An Idea for the Holidays

Hey Who want to go to a One day Match in Sydney some time while I'm Down there Though I think there is only the Ashes Test from the 2-6 of Jan then a 20-20 match on the 9th. It's an Idea anyway and maybe something can be done. Otherwise Min might suffer Cricket withdrawals.

Cars Agian

Once agian I have been biding on a car but this time I have won. I have found a 1993 Landrover Defender. It looks like a pretty awesome car and is just what I have been looking for for the last couple of Months. Now I just need Mum and Bernie or Glen or All 3 to pick it up for me. By the way for the holiday deal I have applied for holidays between the 16 Dec and 6 Jan. So I will most Likely be Down there then as they just have to be approved By Terry. Hope everyone is having fun and I will post agian soon.

Black and white lies

This is a story that was runin the Australian Newspaper. I happen to think that it hits the mark in terms of the conservation abilities of so called "traditional" and "modern' societies. I believe that in most cases smaller hunter gatherer societies had to struggle to survive and to battle nature in a sense to obtain the basic nesseseties to sustain life. This sense of us agianst the natural world is something that we are trying to work out of our society now so that we do not destroy the world that we live in. I don't think this story is racist or saying that conservation or traditional ways are bad. It is saying that this myth that we have built up and perpetuated around the conservation abilities of "traditional scoieties" is something that is stopping us from working together to make the world around us livable for generations to come.

Without more from me as the article is long enough, here you are.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20575396-30417,00.html

The World: Science and Nature section

It is high time we debunked the myth of the ecological Aborigine, writes William J. Lines

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October 14, 2006

AT a rainforest symposium in Cairns in 1987, Ian Lowe, head of science policy at Griffith University, argued that "there are general principles of resource management [that hunter-gatherer] societies embody, and from which we can learn if we have the perceptiveness and the humility to do so".

Lowe attempted to elaborate. "Some of these lessons," he claimed, "were spelled out over a century ago by Chief Seattle: 'The Earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. This we know: The Earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the Earth. This we know: all things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth. Man did not weave the web of life: he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."'

Fine sentiments. Except Chief Seattle never proclaimed them, nor did any other Native American. The entire speech was a concoction, written by a modern, non-Native American scriptwriter, Ted Perry, for a 1972 film about ecology and falsely attributed to Chief Seattle.

Despite their counterfeit, modern provenance, Chief Seattle's words won disciples all over the world and appeared on T-shirts and posters, were reproduced in books and articles, and were frequently cited as the epitome of traditional wisdom and the true and authentic expression of the beliefs of indigenous peoples. In Australia, they provided the template for platitudes about Aborigines living in ecological balance with the environment.

Some commentators who cited Chief Seattle's phony words went further. Economist Clive Hamilton claimed that "much of the inspiration for the philosophy of environmentalism comes from the spiritual outlook of indigenous peoples such as Native Americans and Australian Aborigines". As an example, he quoted Chief Seattle and observed that "it is apparent that these words express a powerful sense of unity between ourselves and the Earth". Like the belief in the authenticity of Chief Seattle's speech, these comments rested more on projection and wishful thinking than on fact. And perhaps there was guilt.

The myth of the ecological Aborigine elevated Aborigines to positions of moral and spiritual superiority and disparaged people ofnon-Aboriginal background. They would never belong in Australia. Their ancestry rendered them incapable of acquiring a sense of connection.

After a visit to Kakadu, Michael Krockenberger, Darwin Environment Centre co-ordinator and Australian Conservation Foundation councillor, observed: "In country like this, white people feel like strangers. There is also a sense of incongruity, a feeling that white people cannot easily belong. Only the Aboriginal people are truly at home."

These were extraordinary claims: racist, self-scourging and, for conservationists, self-defeating. After all, conservation sought to encourage people to feel at home in Australia, not condemned forever to be outsiders. They could change and identify with the land. Otherwise, what was the point? Who else would support conservation except patriots?

Many prominent conservationists, however, declared that for non-Aborigines, connection was impossible. According to the tenets of racial thinking, non-Aborigines could never and would never feel comfortable living in Australia. If true -- if non-Aborigines were inherently incapable of attachment -- then conservation was doomed.

Indeed, the subject tested people's commitment to conservation. Rock singer Peter Garrett -- who became ACF president in 1989 -- campaigned as much for land rights as for conservation. Ensnared by the myth of the ecological Aborigine, many conservationists displayed a perverse unwillingness to accept Aborigines as members of the human race. Land rights advocates couched their arguments in terms of them and us.

Individual human beings disappeared, replaced by a generalised Aborigine and a generalised white. This was fantasy, a fantasy about the other. The fact was, there is no them and no us, only benighted individual human beings, each with their own foibles, traits, infirmities and delusions. All humans share the same biology and endure the same existential anxieties generated by common flesh and blood in a common material world. All humans came out of Africa and all are indigenous to planet Earth. All are capable of alienation and of belonging.

Race thinkers, however, insisted on discrimination. The 1991 Queensland land rights bill allowed Aborigines to claim land rights over all the state's national parks, or 2.7 per cent of the state. Aboriginal groups had already indicated they would seek rights over Green Island and Fitzroy Island near Cairns, Iron Range and Archer River Bend on Cape York, Mossman Gorge, Fraser Island and other parks. The Kuku Yalanji clan said it would apply to hunt cassowary and other wildlife in the Mossman Gorge and Daintree national parks.

Some conservationists applauded the legislation. Others said it was inconceivable that Aborigines should hunt rare wildlife with modern firearms in the relatively small proportion of land protected as national park.

In a letter to Garrett, ACF member Harry Dick of Cooktown described the ACF's and other groups' support for the Queensland land rights bill as treachery. He said he would work to reverse the ACF policy and would resign if he failed. "No other group in the community has the right to hunt in national parks and it is just not on with Aborigines," he wrote. "The ACF leaders have gone about this with no consultation with their membership. Members are afraid to speak out because they'll be branded racists."

Not all conservationists were cowed. Bill Fisher, north Queensland director of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, said the government had rushed into a land rights policy without informed consideration. Changing the protective status of national parks, he said, had "very serious potential to weaken the status for all time". Jill Thorsborne, president of the Cairns branch of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland, backed Fisher and led a campaign to pressure the government to exempt national parks from land claims.

Judith Wright viewed this dissent with alarm. With a dogmatism deriving from her blinkered view of justice for Aborigines, she would not tolerate any questioning of the myth of the ecological Aborigine. She resigned as WPSQ patron and, in an open letter, condemned the society: "I must disassociate myself completely from any organisation opposed to land rights and I therefore have no option but to resign the patronship," she wrote.

And, in a display of the race thinking -- dividing the world into them and us -- that had come to characterise her conservation advocacy, she continued: "If it hadn't been for the Aborigines' systems of management, their respect for the country, their self-control, we would never have had these areas (wilderness) to take over in the first place. They are a darned sight better at managing than we are."

BY the end of the 20th century, protected areas -- national parks, wilderness, and flora and fauna sanctuaries -- formed the cornerstone of Australian conservation. The outcome of decades of defending the country's natural heritage, they were, nevertheless, limited.

Island-like parks cannot meet the needs of wide-ranging species, or maintain natural disturbance regimes, or enable the dispersal and re-establishment of wildlife following events such as fires. Only a continent-wide network of core wild areas, wildlife corridors and intact lands can protect the continental-scale flows of nature. This insight had already activated conservationists in the US who, in 1991, founded the Wildlands Project.

The Wilderness Society campaigners urged a similar program for Australia. In March 1997, the society endorsed wilderness-wildlands as its new campaign framework. Yet this initiative occurred against a background of criticism of the idea of wilderness.

In The Future Eaters, Tim Flannery described the concept as problematic; it kept alive the notion of terra nullius. Wilderness, he claimed, did not exist in Australia. Thereafter, attacks on wilderness escalated.

For Aboriginal academic Marcia Langton there was no such thing as wilderness, only "cultural landscapes".

Furthermore, "the term wilderness was a mystification of genocide" because: "The popular definition of wilderness excludes all human interaction within allegedly pristine natural areas even though they are and have been inhabited and used by indigenous people for thousands of years. Like the legal fiction of terra nullius which imagined us out of existence ... popular culture also imagines us out of existence ... The national park is an institution of power which governs and commodifies nature and thereby culturally constructs an imagined wilderness and can be understood as a part of the colonial repertoire when (it is) understood as the further delineation, naming and categorising of terra nullius incognito. It is a further conquest."

This ill-reasoned, chaotic argument rested on a terrifying ignorance of history, language, biology and ecology. Wilderness defenders had been among the first activists in Australia to acknowledge Aboriginal presence and had never defined wilderness as a place that "excludes all human interaction". Even proponents of terra nullius did not deny the presence of humans in Australia, only their ownership of the land.

IDEOLOGICAL inhibitions, however, prevented other conservationists from speaking up; for example, for the dugong, hunted to near extinction by what at least one euphemism-friendly environmental journalist referred to as "unregulated indigenous cultural harvesting".

Only the fearless Mary White put the matter forthrightly: "A major problem in conservation in northern Australia is the difference in the laws which govern Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal behaviour. Aborigines may burn where and when they like on land they own and lease; they can range over country held by others as well as over that which they own in the course of their hunting and foraging; they are allowed by law to kill animals which are protected, even endangered, and which non-Aboriginal Australians are prohibited from killing, and they use high-powered modern guns, not traditional methods to do so. This situation has to be addressed. It creates a divided nation and a great deal of resentment."

White's candour affronted many people. Fantasy more perfectly satisfied their multiple needs. Several impulses, for example, upheld the myth of the ecological Aborigine. Some people sought to recover habits of thought they imagined prevailed during a past era, before the disruption of the human and natural worlds by heedless agriculture, runaway industrialism, loss of faith, galloping modernity and reductionist science. Others, driven by guilt, overcompensated for past wrongs by designating Aborigines possessors of superior wisdom. Still others wanted a story about the natural life against which they could contrast the modern world and expose its ills.

By the beginning of the 21st century, this endemically patronising view of Aborigines as moral lessons for effete Europeans became an overriding, unchallenged cause for left-wing intellectuals. Furthermore, many intellectual conservationists presented their belief that indigenous people enjoyed a fundamentally different relationship to the land as the only starting point for critiquing Western society. This decree prevented conservationists from examining the multitude of critical possibilities inherent in Western culture.

Conservation commentators who ignored the polemical diversity of the Western inheritance favoured a narrow and conformist outlook. Truth never penetrates unwilling minds, and commentators pursued the ecological Aborigine dogma with an infatuation that defied consistency and sense.

Scientist Mike Archer and conservation writer Bob Beale began their 2004 book Going Native with a defensive, reverential and romanticised account of Aboriginal occupancy. After fashionably dismissing the idea of wilderness, they suggest that while Aborigines walked every square metre of the continent, invested every feature with spiritual significance and managed the entire landscape intensively for at least 60,000 years until it was "just as much a human construct as it is a natural one", they had no impact, caused no extinctions and kept Australia's biota intact.

Such claims stagger belief and outrage coherence. But Archer and Beale persist. Aborigines were model conservationists and we have much to learn from their "sustainable land-management strategy". The authors did not elaborate. Instead, their main recommendation featured the economic valuing of "ecosystem services": a program dependent on premises and principles utterly foreign and contrary to Aboriginal cosmologies.

The myth of the ecological Aborigine became a dogma because conservationists failed to call one another intellectually to account, to question myth-makers and to rigorously and ruthlessly evaluate evidence. Even sceptical conservationists remained silent, either out of fear of being branded racist or because they lacked the forensic skills necessary to unpack the myth. Their silence complied with the country's general intellectual timidity. As in other areas of social inquiry, intellectuals in conservation disparaged dissent and discouraged critical oversight.

In their 1999 history of the environment movement, Queensland Greens leader Drew Hutton and fellow academic Libby Connors noted approvingly: "Many in the Australian movement welcome the lack of philosophical dispute, which they see as debilitating, consisting largely of labels and purity."

Conservationists trapped in wishful thinking about the wisdom of the elders and disdainful of dissent cannot see the truth: there are no models, no templates for living sustainably on this continent or on this planet. We're on our own and must make our own way.

This is an edited extract from Patriots: Defending Australia's Natural Heritage by William J. Lines (University of Queensland Press).

More from Me. I think that the reason that small hunter gatherer societies had a much smaller impact upon the environment is because they had a small population. Many many fewer people using resources = much smaller impact on the world.

Fun and Cars

So last weekend was rather lagre I had paddling rowing paddling and I was trying to buy a car. So first the excersise. I have been rowing for a little while (4 weeks) which has been fun and a great learning experience. I now know a little about rowing. Well on Saturday it was the culmination of 4 weeks of rowing. We have been training and having measurable improvement each training session and saturday was the final regatta for Corporate rowing. It was a lot of fun. There were two heats that they combined and averaged to figure out which of the four finals you would go in. our team has impoved so much that we got into the townsville cup which was the 3rd ranked final the problem was that we were about the slowest team in that final. So we headed off for a longish warnup (2km) andgot centred for the race. there was quite a dely on the start line but finally we were away and Min's first comment was "were doing well guys" then "were doing bloody well" (she was starting to get excited) then "Where ahead" in a surprised voice. From then on the was a constant stream of word some of which were updates on our position and the rest were just cheering and pain in the bum ( the seats on those rowing boats leave alot to be desired). We crossed the line a whole boat at least in front of the next team and won the Tonsville cup. It was quite a good little day really. Involving a few races and sitting on the grass talking and then a couple of beers after the event.
Earlier that morning I had actually paddled to Rows bay from the strand probably about 10km but the fun bit was I got to steer the Canoe. This steering gig is alot harder than it seems but fun none the less. It will be good to learn how to get the most out of a crew and the canoe itself. I still want to keep paddling though so I am trying to steer half the time and paddle the rest. I think I need to get some tips from some more experienced people about steering this will give me some things to practice while steering. Anyway it's a new challenge within paddling and something that is very interesting to try. I think that all paddlers should try steering even if they don't like it just so they can appreciate the job that is done by the other members in the canoe.
Sunday then invloved a paddle from the strand to Bushland beach which is about 30km. Then at bushland beach we derig the canoes and pack up get changed and have lunch at the bushland beach pub. It was an awesome day good atmosphere and a social event with a difference.
Through all of this I was trying to organise to buy a car. It was a 1998 Turbo diesel Rodeo for $5000 but i couldn't get the details that I needed from the seller so I had to abandon the idea. I have some better Ideas now of what I will need from the seller when I do try and buy a car though. You definately need the VIN and you want to get the car checked out buy NRMA or RACQ or similar. You then need to do the search for the VIN (which costs like $20-$40). Once you have done these things you have the history of the vechile and you know if it's mechanically sound.
Well at least I know what I have to do, now I just have to do it.

Going big

OK so I've done some cool stuff this year I've extended what I can do and what I thought was possible. Ive participated in Adventure races and Marathon paddling races. I achieved what I set out to do in IMDII and I have had huge amounts of fun doing it. I have never even thought of Crossing the Ditch in a Kayak though. A fairly massive undertaking in anybodies estimation. Good luck to the guys and may the ocean return them to us safely.

Cheers guys. More posts to come soon.

Lewis

Jobs

So I am a bit down at the moment, I just got another letter from AIMS saying 'thanks for your application but unfortunately you were unsuccessful this time'. It is like the third or fourth time I have applied for this position I loose count a bit. So no Benthic Ecologist position for me this time round.

This leads to the Question though What the hell am I going to do when the position I am currently in runs out at the end of next August. the honest answer is that I have absolutely no idea. It's rather hard when you work in an industry that has fairly few prospects and limited resources. I still want to work in Science. I am suited for it my brain just works that way, also you get to meet interesting people and go to some of the most spectacular places. Tom was right when he said that even though you do not get the financial rewards you get rewarded in other ways that are much better ( the lack of funds though does on ocasion make it hard to live though).

Still on the optimistic side I do have just under a year to try and find something. Who knows I might be able to apply for the Benthic ecologist position at AIMS agian ;) I can make it like a tradition every time that job is advertised I can apply. Then thereis the fact that you never know what the future hold and you are better off enjoying the ride rather than worrying about the destination.

Pinapple Chunks (Rowers will Know)

So on Sunday the corporate rowing had it's first regatta. The Port Authority team had training at 7:30 am then we hung around and went in some races later in the morning. There are 12 teams going in it and some of the teams have been in corporate rowing for 3 years. Anyway now I'm a financial member of the Townsville and JCU rowing club. It's not a bad sport good excersise but just doesn't last for very long. I mean the races on the weekend were 250m, not all that far, but then our team might have trouble balancing our boat for a race that is longer than that. Not that we are bad but that's the way rowing goes you have to learn to balance the boat then you can learn to get your stroke right then you can concentrate on perfecting the technique. each of these steps has a different time frame as well. 5-8 trainings to get the balance alright. then 20-50 more trainings to get a decent stroke technique, then the perfect technique is like the search for the perfect wave "maybe the next one will be better".
This is our team, Min is the Cox in the stern and I am in seat 6 the third rowing seat from the stern. We were not the best team but neither were we the worst team and there are some easy ways for our team to improve by about another 10-14 seconds over a 250m race. For the record our Time over 250m was 0:1:26 which I thought wasn't bad untill I thought about our 500m time in the ocean in an outrigger cannoe was 0:2:02 which is considerably faster in a boat that is much slower. Oh well we just have to work on it, what was it in the last post oh yes 'Better pick up the pace'.

Pick up the pace

So right at a time when I thought that I would have more time I actually have less time. All the Rogaines are finished and the paddling season is over, but Dave our Paddling coach has decided to start training for next year now. Also Min's work sponsored a corporate rowing team which had 13 people in it so I volunteered to drive the tinny for the Coach (Min). Several people droped out though and it ended up that for balance of the boat and lack of people I ended up rowing, which is good I wanted to experience rowing and what it is like to be in a rowing Skiff (I think they are skiffs). They train on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday which is good because I'm free those afternoons. That now means that I train for paddling tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Then train for rowing wednesday friday and Sunday. Leaving only monday free to persue thet goals that I set for September which is finish off the Main bedroom and get the house back into some sembelance of order. Then Saturday and Sunday Afternoons I can do the corrections for my thesis and I will have time to rest once it's all finished.

I think I'd better pick up the pace a bit!!!

Holidays

I know I know, it's a bit early to start sorting out the Holidays for Christmas. I do have a fairly ambitious plan though. A plan to bring people together and hopefully see my whole family and I have Mine own and Mins Holiday times to consider. Anyway with all of this stuff to sort out I thought that the web would be a good forum for everyone to letme know there plans for the holidays. That includes you by the way Dad. What I need is for everyone to leave comments about there plans for the holiday.
My Plans are that I will head down to Sydney/Wollongong a bit before Christmas maybe on the 21st or 22nd hang out have Christmas, then I might go down to Durras on the 1st of Janruary have some fun then fly back to the Ville maybe about the 6th or 7th of Jan.
What do you lot recon.

Note to those that are not family I am still interested in what people might be up to over the holidays so please leave a comment letting us all know what glorius events will fill your time over the Christmas Holidays.

Cheers

Slack

Maybe Slack is actually a bit of an understatement. I haven't posted on my website in ages, but at least I have something to say now.
Lauryne Grant a friend organised a weekend trip to Paluma. We all stayed at the house that is owned and kept by the JCU. It's basic but lovely. Paluma is such a nice place it's quiet and there is so much wildlife around that you just feel calmer just by being there.
There are especially alot of birds and Tom has just gotten into 'Twitching' which I discovered is just spotting birds and recording where and when you found them. Tom was all set then and was off spotting birds whenever he could. Ben and Jane are also rather Keen and were joining him ocasionally.
The Weekend was great we arrived after a busy day in Townsville (busy even though no-one from paddling turned up to paddle so the morning was a bust), then proceeded to relax and talk the night away. It's really nice to have good friends that you can talk to and go away with and have relaxing weekends. The next day we went out to birthday creek had a swim in the absolutely F*#*&%$ Freezing water (sorry for the expleative but in this case it's justified and nesecary). It was so cold that your feet hurt imediately when you put them in the water. The problem was that they never stopped hurting. Anyway we clambered around in the water for all of about 1 minute then climbed out and shivered on the rocks in the sun for a while. Then we went back to the house packed up and went home. It doesn't sound like a very exciting weekend but it was relaxing and a wonderful place to get away to. The only hitch for the weekend is that I left my Toiletries bag in the house so I have had to buy a new toothbrush.

More Posts to follow soon.......