Monday, March 21, 2011

All parties MUST take conservation competence seriously to survive


The first 10 years of the new millennium will go down as "The decade of Who care's " in conservation. Who really cares anyway?- is it all too hard or all too simple ????
If you are just an onlooker to the practical and theoretical science questions let me make it perfectly clear .
You will have to look very carefully to make sure you find someone who speaks and acts like a scientist with competence. Media, arts grads, lawyers, economists, quickrich gurus and businesss knows best sorts let themelselves go on subjects they only half know. While their passion is welcome, their fanaticism is not. You do not solve such problems as simply as you suggest!

This was the decade when nearly all the political parties and green groups are prepared to sacrifice themselves on the altar of sacred objects and half baked reactions to tough conservation questions .. Its a series of decades when even leaders lose their heads in a race to say something or nothing about the elephants in the room Read on Macbeth . What do you think?

The Libs go to one extreme one week, while labor goes to another another week ?
Tony Burke - it seems to me, is on a winner this week ( talking about alpine grazing ) because the Libs are wishy washy on tackling the real objective stuff.I know the trial ends shortly - but the point is -- have a plan B that's bigger than Libs currently have ( hacked up version of old plans)
Mr Walsh and Mr Ramsay are living in the past - farmers need competent conservationists NOT clones defending everything they do.
It maybe that the Libs have got a decent brief for research, but what I have seen so far looks like whitewash or should we call it "blackwash" or backwash .The media have only got to take some nasty pictures of fenced in areas ( not fair but could happen) and Mr Walsh And Mr Baillieu will be "in trouble"

The Libs won't get anywhere by acting in reaction to the conservation excesses of the left. ( Our PM was right to to state greens policies as "extreme" but is Mr Walsh in Victoria acting a little on the extreme?)
The Libs can only survive by BUILDING their own unique brand of conservation competence ( full not just fire ) and avoid the impression they don't take it seriously , say with their " high country grazing trial" .( the brief i have seen on the DPI website does not seem to include a proper review of ecosystem resilience and biodiversity issues )
The thinking people of Australia rightly expect , not necessarily an EIS ( a dumb reactionary tool often ) or a fire driven response to everything ( how reactive can you get) , but a clear commitment to careful research and proper review in this sensitive landscape . I will be the first to state the acceptibility of grazing, but also the first to insist on how it must be done ( based on ALL applied research so far ) .