Proving once again that classic comedy is created when ever policians meet, Senator Campbell has decided that we need to have a few electric fences in the Alpine National Park. Just how many kilometers of fencing will we need Senator?
‘No’ to cattle compromise
June 17, 2005 – 3:13PM [AGE]
Victoria has rejected a federal government plan to settle the row over a ban on alpine grazing with a compromise aimed at averting a costly legal battle.
Instead of banning cattle from the State’s Alpine National Park and destroying the livelihood of mountain cattlemen, federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell has suggested using electric fencing to keep cattle out of more sensitive areas.
But Victoria’s Environment Minister John Thwaites today bluntly declined the offer of a compromise that could keep the row out of the High Court, saying: “It’s time for the federal Environment Minister to butt out.
“He does not have a legal leg to stand on.”
The Victorian Upper House has passed controversial legislation banning cattle grazing from the park.
Last week, Senator Campbell issued an emergency heritage listing to protect the mountain cattlemen’s 170-year-old alpine tradition in a bid to overrule the ban.
The listing – if it became permanent – would put the two governments on a collision course, with Victoria insisting Canberra has no power to force it to renew the 63 grazing licences.
The state government initiated the ban over concerns cattle are causing irreparable damage to the alpine ecosystem, especially fragile peat beds which are the origin of many high country streams.
Mountain cattlemen say the ban will destroy their livelihood and their way of life and that the continuing right to run their herds in state forest outside the park is inadequate.
Senator Campbell is due to receive an assessment from the Australian Heritage Council within 30 days after which he must decide whether or not to issue a permanent listing to protect the traditional summer musters.
“My appeal to the Victorian government is let’s not keep feeding lawyers and paying lawyers bills, let’s sit down and work out a compromise on this,” he told reporters today.
“You can have environmental protection using modern science and you can have the retention of Australia’s 170-year-old alpine grazing going side by side.”
Senator Campbell said one solution could be the use of fencing to keep cattle out of sensitive highland bog areas.
“It’s very simple, you just have to put a transportable electric fence around it, that’s one idea,” he said.
“There are a whole range of scientifically proven methods of protecting bits of biodiversity and we do it right across Australia.
“It shouldn’t be beyond the wit and wisdom of the Victorian government to sit down with the cattleman, with scientists, with environmentalists and the federal government to reach a compromise.”
Mr Thwaites dismissed the electric fence idea as silly.
“This just shows that the federal minister admits that cattle do damage,” he said.
“You don’t have electric fences through a national park. That’s the most ridiculous suggestion I’ve ever heard.”
- AAP
My vote for this months Oxygen Thief Award goes to Senator Campbell for this ludicrous concept.
Meanwhile things became a tad heated in the AGE’s letters section;
Face up to the real effects of cattle grazing
June 17, 2005 [AGE]
Ralph Barraclough (“There’s little ’science’ in the anti-grazing debate”, Letters 15/6) suggests that the recent scientific debate supporting the removal of cattle grazing has been appalling. In fact, the scientific debate was resolved more than 50 years ago and was the main reason cattle were removed from the Kosciuszko National Park. Despite decades of scientific research, there are still those who ignore – or refuse to accept – findings that contradict cherished beliefs.
Nevertheless, recent debate has largely been political and social, as it should be. Mr Barraclough, however, suggests that the science behind the decision to ban cattle grazing from the Alpine National Park is poor, supporting his argument by misusing my comments on a Parks Victoria draft report on post-fire monitoring following the 1998 Caledonia fire. My remarks on the report were a response to bad writing, naive use of data and seeing a lot of money spent on research that was already being done.
Sensibly, the decision to ban cattle from some areas burnt by the Caledonia fire was based partly on the Parks Victoria report, together with results from other studies and the support of a large body of scientific evidence on the effects of cattle grazing in the high country. Mr Barraclough also suggests that cattle grazing reduces both the risk and intensity of fire in the Alpine National Park: the specious “alpine grazing reduces blazing” argument. Following the 2003 fires, scientists had the rare opportunity to test this hypothesis on the Bogong High Plains. The clear result: cattle grazing did not affect either the distribution of the fires or their severity. Of course, such findings will not persuade those with an unshakeable faith to the contrary.
Yet, after more than 60 years of scientific research, with monotonously repetitive findings showing the detrimental effects of cattle grazing on the water catchment, biodiversity and conservation values of the Alpine National Park, we finally got a government brave enough to do the right thing. Well done!
- Dr Henrik Wahren,
Centre for Applied Alpine Ecology, La Trobe University, Bundoora
…
Little ’science’ in the anti-grazing debate
June 15, 2005 [AGE]
As a long-time resident of the Licola area, a landholder and a fire brigade captain with landholders adjacent, and surrounded by the Alpine National Park to look after, I am appalled at the level of “scientific debate” supporting the removal of cattle grazing in the park.
After the Caledonia fire of 1998, plots were fenced off around rocky outcrops, dead limbs, fallen bark and places where little grass ever grew that were then monitored to see how they would grow. Botanists placed transect lines beside active wombat and rabbit burrows and on areas last burnt out decades ago as there was so much grass on the areas under study. “Expertise” was bought in from the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service.
Decisions on grazing in burnt areas were made with vegetation surveys consisting of two drafts and a summary, all unsigned. A “draft internal working paper” was passed off as “scientifically credible information needed to determine management options for the area”. This had no finding or conclusion, no indication of who did the work or their qualifications, and no references from text books on the methodology.
The science was so bad even people on the expert panel to recommend on the return of grazing were critical. “Is the PV draft proposal a joke? It’s appalling! I have read both drafts . . . in their current state, neither would pass as first-year biology assignments” (in an email from Dr Henrik Wahren, Research Centre for Applied Alpine Ecology, La Trobe University, to Sally Troy, convener of the Alpine Ecology Scientific Review Panel, obtained under FoI).
Grass fuel on areas burnt in 1998 is now at dangerous levels around sphagnum bogs, ancient single-trunk snow gums and private landholdings. The risks from snow grass on places such as the Wellington Plains can only be measured in how many times it is off the fire-intensity scale over the extreme category.
Much of this country that did not burn in 1998 because of grazing would now carry a frightful fire from four to 16 times the intensity. This is on areas where grazing was not allowed to continue because of claims there had not been enough regeneration.
A few years ago we were told by alpine ecologists that fires were not part of the ecology. With the 2003 fires, we were told fires are a one-in-100-year event. If this is the best we are getting out of our universities, they should concentrate on turning out engineers, chemists and bushfire scientists where they have an impressive record.
- Ralph Barraclough, Licola
Philip Maguire, from [Bundarrah Days] joins in the dumbing down of the evidence, many more examples of poor evidencial interpretation;
Fight For The Australian High Country
Analysis by Philip Maguire [BNN]
…
“The green lobby has lied consistently on the issue of alpine grazing. Science is against the cattlemen, they say. Cattle are trampling moss beds, causing erosion at the heads of streams and endangering rare botanic species. Facts don’t matter to the opponents of alpine grazing.”
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My response;
6/17/2005 3:00:19 AM
As someone who has worked in the Victorian Alpine Natinonal Park, I am concerned that Philip Maguire must not have visited the contentious area. Surely a cattleman would be able to regonise the severely pugged landscape around the Niggerheads? He must be able to see the difference between the apline herbfields in the protected Kosciuszko National Park, and the sad remnants in the grazed Victorian National Park? How about the direct relationship with English Broom transportation from the Mitta valley via cattle?
As Philip says, “Facts don’t matter to the opponents of alpine grazing”, it seems they don’t for his side of the argument.
Once again we see a desperate grab for “The Man from Snowy River” heritage, it is a pity that the area refered to in the poem is actually in NSW and has been free from cattle graazing from 1969!
Visit “Alpine National Park … or cow Paddock?” at http://www.cowpaddock.com/ and make up your own mind about the science. Anyone who visits Maisie’s plots would have no doubts of the damage caused by the cattle … it is only when these protected areas are view that you can appreciate the degarded status of the rest of the park.
