I was in Ballarat last Friday for the 150th anniversary of the Eureka Stockade. As part of the official celebrations there was a high profile music festival. But I was at a smaller, unofficial event -- a gathering of practical environmentalists and representatives from resource user groups.
Our group was very diverse and included academics from Melbourne University, foresters from Tasmania, fishers from South Australia and graziers from western Queensland. I got the impression we were mostly all avid bushwalkers and observers of the environment.
We came together to think about environmental issues and what it really means to be an environmentalist. In the context of the Eureka stockade, we came together to take a stand against environmental fundamentalism.
It has been my observation that the environmental establishment -- organisations like the Wilderness Society, the Australian Conservation Foundation and Greenpeace -- are essentially fundamentalists. Their approach to environmental issues is essentially based on a predetermined agenda. They know how to shut things down and lock land up, but they don't, for example, know how to manage land.
The scale and intensity of the January 2003 fires was at least in part a consequence of their blind opposition to controlled burning. There has been a renewed push in some areas to get bee keepers and horse riders out of forests full of weeds and feral animals -- as though this will make these real land management issues go away.
I gave the opening address at the forum and I spoke about the need to rethink what it means to be an environmentalist. I suggested that there was a need to go back to first principles and work from the basis of evidence.
Evidence from evolutionary history tells us that our landscapes are not static, that competition, adaptation and natural selection, sometimes against a backdrop of catastrophic climate change, has driven the evolution of life on earth.
The majority of the world's species are naturally rare -- many are relics of former times with different environments. If environmentalists acknowledged that change is natural, it may become more evident that "preservation" will require active management rather than the "hands off leave it to nature approach" so often advocated by the environmental establishment.
If we accept that there never was any original pristine state, then "pristine" or "pre-European" becomes a redundant objective. A new, solution-focused environment movement could have as its vision the dual goals of "healthy" and "biologically diverse".
I have often wondered why it is that the current environmental establishment is so anti-modern, high-yield agriculture. They generally promote organics. Yet you need to cultivate a lot more land to achieve the same yield if you grow organics. I have come to the conclusion that many environmental fundamentalists hate technology more than they love the environment!
If environmentalists were serious about mankind reducing our ecological footprint globally, then we would embrace technological innovation. Biotechnology (GM food crops) gives us the potential to grow more food while using less pesticide and less water.
I also spoke in Ballarat about the need to properly prioritise environmental issues. There is only so much time and money. While the environment establishment has spent much time and money over recent years trying to close down the Tasmanian forestry sector, a new, more caring environment movement might focus on better management of weeds and feral animals, particularly in established national parks.
The principles that I put forward -- the need to work from the basis of evidence, accept evolutionary history, value healthy and biologically diverse rather than pristine, value technological innovation and prioritise on the basis of environmental need -- are not radical concepts in the context of mainstream Australia. But these principles are radically different from the principles that underpin the strategies of the current environmental establishment.
As the small miners took a stand 150 years ago in Ballarat against the establishment, I suggest now is the time to take a stand against environmental fundamentalism.
Indeed, we need a new environmental movement, one that is fair dinkum about environmental protection.
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