On Sun, Jan 31, 2010 at 9:55 AM, Dave Torr <> wrote:
> Well done Trevor - as you say it is a never ending battle and they only have
> to win once, whereas we have to win every time. Unfortunately most
> governments - certainly ours in Victoria - go for growth at all costs, and
> even though many people seem to be against more population growth both major
> parties seem to be more concerned with pleasing developers than doing what
> people want.
Sigh.
Any time I hear the word "balance" come out of a politicians mouth I
start shouting. It's usually something like "well, we need to strike a
balance between jobs and the environment." Translation: we need to
strike a balance between blowing things up and knocking them down ;-)
Jobs are typically a red herring. If the government wants to keep a
lot of people employed, get the out there planting trees and
rehabilitating played out agricultural lands.
As a boy, I lived in Massachusetts while the commercial fishing
industry was well and truly collapsing. The news was always full of
people complaining about the "damn government" interfering. After
hundreds of years of small-scale commercial fishing, modern industrial
fishing put things right over the edge.
That's "balance".
As an adult, I lived in Hawaii for seven years where commercial and
recreational overfishing have really devastated fish stocks around all
of the main islands. (Fish, octopus, shellfish...it's all pretty
devastated.) Friends have been working vigorously to try and at least
get take limits on ornamental fish for the pet trade and are having a
had time of it. Anyway, how does the DLNR (Department of Land and
Natural Resources) set minimum fish catch sizes for eating fish? They
ask a bunch of scientists what the _minimum_ size is for reproductive
success and sustainable breeding populations. Then, they "compromise"
with the fishing advocates and pick a smaller size. Well, they did
_ask_ the scientists.
That's "balance".
I was talking with a friend yesterday in Hawaii and their local energy
company (HECO) is spending a ton on advertising their "green power"
solution. What is it? Bio-diesel based on *palm oil*. Anyone that's
been to countries north of us knows exactly how "green" it is to burn
palm oil. It's heartbreaking to fly over Borneo and see insanely rich
and wonderful rainforest turned into a nearly lifeless monoculture.
Now I live in the far south coast of NSW which, honestly, no level of
government knows or cares much about. There aren't many people here
but there are lots of trees. Tasty, tasty trees. I do not personally
know a single person that is employed in cutting down trees, yet they
keep whacking down our forests to pulp them. (Pulp!) Why? Because back
in the Meiji, the Japanese outsourced their
tiber/deforestation/erosion problems to the third world. (Australia
has a first world government and effectively a third world economy -
all we do is pull stuff up and ship it off-shore.) Oh, and I suppose I
don't have to add that the pump timber sales are a net loss - NSW
forestry pays more to make these compartments accessible than we get
out of the tiber.
Again, that's "balance."
Sorry for the rant, the simple story is governments are pretty
hopeless custodians of our natural resources. I'm currently cross
because they've been logging compartments near me over the last year -
and leaving a huge mess behind. Yellow-bellied gliders? I'm sure they
just "adapt" to no longer having suitable trees. Sooty and Powerful
Owls? Ditto.
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