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Privatising the Platypus?
By Robert Rosen
Published in Habitat
Byron Bay in northern NSW has had its fair share of major environmental confrontations including over an Allan Bond subdivision, an attempt to build a massive tourist resort posing as an educational facility and more recently because of Club Med's desire to move on the town. Thus it was perhaps not surprising, that when environmental entrepreneur John Walmsey sought to set up an animal sanctuary near Byron Bay in conjuction with an unpopular local developer, he also became embroiled in a very heated debate with local environmental activists.John Wamsley heads Earth Sanctuaries Limited, a public company formed to "ensure the survival of the remaining Australian Native flora and fauna, within a commercial environment." The company has established a number of animal sanctuaries, that protect native fauna by fully fencing boundaries so as to keep all cats and foxes out. In some cases the sanctuaries are also stocked with endangered fauna from other areas and are promoted as educational resources and eco-tourist attractions.
The 14 hectare Warrawong Sanctuary in the Adelaide Hills is the most established of the sanctuaries, attracting about 20,000 visitors a year. John Wamsley is a controversial and colourful character, who is highly critical of roles played by government, national parks services, zoos, academics, and conservationists alike, in attempting to protect native fauna. He claims that large sums are been spent on researching the problem of Australia's vanishing wildlife, but almost nothing is being spent on practical solutions to the problem. He has also enraged cat lovers by prominently displaying large rugs made of cat fur and by his tendency to wear cat skin caps on public occasions.
Yet when I visited Warrawong earlier this year and spent some time with John and his accountant Lou De Leeuw, I was most impressed with what had been achieved at the sanctuary, particularly with the successful platypus breeding program, John's personal commitment to preserving native fauna and the respectable profits that the sanctuary was making. John has also been remarkably successful in gaining widespread publicity for the project.
Earth Sanctuaries Limited has issued a prospectus and is seeking to place $5 million in shares so as to continue development of Warrawong and Yookamarra Sanctuaries, to commence development on Buckaringa and Scotia Sanctuaries, as well as to purchase land for future sanctuaries. Yookamarra is a thousand hectares of pristine mallee country 120 kms from Adelaide, Buckaringa is 1619 hectares of perpetual leasehold in the Flinders Ranges and Scotia Sanctuary comprises 64,805 hectares of Western land leasehold in NSW on the NSW/SA border. On Scotia it would cost $2.5 million to erect a vermin proof fence on its 125 mile boundary.
Earth Sanctuaries Limited as an investment opportunity certainly warrants close inspection. The Australian Ethical Investment Trust, the first ethical investment trust in Australia was an early investor in Warrawong Sanctuary and has been most satisfied with its return to date. There is now a slow but very steady trickle of investors taking up shares.
A major "asset" of the company is the wildlife on its sanctuaries and the effort undertaken to protect the wildlife from predators. Yet the company cannot put a value on native fauna in its balance sheet as such native fauna cannot be "owned" like sheep or cattle . All wildlife in Australia remains the property of the Crown. While it is probably just as well that we do not start privatising the platypus as well as our airports water services and roads, current accounting practices in Australia are ill equipped to take into account the value of environmentally related assets and liabilities. In Europe some companies are now providing a comprehensive assessment of environmental costs and benefits in their financial statements and in the United States public corporations are required to provide information on all significant environmental matters in their Annual Reports. In Australia the importance of environmental accounting has yet to be widely acknowledged.
For a copy of the Earth Sanctuaries' prospectus or for information on visiting the sanctuaries contact:
Earth Sanctuaries Limited PO Box 35 Stirling SA 5152
Ph (08) 8370-9422 Fax (08) 8370-8332
E-mail : Lou de Leeuw lou@ecobusiness.com.au
