Hi Jennifer,
750 hectares of the nation’s most significant waterbird breeding habitats has allegedly been cleared by a Moree farmer.
News sources, including ABC Online, are suggesting that the case may turn out to be one of the worst since legislation was introduced in 2003 to protect native vegetation
Aerial shots of the clearing have been broadcast on national television with both state and Federal Ministers weighing in. NSW Environment Minister Phil Koperberg said his department is investigating and that potentially big fines may be involved if the case is proven. Malcolm Turnbull has his Federal department also investigating to see if any Commonwealth legislation has been breached.
If the reports of land clearing are confirmed then the Gwydir case will be the first big test of the State Government’s resolve to halt broadscale clearing since it handed native vegetation management to the Department of Environment and Climate Change. Thus far, the landholder has declined to comment.
A river and waterbird expert at the University of NSW, Richard Kingsford, said that in the mid-1990s more than 100,000 birds had bred at the property. These included egrets, several species of ibis and a variety of native ducks.
Professor Kingsford was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald explaining that:
“It’s the death knell of this colony. Firstly there hasn’t been enough water allocated to allow them to breed and now their essential nesting habitat has been destroyed.
“These birds faithfully return to the same place to breed but when the next flood comes they will have nowhere to lay their eggs and keep their nests out of the water.
“I am shocked at the scale of the clearing and the fact that it had occurred on one of the most important waterbird breeding sites in Australia.”
Kingsford speculated on television that it would take decades or longer for the system to recover if ever.
There have been previous prosecutions over clearing of Gwydir Ramsar wetlands: http://www.environment.gov.au/epbc/compliance/judgements/index.html
Cheers,
Luke Walker
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
What do you think, Jennifer?
Lets hear the landowners side of the story before anyone works up a lather.
I would agree with Ian. With a further point. WE are all bound to abide by the law and to try to follow due process. We are all entitled to due process in return.
Working up a political lather over such an event can easily undermine process, thus bringing the law into disrepute.
I note that in the reference Luke gave, it was acknowledged that the majority of farmers took their conservation obligations under the law seriously. It would be a pity of this event became an excuse for generalised, activist farmer bashing.
I suggest it is a significant and regrettable event if it is true.
You will note I said “allegedly”.
However I hope that some of you guys would recognise that a number of us are not inherently anti-agriculture or anti-forestry. We’re consumers too.
However many of us moderates (who you confuse with greenies) are very interested in better farming practices and some quality conservation of native vegetation.
So this sort of thing if proven will whip up more extremist anti-agriculture sentiment. So the industry needs to get itself sorted around the issue and get some good news stories going, as well as peer group pressure on recalcitrants.
However if it had have been a greenie screw-up you guys would have hung them from the yard-arm by now without trial. Think about it !
>However if it had have been a greenie screw-up you guys would have hung them from the yard-arm by now without trial. Think about it !
Never a truer word spoken Luke. Thanks.
“However if it had have been a greenie screw-up you guys would have hung them from the yard-arm by now without trial.”
Greenies are never held to account to the law, unlike the landholder.
Preposterous statement Rog – Gunn’s sueing greenies. Never a greenie arrested. Oh come now. Really.
Yes, at long last some greenies are going to trial, they should have observed the law instead of breaking it.
Like many landholders also have/should have.
And burglars.
And drink drivers.
And tax dodgers.
And corporate criminals
And misc rogues.
Come on Rog – back off on the diversion !
So you are in agreement Luke, Greenies should be tried in a criminal court..
Sigh …
If past green/media beatups are any guide, the paddock was probably full of regrowth of recent origin but provided a suitably graphic photograph to stir up the gonzoscenti. Moree Shire is, after all, a regrowth hot spot. It was the district from which Dr John Benson of the Botanic Gardens Sydney made his infamous extrapolation to claim the 150,000ha annual clearing figure that was used to justify the first clearing controls under SEPP46. Neither he, nor Gelatley, the DG at the time, has ever apologised for the fact that this blatantly unscientific estimate was 12 to 18 times the actual area subsequently revealed by satellite scans.
Yes, the actual statewide total clearing was in the range of 8,300ha to 16,000ha and most of that was the same sort of regrowth that was found in Moree where this sleazy example of malgovernance originated.
I am appalled at the lack of anger, such anger I feel.
Why clear? What profit motive did he have?
Buy the land back, has been suggested, take it from him!! I say.
Yard arms are too good for @@@ like him.
Angry fluff
Ian – Nah – mature veg – it sure didn’t look like regrowth on TV. It looked like quite a good wetland from bits that were left.
You could say “gee that doesn’t sound all that good”. “I hope it’s not so”.
Gee your good luke able to tell veg age from a 30sec off set aerial shot on the TV news – you should work in AI maybe you could help Frank with the blind fold for the landowner for the summary execution.
With this site being declared a Ramsar significant site, why didn’t Bob Carr buy the place when he added to the State park reserve system? Huge Stations have been purchased because of their environmental value.
It is wrong that private landholders are told to manage their land to a particular regime by a bureaucracy at the landholders cost.
If the land is so important, which I accept it is, the State is the one responsible for its loss.
Another example of the NSW Govt passing off the cost of managing sensitive land to landholders.
Phil Kopperburg may fulminate at the landholder but he should be kicking the Dept Heads arses extremely hard because the fault lays with them!
These bureaucrats have been plainly incompetent in protecting a globally important site and should be dismissed.
The farm is near Moree but the farmer is not. I believe he’s a Queenslander, not that that is any excuse.
From what I’ve heard there was consultation with authorities regarding the proposed clearing however it is yet unclear whether or not the owner overstepped the mark. We’ll have to wait and see.
Of real concern are the breeding grounds for the birds, which apparently remain untouched. If harmed I trust the owner will be prosecuted vigorously.
Part of the problem with the Gwydir wetlands is that there aren’t any definitive boundries, although there are core sites. The core sites are the last to dry out, but where do we draw the line. Nearly all the land West and NW of Moree has been “wetland”(not just flooded) at one time or another so the definition is loose at best.
“Greenies never sued” – Winner of this weeks most Lame Statement. Indeed the Gunns case must take the cake for the most obnoxious corporate lets trample our opponents in the Courts and ruin them financially while we’re at it…go and have another ice coffee Rog.
This is disgusting. The imediate defence of the farmer by people here is disgusting. You are bloody hypocrites. There is no good reason why this important land should have been vandalised.
And here is Winston, true to form, hanging the guy before due process, without even the basic information to judge the case.
Farmers clear land because rabid scum like you don’t deserve a single tree.
Hi all,
wetlands have economic values too – but these may not be either great or apparent to the owner of the land. They filter and store water and mitigate flood events, they store carbon (are where coal and peat is actually made in) and in addition provide a breeding area for birds.
The birds themselves are worth money to the rural economy. Many are consumers of a huge range of pasture and crop compromising insects and their poo is at least as good as super.
Say this farm is a grazing property and its product was meat for the Australian consumers – when we buy meat we do not pay for wetland or streamside conservation – and we perhaps we should. When we drive the car or turn on the lights we could also pay a little bit to store the carbon when we buy the furl and electricity instead of letting farmers subsidise the rest of us.
If million downstream water domestic water consumers in the Murray Darling system could pay a little on their water and sewerage bills, say a total of $50 per year – and this was combined with portion charges collected from the sale of water upstream farmers – say $50 a meg – then these funds could be paid at viable commercial rates to manage wetlands and vegetation. This would reduce the demand on water upstream as a key percentage of the likely most marginal farm land is managed for its native vegetation and wetlands.
If that farmer was paid – or was likely to be paid in the future – at a rate greater than their land could generate from agriculture to keep the wetland it would still be there.
Market forces work will only work if natural bushland has a market value that is greater then wasteland or degraded farmland
Currently with such natural areas on farmland having a negative economic value they _will all be lost eventually _ as the cost of enforcement climbs and funding declines. The fine for the farmer would have to be greater than the economic value of the land after clearing for penalties to work which is unlikely to be tenable. There is another way.
If I was boss I the wetland was cleared illegally then it would require the landowner to recover all the felled trees possible and stand them up again with concrete and steal posts (as with sand mining restoration on Stradbroke Island) and then pay them on a permanent contract per hectare per annum to manage the area as a wetland with bonuses payment as the natural vegetation recovers. The rate of restoration demanded should be proportional to the owners financial ability to pay. If they cannot then the cost of that basic structural restoration can be recovered from a payments to maintain the wetland.
Ian Mott you are a hypocrite. If it was a greenie you would be baying for blood no fair trial. You do it all the time hypocrite. You are the rabid scum.
It’s a really interesting philosophical issue – how much should the overall democracy which is essentially urban based decide how farmers and graziers manage develop their resources. So we polarise down predictable lines of conservation versus property rights. And the fur flies.
Of course urbanites are subject to all manner of restrictions on use of our blocks – and there are vegetation protection orders etc.
What might be interesting for we “scum” is for Ian to set out a philosophical, legal, economic, ethical and ecological basis for land management and property rights.
Ian do you have a position that you are prepared to share? (besides metrophiles, cafe latte drinkers, urbanites and “shonk central” POQ).
Alternatively we can just abuse the crap out of the “other side”.
Hello all
I live around the area in question. It is a remarkable wet land. I do not understand why the State Government has not consolidated the entire wet land into public ownership.
This particular land may or may not be an integral component of the wet land area although it sounds as though it is.
However, we may find that some form of approval has been given..we will not know until some action is initiated and determined finally.
I am interested to know whether this latest burst of outrage is designed to force action. Often things are not as they seem when all the facts are known.
Sorry, Luke, I’m not making any contribution to a broken system. The uban majority has no idea how dependent the environment is on the goodwill of landholders. And they will never gain that understanding until they face the consequences of the goodwill they have already squandered.
The simple facts of life are that no-one in business, in farming, or in family life, can sustain a viable entity whilst in partnership with people who cannot be trusted, and whose fundamental intent is extractive rather than contributive.
In fact, there are few behaviours that are more self destructive than remaining in a partnership with those who have squandered trust and have maximised every opportunity to take rather than contribute.
There is no effective solution to any ecological, social, or economic problem in regional Australia that includes the continued exercise of brute power by an ignorant, delusional and hypocritical urban electoral majority.
They are the problem, they will never be part of the solution. The only uncertainty is how bad it has to get before they understand what they themselves have done.
Any positive contribution by me at this stage of the process would only postpone the inevitable and prolong the suffering of both regional people and their wildlife neighbours.
Much/most of the area around Narrabri, Wee Waa. Moree and up to Goondiwindi is a floodplain prone to flooding. Most of the scrub has been cleared and turned into highly productive farmland.
If a body wants to quarantine areas for wetland they should buy up the land, at market rates.
To Ian Mott, rog and some others,
Red neck farmers of the likes of the illegal land-clearers can only have their mind-set changed by giving them lots of money in perpetuity to protect the native vegetation on their properties or resuming those areas of ecological value.
There could be a case made for this approach .
The proximity of these areas to paddocks where high levels of chemical runoff and spray drift occur is another real problem for these unique sites .
This breed of farmer seems to value land only for it’s ability to make money for them .Wild life habitats on their properties are not for them .
My local Footy Club farmers have told me [ probably the club greenie] in no uncertain terms and this in an area where there is only about 3 percent of the original vegetation left , that they were not interested in native vegetation retention and environmental values as “there is no money in it !! ”
As a “redneck farmer” who’s family has restored about 85% of the original forest mosaic to a property that the previous owner was forced to clear on pain of forfeiture, I take great offence at the use of terms like “redneck” by urban scum who don’t own a single tree themselves.
I have lost count of the number of farmers who have gone to considerable lengths and expense to protect and restore habitat that they had regarded as their own habitat, that they shared with their own wildlife, but who have told me that the only time they have ever felt like destroying the lot is after they have had to deal with greens or government.
The simple facts of the matter are that “if you don’t own a single tree yourself, you don’t deserve a single one of mine”.
Another interesting aspect of this case is the way it highlights the deficiencies in the urban/green brain. In particular, the way even apparently intelligent folk like Luke are incapable of objectively interpreting a photograph.
The photographs are of a large cleared area with untouched forested vegetation at the edges. And the brains of everyone but real farmers have taken as self evident fact that the vegetation that is not there was identical to the vegetation that can still be seen. This is an incredibly simple, indeed, stupid mistake.
Most farmers who have ever had to manage a vegetated landscape would have understood that the photograph of the stuff that has been left can only be used as proof of what has actually been left. If one wants to know what has been removed then the very dumbest, undereducated farmer in the country would understand that this can only be provided by a photograph of that location prior to the vegetations removal.
Most farmers understand that a retained patch of vegetation soon delivers a rain of seed on adjacent land which regenerates. And it regenerates in direct proportion to the proximity to the seed source. As a general rule, on flat land, seed rain will extend to about twice the distance as the height of the trees. The larger the seeds the shorter the distance.
And most farmers would understand, from their own experience, that the area cleared would, in about 90% of cases, have exhibited sparse tree cover in the middle that became progressively thicker as it approached the seed source.
But this farmer has already been tried and convicted without any actual evidence of what was removed. And if this case is under investigation in respect of an offense, then his chances of getting a fair trial have been severely prejudiced by the publicity.
And it is the ease with which the urban majority is capable of discarding the most fundamental principles of justice and equity in relation to environmental issue that underlines the importance of regional communities severing their legal and political dependence on the urban majority.
If farmers cannot expect a burden of proof on an accuser, if they cannot expect the dominance of fact over perception, if they cannot expect a presumption of innocence and trial by due process, then they are not getting anywhere near the absolute minimum performance expectation from any democracy.
And you want us to help you maintain the status quo?
“Red neck farmers of the likes of the illegal land-clearers….”
Where do you live kartiya, was the land that your home sits on cleared legally by a scholar and a gentleman?
I know of wetlands cleared legally by councils and the NSW state govt, turned into housing and industrial estates. Lets not take the easy option and villify one farmer whilst ignoring our own contributions to the environment.
Ian – the brief news video showed clearing of largish trees with the cleared trees spread on the ground. Was pretty basic. Not complicated. We’re not talking thick timber – a woodland.
You don’t think that regenerating forestry in high rainfall northern NSW is somewhat different to semi-arid woodlands? Haven’t seen much replanting of poplar box, myalls or wilga.
I don’t see how publicity will jeopardise the farmers chance of a fair trial. Regardless of the whether one thinks the laws are just or not just, surely the person involved will have or will have not cleared vegetation in a specified area with or without permission. Is there much more to it than that?
It seems that we are in a standoff position. It appears that the rural sector will accept no legislation over the extent of remnant ecosystems remaining. Let’s face it – clearing in the Gwydir is touchy stuff. Surely people know the drill by now (or have they been living under a rock).
Personally I would support regional plans that would seek to develop a balance between retention of native vegetation in sensible interconnected remnants and development. That was underway by regional groups before the rug was pulled by legislation. Do the urban majority want this – probably not – most wouldn’t have a clue about the issue – they’re busy watching the footy and Big Brother. And thoughtful agricultural scientists didn’t sign off on it either. But the goverments they elect do have a view regardless of what their urban constituents are up to.
But we do know what self-regulation looks like from 200 years of Europeans in NSW woodlands – land cleared horizon to horizon (save the crap soils in the Pilliga). Drive between Gundy and the Victorian border !
There will be pressure to develop northern Australia if climate change plays out with a drier south-east Australia. Woodland thickening will change the character of existing systems. Remediation or development will involve land development. How will that happen under current laws? So really we are not there yet – hence my question to you about a better legislative system for managing woodlands (leave closed forests out the debate for now).
Having skimmed through the comments already submitted I am apalled that people are basing their opinions on this land clearing issue on hear say and pre-conceived ideas.
For a start – farmers have been in the Gingham Wetland area for around 100 years. It is not until the advent of Copeton Dam and the industries spawned (and over allocation of the water resource) that the wetland started to go downhill.
No-one has mentioned lippia (an introduced weed that has managed to invade the Gingham and Gwydir wetlands (for the record the land clearing is in the Gingham Wetlands – part of the Gwydir system)and how many hectares it now covers making the area unviable), the lack of water that now makes its way into the “wetlands” due to the mismanagement and lack of understanding by water managers (and the users upstream of the “wetlands”) nor the the fact that the last substantial bird breeding event occured in the Gingham wetlands in 1995 (I have much photographic evidence of this). If there was any hope at all of ever being able to restore the wetlands you can rest assured that the landholder involved would not have had to do what he did – however the time has come to relinquish this once unique, beautiful and sustainable wetland because there appears to be no way that the water managers will ever let any volume of water into the Gingham wetlands again. Wake up people and stop being ambushed by media sensationalism. The wetlands ia all but dead and even the Ramsar sites in it are now all but gone.
The farmers in the Gingham wetland area now have to look at alternatives to have enough cash flow to keep themselves going. It’s not rocket science. You cant have your cake and eat it too.
Tracy,
“If there was any hope at all of ever being able to restore the wetlands you can rest assured that the landholder involved would not have had to do what he did.”
Is this supposition or do you know for sure?
There are no hard figures on the size of wetlands in the Gwydir valley either now or pre-irrigation development. Looking at satellite photos, my estimation would be that half of the area where wetlands could occur are cultivation, simply because the land becomes more valuable. Lippia has been an invaluable tool for such conversion.
Now we have calls for more water to be sent to the “wetlands” which will water/floodout dryland crops, and since all the “wetlands” are in private hands, fatten cattle.
In fact under water sharing plans the wetlands receive at least 50% of unregulated flow, and in practice far more in a decent sized flow because the farm infrastucture is not capable of extracting anywhere near 50%/day.
An irrigation industry supporting several thousand jobs directly has been the result of using some of the Gwydirs natural flows, something grazing could not replicate if all water were to be returned. Irrigators are keen to have healthy wetlands too and recognise that water volume alone is not the answer.
Rojo,
Not sure where you got your info from but you can rest assured that the only water that makes it into the Gingham wetland area these days is the uncontrollable flows (ie the ones that are too big to be diverted down the Mehi, Caroll and Gil Gil systems) and the hard fought for stock and domestic allocation. I come from the area in question and my family (as have a lot of others)have spent a lot of time and effort trying to make headway with effectively saving the Gingham area to no avail. It is a losing battle.
It is interesting to note that every structure (weir, gates etc) that is in the Gywdir system is designed to divert water away from the wetlands (before river regulation the water actually went into the wetlands).
For the wetland to survive (and the vast majority of the Gingham area is Bull couch flood plain – not woodland), it needs the small flows from storm rain in the Upper Horton etc (to keep the core wetlands going) as well as the uncontrollable floods. We dont get the small core flows any more. This means that the bull couch etc cannot compete with lippia. Once lippia is established it is damned hard for the bull couch to compete and come back (although it did in ’95). Then what can you do with lippia – event the roos dont eat it. Lippia chokes everything out and makes itself into a mono culture. The only viable option you have left is the plough the damned stuff.
The birds etc need not only the wooded areas (to roost/nest) but also the surrounding bull couch plains to feed (they travel up to a 50km radius when times are good). They also need all the little critters who survive in the bull couch beds (and there are lots of little snails, frogs etc that thrive on the bull couch plains when they are in good condition) to feed on. It is not simply a cas eof saving a few trees so the birds (the most noticeable inhabitant of a wetland) has somewhere to camp – you also have to save the feeding grounds.
During the brid breeding event in 1995 (around 300,000 straw necked ibis in one rookery not too mention spoon bills, black swans, glossy ibis, pied geese, an array of ducks etc), there were cattle in the same passock (the rookery covered about 1 km square) however we figure that due to the noise/smell/general commotion going on, the cattle went know wehre near the rookery.
As to the comment about fat cattle – what is wrong with that? You indicate that using the water for an econoically viable irrigation industry is OK so why not an economically viable wetland as well?
What about the wetlands owners sue the NSW Government which has overseen the mismanagement and overallocation of water that resulted in the decline of the Gwydir wetlands from aproximately 200,000 hectares to less than 100,000 ha? Also what about the possibility the farmer was legally clearing non-protected regrowth and non-native groundcover (which you cannot judge by flying over). Probably facts would be handy instead of presumptions. The theorey and the reality of what water flows now actually make it to wetland areas is in reality miles apart and the wetlands are on the losing side.
There is some reason to question the account of clearing 750 hectares of nesting area for waterbirds.
750 hectares is a lot of area. And if such a huge area is a nesting area for waterbirds, I have to wonder what crops someone would want to grow in what must be, essentially, swamp land. And how that crop would be valuable enough to pay back the cost of clearing such a huge plot.
After clearing, it would have to be graded, and after grading, then tiled to drain the water. But then, the water would have to go downhill to somewhere else. Otherwise, the water table would be so high that the fields would be prone to flooding, which is fatal to most field crops other than paddy rice.
Paddy rice doesn’t pay well enough to justify the cost of clearing and draining 750 hectares of swamp.
So this smells to me like greenie exaggeration.
Oh, and for the benefit of you urbanites: we farmers actually care about the environment a lot because we realize that we actually and truly “farm” it, and if it’s not doing well, we’re not doing well, fiscally and otherwise. And farmers *do* enjoy biodiversity–they take it as an indication that things in general are healthy.
This is an animistic, totemistic approach, I’ll admit–but every farmer I’ve ever met, and I’ve met more than my share, is a nature-lover at heart. And they love nature more than the born-again ‘Silent Spring’-thumping urbanites could ever comprehend.
Which is another reason to suspect this is a greenie exaggeration, if not an outright fabrication.
Schiller what nonsense – this is no little farm lane with hedgerows full of critters. Moree is the home of large scale corporate agriculture – cotton growing – wheat. And they’re good at it. We’re talking wall to wall clearing. Not that this area is likely to be much more than grazing motivated. Depends on the fine – might be cost effective.
Tracy,
Not sure where you get your info from but in large flow events all weirs are open and water flows as naturally as possible save for the sheetpile weir, as it cannot be opened. It raises water level for the tyreel regulator for irrigation flows, but under large flow conditions the “raft” further downstream mutes the effect of the sheetpile weir. The water backs up to a level that creates no head loss across the weir.
So you are correct that the structures divert water away from the Gwydir, but are effective only in low flow situations.
The water sharing plan for the Gwydir valley ensure that all low flows(500ML/day) or less go to the “wetlands”. Above this threshold the volume is split 50/50 between irrigators and the “wetlands”. It is LAW.
On the fat cattle, I have no problem with your family making money from the “wetlands”. I do have a problem sending more water at taxpayer expense to wetlands that are not necessarily managed for environmental outcomes.
Some of that money would be better spent either buying worthy wetland areas and destocking, or paying stewardship fees to the owner for same.
The water used to grow cattle feed has a markedly different value of return to that used in irrigation.
What a blow this has been to the reputation of every farmer in New South Wales, whether they manage their land responsibly or not. Unless it turns out to be a furphy, this will see increasing alienation of the interests of regional Australia from where the votes are: in the urban areas.
“(the rookery covered about 1 km square)” that is, 100 hectares. The rest of the entire wetland provided food sources, not roosting sites. Begs the question, was the 100ha of rookery located within the 750ha site. How big is the rest of the wetland? Will the removal of trees make any difference to food supplies, during dry times? and during wet times?
Ian, from what I can gather the rookery was not part of the 750ha clearance. The core site is estimated to about 400ha in total and is supposed to be untouched in this incident. It is regarded as being “the” bird breeding site by those in the know. Like the other important sites it is not Ramsar listed.
Rojo,
Back in the mid 1980’s, post 1983 drought I visited friends working on a property just out of Warren, NSW. A large section of the property was considered to be a part of the Macquarie Marshes. As the drought had broken there appeared to be water aplenlty. Lots of fat cattle and an amazing array of regrowth flora asociated with the marshes.
The owners were quite aware of managing for both conservatin outcomes and production outcomes. Their reasoning was “healthy wetlands equal productive ecosystems”. Having working up that way 15 years later I can say that that was not an isolated way of thinking amongst the districts farmers. Most of whom had lived up that way all of their lives. Indeed the common thread amongst the land managers of that district was that when the natural ecosystem was looked after, so too was the productive system.
What saddens me is the manner in which so called green NGO’s such as the wilderness society, national parks association and the nature conservation council have sought to demonise farmers in central and north western NSW over the last ten years as corrupt land managers. The current drought has allowed many commentators to make outrageous claims about the health of the landscape across much of NSW without any basis to support their assertions.
Luke,
So a video on the tele is proof enough for you to be convinced of this farmers guilt. Given that you usually rely on peer review and that the TV footage could have been from anywhere suggests that your standards may be slipping. Indeed one set of satellite images, or aerial photographs, is not enough to make such as claim, a time series is required. As is the expertise to analyse it and report on the results in a non partisan manner.
As for your throw away line about forestry, give it up. Every one knows that forestry is NOT land clearing. Forestry is about the long term sustainable management of forests and woodlands. Sure some areas may be harvested, BUT they are regenerated so long term there is no reduction in forest or woodland cover. Anything else is NOT forestry.
Did I say that Peter – if the video is correct in terms of location yes it looks to me that the landholder has cleared mature vegetation. That’s the point I was arguing – not whether it proves guilt. I’m taking at face value the claims that this has occurred recently. And indeed the eventual satellite photos will confirm the broad time. Getting the imagery won’t be hard. The area under consideration will have to be assessed under the relative legislation as to whether it has been legally cleared or not. In the end it will be pretty simple – yes or no !
If it pans out that the clearing is illegal it’s a blow for those farmers doing the right thing and will only polarise bad relationships further.
I don’t take any satisfication from the issue. Nor am I baying for blood.
Anyway get your Google Earth out and see how much remnant vegetation is left in these areas. Not much IMO.
So you give it up Peter and stop being such an apologist – I have yet to see any of these areas “restored”.
So once again we have the ABC involved in a misrepresentation of fact. The clear implication from the so-called expert statements were that the rookery had been cleared when there was no such thing.
This is exactly the sort of dishonesty and demonisation that can make stable, law abiding, community conscious people want to take the shot gun out and blow the very last survivor of a species clean off the face of the Earth.
People get the governments and the environments they deserve.
The threat to the Bilby colony with the dynamite stick or the bulldozer through the bora ring (and let’s not kid ourselves here) is the instrument of the redneck and the bully.
This is exactly the sort of careless rhetoric that green groups love – expect a redoubling of their efforts as you have fallen right into the reactionary stereotype they want the public to believe in.
If you’re in the Gwydir and don’t know about land clearing legislation you’ve been doing a Rip Van Winkle.
Again rural industry leadership has let the bush down by not getting on top of the land clearing issue 10 years ago.
We await determination as to whether the clearing in question is legal or not.
Such childish bickering! The real issue here should be obvious, and it goes way deeper than the situation at Gwydir Wetlands. It’s this pathetic ‘us against them’ mentality. The ‘Greenies’ against the ‘Rednecks’. I suggest that the very existence of these two opposing camps has been invented and nurtured by the real villains in this dilemma. Which dilemma? Australia’s biodiversity crisis. And yes, it is a very real crisis; backed by an overwhelming body of scientific evidence. And yes, agriculture is – by a mile – the most significant agent in this crisis. And yes, big-city dwellers have as much, if not more blood on their hands. Who then are the real villains? Well, who historically has sanctioned – and provided generous incentives for – the widespread conversion of Australia’s landscapes to ‘farms’? Who has engineered an economic climate which demands such optimal agricultural output? Who is responsible for the widening rift between rural and urban communities? Who is responsible for our growing and sprawling urban populations? Most importantly though, who is supporting these ‘villains’? What is needed in these times of escalating frustration is some good old solidarity. ‘Greenies’ are not some zealous pagan religious sect that seeks to destroy civilization. They are people from all walks of life with greatly differing world views and hopes – just like the bl***y rest of us! That people who voice their concern about the rampant destruction of nature are marked out and labeled as greenies, hippies, tree worshippers, and even ‘scum’, is disgraceful. From my experience, people with such concerns are almost always thinking and acting altruistically. A notion that is sadly diminishing in modern society. Similarly, why should farmers be labeled as ‘rednecks’? They’re every bit as diverse as the so-called ‘greenies’ are. For Christ’s sake, lets all pull together on this. After all, even the most radical of so-called ‘greenies’ and ‘rednecks’ share common ground: neither wants their grandchildren to grow up in a lifeless dust bowl!