Dingoes
“..they are the only australian native classed as vermin, how sad that such a noble and loving companion is now regarded as a pest, it is not just cruel but a betrayal of the highest order”
The Save the Fraser Island Dingo website is here ... http://www.savefraserislanddingoes.com/ with lots of info about the FI dingoes......*
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Expert opinions are like Biblical quotations, you can easily find one to contradict another.
ReplyDeleteMention conservation and opinions sprout like weeds in a veggie patch. So let’s apply common sense and the evidence of our own eyes instead. When land is developed for human use native bush and habitat are destroyed. Wildlife will be affected to a greater or lesser degree, this is a fact of life. To enjoy the convenience and comfort of the high tech existence we are used to we must accept such compromises.However there are some places which we want to protect and preserve intact for posterity. The World Heritage Convention describes them as
“Places important to and belonging to everyone” having “universal value that transcends the value they hold for a particular nation”.
Therefore the approach here must be very different. Expert opinion will vary, but there is also the wisdom of people living on the spot.
These are descendants of white settlers, ‘incomers’ who enjoy a modern lifestyle yet are attuned and sensitive to the needs of their special environment.
Also Aboriginal elders whose instinctive affinity with the natural world has evolved over thousands of years.
They understand persecution and dispossession too. Ask them what works.
When dealing with places which have looked after themselves pretty well for hundreds of thousands of years surely going Softly Softly is indicated?
Minimum interference.
Upset the balance of nature at your peril, remember rabbits and cane toads?
Inhibiting predators and prey, chopping down habitat, imposing human demands, a recipe for disaster. Common sense.
Take World Heritage Listed Fraser Island with 700,000 years of recorded evolution. What goes on? 400,000 visitors and rising; all manner of group and individual outdoor pursuits, 8 campgrounds, 2 resort complexes and another planned, all with bars, restaurants, night clubs, every sports facility etc.
“Eco friendly” maybe but still needing infrastructure and servicing. 80,000 hectares of destruction from an out of hand ‘controlled‘ burn.
And all this won’t impact on the fragile environment?
There’s more, the iconic dingoes facing extinction after 5,000 years, harried and abused, excluded from their hunting grounds and brutally cleared from the beaches.
Meanwhile anyone can hire a 4WD and hammer off along the sand.
The limit was reduced, repeat reduced to, not from, 80k because people were killing themselves!
Recently a resident displayed 38 cardboard cutouts of dingoes, a telling symbol of the present and a warning for the future.
Protecting the environment?
Protecting the profit from the Tourist Dollar more likely.
Do we want intact World Heritage Sites where it’s environment first and people second, or sterile but profitable Adventure Parks and Playgrounds?
Can’t have both together.
Common sense, but no doubt some expert will disagree.