We cannot turn the clock back to the era when farmers believed it was their right to clear land, writes Paul Kravchenko. The conservation of native vegetation and habitat is not the only issue in which we should all have a say. Land clearance directly contributes to the serious land degradation in Australia. Part of the justification for continuing to clear is the view that clearing native vegetation equates to more productivity. Unfortunately, the reality is that the downward trend in farm incomes over the past few decades has more to do with world markets than to the encroaching scrub on grazing land.
Some people find it hard to accept change.
To somehow associate the impact of 200 years of European-style clearing and farming with 40,000 years of landscape modification by Aborigines, and to imply that the two are similar is not only ignorant but insulting to the original peoples of this land. Of course, my reading of the landscape is much different to the one presented by Cobb, who sees only farm paddocks, grazing livestock, orchards and vineyards. NSW I see dry, overgrazed paddocks, where sheep huddle in the meagre shade afforded by a lone gum tree. I see bare hillsides, where all of the soil has washed away and silted up the creek in which, only a generation ago, children swam freely. In country towns I see dead areas in sporting grounds and playing fields due to rising saline water tables.