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This historic success was not reached without great difficulty along a steep uneven learning curve. From entering the lands whilst emulating Aboriginal historic land management processes, to government degree of clear falling of timbered lands, to returning to Aboriginal fire management and finally, pure mountain man ingenuity, the end result was that the alpine high bush and open plains finally had another human culture of management that understood, relied upon and sustained environmental care, that resultantly delivered a Snowy Mountain Range of lush snow grass, vibrant trees and seasonal carpets of wild flowers.
It was this latter vista of Eden like panoramic views that the (perhaps well intentioned, but this is being too, too kind) wandering fore-fathers of the modern radical green sect, sought to steal and steal they have. Not just to the detriment of the generations of high country families, but to the very environment itself. These witting minstrels of environmental vandalism saw only with their eyes and failed to open their minds as to true life realties and hence took it upon themselves to vanguard the very processes that led to the 2003 holocaust of the Snowy and subsequently the ACT and 2006, Victoria's infernos. A situation that has not only been continued to this very day, but has reached incredible stupidity through the halls of power.
We struggle to see wild flowers that thrived on the high country grazing and cool-burning. We have virtually no native fauna to speak of beyond the fringes of the rural properties surrounding the mountainous park areas, driven out by wild dog predation left unchecked. Vegetation grows rank year after year, with each year's die off falling to the ground as a mat of destruction just as if we laid black polythene sheeting over the plains an forest floor, seasonally increasing the denial of floral life to increasingly vast tracts of once vibrant terrain. We no longer have the fences that controlled the movement of the brumbies that not only were an essential resource to the high country dwellers and the steeds of the Light Horsemen, but were part of the re-introduction of the mega-fauna to our lands, the last piece in the natural jigsaw of management. Fire, and grazing seasonally. Interestingly, the mega-fauna disappeared at about the time the Dingo became prolific in this land.
Today, the environmental vandals, the radical greens and corporate raiders, are touting the Brumby as the nemesis of the Snowy Mountains, but nothing could be further from the truth.
This animal may well have been introduced by white colonisation and has since become the wild mega-fauna of our Snowy Mountains, but so what? At some point in all paleo history, all animals enter the scene somewhere they were not before. It just so happens that this introduction was in modern human time, but this in realty is of no concern to the environmental equation such introduction introduces. It was the Brumby and their tracks that inhibited the 2003 wild fires from devastating the Snowy Plains. It is the Brumby pads that allowed our environmental vandals to wander the high country with relative ease and begin the theft of the mountains. It is the brumby that spreads fertilising nutrients about the countryside in the form of manure and delivering seed stock from one area to another. It is the Brumby that turns the stagnant bog's muck over by hoof that restores the mud's nutrients and provides puck hole breeding grounds for the high country aquatic life such as the many species of frogs. It is the Brumby that grazes the snow grass that desperately has been neglected from the banning of cool burning and hence some very small part of it is still being managed. It is the Brumby that is the last real manager of our once beautiful Snowy Mountains.
It is the National Parks that have taken the stolen high country lands into their realm and failed to maintain fences that were the check barriers to where the Brumby could or could not go. The High Country folk knew this and used it to control the Brumby. Where are the fences along the main high ways to prevent the Brumby from wandering in front of a day dreaming tourist? They have all intentionally been either removed, or allowed to fall into total dilapidation to the point that once again the Vandals have caused another significant problem, yet it these radicals calling once again for the demise of this regal animal to cover their own serious failings.
If there is a small plot of extremely environmentally sensitive terrain that needs extra special care, just fence it off. Of all animals that are easy to fence in or out. It is the horse. Fences constraining horses would in no way restrict other native fauna. If it is the cost of such fencing, then why do the ministries spend millions on junket science and helicopters to chase down young men traversing the high country on horse back and in so doing risk injury to the young riders?
Like all wild animals, both native and introduced, they need managing and this management was achieved by the high country folk. They caught the brumby and either used them for themselves as working stock, or sold them to others, including the military. The same possibilities are present today, albeit the markets may be different. But this attempt to destroy the very animal that is now as native to the Australian High Country as any other single species of fauna, is contrary to good science and environmental sensibility.
Remember Guy Fawkes National Park slaughter of wild horses ordered by the NPWS from helicopter gun ships? Rumours of poisoning salt blocks in a covert programme? Stealthy shooting when the Parks are locked down for winter, ensuring there are no witnesses? No! These processes are not the answer, not the answer at all. Fence the roads and sensitive terrain. Round up the excess horses by traditional methods and sell them to the market. Certainly cull the sick and poorly when and if necessary, but anyone who has travelled the High Country widely looking at the Brumby will know only too well that the Wild Horse is neither sick, nor poorly and such animals will be rarely found.
Our Brumby management needs transparency, understanding and most of all an acceptance that this iconic, now native animal is treated not as a feral at all, but is written down, up and for the future, as the magnificent beast of the mountains that our very poste colonial cultural history was built upon.
Start with fencing, finish with trapping, but only those numbers that TRULY prove they are a problem, for to remove them in their entirety would see the Radical Green Sect win once again and the Snowy Mountains destroyed. The Brumbies are not the problem, man and his lack of knowledge about that which he wants, but has no right to, is the crucible of our mountains.
Brumbby (with2 Y's)
brumbyy@sosnews.org |
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