Lydia Gibson (WWF-Australia’s Policy Manager – Tropical Marine Flagship Species) was part of the Queensland team that won this award in late July for the International Climate Change Competition. The winning project was called “SEA LIFE”. The competition asked for creative design responses for adaption to Sea Level Rise for Sydney Harbour. It allowed entrants to work at any scale from site specific local plans to whole harbour or whole catchment strategies. The project “SEA-LIFE” was based on creating adaptive strategies for Sydney Harbour swimming beaches in recognition of their important social, cultural and ecological values. Nice one Lydia.

All across the blue planet, fisheries are rapidly reaching the end of the line. We humans are literally eating ourselves out of house and home. If this trend continues unchecked, our children and grandchildren will be condemned to live beside empty acidic oceans in a world very different to our own. The only chance we have of turning this around is by reforming our fishing practices, controlling our appetites and by providing sanctuaries for marine life. And our task begins here at home.

For generations Australians have been caught up in a love affair with the sea; it’s a big part of our self-image. We’re islanders. We grow up expecting access to open beaches, clean seas and good seafood. We regard all this as a birthright as much as a lifestyle. But here in the twenty-first century we persist with a nineteenth century notion of the sea as an inexhaustible resource, a mighty and invulnerable force, a field of endless plenty. This is a demonstrably false image, and clinging to it out of nostalgia isn’t just silly - it’s reckless.

Today, I ask you to do something about it

You don’t have to be a fisheries scientist or a marine biologist to know that more and more people are fishing harder for less and less. Any recreational angler forced further and further from shore in order to get a feed knows the true picture. Any diver can see the evidence of depletion in the water. The consumer buying fish at the market can’t avoid the link between higher prices and scarcity of product. Every oil spill, every algal bloom, every mass fish-kill along the coast tells us the truth - that the ocean is vulnerable, that sea life is under enormous and unrelenting pressure from overfishing, from pollution, from mining and unchecked coastal development. The science on this is universally in agreement: worldwide, corals and fish stocks are in desperate trouble. Most of the great pelagic species are 90% gone. Seventy percent of our planet needs a break, and it needs it in a hurry.

Here at home the marine environment is an incredible asset, a gift we tend to take for granted. But it’s also finite, fragile and largely unprotected. Most Australians are shocked to realize that a mere 1% of our own South West waters are off-limits to mining or fishing. This is a level of protection that surely belongs to another century. In terms of marine conservation we’ve fallen behind poorer nations and it’s a scandal.

In an era when conservation was a new and challenging concept, our grandparents had the foresight to accept that Australia’s terrestrial environment is precious. When the nation was poorer than it is now, individuals and governments had the courage and wisdom to begin reserving lands across the continent for conservation. This was a radical departure, a real innovation, and thanks to this major cultural change of heart, 12% of the country is managed with conservation in mind. Imagine Australia without Kakadu and the ‘Bungle Bungles’; it’s inconceivable.

We owe these visionaries of the past a great debt. As heirs to their brave and enlightened actions, we need to build on their example and extend sanctuary to a significant proportion of our marine environment as well. Fish, corals, mammals and invertebrates desperately need places of refuge and respite from pollution and exploitation. Marine protected areas are a significant investment in the future health of our seas. If a mere 1% protection for land conservation was deemed inadequate by our forebears, why should it be an acceptable level of sanctuary for the seas in the twenty-first century? This is the moment for change. It’s time - way past time - for us to wake up and to catch up.

Australian waters are home to some of the world’s oceanic treasures. These precious ecosystems need proper and realistic protection right now.

Here is a generational opportunity to reward the good faith of our forebears. Let’s seize it and make a material difference to the future. Together we can create a legacy to be proud of. For the sake of our children - and for those yet unborn - help save our marine life while there’s still time.

Tim Winton
Patron, Australian Marine Conservation Society
AMCS is a proud member of Save Our Marine Life

Save our marine life

On Sunday 15th August 2010 its time to get your walking shoes on and join a Walk near you and help us convince our political leaders to: Walk with the people. Not the Big Polluters.

Join a Walk Against Warming event near you on Sunday, 15 August 2010 and tell the politicians it’s time for them to face up to their responsibilities on climate change.

Australia’s World Heritage Macquarie Island, 1500 km south-east of Tasmania, is home to nearly four million seabirds, provides nesting habitat for four threatened albatross species, and is a breeding ground for about 850,000 pairs of royal penguins.

The aim of this project is to rid Macquarie Island of huge numbers of rabbits, black rats and house mice, which have devastated the native flora and fauna. Feral rabbits have caused massive loss of vegetation resulting in landslides and erosion which is destroying seabird nesting habitat. Rats and mice have been found to feed on the chicks of native birds.

“The Australian and Tasmanian Governments have been working together to protect the outstanding universal values of Macquarie Island,” the Federal Minister for Environment Protection Peter Garrett said. “This project will be the largest in the world to eradicate rabbits and rodents and is the result of extensive planning.”

The boat, Aurora Australis, along with Parks and Wildlife Service staff and contractors left Hobart on the 21st of May. A team of around 20 staff will begin the operational phase of the pest eradication project, with four helicopters and 305 tonnes of bait brodifocoum.

Trained hunting dogs and their handlers will travel to the island in August, to begin the second phase of the operation.

More information on Macquarie Island can be found here

Macquarie Island pest eradication voyage departs - Press release

• Macquarie Island blog
• Macquarie Island fact sheet (PDF, 499kb)
• Macquarie Island in Danger report (PDF, 5.27mb)

- Pesticides on the Great Barrier Reef
The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) is the national body that assesses the safety of pesticides and decides whether chemicals should be available for sale and under what conditions. Upon hearing that the productivity commission proposed to expand the APVMA’s powers to take over the role of State governments to monitor and control pesticide use, WWF-Australia waved the warning flag.
As a result of our campaigning efforts (AND the 5,000-ish emails that were sent to Federal Agriculture Minister, Tony Burke’s inbox and to other members of the Primary Industries Ministerial Council from our supporters) Minister Burke made a very important announcement almost immediately that he will prioritise reform of our national pesticides watchdog - the APVMA. He also said: “We want to make sure that when a chemical is dangerous, it can be restricted and restricted quickly. We also want to make sure that when a chemical is clearly safe, it can be made available and made available quickly and done so in a way that provides a minimum amount of red tape for everybody involved.”
This is great news.
The Primary Industries Ministerial Council met on 22-23 April to formally discuss reform of the APVMA.
It is important to note also that many of the chemicals WWF are concerned about are highly toxic farm chemicals that have been banned overseas but are still available for use in Australia and have been detected deep inside the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Zone. Endosulfan, for example, is banned in 60 countries around the world, yet is sold here in Australia.

-  Girringun Aboriginal Corporation & WWF
Representing nine indigenous tribes, The Girringun Aboriginal Corporation met with WWF in Townsville to sign a partnership agreement. The partnership will focus on the conservation and protection of marine turtles, dugongs and inshore dolphins living in the offshore water surrounded by Hinchinbrook, Goold, Brooke and Dunk Islands. Cliff Cobbo (WWF-Australia Policy Manager, Conservation on Country) said the agreement will focus on the conservation of marine mammals while also respecting Aboriginal tribes’ special rights to hunt a small quota of turtles and dugongs.

- Antarctic Treaty Meeting
Held on May 3-14 at Punta del Este in Uruguay. Rob Nicoll (WWF-Australia Antarctica & Southern Oceans Initiative Manager) was a NGO representative with the Australian Government delegation to the Antarctic Treaty Meeting. He promoted WWFs standpoint for more MPAs, action on climate change and improved shipping standards in the Southern Oceans.

- Jandakot Airport versus Carnaby’s black cockatoo
A disappointing announcement from Peter Garrett that he will allow development at Western Australia’s Jandakot Airport. The clearing of 167 hectares of high quality remnant banksia woodland not only threatens Carnaby’s black cockatoo but other species as well. Kath Howard (WWF-Australia Policy Officer, Southwest Australia Ecoregion) said, “The Australian government had an opportunity here to protect one of the few large tracts of bush left in Perth south of the river.”

- REDD - Using carbon credits to save forests and species
There is a strong indication that on-going international negotiations post-Copenhagen will eventually result in an agreement allowing developing countries to receive carbon credits in return for reducing deforestation. Activities to sequester forest carbon are commonly referred to as REDD, which stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. In our region, the forests of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia are habitats for a variety of endangered species including orangutans and the Sumatran Tiger. These forests are threatened through increased logging activities and expansion of palm oil plantations. Receiving valuable carbon credits provides an economic incentive for sequestering carbon in standing forests rather than their commercial development. WWF is currently engaged in establishing REDD demonstration projects in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Papua in Indonesia and is working to build capacity for implementing REDD nationally in both PNG and Indonesia. WWF Australia is assisting regional offices on REDD and the Australian Government has announced several forest carbon initiatives in the region. WWF Australia staff recently participated in a workshop in Borneo on REDD and assisted in REDD strategy development in Sumatra.

- Carnaby’s take a bashing
Carnaby’s black cockatoo have had a bad year with numbers dropping from the heatwave earlier in the year (when 200 died) and more recently during the Perth hail storm when 36 were killed. Read the whole story here .

Dr Nicola Mitchell has put a call out to the general public to encourage them to use the new website as a way of alerting the University to sightings of Carnaby’s cockatoos around Perth: See http://cockatoo.csse.uwa.edu.au/.

“We are calling on volunteers to record Carnaby’s cockatoo sightings in the Perth Metro area from now until August - the idea is to have so many participants that we can use the observations to ‘track’ the birds as they move around during the day.

We’ll use the information to identify key habitat and flight paths, and to estimate how far the urban flocks travel to meet their energy requirements.

The data collected will be transferred to a larger-scale citizen science project coordinated by Birds Australia in September 2010, and will ultimately be publically available via the Atlas of Living Australia.”

See the website for more details: http://cockatoo.csse.uwa.edu.au.

Dr Nicola Mitchell
Assistant Professor, School of Animal Biology (M092)
The University of Western Australia

Some might question the timing of the Resources Minister Martin Ferguson’s announcement on Monday of 31 new exploration leases in sensitive areas earmarked for greater protection.

The new leases are in or close to the same areas flagged by Environment Minister Peter Garrett as potential marine reserves.

They include two leases just 83 kilometres off the coast of Margaret River in Western Australia’s southwest – waters that are home to unique marine life and many whale and dolphin species - and new leases precariously close to Ningaloo Marine Park, famous for its whale sharks and coral reefs.

Like California, Margaret River is also a region renowned for its surfing, tourism and wine industries.

If an oil spill such as last year’s Montara spill off northwest Australia had occurred in this part of the world - less than 100km from the coast – we would be witness to oil washing up on beaches from Perth to Margaret River.

If it had occurred off Ningaloo Reef it would have desecrated one of Australia’s most well known biodiversity jewels.

Once this exploration starts, it is unlikely these areas will remain available as marine sanctuaries because governments will be reluctant to relinquish rights to the petroleum industry once they are in place.

Ironically, while the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is one of the world’s best loved parks, and the very thought of drilling on the Reef is an anathema to the world’s public, the offshore waters of southwest Australia have less than one per cent of their waters protected in the equivalent of marine sanctuaries. In the north and northwest, protection of sensitive marine areas is not much better.

Now even as the Government works to build a more representative system of marine parks, and parts of those regions become highlighted for their biodiversity values, it is shocking that some of those same areas are already being earmarked for oil and gas exploitation.

Lack of sufficient regulation, enforcement and compliance around shipping in the Great Barrier Reef continue to pose a very real threat to this World Heritage site, as witnessed recently with the grounding of the Chinese bulk carrier, the Shen Neng 1.

If ships are allowed to pass through this World Heritage global icon without qualified and experienced pilots, and in many areas without effective Vessel Tracking Systems, then what will be permitted in lesser-known parts of the Australian coastline?

It is telling to examine the differences in the US Government’s response to its oil spill disaster and Australia’s response to the Montara oil spill.

While there are still questions around the US Government’s response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, to its credit it immediately began an inspection of offshore wells in the Gulf to ensure people’s lives and wildlife were not in further danger.

Despite repeated requests from WWF and an admission from the company responsible for the Montara oil spill, PTTEP, that the remaining wells on the platform do not meet their own safety standards, state and Federal Governments have not heeded calls by WWF to audit the safety of existing wells.

Even more unbelievably, while the US immediately put a halt to new offshore exploration pending an investigation, here in Australia, PTTEP was given a new license to drill even as last year’s disaster was unfolding, and in the period before the Montara hearings started, drilled a new exploration well in the Timor Sea.

Evidence given at the Montara Commission of Inquiry has shown that the slick from the Montara oil spill grew to almost 90,000 km2, much larger than initial estimates given to the public.

Findings from the Inquiry, which was charged with investigating the causes and responses to Australia’s oil spill, will eventually be handed to Resources and Energy Minster Martin Ferguson.

The Australian Government must learn from these disasters and stop playing Russian roulette with our most precious marine assets.

The Rudd Government must press the pause button on releasing acreage in vulnerable and sensitive marine areas and instead act to address the risks and impacts associated with drilling and shipping.

It must also let conservation play catch-up and ensure Australia has a national system of marine sanctuaries that provides a safe havens for our precious marine wildlife and be prepared to say that some parts of our planet are just too important to be open to the risks associated with oil and gas.

Greg Bourne
Chief Executive Officer
WWF-Australia

* Reef Water Quality
WWF continues promote stronger regulations governing water quality in catchments that feed the Great Barrier Reef. Over 1,000 farmers are benefitting from the roll out of Reef Rescue 2009 allocation of AU$50 million to reward low pollution farm practices in Reef catchments. The Queensland state government will inject AU$5 million to support natural resource management groups with Reef Rescue.

Project Catalyst, a collaboration between WWF, Reef Catchments NRM and The Coca-Cola Company, continues to progress in fostering farmer innovations that solve environmental and agronomic challenges in sugarcane farming. Expansion to more farms and catchments is expected to occur with another capital injection later this year.

* Good weed win
A win on weeds! WWF has pushed Australia one step closer to proactively managing invasive garden plants by successfully nominating “Loss and degradation of native plant and animal habitat by invasion of escaped garden plants” as a key threatening process under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
More info on this listing and its implications can be found here.

* The Importance of Wetlands
WWF continues to promote that the Queensland State government to close legal loopholes that allow the destruction of the State’s wetlands at an estimated pace of 7,000 hectares a year.

The Queensland Government has promised since 2003 that it would protect these important natural assets but so far the powers needed to veto the cutting, draining and filling of wetlands have not materialised.

Up to 90% of certain wetlands along the Great Barrier Reef Coast, have now been lost to development, posing a huge threat to the health of the reef as well as the State’s multi-million dollar seafood and tourism industries.
Following some strong promotion from the WWF Queensland team, the Queensland Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability announced on World Wetlands Day that development controls will be tightened in Reef catchments, with release of draft regulations due in May 2010.

* Wetlands WA style
WWF successfully negotiated for landowners to sign voluntary agreements to manage seven high conservation category wetlands in the Peel Harvey (Perth urban fringe) catchment. On Friday 30th January, WWF and the Peel-Harvey Catchment Council joined forces at Centro Mandurah Shopping Centre to stage a celebration of World Wetlands Day. A very successful day for community engagement, indeed.

* WWF at Woodford music festival
WWF brought in 2010 with a bang at Queensland’s Woodford Folk Festival where they managed a stand while squeezing in a bit of partying along the way. Being the first time WWF-Australia officially participated in the festival, we took the opportunity to softly launch two of our campaigns - our Caring for Farmers postcard campaign as well as our campaign to raise awareness of the regulation of pesticides in Australia. Nick Heath was also asked to speak at some of the public forums which were well attended.

* Wheatbelt wonderworks you may not be aware of
* Due to diligent work by WWF 873 hectares of native bushland in the WA Wheatbelt containing spectacular white clay breakaways, majestic Salmon Gum woodlands, a population of the rare Eucalyptus mimica plus large areas of fringing saline lake woodland systems have been permanently protected through conservation agreements.

* WWF has set up camera traps to capture (both in stills and video footage) a variety of WA Wheatbelt fauna, also monitoring the effect of fencing and weed-spraying which can now be seen on their blogsite.

* Fishing News
* WWF has been calling for management reform in the rock lobster fishery for over three years, this call was recently rewarded with a substantial effort reduction, a reduction (>85%) being approved and implemented by the fishery for the 2009/10 season.

*The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species - CITES
Tiger are not the only species in need of protection. So are bluefin tuna, polar bears, great apes and coral reefs and many, many more. Thousands of delegates from around the world are currently meeting in Qatar at a conference of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, to discuss new proposals on regulating the trade and sustainable use of hundreds of plant and animal species.

Particularly important for WWF will be encouraging CITES Parties to list Atlantic bluefin tuna on CITES Appendix I. This species is in urgent need of international conservation measures, having experienced a historical decline of over 85% as a result of overfishing driven by high-value international commercial trade. An Appendix I listing would eliminate the driver of overfishing and give stocks time to recover. An Appendix I listing, by controlling international trade, would also greatly assist with reducing the illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing which has plagued the fishery.

WWF is also supporting the inclusion of 4 shark species - hammerhead shark, oceanic whitetip shark, porbeagle, and spiny dogfish - on CITES Appendix II to regulate trade, which will allow the species time to recover.

* Coral Triangle & Coral Seas update
WWF-Australia is part of what is known as the Coral Triangle Network Initiative and as such played a role in the following achievements:

* Indonesian ports will soon be closed to pirate fishing vessels after the nation signed the world’s first legally-binding international treaty to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Get the full story here.

* “Thousands of endangered marine turtles were saved last year in the Coral Triangle region, which includes the Philippines, with the implementation of the Circle Hook and Turtle Recovery Program, according to the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF). The WWF bycatch reduction program saw more than 40,000 new circle hooks distributed in the Coral Triangle over the past year, which equips roughly 40 long-line vessels for an entire year. This translates into thousands of sea turtles saved from hooking during the fishing season.” Read the whole article.

* Coral Triangle Climate Change - Here’s a link to remind you of the what WWF is doing in this important region

* The Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono referenced the Coral Triangle Initiative in his address to the Australian parliament.

* WWF vs ACDC
WWF is calling on Australian rock group AC/DC to move the venue of a concert in Austria on May 22nd to avoid an environmental disaster.

The proposed venue - an old airfield in the small Austrian town of Wels - is a favoured nesting site for rare birds that migrate to the area in spring.

80,000 fans are expected to enjoy the concert, while beneath their feet, hundreds of bird nests will be crushed- among them nests of species already close to extinction, like the Eurasian Curlew.

WWF and other Austrian conservation organisations are proposing a simple solution benefitting both endangered wildlife and AC/DC’s concert plans. Two alternative sites are available nearby with no additional costs or logistical inconvenience.

This was confirmed on a recent Sunday when the WWF Panda got out amongst the people. For all the important conservation work WWF is doing behind the scenes in southwest Australia, sometimes it’s just as important to get out into the community. And so on this Sunday Panda, with a trusty pair of panda handlers, attended the City of Mandurah’s Crabfest to compete in the festival’s annual mascot race.

In the clear sun of a recent Sunday Panda exuded goodwill, gathering its strength from some innate optimism that wanted to make this living planet just a bit livelier. It was a bright day, quite hot for large furry beasts to be gallivanting in the sun – and they were just the swarthy, bearded panda handlers. Panda itself was sweltering. Nevertheless, such considerations amount to little when there are people to delight.

And delight Panda did. Arriving early, it strutted around the festival spreading stickers, high fives and panda hugs to all, strewing a trail of delighted smiles in its wake. Children and adults alike mobbed Panda; some posing for photos but most just after a fuzzy embrace. At one point Panda inadvertently stumbled into a miniature dance party where it displayed without hesitation its hitherto unknown B-Bear skills, tearing up the dance floor to the rhythm of the beat and the crowd’s cheers.

After all this fun it was time for the race itself and so Panda made its way to the track to begin its stretching regimen: an intensive series of lunges, star jumps and frolicking. There is little more amusing in life than watching a panda performing sit-ups. Set, ready and raring to go, Panda proceeded to the muster point and gathered with the other mascots – a motley assortment of beasts, machines and, er … miscellaneous.

After a brief, somewhat chaotic time in which the race announcer introduced all competitors while the mascots themselves jostled for starting positions, the contenders were in place, the crowd began cheering their favourites and the starter raised the chequered flag. “And Go!’ They were off.

Did I say that Panda doing sit-ups was amusing? Indeed it is. But a phalanx of wild mascots careening through an obstacle course must rate as one of life’s greatest joys. The haphazard mascot menagerie raced each according to their various abilities, but almost all running blind. Dragon collided with crab, helicopter collided with dog, and an unidentifiable purple thingamabob ricocheted off an inflatable obstacle into the mascot pack. It was a mass frenzy of fur and felt with Panda somewhere in its midst. In the end it was a bipedal coffee cup that tore free from the horde, with Panda finishing somewhere in the middle of the pack. A valiant effort against some formidable opponents.

Of course the true victory is in the delight a single panda can bring and by that measure the day was a victory indeed, as confirmed at day’s end while a weary Panda trudged towards home. In the quiet car-park came a sudden cry of “PANDAAAA!” and a youngster with a WWF sticker worn proudly on her chest threw herself headlong into Panda’s arms, seeking one last hug.