Sewage discharge and shellfish don't mix. The Bellinger-Kalang rivers.

"One of the more pervasive aspects of European settlement was the pollution of the air and water." (source)

"The indications are that we will not have, inside the Bellinger-Kalang, an oyster industry within the next two years...” (source)

"The Aborigines on the coastal regions feasted on oysters and shell beds can be found in the many kitchen middens along the coast. Some of these middens have been carbon-dated to ten thousand years." (source)

Oyster growers on the NSW Mid North Coast are going to grow Sydney Rock Oysters in land-based tanks now to control water quality. "The Bellinger River was closed for 270 days last year due to heavy rainfall." (source)

Along the Bellinger River catchment and the Kalang River dense settlements sprawl along that are not on any sewer system. The majority of the rural blocks are on an on-site sewage management system (OSMS).

In 2008 sewage bacteria really hit the filter feeding oyster beds. "The NSW Food Authority closed the Kalang River at Urunga in August while a search was made for norovirus, which causes gastroenteritis in humans." (source)

Sewage discharge and shellfish don't mix
"The Bellingen Shire Council says septic systems in the river catchment have been identified as a possible source of the pollution...One of the potential contamination sources are privately operated onsite sewage management systems." (source)



Aquaculture farmers have been waiting for seven years for the Kalang River to reopen to oyster harvesting. "Protracted river testing, analysis and meetings began with riverside septics found to be high on the list of culprits, especially on Newry Island and along Urunga’s Atherton Dr." (source). Additionally the "Urunga sewage treatment plant, holiday cabins, two caravan parks adjacent to the river." were also mentioned as sources of contamination. (source)

After the endemic totem of the river, the Bellinger River turtle has been pushed into extinction, the question of water quality and river health is an acute one for the entire catchment.

Updates:
Dairy growth in north-west Tasmania causing concern for oyster farmers: effluent run-off from farms. abc 13.08.2015


Images:
Beert, Osias, Still life with oysters, c. 1610
Bellingen tiles

The acoustic ecology of native bird extinction and the sound of “cock-a-doodle-doo”

For eons the Laughing Kookaburra has been announcing the break of dawn for eastern Australia. The loud 'koo-koo-koo-koo-koo-kaa-kaa-kaa' is often heard in a chorus. The bird is one of the larger members of the kingfisher family and lives in one place for most of its life. It also mates for life.

The more settlers convert bio-diverse landscapes into mono-culture and populate it with alien species, the ecology changes into an artifact. The soundscape too takes on the characteristic of a noise composition.

Now the highest-ranking rooster has priority to announce the break of dawn. The (overseas) circadian clock of the domesticated fowl often is set off long before dawn. They do not sing in a chorus but in a strict hierarchical pattern. The sound of “cock-a-doodle-doo” echos over the dark valleys. Barking dogs and cars complete the early morning cacophony.

Non-native species and fossil fuel combustion machines constitute the ambient soundscape that announces the break of dawn of more industrial activity. The bird chorus of kookaburras and other common native birds fades as the environmental noise increases.

Deforestation and land clearing robs Kookaburras (and other Australian wildlife) of their homes which they need for nesting, roosting and perching to catch snakes and mice. The generously splashed pesticides poison the insects that the birds eat.



Kookaburra and magpie among Australian birds in decline, says report , Guardian 15.07.2015

Magpies, kookaburras and willie wagtails among common Australian birds 'starting to disappear', report suggests, abc, 15.07.2015

The highest-ranking rooster has priority to announce the break of dawn, Tsuyoshi Shimmura, Shosei Ohashi, and Takashi Yoshimura, July 23, 2015 in Scientific Reports, 5, Article number: 11683. DOI: 10.1038/srep11683

http://birdlife.org.au/state-of-birds/

Wedge-tailed Eagle vs rooster

Wedge-tailed eagle rescued from a chicken coop. WIRES
 

Images
Graffiti EU

The Park Beach Reserve, Coffs Harbour and Land Care

Click to enlarge

The Park Beach Reserve is unusual for NSW because it has a remaining strip of coastal bush separating it from the 'wanna be a Gold Coast'  high rises on Ocean Parade.  In the age of rising sea levels the Australian habit of building ON the beach and erasing protective vegetation barriers should be a thing of the old days.

The mushrooming tall buildings of Ocean Parade have a slim buffer at the front and back separating them from the road (Hogbin Drive) and the glaring light pollution from a bare sport field framed by large weeds (pines). The busy road and the speeding cars gobble up the green margins. Burnout wrecks set the bush alight and garbage is generously dumped by motorists.

A wide strip of vegetation bordering the road is regularly doused with herbicide, giving the edge of the little forest a brown and dead appearance. In the latest addition to 'land care', it seems that the endemic littoral rainforest species were just hacked to the ground with no apparent reason.

Maybe flat dwellers requested a better view of the noisy road and access to the light glare opposite? All weeds have been left standing. They are working hard on making Coffs Harbour even more ugly.

The Anthropocene Biosphere

Humans are transforming Earth in absolutely unprecedented ways.

A study shows how homo sapiens has radically changed their natural home, planet Earth and has "caused shifts in world ecosystems unprecedented in the last 500 million years." (source)

• Similar to the Great Oxygenation Events 2.3 billion years ago, human impact has produced a new kind of biosphere.
• Intervention in the diversity of life has been the greatest for the past half billion years.
• Our only home, planet Earth is entering a new kind of planetary state

Some of the key changes are:

•         "The homogenisation of species around the world through mass, human-instigated species invasions – nothing on this global scale has happened before

•         One species, Homo sapiens, is now in effect the top predator on land and in the sea, and has commandeered for its use over a quarter of global biological productivity.  There has never been a single species of such reach and power previously

There is growing direction of evolution of other species by Homo sapiens

•         There is growing interaction of the biosphere with the ‘technosphere’ – a concept pioneered by one of the team members, Professor Peter Haff of Duke University - the sum total of all human-made manufactured machines and objects, and the systems that control them" (source)

 M. Williams, J. Zalasiewicz, P. Haff, C. Schwagerl, A. D. Barnosky, E. C. Ellis. The Anthropocene biosphere. The Anthropocene Review, 2015; DOI: 10.1177/2053019615591020

Afterthoughts:
The global homogenisation of flora and fauna is obvious. People support a world full of poodles and horticultural weeds. They do not appreciate the endemic biodiversity of the place they dwell in. The eradication of bio-diversity is replaced with a monoculture.

Only one species (Homo sapiens) grabs 40% of net primary production

Burning fossil fuels and biomass seems an unstoppable addictive behaviour. We would rather burn to death, than modify our way of life.

Humans dictate the evolution of all other species, also having a go at their own imperfections.

We are constructing a gestell/ artifact that "could persist over geological timescales, an interaction of the biosphere with the technosphere (the global emergent system that includes humans, technological artefacts, and associated social and technological networks)." (source)

This noosphere (mind sphere) or a distributed agency seeks to expand the domination of space as well as planet Earth.

Spaceship Earth is fully in the hands and the code of the human helmsman. While vandalising the cradle of humanity and depriving the rest of life of a habitable planet, man steers for the goal of more and more.

Images:
The face of man, graffiti EU


Update:
Clive Hamilton, The Banality of Ethics in the Anthropocene, Part 1, Part 2, 

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...