Agmates broke the news last Friday that the radical Green conservation group World Wildlife Fund is mounting a media campaign to pressure the QLD government to stop farmers treating woody weed regrowth.
Rural Lobby group AgForce has contacted us to advise that they have received many copies of our article and are ‘onto it.’ [ thanks to our Agmates readers]
Heres the latest from todays Brisbane Courier Mail. This an absolutely disgraceful article by the Couriers Environmental writer Brian Williams. You can see the online version here.
Curiously the online version does not include the disgraceful allegations of wildlife numbers being slaughtered by farmers that is printed in the physical paper.
It’s a full half page article on page 14, 8/09/2009. He is what has been left out of the online article:
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Mr Heath [sic WWF spokesperson] said 70 million animals were likely to have been killed by the clearing in 2005-06 based on estimates in a report by scientists Dr Hal Cogger, Professor Hugh Ford, Dr Christopher Johnson, James Holman and Don Bulter.
In 2003 they found about 100 million animals were killed when an avergae 446,000ha remnant vegetation was cleared in 1997-99.
This included 19,000 Koalas, 342,000 possums and gliders - 8,500,000 birds and 89,000,000 (thats right 89 million) reptiles.
Mr Heath said the massive losses were unacceptable. “It’s a huge blow for our wildlife, our climate, our rivers and the reefs.”
“The animals that are wiped out suffer horribly as they are burnt or starved to death.”
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And From the web site:
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“Queensland will fail to reduce emissions if it continues to allow this level of land clearing,” Mr Heath said.
“Halting the practice is a cheap and easy way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
WWF said the Queensland Government should act immediately to stop all clearing of endangered, vulnerable or threatened regional ecosystems.
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It is no wonder that urban dwellers have the view that farmers are “rednecked environmental vandals”. The reporting by Brisbane’s only daily newspaper is pure green propaganda, offensive and a disgrace.
Anyone with an ounce of common sense will tell you that the above figures of wildlife death are green hysteria and pure fabrication. Courier Mail environmental journalist Brian Williams should be sacked for printing this obvious beat up designed to denigrate farmers and pressure the government.
AgForce should be seeking legal advise on behalf of all QLD farmers. They should be suing Brian Williams and the Courier Mail for defamation.
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Have Your say!
Are you disgusted and horrified by the blatant biased reporting and obvious use of journalistic power to portray QLD farmers as environmental vandals and the heartless mass slaughter of our wild life.
All QLD farmers and rural people should be demanding a full retraction and public apology and the immediate sacking of Brian Williams.
The Courier Mail is nothing more than a Radiacl Green propaganda rag mascarading as a respected city news paper.
It is an anti QLD farmer, anti rural QLD community publication. You could make your own protest in a small but effective way - Don’t buy it or advertise in it until they remedy this outrage.
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Tags: AgForce, Courier Mail, Nick Heath, WWF
This is rehashed rubbish which was being promoted by the WWF a few years ago - 89 million reptiles?!!
They count every grub and gecko, and they count all these animals on the coastal strip and then multiply it for the whole state.
They are so far off this planet that they don’t know that koalas don’t live in all regions, that the entire inland of Australia was free of trees when white man came here, that when lightning started fires (yes, I have seen it many times, it does happen) or aboriginals started fires they burned unchecked until they ran out of fuel or the rain put them out.
Therefore we need to burn in Australia. By stopping fires they are changing the landscape and turning OPEN forest into HEAVY forest and forcing these animals and birds to move elsewhere or become extinct. And they have the hide to blame us!!
When I was in the USA a few years ago I visited a rancher who had finally gained permission to thin the ponderosa on his ranch and the creek ran all year round for the first time in 40 years and the beavers came back to the creek and built a dam!
Trees drink much of our water and they will make the country very dry. They cause erosion on river banks, the best thing is good grass cover.
SHAME ON THE COURIER MAIL. I DON’T BUY NEWSPAPERS AT ALL, only the rural papers as the dailys just print sensationalist rot.
There should be a law against it where they are seriously fined for printing blatant lies. No wonder some countries control the “freedom of the press.”
Call me paranoid but the print media has tried to portray farmers for many years as being environmental vandals.
It fits in with the government promotion of ‘free trade’ as they want to import food from China and elsewhere - they don’t want food produced in Australia.
We are just supposed to be a big mine for coal, iron ore and uranium , natural gas and a US deputy sheriff in the Pacific.
An excellent talk from John Pilger at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/fora/
Pilger talked of the propaganda of silence, fixed boundaries in our media, black farce and absurdities, censorship by omission, stating that Kevin Rudd either has deep stupidity or deep cynicism when he said being in the military is the highest calling, a lot of media is from official sources i.e. from government and established interests, the gatekeepers for the Australian elite.
He said we need a counter movement in a hurry in journalism to prevent our liberal democracy turning into a corporate dictatorship.
He stated that Murdoch had said that there will be 3 media corporations in the world and his will be one of them - this state of affairs is ridiculous and extremely dangerous for human freedom and democracy.
Rupert Murdoch
How can regional Queenslanders ever hope to have a properly functioning democracy when the so-called “newspaper of public record” is so blatantly malicious towards us. It is not a question of removing Williams or correcting a gross misrepresentation.
The fact is that any regional truth is not classed as newsworthy while any green demonisation of the regional minority gets a run without even the most rudimentary checks.
And there is no theory of democracy that is capable of functioning properly with this sort of fundamental flaw intact. It is a license to demonise and defame. And history has repeatedly shown that ordinary humans are only capable of condoning acts of gross dispossession and injustice after the intended victims have been systematically dehumanised. “By their deeds shall ye know them”.
The Bush needs to put as much distance between this sort of predatory scum and our children’s future.
The urban media has squandered its right to play any role in influencing the decision making processes (and voters) that determine our governance. And the only way to do that is to put a new state boundary between them and us.
Only then will new “newspapers of public record” emerge in the new regional capitals to perform their proper role of informing the voters on ALL the issues of relevance. The urban punters can read what they like as long as their ignorant votes have no say in regional destiny.
And as for Murdoch, if the clown want 8 hours of my time each week so he can sell my attention span to paying advertisers, then he can put me on the payroll at my usual rates.
Good on you Ian, Judy & Von,
It is interesting to note other farmers have not expressed their outrage at this Courier Mail biased.
Especially those involved in AgForce who spend a small fortune each year in the Queensland Country Life telling people “every family needs a farmer” which always amuses me in that it’s preaching to the converted. In fairness they do spend a bit of that money on TV ads that I imagine reach Brisbane and the major regional centres.
However he’s is how this works.
1. The WWF in cohorts with the Courier Mail commence an unchecked campaign to pressure the state government over an issue. This one is to ban any tidying up of regrowth / woody weeds, the last one was banning Gamba grass etc.
2. The Urban population then reads this unchallenged rubbish and not seeing any rebuttal they belive its a fact. I mean they could buy the Country Life, but with a circulation of 35,000 copies a week with 5,000 of those going to government public servants - leaves about 30,000 copies. Now Brisbane has a population of 1,000,000, the gold coast 500,000 and a total state pop of 4 million I don’t need to tell you that most Queenslanders or 3,975,000 people don’t read the QCL.
3. The government then reacts to concerns of the voting public (read urban voters), and the Green lobby pressure. They announce something to sooth the worries of the Urban voters and the greens.
4. At the 11th hour AgForce get involved trying to get a decent outcome for the bush. But by that time - the government has made up its mind.
5. The government passes new legislation to ban whatever it is, The bush is up in arms, the new law is in and the Greens and the Courier Mail has another win.
The time to be up in arms, the debunk the hysterical claims of the greens is now - not after the horse has bolted.
But it would appear that you 3 and myself are the only ones who care enough to have a say.
I’ll wager there will be plenty of bush people screaming ‘blue murder’ after the greens get there way and have all treatment of regrowth / woody weeds banned.
Just can’t be bothered to start screaming ‘bloody murder’ when it can actually do some good.
Oh well we tried.
A lot of farming people I’ve talked to don’t read the Courier Mail or the Country Life - they find it too negative and depressing - and they don’t have time to write on the net.
The situation is bad as you know , people are struggling to stay afloat - I wish they would get angry and push for change instead of getting depressed.
Today is World Suicide Prevention Day so my local Toowoomba ABC tells me - I hope farmers instead of getting depressed can see the ‘big picture’ and get motivated to bring big changes across rural industries in the NEAR FUTURE.
A spiritual epiphany
Ok Von,
Its fine for farmers just to ignore it and hope it goes away.
But I have warned the rural community -
Heres todays follow up in the Courier Mail.
After all farmers will have plenty of time to do anything they like when they lose there ability to control regrowth or woody weeds on their properties.
That’s the spirit - we’ll keep fighting - we will never give up .
Kevin Dud is up in Emerald today and Mareeba last night and farmers are telling him things have got to change quickly. Peter Kenny says the Prime Minister is willing to listen - I DON”T THINK SO
Its just ridiculous EVERY DAY on the Country Hour it is global warming climate change , carbon trading GARBAGE DOGMA.
ITS RELENTLESS ! ARE THEY DESPERATE OR SOMETHING THAT PEOPLE ARE WAKING UP ?
I am a member of AgForce - they are far from perfect but they try and they are all we have!! I spoke to their office yesterday and was told that they are working behind the scenes on this.
I would like them to scream and yell so that the general public are aware of the facts, but then the government won’t deal with them at all, so the best they can do is negotiate behind closed doors to water down the government changes to make them a little less painful.
The government has ALL the power, and they only want farmers that match their idealistic view of farming.
G’day Judy,
Thanks for that and I agree with you that AgForce does a great job. In fact as I’ve stated elsewhere I am of the opinion that they are the best of the state farming organizations at representing farmers interests.
But to state my point again - Whilst they state they’re / farmers case quietly to the state Government, the greens run there public campaign unchecked in the green rag (Courier Mail) influencing the million plus urban voters in Brisbane and large regional centres, with their unchallenged green hysterical and wild exaggerations.
The greens then say to the government ‘this is what the voters are demanding’ and hey presto - the government wanting to stay in office - crumbles to their demands and farmers and the rural community loses again.
How many times does it have to happen before AgForce / farmers and rural folks work out the greens / Courier mail mode of operation.
We don’t have to scream or yell, just make sure that the dodgy science that the WWF is quoting is bebunked or is it a fact that 100,000,000 (100 million) animals were killed by land clearing between 1977-1979 by land clearing? Thats 224 animals for every hectare cleared. (or 91 per acre).
History shows us repeatedly not only in Queensland but on the world stage that ‘quiet diplomacy’ when it comes to public sentiment dictating government policy - is a complete failure.
So all we can hope than can be achieved is -
“so the best they can do is negotiate behind closed doors to water down the government changes to make them a little less painful.”
What can that be in this case? -
WWF wants to stop farmers clearing any regrowth of timber or woody weeds - how does that work for graziers in the high rainfall, Brigalow or Mulga country where regrowth and woody weeds grow to completely choke the country within a few years if untreated?
Agforce is SUSPECT especially the grain section - they went along with killing our AWB single desk.
Agforce loves the destructive ‘free trade’ policies of the World Bank , WTO and the IMF that are killing small farmers here and in poorer countries.
Kevin Dud wants to put us into an Asia Pacific Community like the EU so that we bring in food and labour from Asia - he is not interested in producing food here and it appears that Agforce is not speaking against this.
The only way to fix this piece of demonisation is to get three trailer loads of regrowth stems and dump them at the key traffic choke points in Brisbane.
Get big big signs that demand the demonisation must stop and give the punters a good two hours in the traffic jam so they can clearly establish the link between the courier mail/greens and their frustrating lack of progress.
All the other media will relish the chance to make the CM failings the subject of their news items and if Williams still has a job by the end of the day we might just have to round up another three trailer loads of regrowth for Friday afternoon.
By the way, what has our leader of the opposition done or said to correct this gross misrepresentation of fact?
Keep in mind that Labor is itching to find an issue that will split the Libs from the Nats but if the leader from the bush is too busy appealing to the mainstream urban voters then what is the point?