In the cross-hairs of Queensland Government Acquisition?
“The Queensland Government will channel more than $10 million a year into a new ‘Eco Fund’ to expand the state’s National Parks.”
So said the Hon. Premier, Anna Bligh and Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation, the Hon. Andrew McNamara, in a joint statement last Friday.
“… we’re going to expand our National Parks by 50% … reaching a target of 12 million hectares by 2020 …”
Developers and other entities will pay for this doubling of protected area, by offsetting their environmental impacts and greenhouse emissions. The Eco Fund will provide a facility for these offset payments to be retained within Queensland and re-invested into conservation land acquisition, giving the illusion of ecological neutrality or better.
However, there are some glaring problems with the concept. First of all, protected area management is very inefficient and a major contributor to emissions in its own right, particularly when burning.
In 1999, it was revealed that in the six years preceding the ‘LGAQ Public inquiry into the Management of National Parks’ Queensland’s protected area estate had doubled whilst its budgetary allocation had increased by only 9% . The inquiry found that QPWS was neither staffed nor resourced to manage its reserves, which were being increasingly overrun with feral weeds and animals. Doubling the estate, yet again, would surely double these identified inefficiencies.
The LGAQ Inquiry also revealed the convention that lands acquired for addition to protected area estate, invariably had existing conservation values. In effect, the only real change was the name on the land title. Whilst there was usually an acquisition cost, it could hardly be described as a carbon offset, when nothing had been done to change the ecological nature of the environment.
By contrast, if productive land were to be acquired and re-vegetated for inclusion into the protected area, then the public would be able to see the ecological gain and know that it had paid for the change of land-use, including compensation and loss of income-earning capacity.
Then there are the recreational and tourism entitlements of the public-at-large, with all known and associated impacts and emissions. The Queensland government currently opposes cost-recovery through user-fees on National Parks, so all costs associated with management and impact mitigation are met by the taxpayer. This further disadvantages conservation management on private lands, through the exclusionary provisions of subsidisation on a tenure-exclusive basis.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Politically national parks are very attractive – the State is seen as an enthusiastic and committed custodian of the environment and it costs little to convert from crown land to National Park.
But they are terrible at providing MAINTENANCE for those parks.
There is something wrong with this picture.
Why does it cost $10 million a year to do this? All the government has to do is redefine a border, proclaim all humans within that border as “invasive species,” and then kill all invasive species.
This can be done for a lot less than $10 million a year.
Especially considering that there are lots of greenies who would volunteer for enforcement duty. They kill millions of humans every year, so popping one or two a day could add to their thrill.
Gack. This is all so awful.
Ah, supporters meet their goals of raising taxes on others and being able to feel good themselves.
It amazes me the totally ineffectual ideas the warming alarmists come up with. So rezoning land makes a difference! Sounds like energy efficient lights, windmills and solar cells, damn useless. BTW the ATO switched of their electric white boards for earth hour. Okay sorry its about control the rest is a pretence but they could have more believable ideas. The again I guess the blearing flock will follow anyway, Baaa Baaa …
Pathetic that sepos are lecturing our democratically elected (with a bloody big majority) government what to do. Fascists. Reality is that these supposed “poorly run dreadful places” seem to attract floods of visitors every holiday to the point of needing booking systems to manage numbers. Ain’t perfect – there are some obvious management issues, but they exist with all forms of land ownership.
So how popular is the community desire for conservation reserves?
There are significant efforts to acquire iconic parts of the national ecological estate – through organisations such as http://www.bushheritage.org.au/ and
Birds Australia (http://www.birdsaustralia.com.au/) have also acquired some properties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newhaven_Reserve and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluepot_Reserve
So our national parks are overrun with weeds and ferals – well of course we all know these problems don’t exist on private lands and only occur in national parks. (Not!). Strange how the visitors keep coming though.
As for “they kill millions each year” ROTFL and LMAO – porky alert – highly unlikely as Schiller the Fascist Creep would be the first to go – but he probably can’t be taken out by conventional weapons.
More cost to developers is that not inflationary. Less people able to aford housing.Pressure on interest rates.
Not such a “a bloody big majority” Luke, with Green prefs in the lower house it was ALP 52.7%, Coalition 47.3%.
At 9.7% of the vote the Green prefs made a big difference, without the prefs it would have been ALP 43.38%
“to the point of needing booking systems to manage numbers.”
Very funny
We’re talking Qld, Rog. Who cares if the Greens made a difference – a vote is a vote. The Qld opposition is almost an endangered species in its own right. And yes booking systems are indeed needed for peak holidays.
Luke, it is indeed Queensland we’re talking about and under the Land Protection (Pest and Stock Route Management) Act 2002 all landowners EXCEPT the state itself must take reasonable steps to keep their land free of feral pigs.
Look Luke, the idea of camping in the wilderness is appealing to some but not too many – resorts have booking facilities 24/7 and offer child minding, sports, games, food and a host of other activities – scrabbling over rocks, being bitten by critters and staring into a smoky fire is like going back into another era when tribal wars was the only light relief.
“scrabbling over rocks, being bitten by critters and staring into a smoky fire is like going back into another era when tribal wars was the only light relief.”
Even those of us who do enjoy this don’t want to do it all year round.
Carping about invasive species, how exclusionary and non progressive. Back to re education until you learn to embrace diversity.
Bush Heritage org? Is this some kind of a double agent pretending to be Luke?
I’ve got a real job for you Lukeasaurus.I need some bait to bring in a pack of wild dogs that frequent my place.The gig is, there’s nice spot under a red cedar by a creek,you camp out(no need to book) and make yourself attractive(to a wild dog that is)and I promise to shoot each dog as it has a nibble on you.Also it would be interrrresting to see how the Pilliga NP copes with it’s flood of visitors it being a relatively recent creation.
You should get out more wjp – try Girraween, Lamington, Carnarvon or Bunya Mtns in peak holiday time. Well actually don’t. With welcoming ferals like yourself frequenting the back of Baradine no wonder they stay home. I’ll take the dogs.
The only reason that bookings are required for national parks is the misguided belief by park management that people are shouldn’t be in national parks and somehow need to be ‘managed’.
The creation of an artificial limit to the number of visitors/campers is not necessarily good park management, more likely about dealing with the pressures of ‘green’ groups such as NPA etc.
Carnarvon gorge is a good example, all car based within park camping facilities have been removed and now camping is restricted to the private ‘resort’ neighbouring the park. A clear case of a lack of perspective regarding the area utilised by car based campers in regards toteh total area of the park.
It might surprise you Lukeasaurus I do get out and I would hazzard a guess and say a great deal more than thou.Being that Monday has arrived it could a good time to rummage though the undies draw find nice pair of size 32s slip ’em on the outside and save us from ourselves….again! I’m going outside now.I could be quite a while.
This fund is just another step in collectivised ecology. The turkeys blew it so bad and so conspicuously with collectivised economy but just could not bring themselves to dump their flawed mindset. So now we have creeping (and creepy) collectivised ecology where every ecosystem is equally degraded by so-called “custodians” who clock off at 5pm, take their annual leave during the bush fire season, get double pay for emergency call outs, spend most time engaged in ideological “education” and demand $1000/hour helicopters to do the work of half a $100/hour bulldozer.
But don’t worry folks. This regime will eventually collapse, as all regimes that substitute ideology for practical reality do. The main unknowns are;
How long will it take?
How bad will the resulting degradation be?
And how soon will practical ecologists realise that proping up a flawed regime merely prolongs the suffering of it’s victims, both human and animal?
So go for it, fellas, and I’ll just sit back and wait for the megafire and look the other way when firebugs do their patriotic duty. You have a date with destiny, and the sooner you get there, the sooner you bogus cover will be blown and the higher will be the value the public places on private ecology and the rights on which those private ecological services depend.
So if it that’s bad – why do our existing national parks still exist? Does it make sense with reality?
And have not many of them been around for some time?
Shouldn’t they have disappeared by now in a sea of flames, and be overrun with weeds and ferals?
And how did they get on before bulldozers turned up?
When you think about it it’s amazing that anything could have evolved with human assistance. It’s just incredible.
And why do visitors keep turning up? (except at Baradine)
The first parks survived through a time when the social contract was still intact, Luke. There was a time when all of us regarded them as “our parks”.
But those days were gone from the moment the greens started exercising the politics of fraud and exclusion. When the parks were first mooted they were supposed to ensure the survival of species but as the habitat quality degraded that survival could only be possible with a larger and larger area.
And when first mooted, the parks were supposed to represent the entire community’s contribution to maintaining ecological values so we could all go about our economic business with a clear conscience. But the moment this need became accepted it was used to demand a discriminatory, unbalanced and entirely disproportionate contribution from individual landowners.
The parks are now nothing more than occupied enemy territory, a minority controlled portfolio of the the proceeds of fraud. They are now a black hole into which precious regional hospital, education and community funding is diverted for the sole benefit of visiting urban elites. And it is classified as the region’s share of the funding cake.
Parks are also the most precious asset of the predatory green enemy and, as Sun Tzu would conclude, are the most attractive target for retribution. They are the most valued target, the most easily destroyed, the most expensive to defend and the hardest to replace.
So you had better hope not too many shafted landowners are reading Sun Tzu.
Ian
it is clearly a problem of too many subsidised farmers not paying their taxes and bludging off us city people.
You deliver equal services to farmers SJT and farmers will stop paying for their own and start bludging – just like the city people.
Transport, health, roads, education, communication – these are things farmers pay for but dont receive.
You forgot subsidised water tanks, Rog. Farmers get a few hundred bucks while the urbanites get up to $2500 worth at no actual cost to themselves.