Thursday 8 September 2011

a conversation about magpies

A discussion on 612 ABC's facebook page contained a great comment

"Angela Cartwright: I have a great idea, kill all the sharks, kill all the bats, kill all the swooping birds, kill all the snakes, kill all the possums, kill all the bush turkeys! What a lovely city/country we would have then. When did we stop loving our land?" When did Australians (othre than aboriginals) love their land? All the plans were weeds for the first settlers and animals weird freaks of nature. Cut it down and bring in proper plants from the old world! Build houses and more houses to replace the last koala habitats! Build artificial islands and sandbanks to make the beaches and harbours more functional!..


I wonder the same myself, as I blogged a while ago about Koalas.

No one seems to want to alter the nature of urban development, despite general agreement that its both costly and increasingly difficult to provide infrastructure to these sprawling urban areas.
So while roads are not allowed to threaten the Koala population that relentless urban development is. So areas just around where I live which were once like this:



are bull dozed over and turned into this:




There are certainly other models of development than this, which if we are to live in the area and not destroy the very reasons we find it beautiful need to be explored.

This will require planning and community involvement. I hope that this can happen so that we don't have to say good bye to both the Koalas and the natural beauty of the region.

1 comment:

Rich Gift Of Lins said...

Yes, I often express a thought that they should just concrete/tarmac everywhere from middle England where I live right down to the the south coast. I would be a lot easier than all the arguing that continuously takes place.