pjb05
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With the merry dance FD has lead it might be easy to forget what the original complaint was about (some method in that perhaps). Here's another article by Walter Starck which covers the same ground but also raises some new points:
Confirmation by silence: No explanation for scientific integrity concerns Wednesday, 28 April 2010 04:18 The serious issues of scientific integrity presented by the scientific report on adaptive management of the Great Barrier Reef (McCook et al., 2010), and to which I have drawn attention have resulted in no response from the authors, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) or Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett. It appears that no credible explanation can be offered and responsible authority must think the entire matter is insignificant enough to just be ignored.
To reiterate briefly, the major concerns raised include: •The authors declared no conflict of interest when all 21 of them are either employees of GBRMPA or have benefited from a total of millions of dollars in funding from them. In addition, any other research they do on the reef must also be approved by the GBRMPA. That this situation should be seen as devoid of conflicting interest makes a farce of the very concept. Although the journal which published this study has clear and explicit requirements for authors to disclose sources of funding and to address conflicting evidence, neither was done. This omission falsely presents that no such funding or conflicting evidence exists when in fact it is voluminous. •It has been falsely represented in both news releases and the report itself that closure to fishing has resulted in a doubling of fish numbers on many protected reefs when in fact only one of the eight reef areas surveyed showed such an increase and five of the eight areas showed a decline. In the one area which did show the doubling, it had the lowest numbers to start with and the fished reefs in that area also exhibited a similar increase. That such inter-annual fluctuations are common, natural and well known was ignored. •It was also falsely claimed that the economic value of the GBR is A$5.5 billion (US$5.05 billion) and that, "Tourism accounts for the vast majority of reef-based income and employment. ...income from tourism is estimated to be about 36 times greater than commercial fishing." These claims are highly misleading. The value cited for the GBR includes the total for all tourism in the region when half of all tourists do not even visit the reef and the reef component for the majority of those who do see it, is a one-day tour. The economic value of commercial and recreational fishing plus retail fish sales and seafood meals in restaurants, actually makes the total value of fishing closer to twice that of reef tours. •Numerous additional arguable, doubtful and even demonstrably false claims are also made with no discussion of conflicting evidence. Remarkably, some of the strongest and clearest of such conflict comes from other work published by the same authors.
It seems surreal, that this situation stems from what their own press release described as “a ‘who’s-who’ of Australian coral reef scientists”, an institution which modestly calls itself a “Centre of Excellence” and publication in one of the world’s most prestigious scientific journals.
Left to stand unaddressed, this situation makes a farce of any pretence of scientific integrity, procedure or even facts. If as a society we can no longer recognise such an obvious violation of both reason and ethics on this level, the future of what is indeed the world’s luckiest country does not look very hopeful.
Across the nation, farmers, graziers, fishermen, miners, developers, ordinary property owners and indeed the entire productive sector is struggling under the burden of a bloated and unaccountable bureaucracy claiming scientific authority based on made-to-order research findings they have bought and paid for.
The resulting impact on people’s lives is not just an inconvenience. It is frequently devastating and is growing steadily worse. Recent Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) statistics show a 30 percent decline in the gross value of Australian fisheries and a 44 percent decline in real value of fishery exports over the past decade.
None of this is due to collapse of the resource. All of it is a direct result of increased regulation with dubious science playing a central role. When are we going to hear any expressions of outrage or even concern about any of this? Is it going to require an economic collapse and real hunger to halt this obscene charade?
Coincidentally, the lead author and two others of the McCook et al. report have been recipients of generous Pew foundation fellowships. The Pew Environment Group is also a prominent sponsor of the Protect Our Coral Sea campaign which has commissioned another recent study by the same Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies that produced the McCook et al. report.
One author is common to both reports. This study finds that the most cost effective management for a vast new Coral Sea Marine Protected Area would be to make it a no-take zone and have it managed by GBRMPA. Taken together, the findings of the two reports and Pew involvement raise a further concern with regard to undisclosed interests.
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