This is a combination of three discussions first published between August 6th & 11th 2009. They were lost to the public record when the PRA group page was deleted in November 2011.

Sara Hudson in an opinion piece published in The Australian, August 6th 2009, delivered a stinging attack on the Wilderness Society and Green groups. Sara Hudson at the time was a policy analyst with the Indigenous Affairs Research Program at the Centre for Independent Studies.

Rivers hijacked by 'green fascists'

THE misanthropic attitude of conservationists was revealed last week when a group of Aboriginal protesters from Cape York gatecrashed a Wilderness Society and green fundraiser in Sydney.

Dressed in chains and in two giant koala suits, the Cape York Aborigines crashed the party to protest against Queensland's Wild Rivers legislation, which bans development within 2km of the Lockhart, Stewart and Archer rivers.

The protesters blame the Wilderness Society for instigating the legislation, which they argue denies them the ability to build businesses and enterprises on their traditional land, so that more of their people can move out of welfare into the real economy.

Tania Major, the spokeswoman for the Cape York Aborigines, said they weren't against conservation but they were protesting because the Wilderness Society had not consulted with them or given them a choice on how to manage their land.

These arguments left the Wilderness Society members unmoved, with spokeswoman Anna Christie saying on ABC Radio that environmental sustainability should come before people.

Only those comfortably off are able to so quickly disregard the importance of economic development. They forget that the only reason they can afford to buy organic food is because they live in an industrialised society. Try living in the outback and getting an organic soy latte.

Read the whole article here.

 

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The Wilderness Society Brands PRA anti-environment

On the following day TWS responded with a letter to the editor and dragged PRA into the debate. This is a copy of that letter.

Tim Seelig
Queensland Campaign Manager
The Wilderness Society
West End, Qld

SARA Hudson’s ideological diatribe against The Wilderness Society and environmentalists ("Rivers hijacked by ‘green fascists“‘, Opinion, 6/8) was ill-informed and inflammatory. Contrary to Hudson’s claims, the Wild Rivers legislation does not prevent economic activity in Cape York. Rather, it aims to prevent highly destructive development, such as mega-dams, strip mining and intensive irrigation, in sensitive riverine and wetland areas. Extensive community consultations are required in the process.

Misinformation and distortions have abounded during the media’s recent coverage of Cape York conservation debates, but actually there appears little disagreement on the Cape itself about the desirability of protecting the region’s rivers and world heritage values.

So what is this debate really about? While slow to emerge, it seems this is an old-fashioned political battle between the socially progressive environment movement and conservative, anti-green, pro-big business interests, fronted for a change by vocal indigenous personalities. Hudson’s outburst simply highlights this fact, particularly in referencing controversial right-wing blogger and climate change sceptic, Jonah Goldberg. Noel Pearson’s alignments with deeply conservative politics and anti-environment groups such as Property Rights Australia are now well-known, sentiments and affiliations seemingly shared by Tania Major.

Given the hyperbolic language paraded, people have a right to know who is funding and backing the Pearson-Major anti-Wild Rivers campaign, and whether it is using the significant public funding provided to Cape York indigenous groups.