Editorial
Of
all the things we think we need in our daily living not many are true
necessities, but no one could live without food, water and air. One of
the great success stories of the 20th century must be the production of
food, for despite the unprecedented leap in human numbers, food supply
per person actually increased in all continents except Africa. One of
the big questions for the 21st century is whether we can keep up the food
supply, especially as population is still growing.
Why
could this be a problem? There are many reasons. We have taken a lot out
of the soil in extracting our food over the last century. We have mined
the trace elements and in many cases ruined the soil structure with heavy
machinery. We have depleted many ground water reserves. We have lost beneficial
species of insects, plants and microorganisms.
Desertification
and salination threaten large areas which were major food producers in
Africa, Asia and Australia. In the latter we have been producing food
surpluses and exporting them, enough to feed 80 million people. Some use
this as an argument to say that Australia could feed a much larger population
than the present one. So it could, in the short term, but we would have
to cut our exports markedly, so would suffer in terms of trade. Much worse,
it is probable that within this century we will have lost half of the
Western Australian wheat belt and half of the Murray-Darling basin to
salinity. What food surplus would we have then? We would be hard put to
feed our own expanded population.
Fisheries have been an important source of protein but all around the
world they are in trouble. Many have collapsed, many are heading the same
way, from overfishing. Inshore areas have been damaged by nutrient run-off
and other pollutants. The destruction of mangroves and other coastal developments
have destroyed fish nurseries. Aquaculture, often touted as a way of increasing
protein supplies, is usually inefficient, requiring many more tonnes of
fish meal to feed the penned fish, than will be harvested from those pens.
Aquaculture also pollutes estuaries and encourages disease in the crowded
conditions.
There
are other threats to food supply, too. With climate change, some of the
current food producing areas will become less productive. One of the counter-intuitive
results of global warming could be the freezing of north-western Europe.
If the North Atlantic circulation shuts down - and there are indications
that it is doing just that - the present temperate areas will experience
severe winters like those of Newfoundland, an area not noted as a food
producer now the cod have gone.
Rising
sea levels will exacerbate all the problems currently faced in Bangladesh
and other low-lying areas. The Pacific Islanders will nearly all have
to migrate and be fed elsewhere.
Add
to all this the fact that for the last fifty years modern agriculture
has specialised in turning fossil petrochemicals into food. Oil has powered
the agricultural machinery without which we could not have had great increases
in food production. Oil and coal have powered chemical plants to produce
fertilisers. Gas has been used as a feed stock to make fertilisers. Oil
is used to transport produce to the market, and electricity powers the
factories that process so much of our food. Oil distributes food all around
the globe, but if there is one thing more certain than most, it is that
oil will run out. Some people pin their faith in producing ethanol from
plant material to fuel our agricultural machines and transport, but think
of the equation. We would probably need more ethanol to produce the crops
and process them than we would get out at the end of the procedure.
Over
the last few decades we have seen a drive to globalise food production
as well as other trade. Yet this is beset with problems such as the increasing
risk of globalisation of animal pathogens. It is in no country’s
interest to import contaminated food for stock or people. It is in no
country’s interest to have to destroy millions of animals. If world
food shortages occur it could be considered criminally negligent to have
to destroy any potential food stocks.
Australia
has the purest air in the world, at Cape Grim in north-western Tasmania.
Now Cape Grim rainwater is being bottled and sells at a premium price
in America. Wouldn’t it be better to clean up America’s water
and air? Sending bottled water around the world seems to be about as silly
as you can get in satisfying those basic needs for food and water.
The sustainability of food supplies is certainly not assured, and that
is without any consideration of nutrient values and ecological and ethical
concerns. All this and more will be addressed in our forthcoming internet
conference on food. Do remember it is interactive. You can ask questions,
raise issues that may have escaped attention and put your point of view.
Do register and log on.
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Forthcoming
NSF meetings
Tuesday
28 August- 7.30 pm, Heysen Street, Weston,
ACT
Visits
to the main environment centres in the UK with particular emphasis
on the Eden Project in Cornwall- Derek Wrigley
9-15
September at www.natsoc.org.au
Internet
conference - Food for Healthy People and a Healthy Planet
19 September
- 7.45 pm, Heysen Street, Weston
Nature
and Society Forum Annual General Meeting
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What
wetland?
Landsat remote-sensing
satellites have shown that about 90 per cent of the Mesopotamian marshlands,
home of Iraq’s Marsh Arabs, has dried up to a salt-encrusted desert.
The Marsh
Arabs rebelled against Saddam Hussein in 1992. Soon afterwards dams and
drainage projects in the area diverted water from the marshes. Human rights
groups claimed Saddam was repaying the Marsh Arabs for their rebellion,
but Iraq countered that the works were to drain salt from agricultural
soils so they could be farmed.
Hydrologists
studying the area now say that the destruction was caused at least as
much by dams built on the upper Tigris and Euphrates by Turkey in the
late 1980s and early 1990s. By cutting off the spring flush of floodwaters,
thereby drying out up to three-quarters of the marshlands, the dams made
it possible for the Iraqi engineers to build their drainage systems. The
storage capacity of the dams on the Euphrates is six times the annual
flow of the river. That flow has been reduced by a fifth and could be
halved in the near future.
The draining of the marshes has affected the Gulf shrimp catch, as the
marshes were a spawning ground for shrimp. Kuwait’s catch has dropped
40 per cent.
The combined
effect of Turkish dams and Iraqi drainage is that the wetlands are no
more. A unique human culture, with at least a 5000 year history, has been
destroyed along with an important ecological system. The director of the
UN Environment Programme described the loss as “a major ecological
disaster, comparable to the drying of the Aral sea and the deforestation
of Amazonia.”
New Scientist
19 May 2001
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Camping
in the Naltar Valley, Northern Pakistan
John Harris
Last month,
I had the good fortune to be camping in the upper Naltar Valley in the
Karakoram Mountains of northern Pakistan. It is camping with a difference.
I was camping with Jane, Akbar, a local Gujjar, and Dr Kashif Sheikh,
who had invited us to his PhD field research site. Our camp was on the
shores of one of the three Naltar lakes at 3,200 m. These small lakes
are crystal clear and freezing cold as they are spring fed. The abundant
aquatic plants in our lake coloured it vivid emerald green. The setting
was the steep-sided partly forested Naltar River valley hemmed in with
snow capped peaks set against a predominantly blue sky.
Akbar, who
was Kashif's former field assistant, was our interpreter so we could talk
with the local Gujjar people and learn something of their semi-nomadic
life. Our camp turned out to be on the main track leading further up the
valley where there were good grazing lands for domestic sheep, goats,
cattle and yaks.
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 |
| Kashif
cooking the evening meal with lots of encouragement |
Lake
Osprey, a glacial lake in the Karakorams |
There were
dozens of people passing our camp each day on foot or on their tiny donkeys
herding their animals. Families carried their cooking gear and musical
instruments as well as the occasional rifle. Some of these travellers
called in to talk to us or ask for 'medicine' for fever, cuts and burns.
One morning we were fortunate to see a dozen yaks on their way to high
pasture. They find their own way and are rounded up later in summer to
be taken back down the valley for their rich milk.
Over the
next few days we came to see the rhythm of the movements of Gujjars up
and down the valley. There were those going up to small villages higher
up the valley where there was good summer grazing near Naltar Pass (4,700m).
They would stay for the summer months. Those going down were usually on
their way to gather tools or groceries such as flour from Altar village,
3-4 hours away by foot from our camp. Other movements were daily ones
for collecting firewood and the daily 'comings and goings' of children
tending their mixed flocks of sheep and goats. Once, we were woken at
dawn by the rumble of 30 goats and sheep streaming past our tent as two
boys drove them on their way up the adjacent steep hillslopes for the
day. And then there were the children of the local families who came to
visit each day - boys and girls maybe around 7 or 8 years old. They lived
in rough homes of rock with timber and mud roofs that were hidden nearby
amongst the rocky landscape. They would bring us hot chapatti and fresh
chicken eggs for our meals, which had been bartered for by Akbar. We treated
these children's cuts and scratches. They would also sit near our flat
rock table at breakfast and tea no doubt fascinated by these strangers
with our tents and other camping gear and strange eating habits, all the
while hoping for some leftovers and sweets.
On three
days Kashif, Jane and I ventured out for the day. When we left, Akbar
would look after our camp. We spent one day exploring the Naltar lakes
identifying common native plants and animals. The trees around the lake
and campsite were pine, spruce and willow. We saw all three species of
wagtails (white, grey, yellow), large-billed bush warbler, leaf warbler
(an endangered species), hoopoe and several other bird species, which
are a feature of the valley. We also found the native toad (Bufo latesstti)
along the shoreline. The outlet of the lake flows into the Naltar river,
which originates much higher up the valley and was in full flood following
the spring snow thaw. Osprey lake, a glacier lake at around 3700m, was
our destination another day. We took lunch and set out early as it was
slow walking at this altitude and by mid-day it was around 35C. On the
way we visited the other two Naltar lakes (Sapphire lakes) which were
smaller and surrounded by coniferous forest of pine and spruce. Walking
is not easy owing to the dry rocky terrain so we were pleased to be able
to follow the paths of the local people. We occasionally met travellers
on these paths but mostly they were on the steep hillslopes tending their
animals or cutting trees for firewood in the forest. Many of the hillslopes
were too steep and dry for vegetation, especially, the very steep rocky
talus slopes. Always there were the beautiful snow-capped peaks towering
above us.
The day before
the weather broke, we followed the Naltar River up-stream to the highest
summer village set in sparse forest just before the steep ascent to Naltar
Pass. Scattered birch trees were clearly visible forming the tree line
at 3,800m before the clouds and rain descended. The glacial valley has
several turbulent streams or nullahs roaring down the steep rocky slopes.
Stone summerhouses dot the valley. During winter, these are deserted as
the inhabitants have moved further down the valley to Konodas (place of
nomads), and Gujjardas - closer to Gilgit, the central administrative
town of this region.
 |
 |
| Local
transport for two tired brothers |
Growing
potatoes in the Lower Naltar |
Most of the
people of the Naltar valley are poorly educated and many are illiterate.
They rely on their traditional skills as animal herders, shepherds and
agriculturists. Potatoes have become the main cash crop in the valley
after their introduction 10-15 years ago. They are grown in the lower
valley, especially around the permanent village of Naltar. Potato cropping
is steadily increasing in the valley, which requires the clearing of forested
areas. This is on top of firewood cutting. There is also increasing evidence
of overgrazing and trampling by the thousands of animals living in the
valley. There were few summer flowers when we visited and Kashif told
of increased incidence of soil erosion and landslides, which brings down
more trees.
Kashif's
pioneering research focused on the ecology, habitat use and conservation
of bird populations in the Naltar Valley but his research also noted the
all too common human syndrome - environmental overuse. Kashif observed
100 species of birds in the valley. Of these, he chose 14 for an in-depth
analysis of their distribution, breeding and habitat use. A vegetation
map of the valley was completed employing GIS techniques together with
an analysis of the habitats of these 14 species. During his research,
Kashif became concerned for the conservation of the bird populations and
this mountain environment owing to the loss of habitats so he lived and
consulted with the local people, incorporating their perspectives into
his thesis. He is now seeking funding through IUCN and other external
funding agencies to develop a Naltar valley biodiversity conservation
plan, which would further involve the local Gujjar people.
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Down
under and up there: a brief glimpse of the European environment
Derek
Wrigley
A visit to
Denmark, Norway and the UK in May and June gave me an opportunity to compare
(somewhat superficially, I must admit) the Down Under environmental awareness
and action with Up There — and in particular to see how effective
the mega-million £ environment centres in the UK were in putting
their messages over to the community.
The countrysides
(except for that part of Norway above the Arctic Circle) looked wonderful
and full of moist spring greenery to Australian eyes. Evidence of underlying
environmental problems had to be searched for — even the foot and
mouth problem in England was only obvious because it prevented walking
in some areas. On the surface everything was business as usual.
Certainly,
commercial and government bodies in Scandinavia and the UK seem to be
very aware of the need for new sources of renewable energy and are way
ahead of Australia in the practical application of some technologies.
This is evidenced to some extent by the number of wind turbines in Denmark
which supply some 14% of their electrical energy, none in Norway because
99% of their electricity is from hydro sources and they seem to export
most of their natural gas. UK has about 15 wind farms around the country,
particularly in Cornwall, with several more offshore windfarms planned
around the coast — and I must say to the critics how beautiful they
look in the landscape.
These wind
turbines are elegant pieces of technology and I was able to have a conducted
tour around the Nordex plant at Give in Denmark.
The nascelles are amazing, cramming gearbox, brake, generator and yawing
mechanisms into a shell some 10m long x 3m across with ample room for
service staff to move around inside. This is industrial design at its
best and a good example of how, given government encouragement, a small
country with a similar population to Australia can lead the world with
innovative design. The noise problem of the very early turbines has been
overcome (by government insistence) and we had no problem conversing at
the base of one of the largest in Denmark.
While the
turbines were busy producing green electricity I found that internal house
and hotel temperatures, particularly in Denmark and Norway, were too hot
for me — they could have been 5º lower and still have been comfortable.
The conservation of energy message at the grass roots level still has
to penetrate into action and if practised on a national scale could obviate
a significant amount of new generative capacity.
Northern
Europe’s weather is not as kind to photovoltaic and hot water absorbers
as it is in Australia, nevertheless there are several applications on
rooftops, mainly hot water absorbers — roughly the same distribution
as in Australia and, so I am told, without any financial incentive to
install. There are one or two exciting pioneer projects — one in
North London has fitted 241 new private houses with solar tiles, the next
logical generation of integrated photovoltaics which act as the roof itself.
When will our developers learn?
These new
PV panels can even be semi-transparent, allowing light to penetrate below
— but how will these panels suit the Australian summer ?
The word
‘sustainable’ seems to be the latest promotional catch-cry in
England, but it seems apparent that few people really know what it means.
It is applied to many new buildings which use high embodied energy materials
and construction, make no use of renewable energy solar collecting techniques
nor use of passive building design. Who are they kidding ?
One of England’s
biggest problems is the huge mass of old, existing buildings which do
not readily lend themselves to economic remodelling to take advantage
of solar gain. In addition, in some visually sensitive areas like the
Cotswolds, Lake District, etc, the heritage value (as a tourist attraction)
is incompatible with the addition of applied, external solar technology.
This is a real dilemma.
In some of
the inner suburbs in cities like Bristol, London etc, there are countless
rows of Victorian terrace houses, often with extremely small front gardens
— or none at all — with no access to their back garden. Consequently,
their wheelie bins (or, more commonly, black plastic garbage bags) are
kept in the front ‘garden’ which is most unsightly. Urban aesthetics
are the first casualty.
A compounding
problem for the inner city areas is the dominance of the private motor
car.Often, the suburban terraced streets are narrow and perpetually lined
with occupants’ cars, bumper to bumper with their nearside wheels
on the pavement, leaving one lane free for moving vehicles. Leave your
spot and you are never sure that it will be there when you return. Street
cleaning vehicles must have an impossible job and rubbish just accumulates
in the gutters. I was unable to find out how the garbage collection was
done, but it would have been ‘with great difficulty’.
Those houses
with larger front gardens have often been paved over to accommodate the
occupants’ cars, increasing the speed of stormwater runoff. The softening
effect of greenery has been greatly diminished.
The car has
now become an embarrassment to city dwellers, being neither convenient,
nor cheap and theft from cars seems to be growing. As we left the UK the
government was proposing a tax of £5 (approx A$15) per day for cars
to enter the London metropolitan area. It will be interesting to see how
successful this proves to be.
Prices of
some Victorian terrace houses — from a friend’s experience in
Bristol — would be of the order of A$700,000 with a poor quality
ambience, no solar access, traffic noise, ancient plumbing and sewerage
systems and no garage. Lack of choice and an equal lack of knowledge among
the buying public about solar benefits and sustainable living techniques
would seem to be facing UK city dwellers with very difficult decisions.
Canberrans should count their blessings.
There is,
nevertheless, a growing groundswell of green living. A nationwide ‘Sun
day’ was held in June to demonstrate solar technology — similar
to our ‘Green Living Fair’, and I picked up a free copy of ‘Positive
News’ which has been started in a tiny village in Wales giving us
all the good news about a more sustainable lifestyle. Try www.positivenews.org.uk
for more information.
The Guardian
newspaper has a regular environmental supplement devoted to schoolchildren
and is referenced to the national curriculum on environmental topics and
to important websites for follow up material. Australian papers should
take note if they are serious about the environment.
One encouraging
item in 'Positive News' is the long awaited production of the compressed
air car in Nice, France. The car will roll off the production line early
in 2002. Price will be around £6250 +VAT (~A$ 15,600) +GST. Try
www.mdi.lu for more information.
But despite
all these encouraging indicators the average person still behaves as if
there is no problem, or that it will be fixed by somebody else. Beyond
some sporadic paper recycling most people I observed seemed to take no
responsibility for changing their behaviour, which must come about if
we are to achieve the environment we need. The message is not getting
across to the person in the street and I suspect it is not very different
here. We have a long way to go to achieve total environmental awareness.
On Tuesday
28 August I will be giving an illustrated talk at the NSF in Weston at
7.30pm on my visits to the main environment centres in the UK with particular
emphasis on the very exciting Eden Project in Cornwall — and what
we can learn from them in regard to our own Australian National Biocentre.
Come and make your comments — they could be valuable feedback for
us.
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Reports
of meetings
Jenny
Wanless
Manna
Relief
Terry Baker
was to be the speaker at our June meeting, but as he knew he would be
delayed he got Barbara Eckersley to open the meeting. Barbara spoke of
the fairly recently discovered role of phytochemicals and glyconutrients
in human health and of her personal experience with them in improving
the health of her family. Her interest had been triggered by the diagnosis
of her daughter’s chronic fatigue syndrome and the lack of any satisfactory
treatment.
When Terry
arrived he showed a video about Manna Relief, an American based charity
which is supplying these micro nutrient supplements to orphanages in Rumania,
with significant improvement in the children’s health. Similarly
good results have been experienced with the supply of such supplements
to children with AIDS in Africa.
Manna Relief
was started by some families who had witnessed remarkable improvement
in the health of family members who took the supplements because they
were suffering from various major untreatable conditions. The video detailed
some of these cases, including muscular dystrophy and tumours.
Barbara Eckersley
is presenting a paper on phytochemicals and glyconutrients in our internet
conference on food.
Biological
Exhibits
Robin Garnett,
our speaker in July, presented a most interesting and stimulating discussion
on a group of biological exhibits she developed while working at the Science
Centre and Manawatu Museum, Palmerston North, New Zealand. The town is
a centre for agricultural research and the scientists there were very
keen to help develop biological exhibits and communicate their work to
the public.
Exhibits Robin worked on included ones on feral pests such as possums
and rabbits. In the case of rabbits the exhibits showed that whereas shooting
and warren ripping each have a short term effect on rabbit numbers, and
the rabbit haemorrhagic virus has a longer term effect on the population,
the best control is achieved by a combination of all three measures.
New Zealand
fish are unusual in that a great many species are dependent on both a
marine and a fresh water stage in their development. This means that they
are particularly threatened by the annual activities of the white bait-fishermen,
who collect schools of small fish which include the juveniles of many
different species, some of which would live up to forty years. One of
Robin’s exhibits was designed to raise awareness of the perils caused
to native fish by such fishing activities, and also by changes to habitat
and stream flow by construction of weirs and other alterations.
Such exhibits
managed to interest and involve many different age groups, but their message
also needed to be backed up in other ways such as text and video. The
presence of real human explainers was invaluable. The scientists concerned
had a wonderful day when they were able to be present for an open day!
Robin also
showed part of a video of a workshop on genetic engineering which had
been held to try to increase public understanding of this controversial
and little understood topic. The video of the proceedings had been widely
distributed so that it could reach as big an audience as possible.
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Encouraging
developments in the Third World
Bryan
Furnass
Developing
countries are usually seen as lands of poverty and oppression where the
drinking water is poisonous, stomachs are empty, and most adults are illiterate.
In fact, there have been vast improvements in life expectancy, nutrition,
adult literacy, poverty and human rights over the past 30 years.
The 2001
Human Development Report, published by the UN Development Program, says
that, far from being a cause for pessimism, the developing world is a
source of optimism, despite some local disasters. Across the world, life
expectancy has risen from 59.9years in 1970 to 66.4, including a rise
of 12 years in South Asia and 14 years in Arab countries. Improved nutrition
and better medical services have combined to halve infant mortality.
Many of the
health advances have been the result of extraordinary economic progress,
which has seen incomes in East Asia quadruple, with the Chinese economy
growing four times as fast as Europe’s, and even the Indian economy
outpacing those of rich nations. The UN report attributes the progress
to the spread of democracy and human rights, with a general reduction
in poverty despite increasing inequality. On the dark side of the equation,
life expectancy has fallen in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Here are
two examples of grass roots developments in the Third World:
- The Simputer,
a hand held computer developed by Indian scientists, and run on three
AAA batteries, will become commercially available in India for $200.
Its revolutionary message is the Illiterate Markup Language — the
software which allows the Simputor to translate English into a variety
of Indian languages, then read the information aloud to the user. The
need is overwhelming in a country where 50% of the population is illiterate.
Swami Manohar, a leading member of the development team states: "It
is not access to technology, but access to information, that is critical
in relation to poverty elimination schemes, women's welfare schemes
and health education."
- Fred Kajubi,
an engineer in Uganda has developed a low-tech solar panel which can
run anything from a radio to a mobile phone or cooking stove. The wafer-thin
silicon photovoltaic cells are ten times cheaper than the more common
crystalline solar panels, selling at $8.50 (US). They seem more appropriate
and accessible for a country, only 3% of whose citizens have access
to electricity than do the grandiose schemes for a dam and centralised
hydroelectric power, favoured by the World Bank.
Thirty years
ago, the wealthy members of the UN General Assembly committed themselves
to giving 0.7% of their national wealth to poor countries, but only five
of the 22 countries capable of achieving this have hit the target. Shamefully,
the powerful G7 leading industrial countries currently give an average
of 0.19%, being more concerned with collecting interest on their loans
than giving genuine help to the poor nations. Despite this parsimony,
it is encouraging how much innovative technology is springing from the
Third World which would also be of value to industrialised nations on
this planet of shrinking resources and increasing pollution.
from The
Guardian Weekly, July 26
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