(I'm actually quite chuffed that I was able to provide post number 42 on this thread.)

Pericles,

Lol!

For those who don't get it and are thinking Pericles has finally lost the plot...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Answer_to_the_Ultimate_Question_of_Life.2C_the_Universe.2C_and_Everything_.2842.29

You may quite rightly be chuffed at providing post number 42 on the thread, Pericles, but if you could also supply the Ultimate Question as recommended by Deep Thought:

"It would have been simpler, of course, to have known what the actual question was."

The payoff being the same as Zaphod's reasons for wanting to know it:

"Oh. Well -- partly the curiosity, partly a sense of adventure, but mostly I think it's for the fame and the money."

The question to ask at a basic level is that if something is living, does it have a purpose? It doesn't have to be a model walking down a catwalk. In terms of basic assessment of environmental matters - it is not about looking from the top down - it is a simple principle, that our natural world must be protected, regardless of any "basis" that a human may have, or want.

Protecting the natural world (even if a natural environment is seen as having limited value by some humans) we can't say our planet has lost much with forms of protection.

Scientific facts for example re the River Murray and surrounds:

"The Basin’s flat terrain, low rainfall and high evaporation rates contribute to increased salt concentration across the landscape. Land clearing and irrigation has increasingly mobilised salt (into the landscape and river systems). Compounding this has been the increasing proportion of river flows being diverted for irrigation, industrial and urban uses. There is now less flow in the river to dilute inflows of saline groundwater."

http://www.mdba.gov.au/sites/default/files/pubs/MDBA-14165-Brochure-WEB-FA.pdf

The life of the Murray Darling Basin and wetlands do in my view have a life and purpose. "Wetlands, the Basin's most productive and biologically diverse ecosystems, provide essential breeding and feeding habitats for many kinds of organisms, waterbirds, fish, invertebrates, and plants."

"Wetlands play an important role in landscape function, including cycling of carbon, water and nutrients, food and fibre production, water purification, regulation of flows, provision of habitats, and tourism and recreation services with wetlands covering approximately six to nine per cent of the Earth's surface and contain about 35 per cent of global terrestrial carbon."

http://www.mdba.gov.au/about-basin/basin-environment/ecosystems/rivers-wetlands

http://www.environment.gov.au/resource/issues-paper-role-wetlands-carbon-cycle

Too many people on this site are 'city-centric'. Our living natural world can have a value, even as simple as something to look at.

As long as there are tasty animals. Did a superb bolognaise for lunch. Our own 'toms', San Marzano and Gold, make a beautiful sauce. Roast lamb tonight with home grown herbs and vegetables. Too easy and already on. Would have liked to make a venison casserole, but none left unfortunately. Wherever did those backstraps in the chiller go? Oh, I remember now (done with pine nuts and red) and what a pleasant evening that was.

What interesting names you give your cats, onthebeach.

>>Our own 'toms', San Marzano and Gold, make a beautiful sauce.<<

Yum.