Threatened species list in need of a good edit Stephen Garnett The Australian October 24, 2013 5:41PM http://m.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/big-idea/threatened-species-list-in-need-of-a-good-edit/story-fnjtmnpc-1226746203192 [start of text only….] “ON July 9, 1904, Alan Owston shot a female rainbow bee-eater that had migrated north from Australia to the island of Okinawa south of Japan. This bedraggled bird, now in the American Museum of Natural History, remains the only record of a bee-eater from Japan. Despite this, 70 years after the bird died, the bee-eater was appended to the Japan-Australia Migratory Bird Agreement. JAMBA, as it is known, is one four international agreements that make migrants matters of national environmental significance under Australia’s foremost environmental legislation, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Because bee-eaters appear on an EPBC Act list of migrants, every environmental impact assessment has to consider whether a proposed development will have a detrimental effect on the species. None ever have, because bee-eaters are abundant and widespread. However, for the very reason that they are so common, almost every environmental consultant has a copy-and-paste paragraph justifying why bee-eaters should again be ignored – though they have sometimes had to argue hard to convince those setting conditions. Forty years ago the author of the JAMBA schedules was probably pleased to get any bird recognised under international law. The same list includes several extinct species and one, the Roper River scrub-robin, which we now think never existed. Today, however, such inclusions are seen as at best a waste of time, at worst a major unnecessary impediment. So too are the many marine species than never touch the sea – including some that never cross water at all if they can help it. Birds like Trumpet Manucodes that never fly across water, even to islands just offshore, are still listed as marine species. Such errors in listing are more than petty mistakes. They can have major ramifications – both for the species they miss and the species wrongly included.” =============================== To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) to: birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au http://birding-aus.org ===============================