“"It is dangerous to be right when government is wrong"
ENVIRONMENTAL PROACTIVITY
What we achieve on Kachana can only be considered successful if we are able to export a working knowledge of rangeland revitalisation. Fortunately Australians recognise the value of free speech. It is also fortunate that although many of our policies emanating from our bureaucratic systems are fundamentally flawed, people in this country have the integrity to admit failures and to search for better ways. In our experience with local departments we have been given much support over the years from individuals within those departments, despite the prevailing official "flat earth" stance. We are grateful for this.
Attached (in the order of most recent input first, to our earliest activities last) is our contribution to local debates. Any provocation is meant to provoke thought and discussion, not conflict. As these issues are beyond party politics and racism, we enjoy the freedom of not being hamstrung by "political correctness". We believe that all Australians need healthy environments capable of supporting healthy vibrant human communities. We also believe that all Australians want healthy environments, even if many may not wish to be directly associated with their management.
ORD BONAPARTE PROGRAM - CLICK HERE FOR OUR CONCERNS AND INPUT
October 2000: We have given up trying to have an active input into this “program”. A friend of ours summed it up better than we ever could: "...just the same old resistance in bureaucracy to see positive change experienced elsewhere from a "known and successful process". It is bureaucrats reinventing themselves, designing another project to fund and use the money, (so they can ask for the next lot), then deliberate over the "experiment" and misinterpret the results to justify their previous position, etc. "
HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT
Encouraged by our results on Kachana (where we are exploring the opportunities of animal maintained rangelands on various land types) and having had the opportunity to learn that we were not the only ones getting those results in Australia, we promoted a three-day introduction to "Holistic Management" (the evolving Allan Savory model presented by Brian Marshall, a grazier from NSW with farming experience). Apart from offering a very comprehensive and well thought out and proven package for any management situation, "Holistic Management" also promotes "environmental literacy" (one learns to "read" an environment). This basic understanding of how we all depend on the functioning of the four fundamental eco-system processes is what puts any management situation into a big picture context. Upon this knowledge rests the holistic perspective. This then, with the use of a "holistic management decision making process" enables people, businesses, bureaucracies etc to deal with the complexity. (Sound simple? - Dealing with "complexity" is not a simple matter.) The Allan Savory model is a low common denominator solution to dealing with complexity in any management situation, especially in instances where differing view points need to be represented.
