Balancing development and nature

Development and nature need not be mutually exclusive despite the evidence around us.

We need development, or at least we can’t stop it happening. Whether we need it or not is another issue that should be debated elsewhere.

Authorities tell us that considerable population growth will continue in Baw Baw for some years to come. Our shire is a designated peri-urban area; a ‘green wedge’ earmarked for the ever-expanding suburbs of Melbourne to spread into.

The 2016 census states the population of Baw Baw Shire to be around 48,500. The Baw Baw Shire’s website predicts the shire’s population will grow at an annual rate of 2.3 per cent to reach over 60,000 by the year 2026.

The .idCommunity Population Profile for Baw Baw Shire - link provided on the shire’s website - suggests that our population is already ahead of the predicted annual rate. Patterns of growth for peri-urban areas, Baw Baw in particular, need much deeper studies by demographers.

We do not need statistics to show that we are ‘growing like Topsy’ and that if we value our natural surroundings for any reason at all, there needs to be some smarter and stronger planning policies and strategies in place.

Our natural environment provides us with the very air we breathe. In urban areas, the natural environment filters the atmosphere of its pollutants, provides habitat, absorbs noise, hides ugliness, mitigates erosion, etc.

Connecting with nature provides a sense of well-being, it eases our stress levels, plays a role in boosting creativity, lowering depression and enhances many other ‘human’ values. Contact with the natural environment is known to improve memory, assist healing, sharpen the senses and bond the community.

Learning about the connectedness of nature, the biodiversity, helps us to understand the world we live in, its complexity, its importance to the very survival of our planet.

Nature’s benefits to our own well-being, our understanding, our awareness will be irrelevant if we continue to destroy our natural environment.

Decision making in regard to the growth of our shire should not be based solely or principally on economic values. What about asking, “What does the community value?”

Peter Ware, Drouin

I chair the Gippsland Local Government Network (GLGN) which identifies and advocates for key projects across the region – one of the top priorities is the West Gippsland Hospital.

GLGN is one of the three peak business, government and community groups that make up One Gippsland to advocate on the region’s behalf.

During a One Gippsland delegation visit to Canberra in February this year, the construction of a new hospital was at the forefront of several discussions with Federal Government representatives. We will be following up again this month.

Winning a new hospital for West Gippsland relies on all of us, as a community, working together in a positive and constructive way. It is really important that we work as a team to get the outcome West Gippsland needs. Cr Mikaela Power Mayor, Baw Baw Shire

Increasingly we live in a parody of a democracy governed and administered in the interests of a political class composed coequally of the Coalition and the ALP .

But can we say this? Are not the highly publicly salaried denizens of the national sound.chamber set so high above most of us as to be beyond criticism by mere citizens.

Have we finally got the the "Bunyip Aristocracy" proposed by William Charles Wentworth in the 19th century for New South Wales? Frank Carleton, Longwarry

Here is another climate change fact. Al Gore, who produced the film “An Inconvenient Truth” has kept quiet about another inconvenient truth. Apparently, he uses more electricity in his home in one month than the average American use in a year.

And what about this one. Our self appointee climate expert Tim Flannery is on record as saying that the seas are going to rise dramatically so you had better sell up and move away from the beach. A few months later he bought a house on the shores of Sydney Harbour. Obviously does not believe a word he says.

And what about our beloved Labor Party. During the election they wanted us to put them in government after claiming a shift to 50 per cent in renewable energy would deliver cheap and reliable electricity.

However, in Europe, Germany to be precise, their clean energy transition is faltering over its high cost and failure to reduce emissions. As they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Peter Gribben is right when he says that a belief does not require any proof which is evidenced by the climate change religion which is high on rhetoric and lacking in substance.

The fact is the climate change religionists seem to be the three wise monkeys inverted. See no sense, hear no sense, speak no sense. Or should that be nonsense.

Roger Marks Drouin