There’s a reason we hire a mechanic to fix the car and visit the barber when we need a haircut.
If you want something done properly, you pay a professional – and you don’t try to tell them how to do the job when you get there.
That’s often easier said than done, especially when you suspect that hairdresser has left you with a wonky fringe (pm me for more details), but if everyone stayed in their chosen field the world would be a much simpler place.
Take the Federal Government’s Nature Repair Market Bill for instance.
This new legislation will enable the Clean Energy Regulator to issue landholders with tradable biodiversity certificates for projects that protect, manage, and restore nature.
In theory, such reform presents huge opportunity to shine the light on the landowners who manage our natural capital assets – but only if these landowners are allowed to carry out the work they are trained to do without interference from others.
Sadly, under the current proposal this is now questionable – all biodiversity projects to be carried out on registered Native Title land or waters would need to be undertaken by the Native Title holders or first require their consent.
Ultimately, the government is keen to ensure Native Title holders have the final say, giving them control over potential biodiversity projects on large areas of agricultural Australia.
Cue the red flags.
Recently, Queensland MP Colin Boyce criticised the proposed Bill for allowing “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to promote their unique knowledge on their terms.”
At AgForce, we have no issue with Native Title holders having a say, but the assumption that they know more about managing agricultural land than those who have worked that land their whole lives is just divisive.
We’ve all heard the propaganda from anti-ag activists that producers are not good custodians of the land.
However, these criticisms are fundamentally flawed, and if we are to deliver the strongest outcomes from this Bill we need to empower farmers – not put them down.
AgForce certainly stands behind the government’s objective to support and reward landholders in enhancing and protecting biodiversity.
But it must be executed in the right way.
