One of the hardest things about being invested in protecting Wallum and other precious and rare ecosystems is reading some of the comments on the community Facebook page. Our society’s trajectory towards annihilation and extinction of life (that of endangered species and ultimately of our own) is a reflection of our collective and individual values and of our capacity for reasoning. The lack of logic you see by certain individuals is what I find hardest to stomach. Things like:
‘I’ve been going to Wallum for 20 years with my dog and I’ve never seen a frog’.
‘All our houses were built on native bushland’.
The first one points to an impressive lack of ecological education and perspective. (Hint: dog scares frog). But the second one blows my mind for its lack of comprehension. Yes, huge swathes of rare ecosystems have been destroyed in the past for housing – but why continue when there are alternatives? Western countries have benefited from slavery, should we have kept having slaves? The issue seems to be a lack of sensitivity to value, a lack of courage to feel.
I pity these people. I can’t imagine having to live with such impenetrable walls in my mind.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
