People

A regular contributor to discussion at this blog is someone know as Detribe -that’s his blog signature.

I attended a conference with Detribe in Ballarat a couple of years ago and he offered me a lift back to Melbourne and the airport.

At some point during the trip he suggested I get something out of his brief case, he was driving. I did find that technical paper under a large book on Italian and an equally large text on evolution.

Detribe is a scholar and a gentleman, and he is also a Good Samaritan.

Last year he spent several weeks in Africa where his foundation “Sow the Good Seed” provides aid in a very direct material way by underwriting the cost of farm inputs for a hectare of land for subsistence farmers trying to get ahead. If you would like to get involved with this foundation and help an African farmer out of poverty contact detribe [at] gmail [dot] com .

This is a picture of Detribe with a local farmer in South Africa taken last year.

DeTribe also has his own blog full of information on biotechnology in particular genetically modified crops.

At the blog you will find out that Detribe is “Education in molecular genetics, biochemistry (genetic engineering), infectious disease and has professional experience in several areas of biotechnology including vaccines, molecular diagnostics, crop safety, and manufacturing of chemicals by fermentation.”

You won’t find out at his blog that he is dyslexic – but he has told me this is a “constant source of embarrasment”.

Detribe is also a philosopher. Quotable Detribe quotes from this blog site include:

“AGW [Anthropogenic Global warming] is the green version of Mother Theresa.”

and

“It’s how we treat our contrarians that tells us whether we are living in a truly civil society. The contrarians are very valuable to us, because they point to the places where ‘conventional wisdom’ may be getting it wrong.”

I also know that Detribe is fan of the skeptical environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg and that along with Dame Edna he lives in Moonee Ponds, Melbourne, Australia.

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This post will be filed under a new category titled “people”.

As a reader and/or commentator at this blog you may like to tell us something about yourself? Contributions encouraged and you may use a ‘nom de plume’ …please email to jennifermarohasy@jennifermarohasy.com.

Also, I’m putting some notes together on ‘Boxer’ – the character from Orwell’s classic Animal Farm and also the Boxer who contributes to this blog site. Could someone who can draw possibly send me a caricature of ‘Boxer’ – something kind please?

One of Neil Hewett’s first contributions to this blog was a picture of a buttressed tree trunk. He has since made valuable contributions to discussion on a range of topics from whaling to the practicalities of powering a home in remote Far North Queensland.

Neil’s passion is ecotourism and he gives us some insights into Cooper Creek Wilderness in the following contribution – the first under my suggestion (see comment following this post) that we find out more about some of the contributors to this blog.

Neil writes:

When Queensland’s Wet Tropics World Heritage Area was inscribed on the 9th December 1988, Senator Graham Richardson imposed Australia’s international management obligations onto the title-holders of almost two-hundred parcels of freehold and leasehold land.

I was working as an outdoor educator in the north Queensland timber community of Ravenshoe at the time Richardson was being pelted with rocks by infuriated members of this disenfranchised community. I remember being unimpressed with the Minister’s recommendation that those who made the change to rainforest-based tourism would reap economic benefits beyond timber and as it has turned out, the promise of a prosperous Ravenshoe tourism economy remains unfulfilled. I have read more recently, perhaps even on Jennifer’s blog, that those images on prime-time TV of angry timber-workers throwing rocks was the political pay-dirt that won the support of the multitudes.

I spent the following seven years working as an outdoor educator in remote aboriginal homelands before returning to the Daintree rainforest, to become a co-founding director of Cooper Creek Wilderness; a private-sector World Heritage land manager.

The greatest challenge for Cooper Creek Wilderness is sustaining a conservation economy against the complete subsidisation of the 98% majority publicly-owned portion of the WHA. Government disregarding conservation management as a business activity relieves it of any obligation to competitive neutrality. Tourism is subsidised recurrently to the tune of millions of dollars to patronise publicly-owned rather than privately-owned portions of WHA.

This leaves us in an interesting position to observe directly the impacts of government on conservation management and particularly off-reserve. About 70% of Australia’s landscape is held under private interests, including indigenous landholders. This vast majority of Australia outside its system of protected area estate and yet it contains outstanding universal values in terms of biological diversity and ecological integrity.

Australia’s National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development encourages protection of these values and challenges for nature conservation, both inside and outside protected areas.

Off-reserve conservation requires the cooperation of landholders. Financial incentives through ecotourism have enormous potential to renumerate the care and presentation of natural and cultural assets by the most rightful and intimately knowledgeable beneficiaries.

Cooper Creek Wilderness has pursued such an objective since its inception. Its model of off-reserve conservation through ecotourism regulates access, enabling visitors to enjoy wilderness values under the informative supervision of an inhabitant. This perspective value-adds to the destination’s nature-based appeal. Visitors are amazed by the natural values but are also very interested in the interaction between human inhabitants and their natural environment and how they go about stewardship.

“User-pays” fully-finances the conservation management of the land without any cost to the taxpayer. The visitor is an active and willing participant in the achievement of Australia’s international obligations and as a consequence, the environment is protected for the livelihoods it provides its stewards, to perpetuity.

Neil is also a contributor to Online Opinion. Find out more about Cooper Creek Wilderness by clicking here.
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This post will be filed under a new category titled “people”.

As a reader and/or commentator at this blog you may like to tell us something about yourself? Contributions encouraged and you may use a ‘nom de plume’ …please email to jennifermarohasy@jennifermarohasy.com.

Also, I’m putting some notes together on ‘Boxer’ – the character from Orwell’s classic Animal Farm and also the Boxer who contributes to this blog site. Could someone who can draw possibly send me a caricature of ‘Boxer’ – something kind please?

When I started this blog it was with some trepidation as I outlined in my very first post, https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/000549.html .

And I wondered whether anyone would comment. I like comments because I like to know what I might have got wrong, and what I might have got right and I like to read different perspectives and have my ideas challenged.

Louis Hissink definately gets the prize for the most comments at this blog.

Sometimes I laugh, sometimes I cringe, sometimes I learn something, when I read the comments from Louis.

If you do a google search on Louis you will find comment that includes:

“Regarded as the best diamond field geologist in Australia.”

“His free time is spent researching ancient history, writing comments on environmental or mining matters and, as frequently happens, re-installing the operating system on the computer. He is a book worm and writes book reviews for Henry Thornton,
http://www.henrythornton.com/contributors.asp?contributor=9 .”

Louis has won a prize for posting the “worst argument” against global warming. Given the judge (Tim Lambert) listed other contenders as
McKitrick & Michaels, Baliunas and Soon – he can perhaps feel honoured.

There was a period recently when there were no comments from Louis. I gather he had headed off bush for 3 weeks to Wooleen,
http://www.wooleen.com.au/

Louis has written about Wooleen:
“I think it (the homestead) cost 145,000 pounds to build a century ago – wool really was the go then. Not now any more – current stocking is 2000 head from the usual 14,000. Drought is in 5/7 year cycle, so another 2 years of pain apparently.”

Thanks Louis for your contribution, for taking the time to comment.