The worst thing about the debate on cattle grazing in our alpine national parks is that the science has been ignored for so long. The claim that mountain cattlemen "care" for our alpine country and that herds of cattle don't do enormous damage to fragile alpine ecosystems has been proven again and again to be false.
Our scientists produce hard evidence in peer-reviewed studies, yet for 30 years the facts have been ignored because of an emotive campaign by a few well-connected graziers.
How are we to deal with difficult
issues such as storing toxic waste, deepening the Port Phillip
channel or improving the health of our river systems if we ignore the
studies of our world-class environmental scientists?
Chris
Clarke, industrial officer
Science Section, Community and Public
Sector Union
Carlton South
Thanks to Bracks for taking the bull by the horns. And there's been plenty of the stuff flung about over the last month or so. It boils down to an argument over environment versus heritage. The heritage is questionable as most of these farmers on horses jump back into their 4WDs when they get home, and can still muster their cattle from their state forest runs each year any way.
Letting a few people hammer the
environment for the sake of a tradition is like saying let's allow
the Japanese to continue whaling. The cattle can be moved to less
sensitive areas, the alps can't.
Sam
Hemmings, Bairnsdale
The Howard Government wants to
overturn the State Government's ban on grazing in the Alpine National
Park to preserve our national heritage. Yet Howard is hell bent on
destroying another national heritage - workers' rights - which so
many had fought long and hard to achieve.
Henry
Herzog, Elwood
How hypocritical of the Howard Government to moot federal intervention on behalf of the mountain cattlemen when the Federal Government immediately followed the initiative of the NSW Government in banning grazing in alpine national parks a decade ago.
The so-called heritage of alpine grazing is a hangover of the squattocracy days where a few benefited at the expense of the rest. It may be true that mountain cattlemen "care for the high country", but walk through it and try to observe any rectification of cattle damage to the environment on the Bogong High Plains, for example.
The sight of 500 heritage-looking
Drizabones on horseback was a splendid sight. Sad the brand is not
even Australian. Things have changed.
Ian
Muir, Mount Eliza
Several years ago Tom Burlinson was riding a horse to the steps of Parliament House in Sydney demanding the great Snowy River be given decent environmental flows for its survival.
Now he's riding a horse to the
steps of Parliament House in Melbourne demanding 8000 cattle be
allowed to trample and poo in the same river's headwaters. Is he a
tad over-awed by the image of a farmer on a horse?
Jill
Redwood, Bonang
As a child I lived in the Howqua Valley in north-east Victoria. A neighbour, Jack Hearn, had for years grazed cattle on Mount Clear and Mount Howitt. After my first visit to Mount Howitt in 1951, I spoke to Jack about the lack of water near the summit. I remember his comment very clearly: "There used to be a good spring 200 yards from the top but the cattle trampled it out."
This illustrates the strongest reason why the Government is right to ban cattle from the high country. Many springs (spagnum bogs) have been destroyed or degraded by cattle across all regions of the alps. We cannot afford the resulting loss of summer water flow into our river systems.
We should have followed NSW and
banned alpine grazing in 1969.
Rod
Lingard, Torquay
To have an opinion on highland
cattle grazing you need to do some research. Maisie Fawcett noticed
the degradation of the land that the cattle grazing was causing in
1942. She fenced off areas from cattle; you can still see the
differences yourself. Look up Maisie Fawcett on the internet, and
then make your now-informed opinion.
Verita
Stewart, Eldorado
It is great that the Federal
Government has listed the high country under its heritage umbrella.
With 500 horses filling the Melbourne streets with equine excrement,
I have already noticed a drop in the stench of our drinking water. I
demand that the crap laid before us on Thursday be gathered up and
dumped directly into the reservoirs where it has been mixed with the
bovine equivalent for the last 170 years. We want our heritage
back!
Lawry
Mahon, Footscray
I find it utterly repugnant that uninformed celebrities have the audacity to even utter that there is no evidence for cattle grazing impacting the high country.
This undermines the very essence of
scientific investigation and, as a scientist, offends me. Given that
our society and a great deal of its technology is based on the work
of scientists such as Einstein, Newton and others, it is laughable
that so-called celebrities promote themselves to be experts at
ecological issues and can have the gall to attempt to discredit
research. Stick to acting or whatever you might be actually
celebrated for and leave the science to those who have spent the time
doing the research.
Michele
Kohout, Ferny Creek