Naturalist and conservationist Scott Bevins points out the problems of the future caused by decisions of today:

The mind can only boggle at the absence of foresight and the pure ignorance and arrogance of an economy driven society. Can humans get any thicker than they are today? How has each of us allowed a few money hungry individuals to wedge this country and most other nations down their own funnels of fortune, only to leave behind a carcass filled with an ever deeper and irreversible broth of despair for the rest of us to swim around in?

One need not reach too far back for an example: who can comprehend the infuriatingly low level of intellect that, on the one greedy hand, allows gun owners in to 79 more New South Wales National Parks to shoot as they please, while in the other deceiving hand spends hundreds of thousands of tax payers dollars ‘tightening’ police investigation on gun ownership and gun crime which is on the rise again? The ‘Shooters & Fishers Party’ (an astonishing name for a legitimate political party) has recently completed a deal by convincing the state government to open National Parks for their members, in return for providing the government with the majority of votes to approve the sale of government-owned energy companies to private businesses.

Recreational shooters hunting in National Parks means the demise of National Parks and forest habitat – the only isolated pockets of relief left for most wildlife species, many already on the brink of extinction, and most of which children have only seen in a zoo. “Conservation shooting” – the greatest oxymoron in modern history – is a trigger-happy campaign driven by a powerful machine called the Game Council New South Wales endorsing unmonitored wild animal (and plant) decimation with painfully obvious forgone conclusions, and is free to flaunt its insidious tactics under the hideous and insulting guise of shooting at things to save the ecosystem. Every bullet bought by every gun owner supports this insane campaign to increase unmonitored, unlimited killing as a warped and twisted concept of conservation. Barry O’Farrell – the New South Wales state premier with his swollen wallet and his entourage of educated advisors, found it necessary to kill the forests in order to fill his pockets with three billion dollars and provide a more ‘efficient’ privately owned energy service for New South Wales as a byproduct. This decision was detrimental for all inhabitants, especially kids, because without wildlife there are no forests and without forests all life deteriorates rapidly.

But he was correct in assuming that the grossly incompetent members of parliament couldn’t possibly manage the growing industries that service the ever increasing demands of our power-hungry, fuel dependant, plastic-loving lifestyles.

Is it truly viable for societies to be led by minds that consistently produce these worrying examples of pure, fat-fingered greed? And for those ‘leaders’ to be blindly followed by silent, obedient yet selectively ignorant populations that secretly appreciate the short-term promises and provisions of comfort and luxury at the expense of all children’s futures?

Teenagers and kids expecting the luxuries that adults relish today will be sorely and bitterly disappointed, and if campaigns to halt our current thoughtless, lavish lifestyles do not swell and progress, teenagers and kids will not have the privilege of our current basic necessities either such as water, air, food and shelter. I wish each and every teenager and child in this world all the best for their future, because they will without any doubt, and through necessity, be cleaning up the residual sludge of our own over-indulgence. And they will not thank us for it.

To contact Game Council NSW and express your disgust call (Australia) 02 6360 5100

Endorsed by the New South Wales Government and the Game Council NSW, the book ‘Conservation through Hunting – An environmental paradigm change in NSW’ outlines the Game Council NSW’s impediments for the development of sustainable conservation hunting, identifies the constraints on conservation hunters in NSW and seeks to develop strategies to overcome these constraints. The book, written by Johannes Bauer and Anthony English, can be downloaded here: https://www.gamecouncil.nsw.gov.au/docs/Report-ConHunting-Vol1-Ch1-3.pdf

The Australian Governments ‘Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities’ explains on its web site: “In Australia, state and territory governments have primary responsibility for the management of native wildlife. The Australian Government… becomes involved when native wildlife products are exported overseas.”

For a fascinating one page read of the Australian Government’s wild harvest page go to: https://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/wildlife-trade/wild-harvest/index.html

This article is by guest author Scott Bevins. Scott is a Naturalist and Conservationist and is currently finishing his biology degree at UWS