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Wild horses are wreaking havoc in Australia's mountains Long Road Photography (formerly Aff)/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

The fate of wild horses in Australia’s alps is once again stirring passions, particularly the idea of shooting them. The suggestion has prompted street protests against it, and public statements from academics (including myself) endorsing the idea.

Victoria and New South Wales have not yet made decisions on what to do about the horses. In New South Wales, public comment has closed on the Kosciuszko National Park Draft Wild Horse Management Plan 2016, and now public servants have to weigh up the comments, take heed of political fears and sensitivities, and come up with a way forward.

Victoria’s Greater Alpine National Parks management plan has been tabled in parliament, arguing for feral horse control but leaving options open.

The evidence that wild horses need to be removed from Australia’s alps because of their impact on high country ecosystems and species is very strong. The debate now revolves around the ethics of how to remove horses, and their role in Australian culture.

Horse welfare

This issue of horse welfare has recently been substantially clarified in a report as part of reviewing the Kosciuszko plan. The report, prepared by an Independent Technical Reference Group, scores the welfare outcomes of a full range of horse control, considering pursuing horses, capturing and transporting them, and their ultimate fate.

Although a common perspective is that it would be nice to round up the horses and move them out of the national park, it turns out that this would result in one of the worst animal welfare outcomes.

The vast majority of horses captured (82%) in Kosciuszko National Park are not re-homed, but killed in abattoirs. The long journey to abattoirs in South Australia and Queensland was ranked as having a severe impact on horse welfare, rated seven out of a maximum score of eight.

In contrast, aerial shooting, when properly implemented by well-trained pilots and marksmen, had a moderate effect on horse welfare during the short chase (rated four out of eight), and there were no concerns about suffering when the horse is shot, as it is quickly killed.

Even fertility management had an impact rated six out of eight (and cannot be implemented at the scale needed to solve the Kosciuszko horse problem).

Animal welfare in the environment

There are around 10,000 wild horses in Australia’s alps, and 6,000 in Kosciuszko. By eating and trampling habitat, horses likely cause many individual native animals to suffer. These impacts are generally unseen, and are typically neglected when considering the ethics of culling horses.

Horses have a negative impact on alpine ecosystems, upon which native species depend, including the broad-toothed rat and the alpine water skink(critically endangered in Victoria).

In all arguments about culling invasive animals (or over-abundant native animals) it is a fundamental logical mistake to ignore the impacts of pests on the welfare of other animals, on the viability of populations and on the risk of species' extinction.

In his article A “Practical” Ethic for Animals, animal welfare expert David Fraser proposes four principles that, if applied, would ensure full consideration of the ethics of culling horses.

There are:

(1) to provide good lives for the animals in our care

(2) to treat suffering with compassion

(3) to be mindful of unseen harm

(4) to protect the life-sustaining processes and balances of nature.

This set of principles gives weight to both humane control methods, as well as suffering of other species if the culling is not undertaken, impacts on populations and risks of extinction.

While it is nicer if you don’t have to kill horses, when you weigh up the misery horses suffer if left in the wild, the unseen impacts on native animals, the damage to ecosystems and the likely heightened risk of extinction of already threatened species, leaving horses in the Australian alps is not a choice with ethics on its side.

Part of Australian culture

A cultural affiliation with horses is widespread around the world, including in the US, Spain and many South American countries.

Australia is no exception, epitomised by the poem “The Man from Snowy River)” by Banjo Paterson. This stock horse culture is widely celebrated in Australia. We saw it at the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony where stock horses were celebrated alongside those other classic Australian icons of lawnmowers and clothes lines.

Culture can be celebrated in a range of ways. We don’t celebrate the Gallipoli landing using actual violence, we don’t celebrate anniversaries of the moon landing by sending astronauts there.

We don’t need to celebrate Australia’s stock-horse culture by having horses in fragile alpine ecosystems where they cause environmental damage. There are other ways to celebrate culture, including through the network of mountain huts, many originally built for men rounding up cattle or horses. Indeed, there is already extensive signage highlighting this cultural history at huts around Victoria.

There may also be ways to maintain small wild-horse populations through collaborations across private properties around the mountains of NSW and Victoria. These would open up opportunities for tourism by providing “man-from-snowy-river” cultural experiences in places more appropriate than our national parks.

Australia has one of the largest feral horse populations on the planet, with 400,000 horses roaming the country. Areas set aside for nature cover less than 10% of New South Wales and 17% of Victoria. There is plenty of space outside reserves for horses, but conversely, very little area set aside for our natural heritage.

Considering the ethics of balance, one that takes into account humane treatment of horses, native wildlife, species and ecosystems, horses should be rapidly and humanely removed from alpine parks in Victoria and New South Wales.

Don Driscoll is affiliated with the Ecological Society of Australia and the Society for Conservation Biology.

Detection of ‘abundant’ magnetite particles raises concerns because of suggested links to Alzheimer’s disease

Toxic nanoparticles from air pollution have been discovered in human brains in “abundant” quantities, a newly published study reveals.

The detection of the particles, in brain tissue from 37 people, raises concerns because recent research has suggested links between these magnetite particles and Alzheimer’s disease, while air pollution has been shown to significantly increase the risk of the disease. However, the new work is still a long way from proving that the air pollution particles cause or exacerbate Alzheimer’s.

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John Harris provides, as usual, an excellent piece on what is wrong with British politics (Politics can’t heal until politicians stand clear of the revolving door, 3 September). However, former politicians and functionaries moving to lucrative jobs in the private sector and people from the private sector moving to less lucrative but influential positions in government is neither new nor a particularly British or European malady. What is missing from Harris and sadly from the Guardian in general is the recognition that this is how capitalism works at home, and is a key feature of how capitalism works globally.

How often do we hear the plea from politicians, functionaries, and corporate executives exposed for questionable practices that they were “doing nothing wrong”. In the strictly legal sense this is often correct, but it only highlights how capitalism and the state work hand in hand. Corporate sponsorship of the Paris climate change meetings is only the most important of recent manifestations of this phenomenon, in this case not only helping to explain why people around the world appear to be losing faith in conventional politics, but also why so little is done to get to the roots of why fossil-fuelled capitalist globalisation has been allowed to put the very existence of the planet at serious risk.
Leslie Sklair
London

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IUCN report warns that ‘truly staggering’ rate of warming is changing the behaviour of marine species, reducing fishing zones and spreading disease

The soaring temperature of the oceans is the “greatest hidden challenge of our generation” that is altering the make-up of marine species, shrinking fishing areas and starting to spread disease to humans, according to the most comprehensive analysis yet of ocean warming.

The oceans have already sucked up an enormous amount of heat due to escalating greenhouse gas emissions, affecting marine species from microbes to whales, according to an International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) report involving the work of 80 scientists from a dozen countries.

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Much of Earth's life-giving carbon could have been delivered in an asteroid collision about 4.4 billion years ago, a theory suggests.

Ice taken from a retreating Alpine glacier is moved into a freezer at the start of a mission to store it permanently in Antarctica.

Ice taken from a retreating Alpine glacier is moved into a freezer at the start of a mission to store it permanently in Antarctica.

Giant storms that wreak havoc across China, Japan, Korea and the Philippines have grown 50% stronger in the past 40 years due to warming seas

The destructive power of the typhoons that wreak havoc across China, Japan, Korea and the Philippines has intensified by 50% in the past 40 years due to warming seas, a new study has found.

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Europe's comet lander Philae, last seen in November 2014, has been identified in new pictures from the Rosetta probe.

Fans of the panda are celebrating its removal from the endangered list – and it’s not the only species to have been pulled back from the brink

The most famous thing about pandas, apart from them spending all day eating bamboo and not having sex, is how endangered they are. However, the animal has just been moved off the “endangered” species list by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Although the giant panda is still considered “vulnerable”, its population is much healthier – there are thought to be 1,864 adults, and although there isn’t a definitive number of cubs, the total population now exceeds 2,000. It is, noted the IUCN report, “a positive sign confirming that the Chinese government’s efforts to conserve this species are effective”. Few conservation measures have been as intensive or high profile. The work included increasing the number of panda reserves, protecting forests (such as reforestation and banning logging in panda habitats) and creating “corridors” so isolated wild panda populations can mix and strengthen the gene pool. Anti-poaching patrols, and moving humans out of reserves also helped. Pandas are still at risk, particularly from a reduction in bamboo availability due to climate change, but it shows conservation efforts pay off. Here are some other animals that have been brought back from the brink:

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Freddie Mercury is honoured with an asteroid named after him to mark what would have been his 70th birthday.

Letter from 36 MPs urges Theresa May to redirect billions of pounds of post-Brexit subsidies towards environmental and public services

Dozens of Conservative MPs have written to the prime minister, Theresa May, urging her to shift billions of pounds of post-Brexit farm subsidies towards protecting and improving the environment.

The 36 MPs, including former environment ministers, also urge May to maintain the strong protection for wildlife and water provided by EU directives. During the EU referendum campaign, farming minister George Eustice campaigned for the leave camp and said the directives were “spirit-crushing” and “would go”.

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Human skulls and other artefacts found aboard the Tudor shipwreck, the Mary Rose, are being exhibited online for the first time.

Authority’s recommendations will ‘sanction further delay’ with ‘serious consequences’ for Australia, minority report says

Despite its brevity, the dissenting report from two members of the government’s supposedly independent Climate Change Authority has landed with a dull and uncompromising thud.

Last week the CCA published its report advising the government what it should and shouldn’t do in the wake of the Paris climate agreement. In short, the report recommended the government keep the chief pillars of its current policies, but make a few tweaks here and there.

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Researchers have captured images of an extremely rare white southern right whale calf off swimming with its mother off the coast of Western Australia.

The fossilised skeleton of a 170 million-year-old Jurassic predator discovered on the Isle of Skye is being unveiled in Edinburgh.

A selection of images which document a family common weasels throughout the seasons scoop the top prize this year.

Winning images are chosen from thousands of entries in fifteen separate categories including a special film category for Wildlife in HD Video and two junior categories to encourage young people to connect with nature through photography. For more information see the awards website.

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Mosques across Morocco will be fitted with solar energy systems in government scheme to boost clean energy awareness

Six hundred “green mosques” are to be created in Morocco by March 2019 in a national consciousness-raising initiative that aims to speed the country’s journey to clean energy.

If all goes to plan, the green revamp will see LED lighting, solar thermal water heaters and photovoltaic systems installed in 100 mosques by the end of this year.

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When President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping announced their countries’ ratification of the Paris climate agreement ahead of last weekend’s G20 meeting in Hangzhou, they boosted its chances of coming into force by the end of this year, some 12 months after the deal was brokered last December.

To enter into force, the Paris Agreement requires ratification by at least 55 nations which together account for at least 55% of global greenhouse emissions. It will then become legally binding on those parties that have both signed and ratified it. These thresholds ensure that the deal has broad legitimacy among states, but are also low enough to limit the opportunities for blocking by states that may oppose its progress.

Aside from China and the United States – the world’s two largest emitters, which together produce 39% of the world’s emissions – another 24 countries have ratified the agreement.

To get over the threshold, it now only needs the support of a handful of major emitters like the European Union (a bloc of 27 countries producing some 10% of global emissions), India, Russia or Brazil. Ratification by countries such as Australia, South Africa and the United Kingdom (each of which contributes about 1.5% of emissions) would also contribute significantly to this momentum.

A new impetus

The contrasts with earlier times could not be greater. Although the Paris Agreement’s predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol, was finalised in 1997, it was resoundingly rejected by the US Congress. Its main objection was that the treaty did not impose emissions targets on developing countries, including China and India.

This blocking, predominantly by the United States (although Russia also stalled for eight years), delayed its coming into force until early 2005. Even after that, the United States – by far the world’s largest emitter at the time – continued trenchantly to oppose it for another decade.

Political turbulence around Kyoto stymied the development of a coherent global approach to greenhouse-gas reduction for more than a decade. This contributed significantly to the debacle at the 2009 climate negotiations in Copenhagen, where the United States and China were visibly at loggerheads.

After Copenhagen, a new approach began to evolve – one that better reflected the emissions contributions of fast-emerging economies. This included an inclusive, voluntary approach in which both developed and developing nations nominated their own preferred emissions targets.

These elements, enshrined in the Paris Agreement, were attractive to the United States and China. Moreover, as a treaty carefully crafted to allow countries to draft their own national mitigation commitments and to permit the use of existing laws, the Paris Agreement did not need to be passed by the US Congress. It could be approved by President Obama alone.

It has been widely observed that the recent level of cooperation on climate politics between China and the United States has counterbalanced growing tensions between the competing superpowers in other spheres, such as trade and geopolitical influence (especially in the South China Sea). The unprecedented joint announcement on climate change in November 2014 indicated the two nations' mutual resolve to reach a deal. The joint ratification ceremony last weekend further consolidates this narrative of unity of national purpose on global warming.

Such cooperation has helped Obama cement his legacy with regard to action on climate change and provides an opportunity for China to ameliorate perceptions of its nationalistic unilateralism on other issues.

It also underscores the urgency of bringing the Paris Agreement into force. The treaty as it stands is largely aspirational – it is a promissory note, promising that everyone will ramp up their ambition together, rather than setting an ambitious course from the outset.

Its overarching goal of holding global warming to well below 2℃ and as close as possible to 1.5℃ can only be met if parties revise and toughen their national commitments. (Presently, aggregate commitments will lead to warming of 3℃ and possibly higher.)

However, the agreement contains mandatory mechanisms for ratcheting up collective action. For instance, it requires parties to strengthen their national targets every five years. Increasing funding transfers to developing countries for mitigation and adaptation will be propelled by its coming into force.

Both these elements are urgent if they are to be effective.

Australia left as a laggard

The US-China announcement not only increases the momentum for ratification, but also increases pressure on Australia. With the Kyoto Protocol, Australia loyally supported the United States and refused to ratify until 2007. This time, similar recalcitrance is likely to be met with strong international disapproval.

However, ratification is only the beginning. Australia will then be required to revise and toughen its targets for 2030 and beyond. Its weak 2030 mitigation target is accompanied by policies inadequate to meet this goal.

The Paris Agreement, once in force, will require a more robust Australian target to be announced by 2023 at the latest. This in turn will further highlight the gap between current and sufficient implementation measures.

The US-China ratification announcement is the next step along a path that must see Australia climb – or be dragged – out of its current climate policy torpor.

Peter Christoff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Dissenting CCA members call for "proper" emissions target, coal closure, as Frydenberg reads from Abbott songbook.