EPA for correlation of tourist figs, I’ll leave the dunny inspection to you.
“Lomborgs best points against the Agenda 21 preamble that I quoted are his references, of which he has about 70 pages.”
I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time. Thank you.
The issue is not the value of biodiversity but rather, what some neanderthal green, or finely fettled departmental doofus, will do with any powers designed to serve biodiversity.
I recently put in a funding application to find out exactly which attributes of nest hollows are most valued by the species that use them. The aim was to construct a large umber of artificial hollows for emplacement in large areas of regrowth forest that do not have large hollow bearing trees.
These artificial hollows would come with a range of modifications to determine the impact of height, aspect, shadow, insulation, shape, depth, entrance size and a number of other factors that need testing.
They were also to be placed at a range of densities from zero, through the fractional range, and up to 10, to determine the point at which the absence of nest sites will impact on the presence of species that use them, for a range of forest types and site qualities.
This information, coupled with a number of innovative approaches to nest formation, would enable the millions of hectares of non-old growth forest to deliver the full suite of habitat services at prices that would form no barrier to uptake by landowners.
The current option favoured by the bureaucrats and other founts of ecological wisdom like the Rainforest Protection Society, is to set aside perfectly goood trees with no holes and hope that some time between the years 2090 and 2160 a hole might develop that will be of some modest use to a target species, some of the time.
What the gliders are supposed to do between now and then is not their concern, as long as the required number of trees are set aside to be dumbly looked at for a century and a half.
So what is the point, you ask?
Well, the funding authority has a panel of experts to advise on matters of ecological detail and when this application was referred for comment it came back with the reply that;
“This aspect of biodiversity research is not a priority”.
Rog,
Can I use your parachute review, in a modified form, in a letter to the Canberra Times?
Did rog write that review?
Davey it would amount to criminal neglect if you mention parachutes in relation to biodiversity or ecology without mentioning those parachuting cats:
http://pzweb.harvard.edu/ucp/curriculum/ecosystems/s6_res_borneo.pdf
and
Parachuting cats into Borneo! A Cautionary Tale.
In the early 1950’s, the Dayak people of Borneo suffered a malarial outbreak. The World Health Organisation (WHO) had a solution: to spray large amounts of DDT to kill the mosquitoes that carried the malaria. The mosquitoes died; the malaria declined; so far so good. But there were unexpected side effects. Amongst the first was that the roofs of the people’s houses began to fall down on their heads. It seemed that the DDT had also killed a parasitic wasp which had previously controlled thatch-eating caterpillars. Worse, the DDT-poisoned insects were eaten by geckoes, which were eaten by cats. The cats started to die, the rats flourished, and the people were threatened by outbreaks of typhus and plague. To cope with these problems, which it had itself created, the WHO was obliged to parachute 14 000 live cats into Borneo. Operation Cat Drop, now almost forgotten at the WHO, is a graphic illustration of the interconnectedness of life, and of the fact that the root of problems often stems from their purported solutions.
Quoted in Rachel Wynberg and Christine Jardine, Biotechnology and Biodiversity: Key Policy Issues for South Africa, 2000
Thanks Pantera,
Yes, I remember that story from decades ago. I hope it’s not of the Margaret Mead genre. My wife likes cats, and gets a bit annoyed at zealots who want to abolish them. I think we might have enormous rat and mouse problems too if it happened. We exotics must stick together. Our old tabby snoozes most of the time. I think she killed a grasshopper once. Well, sort of sucked it to death. I certainly never take her into National Parks. She’s part of biodiversity too.
The parachute thing was in december Lancet.
Thanks Rog,
I had discovered it, and the voluminous correspondence it inspired. I thought maybe you had dreamed it up. I think some of the letters get close to a medical version of the PP (precautionary principle), or perhaps the CSP (common sense principle).
I’ve read the full parachute article and the discussions. rog can you draw the relationship between the parachute story and biodiversity? What’s your point – that we needn’t wait for exhaustive scientific evidence before adopting commonsense precautionary measures?
Yes Pantera,
We don’t need to wait for exhaustive research before implementing common sense measures such as widespread prescribed burning to curb (not entirely prevent) bushfires from lightning or vandals.
Yep. Was wondering if rog had a point to contribute.
Luke,
Nature will prevail (bolsch)!, perhaps not according to your wishes.
Earth may be overwhelmed by insects or sea-cucumbers, but it most defintiely will not be overwhelmend by bureaucrats.