The Victorian government’s “scientific trial” of cattle grazing in the Alpine National Park has been stopped permanently by Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke under the National Heritage Act.
Here’s the Ministerial press release, and here’s the formal notice of the decision, including the reasons.
The Minister came to the blindingly obvious decision that “…the proposed action of reintroducing up to 400 cattle would have a clearly unacceptable impact on the listed national heritage values of the Australian Alps National Parks and Reserves National Heritage Place.
The assessment has shown there is irrefutable evidence that cattle grazing would damage the sensitive natural environment, disturb the remote and wild character of the area, detract from aesthetic values, and erode its heritage values.”
Hopefully this is the end of one of the sillier political stunts of the Baillieu government.
The
farmers who whinge about the loss of state-subsidised grazing landMountain Cattleman will never, ever let this issue go – a federal Liberal govt. will have them pushing for another go of these shenanigans.It’s unlikely that Baillieu really cares about cows in the national park, either way. But in Opposition, Baillieu promised that he would do it and so he did it after winning the election. He is obsessed with being seen to carry out his promises. He did what he promised and he can blame the Feds for not being able to keep on doing it.
Angry Angus has to mooooove!
Not the only silly decision. There’s also the duck hunting, and the funds announced today for Jumps racing. There is also implicit backing for the Guns Lobby holding a weekend “event” in central Victoria – all the gunshops, the hunters etc in full force all weekend – presumably supported by the local National Party member.
The Mountain Cattlemen will always want their protected species designation back. Coming just after the riotous Australia Day this exemplifies just who feels that they are entitled to special treatment in this country – the landed establishment with their holy cows, for one.
400 cattle – this can’t affect more than a couple of farmers can it? Given how slowly vegetation grows at altitude I agree it’s silly to be grazing cattle up there.
Robert, this link to the P.M. transcript, on the story, is also well worth a look. In particular, this quote from the president of the Mountain Cattlemen’s Association Mark Coleman took my fancy……….
” If Tony (Minister Tony Burke) actually read that act he would actually find in that act also, it also states that the Mountain Cattlemen, their huts and their culture, is also part of that act. So I’m not too sure which foot he’s kicking from here but you know he can’t kick both ways on this. But those cattlemen have been in this country since the 1830s and we predate any other existing use in that area, if not the State of Victoria.”
…………”Those cattleman” apparently even predate even aboriginal settlement! Oh sorry, that’s right, they didn’t exist did they? Or not after they were dealt with, anyway.
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2012/s3419857.htm
White use is privileged, joe2! FFS, get with the program!
Joe2, leaving aside my more reasoned objections, that’s what really irks me about the mountain cattleman.
They’re using a mythology invented by a suburban solicitor and reimagined by a movie director in the 1980s to convince the general public there’s something pseudo-sacred about the friggin’ “culture” of the high country.
They’re commercial enterprises trying to get access to cheap fodder at the expense of irreversibly damaging the common property of all Australians – and the summer home of people who were there long, long before the 1830s.
Even if there are strong cultural reasons for high country grazing, if its causing significant environmental damage then it should be stopped. Societies and cultures have to adapt to changed circumstances or they face extinction.
Don’t jump to conclusions, Robert. Wait till they scrape together a few grand for an advertising campaign. Labor will rush to a ‘compromise position’ in no time.
And, while we’re at it, Japan has been whaling a lot longer than cattlemen have been taking cattle up to the high country.
This is a bright spot in the face of the expanded duck shooting season and bag limit, and the call by the Victorian Sporting Shooters’ Association to allow the shooting (with bag limits, of course) of birds such as galahs, cockatoos corellas and, of all species, crested pigeons.
Does anybody know what level of support there is amongst those in Victoria who don’t own cows for using alpine national parks for cattle grazing?
Good decision but it won’t end here. Lovick, one of the key lobbyists is Baillieu’s brother-in-law.
I’ve been horse-riding up there quite a lot. Even helped muster cattle. But, the idea that they have some entitlement and that grazing is good for the bush is beyond ludicrous.
Strewth. What about a bag limit on blue wrens? Say, forty a day? That’d sort those pesky wrens out. You city types don’t know what a flock of corellas sounds like first thing in the morning. I’ve been trying to get the council to come and spray the birds for years now to no avail. And wood pigeons? The senseless cooing and fruit eating is a disgrace. I suggest a bag limit of two per day on the cows in the Alpine National Park. Let the shooters and landed aristocrats fight it out between themselves.
In NSW the Legislative Council is controlled by the Hunters and Shooters (or whatever) and the mad homophobe Nile. They are cruelling O’Farrell because of their nutty demands and he is having real trouble getting legislation together because every time he approaches them for support they demand something so totally mad that he cannot deliver (shooting in National Parks, shooting as a school sport and who knows what else). Something to relish that after years of appealing to these lunatics the Libs now must deal with them.
Fine, so you are saying Ted has another brother in law, besides Graeme Stoney, working on behalf of the cattlemen as well. Wow!
I wonder if he also is up for a position on the board of Vicforests?
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/baillieu-clans-key-cattleman-20111208-1olha.html
Sheesh, this has been going on forever. Don’t buy the Little Aussie Battler / Keepers of Tradition story. From an AGE article from 2005:
Of course they have.
From the sounds of these ‘sons of the soil’ I just hope that the Victorian authorities are up to policing this Federal Government decision. It would not surprise me to hear of drovers encroaching for a few days free grazing and no one around who gave a toss about some Canberra ruling.
Also absolutely agree with akn @ 15 on the NSW upper house. A tragedy of the commons in every which way.
Oops, Joe. I meant Graham Stoney. I went riding at Lovick’s place once and was unimpressed. Wankers, I thought.
Lovick’s run a successful trail riding business in the park: http://www.lovicks.com.au/
So much for “locking it up”.
Helen @ 17 – he can’t be an authentic cattleman because he owns property in the city, uses a generator and a 4WD because of a bad back!?!?!
This is dangerous ground. You can’t on one hand talk reverently about aboriginal traditional ways that involve matches, rifles, outboard engines etc, and decry cattlemen using the tools of the 20th century. I don’t give weight to any arguments that these people aren’t the ‘real deal’. Having met many of them, overwhelmingly yes they are.
I merely preference natural heritage and at least 26 species threatened with extinction by cattle grazing over their heritage.
Chris: the idea of ‘authentic cattlemen’ is what is at issue here. Owning a cow makes you an authentic cattle-person. However, these ‘high plains’ cattlemen are marketing themselves as Aussie icons with special rights to an Alpine National Park. So Helen’s scorn at this Lovick character is nothing more than launching their own logic back at them – like when whitefellas tried to insist that Aboriginal Australians had to use spears and dugouts to hunt in order to conform to some imposed notion of ‘authenticity’. What’s good for the goose, eh? So, if they want to represent themselves as the real deal, let ‘em give up their portable generators and air beds otherwise they’re all just a buncha phonies pandering to popular myths and delusions.
akn @ 23 – Well I don’t think that they should have special rights to graze in Alpine areas even if they are Aussie icons or have a strong tradition of grazing in those areas if it is now known to be significantly harmful to the environment (which I think it is). Cultural tradition, no matter how real, or old, or important should not override long term environmental sustainability.
But claiming that their traditions aren’t authentic because they use modern technology is as bad as claiming that indigenous people who have electricity and running water or satellite tv in remote areas aren’t authentic.
Baillieu will pursue this one regardless of the outcome since he made such a big deal about it in the 2010 election. Plus he also needs to keep the Nationals sweet otherwise he could face some very difficult internal tensions, which could jeopardise his very narrow majority in both houses.
Baillieu will use this as a political beat up about how the federal government is interfering with states’ rights, and why his local economic bloc with NSW is the way to go.
Tony Burke put his finger right on it, when he said….
“A national park should not be used as a farm. It’s there for nature and it’s there for people to enjoy nature. It’s not there to be used as a form of free feed for a handful of local producers.”
Fire mitigation and heritage connection are just smokescreens, methinks. When it comes down to it, follow the money trail. And if Mr Lovick is not already paying to take tourists into the parks on horseback, he should be.
Well Chris we’re in agreement here except that I always welcome the opportunity to take the piss out of the Australian establishment especially those sections of it whose family histories directly benefited from Aboriginal dispossession. The whole ‘man from the snowy’ schtick is worn out in my view and has deep, repugnant roots in Banjo Paterson’s race paranoid ‘Australia For the Australians’ philosophy.
Yes, akn, it is all pretty grubby and they deserve a piss take. To suggest that the original inhabitants made no “use” of the land, as the president of the MCA did yesterday on ABC, is made all the more revolting by the failure of the reporter to pick him up on it.
We might expect Mr Stoney , the brother in law of Ted and behind the scenes organiser of ‘land sponging for cattle’, in his new role with vicforests, to start plugging for the special rights of wood choppers to completely denude the landscape since they had been plying that trade, from the very beginning , before they left to build huts and a Myer shop in Bourke St.
What AKN said – well, of course a cattle farmer can live any way he or she wants, derr, but if you’re demonstrating in your Drizabone on your horse on Swanston street trying to imply that you are some kind of living museum and that kicking the cattle out of National Parks will be akin to dragging the lost tribes into the cruel city, well, having an apartment in QV does not gell with that picture. It also does not gell with the notion that you are a poor battler who will be ROONED if forced to pay for cattle agistment.
While Tony’s on a roll, he should pull his finger out and permanently list the Tarkine on the National Heritage Register.
Just spent the long weekend camping on a grazier’s run that abuts the alpine national park.
That family would be happy to have no cattle up there, provided at the same time the government(s) got rid of the dogs, cats, goats, pigs, horses, deer, foxes, and blackberries that constantly encroach and damage their neighboring grazing properties. These species are in epidemic proportions up there.
Newsflash for all you city-dwelling greenies : the alpine parks are far from being pristine enclaves of native flora and fauna. To single out cattle as being the main danger to their existence is fatuous in the extreme.
If Tony Burke was fair dinkum, instead of playing to the gallery, he would stump up some dough to establish proper vermin eradication programmes. (move the cattle first, though).
“That family would be happy to have no cattle up there, provided at the same time the government(s) got rid of the dogs, cats, goats, pigs, horses, deer, foxes, and blackberries that constantly encroach and damage their neighboring grazing properties. ”
Gee, I wonder where all those ferals came from?
Perhaps from “that family” or their peers? Or maybe they just “appeared” in previously undisturbed ecosystems by errrr….. magic ?
Mick @ 31 – I think it would be great to see more spending on National Parks to remove pests. I’d even support more/higher park access fees to help fund it. But reintroducing cattle is hardly going to help the situation is it?
“To single out cattle as being the main danger to their existence is fatuous in the extreme.”
If that was actually the case it would indeed be “fatuous” despite the incredible damage I have personally seen a few cows can do to a small stream.
The minister actually seems quite aware that there are other important issues…….
“Mr Burke said he had now written to Victorian, New South Wales and ACT governments – who share the alpine area – seeking to hammer out a joint approach to management of weeds, pests, and bushfire mitigation.”
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/federal-no-to-alpine-grazing-but-state-refuses-to-bow-20120131-1qrcb.html
It’s a bit worrying when his Victorian equivalent minister holds onto the debunked fiction that cows save the bush from bushfires.
“Mr Burke said he had now written to Victorian, New South Wales and ACT governments – who share the alpine area – seeking to hammer out a joint approach to management of weeds, pests, and bushfire mitigation.”
Yeah, I heard that too. He needs to be reminded of it frequently, I reckon. We should all be asking why so much public money is spent on invasive species control on private lands, with so little being spent in our National Parks. They are poorly managed, there is no point pretending otherwise, imo. Yank the money off the overly-entitled land-holders who whine about land being ‘locked up’ and poorly managed and put it where it is most needed. I’d love to see an environment Minister take some of these landholders on with that. “You know, you’re right, for too long we have been over-spending assisting farmers and graziers and hobbyists add value to their land, we should be spending more in Parks to preserve the areas of greatest biological diversity”.
Cattle grazing has not been permitted in the NSW portion of the Alpine National Park for 30 odd years because cattle destroy the fragile environment.
Remember this cattle grazing area is at the headwaters of the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers
Ah, someone’s come in to say that if we want cattle out we must love feral animals and blackberries. DRINK… Or should we start a bingo card? Honestly, if I had a $ for every time I’ve seen that earth-shatteringly stupid argument… What was it Brian said? Oh yes: Pointing to other bad things doesn’t justify the bad thing under discussion.
The whole point of having national parks is to create as much access for everybody as possible, so they can be appreciated by the general populace visiting them.
So the more activities going on there, the more access will be maintained, making it easy and attractive for people to visit, stay and explore.
Only people who appreciate the bush would make the journey, so we needn’t fear a bogan influx.
Or don’t we want people of any ilk going into alpine parks – just lock them up for the feral species to run amok in? (which seems to be the current policy of the parks bureaucracies)
…aaaaaand DRINK!
*raises glass*
Skål.
Err … no. The whole point is to retain some kind of habitat for biodiversity. Jeez, St Furious, I reckon I’ll be pretty pissed by 9 pm at this rate.
Aren’t humans part of biodiversity ???
Prost!
Mick, are you suggesting people need to take cows into national parks for recreation? Must be a strange mob out your way
Mick: cane toads are also part of biodiversity… in central and south America where they originated. In Australia, they’re a pest. Cattle originated in Eurasia, but are not always a good fit for Australia. They’ve got hooves, you see. Hooves destroy fragile soils, and the Alpine ranges have very fragile soils indeed.
Cats and dogs are nasty in their own way, but it’s easier to identify and shoot cattle.
People just need to stop eating so much meat! Honestly, I remember reading once that a healthy diet might include 200g of meat or so a week. My favorite meat is fish, but I just can’t eat it anymore without feeling bad about fishing.
All farming activity has a fundamental and intimate relationship with the environment and fishing is in my opinion such a terrible industry because it’s people going out into the wilderness and just harvesting the creatures that live there. So, I think we need some strict rules about where the wilderness begins and how we interact with it. And this policy just seems so back-to-the-future.
In a rich country like ours, do we really need to have cows running around everywhere?
Mick there’s a fair bit to unpack in your statement and I haven’t got the time for an essay on park management, so I’ll just pick off the low hanging fruit.
Firstly that list of ferals – you must have been in the far east to get the pigs. Which have been deliberately introduced recently by hunters for game. Deer would be easier to control if there wasn’t such a strong lobby of hunters wanting to keep numbers up for sport. Horses can’t be effectively controlled due to animal welfare groups. Cats and foxes, if you find a solution to them on any land tenure, why don’t you let the world know, eh? Goats aren’t a real concern in the Alpine parks, they’re there sure, but the impact is minor. Blackberries, well I’m sure we’d all like to get rid of them, but do you realise that the ANP itself is almost 700 000 hectares?
The thing about the ANP and all national parks is that they are not created out of private property. They are exclusively created out of State forest. So the only difference in management is which uniform is looking after it. (Often enough, it’s the same person underneath the uniform, the staff transition across from DSE to PV at the time of creation of the park.)
The thing is, Parks Victoria has, on a per hectare base, far far more money to spend on park management than DSE has to spend on State forest management. So if you have a national park next to you, the only thing that is different is that the park ranger is actually more likely to actually turn up and spray the blackberries than the DSE forest officer. The only other difference is that a logging road is not going to be built near you. Logging, while being mostly harmless, does allow more pests and weeds access into the bush – foxes walk along the logging tracks, weeds like disturbed environments.
Surprised you haven’t raised the hoary chestnut of fire. In Victoria, all fire is integrated, there is from a human safety and risk management perspective ZERO difference between national parks and State forest. National parks may not get treated for fire very often but that’s because it’s costly and ineffective since no one lives near there. I understand there are differences in NSW park service approaches. As for the cows, no one has quite explained the relationship between a few thousand cows eating grass across vast distant areas and intense bushfires fuelled by trees near settlements.
I’m guessing Mick isn’t serious. He can’t be. Surely.
Deliberately introducing feral animals into the environment for hunting? I thought we’d learned that bloody lesson with rabbits and foxes.
As for the horses and deer, when I’m made Supreme Leader of Victoria I’ll have the damn lot of them shot (humanely), if that’s the most humane and cost-effective way to remove them from the parks. Cute though they are, unless there is some compelling ecological management reason for having introduced species present, they should not be there.
I’m a member of the Sporting Shooters’ Association of Australia, and
Gun Porn MonthlyAustralian Shooter regularly has articles about conserving deer for hunting. It’s pretty depressing, as they’re exotic animals (and therefore pests) and should be shot out as soon as possible.Deer are in the Wildlife Act 1975.
Robert, what about if there’s a humane but more expensive way to remove horses and deer? Why should cost effectiveness be a factor when dealing with the life a sentient being? After all, it’s not their fault they’ve been introduced into a national park.
Fine, that’s a what-if. But with current technologies, there isn’t a humane way to remove horses or deer from the parks, affordably or not. We could eradicate brumbies, through shooting from helicopters. We couldn’t eradicate them through brumby running, not even factoring in the cost per beast.
The moral cost of cruelty has to be weighed up against the other flora and fauna that are threatened by their presence. If made extinct, for good, isn’t that the greater crime?
Wilful, I don’t know enough about the issue to know whether there’s a humane method of removing these animals from National Parks, or not. What I’m questioning is the use of ‘cost effectiveness’ as a factor in the decision making process. ‘Cost effectiveness’ should be irrelevant when it comes to animal welfare issues.
As for weighing up the moral costs; I find that a very difficult and complex issue to make my mind up about.
wilful and Fine, a clean headshot is about as humane as it gets, and professional hunters are capable of that.
I doubt any of the management alternatives for controlling over-abundant populations could be implemented without a considerable amount of distress to a horse.
Culling koalas is even more of a no-go zone politically, so there are population management programs instead. Koala contraceptives are used – but rounding up a koala to give them an implant would be much easier than rounding up a horse. Koalas are [somewhat] slow and goofy, horses – not so much.
I have some friends that had to come to a decision about wild horses up in the far north of SA. They are Aboriginal so on the one hand they were well aware of the damage the horses were doing to the country, but the men were once stockmen with a real affection for horses and they found it a very hard decision. I think contractors were used and the way the horses were rounded up was were distressing to the locals, I doubt they would support that management option again.