I was reading this story today about the Superb Parrot titled “Parrot ‘putting hundreds of jobs at risk’, whose species is listed as a vulnerable species. This parrot lives in the river red gums in the Murray Darling Basin and the hollows of the Red Gum are its only nesting site. I am not normally a ‘tree hugging greenie’ but in this instance I feel I must say something in defence of the parrot.
The commercial media was all over this story like a rash. All one sided of course. Not one outlet saw it from the poor old parrots point of view.
The title of the main stream media kind of went like this;
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Garret a ‘warbling twit’ over parrot
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Green leek parrot endangers 1000 jobs in NSW
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Rare parrot to kill of 1000 Australian jobs
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Parrot threatens 1,000 timber industry jobs in NSW
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Parrot puts 1000 jobs at risk
Guess what. It is not the bloody parrots fault! They were there first! I am here to tell you that I support the parrots point of view. Where do humans get off at worrying about their freaking jobs, when a species of parrot’s existence is hanging on a thread? What gives us the audacity to believe that we are more important than this beautiful bird, who’s only crime is to enjoy nesting in River Red Gum trees, that humans convert to woodchips that are exported to Japan, or the latest designer coffee table or furniture for the nuevo chic. I hope that humans can live with the blood of the extinction of yet another species on their already stained hands.
Don’t the other inhabitants of our wonderful planet deserve a place to live besides the so call intelligent bipedal descendant of the apes (I use the term intelligent loosely)?
I understand that a community’s livelihood is at stake, but who let them continue this unsustainable practice for so long anyway? Was it the promise of Profits vs. the Planet? So when the last River Red Gum is felled, who is the timber industry going to blame then? The wombat or the Grey Kangaroo? Get real!
Taking the humans side for just one second, what happened to all of these so called ‘Green Collar’ jobs that our government has promised us? These would certainly offset any job losses when the timber industry is forced with a reality check by governments.
I will leave the verdict of whether I am over the top to those of you who decide to leave a comment. I believe the parrot’s existence is far more important than 1000 Australian jobs. Selfish arseholes!
Amen!
We went through a similar thing here in the states in the ’90s in regards to timber jobs being lost to the spotted owls which needed the old growth forest habitat. I was on the side of the owls.
I’m just glad to see Garrett do something I’d expect him to do at last. I thought he’d abandoned the green movement for the sake of politics.
If only we’d apply the same logic to investment bankers who have risked so many jobs across the board. One species no one would be upset to see extinct…
good on you gav. im %100 behinf you they are a lovelly bird and nearly extinct now
This post gives new meaning to the term “Flipping the Bird”!
Teena
xoxoxo
hear hear.
cheers Kate
Well said Gav. I saw those headlines yesterday and had to do a double-take. I thought we were well past the point where everybody whinged “jobs, jobs, jobs” and to hell with the planet. It seemed like the media was having a “back to the 80s” day.
Every time an industry (especially the logging one!) says 1000 jobs are at risk, it’s a massive exaggeration. They’ve replaced thousands of timber-cutter jobs with massive machines over the years and didn’t bat an eye. It’s not about jobs, it’s about company profits and nothing else.
If they are allowed to tear down all the red gums, how many jobs will be lost? The loggers will be out of work (no more trees to cut down), farmers will be out of work (rising salinity, erosion, lower rainfall), tourist services will be out of work (nothing to look at anymore), shopkeepers will be out of work (nobody to sell to anymore), and so on.
I agree with the poster above who said it was good to finally see Peter Garrett doing something for the environment. What a great first step.
And once the trees are gone, so are the jobs and the birds’ habitat.
The loggers really need to rethink their attitude towards sustainable harvesting.
From what I heard on good ol’ ABC National radio news last night, in this case nature has come out on top….. Last I heard the federal govt. decision was to protect the birds. It’s the NSW govt. that is throwing a fuss about the 800 jobs and the fact that the fed. govt. has made the decision in favour of birds instead.
Could be wrong, but I thought that in this case, at least so far, the birds were winning out.