John Nalder from Hallsville thinks that government must take on an educational role if it wants to rebuild our environment.
THE Native Vegetation Regulation Act as it stands and its proposed changes are both environmentally and economically unsustainable, as there is no science,
nor functions or concepts to support these regulations, par-icularly in low-rainfall, high evaporation rate environments.
It also brings about a common title approach to farm management. Common title has been the biggest cause of desertification since biblical times, as for example, in the Middle East. In more recent times, communism caused desertification in China and to overcome the problem, full tenure was given to landholders.
In Australia, due to the rabbit plagues of the past, there is no such thing as a natural functioning ecosystem in low-rainfall, high evaporative rate environments today. They are modified and degraded.
If government wants to be involved in rebuilding our environment, then the best way is to take an educational role that is based on the science, concepts and functions of how a fully functioning ecosystem did work and emulate those functions with the tools we have available today – in other words, a holistic professional approach via something like the Landcare movement, rather than in an authoritarian regulatory manner. The approach taken so far and intended approach is to start with a model and work backwards, trying to make it work – the flat earth approach.
In effect, the changes proposed won’t deliver sustainable environmental outcomes nor is it economically viable to work in the ways approved by the regulations.
