Greenies: a short description
Greenies.
This particular specie of human being is fired with the need to restore and/or preserve the planet. The Greenie is inspired by zeal, and in most cases is a ‘Pantheist’. Pantheism is a belief system that, at the basic level, worships nature in place of God. In fact, nature becomes god to them. Throughout human history, whenever man chooses to reject God, he has needed to substitute something else, another entity or something that may be worshipped. The Bible tells us that when Moses went up the mountain to receive the Commandments, the people made a Golden Calf which they worshipped. The same applies to the continual argument between ‘Creation’ on the one hand, and ‘Evolution’ on the other. Once Creation is rejected, the vacuum must be filled with something, and evolution fits the bill.
This piece is not meant to be a lecture on spiritual matters, but the above is to illustrate the zeal of the Greenie. The nearest description would have to be a “religious zeal”. If this can be accepted, that is that the Greenie is like the Pantheist described above, then their zeal, or fanaticism, can be more readily understood.
We will come back to this ’spiritual’ aspect of the specie ‘Greenie’ at a later time.
Bunyip Sanctuary.
Cardinia Council has employed a temporary “Environemtal Projects Officer” (or professional Greenie) to write a report and recommend certain actions in relation to the Bunyip Sanctuary.
The area is approximately 50 hectares and is located in the northern part of Bunyip. Before settlement, it was probably a ti-tree covered swamp, and similar to the nearby ‘Kooweerup Swamp’ but at a higher elevation. The Kooweerup Swamp is an enormous area, more than 50,000 ha, which was drained over a century ago to provide some of Victoria’s best farmland. It should be noted here that there is no push by Greenies to restore or otherwise tamper with this large area.
The report says that the area was previously known as ‘Bunyip Valley Estates’. This is not true. Bunyip Valley Estate was a name given by the developer to a rural subdivision of a former dairy farm that covered the area of the Sanctuary and probably another 100 ha as well. When the subdivision, which produced just over 100 lots of 0.4ha and larger, took place, the present sanctuary area was designated as a site for a future golf course. From the time of the subdivision, circa 1981, until the present, the site has been leased by Council at often a peppercorn rental, for grazing. Grazing has now ceased. The report says that “within the site there are areas that have been grazed longer than others and are highly degraded . . .” This is not accurate. The grazed part of the land appears to be like any other not well maintained farm land, and with a fairly obvious low rate of fertiliser application, consistent with leased land.
The report divides the site into four parts: Conservation, Carbon Sink, Retarding Basin and Re-vegetation.
Conservation
This is an area that one could say, has been allowed to go back to scrub, though large areas seem to be slashed on an annual basis.
Carbon Sink
This is the main topic of this paper and will be treated below.
Retarding Basin
Retarding basins are typically built to help prevent flooding, usually in residential areas. Downstream of this area the land is rural and construction of such retarding works would be of extremely low priority, unlikely to ever be built.
Re-vegetation.
A small area along one of the natural waterways.
