Martin Wyness Guardian, UK
In Tasmania, where I recently lived, I witnessed the destruction of vast areas of high conservation value ancient forest. Huge trees are quickly reduced to woodchips, and heartless blue gum plantations are sown in their place. In the process, all wildlife is displaced, burned or poisoned in a frenzy of greed.
To get rid of residue after clear-felling (sometimes only 20% of downed timber is actually removed), vast burn-offs are carried out, releasing millions of tonnes of climate-change gases into the pristine southern atmosphere. Burrowing creatures are cooked in their homes, top soil is converted from organic matter to sand, and in some areas poison is laid to destroy anything that dares move back into the freshly-sown plantations. This is Howard’s world, a place brutally stripped to basic commodities.
My asthmatic kids suffered greatly from the burn-offs. Complaints to government were met with silence, and then relentless negativity from the local logging community. We were threatened with death and endured months of vandalism to our property as we witnessed plumes of smoke 12,000 ft high, looking like atomic bombs going off. You are left wondering how many years Australians would have to drive to put so much CO2 into the air.
This drier-than-usual continent is now facing its nemesis. Its lack of caring is likely to bite back as climate change is now tipped to affect it more than most other developed countries, and the next few decades will see huge changes, whether it is ready for them or not.
If Australia was not so heart-achingly beautiful, maybe it would not hurt so much. The lucky country? More like bloody stupid country.
