- Fenilab Report
STATE OF THE WORLD
Great Benefit ...
Great benefit can flow - to enterprises as much as to the family of nations - if decisions are shaped by awareness of the essential facts about the state of the world. Conversely, if they are ignored, the consequences could be appallingly painful ... be aware of the facts - or beware the sting!
AESP offers the following data for consideration and reference purposes in the spirit of contributing towards sensible, informed decision making. Reference sources are to be found at the end of the document.
Between 1950 and 1995, as population doubled, world economic production grew by five times - from $4 trillion to $20 trillion. Lumber doubled but paper increased sixfold. Grain and meat production trebled - the same as water use. Seafood consumption quadrupled and so did the burning of fossil fuels. The level of output to which humans had aspired by 1950 - after two million years on Earth - was quintupled in just 45 years! This gigantic and historic achievement however, on no account points to a wise course for the future. The explosion of growth carries with it the seeds of its own demise - notably for two reasons:
First, the share of the wealth is becoming increasingly uneven. In 1960, the ratio of the share of the richest fifth of people on Earth to the poorest fifth was 30:1. In 1995, the ratio was 61:1(1). Therein lies a Pandora's Box of problems.
Second, the physical demands of economic output are pressing hard against the Earth's limited resource capacity, as the data below all too clearly indicate.
Humans may have already reached plague proportions, yet burgeoning numbers continue.
The growth of world population fell from 2% in 1970 to 1.6% in 1995, but because of the population momentum resulting from a large proportion of children coming on, the current volume of additions is the highest in history. World additions, by decade, are as follows:
'70s ...750m. '80s ...840m. '90s ...an estimated 960m.(2)
At 5.8 billion in 1997, world population is expected to double by the year 2050.
DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN DIVERSITY
Ironically, despite the massive increase in numbers, not all human groups are safe from extinction. As an example, an average of one Amazon tribe has disappeared each year since 1900.(3)
Nor is the population of all nations growing. Japan and 29 European countries have a growth rate at or about zero, the actual rates ranging between -0.6% (Russia) and +0.3% (Japan, France, Norway, et.al.(4)
Despite the economic bonanza, and because of population growth, hunger on a global scale appears imminent.
Grain: Area: Cropland per person is expected to decrease by 1/6th during the '90s, yet 28m. tons of additional grain is needed each year to feed the extra mouths. (5) Grainland per person in 1950 was .23 Ha. By 1995 it had fallen to .12 Ha. - only about half as much (6). Between 1979 and 1995, per capita irrigated area fell as well - by 7% (7). Quantity: Since 1991, there has been no growth in world grain production at all, largely because crops cannot effectively use more fertiliser. Since in the same period, population rose by some 440 million, a per capita decrease had to occur (8). In fact, grain harvest per person fell by 10% between the mid 80's and the mid 90's (9).
Measured in days of global consumption, the world's carryover stocks of grain for 1996 fell to 49 days - the lowest on record. (70 - 80 days are required for even minimal safety)(10).
The prices of wheat and corn, the two biggest crops, doubled as a result of the scarcity of grain in '95/'96. Yet 1.2 billion people live on $1US per day. If 70c of that dollar is spent on food, a doubling of grain prices could be life threatening, with government-toppling political instability following in its wake(11).
Related to this, the significant grain exporters are confined to six nations - Argentina, Australia, Thailand, France, Canada and the USA. With massive food deficits just over the horizon, great power will reside in the hands of these nations, particularly the US(12). It seems that food security may soon replace military security as the number one concern. Thus, stabilising population is becoming the critical factor for national security, particularly in developing nations.
In turn, the education of women is the most critical factor in stabilising population.
Seafood:
The world catch of seafood per person has not risen since 1970, and as population rises, the figure is headed downwards(13).
In fact, world seafood catch per person declined by 8% between 1990 and 1995 (14). The volume of the oceanic catch topped out at 82m. tons in 1988 (15).
From 1974, seafood prices have more than trebled, directing this protein rich food source away from the developing countries where it is most needed (16). Land based and coastal aquaculture though, has recently expanded its contribution. In 1984, production was 6.5m. tons and rose to 13% of the world fish catch total by slating 13m. tons in 1991. The target for the year 2000 is 22m tons, but much of this will be at the expense of grain with which fish are fed, making the gains problematic.(17).
Carrying Capacity:
With grain production nearing its outer limits, the Earth's food carrying capacity depends on how much of that grain is converted into meat for human consumption - the more meat is eaten, the lower the population which can be supported. The prospect of eating as the United States of America does is already an ecological impossibility because 70% of US grain (= 40% of world grain) is fed to US livestock - enough to nourish 5 times as many people as it does.
The pounds of grain needed to produce one pound of (protein richer) meat is approximately as follows:
Pork - 6.9
Beef - 4.8
Chickens - 2.8
Eggs - 2.6
Fish - 2 (18)
Countries eat varying proportions of meat, but taking a cross section of the range of consumption habits, and using all available land, the outer limits of the Earth's food carrying capacity are approximately as follows: If we all ate like:
USA - 2.5 billion people
Italy - 5 billion people
India - 10 billion people
As countries develop, more meat is eaten, not less. Since 1950, world meat consumption per capita has doubled (19). Clearly, the populous will not willingly convert to the Indian diet - nor should it. Whilst the U.S. diet is protein over-rich, the Indian diet is protein poor. Italy's diet approximates to the recommended level. The present world population is 5.8 billion, which implies that it is undernourished. We can conclude therefore that as of 1997, the population of the Earth already exceeds its food carrying capacity by approximately 800 million people.
The one percent of the Earth's water which is fresh, is available as rivers, lakes and aquifers (underground water in porous rocks). Since the volume is fixed, each time the population doubles, the per capita supply is cut in half (20). Necessary for all life, 65% of human water requirements is used for food production - one ton of grain for example taking 1000 tons of water to grow (21). With the burgeoning demand for food, it is not surprising that water resources are being stretched - in many cases beyond sustainable limits.
Major rivers which now dry up or virtually dry up periodically before reaching their source include:
Often connected to this is the shrinking of inland waters, for example:
Vast fossil aquifers under the Libyan and Saudi deserts are being applied to agriculture in a practice which is destined to be unsustainable because fossil aquifers are not replenished (24). This is also largely true of the great Ogalalla aquifer in the Prairie states of the USA. The draw-down rate far exceeds that of recharge in this predominantly fossil aquifer, and already some farmers in the south have had to abandon irrigation. Underground supplies in the Punjab, Rajasthan and other southern Indian states are also being depleted by unsustainable irrigation. In N. China, parts of the water table have been lowered by 30 metres over the last two to three decades as urban and rural users vie for scarce supplies (25). Such depletion of water resources indicates that human demand already exceeds the sustainable level of supply. It also involves the deprivation of aquatic ecosystems, and the build up of pollutants in rivers, lakes and aquifers - upon which, along with the direct use of precipitation (rain, snow etc.), all life depends.
Around the world, agriculture has eroded, compacted, contaminated, salted or waterlogged extensive tracts of cropland. Erosion is the worst culprit, accounting for 84% of degraded areas (26) and a loss of 66 m. tons of soil every day, or 24 b. tons a year. Salination (i.e. the salting up of soils so that they become too salty to grow food in) by comparison only affects about 10% of irrigated land - a relatively small area. Still, it is disproportionately important because of the higher yields of such lands (27). The calculation of the actual impact of all forms of soil degradation is necessarily complex, but according to a recent U.N. study, the bottom line is a whopping production loss of 18% (28) - enough to feed 900 million people (29).
Of the 6.2 billion hectares which originally covered the Planet, 4.2 billion remain - much of which is biologically inferior. In fact, only 1.5 billion hectares are untouched or 'primary'(30). If every person on Earth planted 10 trees each year - the equivalent of 24 million hectares - it would still take 83 years to restore the original forest cover (31). But almost the direct opposite is occurring - an area the size of Austria (about 17m. hectares) is being cut down annually. In addition to sustaining indigenous peoples, forests play a massively important role in stabilising the water cycle, the carbon cycle, and the soils of the Earth (32). They also house and support the richest source of biodiversity in the world.
According to Paul Ehrlich, humans use 40% of net primary production (the product of photosynthesis), leaving only 60% to be shared by the other 10 million or more land based species. Largely as a result of this, upward of 140 plant and animal species are being extinguished every day (33). Forest clearance is a big factor. As an example, an area 100 metres square (a hectare) of Peruvian forest can contain 41,000 species of insects, (more than a quarter of them beetiles). Studies in the Tambopata Wildlife Reserve of the Peruvian Amazon have indicated that four out of five insects are confined to one type of forest - and 13% to just one type of tree. Thus, it can readily be seen how forest clearance alone can generate very large numbers of extinctions. Unique and therefore invaluable genetic stock is passing into oblivion.
A selection of declining or threatened species includes:
It affects the health of almost all forms of biological life and annually takes the lives of billions of organisms - people amongst them.
In the process, it seriously diminishes the productivity of human economic enterprise, meaning that we all work harder for less.
Some of these negative qualities are illustrated by the DDT pesticide revolution which originated in 1939. Initially successful in containing pests, it also killed beneficial insects, as well as birds and fish(35). Since humans are also biological lifeforms, DDT also affected them, and humans too began to suffer its impact on their immune, reproductive and nervous systems(36). Meanwhile, the pest insects developed immunity and came back in force. In the US for instance, they now take a larger percentage of the crop harvest - 12%, than they did before the DDT revolution - 9%. The effects of the pesticides is ongoing, and also menaces 20% of the country's 681 threatened or endangered species. Still being applied each year at a rate of one pound for every person on Earth, pesticides constitute but a tiny fraction of the 70,000 new compounds in household and industrial use, many of which are similarly toxic or more so. Their impact on health is sometimes seen in dramatic accidents such as the escape of the lethal gas methyl isocyanate at Bhopal (India) in December 1984 (37). Most often though their effect is less definitive, yet all pervading - reflected for instance by the widespread increase in the incidence of disorders such as asthma and other respiratory diseases, dermatitis, nervous disorders and scores of others including cancer (38).
Bhopal and the 'chemical age' finds its counterpart in Chernobyl and the 'nuclear age'. However, the carcinogenic residues of nuclear fission, notably plutonium, last for tens of thousands of years. Another product of the 20th Century's economic juggernaught is acid rain, which decreases soil fertility, reduces crop yields and destroys forests. In Switzerland for example, 25% of firs and 10% of spruces died in one year alone, whilst West German forest output declined by 5% through the decade 1975-1984. Roughly as much sulphur and nitrogen oxides (the basic ingredients of acid rain) come from human sources as from all nature produces from swamps, oceans and volcanoes.
Yet even the acid rain saga is dwarfed by the projected effects of greenhouse warming.
Climatic change associated with the inputs of CO2, CFCs and methane could not only disrupt fisheries, forestry and agriculture, but entire natural ecosystems. So with these risks may come a wave of extinctions more massive than the one already in progress (40). Nor is that all. Droughts, floods and storms may become more frequent (41). Indeed perhaps they have done so already. El Nino occurrences have been noticeably above average in recent years, bringing extended droughts to Eastern Australia (42).
Around the world, economic losses from weather related natural disasters averaged $5.3b. per year during the 1980's. From 1990 to 1995 the average was $26.5b. - a fivefold increase (43). Devastating to insurance companies, such warnings (if that they be) have not generally moved industrial or political leaders. CO2 contributions to the atmosphere are currently growing at 3% p.a. - despite the catastrophic risks involved (44). Each year, 6 billion tons of CO2 are added to the atmosphere from fossil fuel combustion, whereas the maximum for a stable atmosphere is 1- 2 billion tons (45).
The challenge ahead is to find expanded supplies of energy which are much less polluting. At present, fossil fuels account for 75% of world supplies, whilst renewables comprise 20% and nuclear, 5% (46).
With no new reactors planned to be built, the latter industry is headed for decline, perhaps heralding the end of the nuclear age. But a swap of the other two statistics is also needed - an Herculean task.
It is not being faced, for the growth (at 3% p.a.) of fossil fuel use continues, particularly in the Third World. The share of CO2 inputs by industrial countries, at 79% in 1950, had fallen to 69% by 1990. Though the industrial countries currently use over 2/3rds of world energy supplies, the Third World's growth rate is much faster. In fact, it tripled between 1970 and 1990, as the use in industrial countries rose by just 21%. The Third World added 1.8b. tons of carbon to the atmosphere in 1990. The projected figure for 2025 is 5.5b. tons - equal almost, to the present world total.
Future population growth alone will spur a 70% increase in energy use over the next 30 years. At current consumption levels and with rapid economic growth, an overall tripling of energy consumption is likely. Whilst some countries will deplete their reserves of fossil fuels in this time, world supply will not be the main constraining factor(47). Coal reserves are huge and will become obsolete long before they are exhausted. Natural gas, the cleanest of the fossil fuels, may be the first to go - but not until well into the 21st Century. Oil reserves are greater. At current draw down rates, the Mid-East wells, with 65% of world reserves, would last 110 years. But long before fossil fuels are exhausted, their use will need to be eclipsed by clean fuels - geo-thermal, wind and solar-hydrogen systems .... The alternative is an uninhabitable Earth. Coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels, will need to be cut by 90%, and generally, per capita carbon emissions will need to be 1/4 of the present level in Western Europe to achieve a stable atmosphere. We will need to produce goods with 1/3 to 1/2 the energy used today, even as renewables are quadrupled (48). The main danger is that these changes come too late and we are overtaken by environmental problems and social and economic upheavals of disastrous proportions.
Even though mineral use has jumped thirteenfold since 1990 and is still growing at a rate slightly higher than that of world population, constraints on it are generally not primarily because minerals are in danger of running out. Proven reserves range from 20 years (lead, tin, zinc) to 224 years (bauxite). Added to these, are known but less economic reserves, plus unknown reserves in a world much of which has yet to be explored.
Mining is the quintessential dirty industry, and the primary constraint, as with fuels, arises from its environmental impact. Already there are instances where mining was brought to a standstill. The Bougainville copper mine produced 600m. tons of metal-contaminated tailings (130,000 tons per day) which killed all aquatic life downstream 30km., including a 700 Ha. area of delta. Local anger was a major cause of the civil war there. Yet the Ok Tedi copper and gold mine in the same country, Papua New Guinea(PNG), produced 150,000 tons per day, which fed into the Fly river with similar consequences to wild life - and a protracted legal battle by the indigenous inhabitants.
Elsewhere, new gold mining technology releases hundreds of tons of mercury and millions of gallons of cyanide-spiked water into drainage basins annually. In a given year, smelters around the world pour 6m. tons of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere, producing forest-destroying acid rain. Ecosystems are directly 'uprooted'(49).
The non-metal mining industry alone destroys 500,000 Ha. per annum. In an extreme example, within ten years, phosphate rich Nauru will be 80% uninhabitable (50).
The mining industry as a whole is the greatest single consumer of energy. One metal alone - aluminium - takes 1% of world energy use. Yet even that is dwarfed by steel - a staggering 5%!
In the process, vast areas of forests are cut down as fuel - 50,000 Ha. per year for just one iron smelter (Carajas) in Brazil for example (51).
Energy use is the major cause of greenhouse warming and climatic change.
Global military spending since World War II has added up to a cumulative $30 - $35 trillion. At $995 billion in 1987, it declined following the end of the Cold War to an estimated $767 billion in 1994 - still 250 times more than is spent on peace keeping, and 170 times more than the $4.5b. spent on family planning. The astronomical sums spent on the military are not confined to rich countries. The Third World spends as much on defence as on education and health combined - yet 1.2 billion live in absolute poverty. Absolute poverty means that the basic needs of food, clothing and shelter are not met. Less than 2% of global military spending (or about $20 billion) could wipe out absolute poverty in the world.
Added to direct military spending is its environmental impact. Peace time defence is accountable for 6% of mineral use and 2-3% of energy use.
It is responsible for an estimated 6-10% of global air pollution. In addition, clean up costs are staggering. For example, nuclear test decontaminations cost the U.S. $4.3 b. in 1991 alone (53). Even that is overshadowed by the land mine problem. To remove the land mines - there are between 65 and 100 million of them - would cost an estimated $200 - $300 billion! Similarly huge sums are involved in post conflict reconstruction - at least $8 -$10 billion in Kuwait following the Gulf War for example (54). In 1993, the U.N. spent over a billion dollars on refugees, but this is only a fraction of the total associated costs (55). And for them, like so many others affected by war, there is the incalculable toll of human misery and despair.
Since World War II, there have been 132 wars, each involving the deaths of at least 1000 combatants. A total of 23 million were killed, with a further 17 million dying from war related illness and famine.
Ninety percent of the casualties of these wars were born by developing nations, where population pressure, environmental degradation and poverty commonly lie beneath the more apparent causes of political oppression and instability, ethnic tensions and religious differences.
Both the causes and the incidence of these wars contribute significantly to the dislocation and mass movement of people. As of 1995, there were 35 million people who had relocated within countries (27m. of them refugees) and 125 million who had crossed international boundaries - 23m. of whom are refugees. By comparison, in 1975, international refugees numbered 'only' 2.5 million. The mass movement of people is a rising tide and it is frequently linked to poverty (56). Africa for example, with 10% of world population, hosts over 25% of the world's refugees - and from areas most affected by environmental disaster and famine (57).
If there is a nexus between poverty and conflict, governments would seem to be either unaware or unmoved by it, for just at a time when a boost was needed, world food aid dropped - from 15.2m. tons in 1995 to an estimated 7.6m tons in 1996, exactly one half (58). This fall in volume is partly the result of the price rise of wheat and corn noted above - itself the result of food shortages.
Every citizen has a right, and every decision maker a responsibility, to know of the dangers facing the world. That much suffering lies ahead is a certainty .... but catastrophe can be avoided. We already know a lot of the answers. And though only just, we can still afford a wry smile at Woody Allen's black humour, when he says,
'More than any time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.'
Given our inaction however, these words will cease to be black humour - or humour of any kind. Just a statement of fact.
The facts and figures of 'State of the World' give rise to the consideration of a whole range of economic and political policy issues - from population, foreign aid and immigration to those of economic growth, taxation and the environment. Such considerations will often require further data specific to the country or locality in question. Take the figures on carbon emissions for example (see above for the data on Pollution). There is a strong case that this data inform the current Australian taxation debate. In 1994, Australia, at 4.19 tons per person, was the world's third biggest per capita emitter of carbon into the atmosphere. Only the USA (5.26 tons) and Kazakstan (4.71 tons) are more culpable. To indicate just how bad these figures are, Brazil comes in at 0.39 tons, yet it is the twentieth on the list. In other words, all the other 160 (or there about) nations emit less per capita than Brazil even! Maybe Australia doesn't care sufficiently about this world problem to adopt a carbon tax, .... or perhaps it hasn't woken up to possible links between carbon emissions, greenhouse warming and the trend towards intensifying drought in Eastern Australia. Perhaps Australians are already paying a heavy cost in agricultural losses. Nor is that all. By gradually switching from fossil fuels to renewables such as wind and solar-hydrogen systems (which is recommended elsewhere in the document), it would help employment and save capital outlays. The new technologies would absorb about four times the labour that fossil fuels take to produce a given output, but with lower expenditures on capital, so relieving the pressure on scarce investmentment funds and reducing unemployment (60).
Anyone who has read the sections of the document on Pollution, Energy, and Minerals will also know that a move in the direction of renewable forms of energy will soon become mandatory anyway. They will also know why, and the extent of change which must occur for the maintenance of a stable atmosphere.
The sources listed below are obtainable from the Worldwatch Institute (See beginning of this document).
(1)L. Brown, State of the World 1996, Chapter 1 - "The Acceleration of History".
(2)L. Brown, World Watch Magazine, Vol 8, No 6, Nov-Dec 1995 - "Facing Food Scarcity".
(3)Alan Durning, Paper 112, Dec 1992 - "Guardians of the Land: Indiginous People and the Health of the Earth".
(4)See End Note 1.
(5)L. Brown, State of the World 1997, Chapter 2 - "Facing the Prospect of Food Scarcity".
(6)Gary Gardner, State of the World 1997, Chapter 3 - "Preserving Cropland".
(7)See End Note 2.
(8)See End Note 2.
(9)L. Brown, State of the World 1994, Chapter 10 - "Facing Food Insecurity".
(10)See End Note 2.
(11)See End Note 5.
(12)See End Note 2.
(13)Peter Weber, paper 120, July 1994 - "Net loss: Fish, Jobs and the Marine Environment.
(14)See End Note 2.
(15)See End Note 1.
(16)See End Note 13.
(17)Lester Brown, State of the World 1995, Chapter 1, "Nature's Limits" and Chris Bright, State of the World 1996, Chapter 6, "Understanding the Threat of Bio-invasion".
(18)Alan Durning, Worldwatch Magazine, Vol 4, No 6, May-June 1991, "Fat of the Land".
(19)For a fuller discussion of carrying capacity, refer to End Notes 2 and 5
(20)Also see Sandra Postel, State of the World 1993, Chapter 2, "Facing Water Scarcity".
(21)See End Note 2.
(22)Sandra Postel, Worldwatch Magazine, Vol.8, No 3, May-June 1995, "Where have all the Rivers Gone?"
(23)See End Note 1, passim.
(24)See End Note 22.
(25)Sandra Postel, Paper 132, September 1996, "Dividing the Waters".
(26)See End Note 6
(27)Sandra Postel, State of the World 1996,Chapter 3, "Forging a Sustainable Water Strategy".
(28)See End Note 6.
(29)Based on consumption at the Italian level (see the bold heading, Carrying Capcity in this web page article).
(30)Sandra Postel and John Ryan, State of the World 1991, Chapter 5, "Reforming Forestry".
(31)Based on a density of one plant per 4.15 square meters and a population of 5.8 billion.
(32)See End Note 30.
(33)John Ryan, State of the World 1992, Chapter 2, "Conserving Biological Diversity".
(34)John Ryan, Paper 108, April 1992, "LIfe Support: Conserving Biological Diversity"
(35)Jennifer Mitchell, Worldwatch Magazine, Vol 10, No 2, March-April 1997, "Nowhere to Hide: the Global Spread of High-Risk Synthetic Chemicals".
(36)Anne Misch, State of the World 1994, Chapter 7, "Assessing Environmental Health Risks".
(37)Peter Weber, Worldwatch Magazine, Vol 5, No 3, May-June 1992, "A Place for Pesticides?"
(38)See End Note 36
(39)Sandra POstel, Paper 58, March 1984, "Air Pollution, Acid Rain and the Future of Forests."
(40)Worldwatch Magazine, Vol 5, No 5, September - October, 1992: John Ryan, "When Nature Loses Its Cool- The Fate of Species in a Warming World", and Lenssen and Flavin, "Closing out Nuclear Power". Also Chris Bright, State of the World 1997, Chapter 5, "Tracking the Ecology of Climate Change".
(41)Christopher Flavin, State of the World 1996, Chapter 2, "Facing Up to the Risks of Climate Change".
(42)Anjali Acharya, Worldwatch Magazine, Vol 8, No 4, July-August, 1995, "El Nino: Fingerprint of Climate Change?"
(43)Worldwatch Magazine, Vol 10, No 1, Jan-Feb, 1997. Update, "Climate Change and Storm Damage".
(44)Chris Flavin and Odil Tunali, Worldwatch Magazine, Vol 8, No 2, March-April 1995, "Getting Warmer".
(45)See End Note 41.
(46)Flavin and Lenssen, State of the World 1991, Chapter 2, "Designing a Sustainable Energy System".
(47)Nicolas Lenssen, State of the World 1993, Chapter 6, "Providing Energy in Developing Countries".
(48)See End Note 46
(49)J.E. Young, State of the World 1992, Chapter 7, "Mining the Earth".
(50)J.E. Young, Paper 109, July 1992, "Mining the Earth".
(51)See End Note 49.
(52)Michael Renner, Paper 122, November 1994, "Budgeting for Disamament".
(53)Michael Renner, State of the World 1991, Chapter 8, "Assessing the Military's War on the Environment".
(54)See End Note 52
(55)See End Note 53
(56)Hal Kane, Paper 125, June 1995, "The Hour of Departure, Forces that Create Refugees and Migrants".
(57)For a fuller discussion, see also Michael Renner, Paper 114, May 1993, "Critical Juncture: The Future of Peacekeeping".
(58)L. Brown, State of the World 1997, Chapter 2, "Facing the Prospect of Food Scarcity".
(59)Christopher Flavin, State of the World 1996, Chapter 2, "Facing up to the Risks of Climate Change".
(60)Michael Renner, State of the World 1992, Chapter 9, "Creating Sustainable Jobs in Industrial Countries".
Bob Whiteway is a teacher of Environmental Studies and author of a nature documentary, Coastal Wildlife of Sandringham. He is Secretary of the Blackrock and Sandringham Conservation Association. He is happy to answer questions about this page and can be contacted on (03)95983898 in Victoria, Australia, or Send your query to him by email and the editor will forward it.
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