According to the Sydney Morning Herald:

“More than 30 savannahs – which cost $5000 for a pet and $10,000 for a breeding animal – are expected to come to Australia in the next five years, with up to 16 now in US quarantine.

“Hybrids of wild animals and domestic animals are a stupid American trend to breed more and more exotic pets,” said Professor Peacock, who works at the University of Canberra.

“This loophole will effectively lead to fitting a nuclear warhead to our already devastating feral cat population. Haven’t our native animals got enough to contend with?”

“Mr Parker dismissed suggestions that the animals could threaten native wildlife, saying they would not be allowed to roam. The company demands that customers sign a contract stipulating specific housing arrangements.

Read more here.

A federal Labour government would commit $2million to a national plan to stop the spread of cane toads into the south and west of Australia.

Alas, his is pledge is unachievable; as cane toads are already in Western Australia. I saw them in Purnululu NP in May, whilst travelling with family.

There may be some political advantage and even some scientific justification for declaring Cane Toads a threatening process under the EPBC Act, but the consequential obligation of implementing a threat abatement plan will also have implications, particularly in terms of cost.

An interesting finding reported earlier in the week on ABC News, identifies that the toads leading the westward invasion are the fastest, longest legged and most susceptible to spinal disease.

The observation leads to the possibility of yet another biological control strategy, where soil bacteria might be encouraged to exploit weaknesses in the toads’ immune systems.

The Wet Tropics grazing policy is to phase out cattle grazing within the WHA as leases expire unless there is a demonstrated benefit for World Heritage management and no prudent and feasible alternatives are available. Some grazing is already being phased out under the State Forest transfer program.

Interestingly, cattle have historically played their part in establishing the conservation significance of Queensland’s Wet Tropics. In 1971, a couple of long-term Daintree rainforest residents returned home from a weekend in Mossman, to find four of their cattle dead. Suspecting foul play, they called in the Department of Primary Industry’s divisional veterinarian.

Strychnine-like poisoning from alkaloids was found to have caused the deaths, from large, partially masticated seeds in the digestive systems of the cattle. Herbarium records revealed the re-discovery of a lost species of Calycanthus, but upon recognition of peculiarities and most significantly the variable expression of three or four cotyledons, the species became Idiospermum australiensis.

At the time, there were only eighteen families of primitive flowering plant known to exist world-wide; Idiospermaceae became the nineteenth family. Its discovery stimulated intense botanical interest in the rainforests of the Daintree, which in turn revealed a living museum of plants and animals of exceptional antiquity.

It is also interesting to note that from the early nineteen-hundreds until its re-discovery in seventy-one, the rainforest dinosaur Idiospermum australiensis was being selectively logged under its common name Ribbonwood. Axemen were familiar with special qualities of the plant, along with some seven hundred other species of rainforest cabinetwood timbers, as well as the complex rainforest habitats in which they grew.

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

I detailed the sorry story in a piece at this blog entitled ‘Tree Clearing in Queensland: One Man’s Battle Against Bureaucracy’ posted in October 2005.

It began: “About six years ago Ashley McKay a softly spoken cattleman from south western Queensland was prosecuted by the Queensland Government for clearing cypress pine on his property. McKay had a permit to clear trees from the Department of Natural Resources and Mines (DNRM), but not a permit from the Department of Primary Industries (QDPI) Forestry Division. The second permit was apparently necessary to clear the pine trees scattered amongst the other trees.

It is now folklore in western Queensland that the decision by government bureacrats to prosecute the local hero was taken because McKay appeared on national television program Sixty Minutes speaking out against the government and then new Queensland Vegetation Management Act 1999.

Thousands of cattleman are being investigatged for illegal clearing under the legislation which many claim is unworkable.

The advice has been if you‘re prosecuted, plead guilty because government and the courts will show no mercy if you take a stand…

You can keep reading the blog post here : http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000971.html

Yesterday, On Line Opinion published an article by Gillian Hogendyk* entitled ‘An Alternative Perspective on Tree Clearing’ providing some support for the landholder’s position.

Gillian writes:

“Early settlement caused massive changes to the ecology of the region. Grasslands were overgrazed, fires were put out, native shrubs and trees began to invade grasslands as early as 1870, rabbits invaded, drought struck, and wool prices collapsed.

By 1901 the Western Division of NSW was in an economic and ecological crisis, and a Royal Commission was called to try and formulate some solutions. Today landholders claim they are still battling the invading scrub, and that recently introduced native vegetation regulations are making their job almost impossible…

“So how is all this affecting the bird life of the region? In 2000 intensive biodiversity surveys were carried out by “West 2000” at a number of sites in the Cobar, Wanaaring, and Ivanhoe localities…

“Two examples of threatened species that were found to prefer less woody shrub cover were the Pink Cockatoo and Hooded Robin…

“Landholders of the Cobar Peneplain claim that 80 per cent of the threatened species of the region are dependent on grasslands and open woodland habitat. They claim that while many fauna species use the dense shrublands and trees for roosting and nesting, they are almost always seen feeding in the grasslands and croplands nearby. Their claims are supported by the known habitat requirements of the threatened birds recorded from the Cobar region. The majority of species listed rely on open woodlands and different types of grasslands as feeding habitat.

Of interest in this debate are the nationwide findings on woodland bird populations reported in The State of Australia’s Birds 2005: Woodlands and Birds, a Birds Australia publication. This document compared the reporting rates of the two nationwide atlases carried out by Birds Australia in 1977-81 and 1998-2002…

“Surprisingly, despite the “doom and gloom” text, the reporting rate of the majority of woodland-grassland birds had actually remained unchanged or increased over the 20- year period (for all woodland-grassland species: 48 per cent increased, 38 per cent did not change, and 13 per cent decreased). However the results were very different for grassland-dependent and ground-feeding woodland-grassland birds. These species showed much higher rates of decline over the 20-year period than the species that feed in the canopy layer.”

Read the full article here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5265

———————–

* Gillian is a Director and founding members of the Australian Environment Foundation and so am I.

“Australia’s pioneer lifestyle presenter and Chair of the Australian Environment Foundation, Don Burke, has called upon the Iemma Government to make further changes to native vegetation laws so that farmers in western NSW can control infestations of invasive scrub.

“Premier Iemma must act fast to stop the destructive invasion of native scrub before it is too late for the environment
and farmland of western NSW,” said Don.

“Recent changes to native vegetation regulations announced by the NSW Government are a step in the right direction, but they still don’t provide farmers with enough flexibility to rehabilitate land degraded by invasive scrub.
“Hundreds of farming families will be forced off their land if this problem is not fixed: who then will be left to care for the environment of western NSW?” Don said.

Invasive scrub (also called woody weeds) are native shrubs that have increased greatly in density over the last 130 years, invading the formerly open grassy woodlands of western NSW from the Queensland border to the Riverina in southern NSW.

Scrub infestations now cover up to 12 million hectares of western NSW – an area twice the size of Tasmania – with another 6 million hectares vulnerable to invasion when the drought breaks. It is estimated that up to 1,000 farms are fighting the problem.

“I was invited by farmers from Nyngan and Cobar to view first-hand the destructive impacts of invasive scrub on the landscape of western NSW. What I saw was not a natural feature of the environment.

“I was shocked to see how near ‘monocultures’ of scrub had out-competed native grasses for moisture and nutrients, leaving the soil prone to severe wind and water erosion.

“Vast tracts of land are now an ecological desert, exacerbating current drought conditions,” said Don.

Don said that for thousands of years, Aboriginals used fire to suppress outbreaks of scrub.

“Original infestations of scrub can be traced to a lack of bushfires after the land was first settled and coincided with periods of above average rainfall in the 1860s and 1870s. High rainfall seasons in the 1950s, 70s, 80s and 1990s resulted in further outbreaks. Overgrazing in the distant past – including by rabbits – also contributed to the invasion of scrub,” explained Don.

“With the introduction of tighter land clearing laws in 1996, farmers in western NSW have been ‘straight jacketed’ ever since in their efforts to stop the insidious spread of native scrub. With native grasses virtually obliterated in the last ten years, the country will no longer carry a fire, so it can’t naturally thin dense areas of scrub.

“Clearing and short term cropping are now the only effective tools to remove scrub and suppress regrowth, giving
native grasses a chance to rejuvenate,” said Don.

“Farmers want to restore the landscape to its natural state of open woodlands and grasslands, but political pressure from radical greens has put a bureaucratic handbrake on land restoration.

“In return, farmers are prepared to set aside a minimum of 15 per cent of their land for the preservation of native
woodlands. Combined with rehabilitated native grasslands, this will lead to an average cover of 50 to 60 per cent of
native vegetation on farms in western NSW.

“After making statements about the vital role that farmers play in protecting the environment, I’m calling on moderate
green groups such as the Australian Conservation Foundation to support farming families in their efforts to rehabilitate the degraded landscape of western NSW,” ended Don.

———————
* The NSW Regional Community Survival Group was established about a year ago to draw attention to the problem of invasive woody weeds in western NSW. Some of the groups members were interview by the Sunday Program as part of its feature on ‘The Great Land Clearing Myth’.

Following is the rest of the media release from the NSW Regional Community Survival Group:

“An exhaustive search of the world’s premier online scientific publication database, CAB Abstracts, has failed to unearth any examples of refereed published work by the Wilderness Society’s key spokesperson on woody weeds,” Mr Gibson said.

The Community Survival Group is made up of farmers from western NSW who are fed up with ‘green-inspired laws’ that prevent farmers from controlling woody weed infestations that are destroying up to 20 million hectares (an area three times the size of Tasmania) of western NSW.

Mr Gibson said that a comprehensive search of the CAB Abstracts database failed to uncover any trace of published work in refereed (peer-reviewed) international journals by Traill.

CAB Abstracts is the most comprehensive bibliographic, abstracting and indexing database in its field, covering references to journal articles, monographs, conferences, books and annual reports from more than 100 countries.

It covers environmental science and ecology, including soil science, water resources, organic farming, forestry and integrated crop management, environmental pollution and remediation. Issues relating to the conservation of land, forest, soil, biological and genetic resources, and nature conservation are also covered.

Ecological publications within CAB Abstracts searched for articles written by Traill included:

Conservation Biology; Ecological Applications; Ecological Monographs; Ecology; Evolution; Global Ecology and Biogeography; International Journal of Plant Sciences; Journal of Applied Ecology; Journal of Biogeography; Journal of Ecology; Journal of Tropical Ecology; Journal of Vegetation Science; Proceedings: Biological Sciences; Quarterly Review of Biology; and Science.

Mr Gibson said that a PhD alone does not make a scientist an expert – a scientist has to publish his/her work extensively in refereed international journals before they can be considered an authority on an issue; hence the maxim in the academic community of ‘publish or perish’.

“The only published material by Traill unearthed was a 2001 review titled ‘The Nature Conservation Review’, a publication produced by the green group The Victorian National Parks Association, and a couple of unrefereed conference papers.”

“Barry Traill is entitled to an opinion on how woody weed infestations should be managed in western NSW but government officials and the public should be warned not to consider him an authority on the issue.

“The NSW Government must start to listen to the local knowledge and experience of Aboriginal Elders, community leaders and farmers on how best to control the destructive affects of woody weeds – people who deal with the problem every day – not political activists like Traill,” ended Mr Gibson.“

Prof Diamond has told and retold the story and drawn a parallel between the ecological disaster he says befell Easter Island and our likely fate because we are cutting down too many trees and consuming too much energy.

In the September-October issue of American Scientist Online Terry Hunt details findings from his work on Easter Island.

It is an interesting read in which Hunt concludes that rats introduced by the Polynesians negatively impacted on recruitment in Jubaea palms resulting in forest decline. In contrast, Jared Diamond says the Polynesians simply cut down all the trees.

Furthermore Hunt suggests that the downfall of the original Polynesian civilization resulted not from internal strife associated with ecological disaster following destruction of the forest, but rather from contact with Europeans.

I read a lot of James Michener books when I was a bit younger. Civilizations destroyed by new arrivals is a consistent theme in Michener’s stories.

The worst offenders are annual ryegrass, wild radish and wild oats.

And of the thirteen ‘families’ of chemicals used to control weeds, resistance to ten has now been found in various agricultural weeds, Dr Preston says.

“Those ten groups of herbicides, as you’d expect, are the ones that are most commonly used in our cropping systems,” he adds.

In a few areas of Australia the herbicide resistance problem has become so acute that there are no longer any herbicides available to control particular weeds – such as annual ryegrass – in some crops.

You can read more here.