Hm, yes well, property management is of course of as much importance as
acquisition, but in the final crunch I'd still prefer to see a property
privately owned, even if not managed to a desirable level, than see it be
raped and pillaged by miners or developers. Governments will always bow and
scrape to the latter people so govts just have to be bypassed. Like I said
earlier, when someone doesn't do a satisfactory job (and are incapable of
being educated/trained), you just have to move them aside and get someone
in who can do things properly - or do it yourself.
Given the woeful behaviour of govts in conservation matters to date all
this "higher plane" discussion about continuing to petition them to do more
is just hot air which actually allows the situation to continue unabated.
I'm not suggesting we give up trying, but Govts will do nothing about
anything unless they think it may affect voting patterns adversely, and in
this area, much as WE like to think of conservation as being important,
most of the community are not yet even aware of the dangers, let alone be
worried about them - certainly not enough to have them alter their vote.
What counts to most of them is how to make ends meet, and they just don't
see conservation as affecting that.
T.
At 10:26 25/03/00 +1100, you wrote:
>I have my doubts about the wisdom of conservation organisations, as such,
>owning and managing land.
>
>The problem is that land ownership and mangament for the benefit of
>wildlife is expensive; it's easy enough to to put out an appeal to raise
>the money to purchase a place, but much more difficult to continue to ask
>for money, or to budget, for day to day maintenance.
>
>There is a danger that bodies which own land would continue to raise money
>to buy further properties (because this is a way of appearing to be doing
>something), whilst the properties they do own are not managed properly, and
>whilst they are saved from complete destruction their wildlife value
declines.
>
>The other danger is that conservation organisations operate in the market
>economy; they recieve funding from governments when there is some money to
>be had, and when funding for nature conservation appears to be in the
>political interest of the government of the day (as in the so-called
>Heritage Fund). But in the lean times they have to scale back. Likewise,
>although their membership is probably more loyal than that of many
>organisations it will fluctuate from year to year.
>
>It seems to me that what would a better situation for nature-conservation
>in Australia at present would be to have conservation organisations (like
>Birds Australia) which would be organsiations which would lobby, inform,
>educate, campaign and use government funding (when available) to carry out
>research &c, and have organisations like the Bush Heritage Fund which
>single-mindedly campaign for money to build up a system of properties, AND
>A CAPITAL FUND TO MANAGE THESE FOR THE LONG-TERM (sorry about the caps, I
>don't have italics in this program).
>
>John Leonard
>
>
>
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>John Leonard (Dr),
>PO Box 243,
>Woden, ACT 2606,
>Australia
>
>
>http://www.spirit.net.au/~jleonard
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>
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>
Tony Russell,
Adelaide, South Australia
phone : 08 8337 5959 , o/s 61 8 8337 5959
e-mail:
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