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

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



Stanford researcher declares that the sixth mass extinction is here, Stanford Report, June 19, 2015

Pope Francis’ encyclical: On care for our common home,  Guardian excerpt, (for the impatient) 18.06.2015

Karl Heinrich Leopold Deschner, A Criminal History of Christianity.

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

Videos:
Paul Ehrlich, Stanford researcher warns sixth mass extinction is here, video

Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Climate change: state of play, Director of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). video

Update:
Extinction of more threatened Australian species is not inevitable, 08.07.2015
James Trezise is a policy coordinator for the Australian Conservation Foundation

We need to tighten the law to protect wildlife homes, 13.07.2015 Don Anton , The Conversation


IMAGES:
Adel Abdessemed, Habibi Sculpture, Berlin

The Bush: Travels in the Mind of Australia, inspired by Don Watson

Some thoughts inspired by Don Watson, interviewed by The World Today at @SydWriters'Fest on soundcloud. His latest book: The Bush: Travels in the Heart of Australia, Penguin Australia. (2014)

First there is the outstanding and unbelievable voracious appetite for destruction of all things Australian by European colonialisation. To 'wipe it all away' in this newly established British colony, also known as the 'blank slate' of Terra nullius. Proceeding with the 'business as usual' expansionist progress paradigm, all endemic flora and fauna had to disappear. The indigenous owners of the land "felt the full force of Australian colonial brutality" (source). The inflexible aliens found themselves in an alien land and strained to recreate their place of origin that they were habituated to.

The amazing point is not only 'the scale of destruction', but its perpetual continuation right into 21st century contemporary society and landscape. 'The Great Australian Silence' permeates and it is coupled with an inability to confront reality. The mental state is one of oscillating between learning disability and ‘intentional ignorance’, commonly known as denial.

The long list of inconvenient truths about climate disruption, massacres of indigenous people, land degradation and biodiversity impoverishment are overwhelming.

The mind manufactures defense mechanisms for a required state of permanent 'feel good' existence. A delusional unwillingness to face reality is coupled with a melancholy across generations. Like a social transgenerational epigenentics the uncleared deeds of the past linger in the minds of the present. Existence in rural and sub-urban isolation, bereft of meaning, populates the minds with roaming packs of 'black dogs': mental illness, depression and suicide. The others busy themselves with Anglo pragmatism to get things done by recreating the status quo.

A bit of bush lore, Aussie 'nature' (45,000 years of Aboriginal land stewardship) or #wildoz add to the pride and puffs up the chest. Most of the time one is propelled by fossil fuel machines, racing through the paved bush at 100 km/h.

Isolation also molded the psyche of national insecurity, stuck on an island in the Asian Pacific region. Sliding from a democracy without a bill of rights into an oligopoly of vested interests. A withering sovereign state replaced by (semi-) private instrumentalities.



'The bush' is still clear felled in the country, native vegetation is bulldozed and residents of the major cities seem to hunger for tree free cities (10/50) to go with the diy heatwaves. The majority of Australians huddle in cities, mostly along the coast. The bush is still unknown to most. It is a place to dump the weedy garden clippings, fly-tipping or empty the dogs.

The mind is caged by fence posts.


Images:
Henri Rousseau,  La Femme en rouge dans le forêt, (detail),1886
Caspar David Friedrich, The Monk by the Sea, 1808


Listen:
After a lot of laughter and giggling, the audience demands 'something positive'! at the end of the interview...

Saving the Bellinger River turtles through IVF?

Once a river is too polluted, there is always assisted reproductive technology to save a nearly extinct turtle.
Via  @carlzimmer
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/26/science/yangtze-giant-softshell-turtle-artificial-insemination.html


Background:
400 Bellinger River turtles have been found dead or dying 
Turtle Survival Alliance

Image:
Macke, August: Forest creek 1910

Noise Pollution and Vibration in the Bellingen Shire

On the 15th May the Royal Australian Air Force will fly jets day and night until 10.30 pm over the Bellingen Shire. (source)

The morning chorus of rural Bellingen usually consists of chainsaws. During the day the cacophony is enriched by mowers, slashers, lawn trimmers, sweepers, mulchers, chippers, shredders, bulldozers and other fossil fuel powered equipment. Cars speed on unpaved roads, cavalcades of mining and logging trucks thunder through the shire and the scenic little village. Hovering (pesticide spray) helicopters and sightseeing planes ensure that the sky is also abuzz with noise pollution. On weekends gangs of trail bikes rev up. At night the odd out of control ad hoc party distributes its industrial sound waves over the valley. The barking and yapping packs of dogs will be ignored here, as the focus is on machines powered with fossil fuel.

As a special annual event, the Bellingen shire (and Nambucca, Bellingen, Coffs Harbour and Clarence Valley council areas) puts itself on the map by hosting car races. " 200 kilometres of NSW forest roads will be used for a three-day car race." (source)  The fossil fuel burning spectacle is generating a lot of noise and dust. During that time, "the public is being denied access to various state owned forests." (source) Local endemic wildlife better not be near the many roads fragmenting their habitat.

Back to the aerial machines: “Up to 18 aircraft may be involved in these exercises, of which the major part will be conducted further off the coast, however northern NSW residents may notice aircraft activity this week." The aircraft will be the "F/A-18F Super Hornets from RAAF Base Amberley, near Brisbane and F/A-18 Hornet aircraft from RAAF Base Williamtown, near Newcastle." (source)

Ron Brent, Australia's Aircraft Noise Ombudsman, mentioned that the F/A-18s  "when used at full power... are among the noisiest planes we've seen here in Australia". (source)

In other places, aircraft noise has caused 'friction with surrounding residents'. One resident 'recorded jet noises as loud as 100 decibels at home.' "According to the RAAF, at Ludmilla Primary School the average maximum noise of an F/A-18 Hornet taking off from the RAAF Base Darwin is 92.6dB." (source)

A resident reported her experiences: "The whole house literally shakes...It's impossible to conduct conversations. You can't hear the radio...You feel the sound waves hitting your body...The worst part is not being able to predict when the noise will come...You don't know when it's coming. It's Chinese water torture...Then you start to hear it coming and your whole body tenses.." (source)

Celebrating Fossil Fuel Culture on Forest Roads
Staging Car Races in Nine State Forests of NSW

Images
Graffiti in the public sphere

And then?

“And then?” asks Ida. Her lover has asked her to come away with him. “Then,” he says, “we’ll buy a dog, get married, have children, get a house.” But Ida’s question, again, is, “And then?” To this, all he can say is: “The usual. Life.”  

More at the source, video


An afterthought to the previous article:
Dogs or Australian Wildlife

Dogs or Australian Wildlife

The majority of Australians 'vote with their feet' against biodiversity and for a monoculture of pets. Modern humans (Homo sapiens) formed an alliance with dogs early on to eradicate the local population.

Through a long process of domestication (dysgenics) they erased the wolf out of the ancient canine and ended up with an obedient dog that satisfied the desires of the master.

From the beginning, colonial society took a "dog-privileged view of the Australian landscape...The story begins with the arrival of the First Fleet. ‘From the earliest watercolours of the former prisoners, captains and surveyors, we get dogs as part of colonial life' " (source). After the introduction of 'English breeds', national identity could be established. (Leaving aside the Aboriginal Australians' culture and the dingo here).

"By the 1950s Australia ‘rode on the sheep’s back’; those who grew the wool had come to symbolise and epitomise what it was to be Australian." (source) The dog became an important factor of production to whom one could outsource mustering introduced hoofed animals.

By now one could say, the country is 'riding on the dog's back'. Having largely deserted agriculture and manufacturing, avoiding value-added activities and resorting to digging big holes, or clear cutting forests, the service industry is the sector where identity is established.

At the end of the mining boom wealth has been established for some.  For the great majority, "pets continue to power the economy". This country has one of the highest rates of pet ownership in the world, spending $1.4 billion p.a. Goods and services previously afforded for human beings only are now spent on dogs.

The dog, unlike non-human members of the great ape family, (Hominidae) has been truly included in the 'human family'. Being 'one of us', pets live the consumer's way of life and fuel the economy. The daily meat, mostly repurposed wildlife, accessories, bedding, clothing, prams, toys, medical services, insurances, vets, pet shops, dog trainers, therapists, medication, minders, groomers, hairdressers, canine boutiques, dog manicure, cafe access, tailored holiday accommodation and dogs' frequent flyers etc etc. And of course the right cars or taxi to drive the pack to the public 'loo'. Councils hold special events for dog lovers. Government collects tax. A serious economic factor with very strong interests and a lobby.

For the master the captive creature is in a hierarchical relation of permanent access. Unlike wildlife, the subordinate beast promises instant gratification for the mistresses' commands. The animal serves as a projection surface for human needs - as a friend, toy, partner, security guard, lover or punching bag. The pet owner can for once bathe in fantasies of omnipotence and power. Images of wet kisses are all-pervasive, sharing one's bed with the pack is also common. After centuries of removing the human out of the stable, people turn their dwellings back into stables for leisure pets.

The days of owning one dog are long gone, now they are hoarded in human housing, one can see dog walkers with four in harness, or outsourced to dog walkers with eight. Couples seem to express their individuality by each having two distinctive dogs. Whether people get their identity from the their decorative ornaments or priced commodity, all appear low maintenance compared to human offspring or friends.



In the 36,000 years of co-evolution of dogs and humans, the wolf has learned to manipulate the human via eye-gazing behaviour, 'puppy eyes' release a "love hormone" or "cuddle hormone" in the human being. The zombified pet owners structure their life to suit their pack. The dogs take charge.

Most pet owners in NSW seem to belong to a stay-at-home cast that service these animals 24/7. Only the best of the native landscapes will do for their 'darlings': beaches, national parks and nature reserves. They take 'a dog’s eye view of the landscape'. As the dog is mistaken for 'nature', one wouldn't want to restrain it, but let it become one with it. Unleashed, they hunt wildlife (koalas, cassowaries, little penguins, shorebirds etc) and quite frequently maul toddlers and joggers/ walkers. Should a pedestrian approach the owner, pointing out that 'dogs are not allowed here', they mutate into vicious pit bulls. Forests of signs are ignored, authorities are turning 'a blind eye' and fines are paltry.

In sub-urbia they prefer to unload  their sewage near the beach, unpack the van and let them go. The backyard does become rather smelly after some time. Full plastic bags are found on the beach, hang in vegetation or are in the drains. The majority does not pick up the sloppy poo, it stays as dung on the endless lawns on which people have their zoonotic picnics. The giant amounts of recycled meat also fuel the toxic algal blooms in the surf nicely.

Should the owners have other commitments (work) or have to attend parties, the dogs are left at home barking for hours and hours. (video) Sometimes a family toy disappoints, as puppy changes its form, it becomes a throw-away toy and a new cute baby dog is consumed. The market is also very determined by fashion influences. Should one have an outdated brand, it is time to update and dump the old one in a pound. In the holiday season many just open the door on the highway and 'the problem' is solved.

The dumped, neglected and roaming dogs in rural and peri-urban regions are then termed 'ferals'. The unwanted ballast is socialised. The 'set-free' dogs are a threat for people, wildlife and the livestock industry. From time to time mass poisoning (1080) actions take place that kill mainly the Australian endemic dingoes. No word is lost on the roaming and dumped pets gone feral.

"Australia has the worst mammal extinction rate in the world" (source) As a mega diverse, developed country people choose to entertain huge menageries of introduced animals detrimental to the endemic biodiversity. The current Australian business- as-usual trajectory will make the harsh continent even more hostile for all living beings. The intentional ignorance on climate disruption even further accelerates the extinction risk for Australian animals.

But they want pampered pooches.....



More on the family package: And then?



Updates:
The roaming dogs of Bellingen mauling livestock and pets The Bellingen courier, 19.05.2015
Have we turned dogs into lazy thinkers through domestication?
When dogs look back: inhibition of independent problem-solving behaviour in domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) compared with wolves (Canis lupus)
Exporting dogs to Asia, abc 12.12.2015 
PNAS: "Bottlenecks and selective sweeps during domestication have increased deleterious genetic variation in dogs" 
 

IMAGES:
Titian, Detail of Venus and the Organ Player c. 1550 
(with Coffs Harbour sound sample, but it could be in Bellingen too)
Riding on the Sheep's Back, Blue sheep and golden dog sculpture
Public mural
Public service to collect dog feces
Trübner, Heinrich Wilhelm, Great Dane with Sausage, 1878

See also
Cura, A story about care for biodiversity
Hungry Head Beach Going to the Dogs