My suggestion is get over it. The white sandy beaches have re-formed albeit narrower and I wonder if the particularly wide expanses occurred when the water level was low. I'd expect a lot worse in physical dimensions; for example deliberate sea flooding of Lake Alexandrina in the lower Murray. The biggest travesties may be going unnoticed by the public. Doubling of atmospheric CO2, squandering of vital fuels and the depletion of phosphate for agriculture don't make postcard pictures but will affect billions. When these insidious processes come to a climax people won't give a damn about dams.

Taswegian

You obviously did not see the beach which was there. Otherwise, you make a good point about more widespread environmental damage.

But, you missed my point. This article was about the spirituality we loose when we change the face of the Earth in the pursuit of "progress".

Brian it's only spirituality if you want to see it that - not everyone does. Politicians are only reflecting what the wishes of their constituents are, so to call them names as you do is focussing your response sure, but you need to see things in a bigger context.

"They would have seen all living things as their fellow travelers through life" are these the same people who bestowe such terrible demostic violence on their own, stars in your eyes, you can't see the reality of the world around you.

These are resources, they should be used as such, we have national parks, we do lock up some assetts, but why should we lock up everything because someone had a pleasant holiday at some place, if we did, we'd never get anything done. Find somewhere else, travel and experience other places, life goes on mate.

Thanks for your insightful article Brian.

It is clear from other posters that the 'nature as resource' paradigm is still alive and well.

Thanks Brian.
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. and get screwed by those know they'll forget.

While I am generally sympathetic to Brian's feelings, I also think he is ridiculously over-romanticising, and resorting to specious arguments.

"The surface is choppy"

I seriously doubt that this is just due to the dam. Surely, if it's windy, the surface will be choppy, regardless of whether the water is one metre or fifteen metres deep. This argument seems to hark back to the old superstition (as shown in, say, Macbeth) that when things are wrong in the state of human affairs, then nature is similarly afflicted.

"Where I was at was exactly as it was a millennium ago when a group of laughing and chatting Aborigines would have sat on the sand. They would have been intensely aware of nature’s moods. They would have felt part of the earth, the air and the water. They would have seen all living things as their fellow travelers through life."

I found this entire paragraph to be ridiculously romantic and idealised. Contrary to this Noble Savage view, surely it could well have been a group of scowling, squabbling Aborigines, and it would still be irrelevant to the issue.

I also seriously doubt the assertion that Aborigines "would have seen all living things as their fellow travelers through life". They would have seen some living things as beautiful, some as spiritual, some as irrelevant and many as simpy edible.

I confess that I love Tasmania. I lived and worked there for 6 years, I still walk and fish in the Central Highlands every summer, so I can appreciate the author's love for the place and his lament for the loss of a part of it.

However, the problem with this sort of 'spirituality' is that it inspires the sort of head-in-the-sand thinking evident in akash's post expressing concern over the continued presence of a 'nature as resource paradigm' Just how do humans live if they don't treat nature as a resource? Would aboriginals have survived if they hadn't thought the same way?

It is this type of romanticism that inspires environmental activism to oppose virtually all natural resource use without thinking through the implications.

If we aren't going to revert to living in caves, we only have one option which is to manage natural resources and the environment. This requires pragmatism and an acceptance that we can't maintain everything in a pristine state.

It may mean mistakes are made such as Lake Pedder, but on the whole we in Australia have been able to strike a far better balance between resource conservation and use than most other places, largely because we've become affluent through utilising resources.

There is a crying need for Australians to think hard about what they are doing to global environmental outcomes by supporting activists campaigning to pull apart natural resource management in this country.

Clownfish

You are wrong. Only shallow water has the capacity to give a mirror image of the background. Your comment, and a couple of others which imply that I am on a cloud somewhere, makes me feel even more fortunate that I get so much out of nature.

rpg

Domestic violence is irrelevant to the substance of the article. I referred to the spiritual life of Aborigines of millenium ago. Today's Aborigines may not be that spiritual after we took their way of life away from them.

MWPOYNTER

I tend to agree
My 'nature as resource' paradigm comment referred to the paradigm that sees nature purely in resource terms and cannot see any other value in nature. It is this paradigm that leads to 'mistakes' such as Lake Pedder.

I too saw Lake Pedder for the first time in early 1972 but from a slightly different perspective. As a NSW bushwalker and climber, the visions I encountered in Tasmania were beyond description in their beauty and Pedder was the most beautiful.
At the time we were travelling around cheaply,hitch-hiking and staying in youth hostels when in the big city of Hobart. There I encountered a number of blokes my age (21) who were working on the hydro construction. Here we were, a bunch of no-hoper pretend hippies out for a good time, confronted by a bunch of construction workers trying to make a living. It was just before we were due to be balloted and drafted (yep, not that long ago we had a thing called 'national service') so things were pretty chaotic.
What I remember is the great beauty and spriritualness of Pedder, but also the argument put by the construction blokes about jobs in Tasmania. It was a turbulent time.

Overall, I like Australia as a country. However, the views of many of the posters here underline the main thing I dislike about the place - and that is the spiritual emptiness of most of its population.

I have often pondered this void, especially when travelling overseas and encountering the inner richness of many other societies - often far worse off materially. (Ditto, Aboriginal society.)

I suppose the best theory I've been able to come up with is that white Australian society did not grow gradually from an ancient culture within an ancient land and move gradually into the modern era. It was transplanted here readymade from somewhere else.

"Only shallow water has the capacity to give a mirror image of the background."

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's a load of cobblers. Nothing that I can recall from my High School physics would support that argument, nor did a couple of science teachers I queried today think so, either. Experience of the reflections on the rather deep portions of the Gordon River and Macquarie Harbour would also seem to give the lie to your claim.

I get a lot out of nature, too. I hike regularly in Tasmania, where I live, and I love this island. What I don't get out of it is a load of woolly, nature-worshipping hippy drivel.

I also made no reference at all to domestic violence. What I was saying was that Aborigines of 1,000 years ago didn't float around on some sort of permanent spiritual high: I'm sure they would have laughed, cried, hugged, fought, ate, hungered, wondered, quarrelled, smiled and cried, just as any human being does, or ever has.

What I strongly suspect they didn't do was have an absurdly sentimental view of nature.

I also find your claim that Aborigines today may be less spiritual than their ancestors to be incredibly condescending and insulting.

A timely article Brian Holden on the damming of lakes and rivers and the potential risks to our threatened biodiversity.

We should be forever mindful that man did not weave the web of life for he is but one thread within it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

All things are bound together. All things connect.

Your article brought a tear to my eye Brian. It took me back to my own experiences in the bush on the south side of Perth, looking for orchids as a kid in the 60s where Murdoch University now is. Apart from a tiny remnant on the uni grounds, there is hardly a skerrick of bush for a huge distance. Just houses. And it was worse, much worse, on the north side.

Saw the same sort of thing happen in north Queensland in the 80s and 90s, with massive urban expansion in Townsville and Cairns, enormous sugarcane expansion, and absolutely massive land-clearing over vast areas of central and southern Queensland.

Land-clearing has virtually stopped... except in coastal areas where urban expansion continues, in fact at a faster rate than ever before.

And so it goes.

Lemmings to the cliff indeed.

"It is this type of romanticism that inspires environmental activism to oppose virtually all natural resource use without thinking through the implications."

I'm an environmental activist MWPOYNTER and my activism has not emerged from any romantic ideas but rather through the reality.

Australia's record for managing its natural resources is appalling - particularly when we have such a small population.

The real world includes emissions' reports from pollutant industries. I have perused many of these and all breach regulatory guidelines. The Environmental Protection Acts were established in the 70's to protect the environment. Alas, they have only protected the polluter.

Several examples include the dioxin poisoning of the magnificent Sydney Harbour. Languishing in a shed at Botany Bay is over 10,000 tonnes of hexachlorobenzene - the largest "cache" ever and one of the most toxic chemicals on the planet. Whilst Germany had offered to destroy this cache they have backed down and no other country will touch it. A toxic plume is heading for the bay.

In WA, another hazardous U/G plume is heading for the Helena River which feeds into the Swan. Contamination of these rivers will be catastrophic. This is a result of the Department of Environment's failure to enforce conditions on a hazardous waste plant operator.

Kwinana industrial site in WA is disgustingly polluted and a health survey revealed that Kwinana/Rockingham had the highest rate of cancer in the country.

Alcoa in the S/W of WA have plundered and polluted Yarloop and Wagerup. Regulators have ignored community appeals and reports from medical experts. In fact, you may find it amusing that the citizens have had to resort to employing Erin Brockovich to instigate a class action against this company which has an abysmal record of resource management in many countries.

Two months ago in Kalgoorlie, Barrack/Newmont was fined a pittance for spilling millions of litres of toxic solution into the groundwater - the second serious offence for this year.

That is the reality MWPOYNTER.

The number of serious breaches concerning resource management are endless. Should you require more, I would be only to happy to provide them.

To dickie
In many ways you are supporting my point. I don't know much about mining or industrial processes (my expertise is in forests), but I presume the same types of problems that you have mentioned occur in developing countries, only on a larger scale.

My point is that the usual response of our environmental activists is to simply campaign to end mining, forestry, or whatever the issue is - they are not satisfied with improving management or attaining 'best practice' management.

But ending these activities in Australia where we have the capacity to address serious problems, simply shifts them to developing countries where there is far less capacity and political will to deal with the problems

"Only shallow water has the capacity to give a mirror image of the background."

I hate to labour the point, but I spotted a contemporary photo of Lake Pedder in a recent issue of "40 degrees South" magazine that disproves your claim.

MWPOYNTER

Thank you for your response.

While I am not sufficiently au fait with the environmental movements in the forestry industry, I can assure you I am reasonably well informed with the operations of pollutant industries.

The claim that environmentalists wish only to shut down industry is mere propaganda peddled by those with vested interests. While the environment movement does on occasion, attract a few "nutters," the majority members are far better informed than the general public.

Fundamental truths and documented evidence paints a sobering picture and the realisation that self-regulation of pollutant industries has been a failure.

These facts are derived from perusing official analytical results of stack emissions which have been performed by accredited NATA laboratories.

When one realises that emissions, even from very small operators, are exceeding national and international maximum guidelines on a daily basis then one can justify one's concerns.

I draw your attention to the fact that I have viewed documented evidence that shows that stack emissions of dioxins or furans are some 9 or 10 times in excess of these guidelines. Carbon monoxide - 900 times in excess of guidelines etc etc.

Regulators purposely fail to include conditions within operating licences thus allowing operators free reign to pollute with impunity.

Even without this knowledge one can glean from sensible observation that enforcement of emission guidelines in Australia has never been practised. Perhaps one need only look at our reputation as the largest pollutant emitter per capita on the planet.

I am confident when I claim that regulatory processes in this country are often of a third world standard.

Unfortunately, the industry barons and successive sycophantic governments intend to keep it that way.

Cheers