Max.
One of the more cogent and comprehensive opinions I have read in a long time!

Your argument for a 'global' view brands you a genuine environmentalist, seeking to avoid the disasters evident in the 'law of unintended consequences', evidenced by the mandating of biofuels.

This self righteous environmental hubris inevitably results in the over exploitation of our poorer neighbors in both food and forest resources.

I am of the opinion that you have successfully presented a case based, not simply on evidence and environmental common sense, but one of simple morality.

I thought this was an excellent article. I have left Aus. and settled in Cambodia and found this bit to be particularly poignant

"Nor will a marine park in Australian waters mitigate over-exploitation of Asian fisheries to satisfy Australian consumers because of fisheries regulation and restriction that has strangled the life from our once thriving fishing industry – another example of Western consumers transferring their environmental impact to somewhere else." Something like 70% or more of our fish is imported

I see the waters in the Gulf of Thailand being raped to supply fish products to western consumers (mostly the low grade product e.g fish fingers etc) and that simply reinforces that any sustainable conservation needs to adopt a holistic approach. Actually I think that of any objection based on conservation, eg the Bernie Paper Mill, I find it particularly ironic handing out paper flyers to protest a paper mill. Surely from an holistic point of view it makes more sense to site the mill in a first world country and ensure stringent over-site. Don't want a Mill ? Use less paper. Don't want the Seas over fished, eat less fish... and it goes on.

Winton is an elegant writer but his perception of the issues is both facile and misanthropic.

The author, Max Rheese, has succinctly described the sheer folly of moral constraints on resources in Australia when the demand is then satisfied by a transfer to a less moral extraction overseas.

The misanthropy is evident in the priority of pristine nature at the expense of human society; this would be inevitable if the same degree of protection in this country was extrapolated to the other countries which are now taking up the resource slack which people like Winton have overseen in this country.

Simply, people would starve, and certainly population would shrink.

Winton's position is at best a self-indulgent one; and a hypocritical one; if he feels so strongly about the virtues of leaving nature pristine let him starve first.

Fantastic piece, offering genuine insight into this debate.
What a refreshing change top mainstream media coverage.