Dr Antoinette Ensbey, Bangalow.
What to do with rural land to answer our need for healthy environments? Instead of the proposed food hub close to Bangalow village, I’d suggest a) reforestation along Byron Creek and restoration of rainforest; b) splitting the land into parcels to lease to small farmers for growing healthy and abundant food to sell at our farmers markets; c) set aside a community garden and recreational park to showcase an example of how we can be self-sufficient and at the same time relaxed in our rural environments; d) space for a solar farm to benefit residential and commercial Bangalow village.
If the owner of the land in question would propose something like this and asked for participation, I would gladly give my time to help creating and maintaining life-preserving, ecologically viable development that treasures natural resources and sustains fragile biodiversity. I believe that we need to strengthen our powers to deal with the imminent changes in weather and climate. Not to do that means promoting a costly denial.
Why don’t you start in your own backyard ‘Dr’ Ensbey, I also believe that we should be growing more native trees and plants in Bangalow as my family have been doing on our property for years. Unfortunately your extremely large bamboo (NOT native) are growing all around your house and are slowly but surely suffocating our native trees, these include a variety of Lilli Pillies, a Firewheel and an endangered Lacebark, all native rainforest trees that we have planted and cared for.
If you care so much about our “fragile biodiversity” how about planting some of our beautiful natives that you apparently care so much about. Bamboo in a lot of cases,especially this one, is an intrusive pest and in turn I believe this puts your credibility in question, don’t you think?!