NATIONAL PARKS TARGETED BY THE USUAL VESTED INTERESTS

In predictable fashion, following the twin disasters of drought and fire, the usual vested interests pop up and start agitating to be allowed into our national parks. Of course, these timber and grazing interest proposals offer to do us all a favour, claiming logging and grazing will reduce fuel, and thus make us safe from fires.

Other business enterprises must be envious. It's like the local hardware store asking to be allowed to expand into the local town hall during an economic downturn, or a second hand car dealership taking over a convenient sports field to save money on rent. After all, these are public facilities, just like national parks, the only difference being that parks bring billions of tourism and leisure dollars to the economy each year.

Completely ignored in this campaign to access national parks, is the fact that they are set up for conservation purposes, a place where flora and fauna which are threatened with extinction will have an opportunity to survive. They're not there to be cut down and smashed by huge industrial machines, or trampled and browsed by uncontrolled herds of cattle.

Overlooked is the fact that few national parks are fenced and there would be no way to control stock once let loose, or are the long-suffering taxpayers expected to cover that cost as well? Instead stock will be free to destroy threatened plants, trample up and down creek banks causing massive erosion in the process, and free do stir up mud and defecate in the pristine creeks and streams, often the source of urban drinking water.

Both these industries cause massive environmental damage in the general community. At this crucial time, when we should be doing all in our power to increase vegetation to store carbon, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, one is clear-felling forests, while the other is belching out massive amounts of methane.

Let's show common sense, keep these greedy hands off national parks, and start properly resourcing the parks service so that these priceless assets can be properly managed for the public interest, and for future generations to enjoy.

            - John Edwards

This article was originally published in the VOICES FOR THE EARTH column in The Daily Examiner on February 24,  2020.   

THE UGLY SIDE OF FORTIS CREEK NATIONAL PARK

John Edwards' description of the beauties of Fortis Creek National Park featured in an earlier post .  In a subsequent visit, described below, John was horrified at park management.

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Just weeks ago I raved in this column about the marvellous array of rare and threatened flora found in the Fortis Creek National Park, urging readers to take the opportunity to visit national parks to enjoy nature at its very best.

Today, after a return visit to another part of Fortis Creek NP which had been subjected to a prescribed hazard reduction burn, I'm forced to describe the ugly side of the way our national parks are managed.

Aside from the fact that frequent fire is negatively impacting biodiversity, and the question of whether there is a need for frequent hazard reduction in areas which have no nearby urban settlements under threat from fire, what we observed was environmental bastardy at its worst. For kilometres along a service trail, practically every old-growth tree within 40m of the track had been bulldozed, vandalism that would result in prosecution had it occurred on private land.

The loss to native fauna through destroying those hollow-bearing trees is incalculable, and animals occupying those hollows would undoubtedly have been killed or injured.

It is well documented that about half of all threatened fauna in Australia are tree-hollow dependent, and loss of habitat is the primary reason for their decline. What is not so well known is the time frame required for those trees to form hollows, which is literally hundreds of years.

Research undertaken at the Australian National University has determined that: “Large hollows, in Blackbutts (the main species targeted in this instance) with a minimum entrance greater than 10cm, are formed after approximately 240 years”. I observed some hollows greater than 30 cm.

In reality, many of these trees were already mature when Captain Cook sailed by 250 years ago, and survived the timber getter's axe in the 1800s because they were already too old, only to be mindlessly destroyed today.

Tourism is the life blood of the Valley, one of the world's biodiversity hotspots, and it's supported by wonderful national parks and world heritage areas, but what tourist wants to see this?

-          John Edwards

This post was initially published in the VOICES FOR THE EARTH column in The Daily Examiner on November 11, 2015.