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HUMUNGOUS SUMUR Cours SAIL NORTH > One of the world’s biggest icebergs, Berg 9 splits which broke away from the Ross Ice Shelf from ijl pr Shelf last October, is heading toward the ship- ping lanes off Antarctica. Called Berg 9, it is 144 km long and 32 km wide. ~~ ® aa Ate A Beene Benbnee 1n henrl HUMUNGOUS BERGS SAIL NORTH One of the world’s biggest icebergs, which broke away from the Ross Ice Shelf last October, is heading toward the ship- ping lanes off Antarctica. Called Berg 9, it is 144 km long and 32 km wide. Berg 9 is the latest iceberg to break Roya. AssENT from Antarctica after two years of glacial breakup. Mr Stanley Jacobs, an oceanog- ANTARCTICA D ROPS AXE ON rapher at Columbia University’s Geo- hysical Observatory, said, “If you just | nent. The iceberg is a surprise to scien- W a at 1986 and 1987, there have been | tists, who are ide studying the link FOREST ORK some extreme events. You couldn’t have | between the greenhouse effect and the the ice beaking away at this rate every | riseofthesealevel. Berg 9 alone accounts year or the ice sheet would soon be seri- | for a 3mm rise in the Earth’s oceans. ously out of balance.” However, most scientists doubt that Yet it is not even the largesticemassto | the Earth’s warming is speeding up the escape from the Antarctic. Two larger | breakup of theicecap - iceberg formation icebergs broke off from the Filchner Ice | is an erratic process anyway, with years Shelf in 1986. of ice accumulation followed by cata- The bulk of Berg 9 equals half ayear’s | strophic breakup. But few discount the snowfall on the entire Antarctic conti- | possibility. The Federal Government's conservation legislation received Royal assent just in time to stop Queensland rainforest log- gers from picking up tools at the begin- ning of the new logging season. Subject to weather conditions, the northern rainforests would have been reopened to logging in early April. Under the new Conservation Legisla- tion Amendment Act, the Government has the power to control commercial ac- tivity in the forests until a decision is made about their World Heritage Listing. Announcing the granting of Royal as- sent, Minister for the Environment Sena- tor Richardson said that commercial for- estry operations in the rainforests would be unlawful until November - when the World Heritage Committee is expected to hand down its decision. Tree Farm Project LP "Ti he benefits of sustainable agricul- Drors AXE ON Forest WorkK “The benefits of sustainable agricul- ture,” Senator Powell said in Parliament, “include the greater likelihood that small farmers will be able to survive economi- cally... The enhancement of the soil is par- ticularly important and is possible through ecologically conscious farming practices.” Today, farming and banking don’t mix well. Bankers see farming - and con- servation work - as a “high risk” area. Bill Mollison has been instrumental in establishing ethically sound banking and has argued that environmentalists who keep their money in most banks are in- vesting in ecologically destructive enter- prises. We need financial institutions that invest in such things as sustainable agri- culture. Mollison is at present calling for people to write to him to help form an ethical bank. (His address is P.O. Box 1, Tyalgum, NSW, 2484.) Western Australian President of The Men of the Trees Barry Oldfield and world- renowned conservationist Professor David Bellamy have embarked on an am- bitious farming project, the Tree Farm Project, to tackle the difficult task of re- generating arid land and developing a form of arid agriculture which is finan- cially and ecologically sustainable. The key to sustainable farming is hav- ing diversity of produce; it means return- ing to mixed farming. But the first task of the project will be to lift the burden of debt from farms as this poses one of the greatest threats to their sustainability - economically and environmentally. Debt servicing requires more intensive use and depletion of soil to pay off the extra burden. Profit from the land should be turned back into the land instead of into debt servicing; otherwise the land suffers. As explained by Barrie Oldfield, “weneed to create a multiple farm-based project that will provide the data encouraging the natural flow of money back into the land via sustainable farming.” Our Choices Democrat Senator Janet Powell told Parliament: “One scenario is that a few in- dividuals and businesses - often foreign- based or foreign-owned - will be owning most of the productive agricultural land in this country with a continuing empha- sis on intensive farming, pesticide-high monoculture and the traditional crops and stocks - the ones we are used to such as wheat, wool, beef and so on.” Another scenario is support by gov- ernment and rural finance institutions to actively encourage farmers to adopt ecol- ogically sustainable farming practices. ae HUMUNGOUS BERGS SAIL NORTH NEXUS New Times Five - Winter 1988 19