The Australian farming family works hard for their money, they must fight droughts, floods and low commodity prices on a regular basis but the biggest battle they confront is accepting what they have done to our environment over the generations.

Most farmers would stand tall beating their chest boasting how green they are because they have revegetated an eroding stream bank which was previously cleared of tall Eucalypts and tree ferns in the first place. They are only doing this to save their pastures from being flushed down the stream and not to save the environment or become green.

Farmers for a long time have treated the dingo as their enemy, this has come about by the farmers invading the dingo's territory and replacing the native wildlife with their sheep and cattle. Everybody has a right to earn money this includes the farmers as well, but nobody has the right to earn money and abuse the environment. If farmers were really concerned about the dingo attacking their flocks, they would erect exclusion fencing to protect them, admittedly this would be hard in the outback because of its vast distances but around the coastal fringes of Australia where farming land butts up to forests and mountains this would not be such a great task.

Although there are a few farmers who really do look after the environment before profit, but a vast majority just want the dollars and don't care. In Victoria this can easily be seen, following the bushfires that wrecked havoc in the mountains of East Victoria, farmers after six years have still not replaced two thirds of the dingo fencing that separates their farm from the bush. These farmers would rather demand the government of Victoria employ people called “doggers” whose job is to trap, shoot and poison the wild dog. If these farmers were really serious they would erect these fences which the government will pay a subsidy, saving the attacks upon their sheep and the money from the taxpayers of Victoria.

For over seven generations of farmers a tradition has been handed down from father to son that the dingo must go. This dogma of the farmers is based only on greed and not scientific fact, the dingo in his environment is the apex predator thus insuring the prey animals and mid-order predators in his territory are controlled to a sustainable existence. The farmers by hunting the dingo and taking him out of the environment has tipped the scales towards these prey creatures and allowing their numbers to increase, these prey animals include kangaroos wallabies and wombats. These farmers then complain, how some of these prey animals are competing for the food for their introduced stock, and then they go out shooting and poisoning these native animals.

Recently I have read an e-mail sent to another dingo conservation group from a farmer in North-West New South Wales which shows the attitude of some sheep farmers he quoted in saying” In doing so your organisation has stooped to the level of a parasite, living off the life blood of this nation and given a kick in the guts to an industry that has helped build this country into the prosperous nation we have today”. This dingo conservation group’s only concern is to save the dingo as a species, just like us here at Dingo Warrior and at no time attacked any sheep farmers or their farming practices. This farmer and his threatening e-mails, show the hard battle that Dingo conservationists will need to endure to save the species.

The farmers of old have stood upon a high pedestal because they supplied our produce and by having such power created a forceful lobby group, which the government bends over backwards for them.

We here at Dingo Warrior are not farmer bashers, some of us have come from farming backgrounds, but we are environmental terrorist bashers. The farmer who looks after his environment has our highest praise and we would not hesitate in working with them. A solution other than poisoning and shooting the dingo can be worked out if everybody is willing to work towards this goal.