The science to show that forcing people to buy stickers reduces invasive species is non-existent. This issue does require a more effective New Zealand approach of education, cooperation, and facilitation to change boater behavior for any positive impact. Sticker taxes only make people angry and bring in money to fund wasteful and ineffective government action. There is an entire discipline of behavioral science for large populations such as boaters. We're finally practicing that discipline here in Florida to reduce the waste of our aquifer water resource on wasteful lawn sprinkling. Changing the behavior of large populations for a positive impact does require education, positive leadership and yes, regulation; not charging people for stickers and charging visitors more for their stickers. Idaho and other states should do some benchmarking on what's effective and what's not. Sadly, the vast majority of politicians lack any adequate foundation in science to make good decisions about the environment. While some are well-intended, we do need to keep politicians from doing ineffective things contrary to science. What they all understand is votes, i.e. media, and money. So sometimes that's how we need to engage them when they head down a path of missing science like Idaho. I've been working on environmental issues here in Florida and carbon emission reduction projects globally now for years and that's been my experience. That's not cynical; only pragmatic. Always ask for the science. Al Vazquez KayakGuide.com Places to Paddle CloseWaters LLC Energy and Carbon Management On Jul 11, 2011, at 11:29 PM, Craig Jungers wrote: > How does having a decal on your boat stop invasive species? It seems to me > that the NZ program of getting cooperation would at least keep people > involved. But just putting a decal on and coughing up money just appears to > me to be yet-another "solution" devised by politicians to show that they're > "doing something". > > Craig *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Jul 12 2011 - 05:20:52 PDT
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