tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/christmas-island-5021/articlesChristmas Island – The Conversation2023-08-23T21:22:36Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2110072023-08-23T21:22:36Z2023-08-23T21:22:36ZCoral reefs: How climate change threatens the hidden diversity of marine ecosystems<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543317/original/file-20230817-23-tvw75n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3982%2C2976&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A healthy reef on Kiritimati (Christmas Island, Republic of Kiribati).</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Danielle Claar)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/coral-reefs-how-climate-change-threatens-the-hidden-diversity-of-aquatic-ecosystems" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Like the heat waves on land we have all grown familiar with, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-marine-032720-095144">marine heat waves</a> are being <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0383-9">amplified by climate change</a>. These extreme warm water events have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0412-1">ushered in some of the most catastrophic impacts</a> of climate change and are now a major threat to ocean life. </p>
<p>Coral reefs, which are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157964.001">home to a quarter of all life in the ocean, are the most vulnerable</a>.
This is a dire situation, given the vast number of people who <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rsma.2019.100699">depend on coral reefs</a> for their sustenance and livelihoods. </p>
<p>As climate change pushes corals beyond their limits, a key question is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.04.047">why different corals vary in their sensitivity</a> to warm waters. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542485/original/file-20230813-167275-4irzrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542485/original/file-20230813-167275-4irzrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542485/original/file-20230813-167275-4irzrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542485/original/file-20230813-167275-4irzrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542485/original/file-20230813-167275-4irzrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542485/original/file-20230813-167275-4irzrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542485/original/file-20230813-167275-4irzrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A reef on Kiritimati (Christmas Island) at the end of the 2015-16 marine heat wave where some Porites lobata colonies survived (yellow/tan colours), some were alive but bleached (white colonies), and some died along with the rest of the reef (red/purple/pink colours of turf algae covering dead colonies). (Danielle Claar), Author provided.</span>
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<p>In our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adf0954">new study in <em>Science Advances</em></a>, we examined the genetics of hundreds of individual corals during the 2015-16 El Niño-driven heat wave. Our results suggest that heat waves have hidden impacts on the genetic composition of reef-building corals. Understanding this could help scientists bolster reef resilience to future heat waves. </p>
<h2>Pushing corals out of their comfort zones</h2>
<p>Corals are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aan8048">highly adapted to the temperature</a> of their local waters, with temperatures even 1 C warmer than normal pushing them out of their comfort zone. </p>
<p>Unusually warm water <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.34.011802.132417">disrupts the vital relationship</a> between stony corals (the reef-builders) and their symbiotic partners, microscopic algae that provide food to the corals. This causes coral bleaching, and in many cases mortality. </p>
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Read more:
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<p>The tropical heat wave at our study site in the central Pacific Ocean, Kiritimati (Christmas Island), lasted for ten months, a world record. This led to extensive coral bleaching, presenting an opportunity to determine why some corals died and others survived. </p>
<h2>Cryptic diversity within a widespread coral species</h2>
<p>We focused on the widespread lobed coral (<em>Porites lobata</em>). This species is amongst the most heat-tolerant corals, and despite <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abq5615">almost 90 per cent of all coral cover being lost</a> on Kiritimati, over half of lobed corals survived. </p>
<p>In fact, some <em>Porites</em> colonies didn’t bleach at all. </p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p>Using genomic tools, we identified three distinct types of <em>Porites lobata</em> on Kiritimati. These lineages, which may represent distinct species, are indistinguishable by eye but genetically different. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542847/original/file-20230815-29-rh83z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542847/original/file-20230815-29-rh83z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542847/original/file-20230815-29-rh83z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542847/original/file-20230815-29-rh83z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542847/original/file-20230815-29-rh83z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542847/original/file-20230815-29-rh83z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542847/original/file-20230815-29-rh83z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Two colonies of Porities growing side-by-side on Kiritimati (Christmas Island) during the 2015-16 marine heat wave. One colony appears healthy while the other is severely bleached. (Kieran Cox), Author provided.</span>
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<p>Such biodiversity is known as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/jbiol60">“cryptic diversity” or “hidden diversity.”</a> Although cryptic diversity is widespread across corals, its ecological implications remain unclear. </p>
<h2>Marine heat waves threaten cryptic diversity</h2>
<p>We found that one genetic lineage of <em>Porites</em> was highly sensitive to the heat wave: only 15 per cent of its colonies survived compared to 50-60 per cent in the other lineages. Thus, even in a coral widely considered to be stress tolerant, heat waves can have hidden impacts, threatening diversity that is invisible to the naked eye.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/out-of-danger-because-the-un-said-so-hardly-the-barrier-reef-is-still-in-hot-water-210787">Out of danger because the UN said so? Hardly – the Barrier Reef is still in hot water</a>
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<p>If future marine heat waves continue to have similar effects, eventually sensitive genotypes like this one could be completely lost, reducing the genetic diversity of coral reefs. </p>
<p>Because interbreeding between cryptic lineages and species can offer a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-294x.2001.01216.x">potential avenue for future adaptation</a>, losses of genetic diversity could make a bad problem even worse by limiting future adaptation to changing environments.</p>
<h2>A forced breakup</h2>
<p>So why did <em>Porites</em> lineages on Kiritimati differ in survival? </p>
<p>One hypothesis is that they house symbiotic partners with different heat sensitivities. Using metabarcoding, a technique that attempts to identify everything found living in the coral tissue, we identified which symbionts were partnered with which corals before, during and after the heat wave.</p>
<p>We found that the distinct <em>Porites</em> lineages had different partnerships before the heat wave. <em>Porites</em> species pass on their symbionts from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1529-8817.2012.01220.x">one generation to the next</a> and so these relationships likely arose over many generations.</p>
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<img alt="two divers inspect a coral reef" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543319/original/file-20230817-29-myzq3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543319/original/file-20230817-29-myzq3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543319/original/file-20230817-29-myzq3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543319/original/file-20230817-29-myzq3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543319/original/file-20230817-29-myzq3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543319/original/file-20230817-29-myzq3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543319/original/file-20230817-29-myzq3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Danielle Claar and a team member sample a tracked surviving colony at the end of the heat wave on Kiritimati (Christmas Island).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Julia K. Baum), Author provided.</span></span>
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<p>By the end of the heat wave, however, one of <em>Porites’</em> unique algal partners had been virtually eliminated. The survivors of all lineages had similar symbionts, suggesting specialized relationships between the partners had been lost under extreme temperatures. </p>
<p>Thus, not only was a cryptic coral lineage left teetering on the edge of local extinction, but its specialized symbiotic relationship had also been forcefully broken up.</p>
<h2>Implications for conserving coral reefs</h2>
<p>Due to climate change and other threats, we are currently experiencing a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/35002708">biodiversity crisis</a>. Our findings underscore that this crisis extends beyond what the eye can see.</p>
<p>Cryptic species often occupy <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.12246">unique ecological niches and play specific roles within ecosystems</a>. Discovering these hidden differences can enhance our understanding of how ecosystems function. But worryingly, we may be losing this critical diversity before it is even discovered. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/through-the-magnifying-glass-how-cutting-edge-technology-is-helping-scientists-understand-baby-corals-210372">Through the magnifying glass: how cutting-edge technology is helping scientists understand baby corals</a>
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<p>Continued study of cryptic diversity could prove essential to building climate resilient ecosystems. Using heat tolerant cryptic lineages in <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2020.00237">restoration approaches</a>, for example, could help make reefs more tolerant to future warming. </p>
<p>Ultimately, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaw6974">greenhouse gas emissions must be rapidly reduced to curb planetary warming</a>. While targeted efforts to bolster coral reefs against climate change may buy limited time, the current heat waves blanketing the world’s oceans underscore that the ocean is simply becoming too hot for corals and we need to act rapidly to mitigate the damage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211007/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel Starko receives funding from the Forrest Research Foundation, The University of Western Australia, The Australian Research Council (ARC), and Revive & Restore.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia K. Baum receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund, University of Victoria, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and the National Geographic Society.
</span></em></p>Exploring the often unseen, and poorly understood, nuances of diversity within coral reefs may prove essential for ensuring the long-term health of Earth’s oceans.Samuel Starko, Forrest Research Fellow, The University of Western AustraliaJulia K. Baum, Professor of Biology, University of VictoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1648552021-07-21T20:11:21Z2021-07-21T20:11:21ZWe’ve discovered an undersea volcano near Christmas Island that looks like the Eye of Sauron<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412372/original/file-20210721-19-iqz980.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=27%2C27%2C4043%2C3124&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Phil Vandenbossche & Nelson Kuna/CSIRO</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Looking like the <a href="https://www.thetolkienforum.com/wiki/Image:eye-of-sauron-by-alex-ortiz">Eye of Sauron</a> from the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, an ancient undersea volcano was slowly revealed by multibeam sonar 3,100 metres below our vessel, 280 kilometres southeast of Christmas Island. This was on day 12 of our <a href="https://mnf.csiro.au/en/Voyages/IN2021_V04">voyage of exploration</a> to Australia’s Indian Ocean Territories, aboard CSIRO’s dedicated ocean research vessel, the <a href="https://mnf.csiro.au/en/RV-Investigator">RV Investigator</a>.</p>
<p>Previously unknown and unimagined, this volcano emerged from our screens as a giant oval-shaped depression called a caldera, 6.2km by 4.8km across. It is surrounded by a 300m-high rim (resembling Sauron’s eyelids), and has a 300 m high cone-shaped peak at its the centre (the “pupil”).</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412368/original/file-20210721-19-1c5whs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Sonar sea bed image" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412368/original/file-20210721-19-1c5whs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412368/original/file-20210721-19-1c5whs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412368/original/file-20210721-19-1c5whs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412368/original/file-20210721-19-1c5whs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412368/original/file-20210721-19-1c5whs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412368/original/file-20210721-19-1c5whs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412368/original/file-20210721-19-1c5whs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Sonar image of the ‘Eye of Sauron’ volcano and nearby seamounts on the sea bed south-west of Christmas Island.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Phil Vandenbossche & Nelson Kuna/CSIRO</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>A caldera is formed when a volcano collapses. The molten magma at the base of the volcano shifts upwards, leaving empty chambers. The thin solid crust on the surface of the dome then collapses, creating a large crater-like structure. Often, a small new peak then begins to form in the centre as the volcano continues spewing magma.</p>
<p>One well-known caldera is the one at <a href="https://www.livescience.com/28186-krakatoa.html">Krakatoa</a> in Indonesia, which exploded in 1883, killing tens of thousands of people and leaving only bits of the mountain rim visible above the waves. By 1927, a small volcano, Anak Krakatoa (“child of Krakatoa”), had grown in its centre. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/krakatoa-is-still-active-and-we-are-not-ready-for-the-tsunamis-another-eruption-would-generate-147250">Krakatoa is still active, and we are not ready for the tsunamis another eruption would generate</a>
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<p>In contrast, we may not even be aware of volcanic eruptions when they happen deep under the ocean. One of the few tell-tale signs is the presence of <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-06-03/pumice-stone-raft-transporting-marine-life/12278124">rafts of light pumice stone</a> floating on the sea surface after being blown out of a submarine volcano. Eventually, this pumice stone becomes waterlogged and sinks to the ocean floor.</p>
<p>Our volcanic “eye” was not alone. Further mapping to the south revealed a smaller sea mountain covered in numerous volcanic cones, and further still to the south was a larger, flat-topped seamount. Following our Lord of the Rings theme, we have nicknamed them <a href="https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Barad-d%C3%BBr">Barad-dûr</a> (“Dark Fortress”) and <a href="https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Ash_Mountains">Ered Lithui</a> (“Ash Mountains”), respectively. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412388/original/file-20210721-21-w24x9u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412388/original/file-20210721-21-w24x9u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412388/original/file-20210721-21-w24x9u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412388/original/file-20210721-21-w24x9u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412388/original/file-20210721-21-w24x9u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=675&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412388/original/file-20210721-21-w24x9u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=675&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412388/original/file-20210721-21-w24x9u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=675&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The voyage of the RV Investigator around Christmas Island.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tim O'Hara/Museums Victoria</span></span>
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<p>Although author J.R.R. Tolkein’s knowledge of mountain geology <a href="https://www.tor.com/2017/08/01/tolkiens-map-and-the-messed-up-mountains-of-middle-earth">wasn’t perfect</a>, our names are wonderfully appropriate given the jagged nature of the first and the pumice-covered surface of the second.</p>
<p>The Eye of Sauron, Barad-dûr, and Ered Lithui are part of the Karma cluster of seamounts that have been previously estimated by <a href="https://www.livescience.com/17557-christmas-island-seamounts-mystery-solved.html">geologists</a> to be more than 100 million years old, and which formed next to an ancient sea ridge from a time when Australia was situated much further south, near Antarctica. The flat summit of Ered Lithui was formed by wave erosion when the seamount protruded above the sea surface, before the heavy seamount slowly sank back down into the soft ocean seafloor. The summit of Ered Lithui is now 2.6km below sea level.</p>
<p><img width="100%" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/1720/Karma-fly.gif?1626845098"></p>
<p>But here is the geological conundrum. Our caldera looks surprisingly fresh for a structure that should be more than 100 million years old. Ered Lithui has almost 100m of sand and mud layers draped over its summit, formed by sinking dead organisms over millions of years. This sedimentation rate would have partially smothered the caldera. Instead it is possible that volcanoes have continued to sprout or new ones formed long after the original foundation. Our restless Earth is never still.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412358/original/file-20210721-25-1jei4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Starfish" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412358/original/file-20210721-25-1jei4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412358/original/file-20210721-25-1jei4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412358/original/file-20210721-25-1jei4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412358/original/file-20210721-25-1jei4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412358/original/file-20210721-25-1jei4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412358/original/file-20210721-25-1jei4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412358/original/file-20210721-25-1jei4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The large deep-sea predatory seastar Zoroaster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rob French/Museums Victoria</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412356/original/file-20210721-23-zbhz53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Batfish" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412356/original/file-20210721-23-zbhz53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412356/original/file-20210721-23-zbhz53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412356/original/file-20210721-23-zbhz53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412356/original/file-20210721-23-zbhz53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412356/original/file-20210721-23-zbhz53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412356/original/file-20210721-23-zbhz53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412356/original/file-20210721-23-zbhz53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Small batfish patrol the seamount summits.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rob French/Museums Victoria</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412355/original/file-20210721-25-ax5rh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Sea pig" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412355/original/file-20210721-25-ax5rh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412355/original/file-20210721-25-ax5rh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412355/original/file-20210721-25-ax5rh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412355/original/file-20210721-25-ax5rh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412355/original/file-20210721-25-ax5rh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412355/original/file-20210721-25-ax5rh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412355/original/file-20210721-25-ax5rh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Elasipod sea cucumbers feed on organic detritus on deep sandy seafloors.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rob French/Museums Victoria</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But life adapts to these geological changes, and Ered Lithui is now covered in seafloor animals. Brittle-stars, sea-stars, crabs and worms burrow into or skate over the sandy surface. Erect black corals, fan-corals, sea-whips, sponges and barnacles grow on exposed rocks. Gelatinous cusk-eels prowl around rock gullies and boulders. Batfish lie in wait for unsuspecting prey.</p>
<p>Our mission is to map the seafloor and survey sea life from these ancient and secluded seascapes. The Australian government recently announced plans to create two massive marine parks across the regions. Our expedition will supply scientific data that will help Parks Australia to manage these areas into the future. </p>
<p>Scientists from museums, universities, CSIRO and Bush Blitz around Australia are participating in the voyage. We are close to completing part one of our journey to the Christmas Island region. Part two of our journey to the Cocos (Keeling) Island region will be scheduled in the next year or so.</p>
<p>No doubt many animals that we find here will be new to science and our first records of their existence will be from this region. We expect many more surprising discoveries.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/this-deep-sea-creature-is-long-armed-bristling-with-teeth-and-the-sole-survivor-of-180-million-years-of-evolution-162842">This deep-sea creature is long-armed, bristling with teeth, and the sole survivor of 180 million years of evolution</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164855/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The voyage of exploration on the RV Investigator was facilitated by a grant of sea time by the CSIRO Marine National Facility, and funding from Parks Australia and Bush Blitz, both part of the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment. </span></em></p>Sonar scans of the Indian Ocean floor south of Christmas Island have revealed a Tolkeinesque landscape of towering peaks, ashen uplands and ominous volcanic craters.Tim O'Hara, Senior Curator of Marine Invertebrates, Museums Victoria Research InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1622892021-06-08T04:29:27Z2021-06-08T04:29:27ZAs a young child is evacuated from detention, could this see the Biloela Tamil family go free?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404991/original/file-20210608-23-51ixqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A boy holds a poster in support of the Biloela Tamil family at a 2019 rally. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joel Carrett/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Monday, the image of a small girl in a hospital bed, crying as her big sister gives her a kiss flooded social media feeds.</p>
<p>The girls are Tharunicaa and Kopika Murugappan, the <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/research-and-stats/files/immigration-detention-statistics-31-march-2021.pdf">only two children</a> in immigration detention in Australia. </p>
<p>The photo was released by advocates as three-year-old Tharunicaa was medically evacuated to Perth on Monday evening. She had reportedly been <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/youngest-daughter-of-biloela-tamil-family-medically-evacuated-from-christmas-island">unwell for ten days</a> with high temperatures, vomiting and diarrhoea, as her family called for more medical help.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, family supporter Angela Fredericks <a href="https://7news.com.au/politics/biloela-family-must-be-resettled-mps-c-3043111">told reporters</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It looks like they have said she has untreated pneumonia that led to a blood infection.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While the <a href="https://twitter.com/joshgnosis/status/1402087429692030976?s=20">government denies</a> there were treatment delays, it has once again raised the plight of the Tamil family, who have been detained since 2018.</p>
<h2>Why are the family on Christmas Island?</h2>
<p>Tharunicaa, her parents Priya and Nades and her sister, Kopika, have been in detention on Christmas Island since August 2019.</p>
<p>This followed a Department of Home Affairs attempt to deport the family from a detention centre in Melbourne to Sri Lanka. The deportation was interrupted mid-flight <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-31/tamil-asylum-seeker-family-taken-to-christmas-island-lawyer-says/11467312">after an urgent injunction</a> from the Federal Court. The plane was forced to land in Darwin, and the family was taken to immigration detention on Christmas Island, pending the outcome of their court appeal.</p>
<p>This came after the family had initially settled in the Queensland town of Biloela. Residents welcomed the family and have been actively campaigning for them to come “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-17/tamils-priya-and-nades-murugappan-asylum-seekers/13160708">home to Bilo</a>”. </p>
<h2>Where is their legal fight up to?</h2>
<p>The family has been engaged in legal appeals since 2012. Tharunicaa’s father and mother are both Sri Lankan nationals who arrived in Australia by boat in 2012 and 2013 respectively. </p>
<p>As they arrived without visas, they are considered in law to be “unlawful maritime arrivals.” Although Tharunicaa and six-year-old Kopika were born in Australia, they are also “unlawful maritime arrivals”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-to-give-visas-to-the-biloela-tamil-family-and-other-asylum-seekers-stuck-in-the-system-155354">It's time to give visas to the Biloela Tamil family and other asylum seekers stuck in the system</a>
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<p>Both parents applied for visas claiming they would be persecuted if they returned to Sri Lanka. Kopika was included in their application. But they <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-biloela-tamil-family-deportation-case-highlights-the-failures-of-our-refugee-system-123685">were refused</a> and appeals to tribunals, courts and the immigration minister were not successful.</p>
<p>Former home affairs minister Peter Dutton <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/using-every-trick-peter-dutton-accuses-detained-biloela-family-of-preventing-deportation">repeatedly said</a> the family is not owed protection. They are part of a caseload who had their claims for refugee status determined under a “fast track” process. The Australian Human Rights Commission found significant issues with the “fast track” process and <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/about/news/commissioners-call-compassionate-approach-tamil-family">has called for a compassionate</a> response to this family. </p>
<h2>Tharunicaa</h2>
<p>However, the family’s applications did not include Tharunicaa. </p>
<p>Current legal action centres around the obligations of the government to consider whether she can apply for a visa in Australia. As Tharunicaa is an “unlawful maritime arrival” she cannot apply for a visa unless the Home Affairs Minister (Andrews) personally intervenes. </p>
<p>Lawyers argue she has a strong claim for protection based on a <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/2021/12.html">range of factors</a> including: the extensive media coverage of the family, the family’s Tamil ethnicity and their “purported” connections to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Tamil Tigers). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Protesters hold signs in support of the Biloela Tamil family." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404988/original/file-20210608-135198-3nyrsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404988/original/file-20210608-135198-3nyrsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404988/original/file-20210608-135198-3nyrsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404988/original/file-20210608-135198-3nyrsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404988/original/file-20210608-135198-3nyrsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404988/original/file-20210608-135198-3nyrsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404988/original/file-20210608-135198-3nyrsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There have been ongoing protests in support of the family, calling for them to stay in Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julian Smith/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In April 2020, <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-the-federal-court-decision-on-the-tamil-asylum-seeker-family-mean-136504">Federal Court Justice Mark Moshinsky ruled</a> Tharunicaa had not given “procedural fairness” when her September 2018 request for permission to apply for a protection visa was rejected. That decision was <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-to-give-visas-to-the-biloela-tamil-family-and-other-asylum-seekers-stuck-in-the-system-155354">upheld</a> by the Full Court of the Federal Court in February. But further complicating matters, the court also found the immigration minister did not have an obligation to allow her to apply for a visa. </p>
<p>The ongoing litigation means the family will not be removed from Australia any time soon. But it is not clear whether the family or the government will take the next step and go to the High Court.</p>
<h2>What are the ongoing health dangers for the family?</h2>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/am/daughter-of-asylum-seekers-medically-evacuated/13377886">media reports</a>, Tharunicaa had been unwell for ten days and did not get hospital access until this week, despite her families’ requests. As <a href="https://twitter.com/HometoBilo/status/1401788959982710784?s=20">Priya said</a> in a statement</p>
<blockquote>
<p>She has been sick for many days, it took a long time for her to get to the hospital.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs <a href="https://twitter.com/joshgnosis/status/1402087429692030976?s=20">denied</a> there had been any treatment delays. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The minor has been receiving medical treatment and daily monitoring on Christmas Island consistent with medical advice. This has included an IHMS general practitioner and the Christmas Island Hospital.</p>
<p>As soon as the ABF was advised by the treating medical practitioners that the minor required medical treatment in Western Australia, the minor was transferred to a hospital in Western Australia.</p>
<p>The Australian Border Force strongly denies any allegations of inaction or mistreatment of individuals in its care.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Health professionals have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/21/christmas-island-delays-in-medical-transfers-life-threatening-say-doctors">long warned</a> of the difficulties of placing vulnerable people in remote locations such as Christmas Island. While primary care is available, there is poorer access to specialist and complex services. </p>
<p>In 2018, a Queensland coroner <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jul/30/death-asylum-seeker-hamid-kehazaei-preventable-coroner-says">found delays</a> in diagnosing and removing Iranian asylum seeker Hamid Kehazaei from Manus Island directly contributed to his death from septicaemia. </p>
<p>Tharunicaa has come to Perth with her mother, while her her father and sister have been left on Christmas Island. Last year, Priya <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-30/tamil-mother-flown-back-to-christmas-island-detention/12506818">was brought to Perth</a> for treatment of an abdominal condition and had to leave the family behind. </p>
<p>This is a grave concern. There is a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8090905/">substantial body of evidence</a> regarding child trauma to suggest that forced involuntary separation from family will have lasting mental health effects. The splitting up of the family will almost certainly compound existing trauma. Children are particularly vulnerable. </p>
<h2>What can Karen Andrews do?</h2>
<p>Andrews, as the senior minister responsible, is under increasing <a href="https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2021/06/08/biloela-family-evacuation-karen-andrews-petition/">public pressure </a> to do more for the family. </p>
<p>Dutton has previously said the <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/scott-morrison-says-exception-for-tamil-family-an-invitation-to-people-smugglers">reason the family was detained on Christmas Island</a> and not the mainland was that it would allow them to be flown back to Sri Lanka without protesters putting Border Force officers in a “difficult position.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Minister for Home Affairs Karen Andrews in the cabinet room." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404987/original/file-20210608-21-a9ad40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404987/original/file-20210608-21-a9ad40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404987/original/file-20210608-21-a9ad40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404987/original/file-20210608-21-a9ad40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404987/original/file-20210608-21-a9ad40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404987/original/file-20210608-21-a9ad40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404987/original/file-20210608-21-a9ad40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Karen Andrews was appointed Minister for Home Affairs in March.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Due to their status as “unlawful maritime arrivals,” only Andrews or Immigration Minister Alex Hawke have the power to allow them to live in the community. This can either be on Christmas Island or on the mainland on bridging visas or in community detention. Andrews <a href="https://minister.homeaffairs.gov.au/KarenAndrews/Pages/interview-fran-kelly-abc-05052021.aspx">recently said</a> she was taking advice on whether she would allow them to live in the community on Christmas Island.</p>
<p>On Tuesday she added the government was “investigating a range of resettlement options”. </p>
<h2>The ‘public interest’</h2>
<p>The minister can grant any detainee a visa if they consider it to be in the “<a href="http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ma1958118/s195a.html">public interest</a>” to do so. </p>
<p>The published guidelines on the exercise of this power states Andrews can grant a visa if a person has particular needs that cannot be properly cared for in a secured detention facility. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/will-new-home-affairs-minister-karen-andrews-bring-a-more-compassionate-approach-158065">Will new Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews bring a more compassionate approach?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In 2013, we were involved in a case with then immigration minister, Scott Morrison. He intervened to release a woman with intellectual disabilities into the community with her family, stating that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/23/morrison-advised-to-move-intellectually-disabled-asylum-seeker-into-community">this was necessary</a> due to her immediate mental health and welfare needs. </p>
<p>The health and welfare of Tharunicaa — at the very least — provides a clear reason to release the family from detention.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162289/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary Anne Kenny has previously received sitting fees from the Department of Home Affairs.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Procter has previously received grant funding and sitting fees from the Department of Home Affairs.
This article is part of a series on asylum seeker policy supported by a grant from the Broadley Trust.</span></em></p>Three-year-old Tharunicaa Murugappan’s hospitalisation has once again raised the plight of her family, who have been detained since 2018.Mary Anne Kenny, Associate Professor, School of Law, Murdoch UniversityNicholas Procter, Professor and Chair: Mental Health Nursing, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1452992020-09-01T05:58:03Z2020-09-01T05:58:03ZBanning mobile phones in immigration detention would make an inhumane system even crueler<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355663/original/file-20200831-24-1aqcnv7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=420%2C24%2C3999%2C3579&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Dodge/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mobile phones are <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/about/news/blanket-ban-mobile-phones-would-be-unacceptable">a lifeline</a> for those in immigration detention. But if the government has its way, this thread will soon be cut. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_LEGislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r6559">proposed bill</a> would allow the minister to deem mobile phones and other internet-capable devices “prohibited items”. It would also grant staff new powers to search detainees without a warrant and allow strip searches and detector dogs within the centres. </p>
<p>Detainees’ friends and family members would also be targeted via expanded powers to screen and search visitors. </p>
<p>The bill is expected to be voted on in parliament this week. The crucial vote will likely be in the Senate, where the government is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2020/sep/01/australia-coronavirus-live-update-china-tensions-parliament-nsw-victoria-border-qld-covid-19-latest-news?CMP=share_btn_tw&page=with:block-5f4d93778f088598bc536925#block-5f4d93778f088598bc536925">trying to sway</a> key vote Jacqui Lambie to its side.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1300590049382133765"}"></div></p>
<p>The <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/ems/r6559_ems_b6612e12-dac0-411a-9055-a22c4d714941/upload_pdf/737794.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf">purported purpose</a> of the bill is </p>
<blockquote>
<p>to ensure that the department can provide a safe and secure environment for staff, detainees and visitors in an immigration detention facility. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The government <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansardr%2Fdf9bb27b-ec32-4383-84c6-058df197388f%2F0017%22">claims</a> some detainees are using mobile devices to organise criminal activities, and intimidate staff and other detainees. </p>
<p>Yet, the greatest risk to detainees and their loved ones comes not from mobile phones, but from the isolation and trauma of our immigration detention system. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/asylum-seekers-and-refugees/publications/risk-management-immigration-detention-2019">2019 report</a> by the Australian Human Rights Commission found only a minority of detainees use mobile phones inappropriately. In contrast, rates of self-harm in Australia’s immigration detention system are <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-14/asylum-seekers-in-detention-200-more-likely-to-commit-self-harm/11600148">200 times higher</a> than in the Australian community. </p>
<p>This bill would only make things worse. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355664/original/file-20200831-14-4rb2np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355664/original/file-20200831-14-4rb2np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355664/original/file-20200831-14-4rb2np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355664/original/file-20200831-14-4rb2np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355664/original/file-20200831-14-4rb2np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355664/original/file-20200831-14-4rb2np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355664/original/file-20200831-14-4rb2np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">For asylum seekers in indefinite detention in hotels like this one in Melbourne, mobile phones can be a lifeline.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Dodge/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The current situation in detention</h2>
<p>In theory, immigration detention in Australia is <a href="https://www.abf.gov.au/about-us/what-we-do/border-protection/immigration-detention">not meant to be punitive</a>. Yet, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1440783318796301">my research</a> shows the logic of “deterrence” infuses all aspects of detention centre life. </p>
<p>Detainees are subject to constant surveillance and frequent room checks. Dorm-style sleeping arrangements afford minimal privacy. Recreational activities are limited and regular changes to internal rules breed instability. </p>
<p>The excessive <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/about/news/use-force-immigration-detention">use of force</a> is also a concern. Just this month, the Commonwealth ombudsman <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/14/ombudsman-report-exposes-brutality-of-australias-immigration-detention-network-greens-say">cautioned</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>there appears to be an increasing tendency across the immigration detention network for force to be used to resolve conflict or non-compliant behaviour as the first rather than last choice.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Detainees are rarely permitted to leave their places of detention. Some detainees — including refugees brought to Australia from <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/offshore-processing-facts/">Papua New Guinea or Nauru</a> for <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/almost-200-asylum-seekers-and-refugees-are-being-held-in-australian-hotels-what-does-their-future-hold">emergency medical care</a> under the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/04/medevac-repeal-bill-passes-after-jacqui-lambie-makes-secret-deal-with-coalition">now-repealed Medevac law</a> — have been in detention for over seven years. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-evidence-is-clear-the-medevac-law-saves-lives-but-even-this-isnt-enough-to-alleviate-refugee-suffering-125308">The evidence is clear: the medevac law saves lives. But even this isn't enough to alleviate refugee suffering</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Existing barriers to maintaining relationships</h2>
<p>In this context, connections with friends, family members, medical professionals and legal representatives are vital. But maintaining communications is far from easy. </p>
<p>Where spontaneous visits were once permitted, loved ones must now apply to <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/detention-visitors-report/">visit detention</a> at least one week in advance. Longer application times apply for group visits. The <a href="https://www.abf.gov.au/about-us/what-we-do/border-protection/immigration-detention/visit-detention">online application</a> is prohibitively complicated for those with poor digital literacy or limited English-language capabilities. </p>
<p>At times, visiting room capacity limits cause applications to be rejected, meaning detainees can go weeks without seeing loved ones. During COVID-19, visits have been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/24/we-are-sitting-ducks-for-covid-19-asylum-seekers-write-to-pm-after-detainee-tested-in-immigration-detention">cancelled</a> altogether.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/people-are-crying-and-begging-the-human-cost-of-forced-relocations-in-immigration-detention-132193">'People are crying and begging': the human cost of forced relocations in immigration detention</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>When applications are approved, visitors must submit to screening, x-rays and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/dec/13/the-farcical-drug-scanners-locking-out-melbourne-immigration-centre-visitors">drug scanning</a>. </p>
<p>There are also strict rules on the admission of food and gifts. Where visitors could once bring items like birthday cakes, fresh fruit, children’s toys and board games to their visits to create a warmer atmosphere, these items are now banned or require special approval. Guards supervise all interactions. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/people-are-crying-and-begging-the-human-cost-of-forced-relocations-in-immigration-detention-132193">regular relocation of detainees between detention facilities</a> also compounds their feelings of isolation. Forced transfers — including those currently underway as part of <a href="https://overland.org.au/2020/08/the-true-cost-of-reopening-the-christmas-island-detention-centre/">the reopening of the Christmas Island immigration detention centre</a> — further separate detainees from their loved ones, with devastating consequences.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355665/original/file-20200831-24-5kauif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355665/original/file-20200831-24-5kauif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355665/original/file-20200831-24-5kauif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355665/original/file-20200831-24-5kauif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355665/original/file-20200831-24-5kauif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355665/original/file-20200831-24-5kauif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355665/original/file-20200831-24-5kauif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The recently reopened immigration detention centre at Christmas Island.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Richard Wainwright/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The importance of mobile phones</h2>
<p>Mobile phones are an imperfect solution to these challenges. They help detainees maintain their relationships and mental health when other lines of communication are severed. </p>
<p>Sometimes, they are the only way detainees can <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jul/19/my-only-desire-is-to-hold-my-son-the-grief-of-indefinite-detention">speak to their children</a> or families. </p>
<p>Mobile phones serve myriad functions for detainees, including allowing them to</p>
<ul>
<li><p>communicate with loved ones within and beyond Australia </p></li>
<li><p>coordinate visit times with local supporters</p></li>
<li><p>correspond with legal professionals, including via email</p></li>
<li><p>learn English and translate documents or conversations </p></li>
<li><p>access personal photographs</p></li>
<li><p>access medical advice </p></li>
<li><p>view entertainment, including movies and exercise videos </p></li>
<li><p>read news from Australia and abroad </p></li>
<li><p>document abuses or <a href="https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2020/08/immigration-detainees-scared-and-stressed-about-catching-covid-19/">safety concerns</a> within the centres and</p></li>
<li><p>have <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahryan/refugees-phones-australia-whatsapp-interview">a voice and a face</a> in the public sphere. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>As the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-30/who-are-tamil-family-from-biloela-why-are-they-being-deported/11463276">case of the Tamil family from Biloela</a> exemplifies, mobile phones can be the difference between deportation and access to justice. </p>
<p>Last year, when the authorities attempted <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-29/tamil-asylum-seeker-family-from-biloela-facing-deportation/11463176">a late night deportation</a> of the family, they used their phone to contact supporters and journalists, who in turn alerted their lawyer. An emergency injunction was subsequently granted and their plane turned back mid-flight.</p>
<p>Banning mobile phones would rob detainees of many of the strategies they use to survive and access justice. It would also punish detainees’ children, partners, parents and friends.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1299586240384086016"}"></div></p>
<h2>The senselessness of the bill</h2>
<p>Beyond the mobile phone ban itself, granting new screening and search powers would add to the trauma of detention spaces. These are already environments in which excessive force is used. Allowing strip searches and the use of detector dogs would only increase the potential for abuse. </p>
<p>Australia’s immigration detention facilities are highly securitised places. Where there are reasonable grounds to suspect criminal activity, <a href="https://www.lawcouncil.asn.au/media/media-releases/proposed-legislation-tars-all-in-detention-centres-with-same-brush">the police already have power</a> to search the facilities. Granting centre staff power to perform invasive searches is neither necessary nor appropriate. </p>
<p>The proposed bill would not make detention centres safer. It would increase the cruelty of an already cruel system. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/refugees-need-protection-from-coronavirus-too-and-must-be-released-136961">Refugees need protection from coronavirus too, and must be released</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145299/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research was funded by an Australian Government Research Training Program Stipend Scholarship and grants from the University of Queensland and the University of Sydney. Michelle Peterie has received funding from the Australian Research Council for other research projects.</span></em></p>The government claims the bill is needed to make detention centres safer. But it would strip away a vital lifeline for people already 200 times more likely to self-harm than the Australian community.Michelle Peterie, Research Fellow, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1321932020-03-02T00:06:49Z2020-03-02T00:06:49Z‘People are crying and begging’: the human cost of forced relocations in immigration detention<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316989/original/file-20200225-24701-1cbgddo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">RICHARD WAINWRIGHT/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Between July 2018 and August 2019, the Home Affairs Department <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Senate_estimates/legcon/2019-20_Supplementary_Budget_Estimates">spent A$6.1m</a> flying refugees, asylum seekers and other immigration detainees around Australia. </p>
<p>This figure includes $5.7 million for charter flights and $400,000 for commercial flights with airlines like <a href="https://accr.org.au/2019/08/28/international-investor-backs-qantas-human-rights-resolution/">Qantas</a>. It does not include the cost of keeping planes on standby and transporting staff who accompany detainees. Neither does it include the cost of transporting detainees by road.</p>
<p>Details of these and other expenses have led <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/29/home-affairs-department-racked-up-61m-bill-transferring-refugees-and-asylum-seekers">Labor to ask why minister Peter Dutton’s departmental costs continue to rise</a>. Given revelations the government spent <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/christmas-island-detention-centre-cost-27-million-to-detain-four-people">$26.8 million</a> reopening Christmas Island detention centre to hold <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-biloela-tamil-family-deportation-case-highlights-the-failures-of-our-refugee-system-123685">a single family</a> last year, this is a pressing question. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-biloela-tamil-family-deportation-case-highlights-the-failures-of-our-refugee-system-123685">How the Biloela Tamil family deportation case highlights the failures of our refugee system</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Yet deeper questions about what these relocations involve and how they affect detainees and their supporters have been largely ignored. As a researcher studying immigration detention, I can attest forced relocations impose profound human costs. </p>
<p>Over the past five years, I have conducted over 70 interviews with regular visitors to Australia’s onshore immigration detention centres. Speaking with volunteers and advocates, as well as detainees’ friends and family members, I have collected witness accounts of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1440783318796301">conditions and practices within the system</a>.
A constant theme in these interviews has been <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jrs/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jrs/fez069/5570305?redirectedFrom=fulltext">the harm caused by involuntary transfers</a>. </p>
<h2>How many forced transfers are occurring</h2>
<p>When we think of immigration detention centres, we often imagine places of confinement. This is accurate, but it is not the full picture. </p>
<p>Refugees and asylum seekers in Australia’s onshore detention system are held in <a href="https://academic.oup.com/rsq/advance-article/doi/10.1093/rsq/hdy008/5048429">prison-like facilities</a> on the outskirts of our capital cities or – in the case of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/26/inside-christmas-island-the-australian-detention-centre-with-four-asylum-seekers-and-a-26m-price-tag">Christmas Island</a> and Yongah Hill in Western Australia – in remote parts of the country. </p>
<p>In December 2019, there were at least <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/research-and-stats/files/immigration-detention-statistics-31-december-2019.pdf">504 refugees and asylum seekers</a> within the system, as well as hundreds of other immigration detainees, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sep/08/i-was-petrified-the-new-zealanders-deported-from-australia-despite-decades-working-there">including those about to be deported</a>. Detention can last months or even <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/refugee-diaries-10-years-immigration-detention-australia-191228024730946.html">years</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-people-in-immigration-detention-try-to-cope-with-life-in-limbo-106645">How people in immigration detention try to cope with life in limbo</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>As monotonous as detention can be, detainees are not allowed to become comfortable. Between July 2017 and May 2019, there were <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-8000-forced-movements-on-australian-flights-in-two-years-20190906-p52oq8.html">8,000 involuntary movements</a> within the system. Some of these were deportations, but others were forced transfers between facilities.</p>
<p>Detainees are rarely given an explanation when they are moved. The opacity of the practice is undoubtedly one of its concerning aspects, and has been criticised by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC). In a <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/asylum-seekers-and-refugees/publications/use-force-immigration-detention">report</a> last year, the commission recommended that when a relocation occurs </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the department and facility staff should ensure as far as possible that the person […] receives a clear explanation of the reasons for the transfer. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317496/original/file-20200227-24676-gptz6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317496/original/file-20200227-24676-gptz6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317496/original/file-20200227-24676-gptz6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317496/original/file-20200227-24676-gptz6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317496/original/file-20200227-24676-gptz6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317496/original/file-20200227-24676-gptz6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317496/original/file-20200227-24676-gptz6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Federal police outside Yongah Hill Immigration Detention Centre to monitor a 2012 protest against refugee detention.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">REBECCA LEMAY/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Sheer, random cruelty’</h2>
<p>Participants in my study stressed the secrecy of relocations. Detainees were typically moved with minimal warning or explanation. At times they knew a transfer was pending, but they were often moved with just a few hours’ notice. </p>
<p>In some instances, the staff woke detainees up and gave them minutes to collect their belongings. As one regular visitor to Yongah Hill Detention Centre described it,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was always early in the morning - you’ve got 10 minutes to pack your bags. And they would lose things. They were always in such a hurry. It was made to be traumatic for them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Confronted with what a visitor to the Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation described as “the sheer, random cruelty of it”, detainees felt their vulnerability. So, too, did those left behind.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There’s constantly distressing scenes as one family or another is being dragged away to be put on a plane with very little notice. And it’s so upsetting for all the other refugees […] that they’re seeing people get hauled off and people are crying and begging […] You never know if it’s going to be you tomorrow morning.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The AHRC has documented the <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/asylum-seekers-and-refugees/publications/inspection-maribyrnong-immigration-detention">“excessive” use of restraints</a> during transfers. Just in the last fortnight, <a href="https://www.ombudsman.gov.au/media-releases/media-release-documents/commonwealth-ombudsman/2020/report-into-the-current-state-of-immigration-detention-facilities">the Commonwealth Ombudsman</a> observed that handcuffs had become “accepted transfer practice” during transport operations.</p>
<p>In his recommendations, the ombudsman advised</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the Aviation Transport Security Regulations [to] restrict the use of mechanical restraints to circumstances where there is a genuine risk to the safety of the aircraft that cannot be mitigated by any other option.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1140916207249481733"}"></div></p>
<h2>The human costs of forced relocations</h2>
<p>Beyond the stress of the transfer process, relocations separate detainees from support networks within the facilities, as well as friends, advocates, doctors and lawyers in the community. As a regular visitor to Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation explained, the relocation experience is one of loss. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>They might put down roots and get a few mates where they are, but when they move they lose those bonds that they’ve developed. If they’re getting any medical help they lose that contact with that medical care, their ability to learn English gets less.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Interstate transfers are particularly devastating for people with families in the community. Partners and children without social or financial resources in Australia can rarely travel to visit loved ones. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-australia-decides-who-is-a-genuine-refugee-72574">Explainer: how Australia decides who is a genuine refugee</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The despair caused by relocations is perhaps best exemplified by stories I heard of detainees self-harming immediately before or after a transfer. </p>
<p>These testimonies accord with <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28601787">previous research</a> at Victoria University that has found a link between forced relocations and self-harm in immigration detention facilities. Forced transfers, this researcher found, are among a number of “precipitating factors or triggers for self-harm” in both immigration detention and prison settings. </p>
<h2>An unconscionable practice</h2>
<p>The practice of moving detainees around Australia’s immigration detention network is doubly unjustifiable on economic and humanitarian grounds. A consistent finding from my research is that forced relocations cause harm. They harm detainees, and they harm the people who love and support them. </p>
<p>As a country, we can find better ways to spend taxpayer money.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132193/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research was funded by an Australian Government Research Training Program Stipend Scholarship and grants from the University of Queensland and the University of Sydney. Michelle Peterie has received funding from the Australian Research Council for other research projects. </span></em></p>There were 8,000 forced relocations in Australia’s immigration detention system in a nearly two-year span. New research shows how distressing and destabilising these movements are for refugees.Michelle Peterie, Research Fellow, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1308792020-01-31T05:06:56Z2020-01-31T05:06:56ZYes, there’s merit in quarantining people on Christmas Island to prevent the spread of coronavirus<p>The World Health Organisation (WHO) overnight declared the coronavirus (2019-nCoV) a <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/30-01-2020-statement-on-the-second-meeting-of-the-international-health-regulations-(2005)-emergency-committee-regarding-the-outbreak-of-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov)">public health emergency of international concern</a>, reinforcing the need for countries around the world to act decisively in the face of this epidemic.</p>
<p>The Australian government is currently negotiating with the Chinese government to fly a portion of the 600 Australian citizens trapped in Wuhan back to Australia. </p>
<p>The controversial plan is to quarantine the evacuees on <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/assisted-departure-and-strict-quarantine-australians-wuhanhubei">Christmas Island</a>, 2,600 kilometres off the coast of Western Australia, where they will remain for 14 days.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-contagious-is-the-wuhan-coronavirus-and-can-you-spread-it-before-symptoms-start-130686">How contagious is the Wuhan coronavirus and can you spread it before symptoms start?</a>
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<p>Many have condemned this <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-29/christmas-island-locals-on-quarantine-for-coronavirus/11910326">measure</a> as a harsh response; isolating healthy Australians on a tiny remote island, most infamously known as a refugee detention centre, to protect the rest of the Australian population.</p>
<p>This approach of quarantining a large group of people is certainly unprecedented in recent history. But what’s the rationale, and could it work?</p>
<h2>First, a bit of history</h2>
<p>Quarantining sick people has been a mainstay of public health outbreak prevention for thousands of years. The term was <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92450/">first introduced</a> as a strategy to stop the Bubonic plague. Even as far back as the Bible, there’s mention of isolating people with leprosy.</p>
<p>Quarantining travellers was also common in Australia in the early days after colonisation. Quarantine stations were positioned in most Australian states during the 1800s and the early 1900s to prevent the spread of diseases such as measles, cholera and typhoid from people arriving by ship. Passengers would be quarantined on arrival if there were outbreaks on board. </p>
<p>These quarantine stations now stand silent and unused; a reminder of a time in Australia’s history when death via infectious diseases was common. </p>
<p>Quarantine, on a large scale, is considered a public health response of the distant pre-antibiotic, pre-vaccine past. The quarantining of Wuhan evacuees on Christmas Island has no modern equivalent in Australia.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-wuhan-coronavirus-is-now-in-australia-heres-what-you-need-to-know-130580">The Wuhan coronavirus is now in Australia – here's what you need to know</a>
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<h2>Why quarantine healthy people?</h2>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200130-sitrep-10-ncov.pdf?sfvrsn=d0b2e480_2">7,818 cases</a> of coronavirus have now been recorded globally, including 82 across 18 countries outside China.</p>
<p>We don’t yet have vaccines or antiviral drugs <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/prevention-treatment.html">to prevent or treat the virus</a>, so we need alternative strategies to slow its spread, including isolation and quarantine.</p>
<p>Isolating sick people is an <a href="https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/ohp-ahmppi.htm">effective way to reduce transmission</a> of a virus.</p>
<p>With many viruses, an infected person is only able to infect other people when they are showing symptoms of the disease. </p>
<p>But with some viruses, the virus can spread in the absence of symptoms – either during the incubation period (the days before people become visibly ill, thought to be <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51254523">up to 14 days</a> for coronavirus) or in people who never get sick.</p>
<p>Asymptomatic cases, where someone with the virus has no symptoms, can unwittingly but rapidly transmit the disease to others if they’re in public. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-coronavirus-adds-to-scott-morrisons-many-woes-130889">Grattan on Friday: Coronavirus adds to Scott Morrison's many woes</a>
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<p>Unfortunately, preliminary evidence suggests coronavirus <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51254523">can be spread</a> when someone has the virus but appears well. </p>
<p>A woman from China reportedly infected <a href="https://www.stmgp.bayern.de/vorsorge/infektionsschutz/infektionsmonitor-bayern/">four German colleagues</a> during a training session in Germany. The woman didn’t feel unwell until her flight back to China, making it likely she infected her colleagues <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2001468?query=featured_home">while she was asymptomatic</a> or experiencing very mild symptoms.</p>
<p>Similarly, in an outbreak among a family, a <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30154-9/fulltext">ten-year-old</a> was found to be carrying the virus even though he had no symptoms.</p>
<h2>What are other countries doing?</h2>
<p>Other countries including <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/01/28/national/japan-first-domestic-transmission-coronavirus/#.XjLeF8gzY2w">Japan</a> and the United States are implementing voluntary quarantine of their Wuhan evacuees. In the US, the <a href="https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/01/29/california-base-house-us-evacuees-china-coronavirus-quarantine.html">March Air Reserve Base</a>, a military base in California, is housing Wuhan evacuees for <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-usa/u-s-evacuees-from-china-placed-under-72-hour-hold-at-california-military-base-idUSKBN1ZT01D">72 hours</a>. They’re then monitored at home for the remaining 14-day incubation period.</p>
<p>But if you don’t want to risk people not voluntarily self quarantining, especially when it’s potentially hundreds of people, where do you quarantine large groups of people who may have an infectious disease? </p>
<p>If you choose to place them in a hotel, such as what’s currently happening with the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-29/chinese-soccer-team-quarantined-in-brisbane-hotel-as-precaution/11911228">Chinese women’s hockey team in Brisbane</a>, you need a hotel willing to take potentially infectious people. </p>
<p>This is likely to raise concerns. What happens when other guests learn there may be infectious people in their hotel? Will the hotel staff also need to be quarantined? How do you ensure the quarantined people won’t leave the hotel?</p>
<p>A hospital might seem like a sensible choice, but then you’re using large numbers of hospital beds and resources to accommodate and care for healthy people.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/will-my-child-get-coronavirus-at-school-heres-some-perspective-for-aussie-parents-130782">Will my child get coronavirus at school? Here's some perspective for Aussie parents</a>
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<h2>Will it work?</h2>
<p>Quarantining Australians in a remote detention centre in case they have an infectious disease reads more like a script for a disaster movie than a modern public health response. </p>
<p>But from an outbreak response perspective, assuming good medical facilities are available on Christmas Island, this move should ensure illness in any evacuees is identified early and stop further transmission of the coronavirus.</p>
<p>That being said, we are in unchartered territory. No one knows for certain whether quarantining Wuhan evacuees on Christmas Island will work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130879/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beverley Paterson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An ancient practice to prevent the spread of infectious disease looks likely to make a comeback in modern-day Australia. Here’s the rationale behind quarantining Australians returning from Wuhan.Beverley Paterson, Epidemiologist, Conjoint Senior Lecturer, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1308892020-01-30T11:27:07Z2020-01-30T11:27:07ZGrattan on Friday: Coronavirus adds to Scott Morrison’s many woes<p>Remember when the Morrison government had a “horror week” as parliament was winding down in late November, with the Angus Taylor scandal and the failure to pass key union legislation?</p>
<p>In retrospect, that looks small beer compared to the waves of trouble engulfing it as the 2020 parliamentary sittings begin next week. </p>
<p>Just look at what’s happened since.</p>
<p>The bushfires, already alight then, became a thousand times worse, and turned into a political albatross with Scott Morrison’s missteps and widespread criticism of the government’s handling of climate change.</p>
<p>Doubts about the economy’s prospects have remained deep.</p>
<p>The projected budget surplus weakened to $5 billion in the December update and could disappear altogether.</p>
<p>The Wuhan coronavirus sprang out of nowhere, its tentacles – their lengths as yet uncertain - stretching in various directions.</p>
<p>The row around deputy Nationals leader Bridget McKenzie’s sports rorts has put the Taylor affair, involving an allegedly forged document, into the shade (though that’s not resolved yet).</p>
<p>Parliament will reopen in the final month of a summer of horror for the country in general and Morrison in particular.</p>
<p>It’s not just the issues, substantive and political, that he and his ministers must deal with. It is the uncertainties they bring.</p>
<p>Most notably and immediately, no one can be sure what the implications of the coronavirus will be for Australia. The number of cases locally is likely to be quite small, but there could be substantial broader effects.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-politicians-not-bureaucrats-are-the-ones-in-touch-morrison-claims-in-sports-affair-130795">View from The Hill: Politicians not bureaucrats are the ones in touch, Morrison claims in sports affair</a>
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<p>Obviously Australian authorities have had preparations and protocols in place to deal with such an emergency. Nevertheless this week the government looked as if it were caught by surprise.</p>
<p>Cabinet’s national security committee convened, but the government’s initial reactions were unexpectedly slow and muddled.</p>
<p>For instance it took a while to announce a plan to evacuate hundreds of Australians trapped in Wuhan. </p>
<p>And Education minister Dan Tehan was censorious of schools that had told pupils who’d recently been in China to stay away, but then had to make a sharp U-turn when the medical advice to the government changed.</p>
<p>As the government worked to organise a charter flight, its announcement it would quarantine returnees on Christmas Island for two weeks stirred controversy. </p>
<p>Critics included the Australian Medical Association and the opposition, as well as some of those in China who were weighing whether to take up the flight offer. </p>
<p>Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton insisted quarantine beds wouldn’t be obtainable on the mainland (which might be a matter of how hard the government looked). </p>
<p>The Christmas Island plan is provocative. Having prospective travellers sign a declaration they’d self-isolate surely would have been adequate. But the government probably feared a domestic backlash if precautions didn’t appear tough enough.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/fear-spreads-easily-thats-what-gives-the-wuhan-coronavirus-economic-impact-130780">Fear spreads easily. That's what gives the Wuhan coronavirus economic impact</a>
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<p>Both the bushfires and the coronavirus will take heavy tolls on Australia’s tourist industry. </p>
<p>The fires haven’t affected major attractions for international visitors such as central Australia and the Barrier Reef, but the disaster has received prominent coverage abroad, and people get their impressions from TV images. So it’s not surprising Australia suddenly looks a less desirable destination. </p>
<p>The coronavirus has seen the Chinese authorities quickly cancel group tours. Restoring normality to the China trade goes well beyond perceptions - it will be a matter of time and how the health crisis plays out. </p>
<p>The virus is already having implications for Australia’s education export industry, which draws a huge number of students (who pay very high fees) from China. </p>
<p>Universities are scrambling to make arrangement for those Chinese students who’ll miss the first part of the teaching year. It’s a sharp reminder of a wider issue: the high dependence of Australian universities on foreign, especially Chinese, students.</p>
<p>The full economic impact of the coronavirus for Australia won’t be known for some time. </p>
<p>Henry Cutler, from Macquarie University’s Centre for the Health Economy, says flow-on effects for us will be small if China contains the virus relatively quickly but “the Australian economy may be significantly impacted” if the authorities there struggle to do so. “A reduction in Chinese GDP growth could reduce our exports given China is Australia’s top export market.”</p>
<p>The consensus suggests the fallout for Australia is likely to be limited in the long run, but the first and second quarters of 2020 are another story. And whatever the effect, it couldn’t come at a worse time - like the impact of the fires, it will hit a soft economy.</p>
<p>Growth was revised down in the December budget update. The conclusion from The Conversation’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/2020-survey-no-lift-in-wage-growth-no-lift-in-economic-growth-and-no-progress-on-unemployment-in-year-of-low-expectations-130289">just-published survey</a> of 24 economists from 15 universities is for growth, which has been below 2% for the last three quarters, “to stay at or below 2% for at least another year, producing the longest period of low economic growth since the early 1990s recession”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/humans-are-good-at-thinking-their-way-out-of-problems-but-climate-change-is-outfoxing-us-129987">Humans are good at thinking their way out of problems – but climate change is outfoxing us</a>
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<p>During the bushfire crisis the government repositioned on the surplus. After earlier confidently proclaiming the budget would be “back in the black”, it now says its priority is bushfire relief and recovery and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg makes no predictions.</p>
<p>This is appropriate, but if the budget is in the red at mid-year that will trash those boasting rights the government had prematurely grabbed. Equally important, a worse-than-anticipated fiscal situation will leave less funds to spend on other areas in the May budget.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, before parliament resumes Morrison has to resolve McKenzie’s future, deciding whether he gets rid of her (which he should) or retains her.</p>
<p>If she’s ditched, the first days of the week will be taken up with the Nationals getting their house in order - electing a new deputy (David Littleproud would be the obvious pick) and leader Michael McCormack rearranging his frontbench (the best way to do this would be to promote Darren Chester back into cabinet, and put one of the new female senators into a junior frontbench position). </p>
<p>Even with McKenzie gone, the opposition would still have plenty of ammunition to keep the rorts issue alive for a while.</p>
<p>Cutting McKenzie loose carries the risk of Coalition trouble, with some Nationals blaming the Liberals for her demise. But if she is kept, the government’s bleeding will be substantial.</p>
<p>No wonder Coalition backbenchers will arrive back in Canberra unhappy and anxious, and with fleas in their ears from their constituents.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130889/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Parliament will reopen in the final month of a summer of horror for the country in general and Scott Morrison in particular.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1239282019-09-20T08:17:39Z2019-09-20T08:17:39ZVIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the family law inquiry - and the UN climate change summit<figure>
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<p>University of Canberra Deputy Vice-Chancellor Leigh Sullivan discusses Scott Morrison’s new family law inquiry with Michelle Grattan. They also speak of the developments in the Tamil family from Biloela’s case, and the UN barring Australia from speaking at the upcoming climate change summit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123928/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Michelle Grattan discusses the government’s new family law inquiry, and Australia being banned from the speaking list at the upcoming UN climate change summit.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1189052019-06-16T09:36:29Z2019-06-16T09:36:29ZLambie’s vote key if government wants to have medevac repealed<p>The government almost certainly would have to obtain the support of Tasmanian crossbench senator Jacqui Lambie to amend or repeal the medevac legislation.</p>
<p>Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton on Sunday claimed Labor was reconsidering its position on the legislation, but that was quickly dismissed by his opposite number Kristina Keneally.</p>
<p>The Coalition would need four of the six non-Green crossbench Senate votes, assuming the ALP and Greens opposed.</p>
<p>The government could rely on One Nation, which will have two senators, and Cory Bernardi from the Australian Conservatives.</p>
<p>But that would leave it one vote short. Stirling Griff, one of the two Centre Alliance senators, said Centre Alliance was “100% opposed” to repeal or amendment of the legislation. That position was “non-negotiable”, Griff said.</p>
<p>This would put Lambie, who is returning to the Senate after having to quit in the citizenship crisis, as the swing vote. Her spokeswoman said she was not giving answers on anything yet.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/setka-furore-opens-division-within-the-labour-movement-and-there-is-no-easy-solution-118756">Setka furore opens division within the labour movement – and there is no easy solution</a>
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<p>The government said in the election campaign that it would repeal the legislation.</p>
<p>It claimed when the medevac bill was passed – against Coalition opposition during the period of minority government – that it would lead to a flood of transfers from Manus and Nauru, including of people accused of serious crimes. It reopened Christmas Island and said any transferees under the medevac legislation would be sent there.</p>
<p>Dutton said on Sunday just over 30 people had come under the new law, none of whom had been sent to Christmas Island. Asked on the ABC whether they included any criminals or people charged with offences Dutton said he didn’t know. When pressed he said, “we don’t bring anyone to our country where we can’t mitigate the risk”.</p>
<p>Dutton continued to insist the government could be compelled under the legislation to transfer criminals, although the medevac legislation gives the minister power to veto people on security grounds.</p>
<p>The minister claimed Labor was reconsidering its position “and that they would be open to suggestions about how that bill could be repealed or at the very least wound back”.</p>
<p>But Keneally said he had misrepresented Labor’s position; she stressed it supported the legislation.</p>
<p>It was “up to the government to explain if changes are necessary. I have no information that would suggest changes are necessary,” she said.</p>
<p>“If the government believes that the medevac legislation is no longer necessary to ensure that sick people can get the health care they need then the government needs to explain why to the parliament.</p>
<p>"And if the government wants to improve the medevac legislation to ensure that people can more readily get the health care that they need then the government needs to explain that to the parliament.</p>
<p>"The government has said nothing about either of those two aspects of the legislation”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-john-setka-press-freedom-adani-approval-and-tax-118845">VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on John Setka, press freedom, Adani approval and tax</a>
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<p>Dutton said there were now just over 800 people remaining across Nauru and Manus.</p>
<p>He did not think the United States would take the maximum 1,250 people under the deal between Malcolm Turnbull and Barack Obama.</p>
<p>So far 531 had gone to the US and there were about 295 in the pipeline who had approvals but hadn’t gone yet. More than 300 had been rejected by the US.</p>
<p>He hoped all offered a place would take it up. About 95 had either withdrawn from consideration or rejected an offer. “If we can get those 95 across the line, we get closer to zero”.</p>
<p>In a controversial decision, Australia accepted under the US deal two Rwandan men accused of involvement in the murder of tourists on a gorilla-watching expedition in Uganda in 1999. The government says the men have been found by Australian security agencies not to pose a threat.</p>
<p>Pressed on whether these two were the only ones coming here to fulfil Australia’s side of the deal, Dutton said: “We don’t have plans to bring any others from America at this stage.”</p>
<p>Dutton, while saying it was a matter for the department, also indicated the security company Paladin was likely to have its contract for services on Manus rolled over, despite an ongoing investigation by the Australian National Audit Office into the Home Affairs department’s management of the procurement process for the earlier A$423 million contracts.</p>
<p>Keneally said the A$423 million contract had been “given out by the government in a closed process – a closed rushed process […] to an organisation that was registered in a beach shack on Kangaroo Island, that had one member barred from entering PNG, had another accused of fraud”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118905/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Dutton continues to insist the government could be compelled under the medevac legislation to transfer criminals, although the legislation gives the minister power to veto people on security grounds.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1162372019-05-01T15:50:35Z2019-05-01T15:50:35ZCold War exhibition tries to airbrush Britain’s dark history of nuclear testing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271971/original/file-20190501-113830-11ipws1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> </figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/coldwar/">new exhibition</a> about the Cold War recently opened at the UK National Archives at Kew in south-west London. Protect and Survive: Britain’s Cold War Revealed seeks to tell the story of how the years of high nuclear tensions affected the UK, from spy paranoia to civil defence posters to communications at the heart of government. Typical of any exhibition with a vast history at its disposal, curatorial choices have to be made. As the agency’s principal records specialist <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/visit-us/whats-on/keepers-gallery/">explains</a>: </p>
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<p>We came to the view that one half of the exhibition should be themed as a government bunker, and the other half should reflect the impact of the Cold War on the home, with a particular emphasis on how much the Cold War affected popular culture – whether pop music, literature, films, games and toys.</p>
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<p>One consequence of this approach is that an extremely important facet of Britain’s Cold War has been almost entirely airbrushed from the story. There is barely anything in the exhibition about the 45 atomic and nuclear weapons detonations <a href="https://www.ctbto.org/nuclear-testing/the-effects-of-nuclear-testing/the-united-kingdomsnuclear-testing-programme/">carried out</a> by the British: 12 in Australia from 1952-57, nine in the central Pacific in 1957-58, and a further 24 alongside the Americans in the Nevada desert until as recently as 1991. The effects on the health of all this testing on indigenous people and some 22,000 British servicemen who were sent as observers is still being researched. </p>
<p>The Cold War exhibition includes three photos showing the atmospheric effect of the <a href="https://australianmap.net/monte-bello-islands/">1952 detonation</a> off the Montebello Islands off north-western Australia. There is one additional picture of the hydrogen bomb that was exploded near Christmas Island in May 1957, the first of the central Pacific series, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-snub-to-nobel-peace-win-is-major-break-from-ambiguous-nukes-policies-of-past-88973">persuaded the US</a> to resume nuclear collaboration with the UK. And that’s about it. Worse, the exhibition includes a map of the global impact of the nuclear era in which the test locations in Australia are obscured by lettering – not least <a href="https://www.ctbto.org/nuclear-testing/the-effects-of-nuclear-testing/the-united-kingdomsnuclear-testing-programme/">Maralinga</a>, an important Aboriginal area in which seven detonations took place. </p>
<h2>Files under review</h2>
<p>My understanding is that decisions about the content of the exhibition were finalised late last year. Interestingly, this was around the same time as the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, the public body with ultimate responsibility for the UK’s nuclear legacy <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/23/british-nuclear-archive-files-withdrawn-without-explanation">withdrew records</a> from the National Archives relating to 1950s nuclear weapons tests that had been declassified decades ago, pending a “security review” by the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-defence">Ministry of Defence</a> and <a href="https://www.awe.co.uk">Atomic Weapons Establishment</a>. Specialists in this field have <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/11/australia/uk-australia-nuclear-archives-intl/index.html">long complained</a> about the many files concerning British testing that have remained secret, which makes the withdrawal of declassified files all the more unsettling. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271984/original/file-20190501-113839-1m2dnaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271984/original/file-20190501-113839-1m2dnaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271984/original/file-20190501-113839-1m2dnaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271984/original/file-20190501-113839-1m2dnaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271984/original/file-20190501-113839-1m2dnaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271984/original/file-20190501-113839-1m2dnaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271984/original/file-20190501-113839-1m2dnaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271984/original/file-20190501-113839-1m2dnaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">National Archives headquarters at Kew, London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dgeezer/36763363965/in/photolist-Y1DRhR-XWAKe9-Y1DTQM-5PSUYq-gUtk39-L74heh-5PNA1r-r4Ugu-gUtn55-gUtupp-gUtgCm-6uLMN-4Tk8V2-gUtgJJ-gUtufg-gUtoYp-gtDQ-gUthao-oEojHN-YaDBBW-gUtoHL-gUu9Qa-hNFBK9-nzmoaf-7qggvA-4oypmp-5LVxfZ-2aTpH5j-7qcm1v-XjxUhZ-275Cqtr-2aXRqBH-2aTpE6U-7qcmZz-6j2TGy-bCyRWw-5mK4tR-eF5Db5-87SrcV-5nEE3a-2bYQ8eA-7PUTC3-PVa9tu-2bYQ8xb-NhYH56-hLiiM-hLi3T-22r1oen-7qckCz-TMGYcw">diamond geezer</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The National Archives is advising anyone who wants access to these reclassified files to request them via a Freedom of Information application. However, Elizabeth Tynan – the author of Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga Story, and winner of the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History in 2017 – tells me she was informed in March by the agency that the review had not been completed in relation to the records and “it is not clear at this stage how much longer” this would take. The reply continued: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are however hopeful that many of the records will eventually be restored to public access and as soon as we have any information we will let you know. Please accept our apologies once again for the continued delay.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The NDA <a href="https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/nothing-to-see-here-as-scots-nuclear-files-are-put-under-wraps-again/">has said</a> only that the purpose of the review is to “ensure that it is appropriate for the records to remain in the public domain,” and that “it is anticipated public access will be restored to the vast majority of documents”. <a href="https://twitter.com/jon_agar/status/1082645068719239169">According to</a> one source, the NDA may be moving some of these records to northern Scotland. </p>
<h2>Remembrance</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271986/original/file-20190501-113835-1o9kg2u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271986/original/file-20190501-113835-1o9kg2u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271986/original/file-20190501-113835-1o9kg2u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271986/original/file-20190501-113835-1o9kg2u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271986/original/file-20190501-113835-1o9kg2u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271986/original/file-20190501-113835-1o9kg2u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271986/original/file-20190501-113835-1o9kg2u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271986/original/file-20190501-113835-1o9kg2u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">British Pacific test, 1957.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/orange-tim/5992869674/in/photolist-efHTe3-a8z2nd-R339Ve-efGSxP-99HJDB-99LSdd-99HJAa-MD17xk-26Ndc15">Tim Pruyn</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The omissions at the London Cold War exhibition are a reminder about the UK’s low-key approach to its weapons testing history. The story doesn’t only need to be properly told at this exhibition, it needs a permanent public space. Yet no existing museum dedicated to Britain’s wars is interested in giving it house room – not even the records and memorabilia of all the military personnel <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-43075718">sent to</a> observe the tests. A number of years ago I was quietly told while walking down a corridor in one major institution not to offer it my own records because “they will end up in the skip”. </p>
<p>My years working in this field indicate to me that successive governments seem to want the story of British nuclear testing to die off naturally. But surely, at the very least, the point of the National Archives is to preserve the records to ensure that it is never allowed to be forgotten.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116237/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sue Rabbitt Roff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There is a growing sense that the British authorities would rather forget their weapons testing history.Sue Rabbitt Roff, Researcher, Social History/Tutor in Medical Education, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1131942019-03-08T05:42:37Z2019-03-08T05:42:37ZVIDEO: Michelle Grattan on more cabinet departures, national accounts figures and Morrison’s Christmas island visit<figure>
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<p>University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Deep Saini speaks with Michelle Grattan about the week in politics. They discuss the departures of two more cabinet ministers - Steve Ciobo and Chris Pyne; the latest national accounts figures; Bill Shorten’s focus on slow wage growth; and Scott Morrison’s visit to the detention facility on Christmas Island.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113194/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Deep Saini speaks with Michelle Grattan about the week in politics.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1119102019-02-15T04:13:51Z2019-02-15T04:13:51ZVIDEO: Michelle Grattan on reopening Christmas Island and One Nation’s shenanigans<figure>
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<p>University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Deep Saini and Michelle Grattan talk about the week in politics. They discuss including the government’s historic defeat in the House of Representatives on the medevac legislation, plans to reopen the Christmas Island detention facility, One Nation’s embarrassing conduct and the push for a royal commission into the treatment of disabled people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111910/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Deep Saini and Michelle Grattan talk about the week in politics.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1118662019-02-14T12:07:19Z2019-02-14T12:07:19ZGrattan on Friday: What does “reopening” Christmas Island actually mean and why do it?<p>The Morrison government, politically-speaking, is trying to do a
loaves-and-fishes exercise with the medevac legislation, over which the parliament defied the executive this week.</p>
<p>It is attempting to inflate Labor’s support for a modest measure to facilitate medical transfers from Manus and Nauru into a mini “Tampa” crisis.</p>
<p>Will this succeed? The short answer is surely “no”; the longer one is that this issue could take a deal of skin off Labor. The point is no one is yet sure how it will play out – both sides are operating on gut feelings until the polls and focus groups speak.</p>
<p>The Liberals think anything to do with “boats” is lethal for Labor; the ALP believes community attitudes have changed but is very apprehensive about how the debate would go if boats showed up.</p>
<p>No question, this is rocky for Bill Shorten. The government attack is ferocious, full of exaggeration and scaremongering.</p>
<p>But the Coalition’s tactics are also risky in a policy sense. Scott Morrison is running two lines. He claims that by supporting the medevac legislation Shorten has undermined offshore processing – sending a signal the borders are porous.</p>
<p>He goes on to say that the government, and he in particular, are ready to protect Australia against the danger of a new wave. Whatever the intelligence advisers want done will be done. The borders will stay strong.</p>
<p>Morrison rejects the argument that the detail of the legislation
limits the incentive to people smugglers, insisting they don’t bother with “nuance”.</p>
<p>Indeed. So which un-nuanced Morrison message will the smugglers hear? That the policy has been trashed – or that the borders are being fortified?</p>
<p>There is also the danger, which some critics have highlighted, that in its rhetoric about numerous alleged criminals on Nauru and Manus, the government could make the US more reluctant to take people (it has only accepted 456 so far – the deal was up to 1,250).</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-will-the-medevac-bill-actually-affect-ill-asylum-seekers-111645">Explainer: how will the 'medevac' bill actually affect ill asylum seekers?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>What the government is actually doing is hard to pin down. Take the reopening of the Christmas Island detention facility – or to be more precise “a series of compounds” there – which attracted big headlines, and attention overseas.</p>
<p>What does “reopening” mean? Going in with the vacuum cleaners and the mops so that the centre could function if required? Or setting up some of it immediately on a serious day-to-day operating basis?</p>
<p>And how convincing is the rationale for this reopening, which Morrison described as for dealing “with the prospect of transfers”?</p>
<p>The government says that with the closing of many detention centres, space is somewhat tight. But if people are transferred because they are sick, Christmas Island is hardly the best place for access to medical practitioners.</p>
<p>Maybe some people currently in detention elsewhere would be moved to Christmas Island to make room for newcomers. But wouldn’t it be a lot cheaper and easier - if less dramatic and headline-grabbing - just to lease some more accommodation near currently-operating facilities?</p>
<p>Anyway, while some of the transferees would be kept in detention,
what’s happened previously suggests a lot could be let into the
community.</p>
<p>It’s true that the advice from the Home Affairs department envisaged a scenario “likely necessitating the stand-up of the Christmas Island facility”, but it had the flavour of a worst-case one. (With an election and the prospect of a change of government raising questions about the future of Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo, one wonders what he thinks about the department’s advice being used publicly by the government as a battering ram against Labor.)</p>
<p>If the government really intends to “reopen” Christmas Island in any major way, it could find itself spending a lot of money there on few if any people. If it is a faux reopening, it’s just a bit of spin that should be called out.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-refugee-law-expert-on-a-week-of-reckless-rhetoric-and-a-new-way-to-process-asylum-seeker-claims-111756">A refugee law expert on a week of 'reckless' rhetoric and a new way to process asylum seeker claims</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The medevac bill was passed despite the best efforts of the minority government to stop it, including a Senate filibuster on the final sitting day of last year, to delay the bill reaching the lower house then.</p>
<p>On Thursday a rather panicked government did a rerun of that December day.</p>
<p>This time, the Senate had passed a motion – opposed by the Coalition – calling for a royal commission “into violence, abuse and neglect of people with disability.” Labor, expecting the motion to reach the House on Thursday afternoon, prepared to push it through with crossbench support.</p>
<p>The government says it knew the message from the Senate hadn’t arrived as question time was nearing its normal end. But it was spooked by the opposition’s tactics, and fearful of what Labor might be up to. So it just kept question time running for some 150 minutes, a record.</p>
<p>Earlier in the day, it had to pull its legislation for applying a “big stick” to errant energy companies, because the House appeared set to amend it to prevent the government underwriting coal projects.</p>
<p>The government says it will take the “big stick” plan to the election. But its inability to have it bedded down before then is another failure in a long line in the energy area.</p>
<p>The vote on the disability motion will happen on Monday and the
Coalition will not oppose it – despite its stand in the Senate. The government says it will then consider what action it should take.</p>
<p>Abuse of disabled people is surely as important an issue as the
ill-treatment of the elderly. With the public increasingly demanding the facts and culprits be revealed where there is evidence of misconduct, a royal commission in parallel with the aged care one would have merit, in both policy and political terms.</p>
<p>The parliamentary week has been rugged for both sides – the government hasn’t been in control of the House but Labor hasn’t been in control of the debate, which it wanted to be all about banks not boats.</p>
<p>Then again, nothing could match One Nation’s tribulation, with its
leader Pauline Hanson accused of sexual harassment by a bitter
ex-colleague, senator Brian Burston, and her right-hand man, James
Ashby, publicly scuffling with her accuser. This is a party beyond
embarrassment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111866/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If the government really intends to “reopen” Christmas Island in any major way, it could find itself spending a lot of money there on few if any people.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/873542017-11-17T01:30:28Z2017-11-17T01:30:28ZThree charts on: what’s going on at Manus Island<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195137/original/file-20171117-15442-1syb213.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There are few options left for the asylum seekers remaining on Manus Island.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marcella Cheng/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tensions at the Manus Island Regional Processing Centre remain high after the centre was officially closed on October 31 this year and handed back to the Papua New Guinea government.</p>
<p>Reports are that there are still around 420 people in the now-defunct regional processing centre who are refusing to move to recently built transit centres in Lorengau. However, these numbers shift on a daily basis as men move in and out of the centre. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195102/original/file-20171116-18368-1uakep5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195102/original/file-20171116-18368-1uakep5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195102/original/file-20171116-18368-1uakep5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195102/original/file-20171116-18368-1uakep5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195102/original/file-20171116-18368-1uakep5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195102/original/file-20171116-18368-1uakep5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=669&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195102/original/file-20171116-18368-1uakep5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=669&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195102/original/file-20171116-18368-1uakep5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=669&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recently <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/en-au/news/latest/2017/11/5a05c1b44/unhcr-urges-humane-approach-manus-island.html">said that:</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The abrupt ending of services and the closure of the regional processing centre needs to involve the people who have been in this regional processing centre for years in a very vulnerable state … It is really high time to bring an end to this unconscionable human suffering.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>How did we get here?</h2>
<p>The offshore processing of asylum seekers who came to Australia by boat recommenced in 2012. At that time, single adult men were sent to Nauru and families with children and some adult men were sent to Manus Island in PNG.</p>
<p>However, <a href="http://dfat.gov.au/geo/papua-new-guinea/Pages/regional-resettlement-arrangement-between-australia-and-papua-new-guinea.aspx">since July 2013</a> only adult men were transferred to Manus and all the asylum seekers there today are male. Families with children, single women, couples and some single men are on Nauru.</p>
<p>Since July 2013 a total of <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/%7E/media/Committees/legcon_ctte/estimates/add_1617/DIBP/QoNs/AE17-170.pdf">1,523</a> people have been transferred to Manus from Australia.</p>
<p>When the Manus processing centre closed on October 31, there were <a href="http://newsroom.border.gov.au/channels/Operation-Sovereign-Borders/releases/45c49e50-9be6-45b5-a569-f0e693dea3af">690 people</a> in the facility.</p>
<hr>
<p><iframe id="Jd2aV" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Jd2aV/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The number of asylum seekers on Manus Island has slowly reduced over the years as people have either accepted packages to <a href="https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2017/10/29/Media_Release-Minister_Thomas_on_Closure_of_Manus_RPC.pdf">return to their country of origin</a>, been <a href="https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2017/10/29/Media_Release-Minister_Thomas_on_Closure_of_Manus_RPC.pdf">deported</a> from PNG, been resettled in the US or temporarily settled in PNG. Six others have died. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194529/original/file-20171114-27607-1lhp22j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194529/original/file-20171114-27607-1lhp22j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194529/original/file-20171114-27607-1lhp22j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194529/original/file-20171114-27607-1lhp22j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194529/original/file-20171114-27607-1lhp22j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194529/original/file-20171114-27607-1lhp22j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194529/original/file-20171114-27607-1lhp22j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194529/original/file-20171114-27607-1lhp22j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The population has reduced over time.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><iframe id="Xxhvb" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Xxhvb/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Why was the Manus Regional Processing Centre closed?</h2>
<p>On April 27 last year, the PNG Supreme Court ruled that the detention of the asylum seekers on Manus Island was <a href="https://theconversation.com/png-court-decision-forces-australia-to-act-on-manus-island-detainees-58439">unconstitutional</a>.</p>
<p>After the decision was made the PNG government said that those at the centre were free to come and go from the processing centre.</p>
<p>It was not until <a href="http://www.minister.border.gov.au/peterdutton/2017/Pages/sky-sunday-agenda-09042017.aspx">April 2017</a> that the Australian government and the PNG government announced publicly that the processing centre would close on October 31. </p>
<p>All of the service providers (including health providers) and Australian government officials left the centre on October 31 this year and the centre was supposed to be reoccupied by the PNG Defence Force from November 1.</p>
<h2>What are the options for those left on Manus?</h2>
<p>According to the Australian government, those who have been found by PNG authorities to be refugees have the following options: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>resettle in PNG; </p></li>
<li><p>wait in PNG for possible resettlement in the US;</p></li>
<li><p>transfer to Nauru to wait for possible resettlement in the US; or </p></li>
<li><p>return to the country from which they had fled persecution.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Resettlement of refugees in PNG has been <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/FlagPost/2017/October/Manus_Island_RPC">slow and problematic</a> with few people opting to leave the processing centre to live elsewhere in PNG. </p>
<p>The UNHCR has raised concern about just how “voluntarily” refugees can return to the country from which they fled.</p>
<p>Since the <a href="http://www.minister.border.gov.au/peterdutton/Pages/Refugee-resettlement-from-Regional-Process-Centres.aspx">US resettlement deal</a> was announced about a year ago, 516 refugees from Manus have been <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/estimate/3a32f9b8-b53d-4251-a739-7e12e1fc506e/toc_pdf/Legal%20and%20Constitutional%20Affairs%20Legislation%20Committee_2017_10_23_5658.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf">referred</a> to the US for resettlement.</p>
<p>Reviews of their cases and interviews are underway. Only <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/estimate/3a32f9b8-b53d-4251-a739-7e12e1fc506e/toc_pdf/Legal%20and%20Constitutional%20Affairs%20Legislation%20Committee_2017_10_23_5658.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf">25 have been resettled</a> so far. However, it is up to the US as to how many they will take and it is unclear when the next refugees will be transferred to the US.</p>
<p>Currently, it is clear the majority want to wait to see if they will be offered resettlement in the US. Refugees remaining in the processing centre have been <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/estimate/3a32f9b8-b53d-4251-a739-7e12e1fc506e/toc_pdf/Legal%20and%20Constitutional%20Affairs%20Legislation%20Committee_2017_10_23_5658.pdf;fileType%3Dapplication%2Fpdf">offered</a> alternative accommodation at East Lorengau Refugee Transit Centre (for up to 400 people) and West Lorengau House (for up to 300 people). Whether these facilities can in fact house this many men is as yet unclear. </p>
<p>The UNHCR is <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/en-au/news/press/2017/11/5a0545da7/unhcr-urges-humane-approach-on-manus-island.html">urging</a> against the forced movement of refugees and asylum seekers to these centres from the processing centre. </p>
<hr>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/rAI1r/4/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="600"></iframe>
<p>The men who have been found by PNG authorities not to be refugees have been offered supported accommodation in Lorengau (Hillside House). </p>
<p>However, the PNG government expects them to eventually make arrangements to return home voluntarily or they will be deported.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87354/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary Anne Kenny receives sitting fees from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. She has previously received grant funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>There are about 400-600 people in the now-defunct regional processing centre refusing to move to recently built transit centres in Lorengau – but these numbers shift daily.Mary Anne Kenny, Associate Professor, School of Law, Murdoch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/803972017-07-25T04:45:31Z2017-07-25T04:45:31ZWho’s afraid of the giant African land snail? Perhaps we shouldn’t be<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179290/original/file-20170722-28465-ngf5eh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Giant African land snails can grow up to 15cm long.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lissachatina_fulica">giant African land snail</a> is a poster child of a global epidemic: the threat of invasive species. The snails are native to coastal East Africa, but are now found across Asia, the Pacific and the Americas – in fact, almost all tropical mainlands and islands except mainland Australia. </p>
<p>Yet, despite their fearsome reputation, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/aec.12504/full">our research</a> on Christmas Island’s invasive snail population suggests the risk they pose to native ecosystems has been greatly exaggerated.</p>
<p>Giant African land snails certainly have the classic characteristics of a successful invader: they can thrive in lots of different places; survive on a broad diet; reach reproductive age quickly; and produce more than 1,000 eggs in a lifetime. Add it all together and you have a species recognised as <a href="http://www.issg.org/worst100_species.html">among the worst invaders in the world</a>.</p>
<p>The snails can eat <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/agriculture/control-of-giant-african-snail-in-horticultural-crops/article5554174.ece">hundreds of plant species</a>, including vegetable crops (and even calcium-rich <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2013/may/04/science/la-sci-giant-snails-20130504">plaster and stucco</a>), and have been described as a <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130417-giant-african-land-snail-florida-invasive-science-animals/">major threat</a> to agriculture. </p>
<p>They have been <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-12/giant-snail-pest-found-at-brisbane-container-yard/4567644">intercepted at Australian ports</a>, and the Department of Primary Industries concurs that the snails are a “<a href="http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/559493/exotic-pest-alert-giant-african-snail.pdf">serious threat</a>”. </p>
<p>Despite all this, there have been <a href="http://www.iucngisd.org/gisd/species.php?sc=64">no dedicated studies of their environmental impact</a>. Some <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00051574">researchers</a> suggest the risk to agriculture has been exaggerated from accounts of damage in gardens. There are no accounts of giant African land snails destroying natural ecosystems.</p>
<h2>Quietly eating leaf litter</h2>
<p>In research recently published in the journal <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/aec.12504/full">Austral Ecology</a>, we tested these assumptions by investigating giant African land snails living in native rainforest on <a href="https://theconversation.com/unknown-wonders-christmas-island-13648">Christmas Island</a>.</p>
<p>Giant African land snails have spread through Christmas Island with the help of another invasive species: the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_crazy_ant">yellow crazy ant</a>. </p>
<p>Until these ants showed up, abundant native <a href="https://www.christmasislandcrabs.com/">red land crabs</a> ate the giant snails before they could gain a foothold in the rainforest. Unfortunately, yellow crazy ants have <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-tiny-wasp-could-save-christmas-islands-spectacular-red-crabs-from-crazy-ants-69646">completely exterminated the crabs</a> in some parts of the island, allowing the snails to flourish. </p>
<p>We predicted that the snails, which eat a broad range of food, would have a significant impact on leaf litter and seedling survival.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179148/original/file-20170721-6527-br3chv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179148/original/file-20170721-6527-br3chv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179148/original/file-20170721-6527-br3chv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179148/original/file-20170721-6527-br3chv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179148/original/file-20170721-6527-br3chv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179148/original/file-20170721-6527-br3chv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179148/original/file-20170721-6527-br3chv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179148/original/file-20170721-6527-br3chv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Unexpectedly, the snails we observed on Christmas Island confined themselves to eating small amounts of leaf litter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, our evidence didn’t support this at all. Using several different approaches – including a field experiment, lab experiment and observational study – we found giant African land snails were pretty much just eating a few dead leaves and little else. </p>
<p>We almost couldn’t distinguish between leaf litter removal by the snails compared to natural decomposition. They were eating leaf litter, but not a lot of it.</p>
<p>We saw almost no impact on seedling survival, and the snails were almost never seen eating live foliage. In one lab trial, we attempted to feed snails an exclusive diet of fresh leaves, but so many of these snails died that we had to cut the experiment short. Perhaps common Christmas Island plants just aren’t palatable.</p>
<p>It’s possible that the giant African land snails are causing other problems on Christmas Island. In Florida, for example, they <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/07/10/giant-land-snails-are-on-the-move-and-a-nasty-parasite-is-riding-them-like-a-bus/?utm_term=.9611a7fbf160">carry parasites that are a risk to human health</a>. But for the key ecological processes we investigated, the snails do not create the kind of disturbance we would assume from their large numbers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179147/original/file-20170721-14763-1h06l75.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179147/original/file-20170721-14763-1h06l75.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179147/original/file-20170721-14763-1h06l75.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179147/original/file-20170721-14763-1h06l75.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179147/original/file-20170721-14763-1h06l75.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179147/original/file-20170721-14763-1h06l75.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179147/original/file-20170721-14763-1h06l75.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179147/original/file-20170721-14763-1h06l75.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We effectively excluded snails from an area by lining a fence with copper tape.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The assumption that giant African land snails are dangerous to native plants and agriculture comes from an overriding sentiment that <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-defence-of-invasive-alien-species-10977">invasive species are damaging and must be controlled</a>. </p>
<p>Do we have good data on the ecological impact of all invasive species? Of course not. Should we still try to control all abundant invasive species even if we don’t have evidence they are causing harm? That’s a more difficult question.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.precautionaryprinciple.eu/">precautionary principle</a> drives much of the thinking behind the management of invasive species, including the giant African land snail. The cost of doing nothing is potentially very high, so it’s safest to assume invasive species are having an effect (especially when they exist in high numbers).</p>
<p>But we should also be working hard to test these assumptions. Proper monitoring and experiments give us a true picture of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/widespread-invasive-species-control-is-a-risky-business-77460">risks of action (or inaction)</a>. </p>
<p>In reality, the giant African land snail is more the poster child of our own knee-jerk reaction to abundant invaders.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80397/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luke S. O'Loughlin received funding from the Hermon Slade Foundation and the Holsworth Wildlife Endowment Fund</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Green receives funding from the Department of Environment and Energy and the Hermon Slade Foundation for this research.</span></em></p>There’s a terrifying species that spreads rapidly, breeds prolifically and eats hundreds of plants. But the first research into the actual harm caused by giant African land snails found … not much.Luke S. O'Loughlin, Research fellow, La Trobe UniversityPeter Green, Head of Department, Ecology, Environment and Evolution, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/696462016-12-02T02:32:03Z2016-12-02T02:32:03ZA tiny wasp could save Christmas Island’s spectacular red crabs from crazy ants<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148333/original/image-20161201-25653-17bczrw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=592%2C1269%2C2389%2C1730&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Red crabs migrate across Christmas Island in their thousands each year. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ian_Usher_Christmas_Island_Crabs.JPG">Ian Usher/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Have you heard the one about the wasp that kills the bug that feeds the ants that kill the crabs that keep the forests healthy on Christmas Island?</p>
<p>If not, that’s because it hasn’t happened yet, but it is a tale worth telling. </p>
<p>In the coming weeks, Parks Australia will release a 2mm wasp on Christmas Island to control the island’s yellow crazy ant infestation. Crazy ants are a major threat to the island’s wildlife, including its famous red crabs. </p>
<p>Biological control – when we use one species to control another – is infamous for giving Australia its cane toad invasion. So, how do we know this one will work? </p>
<h2>Christmas Island and its crabs</h2>
<p>Christmas Island is a unique natural habitat with many endemic species. The national park covers two-thirds of the island, which has been referred to as the Galapagos of the Indian Ocean.</p>
<p>Many people are aware of the <a href="http://www.parksaustralia.gov.au/christmas/people-place/red-crabs.html">red crabs</a> whose mass migration to the sea has been described as one of the wonders of the natural world. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2Wiv4ioArnM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Christmas Island has many other species of crabs, including the impressive <a href="http://www.christmasislandcrabs.com/anomuran-crabs">robber crabs</a>. These may be the largest land-dwelling arthropod (the group that insects and crustaceans belong to) on earth.</p>
<p>Together these abundant land crabs clear the forests of leaf litter and maintain burrows that prevent soil becoming compacted, creating an open and diverse forest. </p>
<p>But this thriving natural system was disrupted when an invasive ant species became abundant on the island.</p>
<h2>The ants</h2>
<p>In the early 20th century, <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/898583db-b929-491a-8448-73fb652bca66/files/brochure-detail-crazy-ant-control-options.pdf">yellow crazy ants</a> (<em>Anoplolepis gracilipes</em>) found their way to Christmas Island. These ants now form super-colonies, with billions of individuals across hundreds of hectares. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148242/original/image-20161201-25677-1lkoy1y.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148242/original/image-20161201-25677-1lkoy1y.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148242/original/image-20161201-25677-1lkoy1y.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148242/original/image-20161201-25677-1lkoy1y.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148242/original/image-20161201-25677-1lkoy1y.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148242/original/image-20161201-25677-1lkoy1y.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148242/original/image-20161201-25677-1lkoy1y.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148242/original/image-20161201-25677-1lkoy1y.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Yellow crazy ants feeding on a gecko.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Parks Australia</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The crazy ants spray formic acid in the eyes and leg joints of the crabs, which immobilises them. The crabs soon die and become food for the ants. </p>
<p>In some cases, crabs that live in areas free of crazy ants are killed during their annual migration and so never return to their original forest. This creates crab-free zones even where the ants do not live. </p>
<p>With fewer crabs, the forest has become less diverse, with a dense understory and compacted soils due to the collapse of crab burrows. Other invasive species such as the giant African land snail have become common where crabs declined.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/resource/crazy-ant-biocontrol">Parks Australia</a> has been trying lots of different methods from aerial to hand-baiting to reverse the impact of yellow crazy ants on red crabs.</p>
<p>The impact was so severe that a chemical control program targeting the super-colonies began in 2001. This program has slowed the decline of crab populations but is expensive and time-consuming, so researchers began to look into other options, including using other species.</p>
<h2>The bug: a scale insect</h2>
<p>Super-colonies of yellow crazy ants require a reliable food source and this is provided by yet another invasive species: the yellow lac scale insect (<em>Tachardina aurantiaca</em>).</p>
<p>Scale insects (a type of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemiptera">true bug</a>) suck the sap of trees and produce a sweet secretion from their anal pore called honeydew, which ants then harvest.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148241/original/image-20161201-25663-1raxed4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148241/original/image-20161201-25663-1raxed4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148241/original/image-20161201-25663-1raxed4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148241/original/image-20161201-25663-1raxed4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148241/original/image-20161201-25663-1raxed4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148241/original/image-20161201-25663-1raxed4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148241/original/image-20161201-25663-1raxed4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148241/original/image-20161201-25663-1raxed4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Yellow crazy ants sharing honeydew from scale insects.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Parks Australia</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It seems that the super-colonies of these crazy ants could not survive without the carbohydrate-rich honeydew provided by abundant scale insects in a patch of forest. </p>
<p>There is evidence that the scale insects increase ant reproduction and make them more likely to attack other species. One large field experiment demonstrated that if we stopped the ants getting access to the scale insects, ant activity on the ground fell by 95% in just four weeks.</p>
<p>The scale insects may need the ants as much as the ants need the scale insects. Some ants protect the scale insects in the same way that humans protect their livestock, by chasing away other predators. </p>
<p>The interaction between these two invasive species has allowed them to build their populations to extremely high densities, something known as <a href="https://conservationbytes.com/2008/10/26/classics-invasion-meltdown/">invasional meltdown</a>.</p>
<p>The good news is that scale insects, unlike ants, are amenable to biological control. For instance, Australian lady bugs were spectacularly successful in controlling <a href="http://gardenbees.com/biological%20control/revolution.htm">the cottony cushion scale</a> in North America.</p>
<h2>The wasp</h2>
<p>The search began to find a species that could control the scale insect on Christmas Island. And we found it: a tiny wasp known as <em>Tachardiaephagus somervillei</em>, which attacks the yellow lac scale insect in its native Southeast Asia. </p>
<p>This wasp lays its eggs in mature female scale insects and kills them from the inside, producing more wasps that then lay eggs in more females. This wasp (and other predators) are so effective that the yellow lac scale insect is rare in its native habitat.</p>
<p>Obviously, we had to test that the wasp wouldn’t attack other species. Researchers did this in the field in Malaysia, an unusual approach that yielded excellent results. The scientists exposed eight closely related scale insects to the wasp, and none were harmed.</p>
<p>This proves that no other scale insect population on Christmas Island is at risk if the wasp is introduced, with the possible exception of another introduced scale insect that is a pest in its own right.</p>
<p>Researchers also checked that the wasps would still work when the scale insects are being tended by yellow crazy ants – and they still attacked. After years of research it is exciting to be on the verge of releasing this wasp on Christmas Island.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/T-nm_8xoTb0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Postscript: the toads</h2>
<p>We all know the biological control stories that went wrong. The introduction of cane toads to control cane beetles in Australia backfired spectacularly. In Hawaii, the introduction of mongooses to control rats failed because mongooses are active during the day and the rats were active at night. In both those cases, those species were introduced without sufficient research.</p>
<p>But these examples changed the rules and laws around introducing species. Today governments are much more aware of the risks of invasive species. Rigorous experiments and risk assessments are required before any introduction can occur. </p>
<p>In this case, researchers from La Trobe University have worked closely with Parks Australia and the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia to collect enough data to satisfy the Australian government.</p>
<p>We believe that this is the most closely scrutinised biological control project in Australia. When the wasps arrive on Christmas Island in a few weeks, we are confident that this will set an example for best-practice conservation.</p>
<p>Fewer ants means more crabs, healthier trees, fewer African snails and better soil. And it will save money being spent on expensive conservation efforts for years to come.</p>
<p><em>Parks Australia has produced a special animation on the program – check it out here at <a href="http://www.parksaustralia.gov.au/christmas/news/biocontrol.html">http://www.parksaustralia.gov.au/christmas/news/biocontrol.html</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69646/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Lawler has received funding from the Australian Research Council in the past.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Green receives funding from the Department of Environment and Energy</span></em></p>In the coming weeks, Parks Australia will release a 2mm wasp on Christmas Island to control the island’s yellow crazy ant infestation.Susan Lawler, Senior Lecturer, Department of Ecology, Environment and Evolution, La Trobe UniversityPeter Green, Head of Department, College of Science, Health and Engineering, School of Life Sciences, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/302522014-08-07T20:28:50Z2014-08-07T20:28:50ZVale ‘Gump’, the last known Christmas Island Forest Skink<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55916/original/zndtcqnh-1407380960.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C1%2C663%2C495&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gump, who died in May, was the last known member of her species.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Director of National Parks/Supplied</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Among the most haunting and evocative images of Australian wildlife are the <a href="http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2011/02/gallery-tasmanian-tigers-brought-to-life/exhibition-brings-tasmanian-tigers-to-life_image1">black and white photographs of the last Thylacine</a>, languishing alone in Hobart Zoo. It’s an extraordinary reminder of how close we came to preventing an extinction. </p>
<p>That loss is also an important lesson on the consequences of acting too slowly. Hobart Zoo’s Tasmanian tiger died just two months after the species was finally given protected status.</p>
<p>Last year, we wrote about <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-endangered-species-christmas-island-forest-skink-18053">the last-known Christmas Island Forest Skink</a>, an otherwise unremarkable individual affectionately known as Gump. Although probably unaware of her status, Gump was in a forlorn limbo, hoping to survive long enough to meet a mate and save her species. It was an increasingly unlikely hope. </p>
<p>Despite substantial effort searching Christmas Island for another Forest Skink, none was found. </p>
<p>On 31 May 2014, Gump died, alone. Like the Thylacine, she barely outlived the mechanisms established to protect her, dying less than five months after being <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=1400">included on the list of Australia’s threatened species</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55933/original/q8cz35cs-1407386635.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55933/original/q8cz35cs-1407386635.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55933/original/q8cz35cs-1407386635.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55933/original/q8cz35cs-1407386635.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55933/original/q8cz35cs-1407386635.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55933/original/q8cz35cs-1407386635.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55933/original/q8cz35cs-1407386635.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55933/original/q8cz35cs-1407386635.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sad precedent: the Thylacine was another species that dwindled to a single captive individual, who then died.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia/Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Sudden decline</h2>
<p>Until the late 1990s, Forest Skinks were common and widespread on Christmas Island. Their population then crashed, and has now vanished. It has been a remarkable disappearance but not entirely peculiar, as it was preceded by an eerily similar pattern of decline and extinction (in 2009) for the <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=64383">Christmas Island Pipistrelle</a>, the most recent Australian mammal known to have become extinct. Nor is the skink unique among the island’s native reptiles – most of them have shown similar patterns of decline.</p>
<p>We think Gump’s death is momentous because it probably marks the extinction of her species. If so, this will be the first Australian native reptile known to have become extinct since European colonisation – a most unwelcome distinction. (Unlike the death of an individual, extinction can be hard to prove. There are, after all, some optimists who believe Thylacines still live. For the Forest Skink, the trajectory of decline and the fruitlessness of dedicated searches provide reasonable grounds to presume extinction, although this conclusion may take some years to be officially recognised. And, of course, we’d like to be proved wrong.)</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55935/original/zwwwyvw8-1407386979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55935/original/zwwwyvw8-1407386979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55935/original/zwwwyvw8-1407386979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55935/original/zwwwyvw8-1407386979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55935/original/zwwwyvw8-1407386979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55935/original/zwwwyvw8-1407386979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55935/original/zwwwyvw8-1407386979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55935/original/zwwwyvw8-1407386979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">All but officially extinct, the outlook is bleak.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hal Cogger/Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lessons and legacies</h2>
<p>Gump’s death might be passed over as a trivial bit of bad news and quickly forgotten. But Forest Skinks have been around since before modern humans walked out of Africa, so their extinction on our watch is not trivial. We should treat this loss with a profound respect, and seek to learn lessons that may help prevent similar losses in the future. </p>
<p>These are the legacies we seek from Gump’s life and death:</p>
<p>First, we should acknowledge that extinction is an unwelcome endpoint that is usually caused by ecological factors, but in recent times has often been compounded by deliberate human action or inaction. In most cases, extinction can be seen as a tangible demonstration of failure in policy and management, of inattention or missed opportunities. </p>
<p>In comparable cases elsewhere in our society, such as unexplained deaths or catastrophic governmental shortcomings, coronial inquests are instigated. Such inquests are widely recognised as a good way to learn lessons and to change practices in a way that will help avoid future failures. Inquests are also useful to acknowledge accountability, and to explain negative events to the public. </p>
<p>An inquiry – albeit more modest than a coronial inquest – is an appropriate response to any extinction. The presumed first extinction of an Australian reptile species would make for a worthwhile precedent: how could it have been averted, and what lessons can we learn?</p>
<p>Second, the Australian government has shown a welcome attention to the conservation of threatened species. It has appointed the first <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/commissioner">Threatened Species Commissioner</a>, and federal environment minister Greg Hunt <a href="http://www.greghunt.com.au/Media/MediaReleases/tabid/86/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/2881/Threatened-Species-protection.aspx">recently committed to seeking to prevent any more Australian mammal extinctions</a>. </p>
<p>We would urge that this avowed interest be further consolidated by the loss of the Christmas Island Forest Skink, with a clear statement that this extinction is momentous and deeply regretted. The government should explicitly seek to avoid future preventable extinctions (a commitment recognised internationally through the <a href="http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/Goal_7_fs.pdf">Millennium Development Goals</a>), and should pledge to implement a more effective and successful strategy for conserving Australia’s threatened species (and biodiversity generally).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55936/original/3qchdvy9-1407387041.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55936/original/3qchdvy9-1407387041.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55936/original/3qchdvy9-1407387041.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55936/original/3qchdvy9-1407387041.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55936/original/3qchdvy9-1407387041.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55936/original/3qchdvy9-1407387041.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55936/original/3qchdvy9-1407387041.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55936/original/3qchdvy9-1407387041.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gump’s legacy could be a renewed push to prevent any more extinctions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Director of National Parks/Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Third, it is no coincidence that two endemic vertebrate species have gone extinct on Christmas Island in the past decade, and that many other native species are declining there, despite the fact that most of the island is a <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/topics/national-parks/christmas-island-national-park">national park</a>. </p>
<p>Christmas Island’s extraordinary natural values are not being matched by the resources provided to manage them, or by their low profile in our national awareness. The island meets the criteria to qualify as a World Heritage site, and it is time for the government to seek such a listing.</p>
<p>The fourth hoped-for legacy concerns the so far successful captive breeding program for two other Christmas Island species that otherwise would have gone the same way as Gump: the endemic <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/species/pubs/1526-conservation-advice.pdf">Blue-tailed Skink</a> and <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/resource/national-recovery-plan-listers-gecko-lepidodactylus-listeri-and-christmas-island-blind">Lister’s Gecko</a>. </p>
<p>This is an admirable accomplishment. But it is at best a halfway house, because a species solely represented by individuals in cages becomes an artifice. We urge the government to commit fully to a <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/resource/draft-christmas-island-biodiversity-conservation-plan">currently proposed conservation plan for Christmas Island</a> that seeks to allow such species to return to their natural haunts, following eradication or effective control of their primary threats such as introduced black rats, feral cats, yellow crazy ants, giant centipedes and wolf snakes.</p>
<p>Fifth, this extinction has largely been enacted out of public view. With the exception of a <a href="http://herpconbio.org/Volume_7/Issue_2/Smith_etal_2012.pdf">2012 scientific paper</a>, the few reports documenting the Christmas Island Forest Skink’s decline are not readily accessible. </p>
<p>There is an island-wide biodiversity monitoring program (which is admirable), yet the results of such monitoring are not routinely reported or interpreted to the public. Our society deserves to be warned of impending and unrecoverable losses, and to know when good management has averted them. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55937/original/qycp5623-1407387148.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55937/original/qycp5623-1407387148.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55937/original/qycp5623-1407387148.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55937/original/qycp5623-1407387148.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55937/original/qycp5623-1407387148.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55937/original/qycp5623-1407387148.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55937/original/qycp5623-1407387148.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55937/original/qycp5623-1407387148.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Let’s hope Gump hasn’t died in vain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hal Cogger/Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This case is not unusual: for most Australian threatened species, it is difficult if not impossible to find reliable information on population trends. This makes it difficult to prioritise management, making it likely that management responses will be initiated too late, and it severely limits public awareness of conservation issues. We recommend the development of a national biodiversity monitoring program that would allow ready public access to information about trends in threatened and other species.</p>
<p>It is 78 years since the death of the last Thylacine. Our photographs of extinct Australian animals are now taken in colour, rather than black and white. But has anything else improved? We hope it will.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30252/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Woinarski and Don Driscoll provide voluntary advice to Parks Australia (Christmas Island) through a Christmas Island Reptile Advisory Panel.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Don Driscoll receives funding from the National Environmental Research Program Environmental Decisions Hub and the Center of Excellence for Environmental Decisions. He is a board member of the Ecological Society of Australia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hal Cogger has received funding in the past from the Australian Museum, Sydney and the Australian Government as lead author in the preparation of the 1993 Action Plan for Australian Reptiles.</span></em></p>Among the most haunting and evocative images of Australian wildlife are the black and white photographs of the last Thylacine, languishing alone in Hobart Zoo. It’s an extraordinary reminder of how close…John Woinarski, Professor (conservation biology), Charles Darwin UniversityDon Driscoll, Research Fellow in Ecology, Australian National UniversityHal Cogger, John Evans Memorial Fellow, Australian MuseumLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/296922014-07-31T20:48:23Z2014-07-31T20:48:23ZEyewitness: With Gillian Triggs on Christmas Island to inspect child detainees<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55357/original/wy9tm367-1406768522.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Asked to describe their situation, many children in detention drew pictures to express their feelings of hopelessness and despair.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author supplied</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If a visit to Christmas Island sounds like fun, think again. A remote tropical island in the Indian Ocean – billed as a birdwatcher’s paradise and a haven for snorkelling – has a dark side. It is “home” to 1102 detainees seeking asylum, including 174 children; many are infants and 26 boys are unaccompanied minors.</p>
<p>Having attempted to travel to Australia by boat and been intercepted after July 19, 2013 (the date of a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-24/an-png-solution/4839394">change in immigration policy</a>), these people are being forcibly detained in one of Australia’s <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/About/Pages/detention/immigration-detention-facilities.aspx">immigration detention centres</a>, with the promise that they will <a href="http://www.humanrights.gov.au/transfer-asylum-seekers-third-countries">never be settled on the Australian mainland</a>. Following the anniversary of one year in detention, tensions are soaring.</p>
<p>I was invited to accompany the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) president, Professor Gillian Triggs, and her team to the <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/About/Pages/detention/christmas-island-immigration-detention-facilities.aspx">Immigration Detention Centre on Christmas Island</a> in July.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Lkz_WYzZMa4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Gillian Triggs says the health of almost all children in detention on Christmas Island has deteriorated significantly.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The visit was part of the 2014 <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/asylum-seekers-and-refugees/national-inquiry-children-immigration-detention-2014">National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention</a>. It was prompted by <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/news/stories/new-mothers-suicide-watch-christmas-island">increasing reports of self-harm</a> by mothers with young children.</p>
<h2>Mental and physical symptoms of distress</h2>
<p>As a paediatrician, my role was to interview children and families, to visit their accommodation and to give an opinion about the impact of detention on their lives – their health and their mental health. Parents described their children as being “always sick”. Certainly most had a respiratory virus during our visit.</p>
<p>Young children are vulnerable to infection and the cramped living conditions on the island promote the spread of infection both within and between families. Many reported ongoing wheeze – asthma – likely exacerbated by both recurrent infections and the constant air-conditioned environment. Some children had waited months for transfer to the mainland for specialist care, including surgery.</p>
<p>Most distressing, however, was people’s heightened emotional state.</p>
<p>We interviewed more than 200 people and two weeks later I am haunted by their words.</p>
<p>“My life is really deth [sic],” wrote one 12-year-old girl who had been physically abused in her homeland and whose mother had self-harmed in detention. She had not eaten or spoken for three days and was threatening self-harm.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I wont to die becous in deth I know I can’t live in here any more. If I go back to xxxxx I know they wil kell me and kell my family.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Intent to self-harm is of great concern. Immigration department data confirm that 128 children engaged in actual <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/news/stories/new-mothers-suicide-watch-christmas-island">self-harm in the “onshore” detention network</a>, which includes Christmas Island and the mainland detention centres, between January 1, 2013, and March 31, 2014.</p>
<p>Many of the children we met were anxious and had signs of both post-traumatic stress disorder and current distress. We saw children who described intrusive flashbacks and nightmares, children who had started bed-wetting or stuttering, children who were refusing to eat and drink and children who had stopped talking.</p>
<p>Some expressed their mood through their drawings. In the drawing below this five-year-old girl, whose mother had self-harmed, described (from left):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My Mum only crying, me crying because I don’t have friends and I don’t like staying in Christmas Island, and Daddy.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55352/original/h78sy7sr-1406766343.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55352/original/h78sy7sr-1406766343.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55352/original/h78sy7sr-1406766343.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55352/original/h78sy7sr-1406766343.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55352/original/h78sy7sr-1406766343.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55352/original/h78sy7sr-1406766343.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55352/original/h78sy7sr-1406766343.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55352/original/h78sy7sr-1406766343.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Children often described traumatic situations in the country they had fled (see drawing below by a 16-year-old unaccompanied minor).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55364/original/g9v5nsmr-1406771474.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55364/original/g9v5nsmr-1406771474.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55364/original/g9v5nsmr-1406771474.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55364/original/g9v5nsmr-1406771474.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55364/original/g9v5nsmr-1406771474.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55364/original/g9v5nsmr-1406771474.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55364/original/g9v5nsmr-1406771474.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55364/original/g9v5nsmr-1406771474.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This drawing by a 16-year-old describes the situation in the country he fled.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many described their situation as “hopeless”, claiming they saw “no future”. In the words of one unaccompanied minor, aged 17:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are very sad because of I’m in detention. Is there anybody in Australia who can help us. Please help us.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>During our visit the distress among detainees was palpable. It was expressed as overwhelming sadness and hopelessness, and manifest most dramatically by the high prevalence of self-harm in young mothers and psychological symptoms in their children.</p>
<p>Although this was my first visit to Christmas Island, colleagues who had visited previously were shocked by this change in mood, which Triggs <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-24/christmas-island-children-asylum-seekerswetting-bed-flashbacks/5620202">described</a> as a “very significant deterioration”.</p>
<h2>Only release from incarceration can ease the harm</h2>
<p>We did witness some change on the horizon: a playground under construction, a playroom equipped with toys (this had not yet been used and because of the large number of children on the island access will be rationed), a shade cloth over a play area, and a school soon to be opened. Perhaps these improvements are too little, too late.</p>
<p>Forced detention of children on Christmas Island is <a href="https://theconversation.com/back-to-the-future-revisiting-the-treatment-of-child-asylum-seekers-22699">no longer a humane option</a>. It is time to move families with children and unaccompanied minors into <a href="https://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/83acommunity-detention.htm">community detention</a> on the mainland, where they will have freedom of movement and ready access to the services that <a href="https://www.racp.edu.au/index.cfm?objectid=A88AC7C8-F73B-24A2-AD272D04A3C57C7C">are their right</a>. These include specialised <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/Submission%20No%20103%20%20-%20Royal%20Australasian%20College%20of%20Physicians.pdf">health and mental health care</a> and education. We cannot keep these people in limbo any longer.</p>
<p>As dictated by international law, we are obliged to make an assessment of their claims for refugee status. We will not curb the escalating rates of mental ill health until assessment of their refugee status is expedited. Under international law we cannot return them to the country from which they have fled persecution and regardless of the result of their assessments they must be given some certainty of their fate.</p>
<p>Life without certainty – wherever that might be – is intolerable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29692/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Elliott presented the findings of her visit to Christmas Island in a submission to a hearing in Sydney yesterday of the Australian Human Rights Commission National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention. </span></em></p>If a visit to Christmas Island sounds like fun, think again. A remote tropical island in the Indian Ocean – billed as a birdwatcher’s paradise and a haven for snorkelling – has a dark side. It is “home…Elizabeth Elliott, Professor of Paediatrics & Child Health, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/236472014-03-05T19:24:59Z2014-03-05T19:24:59ZManus Island takes Australia to the edge of outsourcing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43006/original/hhk4n9ts-1393889701.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There's a worldwide push to outsource activities previously left to the state.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/diacimages/5775025136/sizes/l/">DIBP Images/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The awarding of a <a href="http://tse.live.irmau.com/IRM/Company/ShowPage.aspx/PDFs/1906-97970553/TSEreceivesLetterofIntentforImmigrationcontract">A$1.22 billion contract</a> to Transfield Services to run the Manus Island and Nauru detention centres is yet another example of a government handing over responsibility to other parties for what have long been core activities of the state. </p>
<p>A decreasing number of very large, for-profit firms, sometimes housed in <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/detention-firm-gs4-received-a-refund-from-the-tax-office-20140228-33r4i.html">tax havens</a>, are picking up more and more complex, politically sensitive <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/png-staff-to-keep-security-jobs-at-manus-island-detention-centre-20140224-33d5e.html">services on behalf of government,</a> including everything from courthouse security, prisons and para-military services to the more recent detention centre services.</p>
<p>Big global contractors have emerged in these markets. G4S, which up until recently had held the contract for services on Manus Island, <a href="http://www.g4s.com/en/Who%20we%20are/">operates</a> in 125 countries, employs some 625,000 people and delivers a range of services to governments across the world. According to its website these range from <a href="http://health.au.g4s.com/about/?content=customers">patient transport</a> in Victoria to <a href="http://www.g4s.com/en/What%20we%20do/Sectors/Government/Homeland%20security/">patrolling the US-Mexico border</a>, to running the world’s second largest private prison in <a href="http://www.g4s.com/en/What%20we%20do/Sectors/Government/Justice%20dept/">South Africa</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.tenders.gov.au/?event=public.advancedsearch.keyword&keyword=transfield+services">AusTender database</a> shows that <a href="http://www.transfieldservices.com">Transfield Services</a> has (or does) provide the Australian government with a range of services from floor coverings, to the operation and maintenance of a detention centre in Nauru (<a href="https://www.tenders.gov.au/?event=public.cn.view&CNUUID=55024406-F93F-1207-A8A6AC5D5060626C">valued at over $3.2M</a> for just over one year). </p>
<p>Its competitor <a href="http://www.serco-ap.com.au/our-services/sectors/justice/">Serco</a> provides everything from prisons in New Zealand to court and custodial services in Australia, but has also drawn down substantial amounts of government funds through delivering onshore detention centres. According to the Hansard copy of the <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/estimate/5972266f-4662-4bc3-a322-e674390efe88/toc_pdf/Legal%20and%20Constitutional%20Affairs%20Legislation%20Committee_2014_02_25_2256.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22committees/estimate/5972266f-4662-4bc3-a322-e674390efe88/0000%22">Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Estimates Committee</a> between 2009-2014 the detention centre contracts awarded to Serco were worth A$2.14 billion and immigration housing was worth $195.4 million (page 89). </p>
<h2>Lessons from the US</h2>
<p>The concentration of the firms providing such services in the US was highlighted in the <a href="http://cybercemetery.unt.edu/archive/cwc/20110929213815/http://www.wartimecontracting.gov/">Commission on Wartime Contracting</a> report, released in 2011. It estimated that more than US$200 billion had been spent on contracts and grants in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, with the top 22 contractors sharing almost US$140 billion (2002-2011) of that. As a result, the report found the US government had been placed in a very risky and costly position for many contingency-support functions.</p>
<p>In his <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/world/asia/getting-tough-on-immigrants-to-turn-a-profit.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">in-depth article</a> from the New York Times in 2011, Nick Bernstein took us into the world of large and growing multinationals that have turned the immigration crackdown, as he called it, into a burgeoning business opportunity. Australia, he argued was leading the international pack in handing over operational aspects of its ever more complex immigration policies to external parties. CEOs of major outsourcing firms cited by Bernstein openly discussed the market for justice, the business opportunities from political crisis, and the dwindling levels of competition in areas of ever-increasing demand. </p>
<h2>Muddying the waters</h2>
<p>The situation in Australia is complicated by successive governments seeing fit to outsource their immigration problems not only to large for-profit security companies, but to other nations. This not only confuses the boundaries, but makes accountability and responsibility for various parts of this operation ambiguous. </p>
<p>Despite the commercial contracts between the Commonwealth and G4S, the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Scott Morrison, stated in his <a href="http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/media/sm/2014/sm212027.htm">press conference</a> on February 21:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Under arrangements made by the former government, control and management of the centre is placed within the PNG government, consistent with their sovereign responsibility. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He also noted that the current government fully endorsed this approach. Under intense questioning during <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/estimate/5972266f-4662-4bc3-a322-e674390efe88/toc_pdf/Legal%20and%20Constitutional%20Affairs%20Legislation%20Committee_2014_02_25_2256.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22committees/estimate/5972266f-4662-4bc3-a322-e674390efe88/0000%22">Senate Estimates</a>, however, it was made clear that the Department, via its contract, can exercise influence over who is employed in the centres (page 71). The mixed messages and complex arrangements provide the potential for confusion in practice; just who is really in charge?</p>
<h2>Getting the contract ‘right’</h2>
<p>In appointing Transfield Services, the minister <a href="http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/media/sm/2014/sm212027.htm">explained</a> he was seeking a more “integrated approach” to offshore processing. In practice this consolidates substantial operations with Transfield Services, increasing its market power. Part of the driver for this, according to the minister, was to address what seem to be issues of quality of service with the multinational provider G4S: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>… one of the things we thought we needed offshore, and that has clearly been borne out I think by recent events, is … a more integrated contract management and system in process (sic) that was operating across both islands. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The previous government, he claimed, had taken a “fairly ad-hoc approach to these contractual arrangements”. Such fast and loose contracting, therefore, must be able to be solved by cleaning up the arrangements; and these factors look to have influenced the announcement in December that the G4S contract would not be renewed. </p>
<p>Under questioning in Senate Estimates, however, the <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/estimate/5972266f-4662-4bc3-a322-e674390efe88/toc_pdf/Legal%20and%20Constitutional%20Affairs%20Legislation%20Committee_2014_02_25_2256.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22committees/estimate/5972266f-4662-4bc3-a322-e674390efe88/0000%22">Secretary of the Department</a> Martin Bowles indicated the transition from G4S to Transfield Services had nothing to do with performance, and more to do with the “synergies” to be gained from having one contractor across multiple locations (page 55). Although on further questioning Bowles noted that Transfield Services has not been delivering “welfare” services on Nauru, a range of activities that were previously provided by the Salvation Army on Manus Island, so this was not just an expansion of existing services, but work for which they had never tendered for on either site (pages 86-87).</p>
<p>This line of argument takes us down the track of thinking that getting the contract “right” will help prevent such problems in the future. </p>
<p>Asked in a press conference how the safety of asylum seekers could be guaranteed, Scott Morrison argued it could be done:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Through the safety standards and the contracts of lawful conduct … by providers and I think the strong management of our people who are supporting the PNG government. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43002/original/vvgcxjmz-1393889207.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43002/original/vvgcxjmz-1393889207.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43002/original/vvgcxjmz-1393889207.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43002/original/vvgcxjmz-1393889207.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43002/original/vvgcxjmz-1393889207.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43002/original/vvgcxjmz-1393889207.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43002/original/vvgcxjmz-1393889207.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">G4S has faced intense scrutiny in the UK.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ell-r-brown/8449831023/sizes/o/">ell brown/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/155097545/Manus-Island-detention-facility-contract">The contract</a> for services on Manus Island between G4S and the Commonwealth of Australia, released under an FOI request and published online by New Matilda, shows it was largely specified as a collection of cleaning, gardening and security services wrapped up with plenty of rhetoric on collaboration, “transferee” health, wellbeing and dignity, with much detail to be worked out later (e.g. performance frameworks). </p>
<p>While activities such as cleaning, security and gardening are part and parcel of providing detention services, is this really it? Can government really specify here what it wants to buy? And can it construct accountability mechanisms and measures we should be demanding in these extraordinarily sensitive areas of government activity?</p>
<h2>Not your average contract</h2>
<p>In theory at least, the power of a contract comes from the ability of the purchaser, in this case government, to enforce standards, sue for breach, extract damages, and punish contractors who fail to deliver. </p>
<p>In practice though, just how willing are governments to actually do this, and do they have the necessary resources and skills to follow through? </p>
<p>When we combine the power of the contract with intense competition in provider markets, governments should be big winners with lower prices and higher quality. In reality, the situation is much more complicated with profound challenges in specifying services, either an unwillingness or inability of purchasers to wield a big stick, and highly contorted supplier markets in some areas. As Bernstein argued in his piece, it’s remarkably rare for firms in the “market for justice” to lose their contracts. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-outsource-or-not-to-outsource-it-all-depends-10105">our work</a> we have found that the most complex and potentially risky areas of outsourcing are inevitably in situations where the government hands over its monopoly on legal force to external parties or involves them in sensitive areas, points stressed in the US Commission on Wartime Contracting report. </p>
<p>There are three different types of benefits and costs for government to weigh up when making a decision to outsource. </p>
<p>The first is value for money - difficult to analyse in the Manus Island case given the mixed messages that came out of <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/estimate/5972266f-4662-4bc3-a322-e674390efe88/toc_pdf/Legal%20and%20Constitutional%20Affairs%20Legislation%20Committee_2014_02_25_2256.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22committees/estimate/5972266f-4662-4bc3-a322-e674390efe88/0000%22">Senate Estimates</a> about synergies, streamlining and efficiencies on the one hand, but the suggestion of higher costs of processing offshore compared to onshore (page 88). The second is relationships. In the case of Manus Island this is muddied by the political relationships between the Australian and PNG governments that are bundled in with the broader service delivery story. </p>
<p>Then there are the strategic costs and benefits - reputation effects, loss of core competencies, and the inability to control the situation. Even if we knew that there were value for money and relational benefits in the case of Manus Island (and we don’t), the strategic costs accruing to the Australian government in this case are profound politically, ethically and morally. </p>
<p>Creating multi-billion dollar contracts with large multinational firms for the handling of asylum seekers is not only strategically risky for government, it has surely pushed us over the edge of our tolerance for outsourcing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23647/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janine O'Flynn has received research funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Public Service Commission, and the Brotherhood of St Laurence. </span></em></p>The awarding of a A$1.22 billion contract to Transfield Services to run the Manus Island and Nauru detention centres is yet another example of a government handing over responsibility to other parties…Janine O'Flynn, Professor of Public Management, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/180532013-09-19T04:31:36Z2013-09-19T04:31:36ZAustralian endangered species: Christmas Island Forest Skink<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31077/original/wfqqkf9t-1378793394.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There is only one Christmas Island Forest Skink left on Earth.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hal Cogger</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Gump has lived a cossetted life, nurtured in a cage on Christmas Island. Until last year, she had two acquaintances, but misadventure claimed them both. </p>
<p>Now there is only Gump. She’s the last known individual Forest Skink on Earth; as close to extinction as a species can possibly get, and her relative longevity is staving off, very temporarily, the final obliteration of a species that has probably lived for tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of years.</p>
<p>Hers is a salutary tale. Over the course of our lifetime, Forest Skinks have gone from abundant to absent across the rainforests of the 135 km<sup>2</sup> Christmas Island. Eminent herpetologist Hal Cogger remembers witnessing (as recently as 1998) more than 80 individual Forest Skinks basking and foraging around a single fallen tree; until recent decades they were common and widespread across the island. </p>
<p>Then began a rapid and apparently inexorable decline. By 2003, they were confined to scattered pockets in remote parts of the island. By 2008, a targeted survey found them at only one remaining site. Now, recent repeated searches and trapping have failed: the species appears to have disappeared completely from its natural haunts.</p>
<p>The <em>Emoia</em> skinks to which the Forest Skink belongs are a large group (of more than 70 species), with marked radiation on islands in the Pacific. Most, including the Forest Skink, are moderately large, thickset, active during the day and ground-dwelling. The Forest Skink is relatively nondescript: largely unpatterned, chocolate-brown, about 20 cm long (of which about two-thirds is tail). A recent genetic analysis has concluded that the Forest Skink is the most ancestral of the genus.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31079/original/qvy59rfn-1378794740.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31079/original/qvy59rfn-1378794740.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31079/original/qvy59rfn-1378794740.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31079/original/qvy59rfn-1378794740.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31079/original/qvy59rfn-1378794740.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31079/original/qvy59rfn-1378794740.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31079/original/qvy59rfn-1378794740.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31079/original/qvy59rfn-1378794740.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 30 years the skinks have gone from abundant to absent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Director of National Parks</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Status</h2>
<p>The decline and imminent extinction of the Forest Skink has outpaced its recognition as a threatened species. Indeed, notwithstanding its looming extinction, it is not yet listed as threatened under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, although it is likely to be so soon. This is as much an illustration of the shortcomings in the official listing process as it is of the speed of the skink’s decline. </p>
<p>The Forest Skink shares its plight and pattern of recent decline with most of the small set of native reptiles on Christmas Island. The Coastal Skink (<em>Emoia atrocostata</em>) has almost certainly declined to extinction on Christmas Island (but is still considered to persist elsewhere), the endemic Blue-tailed Skink (<em>Cryptoblepharus egeriae</em>) is probably now extinct in the wild (but more happily than for the Forest Skink, a functional captive breeding population has been established), the endemic Lister’s Gecko (<em>Lepidodactylus listeri</em>) is very nearly extinct in the wild (but has a captive breeding population), and the status of the Christmas Island Blind Snake is unknown (with only a single individual reported over the last two decades). Oddly, the other endemic species, the Christmas Island Giant Gecko (<em>Cyrtodactylus sadleiri</em>), has remained somewhat common, but has still suffered a significant - though unmeasured - decline.</p>
<h2>Threats</h2>
<p>One of the intriguing but frustrating issues in this case is that the cause or causes of the decline remain unresolved. This applies to Christmas Island’s other native reptiles, and perhaps also for the better known and remarkably parallel case of the Christmas Island Pipistrelle. </p>
<p>There are plausible suspects, most notably predation by the non-native Yellow Crazy Ant, Giant Centipede or Wolf Snake; competition with the five non-native reptile species; poisoning by insecticides used to try to control the crazy ants; and disease. There is no conclusive evidence for any of these factors, and it is now too late to decipher the clues and manage the threats for this species. </p>
<p>But, it is not yet entirely too late for the two other highly threatened Christmas Island lizard species that are held in captivity, and ongoing research with them may allow an informed post-mortem conclusion about the extinction of the Forest Skink.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31081/original/wwg2p6qm-1378794978.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31081/original/wwg2p6qm-1378794978.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31081/original/wwg2p6qm-1378794978.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31081/original/wwg2p6qm-1378794978.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31081/original/wwg2p6qm-1378794978.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31081/original/wwg2p6qm-1378794978.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31081/original/wwg2p6qm-1378794978.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31081/original/wwg2p6qm-1378794978.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We don’t know why the forest skink has disappeared.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hal Cogger</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Strategy</h2>
<p>Sadly, there is little future for the species. Its sole living representative will most likely die within the next couple of years. Over the last two years, there have been some dedicated searches for additional individuals, but these have proven fruitless. In the years immediately preceding, there were a few sightings and near misses of capture; tantalising but unrealised opportunities. In those failures, the survival of the species may have slipped through our fingers.</p>
<p>Just possibly, we are too pessimistic. It may be that there remain a few secretive Forest Skinks that have not yet succumbed to whatever nemesis it is that haunts their lives. There may yet be time, albeit very limited time, for the optimistic to invest in a more comprehensive search that could yet find a mate for Gump, and buy more time to forestall the extinction.</p>
<p>An advisory group for Christmas Island’s reptile species has been established, and captive breeding (on Christmas Island and at Taronga Zoo) has provided hope for two of the other threatened reptile species.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Failure is a good teacher. This is an extinction that ought not to have happened. There are clear lessons: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Declines can be very rapid and, without quick response, rapid declines are likely to lead to extinction. </p></li>
<li><p>The current process for listing threatened species is inadequate, though a listing process that fails to produce resources to identify and ameliorate the causes of the listing has limited value. </p></li>
<li><p>Early intervention, such as through captive breeding, may provide an irreplaceable opportunity for conservation. </p></li>
<li><p>Island biotas may be extremely susceptible to extinction and they need protection with adequate biosecurity measures.</p></li>
<li><p>It may be damnably difficult to identify critical factors that drive declines and extinctions.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Individually, Gump is an undistinguished and inconsequential lizard, but she has now become a talisman, marking the finality and proximity of extinction. Extinction is a chain, and the last link of the chain is the death of the last individual.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31076/original/9dvmdfjk-1378793284.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31076/original/9dvmdfjk-1378793284.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31076/original/9dvmdfjk-1378793284.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31076/original/9dvmdfjk-1378793284.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31076/original/9dvmdfjk-1378793284.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31076/original/9dvmdfjk-1378793284.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31076/original/9dvmdfjk-1378793284.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31076/original/9dvmdfjk-1378793284.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Let’s hope we learn from the extinction of the Christimas Island Forest Skink.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Director of National Parks</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>The Conversation is running a series on Australian endangered species. See it <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/australian-endangered-species">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18053/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Woinarski is a voluntary member of the Christmas Island Reptile Advisory Panel, but this article does not necessarily represent their views.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hal Cogger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Gump has lived a cossetted life, nurtured in a cage on Christmas Island. Until last year, she had two acquaintances, but misadventure claimed them both. Now there is only Gump. She’s the last known individual…John Woinarski, Professor (conservation biology), Charles Darwin UniversityHal Cogger, John Evans Memorial Fellow, Australian MuseumLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/136482013-05-16T20:06:15Z2013-05-16T20:06:15ZUnknown wonders: Christmas Island<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23209/original/sq2pt3y8-1367803235.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Christmas Island is a shelter for cultural and environmental diversity.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/Hadi Zaher</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Australia is famous for its natural beauty: the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru, Kakadu, the Kimberley. But what about the places almost no one goes? We asked ecologists, biologists and wildlife researchers to nominate five of Australia’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/unknown-wonders">unknown wonders</a>.</em></p>
<p>Christmas Island is a dot in the Indian Ocean. Like any isolated island, it is peculiar. But here this peculiarity is especially pronounced. It has a strange history, an odd culture and a remarkably distinctive biodiversity. Unfortunately, it is now best known to Australians simply as an entry point for refugees. Remoteness has that effect, of distorting truth and value.</p>
<p>Christmas Island is small (about 135km<sup>2</sup>) and little-populated (about 2,000 permanent residents). It has been settled only since the 1880s; for much of the period since then it was administered by the Straits Settlement (Singapore), with inclusion as an Australian territory only since 1958. Phosphate mining was the reason for its settlement, and has persisted as the main (sometimes only) industry ever since, leading to loss of about 25% of the Island’s rainforest area. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23588/original/scrpxzww-1368405375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23588/original/scrpxzww-1368405375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23588/original/scrpxzww-1368405375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23588/original/scrpxzww-1368405375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23588/original/scrpxzww-1368405375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23588/original/scrpxzww-1368405375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23588/original/scrpxzww-1368405375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christmas Island: a dot in the Indian Ocean, but important nonetheless.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by John Woinarski</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Reflecting that history, its ethnic make-up is now mainly Chinese and Malay (arising from workers imported as “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolie">coolies</a>”). The small community is remarkably vibrant and tolerant: there can’t be any other place in Australia with two public holidays per year celebrating Christian holy days, two for Muslim holy days and two for Chinese festivals. </p>
<p>The call to prayer rings out over the community from the small mosque; everyone is welcome at the Chinese festivals.</p>
<p>Christmas Island is old. It is a volcanic seamount island, rugged and isolated, rising more than 4km from the deep sea floor, with the nearest land being Java, about 360km distant. Over the long period of its isolation, these features have crafted a unique environment. It is characterised by high levels of endemism for many groups and idiosyncratic ecological structuring. </p>
<p>Most of its reptiles, native mammals, and terrestrial birds occur (or occurred) nowhere else; and nearly 200 invertebrate species are considered endemic. There are very few areas in Australia (indeed, in the world) that can match such narrow endemism.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23579/original/5gfmr5s6-1368404320.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23579/original/5gfmr5s6-1368404320.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23579/original/5gfmr5s6-1368404320.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23579/original/5gfmr5s6-1368404320.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23579/original/5gfmr5s6-1368404320.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23579/original/5gfmr5s6-1368404320.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23579/original/5gfmr5s6-1368404320.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Very few regions in the world can match Christmas Island’s narrow endemism, including the Christmas Island Frigatebird.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ChrisSurman/Christmas Island Tourism Association archives</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is also a haven for seabirds, recognised internationally for such significance. It is the only breeding site for the threatened <a href="http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=3651">Abbott’s Booby</a> and <a href="http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=3847">Christmas Island Frigatebird</a>, and for the exquisitely beautiful golden-coloured subspecies of <a href="http://www.bird-friends.com/BirdPage.php?name=White-Tailed%20Tropicbird">White-tailed Tropicbird</a> (which graces the Island’s <a href="http://www.shire.gov.cx/ciflag.html">flag</a>). These seabirds and others soar and float above the settlement, and nest in and around it. Fringing the Island is a rich coral reef, and its clear warm waters are home to more than 600 fish species, with regular visits by <a href="http://www.marineparks.wa.gov.au/fun-facts/40-whale-shark.html">Whale Sharks</a>. </p>
<p>These values would readily meet World Heritage criteria. But, except among some twitchers, keen to visit to build their Australian bird lists, these attributes are little known to most Australians. Instead, Christmas Island’s nature is known, if at all, mainly by reference to its land crabs. In staggering abundance, diversity and ecological potency, these are indeed remarkable. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23576/original/gc24d9k6-1368404319.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23576/original/gc24d9k6-1368404319.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23576/original/gc24d9k6-1368404319.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23576/original/gc24d9k6-1368404319.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23576/original/gc24d9k6-1368404319.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23576/original/gc24d9k6-1368404319.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23576/original/gc24d9k6-1368404319.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christmas Island is a haven for many species, including the threatened Abbott’s Booby.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Christmas Island Tourism Association archives</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The endemic <a href="http://www.christmas.net.au/experiences/red-crab-migration.html">Red Crab</a> is the most conspicuous, with a population of at least 40 million. It is the Island’s ecological <a href="http://wolfweb.unr.edu/%7Eldyer/classes/396/odowd.pdf">lynchpin</a>, engineering the forest structure and productivity. It is everywhere; but spectacularly so in its <a href="http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/christmas-island-red-crab-migration.htm">annual breeding migration</a> from forest to sea, when the forest floor, roads and gardens become moving masses of crab: one of the world’s great animal migrations. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23582/original/c2ykjym2-1368404322.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23582/original/c2ykjym2-1368404322.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23582/original/c2ykjym2-1368404322.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23582/original/c2ykjym2-1368404322.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23582/original/c2ykjym2-1368404322.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23582/original/c2ykjym2-1368404322.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23582/original/c2ykjym2-1368404322.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Perhaps Christmas Island’s most conspicuous creature: the Red Crab.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">JustinGilligan/Christmas Island Tourism Association archives</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are many other land crab species present, but none more strangely <a href="http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/news-incredible-photos-coconut-crab?image=1">charismatic and enigmatic</a> than the <a href="http://coconutcrab.org/">Robber (or Coconut) Crab</a>, the world’s largest terrestrial invertebrate. This species, growing up to four kilograms, was formerly abundant on many other islands, but has been greatly reduced or lost from most places, and Christmas Island now represents its major stronghold.</p>
<p>For the Robber Crab and other species, laws, large areas of retained native vegetation, limited human population, and a large national park (comprising 63% of the Island area) offer unusual levels of protection. But problems for Christmas Island’s biodiversity are more insidious and deep-rooted. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23597/original/47kh9tzh-1368406366.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23597/original/47kh9tzh-1368406366.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23597/original/47kh9tzh-1368406366.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23597/original/47kh9tzh-1368406366.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23597/original/47kh9tzh-1368406366.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23597/original/47kh9tzh-1368406366.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23597/original/47kh9tzh-1368406366.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christmas Island’s Coconut Crab is the largest terrestrial invertebrate in the world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/BlueBec</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Reflecting the dominance of the phosphate mining industry over its settled area (and consequential disregard for its natural values), the Island has had little or no quarantine or biosecurity system. It has been the fate of most islands worldwide, with impacts often pronounced and fatal because of small island size (and consequently small and tenuous populations of endemic species). Once the isolation that has moulded the biota is breached, that biodiversity may be doomed. </p>
<p>Now, the Island supports nearly as many introduced as native species, and the introduced species include many of the world’s most pernicious invaders. </p>
<p>The most problematic is the Yellow Crazy Ant. Fuelled in part by resources provided by super-abundant invasive scale insects, it forms immense supercolonies within which all Red Crabs (and much other biodiversity) are destroyed. </p>
<p>Invasive Giant Centipedes, Giant African Landsnails, geckoes and Wolf Snakes compete with or consume native species. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23578/original/fhsc2d47-1368404320.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23578/original/fhsc2d47-1368404320.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23578/original/fhsc2d47-1368404320.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23578/original/fhsc2d47-1368404320.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23578/original/fhsc2d47-1368404320.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23578/original/fhsc2d47-1368404320.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23578/original/fhsc2d47-1368404320.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christmas Island’s native species, including the iconic Red Crab, are threatened by introduced pests.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">JustinGilligan/Christmas Island Tourism Association archives</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such loss in turn disrupts the narrowly-based ecological functionality, leading to “invasional meltdown” or ecological collapse. The most recent manifestation of this collapse, in 2009, was the extinction of the <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=64383">Christmas Island Pipistrelle</a> (reducing the original complement of five endemic mammal species to just <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-endangered-species-christmas-island-shrew-14010">one species</a> known to have persisted). Others will follow: the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/nature/island/ep2/locals/5.htm">Christmas Island Forest Skink</a> is known now from only one individual, eking out its solitary existence in a cage.</p>
<p>These problems are being addressed, by intensive and extensive baiting which temporarily reduces the number of crazy ants, by captive breeding for two endemic reptile species now almost lost from the wild, and by research that aims to find more enduring and effective methods for control of some of the pests and weeds. But the challenge is immense.</p>
<p>This is a most remarkable isolated world. In such a small place there is so much that is unique, inspiring and wonderful. It has existed little changed for millions of years; but its natural environment is now dissolving at a rapid rate. It will bring you much delight and sorrow.</p>
<p><em>Read the whole series <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/unknown-wonders">here</a>.</em></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23581/original/339njks5-1368404321.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23581/original/339njks5-1368404321.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23581/original/339njks5-1368404321.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23581/original/339njks5-1368404321.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23581/original/339njks5-1368404321.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23581/original/339njks5-1368404321.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23581/original/339njks5-1368404321.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The stunningly beautiful Golden Bosun’s elegant form graces the Island’s flag. Until recent control efforts, its many nests in and around the settlement had been heavily predated by cats and rats.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tony Palliser/Christmas Island Tourism Association archives</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23586/original/q5smrq87-1368404987.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23586/original/q5smrq87-1368404987.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23586/original/q5smrq87-1368404987.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23586/original/q5smrq87-1368404987.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23586/original/q5smrq87-1368404987.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23586/original/q5smrq87-1368404987.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23586/original/q5smrq87-1368404987.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Map of Christmas Island.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Google Maps</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/13648/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Woinarski receives occasional funding from the Australian environment department for consultancies relating to biodiversity conservation on Christmas Island. He also enjoys living there, mostly.</span></em></p>Australia is famous for its natural beauty: the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru, Kakadu, the Kimberley. But what about the places almost no one goes? We asked ecologists, biologists and wildlife researchers…John Woinarski, Professor (conservation biology), Charles Darwin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/140102013-05-09T04:25:36Z2013-05-09T04:25:36ZAustralian endangered species: Christmas Island Shrew<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23326/original/f55np398-1367966518.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Christmas Island Shrew has been recorded four times since its discovery.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Max Orchard</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It may be that there are no more shrews in Australia. There was only ever one representative, edging into the Australian political estate on the remote Christmas Island, closer to Java than any other part of Australia.</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrew">Shrews</a> are an odd group of mostly very small placental insectivores, with nearly 400 species across Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. In folklore, they have a reputation that is unwelcome, largely undeserved and sometimes simply bizarre: for associating with witches, for turning wine sour, and for ill-temper.</p>
<p>They resemble small long-nosed and small-eyed mice, but are unrelated to rodents. At 2 grams, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etruscan_shrew">Etruscan Shrew</a> is the smallest mammal in the world. In continental Australia, they have ecological counterparts in the unrelated marsupial planigales, ningauis, dunnarts and <a href="http://twitpic.com/by1vza">antechinuses</a>.</p>
<p>The Christmas Island Shrew (<em>Crocidura trichura</em>) was long considered a variety or subspecies of a more widespread Asian species. However a recent genetic study by Mark Eldridge and others, based on the few now long dead individual specimens, has demonstrated that it is (or was) a distinct species, restricted to Christmas Island. It may be very cold comfort to the probably extinct shrew that its uniqueness is now verified. </p>
<h2>Status</h2>
<p>The Christmas Island Shrew is remarkably little known. Most of the knowledge of it comes from a few observations made at the time of its discovery, in the 1890s. Subsequent to 1902, it has been reported only four times, twice in 1958, once in 1984 and once in 1985. It was feared extinct by 1908, and considered extinct in the 1940s.</p>
<p>As evident from its fitful reappearances, extinction may be surprisingly difficult to prove, especially for small and cryptic species. Pessimists now conclude that it will not reappear; optimists cling to a flickering belief that there may still be a few individuals eking out an existence in the rainforest. Given the relatively small size of Christmas Island (135 km<sup>2</sup>), its existence is a puzzle that should be solvable.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23315/original/95bt5cx8-1367911668.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23315/original/95bt5cx8-1367911668.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23315/original/95bt5cx8-1367911668.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23315/original/95bt5cx8-1367911668.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23315/original/95bt5cx8-1367911668.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23315/original/95bt5cx8-1367911668.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23315/original/95bt5cx8-1367911668.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23315/original/95bt5cx8-1367911668.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Settlement has been unforgiving to the native inhabitants of Christmas Island.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/Hadi Zaher</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Christmas Island Shrew was once common. The extraordinary naturalist Charles Andrews was commissioned to undertake a comprehensive baseline survey of Christmas Island in 1898, soon after its first settlement, to chronicle the impact: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It has not hitherto been possible to watch carefully the immediate effects produced by the immigration of civilized man - and the animals and plants which follow in his wake - upon the physical conditions and upon the indigenous fauna and flora of an isolated oceanic island.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In 1900, Andrews wrote of the shrew:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>this little animal is extremely common all over the island, and at night its shrill squeak, like the cry of a bat, can be heard on all sides. It lives in holes in rocks and roots of trees, and seems to feed mainly on small beetles.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>No one since has added substantially to those two sentences.</p>
<h2>Threats</h2>
<p>Settlement has been unforgiving for Christmas Island’s unusually large collection of <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-endangered-species-christmas-island-frigatebird-12022">endemic species</a>: three of its four other endemic mammal species are extinct, and the last remaining species (a flying-fox) is now threatened. Its five endemic reptile species have fared little better.</p>
<p>By Andrews’ next visit (in 1908) to monitor the island’s environment, changes had been drastic: the shrew had disappeared, along with the island’s two previously extraordinarily abundant endemic rat species, with the losses of the rats (and possibly the shrew) caused by disease (trypanosomiasis) brought in by a careless but fateful introduction of Black Rats. The native rats were never again seen. But obviously a few shrews persisted, with a small population surviving at least until the 1980s.</p>
<h2>Strategy</h2>
<p>How do you conserve a species that may or may not exist? Oddly, given that there have been no recovery plans for many threatened species known to be in need of them, the Christmas Island Shrew has been the subject of two recovery plans, in 1997 and <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/publications/recovery/c-attenuata-trichura/">2004</a>. These could as well be written for snarks, angels or unicorns. </p>
<p>However, they did prompt some targeted surveys, using pitfall traps, remote cameras and bat detectors (based on the assumption that these may record the shrew’s high-pitched squeaks). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23330/original/p6hpsytf-1367974606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23330/original/p6hpsytf-1367974606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23330/original/p6hpsytf-1367974606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23330/original/p6hpsytf-1367974606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23330/original/p6hpsytf-1367974606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23330/original/p6hpsytf-1367974606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23330/original/p6hpsytf-1367974606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23330/original/p6hpsytf-1367974606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Driftline and pitfall traps in the Christmas Island forest, some of the forlorn attempts to find the Christmas Island Shrew.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Woinarski</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To date, the searches have been futile; and current management is instead based on hope, that maybe one will turn up unlooked-for, or form the quest for a zoological Quixote.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Christmas Island is now an inhospitable place for many native species, with ecological transformation due to super-colonies of crazy ants, a high density of feral cats and black rats, and ongoing mining. In his 2002 book “The future of life”, the zoologist EO Wilson wrote of the existential twilight, that “thin zone from the critically endangered to the living dead and thence into oblivion”. This is likely the destiny of the Christmas Island Shrew.</p>
<p><em>The Conversation is running a series on Australian endangered species. See it <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/australian-endangered-species">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/14010/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Woinarski is affiliated with Charles Darwin University. He lives on Christmas Island in part because of the wonder of its wildlife.</span></em></p>It may be that there are no more shrews in Australia. There was only ever one representative, edging into the Australian political estate on the remote Christmas Island, closer to Java than any other part…John Woinarski, Professor (conservation biology), Charles Darwin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/120222013-03-21T02:30:29Z2013-03-21T02:30:29ZAustralian endangered species: Christmas Island Frigatebird<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21387/original/2frjdpgh-1363648027.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A juvenile Christmas Island Frigatebird in Jakarta. The species' international fishing trips make it difficult to develop conservation strategies.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shah Jahan</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Christmas Island Frigatebird is a spectacular large seabird. It is one of only five frigatebird species, all with glossy black plumage, long narrow wings, buoyant and acrobatic flight, and long bill with terminal hook. </p>
<p>Three species (the Magnificent, Great and Lesser Frigatebirds) are widespread in tropical oceans. In an unusual biogeographic contrast the Christmas Island and the <a href="http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=3844">Ascension Island Frigatebirds</a> each occur on only one island, with the additional oddity that the Christmas Island Frigatebird shares the island with Great and Lesser Frigatebirds.</p>
<p>Christmas Island is home to many species that are found nowhere else, a consequence of isolation for millions of years, and of the late date of its human settlement (the 1880s).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21575/original/2d8cmk3f-1363905157.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21575/original/2d8cmk3f-1363905157.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21575/original/2d8cmk3f-1363905157.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21575/original/2d8cmk3f-1363905157.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21575/original/2d8cmk3f-1363905157.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21575/original/2d8cmk3f-1363905157.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21575/original/2d8cmk3f-1363905157.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21575/original/2d8cmk3f-1363905157.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A male Christmas Island Frigatebird sitting on its nest in the treetops.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Janos Hennicke</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Frigatebirds are perhaps best known for <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkodJznsNMI">kleptoparasitism</a>, the unnerving practice of terrorising other seabirds to force them to regurgitate their day’s catch of fish. This piratical tendency, their large size, dark profile and masterful flight, earned them the respectful name of “Man-o-War Birds” amongst early sailors.</p>
<p>Another frigatebird feature is the preposterous bright red gular (throat) pouch ornamenting the males. In the breeding season, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjZKlHnierk">groups of males display</a> from would-be nest sites (in tree canopies) by inflating this appendage like a grapefruit-sized balloon, tipping their heads back and drumming on it with their bill to increase their attractiveness to over-flying females.</p>
<h2>Status</h2>
<p>The Christmas Island Frigatebird has many traits that render species threatened. It breeds on only one island, it reproduces slowly (with females breeding every second year and the single young requiring at least 15 months of parental care), and breeding success is relatively low. Its population size is small and has been decreasing for many decades.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21472/original/8dmdxmjs-1363748292.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21472/original/8dmdxmjs-1363748292.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21472/original/8dmdxmjs-1363748292.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21472/original/8dmdxmjs-1363748292.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21472/original/8dmdxmjs-1363748292.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21472/original/8dmdxmjs-1363748292.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21472/original/8dmdxmjs-1363748292.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21472/original/8dmdxmjs-1363748292.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A male frigatebird from the Galapagos Islands demonstrating its extraordinary mating display.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/Z T Jackson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is listed as Critically Endangered under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and internationally (the IUCN Red List).</p>
<h2>Threats</h2>
<p>The first visit to Christmas Island, by William Dampier in 1688, set the tone, with collections of “as many boobies and man-of-war birds as sufficed all the ship’s company when they were boiled.” Early settlers followed the precedent. </p>
<p>Numbers declined rapidly, from a naturally small base of 6200 breeding pairs in the 1890s to about 3300 in the 1940s, despite gradual regulation of the take. (Note that the population is tricky to estimate, as the two-year breeding cycle means that some individuals are not present in any year.)</p>
<p>From 1980, much of the island has been protected as National Park, and hunting prohibited. But the frigatebird has continued to decline, to 2300 (annual) breeding pairs in 1970, and 1200 breeding pairs in 2005. Counts indicate continuing decline over the period 2008 to 2011.</p>
<p>The rich legacy of Christmas Island’s endemic species has eroded rapidly since it was settled. About 25% of the island’s rainforest extent has been cleared for phosphate mining. Plumes of phosphate dust formerly coated the trees in one of the frigatebird’s few breeding colonies, and this pollution probably caused the loss of that colony.</p>
<p>Settlement has brought very many <a href="http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/userfiles/file/sowb/countries/Australia2010report.pdf">unwanted plants and animals</a>. Weedy creepers now throttle nesting trees and entangle birds. Supercolonies of aggressive <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/parks/christmas/nature/fauna/crazy-ants.html">Yellow Crazy Ants</a> now swarm in the tree canopies. Cats and rats have caused the decline of other seabirds and hence the opportunities for kleptoparasitism.</p>
<p>But this species also has broader problems. When not breeding, it disperses widely in the seas beyond Christmas Island northward to near the Philippines. In these areas, it is exposed to hunting, entanglement in fishing material, depletion of fish stocks, and habitat loss on islands used as transit stops.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21577/original/hpdxqjy9-1363905461.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21577/original/hpdxqjy9-1363905461.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21577/original/hpdxqjy9-1363905461.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21577/original/hpdxqjy9-1363905461.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21577/original/hpdxqjy9-1363905461.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21577/original/hpdxqjy9-1363905461.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=667&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21577/original/hpdxqjy9-1363905461.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=667&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21577/original/hpdxqjy9-1363905461.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=667&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A nesting tree of frigatebirds. Some nesting sites have been destroyed by pollution from phosphate mining.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Janos Hennicke</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Strategy</h2>
<p>The survival of the Christmas Island Frigatebird depends upon reversing habitat degradation in its restricted breeding site. But it is also susceptible in its dispersal across what are now political boundaries. Like many other wide-ranging species, its conservation requires international cooperation.</p>
<p>A Recovery Plan was developed in 2004, but has been little implemented, and the ongoing decline attests to its failure. From the recovery plan, there has been some research, mostly by David James and Janos Hennicke, and some recent funding support from Australian Geographic.</p>
<p>A regional recovery plan for Christmas Island biodiversity generally is being developed, and, if adequately resourced, may provide a more strategic and effective approach.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>The Christmas Island Frigatebird epitomises much that is most wonderful and challenging about biodiversity. It is magnificently adapted to a particular robust ecological role, but remarkably fragile in other traits. It illustrates the role of islands as the engine-room of evolution, but of the frailty of such sites. It shows that we have the opportunity to redress cavalier and irresponsible treatment of nature by our forbears. And perhaps most importantly, it is an example of the need to complement local-scale conservation strategies with collaboration beyond national boundaries.</p>
<p><em>The Conversation is running a series on Australian endangered species. See it <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/australian-endangered-species">here</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12022/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Woinarski lives on Christmas Island; the antics of frigatebirds are part of the odd joy of life there.</span></em></p>The Christmas Island Frigatebird is a spectacular large seabird. It is one of only five frigatebird species, all with glossy black plumage, long narrow wings, buoyant and acrobatic flight, and long bill…John Woinarski, Professor (conservation biology), Charles Darwin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.