When I saw who it was, I had a preconceived thought of .. OK, here we go....
But, I have to say, he is spot on with what he was trying to get across. Uni educated environmentalists are not necessarily the experts when it s
comes to bush management, and simply locking the areas up is really a cop out as far as this goes. In any case, like he says in the vid, just because it is locked up today, doesn't mean that multi national companies will be prevented from carrying out environmental rape in the future. Enough money waved in the face of the powers in control, will always illicit a favorable outcome for the ones who want to make huge profits from these areas.
As for keeping the average Aussie out of the area, that won't prevent the spread of feral animals into the bush. Allowing responsible hunters in, will at least provide a few more control measures than there are currently in place. And geez he's spot on about the feral cats. I couldn't believe how many we saw up through NT, and over in W'QLD on our last big trip a couple of years ago. And that was just driving along in the middle of the day.
Yeah sure you will always get the F'wits who drive around tearing up the countryside, but in reality they are a small percentage of the population in comparison, to the number of people that want to be able to drive the tracks and enjoy the place. Is it worth closing the whole of these areas completely to avoid having a these few idiots do the damage they do. Like he also said, much of the damage can be repaired by simply allowing time for them to regenerate (temporary closures?). And there are 4WD clubs who do take a bit of responsibility for the tracks, filling the ruts and clearing the logs, to keep the tracks open. Without access to many bush areas via passable tracks, the outcome is total disaster, when there is a bush fire through the area.
So all that declaring these places national parks will really do is create a safe haven for feral animals, create a no go zone for the general population who would enjoy being able to get out there, and create a future potentially huge profit income for multi national companies who really don't give a rats about the place.
I reckon he's still a bit of a w@nker, but I do agree with him on this.