Bellingen area: June 2015

24.6.15

Aboriginal Consumption of Estuarine Food Resources and Potential Implications for Health through Trace Metal Exposure; A Study in Gumbaynggirr Country

Many of the Gumbaynggirr community rely on the Nambucca River estuary and coastal marine environment for fish and seafood. A legacy of the 'extract and dump' culture has polluted the environment with "metal-based sprays of arsenic and lead, organochlorine pesticides including DDT, dieldrin, aldrin and organophosphate pesticides...Derelict mines, agriculture, cattle dips, horticulture and banana growing left behind early generation chemical sprays and fertilizers."

Trace metals concentrations have implications for the health of the people engaging in fishing and seafood consumption. Read the details in the original study:

Shaina Russell, Caroline A. Sullivan, Amanda J. Reichelt-Brushett. Aboriginal Consumption of Estuarine Food Resources and Potential Implications for Health through Trace Metal Exposure; A Study in Gumbaynggirr Country, Australia, PLOS ONE, 2015, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0130689

Fishing and resource use continues to be an essential aspect of life for many Aboriginal communities throughout Australia. It is important for dietary sustenance, and also retains deep social, cultural and economic significance, playing a fundamental role in maintaining group cohesion, transferring cultural knowledge and affirming Indigenous identities. We surveyed approximately 20% of the Gumbaynggirr Aboriginal community of Nambucca Heads, New South Wales, Australia. This paper explores Gumbaynggirr Connection to Country and engagement in cultural practice. It quantifies fishing efforts and consumption of seafood within the community. We found 95% of the sample group fish, with the highest rate of fishing being 2-3 times a week (27%). Furthermore, 98% of participants eat seafood weekly or more frequently, up to more than once a day (24%). Survey results revealed that Myxus elongatus (Sand mullet) and naturally recruited Saccostrea glomerata (Sydney rock oysters) continue to be important wild resources to the Gumbaynggirr community. Trace metals were measured in M. elongatus and S. glomerata samples collected by community participants in this study. Maximum levels prescribed in the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code were not exceeded in the edible tissue for either species, however both species exceeded the generally expected levels for zinc and copper and S. glomerata samples exceeded the generally expected level for selenium. Furthermore the average dietary exposure to trace metals from consuming seafood was calculated for the surveyed population. Trace metal intake was then compared to the provisional tolerable weekly intake prescribed by the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives. This process revealed that copper and selenium intake were both within the provisional tolerable weekly intake, while there is no guideline for zinc. Furthermore, participants relying heavily on wild resources from the Nambucca River estuary may exceed the provisional tolerable weekly intake for cadmium. This suggests the need for further investigation of this issue to minimize any possible health risk.

Images:
From the outside walls of the Yarrawarra Aboriginal Cultural Centre, Corindi Beach

20.6.15

Vandalising Home

Somewhere in the oeuvre of Hans Blumenberg's Metaphorology he stated that humans are vandalising God's creation having usurped the power of sole owners of the world and the rest of the universe.

In more popular circles the same has finally been mentioned by a Pope: "If we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us."

"We are sawing off the limb that we are sitting on." BBC

The lust to eradicate life from our only common home is a self destructive suicidal mental condition.

For some time we have been working hard at making the sixth mass extinction possible at ever greater speed:

Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction

"The oft-repeated claim that Earth’s biota is entering a sixth “mass extinction” depends on clearly demonstrating that current extinction rates are far above the “background” rates prevailing in the five previous mass extinctions. Earlier estimates of extinction rates have been criticized for using assumptions that might overestimate the severity of the extinction crisis. We assess, using extremely conservative assumptions, whether human activities are causing a mass extinction. First, we use a recent estimate of a background rate of 2 mammal extinctions per 10,000 species per 100 years (that is, 2 E/MSY), which is twice as high as widely used previous estimates. We then compare this rate with the current rate of mammal and vertebrate extinctions. The latter is conservatively low because listing a species as extinct requires meeting stringent criteria. Even under our assumptions, which would tend to minimize evidence of an incipient mass extinction, the average rate of vertebrate species loss over the last century is up to 114 times higher than the background rate. Under the 2 E/MSY background rate, the number of species that have gone extinct in the last century would have taken, depending on the vertebrate taxon, between 800 and 10,000 years to disappear. These estimates reveal an exceptionally rapid loss of biodiversity over the last few centuries, indicating that a sixth mass extinction is already under way. Averting a dramatic decay of biodiversity and the subsequent loss of ecosystem services is still possible through intensified conservation efforts, but that window of opportunity is rapidly closing."

Gerardo Ceballos, Paul R. Ehrlich, Anthony D. Barnosky, Andrés García, Robert M. Pringle and Todd M. Palmer. Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction. Science Advances, 2015 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1400253