Habitat loss is definitely the biggest threat to Australian wildlife. There is so little protected habitat, and even that is under constant threat. Where I live there is plenty of regenerating forest, protected by steep slopes and unsuitability for grazing, but most of it is in private hands and lacks long term protection. The longer the land is undisturbed the more attractive it gets for loggers and real estate development, so the long term protection remains very uncertain. Governments want to spend their funds where the voters are so most conservation work is done near urban centres and the vast bulk of Australian land gets no help or protection.
The brightest hope is that there is so much good work being done by private landowners, but people's lives are short and there is no guarantee the good work will be sustained when ownership changes.
As well as governments wanting to spend money where the votes are there are hugely worrying signs that there are world views within governments that, in some cases, place no value at all on the natural environment. E.g., not so long ago PM Abbott said that when the first white settlers came to where Sydney is now it was "nothing but bush". His ignorance seems to be shared by an increasing number of authorities at all levels of our society. Little wonder, then, that private landowners doing good environmental things are likely to see their efforts go down the development tube as human greed and wants devour all. Where I live many landowners have been bringing back the bush in various ways but one of Australia's fastest growing areas creeps ever closer. Unless there is a cultural change those landowners' efforts are looking increasingly under threat. So keep pressuring your MPs, folks, or there soon won't be nearly as many native bird species to observe, photograph, admire & ooh! & ah! at.
I do wonder with Australia's recent political leaders being religious, if this has a bearing. From John Howard to Kevin Rudd, not sure on Gillard, but with Tony Abbott all having a faith, all would believe in Gods abundance. Maybe not publically, but deep down. And futhermore maybe only farm animals that you can eat as having worth gererally, so hence great support for farming. Native animals I'd imagine would be low on the order of beliefs and worth, though they are all Gods creatures. Now I'm not attacking religion as it brings hope, love, compassion to the picture where as evolution does not. But if this mess we have with nature is to be resolved than we need a shared approach. Evolution does not have a role in religion, so no matter what the scientest think, say, or prove, it's not in Gods plan. However for the none religious person, it's easy to see the wheels falling of evolution fast. So we needs Gods love and compassion to re adjust humans interferance in evolution.
I've been staring out accross the land from on top of Mt Kaputar National Park over the last few days, and sadly its another island of refuge for nature surrounded by farms. It's seems vast but I watched a wedge tail travers most of the park in less then 5 minutes. It also seems though it has a road, communication towers with small selected clearing for power lines, two NP run camp grounds, and half a dozen formed walking tracks, the man made interferance would equal less than 1% of the parks total area.
I noticed there were vallies of farm land that ran into the parks mass. And on the Eastern side there was much farm land only semi cleared, with vegitation still remaining on the slopes and high grounds of the near by ranges. To the South West there is still sizable mulga plains with areas of farmland in between them and the NP. I pondered if it were possible to reclaim this land. Perhaps grow National Parks towards each other. Or simpley double, trebbile the size of the island. If governments can resume land for dams as in Qld, them maybe its not a crazy idea to resume farms to grow NPs. They just need a reason to do so.
I've been reading a simple publication on rejuvinating creeks. There is a story of a bloke who took on what all the land care advisors said was too far gone. It was a real disaster. The really amazing thing is all he does is pull out and eradicate weeds, the rest is a waste of resources in his eyes. He preferes to let nature do the rest. He finds local plants pop up from under the weeds, then the animals start moving in, and goes from stregth to strength. The key he feels is realy good weed eradication. Not rocket science, not overly expansive, not impossible either.
In another thread I mentioned using prison inmates as labour to grow parks. But perhaps alternatively this could provide employment or various careers for our struggling rural communities. Or work for welfare perhaps. It was also mentioned it would need a war time effort, maybe and rightly so, but the nation would maybe need to accept the debt to do this.
Can you see the picture I'm trying to make here. We need solutions, not just comments on how bad it is, or how wrong they are. I'm keen to hear peoples views.
Just imagine, doubling, trembling, or having vast parts of Aus as reclaimed National Parks. I do however think, to get something like this over the line, humans won't ecxept its all for nature. They will want some use, but as in Kaputars current state, 1% seems plenty.
Just like to add, all that good work that Greg talked about with land owners doing something, its a good example it works and can be done.
Woko, I have good spirited Christian in-laws. They are good people and very generous. I can see how Tony Abbott saw Sydney cove as just bush. Not prosperous, not developed, not modernised. After discussions with my in-laws regarding Aboriginal people, missions, and religion, they just see it differently. Its not like they ate out to harm, rather just doing Gods work. Maybe its me that sees it differently, but as a white person I do have some understanding and feeling for how Aboriginals must feel. Little notice is taken from what you say it appears.
I'm not into politicians doing deals with the greens, or developers, or anyone to gain office; but its our job to convince people of power perhaps something like this is better than nothing. That it is worth wile, that it is for all Gods creatures regarless of science. That is ok to dare to dream, Just not sure how?
Hi jason. I'm on the south eastern slopes of the Mt Lofty Ranges, about 50 km from Adelaide's CBD. The area was long ago cleared for grazing &, here & there, mining. Over the last 28 years Ms Woko & I have been revegetating our patch with local species followed by minimum disturbance bush care to encourage the spread of native understorey, particularly grasses & forbs. Our revegetation is now resulting in regeneration of a number of tree & shrub species. Many local landowners are now revegetating so that there are developing wildlife patches & corridors over an increasingly large area. This has happened with little or no encouragement from government. People acting locally are doing it & hopefully they'll continue to act locally when they see the development coming over the ridge lines.
Minimum disturbance bush care fits with the weed eradication you've mentioned. It pretty much follows the Bradley sisters' methods of bringing back the bush (the title of their book) in Sydney. It involves selecting the areas of highest quality bushland & then clearing the weeds from within those areas as well as on the perimeters, the idea being that seed from native plants will fall into & germinate in the areas from which weeds have been eradicated. Soil disturbance is minimised because weeds thrive where soil is disturbed so the use of heavy equipment to eradicate weeds is frowned on from a serious height.
I don't see that there's a necessary disjunct between religion & evolution. If there is a God then evolution would seem to be an incredible & marvellous manifestation of her/his/its existence.
But I do think there's enough information in the public domain about the environment to render obsolete the narrow perspectives of people like our prime minister, perspectives which demonstrate a decided lack of curiosity about the world on their part, I believe. It's passing strange that in a world of increasingly rapid change & challenge to established ideas such people should be fixed to old ways of thinking. Perhaps they find security in their old ways & maybe they can't be blamed for that. One of the things that worries me is how such people are becoming increasingly fearful of anything outside the cities. They're becoming divorced from nature. Little wonder that the term "nature deficit disorder" is being used. On the rare occasions that we have visitors from the city it's interesting to note that they don't wish to venture much beyond our car port & when they do they constantly look back to make sure the house is in view. So there's a big job to do in demonstrating to much of Australia's population that there are wonders to be discovered in the bush which will never be found on the screen of an iphone. But, sadly, such people make up the bulk of our decision makers so little wonder the Australian natural environment is under threat.
I, too, have often thought how wonderful it would be if national parks could be joined to form larger national parks. Perhaps we need to give much higher status to bush carers, restorers & protectors than is currently the case. Then we might see some significant movement on this front. Giving such status to prisoners could well be an important part of any rehabilitation programmes.
I've also entertained the scenario where climate change &/or other factors force many farmers from the land so that land which is near national parks would slowly return to bushland with little or no effort. We're already seeing attempts by government to force farmers from productive farm land so that dirty energy fuel can be mined. Why not have them forced from the land for more productive purposes? Or even have them stay on their land, keep the dirty energy fuel in the ground & encourage them to return part of their land to bush which could then be connected to tne nearest natural bushland.
I still have some hope that writing to those with power has some effect. If enough do it then those with power may feel their power is threatened, particularly at the next election, so that they'll be forced to change their approach. Maybe organisations like Getup are part of a slowly rising tide of discontent with the current Australian way of doing things. If we don't keep hope alive then we might as well sit down & do bugger all. What a boring life that would be!
Woko, there is increasing evidence that this disconnect from nature is harming human health. Our immune system evolved with constant challenges from microbes in the environment. Now science has shown how important the microflora in our gut is for our immune systems. Because city dwellers only eat food and water that is processed, cleaned and filtered the immune system is failing and causing disease when it should be fighting disease. Research in SA where tank water is common has found less disease in people who drink unfiltered rather than filtered tank water. Indeed tankwater has never been shown to cause disease, drinking water full of benificial microbes is actually good for you. (and forget those special yoghurts, it's the variety of microbes that is important).
Eating fruit straight from the tree is much better for you than washed supermarket fruit, but people fear contamination from nature. Germs!!! yet it is nature that sustains and protects us, even if we never visit a national park.
I tell you what lads, seems like just the three of us have a view.
Good on you Woko, must be a real joy with huge rewards bringing land back from a coma. A Doctor of the earth perhaps, now there is some ststus for you.
I will take your advise and put this idea to the Qld Premier suggesting the lands bought by the old government around the Marry River for the now dismissed Traverston Crossing Dam be put to this use. Oddly enough there is a prison near by, and I even know the manager, not that will mean anything. The area links with various State forrests, is home to numerous indangered plants, animals, and feeds water into marine habitate in the passage seperating Fraser Island. There is a history of land care in the area already, but from what I can gather has fallen over after the Governments buy out. Not quite a National Park, but Yellowstone NP in America started a trend that caught on.
Spot on (so to speak), Greg. But if we stopped making our bathrooms sparkling, our kitchens 99.9% germ free & our floors clean enough to lick the detergent companies would be out of business & a goodly proportion of the supermarket shelves would be empty. We couldn't have that now, could we?
Seriously, I think we may be disinfecting ourselves out of business since our immune systems are going out of fashion. It will only take one evolving microbe to take off & we're in serious trouble. We do need diversity in our guts to provide us with the resilience to survive & that diversity is destroyed when we disinfect everything 24/7.
Yes, it is incredibly rewarding, jason. I've just come in from the rain after watching a Crested Shrike-tit cavorting in a Eucalyptus. It's a species which is now endangered in the Mt Lofty Ranges so to know that Ms Woko & I are provding habitat to help sustain a meagre population of this species is very satisfying.
And good on you for putting your idea to the Queensland premier. My strong sense is that although you may well receive the usual boring reply about policy, previous practice, how much money we've spent blah blah blah, every contact is another piece in developing a culture where it's not OK to wreck the natural environment & it is OK to protect & restore it.
Woko, I'm not holding my breath. Australia is not ready for such a scheme, and it's only nature anyway. It's free and if one looks around there is plety of it....right. I expect my letter will go straight in the bin.
I do get bored with misinters secretaries flicking it onto the area managers to answer the question. Who do a fine job of regurgitating policy and answering nothing. I once wrote a letter to every minister in the Tammanian Parliment, hoping someone would sympathise. It was to do tourism and the vast smoldering leveled landscape one finds if they look past the 100m of old growth buffer left on the side of the road to keep the passer by happy. Only Bob Brown replied which wasn't surprising.
Greg, you made me think back to when I was a kid, sipping water from my gradmars galvanised water talk in the garden. It was fed from the roof, which had a bit of lichen, and probably smoke fall out from the log stove. It had mosquito wriglers and fluffy green moss on the internals walls. But it was the freshest cleanest water I had ever tasted. Drinking form a remote creek in a NP is about all that compares these days. The kids call it kissing the creek.
Fear not, Jason. While those bureaucrats who answer your letters are hot on regurgitated policy the ministers' secretaries do note the volumes of correspondence which come in & which way constituents are leaning on various issues. My only concern is that we seem to be inundated with ideologues in power at present who are so rigid & short term in their world views that even the threat of massive voter swings against them is unlikely to shift them. So I guess it pays to know who the idealogues are so that correspondence can be directed to more open-minded politicians. This often means targeting backbenchers who have higher anxiety levels about the security of their seats than well-entrenched ministers.
Habitat loss is definitely the biggest threat to Australian wildlife. There is so little protected habitat, and even that is under constant threat. Where I live there is plenty of regenerating forest, protected by steep slopes and unsuitability for grazing, but most of it is in private hands and lacks long term protection. The longer the land is undisturbed the more attractive it gets for loggers and real estate development, so the long term protection remains very uncertain. Governments want to spend their funds where the voters are so most conservation work is done near urban centres and the vast bulk of Australian land gets no help or protection.
The brightest hope is that there is so much good work being done by private landowners, but people's lives are short and there is no guarantee the good work will be sustained when ownership changes.
You make good points, Greg.
As well as governments wanting to spend money where the votes are there are hugely worrying signs that there are world views within governments that, in some cases, place no value at all on the natural environment. E.g., not so long ago PM Abbott said that when the first white settlers came to where Sydney is now it was "nothing but bush". His ignorance seems to be shared by an increasing number of authorities at all levels of our society. Little wonder, then, that private landowners doing good environmental things are likely to see their efforts go down the development tube as human greed and wants devour all. Where I live many landowners have been bringing back the bush in various ways but one of Australia's fastest growing areas creeps ever closer. Unless there is a cultural change those landowners' efforts are looking increasingly under threat. So keep pressuring your MPs, folks, or there soon won't be nearly as many native bird species to observe, photograph, admire & ooh! & ah! at.
Woko, what area are you in?
Ipswich Shire Eastern flanks
I do wonder with Australia's recent political leaders being religious, if this has a bearing. From John Howard to Kevin Rudd, not sure on Gillard, but with Tony Abbott all having a faith, all would believe in Gods abundance. Maybe not publically, but deep down. And futhermore maybe only farm animals that you can eat as having worth gererally, so hence great support for farming. Native animals I'd imagine would be low on the order of beliefs and worth, though they are all Gods creatures. Now I'm not attacking religion as it brings hope, love, compassion to the picture where as evolution does not. But if this mess we have with nature is to be resolved than we need a shared approach. Evolution does not have a role in religion, so no matter what the scientest think, say, or prove, it's not in Gods plan. However for the none religious person, it's easy to see the wheels falling of evolution fast. So we needs Gods love and compassion to re adjust humans interferance in evolution.
I've been staring out accross the land from on top of Mt Kaputar National Park over the last few days, and sadly its another island of refuge for nature surrounded by farms. It's seems vast but I watched a wedge tail travers most of the park in less then 5 minutes. It also seems though it has a road, communication towers with small selected clearing for power lines, two NP run camp grounds, and half a dozen formed walking tracks, the man made interferance would equal less than 1% of the parks total area.
I noticed there were vallies of farm land that ran into the parks mass. And on the Eastern side there was much farm land only semi cleared, with vegitation still remaining on the slopes and high grounds of the near by ranges. To the South West there is still sizable mulga plains with areas of farmland in between them and the NP. I pondered if it were possible to reclaim this land. Perhaps grow National Parks towards each other. Or simpley double, trebbile the size of the island. If governments can resume land for dams as in Qld, them maybe its not a crazy idea to resume farms to grow NPs. They just need a reason to do so.
I've been reading a simple publication on rejuvinating creeks. There is a story of a bloke who took on what all the land care advisors said was too far gone. It was a real disaster. The really amazing thing is all he does is pull out and eradicate weeds, the rest is a waste of resources in his eyes. He preferes to let nature do the rest. He finds local plants pop up from under the weeds, then the animals start moving in, and goes from stregth to strength. The key he feels is realy good weed eradication. Not rocket science, not overly expansive, not impossible either.
In another thread I mentioned using prison inmates as labour to grow parks. But perhaps alternatively this could provide employment or various careers for our struggling rural communities. Or work for welfare perhaps. It was also mentioned it would need a war time effort, maybe and rightly so, but the nation would maybe need to accept the debt to do this.
Can you see the picture I'm trying to make here. We need solutions, not just comments on how bad it is, or how wrong they are. I'm keen to hear peoples views.
Just imagine, doubling, trembling, or having vast parts of Aus as reclaimed National Parks. I do however think, to get something like this over the line, humans won't ecxept its all for nature. They will want some use, but as in Kaputars current state, 1% seems plenty.
Ipswich Shire Eastern flanks
Just like to add, all that good work that Greg talked about with land owners doing something, its a good example it works and can be done.
Woko, I have good spirited Christian in-laws. They are good people and very generous. I can see how Tony Abbott saw Sydney cove as just bush. Not prosperous, not developed, not modernised. After discussions with my in-laws regarding Aboriginal people, missions, and religion, they just see it differently. Its not like they ate out to harm, rather just doing Gods work. Maybe its me that sees it differently, but as a white person I do have some understanding and feeling for how Aboriginals must feel. Little notice is taken from what you say it appears.
I'm not into politicians doing deals with the greens, or developers, or anyone to gain office; but its our job to convince people of power perhaps something like this is better than nothing. That it is worth wile, that it is for all Gods creatures regarless of science. That is ok to dare to dream, Just not sure how?
Ipswich Shire Eastern flanks
Hi jason. I'm on the south eastern slopes of the Mt Lofty Ranges, about 50 km from Adelaide's CBD. The area was long ago cleared for grazing &, here & there, mining. Over the last 28 years Ms Woko & I have been revegetating our patch with local species followed by minimum disturbance bush care to encourage the spread of native understorey, particularly grasses & forbs. Our revegetation is now resulting in regeneration of a number of tree & shrub species. Many local landowners are now revegetating so that there are developing wildlife patches & corridors over an increasingly large area. This has happened with little or no encouragement from government. People acting locally are doing it & hopefully they'll continue to act locally when they see the development coming over the ridge lines.
Minimum disturbance bush care fits with the weed eradication you've mentioned. It pretty much follows the Bradley sisters' methods of bringing back the bush (the title of their book) in Sydney. It involves selecting the areas of highest quality bushland & then clearing the weeds from within those areas as well as on the perimeters, the idea being that seed from native plants will fall into & germinate in the areas from which weeds have been eradicated. Soil disturbance is minimised because weeds thrive where soil is disturbed so the use of heavy equipment to eradicate weeds is frowned on from a serious height.
I don't see that there's a necessary disjunct between religion & evolution. If there is a God then evolution would seem to be an incredible & marvellous manifestation of her/his/its existence.
But I do think there's enough information in the public domain about the environment to render obsolete the narrow perspectives of people like our prime minister, perspectives which demonstrate a decided lack of curiosity about the world on their part, I believe. It's passing strange that in a world of increasingly rapid change & challenge to established ideas such people should be fixed to old ways of thinking. Perhaps they find security in their old ways & maybe they can't be blamed for that. One of the things that worries me is how such people are becoming increasingly fearful of anything outside the cities. They're becoming divorced from nature. Little wonder that the term "nature deficit disorder" is being used. On the rare occasions that we have visitors from the city it's interesting to note that they don't wish to venture much beyond our car port & when they do they constantly look back to make sure the house is in view. So there's a big job to do in demonstrating to much of Australia's population that there are wonders to be discovered in the bush which will never be found on the screen of an iphone. But, sadly, such people make up the bulk of our decision makers so little wonder the Australian natural environment is under threat.
I, too, have often thought how wonderful it would be if national parks could be joined to form larger national parks. Perhaps we need to give much higher status to bush carers, restorers & protectors than is currently the case. Then we might see some significant movement on this front. Giving such status to prisoners could well be an important part of any rehabilitation programmes.
I've also entertained the scenario where climate change &/or other factors force many farmers from the land so that land which is near national parks would slowly return to bushland with little or no effort. We're already seeing attempts by government to force farmers from productive farm land so that dirty energy fuel can be mined. Why not have them forced from the land for more productive purposes? Or even have them stay on their land, keep the dirty energy fuel in the ground & encourage them to return part of their land to bush which could then be connected to tne nearest natural bushland.
I still have some hope that writing to those with power has some effect. If enough do it then those with power may feel their power is threatened, particularly at the next election, so that they'll be forced to change their approach. Maybe organisations like Getup are part of a slowly rising tide of discontent with the current Australian way of doing things. If we don't keep hope alive then we might as well sit down & do bugger all. What a boring life that would be!
Woko, there is increasing evidence that this disconnect from nature is harming human health. Our immune system evolved with constant challenges from microbes in the environment. Now science has shown how important the microflora in our gut is for our immune systems. Because city dwellers only eat food and water that is processed, cleaned and filtered the immune system is failing and causing disease when it should be fighting disease. Research in SA where tank water is common has found less disease in people who drink unfiltered rather than filtered tank water. Indeed tankwater has never been shown to cause disease, drinking water full of benificial microbes is actually good for you. (and forget those special yoghurts, it's the variety of microbes that is important).
Eating fruit straight from the tree is much better for you than washed supermarket fruit, but people fear contamination from nature. Germs!!! yet it is nature that sustains and protects us, even if we never visit a national park.
I tell you what lads, seems like just the three of us have a view.
Good on you Woko, must be a real joy with huge rewards bringing land back from a coma. A Doctor of the earth perhaps, now there is some ststus for you.
I will take your advise and put this idea to the Qld Premier suggesting the lands bought by the old government around the Marry River for the now dismissed Traverston Crossing Dam be put to this use. Oddly enough there is a prison near by, and I even know the manager, not that will mean anything. The area links with various State forrests, is home to numerous indangered plants, animals, and feeds water into marine habitate in the passage seperating Fraser Island. There is a history of land care in the area already, but from what I can gather has fallen over after the Governments buy out. Not quite a National Park, but Yellowstone NP in America started a trend that caught on.
Ipswich Shire Eastern flanks
Spot on (so to speak), Greg. But if we stopped making our bathrooms sparkling, our kitchens 99.9% germ free & our floors clean enough to lick the detergent companies would be out of business & a goodly proportion of the supermarket shelves would be empty. We couldn't have that now, could we?
Seriously, I think we may be disinfecting ourselves out of business since our immune systems are going out of fashion. It will only take one evolving microbe to take off & we're in serious trouble. We do need diversity in our guts to provide us with the resilience to survive & that diversity is destroyed when we disinfect everything 24/7.
Yes, it is incredibly rewarding, jason. I've just come in from the rain after watching a Crested Shrike-tit cavorting in a Eucalyptus. It's a species which is now endangered in the Mt Lofty Ranges so to know that Ms Woko & I are provding habitat to help sustain a meagre population of this species is very satisfying.
And good on you for putting your idea to the Queensland premier. My strong sense is that although you may well receive the usual boring reply about policy, previous practice, how much money we've spent blah blah blah, every contact is another piece in developing a culture where it's not OK to wreck the natural environment & it is OK to protect & restore it.
Woko, I'm not holding my breath. Australia is not ready for such a scheme, and it's only nature anyway. It's free and if one looks around there is plety of it....right. I expect my letter will go straight in the bin.
I do get bored with misinters secretaries flicking it onto the area managers to answer the question. Who do a fine job of regurgitating policy and answering nothing. I once wrote a letter to every minister in the Tammanian Parliment, hoping someone would sympathise. It was to do tourism and the vast smoldering leveled landscape one finds if they look past the 100m of old growth buffer left on the side of the road to keep the passer by happy. Only Bob Brown replied which wasn't surprising.
Greg, you made me think back to when I was a kid, sipping water from my gradmars galvanised water talk in the garden. It was fed from the roof, which had a bit of lichen, and probably smoke fall out from the log stove. It had mosquito wriglers and fluffy green moss on the internals walls. But it was the freshest cleanest water I had ever tasted. Drinking form a remote creek in a NP is about all that compares these days. The kids call it kissing the creek.
Ipswich Shire Eastern flanks
Fear not, Jason. While those bureaucrats who answer your letters are hot on regurgitated policy the ministers' secretaries do note the volumes of correspondence which come in & which way constituents are leaning on various issues. My only concern is that we seem to be inundated with ideologues in power at present who are so rigid & short term in their world views that even the threat of massive voter swings against them is unlikely to shift them. So I guess it pays to know who the idealogues are so that correspondence can be directed to more open-minded politicians. This often means targeting backbenchers who have higher anxiety levels about the security of their seats than well-entrenched ministers.