Governments in Australia (both State and Federal) give mixed messages in response to the question of the sustainability of wilderness. ON the one hand they want to pander to 'green' voters and expand the area of land protected as wilderness, but on the other hand, they are not prepared to purchase privately owned land or compensate owners when their land (generally farm land) is locked up as wilderness. without such purchases or compensation, the message given is that the Australian community and economy cannot actually afford to expand the area retained as wilderness; thus they put the burden of cost on the unfortunate landowners. Some would call this outright theft.

G’day everyone, many thanks for all your comments. This is the first time I’ve written specifically for an online site where people can post comments anonymously. I’m not sure of the protocol, so I should start by saying, no offence intended to anyone and I am glad that everyone finds it an interesting topic.

The main discussion is between Mr Peter Hume and Mr Geoffc, largely about structures of human societies. That’s a very large and interesting topic, but rather outside the scope of my article, so I won’t try to comment. My thanks to Mr Geoffc for his many responses. I’ll try to answer everyone else in turn.

To Mr Peter Hume, 10 March. I don’t think that I’ve adopted a ‘collectivist approach’. Actually, I said specifically in the very next sentence that most wilderness isn’t for sale. It is indeed useful to know aggregated costs, because governments and large corporations actually do buy things at multi billion dollar scales. For example, there are very real questions at present about governments buying back water rights in the Murray Darling Basin, or potentially buying out coastal landowners at risk from sealevel rise. Banks and insurance companies actually do add up the value of every house, to calculate their own financial assets, exposure and market penetration. And of course, governments, corporations, and individuals are indeed buying remaining areas of high biodiversity, where they are for sale. But often they are not.

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To Mr/Ms thinkabit, 10 March. (a) As noted by Mr Geoffc on 11 March, actually I was referring to carbon in the form of carbon dioxide, not carbon particulates. Sorry if this wasn’t clear. (b) Actually, it’s not so much the trees that remove carbon from the air, it’s mostly the soil, in grasslands and swamps as well as forests. As I said, farming systems which increase soil organic matter do the same, but most current farming systems worldwide have the opposite effect. (c) Yes, it’s true that drug design programs also use computer modelling. But by far the majority still rely on so called natural products, chemicals screened from plants and animals and microorganisms. (d) I did actually discuss the tourism issue later in my article.

To Ms Cheryl, 10 March. (a) Umm, comments (1) and (2) are hardly policy analysis. (b) As noted later by Mr Geoffc on 11 March, we are indeed consuming more than the earth produces, because we are using past productivity. That’s why ‘peak oil’ exists, for example.

To Mr/Ms Hasbeen, 10 March. (a) Absolutely correct in pointing out the importance of the oceans. (b) Umm, I never mentioned jungle, cuddly or otherwise. (c) Yes, as it happens, I can swim a kilometre in open ocean, find water on a granite island with pocket beaches, and collect enough shellfish to eat. I have also driven solo across the Simpson Desert several times, walked extensively off trek through rainforest full of lawyer vines and stinging trees, kayaked first descents of rivers in Tibet, and so on. Oh yes, and I can use an axe and a rifle, and first fired a machine gun at age nine. And all of this, as noted by Mr/Ms examinator on 12 March, is completely irrelevant to whether or not we can ‘afford’ wilderness.

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To Mr/Ms phoenix94, 10 March. Certainly, parks need fire management strategies. And they do in fact have them.

To Mr David Jennings, 10 March. If you have better figures, let’s see them, and their sources. Mine are quoted from Cambridge University, UK.

To Mr/Ms Raycom, 10 March. Ideology is indeed no substitute for scientific evidence. But the weight of evidence is in favour of anthropogenic climate change. And wilderness is valuable with or without global warming.

To Mr/Ms fedupnortherner, 20 March. The question of governments buying privately owned wilderness is indeed a very important one. Areas of high priced agricultural land in developed nations are indeed too expensive for taxpayers to buy in bulk. Governments do indeed try a range of mechanisms to get private landowners to conserve native bush without selling it. Our former federal government supposedly spent three billion dollars on incentives, but nobody has ever been able to determine what actual conservation gains were achieved. Many cynics (myself included) have suggested that the aims were more political than ecological. The same has been reported for environmental subsidy programs in Europe. Some wilderness is difficult to afford. But it is valuable none the less.

And finally, to anyone who would like to see some of the research sources for my original posting. I have an open access article in PlosBiol, the Public Library of Science refereed online Biology journal, which contains references to most of the statistics cited; and another in the journal Biodiversity which discusses wilderness policy issues. The former is
www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000143. The link to the latter is at www.tc-biodiversity.org/biodiversity_e, but it requires a subscription to download. But I can post up just the reference list if anyone wants

The author asserts that "the weight of evidence is in favour of anthropogenic climate change". However, there is no such evidence. The IPCC has been searching for 20 years, but has failed to find any convincing evidence. It is surprising that the strongest endorsement that the IPCC could give in its 2007 Report, was "Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperature since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations”.
Although IPCC bureaucrats claim that their understanding has improved to the point that they are 90% confident that humans are responsible for climate change, this claim is unfounded as it relies heavily on the unvalidated IPCC computer models. Even the IPCC scientists admit in the 2007 working group report that they have not validated the models. Independent scientists have tested the models against actual outcomes and found them to be unrepresentative. Despite continually increasing CO2 emissions, the IPCC has been unable to explain the global cooling trend from 1940 to 1975, and why there has been no statistically significant global warming for the last 15 years -- the latter is acknowledged even by the scientist at the centre of the Climategate scandal, Phil Jones.
The IPCC case for AGW is being dismembered by the 'gates' that have been opened as a result of Climategate. The IPCC itself has made several embarrassing retractions since the 2007 report. It would surprise if the IPCC were not forced to make further retractions, as its methodology for influencing politicians has comprised alarmist assertion.
Even if global warming were proved, this does not prove that it is human-caused.
The IPCC has not made any serious effort to study natural causes of climate change, such as variations in solar activity, and El Nino and La Nina.
Models are not science. Models are not evidence. Assertion is not evidence. Environmentalist ideology is not evidence.
If the author has some hard evidence, let him table it and share it with us.