Trees, landclearing and farmers
Crikey is running a story about a possible compensation claim that farmers might have for NOT clearing the land. Now my history is a little rusty but I seem to recall that farmers were once obliged to clear their land or face the prospect of losing their land, according to the law of the day (in Oz).
That farmers are now agitating to get compo for breaking with tradition is
a bit revealing. You might think that farmers, who proclaim loudly to be
caretakers of their land, have decided that enough was enough and the
miserable amounts of native vegetation that have escaped the chainsaw were
to be left for future generations. Not so. The Crikey article refers to
“market forces” for the reduction in clearing, and if there was any doubt
that it was a matter of money, then the agitation for a claim for
financial compo for NOT clearing gives the game away.
As the world hurtles headlong towards the climatic abyss that appears on
the near horizon, you can only despair of a mentality that ONLY measures
the world in terms of how much money something is worth. I am reminded
that you eat food and drink water, money is only one way of getting those
things.
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