Greenies! Tree huggers! They’re a couple of emotive terms for describing people who care about their local environment and want to see it protected for generations to come.
While some people seem to think that the environmental movement is hell-bent on stopping development and saving every last blade of grass, the reality is a lot different.
It may surprise you to know the types of people who contact the Mackay Conservation Group for help, and the diversity of issues we deal with every week.
Last week we had a call about neighbours polluting waterways with toxic waste, another person was concerned about the impact of coal dust on their health, yet another wanted to know what he could do about unauthorised coastal developments; and this is just to name a few.
The people who call us aren’t ratbags with too much time on their hands. The come from all walks of life including business owners, financial advisers, coal miners and farm workers. One issue that is causing growing concern around the region is the amount of uncontrolled land clearing.
The previous LNP Queensland government made radical changes to the Vegetation Management Act that had been in place for over a decade.
Now we are hearing from concerned graziers and farm workers west of Mackay that inappropriate land clearing is occurring across the region.
They aren’t “tree huggers”, they’re people who know that if you clear too much of the land you’ll end up with an eroded landscape that won’t support farming of any kind.
Wildlife also loses out to land clearing.
Since 2012, Queensland has lost 200,000 hectares of threatened species habitat and 40,000 hectares of koala habitat and it’s increasing at a rapid rate.
This week the Queensland government is introducing legislation to bring land clearing under control again.
That’s something that we should all support.
