Following in the footsteps of a savvy prince and the founder of farming philosophy that has taken the world by storm sounds a sensible thing to do. John Burrows talks to Kaye Cheval who is spreading the word about biodynamics.

Appearing at the GREENhouse: Healthy Ideas -10 am, Monday, December 27, 2010.

Transformation — changing the ways we do things – is what the Greenhouse is all about.

Advocating big changes to the way we produce food is Kaye Cheval, the first presenter in this year’s program. Kaye is a natural therapist and educator of biodynamics, the organic farming philosophy which has adherents world-wide. The essence of the biodynamic approach is that the farm is regarded as a self-contained entity where individual elements – soil, plants and animals – are integrated into a self-nourishing whole.

There are various techniques of soil enhancement, and an astronomical calendar is used to guide planting and harvesting times. Kaye is applying the biodynamic method on her property in the rolling hills of Carters Ridge, in the Noosa hinterland. It’s a lush landscape, green after good spring rain, very different from the semi-arid plains of western Queensland where she grew up.

Kaye Cheval

“My parents ran a sheep station near Winton,” Kaye recalls.

“We were very connected with the outdoors, went horse riding, ran around barefoot and swam in the dam.

“For much of our food, we were pretty well self-reliant, we had milk and butter, fruit trees and a garden enriched with cow manure, no chemicals at all.”

Chemicals, however, did play a big part in raising sheep, but safety issues didn’t get much attention in those days.

“My father developed and died from cancer in his early 50s from his exposure to these chemicals, so I have made it my life work to pass on what I have learnt over the years from others and from real life experiences,” said Kaye.

To that end she is developing her property – Waratah Eco Farm – as a place where people can learn and experience what it’s like to be on a farm operating under biodynamics and permaculture principles.

Kaye’s journey from the western plains began with a move to Sydney to study and work as a nurse, then marriage, children and a move back to the land. This was to a place in the Northern Rivers, a mixed farm where Kaye raised cattle and pigs, and grew vegetables. Her husband was a school teacher at nearby Nimbin, and it was inevitable that Kaye would encounter different approaches to farming.

“We didn’t use chemicals from day one,” said Kaye, “But living in the area led to an understanding that modern farm practices left a lot to be desired and there was a better way of doing things.”

Kaye also studied natural therapies and after moving to the Sunshine Coast, set up the Natural Therapy Centre in Cooroy. Here, for 10 years, she had a very successful practice; it was a no pills and no potions approach, more about advocating lifestyle changes, particularly regarding food. Her interest in biodynamics was sparked by a course she attended in 2002. It was run by Lynette West from the Biodynamic Education Centre. Lynette was the biodynamics consultant to the Mullon Creek Natural Farm.

This is the largest biodynamic farm in Australia and caught the interest of Prince Charles, who invited Lynette to run a foundation course on biodynamics at his organic farm in England.

Lynette died recently, and is an inspiration to Kaye, who is aiming to continue Lynette’s work of spreading the biodynamics philosophy on her property.

Kaye grows fruit and vegies, and there are the animals – chooks, ducks and goats which supply milk and cheese. Grevilleas mingle with fruit trees and attract birds, keeping insects under control. There are swales to conserve ground moisture. One corner of the property is devoted to forest.

Kaye says that biodynamics is viable for both large and small-scale farming. The principles can be applied to a backyard or even a small courtyard. She cites the case of a friend in her 80s, living in a retirement home.

“Space is tight, but my friend grows bananas, vegetables, herbs, and various fruit trees in pots, as well as keeping bees and making biodynamic preparations. She is a good example of someone doing it on a small scale.”

The use of preparations is an intriguing part of the biodynamics method. They’re made by packing a cow’s horn with cow manure, burying it deep in the ground in the autumn, recovering it in the spring and further treating the fermented material by mixing with water and stirring in a certain way. The preparation can then be used as a compost additive, or more commonly used to spray on fields – a little goes a long way – to increase soil nutrition and fertility.

It’s an important part of the biodynamics philosophy, which was developed in the 1920s by Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian who also founded a new spiritual movement – Anthroposophy – and the Steiner education system.

He believed that the preparations imparted cosmic forces into the soil. His methods must have results, if the growth of biodynamic farming is any guide. It’s practised in more than 50 countries.

New Zealand proponent Peter Proctor has taken the concept to India, where he has worked with marginal farmers across the country to conserve soil and save communities. A film of his work, One Man, One Cow, One Planet, has won awards world-wide.

Kaye is spreading the word at the local level, and concentrates on the practical steps that everyone can take.

“We need to avoid dead food,”  said Kaye.

“That’s why the soil used for growing food must be healthy and able to supply the nutrients needed in our diet. We can then expect to have healthy bodies.”

Ian Christesen puts some questions to Professor Tim Smith PhD who is the Director of the Sustainability Research Centre at University of the Sunshine Coast (USC). Prior to his appointment with USC, Dr Smith was a senior research scientist with the Resource Futures Program of CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems.  He works on a number of projects around climate change adaptation and the issues around coastal community vulnerability. The Sustainability Research Centre also has prepared a set of sustainability indicators for the Sunshine Coast Regional Council.

Professor Tim Smith

What role to you see the University playing to assist the Sunshine Coast diversify its economy away from retail, construction and tourism? Firstly as an employer and more generally as an education provider?

The University of the Sunshine Coast (USC) is Australia’s fastest growing university, now with over 7,000 students and almost 600 staff (including over 200 academics).USC continues to develop new teaching and research programs to help diversify the Sunshine Coast economy. It is also the only university in the world that I know of that has a mission statement revolving around both sustainability and regional engagement. This places USC at the forefront of both developing and enhancing a sustainable knowledge economy for the Sunshine Coast, which is focused on sustainable outcomes through attracting and retaining highly qualified staff, contributing to sustainability industries through research and development, and training the next generation of sustainably-minded individuals (e.g. there were 150 students who enrolled in our 1st year “Foundations of Sustainability” course this year, and our enrolments in our major in sustainability and our post-graduate programs continue to grow). USC is also committed to a business incubator on campus (the Innovation Centre), which houses a large number of sustainability-related business such as Auzion who deals with solar and sustainable energy solutions.

What do you consider to be the greatest challenges we face in creating a more sustainable economy on the Sunshine Coast?

This question requires many PhD theses in order to properly respond … however, in a nut-shell the diverse communities of the Sunshine Coast need to collectively believe that we can create a more sustainable economy and take affirmative steps towards making it a reality. The problems of addiction to growth and short-term economic rationalism too often supersede any meaningful focus on quality of life—we have numerous measures of economic performance but no commitment to measuring our quality of life, hence our policy decisions and investments by government are dominated by improving the performance of the things we measure (and this unfortunately does not include quality of life).

What would be your top 3- 5 actions government and or business need to take into building a truly sustainable region and economy?

My personal view on the top 3 actions needed to build a truly sustainable region and economy consist of:

1. Measuring quality of life and focusing on improving these indicators instead of a focus on improving short-term measures of economic activity;
2. Establishing a line management structure whereby Treasury (at all tiers of government) reports to departments that deal with sustainability (in an integrated way) and not vice versa; and
3. Formation of consortiums between businesses, universities and communities to collectively lobby for greater support from communities and governments to build a sustainable region and economy—with the dominance of SMEs on the Sunshine Coast, we run a risk of not being seen as having a major influence on decision makers.

Do you think that the Coast can use its natural environment and lifestyle as attractants?

Of course— I moved here! The Sustainability Research Centre recently received funding to be part of a national project on coastal management with 7 partner universities. When we advertised for PhD students, USC received more than twice the number of applicants than any other university. It is not only the natural environment and lifestyle but the quality of our businesses, university and communities that attract people to our region. If we build on our combined strengths we can’t go wrong.

What strategies should be put in place to attract the new industries with the new jobs?  For example should we just agree that development and the construction industries will just continue as always with high levels of population growth and therefore we need to be working to make sure this industry cleans up its act and approaches it differently more sustainably?

People have both rights and responsibilities—we often forget about the latter. We all need to take a proactive approach to building the future we want on the Sunshine Coast. Make your voice heard and do something about it! There are so many examples of good work going on that inspire me on the Sunshine Coast and we need to support those who are doing it. Even in the construction industry there are examples of a genuine commitment to sustainability such as Adam Dew EcoBuild.

Any other comments you would like to make?

The Sunshine Coast is reaching a critical tipping point, there are multiple pressures from issues like population growth and climate change. We need both strong leadership combined with collective action to achieve a sustainable future for the Sunshine Coast.

The movement towards a return to living in communities is one that is growing in momentum in Australia and world-wide. Smaller micro-communities and larger ventures are springing up alongside others that have been long-established.

Yet many people also consider a move to community living with a mixture of curiosity, dread, some fear and uncertainty over losing independence and whether or not it is a truly viable option. Done the right way and with the right approach, living in a community can provide an immensely rewarding lifestyle and quality of life.

However, without a good organisational structure and a clear sense of direction, communities can run the risk of ending up as simply a microcosm of what is happening in the outside world – the type of situation many have been set up to try and grow beyond.

Working bee and Communities Convergence Conference at Bellbunya Community

The return to living in communities is being fuelled by awareness and a growing bulk of eco-scientific evidence that intensive living in sprawling cities, booming population growth, spiralling property prices, pressure on water supply and infrastructure and a world facing finite and dwindling resources is a recipe for unsustainability.

Governments have been pursuing a cheery and seemingly reassuring drive towards a healthy-appearing economy. But the underlying disquiet over sustainability is becoming too loud to ignore.

Several years ago I interviewed Richard Heinberg, from California, one of the world’s leading authorities on the anticipated/looming peak oil crisis.

Richard’s medium-term vision for Australia was one of people in cities being forced to divide into smaller, more sustainable urban communities focussed around co-operative growing of community-garden food sources and shared resources.

Once fuel becomes too expensive or sparse to support the agricultural industry and the transport of food supplies to hungry cities relying on the food chain of local supermarkets, people will have little option but to adapt to a massive change in lifestyle and approach to self sustainability.

As Richard pointed out, much of the world has been complacent over the need to learn the skills to support a new way of existence. It is part of human nature to leave things until it is forced upon us and then rely on crisis management.

Some conditioned to materialism and convenience will do it painfully, others will adapt with resilience. But it does not need to be an issue around fear. Richard predicted that those who do adapt to the change proactively will help to create a new paradigm of human co-operation and a much more enlightened and healthy society based on people values.

Many spearheading the movement towards communities are pioneering new methods of resourcefulness and skills sharing, it is an evolving industry of learning and adaptation.

Yet many people also consider a move to community living with a mixture of curiosity, dread, some fear and uncertainty over losing independence and whether or not it is a truly viable option.

SUCCESSFUL COMMUNITIES
Creating a successful community requires some fundamental elements, which can be viewed as a balance of Yin and Yang, or head and heart – Spiritual values and communication to support people and resolve human issues, and effective organisational systems to keep practical day-to-day needs running efficiently and maintain progress.

Where many communities struggle is in not having an effective organisational or project management system to share the inevitable workload and development that needs to take place.

It often falls on the shoulders of a few inspired people who eventually lose motivation and become discouraged.

One well-proven system involves dividing the community up into key areas of responsibility that are each overseen by a small working group, meaning all bases can be covered.

Effective use of time/energy and “people-power” teams means the whole community can move as a workforce resource around these different areas and knock out what needs to be done, under the direction of the relevant working group and using checklists they have devised.

A team of 12 working in a concerted way for just a few hours, or one hour a day, can achieve what a few people would take a week to do. With a bit of practice and commitment, it can become very streamlined.

The Spiritual health benefits to the community come from a great boost in morale from the teamwork, a sense of achievement and progress, and a learning of tolerance and camaraderie from working alongside others.

It is building this sort of co-operative effort and team contribution mindset that will be a strong and vital asset in years to come. Traditional communities like the Amish of North America, through to the tribal communities of the Pacific Islands and New Zealand have always had this down-pat.

Likewise they always take time to celebrate and acknowledge their achievements, which can be one of the great joys of living in community. Singing, jokes, conversation, building valuable, genuine friendships and a shared meal afterwards are great motivators.

PERSONAL IDENTITY
Often one of the biggest arguments to living in community and one of the biggest reasons why people leave, or resist the desire to live in community, is the feeling of losing the “sense of self”, or being absorbed in the needs of the community and the issues of others.

The system above is one key in helping to overcome this. When people know there are consistently scheduled times when they can fulfil their contribution to community and responsibilities are clarified, the rest of their time and independence becomes clear.

A Spiritual mentor I had always had a favourite saying: “When things are organised, people are relaxed. When things are disorganised, people get under pressure.”  It is an important energy to understand.

Another vital key, particularly in a close community is having a clear understanding of the distinct and different energies of personal time, business time and social time.  And likewise personal space, business space and social space.  It is a necessary advance on understanding healthy boundaries, and very effective.

Living in community can sometimes be like living in a giant share house. There is always someone who wants to chat when others are trying to stay focused on important business or earning a living from their space within the community. Fragmentation and distraction can be energy-sapping and the financial vitality of the community as a whole can suffer if this area is not understood clearly and practised proactively and with a positive, co-operative attitude.

SPIRITUAL WELLBEING
The Spiritual health or wellbeing of a community can also determine its overall vitality and success.

Community living by its very nature can attract people who are inherently creative and possibly a little rebellious against the idea of status quo. It is often why they have left the mainstream.

Recognising and appreciating this and giving it space and direction to flourish can utilise some of people’s strongest assets. Anywhere there are people living together there will unavoidably be conflicts and differences of opinion. It is vital to have regular communication or clearing circles where the community gets together as a whole and creates a genuine, safe “heart space” to hear each other fairly and focus on creating solutions to give that energy direction.

Nothing can cause frustration and resentment in people more than feeling they are not being heard or listened to. Over time, small grievances can build into larger resentment if regular clearing circles are not being held. What is not being expressed will still be felt uncomfortably on an intuitive level.

Heart circles can require some good facilitation skills, and if the role is shared around it can become a major area of personal growth for anyone. Done well, the heart circles can also be a great area of personal growth, communication and character development, moral support and personal wellbeing for many.

Communities which have a common Spiritual belief and values focus, such as Buddhism, already have a great advantage.

Where this is not the case, a mixture of different beliefs and values systems can benefit from having a concerted focus effort to reach agreement on the core values and mission statement of the community.

Some form of optional Spiritual development group, as well as healthy lifestyle practices such as yoga and meditation, can become the life blood and cultural richness of a community and nourish its people.

Communicating or relating workshops such as the increasingly popular Non-Violent Communication can be a vital asset for maintaining harmony.

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
Living in a closer community can sometimes be like an ongoing workshop, and it can also be a great deal of fun and growth and source of enduring friendships. It helps greatly if people have the character resilience of a sense of humour and some personal development training, or if this is an ongoing activity within the community.

Areas of self-awareness like tolerance, patience, listening skills, good verbal communication, respect for people’s space and views, honesty and integrity can become valuable assets to getting on with others.

It is a good basis also if people become aware of their own motivations and what is involved in living in community, so it is a clear and conscious choice. Finding a community that resonates in values is a wise move also.

LEARNING CENTRES
It can be a great benefit if a community sets up its own ‘learning centre’, where people with different skills can run workshops or exchange knowledge or services and healing modalities.

This can create an avenue for bringing income and valuable cashflow opportunities into the community also.

Often communities have a particular strength or success they have developed, such as renewable energy source, developing biodynamic or permaculture food supply, cottage industries, low-cost building practices, or obtaining grants and funding.

A project I am working on with a few other community-builders is developing an exchange network between communities where facilitators can travel to share their individual skills and knowledge with other organisations.

As these various aspects of a community and its structure develop and strengthen, they begin to attract more of the type of people with the skills and motivation to want to help make a difference.

With the right approach, communities can become a vibrant, efficient, growing and viable option for sustainable living and shared resources, rich in people and culture.

***

WORKSHOPS

Paul will run a series of workshops at the Bellbunya Community eco-conference centre, at Belli Park,  10km from Eumundi, on the Eumundi – Kenilworth Rd.

Saturday, July 31, from 6.30pm – 9pm:  COMMUNICATE AND LISTEN, on safe relating and heart circle skills. Cost $30.

Sunday, August 1,  from 8.30am to 5pm:  MANAGING EFFICIENT COMMUNITY,  this will include setting up a community project management system that can be adapted for share-housing or a business.  Cost $100. Bring a plate for shared lunch.

Monday, August 2, For those wanting to stay overnight, practical coaching on team-building projects will run from 9am to noon.  
Bookings:  (07) 5447-0181 or  0429-478-129, or paulmis@powerup.com.au

See:  www.bellbunya.org.au for details.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paul Mischefski is a journalist, photographer, environment and social issues writer and lifeskills trainer. He has studied communities from the Pacific Island and New Zealand cultures to the Amish of North America and societies in Northern India. Paul has lectured extensively throughout the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and spent several years in the US helping to manage a world-wide chain of Spiritual retreat centres. He runs Spirit In Organisation Processes For Communities.

Professor Roger Kitching reminds us of the real and present threats and that the diversity of Australian wildlife will be the first to suffer.

A biodiverse Australia is under threat. Image:greghardwick.com.au

Biodiversity! – kangaroos, kookaburras, possums, willie wagtails, bluetongues – perhaps even birdwing butterflies and funnel-web spiders – all things we might associate with this (relatively) new word.

But what about a couple of other lists -  ‘Aberdeen Angus, Ayrshire, Santa Gertrudis,  Friesian, Jersey and Charolais’ – or  ‘rainforests, grasslands, deserts, tundra, coral reefs and eucalypt woodlands’ – these, too capture something essential about this thing we call ‘biodiversity’.

Biodiversity is nothing more nor less than the entire diversity of life – within a species, species themselves, and sets of species.  Let’s put this another way, the essential diversity of life on Earth includes genetic diversity within species – all those and many other races of cattle, for instance; species themselves – the familiar original list and many million more; and, ecosystem diversity – the list of ecosystems  mentioned and many more made up of repeatable sets of species on the landscape.

The modern conservation movement was triggered in the late 1960s by Rachel Carson’s epic book ‘Silent Spring’.

Carson focused popular attention on a trend which biologists had been aware of over century – first, in fact, given voice by Darwin’s prescient, polymath co-worker, Alfred Russell Wallace – that the number of species on Earth was gradually diminishing – not by the slow inexorable processes of extinction on a geological time-scale, but through the landscape changes imposed by human ‘development’ – by clearing, agricultural chemicals and housing developments as well as the more direct impacts of hunting and gathering to satisfy an exponentially growing human population.

Rachel Carson’s agenda focussed on the species and the consequences of the outcry that followed publication of her book took the form of ‘red lists’ of threatened and endangered species around the world and tentative legislation to prevent their slide into oblivion.

At the time of publication of Carson’s book the global estimate of species diversity on Earth was about 3 to 3.5 million.  This tally was confidently made up of about 10,000 species of birds and 5000 species of mammals (mostly rats, mice and very small bats).
The remaining 3 million or so were principally insects and their relatives.  So I was taught as a university student in the early sixties.  In 1982 Terry Erwin from the Smithsonian Institute in Washington introduced rainforests, canopies and the tropics into the equation.

Based on some rather preliminary estimates of the number of different beetle species in the canopies of one species of tree in Panama he made the outrageous extrapolation that there were probably 30 million species of insects and their relatives in the tropical rainforests of the world.

We now know that this was indeed an overestimate – the ‘true’ figure may be nearer 7 to 10 million – although the jury is still out on the actual number.  Nevertheless Erwin’s huge estimate, its association with rainforests and the observation that rainforest were being cleared faster than ever before, led to the biodiversity crisis of the 1980s and 1990s.

Indeed it was in that welter of concern that the organiser of a 1988 symposium on diversity and conservation coined the term ‘biodiversity’ – contrary to popular belief this was not the famous American biologist E. O. Wilson, although he edited the book in which the term first saw the light of day.

Indeed, Wilson assured me he opposed the coining of such a gauche neologism – but subsequently regretted not having coined the term, which subsequently took off in the public and political imagination.

Bringing the many, many species of invertebrates (which includes the insects) into the picture gave the whole biodiversity ‘movement’ a huge boost – its promoters were able to talk loosely but portentously of how many species were being lost in a day, a week, a year and so on – usually estimated in terms of the number of ‘football fields’ of rainforest being cleared.  But this boost contained the seeds of its own demise.  Very soon sceptics began to ask, for example, why some tiny, recently discovered soil mite was to be given the same weight as the mighty tiger, rhinoceros or giant panda – legally if not in the wider public mind.  Lists of threatened and endangered insects have been drawn up and given legal protection.  Do you know for example, that in Western Australia a whole raft of tiny Crustacea found nowhere else but in water-filled crevices deep in the Earth are not only protected under legislation but have caused vast mining projects to be relocated or delayed at costs which make the proposed resource tax seem like peanuts?

The real value of the invertebrates and indeed the even smaller and less well-understood micro-organisms, is not as ikons of the magnificent or the soon to be lost – these are not thylacines or paradise parrots – but as tiny cogs in the maintenance of the life-support systems on which they, and us, depend totally.  In the late 1990’s the biodiversity emphasis rightly changed to a focus not on each individual species but onto the idea of ecosystems and ‘ecosystem services’.  In a nutshell these are the many benefits we get from functioning ecosystems which, were they not there, we might have to pay for (or try to pay for, assuming there was an appropriate service provider).  These services include nutrient storage and movement, soil building, water purifying, the maintenance of local climate, the natural control of potential pests, pollination, waste recycling, pharmaceutical products, even the fine forests, reefs and rivers that feed our tourism industry.  It is hard to estimate the dollar value of these ‘services’ simply because we are not accustomed to having to pay for them but such estimates as have been attempted fall consistently into the many billions or even trillions of dollars.  The problem with these estimates, as I said before, is that they carry the implicit assumption that were these ecosystem services to be destroyed then we, somehow, could buy replacements – this is not the case!  Humanity at large depends intimately on being surrounded by functional ecosystems.

Professor Roger Kitching from the Griffith School of the Environment, Griffith University.

You could be forgiven for thinking that these are simply the burblings of academics or other stirrers who have been out of the ‘real world’ for too long.  Yet contemplate the slow death of the River Murray that we are currently watching.  Think about the dieback affecting our Tablelands and its consequences on local soil conservation, fertility and micro-climate.  Observe the gradual encroachment of agricultural lands by desert.  Peer in horror at the leprous landscape of ex-irrigation lands scarred probably for ever by salting.  Watch the bleaching of coral reefs to unattractive ghosts of their past glories.  These are not intellectual maunderings but real disasters – human made and not readily ‘fixable’.  

So much of human history has taken place in a world where there was always more – more lands to conquer, more forest to clear, more seas to fish.  Our increasingly sophisticated technology allowed us to do this.  Once the forests of Western Europe were cleared we could send our fleets to find forests elsewhere – and there always was an elsewhere – from the point of view of tropical hardwoods this is currently Papua New Guinea.  But there are almost no frontiers left: we have not learnt the lesson of sustainability – all political rhetoric notwithstanding.  Why are we in Australia having a debate about whether or not to control our population size, on the one hand, while advocating ‘sustainabilty’ on the other.  Population growth and sustainability are oxymoronic concepts.

So in this Year of Biodiversity 2010 what are the greatest threats to the biodiversity on which our future depends.   In Australia three pervasive inter-related threats promise to wipe out great chunks of the very special biodiversity with which this once-isolated continent is endowed: land clearing, invasive species and climate change.  Mixed up with these three are drivers such as inappropriate fire regimes, pervasive agricultural chemicals and lack of connectivity across the landscape.  Anyone of these ideas deserves a whole book not just a short article.  Let me dwell finally then on the most all-pervasive of them, climate change.  

All the predictions of climate models show Australia as a whole becoming warmer and drier with a shift in patterns of rainfall away from the south-east, and an increase in the number of extreme events such as cyclones and droughts.  Predictions of how serious these changes will be vary from model to model.  One thing is certain though, without prompt urgent mitigation we are heading for the worst of any range of modelled scenarios.  Recent global data collected since the famous set of IPCC Predictions were made, show us tracking at or above the most extreme of the predictions whether we are talking about temperature or sea-level.  Some of the first impacts we will see – indeed are seeing already – will be upon biodiversity.  Mountaintop ecosystems will be the first to go – in Australia the unique faunas of our subtropical Antarctic Beech forests and the endemic marsupials and birds of our tropical mountains will likely not withstand the most mild of heating trends.  And all this will impact on us through an undermining of the ecosystem services provided by this biodiversity.  

The recently published book on Australia’s biodiversity and climate change of which I was one of eight authors (Steffen et al. ‘Australia’s Biodiversity and Climate Change’, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, 2009) makes many suggestions as how we might cope with these predicted changes.  I close with just two of these.  First we need to start thinking about and managing biodiversity as whole inter-connected sets of species driving complex ecosystem-level processes – retaining our species-centricity for the ikonic symbols of conservation – the striped bandicoots, hairy-nosed wombats and bilbies. Second, we know that ecosystems and the organisms that comprise them have some capability of adapting – not without change and loss of species – but possibly sufficiently to keep the essential services going.  For this ‘resilience’ to be maximised we need to minimise other stressors imposed on biodiversity.  We need to keep our National Reserve System in good order, indeed keep expanding it – it will be more vital than ever under climate change.  We must restore our landscape to put connectivity back into the environment so that natural species have some hope of re-sorting themselves into new ecosystems as the climate vice tightens.  The control of environmental pests and the strict quarantine that minimises their occurrence must be maintained – even in the face of probably unwinnable wars against, for example, invasive ants.  Precious water must be partitioned to allow due amounts to the natural environment itself – this is not water ‘wasted’ but water expended on our own well-being through the services provided by healthy ecosystems.  The list goes on.  Most important of all we need to keep educating people to realise this threat is real and action is essential.

The science is incontrovertible and the few highly vocal nay-sayers deserve no more than pity.  Every month delayed through the playground fights in Canberra or the bully-boy tactics of special interest groups, makes the task of recovery that much harder.

Paul Summers relaxes at his 8-acre hideaway near Cooroy. Image: Brian Rickards

Paul Summers is a jolly sort of bloke – laidback, big smile, dressed for a barbie but with a brain as sharp as a tack.

Immediately, you’d hazard a guess that Paul isn’t your normal stereotypical urban planner hunched over a drawing board on level 33 of a shiny office block in the heart of Brisbane. Yet a planner he is, and with an impressive CV.

And you might hazard a guess that this warm character is just the bloke you’d have confidence in to bring a special kind of creativity and a comfortable lifestyle to any project put his way. You would be right.

Paul, who works from home just a few Ks outside of Cooroy, was one of the luminaries that in the mid-90s brought together the cutting edge Noosa town plan – one that set development limits and by default a population limit. It was a plan that essentially preserved the unique character of Noosa.

Before we got down to a serious chat, Paul just had to show me the lush 8-acre property he is restoring to environmental soundness. He’s also got plans to renovate the old house, something he likes to do to keep hands-on and to occasionally swap his computer and draughting tools for a hammer and saw.

With chooks at feet, he surveys his dam and tells how he is gradually helping the place to recover from a previous owner’s inappropriate maintenance practice.

So, from this idyllic smallholding, Paul starts our formal interview looking at the big picture of the population issue.

“The big problem for all of Australia is our love affair with the seaboard and how we are driven to these edges, such as Noosa which is really close to us. Overpopulating these areas will irrevocably alter the character of the locations,” said Paul.

“Many of the locations are part of our major tourism drawcard and a lot of the work I did in Noosa was designed to try to maintain a tourism outcome because that was our dominant employment area.

“To maintain the area’s character and our niche in the market we had to control the level of development which in turn controlled the level of population. There are very few places doing that in Australia.

“So, the result is, because of the baby boom, the attraction of the seaboard areas and the climate, everybody wants to move to these locations. However, there’s another driving factor – it’s jobs and the fact that most of our economy is directed to those areas.”

Paul then lamented that we don’t do anything to balance our population and attract more people to rural areas.

He says that many of these areas, which are quite attractive and would be nice places to live, could be transformed with new business opportunities.

“Our problem is that we’ve got this major growth mostly in our cities where we inject huge amounts of capital into providing for infrastructure such as roads, freeways and tunnels just to get people from one side of town to the other,” said Paul.

“It’s just a commuter arrangement – instead of living closer to the places they work at, they live on the opposite side, or closer to the sea and burn fossil fuel going backwards and forwards across the city.

“So we spend a lot of money on that sort of infrastructure. Meanwhile in our rural areas we have declining population because there are no jobs and no opportunities.

“We could change the policy position and start creating opportunities for growth in those areas.”

Paul then remembers how his team was ridiculed for their bold new ideas for Noosa.

“I’d walk into a room full of planners and politicians and talk to them about our work on population, and they would laugh at us as if we were crazy,” he said.

“We talked to them about why it was necessary to gear your population to your capacity to supply infrastructure, to your capacity to pay for that infrastructure.”

He believes proper planning looks at the resources available – financial resources and physical resources that allow you to deliver the infrastructure. You also should look at what your community wants to achieve.

Paul is not too impressed with most of our politicians. “They seem to be somewhat loath to describe or bring to the community what their decision-making really means,” he said.

“For instance, the Federal Government talks about a population of 35 million but you don’t see anything about how that population is going to be accommodated across Australia, what that means to the cities across Australia or how that might impact on or change those areas.”

This urban planner, sitting quietly in his cottage far from inner-city pollution, while a good number of fellow Queenslanders are probably sitting in a traffic jam somewhere,  doesn’t have much time for the way we are dealing with city living.

“We don’t have a sensible approach to doing things — we keep growing our cities and just treat the symptoms of the problems. Meanwhile, in the rural areas we try to prop up economies by investing small amounts of money in small ventures,” he said.

“What really makes places attractive to live in for families, apart from the usual physical features, is the opportunity for jobs.”

Paul points to the Western Corridor, between Brisbane and Ipswich, as a success story in steering people away from coastal areas and as a guide for increasing the growth potential in corridor areas and regional locations. He had been a strong advocate of that process in the time of the Goss Government despite people saying it would   never work.

“Less than 20 years later it’s now the primary policy position of the SEQ Regional Plan and the Western Corridor is probably the largest in Australia. And it has all worked because of jobs created through government decision-making at that time which had earmarked land for industrial and commercial development as well as putting in infrastructure in advance,” said Paul.

Paul is not a believer in the idea of official population caps, preferring instead to set limits through controlled and locked-in development.

“It’s impossible to put in place. A cap implies you put in place something that can’t be changed – that’s not possible because community values can change.”

When it comes to planning, Paul says you never have a blank canvas. There is always something that was there previously.
He said planners first have to look at the resources, the values that are in place and the capacity to supply infrastructure and to talk to the community about what they want to achieve. Then they should analyse obligations to the environment, obligations to the community – it’s a marriage of those things.

Paul tells of the dramatic changes in the processes of forming a regional plan. He’s not happy about them and shows how the grassroots checks and balances have been effectively reduced to nothing. It’s a worrying scenario.

“We used to have a cooperative model driven from the bottom up. All the local governments got together coordinated by the state or state agencies and pooled resources and this gave them the opportunity to consider cross-boundary issues,” said Paul.

“The process was fed from the bottom and done largely by professional local government planners at regional level.
“What we have today is the state doing all that work. It takes all of the data that came to local government previously, so it becomes armed with a lot of information.

“So, these days, the state dictates and controls that process. I don’t know what happens internally within the state or how much political interference occurs through that process. I have to say that I believe some occurs.

“So what was a good idea and working quite well was stopped. Now we have a Department of Infrastructure and Planning that dictates what is going to happen and uses a flat-line, straight-curve population projection that has no regard to the capacity of the region to support that population.

“What we’re doing now is changing the regional plan every time a new set of population projections come out. The population projections drive everything. You have a curve that goes out – you add another five years to it and then you’ve got extra fertility and a lower rate of mortality and a massive immigration intake so the curve can keep going up.

“The question for Australia is not about a cap but about how we should be spacially distributing our population. The other is about size and sustainability. To date neither question has been answered.”

“And the level of consultation with the state is now ‘Here’s our plan, what do you think of it?’”

And if you don’t like it?

Paul’s sunny countenance clouds over a little.

“Even the community has a feeling of powerlessness at the present time. So many decisions are being made regardless of their opinion.”

But there’s always an election, Paul is reminded – that’s when his face lights up again.

As the population quickly increases, roads will be even more congested

Driving to work, going to the beach, going to the shops, taking the train – do you have the feeling you’re getting crowded out? Well, things will only get worse if Premier Anna Bligh has her way. So, welcome to Squeezeland, land of lost dreams!

But there may be some light because, at last, the planet’s most pressing problem – population growth – is being given an airing, even in mainstream media and on the floors of parliaments around the world.

And now the debate and discussion has come with passion to civic centres in southeast Queensland. In fact, there is a rash of forums dealing with this issue.

Some have already taken place while several others are planned for this month (March).

Both Queensland Conservation and the Sunshine Coast Environment Council, with help from other environmental groups, are holding separate public forums on the weekend of March 13-14 in Brisbane and on the Sunshine Coast respectively.

The need for these forums has been triggered to some extent by the State Government’s South East Queensland Regional Plan, which projects an increase in population of 1.6 million to 4.4 million by 2031, and by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s  call for a ‘Big Australia’ which would boost the nation’s population to 35 million by 2050.

It’s a wake-up call for concerned Australians, especially Queenslanders.

Many environmentalists, scientists, local civic leaders, social commentators, community leaders, business people and, indeed, many of the public have already voiced extreme worries about ‘unsustainable population growth’, and fear that plans to build 750,000 new dwellings in southeast Queensland will destroy extensive areas of farmland, open space and bushland as well as devastate hundreds of wildlife habitats.

There are also rational fears that our lifestyles will suffer with roads even more congested than they are now, mega motorway systems that concrete over yet more green space, beaches crowded out, and infill housing out of character with the present streetscapes and putting pressure on our communities.

Also, a degraded environment will be the norm and our health and education systems, which are already stretched, will continue to deteriorate.

Water and energy supply will become scarcer and more costly. But these two major forums are far more than talkfests.
Expert presenters from many fields, as well as exposing some population myths and vested interests, will show how community action can influence all levels of government to cooperate to address the problems of unsustainable population growth.

At the end of the month (March 30-31) the State Government hosts its own Brisbane forum ominously called ‘Growth Management  Summit’ which seems to indicate the Regional Plan’s projected population figures are not really up for debate. The talk will simply be about how to fit in all those extra taxpayers and business customers.

If the science continues to be spurned,  Anna Bligh’s forum will be no more than an orchestrated farce; yet another exercise in political spin and big business talk, determined to ignore the real and urgent call for common sense to protect our communities, lifestyle and environment.

It is increasingly apparent that the understanding of the carrying capacity of any system is being ignored and that we, as voters in a democratic process, need to exercise our power to influence the necessary and right outcomes.

If the State Government needs another reminder of the increasing community discontent, the recent Courier-Mail polls show almost 80 per cent of people are concerned at the way southeast Queensland is being destroyed by development.

Simon Baltais, from Sustainable Population Australia, believes decision-making on population needs to be based on science.

“The State Government is ignoring the findings of their own scientific reports, which reveal population is having a significant impact upon southeast Queensland residents and the environment,” he said.

“To say southeast Queensland and coastal Queensland has capacity to absorb more growth ignores the science.”

The State Government slogan of how it is ‘managing growth’ is just hollow and careless rhetoric according to Narelle McCarthy, manager of the Sunshine Coast Environment Council.

“Growth is not being managed and it is increasingly clear it is out of control,” she said.  Simon Baltais has a similar viewpoint.

“The government has been talking about managing growth for years to the extent that we have now exceeded critical mass and achieved a critical mess,” he said.

The latest South East Queensland Regional Plan attempts to lock in population figures for the next 20 years, aiming to have 4.4 million crammed into this corner of the state.

So, it is easy to understand why people are becoming more cynical of politicians.  The South East Queensland Regional Plan was brought forward and rushed through with limited consultation.  Now that it has become law Anna Bligh says we can now have a discussion on population.

Narelle McCarthy claims bad polling and not a genuine desire to address the problem is the motivator for the State Government’s ‘Growth Management Summit’.

“It is shaping up to be nothing more than  a talk fest,” she said.

So what can the government do to show it is listening and wanting to act on these concerns?

The population and dwelling figures allocated to each council under the South East Queensland Regional Plan need to be viewed for what they are,  population growth projections only.

They should not be mandatory and councils and their communities should have the right to determine the numbers for their own areas. This would involve not only ensuring the biophysical constraints were taken into account but also the character and amenity of an area.

The Sustainable Planning Act, which came into force late last year, supposedly governs the content and direction of planning in this state.

The stated objective of the legislation is to achieve ‘ecologically sustainable development’ something which it has clearly failed to do with the regional plan.

Supporting and parallel action must be taken by the Federal Government to urgently develop a rational or national (or both) population policy that recognises there are limits to growth. With 48 per cent of southeast Queensland population growth being fuelled by overseas migration, this needs to be a priority.

Sustainability innovators: Agents of change on the Sunshine Coast

Documenting the stories of ten people from the Sunshine Coast, who according to their peers and colleagues have dedicated considerable time towards sustainability, Dr Dana Thomsen, Lecturer in Sustainability Advocacy at the University of the Sunshine Coast acknowledges their dedication and leadership in her new book Sustainability innovators: Agents of change on the Sunshine Coast .

As Dr Thomsen writes in her overview:

“By choosing people that were widely recognised throughout the region, I hoped to involve people that were not only enacting sustainability within their own lives, but those that were also effective at encouraging others and notable on a regional scale. Almost immediately I had over 50 nominations – a testament to the significant number of people committed to sustainability on the Sunshine Coast.”

Bill Carter, Associate Professor for Heritage Resource Management at the University of the Sunshine Coast wrote, in a review of the book: “Their stories are not without frustration, but all reflect a positive outlook and faith in the human condition to respond to the sustainability challenge. Their insights will inform anyone who feels that more can be done, and highlights that the efforts of the individual can make a difference.”

Asked what motivated her to write the book, Dr Thomsen replied:

“I was motivated to write the book to provide a tangible and local source of inspiration for achieving sustainability. Talking candidly about their lives, each chapter presents an honest and engaging account of the struggles, successes and philosophies of individuals committed to achieving sustainability across the Sunshine Coast.

“All participants have an infectious enthusiasm for the Australian landscape and its people. Yet, each story is unique and reveals a diversity of backgrounds and approaches towards the common goal of sustainability. What stands out in these stories is the commitment to learning with others and through experience, the importance of building on individual capabilities, and the commitment to collective action.”

Quote from the book

“Media coverage of climate change has raised awareness of human-environmental interactions on a scale not seen in recent times where the general trend has been an ever-increasing disconnection with our natural surroundings. Certainly, human-induced climate change is an issue that threatens all that we have grown accustomed too and all that sustains us. Moreover, climate change is just one symptom of unsustainable human behaviours – over-consumption, pollution, deforestation, genetic engineering, and social inequality are just some examples of other related and pressing issues caused by inappropriate human activity.”

Featured local innovators include:
Ian Christesen (Sunshine Coast Environment Council), Sonya Wallace (Sunshine Coast Energy Action Centre), Phillip Moran (Noosa and District Landcare), Sandy McBride (Queensland Environmentally Sustainable Schools Initiative and the Maroochy Catchment Centre), Jo Turner (Eco-Design and Education Consultant), Cr Keryn Jones (Sunshine Coast Regional Council), Cr Vivien Griffin (Sunshine Coast Regional Council), Susie Chapman (SEQ Catchments Ltd), Justin Holbrook (Sustainable Urban Development and Technology), and Bob Cameron from Rockcote Enterprises Pty Ltd.

Published by: Post Pressed
Distributed by: eContent management

Unsustainable growth may see the "coastline covered in concrete all the way from Victoria to the Queensland border". Image greghardwick.com.au

Dear Madam Premier,

Recently I had a short and enjoyable holiday in Noosa but was dismayed to read in the local papers of the plans by the Minister for Infrastructure to “reform” planning approvals and the possibility of development in the ‘Wild Horse’ mountain region.

This is a process distinctly similar to that carried out in New South Wales with devastating consequences.  You may recall that a previous Premier of NSW, Bob Carr, warned of the danger of growth that would see the coastline covered in concrete all the way from Victoria to the Queensland border.  Unfortunately his warnings have been ignored and many pristine coastal locations, as well as inland regions, have been overwhelmed by housing developments. Along with development booms came the apparently inevitable political corruption which tainted members of both local and state governments — none more bizarre than the scandal that rocked the Wollongong council.

New South Wales has “enjoyed” a housing boom which we are repeatedly told will rescue the economy and yet this State government is on the verge of economic collapse. It cannot fund necessary infrastructure and is selling off government assets, even the State lottery, as well as schools, parks and police stations. This state is probably the worst off because Sydney has suffered the fastest population growth and as a consequence the government has been unable to maintain even essential services.  Some of the state’s best agricultural land is being swallowed by urban sprawl, forcing growers to move into more marginal land with higher transport costs.

” The Australian Bureau of Statistics puts the value of our soils as diminishing by $300 million every year”

They also suffer the double blow of having governments put cities ahead of rural areas for water allocations.

It has also been estimated by the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics that traffic congestion now costs the nation $21 billion per year and there is no likelihood that this will improve while population growth outstrips expenditure on services. At the same time, because growth in road transport outstripped our oil supply capacity, we now must import an ever increasing amount, often from unreliable sources.

The cost of imported fuel has been estimated to rise to $30 billion by 2012 and this estimate was made before the current price rises and the governments expanded immigration program.

Because of the structure of the housing industry more than one million people are considered to be in housing stress, that is, they are paying 30 per cent or more of their income in house repayments.  The number of homeless people continues to rise as do the number of personal bankruptcies, and largely due to housing repayments, Australia’s personal debt is over one trillion dollars — higher on a per capita basis than the US and the very mechanism that provoked the current economic collapse.

Perhaps even more disturbing is the view of Prof. Fiona Stanley, the child-welfare scientist and 2003 Australian of the year. Her findings provide a direct connection between child and adolescent health problems and the economy. According to her data, one in five parents are unfit for the task of raising children because they are overworked or otherwise stressed.

A quick appraisal of other country’s economic positions shows that those with high levels of housing growth, like Iceland and Spain, suffered the worst in this collapse, something that should not be surprising since all previous economic collapses were related to housing bubbles that burst.

However, events since 2007 should make it obvious that there is something terribly wrong with a system that fails so dramatically and does so about every 20 years.  What is also apparent is that costs for services and infrastructure, are increasing and doing so faster than any revenue gain from growth.

“The national  infrastructure deficit is almost $90 billion“

We have therefore an economic system that is operating as a type of pyramid scheme, with input as GDP artificially structured to obscure its inherent real costs.  It has been suggested by many that what is wrong is the twentieth century “neoclassical” economics which has misinterpreted or ignored the more philosophical approach of earlier economic thought.

Today in a typical introductory textbook (Ekelund and Tollison 1988:147), students read that:

“The overall goal of macro-economic policy is the achievement of economic stabilisation … to attain maximum economic growth in the present and future.”

Economics thus became a science geared toward justifying and facilitating the pursuit of wealth by individuals and nations. In perhaps its most radical departure from the classicists it adopted the assumption that there is no limit to economic growth, an absurdity echoed by the previous Prime Minister shortly before his ignominious defeat.

More importantly it should be now obvious that the foundation of conservative economics, growth and implicit belief in market forces, is illogical and the common factor in economic and environmental failures that have beset our country for many years.  So great has been the faith in these economic principles that successive governments have been unwilling to contemplate that many industries like gambling, liquor and tobacco actually cost the community far more than they return in the way of increased revenue.

“Gambling and the liquor industry are the worst, the later costs the public $7.6 billion per year, causes untold loss of human potential by brain impairment and is responsible for 40 per cent of police work”

These however pale into insignificance when compared to the “junk” food industry that is largely responsible for the epidemic of youth obesity that will swamp our already over-stressed health care system.

“According to Access Economics there will be 7 million obese by 2025, and it already costs the nation over $20 billion annually”

Apparently the minor increase in GDP created by the food industry was considered more important than the health of the people.

One also has to ask what type of economic fanatic would promote population growth at a time when Queensland is subjected to increasing storm intensity.  Victoria and South Australia are drying out, NSW is regularly 70 per cent drought effected, the Murray Darling system that used to produce a third of our food, has collapsed, and climate change will further decimate our agricultural industry.

All this and we still have governments allowing mining and housing developments in those areas that appear to be safe from drought.

“To rank some abstract number like GDP as more important than food production must be the highest of all absurdities especially when it should be obvious that despite, or because of continued population growth, our per capita GDP is declining”

The fallacy of an economic system relying on growth is the subject of a report in the New Scientist magazine (Issue 2678 October 15, 2008) where a cross section of experts from fields including economics, law, and philosophy all conclude that conservative economics has failed society.

These opinions are by no means isolated there has been a growing chorus of criticism from economists. Alan Ramsay, Clive Hamilton Steve Keen and Ross Gittens have all spoken out on several occasions, (while internationally George Soros  author of The Bubble of American Supremacy,  Nassim Taleb author of the Black Swan and most recently John Talbot author of the 86 Lies), to politicians, including the Premier of NSW, as they observe the deterioration  of our cities, smothered under the weight of population growth.

So serious are the findings that I request you examine this report as a matter of urgency, and if its findings cannot be refuted you must abandon the reliance on growth that is not only damaging our nation, but threatens the world’s ability to combat climate change .

I look forward to your response in the near future.

Yours faithfully,

Don Owers
Dudley, NSW

Our shared vision: To be Australia's most sustainable region - vibrant, green, diverse. Image:greghardwick.com.au

Major amendments to the Integrated Planning Act 1997, carrying implications for local planning powers and the critical assessment of applications, have become yet another hallmark of the Bligh Government’s mantra of growth at all costs.

Minister for Infrastructure and Planning, Stirling Hinchliffe said the Sustainable Planning Bill 2009, approved by Cabinet on June 9, will result in the biggest reform to planning approvals in over a decade.

“It will mean massive reductions in red tape and unnecessary delays which anyone in the building industry will tell you can result in significant extra costs,” Mr Hinchliffe said.

“At the end of the day, this is about creating more efficient processes for construction sites and as a result keeping Queenslanders in jobs.”

Mr Hinchliffe, who was previously research and policy manager with the state branch of the Property Council said developers accessing the more efficient and accountable system would also be able take advantage of the new legislation which will allow certain applications to be deemed to be approved if they are not decided within specified timeframes.

“Deemed approvals are a significant reform,” he said.

While detail of a proposed Bill is ordinarily confidential prior to going to cabinet, the Property Council of Australia was in a position to issue a media release giving unequivocal and glowing support within hours of Cabinet approval.

Brian Raison, the president of the Coolum district community group, Development Watch, expressed concern regarding the tenor of the media release.

“It appears to advantage the developer while making it more difficult for the community to have input into planning decisions”

Property Council Queensland Executive Director, Steve Greenwood was quick to identify the benefits for the vested interests of the industry and the economically unsustainable narrow focus.

“I can’t stress enough just how important the reform of Queensland’s planning and development assessment system is to jobs, the property industry and to the Queensland economy,” said Mr Greenwood.

“The big win for Queensland jobs and industry is the introduction of deemed approvals for development applications that fall victim to unnecessary red tape and delays.

“Deemed approvals will go a long way to ensure that valuable jobs and dollars are not lost whilst applications are ‘lost in transition’ behind agencies’ back counters,” he said.

This dangerous reversal from what was previously a ‘deemed refusal’ heralds the opportunity for sound determination of applications to be overridden by fast tracked timeframes offering inadequate information and planning detail.

While the development industry has long manifested its skewed criticism of local council planning assessment, it has failed to acknowledge that it is often the guilty party.  Major development applications have knowingly been lodged with skeletal information triggering the need for Council Development Assessment officers to issue an Information Request within just 10 days of the application being lodged. Under IPA, the applicant then had 12 months grace to supply the requested information and would often apply to have this period extended. Multiply this scenario by the innumerable applications being lodged in a given region, particularly the Sunshine Coast, and it becomes evident that IPA has biased  the developer in many instances.

These new amendments indicate that the necessary evaluation of applications that give rise to detailed ecological assessments, sustainability principles and subsequent recommendations, for example, may be circumvented altogether.

Developer advantage is therefore further bolstered with their desired outcome potentially overriding that of the community and what is reflected in the local planning scheme. In an effort to close this avenue, amendments in the new bill call for an overhaul of planning schemes to become a template scheme that facilitates these developer-favoured features.

Can the Minister guarantee that community rights and local government planning powers will not be further eroded under the dubiously named Sustainable Planning Bill 2009? Probably not. And the community will be rightly outraged.

There is a strong mandate by the community now reflected in the recently adopted Sunshine Coast Regional Council Corporate Plan.  The corporate plan is the core strategic document of the Council and identifies the priorities for the next five years and beyond. It guides Council’s decision-making, budget operations and resource allocations to achieve the vision: to be Australia’s most sustainable region – vibrant, green, diverse.

However, as the Sunshine Coast Regional Council endeavours to formulate its first planning scheme, these sweeping legislative reforms are set to seriously challenge and undermine the collective efforts of the local community and council.

Narelle McCarthy is the Manager of the Sunshine Coast Environment Council

Capitalism was hailed as the victor after Gorbachev brought perestroika to the former Soviet Union in the late 80s. Since that time, the West’s confidence in its own economic system has grown. Confidence that, until recently, had bordered on arrogance. Capitalism has allowed greed to flourish, to such an extent, that we are now witnessing a meltdown of a system, with global consequences.

No doubt the economy will return to some sense of normality in the future, but the lessons should not be forgotten. Any system that requires constant growth to survive on a planet with finite resources, is surely doomed to fail time and time gain. Any system that promotes greed before common sense — before the well-being of people and our environment — cannot be sustained.

The residents of the Sunshine Coast have felt the impacts of greed for decades. The State Government has, and is, insisting on more growth, with developers cheering them on and as a result the Coast constantly fights to protect its biggest asset — the natural environment. The economy and lining the wallets of a select few, it seems, is more important than even the basic fundamentals of democracy. Even if the economy and its architects have been proven to be faulty and lacking in principle.

Residents on the Sunshine Coast want a focus on sustainability not development. Image Greg Hardwick

Residents of the Coast, and its elected council have made it clear that they want and need a sustainable future. The Sunshine Coast can lead by example and display to the rest of the country, that it is possible. We have the talent right here in our own backyards, as was on display at the recent Sunshine Coast Environment Awards. It’s time the government was reminded that it is the servant of the people. Voters already understand that growth must have its limits.

The hopes and wishes of residents in the Mary Valley have been blatantly ignored by a government determined to build a dam, regardless of the impacts — be they economic, social, environmental, or ethical. Recently, as our lead story displays, a victory was won with a delay in proceedings of the Traveston Crossing dam. It’s now time for common sense to return and for some human decency to be restored so that the entire idea is scrapped.

Econews has long been an opponent of the dam, based on the wishes of the people, sound scientific facts, and the rule of law. We can no longer stand by and let an elected government sustain an ideology of growth at all costs. A government that has stopped listening to the very people that fund its wages.