Mulloon Institute
Tony Coote AM Memorial Lecture
General Michael Jeffery
Excerpts from General Michael Jeffery's inaugural speech in 2019:
Captain Allan Savory
Excerpts from Captain Allan Savory's speech in 2020[1]:
My university training as an ecologist had taught me that burning grasslands was essential. Every year we burnt millions of hectares to provide a green flush for the animals and to keep the African savannas healthy. In fact, we managed the landscape with fire – much as Aborigines did for thousands of years....
While preparing this lecture, I heard on the BBC that Australian scientists are advising the use of fire to prevent mega-fires – by burning inflammable material before it can accumulate and lead to a mega-fire.
Desertification, mega-fires and climate change are inseparable. Using fire in this manner could in the short-term decrease mega-fires – be a band aide. But long-term both desertification and climate change are likely to increase.
(In the Rhodesian War) I fought for twenty years and commanded a tracker combat unit – and so I spent literally thousands of hours tracking down my fellow countrymen.
I lecture today from a position of no expertise in climate change.
Rather than reinvent the wheel, I solved the problem by using 300 years of European military experience of planning in immediate battlefield situations. What they had worked out for complicated fast changing situations, I simply adapted and developed as a grazing planning process.[2]