Permaculture

[mattymeischke]

Hello TF,
some straight answers to your questions:
(i) Keeping foreign birds in Australia is easy, no license required and no need to keep records of all births/deaths/purchases/sales/escapees/gifts. You are also allowed to trap foreign birds from the wild where they have established feral populations here. Birds like skylarks, song thrush and red-whiskered bulbul are in this category. There is, however, an absolute ban on import of birds. Very occasionally imports of poultry, pigeons or zoo stock have been allowed but this requires money and time beyond the capacity of most finchos.
(ii) The supply of wild birds is not the problem, the problem is that all trapping of native species from the wild is illegal. Even if you were to trap a rare or precious bird despite the legal sanction, you are required to provide the name, license and other details of the seller... The supply of wild birds is abundant; I saw (among others) 6 black cockies, 2 Gangajangs and several dozen superb parrots, some redrumps, some redbrowed finches and a swamp harrier on my way to work last night without trying. Many aviculturalists (including some on this forum) have tried to modify the inconsistent laws across various states and at federal level with no joy; successive governments have been studiously disinterested in helping with this.
(iii) Permaculture is among the more popular alternative agriculture systems in Australia. To the best of my knowledge it has never had any support from any level of government in Australia. Our current, reactionary, ideologically-driven conservative government is mostly interested in paying off their mates and digging up coal. Geoff Lawton has gotten awards in permaculture, but never from our government to the best of my knowledge. The videos you saw were perhaps misleading...
(iv) Lots of people practice permaculture and other alternative agriculture here. They just do so without any support from the government. The government reserves its support for corporate agriculture, food multinationals and the mining industry.

[TailFeathers]

I don't need patronising instruction from you thanks. Finch lounge means anything & everything finch-related which doesn't have an obvious other category. This is a finch forum.
In your earlier response to Ken you said someone mentioned in another post that Australia's wild bird stocks are declining due to trapping. What was actually said was that the Red Siskin (a South American species) had seriously declined due to trapping. Australia's wild bird stocks are not recently subjected to any large-scale trapping. It is illegal to do so here with any native species & most people respect that. There is some commercial trapping of feral exotic species (mostly Goldfinches & Greenfinches). This is legal as they are not protected native species in Australia.

I post here because the birds which I plant the wild edibles to attract wild goldfinches. Last year there were only two coming to my garden, this year 6 of them came.

Do you see how small efforts can make a big difference?

Not only that other birds and wild animals have been to my backyard because I do not treat them as pests. I'm an environmental historian and I'm deeply interested in this.

[TailFeathers]

Hello TF,
some straight answers to your questions:
(i) Keeping foreign birds in Australia is easy, no license required and no need to keep records of all births/deaths/purchases/sales/escapees/gifts. You are also allowed to trap foreign birds from the wild where they have established feral populations here. Birds like skylarks, song thrush and red-whiskered bulbul are in this category. There is, however, an absolute ban on import of birds. Very occasionally imports of poultry, pigeons or zoo stock have been allowed but this requires money and time beyond the capacity of most finchos.
(ii) The supply of wild birds is not the problem, the problem is that all trapping of native species from the wild is illegal. Even if you were to trap a rare or precious bird despite the legal sanction, you are required to provide the name, license and other details of the seller... The supply of wild birds is abundant; I saw (among others) 6 black cockies, 2 Gangajangs and several dozen superb parrots, some redrumps, some redbrowed finches and a swamp harrier on my way to work last night without trying. Many aviculturalists (including some on this forum) have tried to modify the inconsistent laws across various states and at federal level with no joy; successive governments have been studiously disinterested in helping with this.
(iii) Permaculture is among the more popular alternative agriculture systems in Australia. To the best of my knowledge it has never had any support from any level of government in Australia. Our current, reactionary, ideologically-driven conservative government is mostly interested in paying off their mates and digging up coal. Geoff Lawton has gotten awards in permaculture, but never from our government to the best of my knowledge. The videos you saw were perhaps misleading...
(iv) Lots of people practice permaculture and other alternative agriculture here. They just do so without any support from the government. The government reserves its support for corporate agriculture, food multinationals and the mining industry.

Thank you very much. for this information and for being helpful.

I assume that since there is a total ban on imports, that also means canaries as well? and if there is an import ban... There must be an export ban as well on exactly the same as mentioned above or on a more limited scale.

I have read that the Australian government has been able to partially stave off economic burdens from the world economic crisis due to its large exports of minerals, mainly copper, to China.

I would assume this would be unpopular with the people since mining usually harms the environment, especially open pit mining?

If I were in Australia I'd guess trying another approach to getting certain laws lifted or passed would do the trick.

For me, I'm very concerned as an American because we are losing a lot of pet owners due to disinterest (thank you apple, Samsung and Microsoft) and more interest in games, tech etc on one end and on the other end land conservation is virtually unpracticed here as big business, usually makes due with the environment. I remember growing up looking at northern red cardinals and blue jays...if you spot one today you're lucky.

This is the reason I began practice in permaculture and organic gardening.

[Tiaris]

Export of exotic species from Australia is not illegal. However, commercial bird dealers are usually the only ones interested in exporting as breeders generally realise that to do so is a one-way loss of limited genetic material from which to breed birds in future. This is not a concern for dealers who have no interest in the long-term viability of our captive exotic species or at least are blinkered from seeing this by their short-term opportunity to make a quick profit.

[Craig52]

Export of exotic species from Australia is not illegal. However, commercial bird dealers are usually the only ones interested in exporting as breeders generally realise that to do so is a one-way loss of limited genetic material from which to breed birds in future. This is not a concern for dealers who have no interest in the long-term viability of our captive exotic species or at least are blinkered from seeing this by their short-term opportunity to make a quick profit.

Tiaris is right TF(pip),at one stage we nearly lost all of our cuban finches to dealers sending them back to the US,Cuba in particular as the wild birds are/were in great decline due to trapping etc.
Cubans here sold for around $40 a pr so the dealers made a good profit as i believe they were getting $300 to $400 a pr US.
After careful consideration by many clubs and societies Nationally prices for cubans here in Australia more than tripled a pr to become nonviable to exporters to buy their birds from breeders here so the export has virtually stopped.
A similar scenario happened with red faced parrot finches. Craig