Conservation Week

Press, 25 August 1986, Page 20

Conservation Week

Sir,—With characteristic polite understatement, Colin Aldridge (August 21) accuses “the howling excesses of hysterical fringe environmentalists” of destroying jobs and lowering living standards by making mining projects slightly harder to establish. Stopping a mine may indeed prevent the creation of some jobs, although it usually means saving others, because mines often destroy farms; forests and fisheries. But simply preventing a project hardly destroys existing jobs. Nor does a prosperous country lower its living standards when it refuses to exchange fresh air, water and beauty for the videos and vinyls that more money buys. If we cannot be happy with our present abundant material possessions, we will never be happy. More is not the answer. In any case, mining generates comparatively few jobs for the dollars invested. Conservationists’ proposals, a Paparoas National Park, for example, will produce jobs and income in perpetuity for a very small investment, and never run out of ore. — Yours, etc., D. J. ROUND. August 21, 1986.