The Carbon Sense Coalition today claimed that extreme conservationists were endangering Australia’s national security.
Forbes explained:
“Extreme conservation policies are sterilising so much of Australia’s resources that it is becoming a threat to our national security.
“Most wars are about land and resources.
“In the colonial era, aggressive Europeans swarmed into Africa, the Americas and Australia attracted by underused land, minerals and timber. More recently, Hitler invaded Eastern Europe and Russia in the search for “living space” and access to Black Sea oil and Japan went to war attracted by the resources of South East Asia and Australia.
“Australia is the odd man of Asia – a huge land mass with a small population.
“Our populous and rapidly developing northern neighbours need the primary products that Australia has in abundance – food, fibres, minerals and energy. So they note with disbelief the way in which Australia is sterilising these valuable resources.
“They see precious agricultural and forest land being swallowed by National Parks, World Heritage Reservations, Environmental Parks, Wild Rivers Declarations, Indigenous reservations and bans on land clearing. Unbelievably we have nine protected Wild Rivers, 11 World Heritage properties, 516 National Parks, 2,700 designated conservation areas and huge areas of government leasehold and aboriginal land. The latest proposal is a continuous conservation corridor running from Melbourne to Atherton. In all of these areas, agricultural and mining production are prohibited or increasingly restricted.
“Our neighbours look on in amazement as foresters are locked out of State Forests, water courses become no-go zones for graziers and irrigation water is withdrawn from farmers and orchardists. Soon the whole Coral Sea will be locked up and beaches made off limits to fishermen. Future Australians are in danger of becoming a nation of peasants, poachers and smugglers in their own land.
“Asia needs our abundant energy resources of coal, gas, oil shale and uranium. But they watch in disbelief as uranium mining is banned, gas is wasted in power generation, mining taxes are increased and there are threats to tax carbon and close our coal mines and power stations.
“History has no examples where a small number of self-indulgent people have managed to squat on valuable land and idle resources forever. And our historic protectors are no longer invincible – the Royal Navy no longer controls the Indian Ocean or the South China Sea and the US Navy is no longer unchallenged in the Pacific.
“Today the refugee flotilla is unarmed. If we continue sterilising our resources of land, oceans, food, minerals and energy, future fleets may not submit peacefully to Australian boarding parties.”
Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition, has spent his life working in exploration, mining, farming, infrastructure, financial analysis and political commentary. He has worked for government departments, private companies and now works as a private contractor and farmer.
Viv has also been a guest writer for the Asian Wall Street Journal, Business Queensland and mining newspapers. He was awarded the “Australian Adam Smith Award for Services to the Free Society” in 1988, and has written widely on political, technical and economic subjects.
