Local Government is not recognized in the Australian Constitution: Demand our Rates Back!

We started Australia’s first Sustainable Small Farm™ and had an enormous amount of problems with government - local, state and federal - and still do. We had to look and see what was behind it all. We practice and teach self-sufficiency. There is a war going on against self-sufficiency and one of the tools of those perpetrating that war is local government.

Local government is not mentioned in the Constitution of Australia. When we buy land as “freehold title” it is bought “in fee simple” which means no more to pay. I do not believe that council rates and fines are legal - and suspect a  high court challenge will reveal this to be the case. The Gillard government put forward a (second) referendum to recognize the legality of local government and the Australian people voted “no” - hence local government is, in fact, not recognized under the constitution.

One of the intentions of the constitution was to place limits on the power of government and in so doing to protect the rights of people. When we as a people realise that local governments do not have the right to charge rates (an illegal, additional form of tax) and we all stop paying rates and demand our rates payments back in full plus interest, justice will be done. Taking rates from people who have already paid for their land freehold seems to me to be theft. If we all stop paying rates change will take place. I will if others will. Contact me if interested.

Permafraud 3

Permafraud

Part 3

Permaculture presenter working with an organization funded by Monsanto

Gavin Edwards

Centre for Community Self-Sufficiency^™

Lapoinya, Tasmania.

I am writing this in the interests of the truth. If anyone has any information that contradicts these facts then I am interested in knowing them. My intention is not to put people in a bad light but only to make people aware of what is going on.

3rd December 2017

MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND

“People say believe half of what you see, son,

and none of what you hear...” - Marvin Gaye

(I heard it through the grapevine)

Just to recap, in Permafraud 1, I wrote about permaculture presenter Bruce French working with Food Plant Solutions which had taken funding from Monsanto and about the permaculturists working with him.

This is the proof that FPS have been funded by Monsanto. It has since been removed from the FPS website.

I had two emails from Mr French (highlighting is mine)

The first:

Bruce French

<bfrench@vision.net.au> Mon, Jul 27, 2015 at 11:16 AM

To: ghfarmtas@gmail.com

Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Delete | Show original

Dear Gavin and Lisa,

It has come to my attention that you have chosen to malign and criticise me. I am disappointed.

I have never accepted any funding from Monsanto as naturally I stand opposed to almost everything they do and are. Several groups around the world use my materials and I have asked that my name and organisation never be associated with Monsanto because it would compromise my whole approach to food production. So any link or association is one that you have chosen to make by some tenuous association.

Incidentially, I am not "Dr." even though various people like to add that appendage without verification! I am just Bruce!

I have to go to India and Sri Lanka next week but it may be a good idea for us to catch up and have a cup of coffee or something sometime when I get to see if we could be friends instead of antagonists. I find that a more positive way to love life.

Regards

Bruce French

To which I replied:

On 27/07/2015, at 12:44 PM, Gavin Edwards wrote:

Dear Bruce,

Thank you for your letter and apologies for the Dr prefix. Where did

that come from? Please accept the honorary doctorate.

I am not trying to malign you but I am criticising you if you have

taken funding from Monsanto. I am very opposed to GMO's having spent

my whole life saving rare seed varieties and growing organically.

You can understand my anger when I found it says on the Food Plant

Solutions site that you have been funded by the Monsanto fund $10 000 or more. That is not a tenuous link if it's on your own site.

If it turns out that you have not taken funding from Monsanto and are

not promoting the chemical companies agenda then I am more than happy to be friends with you. Believe me, if I am wrong I will apologize and try to right wrongs.

All the best,

Gavin Edwards.

Bruce then reponded again:

Bruce French

<bfrench@vision.net.au> Mon, Jul 27, 2015 at 2:54 PM

To: Gavin Edwards <ghfarmtas@gmail.com>

Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Delete | Show original

Dear Gavin,

Food Plant Solutions is a Rotary Action Group (RAG) to which I simply provide updated editions of my database for their use. I am not a Rotarian. They independently of me produce publications for distribution for their own Rotary global network. I do not have the time to read nor review these publications and am not involved in the process except for supplying about twice a year, updated copies of my database for their use. When they mentioned applying for Monsanto Funding (along with other groups) I opposed and distanced myself for all of this and specifically asked that my organisation Food Plants International, not in any way be linked with Monsanto. I occasionally write a brief article for the Food Plants Solutions newsletter. A recent one expressed my concern for how we have shifted over the last 50 years from agriculture as a solar energy activity to a petrochemical activity - that is ultimately not sustainable in the long term in a world running out of petroleum based energy. It is also unsound agriculture.

Other groups around the world also use my material. A group in the Sahel in Africa are trying to document suitable plants for arid lands. Many other groups have also been supplied with disks and are using the information. I don't have time to monitor all of their activities, but find encouragement from several of them I feel have their minds and hearts into sound agriculture. Some of these also ask me to write articles and if I can, I do. I never recommend chemical based pest, disease or weed control and try to alert them to the health, environmental and other risks of any approach using these. ECHO global farm in Florida distribute my materials.

Cheers

Bruce

My research showed that Mr French sits on the committee of Food Plants Solutions. This is from 24th August 2014.

This is from the Rotary Directory for Tasmania 2015 2016.

and represents them here

and works with them as part of their team here :-

Now one might be a mistake, but all of them???

Please reread the highlighted text above and draw your own conclusions.

...but while we're here on this Rotary News page the other two gentlemen working with Bruce on the FPS team are members of the Royal Society and also work for the government. We'll deal with them in a future article as they're not committing permafraud. They are being funded by Monsanto though.

There is an agenda going on here and the truth is bigger than Ben Hur – stay tuned, more to come....

Note:

Since writing Permafraud 1 I've had permaculturists back Mr French over me and attack my character. I find it disgraceful that they won't acknowledge the truth, but not unsurprising given our past experiences with them. It only reconfirms my decision to reject permaculture, finding it both unethical and unsustainable. Let them back someone working with an organization funded by Monsanto but I'll stick to my own research – that done without ties to the GM companies.

References:

Rotary(2015). Directory Rotary Tasmania 2015 2016.pdf

Rotary(2014). Rotary District 9830 Tasmania District Governor's Newsletter December 2014

Marvin Gaye. I heard it through the grapevine.

Gladys Knight and the Pips cover

:)

Gavin Edwards is The Self-Sufficient Farmer™.

He is an independent researcher of Edible Plants and Small-scale Sustainable Food Production. Gavin and his wife, Lisa McAndrew, run The Good Heart School of Self-Sufficiency™ , in Lapoinya, Tasmania, where they teach aspiring small farmers how to run a Self-Sufficient Smallholding™ and do Self-Sufficient Farming™.

They were the founders of Australia's first Sustainable Small Farm™.

PS. I've spent most of my life saving rare seed varieties, studying edible plants and sustainable food production methods. This with self-sufficiency is my profession. I've done it all independently of universities and governments for a reason - so they can't control it. Please support me in my research and my mission to stop GMO's and genetic pollution of our seeds and food.

© Gavin Edwards 2017. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced without prior permission from the author.

The Self-Sufficient Farmer™, Self-Sufficient Farming™, Balingup Sustainable Small Farm™ , Sustainable Small Farm™, Good Heart School of Self-Sufficiency™, Self-Sufficient Smallholding™, Centre for Community Self-Sufficiency™ are common law trademarks of Mama Earth Pty. Ltd. ACN 146 054 828.

Souled Out!

The sale of St Paul's Myalla Church and Hall hurts our local community.

Author: Lisa McAndrew

Recently the Wynyard Anglican Parish has decided to sell St Paul's Myalla church and Public Hall. This was done with no local community consultation, emails sent to the parish council outlining concerns with the process were ignored, a proposal for it's continued use was rejected, and the local minister even banned a prayer session in the church!

The local Myalla community is devastated, especially those whose families have been involved with the church and hall for many generations. Help us to save St Paul's Myalla and stop it from being sold!

Why it is important that you help save our church and hall?

It is an important part of our local rural history

The St Paul's Church and Public Hall is an important part of our local rural history. It is 97 years old. It was erected in 1920, on community donated land, with community donated materials and with community donated labour to help build it. The building itself is unusual in that it has an altar behind closed doors so the church can also be used as a Public Hall. Generations of local families have been involved with the church and hall and many of them still live in the local area.

It is a meeting place for country people

It has been the centre of community life for the local community, where groups such as CWA and Rural Youth met. It enabled rural people to meet and to look after themselves, and continue on in the rural tradition of their forebears. Dances were held and were a place for people to meet. It can be and will be again a place where people meet and community can grow.

It has  been supported and funded by the local community for over 90 years

For over 90 years the local community has sustained this church, paid for all its costs, put countless hours into maintaining the building and fund raising to keep the building maintained. Local people spent many, many hours looking after it, even though they were farmers and very busy. Ninety-seven years is a long time for a community to have a building and then be told it is to be sold off.

Rural communities are paying for the government's and churches privatisation agenda

In the last 50 years due to mechanisation, the low cost of food, larger farms and lower wages young people have been leaving the land. This has meant, of course, the local churches /halls aren't used as they were before. Of course, this has been used by both the government and the church as an excuse to sell off our community buildings. We (country people) are wearing the brunt of the privatisation agenda of government and church hierarchies.

You are helping new farmers as they move back to the land

Younger farmers such as my husband and myself are moving back to rural areas to start new farms and farm in a new way. This is a natural cycle. We need local churches and halls in the same way towns need their local churches and halls. We want to live in a caring, connected community.

You are supporting Community Self Sufficiency

Rural communities generally try to be self sufficient. We try to meet our own needs as much as we can. In order to do this we need places where we can meet . Where we can discuss problems and resolve them, where we can meet in emergencies such as bush fires and floods, where we can go to classes such as yoga and tai chi. Where young people can meet. Where local people can exhibit their artworks and more. How can rural communities hope to meet their own needs if all the places for community to meet have been taken from them?

You are helping our community overcome rural disadvantage

Health outcomes, education outcomes and social outcomes are often worse in rural areas. Why? Because services are further away or non existent. Because communities face more natural disasters such as floods, droughts and bush fires. Because farming is a stressful and often dangerous occupation.

Surely rural communities deserve as much support as we can give them.

You are supporting the rural communities that grow your food

Yes, that's right, we grow food for people in towns and this is very important, for you as well as for us! We are happy to do our job, but we would love some support and respect for the hard work that we do. Helping us keep our community halls and churches shows  us your support and respect.

Because country peoples voice counts

Because there is less of us in number, it is hard for us to make our voice heard. Usually politicians and those in the church hierarchy listen when more people make a noise. But the population is, of course, lower in the country areas. Our voice still counts. We are a very important part of Tasmania. Without us the state would not be as prosperous as it is.

Permafraud Part 2

Permafraud

Part 2

Permaculture working with

Government and Big Business

Gavin Edwards

Centre for Community Self-Sufficiency^™

Lapoinya, Tasmania.

10th October 2017

Permaculture, Government, Big Business

and the Truth Crisis

I believe that this permafraud situation has come about because permaculture works with governments and big businesses. This is Permaculture's fundamental strategic mistake. Governments and Big businesses don't Care for Earth or Care for People - the permaculturists are breaking their own principles and therefore permaculture becomes unethical and unsustainable.

If you are doing permaculture then you should now know that you have been sucked in and hoodwinked by a "system" that works with government and big business - including Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, Bayer Crop Science, etc. Permaculture is also linked to large media companies, the universities doing GMO research and the ultra rich (more on this later). You need to ask yourself if you are doing the right thing by doing permaculture and reassess your commitment.

Why the government supports permaculture while trying to exterminate Self-Sufficiency

Governments promote permaculture as the answer to a food security crisis but there is more than one solution to that imagined problem. I find it hard to believe in a food crisis when I can buy carrots for $25 a tonne (too big to process) but there is a good, healthy non-sprayed food crisis and there does seem to be a truth crisis. There really will be a food crisis if all our open-pollinated seeds are crossed with agribusiness' GMO monstrosities.

Governments promote permaculture because they want their business mates, and in fact their own businesses (government now operates as businesses) to take control of the green agenda and the 'alternative' food production system. They have rushed this takeover through like the nazi blitzkrieg. The takeover has been swift using permaculture as a tool and now taking both sides of the food production network they control the whole way our food is grown. That is, if it weren't for some pesky smallholders practising self-sufficiency standing in the way. Virtually no-one in the world has realised what has really taken place, a lot of people have joined the permaculturists mistakenly believing they are doing the right thing but it is not possible to change the system from within. It must be fought against. It must be brought into the open and defeated.

The sons, daughters and grandchildren of the rich are often the ones who do permaculture; it's expensive. The rich families are usually heavily tied up with government and big businesses. They can afford to send their kids to expensive universities where they encounter permaculture as a 'rebellion' against the system. Wake up fools - it has joined with the system. You have been deceived. Lacking the wisdom that (can) come with age - they mistakenly think they are part of the solution. They are - the final solution. There is no going back if we pollute our food gene pool. In truth, this is a eugenics agenda of the ultra rich and the very evil (but you will have to wait for me to reveal the truths on this as I am still writing it). There is nothing wrong with wealth (within limits) if it has been gained ethically.

The issue is - who defines ethical?

The governments and big businesses are the masters of spin - it is common practice to hire large media firms to promote their agenda. These firms often have an extreme lack of ethics. Governments and big businesses use them to get elected, cover up chemicals spills, sell products they know are killing people, promote policies that favour large corporate interests and silence their competition.

Permaculture is easily manipulatable

Governments and NGO's have been infiltrated by vested interests for a very long time and we can be assured that permaculture is no different. No-one would suspect a system which on the surface appears to be anti - establishment and about growing food.

Permaculture now sides with the same scientists who created poison chemicals and engineer GMO's. Australia has a track record of relying on these experts advice. This is what has led to most of Australia's arable soils being polluted with toxic chemicals - they told the farmers they were safe. They lied and they are still lying. GMO's will prove, as they have in other countries, to be a dangerous experiment. There is no proof that they can produce more food than organic growing and it is just a gamble to put them into the environment when no long term studies have been done. Humans should not be the guinea pigs and the Earth should not be the cage.

Permaculture has developed a hero mentality that has made potential permaculturists want to be just like them - to have that look, to be seen to be one of them. It is ego-glorification gone wrong. It is recreating a different system but one which retains similar values of greed and ego. While we're on the topic of the permaculturists themselves let's talk about drugs. My experience is that I've seen a lot of permaculturists addicted to pot. They say it's not addictive. Fine, give it up. They say it does no harm. Not from what I've seen. Most pothead permies I've met have become nasty, delusional backstabbers who I wouldn't trust any further than I could kick them. Someone has to tell it like it is. While they are stoned and the government doesn't interrupt their pot sideline they are of no threat to the status quo.

The ego-greed complex exhibited by permaculturists has it's ultimate manifestation in the permaculturists that do business. Their businesses are often funded by government itself, that is, by the public. They often compete with existing small or local businesses. This is unfair competition. The solution - work with them. Join them or be sidelined and out competed. All fine until ethics get in the way. Take the example of a permaculture run community garden. Most community gardens in Australia are now controlled by permaculture. The plan is to find a block of public land in a city or town, get it for very little or on a peppercorn lease, and then set up a nursery (which competes with anyone trying to do a small nursery). Then they put in produce (often selling it cheap or giving away to the “poor”) which competes with small-scale growers who are generally battling as it is. Now set up they teach more permaculture and so suck more people into the system. It's a good marketing strategy especially if done near or at universities where there are lots of 'intelligent' and willing suckers waiting to become permies. City people are, of course, dying to get their hands back in the dirt without the commitment or risk of having to move to the country. "There's no jobs in the country", they cry. That's because people like them have shut them all down. No wonder conventional farmers spray your food. No wonder there's been rural decline.

A word about rural decline

This rural decline has been going on since before the industrial revolution. The rich (the lords) grabbed the common land (the commons) which was once owned by all the people. This has continued and so we have the rich and their governments (show me poor people in government) owning more and more of what was our common heritage. The Industrial revolution greatly accelerated the process with tractors and oil doing the work of thousands. They moved to the cities where they became trapped in the urban insanity, the concrete and tar cesspits we call civilization. Trapped and forgetting the hardships of the land. You know, things like fresh air, green grass, farm animals, fresh food, flowers, talking to you neighbours - those sort of horrible things better forgotten to make way for Where is the best place to eat out?, What's on TV? and What is the quickest way to central avenue?

Part of the reason smallholders have moved from the country is that government and big business have given them a hard time. Smallholders are made to pay for a great deal of services that they do not receive, or in many cases, even want. They are on the leading edge of sustainability but are being made to pay for their lifestyle choices. For doing the right thing. It's only since governments and big businesses realised that these people really are sustainable and that the general public now want to go that way (in other words there's money in it) that governments, big business and permaculture wants to mimic it and take it over. To control it.

Smallholders doing Self-Sufficiency benefit society

These people should be applauded and they are the real heroes. They live lightly on the Earth by producing what they need themselves, often producing most of their own food, providing their own water supply (and using less), generating their own power and generally being more self-reliant and less of a burden on society.

There are enormous savings in energy - food grown by conventional agriculture is produced at an enormous energy cost. Big Ag relies completely on fossil fuel to run the tractors and harvesters. The crops are sprayed with poison chemicals derived from oil. Fertilizers added are often made or mined using an enormous amount of energy and trucked to the farm. Then food is trucked to the city. Up to 90% of that food is wasted in the growing, harvesting, sorting, transport and distribution. So growing your own food and providing for yourself in the country is really the most sustainable thing a family could do. 'Living it' is sustainability.

Is self-sufficiency good for the economy?

Damn the economy. The economy as it stands does not benefit smallholders but only hinders them. Smallholders don't need the type of economy that governments and big businesses want to impose on them. They don't need a city persons cage economy. What we need is just for them to leave us alone so we can live in peace. Local economies form by themselves and do not need controlling from above. Local economies are about trade of things that you have not produced yourself or cannot produce. My hope is that local, community self-sufficiency can bring down this evil economic system based on greed and lazy bastards who do not want to grow any of their own food and provide for themselves. Is there going to be suffering in the 'realignment' process? Undoubtedly, but tell me there's not suffering being brought about by wars for oil that the support the current system. Western people just haven't been the ones paying the hidden costs, unless that is we talk about the hidden costs of cancer treatment from chemical pollution in our food and environment and the hidden damage to the Earth that we need for our collective survival. Those hidden economic costs don't tend to figure highly in the existing economy. It's my view that self-sufficiency can lead to new local economies that are just, rewarding and lead to more community self-reliance and a better life.

So let's do urban-farming-permaculture-cohabitation guys? Go milk a chicken. I'm cranky. I'm standing up for smallholders trying to do the right thing only to be crapped on by rich uncaring, city permaculturists trying to take our markets. I'm a country person and proud of it. I've done it hard, harder than most and I've survived. Bring on the food crisis.

Why attack Self-Sufficiency?

Simply, because self-sufficiency is a threat. If people are more self-sufficient they buy less and the big businesses, and now government businesses, make less profit from us. We don't need to travel as far - using less fuel (oil) and waste less energy. In short, being self-sufficient threatens the whole system as it is. People might even move from the cities back to the country and live real, meaningful lives full of love and laughter, and give a shit about nature and other people again. It empowers people and then perhaps they won't need to be governed? Heaven forbid, we could have a grass roots revolution and they could have no power over us. The rich and powerful might be displaced, out of a job and might have to get their hands dirty growing their own food. Sounds very good to me.

Small businesses and smallholders have always been a problem for the rich, government and big business needing less as they provide their own incomes or food or both. The problem is that the government-big business machine "the thing" has become so powerful it has crushed most resistance.

Permaculture has shown itself to now have joined with 'the Thing'. They have become the Permathing. How many people can stand against them? The answer - two - YOU and I. I will proudly stand with any man or woman who has the guts to stand against them and not work with them. Those who have survived the crushing process are doubly hard to kill.

One way permaculture has tried to help kill self-sufficiency is by not mentioning it. There is only permaculture. Everything is permaculture. Biointensive growing isn't a permaculture technique but was championed by Alan Chadwick and John Jeavons (and John Seymour talked about it in The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency in 1978). It seems permaculture has tried to take over a lot. Even the name permaculture comes from 'Permanent Agriculture' a term coined by J. Russell-Smith for Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture. In, fact if you have a very close look near the front of The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency you will see a whole lot of the 'permaculture' ideas. Forest Farming by James Sholto Douglas and Robert A de J Hart also contains a great deal of what is permaculture. If you combine these two books with Tree Crops name you essentially have permaculture. I won't say it's plagiarism but I do say it's very similar. The reason this is not talked about - Forest Farming is not a common book. Bill Mollison being a scientist did read it. Forest Gardening was not a permaculture idea but was invented by Robert A. de J. Hart in the UK. The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency is hardly referenced in the permaculture books. What came first? The Fat of the Land by John and Sally Seymour in 1961.

An infiltration attack by permaculture is happening at the moment, some permaculturists are trying to say they are doing self-sufficiency while in reality all they are trying to do is make money from it without having done it. John Seymour was the founding father of self-sufficiency. It was John Seymour who tried to preserve the 'Forgotten Arts and Crafts' which permaculturists now are trying to take. I'm proud to teach self-sufficiency. I retain my honour.

What's in it for government?

Everything is at stake. What governments fear most is independent people. People who can think for themselves. These people do not need to be governed. If they are also self-sufficient they do not need anything else either. Government becomes superfluous, unnecessary and they know it. The rich run the governments, they risk losing everything they have. They risk losing power and control. Given that smallholders like myself aim at self-sufficiency it can be taken that the rich, and therefore the government and big businesses, see us as the enemy. By supporting permaculture against us they retain control. To the permaculturists I would say be careful you don't become the thing you hate.

What governments are most afraid of is revolution. The American revolution was a revolution by a backbone of immigrant Scotch-Irish small farmers against the British. "If defeated everywhere else... I will take my last stand for liberty among the Scotch-Irish of my native Virginia", said George Washington. Although, I'm not sure the native Americans thought he was native.

If one, or more, revolutions around the world, were to happen, I wouldn't know anything about it.

Down with the Permathing!

Bring on the Self-Sufficiency Revolution!

References:

Hart, Robert A. de J. (1991). Forest Gardening. ISBN 1-870098-44-7.

Russell-Smith, J. (1978). Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture. ISBN 0-06-090610-3.

Seymour, John & Seymour, Sally. (1961). The Fat of the Land. ISBN 0 571 10532 7.

Seymour, John. (1978). The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency. ISBN 0 571 110 95 9.

Sholto Douglas, J. & Hart, Robert A. de J. (1976). Forest Farming. Towards a Solution to Problems of World Hunger and Conservation. ISBN 0-87857-2287.

Gavin Edwards is The Self-Sufficient Farmer™.

He is an independent researcher of Edible Plants and Small-scale Sustainable Food Production.

Gavin and his wife, Lisa McAndrew, run The Good Heart School of Self-Sufficiency™ , in Lapoinya, Tasmania, where they teach aspiring small farmers how to run a Self-Sufficient Smallholding™ and do Self-Sufficient Farming™.

They were the founders of Australia's first Sustainable Small Farm™.

© Gavin Edwards 2017. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced without prior permission from the author.

The Self-Sufficient Farmer™, Self-Sufficient Farming™, Balingup Sustainable Small Farm™ , Sustainable Small Farm™, Good Heart School of Self-Sufficiency™, Self-Sufficient Smallholding™, Centre for Community Self-Sufficiency™ are common law trademarks of Mama Earth Pty. Ltd. ACN 146 054 828.

Food security or securing our food?

Monday morning around 9am Lisa saw someone in our yard. They were picking our fruit! The interesting thing about it, though, was when Lisa confronted her and asked her name she said, "Robin".
"Robin who?", Lisa asked.
"Robin Krabbe".

I couldn't believe it. Brazen.
For those who don't know Robin Krabbe is the (past?) president of the North-west Environment Centre (NWEC). NWEC organized the permaculture convergence that had Bruce French presenting. The same Bruce French who was working with Food Plant Solutions who have been funded by Monsanto and which I wrote about in Permafraud

The same NWEC, who had a go at me for pointing out Bruce's funding arrangements in Permafraud and the same NWEC who advertised The Green Army conservation volunteers who's supporters were mining companies such as  Chevron, Coal and Allied, bhpbilliton, Forestry group, Leighton, Alcoa, ExxonMobil, Rio Tinto and Woodside.

Robin Krabbe is also a permaculturist and founder of Live Well Tasmania. She also does research at UTAS, writes on food security and is a past board member of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance.

Needless to say we reported it to the Wynyard police. This harrassment of us by permaculturists has to stop. I have no time for people who do not live by their own (supposed) permaculture ethics of care for earth, care for people. Continually, I see no care for either by them. This is another case of exactly that.

So tresspassing and attempted theft is your version of food security Robin? Hardly sustainable.

The Fallacy of Sustainability

I originally wrote this article back in 2005 while a student at ECU. This was to be the article that I believe was to mark me as dangerous and to be shut up. As I discovered then there is a continuing battle for the meaning of Sustainability.

 

The Fallacy of Sustainability:

The fundamental questions have not been asked

A criticism of the Western Australian State Government's 'State Sustainability Strategy'

by

Gavin Edwards

Introduction

It is apparent to any thinking person that the Earth is under threat. Her oceans and wetlands are becoming polluted, agricultural land degraded and topsoils blown or washed away. The climate is changing and biodiversity is being lost at an alarming rate. Human beings are to blame (Beale & Fray, 1990).

In 1992, in response to this change over 150 national governments formally endorsed the concept of sustainable development at the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro (the “Earth Summit”). In September 2003, the WA government released “Hope for the Future: The Western Australian State Sustainability Strategy”.

This essay argues that the WA governments approach to sustainability is problematic because fundamental questions have not been asked.

What is Sustainable Development?

According to Jacobs (1999, p.23) there are two definitions commonly used. The first is the “Bruntland definition” which says that sustainable development (SD) is “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. The second or “Caring for the Earth” definition states that SD is “improving the quality of life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems”. Jacobs (p.22) also note that some environmentalists reject sustainable development as a 'fuzzy' concept and “a smokescreen put up by business and development interests to obscure the conflicts between ecological integrity and economic growth,...”. The World Bank defines Sustainable Development as “Development that lasts” (Sachs, p.33)

What is Sustainability?

There are many definitions of sustainability. Robinson (2004, p.370) describes it simply as "the ability of humans to continue to live within environmental constraints". Around 1980 a global shift in perception took place in which "nature turned from a treasure to be preserved to a resource whose yield had to be sustained" (Hays 1959 in Sachs p.33). Sachs goes on to say that "the meaning of sustainability [then] slides from conservation of nature to conservation of development".

What is the WA Government's definition of sustainability?

The WA governments definition in the State Sustainability Strategy is interesting:

"Sustainability is defined as meeting the needs of current and future generations through an integration of environmental protection, social advancement, and economic prosperity" where "environmental protection is taken to be minimizing impacts and providing rehabilitation and renewal of damaged environments".

The governments definition seems more aligned with a definition of sustainable development than sustainability. There are also some flaws in this definition. What are our needs? Who determines them? Do we "need" economic prosperity? In Maslov's Heirachy of Needs (Russel p.186 - 189) there is no mention of economics but there is mention of food, water, shelter, love, esteem and enlightenment. What is meant by impacts? These are grey areas that have not been fully defined.

The Strategy starts from a false premise - if we don't have a clear definition for sustainability it's my view that we cannot produce an effective strategy to deal with the problem. To back up my view I quote Jacobs (p.24):

"there is a political concern among some environmentalists that the lack of clarity of the definition allows anything to be claimed as 'sustainable' or as 'promoting sustainable development'....At present the vagueness of the definitions, it is argued, allows business and 'development' interests (and their government supporters) to claim they are in favour of sustainable development when actually they are the perpetrators of unsustainability....there is a battle for the meaning of sustainable development"

Some fundamental questions must be asked

If the old structures of government do not seem to be working well with coping with the issue, should we change our structure of government so that we can deal with change itself? The government views sustainability as the interconnection of community, government and the market (Strategy p.222) however both government and the market are part of the community. They are not separate. Committees on sustainability policy can have their representatives from business, "community" and government - if it comes to a vote business and government usually side together and can control the result. This appears to be a ploy the government uses to maintain control. The government in it Strategy did do some public consultation. However it was a very short amount of time considering the importance of the document. Their method for consultation is typically "top-down" that is a proposal is released and a time period is set for submissions. Perhaps what is needed is a more bottom-up (grass roots) approach: ordinary people debating and deciding their own futures.

How do we want to live our lives? Masunoba Fukuoka in 'The One Straw Revolution' (1978, p158) says it sweetly:

"Why do we have to develop? If economic development rise from 5% to 10%, is happiness going to double? What's wrong with a growth rate of 0%? Isn't this a rather stable kind of economics? Could there be anything better than living simply and taking it easy?"

People work to obtain money to be able to eat, pay the rent or mortgage and do what they want to do. We seem to be working more and more. The gap between the rich and poor is growing. Miller and Shade in 'Foundations of Economics' (1986, p.4) say of memories, love and religious values that "These things cannot be valued in money terms and thus they lie outside the realm of economics". The western economic system doesn't appear to be sustainable. Perhaps we should investigate some other more socially just system?

Is our present form of agriculture sustainable? The Strategy contains some definitions of sustainable agriculture, however they look more like reasons for sustaining our current import and export agriculture (agribusiness). Bill Mollison, the originator of Permaculture (Permanent Agriculture), once remarked that "Modern agriculture is basically a continuation of world war two". By this he meant that scientists that worked in chemical companies manufacturing chemicals for chemical warfare after the war moved to companies that manufactured chemicals for modern agribusiness. Agriculture is responsible for damage to 9.6 million square kilometres of Australia - this is over half of the country (Beale & Fray, intro p. ix). Given agribusiness also has a poor history in third world countries should we be practicing it at all? Sargent (1985, p. 11) gives this example:

It takes a lot of vegetables to fill a jumbo jet. Yet three times a week, from early December until May, a chartered cargo DC10 takes off from Senegal's dusty Dakar airport loaded with eggplants, green beans, tomatoes, melons and paprika. Its destination? Amsterdam, Paris or Stockholm. These airlifts of food FROM the African Sahel began in 1972, the fourth year of the region's publicized drought. They increased dramatically as famine spread...

Promoting the entire venture as "development" [the agribusiness corporation Bud Antle] got the Senegalese government, the German foreign aid agency and McNamara's World Bank to put up most of the capital. The Senegalese government helpfully supplied police to clear away villagers who had always presumed the land was theirs for growing millet for themselves and the local market. The Peace Corps contributed four volunteers.

Today, more than sixty armed security officers not only guard the fields, but each day search the poorly paid field hands, mostly women, to be sure they don't sneak vegetables home to their families"

What is the carrying capacity for human beings in Western Australia? The Strategy gives no figures for this. Stamp (1960) developed figures for England forty-five years ago so it is surprising that it has not been done in WA especially given world-wide overpopulation. Wouldn't these figures be necessary to work out what is a sustainable population for WA? Can we keep on growing indefinitely?

Lastly, the Strategy (p. 75) reveals the "Healthy Country"project run by CSIRO and states that "One of the four focus regions is the South West of Western Australia. The research undertaken on biodiversity, land degradation and water can provide answers to many of the deep questions that face us by focusing on key areas of knowledge and innovation" [emphasis added]. Shouldn't the answers to these fundamental questions have been found before the government made policy on sustainability?

Reference List:

Beale, B & Fray, P. (1990). The Vanishing Continent. Rydalmere: Hodder & Staughton.

Fukuoka, M. (1978). The One-Straw Revolution. Goa: Other India Press.

Government of Western Australia. (2003). Hope for the Future: The Western Australian State Sustainability Strategy. Perth: The Department of Premier and Cabinet.

Jacobs, M. (1999). Sustainable Development as a Contested Concept. In A. Dobson (Ed.), Fairness and Futurity. Oxford University Press.

Miller, R. & Shade, E. (1986). Foundations of Economics (2nd edition). Melbourne: Longman Cheshire.

Robinson, J. (2004). Squaring the circle? Some thoughts on the idea of sustainable development. Ecological Economics 48 (2004) 369 - 284.

Mollison, B. In Grave Danger of Falling Food [video].

Russel, P. (1972). The Awakening Earth. London: Routledge & Keegan Paul.

Sachs, W. (nd). Sustainable Development and the Crisis of Nature: On the Political Anatomy of an Oxymoron. In Living with Nature: Environmental Politics as Cultural Discourse. Eds Fischer, F. & Hajer, M. (1999).

Sargent, S. (1985). The Foodmakers. Ringwood: Penguin Books Aust.

Stamp, L. (1960). Our Developing World. London: Faber & Faber.

© Gavin Edwards 2005. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced without prior permission from the author.