Official Opening |
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Dr Mary White - Paleobotanist and author
It will come as no surprise to any of you who are familiar with my books, that I believe it is necessary to consider the Big Picture and I see Sydney's population in the context of the population of the continent of Australia.
It will also be no surprise to find that I believe that it is the continent itself, as a result of its history through geological time, that has set the parameters for its sustainable use - and therefore for the population it can sustain. It sounds like a cliché, but Australia is unique - It is an island continent, an ancient landmass with some of the oldest landscapes found anywhere on Earth. |
It will come as no surprise to any of you who are familiar with my books, that I believe it is necessary to consider the Big Picture and I see Sydney's population in the context of the population of the continent of Australia.
It will also be no surprise to find that I believe that it is the continent itself, as a result of its history through geological time, that has set the parameters for its sustainable use - and therefore for the population it can sustain. It sounds like a cliché, but Australia is unique - It is an island continent, an ancient landmass with some of the oldest landscapes found anywhere on Earth.
There are advantages for us in being a separate island with jurisdiction of one government over it all. All we need is for those in power to think locally before they think globally and destroy our basic resources of soil and water - resources we are currently mining in our attempts to be part of the global economy. We currently feed 80 million people and if we continue as we are doing now, running down our basic resources, we will not be able to feed 20 million Australians within a generation.
Australia is the flattest and most poorly drained, and largely inward-draining continent; with a highly saline water-table underlying huge areas. We are all beginning to realise the gravity of the salinisation problems that result from misreading the capacity of the land to sustain current management regimes. It has the poorest soils - only 6% are of arable quality and those still need added fertilisers. Salinisation, erosion, acidification and other ills are mounting problems under current patterns of usage. Its grazing lands, the semi-arid lands in particular, have proved very fragile and are desertifying rapidly; Australia is the driest continent, with 70% desert or acutely arid and a further 15% with some degree of aridity, so only 15% is reasonably well-watered.
Arid lands of the world have proved to be very fragile and we have only to look at the man-made deserts of the Middle East to see what inappropriate management and expectations do to such lands. It has the most variable climate, due to ENSO, and is a land of floods and droughts and its rivers have the most variable flow patterns of any in the world.
Management of its water resources is the most crucial of all its problems. Our water resources are fully committed, over-committed if we are honest, and even with better management this is the case, as that better management has to go into restoring viable natural flows to our over-stressed systems. A nation with its major rivers dead or dying is in a very precarious position.
Australia's biodiversity loss and the number of extinctions of plants and animals are among the worst in the world - and biodiversity loss is the most serious problem that results from global human over-population. Experts predict that in the lifetime of a child born today, half the species alive on Earth today will probably become extinct. Australia has a special responsibility - because of the high rate of endemism in our flora and fauna, we and only we can preserve our biodiversity.
We hear much about Ecologically Sustainable Development - yet it is an oxymoron when the system is Economy driven. It is sobering to realise that we have reached a stage where to continue as we are doing now will see Australia becoming a 3rd World country within a generation or so - and any of us who have travelled know what happens to major cities in 3rd world countries.
So it is against this realistic background that we should look at population and the carrying capacity of the nation. This is not a large, empty landmass asking to be filled, or capable of supporting any density of people, except in the 15% that is reasonably well-watered, and that fragment has to accommodate other intensive uses. We have a small window of opportunity now to put our house in order by achieving a complete socio-economic readjustment and repairing the damage we have done, where possible. We do not need a population increase to succeed, in fact quite the opposite; and our resources as a nation should be directed towards avoiding acute environmental crisis, not increasing urbanisation.We are already the most urbanised of nations with more than 86% of our people in the big cities and large and medium sized country towns.
That is the big picture, and we disregard it at our peril. So, to come to Sydney and its population: I shall listen with interest as I am sure you will all do, to the experts who have been gathered here today to present their views from different perspectives. Mine is probably not a popular perspective, but I see this smaller picture within the bigger one in much the same light.
We have the same small window of opportunity to pause, reflect on our values, consolidate, and repair infrastructure-both physical and social. We can no longer allow urban sprawl to continue, using land that is a substantial proportion of the small amount that is capable of being used for intensive production. We cannot have cities using more water, in fact our wasteful use of water has to be curbed now. Our city infrastructure of sewers and other services is already at the point of collapse in some of the older suburbs. Where I live, the sewers leak perpetually and overflow whenever it rains; underground water pipes leak and are so rusty that it is almost impossible to mend local breaks; and above ground is a forest of poles and wires....
The far outlying suburbs are mainly soulless, without amenities that make for enriched life styles, and public transport is a nightmare...
As I see it, a bigger city inevitably means more cars, more greenhouse pollution, less quality of life. Already we should be saying no more sprawl, no more land developments; any new building only replacing old and using the no-longer used industrial sites; absolutely no violation of remnant bush pockets for the sake of urban wildlife and our aesthetic needs. All this is how it is under present conditions, and global greenhouse warming has to be taken into account. Sydney can expect more climatic extremes - worse storms, even some cyclones. Sealevel rise in a city that sprawls around hundreds of kilometers of coastline and water frontage hardly bears thinking about.
It takes far more political courage and wisdom to restructure and repair the foundations. Until we see population size as limited by the sort of parameters I have outlined for you, more people, bigger city only means more problems, and, worse than that, we will be robbing our children and their children of a decent standard of living. I believe we can be world leaders in planning for a realistic future for our city and our nation based on sound foundations. On that optimistic note, it gives me great pleasure to declare this forum officially opened. |
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