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The Reef, the Reef and nothing but the Reef

By John Ridd - posted Wednesday, 3 December 2008


So the position is that water from the “high priority” Tully to the reef is generally satisfactory and that all data is inevitably riddled with huge uncertainties. The best that can be said is that the expenditure of much money plus the use of legislation might possibly produce a miniscule improvement for nearby reefs.

Compare that uncertainty with the following sample of certain NRM/environmental issues, together with any improvements that might occur due to WQIP thinking and actions.

  • The Mabi forest type is down to 2 per cent of its former extent. Wet sclerophyll forest is threatened by clearing, logging and penetration by rainforest. Effect of WQIP - nil.
  • Cassowary populations are threatened by development, dogs and traffic. Effect of WQIP - nil.
  • There are serious problems with Para grass and, even worse, Hymenachne (a weed of national significance). Both take over streams, banks and swamps. Pond apple Anona glabra is becoming a monoculture in places. Cassowaries, in the absence of other food, eat the fruit and spread the weed (another weed of national significance). Effect of WQIP - nil.
  • The list of other weeds is almost never ending. Examples that spring to mind are tobacco weed, lantana, Siam weed, giant rats tail, weed vines that infest remnant forest etc. Borrow one of the many booklet lists of weeds in the area and go through it. If that doesn’t worry you, nothing will. Effect of WQIP - nil.
  • Pigs are a massive problem environmentally and agriculturally. Nationally the number of other feral animal species is large and the problems for native species of fauna and flora very severe. Think camels, cats, foxes, rabbits, donkeys, cane toads, Indian mynah birds just for starters. Tilapia infests many rivers and streams so causing significant changes for the worse in the stream ecology. Effect of WQIP - nil.
  • Connectivity is a major problem especially from east to west. The problem is compounded by the Bruce Highway. Effect of WQIP - nil.
  • Even in the Wet Tropics there are occasional periods when water quantity is an issue. In the 1990’s various smaller creeks in the Johnstone ran dry due to irrigation draw down - usually bananas. Effect of WQIP - nil.
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Biodiversity is threatened by human population growth, weeds, developments, fragmentation of habitat, terrible land management practices, poor maintenance of National Parks and conservation areas (the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Natural Resource Management are the lowest funded government departments) urban rednecks that chop down or poison trees on river banks to improve the view etc. Effect of WQIP -nil.

Those are just a sample of the plethora of serious environmental/NRM problems. None of them is the result of a model, none of them is debatable and none of them have anything to do with water quality to the GBR. But almost all the money is going to the possible threat to a miniscule part of the Reef.

Perhaps the triumph of the GBRMPA-driven river mouth water quality issue over the plethora of other issues and problems was well put by the boss of CRC for Weeds, Rachel McFadyen. “Weeds are not sexy”.

So the GBRMPA story goes from strength to strength but the Weeds CRC is gone and will be replaced by the Australian Weeds Research Centre with a piffling $15 million over four years. The Reef gets a large multiple of that amount every year and has done for years. There is a sort of symbolism there.

I have found it distasteful to write this article, not just because I am being critical of professional conservation minded people that are trying to look after an important ecosystem, but also because I realise that it may be perceived as giving “aid and comfort” to anti environment landholders and others. My objective is exactly the reverse of that.

Some six years ago a Productivity Commission Research Report “Industries in the GBR catchment …” quoted from a submission that I wrote on behalf of my local conservation group: “It is a fact and one beyond argument, that there is enormous variation between the practices of farmers even within the same industry. JES (Johnstone Ecological Society) could easily take you to cane farms that are sustainable in all senses, and to others that are deplorable, shockingly bad” (page 140).

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Although the fraction of landholders that are “shockingly bad” has probably decreased, it is still a fact that there are many people, both rural and urban, who are actively anti environmental. They are unreconstructed rednecks. The rise to total domination of the Reef - and only the Reef - attitude will tend to let such people “off the hook”. All they have to do is to be seen as reducing the “threat” to the Reef and they will be in the clear. Never mind that in every other way their land management is bad and fails to deal with any of the land based environmental problems of the type I listed earlier.

As I put it to an old friend in UK a few weeks ago “I, and the wider environment, are caught between the monotheistic Reefers on the one hand and the rednecks on the other”.

As either a fxxxxxx or bloody conservationist I feel that all the decades I have put into conservation have been a waste of time. All the evidence is that nobody cares any more about anything but the Reef.

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About the Author

John Ridd taught and lectured in maths and physics in UK, Nigeria and Queensland. He co-authored a series of maths textbooks and after retirement worked for and was awarded a PhD, the topic being 'participation in rigorous maths and science.'

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