Television personality John Doyle (from Roy and HG) was on Australia’s Radio National yesterday afternoon talking about the environmental problems he observed as he ventured down the Darling River recently with another Australian celebrity Tim Flannery.
I gather the journey was undertaken in a small boat earlier in the year and is being turned into a television documentary lamenting the state of the river and blaming irrigation in south western Queensland.
Doyle suggested that one hundred years ago the river used to ‘dry up’ because of drought, now the problem is apparently cotton farmers upstream taking all the water.
Interestingly two very large irrigated cotton farms were auctioned just last Friday; Ballandool Station at Hebel and Clyde at Dirranbandi. Together they have a storage capacity of 220,000 megalitres which is huge.
I am surprised there was no interest from any government in buying the properties which were passed in at auction for $20 and $27 million respectively. The irrigation licences could have been cancelled and the water ‘returned’ for the Darling River.
Meanwhile, on Saturday the Sydney Morning Herald published a long piece by Daniel Lewis titled ‘Fat Ducks, fat cattle – fat chance’ [1] that quotes from my blog piece titled ‘Cattle killing the Macquarie Marshes?‘ [2]. This is the first time I’ve read something in the mainstream media acknowledging that there might be an overgrazing problem in the marshes. Usually the finger is only pointed at the irrigators.
Lewis also quotes Chris Hogandyk from Auscott suggesting that government would get a better environmental result by spending $33.2 million buying 82,000 hectares of core marshland than spending money on ‘environmental water’ that ends up fattening cattle.
Reference was made in the Sydney Morning Herald to the following photograph, first published at this blog in October last year:
As I wrote in the original blog post, the photograph taken in 2005 shows the dramatic impact of grazing. The fence is the line of demarcation between an overgrazed private property and ungrazed nature reserve. The impact of grazing here is obvious and dramatic.
A very similiar photograph was taken three years earlier in 2002 and published by the Australian Geographic as explained at my second blog post on the Macquarie Marshes entitled ‘Marsh Graziers Don’t Pay For Their Water’.
I wrote last year that it seems incredible that flood-plain graziers are screaming so loudly for more water and yet the issue of overgrazing is being ignored by all.
Well, just maybe, overgrazing as an issue, in the marshes, is now starting to be acknowledged!
Thanks Daniel Lewis.
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[1] Fat ducks, fat cattle – fat chance
On one side of the river stand the irrigators, on the other the graziers. Both are pointing the finger over the demise of the Macquarie Marshes, writes Daniel Lewis.
Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday 8th July 2006
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/fat-ducks-fat-cattle–fat-chance/2006/07/07/1152240493862.html
[2] Cattle Killing the Macquarie Marshes
October 21, 2005. http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000949.html
I’ve written two other pieces on the marshes:
Marsh Graziers Don’t Pay For Their Water, October 25, 2005
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000958.html
and
Fat Ducks Equal Fat Cows, On Line Opinion 18th April 2006
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4377
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Hi,
You’ve read or heard of Allan Savory’s Holistic Resource Management? Animals and plants have a symbiotic relationship. Locking land up leads to loss of groundcover and desertification. We manage our pastures using time-controlled grazing methods – avoiding over-grazing and under-grazing, using animal impact to encourage deep-rooted native perennial grasses and encourage regrowth of native trees to reestablish grassy woodlands which were there when these districts were ‘discovered’ by the European explorers. Humus and organic carbon levels are higher in close proximity to individal trees. We have seen a dramatic explosion in diversity of native grasses, forbs and shrubs in our 5th year of rotational grazing. Soil carbon levels are also higher in high biodiversity areas. The diversity of the microfauna community living in and contributing to the biomass beneath the soil seems to translate into greater insect and spider life above ground, which encourages bird species and small marsupials. We have established a 50m wide wildlife corridor across the property, joining the 700 acres of wooded country with the wooded areas closer to the river. The emphasis is on understorey for the species that need the protection and nesting ‘infrastructure’ to flourish. We find that if we provide the conditions, the animals will return. But it must be managed, as the Wiradgeree did with fire to keep the eucalypts from completlely choking the grazing fields that attracted the kangaroo for their hunters. Elders have taught us about their land use traditions on the land we are responsible for and conducted a welcome to country smoking ceremony for us to reconcile our presence with their sense of connection with the land. Most landholders f]eel a sense of stewardship and many are getting serious about it while remaining profitable by adopting “conservation farming” techniques, as the rising cost of inputs collides with the falling prices they are getting for their produce.
Based on the principle that “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got”, attacking farmers for ignorance and neglectful practices only gets their backs up and confirms their belief that ‘greenies’ can’t understand. Behaviour change can be made only when the person feels secure and not threatened. Educational psychologists (and aren’t you an educator?) advise teachers to find something to praise (sincerely) in the student’s performance. Out here in the Central West of NSW we have the highest concentration of innovative farmers who use natural processes or mimic nature in their land management.
Back to the beginning: the opposite of over grazing is not locking up land. It’s counter intuitive but I swear it works. Native plants need some grazing – like Goldilocks, not too much or too litle, but just right.
Jennifer,
How much water do you believe would have been returned to the river if Ballandool & Clyde were bought by the government?.
It’s been reported that they are selling because of their distinct lack of reliability for water themselves….quite ironic, as they are victims to more irrigator greed upstream from them.
Cattle and grazing can enhance the marshes if done correctly. Grazing is not the problem, just grazing management.
Major irrigators calling themselves environmentalists is the epitomy of spin doctoring. Surely you don’t believe the answer to our ecological problems lies in the buying of large tracts of land by governments.
I think you know a hell of a lot more about the politics of water, and the power of the cotton industry then your seemingly naive comments let on.
For the record, the fully grassed paddock in the photo above is using more water than the overgrazed one on the left. Evapotranspiration is in direct proportion to leaf area index and, clearly, the paddock on the left has a very low index over part of it and a very high index in the forested portion.
It seems safe to assume that the trees are on the same property as the grassland in the foreground and it is incumbent on us all to get the full story on the management of both the forest and the grassland before we start accusing anyone of overgrazing.
The first thing we need to know is whether the trees were actually there 100 years ago. Are they regrowth or original? For if they are regrowth, as the structure suggests, then they are taking even more water than the fully grassed paddock and the landowner may have been placed under financial stress by legal restrictions on thinning out the wetland forest that have pushed him to overgraze to survive.
A picture may well be worth a thousand words but we must also remember that 990 of those words can be misleading.
How about some real information on the rate of recovery after spelling and rain?
Actually Ian if you allow that the “picture may be misleading” then it is not safe to assume anything.
I think the picture is valuable in illustrating different landuses at a point in time but there would need to be more investigation to determine the impact of those landuses over time on the whole system. Perhaps a levee is diverting water and perhaps not, a surveyor could determine the degree to which flows are being influenced by these devices.
The farmer vs farmer vs environmentalist vs anybody else mud throwing match will never be productive. Why dont all parties pull together and push for a proper independent study so that decisions can be based more on science than conjecture?
I agree, Rog, it would be important to know what role the fertilisation of the grazed paddock had in attracting ‘roos from the adjoining park to exacerbate the overgrazing problem.
For if there is one way to attract every ‘roo for miles around it is to provide better nutrition than the park does. This leads to a situation where the grazed pasture then provides more subsequent green ‘pick’ than the neighbouring paddock until the contrast is stark and the animals that can move hop back over the fence to ‘make-do’ with what is left. And the poor farmer must either completely de-stock or spend the kids inheritance on drought feed.
If both paddocks were returned to a firestick mosaic of green pick and retained fodder, and the public managed it’s ‘roo herd sustainably, then there would be some interesting outcomes.
1. the fodder reserves on the private land would last longer and recover sooner,
2. the nutritional value of the park’s pasture would improve and be grazed more,
3. the total number of ‘roos would be managed according to the natural (pre-settlement) footprint, and
4. the farmer would have a reasonable prospect of managing his property in a sustainable way.
The problem with photographic images is that they imply that the retained vegetation in the park has contributed to maintaining biodiversity when, in fact, the opposite is more likely.
Extraordinary – you guys are actually having an interesting conversation with a positive output.
Shock ! but good to watch.
We usually do so, Luke, until some sort of planeteer decides to indulge in some gratuitous planet salvation.
Careful – they’ll think you’ve all sold out. Better make a greenie lunge or shoot something quick.
Back to the point, Luke. It is a question of what it actually is that we are looking at. If one is looking for evidence of a change in vegetation then the eye will rest on the paddock without much pasture. But if one is looking for the site with the least vegetation change then the eye will obviously rest on the paddock with the most pasture.
But when we ask, “which paddock has contributed the most to maintaining fauna diversity”? then we should point to the one that has, by its depleted condition, provided the most food to the full suite of animal and insect species.
The fully pastured paddock may well retain the widest diversity of flora species and it may still retain some fauna species that have not fed on the depleted paddock. But, clearly, the retained pasture has not contributed much by way of consumed biomass during the time when the other paddock was being munched away.
And it is not just ‘roos, cattle and sheep. Most of the leaf eating insects and the birds and animals that feed on them, will have favoured the more nutritious feed in the depleted paddock. And during the process of depletion the forbs and grasses would have responded to the initial grazing by producing the new shoots that all the exploiting species desire.
But the illinformed and plain ignorant would actually lament the fact that the depleted paddock does not look like the other one. They would claim that the undepleted one retains the most potential future contribution as a food source when the full suite of grazing species have shown a marked reluctance to have anything to do with it.
It is like suggesting that a person is much better served by a plate laden with sumptuous looking plastic food and an empty stomach rather than an empty plate and a full stomach.
If both paddocks looked like the fully vegetated one then there would be not only fewer cattle and ‘roos but also fewer insects and birds.
A silent spring by any other name would sound the same.
What sort of rubbish are you people trying to dish out here? How can you possibly state the over-grazed, over silted poor excuse of a wet land is better off than the well preserved land on the right? What a diatribe.
Where in nature, which works perfectly well without human intervention, would such a scenario as this occur? It wouldn’t, as the wetlands are far from healthy or ‘productive’. Its not rocket science chaps. Put a spin on anything and one can make it sound plausible, but for heavens sake, at least try and make the discussion creditable.
Intensive over grazing by one species does not enhance the conditions for all species contained in the system. Quite contrary it reduces the biodiversity and stresses the system for time to come after regeneration occurs, if it does at all. And then there is no guarantee that the system will restore itself to the same level of health as before.
I don’t believe cattle are native to this country, yet you seem to think the environment cannot sustain itself without grazing rotations.
Sorry, now I understand this blog must be a joke!!! It’s just a method to engage discussion and bring to light the destruction of pristine country by poor managers who need help with their properties. To think I was playing the role of the “the ill-informed and plain ignorant” who “lament the fact that the depleted paddock does not look like the other one”. Thanks Luke and Ian for opening my eyes.
Some useful information sent to me from a NSW landholder:
“These places are not worth buying back unless Cubbie is bought back as well. These two have about 220,000 mgls of allocation and neither have filled at any time so the value is only in the average number of green acres grown.
Basically the system has been over allocated and Cubbie being at the top of the system has first chop. With only small flows it creams it and there is little left for these two.
Problem is that if the govt only takes out Cubbie then the water then passes down to these two places.
There are two options, Govt has to buy all three Cubbie, Ballendool, and Clyde to make a difference, or it has to re negotiate the whole allocation process which would be messy.
Based on the vender bids at auction for B/Clyde combined total of $47m then each mgl of storage is worth $213.63 @ 220,000mgl. Cubbie has storage of 500,000 mgl then it has a value of $107 million. This leaves The Cubbie groups idea of its value of $440 million under water somewhat.”
Hello there everyone.
It is certainly real that Mr Mot doesent stick around after the main biomass (cattle) have finished , and they do very quickly.
It looks like shit , it smells like shit , there is kilos apond kilos per sq metre but its not roo pebbles .
He seems to be stuck on roos .npws have recently halted the quoter(slaughter) for that region for obvious reasons .Roo shooters for a significant time are going out of buisness .(he should ask them not some farmer/grasier that set on driving them to extinction).
These large amounts of shit still continue to stack up until the next innundation or rain both allow it to flow down to the barwon so i gues the Aboriginal kids can drink it or just maybe turn the river green
Does he need another pitchure or his nose rubbed in it until he gets the pitchure.