Page 2534 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 13 August 2014
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In the ACT our rangers are fortunate not to face the same risks as those in places like the Congo, where rangers have been killed by poachers and armed militia, but there are still real risks to the job, such as dealing with illegal pig hunters in Namadgi, injured kangaroos on busy highways, removing venomous snakes and battling bushfires.
As part of World Ranger Day activities, the Namadgi visitors centre held screenings of the documentary The Thin Green Line which highlights issues faced by rangers across the globe. The documentary was created by an Australian park ranger named Sean Willmore, who set out in 2004 on the trip of a lifetime to experience the world’s protected areas. Sean’s drive to see the world’s wild areas was not driven by tourism but rather by a passion to draw attention to the brave men and women who regularly put their lives on the line to protect the world’s biodiversity.
With camera crew in tow, Sean produced the internationally acclaimed documentary The Thin Green Line in 2007. This budding documentary maker braved ambushes by militia, being held at gunpoint and being charged by elephants as he brought to light the dangers faced by many rangers all over the world in their pursuit of nature conservation. In the last 10 years it is estimated that over 1,000 rangers worldwide have lost their lives in the line of duty—80 per cent murdered by poachers or armed militia groups.
With the proceeds of the documentary, Willmore founded the Thin Green Line Foundation, an active foundation which recently held a large fundraiser in Melbourne with Gotye and Tex Perkins, amongst others. Its adage is “protecting nature’s protectors” and it does this by providing support to park rangers and their communities. The foundation works predominantly in developing nations and conflict zones and also with indigenous park rangers within Australia and abroad.
31 July each year is thus a day for reflection. World Ranger Day is an opportunity to recognise that in some countries protecting the natural environment can demand a terrible toll. This fact is not lost on our own territory rangers, who are indeed fortunate to share the support of their community for a job that can be risky at times but rarely if ever demanding the ultimate sacrifice.
Unfortunately, however, as recently as 2009 our ACT parks rangers lost a colleague when ACT ESA Fire & Rescue employee David Balfour was killed near Marysville while helping to battle Victoria’s bushfires.
Tragically, just a couple of weeks ago, a government environment worker in New South Wales was killed in the course of his duties when he was shot. It was on World Ranger Day itself that we heard the reports that Glen Turner, an environmental compliance worker from the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage, was shot by a landowner while visiting a property at Croppa Creek, north of Moree in northern New South Wales. The landowner, who had been investigated and prosecuted several times for illegal vegetation clearing, was later charged with murder. It is a great tragedy that in our neighbouring jurisdiction a public official has lost his life while fulfilling his duty to enforce the laws that have been put in place by the parliament to protect the natural environment.
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