Victoria bans Alpine National Park cattle grazing Cattle grazing in the Alpine National Park is over, with the new Labor government fulfilling a long-standing election promise to ban the practice. The government has ended, effective immediately, a scientific trial involving about 60 cattle that was being used to test claims cattle grazing can reduce fire risk in national parks. The new Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Lisa Neville, will also put a ban on such scientific trials into legislation to stop future governments reversing the policy. Our national parks arent beef farms, the minister said in a statement. The Coalition wasted money on court challenges and trial after trial when the science is clear – grazing in the high country is detrimental to the environment and it has no value in reducing fuel loads or bushfire risk. The ban represents the latest milestone in a fight that has been raging since 2004, when the Bracks Labor government first moved to ban grazing in the national park, a 600,000-hectare strip of rugged country stretching from central Gippsland all the way to the NSW border. Up until then between 6000 and 8000 cattle regularly grazed in the park. Upon its election in 2010 the Coalition state government under Premier Ted Baillieu introduced about 400 cattle back to the Alpine National Park, a small-scale trial that kicked off a major battle with federal Labors environment minister, Tony Burke MP. Read more: theage.au/victoria/victoria-bans-alpine-national-park-cattle-grazing-20141228-12eo45.html
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 22:36:35 +0000
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