They all know whales, elephants and sea turtles are more important than cockroaches, ants and snakes. They all know real conservationists never get blood on their hands but  hunt and gather in supermarkets. So its far more productive for voters to worry about the economy. 

In reality, the time is right for political boldness in conservation, and there is an economic dimension to be capitalised upon. The standard wildlife conservation paradigm in Australia is sad, old, tired, confused and outdated. 

It has achieved some positive outcomes, and past victories may prove to be a solid platform for the future - but then again they may not. Senator Hill's announcement (February 1998) that Australia's wildlife legislation is no longer considered best international practice is the news many have been waiting for. 

At international conservation meetings many interventions by Australians provoke no more than a yawn from most observers. People tend to excuse us as left overs in the South Pacific - descendants from Mutiny on the Bounty. At least I hope they do - because we often turn on our trading partners with little consideration that the "clever country" needs tourism, trade and good international relations. 

Outside of Australia a wildlife conservation revolution is taking place. It is centered on two words - sustainable use. It is supported by the IUCN World Conservation Union, WWF International, the Convention on Biological Diversity > and CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. 

New insights into wildlife conservation indicate that blanket protection of all wildlife, on all lands, within and outside national parks, may contribute to the ongoing loss of wildlife species and their habitats OUTSIDE OF PROTECTED AREAS. Far from helping conservation, policies that entrench prohibitions > on all trade in wildlife, within and outside Australia, may be helping drive some species to extinction. 

All sides of politics in Australia know about these changes, but have been hesitant to act. It is clearly a political Pandora's box.. Our State and Federal wildlife agencies are internally divided about the issue, many non-government environmental organisations are concerned, and the public is largely ignorant of the changes that have taken place around them. 

In contrast, the all-Party Senate Review Committee that recently released its extensive report on "Commercial Use of Australian Wildlife" (July 1998), seems in little doubt. They make one of the strongest calls yet for fundamental change in our approach to wildlife conservation. But the public is largely unaware of their deliberations. 

The average Australians sees conservation as a cocktail of three ingredients: animal rights (=3D liberation); animal welfare; and, conservation. When we tease these ingredients apart, new pathways for pursuing conservation emerge. 

Firstly, conservation has a much greater antiquity than today's concerns about wildlife. People have a long history of conserving paintings, buildings, religious relics etc. In this broader sense, conservation is the "sum total of actions we take to preserve and maintain items to which we attribute a positive use-value". 

From a wildlife perspective, the new conservation paradigm builds on this value-based system and accepts that having tangible, realistic incentives is the driving force behind sustainable conservation efforts. It accepts that incentives will vary between urban and rural centres, between developed and developing nations, between one culture and the next. A diversity of incentives, matching a diversity of peoples is required to move conservation forward. 

The new paradigm for sustainable use goes something like this. If uses of wildlife can be sustained (kept going) and adverse environmental impacts contained within acceptable limits, sustainable economic benefits for landowners can be generated from wildlife. These benefits, in turn, provide economic incentives for landowners to conserve species and habitats on private lands. 

If landowners can pursue conservation for profit, they will do so. They currently care, nurture and conserve crocodiles for profit in the Northern Territory, and it doesn't matter whether they like crocodiles or not. 

Naturally, this concept ruffles the feathers of animal rights and liberation proponents. Their value systems for wildlife restricts the types of incentives that can be used to drive conservation. If incentives do not meet narrow philosophical guidelines, then conservation based on them cannot proceed. People campaigning against wearing fox furs drive the price down so it is not worthwhile hunting them. Increased populations of foxes now devastate our native wildlife. In a well-known example from Mauritius, a unique and endemic species of Boa went extinct because efforts to control the feral animals destroying its habitat were thwarted by campaigners concerned over the rights and welfare of the feral animals. 

Animal rights philosophies are contradictory and do not rest well with the maintenance of cultural diversity in a country such as Australia. If whales are more important than cockroaches, and people have the same rights as animals, where do we align the people? With the whales or with the cockroaches? Or do we put some of the people with the whales and others with the cockroaches? 

I'm not concerned about the consequences of treating a few animals as though they were people - but I am concerned about justifying actions that treat people like animals. 

Animal welfare is different again. There are sound "people" reasons why society adopts case-specific codes of practice to reduce unnecessary suffering during interactions between people and animals. But there is no single code of animal welfare that can or should be imposed on all interactions by all people. 

A wildlife career looking after an orphaned kangaroo in urban Canberra reduces unnecessary suffering in totally different ways than a traditional hunter with a spear in Arnhem, Land. Yet both activities are part of our cultural heritage and need to be maintained. Neither has much to do with conservation per se. 

In any overview, conservation is confused in the eyes of many. It is not about being a vegetarian, joining the US-based and directed Humane Society, restricting animal experimentation or criticising Eskimos because they hunt and eat whales. These have little to do with conservation, and are not stopping species and habitats disappearing at an alarming rate. 

Conservation is about addressing the root causes of extinction, and these are almost invariably economic in nature. 

In the end, it will be up to the politicians to present strategies for change, and it will be up to the people to vote on them. We can promote conservation within an atmosphere of innovation and economic rationality, or we can continue rearranging the deck chairs. The Senate Committee has given all sides of politics the opportunity to make significant changes based on a detailed  assessment of the current attitudes within Australia. I for one will be hoping such changes occur. �