A new group has formed in western New South Wales (Australia) out of frustration with the states vegetation management regulations. Vegetation management is code for restrictions on tree clearing, and trees tend to include what that the locals refer to as “invasive scrub”. Following is the groups second ever media release:
“Farming families and business people from western NSW are challenging the Minister for Natural Resources and Primary Industries, Ian Macdonald, to explain the laws that govern the control of invasive scrub.
“The regulations for controlling invasive scrub are a bureaucratic nightmare that will result in more country being invaded and destroyed by weeds and farmers being forced off the land,” said a spokesman for the NSW Regional Community Survival Group, Doug Menzies.
The Regional Community Survival Group is made up of farmers and local business people from western NSW who are fed up with bureaucratic red tape that is preventing farmers from rehabilitating land infested with invasive scrub.
Invasive scrub is the term used to describe native shrubs and woody weeds that have infested formerly open woodlands and grasslands of western NSW. Infestations of woody weeds are smothering out native grasslands leaving a desert-like landscape devoid of natural grass cover.
“If the Minister can make any practical sense of his own regulations I would be bloody surprised. Farming communities of western NSW are demanding that the Minister answer the following simple questions about the regulations,” Mr Menzies said:
1. Why aren’t farmers allowed to rehabilitate 100 per cent of an area that has been degraded by infestations of woody weeds? In environmental terms, what’s the rationale in leaving 20 per cent of an area that is being degraded by woody weeds?
Under the regulations, land rehabilitation is ‘capped’ at 80 per cent of the degraded area. This is analogous to a surgeon only removing 80 per cent of a tumour!
2. How can farmers practically clear a paddock with large machinery if they are forced to leave woody weeds of varying stem/trunk diameters?
Ridiculously, for western NSW alone, there are over 70 ‘rules’ that govern the retention of scrub species at various stem/trunk diameters. For example, in the Western Catchment Management Authority area farmers have to retain: 6 Wilga plants per hectare that have a trunk diameter (at breast height) of between 0 to 5cm, 7 Wilga plants per hectare that have a trunk diameter of between 5 to 10cm, and 7 Wilga plants per hectare that have a trunk diameter of between 10 and 20cm. Finally, Wilga plants with a trunk diameter of over 20cm must be retained.
3. It is estimated that 20 million hectares (an area the size of Nebraska) of western NSW is either already infested or highly susceptible to woody weeds. How does the Minister envisage the measurement of millions of woody weeds over this area? Will he redeploy accountants from NSW Treasury to do the job?
4. How does the Minister expect farmers to clear woody weeds and control future regrowth when the regulations are so complex and prescriptive that cultivation and short-term cropping becomes impractical and uneconomical?
5. If a farmer wants to clear woody weeds, then this can only be done 20 per cent at a time (and only up to a maximum of 80 per cent of the degraded area!). To make matters worse, you can’t start the next 20 per cent until the cleared area is ¾ covered in native grasses. This could take years to achieve. Cultivation and short-term cropping are crucial steps in restoring native grasslands to a degraded landscape because these activities suppress woody weed regrowth. Does the Minister understand that cultivation and cropping play a vital role in the rehabilitation process?
“This is bureaucracy running rampant in an area that they know nothing about; that is, farming.
“Rural communities of western NSW look forward to the Minister’s answers to these simple questions,” concluded Mr Menzies.”
A similiar group formed in Queensland a few years ago also out of frustration with restrictions on tree clearing. This group called Property Rights Australia has championed the cause of Ashley McKay a softly spoken cattleman who has refused to plead guilty to illegally clearing cypress pine. I’ve written about Ashley at this blog, you can find a copy of the post here http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000971.html .
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
At the AGM of Property Rights Australia at Rockhampton on 10th June 2006, Ian Mott was elected to the Board of PRA on the basis of an overwhelming consensus for a more “vigorous” approach to campaigning on these issues.
The association’s legal team has methodically eliminated the most obvious lines of legal challenge, (which were also anticipated by the government’s drafting teams) and the work has now begun on the serious prospects.
What has been confirmed is the fact that under the Qld Constitution, which is nothing more than an act of parliament, the state, by simple majority vote in a single chamber, has given itself the power to take property without just cause and without just compensation.
And anyone silly enough to believe that this will not have very significant, widespread, and long term ramifications for both the state and national body politic, not to mention the environment to boot, is under serious delusion.
MR Menzies, YOUR POINT NO 5 shows you don’t really want those native grasses and herbage communities to exist on your place at all. “This could take years to achieve” you complain .
We need a better educated an less greedy generation of farmers to arrive.
Your organisations [inc the national party and nff] should be pursuing their state and federal governments to make better schools and healthcare available to deprived bush communities.
Do something constructive not destructive with your energy.
kartiya, your comment shows common gross ignorance of the issue. Mr Menzies rightly points out that the price of the idiocy of this particular piece of legislation is that you are prevented from rehabilitating a large proportion (80%) of this degraded landscape on the arbitrary measure and mix of groundcover from a government agency. Whilst waiting years for a particular mix of desirable species, many more thousands of acres will be suffering from massive erosion, nutrient lock up and in that time numerous species of native and introduced wildlife will be starving to death. The damage these weeds are doing will take a long time to reverse, and yet these woody weeds appear to have your protection? And just what evidence do you have to assert that farmers are greedy? I think protection of their local environment is a very worthy use of these farmers energy.
kartiya, in tony’s words, your “gross ignorance” astounds me also. Who will be left here to use those schools and healthcare facilities???
“Promlems are never solved by the same level of thinking that created the problem in the first place.”
To throw up your arms and say that only farmers can know what needs to be done is quite naive. As a NSW grazier on the lower end of the Codamine/Balonne river system I, and plenty of others are directly affected by some QLD farmers that think they know what is best for all.
Remember, electricity was not invented by a candle maker….
“We need a better educated an less greedy generation of farmers to arrive.” Does this (as stated by kartiya)show the socialist agenda hidden within a large proportion of the so called environmental movement?
to mucko and friends ,
No socialist agenda here providing you don’t mind farmers getting considerable financial support while rehabilitation of the natural environment occurs.
Ufortunately farmers have demanded little of their organisations or politicians – its a bit of a mates club where the aims are great but there is precious little coming out for most bush people . Take a leaf out of the EUROPEAN FARMERS book -you are propping up 90% of Australians.
As for the environment, as my footy club farmer mates have said on spending on rehabilitation ” no, there’s no money in it!” .
Eventually there will be , but in the mean time a lot of farmers will understandably go for the plough or spray rig to get some cash flow to top up their Government Drought Aid .