It always astounds me what various governments in our country view as protection worthy. Last week the world authority on nature protection, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, basically gave an "F" to Australia’s plans to help save our endangered animals and plants.

We are well on the way to epic failure and our report card was dismal already. We are the world leaders in native animal extinction – good grief, there’s something to keep off the tourist brochures.

Illustration: Matt Davidson

The first gold star for anti-conservational behaviour goes to the horse racing industry, which is demanding access to the beaches along the Warrnambool coastline to exercise their horses. Horse hooves are a terrible match with coastlines of fragile ecosystems, which are home to a number of threatened species – such as the hooded plover and orange-bellied parrot. The very same parrot that prevented wind farms from being built in that area just over a decade ago. Either we want to protect the parrot or we don’t, but we need to stop using it as the proverbial political football, despite its excellent aerodynamics.

It has been suggested that a purpose-built horse training facility, closely replicating a beach, could provide an alternative to running on the real thing, but horse trainers say some things can’t be artificially replicated. Darn right they can’t and that’s exactly why we have to do everything we can to make sure our natural habitats and the native wildlife aren’t destroyed.