Grahame Webb

In reality, the time is right for political boldness in conservation, and there is an economic dimension to be capitalised upon. The standard wildlife conservation paradigm in Australia is sad, old, confused and outdated. It has achieved some positives, and past victories may prove to be a solid platform for the future but again may not. Senator Hill's announcement (February 1998) that Australia's wildlife legislation is no longer considered best international practice is news many have been waiting for.

By Dr. Grahame Webb

WITH THE FEDERAL election upon us, the politics of wildlife conservation will once again be in the limelight. Based on the past decade, we can expect a cosmetic race for the high moral ground. But if political commentators are right, few voters will really care.

They all know whales, elephants and sea turtles are more important than cockroaches, ants and snakes. They all know real conservationists never get blood on their hands, but hunt and gather in supermarkets. So it's far more productive for voters to worry about the economy.

At international conservation meetings many interventions by Australians provoke no more than a yawn from most observers. People tend to excuse us as descendants from the Mutiny on the Bounty. At least I hope they do because we often turn on our trading partners with little consideration that the "clever country" needs tourism, trade and good international relations.

Outside Australia there is a wildlife conservation revolution. It is centred on two words sustainable use. It is supported by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources or World Conservation Union, WWF International, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

New insights into wildlife conservation indicate that blanket protection of all wildlife may contribute to the loss of species and habitats outside protected areas. Policies that entrench prohibitions on all trade in wildlife, within and outside Australia, may be helping drive some species to extinction.

All sides of politics in Australia know about these changes but have been hesitant to act. It is a political Pandora's box. State and federal wildlife agencies are internally divided on the issue, many non-government environmental organisations are concerned, and the public is largely ignorant of the changes made on them. In contrast, the Senate Review Committee that recently issued its extensive report on Commercial Use of Australian Wildlife (July 1998), seems in little doubt. It makes one of the strongest calls yet for fundamental change in our approach to wildlife conservation. But the public is largely unaware of its deliberations.

The average Australian sees conservation as a cocktail of three ingredients: animal rights (equals liberation), animal welfare and conservation. When we tease these ingredients apart, new pathways for pursuing conservation emerge.

First, conservation has a much greater antiquity than today's concerns about wildlife. People have a long history of conserving paintings, buildings and religious relics. In this broader sense, conservation is the "sum total of actions we take to preserve and maintain items to which we attribute a positive use-value".

For wildlife, the new conservation paradigm builds on this value-based system and accepts that having tangible, realistic incentives is the driving force behind sustainable conservation efforts. A diversity of incentives, matching a diversity of people, is required to move conservation forward.

The new paradigm for sustainable use goes something like this. If uses of wildlife can be sustained and adverse environmental impacts contained within acceptable limits, sustainable economic benefits for landowners can be generated from wildlife. These benefits provide economic incentives for landowners to conserve species and habitats.

If landowners can pursue conservation for profit, they will do so. Naturally, this concept ruffles animal-rights and liberation proponents. Their value systems for wildlife restricts the incentives that can be used to drive conservation.

If incentives do not meet narrow philosophical guidelines, then conservation based on them cannot proceed. People campaigning against wearing fox furs drive the price down so it is not worthwhile hunting them. Increased populations of foxes now devastate our native wildlife.

In an example from Mauritius, a unique species of Boa went extinct because efforts to control the feral animals destroying its habitat were thwarted by campaigners concerned over the animals' rights and welfare.

Animal-rights philosophies are contradictory and do not rest well with the maintenance of cultural diversity in a country such as Australia. If whales are more important than cockroaches, and people have the same rights as animals, where do we align the people? With the whales or with the cockroaches? Or do we put some of the people with the whales and others with the cockroaches? I'm not concerned about the consequences of treating a few animals as though they were people but I am concerned about justifying actions that treat people like animals.

Animal welfare is different again. There are sound "people" reasons why society adopts codes of practice to reduce suffering during interactions between people and animals. There is no single code of animal welfare that can or should be imposed on all interactions by all people.

A wildlife carer looking after an orphaned kangaroo in urban Canberra reduces unnecessary suffering in different ways than a traditional hunter with a spear in Arnhem, Land. Yet both activities are part of our cultural heritage and need to be maintained. Neither has much to do with conservation per se.

In any overview, conservation is confused in the eyes of many. It is not about being a vegetarian, joining the United States-based and directed Humane Society, restricting animal experimentation or criticising Eskimos because they hunt and eat whales. These have little to do with conservation, and are not stopping species and habitats disappearing.

Conservation is about addressing the root causes of extinction, and these are almost invariably economic.

In the end, it will be up to the politicians to present strategies for change, and it will be up to the people to vote on them. We can promote conservation within an atmosphere of innovation and economic rationality, or we can continue rearranging the deck chairs. The Senate committee has given all sides of politics the opportunity to make significant changes based on a detailed assessment of the current attitudes within Australia. I will be hoping for such changes.