A main premise of the following guest post from Boxer* is that across the West Australian wheatbelt, water tables are showing an upward trend. Boxer explains the problem and the need to act now if we are to learn from history and avoid the problems that destroyed, for example, agriculture in the valleys of the once fertile Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
I have asked Boxer for a link to some data that quantifies the extent of the rising water table problem. He has responded that:
There is no single place that I can find where a large amount of water table data is assembled in one place. This is not because there is a paucity of data, but I think because there is so much data, and the fundamental cause and effect of dryland salinity has been so well established for so long, that the publications over the last decade or two do not directly present water table data. The scientific debate has moved on.
If a problem is complex and widespread, all the more reason, in my opinion, to have a few agreed indicators and regularly report on how they are trending. Others may see things differently? The issue is important. Let's have some discussion. Here's the post:
Like a number of other people who comment on this blog, I enjoyed Jennifer's recent piece on Ockham's Razor (ABC Radio, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1509193.htm ) in which she addressed the arguments of various doomsday prophets such as Tim Flannery and Ian Lowe.
The Prophets of Doom have a list of iconic issues. I think it is healthy for the Prophets to be challenged because they have a vested interest in, for example, arguing that climate change will be the end of all things, just as coal miners have a vested interest in business as usual. Challenge them both.
On the issue of salinity however, I argue that dryland salinity is a major issue for this country. On this one, I am with the doomsday crowd. My vested interest? My professional life is bound up in finding ways for agriculture to adapt to rising water tables and perhaps even find ways to prevent the problem becoming as bad as the models predict.
Jennifer uses the example of the Murray River, where, at a point just upstream from the off-take for Adelaide's water supply, salinity levels have fallen over the last couple of decades due to salt diversion work. Good news, but is that a reasonable reflection of the state of affairs in the whole river system? I don
Something else for non farmers to quantify is their own contribution to the destruction of so much "viable biodiversity". By that I mean the introduction of of feral animals (cats, dogs, rabbits, goldfish etc) and weeds (lantana, blackberries, asparagus fern, privet, camphor laurel, olives etc).
Non farmers should campaign vigorously and peacefully for the complete removal of non indigenous flora and fauna from the entire continent.
Perhaps those thick headed farmers could be more productively engaged as environmental purification associates (EPA), combing the streets of suburbia in search of wandering moggies, meandering mutts and clipped hedges.
For an excellent article on the productive use of saline water see Roger Kalla, "Humble algae could be our saviour" at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au It discusses the role of algae grown in salt water on currently unused desert land in supplying the worlds likely demand for biodiesel. This merger of old science with new thinking on existing problems has the potential to convert our $50 billion salinity problem into a $100 billion economic opportunity. Not some vague futuristic science fix but simple "can do" in the here and now.
Rick, I was particularly impressed with the way the WA NRM people set up the whole catchment salinity experiment (forget name of place) to get a detailed picture of the whole process over time. One of the things that struck me later was the potential of "graded catchments" to intercept water surplus before it presented a problem. On many properties these graded catchments occupied most of a small catchment to enable total (90%?) rainfall capture for use on an intensive crop like grapes etc. I didn't observe any graded strips across catchments that could capture a portion of the surplus before it reached lower salt layers while maintaining the grazing use on most of the upper slopes.
This is the really fascinating thing about the salt boogeyman, on a 600mm RF site we are really only talking about a 20mm to 40mm variation in water yield (0.2-0.4 ML/ha)from clearing. It is really small beer in the water pumping business, provided it is intercepted before it hits the salt layer. I understand the situation is different further East where land is flat and the window for interception before salt layers is only 15cm.
I did see one very good solution somewhere in the US where a salty aquifer was maintained at safe levels by pumping water into a housing development to provide a high value canal estate, with all the waterfront bells and whistles, in the middle of a desert. It is not a realistic solution in far woop woop but we seem to have concluded that, away from the coast, waterfront living requires fresh water. Very strange. There was actually a conference in Rockhampton a year or two ago on the productive use of saline lands, but the web site was wiped the moment it became clear that the information might be used in the veg management debate. So it goes in the green paradise.
Peter and Ian
Your situation doesn't seem to have much of a parallel in WA, in my limited understanding. Perhaps your problems with bureaucracies show up most starkly where the land use is grazing and regrowth control and problems with adjacent national parks are more apparent. Clearing bans have been in place in WA for a couple of decades. We also have a regular burning programme for the state forests and national parks. There are relatively small areas that might be comparable with your western slopes and tablelands. These various factors together perhaps add up to less conflict between state government and the rural sector - it's as if you may not have 80% of the nations salt-affected farmland as WA does, but you have other problems that may be more political and just as important for the rural economy.
In very broad terms, I am not very confident about complex arrangements that transfer the cost of land management across the state back to the urban population via taxes. I agree with your point that the urban majority demand the goods and services that the rural economy provides, but the link is hard to sell in a political forum. Even if you do establish such a system, such as a tax on petrol or food that is used to improve the sustainability of the whole landscape, this may not be stable. As I recall, the excise on transport fuels was meant to maintain our roads, but it has become an important source of revenue for govt coffers and the roads are left to compete with all the other demands on the public purse. And so govts now look for other taxes they can place upon, for example, heavy transport licences because they apparently can't afford to maintain the roads.
And if you look at the regional forest agreements, an agreement of this nature, intended to set a stable economic and environmental course for the next couple of decades, sometimes doesn't even last until the next election.
What has been the net effect, the cost benefit ratio, of NHT and similar "fix the environment" funds?
One thing that is constant across society is the need to make a profit. I think, if there is a way to apply this to a problem, you can establish something that will outlast many changes in governement and swings in public sentiments. Easier said than done. If the oil mallee example works, it may do so because it was the easiest to define and start up.
Warwick
The tree proponents and the drainage proponents have shown some mutual hostility over the last few years, but we'll all get over it. We of the tree camp are dominated by forestry types and they of the drainage camp are dominated by people who own bloody big excavators, or see engineering solutions to everything.
There's room and need for both. Trees have almost no role unless they are commercial in their own right. So we focus almost entirely on developing tree crops. But trees will never be the whole solution unless you close down agriculture and return it all to native bush and that just creates another problem; where's my bread and meat come from? And trees in the total-cover native state are never going to be commercial.
Drainage will always be required to deal with the water that escapes the annual crops and pastures, then slips past the tree component, and ends up in a saline water table that is too toxic for anything to use. The more water is used by annual and perennial vegetation, the less money will have to be spent on drainage and effluent dsiposal.
I am curious as to how readers view these proposals to drain the WA wheatbelt, from the WA based group Agritech.
http://www.geocities.com/agritech_wa/
Several downloadable pdf reports to digest.
Could be described as an "engineering solution".
I agree - inappropriate fire regimes and woodland thickening are major issues. Too little fire in the savannas, threat of wildfire in our forests, and too many hot burns in the north. Need to do much better.
And blaze away at noxious weeds and ferals by all means.
Just locking land up is not the answer - management is.
I would like to think we might offer a more positive vision of agriculture that also leaves some representative and viable biodiversity left. Properly done - I think people will pay to see it in years to come. The prospectus needs to read this property produces x tons of grain, y tones of beef and is also home to z marsupials, b number of birds, and c number of reptiles. A quadruple bottom line of values.
And soil surveyors themselves used to judge the quality of the country on its vegetation composition. The trees reflected the value of what lay underneath.
Aggies used to have a sign on the back of the ute "if you like you eat - you're involved in agriculture".
Phil,
For a rare instant I agree with you on the issue that farming communities and industry in general need to get their message and action plan right.
However, it is difficult to argue with certain elements of the community who are more interested in ideology and propoganda rather that facts and science. The figures and evidence is there that farming techniques and industry protocols have improved and that a vast majority of cases where problmes have occured are a direct result of government interference or mismanagment.
I side with Ian on the issue that it is unreasonable for the farming community to bear the responsibility of trying to educate a populace who have not even the most basic understanding of farming or practical ecology.
What many urban folk fail to realise is that the shirt on their backs, the food on their tables, the roof over their heads and the very society which they now enjoy is directly related to some form of land clearing or natural resource utilisation.
This is not to state that I support the indescriminate clearing of native vegetation in all circumstnaces, and you raise a valid point that some areas have been over utilised. However, to ban all land clearing on these innocuous statistics and on the basis that some damage has occured is unsustainable and not economically, socially and ultimately environmnetally viable.
The issue with salinity is much the same. While I appreciate that vast tracks of farm and non-farm land have been impacted upon by dryland salinity, in many areas salinity is not a real threat and has only been created through 'modelling' or 'forecasting'. By applying arbitrary limits on the use of natural resources, limits the very ability of that resources to be sustainably managed. This is on the basis that what we might 'think' or 'feel' or 'forecast' may be very different to what is applying on the ground.
I will state that salinity will not and never was a problem in Queensland. This is not because all the trees are now protected by draconian and arbitarily applied laws but because our climate, hydrology and geology does not create such a situation in the first place and even if it did farming techniques will adapt in the future to prevent/ counter such problems.
I will also state that we will face more perverse environmnetal, economic and social problems through the false retention of woody biomass in this state than benefits derived. We are already seeing water shortages in catchments, declining rates of return on farming land and increase in noxious weeds and feral animals in state managed reserves. Once again- lets lock them all up and wait for the sparks to ignite and watch the repeat example of the holocaust fires in NSW and Canberra in 2001.
Somehow I doubt that the blame will be shifted to the greens or the government but we will have moved on to destroying some other natural resource based industry.
Not to attack every element of the argued cases
BUT
Arguing how little of Qld is cleared is a tad misleading. Bigs areas of forest in Cape York that will never be cleared. It's a good grab line for TV but not what it's about. Some areas are overcleared and getting below limits of viability for remnant ecosystems left.
In that unfortunately many nice rural people are the meat in the sandwich. But don't also argue that the industry is squeaky clean either.
Plenty of fish kills by endosulfan in the past. Disgraceful stuff. Cotton industry should have got it's finger out on these issues by now. Spray drift and tail-water return.
Strange that we'll quote a government report on endosulfan yet reject other reports on aquatic fauna - seems a bit selective?
Some lessons on salinity and soil acidity (another creeper) ought be learned from southern states (as yes climate, soils , geology are somewhat different).
The ranting "repel boarders" - "go and get a hair-cut" , "get a job" and "let's keep the flag the same" doesn't go down with urban voters. You guys need a better more positive message or continue to see your rights eroded. And you didn't vote for them anyway so pretty hard to threaten the govt anymore.
Where's the positive stories of more "adaptive land use" - as opposed to "buzz off you Chardonnay swilling green loonies".
Need positive stories and future sell guys.. ..
Roberts ignorance is not an isolated case. There are millions of them and they vote. There is no better explanation as to why rural communities have no real future within the same state political entities as these people. The burden of bringing them up to a basic level of understanding is a burden that no-one should reasonably be expected to bear. But without it we cannot expect reasonable treatment because the exercise of reason is contingent on a command of the relevant facts. It is a truly rash and foolhardy person, indeed, who seriously believes we can aspire to any future without a state border between them and us. Good fences make good neighbours, especially when the neighbour is a gorilla, and growing larger by the day.