A main premise of the following guest post from Boxer* is that across the West Australian wheatbelt, water tables are showing an upward trend. Boxer explains the problem and the need to act now if we are to learn from history and avoid the problems that destroyed, for example, agriculture in the valleys of the once fertile Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
I have asked Boxer for a link to some data that quantifies the extent of the rising water table problem. He has responded that:
There is no single place that I can find where a large amount of water table data is assembled in one place. This is not because there is a paucity of data, but I think because there is so much data, and the fundamental cause and effect of dryland salinity has been so well established for so long, that the publications over the last decade or two do not directly present water table data. The scientific debate has moved on.
If a problem is complex and widespread, all the more reason, in my opinion, to have a few agreed indicators and regularly report on how they are trending. Others may see things differently? The issue is important. Let’s have some discussion. Here’s the post:
Like a number of other people who comment on this blog, I enjoyed Jennifer’s recent piece on Ockham’s Razor (ABC Radio, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1509193.htm ) in which she addressed the arguments of various doomsday prophets such as Tim Flannery and Ian Lowe.
The Prophets of Doom have a list of iconic issues. I think it is healthy for the Prophets to be challenged because they have a vested interest in, for example, arguing that climate change will be the end of all things, just as coal miners have a vested interest in business as usual. Challenge them both.
On the issue of salinity however, I argue that dryland salinity is a major issue for this country. On this one, I am with the doomsday crowd. My vested interest? My professional life is bound up in finding ways for agriculture to adapt to rising water tables and perhaps even find ways to prevent the problem becoming as bad as the models predict.
Jennifer uses the example of the Murray River, where, at a point just upstream from the off-take for Adelaide’s water supply, salinity levels have fallen over the last couple of decades due to salt diversion work. Good news, but is that a reasonable reflection of the state of affairs in the whole river system? I don
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
The most important thing for non-farmers to understand is that a rising water table is nothing more than evidence of an underutilised resource. Yes, the clearing has altered the catchment water yield but that does not mean that a problem must, inevitably, ensue. The problem exists because the farmer who has cleared, often as condition of the grant of title, has not recognised the value of the increased yield, or has been prevented from taking steps to capture it.
They are not helped by bureaucratic refusal to recognise this increased yield as the rightful property of the farmer even though all agree that it was his action that caused the surplus. It is politically convenient to attach blame for the adverse impact but to deny him ownership of any benefit.
The simple fact of the matter is that the saline layers are rarely uniform across catchments and this means that the rising water table can be returned to equilibrium by an increase in harvesting from bores in those parts of the aquifer where salt levels are low enough to allow use for agriculture. It is standard operating procedure in WA sheep country to locate stock bores away from creeks so the water is lower in salt.
The great irony is that we have governments all over the country imposing blanket restrictions on bore extractions, based on concern for the Great Artesian Basin. Yet, in other, rising aquifers this is the very worst thing to do.
And we are left with totally moronic solutions like planting lots of trees and shrubs that will only address the yield flux on the actual area of land they occupy, changing yield by half a megalitre or less per hectare. In contrast, an irrigated crop or orchard will normally have an annual water deficit of 5 to 10 megalitres per hectare so it can absorb the surplus yield from up to fifty times its own area. And pay for itself to boot
CSIRO scientist John Williams has called for farmers to manage their land in an ecological sustainable way and urbanites to pay for it.
How this payment is to be made is unclear. It could take the form of a tariff or subsidy on produce paid back to the farmer.
Obviously this could not apply to imported product .
This may be in conflict with current moves to reduce tariffs globally allowing trade access to developed countries by poorer nations.
It may be through the taxpayer funded DPI who would initiate various schemes.
http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/aboutus/news/releases/agriculture_news/2005/call-for-farmers
Oh, by the way, the first para, “destroyed agriculture in the once fertile valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers” is a rather false and highly misleading statement. There are 20 million Iraqis who, when not persecuted by dictators or getting the crap bombed out of them, are still sustained by agriculture in the still fertile valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates. Their imports of Australian wheat, a million tonnes pa, covers the carbohydrate shortfall of only 3 million of them. The rest are still doing OK after 8000 years of cropping.
It’s a real shame the way salinisation has destroyed so much land.
Previous farmers were either as ‘thick as two planks’,exceedingly greedy or totally uncaring.
Please can someone get the desalination message to the clowns of farmers in Qld. These twits hate trees and are clearing them as fast as they can it seems.
I am sure there are some honest, caring, decent farmers out there somewhere.
But what have they given us up to date.
1. Massive salination. 2.Total destruction of native animal habitat. 3.Horrendous over utilisation of water and the destruction of our main river system. 4.Overuse of dangerous life threatening chemicals. 5. GM food which by all counts is detrimental to our health, but puts more money in their pockets. 6. In many areas horrible erosion which has destroyed some areas.
And these people, in the main, never seem to learn. numbat
So Robert, how’s the subsistence farming going?
Ian
I think your comments demonstrate very well how difficult it is to have a one-size-fits-all approach to the problem. In many parts of the MD Basin, I assume fresh water aquifers are accessible and perhaps using them to reduce the pressure on deep recharge is an effective way to tackle the problem. WA is, comparatively speaking, a uniform layer of soil up to 60m thick over a solid basement rock shield. There is a lot of vertical movement of excess rainfall directly to the deep water tables, any water that passes below the non-saline upper layers becomes polluted with salt. But this varies a lot. One way we are thinking of dealing with it is to harvest as much water as possible into shallow drains that direct the water to useful purposes before it becomes polluted.
Whatever the combination of solutions is, a major objective is to make them self-funding as quickly as possible. The total cost of solving the problem is probably much more than our economy can bear, and the urban majority will not accept more than a fraction of that cost.
Profitable tree crops have a place in the mix. For a tree crop to be profitable, it has to use a lot of water to support economic growth and transpiration rates of 10mm per day are achievable. If rainfall is only 400mm per year, it doesn’t take a vigorous stand of trees or shrubs long to make a dent in the problem. However I have my doubts about the “free trees” solution. We have found that giving away trees is of little interest to many farmers. They are prepared to pay for trees with just the prospect of commercial returns, but they often decline offers of free non-commercial trees.
Robert
Wrong side of the bed today. Perhaps you need to meet some of the people I have worked with. When it comes to tackling land degradation, they are applying new knowledge continuously and doing it with their own money. It’s more than trees and drains pumping bores into evaporation basins, it’s also improving annual crop agronomy, making crops more productive and using more water that way, plus improving soil structure by changing cultivation practices.
Developing additional new solutions is a long slog. The oil mallee project has been going for over a decade and has cost about $50 million, probably about half of it private funds and much of that is from farmers (about 1000 farmers across this wheatbelt so far). We still have some distance to go before it becomes self-funding. Starting a new industry, establishing the resource, building a market and developing new infrastructure doesn’t come quickly or cheaply.
I guess I have only worked with cockies who want to work with us, so the relationship is good and the minority that make up your negative stereotype are not involved. However having grown up in a farming community, I am confident that the uncaring are a minority, and that same negative personality is found in every walk of life.
I doubt that the rules are the same all over the country – if a pre-European landscape in Qld was an open grassland, letting trees cover it doesn’t address a watertable problem – it might create one and dry out rivers. Perhaps in some places tree clearing is the white man’s equivalent of frequent burning by the Aborigines. I don’t know, so I’d prefer to rush to judgement slowly on that point. The WA pre-European wheatbelt was covered by forest, woodlands and scrub, the landscape was dominated by deep rooted perennial vegetation. Clearing has been a massive disturbance.
Given that, pre-European, the Australian population was about half a million (any better estimates welcome), and we now feed 20 million and export food for more than that again, and we produce wool, cotton, wood fibre and export stock feed, what have farmers given us? Does all that stuff in the supermarket come from household gardens?
Ian, Robert and Rick,
I realise the Native Vegetation Laws I refer below are NSW not WA but similar trends are impacting around Australia.
You guys are right but lets kick the debate along with a new infusion – there is an alterative#, something along these lines.
Place all rural land holdings under a vegetation proposal whereby 30% may be planted back to trees/bush – see the CSIRO Heartlands Project http://www.clw.csiro.au/heartlands begin with this. Then the Government provide free root stock 1 half native 1 half exotic half for bio diversity the other for on farm forestry all to attract, carbon credits, tax incentives stewardship payments on catchment protection / bio diversity etc. This is not the same as farm subsidies. This is for public good environmental services.
Fund all this by a small levy on urban dwellers maybe petrol @10c a litre. This is where over 90% of Australians reside and they are the ones making all the demands on rural Australia, for environmental public good programs such as better air production – trees, bio diversity, protected species, renewable energy, cleaner water – catchment management etc etc
Once the incentives are in place the city will have the ecosystem services it so depends on and the environment more sustainable. If it is attractive enough farmers will flock too it with urgings from their accountants and as a side issue it will drought proof the properties, help with salinity, bio diversity and more. With abundant renewable plantation timber – as ice cream on the cake.
The rule should be No drought relief is required if the farmer takes up the deal. Also make it so he gets no relief if he do’s not take it up. This way he has an income each year outside the market fluctuation and the good or bad season influence. Mind you, the package has to be reasonable and attractive. He must be able to apply existing Vegetation if it is present on the property
This project will benefit both country and urban societies. More so it will go along way towards healing any differences between the country and urban dweller. Hopefully leading to a greater understanding and reinforcing of the so essential symbiont nature of our relationship. This, agreed, will have to be marketed. Country Australia and the urban societal relatives have to understand and appreciate each other and where they are each coming from.
It is not a question of farmers not wanting sustainable land management or bio diversity this can be achieved and more. As ABARE points out current legislation achieves limited results unfairly targeting 5% of farmers.
On the other hand my alternative (above#) effects/incorporates, impacts positively on 100% of farmers not forced but attracting them with acceptable sustainable achievable results impacting across the entire landscape.
Current attempts to deal with Bio diversity loss severely undermine freehold rights and real out comes can be achieved with out this threat.
September Scientific America believes farms of the future could be deriving up to 50% of their incomes form ecosystem services including energy. That may be ambitious, but lets start in that direction now – it is the direction of the future.
The fact is, and lets not forget this, city green supporters are contributors to over 70% of the Countries environmental damage – produced in cities. Just to mention a few items, they refuse to turn off their aircon, or ride public transport, they do not recycle water, nor treat raw sewerage pumped in the billions of litres into the oceans off Sydney Heads.
Further more the Government through the public purse subsidise city public transport by $1.8 billion each and every year. That is inspire this year has seen a 22% reduction in numbers using this infrastructure. Melbourne is similar in this regard. So lets not say it is all handouts for farmers.
The green fundamental activists in many cases are the for runners in the “Not in My Back Yard” (NIMBY) honour role with any new initiative leave including – leave your car at home and take public transport, install a water tank, or support for wind developments and other environmental initiatives being rejected if it has the slightest impact on them.
One may well ask why then do they constantly prey on the rural environment? The answer is we the rural dweller has for many years surrendered our democratic right. We have in fact rolled over while they lobbied the political and the urban communities for support. We sat back and did nothing.
In NSW Our industry Association was incompetent. The cities now have no over all connection with the country. This is exacerbated by the fact 40% of the urban populace are born out side of Australia. This has to be addressed – Agforce in Queensland are just beginning a major campaign in this regard.
Rog Nov 28
Your comments about John Williams I would like to believe however as I point out below his support of a program, the Native Vegetation ACT and his keynote address at a recent conference at SYD Uni on Sustainable Agriculture, leave one questioning just where he stands on the issue.
He, John Williams NSW Chief Scientist and Felicity Wade of the Wilderness Society claimed on ABC Radio the new proposal/regulations under the Native vegetation ACT provide over $435 million for farmers and that this was an ecosystem services type program – these claims are incorrect.
In fact the $435 million provides no money for farmers what so ever. AND the LAW as passed on the floor of NSW Parliament is not a program to encourage a working relation ship with farmers and landowners incorporating ecosystem services within in any PART of the legislation or regulations.
Rather it is a very repugnant law – fundamentally undermining freehold rights – which will result in massive civil disobedience, anger, resentment and unbelievable hardship for many farmers. On this I agree with Ian Mott, as does my final comment.
Finally in regard to my farm as to where am I coming from? I am left to wait for fire as Ian Mott says in his article. My beautiful mountains will be entirely destroyed- just like the National Parks. As this nonsense policy (the Native Vegetation ACT NSW) forces me to lock it all up – all 3 top blocks, over 14,000 acres, as I can earn not earn a cent from it. This is in spite of half the entire acreage having previously been appropriately cleared; it has fences shearing sheds yards houses – required infrastructure.
In very little time the thickening and interception has impacted, the result being- the 6 streams off the mountains have already gone. The erosion, the wild dogs, the weeds, and the regrowth, will all add up to one totally destructive fire – then I will be able to farm it again………By that time, the magnificent Alpine Ash and Mountain Gum and their seed stock will have been destroyed and the biodiversity as it is now known including all the species both of fauna and fauna will have been severally impacted or virtually wiped out. Only eight hundred acres left and the dogs are striking the sheep in this area from the regrowth.
Further more all the policy changes over the last 20 years put us on hold year in and year out. We did the right thing and awaited believing commonsense would prevail. Wanting to do the right thing. Now for doing the right thing and waiting we are penalised more so.
It, the Property has been devalued to about 30% of its value – the homestead is insured for over $1.5 Million valuers say is actually only worth $250.000 as the Native Vegetaion Act the farm is over capitalised. The banks say we are unviable. The Rural Assistance Authority will not help us even though EC drought declared for interest subsidy – we are unviable.
How much does it hurt – this year OUR sheep, “Saarahnlee” topped the top 4 positions out of 5 on the AWEX list for the finest bales of wool in the country – remarkably this is sheep out of paddocks not sheds – we did this with 10 bales not just 4.
Peter Spencer
peterspencer.id.au
Well said, Peter. You are part of that entirely new, growing and increasingly dangerous social sub-set who have no choice but to regard forest destroying wildfire as a desireable outcome. It is a place in both the heart and the political spectrum that no forest owning farmer has ever wanted to go to. It is obvious that it will all have to get much worse before the dumbed down urban majority wakes up and allows things to get better.
Rick, all that incentive stuff was rendered redundant the moment blanket clearing bans were imposed in Qld and NSW. And it is not so much what has been done, but rather, how it was done. No farmer will ever trust ANY government proposal again. For one of the key rules of business survival has been proven correct again, ie, never, ever, knowingly do business with spivs. This is not to say that there are no people of goodwill in government but they are part of a chain and the chain itself has serious quality control problems.
And Robert, I suggest, in the interests of your progress beyond the lowest 5% of the learning curve, that you buy a farm. Save a copy of the words you have written above and come back to us in three years. And bring your humble pie.
While this blog relates to the issue of salinity in WA I cannot allow the false, misleading and generally uniformed comments of Robert Paterson to go unchallenged.
‘It’s a real shame the way salinisation has destroyed so much land.’
In a report published by ABS in 2001 it was revealed that 2 million hectares of agricultural land in Australia was impacted upon by salinity. This represents less that 1% of the total land used for agricultural production. The majority of this problem exists in WA were is has been hypothesised that due to the hydrological and geolical land structure which exist in that region that high levels of salt already existing in the soils were exposed rather than directly caused by agriculture and associated development.
http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/E3C62B38C2B153AECA256C8B0081EB9B?Open
‘Previous farmers were either as ‘thick as two planks’,exceedingly greedy or totally uncaring.’
The ‘rich cocky- raping and pillaging the land’ syndrome. While some environmental degradation has been caused by poor stewardship of the land by farmers it may also be easily inferred that many land use practises have been directly instigated by government, either through conditions of a lease renewal or government sponsored ‘best practise’ standards. For instance, lease holders in Qld had their leases revoked for NOT clearing trees in 1960’s and 70’s. Degradation may also be caused by the economic pressures being placed upon farmers- not through poor managment- but through uncomparative market disadvantage. For instance in France and US the income support for agricultrual sectors is 40% and 38% respectively. Therefore over 1/3 of income is through government subsidy. Australian farmers, which compete in these markets have 2% assistance. Farmers also have to sell to a domestic retail sector which is 80% controlled by two companiues, Woolworths and Coles. This makes it very difficult to pass on the real costs of production. So while the farmer has to push his margins further and further, the price is not being returned and the beneficiaries in the city receive a cheaper, higher quality product. The real variable is the environment. So don’t point the finger at the farmer, point is at the plate of meat and three vege which is on your dinner table- is the coin beginning to drop?
‘Please can someone get the desalination message to the clowns of farmers in Qld. These twits hate trees and are clearing them as fast as they can it seems.’
Any statement which includes the use of circus performers and pregnant gold fish as adjectives deserves about as much respect as the typical subjective, emotive and idological statements which seem to emenate from the green or uninformed corners of the debate.
Let me put the statement in some context as it applies to Queensland.
Queenslands total area is 170 million hectares. Of this 81 million consists of woodland and forest ecosystems. During the height of ‘panic clearing’ due to the irresponsible speculation caused by the Beattie Labour government, 758 000 hectares were cleared on average between 1999-2000. Despite this highlighly publicised event, the relevant media commentators failed to report that over the same period, 1999-2001 as published in the Department of Natural Resource’s SLATS report a net increase in woody biomass of 5 million hectares resulted. Even at the height of the clearing which was above the average 350 000 hectares for previous years, that total amount of clearing equated to less than 1% of the total native vegetation in Queensland.
If farmers ‘were clearing it as fast they could’ perhaps they were not clearing it fast enough.
http://www.nrm.qld.gov.au/slats/report.html#9901veg pg 11
‘I am sure there are some honest, caring, decent farmers out there somewhere.’
Let me suggest that ‘out there somewhere’ is anywhere outside the greater metropolitan boundaries of Brisbane. Farmers in general are a rare bread. They don’t work from 9 to 5 and don’t commute to work. Their work is their business and their home. Farms are run by families not faceless entities ploughing up the dirt or knocking down the trees. Farmers are resilient, and perhaps even a little bit insane, to deal with drought and floods, commodity prices, isolation, poor services, dust, heat and flies and instead of a pat on the back for producing the worlds highest quality produce they receive a slap in the face by politicians, greens, animal liberationists and the general misinformed urbanite who has no understanding of the issues or the reality.
May I suggest that this is as much a fault of farmers, farming groups and rural representatives failing to recognise the need to market ‘industries’ as it is to market ‘commodities’. While the smear campaings engaged by green groups and animal liberations are more about imposing an ideological view point upon our society as it is about generating real benefits for the environmnet or domestic livestock, they have been highlighly successful at painting farmers as villians. The real tragedy of the situation is that the very people who are at the fronteir between society and the environment, who manage our natural resources, who don’t read about it in newspapers but live and breathe it everyday are the last people who are ‘consulted’ on any issue relating to environmental management- whether on privately or state owned land.
‘But what have they given us up to date.’
‘1. Massive salination.’
In 2002, Queensland had approximately 107,000 hectares or 0.1% of agricultural land showing signs of salinity, 37.4% of which was unable to be used for agricultural production.
‘2.Total destruction of native animal habitat.’
As mentioned previously, a net increase in native animal habitat has resulted in Queensland. A side note, once the farmers have been prevented from managing their native vegetation resources and it is either financially or personally too risky to implement management schemes- who will be there to fight the bush fires, control the noxious weeds and feral animals, implement remediation plans etc?
Also, no one ever hears about how many native animals were lost in the 2001 NSW and Canberra bushfires when 3 500 000 hecatres of mismanaged state forest went up in flames. My suggestions is that if it was managed by farmers it also would not have been reported- but then again it would not have happened in the first place.
‘3.Horrendous over utilisation of water and the destruction of our main river system.’
Water resource managment is such a complex issue it is difficult to rebutt a one line over exaggeration of the current situation. Let me suggest this however. The OECD published a report in 2004 which stated that Australia has 55 000 litres of water available per day per person. While across the total area of Australia it is a dry continent (lets not forget that massive desert taking up our heartland) in the areas where rain does fall it is being under utilised. For instance, in Australia we utiliase less than 8% of all the water resources which are available to us.
Added to that, the horrendous over utilisation of water resources has provide the platform for the very standard of living we enjoy today.
‘4.Overuse of dangerous life threatening chemicals.’
Let me suggest endosulphan on cotton. In two recently published impact assessments sponsored by the Qld state government in the lower Balonne and Condamine catchments it was found that ‘no adverse impacts arising from chemical residue or run-off can be attributed to agricultural practises.’ Could this be that the report was wrong or that farming practises, especially as to chemical run-off, have improved so dramastically that the report was right. Or perhaps those ‘water thirsty cotton cockies’ are so tight (or efficient- you be the judge) that they will not let a drop of water go unutilised on their properties due to the cost of water wastage and chemical residue?
http://www.smartrivers.com/reports.htm
‘5. GM food which by all counts is detrimental to our health, but puts more money in their pockets.’
GM cotton accounts for 80% for the total cotton production in Australia. GM cotton uses significantly less water than traditional varieties and uses next to no chemical. It also uses less land and is more productive thus profitable. GM canola is already being used in canola oil imported from overseas but cannot be grown in this country (bar of course Queensland). The safety testing for GM is better than chemical residue in the horticultural industry. Something that uses less water, less chemical and less land but producers more- must be bad. Follow the logic.
‘6. In many areas horrible erosion which has destroyed some areas.’
The National Heritage Trust, a federally funded but State administered system, has invested over $2 billion in remediation and rehabilitation projects since its inception in 1997. $2 billion may sound like a a lot but when one considers that the agricultural sector contributes 4% of Australias GDP per year and contributes over 20% in assocaited industries, the land is not doing too bad.
‘And these people, in the main, never seem to learn.’
Hopefully Robert, you one day will be blessed with the ability to learn and adapt as effectively and efficiently as your common farmer.
‘numbat’
Refer above.
Go Tom and Ian. You guys really shouldn’t pull your punches so much. As I see it, Robert is also part of a small minority who hate farmers and farming. I don’t think his attitudes represent much of suburbia, but the haters can still be influential. Most people just drift in the wind on natural resource management, so it seems to be important to speak to the moderate people.
In general, there is lot there to digest and I need more time to get back to you. I should be pulling a broken shaft out of a harvester and I haven’t escaped the office yet. The gulf that opens between farmers and urban bureaucrats is very destructive. As an urban bureaucrat of a sort, I think it is possible lessen the gap, but it’s a subject that demands a longer and more thoughtful response than this.
Roberts ignorance is not an isolated case. There are millions of them and they vote. There is no better explanation as to why rural communities have no real future within the same state political entities as these people. The burden of bringing them up to a basic level of understanding is a burden that no-one should reasonably be expected to bear. But without it we cannot expect reasonable treatment because the exercise of reason is contingent on a command of the relevant facts. It is a truly rash and foolhardy person, indeed, who seriously believes we can aspire to any future without a state border between them and us. Good fences make good neighbours, especially when the neighbour is a gorilla, and growing larger by the day.
Not to attack every element of the argued cases
BUT
Arguing how little of Qld is cleared is a tad misleading. Bigs areas of forest in Cape York that will never be cleared. It’s a good grab line for TV but not what it’s about. Some areas are overcleared and getting below limits of viability for remnant ecosystems left.
In that unfortunately many nice rural people are the meat in the sandwich. But don’t also argue that the industry is squeaky clean either.
Plenty of fish kills by endosulfan in the past. Disgraceful stuff. Cotton industry should have got it’s finger out on these issues by now. Spray drift and tail-water return.
Strange that we’ll quote a government report on endosulfan yet reject other reports on aquatic fauna – seems a bit selective?
Some lessons on salinity and soil acidity (another creeper) ought be learned from southern states (as yes climate, soils , geology are somewhat different).
The ranting “repel boarders” – “go and get a hair-cut” , “get a job” and “let’s keep the flag the same” doesn’t go down with urban voters. You guys need a better more positive message or continue to see your rights eroded. And you didn’t vote for them anyway so pretty hard to threaten the govt anymore.
Where’s the positive stories of more “adaptive land use” – as opposed to “buzz off you Chardonnay swilling green loonies”.
Need positive stories and future sell guys.. ..
Phil,
For a rare instant I agree with you on the issue that farming communities and industry in general need to get their message and action plan right.
However, it is difficult to argue with certain elements of the community who are more interested in ideology and propoganda rather that facts and science. The figures and evidence is there that farming techniques and industry protocols have improved and that a vast majority of cases where problmes have occured are a direct result of government interference or mismanagment.
I side with Ian on the issue that it is unreasonable for the farming community to bear the responsibility of trying to educate a populace who have not even the most basic understanding of farming or practical ecology.
What many urban folk fail to realise is that the shirt on their backs, the food on their tables, the roof over their heads and the very society which they now enjoy is directly related to some form of land clearing or natural resource utilisation.
This is not to state that I support the indescriminate clearing of native vegetation in all circumstnaces, and you raise a valid point that some areas have been over utilised. However, to ban all land clearing on these innocuous statistics and on the basis that some damage has occured is unsustainable and not economically, socially and ultimately environmnetally viable.
The issue with salinity is much the same. While I appreciate that vast tracks of farm and non-farm land have been impacted upon by dryland salinity, in many areas salinity is not a real threat and has only been created through ‘modelling’ or ‘forecasting’. By applying arbitrary limits on the use of natural resources, limits the very ability of that resources to be sustainably managed. This is on the basis that what we might ‘think’ or ‘feel’ or ‘forecast’ may be very different to what is applying on the ground.
I will state that salinity will not and never was a problem in Queensland. This is not because all the trees are now protected by draconian and arbitarily applied laws but because our climate, hydrology and geology does not create such a situation in the first place and even if it did farming techniques will adapt in the future to prevent/ counter such problems.
I will also state that we will face more perverse environmnetal, economic and social problems through the false retention of woody biomass in this state than benefits derived. We are already seeing water shortages in catchments, declining rates of return on farming land and increase in noxious weeds and feral animals in state managed reserves. Once again- lets lock them all up and wait for the sparks to ignite and watch the repeat example of the holocaust fires in NSW and Canberra in 2001.
Somehow I doubt that the blame will be shifted to the greens or the government but we will have moved on to destroying some other natural resource based industry.
I agree – inappropriate fire regimes and woodland thickening are major issues. Too little fire in the savannas, threat of wildfire in our forests, and too many hot burns in the north. Need to do much better.
And blaze away at noxious weeds and ferals by all means.
Just locking land up is not the answer – management is.
I would like to think we might offer a more positive vision of agriculture that also leaves some representative and viable biodiversity left. Properly done – I think people will pay to see it in years to come. The prospectus needs to read this property produces x tons of grain, y tones of beef and is also home to z marsupials, b number of birds, and c number of reptiles. A quadruple bottom line of values.
And soil surveyors themselves used to judge the quality of the country on its vegetation composition. The trees reflected the value of what lay underneath.
Aggies used to have a sign on the back of the ute “if you like you eat – you’re involved in agriculture”.
I am curious as to how readers view these proposals to drain the WA wheatbelt, from the WA based group Agritech.
http://www.geocities.com/agritech_wa/
Several downloadable pdf reports to digest.
Could be described as an “engineering solution”.
Warwick
The tree proponents and the drainage proponents have shown some mutual hostility over the last few years, but we’ll all get over it. We of the tree camp are dominated by forestry types and they of the drainage camp are dominated by people who own bloody big excavators, or see engineering solutions to everything.
There’s room and need for both. Trees have almost no role unless they are commercial in their own right. So we focus almost entirely on developing tree crops. But trees will never be the whole solution unless you close down agriculture and return it all to native bush and that just creates another problem; where’s my bread and meat come from? And trees in the total-cover native state are never going to be commercial.
Drainage will always be required to deal with the water that escapes the annual crops and pastures, then slips past the tree component, and ends up in a saline water table that is too toxic for anything to use. The more water is used by annual and perennial vegetation, the less money will have to be spent on drainage and effluent dsiposal.
Peter and Ian
Your situation doesn’t seem to have much of a parallel in WA, in my limited understanding. Perhaps your problems with bureaucracies show up most starkly where the land use is grazing and regrowth control and problems with adjacent national parks are more apparent. Clearing bans have been in place in WA for a couple of decades. We also have a regular burning programme for the state forests and national parks. There are relatively small areas that might be comparable with your western slopes and tablelands. These various factors together perhaps add up to less conflict between state government and the rural sector – it’s as if you may not have 80% of the nations salt-affected farmland as WA does, but you have other problems that may be more political and just as important for the rural economy.
In very broad terms, I am not very confident about complex arrangements that transfer the cost of land management across the state back to the urban population via taxes. I agree with your point that the urban majority demand the goods and services that the rural economy provides, but the link is hard to sell in a political forum. Even if you do establish such a system, such as a tax on petrol or food that is used to improve the sustainability of the whole landscape, this may not be stable. As I recall, the excise on transport fuels was meant to maintain our roads, but it has become an important source of revenue for govt coffers and the roads are left to compete with all the other demands on the public purse. And so govts now look for other taxes they can place upon, for example, heavy transport licences because they apparently can’t afford to maintain the roads.
And if you look at the regional forest agreements, an agreement of this nature, intended to set a stable economic and environmental course for the next couple of decades, sometimes doesn’t even last until the next election.
What has been the net effect, the cost benefit ratio, of NHT and similar “fix the environment” funds?
One thing that is constant across society is the need to make a profit. I think, if there is a way to apply this to a problem, you can establish something that will outlast many changes in governement and swings in public sentiments. Easier said than done. If the oil mallee example works, it may do so because it was the easiest to define and start up.
Rick, I was particularly impressed with the way the WA NRM people set up the whole catchment salinity experiment (forget name of place) to get a detailed picture of the whole process over time. One of the things that struck me later was the potential of “graded catchments” to intercept water surplus before it presented a problem. On many properties these graded catchments occupied most of a small catchment to enable total (90%?) rainfall capture for use on an intensive crop like grapes etc. I didn’t observe any graded strips across catchments that could capture a portion of the surplus before it reached lower salt layers while maintaining the grazing use on most of the upper slopes.
This is the really fascinating thing about the salt boogeyman, on a 600mm RF site we are really only talking about a 20mm to 40mm variation in water yield (0.2-0.4 ML/ha)from clearing. It is really small beer in the water pumping business, provided it is intercepted before it hits the salt layer. I understand the situation is different further East where land is flat and the window for interception before salt layers is only 15cm.
I did see one very good solution somewhere in the US where a salty aquifer was maintained at safe levels by pumping water into a housing development to provide a high value canal estate, with all the waterfront bells and whistles, in the middle of a desert. It is not a realistic solution in far woop woop but we seem to have concluded that, away from the coast, waterfront living requires fresh water. Very strange. There was actually a conference in Rockhampton a year or two ago on the productive use of saline lands, but the web site was wiped the moment it became clear that the information might be used in the veg management debate. So it goes in the green paradise.
For an excellent article on the productive use of saline water see Roger Kalla, “Humble algae could be our saviour” at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au It discusses the role of algae grown in salt water on currently unused desert land in supplying the worlds likely demand for biodiesel. This merger of old science with new thinking on existing problems has the potential to convert our $50 billion salinity problem into a $100 billion economic opportunity. Not some vague futuristic science fix but simple “can do” in the here and now.
Something else for non farmers to quantify is their own contribution to the destruction of so much “viable biodiversity”. By that I mean the introduction of of feral animals (cats, dogs, rabbits, goldfish etc) and weeds (lantana, blackberries, asparagus fern, privet, camphor laurel, olives etc).
Non farmers should campaign vigorously and peacefully for the complete removal of non indigenous flora and fauna from the entire continent.
Perhaps those thick headed farmers could be more productively engaged as environmental purification associates (EPA), combing the streets of suburbia in search of wandering moggies, meandering mutts and clipped hedges.
The only problem with that option, Rog, is that after infesting the place with their discarded whims and high morality paving positions, they will then decide that it is a farmers ‘duty of care’ to clean up their mess. And when we attempt to inform them on the inequity of it all it will be a case of, “gosh, look at the time, got to go, catch ya later”.
Try getting an article published in the Age, Courier Mail or SMH that sheets home blame to the stupidity of their own readers. Fat chance. They are all legends in their own lunchtime, with a commensurate attention span.
I might comment here, having friends at Broomehill in WA, but what intrigues me, as a geologist, is the source of all this salt.
The bedrock in SW Australia is generally granite.
What regolith process produces all this salt? Where is it coming from?
I know it is there, and that clearing etc, exacerbates it, but so much sodium chloride?
Is the salt part of the Quaternary blanket covering most of the continent? Does this stratigraphic layer host the salt?
Just a few De Bonian thoughts.
Warwick,
time for another Sunday 🙂
Louis
Louise, my understanding of the WA situation is that each megalitre of rainfall has about 40kg of salt in it courtesy of the Southern Ocean. This is only 40ppm (sea water is 35,000ppm) and undetectable to taste but the accumulation over a few hundred millenia creates a problem. Combine this with mild winter rains on gentle slopes and plains and there is none of the flushing effect that normally reduces the scale of the problem. It is the flushing effect from more intense summer rains that has limited the salinity problem in Queensland and Northern NSW.
Thank god for declining rainfall in at least parts of Western Australia. In a wetter rather than dryer environment the salt problem might even be worse. Climate change clouds or lack of them may have a non sodic lining.
After a drive through WA wheat belt a few years ago I was impressed by the number of farms with tree plots, they may be small but the action seems to be increasing at an exponential rate if only from a low base.
Louise?
Eeek no one told me I had an operation lately! Must be all the salt!
Seriously Ian, if that were the case we would also observe a steadily increasing salt increased in our water catchments. Further evaporated water does not carry salt, unless my I have forgotten Chemistry 101. And of course distilled water is water sans the salts.
However I would consider the possibility of continental sized tsunamis washing over continents and leaving their salt as precipitate after the sea soaked the land over which it traversed.
Louis
I can’t comment on your gender status Louis, but if you catch rainwater and boil it away, you’ll find a trace of salt left behind. It is oceanic in origin and the saltfall varies according to distance from the ocean. At Broomehill it is probably about 20-30kg/ha per year. 400mm rainfall gives 4,000kl of rain which is 4 million kg of water, so 20kg of salt is about 5ppm (check my decimal places?). And if you measure the amount of salt that falls on a catchment, and compare that to the amount that leaves the catchment in streamflow, in an uncleared catchment, there is a state of dynamic equilibrium. In high rainfall catchments, probably above 800-900mm/yr, there’s less salt accumulated because there is always some flushing of the soil profile. Uncleared WA catchments with less than about 500-600mm rainfall have less than 1% of the rainfall emerging as streamflow, with the other 99% accounted for by evapotranspiration. I wonder what the figures are for the Murray Darling?
I’ve also been told that if you divide the amount of salt stored per ha by the annual saltfall, ta da!!! you get about the period of time since the last ice age (14,000 years?). Take this last bit with as much salt as you wish, but I think it’s about right.
Sorry for the morph, Louis. The kids were watching South Park the other night and the topic was transgender operations. It produced the splendid quote from the dissatisfied tranny, to whit, “d’you mean I’m not really a woman, just a guy with tits and a mutilated penis”.
Back to the topic, Boxer is spot on with the state of the science.
Between me and my husband we’ve owned more MP3 players over the years than I can count, including Sansas, iRivers, iPods (classic & touch), the Ibiza Rhapsody, etc. But, the last few years I’ve settled down to one line of players. Why? Because I was happy to discover how well-designed and fun to use the underappreciated (and widely mocked) Zunes are.