The tragic loss for a family hopefully will not be in vain if the Governments, land owners and environmentalists come to some better arrangements about how land clearing is dealt with – both in permission, conservation attempts as well as its monitoring and procedures.

You can only think we are lucky that guns are not a major part of our society like the USA.  Nevertheless no doubt this murder represents the tip of the iceberg of the problems running in rural areas and farmers livelihood.

There has to be a reasonable balance reached between environmentalists who want conservation, land holders who know they cannot afford to lose another tree on the sparse landscape, and then others clearing vegetation illegally to take advantage of the rich agricultural soil.

Our thoughts go to the family of Glen Turner, 51, killed on a property north of Moree, in Croppa Creek, last week. Glen was experienced environment officer doing job on issues around illegal land clearing when he was shot by the property owner he was visiting.