Of course it is, but how do we decide what is the right balance, and whose interests we take into account?
One player whose voice hardly seems to get heard is that of the land itself. Yes, I regularly hear catchy phrases like “without the environment there is no economy” and “we need to look after the environment for our grandchildren’s sakes”, but rarely do I hear anyone discuss the land’s intrinsic value or what we should pay the land for delivering to us its mineral wealth. Indeed, I suspect such concepts may be met with little understanding: “We have no moral obligation to reimburse the land for what we take, whatever that might mean. The land belongs to us. All we have to do is look after it.”
So is a subconscious “Magic Pudding” narrative shaping our views – whether we’re politicians, miners, landowners or environmentalists? You might recall Norman Lindsay’s Australian children’s literature classic in which the Magic Pudding, protected from the Pudding Thieves by Bunyip Bluegum and his likeable friends, loves to be eaten and constantly re-forms to provide an inexhaustible supply of food for his protectors. Like them, do we think we can just go on consuming the land, provided we protect it, and that the land wants this? Does it matter what the land feels about our consumption of its resources, be it for minerals, energy, farming, or spiritual retreat?
But more than this, do we just regard land as an object, just an endogenous input to our grand plan of economic growth and development that, if we find the right balance, will help us on our way to realisation of prosperity and high living standards for all? I’m reminded here of some passionately held views that characterised the debate surrounding the abolition of the slave trade some 200 years ago. For example, “the economy will suffer, our living standards will drop; this will give our trading partners unfair competitive advantages” and “we just need to ensure we look after our slaves properly”.
And then I’m struck by how key features of today’s CSG conflicts between landowners, mining companies and governments mirror those of past (and present) conflicts between Aboriginal people, settlers and colonial governments. These include claims of invasion, human rights abuses, ill-health, loss of identity and relationship with the land, and economic exploitation, countered by the promise of benefits arising from economic development, appeals to the objective of seeking “the Common Good”, compensation, and reliance on the adequacy of legislative protection of rights.
So what is the answer? To “Lock the Gate” or to enter into economically attractive agreements with mining companies? To lobby governments for legislative change or to be activists engaged in civil disobedience? To say “it’s all too hard, what can one person do?” or to enter into dialogue with those with whom we disagree? It seems a complex mess, with little prospect of polarising views being reconciled, especially with a forecast exponential growth in the CSG industry.
Perhaps a circuit breaker could be greater recognition of how we feel about the land. Since European settlement there has been a quiet revolution in (western) attitudes towards the land. Early explorers saw it as a wild, inhospitable and God-forsaken place, whereas today the spirituality of wilderness has emerged. The “Dead Centre” is transforming into the “Red Heart”, and Uluru competes with the Sydney Opera House as a representative icon of Australia. And Sir Arthur Boyd’s tapestry Untitled Shoalhaven Landscape, 1984, hanging in the Great Hall of Parliament House, Canberra, conveys a sense of “the Australian land, emphasising the importance of the physical environment in shaping Australian values”. Is land becoming an essential and integral part of the Australian psyche?
If so, how might we characterise our relationship with the land? Imagine yourself as a traveller on life’s road, but robbed of peace and wellbeing by the stresses and pains of daily living. Then you discover the land giving of itself to heal you – food, spiritual sanctuary, a home, energy and the raw materials to support your lifestyle. Is it your neighbour? The sting comes when the roles reverse. Land is the traveller, helpless to defend itself against predatory developers. Does it discover you acting as its neighbour?
How we answer this question depends on how we regard land. Maybe land is a Magic Pudding or is not being unduly exploited; in which case the parable is rather meaningless. But if we adopt the language of environmental protection, we become a fellow traveller on land’s lonely road, aware of its plight. The challenge then is whether we are prepared to respond, particularly if it might threaten our standard of living.
