Congratulations Geraldine de Burgh-Day for having the courage to speak up and expose yet another obscenity of natural destruction that Forestry Tasmania has inflicted, or has allowed to be inflicted, upon our beautiful and sadly abused island state.
I say congratulations because, in the four years that I have made Tasmania my home, I have come to sense an almost innate fear among old-time Tasmanians to speak out; and even a sense of fear among those newcomers who feel that it is better for their own interests not to speak out against the legion examples of natural environment abuse that are there for all to see all over the state.
When I enquire why people seem unwilling to voice their protests at glaring examples of wanton vandalism against the natural environment, I am frequently told that people say nothing because there is an age-old fear of retribution for anyone with the temerity to criticise publicly owned organisations, such as Forestry Tasmania and local governments, or private giants, such as Gunns.
Although I believe most — if not all — of this fear is unwarranted, I am acutely aware that the fear itself exists. And it will do so as long as we are witness to the continuing rape of the natural beauty that has given Tasmania its reputation as one of the world’s great tourist attractions.
It is the savagery with which government and private industry devastates the countryside — land and water — that triggers unreasonable fears in us humans.
It is time we started to let the wider world know that, in truth, Tasmania is a vandal state that cares not a whit about the fact that, in these days of worldwide environmental abuse, a sound economic future would lie ahead for all of us if only we could have the entire island declared a national park to be enjoyed by all of nature — including us humans.
All too often we see ourselves as spectators of nature when, in fact, we are very much an integral — though frighteningly dangerous and destructive — part of it.
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