Ludwig said, "A 50/50 deal for productivity and ecological processes seems pretty reasonable to me". And my "bull$hit canary" dropped dead.

So when will we see half of Ludwigs house set aside for ecological processes? If he actually owns a house. When can will we see half the banks of the Tank Stream restored to their original condition? Or half of Brisbane's South Bank? Fast chance all round.

What the posts on this thread have made abundantly clear, again, is the fundamental double standard being applied by the urban majority, on the rural minority. And not just on environmental issues. Even modest tinkering with the metrocentric social safety net is enough to set the hounds baying. But those same hounds bark even louder to the contrary at the faintest sniff of a notion that farmers should have any safety net at all.

And if you don't know the difference in ecological values and biodiversity stocking rates between a firestick woodland, a managed pasture/woodland mosaic, an overstocked infestation of woody weeds and rotated crop/pasture regimes, then at least have the decency to defer to the judgement of the wildlife themselves who consistently vote with their feet.

They favour managed pasture/woodland mosaics first, firestick woodland second, rotated crop/pasture regimes a close third (or second, depending on crop cycle), and woodyweed infestations last. Well, there is one correction, last of all is the inner metropolitan electorates that exhibit the highest green vote.

You people talk about biodiversity values all the time but the wildlife themselves want absolutely nothing to do with you. And I respect their judgement a lot more than yours.

Once again, we have an unambiguous demonstration of an underlying incapacity of metrocentrics to empathise with rural people. It is not new. The ancient Babylonian words for "slave" had the man or woman pictograms combined with the pictogram for mountain. People beyond their immediate community of interest were fair game for the most fundamental abuse of human rights. Plus ca change?

The sooner we have a new state boundary between us the sooner we will become good neighbours.

Oh c'mon perseus, I live in the country and country folk are contemptous of city slickers, I think you would find more sympathy in the city for the country than visa versa.
If country people granted some validity to others point of view, and entered into a meaningful dialogue instead of their constant neverending greenie and city slicker bashing we might get somewhere. I have stopped talking to people around here, its akin to talking to a rake, although I get more sense from the rake at least it knows the value of silence.

Yeah, right, a meaningful dialogue with nutters who want half our net worth to "protect and maintain" a fourth choice habitat when they, themselves, refuse to put themselves out one tiny iota for biodiversity.

And you still don't get it, alanpoi, we don't want your sympathy, we want you to go to the far queue and mind your own business so we can fix real problems with real solutions.

Country Gal is right on the money, so to speak ......

If the way we use our land is set to make so much difference to our CO2 outcomes, then we should pay attention to our farmers and their needs - after all, they feed and cloth us !

There, that caught your attention, didn't it ?

When you look at what we consume and identify what materials and products originate with farmers, it quickly becomes clear that we could in many cases double what the farmer receives for product at the farm gate and still have a very viable price structure.

This is particularly so for milk and wool, and much of what we call "produce". The fact is that farmers in Australia are crap at getting a fair go.

I am in Paris at the moment and have been astonished at the high standard and wonderful quality of food here, albeit it a bit (not much!) more expensive than at home.

Going back to wool, the value of the farmer's wool input to a mens suit could double and the price of the suit would go up by only about $10. Same sort of deal with a litre of milk !

And why aren't we growing hemp as well as cotton? And pressing forward with developing aquaculture ? And better managing the marginal land we are beating to death in the endless search for economic efficiency at the cost of sustainability ?

Merde !

Perseus you do insist on repeatedly putting your foot in it big-time don’t you!

“So when will we see half of Ludwigs house set aside for ecological processes?”

I’m as fully into ecological compromise as anyone could be:

After three weeks on my new property I have already documented every native plant, weed, planted plant, bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian…. and invertebrate…that I have come across.

I’ve got a ‘biotreat’ system that treats all household greywater and puts it out on the garden. I’ve turned off my hotwater system, because you don’t need it in north Qld even at this time of the year. I carefully monitor my water use and I’m working towards installing multiple rainwater tanks.

And I’m gearing up to grow all manner of Australian dryland plants, after having developed a rainforest at my last place….and to grow as much of my own food as I can. And I feed the birds, in moderation, thus attracting a wide variety.

For farmers it should be all about finding the right balance between productivity and environmental protection, including a high level of maintenance of ecological processes.

Now you’ve got to admit that clearing 85% of any given property and making all of that productive is not a fair compromise, unless the level of productivity is very low, ie, low grazing pressure, so that a high level of natural ecological process can coexist with it.

Gee, I conceded that perhaps up to 75% productive land might be workable, if it is done in the right manner. But no, that is not good enough for you. You’ve got to have at least your 85% apparently.

But then I guess you’ve got to disagree if you possibly can with them city folk and maintain that extraordinarily polarised us-and-them attitude between the city and country that you so often express.

“The sooner we have a new state boundary between us the sooner we will become good neighbours.”

Perseus, I have taken you up on your promotion of separate states for rural communities a few times. But when I have started asking the apparently hard questions, you have deserted the discussion!!

It seems totally clear to me that despite your constant and vehement promotion of this, you can’t indicate just how it would work or what the advantages would really be for rural folk!