Production Ecologists Network

The Good intentions create little but fiddle

2012-01-23T10:38:00.002+11:00

Its been over 6 years since the last post here ( plenty elsewhere) What's changed in government's approach in that time ? (to environment) - nothing but more fiddling and twiddeling ( at the behest of Green Labor)

More mere description
More PC research but no conclusions and nothing to upset the trip to the cul de sac
Longer lists of things to worry about but no real understanding of biodiversity and how to encourage it.
More excuses
More fearmongering
More preventable disasters
More Emperors with no clothes Julia must really notice the breeze
Bigger excuses and bigger bureaus to manage and provide forms to fill out to prevent those disasters
An opposition aware of some of the bleedin, but with no idea of how to do surgery on the bleeding economy in THIS regard . Making money is easy . Making the family work is another matter.
No idea what planning WITH the environment really means or staff who are trained and on the job to do it

Why environmental planning is in such a mess

2006-06-17T06:52:00.002+10:00

This house will never be finished because it was stopped midstream; It's on a landslide . The Bracks government no longer stop such disasters , they wait for them to happen. Or they tell us they could happen Click here for Victoria . Click Thredbo for Australia . (The above update on 26th July)
How long before the biggest landslide risk area in Australia has a disaster? - no big ones that we could have stopped so far. Its all very well talking about potential problems (website), but Vic Government (as from 2006) no longer do anything effective to prevent them.

You heard it first on blogger.

The above does not relate directly to sites mentioned below .
Another story on a landslide site from last year.
Corangamite Shire
Came across someone trying to build a house on a landslide yesterday . The site was levelled, sighting pegs were in and PVC drainage pipes up. Reinforcing was stacked up on its side and the concrete was ready to pour. I though of another site we should have stopped the pour on last year . Would we do it this time ?
My young work experience assistant took some photos of the drain behind the house and closeups of the soil, but was typically not engaged too much about the dangers( or how to minimize them on site).
The risk of slope failure was so high that even major new site drainage works would be unlikely to make it safe for the lifetime of the building .

"Are you sure its dangerous?" was a question I sort of hoped for " What makes you think it will move ? Any question would have been a welcome change from the grunts and groans of sophisticated silence or soppy sentimental unsubstance that greets us a response from most of those who are now in charge of "the env agenda" "
The young Yr 10 student was, through no fault of her own, being brought up in a society which doesn't prepare them for dangers - at least the really serious scientifically and practically dangerous things like houses falling off hills( and permanently polluting waterways - both things we were also documenting that day )

Clearly, as the house project had got this far, noone had seen the danger coming. To give you an idea why , the slope on which this house was being built was none too steep.(18%) We grow up with preconcieved ideas of what makes something dangerous. Steepness is one of those things. Yet the risk is there to be seen --all around the owner - if only he would just look and or ask someone who knows .Then he would have known . the Shire would known ; The builder would have known .18 people wouldn’t have died at the hand of man at Thedbo .

When the children are in charge, its much harder to raise the idea of a new danger --the leaders think they know .Experience is the best teacher, but they not only not listening to them ; they are sacking them . Leaders think they now what real threats the country is facing but clearly they watch too much TV, drink too much coffee and don't get out enough amongst the rough and tuf .Dangers from rising sea levels , Shortages of water and coming shortages of hardwood pulp .The world is heating up – “its obvious isn't it” they say . Not to a scientist it isn't/ specially on a geological scale You name it they told you about it first . The children, in charge, that is

Save every drop. The Premier has put his name on the idea . Doesn't sound like he knows much . Save us from the dropkicks more like it .Don't they know water goes round in cycles like almost everything else. Sure our city cousins could be saving a lot more drops, but we don't all need to save every drop. By setting some unreal fence on some flat terrain where the living should be easy ( provided you don’t drive too fast ,keep your eyes open and use some common sense ; where is that these days? ) our leaders are have us all building fences and putting up signs where no fences or signs are required. Maybe the save your droppings campaigns overall effect will be more conservation - a good thing-- but look at the down side of making conservation simple - you risk credibility and careers. Such simpleton driven stupidity creates indifference amongst the young and cynicism amongst those trained to

2005-08-01T23:44:00.000+10:00

4 corners ABCTV TODAY "Let the country people learn to survive the real world? "

The problem with the "eat you alive" worldview of the majority of myopic bookeepers is that we are not dealing HERE in the bush with recyclable steel, concrete and plastic .People working with the earth and applying the precautionary principle are being screwed by those who think collapse and high risk is a good feature of all industry. We desperately need a primary industry policy group that knows the difference betwen eco reality and eco garbage. One that doesn't feed off the "brilliance" of asset stripping and simple and even cancerous sales growth . .
Some of the world's most sustainable grain growing areas are in marginal country . True they have to be managed better ( and are - a great positive in the program) but using the ancient old seabed of the Murray Darling for a few more thousand years is not going to ruin it - it makes a lot of sense for much of it to stay as a foodbowl . Precision is the decision not recidivism.

2005-04-28T13:42:00.000+10:00

Australians leading or following on conservation issues ?
Grist magazine (USA) is calling for a body similiar to ours to be set up .

2005-04-12T15:01:00.000+10:00

Does Hon Ian Campbell know what he is doing with our money ? He doesn't want to support communities or professionals. Who is he supporting? more on cuttingedgeconservation.blogspot.com

2005-03-23T13:17:00.000+11:00

The owner of this land on the SurfCoast in Victoria built this marina recently and noone in the planning system was consulted . How many more things go" under the radar" on our coasts? Is there anybody home at the radar screen? He will probably get a fine and keep going.

2005-03-17T18:09:00.000+11:00

What next? What can we do collectively do to keep the post election momentum for competency in environmental decisionmaking going?

2005-02-28T11:34:00.000+11:00

Several are in charge,so no one is charge-- PE's should hold the balance of power over the environment because their agendas are stable !
So who holds the power now - a dozen or so enterprises going in a dozen different directions.

Take two different extremes are where they are on a key environment worldview issue - shortterm gain.
!. Small players eg Rural communities have a deep commitment to holding a practical and realistic tension between short term gain and long term pain-- the key that lies at the heart of good long term planning. But they are not very effective at big picture level.

2. Big players The majority of new enterprise type industries do not focus on long term. Arguably "The Majority" do quite well talking up short term gain and answering to old and new causes. Very reactive -So why are governments still creating them ?where is the satble element?

Realities of the moment -Confusion. Who does the leadership believe and when ? They say "Government is Business" so which business ? The majority? Is that a good thing ? see govisnotbusiness

The outcome? Government activity on environment - failing in ten directions at once!
Still not convinced? For example, whose job is it too provide independent advice on development applications? The planners?, the strategic planners ,The departments of environment the NGOS , some QUANGO?, the CMA's , some high level policy group , state government committees, Some CODE , some private consultants , or heaven used to forbid it ---the courts . Talk about heaps of unsustainable process getting in the road of good governance !!!!!Things have got worse in the last ten years , not better.

The reality is that if several are in charge, no one is charge . Nooone is in charge and noone wants to work for 10 bosses- especially when they keep changing direction like the fund managers who follow the leaders .

No more Short term gain long term pain . PE can hold the balance by identifying the long term pain before it is sold as short term gain, under the guise of noise amongst the researchers and policy makers listed above .

2005-01-07T13:36:00.000+11:00

No rules- "we better pass some". No please don't -such reactive stuff doesn't work. Fanaticsm follows those who rush in
Qld lawyers this week highlight the outrageous use of the law in relation to the veg managemnet see native vegetation /cuttingedgeconservation

2004-05-07T15:13:00.000+10:00

Has Victoria fallen into the same prescriptive process trap that northern states have ? The trap that gives lawyers a job,... but not those who know how to do integrated planning !

"there needs to be a greater emphasis on independent sources of evidence in the Planning and Environment Court " This is the lesson they have learnt from hard experience but will Victoria learn?

NSW and QLD know NOW to there cost in lawyers picnics of having the ridiculously expensive and contorted EnvCourt . But where are these IP people and have they been spilt into even more bits of the morasse of restructures?
Find the PE's in your area before its too late !

2004-04-27T20:36:00.000+10:00

The Victorian Government recently conducted a world wide literature search in order to try and discover the most efficient ways to change land use . In doing so they ignored Victorias historic leading edge approach to PE.
NOW, Inside and outside the parliament individuals are still convinced in some sort of sixties timewarp that its one old group or the other that should win . Will it be production scientists or conservationists . Maybe its neither !
Labor even wasted a huge amount to split a department which prevoiusly attempted to include all the above and more . Now the old groups are divorced.
It will be one of the new millenuems greatest opportunities lost if the old paradigms and paranoia about preserving them and their more simple agendas, prevent the greatest challenge - integrating modern science professions --and from getting beyond mere words and biccy bins .
The testimony is now out there in Victoria -PE's are no longer trying to work together How long will the divorce last and most importantly - what process could bring together what decades of trying has now forced apart?

Maybe some other State, other than Victoria, will learn the lesson and lead off first ?

2004-03-09T08:33:00.000+11:00

The term production ecologist ? Beat the blinkered bookeepers and build one of the most important professions on the globe .