NSW removes protection for marine parks 11 Nov 201311 Nov 2013 I received this from NYU CUNY philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith: The NSW government recently decided to temporarily lift the ban on line fishing in NSW marine sanctuaries. They may well decide to make the new regime permanent, effectively abolishing all real marine sanctuaries in the state. This is such a bad step backwards. I’ve heard that the Abbott govt is closely watching what happens here, and may move in this direction at a Federal level too. Some basics from the government: http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/460367/Factsheet-beaches-and-headlands.pdf It’s a bit hard to tell exactly what’s covered and what’s not, I realize. Peter has a post on this at his site GiantCuttlefish.com. Australian stuff Ecology and Biodiversity Politics NSW drops protection for marine parks
Book Systematics and Biogeography blog 23 Oct 2007 The estimable Drs David Williams and Malte Ebach have started a blog on Systematics and Biogeography, which supports a recent book they haven’t sent me a free copy of yet. Expect much puncturing of pretensions and orthodoxies. Read More
Freedom Dark days 22 Jan 201221 Jun 2018 In case you didn’t notice, just recently a number of web giants, as well as innumerable other websites, went “dark” in protest against the attempts to control the internet by the US government. But the US isn’t the first nation to attempt this. Iran, Turkey, India, China, and to the… Read More
Ecology and Biodiversity Evolution and the law 17 Jun 2009 A new paper by Brian Leiter and Michael Weisberg entitled “Why Evolutionary Biology Is (So Far) Irrelevant To Legal Regulation” argues that evolution does not provide the legal system with any useful rules or guidance. Here’s the abstract: Evolutionary biology – or, more precisely, two (purported) applications of Darwin’s theory… Read More