Erika Tumambing | Melbourne, Australia

Alive and healthy: a Kangaroo and its Joey. Image: Tim Williams

For Denise Garratt, it all began in the depths of the Victorian bush, where a fascination with the kangaroos in her paintings became a lifelong passion for wildlife rescue.

“It was just something that was meant to be,” she says, “they’re exquisite creatures.”

A former painter, Garratt left her art gallery thirty years ago for a life in the bush, where she studied and lived with a mob of kangaroos on a remote property for seven years. She has nursed hundreds of joeys and kangaroos back to health since. “Some mornings I might get six calls before 9 o’clock for animals injured on the road all across the state,” she says.

The real tragedy, says Garratt, is that not all incidents are immediately reported, leaving injured kangaroos stranded on the roads until someone else calls for help, by which time it may be too late. “Ninety per cent of motorists will hit kangaroos and keep going,” she sighs as she bottle-feeds little Bill, one of the many joeys she has taken into her care.

“There’s this huge area for education that is desperately needed to encourage people to think about driving from dusk to dawn a little more carefully where wildlife is known to be on the roads.”

For this reason, Wildlife Victoria rescuer, Fiona Rowley, believes kangaroo numbers are in decline. “Kangaroos have very few natural predators,” she says, “but there is little doubt in my mind that man is the kangaroo’s biggest predator.” Landowners and farmers are now applying for culling permits under the misconception that kangaroo numbers are out of control and taking food and water from their sheep and cattle which, according to Rowley, is not the case. “We have now built so many housing estates and commercial development[s] that we have landlocked many mobs of kangaroos
into the only remaining parcels of land and made them easier to see,” she says.

Australian Society for Kangaroos coordinator, Nikki Sutterby, agrees. Road deaths, drought, commercial shooting and loss of habitat have all shown how humans have put the national icon at risk of large-scale extinction.

“Not only are they shot in rural areas by farmers, they are displaced by development and civilisation that is extending at a rapid rate in regional and metropolitan areas,” she says. Sutterby fears kangaroos may never recover from their current critical situation. This is exacerbated by continued government support of the kangaroo industry, which slaughters millions each year – 3.6 million in 2008 – to supply meat for export and pet food.

“The Australian government is in denial about the plight of kangaroos and I believe they won’t realise until it’s too late,” she says.

Garratt has dedicated her life to saving kangaroos and other wildlife, including koalas and possums. Aside from being on a number of animal welfare boards and ethics committees, including the Department of Sustainability and Environment and the Platypus Conservancy and Victorian Wildlife Rehabilitation Council, Garratt is one of the founding members of the RSPCA wildlife branch and the president of Help For Wildlife.

“I work 36 hours a day,” she muses. “It’s very rewarding. But in some cases it can tear your heart out when you don’t get them through and you can’t save them.” Running a wildlife shelter, she says, is particularly difficult for those on the outer skirts of the city that take in high maintenance wildlife. There are also travelling, food and facility costs to cover, most of which comes out of her hip pocket. As a non-government funded organization, Wildlife Victoria relies solely on donations from the public as well as the help of voluntary staff to keep afloat. She knows that “we’re all in this together.”

But financial drawbacks did not dampen her spirits during the Black Saturday bushfires last year. Garratt and a team from Help For Wildlife were some of the first aides on the scene at the Kinglake complex. “All of the food that we gave out to the animals in the fires I funded myself,” she says. “Some medical supplies were donated, but most of the cost we bore ourselves. We didn’t get very many donations for the fires because nobody really knew we were doing it.”

With the help of other shelters, Help For Wildlife distributed 70 tonnes of food and supplies to those in need, including dog and cat food, horse rugs, hay, horse food and human food, all the way from Kilmore to Gippsland.

“We were inundated,” she says. “Everybody did what they could, when they could and how they could.”

In the midst of the chaos, Garratt did not have any time to seek donations, which proved to be especially difficult when she ran out of medical supplies. Medical supplies, she noted, were distributed poorly during the bushfires.

“Some people got a lot, some people got none and some people didn’t know where it was,” she says. Fortunately, aid did arrive from interstate. The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) sent down a specialist burns vet and an international relief coordinator from New South Wales.

Bob Irwin, animal conservationist and father of the late Steve Irwin, and other wildlife workers in Queensland also contributed what they could. “They were the wind beneath our very charred wings,” Garratt says.

In spite of all the difficulties she is confronted with in running Help For Wildlife and rehabilitating kangaroos, she wouldn’t trade her job for anything else in the world. “I find I’m constantly humbled with the privilege of being able to have access to them,” she says.

Despite financial obstacles, Garratt continues her fight to help Australia's native animals. Image: Priska3

Fellow wildlife shelter owner and friend, Michele Philips, is equally passionate about the wildlife that she takes in.

“They’re my pride and joy,” she boasts, “I’ll give an animal every chance it needs, as long as it’s not suffering.”

Owner of the South Oakleigh Wildlife Shelter, Philips takes in smaller wildlife, including possums and a variety of birds. Her front yard is often dotted with cockatoos, magpies and lorikeets that she has rehabilitated and released in the past but insist on coming back to pay her a visit. “Every animal has its purpose and when humans interfere, it’s disastrous,” she says.

Although the injured wildlife she rescues require low maintenance, the cost of care does add up and like Garratt, the majority of funding comes from Philips’ own pocket. When she isn’t tending to her wildlife, she spends most of her time foraging for bottlebrush and eucalyptus branches to feed the animals and adorn the makeshift homes in her backyard. Her dirt-encrusted hands are testimony to the physical demands of her day job.

Unlike Garratt, Philips runs the shelter on her own, covering the cost of feeding, cleaning and rehabilitation with little help from the government, which, in her opinion, is less than adequate. “It’s up to me to get the money however I can,” she says.

Donations and council grants have helped Philips run the shelter, but are currently her only sources of income. Last year, she received grants of $800 from Moorabbin Kingston council and $2000 from Glen Eira council, however she has received nothing from her own council, Oakleigh-Monash. “Monash have got no allowance whatsoever for wildlife,” she says, “for me, $3000 is nothing.”

Only recently has the Government formally recognized the contribution of wildlife carers to animal welfare. Under the 2009/10 Wildlife Rehabilitators Grants Program, $400,000 will be made available as grants to rehabilitators for equipment and infrastructure over a two-year period. A further $150,000 will go into the development of an education program for wildlife rehabilitation.

Colleen Wood, manager of the Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter, can identify with Philips’ lack of funding, which made the bushfires all the more difficult to endure. “The only funding that we received during the fires was a $1000 grant that they allocated to any shelters or carers that had dealt with any wildlife… There were times when we could not access medical supplies. There were another four shelters that were completely destroyed, so we also took on the brunt of their animals. It was pretty horrendous. But you just deal with it.”

Among the wildlife in Wood’s care was Sam the Koala, who was put to sleep four months after contracting Chlamydia. But the legacy of Sam has inspired Wood to build a specialised rehabilitation centre for burns victims.

“What I’d like to do is build a proper burns unit and have it operate as a koala hospital,” she says. The centre, she says, will provide education for PhD students as well as train vets and carers to deal with burns.

“We certainly don’t have the funding to go through with it, but it’s something that will come to be and will drive me for the rest of my life,” she says.

A public fund has been established for the proposed koala hospital, which will allow Wood and her colleagues to access grants and public donations. Wood hopes to have the centre up and running in the next five to ten years.

Erika Tumambing is a student currently at Monash University in Melbourne.

In the second part of Anna Hager’s investigation, she looks at what is being done to cultivate the Bluefin tuna industry from near collapse.

Overfishing has left the tuna industry in ruin but attempts to cultivate the fish in captivity have fallen flat. Image: © OCEANA / Keith Ellenbogen

Recent moves to cut Southern Bluefin tuna (SBT) quotas due to overfishing could have detrimental effects on the local Australian fishing industry, which generates big money.

The fishing industry says that quota cuts are not based on current data and are therefore partly unjustified.

The Australian Southern Bluefin Industry Association (ASBTIA) says that before recent quota cuts, export of Southern Bluefin reached over $300 million per annum, generating over 5,000 jobs throughout Australia.

They also say that the tuna business is internationally competitive and critically important to the Eyre Peninsula’s economy – Australia’s fishing industry hub.

“Tuna is one of the largest seafood industries in Australia, so it was a major blow,” Jeffriess says.

“It meant substantial job losses, and future uncertainty. Tuna is by far the largest employer on the Eyre Peninsula, and the tuna industry had invested in new industries such as tourism. So the impact has been not just within the tuna industry, it has been felt by every part of the Eyre Peninsula economy.”

According to ASBTIA CEO Brian Jeffriess, the quota cut in 2009 for example was based on data up to 2006. This data included the effects of large-scale illegal catch from 1985 to 2006. But, with the 2008 to 2010 statistics available now, the data suggests a possible recovery of stock.

Fishermen in the area share this sentiment. Peter Dennis from Triplebay charters in Port Lincoln says that he has received reports from local fishermen of sightings of large schools of tuna around the Great Australian Bight in 2010.

“It seems to be a seasonal type of thing rather than stocks running down,” he says.

Because of improvement in the numbers of bluefin sighted in recent times, Dennis says fishermen in Port Lincoln are therefore not happy to accept trade bans and quota cuts.

“They weren’t happy with it of course. They are lobbying the government and trying to get some of the quota back because of the numbers of fish that have been sighted out there,” he says.

Glenn Sant from wildlife trade monitors, TRAFFIC also says that it is difficult for any industry to have to reduce the amount of fish it harvests and to still make money.

“The fact is though that unless the amount of catch is reduced overall in the fishery there will not be recovery of the stock” he says.

Despite increased efforts, no alternatives to wild fishing are currently available

In an effort to secure healthy tuna stocks for the future, countries around the world are attempting to breed bluefin tuna in captivity. However, the question is whether such a migratory species, that can grow up to sizes of 450kg, can be domesticated.

According to many scientists this will be near impossible but might be the only way to save the species, as our insatiable hunger for the expensive sushi and sashimi ingredient doesn’t appear to be subsiding.

Maria Jose Cornax from OCEANA in Spain says that at the current stage of research and knowledge available, bluefin tuna cannot be bred in captivity, at least not at commercial levels.

She says that breeding bluefin in captivity “is unsustainable due to the high percentage of fish protein they need to grow.”

Cornax says, “For fattening one kilogram of bluefin you need around 15 to 20 kilograms of other wild fish species [like] mackerel, squid and sardines.”

A further problem is that, in most cases, the ranching of tuna involves the catching of wild tuna and fattening them in cages.

“It’s worth clarifying that all farming referred to with bluefin tuna actually catches wild stock that is then fattened for the market. Hence they do not contribute to the rebuilding of stocks,” says Sant from TRAFFIC.

“Tuna farming is officially considered as a post-harvesting practice rather than one based in direct capture and thus avoids every regional and international rule set up to manage fisheries in the Mediterranean.”

Besides wild catches and tuna farming there has been another development,which aims to rescue the tuna industry from collapse.

Last year in a world-first breakthrough, aquaculture pioneer Clean Seas Tuna Limited in conjunction with scientists from the University of the Sunshine Coast, the South Australian Research and Development Institute, the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation and the Australian Seafood Cooperative Research Centre successfully recreated the breeding patterns of the Southern Bluefin breed of tuna.

“Not only have images such as these never been seen by human eyes, but the creation of these fish has been entirely dependent on human endeavour,” says Clean Seas chairman Hagen Stehr.

In 2010 Clean Seas reports that it has completed its third consecutive annual on-shore Southern Bluefin Tuna spawning program.

“The 2009-10 spawning trials have proved to be highly successful in terms of being able to repeat spawning under controlled conditions; advance spawning commencement by two months from March to January; replicate our success in rearing fingerlings in locations up to 2,900 kilometres from Arno Bay; and extending the spawning period by six weeks to 12 weeks,” says Clean Seas managing director Clifford Ashby.

But, despite these efforts to breed bluefin tuna in captivity there is no indication at this stage of any contribution to rebuilding stocks now or in the near future.

“The bluefin tuna species has a biology that means that they are very easily overfished. That has to do with how long they live and how long they take to mature. In captivity that is very difficult too. In trade we don’t see bluefin that has been bred in captivity,” says Sant from TRAFFIC.

The verdict looks all but rosy

The problem is that with bluefin tuna fetching around $800 US per kilo on the Japanese market, the disappearance of this species in our oceans comes to no surprise.

Unfortunately dropping levels only seems to spark demand, with prices rising at an astronomic rate.

As of January 2010, a comprehensive global Catch Documentation has been implemented by the Commission for Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT).

“All whole SBT must be tagged at the time of kill with a uniquely numbered tag and the tag must remain on the SBT until the first point of domestic sale. SBT without tags between these points must not be accepted,” says Bob Kennedy from the CCSBT.

The sad reality is that bluefin tuna is only an example of where we are driving our oceans. According to Cornax, 90 per cent of our predators have already disappeared, so it is not only a matter of losing fish on our table.

“A Spanish researcher said that biodiversity is like a plane. Will it be able to fly when it is constantly losing small pieces of its engine?”

Read part one of Anna Hager‘s investigation, Why is the tuna industry so blue? here.

Shocking facts have been revealed about the global depletion of the stock of all three bluefin tuna species in recent times. Anna Hager investigates what this means for the tuna industry and how we continue to force bluefin tuna down the path to extinction.

Popularity of delicacies like bluefin tuna sashimi has caused overfishing in some parts of the world. Image: Mokeneco

If you’re thinking about sitting down at your favourite sushi restaurant to indulge in a big chunk of sashimi in the near future, you might want to know a few facts about your favourite meal first, because this delicacy is causing chaos for the bluefin tuna industry.

Globally, tuna is one of the most popular fish to eat. According to healthytuna.com, it is so popular that one third of all seafood consumed in America is comprised of tuna. The US and Japan also consume the largest amount of bluefin tuna at 31 per cent.

Despite this, few tuna eaters are aware that the bluefin tuna species, primarily used for products such as sashimi at the higher end of the market, is actually close to extinction if we continue to consume and harvest it at current rates.

The Southern Bluefin Tuna population for example is estimated to have reduced by at least 80 per cent over the past three generations.

According to a report by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE), fishing quotas in Australia alone have risen from around 9,000 ton in 2004 to over 10,000 in 2008.

“Over 99 per cent of the harvest of 8,500 tonnes [Southern Bluefin only] per annum is exported, almost all to Japan,” Brian Jeffriess, CEO of the Australian Southern Bluefin Industry Association says.

The value of bluefin tuna as commercial catch goes back to ancient times, when the Greeks and Phoenicians started harvesting it. Fastforward and demand soared in the 1970s, when commercial fishing made the capturing of this gentle giant much easier.

What is the plight of the bluefin tuna?

When talking about bluefin tuna, classified as one of the heaviest and largest known bony fish, it is important to consider that there are three distinctly different breeds.

Southern Bluefin Tuna (SBT), found in the Southern Hemisphere, is also the most important species to Australia’s fishing industry.

Southern Bluefin can weigh up to 200 kilograms; grow up to a size of two metres and get to the age of forty years.

The Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT) says that SBT is mainly exported to Japan, where premium prices can be obtained due to the high fat content in the flesh.

“The SBT caught are mainly frozen at very low temperatures (-60C) and either unloaded at intermediate ports and shipped to markets in Japan or unloaded directly at markets in Japan,” the CCSBT says.

At a pace of up to 70 kilometres per hour, the second breed, Pacific Bluefin Tuna are dubbed the biggest and fastest creatures of the Pacific Ocean, but haven’t been on the radar as much as their cousin, the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna.

Atlantic Bluefin is native to the Atlantic Oceans as well as the Mediterranean Sea. According to scientists, the Atlantic Bluefin breed is in the worst position out of all three.

“Atlantic Bluefin is heavily over-fished and stocks are in danger of irreversible collapse,” says Glenn Sant, Global Marine Program leader at TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network.

Maria Jose Cornax, marine scientist from OCEANA in Spain also says, “Although Pacific and Southern Bluefin are overexploited as well; their biomass is higher than that of the Atlantic case.”

But, despite being different species, all bluefin tuna are crucially linked in their plight and need to be dealt with on a uniform basis.

“An Atlantic Bluefin tuna trade ban would have implied the necessary inclusion of the other bluefin tunas in CITES Appendix II as look-alike species, due to difficulties to differentiate processed forms of tunas because of their similarities,” Cornax says.

Despite attempts at regulation, bluefin continues down the road to extinction

The highly migratory nature of bluefin tuna and the economic importance of the species make controlling and co-ordinating an attempt to save stocks very difficult.

Sheree Glasson from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry in Australia says that, “tuna are highly migratory. Because of this, managing tuna fisheries is co-ordinated under international agreements, through bodies known as regional fisheries management organisations.”

In recent times there have been several major and mostly unsuccessful attempts to regulate the international trade of bluefin tuna.

In 2009, Malta, Cyprus, Spain, Italy, France and Greece blocked a proposed bluefin trade ban despite support from 21 other EU governments.

This came after Monaco and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), asked for Atlantic Bluefin Tuna to be put on the endangered species list.

Most recently in March 2010, a CITES convention in Doha proposing an all-out ban on the export of Atlantic Bluefin resulted in a contentious battle between the East and the West. The proposal was blocked, once again leaving the fate of the fish species uncertain.

French purse seiner Gerard Luc III rolling up the net with a bluefin tuna in the south of Formentera, Balearic Island, Spain. Image: © OCEANA / Keith Ellenbogen

Although the bluefin tuna trade means big business, Tamara Ward from the US Fisheries and Wildlife Service (FWS) in Virginia, says that regardless of the setbacks at Doha the conservation of Atlantic Bluefin is a high priority for America.

“We will keep fighting to ensure that fishery is managed sustainably, so that future generations may see a return to health,” she says.

In Australia, where the NSW Department of Primary Industries added the Southern Bluefin Tuna to the endangered species list, the Commonwealth Government decided to reduce Southern Bluefin fishing quotas by 23 per cent to 4015 tonnes in June 2010.

In an attempt to protect the bluefin tuna, the European Union recently ended the official 2010 tuna season a week early; with a ban affecting the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic, the Guardian reported.

Conservation organisations have also become aware of the situation. In January 2010 for example, the Sea Shepherd, well known for their anti-whaling efforts, have added protection of bluefin tuna to their conservation agenda.

They are planning to do this mainly by interrupting illegal poachers from depleting already frail-looking stocks. This campaign however will be confined to the Mediterranean, meaning that it will only protect the Atlantic Bluefin breed.

Illegal fishing and poaching heavily contribute to the plight of Bluefin

Despite strict regulations, illegal poaching of the bluefin tuna species does nothing but add to the irreversible collapse of a once healthy stock.

Over the 22 years leading up to 2006, large-scale illegal catch has depleted the Southern Bluefin stock in Southern Hemisphere waters. But poaching is a phenomenon affecting all bluefin species.

“The biggest quotas for fishing Atlantic Bluefin Tuna are held by the USA and the EU. However, in the Mediterranean particularly, there is a lot of illegal fishing of tuna,” says Sant from TRAFFIC.

Brian Jeffriess, from the SBT Industry Association, also says that Australia recently lost large amounts of fishing quota “even though the stock problem was caused by Japan’s illegal catch”.

“This happened because Australia was trying to buy Japan’s goodwill on wider trade issues.

“What the outcome said to both the SBT industry and the wider fishing industry was that the Australian Government was prepared to sacrifice an important seafood industry to achieve a bigger trade agenda,” he says.

Tamara Ward from FWS also says that illegal fishing results in uncertainty with stock levels, which in turn can lead to overfishing of the bluefin tuna species.

“Although fishing regulations are currently in place, unsustainable quota levels and overfishing, including illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing activities, are threats to the Eastern and Western stock,” she says.

Read Part two of Anna Hager‘s article, Where have all the fish gone? tomorrow.

Beneath the natural wonder of Santorini’s cliff tops and lagoon, the villages are being covered in plastic bottles and waste as the Greek government fails to implement a central recycling scheme. Elise Dalley and Ben O’Halloran report from Santorini, Greece.

Discarded bottle on Perissa Beach, Santorini. Image: Elise Dalley

Public ignorance towards recycling and the need to drink bottled water for health reasons is placing an already distressed Greek economy at serious risk.

Santorini, famous for its spectacular caldera and cliff top villages, is fast becoming overrun with waste from tourism due to an inadequate waste management scheme for plastics and a community that is yet to recognise the importance of recycling.

Dimitris Sigalas, Environmental Advisor to the Mayor of Santorini, told Reportage that while the iconic Island strongly depends upon tourism as a key source of income, visitors are also contributing to serious environmental degradation of the island.

“Without tourism, it is very difficult to survive, but with tourism, we have double problems,” he said.

Sigalas said over 90,000 people visited the island in June during the peak holiday season, more than six times the number of permanent residents.

As Santorini does not have a fresh water source and is yet to offer clean tap water, restaurants, hotels, kiosks and local supermarkets sell hundreds of thousands of bottled water year round, especially during summer as temperatures peak above 40 degrees.

With large volumes of plastic waste and no recycling program in place, Sigalas believes the government must show urgency in a serious attempt to introduce and advocate plastic recycling across Greece.

“The problem belongs exactly, again, to the Greek government.

“It is a big problem for Santorini … because at the moment there is not a central system to recycle all the rubbish in Greece,” Sigalas said.

Most of Santorini is protected for its archaeological importance due to its caldera, or basin which was formed from an volcanic explosion.

This protection is causing great concern for the local council who are fast running out of adequate underground disposal sites for rubbish.

“We are in a very bad situation because of our bad economy, but if the question is about recycling, by the law, we have to start now.

“We cannot go back,” Sigalas said.

Thousands of plastic water bottles are sold as the island has no fresh water source. Image: Elise Dalley

In an attempt to convert Europe into a recycling society who seeks to avoid waste, the European Commission, operating under the European Union, introduced the Thematic Strategy on Waste Prevention and Recycling in 2005.

Key elements of this strategy, including a recognition of the immediate need to recycle in order to cut down on a generation of waste, have been largely ignored by the Greek government.

Sigalas said the government needs to coordinate a strict policy review to allow strategies to filter down into local government levels and bring Greece in line with the rest of Europe.

He told Reportage that while the council on the Island is ready to act, they are looking to Athens for an official policy decision as to when and where a plastic recycling plant can be built.

“Although we are ready, with the papers and the plans, we have not the area.

“Maybe by the end of this year we will have an answer from the government and they will tell us where is the right area to start,” he said.

It is this ignorance and neglect for environmental protection that highlights the old habits of the Greek people that Sigalas said must change.

“It is difficult to change their behaviour, their way of thinking.

“We can earn from tourism and I don’t mean only money, but a way of thinking, a way of life,” he said.

He believes that if the local people can manage to change their way of thinking, then the tourists will follow on.

“It is very important to us…we have to look after ourselves here. If we solve this problem exactly for the 13 000 local people, after will be easier to work in the summer.”

Effie Kotula, a summer tour guide for Kamari Tours on Santorini, agrees that a culture change is needed to better deal with waste on the Island.

“In Greece, we have another culture and mentality [to the rest of Europe], so leaving bottles on the beach is not pollution.

“We have many tourists in summer and we consume many products, so of course it would be better to recycle,” she said.

Dimitris Sigalas believes tourists will help keep the island clean if the residents do the same. Image: Elise Dalley

Vassilis Lignos, hotel and restaurant owner at the famous black pebbled Perissa Beach, believes that residents have already started to change their way of thinking about recycling and respecting the value of their local environment.

However, he also agrees with Sigalas that it is the government who must now demonstrate their willingness to change before any progress will be made.

“People are interested to do this.

“The Greek people are starting to press, but the Mayors’ offices are too slow,” he said.

Born on the Island and now raising his own two children there, Lignos fears the playground of his early days will be soon be ruined by waste because poor government structure is preventing the force of local pressure from being felt by decision makers in Athens.

“We go to the village mayor, who goes to the Santorini mayor, to the Cyclades mayor, to the government; there are too many steps.”

In order to bring about a policy change within the government and a cultural change within the community, both Sigalas and the younger generation in Greece believe education of locals and tourists is the key.

“We have to teach the new generation not to make the same mistakes like my generation.

“If the tourists, when they come here, know the problem and know exactly how it works here, they will look after the island more,” Sigalas said.

Maria Sazlara, 15 year old Greek school student, said while she may recognise the lack of plastic recycling as a problem, most Greeks do not because of a lack of public advertising about its benefits.

“I believe that the Greeks haven’t actually realised what is happening to the planet.

“They find it difficult to get used to the idea of recycling and think there is no point,” she said.

Maria Gkougkoulia, university student from Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city, said that she too understands the issues but finds it hard to recycle due to the lack of infrastructure provided by the government.

“There are not many recycling bins.

“Of course I don’t like to throw out rubbish, I have ecological sensibility, but this issue is really big and our system has a different way of progressing to other places,” she said.

Anthi Karahrisafi, also a student in Thessaloniki, agrees that recycling must be addressed as a priority political issue in order to start educating the community.

“They [the people] are not informed, the politicians are not actually interested and they don’t spend their money to advertise recycling,” she said.

Not alone in their beliefs, the European Commission also outlines education as a key strategy to improving waste management and recycling across Europe and despite their 2008 Sustainable Future is in our Hands report demanding “words be put into action”, Greece is still considerably behind.

Sigalas, a resident of the Island for 50 years, said this is just the beginning of what will be a long battle to protect the island from losing the postcard perfect image he is fiercely proud of.

“Of course I worry, but I have to change it, I have to fight against this,” he said.

It is surprising to think that so much environmental harm is caused by what we choose to put on our plates every day. So what can be done to counter this? Avleen Masawan explores sustainable eating.

Fast food waste. Image: Sarah Rich.

Today there’s so much choice at your local supermarket it’s enough to confuse the most iron-willed and efficient shoppers. There’s ethical, organic, exotic, local, free range, soy- and let’s not forget the low-fat, sugar-free, triple chocolate, low-in-carbs variety. But our freedom of choice in the foods we eat could be the very thing to save the planet.

2010 United Nations report Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production revealed that a fundamental way to address the looming impacts of climate change is to eat sustainably. The report concluded that a worldwide change in diet is needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as food production is the single largest emitter of greenhouse gases for households, contributing nearly a fifth of total greenhouse gas emissions and 70% of global freshwater consumption.

So how does the Big Mac Meal you ate for lunch have anything to do with global warming? As it turns out, the two have much in common. Many harmful greenhouse gases contributing to climate change such as carbon, methane, nitrous oxide and hydrofluorocarbons, are released in high levels during the growing, production, storage, distribution and consumption of the foods we eat.

Take for example a burger and milkshake, the perfect lunch-to-go on a busy day. It may be easy on the wallet, but the ecological cost is much higher, as animal agriculture is one of the highest causes of greenhouse gas emissions. A report by Compassion in World Farming found that in 2009 the livestock sector contributed to 37% of total methane emissions, 65% of nitrous oxide emissions, and 9% of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. In 2007, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that agriculture as a whole is responsible for nearly half of total methane emissions, and 58% of total emissions of nitrous oxide.

If livestock numbers continue to multiply to meet demand, the IPCC predicts that methane emissions will increase by a staggering 60% until 2030. The greater demand for meat is influenced by cultural factors that are hard to control. Food choices often reflect income levels, with the UN report finding that environmental impacts rise by about 80% as income doubles. Rising affluence in developing countries with strong economic growth such as India and China has been linked to shifts to a more meat based diet.

Sustainable eating
It is surprising to think that so much environmental harm is happening because of what we choose to put on our plates every day. So what can be done to counter this? According to UN, scientists, environmental groups, and dieticians alike, sustainable eating is the best solution.

The World Commission on Environment and Development defines sustainability as “meet[ing] the needs of the current generation without compromising future generations’ ability to meet their economic needs.”

At the University of Technology Sydney’s Institute of Sustainable Futures, Jane Daly is conducting research on the barriers to reducing meat and dairy consumption as part of the Food, Diet and Sustainability Unit. She claims that thinking about the foods we eat can help reduce our environmental footprint.

“It is a really good opportunity for people who are concerned about climate change and the environment when they’ve done everything else they can do. For people with jobs that are far away who rely on cars to drive to work and are thinking, ‘How else can I change my environmental footprint?’ diet is a really good way. On the other side, if you’ve switched to green power or cycling and you’re off public transport, you’re going really well and next is to look at diet.”

Nicole Senior, National Convener of Dieticians Association Australia (DAA), believes that sustainable eating is not just an option, but a necessity.

“We are in a crisis. The way we’ve been producing food until now has done untold damage to the environment and hasn’t done the human race any favours. There are billions of hungry people and the way we’re producing food is reaching crisis levels,” she says.

“We’ve got population growth, we’ve got climate change, we’ve got peak everything- peak oil, peak water, peak phosphorous, peak soil. Those things are running out quite rapidly. We’ve got more people to feed, so something’s gotta give. If we look at food production in a more sustainable way we’ll avert the crisis.”

The trend towards overconsumption in developed countries like Australia means that non-renewable resources are running out, and human ability to produce food is being threatened. Australia faces this challenge with phosphate rock, a resource that Australian soil depends on due to its naturally phosphorous deficient state. But this essential resource is running out due to overuse and may soon put an end to Australian agriculture altogether. The Australian government’s 2008 Garnault Report predicted that by mid-century, “irrigated agriculture in the Murray-Darling Basin would be likely to lose half of its annual output.” Besides the devastating environmental impacts, Australian food exports would be limited, putting a strain on economic growth.

What does eating sustainably involve?
Ms Senior, who is also a dietician, says, “Eating to meet physical needs is important, focusing on mostly a plant food diet and animal foods in condiments rather than the main event. We’ll be eating nutritional foods, less extra foods. Much of our fresh foods will be organic or a combination of traditional or organic. We’ll be eating more locally produced foods and food we grow ourselves, like veggie patches in the backyard.”

The recent UN report confirms that a sustainable diet should include less meat and dairy consumption, as meat and dairy produce more emissions than plants. Ms Daly agrees.

“One of the best ways that people can reduce the carbon footprint from their diet is to add more plant based meals. It could mean one meal, like lunch, then you gradually broaden and increase it,” she says.

“It’s easy to do, especially in Australia. We have access to so many great markets and fresh fruits and veg, and nuts and seeds and gorgeous produce, making shifting to a plant based diet really easy and accessible.”

But there are barriers to trying to eat less meat, and the Aussie culture of chucking some snags on the barbie is just one practical reality that Ms Daly recognises must be dealt with.

“There’s so much cultural importance around meat and meat is really every part of our world. Eating symbolises different things in different cultures. Meat has become a status symbol in some cultures and is linked with celebrations and Christmas, weddings and the family roast. Meat has a lot of symbolic meaning and is seen as an important thing for family.”

Eating sustainably doesn’t mean everyone has to turn vegetarian though; a mere moderate shift away from excessive meat consumption is enough. “For those that eat meat every meal, why don’t you have one meal plant-based, like breakfast?” suggests Ms Daly.

A study published in The Lancet Medical Journal in 2007 supports this, saying average global consumption of meat at 100 grams a day should be reduced by just 10 grams to 90 grams per day. This way by 2050 countries should be able to meet emissions targets, which will be below 2005 levels.

Food miles
There is more to sustainable eating than how much meat and dairy we eat. There’s also the goal of reducing “food miles,” or the distance that food travels to get to our plates. By eating more locally produced food, rather than imported food, we can reduce carbon fuel cycle emissions released from transporting food around Australia or the world using trucks, planes or ships. What is often missing when calculating food miles is the distance we as consumers travel to buy food. A 2008 UK study published in Food Policy revealed that driving to the shops for food was 40% of all shopping trips, 5% of all car trips and 16 million kilometres worth of travel each year. Solutions offered in other countries include home delivery from major suppliers, but that option is yet to take off in Australia.

A friend of food mile reduction is local farmers’ markets. Consumers buy their fruits and veggies direct from a neighbouring producer. Farmers’ markets are becoming more popular, with markets cropping up in several Sydney suburbs including Auburn, Chatswood, Frenchs Forest, Gladesville, Hornsby, Leichhardt and Marrickville. In reality, though, Australia is quite a multicultural society and it’s hard to always eat locally. Embracing cultural diversity means letting people eat the food they grew up with. For Aussies with overseas heritage, this means lots of trips to the Korean, Persian or Indian store to get our fill. In these stores, all the foods are imported and the intention to buy locally is often thwarted by nostalgia and convenience.

It is the same convenience factor that taunts other sustainable goals like eating seasonal and less processed foods. By eating seasonal foods, we would be reducing emissions from leaked refrigerants in cold storage facilities over months. By eating less junk food, we would be reducing energy from inputs like the electricity and machinery it takes to make them, and limit the waste from their packaging. The busy lifestyle of the 21st century is perhaps the biggest deterrent from sustainable eating. Ms Senior recognises that some of the goals of sustainable eating are, for most people, easier said than done.

“Our lifestyles make it difficult to eat sustainably. We eat on the run, and what we grab on the run is not the best for us and the best for the environment. Extra foods have such strong social symbols, like eating cake at birthdays and drinking soft drinks when out and about. It’s highly complicated. Dietary change is difficult and long term.”

Government action
Consumers shouldn’t feel like the weight of the world is on their shoulders; governments need to take more responsibility and provide better incentives for the goal of eating sustainably to become a reality. Things like carbon labelling of food items, which has been rolled out in Sweden and the UK, would help push consumers in the right direction and at least make people aware of how diet choices are affecting the environment. In Sweden, fast food restaurants are required to reveal how much carbon is released per kilogram for all fries and burgers.

The Australian government has taken its first baby steps towards sustainable eating. It is currently reviewing the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating, which provides national dietary guidelines, to include sustainability. It has also set up local campaigns like Love Food Hate Waste that strongly encourage Australians not to waste any food. NSW residents alone send about 800 000 tonnes of wasted food to landfill a year, and when this breaks down it releases copious amounts of methane into the atmosphere.

Ms Daly says the government itself needs to take a step back and see how their own actions are contributing to climate change.
“A lot of the livestock industry is highly subsidised. The meat association gets funding from the Australian government which they put into their meat campaigns. The government is subsidising something that is highly polluting. It’s a perverse solution.”

Fairytale ending?
For sustainable eating to transform from a promising fairy tale to everyday reality, it is necessary for government, industry and consumers to all work together. While the big decisions may be out of our hands, for the average Joe it means being more mindful of how our everyday choices are affecting something bigger.

It would seem that poor Susan O’Reilly, our Aussie Mum shopping at Woollies, has yet another thing to worry about when wondering what to pluck off the shelves. But if thinking about the environmental impact of what she puts in her trolley improves her sons’ opportunities of a promising future- one with a thriving economy and enough food to eat -this might just be more important than whether they end up eating Maggi or Mi Goreng noodles tonight.

Having native animals as pets is mostly illegal in Australia, however this isn’t the case in America where the market for our native animals is booming. Jess Bineth reports.

A wild kangaroo in Western Australia. Picture: Charles Meeks.

This isn’t the case in America where the market for our native animals is booming.

Sugar gliders, marketed as ‘pocket pets’ because of their small size, have recently increased in popularity as a domestic pet because of their inquisitive and social nature, with one US breeder alone selling a reported 20,000 sugar gliders a year.

In Australia the rules and regulations for keeping native wildlife as pets are complicated and vary from state to state.

While some natives, such as certain birds and reptiles, can be lawfully kept fierce debate surrounds the suggestion that this should be extended to include a wider range of species, including marsupials.

Mike Archer, a professor of biology at the University of New South Wales and the former director of the Australian Museum, has owned up to 30 native animals through his line of work.

He has homed quolls, possums, kangaroos, wallabies, bandicoots, rodents, fruit bats, snakes and reptiles – most of which he says make great pets and should be able to be legally owned.

The animals lived in an open environment, not in cages, and were integrated into the family in the same way a dog or cat would be.

“There was never a morning when I’d get up and there wasn’t some absolutely beautiful animal curled up under my arm or sleeping under my chin,” he says.

Professor Archer speaks particularly fondly of an Eastern Quoll he adopted as kitten.

The pet used a kitty litter, kept himself very clean and loved to be played with.

“That animal was so much more rewarding than a cat or a dog has ever been to me,” Professor Archer says.

The Eastern Quoll is in serious threat of becoming extinct with populations now only surviving in Tasmania.

Keeping native animals as pets has been suggested as a conservation strategy for endangered species considered not likely to recover without intervention.

“If something happens to the population in the wild, as it has with the Eastern Quoll, a breeding colony can make sure we don’t loose the species entirely and we will have a colony that is available to repopulate the wild,” says Professor Archer.

The Pet Industry Association Australia (PIAA) says introducing a system of licensed breeding and sale of certain native animals could assist the conservation of rare species.

Brendan Westaway, Vice President of PIAA, believes that commercialising native animals is the key to saving some of Australia’s most endangered wildlife.

“If you’ve got a native animal with a commercial value it’s certainly never going to become extinct if there is a market there for people to breed them,” says Mr Westaway.

But he insists that strict guidelines are needed to ensure animals being sold and kept in captivity are not coming from the wild.

Julia Carney, spokesperson for WIRES, says the conservation argument is an excuse to exploit native animals in the pet industry and would put the welfare of native wildlife in danger.

“In this country we haven’t got the welfare of cats and dogs right, so why would the specialist care of native animals be any different?” she says.

Ms Carney does not believe the ordinary household can cater to the unique social, behavioural and nutritional needs of native animals.

“It’s an incredibly specialised area…native animals require equally high standards of care as do any domestic pet, however it is much more difficult to adequately provide for them,” she says.

David O’Shannessy, Chief Inspector of the RSPCA, agrees and says the organisation opposes the keeping of wild animals as companions.

“In many cases they require specialised husbandry and facilities to mimic their natural environment and meet then psychological and ecological requirements. Most people do not have the skills and experience and facilities to do this,” says Mr. O’Shannessy.

Central to this debate is whether we change our laws to allow people to own native animals for the sake of conservation but for animals like the Eastern Quoll, the real question is what’s worse – captivity or extinction.

There is no doubt that our climate is changing. Most of us would agree that it is caused by humans. But what if we have passed the point of no return? James Manning reports.

Why is geoengineering so controversial? Image: saschapohflepp

In climate science, there exists what is known as the ‘tipping point’ – the point at which what has been done to our environment cannot be reversed. Once we have reached this tipping point, the effects of climate change will be permanent, even if we stop burning fossil fuels and switch to completely green energy.

This is where plan B comes in.

Geoengineering tackles the problem from a different angle; like an assault on climate change rather than a defence. It is not a new science, but it is definitely controversial.

It is a more aggressive form of climate change mitigation, broadly defined as the human manipulation of the natural environment on a global scale in order to directly alter the climate and reverse the effects of climate change.

There are two main types of geoengineering: carbon dioxide removal, which aims to leach excess carbon from the atmosphere; and solar radiation management, which aims to cool the earth by deflecting sunlight. Each has their fair share of merits and weaknesses.

Overview

Prevention is the best cure – the scientific community agrees cutting carbon emissions should be the first priority in the fight against climate change. However, like most of the issues facing society today, it’s all caught up in politics.

The global community has been holding conferences and signing treaties for over 20 years. Margaret Thatcher first gave a speech in 1988 outlining the scientific evidence for climate change.

“Even though this kind of action may cost a lot, I believe it to be money well and necessarily spent because the health of the economy and the health of our environment are totally dependent upon each other,” she said.

And yet here we are in 2010 and little has changed. New technologies abound, real action (ironically the campaign slogan of the do-nothing Coalition) is slow on the uptake. Fossil fuel emissions are still rising from all of the world’s major polluters.

Reducing carbon emissions at this stage may simply not be enough to rectify the consequences of climate change. The severe lack of preventative action may mean that radical theories such as geoengineering are our only remaining options.

Dr Ramsis Salama, a climate and hydrological scientist, is an advocate of geoengineering. “We need to change all our systems – we need to know how to live with climate change. The way we live, the way we use resources like water is all wrong,” he said.

“Are we going to go at the same pace at which we are going now? No – nobody can guarantee that … something might happen, something else that might make the rate of climate change explode,” said Dr Salama.

The Royal Society, a preeminent scientific research society based in London, agrees. Their report Geoengineering the climate: science governance and uncertainty released late last year, states:

“Unless future efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are much more successful than they have been so far, additional action in the form of geoengineering will be necessary if we are to cool the planet.”

“Some of these proposals may seem fantastical, and may prove to be so,” said Professor John Shepherd, chair of the geoengineering studies being undertaken at the Royal Society.

It has steadily gained popularity as scientists have become aware of the fact that reaching the tipping point for our environment is not matter of ‘if’, but ‘when. Indeed, we may have already passed it.

As a result, it has risen to the political agenda in some countries, such as Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Closer to home, the Victorian state government recently invested $250,000 in a ‘climate intervention technologies’ conference held in California in March, hosted by the US Climate Response Fund.

The conference, which included scientists from the United States, Europe and a former CSIRO scientist, discussed international guidelines for the application of geoengineering, risk assessment, social considerations and funding opportunities.

“This conference has been important step in determining the special considerations and obligations associated with research on climate intervention and remediation,” said Dr Michael McCracken of the Climate Response Fund at the conference.

Perhaps most important was the discussion of social and legal perspectives on geoengineering, rather than focussing purely on the science and ecological risks involved.

The general consensus reached was that until it is absolutely necessary, and further testing has been done, geoengineering should not be utilised, but that research should continue to be conducted.

Apart from this isolated instance by the Victorian Government, Australia and the CSIRO do not currently research or invest in any form of geoengineering, and declined to comment on an area of research in which they are not involved.

In the UK, however, an inquiry into geoengineering was held before the House of Commons earlier this year. British parliament concluded that regulation of geoengineering was crucial in order to monitor current research and prepare for future applications.

“If we start work now it will provide the opportunity to fully explore the technological, environmental, political and regulatory issues,” said a Government report on the inquiry.

The report states that regulation should be international due to the global nature of the technologies involved, and that individual regulatory frameworks must be developed for different technologies because they are vastly different in nature. The inquiry also called for international disclosure of the findings of geoengineering research.

Carbon dioxide removal

We simply have too much carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Carbon dioxide removal, as the name suggests, aims to rectify that. While these technologies address the core of the problem, they work slowly over a very large time scale.

The most popular form of carbon dioxide removal is ocean fertilisation, whereby the ocean is fertilised with iron, which stimulates the growth of carbon capturing plankton.

There are problems with this though – the carbon captured does not sink deep into the ocean easily, and once it does, it has a tendency to make the surrounding ocean low in oxygen. Needless to say, this can have alarming effects on marine biodiversity.

Another form of carbon dioxide removal, also known as carbon sequestering, uses mirrors and sunlight to leach carbon out of the air. This method is currently being researched in Switzerland at the Paul Scherrer Institute and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

Giant mirrors direct intense sunlight into laboratories, creating extreme temperatures up to 2000 degrees Celsius. When the compound calcium oxide is heated in these extreme temperatures, it leaches carbon dioxide out of the air, transforming it into calcium carbonate, or limestone powder. The powder is then further heated, at which point the calcium carbonate breaks down to calcium oxide and carbon. The calcium oxide can be reused and the carbon can be liquefied and stored.

Using this method, carbon dioxide could potentially be returned to atmospheric concentration levels not seen since before the Industrial Age.

However, this method also has its problems, such as safety issues and the cost of storing the carbon. Despite this, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology endeavours to build a plant this year that has the ability to capture approximately one tonne of carbon dioxide every day.

Dr Salama explained why geoengineering is still in its infancy: “We have previously conducted a lot of research and geological experiments at the CSIRO on the sequestering of carbon dioxide, liquefaction of carbon dioxide and injecting it underground,” said Dr Salama.

“Research is still going on elsewhere, but to do it we have a long way to go. It is a solution, if you can find an easy way to transform carbon dioxide and inject it underground or into the oceans. It’s very good but it’s still very experimental and is only being done in very small amounts,” said Dr Salama.

Dr Salama warns that geoengineering techniques are only intended as a back-up plan: “Unless we stop the mechanism by which this is happening – humans – we can never stop the cycle.” There is a danger, after all, of creating public disillusion that geoengineering is a quick fix that enables to carry on polluting the way we have been for hundreds of years. This is definitely not the case.

Solar radiation management

Solar radiation management, on the other hand, aims to cool the planet by deflecting the sun’s rays back out to space. Unlike carbon dioxide removal, solar radiation management could act quickly to reduce the temperature of the planet in the event of a crisis.

One theory, developed by the 2006 Nobel Prize winner Professor Paul Crutzen, suggests injecting large amounts of sulphur into the atmosphere, like a volcano eruption.

Some argue that this is just fighting pollution with pollution, as there are side effects to adding copious amounts of sulphur to the atmosphere, such as the acid rain. Large amounts of sulphur also have the potential to destroy ozone particles. Moreover, sulphur does not last long in the atmosphere, and so would have to be continuously added – which does not come cheap.

With all these techniques, there is the possibility of other side effects that are not yet known, and will not be until they are tried. For example, altering the composition of the atmosphere, as suggested by the injection of sulphur, can have devastating effects on global weather patterns.

It is possible that entire seasons could shift, altering rainfall patterns and having unforseen impacts upon crops and global food supplies.

“We are going to face a lot of problems. We have to be certain about that,” warned Dr Salama.

Professor Shepherd agrees: “None of the geoengineering technologies so far suggested is a magic bullet, and all have risks and uncertainties associated with them.”

Other solar radiation methods include placing large mirrors in space to deflect the sun’s rays and the “bleaching” of clouds to increase reflectivity. However, these methods are very expensive and their side effects unknown.

Unlike carbon dioxide removal, solar radiation management does nothing to reduce the amount of carbon already in the air and its associated impacts, such as the acidification of oceans.

The Royal Society report concludes: “Geoengineering methods should only be considered as part of a wider package of options for addressing climate change … used irresponsibly or without regard for possible side effects, geoengineering could have catastrophic consequences similar to those of climate change itself.”

The Royal Society, the British Parliament and the Climate Response Fund have all recommended the establishment of ethical guidelines.

Geo-engineering the future

Many scientists now believe that one day, in the not too distant future, geoengineering may be our only option for survival.

But plan B is not without risk. Are the dangers it brings with it too great? What price do we put on the future of our planet, and indeed ourselves?

By Nicholas Jones | Pacific Scoop

Illegal logging continues to eat away at Indonesia’s forests, despite the efforts of both the Indonesian government and international environmental groups. The reason? Widespread corruption, according to a new report.

Although illegal logging in Indonesia is decreasing, forests continue to be felled with the support of corrupt officials, says a new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Telapak.

According to the “rogue traders” illegal logging report, released this month, forests in Indonesia’s West Papua and Papua region “constitute the third largest remaining tropical forest wilderness in the world, after the Amazon and Congo Basin.

“As such Papua’s forests are of global significance.”

With scientists sounding repeated warnings on the threat of global warming, the work of groups such as Tiri, an international NGO dedicated to the eradication of corruption, has taken on new significance.

Murray Sheard joined Tiri’s London offices in 2007, after earlier completing a PhD in environmental ethics and political philosophy from Auckland University.

His job was to direct an ethics training programme for public servants in countries plagued by corruption, including Indonesia.

“We designed a DVD training resource for the Nigerian government, which could be rolled out through their public servants with scenarios on corruption-related problems. And the programme then provides training on how to address those,” Sheard says.

An Indonesian version of the DVD is currently being filmed, using focus groups to identify local issues.

Common ethics

“But when it comes to the public service, there are professional roles that give an ethics which is common all over the world. So we definitely indigenise, but there is a core that’s transferable.”

Kevin Evans, Tiri’s senior integrity governance coordinator based in Jakarta, says it is often necessary to reconstruct local notions of integrity.

In societies where there is limited trust in the state, nepotism can be seen as the only way to survive, Evans says.

“To not make use of influence to help ‘one’s own’ is indeed a sign of poor integrity.”

Sheard says the focus on practicality is a reason why Tiri split from larger anti-corruption NGO Transparency International in 2003.

The belief at Tiri is establishing common “best practice” standards and passing anti-corruption laws are necessary, but only part of the solution, he says.

“You have to turn the coin and ask, ‘How do you actually build integrity within organisations?’ And that’s been Tiri’s focus. The idea that if you can build the integrity and robustness of an organisation, then you make it more resistant to corruption.”

Role of youth

One acknowledgement that apparently cuts across all anti-corruption NGOs is that younger generations are the key to lasting change.

Anna Thayenthal, programme coordinator for Transparency International’s Asia Pacific department, says nearly one-fifth of world’s population is aged between 15 and 24 years old, and mostly live in developing countries.

“Young people have the sheer numbers needed for social change,” she says.

That is already becoming apparent in Indonesia, Sheard says.

In 2009, a Facebook campaign helped the board members of the corruption eradication commission (KPK) get off “completely made-up” charges, he says.

“Eventually the charges were all dropped and the politicians that pushed them were actually discredited themselves.”

Tiri promotes tertiary anti-corruption content through a group of 150 universities worldwide called the Public Integrity Education Network, which Sheard also directed.

University network

The Indonesian network of 30 universities is coordinated by Paramadina University, where staff are passionate about anti-corruption.

“They have this amazing course, which is compulsory, where they send out as an assessment groups of three or four with hidden cameras to document corrupt practices. It’s a bit dangerous really, because they could be caught by the firm’s security and the firm wouldn’t want to be exposed. But they seem to get away with it,” Sheard says.

Navigating the bureaucracy to get teaching materials approved can be frustrating, according to Adi Prasetya, programme manager at Tiri’s Indonesia governance reform office.

“Everything should come through the Central Education Authority, but the progress of support process is very slow,” he says.

For Evans, who has a long history of anti-corruption work in Indonesia, the biggest challenge is to distinguish the difference between integrity and morality.

“Integrity is too often seen as a personal, not institutional, issue and failing of integrity are seen as reflecting poor personal morality.”

He says integrity must be recognised as the best answer to the challenges of government. A focus on corruption is useful to raise public awareness and anger, but will not lead to long-term change.

“The integrity approach, while less sexy, does offer a clearer way of seeking out systemic answers, rather than focusing on ‘rotten apples”.

Political will

Sheard says Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (popularly known in Indonesia as “SBY”) should be commended for his anti-corruption agenda, including setting up the KPK commission.

“He’s also been criticised. And he does want to leave a legacy as the father of the nation, so he’s sometimes reluctant to offend or prosecute people. But he has been quite remarkable compared to other countries in what he’s been able to do,” Sheard says.

Transparency International also stresses the importance of political will, according to Thayenthal.

“In most countries it is not new constitutions, laws or treaties which are needed but the political will and strong, independent institutions to implement them,” she says.

Analysis outlined in the EIA/Telapak report showed that of 205 illegal logging cases between 2005-08, only 10 resulted in a jail sentence of two years or more.

Earlier this year, President Yudhoyono expressed dismay with the judiciary’s record in dealing with illegal logging cases, and ordered a taskforce to review suspicious verdicts.

Corruption and forestry

President Yudhoyono’s efforts to stop illegal logging have strong international support.

This year, Norway and Indonesia signed a US$1 billion agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation.

Transparency International has established a Forest Governance Integrity Programme (FGI) to target the corruption that enables illegal logging.

The manager of the FGI Regional Management Centre in Aceh, Ilham Sinambela, says the programme’s first phase will identify where corruption exists, and where institutions are weak.

But countries importing timber must ensure they know where the logs come from, Sinambela says.

According to the EIA/Telapak report, raw Indonesian merbau hardwood continues to be smuggled from Papau to China. It is then processed into products that fetch a high price in Western countries.

Maire Leadbeater, spokesperson for Auckland-based Indonesia Human Rights Committee, says together with Greenpeace her organisation found most merbau (also called kwila) in New Zealand came from West Papua.

Legal framework

Some stores have since agreed to stop selling merbau products. The group is talking to Trade Me about banning sales of merbau on their website, Leadbeater says.

Dr Satu Limaye, director of the East-West Centre Washington, says he believes the size of Indonesia makes the fight against corruption more difficult.

“And it’s a developing country too. Mechanisms like government reach and the regulatory and legal framework, all these things tend to be inadequately developed. Even advanced countries have corruption.”

Evans says corruption has a higher profile in developing countries like Indonesia.

“In many developed countries the debate is masked behind terms like embezzlement, fraud or a dozen other legal euphemisms,” he says.

Sheard says Indonesian culture is not inherently corrupt. Rather, the causes of corruption are complex, but the interaction between Indonesian culture and the West is one major factor.

“Especially when the public service was developed for the first time. And they were paid very, very little. So there was massive incentive to try and get by, including misusing your position.

“In 30 years it’s hard to get rid of corruption in a liberal democracy which sits on top of a tribal system. After all, it took Europe centuries to do the same thing,” he says.

This article was originally published on Pacific Scoop on Aug 14, 2010. Nicholas Jones is a Graduate Diploma of Communication Studies student in the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University.