Neil Hewitt posted the following comment after my post of 19th May titled Just Released on Parks and Weeds:
"My suggestion ... is that public administration of protected area estate be removed of its exclusionary influences to fair trade, by requiring that conservation management is completely self-funded from the natural and cultural resources of the reserve without subsidy or budgetary allocation.
Afterall, many were viable working properties before acquisition under the pretence of conservation and if Australia is serious about conserving its natural and cultural wealth across all tenures, a conservation economy will need to be cultivated."
There is also an argument that sustainable harvesting programs focused on native species can enhance conservation.
Bob Beale and Mike Archer argued in the Australian Financial Review (23-28th December 2004) that mallee fowl and giant bustard would not be "facing oblivion if we served them up for Christmas dinner instead of Asian chicken and North American turkey". Crocodile populations in northern Australia have increased from less than 5,000 in the early 1970s to over 70,000 today. This increase coincided with the development of croc farms for meat and skin export as well as a ban on shooting.
What has happened to the concept of growing the trade in Kangaroo meat? A SW Queensland grazier has suggested that without the kangaroos on his property he could probably lift his stocking rate by a quarter. Is he exaggerating? He has also suggested I write something about the value of harvesting native animals.
And I received an email from NSW landholder Kathryn Varrica asking for information about "non regulatory (as in "lock 'em up)" solutions for nature conservation.
Your thoughts?
Many of our entrenched bureaucratic attitudes are also relics of past times and I wonder about the division that separates those with access to administrative opportunities and resources from those without, particularly in terms of our gaoler/convict origins.
Australia's environmental decision-making is supposed to be bound by the recognition that environmental concerns and impacts respect neither physical nor political boundaries, and yet Australia departmentalises and jurisdiction-alises its official responses.
The effective integration of economic and environmental considerations would enhance Australia's capacity for strong, growing and diversified economies and yet the succession of undermined rural economies in the name of the environment increases as a matter of metropolitan obsession.
Environmental measures adopted are supposed to be cost-effective and not disproportionate to the significance of the environmental problems being addressed and yet it is undisputed that the protected area estate (alone) is appallingly under-resourced.
I believe Australia's long-term interests and international competitiveness will be best-served by a private-sector led economy with minimal government intervention in our every day lives.
I long for the economic relief of the unbearable burden of bureaucracy and conservation management is merely another bastion of ineptitude and inefficiency.
Ender,
I don't actually believe in a 'balance of nature' as such. This idea underpins modern enviornmentalism but I suggest it is an outdated concept - not generally applicable. For me ecosystems and landscapes are dynamic. How they are managed will often determine the species mix. I am concerned about the current mangement/lack of, with respect to our vast rangeland areas.
Given your particular interest in climate change I will add, dramatic climate change has often been a driver for the evolution of life on earth - generating biodiversity. Indeed many of our plant and animal species are naturally rare because they are relics of past times with different environments. Their conservation may require active management.
Interesting argument, should the monopoly on "Public Lands" currently enjoyed by National Parks be subject to scrutiny by the ACCC?
My experience working over the last year with NSW National Parks is that they are stuck in an ideological time warp (money=evil). Its not their land, they arent citizens, its mine.
Loius - this is called the balance of nature - usually human intervention stuffs thing up.
Ender, I think Neil Hewitt it is about private enterprise, but not necessarily "bean counters"?
Also, while you and I might not mind our taxes going to maintain National Parks, the amount of money getting through is not enough.
Also, also, in the end I am not totally convinced that private enterprise could properly protect all our parks/animals/environments - but we need to explore options because the current approach is inadequate/not working.
Louis, Have fun at Wooleen Station. Can they make any money out of the Kangaroos they will be culling? I would be interested to know.
While I was in Tassie I didn't make it to the Savage River - maybe next time.
Jennifer
Here is a fact - Wooleen Station, in the Murchison District of WA (I am going there tomorrow for two weeks work) has diarised records since it started.
In the early days Kangaroo numbers were very low, in symbiotic association with available water supplies.
When the farmers arrived and created extra water wells and bores, the native wildlife population literally exploded, so that now their environmental damage being done by Roos' Emu's etc is significant.
Roderick the explorer when walking up the river names after him, only saw 3 kangaroos from walking from Lake Wooleen to the headwaters of the Roderick River. FACT.
Woolen is infested with kangaroos and goats to boot, as well as enormous numbers of emus.
However the Pollocks are closing down bores to cull the roo numbers.
No it is not an emotional response. Just a reaction to the notion that the free market is better idea. Not all things are done better with free markets and this is one of them. I would like the protectors of our endangered species to be able to make decisions that are not profit related. In short I would like to keep the bean counters out of it.
Revenues should supplement parks budgets not replace them. I do not mind my taxes going to this cause.
Why is the salary of a national park ranger appropriate and a conservation manager of privately-owned world heritage estate, inapproriate?
Why are commercial tour operators on National Parks subsidised so substantially and on non-government lands, not at all?
Subsidisation of tourism and conservation on a public versus private land basis undermines the potential for an ecotourism economy off-reserve and by implication forces landholders to sustain their families, now and into the future, through land-uses that are not disadvantaged by the exclusionary influences of unfair trade.
Ender, Yours is perhaps an emotional response - that conservation should be independent of commercial interest? Maybe the reality is that with commerce there is a better chance for real protection, for real conservation?
Sure we can have Lyrebird soup for starters and then a nice pretty faced wallaby steak for main course with a Wollami Pine centrepiece for the table.
I think that this is really not the thing to do. Conservation should be totally independant of anu commercial interest.