The sudden political execution of Kevin Rudd should act as a potent reminder to Tasmania’s peak environment groups – Environment Tasmania Incorporated and The Wilderness Society – that with leadership comes with responsibility.
If the raw and painful lessons learned from the debacle over implosion of TWS under Alec Marr have not penetrated the conscience of those heading up and behind the scenes of these two groups regardless of what side they might be on, then they had better listen to the warnings from the ‘rank and file’. All is not sweet on the organic farm and the animals are ‘not happy’.
Autocratic styles of management do not sit comfortably with many people who have had a long engagement as community volunteers and unpaid activists across Tasmania. Even more so for those whose lives may have been so devastatingly affected by appalling Government mismanagement of forest policy and practices over several decades.
Does TWS and ET Inc. want to be charged with the same offences as Kevin Rudd, or do they want to see a rebellious membership topple their own leadership for lack of listening to their own people?
The musings of a possible ‘Forest Roundtable’ has done more to divide the environment movement as a whole than any other issue in recent years. Within the environment movement there are many people backing this process who have been working for over three decades on ‘forest’ issues in an attempt to save the native forests in Tasmania. The position on the vast estates of plantations remains vexed and yet community voices are being sidelined or ignored.
Where is the mandate from which these two groups speak for so many?
What permission do they have to represent them in the decision-making process in any negotiations (formal or informal) with forest industry representatives?
Has ET Inc. ceased to be a ‘representative’ environment council? Maybe it can embrace a name change to TOTAL ENVIRONMENT CENTRE?
From the ET Inc. website: “Environment Tasmania is a not-for-profit conservation council that is structured to ensure its clear independence and apolitical nature, its fair decision-making processes, its accountability to its member conservation groups, and its adherence to the goals of the protection, conservation and rehabilitation of Tasmania’s natural environment.”
ET Inc. receives base funding from Commonwealth government as Tasmanian peak conservation council.
ET Inc. and TWS need to go back to their respective members and have the discussions that have not taken place. Without these discussions there can be neither the trust in the process nor in the terms of any future negotiations.
When the pre-election new group, Our Common Ground was established last September there was a commitment to have community dialogue on ending the forest war. But did it happen?
Time passes and the forest chaos continues.
Achieving consensus is important, but what is the process?
Let the community discussions begin! Allow all the environmental groups to have a thorough debate on the issues before reaching a consensus position. Diversity and dissent are the hallmark of healthy, resilient natural ecologies as they should be the hallmark of human communities. Without them we are lost.
The time for timidity and secretiveness should be over – seize the day or lose it!
In politics it is easy to propose plans and solutions, but without the knowledge & skills, they can appear as transient dreams. To make real headway in these matters are extraordinarily difficult. This was the lesson Kevin Rudd has just been taught. I hope it is a lesson TWS and ET Inc. are not too late to learn also.
