James Cook University marine biology Professor David Bellwood, who is also an ARC expert, says a shift from a coral-dominated reef to one overrun by weed shows the health of the ecosystem is in decline.
“What we can say is at the moment there is a lot more weed than we expected and that this weed does constitute a potential threat,” he said.
“It certainly rings a few warning bells, the biggest implication is whether this weed starts to expand.
“So we need to know its history and that’s what we’re currently trying to find out. Does this constitute a change? Because if it is a change then it is very worrying.”
Professor Bellwood warns if the weed is taking hold it is a difficult condition to reverse.
“There is always going to be some algae on the reef, it’s just what makes it spread and that’s what we’re trying to understand – why is there so much weed on inshore reefs and what are the primary factors driving it?” he said.
“The main indication is that it’s the fish that determine the distribution of the weed. If you’ve got lots of fishes eating the weed, the weed doesn’t spread.”
Professor Bellwood says it is critical to protect browsing and grazing fishes and he has written to the Federal Government urging it to develop a national policy.
“We’ve got to protect our herbivorous fishes – that’s the only thing that is clear at this point in time that we can do that is a step towards protecting the reef,” he said.
“And the other thing is, even though the weed is out there, it doesn’t mean to say the reef is rotting, what it means is things are different, it’s still a beautiful place and if people get a chance they should go out and look at it.”
But the Research Council’s report has raised the ire of tourism operators who rely on the reef for their livelihoods.
The sector normally supports most conservation measures but this time it has dismissed the study as a load of rubbish.
Col McKenzie, head of the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators in far north Queensland, says the findings are inaccurate.
“For a scientist to come out and say that 40 per cent of the reef has been taken over by seaweed, I just think that he needs to rethink where his control sites are,” he said.
“He might have one or two reefs somewhere. For him to pick on those two reefs and say that’s indicative of the whole Great Barrier Reef which is 2,500 kilometres long is just absolutely ludicrous.”
Mr McKenzie says the ARC are exaggerating the figures and using “scare tactics” to try to step up protection of the reef.
“The scientists tend to think that if they can show dramatic results, or say that this is going to be a really negative thing … they can get more research money,” he said.
“I think over a period of time it desensitises the Australian population and it presents a message that look, this is buggered and we’re not going to be able to fix it, and so why should we continue to spend all the money and time and effort doing so?
“The reality is, the reef is not that far gone, we can save the Great Barrier Reef, we’ve just got to get the water quality right.”
In one incident, two young girls died when a petrol tanker exploded after hitting their car near Batemans Bay. The tanker driver was also killed, while the girls’ father later died of his injuries in hospital.
The union’s national organiser, Bob Nanva, said a ban would help minimise truck and car collisions.
“Putting hundreds of extra long-haul trucks on our roads with mums, dads and kids in the car is hardly a good thing, especially when they’re carrying millions of litres of flammable petrol,” he said.
“We all want to do everything we can to minimise the risk of these tragedies from occurring on our roads again and a ban on the long-distance road transport of dangerous goods will go a long way to achieving that.”
Mr Nanva says transport companies need to be held accountable.
“If companies put commercial goals ahead of doing the right thing by the thousands of families that depend on our roads, governments should pull them into line,” he said.
“In light of the carnage on our roads in recent weeks, there’s no reason why the Government can’t act now to ban the long-distance road transport of dangerous goods.”
The New South Wales Premier Kristina Keneally says the ban is a good idea, but difficult to implement.
She says a different type of rail network would have to be built to accommodate the freight.
“It is an attractive proposition, but one that is a complex issue,” she said.
“We would need to work with the Commonwealth and where we would need to work with retailers and we would need to work with motoring groups to determine the best outcome here.”
A spokesman for the Transport Minister says the government is already working closely with the Federal Government and other states on the transport of freight on roads, including dangerous goods.
The improvement of maintenance support for offshore wind farms is one of the main focus areas for a £30m acceleration programme which is being undertaken by the Carbon Trust and is designed to support the rollout of the next phase of so-called phase three offshore wind farm projects.
Access to offshore wind farms is currently gained by boat or helicopter, both of which are problematic in the high wind conditions that are most likely to cause a turbine to malfunction.
The challenge of maintaining offshore wind turbines will become more problematic for larger round three wind farms, which are due to be announced on Friday and are expected to be located up to 150km offshore.
Experts have warned that access to some of the sites will prove so difficult that a turbine breaking down during the winter may have to wait months before an improvement in the weather allows it to be repaired, raising the prospect of maintenance workers being located near the wind farm to increase the speed with which turbines can be repaired.
One Danish wind farm already has an offshore community living next to it and the Carbon Trust predicts similar facilities will be built in UK waters.
“Turbine engineers are finding even on near-shore projects that they can’t work after three hours on a boat in high seas,” said Benj Sykes, senior technology acceleration manager at the Carbon Trust. “This is a very real problem, and I think we can expect to see offshore communities around the furthest farms.”
Andrew Garrad, chief executive of Garrad Hassan, the world’s largest wind energy consultancy, said last year that he expected workers to live inside giant offshore wind turbines in the future, in a similar way to lighthouse keepers.
Given the choice, 53 per cent would only work for a company which was both ethical and environmentally responsible (compared to 64 per cent in 2005 and 66 per cent in 2007).
Business distrust
Michael Solomon, director of SEE What You Are Buying Into, which commissioned the poll, said consumer distrust of business may have played a part in the decline in ethical consumption.
‘The majority of people still find it difficult to decide which products or companies are genuinely ethical and which labels to trust.
‘Given that the Fairtrade Mark will soon adorn Kit Kats, made by Nestlé, reportedly the most boycotted company in the UK, perhaps consumers can be forgiven for being unsure,’ he said.
Consumer apathy
However, Mr Solomon said the decline in ethical consumption since 2007 may not be entirely because of the recession.
‘Given that the recession has been largely blamed on the imprudent, even unethical, practices of the financial sector, one might also have expected views of business and its trustworthiness to have deteriorated – but this is not evidently not the case.
‘It may be that the decline represents part of a backlash against what some perceive to be the moralistic and over-zealous approach of the environmental movement,’ he said.
He said the psychology of consumers was perhaps now playing an important role. ‘People have found different ways of saying it doesn’t matter so much to me anymore and that is one of the reasons for the fall in suspicion.’
Useful links
See What You Are Buying Into
Geert Ritsema, a spokesman for the Dutch environmentalist group, said: “For years, these people have been trying to get Shell to clean up its mess and stop polluting their habitat. However, again and again they have come away empty-handed.
“That is why they are now trying to get justice in the Netherlands. The court decision is an initial victory for all Nigerians that have been fighting for years for a cleaner habitat and justice,” he added.
Friends of the Earth claims the oil spills are not accidents but represent a pattern of systematic pollution and contempt for the rights of the local population that had been going on for decades, something denied by the oil group.
Up until now compensation claims have been brought in Nigeria, but many have become bogged down in a congested court system.
Alai Efanga, one of the plaintiffs in the Oruma case, said: “Our village was pleased with the [initial] decision of the Dutch court. We hope that Shell will now quickly clean up the oil pollution so that we can resume growing food and fishing.”
The three other plaintiffs are all farmers and fishermen from the villages of Oruma, Goi and Ikot Ada Udo, all located in the oil-rich Niger Delta, which is one of Shell’s most important oil-producing areas. The substantive hearing of the first lawsuit is expected to be held in the spring of 2010 but Shell said it continued to believe that the case should not be heard in the Netherlands.
A Shell spokesman said: “It is with disappointment that we learned of the district court ruling. We believe there are good arguments on the basis of which the district court could have concluded that it lacks jurisdiction in respect of SPDC [Shell Petroleum Development Corporation] in these purely Nigerian matters.”
Friends of the Earth Netherlands said an important hurdle had been overcome paving the way for an appropriate court hearing. But oil industry sources said that Shell was being unfairly targeted, given that the oil spill had been caused in the first place by sabotage.
Last June, the oil group agreed to pay $15.5m in settlement of a legal action in which it was accused of having collaborated in the execution of the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other leaders of the Ogoni tribe of southern Nigeria.
The settlement, reached on the eve of the trial in a federal court in New York, was one of the largest payouts agreed by a multinational corporation charged with human rights violations.
Shell has also been under heavy fire from environmentalists over allegations of unnecessary flaring of gas from oil wells, something that is regarded as a prime source of global warming.