Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Environmental management rarely achieves unequivocal results, and even more
rarely achieves a success which is permanent. The management of the thylacine in
Tasmania is a standout example of an environmental management strategy that was
pursued with vigour and persistence over an extended period of time to achieve a
final successful outcome that endures to this day. That very success is the great
regret of many but it reflects the fact that the care and management of an island can
exhibit a finality of outcome just because the opportunity for fight or flight may be
truncated owing to the absence of any further safe refuge to which to flee. And that
endemism is the essence of the successful yet tragic extermination of the thylacine.
Better-off-dead is an environmental management policy that has been pursued in
Tasmania in various guises and under pretexts that have been, and remain, compel-
ling to some. But for all those who yearn for the sight, or just the knowledge, of a
thylacine loping across a Tasmanian 'marsupial lawn' - Tasmanian browsing mar-
supials graze some grasslands to a park-like lawn - better-off-dead is by now a
rancid, morally bankrupt, environmental management policy which is quite past its
use-by date. Agriculture and silviculture operations may be better off fenced, better
of netted, or even better of reverted to bush.
Between 1803 and 1936 thylacines were exported, both dead and alive, around
the world (Guiler 1985 ; Paddle 2000 ). The consequence is that there are thylacine
skins, skeletons, pickled foetuses, and other remains, scattered globally (Sleightholme
and Ayliffe 2009 ). Can the jigsaw of scattered remnants of thylacine DNA ever
again be reassembled? There has been one serious unsuccessful attempt at recovery
of the thylacine genome (Greer 2009 ). Whether this science fiction scenario
becomes science fact at some future time is an open question. In the meantime the
death-day, 7 September, of the last thylacine to die in captivity has been commemo-
rated in Australia as National Threatened Species Day since 1996 (Environment
Australia 2002 ).
The Dalek mantra of 'Exterminate, exterminate, exterminate' will surely retain
some appeal, as a simple, direct, call to action, but 'Look Ma, we shrank the ende-
mism' is nothing to brag about. Environmental management can be grounded in
science, but will it be driven by love or fear? It was Lord Northbourne's 1940 topic
Look to the Land that presented the foundational manifesto of organic agriculture
(Paull 2006 ). In that topic, Northbourne proffered this gentle message: “It now
remains for us to try the way of love” (1940:192). For managing a farm, an island,
or a planet, Northbourne's advice remains worthy of consideration.
References
Abbott GJ, Nairn NB (eds) (1969) Economic growth of Australia 1788-1821, 1978 edn. Melbourne
University Press, Melbourne
Armato U, Testolin L, Menagazzi M, Menaoace L, Ribecco M, Carceriri de Prati A et al (1992)
The exposure of carcinogen-initiated primary neonatal rat hepatocytes to tumor promoters
modulates both the transcripts and the enzymatic activity of nuclear poly (aDP-ribose) poly-
merase. Biochem Biophys Res Commun 182(3):1066-1074
Search WWH ::




Custom Search