The West Australian (Perth, Western Australia), August 23, 2007

CLIMATE CHANGE THREAT TO TOP END

[Rachel's introduction: Professor Jennings said the precautionary principle needed to apply to any development in the north of Australia, an area known as the Top End: "We can't take today's rainfall and temperature regime as what they are likely to be in the future, we have to be aware that things are changing and those changes may not be in favour of agriculture," he said.]

By Jodie Thomson

A global environmental agency has warned that climate change will put landscapes in northern Australia at risk by bringing more cyclones, longer drought and intense fires.

A WWF-commissioned report released this week showed that all major ecosystems in the Top End -- tropical rivers, coral reefs, coastal wetlands, rainforests, savannah woodlands and low islands -- were ranked at medium or high risk from climate change.

WWF northern landscapes manager Stuart Blanch said longer heatwaves would dry out and reduce the productivity of fragile soils.

Coral reefs were at risk of rising ocean temperatures and more acidic water, while changing fire patterns would threaten tropical savannahs reaching from Broome to Cairns and rising sea levels threatened to change freshwater wetlands into saline wetlands. "The report highlights the large economic risks to farmers seeking to establish the north as the food bowl of Asia," Dr Blanch said.

WWF has called on the Federal Government's Northern Australia Taskforce, chaired by Senator Bill Heffernan, to rule out major water resource development which would only weaken the north's climate resilience.

Murdoch University professor of energy studies Phil Jennings said the report provided a timely warning to those who proposed moving agriculture to the north that it was not a panacea for current problems.

"It is the most detailed report I have seen on northern Australia and it is certainly timely in the context of the Heffernan review," he said.

"It is important for the Government not to repeat mistakes made in other parts of Australia where clearing has led to salinity and soil erosion, or the original mistakes they made in the Kimberley when they tried cotton farming and the pests destroyed the crop."

Professor Jennings said the precautionary principle needed to apply to any development in the north.

"We can't take today's rainfall and temperature regime as what they are likely to be in the future, we have to be aware that things are changing and those changes may not be in favour of agriculture," he said.

Copyright West Australian Newspapers Limited 2007