Is anyone else irritated with Tim Flannery?
The famous & erudite biologist professes to be irritated by the attention given to Tasmanian tall trees, which he complains are not the most bio-diverse sites. He also complains about the attention given to big whales which he reckons are only as smart as cows.
He reckons that an annual whale kill could be justified because the whaling industry is so well regulated. Thats bullshit Tim, in the 60's the Russian whalers almost wiped out Blue whales in illegal "bycatch". As for trees, recently the woodchippers accidently set fire to the worlds tallest dicot, part of their technique of clearcutting and setting poison.

Well I like big wild whales and big wild trees, and I dont think any kill level is OK. I also think they make fine figureheads for conservation.

Tim F also seems to be in some sort of fortress Australia group, who claim that Australia lacks the ecosystems to support more people. TF himself actually says that some sort of immigration would probably be ok, so we cant place him in the worst category, those who ignore refugee laden ships sinking within range of the Navy. But the claim that Aus is eco-poor looks sick against 20 million tons of wheat exported. It looks likely that some of the wheatland may go saline. Figures of 20% salted up and 50 years remaining, may be alarming, but they are outweighed in my mind by sympathy for refugees.
It is true that the West Australian "wheatbelt" is built on a biodiversity world hotspot, so it would be a good idea to at least stop chopping any more "scrub" there.