OUTSPOKEN American ecologist Paul Ehrlich caused a furore in Australia this week by claiming that the work of the country鈥檚 ecologists is being censored and suppressed.
鈥淓very time I come out here I am taken aside by my ecological colleagues and told that they can鈥檛 get the word out because they are under threat,鈥� Ehrlich told a forum in Sydney organised by the Centre for Science Communication at the University of Technology. Ehrlich, of Stanford University in California, said ecologists were afraid to speak out because they did not want to lose their research grants, most of which come from government sources. He also claimed that a foreword he wrote for a book on Australia鈥檚 biodiversity had been censored by a government department. The original foreword, he said, was critical of censorship.
鈥淎ustralia has, in my view, the best per capita group of ecologists in the world,鈥� said Ehrlich. 鈥淭o have this magnificent group of ecologists and not let them tell the truth is paying for a resource and not using it. It is not that nothing can be said, but there is a great tendency to suppress the fact that the forests and water are mismanaged and that there is a stupendous population problem 鈥� these are not popular things to say.鈥�
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Ehrlich said that since he began to visit Australia regularly in the 1960s he had spent a total of about two years working with Australian ecologists. 鈥淚t鈥檚 up to people like me to speak out,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey can鈥檛 cut off my funds. It is the Australian people who are being cheated. They may not like what ecologists are saying but they ought to be able to hear it.鈥�
A spokeswoman for John Faulkner, Australia鈥檚 environment minister, says that the minister rejects absolutely any suggestion that the government is responsible for suppressing scientific findings. She points out that the government is backing work by 13 leading scientists on a major 鈥渨arts-and-all鈥� report on Australia鈥檚 environment that will be released early next year. 鈥淭hey have been encouraged to speak out,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hat is hardly censorship or suppression.鈥�
Ian Lowe, who is chairing the committee producing the report, says that Ehrlich has a 鈥渧alid general point鈥� about the reluctance and inability of ecologists to speak out. But his comments on censorship applied more to the six state governments than to the Australian government. Often, Lowe says, work produced by scientists in state departments, such as forestry and agriculture, is reviewed only by other members of the department and not by their peers in other institutions. This system makes censorship all too easy, he says.
Lowe says the report he is helping to produce is a 鈥渧ery positive sign鈥�. After the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, many countries instructed their bureaucracies to report on how well their country was managing the environment. 鈥淎ustralia鈥檚 environment minister did not want a laundered, public relations view.鈥� The report is expected to be critical of the heavy population pressures on coastal zones, threats to biological diversity, and the management of inland waters.
Ehrlich鈥檚 controversial views were gaining support this week. Suppression is 鈥渁 major problem鈥�, says Harry Recher from the Department of Ecosystem Management at the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, who was a speaker at the Sydney forum. But Recher sees an encouraging trend. 鈥淵ounger ecologists at university simply won鈥檛 tolerate the situation much longer. The more who speak out, the harder it will be to victimise the individual.鈥�
Isla MacGregor, a member of the Network for Intellectual Dissent in Australia, claims that suppression of environmental research is 鈥渞ampant鈥�. Recent examples of staff transferred to other jobs after criticising government policy include a plant pathologist in Western Australia, who linked 鈥渄ieback鈥� in trees with forestry practices, and an environmental officer in Queensland who disputed the alleged success of schemes to rehabilitate mines. In a third case, a veterinary pathologist in Tasmania who claimed that cutbacks in animal health checks make it hard to spot outbreaks of disease was transferred to an administrative job in an office 鈥渨ith no phone and no filing cabinets鈥�, says MacGregor.
鈥淭he public in Australia cannot trust their state governments to report what their own experts actually believe,鈥� she says.