BNN provides English-language US and world news, analysis and opinion from all over the Internet. We strive for high standards, ethical behavior, and the presentation of multiple responsible points of view.
|
Get More Traffic For Your Blog! Blog Explosion brings hundreds of interested visitors to your blog - without costing you a cent. BNN News Archive Page |
Friday, February 24, 2006
End Foreign Land Management In The Bush NOTHING much has changed in the management of the Victorian bush since the days of the imported experts used by the early Forests Commission to manage our forests. We still have ignorant foreigners in control but the modern ones are of the home grown city variety. Environmentalist (as opposed to greenie) Tim Flannery believes that people are shaped by their environment and I agree with him. I had formed that opinion myself years ago marvelling at the similarities between people who had spent long years working in the bush in isolation. The problem we have with public land management in these early years of the 21st century is that it is city-centric with no real knowledge, understanding or practical experience of the unique Australian environment. One city is much the same as another wherever one goes in the developed world and it's quite possible that urban Australians have more in common with their peers in New York, London and Los Angeles than they do with country Australians. Telling it the way it truly is is saying that urban dwellers have become foreigners in their own land. They've never given Australia a chance to shape them. The streetscape forms their world view and although the bush is handy for the occasional day trip, weekend away or even a short field study such a part-time presence hardly equips them for a role in managing our unique environment. It seems ridiculous to any intelligent country person that growing up in the suburbs and attending three or four years of university lectures is a superior grounding for land management than years of practical experience and observation. Yet Parks Victoria is turning out rangers fresh from suburban Melbourne who are instant experts on Australian ecology and universities are producing callow youths who advise governments on land management courtesy of the impressive letters that follow their names. Listening to the business suit clad activists of the Victorian National Parks Association such as Charlie Sherwin and Phil Ingamels wax lyrical about "the science" is enough to have the mildest mannered bushman grinding his teeth. These people are indeed foreigners trying to force foreign land management ideas thinly disguised as science on to the Australian environment. Such green activists may be expert at manipulating opinion polls but their bush skills are about as polished as a cockies boot. They are interlopers with alien ideas. Consider national parks, for example. The concept of national parks was borrowed from America and it was never even considered whether it could be successfully applied in Australia. Nevertheless, the idea was imposed from on high and it continues to enjoy administrative support even though it has been a manifest failure. Reserving land for conservation purposes and public enjoyment is a fine ideal. But this is Australia and we need to develop a process appropriate for Australian conditions. Lock it up and leave it doesn't work here. There seems to be an impression in the minds of the urban dwelling public that a magical transformation takes place when bushland is incorporated into a national park. Suddenly it ceases being the bush and becomes part of a fragile eco-system with countless communities of diabolically threatened flora and fauna. The stark truth is that once it is declared a national park and subjected to green management guidelines it becomes more threatened than it ever was before. The proof of the pudding is in the eating and national parks and foreign management has not benefited public land in the least but has worked to its detriment. Enough has been destroyed. Unlike Norman Lindsey's Magic Pudding there's a limit to how much neglect the Australian bush will stand before it makes its own emphatic statement. Judge Leonard Stretton, The Black Friday Royal Commissioner, back in 1939, recognised the struggle between bush people and imported land managers. He came down on the side of the bush and made recommendations which should have been followed uniformly. Instead we now find that the mistakes of the past are being repeated over and over again. Philip Maguire blogs at Bundarrah Days http://bundarrahdays.blogspirit.com Blogger News Network is advertiser-supported, and your visits to our advertisers help BNN to meet its expenses. Help keep us afloat! posted by Great Divide at 2:42 PM |
Subscribe to BNN and get a daily bulletin of all our news postings. Interested in writing for BNN? Want information on our news service? Contact The Editor Writing for BNN BNN Editorial Policies Previous Posts
|
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home