If any group has the right to claim the role of environmental guardian it is farmers, the same understated Australians responsible for feeding the nation, but their environmental work goes on beneath the radar.
This week is Landcare Week and Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association chief executive Jan Davis said today that it was the opportunity to recognise the role Tasmanian farmers have played in managing both their own land and their landscape.
“Farmers have to work for today with an eye to tomorrow,” she said. “There is no choice because there is no future in unsustainable farming. That would be the short-sighted view.”
The National Farmers’ Federation and the Australian Conservation Foundation founded Landcare more than 20 years ago with the object of delivering projects with positive outcomes for both the environment and agriculture.
“Today, Landcare is an environmental movement in its own right,” Ms Davis said, “and our farmers are at the vanguard of that movement.
“In Tasmania they are frontline environmentalists in terms of forest management, soil and water conservation, wildlife and domestic animal welfare and their continuous education program for those who will be the farmers of tomorrow.
“They were caring for their environment long before latter-day evangelists,” she said.
Australian farmers look after 61 percent of Australia’s valuable land resources and 94 per cent of them undertake some form of natural resource management, including planting trees and shrubs, fencing off rivers, streams and gullies to protect regrowth and restoring wetlands.
They lead the nation in reducing greenhouse gas emissions – 40 per cent between 1990 and 2006.
Landcare Week runs until Sunday September 9.
Jan Davis TFGA Chief Executive http://www.tfga.com.au/
