Protecting wolves in Finland
Grassroots appeal in the European Court of Justice to protect endangered wolves in Finland.Sari Kantinkoski | 16th January 2020


Wolves and other large carnivores were near extinction or extinct in several countries in Europe by the early 1900s.

In Finland, wolves continued to be freely hunted until 1973 and only few individuals were roaming in boreal forests. When Finland became a member state of the European Union in 1995, wolves became a protected species in Finland.

Poaching is considered to be as one of the main reasons why wolves have not managed to reach favorable conservation status in Finland in twenty years of their recovery.

Prohibition

The Habitats Directive of the European Union includes wolves as a protected species. The Directive protects wolves at different levels in different parts of Finland.

Outside of the designated reindeer husbandry area, wolves are strictly protected, meaning that all hunting, disturbing and harming of these animals is prohibited.

Finland was sued by the Commission of the European Union in the European Court of Justice (CJEU) in 2005 because it had not fulfilled its obligations of wolf conservation.

The Court decided that “by authorizing wolf hunting on a preventive basis, without it being established that the hunting is such as to prevent serious damage within the meaning of Article 16(1)(b) of Council Directive on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora, Finland has failed to fulfil its obligations under Articles 12(1) and 16(1)(b) of that directive.”

In 2005, Finland also released the first management plan for wolves. The plan introduced several preventive methods and measures to protect the Finnish wolf population of about 200 individuals, but the implementation of those measures was handled very poorly.

Management

Before the decision of the CJEU, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry launched a so-called management hunt of wolves in 2006 and the next year, the population collapsed from 220-250 individuals to 200 wolves and continued to deteriorate to 120-135 wolves in 2013.

There was no action taken to prevent poaching, damage to livestock or dogs, the spreading of misinformation or the increasing antagonism towards wolves during 2007-2014.

The conflict worsened in 2013, when 12 hunters at Perho, Ostrobothnia were convicted of illegal hunting of wolves. One of the convicted was a member of a National Wildlife Council in Finland. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry began to update the management plan for wolves in 2014.

The new update of the management plan was supposed to concentrate on the preventive methods to support the recovery of the wolf population in Finland. In workshops, several stakeholders including representatives of hunting, agriculture, and conservation interest groups agreed on electric fencing, compensatory payments, territorial collaborative management and the importance of the role of accurate information, among other things.

But instead of going forward with what was agreed upon in the workshops, the Ministry decided to launch a management hunt of wolves as a two-year experiment.

WorkAs a result of the derogation procedures of the Wildlife Agency in Eastern Finland, we established NGO Tapiola in November 2014, to intervene by legal action and to question the decision making regarding the wrongful interpretations of the Habitats Directive.

Soon we realized that our new organization had its hands full of work. We gave a statement to the Ministry concerning the new management plan and the hunting quota of 29 wolves, which had unexpectedly appeared along with the plan.

Simultaneously the Wildlife Agency released the information regarding the application process for permissions. The last day for giving statements concerning the quota was on 22 January 2015, and all the permissions for 24 wolves were granted on 23 January 2015.

With only a small budget and without any assistance from lawyers, we appealed all the permissions. Two Administrative Courts prohibited the implementation of the licenses for five wolves. We argued that hunting violated the Habitats Directive Article 16 (1)(e) derogation preconditions in allowing the hunt to take place during the breeding season.

Also, the Directives requirements- “selective basis”, “limited extent” and “under strictly supervised conditions” weren’t met during the hunt. 17 wolves were killed in the management hunt.

Appeal

The appeal process can take several months, sometimes even years. As a result of the “first round”, all the courts, besides the Administrative court of Hämeenlinna (Northern Tavastia), claimed that legally Tapiola was not an authorized local NGO with a right to appeal. But when also the Court of Hämeenlinna rejected our appeal, none of them were successful.

Gathering information and scientific data was an essential part of our commitment to prove every single of the claims we made.

Therefore, we collected data of population development, mortality, biology, scientific studies and research, legislation, legal praxis, preventive methods, police orders, etc. At the end of 2015, we changed our organizational structure into an association with six district organizations under one national umbrella organization.

The management hunt of wolves continued as planned in January 2016, with a quota of 46 wolves. Eventually 44 of them were killed.

Our district organizations appealed, and this time all the Administrative courts rejected either our appeals or our right to appeal. The Administrative Court of Eastern Finland concluded that we had no right to appeal, even though, there was a contradictory decision from a year earlier given to another local organization.

We decided to take our case to the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) of Finland. The SAC took our case and confirmed our right to appeal. As per our suggestion, the court also decided to ask for a preliminary ruling from European Union Court of Justice in November 2017.

Last resort

The process actually started when the CJEU asked for a written observation in March 2018. In the end the observation was a 20-page long document, with 30 attachments and 55 references. After the written observations, the Court invited us to an oral hearing which was held in Luxembourg in January 2019.

The Advocate General gave his opinion in May 2019 which gave reason for the Ministry to plan the management hunting again. The ministry had launched earlier the same year the third version of the management plan of wolves.

Hunting was once again on the table, until the ruling of the EUCJEU came out on October 10th2019. The CJEU’s decision respected the Habitats Directive and its spirit and purpose, which is to protect species. It confirmed that derogation is allowed only in rare cases, when there is no other satisfactory alternative, and there is scientifically valid evidence that derogation is an effective solution to the problem.

In other words, killing is always the last resort, while other alternatives are primary. The court also highlighted the precautionary principle and noted that recommendations in permissions were not legally binding, thus allowing the killing of breeding and collared individuals.

The Court also underlined, that reaching a favorable conservation status requires a long-term observation and highlighted the need for biological evidence. In larger context, the management hunting of wolves did not follow the Directive’s requirements for when exceptions from strict protection was permissible.

ProtectionsThe ruling of the CJEU concerns all species that are strictly protected under the Habitats Directive Annex IV and all the member states of the European Union.

Why did we do this? We did it because we had to. The administration gave us no choice, since there was no genuine effort to listen to the environmental organizations and no honest intention to fulfil the Directive’s obligations. We succeeded only because we were right. We had a case and the means to prove it. The CJEU was not interested in who we were, but what we had to say.

The ruling of the CJEU authoritatively interprets the Habitats Directive and must be followed in every decision concerning strictly protected species in lawmaking, administrative decision making, as well as by courts.

The “Fellowship of The Ruling” must go on, we have still work to do. We continue to monitor that endangered species will have the full protection provided by the Habitats Directive in Finland.

At the moment, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has set up a committee to find solutions on how to implement managemental hunting despite the ruling and without going into infringement proceedings with the EU Commission.

This Author

Sari Kantinkoski is a founding member of ANC Tapiola. She is a Bachelor of Environmental Science and her main subject is the environmental change and policy. Her current occupation is a nature surveyor, specialized in mammals and dragonflies. She lives on the West Coast of Finland and has a wolf pack “of her own” living nearby, which she has monitored for several years. Tapiola was established in 2014. Priorities of the organization are habitats, endangered species and large carnivore.

Image: Juha Sjöholm, wolves at Ähtäri Zoo.


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And the Oscar goes to ... Planet Earth?

Reuters
February 2, 2020

From plant-based meals to repeat tuxedos and water bottle bans, Hollywood has come to embrace sustainability in an awards season usually known for excess.

Some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, many of whom are vocal about environmental issues, are now turning words into action on red carpets and at gala dinners as they crisscross the United States for award shows and appearances.

Dinners at the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild and Critics’ Choice Awards in January served up vegan fare, while the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has banned plastic water bottles at all Oscar events and said all food served will be sustainably farmed.

“Consuming animals is no longer just a personal choice. It is having a drastic and vast consequence on the rest of the world and all of us,” said “Joker” best actor Oscar nominee Joaquin Phoenix, a lifelong vegan who encouraged organizers of the Golden Globes to switch to an entirely plant-based menu for the first time.

Others are ditching planes and private jets for electric or hybrid cars as they travel to film festivals in California and beyond

“Stranger Things” actor Brett Gelman is among those who say they have been spurred to review their lifestyles. “I plan to change a great deal in my diet and the way I use energy, composting, the way I purchase clothing. … I’m certainly not taking any private jets,” Gelman told reporters last month.

Inspired by teen activist Greta Thunberg, Jane Fonda is bringing her Fire Drill Fridays climate change protest from Washington to Los Angeles, two days before next Sunday’s Oscar ceremony.

To be sure, there is still a way to go. While celebrity gift bags this season include items like a “self-watering, self-fertilizing farmstand” they also offer cruises on luxury yachts.

Guests at the MusiCares gala dinner for rock band Aerosmith last month were served steak and chicken, on the same plate, and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” actress Alex Borstein quipped that she planned to head to a steak house after a vegan dinner at the Critics’ Choice Awards in January.

‘NO HOLLYWOOD ON A DEAD PLANET’The youth arm of the group Extinction Rebellion plans a protest at the famous Hollywood sign on the eve of the Academy Awards, aimed at persuading the entertainment industry to do more.

“Some stars of Hollywood are aware of the scale of the climate crisis, and some have started to take action. … But we do not believe that Hollywood as a whole has taken an acceptable stance on the climate crisis,” the group said in a statement, announcing the protest.

“There is no Hollywood on a dead planet,” the group added.

Daniel Hinerfeld, director of content partnerships at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the publicity around initiatives like vegan dinners “shows the power that Hollywood has to start conversations, to set trends, and to shift attitudes.”

But he urged the industry to do more and to use its storytelling powers to highlight climate change.

“We really need to see more film and TV that really is dealing with all of the incredibly complicated and dramatic and potentially comedic aspects of climate change, which is this huge drama,” Hinerfeld said.

Red carpet fashion may be slow to catch up, despite the influence of designers like Jean Paul Gaultier, whose Paris retirement show in January featured upcycled haute couture, including skirts made out of silk ties.

Phoenix, who has won a slew of awards this year, won kudos in January for his plans to stick with the same tuxedo throughout the season.

“He chooses to make choices for the future of the planet. He has also chosen to wear this same tux for the entire award season to reduce waste,” tweeted designer Stella McCartney, who provided the tux.

It remains to be seen whether other stars will follow suit, or choose recycled gowns for the world’s biggest red carpet at the Oscars.

Rising New York-based designer Daniel Silverstein, who creates clothing from remnants and scraps, says he has not so far had any red carpet approaches for his Zero Waste Daniel label, although he is prepared to give A-listers the benefit of the doubt.

“People in Hollywood and the music industry are fanatical about using ethical beauty products. So I am sure there is a lot of sustainability under the surface that we don’t even realize,” he said.

“What I would hope to see more of is people with a platform using their opportunity to talk about their personal style and to change the conversation.”

 (Reporting by Jill Serjeant and Jane Ross Additional reporting by Lisa Richwine Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Des Moines protest: Climate change activists march through Des Moines

Danielle Gehr, Des Moines Register Published Feb. 1, 2020

Blair Frank led a group chant, "One global family," as climate change activists filled up Locust Street between 5th and 4th avenues Saturday around noon. 

(Photo: Danielle Gehr / The Register)

Hundreds of climate activists filled portions of downtown Des Moines on Saturday to address what they believe is a lack of media coverage of climate issues.

The "Climate Crisis Parade" began on Locust Street between Fifth and Fourth avenues, just outside the building that houses the Des Moines Register.

Before marching through the street, some of the participants stood in the road and addressed the crowd with a sense of urgency, saying the media has failed to cover global warming and its effects. Seventy groups sponsored the event Saturday and about 400 people marched through downtown to the Iowa Events Center.

► Wetter springs, hotter summers: Climate change threatens Iowa farm economy

► More: Students demand action on climate during a rally at Iowa Capitol

► More: Iowa scientists warn of 'sobering extreme heat' for the Midwest

Danielle Gehr is a breaking news reporter at the Des Moines Register. She can be reached by email at dgehr@dmreg.com, by phone at 515-284-8367 or on Twitter at @Dani_Gehr.

Uncle's legacy

The struggle for social and ecological justice can't be left to technocrats. We must name the real culprits - capitalism and colonialism.


Elias Koenig | 23rd January 2020 


On June 23, 1988, a 47-year old NASA-scientist delivered a path-breaking testimony to the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

The scientist, who had been studying global temperatures for years, announced that he could declare “with 99 percent confidence” that the recent surge in global temperatures was a result of human activity. He also warned that a further increase in global temperatures would considerably increase the likelihood of extreme events such as heat waves.

Soon after, the first public debate about climate change erupted. The scientist’s name is James Hansen and until today his testimony is remembered as the first warning to a mass audience about global warming and one of the key moments in the history of climate change.

Catastrophic consequences

Hansen, however, was not the first person to address a public body and to issue a warning on the looming catastrophic effects on climate change. Among the many forgotten stories, one is that of Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq, an Eskimo-Kalaallit Elder from Greenland, who goes by the name “Uncle”.

Long before the world came to be aware of climate change, Uncle’s elders had observed the increased melting of the Greenland ice sheet with great concern. They knew it could have catastrophic consequences for the entire planet.

In 1978 – 10 years before Hansen’s hearing – they sent Uncle to speak to the governments of the world and to warn them. Uncle indeed travelled to New York and issued a stern warning at the United Nations. Unfortunately, no one listened.

Several decades later, both Hansen’s and Uncle’s worst predictions have become true. With Australia burning and Indonesia drowning, Indian farmers committing mass suicide, and Zambia at the brink of famine, there are few corners of the world left that that have not yet been severely impacted by the climate crisis.

Even after years, Hansen’s testimony is still well-remembered by a rejuvenated youth-led global climate movement, which mobilised six million people around the world for its September climate action week alone. One of its heroes, Greta Thunberg (“Unite behind the Science”), was recently named the Person of the Year by TIME magazine.

But the movement has forgotten about Uncle and millions of people like him.

Wilderness movement

Rather than being understood as an issue that pertains to everyone and especially the most vulnerable populations, climate change has come to be viewed as the exclusive domain of scientists and technocrats (“policy-makers”), a perception that remains unchallenged by most middle-class climate protestors.

Perhaps, one might argue, this ignorance is one of the reasons that the movement that has brought so many people onto the streets has also been rather ineffective in actually effecting change: global carbon-emissions once more reached an all-time high in 2019.

In their 1997 book “Varieties of Environmentalism” historian Ramachandra Guha and economist Juan Martinez-Alier distinguish between two “kinds of environmentalism”: “The environmentalism of the poor originates as a clash over productive resources: A third kind of class conflict, but one with deep ecological implications. Red on the outside, but green on the inside.

"In Southern movements, issues of ecology are often interlinked with questions of human rights, ethnicity and distributive justice.

"In contrast, the wilderness movement in the North originates outside the production process. It is in this respect more of a single-issue movement, calling for a change in attitudes (towards the natural world), rather than a change in sytems of production or distribution.”

Social justice

Guha and Martinez-Alier heavily criticise the Western environmental movement, in particular its wilderness preservation strand, for being ignorant about social and political issues. They cite examples such as the eviction of indigenous people for tiger reserves in South Indian Karnataka or the imposition of fishing bans on poor fishermen on the Galapagos Islands.

According to Guha and Martinez-Alier, this does not only put the wilderness movement into a morally questionable position (“destroying the world and at the same time mourning it”), but it also makes it ineffective.

Instead, the authors argue in favour of an environmentalism of the poor which combines environmentalism with the quest for social justice and a more equitable access to resources.

A famous instance thereof is the struggle of the Ogoni people in Nigeria, who bravely stood up to the oil companies that made billions of dollars by destroying their homeland, and whose leaders were murdered at the hands of Shell and the Nigerian dictatorship.

Another well-known case is the Chipko movement in India, lead by peasant indigenous women protesting deforestation - to them, we owe the term “tree hugger”.

From environment to climateIn the twenty-first century, we have seen a shift from environmental movements to climate movements, as the climate crisis has surfaced as perhaps the most urgent of many environmental problems. But the basic contrast observed by Guha, Martinez-Alier, and others has not disappeared.

On the one hand, there are climate movements, which are dominated by members of the (white) educated middle class, who have attended prestigious schools and use the language of “carbon taxes”, “mitigation/adaptation”, “governance”, “sustainable development”, “green growth”, and “carbon accounting”.

On the other hand, there are still many other movements more centred around issues such as land rights, social and ecological justice, and other issues, often lead by women, students, workers, minorities, or indigenous groups.

The fact that the latter type of movement often does not label or understand itself as a “climate movement” does not mean that its struggles are less important to the cause of creating a fair and sustainable, carbon-neutral world, a fact that the middle-class climate movement often seems to forget.

Consider, for example the anti-gentrification struggle that is fought in many places around the world. Most anti-gentrification activists would not regard themselves as part of a climate movement, yet their struggle is connected to environmental concerns, too: after all, there is no more carbon-intensive city than the segregated, gentrified metropolis.

Or the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement MST, one of the biggest social movements around the world with more than a million members. MST’s focus is to agitate for land reform and to redistribute land through occupation. On the face of it, it is therefore not necessarily part of the “climate movement”. But in addressing issues such as climate change, and deforestation, and by redistributing land to more than 370 000 families, the MST had perhaps had a much larger positive impact on the climate than many self-proclaimed climate movements.

Neglect

Similarly, people who are engaged in confronting fascists and climate change deniers directly, or in making education more accessible, are contributing a great deal to the fight against climate change.

Another case in point is the example of Malaysia, which hosts a climate movement comprising groups like KAMY - Klima Action Malaysia (Klima being derived from the German word for “climate”).

During a recent event at the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, a young local climate activist claimed that 2019 had marked the birth of the Malaysian climate movement. In a sense, this statement is correct: A climate movement that fashions itself in the manner of the Western climate movements is perhaps indeed a new appearance in Malaysia.

On the other hand, the speaker seems to be neglecting the work that has been done by different movements since the dawn of the colonial era, be it against deforestation, extinction, mining and infrastructure projects, the dislocation of indigenous communities and peasants, and large multinational corporations since the British East India Company.

Political change

If the global climate movement wants to avoid becoming the Wilderness Preservation Movement of the 21st century, it must avoid repeating its mistakes and rethink its priorities and allies.

It must stop paying lip service to “climate justice”, cease to only centre scientists and technocrats and start to address and include people like Uncle, who have decades of experience in resisting colonialism and extractive capitalism.

And it must understand that movements which are not just climate movements, but understand themselves to be engaged in a more holistic socio-ecological struggle, are more likely to be successful in bringing about effective and sustainable political change for at least two reasons.

Firstly, because they have a better analysis and understanding of the crisis they are facing. They understand that moderate institutional reforms are not addressing the issue in a way that is productive.

And secondly, because they are better at mobilising people for their cause. The climate movement might be able to mobilise millions for protest marches and demonstrations, similar to the Anti-Iraq war protests. But it cannot compete with locally-rooted social movements that are grounded in existing communities, appeal to the material interests of the majority of the population, and aim at affecting radical and sustainable change.

New vision

The rise of the global climate movement in 2019 has been hopeful, yet ineffective.

In 2020, let us focus on strengthening the cause of a slightly different kind of global movement. A movement that does not hesitate to name the culprits: capitalism and colonialism.

A transnational movement that aims to save the Kendeng mountains in Indonesia, the Sundarbans in India and Bangladesh, and the Lamu community in Kenya.

A movement that stands in solidarity with the indigenous youth of Australia, the revolution in Rojava, and the Zapatista movement in Chiapas.

A movement that does not rely on international treaties and technocrats to realise “climate action”, but takes it into its own hands to build and world of solidarity, justice and ecology.

This Author

Elias König is a philosophy student at the Free University of Berlin. His research is in non-Western environmental philosophy.

Image: Hannes Grobe, Wikipedia.

Help us keep The Ecologist working for the planet

The Ecologist website is a free service, published by The Resurgence Trust, a UK-based educational charity. We work hard - with a small budget and tiny editorial team - to bring you the wide-ranging, independent journalism we know you value and enjoy, but we need your help. Please make a donation to support The Ecologist platform. Thank you!

'BP must fall'

Biggest ever oil sponsorship protest will ramp up pressure on British Museum.

Marianne Brooker | 3rd February 2020


Organisers of a mass creative protest against BP’s sponsorship of the British Museum on Saturday, 8 February 2020 have revealed that over 1,200 people have pledged to take part.

BP or not BP?, the activist theatre group behind the performance protest, are keeping the full details under wraps but have promised 'creative actions for all ages' and have successfully crowdfunded to bring a Trojan Horse to the museum in a direct response to its current BP-sponsored exhibition, Troy: Myth and Reality.

Pressure has been mounting on the British Museum after several leading cultural organisations, citing the climate emergency, cut their ties with oil companies last year, including the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre, National Galleries Scotland and Edinburgh Science Festival.

This month, the Natural History Museum confirmed it no longer had ties to its former partners BP and Shell and is putting climate change at the heart of its 10-year strategy, leaving the British Museum looking increasingly isolated and out of step with the wider sector.

Reimagining

Participants in what will be the biggest protest in the museum’s 260 year history are being invited to register online so they can be sent the details of when to arrive, what to bring and what to wear.

While the exact nature of the protest performance will be revealed on the day, the group have announced that they have a range of speakers representing communities around the world who are on the frontlines of colonialism, fossil fuel extraction, climate change and repression.

Together, they plan to ‘reimagine the museum’. The group has also published a statement online highlighting how their protest will 'put pressure on the Director, Chairman and Board of the British Museum, demanding that they show the climate leadership that staff, visitors and others are demanding'.

The protest will be 'respectful of Museum visitors and staff' and 'rooted in solidarity'.

The controversy around promotional relationships with the fossil fuel industry continues to make headlines. Just this week, the Guardian announced it would no longer take advertising from the fossil fuel industry, saying ‘Fossil fuel extractors are qualitatively different. The intent - and extent - of their lobbying efforts has explicitly harmed the environmental cause.’

Troy

Sarah Horne, a member of BP or not BP? said: ‘After 7 years and 39 actions at the museum, we can’t wait any longer: Indonesia is flooded, Australia is on fire and yet BP is investing in more oil and more gas.

'Meanwhile, it is using its sponsorship of the arts as a Trojan Horse to try and hide the destructive reality of its business. Our protest is a bold and necessary escalation in this campaign.

'It’s shameful that even now, in the midst of a climate emergency, the British Museum is lending legitimacy to BP when it could follow the lead of the RSC and National Galleries Scotland, and help create a culture beyond fossil fuels.’

The museum is facing specific criticism for attaching a BP logo to a Troy exhibition, when BP has recently completed a controversial gas pipeline that runs just 75 miles from the modern-day site of Troy in Turkey.

BP has been working with the Turkish government to build the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) through Turkey. The pipeline was completed in July 2019.

Repressive regimeThe pipeline runs about 75 miles from the site of ancient Troy, and is part of a complex of pipelines called the Southern Gas Corridor, intended to bring fossil gas from Azerbaijan to Europe.

The final part – the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) from Turkey via Greece and Albania to Italy – is still under construction, and has faced serious protests along its route.

When a previous BP pipeline (the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline) was built in this region from 2003 – 2005, there was an organised international campaign linked up with activists on the ground to oppose it.

People in Turkey were especially concerned about militarisation and land grabs along the route of the pipeline where it came into North East Turkey.

However, the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline has not experienced similar protest on its route through Turkey. Campaigners believe this is because of the anti-protest crackdowns of the repressive government of Turkish President Erdoğan, which has made people too scared to speak up this time.

This means that BP is, once again, benefiting from a relationship with a repressive regime that is silencing protest and thus making it easier for BP to build its destructive and polluting projects.

Escalation

The Southern Gas Corridor, if completed, could lock Europe into increased fossil gas use for decades to come.

Zozan Yaşar, a Kurdish journalist and activist, said: ‘In many countries people are starting to protest about climate change, to imagine a different future and to change things.

'But in Turkey, the situation is politically very different – it’s hard to speak out and these kinds of protests have been banned. Oil and gas projects like BP’s pipelines have cost many lives, but because of the sanctions placed on freedom of speech, few people are aware of this.

'By partnering with the Turkish government on gas pipelines, BP is helping to maintain this situation and is profiting from the silencing of protest.'

This escalation in the campaign against oil sponsorship of culture comes as BP’s new CEO is attempting to counter accusations of inaction and deflection on climate change. According to Sarah Horne from BP or not BP?: ‘The growing movement against the fossil fuel industry - and BP in particular - has put the oil giant on the back foot, forcing the CEO to talk about climate change from day one in the job.

'We’re expecting some announcements from BP that may sound good, but that won’t change its underlying plan to keep expanding its fossil fuel extraction projects. Unless BP ditches all new exploration for oil and gas and starts leaving existing reserves in the ground, it will remain on a collision course with the climate.’

The 8 February protest has been named ‘BP Must Fall!’ by the group, taking inspiration from the ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ campaign for the removal of colonial monuments in South Africa, as well as the group ‘Shell Must Fall’ in the Netherlands.

BP or not BP? is a member of the Art Not Oil Coalition.

Image: Diana More.

This Author 
Marianne Brooker is The Ecologist's content editor. This article is based on a press release from BP or not BP. 

Help us keep The Ecologist working for the planet

The Ecologist website is a free service, published by The Resurgence Trust, a UK-based educational charity. We work hard - with a small budget and tiny editorial team - to bring you the wide-ranging, independent journalism we know you value and enjoy, but we need your help. Please make a donation to support The Ecologist platform. Thank you!

President Trump's $5.6m 30-second commercial sparks fury after he boasts about freeing black prisoner Alice Johnson

President Trump's re-election campaign purchased a first quarter commercial slot for the Super Bowl

The ad, which depicted the Commander-in-chief as an advocate for criminal justice reform, divided opinion

Some dismissed it as 'trash' and 'pathetic' while others said it was 'simply brilliant' and thanked the president

By LUKE ANDREWS FOR MAILONLINE and ANDREW COURT and MEGAN SHEETS FOR DAILYMAIL.COM  3 February 2020

President Trump's $5.6 million 30-second Super Bowl commercial sparked fury on Sunday after he boasted about freeing black prisoner Alice Johnson.

In the clip, priced at more than $186,000 a second, the president pitches himself as a champion of criminal justice reform and claims credit for the release of Ms Johnson, who is shown crying and holding flowers, after she is released following a life sentence for nonviolent drugs offences.

A second advert, aired after the Super Bowl, struck a more 'Trumpian' tone as it set out his nationalistic credentials with images of the US army, navy and air force alongside crowds cheering and waving US flags.

His adverts were branded as 'trash' online by some viewers, while a former democratic speech writer also accused him of 'screaming at black athletes'. Others were impressed, however, telling Trump 'well done sir' and 'simply brilliant'.

Presidential hopeful Mike Bloomberg paid $11million for a 60-second ad space during the Super Bowl, in which he put himself forward as a president that would fight against the powerful gun lobby. 

Trump releases Super Bowl ad for 2020 reelection campaign


The Super Bowl advert pitched Trump as a criminal justice reformer. It showed prisoner Alice Johnson crying and holding flowers after she was released from a life prison sentence following a conviction for nonviolent drug offences

Mr Trump's decision to feature Ms Johnson has been criticised online. Celebrity Kim Kardashian worked for her release, and hired a team of top lawyers. President Trump granted her clemency in 2018 following a visit to the Oval Office



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Kim Kardashian pictured with Alice Johnson. Ms Kardashian has also written the foreword to Ms Johnson's memoir. Above right is Ms Johnson's tweet after the Super Bowl advert was broadcast

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Trump tweeted the first advert with a caption saying he promises to 'restore hope in America. That includes the least among us'. The second advert, posted after the Super Bowl, had the caption 'Hope you liked this!'.



















Trump's advert played during the game began with the phrase; 'Thanks to President Trump, people like Alice are getting a second chance.'

It then showed Alice crying and holding flowers following her release before stating that the president doesn't just talk about criminal justice reform, he 'got it done'.

Trump goes on to claim that through his work thousands of families have been re-united.

The advert was slammed online as 'embarrassing', 'pathetic' and 'racist', with one Twitter user even accusing the president of tearing families apart from 'the minute he got into office'.

Former Democratic speechwriter Jake Maccoby also posted a tweeted accusing the president of hypocrisy, writing: '"Don't bring your politics into sports!" Trump screamed at black athletes while purchasing a million-dollar super bowl ad'.

Alice Johnson was released from prison following a tireless campaign headed by celebrity Kim Kardashian, who recruited a team of dedicated lawyers to work on her case.

She was granted clemency a week after an Oval office meeting with Trump in 2018.

Ms Kardashian also wrote the foreword to Ms Johnson's memoir, After Life: My Journey from Incarceration to Freedom, that was published last year.

After the ad went out, Ms Johnson tweeted it with the caption: 'Two Super Bowls ago I was sitting in a prison cell. Today I am a free woman and my story was featured in a Super Bowl Ad.

'I will spend the rest of my life fighting for the wrongly and unjustly convicted! God Bless America!'

Ms Kardashian tweeted to Ms Johnson 'so proud of you!!!' after viewing the advert.

Trump has also overseen the separation of families crossing the US-Mexico border during his presidency. Dozens of parents were split from their children and sent to jail while their sons and daughters were taken into foster care.

The policy was changed in 2018 following a powerful lobby, which included his wife and US first lady Melania. She also launched a 'Be Best' initiative focusing on the well-being of children.

Despite the outcry, others heralded Trump's advert as a success. One tweeted: 'Over 100 million Americans saw this glorious Super Bowl ad by President Trump... Promises made. Promises kept.'

Another said: 'Powerful! Well done sir!'. And a third remarked that the advert was 'simply brilliant'. 

Trump releases second re-election campaign Super Bowl commercial





Trump's second video saw the president stray back onto nationalistic ground. He showed images of the US army (left), navy (centre) and air force (right) alongside the words stronger, safer and more prosperous

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The second clip also shows President Trump and Mike Pence standing in front of American flags at a rally

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Crowds of people cheering and brandishing American flags and vote Trump placards were also shown in the advert

The President's second advert, played after the Super Bowl, took him back onto home turf by stressing his nationalistic credentials.

It begins with Trump walking towards a US flag before showing pictures of the US army, navy and air force as the words 'stronger', 'safer' and 'more prosperous' flash across the screen.

The video then reminds voters that the economy has swelled under Trump and unemployment has reached a 49-year low.

Some Twitter users again were not impressed, stating the ad 'made me vomit', 'really sucks' and 'the world is laughing at you'.

However, others were more convinced and called for 'four more years of you!', as well as saying 'God bless you President Trump!' and 'You're the best President Trump, with the Lord's love and prayers'.

Economic growth under the president has remained at a steady two to three per cent of GDP, although this is expected to slow due to trade tensions.

Wages have also climbed more than three per cent before slowing again, which may be linked to tax cuts.

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Plastic peril strikes: Haunting image shows dead sea turtle after it died from lack of oxygen while tangled in fishing wire

Shane Gross, 34, took the haunting images on the Harbour Islands, Bahamas 

It's likely that the green sea turtle died from lack of oxygen once being tangled

Gross said he wanted to spread awareness about what ends up in the ocean

By RYAN FAHEY FOR MAILONLINE

31 January 2020

A haunting image of a sea turtle after it died from lack of oxygen while tangled in fishing wire off the coast of the Bahamas has drawn attention to the damage caused by the plastic floating through our oceans.

The poor turtle is tangled in the fishing wire and probably died from lack of oxygen.

Shane Gross, 34, a photojournalist, took the photos while on the Harbour Island, Bahamas.

34-year-old photojournalist, Shane Gross, 34, snapped these photos of a dead green gea turtle near the Harbour Island in the Bahamas


The turtle is pictured tangled in fishing wire and is thought to have died from a lack of oxygen

He said: 'My partner found the turtle already long dead with fishing line entangling both the turtle and the coral.

'In all likelihood the green sea turtle became entangled and could not reach the surface to breathe and drowned.

'I removed the fishing line so no scavengers would also become entangled and took pictures to help prevent this from happening again.

'I felt terrible imagining what kind of suffering this turtle must have gone through.

'People who see the photos say that they find the image very disturbing.

Gross (pictured) said: 'I felt terrible imagining what kind of suffering this turtle must have gone through'

'Discarded fishing gear continues to kill animals long after its usefulness to humanity is gone either through entanglement, called Ghost Fishing, or it breaks down into microplastics causing problems throughout the entire food chain.

'A large percentage of the great pacific garbage patch is made up of abandoned fishing gear.

'We need to re-think how we get our protein.'


Diver rescues tiny fish trapped inside plastic bag in Thailand

Here are 10 things you need to know about socialism

By YES! Magazine - Commentary


What do we mean when we talk about “socialism”? Here are ten things about its theory, practice, and potential that you need to know.

Over the last 200 years, socialism has spread across the world. In every country, it carries the lessons and scars of its particular history there. Conversely, each country’s socialism is shaped by the global history, rich tradition, and diverse interpretations of a movement that has been the world’s major critical response to capitalism as a system.

We need to understand socialism because it has shaped our history and will shape our future. It is an immense resource: the accumulated thoughts, experiences, and experiments accomplished by those yearning to do better than capitalism.

In my latest book, Understanding Socialism (Democracy at Work, 2019), I gather and present the basic theories and practices of socialism. I examine its successes, explore its challenges, and confront its failures. The point is to offer a path to a new socialism based on workplace democracy. Here are 10 things from this book that you should know.

1. Socialism is a yearning for something better than capitalism
Socialism represents the awareness of employees that their sufferings and limitations come less from their employers than from the capitalist system. That system prescribes incentives and options for both sides, and rewards and punishments for their behavioral “choices.” It generates their endless struggles and the employees’ realization that system change is the way out.

In Capital, Volume 1, Karl Marx defined a fundamental injustice—exploitation—located in capitalism’s core relationship between employer and employee. Exploitation, in Marx’s terms, describes the situation in which employees produce more value for employers than the value of wages paid to them. Capitalist exploitation shapes everything in capitalist societies. Yearning for a better society, socialists increasingly demand the end of exploitation and an alternative in which employees function as their own employer. Socialists want to be able to explore and develop their full potentials as individuals and members of society while contributing to its welfare and growth.


Karl Marx, date unknown. Photo from Bettmann/Getty Images.

Socialism is an economic system very different from capitalism, feudalism, and slavery. Each of the latter divided society into a dominant minority class (masters, lords, and employers) and a dominated majority (slaves, serfs, employees). When the majority recognized slavery and feudal systems as injustices, they eventually fell.

The majorities of the past fought hard to build a better system. Capitalism replaced slaves and serfs with employees, masters and lords with employers. It is no historical surprise that employees would end up yearning and fighting for something better. That something better is socialism, a system that doesn’t divide people, but rather makes work a democratic process where all employees have an equal say and together are their own employer.

2. Socialism is not a single, unified theory

People spread socialism across the world, interpreting and implementing it in many different ways based on context. Socialists found capitalism to be a system that produced ever-deepening inequalities, recurring cycles of unemployment and depression, and the undermining of human efforts to build democratic politics and inclusive cultures. Socialists developed and debated solutions that varied from government regulations of capitalist economies to government itself owning and operating enterprises, to a transformation of enterprises (both private and government) from top-down hierarchies to democratic cooperatives.

Sometimes those debates produced splits among socialists. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, socialists supporting the post-revolutionary Soviet Union underscored their commitment to socialism that entailed the government owning and operating industries by adopting the new name “communist.” Those skeptical of Soviet-style socialism tended increasingly to favor state regulation of private capitalists. They kept the name “socialist” and often called themselves social democrats or democratic socialists. For the last century, the two groups debated the merits and flaws of the two alternative notions of socialism as embodied in examples of each (e.g. Soviet versus Scandinavian socialisms).

Early in the 21st century, an old strain of socialism resurfaced and surged. It focuses on transforming the inside of enterprises: from top-down hierarchies, where a capitalist or a state board of directors makes all the key enterprise decisions, to a worker cooperative, where all employees have equal, democratic rights to make those decisions, thereby becoming—collectively—their own employer.

3 .The Soviet Union and China achieved state capitalism, not socialism

As leader of the Soviet Union, Lenin once said that socialism was a goal, not yet an achieved reality. The Soviet had, instead, achieved “state capitalism.” A socialist party had state power, and the state had become the industrial capitalist displacing the former private capitalists. The Soviet revolution had changed who the employer was; it had not ended the employer/employee relationship. Thus, it was—to a certain extent—capitalist.

Lenin’s successor, Stalin, declared that the Soviet Union had achieved socialism. In effect, he offered Soviet state capitalism as if it were the model for socialism worldwide. Socialism’s enemies have used this identification ever since to equate socialism with political dictatorship. Of course, this required obscuring or denying that (1) dictatorships have often existed in capitalist societies and (2) socialisms have often existed without dictatorships.

After initially copying the Soviet model, China changed its development strategy to embrace instead a state-supervised mix of state and private capitalism focused on exports. China’s powerful government would organize a basic deal with global capitalists, providing cheap labor, government support, and a growing domestic market. In exchange, foreign capitalists would partner with Chinese state or private capitalists, share technology, and integrate Chinese output into global wholesale and retail trade systems. China’s brand of socialism—a hybrid state capitalism that included both communist and social-democratic streams—proved it could grow faster over more years than any capitalist economy had ever done.


4. The U.S., Soviet Union, and China have more in common than you think

As capitalism emerged from feudalism in Europe in the 19th century, it advocated liberty, equality, fraternity, and democracy. When those promises failed to materialize, many became anti-capitalist and found their way to socialism.

Experiments in constructing post-capitalist, socialist systems in the 20th century (especially in the Soviet Union and China) eventually incurred similar criticisms. Those systems, critics held, had more in common with capitalism than partisans of either system understood.

Self-critical socialists produced a different narrative based on the failures common to both systems. The U.S. and Soviet Union, such socialists argue, represented private and state capitalisms. Their Cold War enmity was misconstrued on both sides as part of the century’s great struggle between capitalism and socialism. Thus, what collapsed in 1989 was Soviet State capitalism, not socialism. Moreover, what soared after 1989 was another kind of state capitalism in China.

5. Thank American socialists, communists, and unionists for the 1930s New Deal

FDR’s government raised the revenue necessary for Washington to fund massive, expensive increases in public services during the Depression of the 1930s. These included the Social Security system, the first federal unemployment compensation system, the first federal minimum wage, and a mass federal jobs program. FDR’s revenues came from taxing corporations and the rich more than ever before.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, center, and his New Deal administration team on September 12, 1935. Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone/Getty Images.

In response to this radical program, FDR was reelected three times. His radical programs were conceived and pushed politically from below by a coalition of communists, socialists, and labor unionists. He had not been a radical Democrat before his election.

Socialists obtained a new degree of social acceptance, stature, and support from FDR’s government. The wartime alliance of the U.S. with the Soviet Union strengthened that social acceptance and socialist influences.

6. If 5 was news to you, that’s due to the massive U.S.-led global purge of socialists and communists after WWII

After its 1929 economic crash, capitalism was badly discredited. The unprecedented political power of a surging U.S. left enabled government intervention to redistribute wealth from corporations and the rich to average citizens. Private capitalists and the Republican Party responded with a commitment to undo the New Deal. The end of World War II and FDR’s death in 1945 provided the opportunity to destroy the New Deal coalition.

The strategy hinged on demonizing the coalition’s component groups, above all the communists and socialists. Anti-communism quickly became the strategic battering ram. Overnight, the Soviet Union went from wartime ally to an enemy whose agents aimed “to control the world.” That threat had to be contained, repelled, and eliminated.

U.S. domestic policy focused on anti-communism, reaching hysterical dimensions and the public campaigns of U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Communist Party leaders were arrested, imprisoned, and deported in a wave of anti-communism that quickly spread to socialist parties and to socialism in general. Hollywood actors, directors, screenwriters, musicians, and more were blacklisted and barred from working in the industry. McCarthy’s witch hunt ruined thousands of careers while ensuring that mass media, politicians, and academics would be unsympathetic, at least publicly, to socialism.U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy led a campaign to put prominent government officials and others on trial for alleged “subversive activities” and Communist Party membership during the height of the Cold War.


 Photo by Corbis/Getty Images.

In other countries revolts from peasants and/or workers against oligarchs in business and/or politics often led the latter to seek U.S. assistance by labeling their challengers as “socialists” or “communists.” Examples include U.S. actions in Guatemala and Iran (1954), Cuba (1959-1961), Vietnam (1954-1975), South Africa (1945-1994), and Venezuela (since 1999). Sometimes the global anti-communism project took the form of regime change. In 1965-6 the mass killings of Indonesian communists cost the lives of between 500,000 to 3 million people.

Once the U.S.—as the world’s largest economy, most dominant political power, and most powerful military—committed itself to total anti-communism, its allies and most of the rest of the world followed suit.

7. Since socialism was capitalism’s critical shadow, it spread to those subjected by and opposed to capitalist colonialism

In the first half of the 20th century, socialism spread through the rise of local movements against European colonialism in Asia and Africa, and the United States’ informal colonialism in Latin America. Colonized people seeking independence were inspired by and saw the possibility of alliances with workers fighting exploitation in the colonizing countries. These latter workers glimpsed similar possibilities from their side.

This helped create a global socialist tradition. The multiple interpretations of socialism that had evolved in capitalism’s centers thus spawned yet more and further-differentiated interpretations. Diverse streams within the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist tradition interacted with and enriched socialism.



8. Fascism is a capitalist response to socialismA fascist economic system is capitalist, but with a mixture of very heavy government influence. In fascism, the government reinforces, supports, and sustains private capitalist workplaces. It rigidly enforces the employer/employee dichotomy central to capitalist enterprises. Private capitalists support fascism when they fear losing their position as capitalist employers, especially during social upheavals.

Under fascism, there is a kind of mutually supportive merging of government and private workplaces. Fascist governments tend to “deregulate,” gutting worker protections won earlier by unions or socialist governments. They help private capitalists by destroying trade unions or replacing them with their own organizations which support, rather than challenge, private capitalists.

Frequently, fascism embraces nationalism to rally people to fascist economic objectives, often by using enhanced military expenditures and hostility toward immigrants or foreigners. Fascist governments influence foreign trade to help domestic capitalists sell goods abroad and block imports to help them sell their goods inside national boundaries.Blackshirts, supporters of Benito Mussolini who founded the National Fascist Party, are about to set fire to portraits of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin in Italy in May 1921. Photo by Mondadori/Getty Images.

Usually, fascists repress socialism. In Europe’s major fascist systems—Spain under Franco, Germany under Hitler, and Italy under Mussolini—socialists and communists were arrested, imprisoned, and often tortured and killed.

A similarity between fascism and socialism seems to arise because both seek to strengthen government and its interventions in society. However, they do so in different ways and toward very different ends. Fascism seeks to use government to secure capitalism and national unity, defined often in terms of ethnic or religious purity. Socialism seeks to use government to end capitalism and substitute an alternative socialist economic system, defined traditionally in terms of state-owned and -operated workplaces, state economic planning, employment of dispossessed capitalists, workers’ political control, and internationalism.

9. Socialism has been, and still is, evolving

During the second half of the 20th century, socialism’s diversity of interpretations and proposals for change shrank to two alternative notions: 1.) moving from private to state-owned-and -operated workplaces and from market to centrally planned distributions of resources and products like the Soviet Union, or 2.) “welfare-state” governments regulating markets still comprised mostly of private capitalist firms, as in Scandinavia, and providing tax-funded socialized health care, higher education, and so on. As socialism returns to public discussion in the wake of capitalism’s crash in 2008, the first kind of socialism to gain mass attention has been that defined in terms of government-led social programs and wealth redistributions benefitting middle and lower income social groups.

The evolution and diversity of socialism were obscured. Socialists themselves struggled with the mixed results of the experiments in constructing socialist societies (in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Vietnam, etc.). To be sure, these socialist experiments achieved extraordinary economic growth. In the Global South, socialism arose virtually everywhere as the alternative development model to a capitalism weighed down by its colonialist history and its contemporary inequality, instability, relatively slower economic growth, and injustice.

Socialists also struggled with the emergence of central governments that used excessively concentrated economic power to achieve political dominance in undemocratic ways. They were affected by criticisms from other, emerging left-wing social movements, such as anti-racism, feminism, and environmentalism, and began to rethink how a socialist position should integrate the demands of such movements and make alliances.

10. Worker co-ops are a key to socialism’s future

The focus of the capitalism-versus-socialism debate is now challenged by the changes within socialism. Who the employers are (private citizens or state officials) now matters less than what kind of relationship exists between employers and employees in the workplace. The role of the state is no longer the central issue in dispute.

A growing number of socialists stress that previous socialist experiments inadequately recognized and institutionalized democracy. These self-critical socialists focus on worker cooperatives as a means to institutionalize economic democracy within workplaces as the basis for political democracy. They reject master/slave, lord/serf, and employer/employee relationships because these all preclude real democracy and equality.Homesteaders, relocated by the U.S. Resettlement Administration, a federal agency under the New Deal, working at a cooperative garment factory in Hightstown, New Jersey, in 1936. The U.S. Resettlement Administration relocated struggling families to provide work relief. Photo by Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group/Getty Images.

For the most part, 19th and 20th century socialisms downplayed democratized workplaces. But an emerging, 21st century socialism advocates for a change in the internal structure and organization of workplaces. The microeconomic transformation from the employer/employee organization to worker co-ops can ground a bottom-up economic democracy.

The new socialism’s difference from capitalism becomes less a matter of state versus private workplaces, or state planning versus private markets, and more a matter of democratic versus autocratic workplace organization. A new economy based on worker co-ops will find its own democratic way of structuring relationships among co-ops and society as a whole.

Worker co-ops are key to a new socialism’s goals. They criticize socialisms inherited from the past and add a concrete vision of what a more just and humane society would look like. With the new focus on workplace democratization, socialists are in a good position to contest the 21st century’s struggle of economic systems.

Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, NYC. He taught economics at Yale University, the City University of New York, and the University of Paris. Over the last 25 years, in collaboration with Stephen Resnick, he has developed a new approach to political economy that appears in several books co-authored by Resnick and Wolff and numerous articles by them separately and together. Professor Wolff’s weekly show, “Economic Update,” is syndicated on over 90 radio stations and goes to 55 million TV receivers via Free Speech TV and other networks.

Pentagon now says 64 troops injured in Iran strike
Jan. 31 (UPI) -- The Pentagon has again revised up the number of U.S. soldiers diagnosed with brain injuries following an Iranian missile attack on U.S. bases in Iraq earlier this month to 64.

The Defense Department first revealed 11 soldiers were injured in the missile attack by Iran nine days after it occurred on Jan. 8.

On the day of the attack, President Donald Trump said in televised remarks that no U.S. soldier was hurt and Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley noted casualties were averted as they received early warning of the strikes.

Since then, the number of casualties -- which the U.S. military considers an injury or death -- has been revised up several times, including Tuesday when the Pentagon said a total of 50 people had been diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury, or TBI, from the attack.

RELATED House passes 2 bills curtailing Trump's military power

On Thursday, the Pentagon said 14 more soldiers were diagnosed with TBI.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines TBI as "a disruption in the normal function of the Brian that can be caused by a bump, blow or jolt to the head or penetrating head injury."

Milley told reporters that TBI can take time to manifest so they continued to screen for it following the incident. Some of the soldiers, he said, have been evacuated to Europe and others to the United Staes. He said all those injured have been diagnosed with mild TBI and were not serious injuries.

"That's not to minimize or dismiss or anything," he said. "That's just to say that that's how we categorize casualties."

Active duty and reserve service members are at a higher risk of sustaining TBI than the general public, according to the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center.

Secretary of State Mark Esper said their initial reporting at the time was accurate but as they learned of the first injuries they expected more to follow.

RELATED Sexual assault reports at military academies up sharply last year

"I think we did our best to report no casualties, and I still believe that there were -- that morning there were no casualties reported," he said.

The injured troops are in the early stages of therapy, Milley said, and they will be monitored through their "lifetime of service and beyond."

Iran launched 16 missies at two Iraqi airbases in early January in retaliation to a U.S. airstrike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Crops.

RELATED Pentagon releases names of airmen killed in Afghanistan jet crash

The attacks occurred amid heightened tensions between the two countries that have since simmered after Iran shot down a Ukrainian airliner, killing all 176 on board, within hours of attacking the Iraqi bases. 

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AUSTRALIA
The sweet relief of rain after bushfires threaten disaster for our rivers 

Fire debris flowing into the Murray-Darling Basin will exacerbate the risk of fish and other aquatic life dying en masse

Paul McInerney, Klaus Joehnk and Gavin Rees for the Conversation
Tue 14 Jan 2020
 
Gwydir River, outside the NSW town of Moree, in the Murray-Darling Basin. Pollutants from this season’s bushfires may decimate aquatic life in basin waterways. Photograph: David Gray/Getty Images

When heavy rainfall eventually extinguishes the flames ravaging south-east Australia, another ecological threat will arise. Sediment, ash and debris washing into our waterways, particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin, may decimate aquatic life.

We’ve seen this before. Following 2003 bushfires in Victoria’s alpine region, water filled with sediment and debris (known as sediment slugs) flowed into rivers and lakes, heavily reducing fish populations. We’ll likely see it again after this season’s bushfire emergency.

Large areas of north-east Victoria have been burnt. While this region accounts only for 2% of the Murray-Darling Basin’s entire land area, water flowing in from north-east Victorian streams (also known as in-flow) contributes 38% of overall in-flows into the Murray-Darling Basin.

Bushfires threaten drinking water safety – and the consequences could last decades

Fire debris flowing into the Murray-Darling Basin will exacerbate the risk of fish and other aquatic life dying en masse, as witnessed in previous years.
What will flow into waterways?

Generally, bushfire ash comprises organic carbon and inorganic elements such as nitrogen, phosphorous and metals such as copper, mercury and zinc.

Sediment rushing into waterways can also contain large amounts of soil, since fire has consumed the vegetation that once bound the soil together and prevented erosion.

And carcinogenic chemicals – found in soil and ash in higher amounts following bushfires – can contaminate streams and reservoirs over the first year after the fire.

Flooding and debris flow after California’s 2014 Silverado wildfire – video.

How they harm aquatic life

Immediately following the bushfires, we expect to see an increase in streamflow when it rains, because burnt soil repels, not absorbs, water.

When vast amounts of carbon are present in a waterway, such as when carbon-loaded sediments and debris wash in, bacteria rapidly consumes the water’s oxygen. The remaining oxygen levels can fall below what most invertebrates and fish can tolerate.

These high sediment loads can also suffocate aquatic animals with a fine layer of silt which coats their gills and other breathing structures.

Habitats are also at risk. When sediment is suspended in the river and light can’t penetrate, suitable fish habitat is diminished. The murkier water also means there’s less opportunity for aquatic plants and algae to photosynthesise (turn sunshine to energy).

What’s more, many of Australia’s waterbugs, the keystone of river food webs, need pools with litter and debris for cover. They rely on slime on the surface of rocks and snags that contain algae, fungi and bacteria for food.

But heavy rain following fire can lead to pools and the spaces between cobbles to fill with silt, causing the waterbugs to starve and lose their homes.

This is bad news for fish, too. Any bug-eating fish that manage to avoid dying from a lack of oxygen can be faced with an immediate food shortage
 
Many fish were killed in Ovens River after the 2003 
bushfires from sediment slugs. 
Photograph: Arthur Rylah Institute

We saw this in 2003 after the sediment slug penetrated the Ovens River in the north-east Murray catchment. Researchers observed dead fish, stressed fish gulping at the water surface and freshwater crayfish walking out of the stream.

Long-term damage



Bushfires can increase the amount of nutrients in streams 100 fold. The effects can persist for several years before nutrient levels return to pre-fire conditions.

More nutrients in the water might sound like a good thing, but when there’s too much (especially nitrogen and phosphorous), coupled with warm temperatures, they can lead to excessive growth of blue-green algae. This algae can be toxic to people and animals and often closes down recreational waters.

Large parts of the upper Murray River catchment above Lake Hume has burnt, risking increases to nutrient loads within the lake and causing blue-green algae blooms which may flow downstream. This can impact communities from Albury all the way to the mouth of the Murray River in South Australia.

Some aquatic species are already teetering on the edge of their preferred temperature as stream temperatures rise from climate change. In places where bushfires have burnt all the way to the stream edge, decimating vegetation that provided shade, there will be less resistance to temperature changes and fewer cold places for aquatic life to hide.

Cooler hideouts are particularly important for popular angling species such as trout, which are highly sensitive to increased water temperature.

But while we can expect an increase in stream flow from water-repellent burnt soil, we know from previous bushfires that, in the long-term, stream flow will drop. This is because in the upper catchments, regenerating younger forests use more water than the older forests they replace from evapotranspiration (when plants release water vapour into the surrounding atmosphere, and evaporation from the surrounding land surface).

Even as an air pollution expert, these months of bushfire smoke have been a shock

Nancy Cushing for the Conversation

It’s particularly troubling for the Murray-Darling Basin, where large areas are already enduring ongoing drought. Bushfires may exacerbate existing dry conditions.
So what can we do?

We need to act as soon as possible. Understandably, priorities lie in removing the immediate and ongoing bushfire threat. But following that, we must improve sediment and erosion control to prevent debris being washed into water bodies in fire-affected areas.

One of the first things we can do is to restore areas used for bushfire control lines and minimise the movement of soil along access tracks used for bushfire suppression. This can be achieved using sediment barriers and other erosion-control measures in high-risk areas.

Longer-term, we can re-establish vegetation along waterways to help buffer temperature extremes and sediment loads entering streams.

It’s also important to introduce strategic water-quality monitoring programs that incorporate real-time sensing technology, providing an early warning system for poor water quality. This can help guide the management of our rivers and reservoirs in the years to come.

While our current focus is on putting the fires out, as it should be, it’s important to start thinking about the future and how to protect our waterways. Because inevitably, it will rain again.


• This story was first published in the Conversation