Tender for the Programme - South West Catchments Council

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DRAFT South West Regional NRM Strategy – Ancillary Document 7. Further discussion on emerging threats Horizon planning 4 is a workshop approach that has been developed fairly recently, allowing a group of people with shared interests to explore changes that might impact on their area of interest in the near to mid-term future, whether through human-induced or other causes. Generally specialists from a range of fields participate to ensure that as broad a range of factors as possible is discussed. Often, such sessions identify and highlight issues that are unlikely to have otherwise been discovered. A group of scientists from around the world have been implementing the approach since 2009 to identify emerging issues for conservation, highlighting 15 key issues in an annual report. The latest of these identified four trends that have some relevance to the South West NRM region (Sutherland et al. 2011): Human denial of long-term threats Global responses to climate change Transformation of oceans and domestication of marine species Hydraulic fracturing In addition, NRM stakeholders in the South West region have identified a number of other issues through direct consultation or at a workshop held in Bunbury on 2011. Each of these issues is discussed in more detail below. 7.1 Human denial of long-term threats A number of authors have argued that it is a predictable and natural human behaviour to deny long-term threats to human quality of life and health, such as climate change and biodiversity loss (Rees 2011). As an example, social responses to HIV-Aids consistently indicate that a large proportion of society will deny scientific evidence and that individuals will only change their behaviour when they personally experience serious, immediate impacts. It should therefore be expected that society will respond to climate change in a similar manner, and indeed, the proportion of people denying climate change in the USA is now increasing. Worse still, social psychologists suggest that denial is expected to increase both in extent and intensity as scientific evidence of a threat from phenomena such as climate change or biodiversity loss accumulates 5 . This expected behaviour has major implications for much of the work conducted in the NRM field, particularly when combined with the ever-growing aspirations of people in developing countries for a “better life” that inexorably lead to increasing consumption levels. 7.2 Decreasing rainfall The only global agreement with specific targets to control greenhouse gas emissions, the Kyoto Protocol, expires at the end of 2012. Failure of negotiating parties to reach agreement on a successor means that it is now almost inevitable that any new agreement will take effect some time after the Kyoto Protocol expires. It is even possible that a global agreement is not feasible. Nevertheless, local efforts to reduce emissions will probably continue in many countries. Under a global agreement, there might be opportunities to optimize or target emission reduction mechanisms, particularly those designed to reduce deforestation or enhance carbon storage in natural systems, which might also benefit native species. Without an overarching global agreement, it is unclear which mechanisms will be available to ensure that 4 5 Or as Sutherland et al (2010) put it, “Horizon scanning is the systematic search for incipient trends, opportunities and constraints that might affect the probability of achieving management goals and objectives. Explicit objectives of horizon scanning are to anticipate issues, accumulate data and knowledge about them, and thus inform crucial decisions.” It is a technique widely employed in the health sector, as well as business and in the defence forces, but has not been widely used in the fields of conservation and natural resource management. Dickinson, J.L. 2009 The people paradox: self-esteem striving, immortality ideologies, and human response to climate change. Ecol. Soc. 14: 17 206
DRAFT South West Regional NRM Strategy – Ancillary Document the probability of persistence of native species increases rather than decreases in response to climate change mitigation. Projected environmental outcomes are known to differ according to whether power within a governance framework operates at the local, national or international level and the relative influence of the state or the market on society. There has been no previous attempt at climate change mitigation that involves global carbon markets but lacks global coordination (Sutherland et al. 2011). 7.3 Tree decline The following is excerpted from an unpublished paper “Climate Change and Declining Forest Ecosystems in South-west Western Australia”, by G Hardy, P Barber, B Evans, T Lyons, S Moore, E Veneklaas, P Poot, M Renton, B Dell, T Fleming, R Hobbs, C Baudains, R Schibeci, M Buizer, L Valentine, T Moore, G Matusick, M Bader, J Chopard, N Brouwers and T Burgess, from State Centre of Excellence on Climate Change, Woodland and Forest Health, Murdoch University and the University of Western Australia. Accessed on 2/1/2012 from http://www.foresthealth.com.au/ Tree decline is a serious nationwide phenomenon. A number of woodland and forest ecosystems in the south-west of Western Australia are suffering from varying degrees of decline. These include Eucalyptus gomphocephela (tuart), E. wandoo (wandoo), E. rudis (swamp gum), Agonis flexuosa (WA peppermint), Corymbia calophylla (marri) and E. marginata (jarrah). The causes of these decline syndromes are complex and it is likely that predisposing (e.g. climate shifts, disturbance regime shifts), inciting (e.g. frost, drought, insect defoliation) and contributing issues (e.g. soil-borne and canker pathogens, wood and bark beetles) will be different for each of these forest or woodland ecosystems. The decline in rainfall and the slight increase in average summer and winter temperatures over the last 30 years could well be playing a significant role in helping predispose these ecosystems to decline. These changes together with the longterm predictions of a 5-60% decrease in rainfall and a 0.5-6.5 C increase in summer temperatures by 2070 do indicate that our woodland and forest ecosystems and the ecosystem services they provide are under threat. Consequently, we need to be thinking about how to manage our forests given that we are already experiencing climate change and that predictions all indicate substantial change for a hotter and drier climate. The question now needs to be asked ‘have ecological tipping points been reached for any of the woodland and forest ecosystems described above’ For example, in areas of the tuart forest such as immediately east of Lake Clifton all trees of all age classes are now dead. This is essentially part of an ecosystem that has collapsed. The consequences of such a decline on ecosystem function and services, and biodiversity values remain largely unexplored, but are likely profound. Seed banks are no longer present and to return this area of forest to its former state will require significant management inputs. These would include fire for ash beds, planting of tuart seedlings or the manual distribution of seed together with A. flexuosa management to reduce competition. However, we still need to understand the causes of tuart decline, before we look at active intervention as any attempts to restore the forest might well be unsuccessful. In the case of marri, the canker fungi Quambalaria coyrecup (the cause of branch, stem and trunk cankers) and Q. piterika (the cause of foliar, flower and fruit blight) are now wide spread and causing profound decline and death of marri across most of its range. Q. coyrecup is believed to be an endemic pathogen, so why is it now expressing itself as a primary pathogen This could be due to a change in the virulence of the pathogen, or to drought or some other change in the abiotic environment that has shifted the ability of marri to defend itself from the pathogen. Therefore, for marri unlike for tuart, we have a much clearer understanding of the cause of the declines, although we do not know why marri, which has likely evolved with Q. coyrecup is now unable to defend itself. Other similar stories and questions can be linked to the other woodland and forest ecosystems that are in decline. The most effective way to address these will be to develop multi-disciplinary research teams that interact and work closely with stakeholders. Many knowledge gaps still exist with regards to climate change and forest health: Tree water use - how much does a particular tree species need for survival and what level of a lack of sufficient water causes a tree to become stressed 207
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Tender for the Programme - South West Catchments Council

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