Not so many years ago Australian farmers where forced to clear their land of trees, it was a condition of many leases. Some areas were over-cleared particularly in Western Australia.
Over the last 10 years the pendulum has swung in completely the other direction, with legislation now essentially outlawing tree clearing on both leasehold and freehold land.
In Queensland and NSW the new legislation has been driven, at least in part, by relentless campaigning from the Wilderness Society. As their name suggests, this environment group believes in 'wilderness' and is against the active management of landscapes. Yet, to quote, Deborah Bird Rose :
“A definition of wilderness which excludes the active presence of humanity may suit contemporary people's longing for places of peace, natural beauty, and spiritual presence, uncontaminated by their own culture. But definitions which claim that these landscapes are 'natural' miss the whole point. Here on this continent, there is no place where the feet of Aboriginal humanity have not preceded those of the settler. Nor is there any place where the country was not once fashioned and kept productive by Aboriginal people's land management practices.”
The reality is that before white pastoralists moved into western NSW and Queensland the country was "kept productive" by aboriginals and their firesticks. They burnt the land which favoured some grasses and limited the establishment of what many pastoralists now refer to as "woody weeds" including species of native cypress pine and acacia.
Current land management practices compounded by government regulations, policies and expectations, have resulted in large areas of western Queensland and NSW being over run by invasive native scrub, also known as 'woody weeds', and this is having a negative economic and environmental impact in many areas.
While the rural press has run hard on the issue it has been ignored by the mainstream media. It has perhaps been assumed that farmers have exaggerated the 'woody weed' issue because they want to keep clearing trees until there are none left? Interestingly when I tried to get a piece published by the Courier Mail some years ago, I was told that my suggestion that there were more trees regrowing than being cleared in Queensland was offensive.
But, at last a respectable metropolitan journalist has discovered the issue. This morning Channel Nine's Sunday Program ran 'The Great Land-Clearing Myth' as their cover story. Ross Coulthart made the comment:
ROSS COULTHART: Another reason to be skeptical about the Wilderness Society's alarming land clearing figures — they don't include regrowth in their estimate of 100,000 hectares of clearing because no-one is measuring it.
WILDERNESS SOCIETY CAMPAIGNER: That figure doesn't include regrowth.
ROSS COULTHART: You say a lot of people say to us if you took the regrowth of native vegetation into account the amount of regrowth would far exceed the clearing.
WILDERNESS SOCIETY CAMPAINGER: Sure but the native bush can't regenerate at the moment as fast as it's being cleared.
In fact last time I looked native bush was regenerating faster than it was being cleared. That's not to say that there is not a need for some restrictions on broad scale tree clearing or that woody weed regrowth is equivalent to high value remnant scrub. But until this morning it seemed not a single respectable journalist would explore the issue - there was not honest discussion in the mainstream metropolitan media.
Earlier this year Ross Coulthart went further than anyone has ever gone in exposing the politics of salinity in Australia. This morning he legitimised many landholder's concerns about woody weed regrowth and perhaps opened the door to a discussion that needs to be had.
You can read the full transcript here: http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/cover_stories/article_2039.asp .
I agree, Graham, both "lock up" and overgrazing produce negative outcomes and there is ample evidence that they exacerbate each other.
But from a macro perspective there is substantial room for doubting the claimed scale of the impacts. For if only 50kg/ha of soil is lost each year in the MDB then this volume, over the past 80 years, would have been more than enough to either completely silt up all the river and stream chanels or half fill Lake Alexandrina. As neither is anywhere near the case then we can only conclude that this volume does not make it into the streams at all.
And that leaves the other smoking gun. If total erosion is much greater than this then it is undergoing a process of erosion and deposition that is largely completed before it gets into the smallest drainage lines. For once into the drainage lines it would then either continue into the larger chanels or silt up the smaller ones.
None of these are apparent so one can only reasonably conclude that the incidence of erosion is not significant enough to produce off-site outcomes. And this can only mean that the vectors that are claimed to be producing erosion are not significant enough or widespread enough or enduring enough to produce detectable environmental harm.
That is, unless one regards ground cover itself to be an environmental value. But even so, it would only be an on-site diminution of value without significant wider implications.
Ian,
Grasses evolved with grazing, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that total exclusion of animal impact has a negative effect on rangelands.The mentality behind 'lock em up national parks' will be detrimental in the long term because it eliminates a vital component of the system as a whole.
Over-grazing however is equally as bad.
I have seen plenty of good Mitchell grass country go through dry summers without dying off. They simply become dormant and re-shoot from the butts when sufficient moisture is available at the right time of the year. In set stocking systems very little grass survives as a new seedlings due to the stock picking it out first. Most regrowth is from tillers and more strategic grazing can encourage the spread of the actual basal area as well allowing new growth to suvive.
I also think that the most important aspect of rangeland management should be the retention and improvement of ground cover.
Desertification and erosion cannot occur without there first being a loss of ground cover and soil bio-mass.
I know, Luke, but I'm not, nor is that the creek
Ward River near Charleville.
The Ward?
Luke, You seem to be missing sort of summary of western Qld and western NSW given by Marie Fisher (Chair of the 1984 NSW Joint Parliamentary investigation of Western Lands) which was to the effect that NSW thought they were controlling everything and Qld had basically not controlled very much and they'd ended up in pretty much the same place.
Ian B - I reckon none or virtually no prosecutions under the Lands Act on flogging.
On erosion - I suggest there is plenty of experimental evidence of the effect of cover on erosion - but the old RUSLE will also have rainfall intensity, soil erosivity, slope length, gradient, management practices as well. Deposition RATIO is an interesting thing - how much is moved downhill - how much gets into the stream, how much moves around in bedload, how much goes right through the system. Complex shite.
Agree thickened trees with no perennial grass cover, cryptograms etc is not good for soil protection. How's the stream condition of the Ward anyway?
Ian Mott and Luke - re deposition.
See my comments re silting and desilting in a local creek at https://climatelab.com.au/blog/archives/001492.html.
Then check out "bandal" (and nothing to do with TKD) - you may have to read Eric Newby's "Slowly down the Ganges". Seems to me a possible mechanism for the waterholes in these creeks silting up with encroaching woody vegetation. Experience is that the silt load from the cleared waterholes is spat out either side of the ends of the waterholes. The bottom end of this creek certainly hasn't risen notably.
Luke
Not sure about Qld leasehold re prosecutions. But there is plenty of references available as to potential loss of freehold selection for non-fulfillment of conditions, including removal of prickly pear from PPL's. I'm pretty sure I know of one who met a similar situation re development on a mulga lease. Also apparently the Lands Dept of the time didn't feel it needed any input from the then DPI's research on brigalow for the brigalow development scheme.
Point is that I'd be suprised if Western Lands didn't prosecute, and if so it didn't deter the woodies. Maybe another reader can provide details.
Ian Beale
Agree with a lot of what you have said except
(a) did I say I was pro-regulation. I am arguing there are problems - that's all.
(b) is there really a case with prosecutions forcing management on leasehold land - or is this a cop-out - serious question. Has there been any historic prosecution of lease condition under the Lands Act?
Unfortunately I can start this item with that quote that goes along the lines that "The thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history".
Like a couple of things being overlooked here:-
1. Semi-arid and arid pastures have low basal areas - a good mitchell grass pasture has around 5% basal cover, similar for mulga. Below about 2% is cause for concern wrt run-off and erosion.
2. After about 6 months without rain, the perennial grasses start to die out EVEN IN THE ABSENCE OF GRAZING. Thus they have to start again from seed, when seasonal conditions are suitable. And that can be in its own good time.
As I read the transcript from this program, most of the area is in the Western Lands area. This was famously bureaucratic (Western Lands joke - Why do Western Lands graziers wear elastic sided boots? Because Western Lands regulations will not allow them to tie their own shoe laces.) Yet obviously the woody weeds didn't heed the regulations, nor "God's bulldozer".
I also note no mention of the effect of various decrees of previous doses of officialdom in Qld (living areas too small, carrying capacities too high and other developmental conditions imposed), which have obvious impact on current rangeland condition.
To quote from elsewhere on this blog, "a major problem of rangeland management is that politicians and bureaucrats have undying faith in the efficacy of pious hope and regulation to rectify problems now largely caused by previous doses of pious hope and regulation. And dryland salinity isn't the only beat-up".
My question to Luke and fellow pro-regulators is:-
What magic potion makes you think the future of rangeland management under more regulation is likely to be any more successful than under previous examples?