oohhhh now, now. We musn't deprive the debased, graceless Perseus' export cattle from their grazing lands, must we?

As much as I enjoy the pot-shots (so to speak!) between Dave's supporters and his detracters, I'd like to talk about the issues that I see in this article.

There isn't much doubt in my mind that current nature vegetation legislation in every state has serious flaws. These flaws are a result of legislation being drawn up in response to an unsustainable activity (ie landclearing) instead of an attempt to manage the environment sustainably.

This is an understandable if you recognise that environmentalism often grew out of opposition to bad practises - green groups used any political strength they had to stop such practises - and politicians learnt the lesson well: to 'appeal' to green groups, ban it.

But we greenies need to release that community attitudes towards the environment have come a long way from the "if it moves - shoot it; if it doesn't cut it down" mentality that helped shape this country. People, especially farmers and other land users, recognise the importance of environmentally sustainable practises if they want to pass on their farm to their children.

Ideally, all environmental legislation would have put in place science-based assistance measures to help better managing privately owned land, and then imposed limits against excessive or poor use of that land, while still protecting significant areas. This would allow the negiotation to increase tree cover in long farmed areas, prevent the spread of 'woody weeds', and reduce the negative environmental impact of current and future use of farming lands which were all mentioned in this article.

But legislation like this can't just come from new envirnomental groups such as the AEF - they need the support of the established conservation groups as well.

The weed species discussed is probably the mimosa bush (acacia farnesiana), which is classified as native, but is actually american in original (its classified as native as it was here prior to white settlement). Sheep used to keep this shrub in check, and cattle to some extent do, but not certainly the grazing pressure from cattle is not as high as sheep. As stocking rates reduce, this weed explodes out of control. Go for a drive between Moree and Collarenebri (150km) - it literally chokes the sides of the road in many stretches.

Just because it it native, doesnt mean that it is good.

Thirra, what do you class as the west of NSW? Orange? Mudgee? Dubbo? Menindee? Just want to clarify what area you speak of, as city-dwellers (not sure if you are or not), generally think of anything further out than Penrith as being western NSW. If you indeed refer to the true West (at least west of the Newell Hwy), then if you have done your travelling in the last 5 years what you have seen is probably the result of drought, rather than degradation.

Ben G, glad to see a greenie that recognises that its in farmers best interests to manage sustainably. Their future profitability depends on it. With attitudes like yours and Ludwigs in the green movement we can all be hopeful for achieving a balance between production and conservation. Not like the twit that tried to tell me several years ago that farmers on the Hay Plains were bad for cutting down all the trees!

Thirra, when you have spent an entire El Nino cycle managing an integrated forest and grazing property come and have a chat about sustainable land management. Your post makes it very clear that you are only 5% of the way up the learning curve so a meaningful discussion with you and your kind is pointless.

The first obligation of those who know nothing of the topic is to keep quiet, listen long and hard, and allow those who do know the issue get on with the job. By that test, hardly a single resident of urban Australia has any right to even contribute to debate, let alone dictate conditions.

The average farmer would never dream of telling a medical practitioner, Sydney cab driver or highrise construction engineer how to do his job. But it seems every departmental lance corporal, every clerk, network administrator and receptionist thinks all they need to be an expert in land management is to read the Sydney Morning Herald.

You can design our resource management system on urban design parameters if you let us design your industrial relations system on livestock management principles.

Unfortunately it is not livestock farming that drives these land clearing zealots to want to buck State Government natural vegetation rules. They want to clear so-called woody weeds in order to be able to go cropping and they are constantly demanding a more relaxed cropping schedule ( arrable versus fallow ) in the Western Division (westward beyond the Newell Highway) where many would argue that European style agriculture is increasingly risky in the face of climate change.

Further to my above post about ignorant people mouthing off about things they know nothing of, see Jup's little head trip about clearing, of regrowth, supposedly for cropping, west of the Newell.

Look at a map you moron, find the Newell Highway and then look up the rainfall data at;
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/cgi_bin_scripts/annual_rnfall.cgi

And then consider that this is the mean over the past 30 years, not the past 10 years rainfall. And then have a quiet think about what proportion of clearing would be for cropping west of the Newell highway. That is where most of the clearing takes place in NSW, to maintain pre-existing grassland that is now overrun by trees.

Assorted drop kicks can rail at the Australian Environment Foundation all they want but the maps and the rainfall data are not supplied by the AEF so spare us all the urban fantasy masquerading as informed comment. It is really, really tedious.