Managing for Cryptic Species

What is the best approach when a species becomes endangered to the point that it is difficult or impossible to observe?

Study shows when to manage species

Tuesday, 26 August 2008
Stephen Pincock
ABC

Conservationists should carry on managing the environment as if a seemingly vanished species is still around, rather than rushing to check whether it is extinct, say researchers.

A team from Australia, France and the United Kingdom have used...(complete article here).

Australian Drought Worsens

The drought situation in Australia does not bode well for world food prices. When you are praying for rain, it might be a good idea to throw in a prayer for the drought in Australia as well.

Australia food-bowl drought worsens, rains spare wheat

By Rob Taylor
CANBERRA (Reuters) - The prolonged drought in Australia's Murray-Darling river system is worsening and the country's main food bowl may forever be changed by accelerating climate warming, government officials said on Thursday.

Despite good autumn rains, June inflows into the river basin were...(complete article here).

Australian Drought Impact

The drought situation in Australia is one of the largest impacters of food prices around the world. Add to that the current floods in the upper Midwest of the U.S. and you have a formula for further increases -- especially as rising petroleum prices continue to put upward pressure on transportation costs.

Australia food bowl areas "beyond repair in months"

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Parts of Australia's key Murray-Darling river food bowl may be beyond recovery unless a prolonged dry spell and political wrangling over water use ends by October, a leaked scientific report warned on Wednesday.

"There has been 10 years at least that people have said you have got to...(complete article here).

Australian Wheat Woes

Australia is one of the most important wheat producing countries in the world. The drought there has had a profound impact on worldwide supplies and prices.


Australia's food bowl lies empty

As the BBC looks at the impact of rising food prices around the world, Sydney correspondent Nick Bryant reports from Australia on how the worst drought on record has slashed its exports of wheat.

Though located in a remote corner of the planet, the fields of Australia's food bowl are central to the worldwide price of wheat.

In this part of rural New South Wales, water-starved farms and cavernous empty grain silos have the...(complete article here).

Australian Floods in Drought Area

Farming everywhere is subject to the weather. Let's hope Austrailia's drought is truly broken and their farms receive the rain that is needed in a timely fashion.

Heavy rains flood drought-hit Australian farmers

By Michael Perry

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Heavy rains and flooding in northeast Australia have been both a blessing and a curse for drought-hit farmers, but more rain is needed to break a seven-year drought.

Farm officials say a series of storms have delivered heavy, but sporadic, rain in two of Australia's largest agricultural states, Queensland and New South Wales.

Some farmers who planted big summer sorghum crops have benefited, and some irrigators who had been facing zero water supplies have seen their water rations restored to 100 percent.

But others are still...(complete article here).

Australian Drought

I don't totally buy into the Global Warming angle of this article, but the drought in Australia is bad. It is having a serious effect on world grain prices -- especially wheat.

Worst Drought in a Century Hurting Australian Farmers

Hope Hamashige
for National Geographic News

November 8, 2007

November on Rod Chalmers' farm in Wakool, Australia, shouldn't look like this.

It's springtime, and the wheat fields should be green and waist-high instead of mostly dead.

There are no sheep are in sight either. The animals were sold long ago, because there is no grass for them to graze on.

Chalmers is among many farmers whose crops are withering in an unusual spring heat, following one of the warmest and driest winters on record.

In the seventh year of a crippling drought, much of Australia is in an unprecedented water crisis. The Big Dry, as...(complete article here).

Outlook for Australian Wheat

The wheat outlook for Australia is dismal.

Dried up, washed out, fed up

Oct 4th 2007 GULARGAMBONE
From The Economist print edition

An inaccurate weather forecast brings disaster for many

WHEN rains fell in May after 11 dry years in a row, Bruce Crafter borrowed from his bank to sow a wheat crop on the family farm where he grew up in western Victoria. Like thousands of Australian farmers who have watched their livelihoods wither away under the country's worst drought in a century, Mr Crafter was encouraged by forecasts of follow-up spring rains in September. He sold one-third of his expected bumper crop on the futures market. But the rains never arrived, and the crops that promised salvation have failed. With no intended irony, Mr Crafter says: “We've been washed out.”

“Wash-out” is the term farmers are using to describe the contracts they can no longer fulfil. Australia is one of the world's biggest wheat exporters. The crop underpins the country's outback farming belt. After recent glitches to wheat supplies in North America...(complete article here).

The pressure on global wheat stocks remains high and prices will remain high as well.