Christmas
Island Detention Centre
Broadcast on Saturday 4/5/2002
Summary:
This week on Earthbeat the endangered red crabs of Christmas Island face
a new threat as the Federal government fast tracks a detention centre for
Asylum seekers.
Transcript:
Alexandra de Blas: Hi, I’m Alexandra
de Blas welcome to Earthbeat, environmental radio across the island continent.
THEME
.......But first to another island at the opposite end of the continent, Christmas
Island off the north-west coast of Western Australia.
Peter Green: I think the environment
is under assault from four sides. We have a space station, we have a detention
centre, we have crazy ants, and we have mining proposals. I think the
environment is under the most pressure it’s ever been under in its very short
history of human occupation. Christmas Island is a very special place, it’s an
oceanic island whose fauna and flora is relatively still intact compared to
many other oceanic islands around the world. Now, we risk losing that special
status.
Alexandra de Blas: That’s Dr Peter
Green from Monash University. He’s talking about Christmas Island, a small dot
in the Indian Ocean about 24 kilometres long and 7ks wide, where a new 1200
person detention centre is about to be built for asylum seekers. He’s been
studying the ecology of the island for 14 years, and is worried the development
threatens endangered wildlife like the famous red crabs, that annually migrate
from the forest to the sea to spawn.
What’s controversial about this proposal is that normal environmental
assessment procedures are being waived by the Federal Government to allow the
project to proceed. It’s said to be of national significance, so Environment
Minister, Dr David Kemp has used his Ministerial discretion under the
Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
Wilson Tuckey is the Minister responsible for the new development.
Wilson Tuckey: The government has
people parked in various localities in the Pacific, it wants to bring them at
least back to countries where Australia has its own control, or localities, and
as such we have to get on urgently. But please remember in this circumstance,
we are actually erecting the detention centre on an area that’s designated
mining lease, and has in fact been subject to some mining already.
Alexandra de Blas: The road to the
detention centre from town will run along one of the key migration routes of
the red crabs endemic to Christmas Island and the Cocos Keeling Islands; how
will you minimise road kills, because this road to North West Point usually
closed during the migration season.
Wilson Tuckey: Well in fact there’s
been considerable success already proven by the appropriate measures, which
we’re going to use, and that is tunnelling under the road. You do some fencing
and you do some tunnelling and the crabs seem to be very comfortable with that
arrangement, and they use it, so they don’t use the road, it’s not that long,
and they will go under the road.
Alexandra de Blas: Each of those
tunnels costs about $30,000 to erect, and where the crabs pass you need to
construct one about one every 300 metres; so how many of these crab tunnels are
you expecting to erect on the road to the detention centre to protect the red
crabs?
Wilson Tuckey: Well they will be
sufficient, and they’ve been factored into our costs, which are quite
significant across the board, but I understand there’s some channelling that’s
done also with fencing that assists in this process. The experiments have been
done on the island and proved successful, and we are following that
arrangement, and we’ve allowed enough money to do it.
Alexandra de Blas: The detention
facility will be built on an old phosphate mine site, as you said, and it’s
near an endangered Abbots Booby breeding colony, listed as a high priority for
rehabilitation. What will happen to the rehabilitation once the detention
centre is built? Will that still go ahead for the Abbots Booby?
Wilson Tuckey: Well rehabilitation
is something that’s an ongoing process, both in terms of the old British
phosphate workings which were never rehabilitated at the time, and of course
the mining company today has an immediate obligation to rehabilitate their
workings, so those projects outside the boundaries of the detention centre,
will continue in the ongoing fashion. You just made mention of the endangered
Abbots Booby, that’s a contentious issue. Admittedly the numbers are probably
not the same as they were years ago, but some raise the question of whether
that’s the availability of feed in the ocean, or whatever, there’s certainly –
Alexandra de Blas: But isn’t it –
Wilson Tuckey: Wait a minute! When
I’ve finished.
Alexandra de Blas: Sorry.
Wilson Tuckey: There are certainly
millions of trees available for them to nest in, and of course the other point
that it’s time the community recognised in regards to this bird is, it’s called
the Abbots Booby after a Mr Abbot, who first discovered it on Assumption
Island, where it is still in residence, and we keep getting fed this misleading
comment that this bird is unique to Christmas Island. It is not. The reality is
that the bird had ample nesting sites, the area in particular that’s going to
be used on this occasion is not generally suitable; yes, there’s the odd nest
there, but most of them are further into the park, and it is generally, at the
best, low scrub, and at the worst, just bare ground. Now you say the IUCN has
listed this bird as endangered; I don’t think the evidence is there, but theirs
is always a rather precautionary approach.
Alexandra de Blas: Wilson Tuckey,
Federal Minister for Territories.
Dr Peter Green from the Centre for Analysis and Management of Biological
Invasions at Monash University, has been studying the impact of the explosion
of crazy ants on the island, which is thought to have been triggered by a
series of very dry, hot years in the 1990s. He doesn’t share Mr Tuckey’s
confidence that the plants and animals have the resilience to cope with new
stresses.
Peter Green: We have many
environmental concerns about the proposed detention centre. One is the
endangered Abbots Booby. Abbots Booby is a sea bird that now nests only on
Christmas Island, and it’s been red listed by the IUCN since the 1960s. There
is a population of Boobys in forest right next to the proposed centre. What
happens is, the wind comes across these old clearings, it becomes more
turbulent in the canopy downwind, and that depresses the breeding success of
Abbots Boobys. Now the clearing where the detention centre will be built has
been slated as a high priority site for rehabilitation. So that site will now
never be rehabilitated properly, instead it will have a detention centre there.
Now the facts of the matter are these:
There are 2-1/2-thousand breeding pairs we think, of Abbots Boobys on Christmas
Island. Now that does seem like a lot, but these birds breed at an incredibly
slow rate, with an incredibly low rate of juvenile success. On average, a
breeding pair takes 25 years to replace itself. Now that’s an incredibly long
time, and a panel of experts is of the opinion that the biology of the species
is such that any small perturbation to the population could push it to the edge
of a decline from which it would never recover.
Alexandra de Blas: The road to the
detention centre is one of the key migration routes for the red crab. Wilson
Tuckey says the crabs will not be harmed by the centre, because they will build
crab tunnels. How many of these tunnels would need to be built to make the road
safe and how effective are these tunnels?
Peter Green: The tunnels themselves
are very effective. We’ve seen that on one of the roads here that has three
tunnels. They were built as part of the agreement for building the casino. So
we know that these tunnels work, but they are expensive, and we do need lots of
them. The main road out to North West Point will be closed during the crab
migration season so that the traffic out to the North Western area will have to
be re-routed a long way, if you like. Now the long way involves two major
roads, crabs cross both of them and it’s estimated that we might need 20 at
least of these tunnels, and each one cost about $30,000.
Alexandra de Blas: You came to
Christmas Island to study the crazy ant, which is attacking the crabs; I
believe the crazy ants have formed something called Super Colonies?
Peter Green: Yes. Normally with
ants, you have isolated nests, each containing a single queen, and the workers
from these isolated nests, even within the same species are aggressive towards
one another. In a super colony situation, the nests are basically
indistinguishable from each other, in that the worker ants from the nest
basically co-operate in whatever they’re doing. The other key thing is that
nests can have more than one queen. We’ve seen nests here on Christmas Island
have more than 1,000 queens. But the end result is we’ve lost tens of millions
of red crabs just in the last seven years. So in areas of super colony
formation there are basically no more red crabs, they’re all dead.
Alexandra de Blas: How much red crab
habitat have you lost?
Peter Green: Crazy ants super
colonies currently infest around about 25% of the forest. The proportion of the
crab population that’s been killed is quite likely to be a lot more than 25%.
Alexandra de Blas: It seems likely
that the detention centre could be tied to the opening up of nine new phosphate
mining leases. Why are you concerned about that, knowing what you do about red
crabs and the forest?
Peter Green: The detention centre
has been sited in a mine lease that is currently owned by Phosphate Resources
Ltd. Now reasonably enough, they’re seeking compensation for the loss of that
part of their lease, and there is talk that they’ll be compensated with land rather
than dollars. Now currently they have a proposal before the government for nine
new lease areas, totalling 448-hectares. Now 71% or 320 hectares of those
proposed new areas is actually pristine, never been disturbed before
rainforest. Now that’s a huge concern. Red crabs are the lynchpin of the
ecology of Christmas Island, and there are significant numbers of red crabs
living in these proposed mine leases, and they will be killed once the
bulldozers go in to clear the trees.
Alexandra de Blas: Peter Green, from
Monash University.
Wilson Tuckey strongly supports the bid for nine new phosphate mining leases to
accompany the new detention centre.
Wilson Tuckey: The mining company
would much prefer land swaps to financial compensation, and naturally so would
the workers on the island, whose alternative employment prospects of course are
very slim. I would like to think, and that would require approval of
Parliament, that we can provide resource for lost resource, rather than further
taxpayers’ money which can be better used in health and education and at the
same time maintain the viability of the mining industry on that island.
Alexandra de Blas: But isn’t it a
concern that red crabs, the endemic red crabs, have lost 30% of their habitat
in the last nine years since the crazy ants have exploded, and they’ll lose
more prime habitat if phosphate mining goes ahead on these new nine leases?
Wilson Tuckey: Well I disagree with
your second claim. I don’t think there’s any substance to that argument
whatsoever, but taking the other point, the crazy ant situation; of course the
ant has been there apparently for many decades, but we’ve been quite successful
with a baiting program distributed by hand, that has re-established the crabs
immediately on that land that they were frightened off by the crazy ant and of
course we have made resources, or indicated resources are available for a major
bait distribution program by helicopter.
Alexandra de Blas: If mining goes
ahead on these new leases, and new rainforest is cleared, what if that tips the
crabs over the edge, wouldn’t that be a very serious matter?
Wilson Tuckey: Well of course it
would. And that’s not going to happen. And the areas concerned are relatively
small. I mean they’re only asking for areas that have previously been mined and
lower quality ores have been stockpiled, so they’re not virgin rainforest and
there is some virgin rainforest that could be included which is not presently
in the park.
Alexandra de Blas: There are plans
to build a space launch facility in the south of the island; how will the
blasting and vibration affect the nesting birds and the fauna on the island?
Wilson Tuckey: I don’t think it’ll
affect them at all. The area is to one end of the island, and unless a bird
chose to fly through the rocket blast, I don’t think it’ll affect them at all.
I mean animals do adapt, and there’s been a lot of mechanical activity on that
island for generations now, and the birds are still there.
Peter Green: That raises many
environmental issues. At the very least, again there’s going to be increased
traffic on the roads going down to the proposed launch site. That’s I guess
almost a minor concern against the emission clouds from the launches
themselves, and the noise and the light, the site is literally within a stone’s
throw of one of the major seabird nesting areas on Christmas Island. This area
is full of Great Frigate Birds and Red Footed Boobys, and it’s possible that
the launches of these very large Russian rockets are going to upset the birds quite
considerably, and perhaps even force them to abandon that site.
Alexandra de Blas: Ecologist, Peter
Green speaking from Christmas Island. And before that, Federal Minister for
Territories, Wilson Tuckey.
Next, the relationship between the arts and corporate sponsorship.
Guests on this program:
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Further information:
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ABC Reporter:
Alexandra de Blas