Bundarrah Days

Parks Victoria's well known slogan, Healthy Parks, Healthy People, is well and truly outdated these days seeing that people are now seen as unwelcome intruders into these biodiverse, threatened and fragile ecosystems.

So we're having a little competition amongst ourselves to find a new and more appropriate slogan.

One suggestion was "Unmanaged Parks, Unhappy People" and a resident wit suggested that we "Burn Into A National Park."

We thought they weren't too bad for a start but we know there's a world of talented people outside our boundary who might like to have a crack at the job as well.

So, if you have any ideas send them to us here at bundarrah@bigpond.com

HOW did The Greens know a new National Park is planned in Victoria's Red Gum Forests?

In their recently published Biodiversity (New Reserves) policy The Greens state that they will "commit to creating new national parks and protected areas following recommendations of the Victorian Environment Assessment Council's (VEAC) River Red Gum Forests Investigation.

The terms of reference for this investigation do not call for the creation of new parks and reserves yet The Greens know this will be the outcome.

Are we still expected to believe that this is an independent Inquiry and not merely a process of justification for a decision that has already been made?

It's already been noted that the inquiry is neither transparent nor open. What is clear, however, is that the Brack's government is transparently dishonest and manipulative.

THE Riverine Herald has as its front page lead today the story first brought to you here (cross posted at The Great Divide) about the crumbling VEAC Inquiry into the River Red Gum Forests.

http://www.rivheraldechuca.net/news_index.asp

If you want to keep up with the Victorian country news as it breaks, stick with us.

I told you there was a rebellion brewing in the bush.

A petition signed by almost 13000 citizens saying no to a national park in Barmah forest has been delivered to the Victorian Government demonstrating widespread community concern that a national park declaration would jeopardise the recreational pursuits of thousands and undermine the economies of towns such as Echuca, Barmah and several others.

Here is proof that Victorians are fed up with the declaration of National Parks created specifically to lock them out.

A SECOND Community Group representative has withdrawn from the Victorian Environment Assessment Council's River Red Gum Inquiry calling it an administrative fraud.

Australian Motorcycle Trail Riders Association vice president, Peter Ellard, said AMTRA could not support the inquiry when it was plain it had made its findings in advance.

"It's not an open, transparent process," he said.

"It's no more than a justification process for locking up more and more public land under the pretext of protecting biodiversity.

"This is the way the ALP and the Bracks Government treats local communities and user groups - with contempt.

"It's becoming crystal clear that the creation of more and more national parks is intended to cement the ALP's alliance with The Greens."

Mr Ellard slammed the VEAC councillors saying they were not interested in any practical or local knowledge.

"They claim our experience amounts to merely anecdotal knowledge which is unsupported by science. If you're not an academic they're not interested in anything you have to say," he said.

"The fact is, however, they never have anything new to say. The excuses being offered for a new park in the redgum forests is the same rhetoric used to justify The Otways park. It's becoming tired. They're working off the same worn old template. This is not an inquiry focused on the red gum environment."

Mr Ellard said he shared the opinion of Community Group representative, Audrey Dickins, who resigned last week.

He believed the VEAC councillors were out of their depth and were not equipped to preside over the process.

"Call it academic arrogance. They feign knowledge they don't have."

Mr Ellard said the dice were loaded against the community from the outset.

"In the draft discussion document it's made pretty clear that they are prepared to rely on the 'precautionary principle' which simply means that if they can't prove it's a threatened environment they will immediately assume that it is. That's the bottom line and there's no argument against it."

Mr Ellard said the Council was not concerned about the financial costs of a new national park even if it meant that it would not be properly managed.

"They seem to think that an intention to manage it properly is more important than the ability to do it."

"From our perspective we were wasting our time participating. We now know we were only there to make it look like there had been comprehensive community consultation when the decision to create a new park is announced."

THERE'S a whisper going round that the donkeys that inhabit the executive offices at Parks Victoria are running feral in the high country, stealing brumby mares and producing populations of wild mules.

That would explain the theory touted in this Herald Sun article.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20271584-2...

It would be nice to think these donkey bureaucrats could breed themselves out of existence but it's only a dream.

There are no feral mules in high country Victoria being rounded up by stockmen.

The Department Of Sustainabity And Environment is a dangerous institution.

It's like that many headed snake of Greek mythology, the hydra.

The sooner it is killed off, the better.

Under the guise of environmental sustainability it is leading the charge towards turning Victoria into a quasi-socialist state where private land ownership is becoming no more than an illusion.

http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/DSE/nrenlwm.nsf/LinkView/062AAA...

This is what happens when departments with three distinct roles are combined under one executive management. The inevitable attempt is made to force public land management policies on to private land owners.

This is happening now and it will be at your cost. If you don't want to take up the fight then, for your own sake, consider getting off the land now and putting your assets in your pocket where you'll be able to keep them safe, for the time being anyway.

We are trying to raise the alarm but are you listening? What will it take to wake you up, Victoria?

When you hear Environment Minister John (Twitter) Thwaites utter the following immortal words know that the end is near.

"No greater destiny does a landowner aspire to than to lovingly sustain the environment according to the dictates of our sacred native vegetation.

Should he and his family starve, or be reduced to penury, when their land is rendered devoid of all productive value, they will be remembered as martyrs of the glorious green revolution."

TWITTER THWAITES - Get your green hand off our farmland!

THE Victorian Environment Assessment Council's River Red Gum Forests Investigation has been derailed by the withdrawal of a key community representative.

Bush User Group representative Audrey Dickins said this week she had decided to withdraw from the process to avoid being used by VEAC as proof that it engaged in community consultation.

Other representatives are believed to be considering following Mrs Dickin's example.

"The consultation process is a travesty," she said.

"We, the Community Reference Group members, felt that we were being completely ignored at group meetings.

"It was blindingly obvious that our concerns were not being taken into account so from my perspective the process was a waste of time."

Mrs Dickins said she made her decision after reading a draft discussion document that inferred a preference for transforming the reference area into National Parks and Conservation Reserves with no consideration being given to maintenance of the status quo with improved management practices."

"That was the final straw. The process was supposed to be open and transparent but it was cloaked in secrecy," she said.

A letter attached to copies of the draft document sent to Community Reference Group members said:

"As for previous material provided to you we ask that you respect the confidentiality of the sensitive nature of this draft."

"That's an example of how open the process actually is," Mrs Dickins said.

"It was plain to me that the investigation was being carried out to support a pre-ordained outcome.

"If the state government actually wanted a genuine investigation it would have appointed people with substantial experience of this environment to conduct it.

"As it was we gained the impression that the council members had no real practical experience in land management, in our region at least, and that they were out of their depth."

Other Community Reference Group members include representatives of Timber Communities Australia, Trail Bike Riders Association. Gunnawarra Shire, Campaspe Shire and horse riding interest groups.

This story reveals one of the greatest injustices ever perpetrated in country Victoria.

Background.

Last week at a meeting with Moira Shire officials Nathalia dairy farmer, Ian Kuster, who removed 28 storm damaged trees from his farm, most of which were dead and the rest dying, was told he would have to replace them with 1080 new trees in a 10 acre paddock over which he would be ordered to place a permanent covenant.

Update.

He has now been officially notified of the order by Moira Shire's Enforcement Officer (an ominous new title) that he has been fined $536 for his actions.

In addition he must pay a $10,000 bond aimed at ensuring he carries out the ordered works and must also leave the the dead trees lying on the ground and build a new fence.

He is being forced to manage his own land as a quasi conservation reserve at his own cost and will not be compensated by the subsequent loss of its productivity.

The 1080 trees he has to plant will come at a cost of $6 each, a total of $6480. Add the fine of $536 and the $10,000 bond and Mr Kuster is up for an immediate $17,016, a sum this ailing 66 year old farmer will struggle to find.

If he decides to sell his property he has been informed by local property agents that he will probably have to reduce his asking price by $30,000 to compensate for the loss of the 10 acres he has to fence off and place under covenant.

Mr Kuster said today that at a meeting on his property last week the Shire's Team Leader (Enforcement) had attempted to bully him.

"He told me he was a former police officer of 35 years and was known as "The Enforcer."

Is "The Enforcer" the first of a new Victorian regiment of green Gestapo - a swaggering bully who takes pleasure in pointing out to landowners that their land is no longer their own?

Mr Kuster's plight highlights the outrageous nature of native vegetation clearing laws. Making even a reasonable management decision on your own land, which you work to own, could cost you dearly. It could even cost you your life's work and livelihood.

Yet the state laws that have been invoked against Mr Kuster may themselves be illegal. Professor of Law at Queensland University, Prof Suri Ratnapala, believes they are unconstitutional.

It is time for the Federal Government to intervene, seek advice from its own constitutional lawyers and, if possible, act to override these reprehensible laws.

The right of Victorians to the propietorship of their own land has been removed on the pretext of protecting native vegetation.

This is a consequence of green fascism at work in our community and it has to be stamped out.

Premier Steve Bracks and Environment Minister John Thwaites need to be told in no uncertain terms that this theft of private land will not be tolerated.

Remember this when the Victorian election rolls round in November.

THE rebellious mood in Country Victoria is growing.

Bundarrah Days has been gathering intelligence from locals living on the borders of Victoria's redgum forests who are disgusted by the alleged process of consultation by the Victorian Environment Assessment Council (VEAC) relating to a proposed national park in the region.

Local communities are so fed up with the lack of true consultation they have abandoned the process.

But, in the beginning and to their cost, they put their faith in it.

"We were sucked right in and we thought at least we were getting a fair hearing," one participant told us.

Last week they received a draft paper from VEAC which shows very plainly that community consultation and local opinion/knowledge is not worth a cracker.

Below are a few paragraphs taken from the draft paper which you, the public, are not supposed to see. Recipients of the draft were asked to "respect the confidentiality of the sensitive nature of this draft."

"The effectiveness of protected areas as a tool for biodiversity conservation receives general community support. However, some question whether protected areas are as cost effective at conserving biodiversity as other strategies such as prescriptive measures in multiple public land use state forest, and whether such strategies should take precedence over expanding the protected area network.

"This debate is not settled easily because a large-scale, long term experiment with the accurate monitoring of population trends at many sites with different management regimes would be required to provide independent, scientifically-valid evidence."

Who says the idea of protected areas as a tool for biodiversity conservation receives general community support? Affected communities are overwhelmingly opposed. Realistically there is no such thing as biodiversity conservation.

And what do they mean by saying the "debate is not settled easily." They settled it easily enough with the following:

"Such experiments would be costly, technically and logistically difficult, and require long time frames due to the long generation times of many species. Significantly, species may be put at an unacceptable risk if, for experimental purposes, they were under a different management regime to that thought to be the best for their conservation."

It's a funny thing about the Australian environment. Someone else always knows better than those of us who live in it so, true to form, VEAC quotes "international studies" but provides no references for further investigation. We're supposed to accept it as a "given" that alleged international experience is applicable to our territory. Isn't that the very same mistake that led to the wildfires that have destroyed millions of hectares of public land over the past three years?

"Despite these difficulties, international studies have found evidence that countries with a high proportion of protected areas have a lower proportion of threatened species, and in fact biodiversity conservation in these protected areas is around ten times more cost-effective that other approaches.... In addition, protected areas are likely to provide benefits for biodiversity conservation, even if it is not easily demonstrated (that is, working on the precautionary principal). For example, protected areas are likely to maintain elements of biodiversity that are not currently known and prevent (or at least minimise) future threats that might arise (which do not exist at present) from impacting an area and its values."

By this time you might suspect that the green inspired "precautionary principle" is about to be employed. And, you'd be right!

"In contrast, the basis of biodiversity conservation in, for example, state forests is that it can be achieved using management prescriptions and other measures. In this case the precautionary principal is reversed and the environment bears virtually all the risk when this approach fails....."

Remember, this is supposed to be a consultative process not a lecture on the bounteous benefits of locking up the land. Someone should have told them that.

"Also, extending the protected area networks does not mean that other types of biodiversity conservation actions cannot be implemented. In fact, protected areas are complementary to other strategies and the often form part of the overall package of biodiversity conservation initiatives. While protected areas are highly suitable for protecting certain types of species and ecosystems, they may not be suitable for other species and supplementary protective strategies may need to be implemented."

Supplementary strategies include the banning of recreational activities such as horse riding and camping.

VEAC does admit that there is an inability to properly manage locked up areas (how could they deny it?) but that problem is easily solved by stating that the intention is there even if the resources are not.

"One of the most common arguments against the extension of the protected area network is that biodiversity cannot be conserved when new parks are ‘locked –up, and the key is thrown away’, when actually, landscapes need active management due to past uses and because natural processes (eg., water flows) have been greatly altered. In fact, parts of the landscape often need active management at times due to the need for rehabilitation and to artificially provide for processes such as flooding, fire and pollination that may be absent. Although there are often insufficient resources to do everything needed immediately, the intention is certainly to actively manage parks and reserves as required. In addition to inadequate resources, the case may not have been adequately demonstrated for a particular type of active management and further research is required to clearly establish the need."

We are told here here that most weed species spread in response to disturbance. What a shame they haven't yet realised that our bushland relies on disturbance to regenerate and maintain biodiversity.

"the control of pest plants and animals is a priority in parks and reserves, with a large proportion of the Parks Victoria operational budget spent on these activities. Also, most weed species spread or germinate in response to disturbance, which is less likely inside parks, because disturbance activities such as timber harvesting, and grazing are generally not permitted."


The one form of disturbance that really kills our public land is wildfire caused by poor management and the lack of normal disturbance due to locking it up.

There has been no evidence provided at all in this process of an inexorable loss of biodivesity in these forests until now. That's why the "precautionary principle" has to be invoked.

They want to lock it up and lock you out just in case. If they were honest, however, they'd say the precautionary principle is only a convenient tool for booting you out of your own country.