Page 3720 - Week 12 - Thursday, 21 October 1993
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At the same time, we need people like me, if we can bear to rip out the cotoneaster, to do so. Joining park care groups around the ACT is another way in which we can become aware of these things. I think the greatest value of this paper is for people to sit down and read it in relation to plant invasion, because that is an issue that matters. The environment can be very quickly destroyed and it cannot be replaced. When we concentrate on that aspect of this discussion paper, we may get a little more feedback from the media on things other than cats.
In relation to animals, the surprise to me when this inquiry got under way was the number of animals we now consider to be feral. I had not considered trout to be feral, but I am afraid that any introduced species has to wear that tag. By the same token, I do not think we are suggesting that all our streams have the trout removed from them. We should consider that the plant life that may have been removed from our streams in a fairly ill-considered way in the past has deterred the on-breeding of the fish that naturally live in those streams. That is a better way of looking at the water problem than talking about whether we should remove trout. If by removing all those old river red gums we have messed around and created willow banks instead, that is terrific because they look lovely; but what does that mean to the population of native animals in that stream?
The other area that was of great interest and, again, was a bit of an eye-opener was that dealing with birds. Again, as a fairly uninformed person, I think it is wonderful to have birds through the garden. I never quite consider whether it is a bird that should be there or should not be there. It was brought to our attention by the Ornithologists Group and others that, while the myna bird, the blackbird and the starling may chirp and look attractive, we should ask what they are doing to our native birds in taking away native habitat or in some cases eating eggs, destroying nests and so on. I do not think for a moment that I would agree to any recommendation that we go out and start air-rifling birds we do not want to see around the place, but it gets back to the sorts of plants and trees in which these animals and birds breed and how we can encourage some sorts over others. We should generally have a jolly good think about how our urban environment and our natural environment can benefit from our individual actions.
I conclude by saying that we have a wonderful environment in the ACT. We are very fortunate. We have been blessed, in the past and now, by planning and by people encouraging this wonderful bush and urban mixture. It is only with discussion papers such as this that we can encourage the community to continue to concentrate on the preservation of that mix. It is not up to governments and authorities; it is up to everybody in the community, which includes governments and authorities. It is up to all of us as individuals to say, "I like this the way it is. What can I do to make sure that it continues in this way?". A reading of this paper may give people some ideas about how they can do that and encourage them to put pressure on the appropriate areas in our community, such as nurserymen and so on, to concentrate on their responsibilities. Pet shops sell exotic fish for aquariums. What sort of education do they give to the buyer of those fish in relation to dumping them in a stream? I do not know. Again, that is another way of saying that people ought to take responsibility for their actions and look at their intentions and their wishes for their environment.
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