Australia has a unique flora and fauna population, as amazing in its own way as the Azores or Canary Islands, where isolation, by being an island, from the rest of the world created incredible animal and plant life forms.  Australia, as a continent, was vastly underpopulated compared to the rest of the world.  For thousands of years, only a few tens to hundreds of thousands of people roamed the vast continent, living a hunter/gatherer nomadic lifestyle.  Even these people deposed a previous race here over 20,000 years ago, whose art forms can still be found in places throughout outback Australia.

When Australia was “discovered” and colonized after the mapping of the continent “Terra Australis” by Captain James Cook, the country was ripe for plunder and the British colonised Australia rapidly, starting from Sydney and expanding in all directions throughout the country.

This rapid expansion created enormous changes in other ways.  As grazing stock was introduced to pasture lands west of the ranges, water was provided for them.  With animals such as the kangaroo being “perennial” breeders, breeding and multiplying rapidly whenever the amount of water required to raise young joeys occurred, populations of many types of kangaroo and wallaby exploded to plague proportions, far beyond any populations of the animals ever known in Australia before.

The wider and faster that grazing spread, the more water was required and provided for those grazing animals, the faster the populations of these native animals increased.  With cyclical drought a natural phenomena in Australia, vast numbers of both domestic and native animals perish, and the countryside is chewed and grazed down to the extent that not only do the grazing animals perish from starvation, but the grazing land becomes denuded and can become wind and water eroded irreparably.

Thus the cycle runs.  Compounding this is the urban sprawl, where cities and towns spread into the countryside, often concentrating traffic, water flows and polluting waste into sensitive areas, further threatening endangered species of flora and fauna.

Now that the problems are becoming more public, do-gooders are wanting to save the world, one furred animal at a time. Even the introduced pests, such as rabbits, foxes and feral cats, pigs, camels and buffalo fall under the protection of the do-gooders, despite the havoc they create.  However, this is creating even more imbalance.  There are far too many of certain 'popular' animals, and there are not enough natural predators to keep the numbers and ecology in a natural balance.  Unfortunately, this last fact is not recognised by enough people and animal rights protesters still insist on saving the overcrowded populations of already stressed areas where kangaroo, wallaby, koala, emu and many other native and introduced species thrive under good conditions.  When the rain stops, they all starve.

The solution lies in restoring a natural balance in all areas, a sustainable balance of all native animals, enough native pasture and bushland for maintenance of populations and ecosystems.  There are areas where the natural balance has been destroyed and cannot be rejuvenated.  However, in many areas throughout Australia, there are custodians in place – farmers and graziers, perhaps the best placed people of all to manage the land, the wildlife and vegetation.  However, the rules and regulations that are imposed by various government bodies regulating culling of overpopulated animals, grazing regimes, cultivation for weed control, restrictions on water harvesting and use need to be relaxed and replaced with a common-sense regime, policy created and maintained by people actually involved in the implementation of the policies and practices and more importantly, affected by their outcomes.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Learn the difference between a conservationist and a "do-gooder"

Become genuinely educated about wildlife in Australia

Join a bushwalking or birdwatching club, or any club that gets out into the bush and appreciates the flora and fauna diversity of this country

Take photographs and preserve the memories of the bush and wildlife for children, to inspire them to preserve our heritage too, and to record changes in the local environment to keep watch on developments

Consider farmers and graziers as conservationists, and give them responsibility to manage the rural environoments they have custody of, rather than restricting their management capability over their land

Introduce programs to educate people about the truth of feral animal numbers, incuding cats and dogs, and their destructive impact on local native wildlife populations

Insist on desexing of domestic cats and dogs, unless registered breeding stock

Take an interest in the wildlife, flora and fauna in your local area

Study the concept of sustainable development and make up your own mind on what it is and what it means in your area

Research how many local species have vanished from your area in the last decade.  Was it from development, overpopulation of either domestic or native species, or bushfire? Was this preventable?  Is it reversible?