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Politics and a greener future : Comments
By Peter McMahon, published 4/5/2006With the environment the big political issue this century, the Greens could be looking at a brighter future.
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We were regarded with derision by forestry types for our preference for native species over their introduced exotic monocultures. We were regarded and often labelled as lazy hillbillies by mainstream farmers and townsfolk who regarded our regenerating trees as a lack of adequate weed control.
All of them have taken a deliberate choice to sacrifice the income from grazing that would have come if the paddocks had been left as pasture and many have had to sail a lot closer to the financial wind in times of drought as they waited for their forest to produce millable trees.
There are few people on this planet who could claim to have more of their personal wealth committed to assets that deliver ecological benefits. There are no finer role models.
And yet, almost to a man (and woman) they hate the green movement's guts with a passion that is only ever displayed by those who feel deeply, deeply, betrayed. For after 20,000 days of quiet forest growth and ecological enhancement, the Greens will be there to complain about the damage and the noise from 4 or 5 days of proportional harvesting.
The Greens are going no-where because they are urban people who think they know everything about an ecology they merely visit, who demonise the real ecological champions, and who adopt public profiles when there is, as Candide said, "work to be done in the garden".
You are never there when the environment really needs help.