EcoRadio

Category: Sustainable Settlement and Agriculture

The Generator is founded on the simple premise that we should leave the world in better condition than we found it. The news items in this category outline the attempts people have made to do this. They are mainly concerned with our food supply and settlement patterns. The impact that the human race has on the planet.

  • Garrett rejects Gunns environmental reports

    The future of the controversial mill planned for Tasmania’s Tamar Valley hangs in the balance, with Gunns struggling to raise sufficient finance and to meet conditions on federal approval.

    Under a process established by the Howard government, Gunns must submit and have approved a 16-module environmental impact management plan before construction can begin.

    Gunns yesterday submitted the last of the 16 modules to Mr Garrett’s department. However, nine of these have been sent back to Gunns in recent days as deficient and requiring more work.

    Mr Garrett said only four modules had been approved and it was “unlikely” Gunns would meet the October 4 deadline, meaning it would need to justify an extension to keep the project alive.

    Gunns refused to comment on whether it would seek an extension, but spokeswoman Sue Cato said the company was working with Mr Garrett’s department.

    Gunns is yet to complete key hydrodynamic modelling to show how wind and waves will disperse 64,000 tonnes of treated effluent to be released daily from the mill into Bass Strait.

    Under the federal approval process, the mill will not be allowed to operate until this modelling has been done to the satisfaction of the minister.

    Construction cannot begin until the scope of this modelling, currently being assessed by a federal government independent expert group, is approved by Mr Garrett.

    Mr Garrett said Gunns may need to modify the mill if this modelling showed the effluent posed an unacceptable risk to marine life.

    Gunns has in the past discussed the project with Swedish firm Sodra, which told The Weekend Australian it would be interested in considering a joint venture.

    Finnish firms Stora Enso and M-real have also been touted as potential partners, although M-real has assured The Wilderness Society it has no such plans.

    It is understood high environmental standards of Scandinavian companies may force Gunns to drop plans to use native forests as the dominant feed stock for the mill in its first five to 10 years.

  • Ecuador passes charter of plant rights

    On July 7, the 130-member Ecuador Constitutional Assembly, elected countrywide to rewrite the country’s Constitution, voted to approve articles that recognize rights for nature and ecosystems.

     

    “If adopted in the final constitution by the people, Ecuador would become the first country in the world to codify a new system of environmental protection based on rights,” says Thomas Linzey, Executive Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.

    The following clauses will be included in the constitution that will be submitted to a countrywide vote, to be held 45 days after Assembly finishes its work later this month.

    Chapter: Rights for Nature

    Art. 1. Nature or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution.

    Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognitions of rights for nature before the public organisms. The application and interpretation of these rights will follow the related principles established in the Constitution.

    Art. 2. Nature has the right to an integral restoration. This integral restoration is independent of the obligation on natural and juridical persons or the State to indemnify the people and the collectives that depend on the natural systems.

    In the cases of severe or permanent environmental impact, including the ones caused by the exploitation on non renewable natural resources, the State will establish the most efficient mechanisms for the restoration, and will adopt the adequate measures to eliminate or mitigate the harmful environmental consequences.

    Art. 3. The State will motivate natural and juridical persons as well as collectives to protect nature; it will promote respect towards all the elements that form an ecosystem.

    Art. 4. The State will apply precaution and restriction measures in all the activities that can lead to the extinction of species, the destruction of the ecosystems or the permanent alteration of the natural cycles.

    The introduction of organisms and organic and inorganic material that can alter in a definitive way the national genetic patrimony is prohibited.

    Art. 5. The persons, people, communities and nationalities will have the right to benefit from the environment and form natural wealth that will allow wellbeing.

    The environmental services are cannot be appropriated; its production, provision, use and exploitation, will be regulated by the State.

    “Public organisms” in Article 1 means the courts and government agencies, i.e., the people of Ecuador would be able to take action to enforce nature rights if the government did not do so.

  • Prince Charles slams genetic modification

    The mass development of genetically modified crops risks causing the world’s worst environmental disaster, The Prince of Wales has warned.

      Prince Charles warns GM crops risk causing the biggest-ever environmental disaster
    Listen: The Prince of Wales speaks out

    In his most outspoken intervention on the issue of GM food, the Prince said that multi-national companies were conducting an experiment with nature which had gone “seriously wrong”.

    The Prince, in an exclusive interview with the Daily Telegraph, also expressed the fear that food would run out because of the damage being wreaked on the earth’s soil by scientists’ research.

    He accused firms of conducting a “gigantic experiment I think with nature and the whole of humanity which has gone seriously wrong”.

    “Why else are we facing all these challenges, climate change and everything?”.

    Relying on “gigantic corporations” for food, he said, would result in “absolute disaster”.

    “That would be the absolute destruction of everything… and the classic way of ensuring there is no food in the future,” he said.”What we should be talking about is food security not food production – that is what matters and that is what people will not understand.

    “And if they think its somehow going to work because they are going to have one form of clever genetic engineering after another then again count me out, because that will be guaranteed to cause the biggest disaster environmentally of all time.”

    Small farmers, in particular, would be the victims of “gigantic corporations” taking over the mass production of food.

    “I think it’s heading for real disaster,” he said.

    “If they think this is the way to go….we [will] end up with millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness.”

    The Prince of Wales’s forthright comments will reopen the whole debate about GM food.

    They will put him on a collision course with the international scientific community and Downing Street – which has allowed 54 GM crop trials in Britain since 2000.

    His intervention comes at a critical time. There is intense pressure for more GM products, not fewer, because of soaring food costs and widespread shortages.

    Many scientists believe GM research is the only way to guarantee food for the world’s growing population as the planet is affected by climate change.

    They will be dismayed by such a high profile and controversial contribution from the Prince of Wales at such a sensitive time.

    The Prince will be braced for the biggest outpouring of criticism from scientists since he accused genetic engineers of taking us into “realms that belong to God and God alone” in an article in the Daily Telegraph in 1998.

    In the interview the Prince, who has an organic farm on his Highgrove estate, held out the hope of the British agricultural system encouraging more and more family run co-operative farms.

    When challenged over whether he was trying to turn back the clock, he said: “I think not. I’m terribly sorry. It’s not going backwards. It is actually recognising that we are with nature, not against it. We have gone working against nature for too long.”

    The Prince of Wales cited the widespread environmental damage in India caused by the rush to mass produce GM food.

    “Look at India’s Green Revolution. It worked for a short time but now the price is being paid.

    “I have been to the Punjab where you have seen the disasters that have taken place as result of the over demand on irrigation because of the hybrid seeds and grains that have been produced which demand huge amounts of water.

    “[The] water table has disappeared. They have huge problems with water level, with pesticide problems, and complications which are now coming home to roost.

    “Look at western Australia. Huge salinisation problems. I have been there. Seen it. Some of the excessive approaches to modern forms of agriculture.”

    He said that the scientists were putting too much pressure on nature.

    “If you are not working with natural assistance you cause untold problems. which become very expensive and very difficult to undo.

    It places impossible burdens on nature and leads to accumulating problems which become more difficult to sort out.”

    In a keynote speech last year the Prince of Wales warned that the world faces a series of natural disasters within 18 months unless a £15 billion action plan is agreed to save the world’s rain forests.

    He has set up his own rain forest project with 15 of the world’s largest companies, environmental and economic experts, to try to find ways to stop their destruction.

    Only two weeks ago British GM researchers lobbied ministers for their crops to be kept in high-security facilities or in fields at secret locations across the country to prevent them from being attacked and destroyed.

    They spoke out after protesters ripped up crops in one of only two GM trials to be approved in Britain this year.

    Scientists claim the repeated attacks on their trials are stifling vital research to evaluate whether GM crops can reduce the cost and environmental impact of farming and whether they will grow better in harsh environments where droughts have devastated harvests.

  • Bee crisis in UK threatens food supply

    The BBKA president, Tim Lovett, said he was very concerned about the findings: “Average winter bee losses due to poor weather and disease vary from between 5% and 10%, so a 30% loss is deeply worrying. This spells serious trouble for pollination services and honey producers.”

    The National Bee Unit has attributed high bee mortality to the wet summer in 2007 and in the early part of this spring that confined bees to their hives. This meant they were unable to forage for nectar and pollen and this stress provided the opportunity for pathogens to build up and spread.

    But the BBKA says the causes are unclear. Its initial survey of 600 members revealed a marked north-south divide, with 37% bee losses in the north, compared to 26% in the south. “We don’t know why there is a difference and what is behind the high mortality,” said Lovett.

    The government recognises that the UK’s honeybee hives – run by 44,000 mostly amateur beekeepers – contribute around 165 million pounds a year to the economy by pollinating many fruits and vegetables. “30% fewer honeybee colonies could therefore cost the economy some 50 million pounds and put at risk the government’s crusade for the public to eat five portions of fresh fruit and vegetables a day,” Lovett warned.

    The Honey Association warned last month that English honey will run out by Christmas and no more will be available until summer 2009. It blames the shortage on fewer honeybees and farmers devoting more fields to wheat, which has soared in price but does not produce nectar.

    The UK’s leading honey company is so concerned by the crisis that it has pledged to donate money to honeybee research. From next month, for each jar of Rowse English honey sold in supermarkets 10p will be donated to a fund dedicated to improving the health of the nation’s honeybees.

    In the US, honey yields have been decimated by honeybee loses of 36%, many due to colony collapse disorder (CCD), a mysterious disappearance linked to the blood-sucking varroa mite, lethal viruses, malnutrition, pesticides, and a lack of genetic diversity. CCD has spread to Canada, France, Germany and Italy but has not yet been confirmed by government in the Britain.

    The BBKA is calling on the the UK government to put 8 million pounds over five years into researching honeybee losses and improving bee health.

    Farming minister, Lord Rooker, has predicted the demise of the honeybee within a decade. Last November, he told parliament: “We do not deny that honeybee health is at risk. Frankly, if nothing is done about it, the honeybee population could be wiped out in 10 years.”

    Yet the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) spends just 1.3 million pounds on bee health each year- less than one per cent of the bees’ value to the economy – with an additional 200,000 pounds for research.

    The National Farmer’s Union said it was essential for government to increase its funding of honeybee research. “Research is vital into varroa, bee breeding and the Nosema parasite,” said Chris Hartfield, NFU horticultural adviser. “We are talking about food security and world food supplies being put at risk.”
    Defra said a further 90,000 pounds had been allocated to the NBU this year to expand investigations into colony losses. It is currently consulting on a honeybee health strategy, with responses required by the end of this month.

    A Defra spokesman said: “Significant public funds are already provided to support this area of work but to ensure this intervention is effective, it it vital that work is driven by a well thought out strategy agreed by all relevant parties.”

  • Farmers say ACCC missed the point

    Farmers had hoped efficiency problems and market breakdown could be pinpointed along the supply chain.

    “There is no across-the-board evidence to suggest that retail prices for fresh products are going up by a greater percentage than farm-gate prices,” the report stated.

    At the same time the ACCC’s investigation into skyrocketing fertiliser prices concluded prices in Australia reflect international costs of crop boosters.

    But when it came to the seemingly disproportionate price between the farm-gate price and packaged groceries on supermarket shelves, the report said this reflected other costs along the supply chain such as processing and advertising.

    “At most, roughly one-twentieth of the increases in food prices over the past five years could be directly attributable to the increases in gross margins achieved by the major grocery players,” the report stated.

    The NFF has, however, welcomed recommendations made for the horticulture industry, including the introduction of penalties and infringement notices for breaches of the Horticulture Code of Conduct as well as audits to check compliance.

    The ACCC also put forward the possibility of changing the code to regulate transactions between growers and retailers, exporters and processors.

  • Steel post prices jump on eve of Olympics

    Farmers, who do most of their fencing over winter, expect to pay 16pc more for wire than they were being charged a month ago, even though steel products had already been rising steeply for six months.

    Sales representative at Narrabri, NSW, steel products supplier, Well Australia, Wayne Wheeler, said the price of steel fencing posts rose from $4.95 to $6.80 with the arrival of the new financial year and his company was finding it difficult to find any from anywhere.

    “It’s our busiest time of year and we don’t have any posts available,” he said.

    “But I believe there was a heap imported and somebody is sitting on them for the time being.”

    Nearby, Upper Horton landholder, Peter Cupitt, “Pinaroo” stocked up on the useful items to avoid the July 1 rise, saving himself more than $750 for 400 steel posts.

    “They are just something you always need and if I could save that much money then I was going to do it – I got in early and will store them away until they’re needed,” Mr Cupitt said.

    At Inverell’s Sapphire City Steel, Graham McLachlan said his firm had also had to find a new supplier for leather rigger gloves from India, because the Chinese tannery which normally supplies them had also been shut down.

    “We’ve only got 46 star picket posts left and we are desperately struggling to find more,” he said.

    “It’s amazing how dear steel is getting. I went away for a week and sheep yard mesh went up by 25pc.”

    In Armidale, NSW, Paul Scales, assistant manager for Metalcorp, said the firm had thousands of posts, after being able to stock up in time for the winter fence repairing.

    “We’re having a quieter year because the prices have gone up and most people would rather straighten out their old ones to save a bit of money,” he said.

    At OneSteel, Sydney-based Vik Bansal said it was impossible to predict the end of the price volatility, but market indications suggest prices will stay high.

    “Global supply and availability of a range of steel products are tightening,” he said.

    “It is important to note also that this supply issue is occurring globally, with demand high for the forseeable future,” Mr Bansal said.