In his book Out of the West: A Historical Perspective of the Western Division of NSW, former Western Lands Commissioner, Dick Condon, says there were 34 severe dust storms at Wagga Wagga during the period 1944-45, many so bad that it would have been necessary to turn the lights on in order to see inside the average sized house.  

Mr Condon suggests the dust storms during the 1982-83 drought were not as bad as those during the period 1885 to 1945 because of the much improved conditions of the landscape in the semi-arid and arid grazing country in western New South Wales.

In contrast, it is generally agreed that bushfires are getting worse.  

In Inferno, The Day Victoria Burned, journalist, Roger Franklin, explains that the bushfires of February 2009, while not without precedent, were worst than earlier fires.   For example, Black Friday, 1939, according to Mr Franklin, consumed twice as much countryside, but less than half as many lives.   He goes on to suggest that for all the theorizing and inquiring, we are losing ground when it comes to managing fire and that unless the “winds change in the corridors of power” next time will be worse.  Much worse. 

It seems that we are getting better at managing drought and worst at managing fire. 

Landholders certainly learnt the lessons of over-clearing and overgrazing, which left a lot of country bare in the early days of settlement, contributing to intense dust storms. 

A lot has changed since 1945: adoption of minimum tillage, wind breaks and, of course, the success of government-sponsored programs to control rabbits.  
But when it comes to implementing management practices to reduce the impact of wildfires, well, the efforts of landholders are generally not supported by government policy.  

Indeed, while Landcare and other government-sponsored environmental initiatives encourage planting of windbreaks, they prohibit bulldozing of firebreaks. 
It seems governments have a myopia of sorts when it comes to land management; an inability to see the bigger picture.  

While trees are an important part of many landscapes, there are times and places when many should be sacrificed for the protection of lives and property from fire.    

Indeed, if we are to reduce the intensity of wildfires there are lessons to be learnt by government from success in reducing the intensity of dust storms and it is simple: empower landholders.  

In particular, give farmers and foresters incentives to improve land management, including not only the right to plant trees, but also to cut them down.

****************

‘Inferno: The Day Victoria Burned’ was available from bookstores nationally on October 1, and is $39.95 hardback.

This note was first published as a column in The Land newspaper on Thursday October 1.

According to all the news reports visibility is 10 metres at Broken Hill to the far west and 100 metres in Sydney just 150 kilometres east of where I am.   Australian Bureau of Meteorology spokeswoman Jane Golding says gale force winds have whipped up the dust from Australia’s drought-stricken inland and spread it east.

According to ‘Out of the West: A historical perspective of the Western Division of New South Wales’ by Dick Condon (Published by Rangeland Management Action Plan, 2002) there were severe dust storms in 1902-03, 1937-39, 1983, 1993, but the worst were during the period from 1943-1945.  Some of these storms were often continuous day-in-day-out for several days. 

Most of the dust storms that swept New South Wales during the 1943-45 period had their origins in South Australia with dust pick-up from treeless country.  On reaching timber country to the east the wind velocity at ground level is reduced and dust trapped by the foliage of trees.  As the storms passed eastward more and more dust was deposited.  

Meteorological records report there were 34 dust storms at Wagga Wagga in central western New South Wales during the 1944-45 period.  According to Dick Condon many of those resulted in blackouts or near blackouts when it would have been necessary to turn the lights on in order to see inside the average sized house.

Comparing the drought period 1982-83 with 1944-45 Mr Condon concludes that the storms were more severe during the earlier period because of the relative absence of dust raising winds and the much improved conditions of the landscape in the semi-arid and arid grazing country in western New South Wales during the latter part of the 20th century.

***************

Photograph of dust on my mother’s car parked in the driveway at Katoomba, Blue Mountains, September 23, 2009.

The following notes and quotes from  ‘Out of the West – An Historical Perspective of  The Western Division of New South Wales’, by Dick Condon.  Published by the Rangeland Management Action Plan, 2002.

“One  thing is certain, however, the millions of tonnes of soil particles, and attached plant nutrients, which were lifted into the atmosphere in the 1965-67, 1980-83 and 1991-94 droughts were minor in comparison with the amounts which would have left the Western Division, and other parts of arid and semi-arid Australia, in the period 1885 to 1945.”  Condon pg. 221

“The present climate of New South Wales is very mild compared to the arid periods of the distant past.  Wasson (1989) has presented evidence of the extremely long periods of intense aridity in the last 36,000 years – responsible for re-working the dune systems in Australia.  These extreme arid periods occurred in cycles, often lasting for thousands of years, developed from earlier arid periods, as in tens of thousands of years, of extreme aridity.  In more recent geological times, Mother Nature has arranged to clothe the dune systems with a protective and stabilising cover of ground vegetation as well as tree cover.” Condon pg. 221

 “ Many fences were submerged by the drifting soil and stretches of railway line were buried.  On 21st November [1902] so much soil was blown from the interior that Melbourne was drenched with dust and, in the afternoon, the sun was almost hidden by the dust in the air.”  Blainey 1980  (pg. 206 Condon)

“In an extreme case near Menindee [in 1937] a new four-roomed house was never occupied.  It became sanded up, and when the owner returned after a compulsory absence of six months, he had to enter it through the roof.  It was however, found impracticable to remove the sand the house was abandoned.”  Ratcliffe 1937 (pg. 212 Condon)

[In 1939] Albert Morris, an amateur nurseryman at one of the [Broken Hill] mines, was able to convince the manager of the Zinc Corporation that the best way of protecting the proposed new offices from being buried in drift sand was to establish a plantation of trees on their western side. (pg. 215, Condon)

Ongoing research at Sydney University by a group lead by Rick Shine suggests Australia’s most endangered snake would benefit from more controlled burns.

Researcher David Pike, at his Sydney University home page, goes as far as to suggest that:

“Following European settlement of Australia, the amount of vegetation (i.e., canopy shading) in many habitats has increased. The most likely causes for this change are the prevention of natural disturbance events, such as wildfires, and the cessation of aboriginal fire-stick farming, which aboriginal peoples used to effectively managed habitat for wildlife and food plants. In more recent times vegetation has encroached upon crucial habitat for the broad-headed snake, which is already restricted in distribution. This has caused a decrease in the amount of suitable overwintering habitat, and potentially has contributed to a range-wide decline.”

There is also evidence to suggest a decline in populations of grassland birds in Australia’s extensive rangelands due to the encroachment of native woody weeds onto these grasslands.

The Australian Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Peter Garrett, recently gave the Victorian government an exemption under the relevant federal legislation so it could undertake control burns to prevent further loss of life during the recent horrific Victorian bush fires.

Professor Shine and his group acknowledge that controlled burns can be expensive and dangerous to implement, and propose that in such situations “foresters might clear overhanging vegetation in areas known to be important to the snakes.”

There are alternatives, grazing with the right species of livestock avoids the risks associated with burnings and can keep vegetation in check.   Now what are the chances of permission to control graze to increase biodiversity?

*********************

Notes

The photograph of the snake is republished, with permission, from http://www.bio.usyd.edu.au/Shinelab/students/davidpike/david.html

Endangered snake needs burning to survive: scientists.  ABC News Online,  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090324091207.htm

Permission for the Victorian Government to Burn Bushland, http://www.environment.gov.au/epbc/notices/pubs/statement-of-reasons-vic-bushfires.pdf

A new report, ‘Rangelands 2008 — Taking the pulse’, is the first time that disparate datasets have been brought together at a national and regional scale to report change in Australia’s rangelands.

The hard copy version of Rangelands 2008 — Taking the pulse includes a CD with a hypertext-linked version of the complete report plus summarised information for each of the 52 bioregions wholly or partly within the rangelands. Copies can be ordered from Land and Water Australia at http://products.lwa.gov.au/products/pn21387.

The Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts has published a booklet entitled Australia’s Rangelands 2008 — At a Glance which provides highlights from the complete report as well as the CD above. This booklet can be obtained from the DEWHA Community Information Unit.

In an article published today at On Line Opinion entitled ‘Kangaroo: Designed for our Times’ by Executive Officer of the Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia, John Kelly, he writes that commercial harvesting of roos delivers, “a direct environmental benefits in our fragile arid rangelands where kangaroos are harvested” and that “these are extremely fragile areas which can support a limited number of grazing animals” and that “allowing the grazing pressure from all animals to increase is one of the most serious environmental hazards in these rangelands.”

Population numbers of red and grey kangaroos can fluctuate from 15 to 50 million. Under current government policy, 10-15 percent of this population is shot in any one year. So, commercial harvesting can potentially reduce grazing pressure particularly by limiting increases in wet years.

On the other hand, commercial shooting of kangaroos will not relieve grazing pressure if there is a corresponding increase in numbers of other grazing herbivores, such as sheep, cattle and ferals including horses, donkeys, camels, rabbits, buffalo and deer.

Gordon Grigg, an Australian expert on kangaroos, argues that, “Most of the grazing lands, unfortunately, show everywhere abundant signs of the foot and tooth pressure of the introduced hardfooted stock and there is simply no room for doubt that running sheep in the fragile arid inland has done a lot of damage. Graziers will argue that they obey the stocking rates recommended and many of them do, perhaps even most of them do. Maybe even all of them do, but the fact of the matter remains that the damage is everywhere evident.”

It remains unclear what proportion of grazing pressure directly results from kangaroos.

“The Federal Court in Sydney in December last year agreed that farmers have an arguable case against the Commonwealth over ownership of the 80 million Tonnes of carbon created from land clearing bans…

“Now the court has given Mr Spencer the Green light to file a “notice of motion” which is an injunction to stop the Commonwealth from entering into any carbon trading scheme, until the case is decided.

Read more here: http://www.agmates.com/blog/2008/02/24/108-billion-payment-to-farmers-to-meet-kyoto-commitment/

Mr Spencer has claimed that Intergovernmental Agreements between the Commonwealth and the States and Territories, along with the International Treaty the Kyoto Protocol that was signed in April 1998 that set Greenhouse Emissions Targets that Australia have to meet by 2012, bind both the Commonwealth and State together.

The Carbon Sink developed on his property by the State banning Land Clearing has expropriated Mr Spencers property and prohibited the lawful use of his land for Agricultural purpose and no payments for sequestration and storing Carbon has been negotiated, this acquisition was not on “Just Terms” as the Commonwealth Constitution provides for just compensation for the acquisition of property.

Counsel representing Mr Spencer in proceedings, Mr Peter E King said after the hearing, “This is the first occasion in Australia’s legal history that it has been found there was an “arguable case” against the Commonwealth on behalf of farming interests that the Kyoto Protocol may give rise to Property Rights”.

Mr Spencer said “I am delighted that my case will be heard and it vindicates my beliefs, farmers have as much right as coal – miners to recognition under the Climate Change Convention”.

———————–
** This is the text of a media release from The Commonwealth Property Protection Association made on the 21 December 2007.

The Nature of Northern Australia is the result of almost three years of intensive research by authors Dr John Woinarski, Professor Brendan Mackey, Professor Henry Nix and Dr Barry Traill

Not only does the north have two thirds of Australia’s freshwater resources, it also contains abundant minerals, energy, unique iconic landscapes, including Kakadu and the Kimberley and unique aboriginal heritage.

Some of Australia’s largest, most undisturbed rivers, an abundance of plant and animal species not found anywhere else in the country, and nationally important areas of rainforest, mangroves and tropical heath lands are also located in the north.

Recent pressures with water supply and drought in southern Australia have refocused national development attention again on the north with a joint government and industry taskforce reviewing options for the future.

“In other parts of the world, tropical savanna is in decline due to land clearing, unsustainable grazing regimes and over population, but this vast area of northern Australia is remarkably intact,” co-author Professor Brendan Mackey from The Australian National University said.

However, there are mounting concerns about the biodiversity assets of this region documented in surveys in the report. Ecological threats such as changing fire regimes, overgrazing, feral animals, exotic weeds and climate change remain unresolved issues.

Scientists have singled out cattle grazing, above climate change and mining, as the most threatening process to northern Australia.

In an ABC interview Professor Brendan Mackey said 70 per cent of northern Australia is held under pastoral lease and cattle stations should do more to protect the ecology of tropical savannas.

“So what pastoralists do or choose not to do will have enormous bearing on the environmental health of northern Australia and its wonderful globally significant natural assets,” he said.

“What we are asking for is for what we call best management practice.”

Despite the difficulties associated with pastoralism in the north the report documents exciting developments at Trafalgar, at Charters Towers.

Joe Landsberg is demonstrating the benefits of ecological grazing in a most difficult environment. He says “we reduced our stocking rate by 60%. Then by spelling at least 20% of the property every wet season, we were able to restore native pasture species to greater than 80% within a few years. These lessons have now led us to our current management regime, where spelling 20% of the property annually, strategic use of small areas of exotic pasture, conservative stocking rates and intensive herd management have increased our productivity (i.e. higher calving rates, earlier and heavier turn-off weights, better meat quality) and therefore profit. Monitoring sites on the property also confirmed the improvement in pasture quality, soil health and water quality. We also have an annual control program for exotic weeds. Current research in natural resource management also confirms these strategies lead to improved biodiversity and ecosystem health. “

Premonitions of intensive irrigated agriculture development in the north have brought back memories of insect plagues and high pesticide use in the sensitive tropical environment.

Professor Henry Nix, another of the authors behind the report with Professor Mackey, says critics of the cotton industry are not aware genetically modified cotton has overcome challenges faced over a decade ago.

He says genetically modified cotton has proved it is sustainable.

“Cotton is regarded as a monster, and it certainly was 10-15 years ago, because of the very large amounts of chemicals – 17, 18 sprays per crop,” he said.

“Now that’s down to as low as one spray. Eighty per cent of their cotton crop is now a GMO crop.”

CSIRO has developed an entirely new 21st century agronomic package for cotton production in the Ord irrigation area using off-season production, transgenic cotton and beneficial insects

Another remarkable innovation for use of the savannas is a practical reduction in greenhouse emissions from a modified fire regime that reduces high intensity late season burning.

The SMH reports that Conoco, which operates a liquefied natural gas plant in Darwin, had entered into an agreement to offset some of the greenhouse gas emissions produced at its plant. In return for carbon credits, Conoco pays the West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement partners more than $1 million a year. Some 100,000 tonnes a year of greenhouse gas emissions can be saved by this approach which is verified by satellite monitoring.

———————————————————
** The Nature of NorthernAustralia – Natural values, ecological processes and future prospects
By John Woinarski, Brendan Mackey, Henry Nix & Barry Traill
2007 ANU E Press Australian National University E Press
ISBN 9781921313301 (pbk.) ISBN 9781921313318 (online)
Read the e-book here: http://epress.anu.edu.au/nature_na/pdf/whole_book.pdf

The annual average area cleared in the period was 351,000ha of which 172,000ha (49%) was remnant vegetation with the remaining 179,000ha (51%) being non-remnant woody regrowth. When this was broken down into Carnahan vegetation classes some 193,000ha (55%) was of a type that would not be included within the meaning of forest under the National Forest Inventory. That is, it was “Tussocky or Tufted Grasses” and other vegetation types that have less than 10% foliage cover and are less than 2 metres tall. This presentation still does not allow us to determine what proportion of the 158,000ha (44.7%) cleared remnant vegetation was actually non-forest vegetation types that may actually benefit from tree removal to restore the grassland/shrub ecosystems.

The report has fine tuned a previous practice of breaking the data into relevant grid squares with a colour code to indicate the area of land cleared in each square. Previous reports have used 30′ X 30′ (Lat/Long) grid cells that covered an area of approximately 280,000 hectares with codes indicating cleared area from <100ha to >5000ha for each cell. This produced a map with numerous lurid dark tones but which told us very little, other than the fact that somewhere within a square measuring 53km by 53km was somewhere between 0.01km2 and 50km2 of clearing.

This has now been broken up into 7′30″ X 7′30″ (Lat/Long) grid cells that cover approximately 17,500 hectares but these still retain the same colour codes for the same cleared area categories and produce a map with lots of little coloured squares that give the appearance of widespread clearing activity. These can be seen at Figure 8 P18 of the current report.

But the most interesting aspect of this presentation is what it does not tell us about the clearing. The graphic below is an enlargement of a 700,000 hectare scene to the west of Charleville which is recorded as one of the hotbeds of clearing in 2004-2005.

The lower presentation is an enlargement of the SLATS Report while the upper presentation indicates the information that is readily available and could be incorporated into the presentation if the political masters were willing to provide a budget for the truth.

Each of the grid squares has been broken up into 700 smaller squares of 25 hectares each (25 across and 28 down) so we are able to show the actual area of pasture, remnant, and woody regrowth in each grid cell. This then enables one to show each years clearing activity in the respective proportions of regrowth and remnant clearing. More importantly, it allows the viewer to gain an understanding of the relevance of that clearing in relation to the local landscape. Obviously, a large amount of clearing in a cell with a low level of remnant (eg. at E2 below) is of more concern than a cleared fence line in a cell with 75% woody remnant vegetation cover.

When the actual clearing is presented in direct spatial proportion to the area of the grid cell and the area of woody vegetation, we get a much more honest appreciation of what is taking place.

Of the approximately 3,450 grid cells indicating clearing activity in the report, more than 3,300 of them were in the two least cleared categories, showing cleared areas from 0 <100ha and 100 <500ha in each cell. The remaining 147 cells were easier to count and, after allocating a modal value in each class, we were able to determine that approximately half of all clearing, some 175,000ha, was cleared from these few cells. After allowing for a modal value of 300ha in the second lowest category and a roughly estimated proportion of 9% (or 300) of the 3300 remaining cells being in the second lowest category this indicated that another 90,000ha of clearing took place in the second lowest category. And this left only about 86,000ha of clearing taking place on the remaining 3000 cells at an average area of only 28 hectares per cell.

When that 28ha of clearing is proportionately represented on our improved data presentation below it would occupy just one of the 700 small squares in the cell. And when viewed in proper proportion it then becomes clear that the overwhelming majority of the scenes where some clearing has taken place, that clearing is of extremely marginal ecological impact. Indeed, it is at a level that would be barely detectable with the naked eye.

But it is in the allocation of this clearing (or current absence of it) between remnant and non-remnant at the grid cell level that provides the real “smoking gun” of systematic institutional deception. This is because a 28ha clearing event on an inland property is more than likely to be either fodder harvesting for stock or clearing for a fence line etc. And we know that mulga pulling for stockfeed is done on a long term rotational basis of 15 to 25 years. And that interval is more than sufficient for past regrowth to return to remnant status, being more than 70% of “normal” height. This provides grounds for informed speculation as to what proportion of remnant clearing, the assumed worst impact, is actually concentrated in small events of minimal consequence while the major events are primarily of non-remnant woody weeds.

We won’t actually know for sure unless we demand that this information, that is already at hand, be presented in a manner that properly informs the community. Anything less is serious misrepresentation by omission.

Ian Mott

“The group known as the Commonwealth Property Protection Association has filed a claim against the Commonwealth for compensation for lost carbon credits because of land clearing restrictions.

“The hearing will resume on July 19…

Read a bit more here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/06/21/1957942.htm