Gardening Australia today (17 Nov) would have given heart to many birdlovers in showing the efforts of some private farmers and others to regenerate degraded farmland, by planting trees on hills and along borders, managing livestock to prevent overgrazing, allowing regeneration of native grasses, excluding rabbits, slowing water flows, halting salt rise, etc. Although the efforts may be isolated, we can only hope that "the movement" is growing as farmers become more educated about the value of conservation measures, not only in terms of regeneration of native flora and fauna but also the benefits for farming itself and for the future value and farming capacity of the land.
Yes, I saw that yesterday too.
I was particularly interested in the spontaneous regeneration of native grasses. Obviously the seed bank (or root system) remains even if the property has been heavily overgrazed.
I think this is more than an isolated property, and as you say, I think the "movement" is growing, though it is probably still far from the norm. While the story shown with David Lindenmayer will probably have been the best outcome in the Canberra region, I believe this process is being followed with a reasonable number of properties
I have seen a number of stories on this sort of thing, from Australian Story on Peter Andrews and "Natural Sequence Farming" and other sources. I think more credit often needs to be given to farmers (at least some of them) in relation to caring for their land, as they are well aware of the long term interest for them in caring for the land.
Cheers
Tim
Brisbane
Glad you saw it Tim. Yes Peter Andrews and others are doing a great job and I agree we should give more credit wherever due.
I agree. Near my place there is now a band of green right along a valley that once was only sparsely vegetated. Landowners have taken to revegetation with gusto. And I imagine the productivity of their properties has increased as soil erosion is reduced, soil quality is increased, salinity is reduced, water retention is increased, increased biodiversity controls harmful insects, stock survival increases as temperatures are increased in winter & reduced in summer, water course quality is improved & rainfall may well be increased marginally due to increased vegetation cover encouraging rainfall.
There is a strong tendency at this stage to plant trees, trees, trees (mostly indigenous species, fortunately) with little regard to middle & understory. Nevertheless, anecdotal evidence suggests that the trees are providing a good corridor for wildlife from patches of good quality bush to my place where middlestory is established & understory is a developing part of the picture.
The native grasses story is interesting. I found that once trees & shrubs became well established some of the plants seemed to attract native grasses around their bases. Whether the seed was brought in by wind or birds & animals or whether it germinated from dormant seed I can't be sure. But in rocky areas there are remnant understory plants which have survived the browsing of stock which once ranged across the property. With only minor browsing by western grey kangaroo these plants are now gradually spreading to other parts of the property.
Fence lines, especially around fence posts, are often good places to find remnant patches of native grasses as agriculture machinery & stock find it difficult to reach these places. Also, with careful observation it's amazing how many native grass species can be found on roadsides . Seed collected from these remnants can provide a kick start to understory development.
It all takes years for it to happen & in an instantaneous society this is far too long for many people. It also takes just a few moments to destroy quality bush but aeons of careful management to bring it back to anything like its former glory. Maybe it's best not to destroy it in the first place.
If I were to have a rant it would be about the many people who buy a farm without any idea of how an agricultural system operates, and no intention of learning the right way to go about things. In my area there are certain families who can talk the talk, with their horses and cattle dogs and big 4x4, but for generations they abuse the land with overgrazing and erosion, they have jobs in town so they don't rely on farm income. They can turn good productive land into a desert, no use for farming or conservation. Then there are the newbys who think farming is easy and farmers are stupid, they have no concept of farming being a skilled operation with a lot of scientific knowledge to be acquired. A good farmer has to be an engineer and an ecologist.
I saw the show on the ABC, though maybe it should have been landline but I suppose it gets a better audience on gardening Australia. Most of what they were talking about were just the basic operations of making a farm profitable in the long term, protecting the soil and the ecosystem, everyone benefits. It should be required knowledge for owning a farm.
I did a response to your "rant" Greg and it disappeared into cyberspace. I will try again on a similar tack. Yes I agree with the need for science to back the farming operation to ensure proper care of the land and long term sustainability and profitability. I have long wondered why, on many properties, ALL trees are felled, even those on fencelines, in gullies, around watercourses, dams, along driveways, etc. Sure there are difficulties such as diversion of limited farm finances to (short term) non-profit activities, the effects of droughts, rabbits, etc but there should be no excuse for treeless farm properties. Yes there are probably the talkers, newbies and townies who help to ruin, or at least fail to conserve, farm properties but maybe we should avoid the pitfalls of stereotyping. For example, the Adams Family (Phillip and Patrice Newell) may once have been categorised as both townies and newbies but they have done some good work in furthering the cause of conservation and sustainable farming.
Landline has done shows like the one on Gardening Australia and credit goes to Aunty for getting the message across on these excellent programs.
I think this would only be restricted to smaller owner/operators/freeholders (for want of the right term) and not the corporate food producers which probably cause more damage than can be restored. It is only when we can influence these eco-rapists that we will change the world. That said it is wonderful that permaculture seems to be influencing a lot of people, let's hope it spreads to all.
Relevant to this subject, BIBY memebers may be interested in expressing their views through this short survey:
http://www.ecoxchange.com.au/2013/07/environmental-benefits-on-farmland-survey/
In defence of old trees.............
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/15/trees-grow-more-older-carbon?CMP=ema_632
When I was a kid, my dad taught me so much about the circle of life, and when we lived in far north queensland on massive grazing properties we talked long into the night about how farming was, in many cases, being done wrong.
He told me about the time NSW's and Victorias topsoil ended up everywhere but where it belonged because of the extensive tree clearing which was followed by a long drought, while much media attention was focussed on how terrible it was for the farmers to lose their topsoil etc he remarked that in his long considered opirion the drought was not the main problem, the tree-clearing had in his opinion caused the drought. Trees he believed, not only hold the soil structures together with their roots, and shade surrounding soil but they hold water in their cells and the presence of water inceases rain.
Farmers who want regular rain need to plant lots of trees. If entire districts want to improve their rainfall then they all need to plant more trees.
Over time farming practices have changed and now there are lots of farm that plant trees along the ridges, and around the boundaries of paddocks, but my drive across South Australia this year showed me that huge corporate farming is not taking one blind bit of notice of the need for trees.
Rain is caused by water being taken up in to the air to form clouds. If there is no water to be evaporated, there can be no rain. He also commented that rain fall in far north Queensland was increased when bore drains were built extenisvely and when the government finally realises that the artesian basin is not a bottomless pit of water they will require the bores to be capped and then there will be less rain in outback Queensland. We had these conversations in 1979 -80.
It is my observation from my recent travels up north that capping the bores and relying on tanks and troughs has altered the landscape and has decreased the rainfall each year.
It is my observation that where there is extensive clearing it does seem to affect rainfall. Where I walked to school in weeks of rain, there is now only days or hours of rain at time. Much land clearing has been done in the area.
Crop farmers in particular should allow plenty of space for native trees and shrubs and grasses as these then encouage the native bees, some of which nest in the soil, and where there are bees there is pollination and hence heavier crops.
Livestock farmers should realise that happy and relaxed stock will grow bigger and stronger and that means having plenty of shady places to rest and cool off.
My dad was thrown out of school in sixth class and he spent a lot of time alone in the bush just watching, looking and observing things.
I did a bit better than him and managed to be in school until I was in year 8.
So these are the combined observations of a couple of people with minimal education who happen to care about the land and the plants and animals upon it.
Happy Birding!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/138588528@N02/
Words of wisdom learnt at the School of Life.
I think there is research in WA which shows that revegetated areas have higher rainfall than cleared areas.
Also, there was a discussion on Bush Telegraph today about bees. Apparently, pollination of some crops by native bees produces higher yields than pollination but European honey bees. With the world-wide threat to European honey bee populations we had best be restoring habitats for native bees lest pollination of many food crops grinds to a halt.
If you want to become a successful farmer, then you should remain attentive towards the recent changes in the agricultural technologies.
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And strategies, Lauren. Care needs to be taken with regard to the technology used. Lots of past technology has been quite destructive. E.g., soil erosion caused by broad scale use of large machinery without adequate windbreaks. In my area on the s.e. Slopes of the Mt Lofty Ranges SA the further away from the Landcare group the less native vegetation there is to provide windbreaks, increase soil fertility, increase biodiversity & allow rain absorption. In SA's mid north there are signs that farmers are only very slowly working in cooperation with nature. And on my last visit to Victoria my impression was that most farmers there don't see the value biodiversity can contribute to their farming so addicted to exotic pine trees do they seem to be.
It would seem that the answer to many problems such as desertification, soil erosion, loss of wildlife, water conservation, rainfall/micro climate habitat, farming productivity and even our physical and mental health is planting (native) trees (and lots of them). Not a hard thing to do. And yet hardly anyone around the world seems to want to do that. Greed and general stupidity abound. I think someone should come up with a simple Einsteinish equation that shows us the worth of a tree in terms of carbon reduction. That to me would make some sense of the carbon debate. Then they could do an equation that shows the value in dollar terms. That might start a run by the capitalists to the countryside armed with spades and tubestock.
If only, Night Parrot. Even when they plant trees they so often get it wrong. I recall CSIRO being involved in reforestation in Vietnam after the U.S. devastated Vietnamese forests with agent orange. Trouble was, CSIRO recommended planting Australian Eucalypts rather than local species. Double whammy.
Perhaps they thought that with such a dense population the eucalypt's fast growth rate was a good choice to meet the harvest pressure on forests. On my travels through Vietnam I think I have seen thousands of eucalypts (in China likewise, also Cambodia) and two things are obvious to me. First there is not much variety in species planted and second I have never seen any old growth. I guess the trees must all be harvested after about five or ten years. The wooden poles they use for construction scaffolding I suspect is young eucalypt, or maleleuca/callistemon. A lot of (multi-storey) homes and buildings situated on soft alluvial soils (eg cities along the Mekong and also on the banks of the Huangpu in Shanghai) have foundations of wooden poles driven into the ground as piling, over which a concrete base is poured. I think the poles are maleleuca, chosen for its supposed resistance to water and termites.
Maybe CSIRO's reasoning was that whatever was planted would never be allowed to reach full maturity. It comes back to people pressure, or in Cambodia's case, corruption. There the rich and ruthless strip out the forests of valuable timber, even in national parks, with impunity.
I believe eucalypts were planted in Vietnam in the worst affected areas due mainly to possessing relatively high (comparatively) resistance to dioxins which killed native trees and the extensive bombing and wartime pollution and later huge deforestation for logging caused massive erosion and land instability and huge net losses of soil fertility which no longer supported the lush native rainforest, creating soil conditions more akin to much of australia. the imported trees facilitated a huge timber and wood pulp industry assisting the post-war recovery. Australian native acacias were also seeded on a massive scale for the same reasons and to provide timber and firewood for local villages and to fix nitrogen and improve soil fertility for regeneration and agriculture. There were moves to utilise prized local timber trees for the same purpose however these initiates failed due to these species not tolerating the newly impoverished and often poisoned soil and direct exposure.
Now that some normality has returned and a degree of fertility returned there is a reorientation towards planting prized local timber trees like dipterocarps which are more valuable but slower growing with more inputs.
Melaleuca naturally extends through south-east asia so perhaps they were using a native species? M.cajuputi?
Living out in the country surrounded by mountains with trees all over it, and in a town which is relatively green with trees sporadically here and there, the one thing I've noticed in the last few years is an increase in a lack of wind. Farming practices have not changed in the area for years. But being originally from South Australia and being used to dry arid conditions, watching this town turn slowly into something I have no control over, is really heart breaking considering Tenterfield was not like this when I first got here. When I first got here I did not squint from the bright sunlight. In the last 5 years I started squinting again. There are a few rare days when I don't squint at all, and the sky colour is more a faded blue. And the seasons are all out of wack too.
Fighting the fight may be beyond us as humans to restore our planet. I think the damage has already been done across the globe with deforestation and the Earth is counterbalancing the effects, hence the changed seasons and lack of rainfall and the more severe storms we're getting now.
I agree with what everyone is saying though but I think as humans we overthink things. If we went back to the old school of doing things and find solutions to problems (strategies) we could make a difference and even bring back the rain. If there's a lack of water available, for farmers to establish trees, why not apply the long-stemmed tree planting technique that I've read so much about? You only need, if my memory serves me correctly, 2 years for each seedling to establish a mature root system, some fertilizer, and 1 litre of water in the final planting. Or is 2 years way too long to wait and too much hard work for farmers? Or anyone for that matter? What is 2 years of work compared to never having to attend to the seedlings ever again, including watering them?
I know I'm having a rant here, and I know there are people out there who do care and who do revegetate their properties. Sometimes, however, these things cannot be done because people do not want that. These people just don't care less about anything. They don't care less if their property becomes so eroded that it gets swallowed or consumed by bushfires, floods, or even suck into a black hole (I meant a sink hole). Some people just don't care no matter what you say or show them. All that we folk who do care are left with is the only option of watching on as nature takes back what these people took away from nature, and by force. We are forced to watch the destruction helplessly, knowing, it didn't have to be like this.
At some point we just have to accept things as the way they are. That depends on each individual case of what we are fighting for. My motto is, when we have accepted something as being final, laugh, because nature will always win hands down. Nature controls everything including what life forms are on it. Its us people who care about the environment and do things about it that will survive. Not these other ones who don't care. Adapt and we'll all be fine.
I'm not scientific-minded and my comment shows it. I have passion and that's all that counts with me.
If I had any land of my own this is what I'd do : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vfuCPFb8wk
I hope the video gives someone an idea.
I'm at Tenterfield, NSW. (Formerly known as "Hyperbirds".)
Most interesting Hyperbirds. Yes such a difference can be made just by planting trees (and not cutting down the existing ones). In Australia, as in the rest of the world, we still haven't learnt that fact.
The video of Willie Smits was amazing. The world needs a lot more people like him. I feel so sorry for those poor orangutans. Such beautiful creatures. It is very disconcerting that they live in areas of the world where people don't value them or the environment, including the Aceh province of Indonesia where the the most pressing matters for government seem to be how to prevent teenagers from holding hands and how to punish girls for wearing clothes that might reveal their girlishness.