Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Every now and then you get the idea that our culture is insanely careering towards a cliff with a gaga look on its face.

Mainly this comes from watching television, most particularly the commercials. Some do stand out as particularly moronic, however.

Still from AAMI commercial: the message is that it’s a bad thing to have to scoot to school; and that only transport by car is acceptable for children.

Here’s an example: a commercial currently running on TV for AAMI insurance, which runs the line that it’s a terrible humiliation for children to have to scoot to school, because the family car is under repair.

If you can bear it, you can see it here.

The Australian Cycle Federation puts it well:

‘25% of Australian kids are obese or overweight (and two thirds of adults)

‘60% of all car passenger trips in the morning peak are for children being driven to primary/ secondary school (traffic congestion, much?)

‘75% of primary school kids live within 10-15 mins walking / scooter distance of school.

‘See a correlation?

‘Making out dad to be a dork, and the kids reluctant to scooter because “no one else does it” not only discourages healthy social norms, it is also clearly not true. Most kids love the opportunity to ride or scooter to school if given the chance.

‘Grow up please AAMI.’

More and more deer sightings are being reported from our region, where they were once reasonably uncommon. A herd of 11 was seen in Muckleford last month, and last weekend 7 were sighted in the Gough’s Range State Forest.

Deer in the Gough’s Range State Forest, September 2019: they’re a danger to traffic, a pest to agriculture and they trash the bush. And there are more and more of them.

Reports are piling up from around the state of the damage done by these feral animals, whose numbers are not being controlled by recreational hunters. The state government has been under pressure from farmers, conservationists and municipalities to deal with the exploding deer population. So far it has delayed making any kind of decisive decision about what to do with the problem. We can only speculate about the reasons for this delay, but the most likely explanation is that the government clings to the notion that the economic benefits of deer hunting and  the political clout of hunters outweigh the damage done by the animals.

As the deer population increases this position is getting dodgier and dodgier.