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Radical plans to overhaul the system of managing flood risk are called for by the Commons environment and rural affairs committee.

A team of scientists at Royal Botanical Gardens Kew embarks on the mammoth task of creating a single database of the world's medicinal plant species.

Strong winds that blew Malcolm Turnbull's South Australia itinerary off course this week provided more than 100% of the state's electricity needs for much of the day.

A mothballed uranium mine in north Queensland is at the centre of environmental contamination concerns.

One of the world's biggest telescope projects might be forced to move its location to a different continent.

There remains the potential for future quakes in Italy’s Apennines region, say scientists who have reviewed the latest satellite maps of the region.

Pressure is mounting for Adani’s Carmichael coal mine to proceed in inland Queensland. Recently the state government quietly gave the project “critical infrastructure” status to prioritise its development.

Providing this level of government status to a private enterprise is unusual – the last time it happened was in the early 2000s, and it is usually reserved for projects associated with national security, public education and health.

In response to delays and finance issues, Adani has also reportedly scaled back its initial proposal to increase the mine’s viability. There are also growing political calls to weaken the ability of environmental groups to challenge infrastructure projects.

Others have commented on the mine’s issues around employment, finance, and indigenous and rural communities. But as ecologists, there are four good reasons why we believe the mine should not go ahead.

Climate change

To meet the obligations under the Paris climate agreement to limit warming to well below 2℃, it is widely accepted that 90% of Australia’s coal will need to stay in the ground.

The proposed extraction of 2.3 billion tonnes of coal from the Carmichael mine flies in the face of global efforts to stop climate change. The emissions from the coal from this one mine would exceed 0.5% of the entire global carbon budget – the total amount of carbon than can be emitted without exceeding 2℃ warming.

Put another way, the 4.7 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions associated with the mine will be equivalent to nine times Australia’s overall emissions in 2014.

Yet these emissions have been given little consideration in the mine’s approval process. Adani’s Environmental Impact Statement makes little reference to the mine’s “downstream” emissions, and Australia’s former environment minister Greg Hunt, in his reasons for approving the mine, said the emissions would be “managed and mitigated through national and international emissions control frameworks”, including in those countries that import the coal.

Following an appeal challenging Hunt’s assertion that these emissions would have no directly quantifiable impact on the Great Barrier Reef, the Federal Court found that the minister was entitled to find that the burning of the coal will have no relevant impact on the reef.

The Great Barrier Reef

The shipping of coal from the Carmichael mine is contingent upon redeveloping the shipping port at Abbot Point, which requires dredging the seabed.

Following public opposition to dumping dredge spoil at sea, the most recently approved proposal is to dredge 1.1 million cubic metres of the seabed and dump the spoil on land next to the Caley Valley Wetlands.

The wetlands are important habitat for at least 22 migratory shore birds listed under the national environmental legislation, so the current plan is still contentious.

The current plan to dump the dredge spoil on land still won’t save the reef because the actual dredging process removes the seabed, along with the seagrass and animals that survive there.

Dredging also releases fine sediments, reducing water quality while smothering surrounding seagrass beds and coral reefs, with some models predicting the spread of fine sediments up to 200km from where the activity took place, within 90 days.

Corals exposed to dredge material are twice as prone to suffer disease. Improving water quality is a key factor for increasing the resilience of coral reefs to major bleaching events.

Water

The Carmichael Mine as currently proposed would extract 12 billion litres of water each year. Removing this water to access the coal seam will reduce water pressure in the aquifer (rock that stores water underground), with knock-on effects. The mine is situated close to the Great Artesian Basin, a key resource for agriculture across inland Australia

For instance, this drawdown could reduce water reaching the Mellaluka and Doongmabulla Springs Complexes, which have exceedingly high conservation value. These springs are some of the largest examples remaining and provide habitat for many species of specialised plants that are only known from spring-fed wetlands.

If the springs go dry, even temporarily, endemic species will not survive and will become extinct at the site.

Removing groundwater is expected to increase the duration of zero- or low-flow periods in the Carmichael River system. The communities and ecosystems in the region are already highly reliant on groundwater, due to variable surface waters. This could also affect the acidity and salinity of soils.

Clearing the land for the mine itself – an area equivalent to Queensland’s Moreton Island - will likely reduce local rainfall considerably.

Due to the high uncertainty surrounding groundwater, the independent scientific committee recommended improvements in groundwater modelling and monitoring before proceeding with the project. The high degree of uncertainty and inadequate treatment of groundwater impacts in the Environmental Impact Statement were the subject of legal proceedings in the Land Court in 2015.

Threatened species

The Carmichael mine site is home to the largest known population of the endangered southern Black-throated finch (Poephila cincta cincta), which has lost 80% of its former habitat.

The intact areas of continuous habitat in this region - such as that at the mine site - have so far remained in good condition and relatively free of the invasive weed species that are contributing to the finch’s decline in other parts of its range.

The Black-throated Finch Recovery Team highlighted their concern over the Carmichael development with state and federal agencies.

Adani has proposed to offset the loss of finch habitat resulting from the mine by protecting alternative, nearby habitat. But losing the best remaining habitat means the most viable population will be compromised. Experts have warned that offseting the loss of habitat from mine development will not avoid serious detrimental impacts on the finch.

Keeping this habitat intact, continuous and unfragmented will be key to maintaining its suitability for the finch. The only way to avoid severely impacting the finch is to avoid destroying its high-quality habitat – which would mean not digging the mine in these areas.

A brighter future

Giving the mine “critical infrastructure” status allows special dispensations to ignore normal approval processes. And this decision sends a signal to the wider community that this type of short-term thinking is front and centre in the state government’s mind.

Given the clear environmental impacts this mine will have, not just for the region but for the whole planet, we question the effectiveness of Australia’s current environmental laws that have allowed it to be approved. We believe it is time to place the entire social and environmental costs and benefits of this mine on the public table, and ask the question of the politicians who are meant to make decisions in our best interest: is the short-term profit of selling some coal worth it?

This article was written with the help of Claire Stewart and Courtney Jackson, students in the Masters of Conservation Science program and members of the Green Fire Science Lab at the University of Queensland.

April Reside receives funding from NESP Threatened Species Recovery Hub. She is a scientific advisor for the Black-throated Finch Recovery Team and is on Birdlife Australia's Research and Conservation Committee.

Bonnie Mappin receives funding from the University of Queensland Research Scholarship.

James Watson receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is the Director of Science and Research Initiative of the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Sarah Chapman is supported by an APA Scholarship. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland.

Stephen Kearney is supported by an APA Scholarship and has received funding from NESP Threatened Species Recovery Hub.

Thousands of baby Taricaya turtles have been released into the Peruvian Amazon as part of an effort to save them from extinction.

Report estimates continent is losing out on £25m in tourism spending each year due to the illegal wildlife trade that is killing elephants for their ivory

The poaching crisis wiping out Africa’s elephants is costing the continent’s economies millions in lost tourism revenue, according to a new study.

Researchers looked at visitor and elephant data across 25 countries, and modelled financial losses from fewer visitors in protected areas due to the illegal wildlife trade, which has caused elephant numbers to plummet by more than 100,000 in the last decade. They concluded that Africa was most likely losing $25m in tourism revenue a year.

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Industry concern after confidential impact assessment models scenarios for paring back the ‘priority dispatch’ system for clean energy

Windfarms and solar power could soon lose the privilege of getting priority over other energy sources on European electricity grids, leaked documents show.

Paring back the “priority dispatch” system could increase carbon emissions by up to 10%, according to a confidential EU impact assessment seen by the Guardian. But the document goes on to model four scenarios for doing just that, in a bid to make Europe’s energy generators more flexible and cost-competitive.

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Moral philosopher Raimond Gaita and poet Nick Drake discuss their journeys into wild landscapes, that hold up a confronting mirror to ourselves, our ethics and our politics.

China leads the charge for emissions efficiency, but faster progress is needed to meet the Paris climate goals, reports Climate Change News

The amount of carbon needed to power the global economy fell to record lows in 2015, as coal consumption in major economies plummeted.

PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) annual Low Carbon Economy Index report has found that the global carbon intensity (emissions per unit of GDP) fell by 2.8%.

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The BBC is preparing to broadcast live from Churchill in Canada, which has become known as the polar bear capital of the world.

In a rare comment on a foreign election, veteran climate chief says a wise political leader should make policy in line with global trends

China on Tuesday rejected a plan by US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to back out of a global climate change pact, saying a wise political leader should make policy in line with global trends, a rare comment on a foreign election.

The world is moving towards balancing environmental protection and economic growth, China’s top climate change negotiator told reporters, in response to a query on how China would work with a Trump administration on climate change.“If they resist this trend, I don’t think they’ll win the support of their people, and their country’s economic and social progress will also be affected,” Xie Zhenhua said.

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Claxton, Norfolk Supporters of development seem to see nature as an abstract idea, a theoretical resource, which can withstand any amount of imposition

I was amused recently by a neighbour who described her love-affair with a robin called “Robbie” – a decade-long passion that’s probably three times the average robin’s life. Since both robin sexes sing and cannot always tell each other apart, my neighbour may actually have loved many Robbies over the years. Yet no matter, her love is true.

It’s interesting to compare my neighbour’s engagement with nature to the public responses at Lough Beg in County Derry, Northern Ireland, which I visited recently. Lough Beg is part of “Seamus Heaney Country”, the landscape central to the Nobel laureate’s magnificent poetry. A proposed four-lane highway would violate Heaney’s heartland and wildlife areas protected by numerous international designations. Yet, in the absence of protest from more mainstream NGOs (such as the RSPB and Ulster Wildlife Trust), a friend is fighting a lone legal battle, supported by his own money and crowd sourcing.

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Aquaculture is in the spotlight again, with an ABC investigation raising concerns over the sustainability of the expansion of Tasmania’s salmon-farming industry.

Controversies over fish farming are newsworthy and emotive, particularly when company profits and communities are at stake. Unfortunately, independent scientific evidence is often used selectively or even ignored in these debates.

Science is an essential tool for managers and regulators when planning industry expansion, and Australia’s aquaculture industry does have a strong research base.

Fish farming can be sustainable, but only if it takes proper account of scientific research – and only if that research moves fast enough to give an up-to-date picture of the risks.

Demand for sustainable aquaculture

The ever-growing demand for seafood, combined with the limited opportunity to increase catch from wild fisheries, means we need more aquaculture. Farming already produces roughly 50% of the global seafood supply, and farmed fish production now exceeds that of farmed beef.

Intensive aquaculture is relatively new, with supply rising tenfold since the mid-1980s. It is thus unique among food production sectors in that its initial expansion has taken place in an era of unprecedented scrutiny from government, environmentalists and the community.

This scrutiny is warranted, given that many fish farms are in coastal waters considered as a multi-use, common resource. In Australia, the industry is subject to high environmental standards and constantly evolving management.

Intensive aquaculture has several inherent advantages over other forms of agriculture (besides the intrinsic health benefits of seafood). These include efficient food conversion (it takes just 1.3kg or less of feed to produce 1kg of salmon, compared with 1.8kg for chicken and 2.6kg for pork); relatively limited use of fresh water; and the absence of fertilisers.

However, there are also significant sustainability challenges, including limiting marine feed ingredients; waste management; the use of drugs, colourants and other chemicals; impacts on wild marine species; management of fish health and welfare; site selection; and societal attitudes.

The aquaculture research community is acutely aware of these challenges. At a World Aquaculture conference in Adelaide in 2014, the program was dominated by issues related to sustainable development.

Planning for the future

In the forseeable future, world aquaculture production is projected to grow at least at its current and long term rate of 6.5% a year. Australia’s industry, while representing less than 0.1% of world production, is growing even faster: more than 7% a year over the past decade.

Given cost constraints, this future expansion will be mostly inland or in coastal marine environments. Scientific input will be crucial if this expansion is to be managed in a sustainable way.

For example, coastal aquaculture operations are exposed to conditions that create good years and bad years. Understanding the spatial and temporal variation in these conditions is critical. It is not in the industry’s interest to risk growing fish in marginal conditions.

Conditions are also becoming more challenging as a result of climate change – the oceans off Australia’s southeast are among the fastest warming on the planet.

Enlightened aquaculture businesses are trying to anticipate these conditions by working with scientists including CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology to understand future environmental risks on a range of timescales.

Seven-day ocean forecasts and medium-term outlooks covering several months will help the industry make decisions about cage locations, stocking density, diet, disease management, and when to harvest.

Monthly forecast of ocean temperatures for the east coast of Tasmania for the coming months Author provided

Meanwhile, longer-term planning, on time scales of years and decades, will be informed by climate models. For example, the industry can aim to breed fish to cope with changing conditions such as warmer water.

Of course, forecasts are never 100% accurate, meaning that aquaculture businesses still need to account for risk and uncertainty.

Planning for now

Science is clearly crucial for effective future planning. But it is also important to ensure that current management is the best it can be, and that current risks are managed.

In the case of finfish aquaculture, the potential for localised impacts on the seabed around sea cages is well known, and monitoring and management strategies well established.

The potential for adverse effects on the water in and around cages is also important, and water column monitoring is increasingly a management requirement.

Broader ecosystem interactions – such as changes in fauna and flora on reefs around cages – are progressively being recognised as an issue for many aquaculture regulators and managers.

As scientists’ understanding of these risks increases, regulators and managers can implement strategies to protect a broader suite of environmental assets and values.

However, there is no “one size fits all” management approach for this rapidly growing industry, and strategies need to be considered in the local context (ecological, social and economic). Science can provide a better understanding of a particular scenario, but it is up to managers to use this information wisely – and to exercise caution where risks are not well understood.

Fast responses

Management may aspire to be “best practice”, but it is important to recognise that this does not mean that it will be static or finite. Management should respond to changes in the environment (both natural and social) and should adjust as the science and understanding develops.

It is important to acknowledge the different but complementary roles that science and management play in aquaculture planning. Scientists seek to understand the situation (such as the current or future environmental conditions) and share that understanding impartially and objectively. Regulators and managers need to make decisions with a much broader mandate, and as such need to consider factors beyond the science alone. Good planning needs to recognise the value of both.

Aquaculture development and policy needs to be able to trust the science, which in turn, must be delivered in a timely manner, to ensure long-term sustainability of this industry.

Graham Mair receives funding from FRDC, the commonwealth government and industry for research related to aquaculture. He is a director of Australian Seafood Industries (ASI) Ltd. which is a company that manages a selective breeding program for Pacific Oysters. Graham Mair is a member and Past-President of the World Aquaculture Society which is a professional society that has no advocacy role.

Alistair Hobday is involved in research developing short-term, seasonal and climate scale forecasts which are used by marine industries, including salmon aquaculture. This work has been funded by FRDC, CSIRO, BOM, and co-investment from industry associations.

Catriona Macleod is an environmental scientist with a focus on environmental impact assessment and sediment remediation in the coastal zone and as such has been involved with research related to salmon aquaculture. She has received funding from a number of different government and philanthropic sources, including the FRDC and the Tasmanian state government.

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