Robert-
If governments do not react well to these types of emergencies, it is
because the public do not react well. Most people know nothing of these
issues. What is more, one can predict with near certainty that any
suggestion that we spend money to be ready for when Queleas arrive will be
recieved by the public with laughter, guffawing and demands for tax cuts.
Then, when the Quelea problem is so big that everyone has seen and heard of
them (and it is far too late to do anything), everyone will blame the
government for not having done anything about the problem.
Parks and Wildlife (or their equivalents) in all states are aware of the
dangers of biosecurity breaches. They genuinely do not have the resources
(people or money) to deal with this problem adquately, along with all the
other responsibilities they have. Why? Not because of mismanagement.
Members of the public would rather have the extra tax money in their
pockets. The social and political climate is very much one of
individualism, and not collective responsibility, these days. Granted
though, if someone has property they bought in anticipation of having
wildlife around, they will argue for government spending if the value of
that property is reduced by the loss of wildlife. Don't expect them to
argue this spending as a general principal.
To tackle these issues properly requires a very high level of public
awareness, support and possibly even participation. We havnt got these at
the moment. In this me me me climate, I'm not too sure how we are going to
generate the attitudes we need to properly ensure biosecurity. I'm open to
suggestions.
Scott O'Keeffe
-----Original Message-----
From:
Behalf Of Robert Read
Sent: 17 February 2002 19:32
To:
Subject: Birding in Tasmania (and some mammals)
Yes, the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife have been aware of them for some
time, see
http://www.dpiwe.tas.gov.au/inter.nsf/WebPages/SJON-56P2RG?open
The risks to Tasmania's fauna are obvious.
This is the sort of emergency governments do not handle well. It requires a
large amount of resources to be devoted to it now, not to be budgeted for in
the next financial year when it will be too late.
The article in The Australian quoted Professor Short as saying that the
problem is beyond Tasmania's resources.
I suggest the all birding-aus to write to their Commonwealth MPs and the
Minister for Environment urging immediate Commonwealth assistance for
Tasmania to tackle this problem.
Robert Read
Alice Springs
Peter Waanders wrote
Has anyone read the report in this weekend's Australian that some idiots
have released foxes on Tassie? This is going to be the beginning of the end
for many native species there.
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