LETTER: No to Alpine grazing

Charlie Sherwin, director, Victorian National Parks Association
The Age, 22/11/06

The Liberal Party's support for cattle grazing in the Alpine National Park is bizarre when set against the party's calls for water conservation and better national park management.

Alpine grazing was wrecking the headwaters of Victoria's major eastern river catchments and sending our native animals and wildflowers to the brink of extinction. The Victorian National Parks Association condemns the Liberal Party's policy of overturning Labor's wise ban on alpine grazing. Political parties should be protecting our public lands and catchments for all 5 million Victorians, not giving them away cheap to private timber and grazing interests.

And logging in Melbourne's water catchments is a false economy — which so far has both major parties ducking for cover.