Overlays are a mistake

You don't have to study nature long to realise that everything is interrelated .Geology, Chemistry of soils and water , predictable behavior  of inorganic systems,  anti 3rd nature of living systems, the unpredictability and high level of cooperation in living systems , the resilience of living systems , the flexible behavior boundaries of living organ components ( live die move over, get eaten  ) , the growth phases of individuals , mates and mature communities . The possibility of real degradation and the wider reality of resilience .
Its not madness to try and map these things on the ground,  but its madness to limit the boundaries to maps in time and place and use that as a statement of risk of degradation ( nature is too well built to be vulnerable to all our fears)
Once we thought that atoms were the limit,  but now we know there are quarks and black holes . We don't know what keeps protons in such a lovely mood when they repel each other - such a tight configuration.

 We know there are 3 fundamental forces but we have absolutely no idea how they work . I could go on

You don't have to study nature long to realise that everything is interrelated and that we don't really know much :
That statement is of course is easy to say but how then do we build a world class approach to environmental management .We don't know much about pushing pulling, cooperation and  resilience on the boundaries.


What we Do know is that we should keep studying it ; we do know that precaution is Ok by the student and our communities can rule on the possibility that humans can carelessly ignore its sensitive mechanisms and communities. We must focus on real degradation pressures NOT imagined or carelessly motivated ones ( eg by Nimbys or Wwwfys) Remember that communities of resilience can  healthily trancend death of the mature individual,  degradation , decomposition  and pressure of many kinds. It's those sorts of boundaries ( process ones that we need to study more)

Some suggestions:

1. We build on the past and we didn't carelessly treat the frame we built on .Melbourne is one of the most livable citiesin the world because it did planning in a certain way ( a simple way ) 
2. We make each other accountable personally. 
3. We make people in Authority even more accountable personally ( or they lose their title /place )  . There was a time when in planning when  a majority thought it might be controversial ./ potential harm to the order of fun and work community  to ask people to ask for permission.
   We wrote a one pager to the Shire telling them what we we were going to do , We paid nothing for the privilege but the privileged were obliged to respond in one month or be drawn before the court  Simple but but clear answers - Yes, No and under what condition ) . Sure we sometimes had to tell them more about what we we were  doing and there was time for that .Nothing , but nothing threatened the responsibility of those in power to give us a straight answer - not a crooked one ( like one where we had to find the answer oursleves or go hunting in the bush or the city streets of mere consultants . We knew then that consultants , even though useful , were expensive and not always reliable) . we relied on people in Council who knew what they were doing orif they didn't know , they would find out .
4. We don't let political parties play football with the profession as they have been 
5. We make sure agencies representing professionals get public support for the training and development of our young people 
6. We make sure people and political and professional groups  respect the territory of others ( by holding court occasionally) 
7. Give cadetships to rural young people so they can cut their teeth with real land managers.  and those who plan to work with nature each day of their lives ( You heard it first from Emperors Academy )