We need to come to terms that the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem and coral reef ecosystems globally as we know them, are facing extinction. It is a climate emergency. The reef is our canary in a coalmine and it is now dying from the greenhouse gases we have released.
Early surveys of the Great Barrier Reef showed that 93 percent of reefs were affected by coral bleaching. Scientists have been undertaking extensive aerial and underwater surveys since then to refine these initial survey results. Scientists from the Coral Reef Centre of Excellence are now reporting that over 35 percent of coral north of Cairns in the northern and central regions are now dead or dying.
The impact of coral bleaching changes dramatically from north to south along the 2300km length of the Reef.
“We found on average, that 35% of the corals are now dead or dying on 84 reefs that we surveyed along the northern and central sections of the Great Barrier Reef, between Townsville and Papua New Guinea,” says Professor Terry Hughes, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University (JCU).
“Some reefs are in much better shape, especially from Cairns southwards, where the average mortality is estimated at only 5%. This year is the third time in 18 years that the Great Barrier Reef has experienced mass bleaching due to global warming, and the current event is much more extreme than we’ve measured before."
“These three events have all occurred while global temperatures have risen by just 1 degree C above the pre-industrial period. We’re rapidly running out of time to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” concluded Terry Hughes.
Leadbeater's Possum, also known as Victoria's fairy possum, is one of those species fighting for survival against the odds and against the juggernaut that is human industrial society.
Finally last month, on the recommendation of the Threatened Species Scientific Committee, Leadbeater's Possum (Gymnobelideus leadbeateri) was upgraded to being listed as critically endangered under the EPBC Act. The announcement was made by Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt on April 22, 2015.
"The challenges facing this iconic species are significant. It has undergone very severe population declines in recent decades with numbers having decreased by more than 80 per cent since the mid 1980s." said Hunt. "That is why we will be working closely with the Victorian Government to find a solution which will help save the possum for future generations."
Victorian Environment Minister Lisa Neville told the Age on May 3, 2015 (Minister flags new national park within this term to save the possum) that a Great Forest National Park could become a reality during the current Government's term "Yes, I think so. I'm hoping that's the case, but I also think that will come with a commitment and a plan around the protection of jobs and workers and their families."
But with Vic Forests continuing to log old growth forest coupes in the Central Highlands, the question becomes one of will a new National Park come too late to save Leadbeater's possum species, and it's associated forest ecosystem, from extinction?
Leadbeater's possum species lives in the upper canopy of mountain ash forests in the Central Highlands of Victoria, and needs a mature forest with plenty of old trees for nesting holes, and younger regrowth trees for food. The species has an estimated 1500 individuals alive. There has been up to 80 per cent decline of the species population since the 1980s.
The Central Highlands forests of Victoria are some of the world's most carbon dense in terms of carbon sequestration, and yet this is seldom included when assessing their economic value for forestry and logging exploitation. Logging of mountain ash forests also increases bushfire risk and the risk of megafires, and creates the potential for a landscape trap that could change the ecosystem permanently.
As a result of the Black Saturday bushfires in February 2009 around 43-45 per cent of the Leadbeater's possum population was decimated due to the loss of much of the old growth mountain ash forest. To conserve habitat remaining old growth forest should have been reserved, instead the rate of logging of these forests has continued apace. A study by Burns et al (2014) (Full PDF) concluded there is a 92% chance the Leadbeater’s ecosystem in the Victoria central highlands will collapse within 50 years.
"Our overall ranking of risk of collapse for the ecosystem was Critically Endangered. We are confident that this risk category is appropriate because all 39 scenarios modelled indicated a ≥92% chance of ecosystem collapse by 2067. Our findings highlight the important need for timely policy reform to facilitate improved management of the mountain ash ecosystem in Victoria. In particular, there needs to be greater protection of remaining areas of unburned forest, and restoration activities in parts of the forest estate. Implementation of these strategies will require a significant reduction in logging pressure on the mountain ash ecosystem." concluded the study.
Leadbeater's possum is not a very big creature, weighing in at about 150 grams, but it's small size makes it very photogenic and appealing when one is captured or displayed at Healsville sanctuary, run by Zoos Victoria. In the wild they are seldom seen as they are mostly nocturnal creatures foraging during the night with their big eyes, and resting in their nests in tree hollows during the day.
The possum flits from tree to tree like a fairy in the canopy at night, using its prehensile tail to carry twigs back to its nest. This creature has already come back from extinction once. For more than half the twentieth century traces of the creature were not seen in Gippsland where the last traces where previously found, and it was feared the species was already extinct. Then, in March 1961 it was re-discovered living in the Central Highlands by Eric Wilkinson, a junior officer in the Victorian Museum.
In 1968 it was made one of the faunal emblems of Victoria. You would think that being a symbol of Victoria would hold your species in good stead to have your habitat and ecosystem preserved. But, succeeding state government's have only paid the merest lip service to taking the necessary conservation steps to protect this species by protecting it's ecosystem. Logging the old growth forests has continued under the control of government body VicForests under both Liberal and Labor governments. Logging contracts and employment, including to make Reflex paper, have trumped conservation action at every turn, it seems.
In 2013 two distinguished environmental scientists accused the Victorian Government of forestry policies knowingly designed to drive Leadbeater's Possum to extinction. There was a concerted campaign by conservationists in the 2014 state election for the creation of a Great Forest National Park covering much of the Central Highlands. But the Labor policy when released was non-committal stating the need for discussions between all stakeholders. Labor support for a new national park was dropped seemingly at the behest of the powerful Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) due to concerns over employment loss, according to the Age report.
A new National Park would add 355,000 hectares to existing national parks and reserves stretching from Kinglake across the Yarra Ranges to Mt Baw Baw and north up to Lake Eildon, and protect forests around the tourism hubs of Healesville and Warburton. In 2014 over 30 national and state environmental organisations endorsed a statement for creation of a new national park, along with international conservation luminaries Sir David Attenborough and Jane Goodall.
Professor David Lindenmayer is the acknowledged world expert in the montane forests of Central Victoria, the ecosystem of Leadbeater's possum. Shortly after the species was listed as critically endangered he wrote an article at the Conversation where he clearly states what needs to be done to save the ecoystem and species.
"The answer is that the processes that threaten the persistence of the species must be removed. This is basic conservation science. In the case of Leadbeater’s Possum, the key process threatening the species is industrial clearfelling." wrote Professor Lindenmayer.
Meanwhile, the logging and burning continues, although the Mt St Leonard Rusty coupe was given a last minute reprieve at the end of April by Environment Minister Lisa Neville:
Nannas sitting opposite #Rusty protesting the logging of Toolangi forest home of Leadbeater's possum. pic.twitter.com/BegGg871DE
Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg takes us through and explains a controlled experiment his Institute is conducting in coral reef ecosystem reaction to various temperature and carbon dioxide environments.
Hoegh-Guldberg is Director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland and an important authority on tropical marine biology, coral reef ecosystems and climate change.
He argues that Coral Reef ecosystems have already changed significantly from pre-industrial times, and will change even further as human carbon emissions increase in the atmosphere with many species likely to be pushed to extinction due to heat stress and ocean acidification from anthropogenic climate change.
Sea surface temperatures around Australia in 2013 were unusually warm reported the Australian Bureau of Meteorology in it's annual climate statement. Record ocean temperatures were recorded for January and February, with November the second-highest on record. This continues a long term trend for increasing sea surface temperatures around Australia and globally.
Eighty two percent of native freshwater fish species in California, including salmon, are likely to become extinct on present trends within the next century due to climate change, reports a study lead by Professor Peter Moyle from University of California Davis.
The study - Climate Change Vulnerability of Native and Alien Freshwater Fishes of California: A Systematic Assessment Approach - found that, of 121 native fish species, 82 percent are likely to be driven to extinction or very low numbers as climate change speeds the decline of already depleted populations. In contrast, the study reported that 19 percent of the 50 non-native fish species in the state face a similar risk of extinction. Many non-native fish are likely to thrive in changed aquatic conditions, mostly at the expense of native species.
"If present trends continue, much of the unique California fish fauna will disappear and be replaced by alien fishes, such as carp, largemouth bass, fathead minnows and green sunfish," said Peter Moyle, a professor of fish biology at UC Davis who has been documenting the biology and status of California fish for the past 40 years.
"Disappearing fish will include not only obscure species of minnows, suckers and pupfishes, but also coho salmon, most runs of steelhead trout and Chinook salmon, and Sacramento perch," Moyle said.
While much scientific and public attention has focussed on the many species endangered or on the brink of extinction, the impacts of climate change on species biodiversity are much larger. A landmark study looking at nearly 50,000 common species with widespread ranges has determined that half of these animals and two thirds of the examined plant species will lose more than half their range in the next 70 years, by 2080, if nothing is done to slow down the rate of global warming through cutting carbon emissions.
While there has been targeted research on how climate change impacts certain endangered and rare species, there have been few broad studies of how an increase in global temperature and climate change will affect more common species distribution and range.
Lizards are again in the news as being under threat from climate change. No, not those two footed political lizards we call politicians, who we elect again and again and who continue to support the corporate greed and short-sightedness of ripping the heart out of mother earth, destroying the environment and climate through subsidizing increasingly expensive fossil fuel extraction. We should be definitely trying to make them extinct. I am talking about four footed reptilian lizards who have evolved live birth as an evolutionary adaptation to living in cold climates. These are South American lizards who have successful adapted to a wide range of ecosystems.
I reported in May 2010 on the challenges facing lizards with climate change in "Why don't the people get rid of the lizards?". We are doing a very good job of driving the four footed reptilian lizards to extinction. Scientists estimate that "by 2080 local extinctions are projected to reach 39% worldwide, and species extinctions may reach 20%.". The 2010 scientific paper - Erosion of Lizard Diversity by Climate Change and Altered Thermal Niches - came to the conclusion that "lizards have already crossed a threshold for extinctions caused by climate change."
The Centre for Biological Diversity reports that as a result of their 2008 petition, the US Federal Government has added Ringed seals and Bearded seals, found in the waters off Alaska, to the list of endangered species.
Both seal species are dependent on the existence of sea ice which is rapidly declining during summer, with some scientists saying the Arctic could be largely ice free as early as 2016. These are the first species since polar bears to be protected primarily because of climate change threats.
“Arctic animals face a clear danger of extinction from climate change,” said Shaye Wolf, the Center’s climate science director. “The Endangered Species Act offers strong protections for these seals, but we can’t save the Arctic ecosystem without confronting the broader climate crisis. The Obama administration has to take decisive action, right now, against greenhouse gas pollution to preserve a world filled with ice seals, walruses and polar bears.”
In a new study marine scientists warn that the rate of ocean acidification presently occurring is unprecedented in the last 300 million years. This is due to dissolving carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, much of which human activity has contributed over the last 200 years through the use of fossil fuels. The extent of the acidification and rate of acidification enhances the prospect for a mass marine extinction event this century.
It looks like cold blooded species (ectotherms) in the tropics could be at an extreme risk of extinction with just moderate increases in temperature according to scientific studies. The latest study looked at the effects of increased temperature on the entire life cycle of one tropical ectotherm species, suggesting reproduction may suffer a catastrophic reduction as the climate warms with just moderate increases in tropical temperatures. The research has possible ramifications for all tropical ectotherms - Insects, spiders, frogs, snakes, turtles and other reptiles.
This is not the first indication that global warming impact on tropical species is greater than expected. Small increases in temperature in tropical ecosystems can have large impacts as many species are already near their thermal physiological maximum. Many species also have small dispersal ranges which increases their risk of extinction through small changes in habitat or environment.
Scientists meeting at the University of Copenhagen have warned that biodiversity is declining rapidly throughout the world, describing the loss of species as the 6th mass extinction event on the earth. The world is losing species at a rate that is 100 to 1000 times faster than the natural extinction rate, with the challenges of conserving the world's species larger than mitigating the negative effects of global climate change.
While writing the article on Biodiversity crisis: Habitat loss and climate change causing 6th mass extinction I came across this film - Call of Life - Facing the mass extinction made by Species Alliance and released in 2010. I found the interviews with scientists and academics engaging and in the sum total empowering to face this issue of the biodiversity crisis and the 6th mass extinction which humans are causing.
Two new scientific papers have emphasised the threat to biodiversity from the impacts of climate change and habitat loss. A study by US ecologist Mark Urban identified that predictions of the loss of animal and plant diversity due to climate change may be greatly underestimated as most predictions of the rate of extinctions don't take into account species competition and movement. A second key global study by University of Queensland and Australian CSIRO scientists emphasised the link between current climate, climate change and habitat loss on plants and animals on a global scale.
Multiple processes are driving the global loss in biodiversity and understanding the synergistic effects on animal and plant populations will be important for wildlife conservation efforts this century.
Species are already moving in response to climate change. Recent research on the velocity of climate change has estimated the average movement of climate envelopes at 27.3 km/decade on land, and 21.7 km/decade in the ocean.
A report issued last week from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) has strongly warned of the damage to the health of the world's oceans and marine life and that if the current business as usual trajectory of damage continues "that the world's ocean is at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history."
Dr. Alex Rogers, Scientific Director of IPSO and Professor of Conservation Biology at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, gives the overview of the main problems affecting the ocean — and some suggested solutions.
Early this year the African Penguin was redlisted by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as in danger of extinction. In response to a 2006 petition by the Centre for Biological Diversity the US Interior Department has listed the African penguin, the only species of penguin breeding on the African continent, for protection under the US Endangered Species Act.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) upgraded the status of the Afican Penguin in 2010 to endangered citing "recent data has revealed that it is undergoing a very rapid population decline, probably as a result of commercial fisheries and shifts in prey populations. This trend currently shows no sign of reversing, and immediate conservation action is required to prevent further declines."
"why don't the people get rid of the lizards?" said Arthur Dent. Well it seems the people are doing very well at getting rid of the lizards and koalas and many other species, due to climate change. Yep, it is our carbon emissions which is driving up global mean temperatures, altering the climate and driving lizards to extinction. The quote from Arthur Dent comes from Douglas Adams explaining the concept of democracy in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Unfortunately, it seems we are getting rid of the wrong lizards - the ones with four feet that eat insects and are important prey for other small carnivores. That just leaves the cold-blooded political Lizards we have elected to office, still in charge and warming themselves in the glow from the fossil fuel vested interests.
Anthropogenic climate change is driving Ocean Acidification threatening marine ecosystems, according to a new scientific paper. "This will create conditions not seen on Earth for at least 40 million years. These changes are taking place at rates as much as 100 times faster than they ever have over the last tens of millions of years" Prof. Hoegh-Guldberg said, "Conditions are likely to become very hostile for calcifying species in the north Atlantic and Pacific over the next decade and in the Southern Ocean over the next few decades," the researchers warn.
Just finished watching The Acid Test: The Global Challenge of Ocean Acidification short documentary on Ocean Acidification produced by the US based Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). It explains the issue and connection with global warming and climate change - but a little too simply for my preference - but the videography and production is excellent. 21:35 long. The actress Sigourney Weaver does the narration in this doco. For something a bit more in depth see marine chemist Dr Andrew Dickson from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography (56 min) presentation near the end of this article.
Scientiists from Bristol University say that ocean acidification is ocurring at a faster pace than anytime in the last 65 million years, raising the possibility of a mass marine extinction event similar to what ocurred about 55 million years ago.
Marine and climate scientists have called for at least a 25% cut in carbon emissions from developed countries like Australia to save the Great Barrier Reef. A 25% cut in emissions would amount to peaking at less than 450ppm atmospheric CO2 and a 50/50 chance of staying below 2 degrees Centigrade. And by 2050, emissions would have to decline by up to 90 percent below 2000 levels. Even with this scenario tropical reefs may be substantially degraded.
"why don't the people get rid of the lizards?" said Arthur Dent. Well it seems the people are doing very well at getting rid of the lizards and koalas and many other species, due to climate change. Yep, it is our carbon emissions which is driving up global mean temperatures, altering the climate and driving lizards to extinction. The quote from Arthur Dent comes from Douglas Adams explaining the concept of democracy in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Anthropogenic climate change is driving Ocean Acidification threatening marine ecosystems, according to a new scientific paper. "This will create conditions not seen on Earth for at least 40 million years. These changes are taking place at rates as much as 100 times faster than they ever have over the last tens of millions of years" Prof. Hoegh-Guldberg said, "Conditions are likely to become very hostile for calcifying species in the north Atlantic and Pacific over the next decade and in the Southern Ocean over the next few decades," the researchers warn.