Leon Ashby

Leon Ashby is President of the Climate Sceptics Party. In 2002 he was Convenor of Landholders for the Environment and is a dairy farmer in South Australia and has previously been a director of the Australian Environment Foundation.

His 2009 presentation "Why an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is not necessary" claims that CO2 will not overheat the Earth and an ETS will devastate the Australian economy. A detailed response has been published.

Ashby was the organiser of two rallies held in 2001 at Roma and Winton that attracted more than 1000 landholders protesting against the implementation of Queensland's Vegetation Management Act. He is also the president of Bushvision.

In a February 2003 letter to the editor of News Weekly, which is published by the National Civic Council, Ashby complained that the removal of cattle grazing from National Parks could have contributed to a series of major wildfires. "With correct grazing management national parks could require very little early burning (which rarely gets done, even if it's written in the parks management plan) ... and it would raise a bit of revenue as well," he wrote.

"Despite it being commonsense that our more brittle environments need grazers to keep the carbon (vegetable matter) cycling properly, our parks are becoming fire bombs and gradually less fertile due to the unscientific and nonsensical approach our government departments adhere to."

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Australian Environment Foundation

External articles

 * Peter Lewis, "Land clearing fight flares despite promises to bush", The Land, February 20, 2000.
 * Leon Ashby, "Tree cover", News Weekly, August 11, 2001.
 * Leon Ashby, "Yes! Development can be environmentally sustainable", On Line Opinion, March 15, 2002.
 * Leon Ashby, "Cattle grazing to cut bushfire risk", News Weekly, February 8, 2003.
 * Leon Ashby, "Dairy industry", News Weekly, May 8, 2004.
 * "Leon Ashby", Landholder Institute, undated, accessed July 2005.
 * "Leon Ashby, Kongorong, SA", Bush Telegraph, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, May 26, 2005.
 * Leon Ashby, "Why an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is not necessary", Australian Climate Sceptics website, undated, accessed February 2010.
 * "Bushvision", Imparja, undated, accessed July 2005.