Australian Native fish - totems, talismans and tokenism Symbols, symbolism and significance new stories for an ancient land Jason Alexandra Sept 2010

Transcription

1 Australian Native fish - totems, talismans and tokenism Symbols, symbolism and significance new stories for an ancient land Jason Alexandra Sept 2010

2 Two powerful symbols of the 20 century

3 Native fish were once widespread in Australian water ways and their decline has become a major concern for those involved in biodiversity conservation Their return has become a potent symbol of the success of large scale restoration

4

5 Christianity has its fish stories, and has claimed many fish symbols A fisherman, a shepherd a carpenter and caterer

6 Turning water in vine a modern course of miracles?

7 Cultures and landscapes co evolve People shape landscapes Do landscapes shape cultures? People are making the landscapes of the future

8

9 Engaging people The rise of local totems Festivals - return of the king fisher, the whiting Moreton bays dugongs Bringing sustainability to life Beauty that will take your breath away Nothing more cuddly than cold blooded cod

10 Celebrating the result of 60 million years of separate evolution

11 New symbols devouring old symbols

12 Future fossils

13 Living nation s feral futures

14 Creation stories or extinction stories

15 Murray mouth and Aral sea stories Corn Wheat Rice Oil (right scale) Jan-00 Jul-00 Jan-01 Jul-01 Jan-02 Jul-02 Jan-03 Jul-03 Jan-04 Jul-04 Jan-05 Jul-05 Jan-06 Jul-06 Jan-07 Jul-07 0

16 Big fish in big country and plenty of them

17

18 Collateral damage of a contested & colonised country? /2009/03/charles_darwin_seated.jpg

19 The soil in these grassy flats was of the richest description: indeed the whole of the country seemed capable of being converted into good wheat land, and of being easily irrigated, at any time by the river.... the genial southern breeze played over the reedy flats, which one day might be converted into clover-fields. Major T.L. Mitchell, 1836

20 A contested view of Australia and its potential "Charles Darwin. Visited Sydney in After an uncomfortable tramp over the Blue Mountains in a heat wave, he concluded that Australia could never become another America - its soil was too poor, its rains too unpredictable. Instead it must depend on becoming "the centre of commerce for the southern hemisphere and perhaps on her future manufactories. As quoted in McCalman, The Age, 10 August 2002.

21 Despite Darwins insights Successive headline Governments sponsored closer settlement and copy intensive irrigation development, with dreams of taming the rivers, greening the desert, and making land productive, running deep in the national psyche (Lines 1994) and notwithstanding, punishing droughts and misconceptions about the severity of the natural constraints to settlement and production (Taylor 1940).

22 Agriculturally biased institutions have shaped land-use and environmental policy in Australia (Gleeson 2002) visions of yeoman farmers ruralism

23 Boosters and boosterism settle the inland and the north - and their opponents Powerful agriculturally biased institutions Gleeson 2002 Agricultures declining economic and political significance

24 Proportion of agricultural land (in use) above the age threshold (against time) age threshold: Proportion (%) Year 22 June, 2013

25 Agriculture in the Oz economy

26 Cost and consequences of transforming an ancient continent

27 Australia is an ancient nutrient poor landscape, With low population density, limited industrial development and yet we have poor water quality in most rivers and aquatic systems

28 Australian ecosystems evolved to capture water and nutrients not leak

29 Comprehensively documented by the NLWRA assessing river and estuary health etc, rangelands, biodiversity etc

30

31

32 Modified catchments, nutrient and suspended sediment loads and habitat Very high nutrient and suspended sediment loads Largely unmodified in all aspects Catchment Condition

33 Assessing river health

34 22 June, 2013 Near Pristine Estuaries 70% of fish stocks depend on estuaries

35 Soil erosion is still a big deal Most agricultural landscapes have erosion rates 5-50 times greater than pre-european settlement. 22 June, 2013

36 Sediment and nutrient transport

37 Sediment export to Great Barrier Reef Lagoon from Fitzroy Basin 4M tonnes or about 500,000 dump trucks of sediment per year Phosphorus exports - about 13,000 tonnes per year

38 Large dams era s nation building and response to climate variability?

39 Government funded development of dams Major periods of water diversion potential (Kingsford) (note Murray average inflows approx 9,000,000 ml) 18,000,000 12,000,000 Murray Darling 6,000,

40 Large dams era s nation building and response to climate variability?

41 Main Water Storages in the MDB

42 The An engineered MDBC has system an Engineering Heritage

43 Irrigation The biggest user of diverted fresh water Produces more than half the profit in Australian Agriculture & Horticulture, from 0.5% of land (NLWRA 2002) 1000 Area (x1000 ha) NSW Vic Qu SA WA Tas

44 Is there a coming storm?

45 Planning for climate change

46 Climate is Hotter and Drier Global average temperature Satellite estimate of soil moisture Australian average temperature

47 Declining inflows for the Murray Source:

48 Actual Decreases in Runoff

49 Drought drives water reform in the MDB Federation drought - Corowa, River Murray Commission World war 2 drought big dam construction era drought MDBC reforms water act reform 2007

50 Water policy -Australian water eras 1890 s 1980 s Development era drought, royal commission, new dam 1992 Industry Commission TWE 1994 COAG reforms environmental flows, unbundling water and land titles ; corporatisation and cost recovery 1995 MDB Cap on development National Water Initiative 2004 reaffirms reform agenda and markets role in reallocating water

51 Water policy in transition slowly From mega wet dreams - to limits of growth (Cap in the south) Still wet dreaming the north From pipe dreaming to sustaining nature & culture?

52

53

54 Signs of change but Do productionists (boosters) paradigms and policies dominate? Or is NRM a sign of emergent multifunctional policies? Spiritualism based on nature? Landscapes as places of meaning and dreaming

55 Landcare as symbolic and ritualistic Technology, transitions and transformation

56 More than a factory for producing commodities

57

58 Riparian zones matter and need restoration and management

59 Water policy under uncertainty Last decade - extremely low water availability in the southern MDB Impacts of the drought/climate change unprecedented Long term reductions in rainfall and runoff likely Policy and climate induced water scarcity Intense competition for water Adaptation and innovation is required and inevitable Water policy, industries and agriculture will evolve Policies required to support adjustment and adaptation How to support these with the best available science

60 Ecological state and transition Systems flip into new states (see resilience alliance database of system flips). New states, new controlling factors Crash testing the system Ecosystem change relatively abruptly but don t restore to former states easily Therefore need preventive, precautionary policy, understand patterns, learn by analogy eg Aral Sea See -

61 Riparian zone management

62 Rethinking NRM & agriculture Rethinking policy New policy innovations - incentives Sustainability begs for new ways of production Innovation in the way we innovate

63 Cultural transformation Learning to live as Australia s Landscapes, cultures and human institutions coevolve nature places its imprint on the human world and transforms it it is not only we who tame nature but also that nature tames us. the affinities between nature and society are more active than we care to admit.specific ecosystems constitute the ground for every society. (Bookchin 1982 p98)

64 Water and drought: Bush burns, floodplains flood and droughts dry out the country

65 A dynamic equilibrium - society and nature Our ecosystems are interlinked in highly dynamic and complex bioregions...claims to sovereignty must defer to it our need to design an alternative adaptive to a bioregion is productive to society.

66 Recombinant ecologies constructed wetlands to strip nutrients and sediments

67 Regional NRM planning futures are made The long shadows of history colours the future for many generations to come

68 Scenarios of alternative futures New science, new values, effective institutional arrangements, ecological resilience, higher investment New science, ecological constraint, inability to mobilise human capital, institutional ineffectiveness, inappropriate investment Time [ ] After progress marked by: Ecosystem changes eco-agronomic practices compatible with natural systems Growth in scientific understanding of resilience Economic productivity gains Ability to measure intangibles in national accounts [ virtual water ] Natural resource management considered essential Fast progress Slow, steady progress Setback, before steady progress Decline, or sharp decline After first decade decline marked by: Ecosystem changes [loss functions] Unintended consequences Economic instability [loss of income & decline in productivity] Food, water shortages, health crises More extreme weather events Rejection of [some] science, other institutions Natural resource management as a dead-end occupation

69 Resources are culturally defined Access to resources is politically, legally, historically and institutionally defined. Property rights regimes reveal.that NRM is not value neutral, distribution of NRM funds is not neutral Must establish ways of governing for the public good? Questions of institutional design and NRM governance - - adaptive governance of a contested landscape, region and continent - especially the north

70 copy Redefining, reinterpreting, and even redesigning Australia s working landscapes New ideas, new production systems, new climates New instruments incentives and legal innovations

71 Australia s national image of itself was largely set in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, at a time when a combination of British imperial power and the industrial revolution gave us a privileged international position as commodity producers with secure markets. That world has gone forever. The global terms of trade aren t going to suddenly flow back in the direction of commodity producers. (Keating 2002)

72 Australia s agriculture and rural landscapes will evolve in the next two hundred years in directions set by profound shifts in the underpinning cultural, institutional and economic relationships with nature, along with climate change and a reduced abundance of resources such as fossil fuels and fresh water

73 the way people think of themselves will affect the way they behave in the physical framework of their lives. ideas are all Australia has Not military might, or a large population, or unique resources. Ideas are what must sustain our democracy, nurture our community and drive our economy into new areas (Paul Keating (2002) Ideas, symbols help to redefined us and our place in the world.

74 Hope to see you at Marysville Native Fish awareness week