I have some sympathy for the farmers of Nyngan and Cobar in New South Wales and the newly formed Regional Community Survival Group in their struggle to manage invasive woody weeds. I have posted some information from this group, including a note on the recent blockade.
I have less sympathy for NSW Farmers Association and their new campaign "Get Off Our Backs". The NSW Farmers Association never stood up to the Wentworth Group and they went along with the Greenpeace anti-GM canola campaign.
I detail my thoughts on the issue in my latest column in The Land:
"I hope NSW Farmers Association’s new campaign intended to improve the image of farmers with the slogan “Get off our backs” resonates in Sydney. But I doubt it.
The association’s website explains that the community “has been misled on green issues for too long. It’s time for the truth.”
So what is the truth?
The way a lot of people see it, just a year ago NSW Farmers was asking for drought aid.
Remember the 2000-strong drought rally in Parkes? It generated lots of interest in Sydney with stories about desperate farmers, dust and hungry animals.
Unfortunately, through the years these stories have reinforced a perception that many Australian farmers are environmental vandals flogging a dry landscape.
If farmers want governments off their back, they must realise Australia is a land of drought and flooding rains and not keeping claiming exceptional circumstances.
There is some concern at the moment about the Wilderness Society and its “Can't find a billabong 'cos they've bulldozed the Coolabah trees” campaign.
But in terms of long-term damage to the reputation of Australian farmers this campaign pales into insignificance next to the National Farmers Federation (NFF) campaign of 2000-2001. Back then NFF executive director, Wendy Craik, pleaded for a massive $65 billion to stop the spread of dryland salinity and repair 200 years of damage from claimed unsustainable European farming practices.
Not a month goes by now without a newspaper headline telling how bad it is in the bush.
On federal budget night, Federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, announced another $500 million for the Murray River to reduce salinity levels -- the centre-piece of the Government’s commitment to saving the Australian environment.
I was hoping some farm leader might have seized the initiative and issued a media releasing explaining that salt levels in the Murray are at historic lows and they don’t need to be artificially pushed any lower, but instead there was silence.
Last week I read how water levels in the Murray River are the lowest since records began more than 100 years ago.
But the article was confusing low water inflows with low water levels, the journalist apparently unaware that the Murray River ran dry in 1914.
In this drought, South Australian irrigators are receiving 80 percent of their water entitlements thanks to the dams and weirs upstream in NSW and Victoria, and the river is full of water all the way to South Australia.
The latest false claims about the Murray’s record low water levels also gave the ABC another opportunity to suggest agriculture is in trouble and lament yet another catastrophe in rural Australia.
If NSW farmers are going to have long-term success with their campaign, “Get off our backs”, then farm leaders need to try harder to correct such misinformation.
City dwellers would be surprised at how much they’ve been misled by the environment lobby (not to mention how many more trees there are now than at the time of European settlement), but more farmers will need to take more responsibility for their own businesses come drought or flood.
It’s no good telling people to leave you alone if they honestly believe, or have been hoodwinked into believing, you are wrecking the environment."
This is the classic story, Helen. The initial conditions that made the instrument a just and equitable measure were turned into a blunt instrument by untrained, illinformed and often downright malicious departmental officers. Subsequent actions were made on the basis of unsubstantiated verbal advice that was of a partial and fragmentary nature.
And any system that imposes totally disproportionate costs on the victim to access justice and equity is in fundamental breach of the social contract. Before any system was implemented they had a duty of care to get it at least 90% right.
Instead, they went ahead with a system that was more than 50% wrong and this ensured that any subsequent action could only compound the injustice, not fix the problem.
And that is why I advise every farmer to withdraw their custodianship of natural resources to the maximum extent that will still enable their economic survival. The community that has implemented this fiasco does not deserve any better.
The community that does not even recognise the contribution of your custodianship, let alone value it, needs to learn a very hard and ecologically costly lesson. It is very clear who has actually exercised the power over events in this matter and they must be made to bear the full responsibility for the consequences.
So we need to take the necessary steps to minimise the risks to our own interests, but the rest can go and get focussed on reality.
Ian,
Some of the information on property rights I referred to comes from an interim report of the House of Representatives standing committee on Environment and Heritage into an inquiry into the effects upon landholders and Farmers of Public Good Conservation measures imposed by Australian Governments. Published September 2001.
But condsidering Pinxi's comments I will now divert into outling the bare bones of my experience with the administration of an australian conservation law, and why I am not too keen on activist public servants exceeding powers.
South Australia introduced clearance controls on native vegetation in 1983. From then on, to clear, you needed permission. We needed to complete the clearance of some of our regrowth to have enough cropping land to be viable.
At the time we applied, about 10% of our property was cleared arable, 10% regrowth, and the rest of various types of native vegetation. The Native Vegetation administration recommended clearance consent for about 40% of our application, subject to us agreeing to sign a Heritage Agreement over the rest of our application area, all regrowth, plus all of our land between the application area and the sea. We had to object to this as the loss of so much grazing land would reduce our income more the extra cropping land would improve it. Clearance consent was refused.
The Branch, on behalf of the deciding body, the Native Vegetation Authority, asked us (verbally) to negotiate for a clearance consent/heritage agreement compromise. We agreed to do this, as by this time we had realised that some fragile country in the old growth country demanded for heritage would be easier to manage under a heritage agreement.
But assistance under a heritage agreement was not available until that area had been refused clearance consent. So we we went through the pretense of applying for consent and got the refusal intended. Thus opening up the way for us to comply with the heritage agreement demand over the country external to our original application.
The Branch immediately informed us (verbally) that they would no longer support clearance consent for us. It had been pointed out to them by the new NVA Chairman that demanding heritage agreements as a condition of clearance consent was levering on unrelated issues, which could be blackmail, which was illegal, so the practice had to stop. The Chairmand wanted to see no more such arrangements. Besides, heritage agreements were supposed to be voluntary. The new policy was that clearance was to be brought to a halt; all applications were to be refused. so the Branch would no longer support clearance consent for us, only heritage agreements.
Without the cropping land we needed to be viable, we had to keep as much grazing land as we could. So we reduced the area we were prepared to put under heritage to the minimum needed to properly manage that fragile country. The Branch were not happy with that. The conflict then focussed on whether we were exempt (from clearance controls) to maintain the grazing value of our regrowth country. Eventually a conciliator reported that we met all the requirements for exemption, and further, departmental failure to recognise the nature of our original application had resulted in signigicant grazing income losses.
The NVA "recommeded the Minister pay financial assistance ... in recognition of hardship caused by delays in finalising the application to chain regrowth now considered to be exempt. The Authority further considered that any payment should be made as part of a package involving a heritage agreement ..." This, to us, was levering on unrelated issues, and I honestly never saw it coming. We collapsed. So five years after agreeing to negotiate, we signed a heritage agreement under pressure (which we would have signed without pressure) without clearance consent.
As we picked picked up the pieces I started to ask questions. Getting answers has not been easy. But I now know that Branch briefings to inform the conciliator, the Native Vegetation Authority, and at least one Minister all omitted mention of the original heritage agreement demand over land outside our application area. All acknowledged some of the earlier negotiations for a compromise, and all omitted to mention the Branch withdrawal of support for clearance consent for us once the way was open for a heritage ageement over that improperly demanded country.
Further, on legal advice I now know that heritage agreements associated with native vegetation applications were intended to be a mechanism of receiving some compensation following a clearance refusal. They were also intended to be voluntary. To demand a heritage agreement before clearance consent was, in effect, putting the cart before the horse. I.e. reversal of process.
This sort of case, Pinxi is not about conservation, it is about the right to due process under rule of law.
What makes me so sad, Pinxi, is that the positive powers of the law we came under had everything we needed.
1.Clearance consent could only be recommended if consent did not offend certain guidelines. Our original application passed that test.
2.We were exempt to maintain grazing over all of our regrowth country.
3.Heritage agreements could be used to assist with management of fragile country.
The big flaw with that Act was that no appeal lay against a clearance refusal, or a condition attached to a consent. So there was nothing to keep that Administration within powers.
If you are wondering Ian, why we did not sue over the 'hardship payment'event, well, few family businesses have the resources to take on the Government. The income losses did not help either.
I think Pinxi, the moral of the story, of the NSW farm organisation telling the Government to get off their backs is that perhaps some conservation agencies in that State are also abusing powers, and unnecessarily bruising their targets.
Jennifer this post by yourself shows you're interested in the organisation's politics, not the issues. Same issue, but different groups with different political histories and alliances, so you divide your support and sympathy accordingly. What an IPA crock.
Us vs Them political maneouvering divides, doesn't move forward. Next you'll be banging on righteously about evidence-based impartiality again and self-proclaiming your own objectivity again.
I think the moral of the story, ie the crux of your point, is for farmers and industry groups to be wary of using PR and lobby groups because attempts to influence policy and public spending can come back to bite you.
Helen,
I wonder how activist public servants stand in the light of that court loss by SA Lands on the Kangaroo Island high oestrogenic sub-clover?
Ian Beale,
Yes, I realised afterwards that you were referring to the political scene. The rationale behind our cost-shifting of conservation laws is pretty similar across all Australian States. I do not have time to go into this today, but I will expand on it tomorrow, noting my source of information. My comments on activist public servants exceeding powers is based partly on my own experience. But there are lots of similar stories out there.
Helen, Earlier I was referring to the political scene.
Luke, Chaining vs wire – I presume you mean cable?
I remember an article in a Popular Mechanics of about 1950 on cable and ball. It was invented to clear a dam site in US which had been logged. The cable was hooked to logging winches on the dozers so it could be moved to clear the cable off logged stumps.
I've only heard of one use in mulga. A friend used cable and ball with low horsepower (about 75) dozers – talked of the ball being up to about 3 m off the ground. So (in theory) this would magnify the leverage on the trees, and also magnify the chances of breaking them off and cultivating resprouters. Which is probably why it's not common in my experience.
In theory also, being higher may let younger ones through, but that might depend on how dense the timber is.
As I mentioned earlier there's plenty of young ones go under a chain too – the chain is lifted by the timber and isn't always on the ground. There wouldn't have been so much money spent on follow-up (or so much money spent on re-pulling where follow-up wasn't done) if this wasn't the case.
Try this for an optimizing exercise for your envelope:-
Minimize cost per area, subject to variables including:-
Size of machine (bigger dozer more available horsepower, but higher dry dozer cost/hour)
Available horsepower (more hp , wider strip or bigger timber, but higher fuel consumption)
Strip width (governed by type of timber and chain length)
Chain length (longer chain, wider strip – but higher parasitic drag)
Forward speed (faster gives more momentum and fewer delays with un-pullables, but rougher on machinery, so higher operating costs). (Speed is relative – for an example dozer max 3.6km/hr in 1st, 5.5km/hr in 2nd).
Fat chance, Luke, you know that the last thing any urban elite would allow is the prospect of (more) hard evidence of their mediocrity.
By the way, I thought you had bailed out of this conversation? Admit it mate, you're addicted, can't get through a day without jousting with reason and good sense.
Wasn't that experiment called the Cobar woody weeds patch Ian !
Perhaps we should pick the Gascoyne or Burdekin instead.
Or SW Qld?
ROTFL !! We'll hold your balls in trust for you just in case of default.
Interesting experimental notion though. Perhaps a better be shoot-out between best producer practice, best boffin practice and best greenie/suburbia has to offer. It's called a replicated long term grazing trial. And let's do it in say 6 different climate zones/land systems.
Biggest bank balance, most soil left, most carbon sequestered, and most wildife at the end wins.
Loser(s) moves to Pitcairn Island after being made walk naked down Queen St.
En garde !
Time and again we see the triumph of local knowledge and goodwill over lack of knowledge and imposed majority will.
But how can local knowledge ever combine with goodwill while an illinformed urban majority insists on perceiving local knowledge as self serving political spin and the demonised locals as devoid of goodwill?
I challenge the urban community to try just one experiment in complete local autonomy so we can get a conclusive outcome. There is a lot of urban hearsay about how farmers cannot be trusted to protect the environment but none of it based on firm evidence.
So lets have the balls to put it to the test. Lets set aside a large enough region where we can measure the results of 20 years of self rule and then compare some benchmarks. And lets have some consistent costings so the residents of the autonomous unit pay the same proportion of GDP as the urban majority. There wouldn't be many farmers that would be afraid of the truth. What about our urban know-alls?
Ian - good stuff. So what happens to any regrowth with wire pulling vis a vis chaining.