funkyfreo said:
You do highlight a massive problem - people think that rainforest is more valuable than general bush - but for example the forests of South West WA are one of the world's great biodiversity hotspots. And just because if you fence it some grows back - we are talking about the ecosystem and not just the plants you can see. We are not talking "greenies" we are talking cold hard science.
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A large % of the land that is cleared is just shrubs not trees. The ecosystem adapts quickly and some animals such as kangaroos even grow in numbers. Governments dont always act on cold hard science. For the ALP to have as its policy banning all clearing of land in Tasmania is just stupidity. What science is this based on? Its just an effort to appease clueless fools like Bob Brown and Crocotosser. People who talk about farmers and their environmental damage are really struggling. Other than the problem of spill off into rivers in Qld and irrigation in the Murray basin both are which being addressed they actually benign towards the environment. Like BomberGal said, I know alot of farmers that have planted trees on their property. The number of trees planted in Australia over the last few years is huge. How much of it was done by inner city tree huggers?
Farmers arent big carbon producers, they dont drive around in 4 wheel drives just to drop their kids off at school, they dont dump heavy metals in rivers like the Derwent, breed cats which are the biggest destroyer of native animals etc etc.
One example of greeny tools with no idea, brumbies in the snowy mountains. They were damaging the environment but the city folk didnt want them culled. Same with kangaroos, WTF cant they be killed for meat and leather, we farm crocs.
Tools like Crockomuppet sitting in his air conditioned office in the ACT contribute nothing to the country. He is simply a parasite living off others like farmers.