Activists continue to fight bulldozers and corrupted government processes in Perth's southern suburbs

"Protest that endures.. is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success; namely the hope of preserving qualities in one's own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence".
Wendell Berry

In Perth's southern suburbs a remarkable community- based campaign and furious community opposition and protest is delaying the controversial Roe 8 Project, an extension to the Roe Highway, which forms part of the Barnett Government's Perth Freight Link. 

The Barnett Government intends to build the Roe highway extension through the internationally recognized Beeliar wetlands and in the lead up to the March 2017 state election the Government began clearing major urban woodlands in the suburb of Coobellup to make way for the Roe 8 extension.

The wetlands and urban woodlands are an important habitat for threatened species, including the Carnaby's Black cockatoo and the forest red- tailed cockatoo. The sites are important heritage, Indigenous heritage, environmental and recreational sites and much loved and cared for by people who live in the southern suburbs.

The clearing is a cynical election ploy, designed to shore up support in a host of southern suburb Liberal- National party held seats that are at serious risk of falling in the March election.

For the last 8 weeks thousands of ordinary citizens have mounted protests to stop the bulldozers. They have sought legal injunctions, protested on site, occupied the site, locked themselves onto machinery, held sit ins and silent vigils, scaled and lived in trees for days to protect trees from bulldozers. 

Still the clearing continues.

Hundreds have been arrested by a police force, acting on behalf of the State Government, who stand accused of  over-reaction, use of excessive and unnecessary force and random arrest of protesters.

The protesters have been demonized by the Premier and his Ministers and by the major newspaper in the City.

The Director of the Conservation Council of WA Piers Verstegen has been one of the high profile public voices of the campaign and has successfully mounted the public case against the Roe 8 extension in daily forays in the media and in speeches on site.

Piers posted this powerful piece on his Facebook site today. He calls for a Commission of Inquiry into this profoundly corrupted and destructive project.

(Piers Verstegen comments printed with permission).

After being away from the Beeliar Wetlands for a few days and with the bulldozer briefly at bay, I took a walk into the site this morning to have look at what was due to be destroyed next. What I found was incredible.

These ancient paperbark (melaluca) trees are the largest and oldest I have ever seen. They would already have towered above the Beeliar Wetland at the time when the Swan River Colony was first settled. Now they are about to be destroyed within days by Colin Barnett's Bulldozer for the Roe 8 highway.

  

The towering paperbarks shading the cool sedges, rushes and and other understory species are part of an endangered ecosystem – the result of the longest continuous evolutionary process on this planet. Centuries ago, this type of woodland would have covered much larger areas, but with the majority of our wetlands having been filled in, drained or used as rubbish tips, this is one of the very few areas we have left in good ecological condition.

The site is a sacred women’s place for Nyoongar people and perhaps hundreds of generations of people would have been born here. This apparently is of no consequence because the State Government has unilaterally de-listed these areas from the Register of Aboriginal Heritage sites.

This is the section of the highway where a ‘bridge’ will be built, supposedly to minimise environmental damage. The trees that will not be bulldozed will be underneath huge sections of concrete which will block all light. Their roots, and the delicate groundwater hydrology beneath their massive trunks will be disturbed by the excavation of giant footings for concrete pylons. Giant cranes, earthmovers and other heavy machinery will compact the soil and further damage what remains of this place. The actual road-building work will not commence here for many months so destroying this place right now, just weeks before the election is totally unnecessary – an act of senseless environmental and cultural vandalism.


The fact that our environmental laws can allow a place like this to be trashed for a toll road which has no business case and no clear economic benefits, shows how deeply inadequate those laws are.

Last week I posted an open letter to the WA Environment Minister regarding failures to comply with conditions leading to the unnecessary death of bandicoots and other wildlife at the clearing sites. After having no response to that letter, the community has had a small win today as the contractors suspended clearing work to allow more trapping for wildlife to take place. Here, the community has managed to uphold the conditions on the project for a single day after weeks of blatant breaches with no response to hundreds of letters, emails and calls to the Minister or the EPA.

For now, these incredible ancient paperbarks stand. But together with so many others I am struggling to contain my anger and despair at the realisation that unless a miracle occurs, they will be destroyed forever within days. A permanent ugly scar will be left in the heart of this incredible place as a constant reminder of a heartless and misguided government desperate to regain popular support by taking a tough line on the environment.

One thing that gives me hope is that I believe that what has happened here with the Beeliar Wetlands will one day be the subject of a major Commission of Inquiry with far reaching consequences. All of this evidence will be examined – right from the beginning of the flawed EPA assessment (where EPA board members had conflicts of interest and the government failed to follow its own policies), to the last few heartbreaking weeks of constant blatant breaches of environmental conditions, to the history of corrupt and improper dealings by the companies involved, and to the misuse of police resources and well over 100 arrests of peaceful community members trying to uphold our environmental laws when the government and courts fails to do so. I believe all of this evidence will provide the platform for a future government to strengthen our environmental laws so that something like this can never happen again. And while the wetlands are trashed, those reforms will happen because people stood up for what they believed in.

The continuing silence about links between extreme weather events and climate change

Many parts of Australia are recovering from the devastating effects of extreme weather events over recent days, including storms that produced unprecedented levels of rainfall, massive ocean waves and king tide surges that caused coastal erosion, and extensive destruction and devastation from massive localized flooding, however, it is interesting to see climate scientists and commentators being cautious and circumspect about linking the severity of the storms to climate change (see articles here, here and here).

A valuable article by social scientists Paul Hoggett and Rosemary Randall, based on interviews with leading UK climate scientists, provides insight into the dynamics of the social and political silencing that makes many climate change scientists unwilling to speak out publicly about the seriousness of the threat posed by climate change.

Hoggett and Randall argue that a 'socially constructed silence' between climate scientists and policy makers is one reason why policy making about climate change has become a form of 'symbolic policy making’—a set of practices designed to make it look as though political elites are doing something about climate change while actually doing nothing.

Hoggett and Randall quote one scientist who said that although many scientists believe that the world is heading for a rise in temperatures of 6 degrees, rather than the two degrees claimed, they still remain silent.

A number of reasons for this silence are identified by Hoggett and Randall. They found many scientists identify with an idealized picture of scientific rationality and are uncomfortable with the political controversy surrounding climate change.  Scientists prefer to get on with their research quietly and dispassionately, burying themselves in the excitement and rewards of research, but denying they have any responsibility beyond developing models or crunching the numbers.

Hoggett and Randall quote one researcher:

"so many scientists just want to do their research and as soon as it has some relevance, or policy implications, or a journalist is interested in their research, they are uncomfortable.

Fear of being seen as a whistle blower and damaging their career are also reasons why scientists are unwilling to speak out.

Some scientists are unwilling to challenge political analysis of the scientific evidence. One scientist quoted by Hoggett and Randall was critical of scientists:

“... repeatedly I’ve heard from researchers, academics, senior policy makers, government chief scientists, [that] they can’t say these things publicly, I’m sort of deafened, deafened by the silence of most people who work in the area that we work in, in that they will not criticise when there are often evidently very political assumptions that underpin some of the analysis that comes out."

Hoggett and Randall urge the scientific community to abandon their social and political silence and speak out as a whole, rather than leaving the task to a beleaguered and much-criticized minority.

Climate change and the Canadian City destroyed by wildfires

Watching the shocking images and footages of the terrible destruction and human suffering caused by the wildfires that have destroyed the City of Fort McMurray in Alberta Canada, I am reminded of Wendell Berry's poem The World Bought and Sold.

I dream by night the horror
That I oppose by day.
The nation in its error
And by its work and play

Destroys its land, pollutes
Its streams, and desecrates
Air and light. From the roots
It dies upwards, our rights

Divinely given, plundered
And sold by purchased power
That dies from the head downward
Marketed hour by hour

That market is a grave

Where goods lie dead that ought

To live and grow and thrive,

The dear world sold and bought

To be destroyed by fire,
Forest and soil and stone.
The conscience put to hire
Rules over flesh and bone

To take the coal to burn
They overturn the world
And all the world has worn
Of grace, of heath. The gnarled

Clenched and forever shut
First of their greed makes small
The great life. Hollowed out,
The soul like the green hill

Yields to the force of dearth. 

The crack in the despot's skull
Descends into the earth,
And what was bright turns dull
Wendell Berry (from Leavings)

Fort McMurray is at the heart of one of the world's largest climate destroying industries- the Alberta Tar Sands industry. It is a city and region reliant on fossil fuel extraction. The region has the world's third-largest reserves of oil. As much as a quarter of the country's oil production has been halted by the fire, raising concerns about the effect on the Canadian economy.

The New York times reports:

"....the blaze has consumed whole swaths of Fort McMurray, ranking it as one of the most devastating fires in Canada’s history. The fast-moving flames turned many of the city’s homes — and the baby photos and wedding albums and other treasures that could not be packed in time — into little more than charcoal."

20,000 homes have been destroyed and the entire population of 88,000 people was forced to evacuate through a post apocalyptic landscape, in what is the largest wildfire evacuation in the history of Alberta.

The fire is still spreading and threatens to break out into neighboring provinces of Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories.

The shocking irony for the suffering people of Fort McMurray, whose city has been destroyed by wildfires and quasi apocalyptic conditions, is that the fires are the result of unseasonably hot weather conditions resulting from rising temperatures caused by climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.

Writing in Climate Central, Brian Kahn provides a sober context for the Fort McMurray wildfires:

"What’s happening in Fort McMurray is a perfect encapsulation of the wicked ways that climate change is impacting wildfire season. A drier than normal winter left a paltry spring snowpack, which was quickly eaten away by warm temperatures. That left plenty of fuel on the ground for wildfires to consume."

Scientific America reports that the Fort McMurray wildfire is indicative of a warming planet and is the latest in a lengthening lineage of wildfires in the northern reaches of the globe. 

It quotes Mike Flanagan, a wildlife researcher at the University of Alberta:

"This fire is consistent with what we expect from human caused climate change affecting our fire regime".

Writing in New Yorker magazine, Elizaberth Colbert writes that raising environmental concerns in the midst of human tragedy is to risk the charge of insensitivity. However, she argues that failing to acknowledge the connection is to risk another kind of offense. She writes:

Though it’s tough to pin any particular disaster on climate change, in the case of Fort McMurray the link is pretty compelling. In Canada, and also in the United States and much of the rest of the world, higher temperatures have been extending the wildfire season. Last year, wildfires consumed ten million acres in the U.S., which was the largest area of any year on record. All of the top five years occurred in the past decade.

In Slate magazine, Eric Holthaus links the fires directly to climate change and analyses why people are so hostile and unwilling to accept science that links wildfires to climate change. He writes:

"The sensitivity here, I think, lies in Canada’s unique blend of politics as both an oil producer and a nation on the front lines of climate change. Over the past decade or so, Canada has become a major oil producing state (thanks mostly to Alberta) and the recent rise and fall of oil prices has created a kind of petrostate politics. Indeed, as oil prices have fallen, Alberta’s government has become increasingly cash-strapped, even to the point of cutting funding for wildfire prevention, as Reuters revealed on Thursday. The juxtaposition of that political environment with this specific disaster in the heart of Canadian oil country led to a clamp down on discussion. Right now, Trudeau is trying to have it both ways. Eventually, he’ll have to choose. Albertans know this and are justifiably worried about how future climate policies will affect their lives. 

Beyond all of the political reasons why climate change has become such a charged topic, the social science hints at why truly accepting the threat of climate change is so difficult for so many people: Doing so means accepting that our current way of life, our means of survival, even, are potentially untenable. Accepting climate science can mean accepting that our means of supporting ourselves are impossible. In other words, accepting climate science can threaten our very identities. It is understandable that people would react with fear, anger, and, yes, even vitriol. That does not mean, however, that climate change is not happening, and we should not take it seriously. It simply means the path forward will often require intense personal sacrifice. That is no small thing."

Drew Brown writes about what he calls the 'black irony' of the Fort McMurray wildfires:

"Hardcore environmentalists will no doubt spend a lot of time stressing the black irony of having the Mecca of the Canadian oil industry go up in flames to a climate change-induced wildfire. But those concerns will fall on deaf ears until the immediate human tragedy at play here in northern Alberta has subsided."

The other 'black' irony is that the burning of Fort McMurray coincides with a political offensive by those who support fossil fuel extraction and burning to expand the tar sands pipelines across Alberta. The governments of Alberta and neighboring British Columbia are also planning major expansions in fossil fuel production.

The connection between corporate money and climate change denial and skepticism

A study by Justin Farrell titled Corporate Funding and Ideological Polarization about climate change confirms what many have argued- that behind climate change scepticism and denial is corporate money. 

These findings are not surprising to many people. 

Advocacy and environmental groups have exposed this connection before (here, here and here). 

However, Farrell’s study is one of the few that directly demonstrates the connection between corporate money and the content and specific language used in public messages to encourage public scepticism and question or cast doubt on the science of climate change.

Farrell's study demonstrates, in stark terms, how corporate power and corporate money make it appear that there is more of a debate around climate change than actually exists, with the goal of creating public uncertainty and policy stalemate.

In an article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Farrell analyses 20 years of data to show that corporations use their money and wealth to promote and amplify contrarian views about climate change and to create an impression of greater scientific uncertainly than actually exists.

 

Farrell used computer analytics to systematically examine printed matter published by 164 groups, including think-tanks and lobbying firms, and more than 4,500 individuals who have been skeptical of mainstream scientific views on climate change. Farrell analysed documents, statements, articles, policy papers and transcripts produced by these groups over 20-years.

In comparing the groups that received corporate funding with those that did not, Farrell found an an “ecosystem of influence” within corporate funded and supported groups.

 

Farrell found that groups that received corporate funding consistently promoted the same contrarian themes such as - climate change is cyclical in nature and that there are positive benefits to carbon dioxide. 

Over time, the effect of all these separate groups giving the same message is create an increased sense of cohesion. There was no evidence of such coordination among the non-funded groups.

Farrell concludes that corporate money “created a united network within which the contrarian messages could be strategically created and spread.”

He writes

“This counter-movement produced messages aimed, at the very least, at creating ideological polarization through politicized tactics, and at the very most, at overtly refuting current scientific consensus with scientific findings of their own.”

When official reports obscure as well as explain: An analysis of the report on Cockburn Sound mass fish deaths

 

"Species loss is caused by the harmful actions of powerful actors, private interests that are facilitated by governments failing to act for the common good. At present, our political systems are deficient in preserving the variety of life around us."

David Ritter CEO Greenpeace Australia

The Department of Fisheries has released the report of its investigation into the massive fish die-off that occurred in Cockburn Sound in late November and early December 2015. Over 2000 fish and 15 species died.

 

An earlier piece I wrote on the environmental crisis is here and here.

 

However, like many official reports, the Fisheries report obscures as much as it explains. 

It is, for example,  silent on the extent to which thermal stress resulting from increased water temperature and oxygen stress caused by human induced climate change and global warming is a factor in the deaths in Cockburn Sound.

The Report finds that the immediate cause of the mass die-offs was an algal bloom of diatoms (of the genus Chaetoceros). This group of diatom have been implicated in fish kills both internationally and around Australia.

Diatoms are  the diameter of a hair, have spine-like bristles (setae) made of silica, and cause physical irritation to fish gills. The Report found that  algal numbers reached significant concentrations and the sectioned gills of freshly dead fish showed considerable physical irritation.

The report identified three potential contributing factors to the observed spike in diatom numbers- nutrients, higher than normal water temperatures, and reduced flushing conditions.
 

The report found no evidence of disease in the fish and no evidence of potential pollution or industrial causes of the fish kill.

It notes that the Department of Environment Regulation  assessed industry monitoring data and inspected local drainage systems, but no potential pollution sources were identified. The only substantiated spillage  identified was approximately 500 kilograms of canola grain at the CBH grain loading jetty, however there was no evidence of chemical contaminants in the spilt canola.

 

The Report found that the Southern end of the Sound was the likely source of the bloom.

 

The report links the fish deaths to poor water quality at the unstable southern end of the Sound. The area has historically had poor water quality issues including low dissolved oxygen levels associated with poor flushing of the embayment.  The report found that weak tides during the event may have been a contributing factor.
 

The southern end of the Sound is the site for  a proposed marine, canal and residential development between Cedar Woods and Landcorp, which includes a 500 boat pen, canal development, chalet style accommodation and an entertainment precinct.

 

Despite concerted opposition, the project received environmental approval in 2014 and has Government  and Opposition support, despite the EPA finding that the proposed development could worsen water quality in the southern part of the Sound

 

There has been strong and concerted public opposition to the  proposed development by environmental groups, campaigners and local communities and residents.

 

The Greens MP Lyn Mclaren used the release of the Fisheries Report to call on the Barnett Government to shelve the proposed development:

 

"The two causal factors of the fish kill were the algal bloom and dissolved oxygen. Both of these are known to be a problem in the southern area, so we should be working on improving the water quality at that area of the sound, not risking it by building a canal estate there."

 

The Fisheries Report leaves many questions unanswered.

The Report does nothing to dispel claims made at the time by the Barnett Government and government authorities that the mass die-off was a 'natural occurrence'. 

 Suggesting that an environmental catastrophe like this is a 'natural occurrence' implies it is a matter of chance and the workings of nature, rather than of human design and government and industry action and inaction. Events become arbitrary unforseen acts of nature, rather than manifestations of an economic and political order that is designed to maximise economic growth and profit at the expense of the ecosystem and the people and communities who share that ecosystem.

As Piers Verstegen from the Conservation Council of WA noted, this event should be a serious wake up call for the state of Cockburn Sound, not explained away as natural occurrence.

 

The Report does not identify  the underlying causes of  water quality issues in the Sound that resulted in the blooms that killed the fish, other than to identify three possibilities-nutrients, higher than normal water temperatures, and reduced flushing conditions. But we are no clearer in understanding the underlying cause(s) of the diatom bloom.

Clearly the marine environment in Cockburn Sound is changing for the worst and fish and marine life are struggling to keep up. It is essential that we know the exact cause of those changes. Without that understanding how can the Department and those responsible for the health of the Sound and its environment take the necessary action to ensure that water quality is improved and fish stocks protected?

The southern pocket is environmentally important to the health of the sound. It an area where sea grass is reasonably healthy and is also a fish nursery for a number of fish species.

Given its focus on the fish deaths, the Report is perhaps unsurprisingly silent on the likely impact of the proposed marina and canal development on water quality and fish stocks in the southern end of the Sound.

This is despite the likelihood that the proposed marina development will worsen water quality and threaten seagrass in the southern end of the Sound, thereby threatening fish stocks, bird life and marine life even further.

The report also says little about the long term impact of poor water quality on the viability of fish stocks in the Sound and proposes no remedial action to improve water quality to protect fish stocks in either the southern end of the Sound and/or the Sound as  a whole.

The report is also silent on the 'elephant in the room'- the extent to which thermal stress resulting from increased water temperature and oxygen stress caused by climate change and global warming is a factor in massive fish deaths like those that occurred in Cockburn Sound.

Ministers, politicians, authorities and government agencies seem unwilling to publicly acknowledge this issue and have avoided any use of the words 'climate change' in relation to the deaths.

But there is mounting evidence about the impact of climate change on the world's marine ecosystems and their vulnerable inhabitants and the role of climate change as a causative factor in mass die-offs of fish, marine life, whales, starfish, coral and marine invertebrates.

A 2015 study published in the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by scientists from Yale, UC Berkeley and University of San Diego concluded that mass die-offs of birds, fish and marine life have grown increasingly frequent and severe, hiking at a rate of 1 per year over the past ten years.

The researchers found that disease is responsible for 26 percent of  die-offs, making it the number one cause over the past 70 years. Direct human impact on the environment, including contamination is responsible for 19 percent.

On the effect of climate change, the report noted:

"... processes directly influenced by climate — including weather extremes, thermal stress, oxygen stress or starvation — collectively contributed to about 25 percent of mass mortality events."

According to the study, the mass kill events of the greatest magnitude "were those that resulted from multiple stressors, starvation, and disease."

Writing in Common Dreams, Deidre Fulton links animal die-offs across the globe to growing alarm about the deadly impact of climate change on the world's ecosystems and their vulnerable inhabitants.

Fulton lists examples of recent mass die-offs linked to the effects of climate change, including:

• 8000 black-and-white common seabirds (murres) were found dead on beaches in Alaska's Prince William Sound, joining thousands more that washed up on beaches from California to the Gulf of Alaska over the past year. One hypotheses is that the birds' usual food supply—the schools of herring and other small fish typically found near the coast—has been decimated by warming oceans or this year's extreme El Nino weather pattern.
• 45 pilot whales died in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, after more than 80 were stranded on the shore.
• a massive starfish stranding occurred on Moreton Island in Australia
• drought in the Western U.S. has transformed stretches of rivers into a mass graveyards for baby salmon 
• coral bleaching events around the globe are degrading and eroding the structure of living reefs
• the mysterious die-off of endangered antelopes last spring in Central Asia, which killed more than half of the entire species in less than a month. 

In the Washington Post, Sarah Kaplan writes that unexplained die-offs, abnormally large strandings  and worldwide coral bleaching are bigger than almost anything else on record:

"Incidents like these are often mysteries to be unraveled, with scientists sorting through various explanations—hunger, habitat loss, disease, disorientation—for the mass death. But in a swath of recent cases, many of the die-offs boil down to a common problem: the animals' environments are changing, and they’re struggling to keep up." 

Here in WA, the response of the Barnett Government to the Cockburn Sound environmental crisis has  been shambolic and inadequate.

The Environment Minister has been missing in action. At the height of the crisis the Minister claimed that water quality in the Sound was improving.

The Government claims that no change is needed in the monitoring of the Sound and has instigated bare-bones" environmental monitoring of water quality and only released a tender for that after the crisis. A former Manager of the Cockburn Sound Management Council (CSMC), claimed the tender was "bare-bones" environmental monitoring to allow the council to meet the requirements of the State Environmental Policy.

 

The failure of the Barnett Government and the responsible authorities to provide a convincing explanation of the underlying causes of the water quality issues that caused the mass fish die-offs in the Sound, combined with their unwillingness to publicly acknowledge that thermal stress resulting from increased water temperature and oxygen stress caused by climate change and global warming as a significant factor in the fish deaths, only leads to greater disbelief and cynicism among ordinary citizens concerned about the health of the Sound and the viability of fish and marine life stocks.

Environmental crisis and massive fish kill in Cockburn Sound

An environmental crisis is unfolding in Perth's Cockburn Sound and no one seems to know the cause.

A massive fish kill, or localized die off of fish populations is occurring.

 

Over recent weeks, more than 2000 fish, mainly pink snapper and blowfish, as well as  marine life up the food chain, including pelicans, seabirds and fairy penguins have been found dead in Cockburn Sound and along its beaches. (Although the Department of Fisheries disputed that penguins were dying as result of the kill and said that a dead penguin found had died of starvation).

 

There are also reports that people swimming in Cockburn Sound have had adverse reactions, including skin irritations and rashes and that the water was stinging.

 

Cockburn Sound is an open ocean inlet off the Perth coast that lies between Garden Island, Carnac Island and the Perth coastline and stretches from the mouth of the Swan River at Fremantle, south to Cockburn, Kwinana and Rockingham. The Sound is a vital and fragile marine environment used for commercial and recreational fishing and is the breeding ground for pink snapper.

 

Cockburn Sound is WA's major industrial zone for heavy industry, petroleum and chemical industries and Garden Island is a major naval base. The Sound contains numerous popular beaches.

 

Cockburn Sound has been under severe pressure for some time. There has long been concern about environmental and water quality and the health of Cockburn Sound, due to the presence of heavy industry along the Kwinana Industrial Strip and the naval base at Garden Island. Large beachside residential developments along the coast have added to pressure on the Sound.

A 2014 Report on the State of Cockburn Sound found it was under severe environmental pressure, including ongoing concerns about the health of seagrass; signs of declining water quality, particularly in southern sections showing signs of nutrient enrichment and problems with dissolved oxygen concentration and poor water circulation; very poor water quality in some smaller areas and seafood was generally safe for consumption.

 

The WA Department of Fisheries has been unable to pinpoint the cause of the deaths and claims that microscopic examination of gill samples have shown the fish may have suffered respiratory stress, probably due to water quality. The Department said that respiratory stress can be caused by physical irritants or chemical contaminants.

Fish kills like this are the first visible sign of environmental stress. Many fish species have a low tolerance for variations in environmental conditions and mass deaths are often an indicator of problems in the environment that may affect other animals and plants and may have a direct impact on other uses of the water.

Reduced oxygen in the water is the most common cause of kills and this may be due to factors such as sustained increases in water temperature, drought, algal bloom, overpopulation, infectious disease and parasites  Toxicity is a real, but less common cause of fish kill.

 

The Department claims it has been testing for algal toxins, hydrocarbons, ammonia and pesticides. But the exact cause of the problem is still unknown. A Departmental spokesperson said:

 

"Test results received to date indicate no evidence of either natural algal or industrial toxin involvement and point towards an as yet unknown natural event as the cause of this incident."

In the WA Parliament, Minister Helen Morton said that a canola grain spill at the CBH Kwinana Grain Jetty  between November 18-22 may have resulted in some grain entering into the Sound. The Department of Environment Regulation is investigating the spill from the Kwinana grain jetty, as it matches the timeframe for the reports of dead fish.

 

But a Fisheries spokesman said the examination of the dead fish stomach contents found no evidence of canola or any other unnatural food source.

The Barnett Government and the  Fisheries Minister have come under severe criticism for their haphazard and shambolic handing of the crisis and their failure to act with a sense of urgency.

Recreational fishers are so outraged about the Government's response they crowd sourced and initiated their own investigation. In addition to an organised protest, they are urging fishers to take their boats out into Cockburn Sound to locate dead fish to understand more about the problem.

The WA Fisheries Minister Ken Bastian contradicted his own Department after saying he would  not recommend people eat fish from Cockburn Sound. His comments came after his Department had said  that fishing or swimming in the Sound were safe. The Minister was not aware that his own Department had issued an all clear for people to go fishing.

The ALP Opposition points to the abolition of the Cockburn Sound Management Authority, which existed to monitor water quality, as a contributing factor.

 

Many of the fish kills are in area known as Mangles Bay, which is the site for  a proposed Mangles Bay Inland Marina and private canal estate, a development opposed by many groups.

 

Green groups, environmental groups and local citizens oppose the development and a major development at Point Peron which they argue threaten the health of Cockburn Sound. They argue the Barnett Government's plans for major beachside marina, private canal estates and residential developments along pristine parts of the Sound are putting more pressure on an already fragile ecosystem.

 

Greens MP and spokeswoman Lynn MacLaren said fish kills in Cockburn Sound were further proof the Barnett Government should rethink proceeding with the Mangles Bay Inland Marina:

 

"The latest kills were near the Garden Island Causeway and Point Peron boat ramp, which is adjacent to Mangles Bay. Mangles Bay is known to be a thriving fish nursery of state importance and it also has the healthiest seagrass beds in the Sound. It is irrational to destroy the one area in the Sound that is in really good health while we are still struggling to manage overall water quality and health."

 

Wendell Berry on the daily reality of capitalist destruction

The present economy by means of its purchase of governmental power, works invariably against the natural world; against working people, small farmers and locally owned small businesses, and against the life integrity, beauty and dignity of communities, both rural and urban. It is destroying our country"Wendell Berry

In his book of poetry Leavings Wendell Berry composed a sequence of Sabbath poems written as reflections arising from his regular "sabbath walks" in the forests surrounding his Kentucky farm.

These are profound meditations on the state of the world and natural environment, and the destruction caused by human folly and capitalist greed.

Questionnaire

1. How much poison are you willing
to eat for the success of  the free
market free and global trade? Please
name your preferred poisons.

2.For the sake of goodness,
how much evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks
with the names of your favourite
evils and acts of hatred.

3. What sacrifices are you prepared 
 to make for culture and civilization?
Please list the monuments, shrines
and works of art you would most willingly destroy

4.In the name of patriotism
and the flag, how much of our beloved
land are you willing to desecrate?
 List in the following spaces
the mountains, rivers, towns
you could do readily without.

5.State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes
the energy sources, the kinds of security
for which you would kill a child
Name please the children who
you would be willing to kill.

Judith Wright and 'the heave of the great corporations'

'Only those coral insects live

that work and endure under

the breaker's cold continual thunder.

They are the quick of the reef

that rots and crumbles in calmer water

Only those men survive

who dare to hold their love against the world;

who dare to live and doubt what they are told.

They are the quick of life;

their faith is insolence; joyful is their grief'

Builders

Judith Wright

Today I am thinking about Judith Wright, Australia's finest poet and long time campaigner and activist and her biographer, Veronica Brady. 

They were both warriors- of the imagination, of the spirit and against injustice.

Judith Wright died in 2000  and Veronica Brady died in Perth in August this year. They are both deeply missed.

But their lives and their writing stand as a testimony and reminder of their remarkable contribution.

At Fremantle Library today I found the new republished edition of Judith Wright's The Coral Battleground, a book published in 1977, that documents the campaign to protect the Great Barrier Reef from oil and gas exploration and mining.

The book was re-published in 2014 by Spinifex Press. In it Judith Wright wrote:

 

"The Reef's fate is a microcosm of the new battle within ourselves. So this is not just a story of one campaign. The human attitudes, the social and industrial forces, and the people who in one way or other take their part in the campaign, represent a much wider field, and one in which the future of the human race may finally be decided".

The Coral Battleground begins in 1963, when Judith Wright was involved in the formation of the Queensland Wildlife Preservation Society. 

Between 1967-1971, the Society was instrumental in a campaign led by Judith Wright  and artist John Busst and environmentalist and scientist Len Webb to prevent the Queensland State Government, led by Premier Joh Bjelke-Peterson, from opening up the Great Barrier Reef to mining.

 

At the time they were denounced as radicals, fanatics and cranks.

 

Judith Wright, John Busst and Len Webb mobilized an alliance of citizens, conservation groups and trade unions against plans by the development oriented (and corrupt) Bjelke- Peterson Government  to allow the Great Barrier Reef to be exploited by mining companies.

Their campaign eventually led to the Federal Government claiming Commonwealth sovereignty over the Great Barrier Reef. In 1975 the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority was established. The creation of the Great Barrier Marine Park was the first such national park in the world. The reef and its waters were listed as a world heritage site in 1981.

 

Wright once wrote:

 

 "If the Great Barrier Reef could think, it would fear us ... Slowly but surely we are destroying those great water-gardens, lovely indeed as cherry boughs and flowers under the once clear sea."

 

And now the reef is under threat again. 
 

In the Foreword to the 2014 edition of The Coral Battleground the conservationist and environmental activist Margaret Thorsborne documents a series of threat to the reef including: human induced climate change; loss of seagrass; shrinking populations of many dependent species; infestation of the crown of thorns starfish; development pressures; reduction in water quality; catchment run off; coastal and port developments and the Queensland mining boom which is driving the demand for bigger port facilities, more dredging, more reclamations, more sea dumping of dredge spoil and more and deeper channels to serve bigger ships.

 

The United Nations has warned Australia and the Queensland Governments that unless real improvement  are made to the deteriorating condition of the reef, it may be listed as a world heritage site in danger.

 

As Thorsborne notes, although Judith Wright's battle was won in the 1970's and 1980's, Australian's must face the harsh reality that the Barrier Reef is never safe while the real destroyers- industrial, financial and resource extractive capitalism- continue to declare war on the natural world.

 

Of course Judith Wright knew all this well.  In her poem For Today (from For a Pastoral Family) she wrote: 

 

We were always part of a process. It has expanded.

What swells over us now is a logical spread

from the small horizons we made-

the heave of the great corporations

whose bellies are never full.

 

Previous posts  on this blog about Judith Wright are here.