(We) can do better

Were "Intact Aboriginal Cultures" really good "environmental custodians"? Not in North America Mate

james wrote:

Whilst I agree with nearly everything written by Tim, I have to take some
exception to what has been said of First Nations. Whilst one shouldn't overly romanticise aboriginal cultures, it needs to be acknowledged that, on the whole, these societies, where they have been left intact, have been good custodians of the environment. The fact that many North American Inuit, whose societies have been corrupted by our rampant 21st century free market growth capitalism, are now also engaging in ecological vandalism, does not negate this fact. James S. 18 June 08

Some myths just won't lie down and die. It doesn't matter how many facts are thrown at them. Facts like:

1. According to microbiologist Peter Salonious the agriculture of the North American indigenous peoples was not sustainable and a population crash would have culled them if a European conquest hadn't.
2. There are examples of how indigenous peoples wasted resources. Buffalo jumps, the stampeding of hundreds of animals over cliffs far in excess of tribal needs that strata examination shows were carried out centuries before European arrival. The extinction of horses before the Spaniards re-introduced them. The comment by David Suzuki that the only reason why the Haida did not chop down more Douglas Fir is that it took a full week to chop down a single tree with the axes they had. It was technology, not a spiritual reverence for nature, that constrained them.
3. Indigenous peoples in North America were tribalists like the Europeans. Go forth and multiply or a rival tribe will outbreed you and destroy you. Their numbers were limited by war, famine and shortage. But not by respect for limits.

Robert Whelan said it best. “We now know that native peoples can be as destructive of their environments as anyone else, and that historically aboriginal tribes often changed whole ecosystems by the repeated burning of forests and by hunting animal species to extinction. The noble eco-savage is a white , Western artifact. When policy issues, such as land rights, are decided on the basis of this misconception, it leads to disappointment…” (Wild in the Woods)

What it also leads to is a false sense of security. And this what makes this issue so important. So dangerous. Why? Because Aboriginals are being used. Just as environmental NGOs lead people to believe that the environment has a watchdog to look after it, Canadians believe that when Machiavellian logging and mining corporations name Aboriginals to their boards and form partnerships with them to strip the boreal forests that somehow the land will be protected because natives are genetically or culturally endowed with inborn wisdom to manage it. They believe this because they are taught by politically correct sociology professors and Green rhetoricians to think that is so. That is why it is important Anthropology 101 is not taught by Kevin Kostner, or that our image of natives is not conditioned by Hollywood movies like Little Big Man, Soldier Blue, and Dances with Wolves.

The repercussions of this romantic attachment to the myth of the noble eco-savage are the death of our planet. The boreal forest is being clear cut because these “noble wise stewards” are serving as PR front men for corporations who are doing it. The methane gas released by this logging will keep being released for the next 10 years and it is one of the worst GHG going. Must admit, it was a clever move for the companies to bring the natives on board. As Brishen Hoff shrewdly pointed out, it was very much the same as their trotting out Greenpeace founder Dr.Patrick Moore as a representative or spokesman to prove that their project is “green”. In British Columbia, Moore appeared for the big logging companies as a spokesman for the “Share the Stein Coalition”, and using the same formula, he has appeared as the token green voice for the nuclear industry.

To attack the native-corporate partnership is to also expose native complicity and greed. But political correctness will not permit us to do so. False anthropology has affixed a halo on their heads that we cannot knock off. The myth of their inherent ecological nobility is the political kryptonite which keeps the would be critics, the biologists and scientists of Environment Canada and maverick environmentalists at bay. Two attempts were made to challenge the myth. One was made in Canada by myself and Brishen Hoff in our article “The Myth of Wise Aboriginal Stewardship”. But the Thought Police saw to it that it was never published. Even conservative media ran for cover.

But in America, the First Amendment still prevails. And finally there is man who, I think, has knocked that halo clean off. A comment follows.

#FirstAmericans" id="FirstAmericans">First Americans, First Ecologists?

By Michael Medved, 18 Jun 08 (original at www.townhall.com)

Political correctness portrays untamed America before European invasion as a natural paradise, where Indians maintained an exquisite ecological balance, living in a harmonious, idyllic relationship to the natural world. According to conventional wisdom, this pre-Columbian Eden flourished for peaceful millenia until brutal disuprtion by thoughtless, menacing and mercenary white colonists. Stewart Udall, one-time Arizona Congressman and later Secretary of the Interior for President Kennedy, became an early advocate of this point of view in his influential 1973 article, “Indians: First Americans, First Ecologists,” urging modern citizens to follow the native example of treating the landscape with love and respect.

Udall's arguments received powerful support from the popularization of the moving speech of Chief Seattle, the Duwamish elder who addressed a meeting in 1854 in the raw settlement in Washington Territory that ultimately took his name. “Every part of this earth is sacred to my people,” Seattle supposedly told his listeners. “Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people.” Later, the aged sage assaulted the insensitive ways of the new arrivals. “There is no quiet place in the white man's cities,” he lamented. “The clatter only seems to insult the ears…I've seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a train.”

Actually, it's unlikely that Chief Seattle ever saw even a single buffalo, either rotting or otherwise, or ever looked at a train for that matter, since buffalo never lived in his verdant corner of the Pacific Northwest, and railroads (along with “the clatter” of white the man's cities) only arrived several decades after the alleged speech. His poetic remarks (immortalized in a bestselling children's book, “Brother Eagle, Sister Sky”) represent an internationally influential hoax-- a more or less whole-cloth invention by a screenwriter named Ted Perry for a now-forgotten 1972 TV documentary, based very, very loosely on an account in a Seattle newspaper (twenty years after the kindly chief's death) of a real talk he may (or may not) have delivered in his largely indecipherable native language to the drenched but respectful pioneers.

In the same era that school kids learned to memorize the bogus words of Chief Seattle, another aged Indian emerged in the pop culture with the sacred purpose of protecting the North American environment, and cementing the widespread image of Indians as eternal guardians of the sacred landscape. In 1971, a brilliant “Keep America Beautiful” public service announcement offered an eloquent plea for ecological consciousness, with the tag line “people start pollution; people can stop it.” The commercial showed garbage thrown from a speeding car landing at the moccasined feet of an elderly native in traditional garb who looks toward the camera with a fat, glistening tear flowing down his weather-beaten cheek. The actor featured in the commercial, a Hollywood veteran with the marvelous name “Iron Eyes Cody,” became famous for those few seconds of video, which easily overshadowed his more than 200 films (including Indian roles in “The Big Trail” with John Wayne (1930), “A Man Called Horse” with Richard Harris (1970) and many more. Iron Eyes became an impassioned advocate for Native American causes and a regular on TV talk shows before his death at age 95 in 1999. Only with his obituaries did the truth emerge about the cherished Native American symbol “Iron Eyes Cody” – whose parents (Antonio De Corti and Francesco Salpietra) both immigrated to the United States from Sicily, and possessed no hint of Indian blood.

The cherished notion of Indians as ecologically enlightened protectors of the natural order actually carries no more authenticity than Chief Seattle's ruminations on rotting buffalo or the purportedly Cherokee identity of the Sicilian-American “Iron Eyes Cody.” In a densely researched 1999 monograph from Britain's Institute of Economic Affairs (“Wild in the Woods: The Myth of the Eco-Savage”) Robert Whelan blasts the popular but puerile proposition that before 1492, Native Americans lived as blissful stewards of pristine environments they cherished and protected.

The truth is that native peoples, like all other aboriginal societies on the planet, did anything and everything to their surroundings that might help them to survive. “There is now a very considerable body of research,” Robert Whelan writes, “which demonstrates conclusively that the Indians made a massive impact on their environment before the arrival of the white man, and that much of this impact was damaging and showed no conception of a conservation ethic.”

For example, to hunter-gatherers who lived in temporary structures, trees constituted an impediment that separated them from the animals they wanted to eat. As forests grow, “The open savanna that once supported bison, elk, deer, antelope, beaver, bears, birds and wolves becomes the closed boreal forest inhabited by squirrels, ravens, and pine martens, but little else.” So naturally, the Indians (particularly on the Eastern Seaboard) did whatever they could to get rid of the leafy interlopers. Early white settlers expressed surprise to see vast tracts of forest deliberately wiped out: “The Savages are accustomed to set fire of the Country in all places where they come, and to burne it twize a year, vixe at the spring and the fall of the leafe,” recorded the Puritan Thomas Morton (an outspoken admirer of the Indians) in 1637. Lewis and Clark reported in their 1805 diaries that “Indians in the Rocky Mountains would set trees alight as after dinner entertainment; the huge trees would explode like Roman candles in the night.” In response to a 1992 earth summit, BL Turner and Karl Butzer researched the environmental impact of Native Americans, and found that “Deforestation in the Americas was probably greater before the Columbian encounter than it was for several centuries thereafter.”

In fact, in their pursuit of succulent suppers, Indians did a great deal of collateral damage, even driving some species extinct. In 1998, our family accepted an invitation to spend a few days at an historic Wyoming ranch where the couple that owned it took us on an unforgettable tour of their property. They brought us to a red-earth outcropping that rose like a wedge from the surrounding terrain. “This was an Indian Buffalo Run,” they explained. The local tribes developed a means to frighten huge herds of buffalo and to direct their stampede &endash;right off the edge of the cliff into a heap of meat more than a hundred feet below. There, awaiting tribesmen could collect as much of the carcasses as they could eat and preserve. They left the rest to rot, creating a mountain of bones still visible (and formidable) below us. Continued…

In 1989, the Vore family donated a similar Buffalo Jump to the University of Wyoming, and scholars have been poring over the scene ever since. In the 1970s, during construction of Interstate Highway 90, “less than 10 percent of the site was unearthed at that time, but the analysis revealed at least 20 bone layers which extend about 100 feet across the sink hole and nearly 25 feet down.” Because the bones had been preserved by annual layers of sediment called varves, scientists can precisely date the Indians' feasts, and easily glean information about artifacts, weather, and their dining habits.

Shepard Krech III, professor of Anthropology and Environmental Studies at Brown University, describes the Olsen-Chubbuck buffalo run excavation in southern Colorado where, five thousand years ago, two hundred bison “of a species one-third larger than today's” produced 50,000 pounds of meat&endash;and a total waste of the 25% of animals squashed in the bottom of the heap. “Archaeologists who excavated the site found skeletons massed on twisted skeletons, wedged in massive piles against piles and against the steep banks of the narrow gulch. The event probably happened in a flash.”

Tribes displayed neither tidiness nor restraint in harvesting various animals for food. University of Utah archaeologist Jack M. Broughton spent seven years sifting through the bird bones in a Native American dump near San Francisco Bay. “From 2,600 to at least 700 years ago,” a University press release announces, “native people hunted some species to local extinction,” and the animals only rebounded when the Indians became decimated by disease. Broughton's earlier research on Indians' quest for “anything big and juicy” turned up similar fates for fish such as sturgeon, as well as local varieties of elk, deer, geese, and ducks.

Anthropologist Paul S. Martin of the University of Arizona thinks the arrival of the first peoples to North America in prehistoric times meant the end for several big animals: “The basic facts are clear. People established themselves, colonized and spread into the New World at least by 11,000 years ago, if not earlier. And, at this time, large animals&endash;camels, and extinct species of horses, ground sloths, saber-tooth cats, in addition to mammoths and mastodons, and a dozen or two dozen more genera of large animals&endash;all go extinct at roughly the same time.”

Calvin Martin, in his fascinating Keepers of the Game: Indian-Animal Relationships in the Fur Trade, explains that Northeastern Native Americans (Objiwa, Hurons, Micmac, League Iroquois, Cree, Montagnais) developed religions that ascribed spiritual powers to all animals, including beavers, and held that each creature existed in a sphere parallel to that of man. The process of hunting, then, became far more than the physical mechanics of trapping and killing, but involved a spiritual interchange of consent and mutual respect. After fur trading began, when natives began to perish in great numbers due to disease, Indians assumed the beaver were exacting retribution against the humans for the plundering of their pelts&endash;leading to the conclusion that the natives could protect themselves only by securing the rodents' elimination. “By 1635, for example, the Huron in the Lake Simcoe area had reduced their stock of beaver to the point where Father Paul LeJeune, the Jesuit, could flatly declare they had none,” Martin writes. In a matter of several years, the beaver had been slaughtered to near extinction, as well as moose and other furbearers. Martin concludes, “The game which by all accounts had been initially so plentiful was now being systematically exterminated by the Indians themselves” with a desperate, cultic, religious fervor.

The baseless myth of indigenous peoples living in respectful balance with their natural surroundings and making no mark on the space they inhabited for thousands of years plays an important role in most allegations of Indian genocide, because it reinforces the image of Natve Americans as childlike innocents, no more capable of protecting themselves than the noble beasts they supposedly revered. This vision supports an image of explorers and colonists as intruders, despoilers and mass killers, with nothing to offer the pure, proud peoples of the New World except for disease and exploitation, corruption and decadence, and feeds the toxic argument that Americans should feel guilty about the very origins of our civilization.

Original at www.townhall.com

Michael Medved's article documents rather thoroughly that Native Americans as “stewards of the environment” is a useful myth. Worldwide, in fact, one has few examples of people becoming conservationists until their way of life is utterly threatened and conservation becomes a matter of survival. Some, such as the Easter Islanders, have not made the transition in time. The Pacific Island Yapese, by contrast, did begin to conserve and limit population size and fertility, but only after a long period of famine.

Europeans and European-Americans are as early as any to become low fertility conservationists. Indeed, in abolishing slavery and founding societies for the Protection of Animals they have gone farther, extending a level of compassion for all humans other species, that seems unique in world history.

I have one further observation. In my youth, I made contact with many members of the Communist Party of Canada. Some of them were former members of the American party who fled the United States during the McCarthyist persecution. I asked them why they became Communists, and they all talked about the obvious inequity and brutality of 1930s, and how socialism offered a superior alternative. I was very sympathetic to their attitude to life until I asked them about the Soviet Union as it was now (1970s). Surely it disappointed them. Not at all. They not extolled its virtues, but more than that, they denied any grave injustices under Stalin. And obviously, during the 1930s, they refused to entertain the notion that their utopian alternative was not entirely utopian. Malcolm Muggeridge wrote a lot about mentality. It finds its analogue among Christians who must believe in a paradise beyond this world. No criticism can touch this vision, for people have a desperate need to hold on to it. Michael Crichton spoke of environmentalists requiring a belief in an unspoiled “Eden” that existed before we corrupted it and will again exist once we have had our comeuppance. My thought is that the belief that Aboriginals were noble eco-savages falls into this same category. The Platonic need to believe in perfection. In greener pastures, a measuring stick against which we can hold this society to account. It is very demoralizing to learn, alas, that there are no greener pastures. We are oh so much alike. Every culture seems to be flawed. All of us programmed to push the limits. If you show me exceptions, they are far too inconsequential to matter. What humanity requires, perhaps, is a predator. I have never observed the local deer population standing around discussing how to effect Limits to Growth. They have delegated that task to the local wolves. Tim

A broadcast debate on the Canadian Broadcasting Commission between on the one hand Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which actively campaigns in the oceans of the world to preserve whales and other forms of endangered marine life and, on the other hand, Elizabeth May, now leader of Canada's Green Party showed two poles of North American environmentalism, one authentic and one counterfeit. Only the latter enjoys the hear of the official media and the patronage of the gullible who hand their dollars over in the belief that something is being ‘done’ about the environment. In fact, the purpose of environmental NGOs is to do nothing about the environment, to keep problems unsolved, so they have a raison d'etre. Watson is the only one who speaks the truth.

As always, the CBC gave the last word to the politically correct, soft green, growthist, Elizabeth May.

Paul Watson vs. Elizabeth May

The following is a transcript of a CBC interview conducted on May 17/06 with Paul Watson and Elizabeth May, now leader of Canada's Green Party. It was transcribed from a CD by Brishen Hoff.

Anna Maria Tremonte (host) : And the latest numbers show the population of the US grew by 2.8 million people from 2004 to 2005. Half of them identify themselves as hispanics. It is precisely those growth numbers that have some environmentalists raising concerns and raising hackles, arguing that immigration is central to the United States environmental problems. It's causing rifts among
environmentalists and raising lots of questions and that is where the current begins today.

[Theme music]

Well what began as a skirmish is looking more and more like an all out war. For months now an intense debate about immigration policy has been simmering south of the border. Earlier this month supporters of an open immigration policy upped the stakes as millions of people took to the streets in cities across the US. On Monday, President George Bush fired back announcing he was deploying the National Guard to the Mexican border, "We do not yet have full control of the border, and I am determined to change that. By the end of 2008, we will increase the number of border patrol officers by an additional 6,000. When these new agents are deployed, we'll have more than double the size of the border control during my presence."

#PaulWatson" id="PaulWatson">Interview with Paul Watson

Well as both sides dig in for a prolonged fight, those advocating less immigration have found an unlikely ally inside the environmental movement. Paul Watson, the one-time co-founder of Greenpeace, later the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, has thrown himself headfirst into the debate by challenging the environmental movement to come clean about what he says are the links between immigration, population growth and resource depletion. And Paul Watson is on the phone from Seattle this morning.

Good morning.

Paul Watson:
Good morning.

Anna Maria Tremonte : Why are you convinced that immigration is a problem for the environment in the United States?

Paul Watson : Well you know the United States has got one of the fastest growth rates of
any country in the world, and immigration is a major contributor to that. At
a growth rate of 1.3% a year, that's going to give us a population of 1
billion in the United States by the end of the 21st century.

Anna Maria Tremonte : And why is that bad?

Paul Watson : [LAUGHS] Well the average American consumes much more than the average citizen of other countries, so everytime you have a new American you increase the consumption of resources considerably. The US is also responsible for 25% of all the greenhouse gases emissions in the world, so more Americans, more pollution, more sprawl, more problems.

Anna Maria Tremonte : Well, but new immigrants aren't really the big energy consumers in North American society. Why do you focus on immigrants and not the stereotypical
Hummer-driving air conditioning American?

Paul Watson : Well we do do that too, but the fact is is that every year almost 3 million people are added to the US population and most of that is from immigration. In fact, all we're advocating is that immigration numbers be reduced to levels to achieve stabilization of population. By birth rates alone in the United States, you don't have that increase. Immigration is solely responsible. Not only immigration but births by immigrants, because the birth rate amongst immigrants is far higher than the birth rate amongst non-immigrants.

Anna Maria Tremonte : Why is that?

Paul Watson : I don't really know except that people who enter the country have a higher birth rate than people who are already living here. That's just an established fact.

Anna Maria Tremonte : Are you looking at the US and looking at where there is ecological/environmental damage and attributing it to how many people are living there? Is that what you're doing?

Paul Watson : Well yes, because everytime people come into the US they greatly increase their rate of consumption of resources. The other problem we're concerned about is that there is terrific damage being done especially in the desert regions of the southwest because of people coming over that border everything from garbage to trampling of species and this is not only done by immigrants but also by the patrols against the immigration. So there's that consideration to be taken into account. You know the problem is is that if we don't control the numbers of the overall US population, we're headed for some very serious problems. The United States is already running out of valuable resources especially water.

Anna Maria Tremonte : So, but is it a point of you just have too many people in one place in the US? What if they all moved to Missouri or something?

Paul Watson : No, I think generally its right across the board. But the other problem is that we have an acceptable form of slavery in the United States. When I was recently a director of the Sierra Club I put forth a motion that one way to deal with this is to demand that farm and factory workers wages be increased and that they be given full benefits and that would discourage a lot of the illegal immigration. But you know people don't really give much thought to the fact that in the fields of California, people are working in very toxic conditions for long hours, for low wages and no benefits and that's just really intolerable, and the only reason it's going on is because big business and big agriculture benefit from cheap labour.

Anna Maria Tremonte : So you're saying that you think the US should curb immigration?

Paul Watson : Yes I think that they should reduce the numbers to achieve stabilization of the population.

Anna Maria Tremonte : Specifically over the Mexican border?

Paul Watson : Right across the board, I don't really discriminate against the origins of where the immigrants come from, it's right across the board.

Anna Maria Tremonte : Now this has been a divisive issue in the Sierra Club. You resigned from its board last month, in part over this issue. Tell us about that.

Paul Watson : Well I resigned in part because of that and also because of the Sierra Club's pro-hunting stance. But the Sierra Club, as is most major environmental organizations have taken a neutral position which means "We don't want to get involved &endash; We don't want to talk about this." You know back in 1972 at the UN Conference On The Environment the population issue was the number one concern on the environment. By the UN Conference in Rio in 1992, 20 years later nobody is talking about it.

Anna Maria Tremonte : Why is that?

Paul Watson : Well, it's become too politically correct. Nobody wants to talk about it. I much prefer to be ecologically correct than politically correct. We have to deal with the fact that it's a contributing factor and we have to deal with the fact that population is the single greatest source for all of our environmental problems. From diversity of species, to pollution, to greenhouse gas emissions. All of this is because there's more and more people. And also, the more people, that means that we have to steal the carrying capacity of other species. They have to disappear for our numbers to increase. And we're going to reach a point where we are going to run out of key species and everything is going to collapse because of the ecological law of interdependence.

Anna Maria Tremonte : You, yourself are an immigrant.

Paul Watson : Yes, I'm a permanent resident of the US. I'm a Canadian citizen.

Anna Maria Tremonte : Aren't you part of the problem?

Paul Watson : Oh yes, we're all part of the problem.

Anna Maria Tremonte : What are you suggesting? Are you suggesting sending people back?

Paul Watson : No, I'm just saying that we have to reduce the number of people coming into the United States to achieve stabilization. That is, there's already limits, there is no open borders. So, I'm saying lower those limits so we don't have an increase in the population of 2.8 million people every year.

Anna Maria Tremonte : You know, reducing immigration doesn't reduce the population on the planet, just the population of the United States. Why not focus on the global population?

Paul Watson : Well we do focus on the global population but by reducing the number of Americans you're actually addressing the issue of consumption because US citizens consume much more resources than other citizens so when somebody crosses that border they become a mega-consumer. You know, maybe not right away, but that's where they're heading and so the more Americans, the greater the level of consumption of resources, the greater the emission of pollution.

Anna Maria Tremonte : Well, it's the environmental footprint right?

Paul Watson : Americans have the biggest environmental footprint of any citizens on the planet.

Anna Maria Tremonte : At the same time, immigrants have smaller environmental footprints in their countries of origin often because they're poor. So how fair is it to condemn them to poverty by not allowing them to enter the US?

Paul Watson : Well then, what you're doing is condemning the United States to poverty in the future, which is where we're all heading anyway unless we curb population. The other problem is that other countries are trying to solve their population surplus problem by pushing people into the United States. Also it's a brain drain too. A lot of people who could be making a contribution to their countries of origin are coming to the United States. And that's not solving problems in countries like Guatemala and Honduras where people should be helping to make things better in their country.

Anna Maria Tremonte : To what extent do you think the same issues apply in Canada?

Paul Watson : I think Canada also has a problem too because our population is growing and that means more wilderness area is being taken up. And my big concern is that as people come in, the sprawl increases, there's more and more impact on wilderness. I mean for instance we have this situation in the United States where they don't understand why the alligators are attacking people. Well the reason the alligators are attacking is we're moving into their territory, we're taking their ecosystems and they're trying to survive and everybody's saying "It's amazing, why is this happening?" Well because we're invading.

Anna Maria Tremonte : Do you think President Bush's announcement this week calling for National Guard troop reinforcements on the US/Mexico border is a step in the right direction?

Paul Watson : Oh I think he's just posturing. I mean, 6,000 National Guard isn't going to make any difference at all. Really what they should be doing is enforcing US law against employers of illegal immigrants and the key to that is to make sure that people couldn't hire illegal immigrants in the farms and the factories, that would certainly go a lot further to discourage illegal immigration. I mean we're talking here of legal immigration of 2.8 million people every year. But the other factor is illegal immigration which is anywhere from 11 to 20 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

Anna Maria Tremonte : But you want to see them cracking down on both essentially. Not only illegal, but you want legal immigration to be reduced?

Paul Watson : Yes

Anna Maria Tremonte : Paul Watson, thanks for talking to us today.

Paul Watson : Thank you.

Anna Maria Tremonte :
Paul Watson is the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. He was
also one of the founders of Greenpeace and he was on the phone from Seattle.
You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One and on Sirius Satellite
Radio 137. I'm Anna Maria Tremonte.

#ElizabethMay" id="ElizabethMay">Interview with Elizabeth May

Anna Maria Tremonte (conitinuing) : Well not everyone in the environmental movement agrees with Paul Watson's argument about the links between immigration and environmental degradation. Elizabeth May is a candidate for the leadership of the federal Green Party. She's also the former executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada, and she is in Syndey, Nova Scotia this morning.

Hello.

Elizabeth May : Good morning Anna Maria.

Anna Maria Tremonte : Well what do you think of what Paul Watson is saying? He says that anti-immigration opinion is something that environmentalists are afraid to talk about.

Elizabeth May : Well we've never been afraid to talk about it in Canada and as you mentioned I just recently stepped down as executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada and while I was there, we answered it across countries with a set of discussions and seminars and came up with what I think is a very good policy in relation to immigration and the interrelationships which are far more complex than Paul has suggested, between immigration, population pressures, consumption, militarism, women's rights. It's a very complex web, and to say that immigration is the problem is really to put the emphasis on something that is, when you really look at all the various factors, it's basically #trivial" id="trivial">trivial. I mean, only 3% of the world's population dies in a country other than that in which they were born and most of that migration is from developing countries to developing countries, not coming into North American consumptive societies, so the key factor here in environmental destruction, as Paul hints of course, is that North Americans consume far more than any notion of fair share and far beyond any sense of the carrying capacity of the planet. So when you have 4% of the world's population which is the United States, producing 25% of the planet's greenhouse gases, the answer isn't to make as George Bush seems to think, to make the United States a gated community and put guys with guns at the border so that we can protect, you know, the United States and protect a completely unsustainable and highly polluting and unnecessarily consumptive way of life to achieve the quality of life they want. There's other ways to do that and it means unhooking themselves from their extremely wasteful use of energy; it's not beating up on immigrants.

Anna Maria Tremonte : He says that global population growth used to be the global environmental movement's number one issue but it disappeared from the agenda in recent years. Why do you think that happened?

Elizabeth May : Well it's not quite like Paul &endash; it is true that I don't think there's any question that environmental groups are concerned about population increases. I mean, the doubling from 3 billion to 6 billion people occurred in my life time. The historic trend it is more than, you know, an astonishing reality that 2000 years ago the population on earth was 200 million people. It took 1500 years for that to double to 400 million, so there are exponential rates of growth. Population is a clear global issue of which immigration is merely a trivial factor, but when you look at the issue of population and why it is such a significant environmental threat, it's entirely linked to the question of how much is each person on earth consuming, and whether those rates of consumption are sustainable.

Anna Maria Tremonte : So where does global population growth rank then as a threat to theenvironment?

Elizabeth May : No, I think it's a huge issue, but it's very much connected to how much we're consuming. So if you figure what the carrying capacity of planet earth, maybe it's six billion people living like Ghandi or, you know, a couple hundred thousand living like Bill Gates. It's very much related to how much each person is consuming and how do we, you know, it's critical that North American society, because Canadians have just about as large an ecological footprint as the United States, it's critical that we reduce that enormous impact that we're having, otherwise the climate crisis is going to rather redress our standard of living for us.

Anna Maria Tremonte : So is it not true then that the one place that you don't want more growth then is a place like the US that already has such consumption?

Elizabeth May : The issue is really one that's far too complex to say the problem is more immigrants. If you look at Canadian environmental problems, our biggest increase in greenhouse gases and our biggest loss of boreal forest is happening in the Athabasca tar sands and that's not because of a mass migration of people from other countries rushing there and destroying the environment. That's immigrants like Shell and Exxon. So we have to look at what the real issues are and where we have increased sprawl which is a real problem, it's related to bad land use planning. It's related to bad policies that'll affect where immigrants settle and it'll affect where Canadian born settlement occurs. This is, actually, you know, everyone in Canada who isn't First Nations is an immigrant, we've got to deal with land use planning so that we're not building increased levels of suburban sprawl in areas which are critical wildlife habitat. That is happening in Canada. It is a problem, but curbing immigration is really focussing on the wrong, and rather trivial aspect of the overall problem.

Anna Maria Tremonte : How should countries then that rely on immigration for population growth balance that with environmental concerns?

Elizabeth May : Well it's really that for all of us we need to reduce the amount of energy we're consuming, the amount, and that's a basically a factor in increasing the efficiency of the way in which we use energy and raw materials. The global economy just to give you an example, produced in North America, achieved a revolution in productivity, in reducing the amount of labour per unit of good produced per unit of energy. It was just a huge efficiency in the number of people employed to produce goods. We need to do that again by reducing by a factor of ten, which is doable on the technologies that are available, the amount of energy we're using to get the same quality of life; the same lighting, the same heating, the same cooling can all be achieved at a fraction of what we're now consuming because we've underpriced raw materials and carbon and underpriced energy and we've overpriced labour, so we've skewed, it's all a question of responding to, really to, fiscal signals.

Anna Maria Tremonte : Paul Watson though is not alone in what he says. How much of a wedge issue is immigration amongst environmentalists in the US?

Elizabeth May : In the US it is and I think it's unfortunate because I know that Paul's motivations are completely honourable. People have attacked him as a racist or something. It's not the case at all. He's genuinely someone concerned particularly about the fate of non-human life on this planet and that is a critical concern. We're in a biodiversity meltdown. We're in an extinction crisis and by focussing on immigration I must say that's the most divisive and unhelpful way to approach the issue of what can humanity do to reorient ourselves on this planet so that we can both live in peace with each other and not destroy our life support systems.

Anna Maria Tremonte :Well how damaging do you think his line of reasoning is then to the image of the environmental movement?

Elizabeth May : Well it was fairly disastrous in terms of just the mere fact that Sierra
Club US was considering, because it's a democratic organization, by their constitution, they had to consider the referendum put forward by a minority of members to vote on an immigration policy. The immigration policyproposed, that Paul supported, was roundly seen by the membership of Sierra Club US, but I bet a lot of listeners right now are thinking "Oh yeah, I remember something about that, about Sierra Club US thinking that we should, you know, that we should, stop immigrants as if they were toxic waste". Well that is, you know, not an acceptable position but the mere fact that it was debated I think has done some long-term damage to the reputation.

Anna Maria Tremonte : If the US experienced a serious population decrease, how much would that relieve the pressure on the environment?

Elizabeth May : Well it depends on how much they're consuming. If the United States consumption of, particularly of fossil fuels, continues its current rate which, you know, if it's an advantage to reduce the population but if every family bought themselves an SUV or moved from an SUV to a Hummer, it would make no difference at all.

Anna Maria Tremonte : So what should US environmentalists who are genuinely concerned about population growth be doing to address this issue?

Elizabeth May : No, I think the key thing is to protect wilderness by having the kinds of laws that ensure that land use planning does not involve sprawl into areas which are critical and threatened ecosystems and at the same time we need to fundamentally re-examine the consumption patterns, our dependency on cheap and very highly polluting fossil fuels to improve and regulate vehiclestandards. You know, the Bush administration in addition to putting guards at the border to Mexico is in court fighting Arnold Schwartzenegger in California having these tougher laws to get better fuel economy from their automobile fleet. So, they're opposing those very simple straight-forward measures that would mean that every American driving would pollute less. So it's a really complicated web and I'm sorry I'm giving complicated answers but a simple solution is wrong when the answer is, when the question is complicated.

Anna Maria Tremonte : Elizabeth May, we have to leave it there. Thanks for talking to me today.

Elizabeth May : Thank you, Anna Maria.

Anna Maria Tremonte : Bye Bye

Elizabeth May : Bye.

Anna Maria Tremonte : Elizabeth May is a candidate for the leadership of the federal Green Party. She's also the former executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada and she spoke to us from Sydney, Nova Scotia this morning.

#Observations" id="Observations">Observations

May says that immigration, at 3% of the world's population, is “trivial”. Trivial to whom? To the workers whose jobs are displaced and whose wages are depressed? (Rubenstein, Briggs, Borgias). Trivial to the taxpayers who must pay for the social services of immigrants? (Robert Rector study, Heritage Foundation 2006, Grubel study, Fraser Institute 2006). Trivial to those who fight traffic gridlock, suffer pollution, housing shortages and inflated prices and loss of farmland? Is it trivial to the Israelis, the Spanish, and the Indians who have also resorted to building expensive walls to keep migrants out? Will the prospect of 300 million global environmental refugees be trivial?

May speaks of laws that ensure that land use planning will not involve sprawl into areas that are critical to threatened ecosystems. What kind of ironclad laws would they be? The kind that Portland, Oregon had? The kind that was supposed to keep Yosemite safe from mining companies? The kind that is supposed save the Steve Irwin Nature reserve? Bullshit. There is no sanctuary from human population growth. “Smart” Growth is a fraud and a snare.

May talks of vehicle standards and Bush's opposition to Schwartzenegger's fuel economy plans. The best fuel economy plan would be to reduce the number of drivers on the roads. With nearly 3 million of them entering the country every year by legal means alone, May's focus on tech efficiency is a joke.

“Everyone who isn't First Nations is an immigrant”. Give me a break. When is someone going to call May out on her racist self-loathing? The “First Nations” emigrated from across the Bering Strait, and one wave displaced another. Each tribe or band occupies land that was taken by the conquest or annihilation of a previous “First Nation”. I am a Caucasian but I was born in this damn country. That makes me as “native” as anybody. If there is to be a hierarchy of Canadianism based on seniority, then I am more Canadian than 80% of the aboriginal population of the country who are younger than I am. May continually makes reference to the inherent “wisdom” of First Nations peoples in matters of resource management, despite their appalling record. Would she make similar references to the inherent “cleverness” of Jews, or the inherent “rythym” of blacks, or the inherent parsimony of Scotsmen?

Tim Murray

See also: Sea Shepherd appeals for Greenpeace's cooperation in fight against whale slaughter
Were "Intact Aboriginal Cultures" really good custodians? of 19 Jun 08.

The Beginning

God himself
having that day planted a garden
walked through it at evening and knew
that Eden was not nearly complex enough.
And he said:
"Let species swarm like solutes in a colloid.
Let there be ten thousand species of plankton
and to eat them a thousand zooplankton.
Let there be ten phyla of siphoning animals,
one phylum of finned vertebrates, from
white-tipped reef shark to long-beaked coralfish,
and to each his proper niche,
and — no Raphael, I'm not quite finished yet —
you can add seals and sea-turtles & cone-shells & penguins
(if they care) and all the good seabirds your team can devise —
oh yes, and I nearly forgot it, I want a special place
for the crabs! And now for parasites to keep
the whole system in balance, let . . ."

". . . In conclusion, I want," he said
"ten thousand mixed chains of predation —
none of your simple rabbit and coyote stuff!
This ocean shall have many mouths, many palates,
many means of ingestion. I want
a hundred ways of death, three thousand regenerations —
all in technicolor naturally. And oh yes, I nearly forgot,
we can use Eden again for the small coral cay in the center.

"So now Raphael, if you please,
just draw out and marshall these species,
and we'll plant them all out in a twelve-hectare patch."

So for five and a half days God labored
and on the seventh he donned mask and snorkel
and a pair of bright yellow flippers.

And, later, the host all peered wistfully down
through the high safety fence around Heaven
and saw God with his favorites finning slowly over the coral
in the eternal shape of a grey nurse shark,
and they saw that it was very good indeed.

Mark O'Connor is an Australian poet, ecology writer and environmental activist. His website is www.australianpoet.com/poems.html

Posted by Sheila Newman on behalf of Mark O'Connor.

Tonight’s Insight program on SBS (June 17, 2008) –“Is Australia running out of workers” was very interesting about how we are now digging up and shipping out our minerals so fast, and so profitably, that other employers can’t compete with the wages paid by the mining companies. Employers are desperate for staff, but with unemployment currently low they can’t get workers at the wages, or the wages and conditions, they are able or willing to pay. (The most genuine case seemed to be the orchardist who had to leave several thousand dollars worth of mandarins unpicked because she couldn’t find pickers anywhere. Other employers seemed to be on the usual lurk of wanting the government to give them cheap workers.)

We are now so greedy that we want to ship abroad our mineral patrimony even faster than our existing workforce, with all the mechanical aids and vast machines now available, ­can manage. So the solution proposed by short-sighted business councils and some economists is to bring in ever more people to make up the shortfall in labor.

The result is of course that the extra workers will rapidly swell the population of Australia, so that the average Australian will own a steadily decreasing share of our mineral riches, which are themselves steadily decreasing. The future will be one of an unsustainable population in an impoverished continent –in a world beset by fuel shortages, climate change, and famines. And all for the short-term benefit of mining companies and those whose fortunes depend on a rising stock market.

Of course Jenny Brockie and her staff didn’t manage to see it in those terms. They took the reckless sell-off of our once-only mineral assets as a datum. Hence they also took as a given that there would not be enough workers in the country to service both the mining industry and the other more localized industries on which we depend for all sorts of supplies and services. And they also took as given that the mining industry would be able to pay rates other employers could not.

Granted all those unquestioned assumptions, they proceeded to examine quite rationally whether 457 visas (which it seems allow employers to pay about $10,000 on average less than they would have to pay Australian workers) were the best solution, or whether we should take in even more people as permanent migrants, or on the contrary run a guest worker system for Pacific migrants, or whether we needed to better train and motivate our own youth. The dishonesties and special pleading of employer organistions were fairly well exposed, and the CFMEU’s argument about it being no kindness to poor countries to take their skilled workers and doctors and nurses was respectfully examined.

But the underlying cause of the labor shortage, and the wisdom of selling off all your mineral assets as fast as possible, was not discussed.

Mark O'Connor

See also : Transcript of Insight program of 17 Jun 08 Labour Pains

The Australian Government is set to pass laws ending the single desk marketing of Australian wheat this week.

As reported by nineMSN, farmers have gathered in Canberra to protest the change. Wheat Growers Action Group chairman Peter Cannon, who helped organise the day of protests, said farmers were being dudded by the changes and wanted the public to know about it.

Wheat Export Market Alliance chairman Graham Blight also told the rally that growers' democratic rights were being ignored.

Without a single desk, "the weakest seller will determine the market", he said.

"The multinationals will come in and have a field day ... our government's given them a blank sheet".

Critics of single desk marketing have used the AWB/Iraq 'scandal' and one particularly heavy loss by Board to justify throwing out the whole single desk system. The opportunistic timing and predatory nature of their push for de-regulation is similar to the Disaster Capitalism modus operandi described by Naomi Klein in her book 'Shock Doctrine'.

The system preferred by many of these critics is - surprise, surprise - a free-market open-slather arrangement where the price of wheat can effectively be bid down to the lowest common denominator by the buyers. The buyers, in this case, would be the same sorts of multinational agri-business conglomerates that are lining up to market Australian wheat once the single desk is gone.

Not surprisingly, both Liberal (in the dubious form of Wilson Tuckey) and Labor (new Minister for Agriculture, Tony Burke) fully support the changes. Both operate in the mind-space of free-market economics, where any Government 'meddling' with the purity of the market is considered heretical.

Even when it helps Australian wheat farmers.

If there are problems with the way that AWB's been run, fix the problem. Don't change a structure that's served Australian wheatgrowers well for decades.

This is is a call for help.
The University of Western Australia wants to bulldoze rare bushland in the middle of our city for future property development. The Minister for the Environment David Templeman is soon to make his decision on whether 60% of this pristine 36 hectare bushland will be destroyed to make way for offices and housing.

David Templeman's contact details are:
The Hon. David Templeman MLA
Minister for the Environment,
Climate Change, Peel
29th Floor
St. George's Terrace
PERTH 6000

email: david-templeman[at]dpc.wa.gov.au

Please open the website www.blackcockatoorescue.com.

Once in there have a look at the site and click on UWA link.
Watch the videos and then click on the link to protest, on each vision or just one.
Make your comments known to the ministers and send it off.
Remember the ministers have not made their decisions yet so be nice.
We need all your help.
click for video
WE NEED TO ACT NOW AS THE DECISION IS NEAR, VERY NEAR.

Glen Dewhurst of Black Cockatoo Conservation team

These are lovely, intelligent, sociable and long-lived animals. To lose them would be tragic - and the situation already is tragic. (Ed.)

Poet pens a plea to stop population push

By Mark Uhlmann Assembly Reporter

(Growth Concern: Mark O’Connor)

As the federal and ACT governments preach the virtues of high population growth a few individuals are prepared to put an alternative view.

One of those is Canberra poet Mark O’Connor, co-author of a book soon to be published by Enviro Books called Overloading Australia.

The Stanhope Government boasted this week of increases to interstate and international migration to Canberra, but O’Connor said, “Canberra’s going downhill rapidly."

“We have this mad pro-development Government that tries to push more and more people into it.”

He said most people wanted Canberra “kept more or less the way it is”, but could not get representation for this view in the ACT Legislative Assembly.

Canberra’s present population was more than enough and Government programs encouraging more people to come were irresponsible.

At the very least there should not be an open-ended commitment to ever more suburbs, which was the case at present, he said.
The economy was dependent on more suburbs being built. The result was a declining quality of life for those faced with higher population densities.

O’Connor said “citizen disobedience” was now appropriate. For example, that we should not conserve water.
This would “only be encouraging (Chief Minister) Jon Stanhope to push us further into a position where come the next drought we’ll have an even larger population”.

Until the Government had a plan to cap the population, it was counterproductive to conserve water.

Across the country, population growth was being demanded as a necessary part of economic growth, putting an increasing strain on the infrastructure of cities.

Australia’s annual population growth was 1.5 per cent.

“The UN Population Fund regards 1.1 per cent as too high in Asia.” O’Connor said.

The growth was about half natural increase and half immigration. Immigration was at record highs and all the pressure from government and industry was to be even more irresponsible.

There was recognition by governments that greenhouse gases had to be cut, but by some trick that had to be divorced from economic growth, and the economy just had to keep on growing. “That’s an unsustainable position, that will come unstuck before long,” O’Connor said.

There was a “selective deafness in the media” on the population issue.

The president of the Australian conservation Foundation, Ian Lowe, had tried to raise the population issue at the 2020 Summit, but had been up against a belief that population growth and economic growth were good.

O’Connor said, “Unless you win this (population) battle, in the long-run every environmental battle will be lost.”

(Reprinted with the author's permission from From The Canberra Times Saturday May 24 2008 page 15 News)

On Radio National's Breakfast Show of 16 June 2008, Canadian Maude Barlow author of "Blue Covenant - The Global Water Crisis And The Coming Battle For The Right To Water" (RRP AU$29.95), broke yet more alarming news of yet another aspect of humankind's combined problem of resources scarcity and overpopulation, that is, the rapid ongoing depletion of non-renewable underground water supplies on top of our large-scale interference with the earth's natural water cycles.

In the interview (the audio file not yet available, will be soon made available here for about 4 weeks) Barlow gave a sobering catalogue of unsustainable water practices across the globe. These included:

• Much of the US is literally running out of water, and that the Colorado
  River/Hoover Dam system is failing;
• Water tables underneath southern India are rapidly falling as bore water pumps are running literally 24x7 to supply water for agricultural, domestic and industrial use;
• The ground beneath Mexico City is sinking as water beneath it is pumped out to supply the needs of its population;
• China is diverting massive amounts of water at enormous ecological and social cost in order to supply the world with cheap plastic artifacts such as shower curtains;
• The biggest killer of children in the world today is not AIDS, war or traffic accidents, but, rather, water-borne diseases.

She strongly opposed water privatisation as a solution to the problem. Whilst being in favour of placing an appropriate monetary value on water, she said that giving control of water assets to private corporations would only lead to those corporations being able to charge exorbitant rates to the rest of us and would most likely lead to the poor missing out.

As a general rule, Maude Barlow opposes measures to divert natural flows of water such as the Victorian Government's planned North South Pipeline to diver water from the Goulburn River valley to supply Melbourne's project population growth by 1 million (see www.plugthepipe.com).

In regard to desalination which is being more widely adopted around Australia, Maude Barlow suggested that instead of relying on such energy-intensive and ecologically questionable technologies that Australia, instead urgently consider ceasing the growth of its population. Without sustainable water supplies it is folly for a country such as Australia to continue to erect ever more high-rise buildings without sustainable supplies of water to meet the needs of their occupants.

See also
Against the flow of 7 Jun 08 in the Melbourne Age;
Mother Jones interview about Maude Barlow's previous book, Blue Gold;
Maude Barlow on the Global Movement of 27 Feb 08;
About Maude Barlow in www.canadians.org;
Reviews of Blue Covenant by Readings and The New Press

"The unprecedented fuel prices we are facing at the moment is adding unimaginable hardship to many in the transport industry, add the new Registration charges, fuel excise increases and driving hours regulation which now come with unreasonable fines and demerit points and compliance regulations, it’s not hard to believe that we are heading in one direction…….Bankruptcy"
Industry spokesperson and Southern Cross Party spokesman, Mick Pattel, 4 December 2008

European truck drivers and farmers and fishermen have been demonstrating for weeks in the face of high oil prices. Now, finally, Australian truck owners are taking action. And it looks like there is a new political party supporting them, The Southern Cross Party.

At a meeting in Toowomba on Saturday, owners and drivers from three states said that they could not remain in business because of administrative costs related to increases in fuel excise and vehicle registration.

This supply interruption has been a long time coming, as perusal of Industry spokesman, Mick Pattel's blog will attest.

"If the government doesn't come to the party, deliveries of bread, fuel and milk will be affected," say spokespersons, Sheridan Steinohrt and Mick Pattel

They also complained about new rules for managing driver fatigue, anticipating problems with demerit points, and describing pettiness over log book infractions and excessive driving times. The truck owners and drivers are down on the National Transport Commission, the national governing body, which they say does not contain representatives from the industry.

Owners claim that they can no longer recruit drivers because of all the rules.

Mr Pattel was reported by the Toowoomba Chronicle to have stated that he thought the action might go on for two weeks, but he thought that the government might come to the table just before the truck owners take action.

According to Fairfax-owned paper, the North Queensland Register, on 29-5-2008, in Reg Burton, "National Truck stoppage go ahead", Mr Pattel had quoted said a spokesperson for Federal Transport Minister, Anthony Albanese, as saying that "he didn’t know why the operators were worried as all they had to do was pass the cost on to the public."

The truck owners hope that the public will understand their plight and support them. Mr Pattel said that the industry was warning the public so they can prepare for an interruption to supplies.

The Toowoomba Chronicle reported that the intuitive Bob Katter, Federal Member for Kennedy, was supportive to the industry, agreeing that they "have no alternative but to take direct action." The Chronicle reported that Vaughan Johnson, Member for Gregory, and Ray Hopper, Member for the Darling Downs, were also present at the Toowoomba Meeting.

The Chronicle, however, made no mention of the surely cogent fact that Mr Pattel is a spokesman for the Southern Cross [political] Party. The Chronicle is owned by APN News & Media Ltd. We have, unfortunately, come to expect this kind of omission from the mainstream press.

("All but seven of the 36 regional daily newspapers in Australia are owned by just four companies: News Corporation, John Fairfax Holdings, Rural Press and APM News and Media. And all but four of the 39 non-metropolitan commercial television stations in Australia are owned by just three operators: Prime Television, WIN, and Southern Cross Broadcasting. And it's clear if media ownership regulations are further relaxed, greater concentration is certain." - Dianne Jones from the University of Queensland, in a program about changes to media cross ownership rules, which featured Toowoomba, on 5 October 2006, at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2006/1754395.htm)

According to their website, the Southern Cross Party is against the traditional party structure per se; it is for independents. It aims to be a party of independents. It voices reasonable and valid concerns about lack of democracy and about corporatised government affecting the access to and use of land. It is suspicious of climate change agreements and the weakening of local democracy by the distancing of political control and the abstraction of issues.

This list of demands was passed by a meeting of truck owners in Townsville on the 24th of May 2008, the additions 16,17, were added at Toowoomba Meeting 14th June 2008. (Information from: http://southerncrossparty.com/blog/2/feed)

"Not Negotiable

1. Disbanding of the National Transport Commission immediately.

2. No electronic recording systems, or work dairies.

3. No changes in the present log book format.

4. No demerit points on log books, or driving hours regulations.

The full list, available at http://southerncrossparty.com/node/783 is

Road Transport Shutdown 2008 List of Demands
Sun, 05/11/2008 - 17:39 — Mick Pattel

This list of demands have been passed by the meeting in Townsville on the 24th of May 2008, the additions 16,17, were added at Toowoomba Meeting 14th June 2008
Not Negotiable

1. Disbanding of the National Transport Commission immediately.
2. No electronic recording systems, or work dairies.
3. No changes in the present log book format.
4. No demerit points on log books, or driving hours regulations.
5. Recoupment of demerit points for professional drivers who earn their living from their licence to be reduced to 12 months not the existing 36 months.
6. No penalty to drivers exceeding prescribed driving time when attempting to reach a vacant heavy vehicle rest area or when marginally over driving hours in compliance with defacto hours proposed under the new NTC ruling for all drivers irrespective of participation of fatigue management programs, and in any case ‘reasonable defence’ is to apply where compliance is not possible.
7. All fines for logbook breaches to be capped at an agreed fixed amount and relate to safety breaches only.
8. All fines and loss of demerit points for logbook breaches to be rescinded, fines and points to be reimbursed, all licences lost as a result of this legislation to be reinstated to previous status.
9. No increases or changes in registration charges for any truck or bus over 4 tonnes, charges to be set in concrete at current levels.
10. No increase or indexation of fuel excise.
11. No fuel based carbon charges or taxes.
12. No changes or variations to the Federal Fuel Energy Grants Scheme or to the State Bulk End User Rebates both of these are to remain in place indefinitely.
13. Authorities to endorse a driver intercept report sheet to create a reporting system to identify rude and unethical enforcement officers.
14. Main Roads Authorities in all States to construct and maintain all weather road train termination pads of adequate size.
15. A priority funded program to provide all weather heavy vehicle rest areas that are designed to provide adequate parking and amenities for the different truck trailer configurations according to truck traffic density.
16. That the log book period be changed from any 24 hour period to midnight to midnight on any calendar day.
17. That an inspection by an officer of either Queensland Transport or the Queensland Police Service of a drivers log book cannot be inspected past 14 days prior to the interception date.

5. Recoupment of demerit points for professional drivers who earn their living from their licence to be reduced to 12 months not the existing 36 months."

Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) and allied groups have launched an ad campaign to draw attention to the environmental devastation caused by continuing population growth. The ads will appear in major publications across the nation.

"Loss of open space, increased traffic congestion, never-ending sprawl—these are all consequences of a growing population. Habitat loss due to population growth is, by far, the greatest threat to wildlife," said Diana Hull, the organization's President.

"Population growth is overwhelming the gains that the United States has made in energy conservation and protection of critical wild lands. Water shortages and energy shortages result, in part, from the increased demands of an increasing population, yet we are ignoring this half of the equation. Americans do not want the increased crowding and resource depletion, but it is being forced on them by politicians," Hull continued.

The United States now has a population of more than 300 million, and projections indicate that it will soar by another 100 million in 30 years. If no action is taken, the U.S. will face a population of at least 600 million people by the end of this century. While other developed nations have stable populations, the population in the U.S. continues to grow like that of India and China.

More than 80 percent of the nation's population growth results from immigration and births to immigrants. In California, immigration accounts for virtually 100 percent of the population growth.

This national ad campaign by CAPS and its partners in America's Leadership Team for Long Range population-Immigration-Resource Planning is part of a long-term plan to raise public awareness of the
extent of the nation's current population growth, the consequences of that growth on myriad environmental and social problems, and the policies that produce the growth.

The ad which shows a bulldozer as "one of America's best selling vehicles" can be viewed
here.

CAPS home page

Toll-road operator, ConnectEast, has only one asset, a 39km motorway running from Mitcham to Frankston, at the cost of $3.5billion. In "A testing time for ConnectEast," The Australian Financial Review on 12 June 2008 reports that ConnectEast's shares are at their lowest value ever, just as it is about to open the toll-way, five months early. AFR Journalist, Chanticleer, thinks this is part of the 'thrashing' handed out to the 'debt-laden infrastructure sector in general'.

This is yet another private-public pet State Government project. The Victorian State Government's bias for new roads is looking sillier and sillier in the light of peak-oil, yet it continues to ram these costly anachronisms through against all kinds of public protests.

We reported on this toll-way in "Roads to Wildlife Extinction", where a proposed route for a bypass threatens to cut through a major flora and fauna reserve and to bisect the Mornington Peninsula, ruining plans for wildlife corridors in the area.

Transurban, is also sinking fast on the share-market. This is the company behind the unpopular tunnels in the Victorian EastWest link, which includes an 18km road tunnel linking the Tullamarine and Eastern Freeways and a 17km rail tunnel linking Footscray to Caulfield. These enormous automobile-intensive and invasive works have sparked massive protests, despite the fact that the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, just 'kicked in' $12 million to help

Rudd's contribution comes under what everyone in the government and the mainstream press is referring to as
"nation building'. This quaint term is creepily colonial and one wonders why our leaders have accepted to mouth such clunky terminology, then one remembers that they are clunky leaders.

Anthropologist John Posthill has devoted an entire book to the term, and here is an apt quote for what's going down in Australia:

"The notion of nation building is no less problematic than that of nation. This term has long been marginalized from serious Western social theory for its association with modernization theory (Smith 2004:195, cf.Deutsch and Foltz 1963, Deutsch 1966). The latter had its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s as the U.S. government recruited scores of social scientists in its efforts to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of Third World populations in rivalry with the Soviet Union and China. Modernisation became an elastic notion used by U.S. academics and policy-makers to explain the persistence of traditional ‘mind-sets’ and ease the transition to market-driven, ‘democratic’ regimes in the post-colonial world. In other words, it was used to promote a form of nation building modeled on an idealized United States (Latham and Gaddis 2000). In Vietnam, ‘the other war’, the propaganda war over hearts and minds, was fought and lost by American social scientists who failed to agree on a nation building strategy for that country (Marquis 2000). At present, the term is often used in the Anglophone media and popular scholarship with reference to America’s half-hearted attempts at ‘reconstruction’ in occupied countries such as Afghanistan or Iraq (e.g., Ignatieff 2003)."
Source: John Postill, Media and Nation Building: How the Iban Became Malaysian, Berghahn Books, 2005

At the elections of 15 March pro-developer councils were trounced in Redland City and on the Sunshine Coast, but this popular rejection of over-development means little to the State Labor Government of Anna Bligh and the property developers she serves.

On Thursday 5 June the Bligh Government announced its intention to push aside objections from the Redland and Sunshine Coast Councils in order to fast track developments in 17 South East Queensland sites purportedly to “improve housing affordability”. Of course, the obvious measure of selling land directly to the public in order to spare them the cost of extravagant developers' margins, as suggested by at least one correspondent to the Courier Mail recently, has not been taken up.

On 9 June Anna Bligh announced further measures to clear impediments to housing development in South East Queensland. The Courier Mail article Green Space Land Grab reported:

The Bligh Government is set to take the brakes off urban sprawl by making it easier for developers to build on South East Queensland's precious open green space.

Just three years after the Beattie government put protections in place to control rampant development in the region, a review of those controls is now flagging big changes.

Among them is a proposed expansion of the so-called “urban footprint” in a move that would allow new housing and commercial developments to sprawl beyond the existing boundaries.

Against previous undertakings to allow local communities plenty of chances to have their say on future planning, it was announced that discussion of the expansion of SEQ's urban footprint into surrounding green spaces would be kept secret until the release of a draft plan in December, supposedly because this knowledge is “commercially sensitive”.

The office of Urban Management, which was set up with the stated goal of keeping rampant development in check, has been abolished. (The link to www.oum.qld.gov.au returned with the Google search term "Office of Urban Management" is now redirected to www.dip.qld.gov.au/seq.)

This accelerated development is proceeding well ahead of infrastructure upgrades necessary to accommodate the extra population. Earlier on 5 June it was reported in the Bayside Bulletin story Transport projects “too far away” that Redland City Council had raised concerns over the long wait for public transport and road upgrades which could be 10 to 20 years away. On 2 June the Bayside Bulletin story Call to upgrade roads reported growing traffic congestion in the Redlands area and increasingly long travel times along the major routes to Brisbane.

On 5 June, on hearing of the new state Government mandated developments in the Redlands area, a local taxi driver in a post to the Bayside Bulletin wrote:

Our state government has learnt absolutely nothing about infrastructure being in place before known growth - pushing for SE Thornlands development 11 years before an upgrade of the Cleveland-Redland Bay Road in 2019 is absolute stupidity. Redlands voters will have much to remember, none of it good, at the next state election.

Sunshine Coast Mayor Bob Abbot said it was “madness” to turn big areas of land into housing estates when proper transport links had not been established.

The expansion of the urban footprint was made in spite of assurances only two years ago that there was already enough land within the existing urban footprint to acommodate growth.

Bligh claimed that the fast tracking of the review was prompted by the new population forecasts showing that the region was likely to be home to an extra 1.5 million people within 18 years.

The ‘new population forecasts’ undoubtedly were the direct result of Federal Immigration Minister Chris Evans' announcement on 14 May of a massive increase of the annual immigration to 300,000. Both the Queensland Government and the pro-population-growth Courier Mail have been curiously silent on the increased immigration rates. As one example, for a whole week following from Friday 16 May, when a single opinion piece in favour of Pacific Island guest workers was published, there was a news blackout in the Courier Mail as its pages were full of stories about the chaos caused by existing population growth. This was in marked contrast to the reporting in The Australian (the national newspaper) which, like the Courier Mail, is owned by US citizen Rupert Murdoch. All along The Australian has stridently pushed the pro-immigration barrow.

It's as if both the Queensland Government and the Courier Mail don't want the Queensland public to draw the link between high international immigration into Australia and the resultant inter-state immigration which Bligh insists makes her trampling over the rights of Queensland communities necessary.

See also: More chickens of population growth come home to roost in Queensland of 14 May 08, How to end the Queensland economy's addiction to population growth? of 26 Apr 08, Courier-Mail beats up on public for complaining about cost of 'progress' of 14 Apr 08, The Australian laments outcome of Queensland local government elections of 30 Mar 08.

How do the politicians and the CBC define prosperity?

It is time we ask ourselves: Has this ”progress“ called ”Economic Growth“ (of which population growth is the main factor) really made our lives better? Politicians say it improves our lives. The CBC's host of ”The Sunday Edition“ Michael Enright said on his June 7, 2008 radio show that we need immigration-driven population growth in order to ”prosper“.

I would like to know what his definition of ”prosper“ is. Does Enright think that prospering means converting hundreds of thousands of hectares of Canadian land from biodiverse ecosystems into new roads, subdivisions, clearcuts, malls, parking lots, and open-pit mines to accommodate about 250,000 additional immigrants every year? Does that make life better for the average Canadian? Has real wealth per Canadian increased?

When I was born in 1980 there were only 24 million people in Canada. 28 years later, would a middle class person be able to afford more quality and quantity of real resources now than in 1980? I don't think so. In 1980, a middle class person could easily afford a 40 hectare hobby farm where the climate is mild such as Southern Ontario. Today, you'd have to be upper class to have that.

In 1980 the furniture that the average person bought was made from solid wood, not particle board with a glued-on veneer that peels off when wet.

The lesson: ”Economic Growth“, or increasing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) does so by increasing the population, which explains why it results in less real wealth per person. More people means less space and resources per person. No wonder ”progress“ has made life worse for the average Canadian

.

Brishen Hoff, President of Biodiversity First
(biodiversityfirst.googlepages.com/index.htm)

See also: Living standards and our material prosperity 6 Sep 08 concerning the quality of life in Australia

In a Submission to the Select Committee of the Legislative Council on the Impact of Peak Oil on South Australia
Summary, the South Australian Farmers Federation has stated that, and I quote, "The rise in 'Peak Oil prices' has had a significant affect on the farmers and rural communities in this state."
They explain that the effects have been experienced as:
"• Higher costs of farming and using machinery
• Higher costs of farm inputs as a result of petroleum products used in their production, for instance fertilizers
• Higher freight costs
• Supermarket Duopoly forcing farm gate prices down
• Higher transport costs affecting rural families for basic social activities for sport and relaxation
• Drop in volunteer labour due to travel costs

In their executive summary they state:
"Unless something is done quickly to address this situation there is a danger of farmers leaving the land and food production dropping. Recently the UN stated that lower production in developed countries and rising demand for food could cause serious global problems due to food shortages.
It seems incongruous to the SAFF that given the world wide situation that our farmers are finding it so hard to make even a reasonable living, when market forces should be driving the price they receive for produce up, not holding it down at a level below the increase in costs.
The South Australian and Australian markets need to be reviewed as a matter of urgency to ensure that fair market forces are allowed to operate in the state so that producers can earn a fair return for their effort and ensure their future viability."

The submission-writers recommend "that the South Australian Government:

• Review the fuel excise system with a view to reducing the excise levied on fuel
• Invest in research into viable alternative fuel sources.
• Create a system that ensures the supply of fuel to the state in general and to farmers in particular at crucial harvest / sale times
• Review the current system of moving freight, looking for an innovative new approach that can benefit all industries in the state
• Undertake a program to improve the ability of rural people to travel to basic family activities such as sport and recreation as well as other necessary travel
• Ensure the elderly in rural areas are supported to reduce the cost of travel to essential appointments
• Volunteers are supported."

Full submission is available here.

(illustration by Sheila Newman)
In “Population grows at record rate", an article by Tim Colebatch, The Age, June 6, 2008, an Australian journalist has once again been given license by the Fairfax Press to frame Australia’s overpopulation problem as some kind of triumph.

In an article akin to the spin used to sell large bags of potato crisps and sugar, caffeine and phenelalanine-laden soft drinks to adolescents, Tim Colebatch sells overpopulation to Age readers.

Whilst relating the latest ABS statistics, the journalist chooses resoundingly positive terms for this undemocratic and frightening complex phenomenon:

Australia “turned the corner” into 2007 by having ‘almost 21.2 million people'.
In Victoria, the state’s population grew by a “record” 82,430 people. Tasmania “reached a milestone” and is ‘now “on track” to reach 500,000 residents’

Portraying this bizarre engineered growth as some kind of race for supremacy, Colbatch comments that Victoria “lost slightly” ‘in net migration flows to other states.’ ‘Queensland (+25,647) was the “big winner” from interstate migration, as usual, while NSW (-24,028) was again the “big loser”.’

The article concludes with some of the costs of population growth in Australia, but without portraying them as costs. In contrast to the hyped up descriptors for the growing numbers, journalist Colbatch leaves right for the end a peculiarly unemotional account of some of the suffering involved:

“The rapid population growth is driven by business recruiting ready-trained skilled workers from poorer countries rather than training Australians. In the six months to April, almost 100,000 temporary workers arrived, while the Government has just increased the quota for permanent skilled migration from 102,500 to 133,500. Critics point out that there has been no increase in housing supply, so the arrivals are intensifying the housing shortage and helping to drive up rents.”

There is no warning of how the extra people will affect the chances of Australians to weather oil, soil and water depletion.

The statistical news is actually unrelievedly awful, especially as related with ghastly flourishes like these for Victoria:

‘VICTORIA's population has “soared” to more than 5.2 million, with the Brumby Government "claiming the biggest growth in 35 years”' and ‘Treasurer John Lenders said the figures were "an endorsement of our Government's record investment in making Victoria the best place to live, work and raise a family"’.

No mention at all of the growth in groups all over Victoria and the rest of the country protesting at the loss of democracy and control over their environments. This is not reporting. This is propaganda, pure and simple.

Please circulate this article to help to counteract mainstream-media propaganda for population growth.

India: Oil prices to increase by 11%
Diezel goes up by 9%
Cooking gas goes up by 17%

The Indian Government is reported to fear that the price of oil may cost it the next election_#main-fn1">1.

Such are the politics of petroleum. There is nothing it does not touch.

The 'rich countries' appear to have much more of a buffer than most of India, but their road transport and agriculture industries are already in trouble. It is well-known that starvation is never far away for many people in the tropical Asian countries, but less well-known is the large class of people living in precarity elsewhere, especially in the Anglophone countries.

In London around 10,000 finance workers have lost their jobs this year and it is anticipated that perhaps up to 40,000 will lose their jobs in the current months. (France2 8pm News, 21 May).

In "Job loss a sure road to skid row"_#main-fn2">2 in the Herald Sun of Tuesday May 27, 2008, it was reported that a Citibank survey showed that, in Australia, "one in two workers would face financial ruin within four weeks of losing their jobs;… almost 20 per cent of workers would not last a week. Only one in four workers would be able to survive more than three months."

Some 'rich countries' don't know when to stop and part of their population is sliding ever so quickly into third world status. For instance, the Australian government has become a 'banana republic' massively endebted and engaged in energy-intensive infrastructure expansion programs everywhere. Under the behest of the Australian academy of Technology and Engineering Sciences, the Property Council of Australia, The Australian Population Institute, and its own state governments, all heavily peopled by big development lobbyists, Australia is trying to double its population as soon as possible, planning new megacities. For these 'programs' of infrastructure building and population increase, worker, business and family reunion immigration have been stepped up, and families receive baby bonuses for having children, just as though the days of cheap oil were just beginning, instead of in their twilight. Yet, as in the USA, evictions and personal debt are sky rocketing.

And really, what is three months security in a century of oil depletion? Who is safe? We all need more solidarity. France, so far, shows the best example.

Sheila Newman

Footnotes

#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. #main-fn1-txt">↑ Rhys Blakely, "India concedes in battle to keep oil price down", The Times, 6 Jun 08

#main-fn2" id="main-fn2">2. #main-fn2-txt">↑ Craig Binnie, "Job loss a sure road to skid row" in the Victorian Herald Sun(Australia) of 27 May 08

France will soon become President of the European Union.

The French Parliament is scheduled to vote on the first of a new set of environmental laws, springing from an environmental summit - La Grenelle - profoundly reviewing the state of the Environment, before mid July 2008.

During the French presidential elections, which Sarkozy won, he promised to hold an important environmental summit founded on an historic 1968 one, Les accords de la Grenelle. The 1968 Grenelle (Summit) is remembered for having led to a 25% increase in social security benefits, marking the beginning of the famous “social dialogue” in France.

On France2 Public News of Thursday June 5, Nicolas Hulot, film-maker, t.v. star, and ecological militant, head of the Nicolas Hulot Foundation for Nature and Man, was asked to comment on progress made since the recent French summit on environmental law, which his Foundation provided much of the impetus for. Hulot said that the proposed laws were, “too little and too slow,” and he commented on the amount of resistance and lobbying.

He said that he must be careful not to disrupt a good dynamic. “In France’s summit we got a sum of objectives and measures that we have never had before and we are in a position that no country has been in before ; the country has come together and is readying itself for action, so I have to be objective.” He added, however, that France still has to look at things as they are and not kid herself.

“At the moment every environmental indicator shows that the situation is accelerating, so that, whatever becomes of the summit objectives, anything we achieve will be a catch-up.”

“A number of things agreed to in the Summit have lost ground, for example carbon taxes have been delayed … And, renovation of old buildings - because new construction is only 9% of the building stock - the rest is all old - renovation of old buildings was supposed to become the standard. And green wedges; there were supposed to be connections between all the ecological zones; this was supposed to be put in place, but it hasn’t happened. These things could be brought up the list again by the members of Parliament (les deputés).”

Hulot said that he hoped that Members of Parliament would not descend into the depths they did over Genetically modified crops law, and instead will vote responsibly together by unanimously voting the Environment summit law (la loi Grenelle)… and perhaps bring some things forward, because so much has been scheduled too far ahead, to 2015, 2020 etc.

Hulot was asked by the announcer on the French News: “It’s true that the context of things has changed, the process has accelerated. Take for example, the cost of petroleum, would you accede to the demands of the occupations that are angry about this… by softening the taxes to reduce the amount they pay?”

Hulot: “Of course not, although that is easy to say if one is not specifically suffering. The point is that everyone needs to get real. We are now in food crisis, energy crisis, crisis of natural resources and primary resources, all combined with the economic crisis, bringing us to one of the greatest crises that the world has ever known. So, what do we do? Do we wait until we run into dead-ends everywhere, or do we take strong measures? France cannot all by herself be virtuous.”

She could, however, improve the situation by leading the European community.

“France could do it with La Grenelle… correcting and enriching a number of provisions. She could find legitimacy at the moment when she enters the Presidency of the European Union to lead our partners into still more structured measures…more radical…”

Asked to talk about petroleum in this context, Hulot, exclaimed, “Excuse me, but on Petrol, we still don’t have a Plan B. Petrol has still not hit bottom. We cannot take short term measures permanently. Petrol is going to become rarer and rarer and therefore more and more expensive. Therefore, for example, in a number of sectors regulation will become necessary, and probably reconversion.”

The announcer asked, “So there is no point in trying to soften the pain of high prices in petrol…?”

Using the French metaphor, ‘Reculer pour mieux sauter’, Hulot said that, “We have to step back in order to be able to advance all together. To move in a united way.”

He was then asked, “But what should we say to the occupations that are hardest hit?”

Hulot: “Well, in the first place you have to look at their problems case by case, for instance, in fishing, 3 or 4% of the sector is responsible for the greatest draw-down on oil … this can be discussed…For road transports, we need to look at the overall transport situation …We cannot only look at road transport alone. All cannot be as it was before. If people think that everything can go on as it has done, and we react constantly in crisis mode, we are going to finish up in a massive recession. We know that those who will be hit hardest are those who are already in difficulty. For example, the fishing industry, agriculturalists, and truckies..”

“Now we need a real Marshall Plan, at the level of France and Europe, to orientate massively our investments in our economies for this transition, and for solidarity (mutual cooperation).”

(re-edited 7 June for clarity.)
Source: France2 8pm television news of 5 June 2008; "Grenelle de l'Environnement: Nicolas Hulot veut que le projet de loi de programmation soit "amendé à la hausse"", AP, 05.06.2008, 12:57 and "Le Grenelle de l’environnement, mode d’emploi", http://www.biodiversite2012.org/spip.php?article228, 12 February, 2008
Journalist and Translator: Sheila Newman

I suppose it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Canada’s social democrats have not experienced an ideological epiphany in the past seven months. One might recall that New Democratic party (NDP) premier Lorne Calvert in calling an election for November 7th declared that growth was a good thing so long as its “benefits” were shared.

This revolutionary statement was made to distinguish social democrats from the growthists on the right who simply promised that growth’s benefits would “trickle down” to the less fortunate without state intervention. But between them was complete unanimity that growth should proceed. The boreal forest would continue to be clear cut no matter how timber royalties were spent, potential farmland would be sold for housing, wetlands would be cleared for development and uranium mined.

In a speech given 22 May 08 to the Shepherds of Good Hope, NDP leader Jack Layton revealed that his party had not changed its attitude to growth:

“As a country, we have a responsibility to ensure that no member of our society is denied the essentials of life. But today, we are seeing a very disturbing trend in Canada: the growing gap between the rich and everyone else. More wealth (sic) is being generated than ever before—but that does not mean that everyone is better off. In fact, the opposite is true. The reason is pretty clear―the benefits of economic growth (sic) are not being shared equally among all Canadians.”

Oh Jack. So that’s what’s wrong with economic growth? Just that its benefits are not being shared equally among all Canadians. Well they certainly weren’t shared equally in NDP British Columbia, NDP Saskatchewan and NDP Manitoba. All three provinces recorded the worst child poverty rates in the country. And homeless people were out on the street in force in the latter half of the nineties in BC too, during the NDP reign. The growing gap between top and bottom income levels also rose during their tenure. Analysts even on the left also report that the gap between social classes or at least regionally between north and south actually grew under Tony Blair’s centre-left government. Clearly there is a gap between the rhetoric of social equality and its delivery. And just as clearly, economic growth is not the mechanism of that delivery.

Seldom factored in as wealth are the 33 trillion dollars worth of biodiversity services that the planet provides free of charge to support human life. Services which are daily being destroyed by relentless economic growth.

But I thought what was wrong with economic growth was what it did while it was “growing”. Eating into natural capital and destroying real wealth in creating the “wealth” that Mr. Layton defines as such. For what is “wealth”? Is it the toys we accumulate with all this economic activity? The consumer goods, the cars, the furniture, the sparkling new housing units? What is it? Seldom factored in as wealth are the 33 trillion dollars worth of biodiversity services that the planet provides free of charge to support human life. Services which are daily being destroyed by relentless economic growth. Clean water, unpolluted air, healthy vibrant fish stocks in our lakes and streams, viable microorganisms―these constitute the real wealth of the nation that are not to be “shared” and parceled out like tax rebates to Jack Layton’s low income constituency or offered to the developers’ greed. When are we going to a measuring stick that reflects this fact and replaces GDP and the statistics politicians are using to test reality?

To seal the deal Layton was asked by veteran parliamentary reporter Mike Duffy if his plan to tax the worst corporate polluters might impede economic growth. Layton quickly reassured him, “Oh, no, look at Germany. Thegovernment forced penalties on the car manufacturers and revenue went to the development of wind turbines. There is more economic growth now than before.” Layton’s plan is in opposition to the Liberal-Green plan to introduce carbon taxes. He apparently has not heard the news that the Royal Academy of Sciences concluded that ALL economic growth must end if we are to stop short of raising global temperatures by that critical 2 degree tipping point.

Tim Murray, 1 Jun 08

See also: Growth is OK if it is shared? of 12 Oct 07.

The Australian government will do anything to save this little fellow except stopping developers from building over his habitat.

You would think that the Federal and ACT government really cared that his species is nearly extinct to read how far they are prepared to go to make other species pay for what some leaders of our species are responsible for doing.

In the wake of the Belconnen kangaroo massacre, some of us thought that the government was drawing a very long bow to expect the public to take seriously the implication that 400 odd Belconnen kangaroos were mercilessly purged from nature in order to protect the earless dragon, charming though he is. Just between friends, we still aren't convinced.

Yet, in Peter Robertson & Murray Evanshttp, "Draft National Recovery Plan for the Grassland Earless Dragon Tympanocryptis pinguicoll, "native grazers" as well as "introduced grazers" have been newly included as threats to Tympanocryptis pinquicoll. "Native grazers" is zoo-speak for kangaroos and any other indigenous wildlife that eats grasses.

In fact, the draft paper reveals an absurd situation and we need someone like Alice to tell the government it is nothing but a pack of cards. How wildlife officers and zoologists can stand working in these arcane conditions is beyond me. According to the government's own sources, in the paper,

"The main factors involved in the decline of the Grassland Earless Dragon are thought to be loss and fragmentation of habitat due to urban, industrial or agricultural development, and these processes still threaten extant populations."
"... development at the Canberra Airport does not require the approval of the Minister for the Environment (under Section 160 of the EPBC Act) and proposals both underway and in planning at that site have resulted in the loss of known habitat and threaten further areas of occupied habitat."

Yet kangaroos have to wear all the blame! We also know that the Belconnen site is to be surrounded by new developments and there are rumours that the site itself is to be developed. So, between the airport and the developments at Belconnen, what hope is there for the earless dragon? What hope is there for kangaroos?

The problem is clearly not kangaroos, but the government's obdurate, undemocratic and unsafe insistence on growing Australia's population at the behest of developers. (See "Scanlon report underpins threat to Australian democracy"). This in the face of an expected indefinite world wide depression associated with oil decline. And they are building a new airport when the future of cheap air-travel is doomed by the lack of replacements for petroleum-based jet-fuel. It's not just kangaroos and dragons who should fear our government; it's us!

Actually, this situation where humans are blaming kangaroos for their own actions reminds me of the case that biologist, Farley Mowatt made for wolves in his 1963 book, Never Cry Wolf. He went to work as a government biologist in the Arctic on a project to find out why caribou herds were diminishing. The government thought they were probably being eaten by wolves (although both species had co-existed for millenia). After living adjacent to the wolves for months, Mowat reported that the wolves lived on a diet of field mice supplemented by the occasional elderly or sick caribou. The local trappers in the area were killing all the caribou to eat and to feed to their dogs. Mowatt's book, Never Cry Wolf, is a classic and it is said that it led to the Soviet Union banning the killing of wolves.