Opinion: Shame on us

This letter to the editor by VNPA Conservation and Campaigns Manager Megan Clinton appeared in The Age newspaper.

Shame on us that Tim Flannery has to take his conservation plea to Europe (The Age, Oct 9). We can afford $42 billion on built infrastructure but almost nothing on our natural infrastructure, the very system that holds our ecological home together.

Our ecological home is made up of species the way our house is made up of bricks. Pull out a brick and the house stays standing, pull out another, still fine. But at some stage it will collapse. Rebuilding ecosystems is not within our skill set and we don't have another ecological home to go to.

Victoria happens to be the most cleared state in the country with more than 80 cleared on private land leaving no habitat for wildlife. So now, 44% of native plants are threatened species as well as 30% of our animals.

Thousands and thousands of Victorians work on private and public land to help the environment through Landcare, friends groups, schools, national tree days and so on.

It's not only the national government that must act, so must the State Government.

Where are you Mr Brumby in dealing with this crisis? And please, not just another strategy, but more money for national parks and private landholders to protect habitat and start the long process of recovery.