Chris and Gill Hogendyk, with a bit of help from this blog, have been working hard to draw attention to the levy banks in the Macquarie Marshes starving the two nature reserves of water.
It seems the mainstream media have finally caught-on with an article in today’s Sydney Morning Herald entitled Cattlemen stealing water, irrigators say .
The piece by Daniel Lewis includes comment from Chris:
“Chris Hogendyk, the head of the irrigator group Macquarie River Food and Fibre, said the Gum Cowal-Terrigal branch of the marshes received less than 10 per cent of flood flows before 1980 but now got up to 30 per cent of what previously went to the nature reserves. There were once no large bird breeding colonies on the system, he said, but now there were several.
“The water should be going to the nature reserves, not onto private land. Once water enters the Gum Cowal-Terrigal system it is diverted and banked up across the floodplain by no less than 30 banks and channels.
“This water creates wonderful feed for fattening cattle, but kills the trees that are flooded. The resulting man-made wetlands are grazed bare.”
“Mr Hogendyk said rather than buying more water, the Government had to get rid of the banks and channels or buy the private land being flooded and set it aside for conservation.”
I understand that contrary to the Sydney Morning Herald article, Chris and Gill are keen for land to be purchased by The Australian Wildlife Conservancy or Bush Heritage – not government.
I am not sure that land needs to be purchased. But some of the levy banks need to be removed and some controls placed on grazing.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
We still have not been told what proportion of the total marsh area is in the reserves. Surely, any questions as to what proportion of water the reserves are entitled to must hinge on their relative proportion of the original marsh area.
If farm land makes up the major part of the marsh area then it should continue to get the same proportion of the stream flow. Give us the numbers, please.
It is also far from clear whether the removal of the existing works would serve any purpose in getting water to flow over the reserve land. Would the resulting changes merely produce increased flow down the chanels with minimal flooding of the reserves?
Can this supposed problem be fixed by placing new works in the chanel so the reserves also get a properly apportioned share of the flow?
Jennifer: Maybe all the land owners up and down the Macquarie can go back and re establish old log jams in their streams like beavers.
Leaky weirs, temporary flood storage and no unnatural diversions is the natural recipe in our river landscape.
Just a minute, now. The statement, “There were once no large bird breeding colonies on the system, he said, but now there were several”, appears to contradict several other statements.
On one hand we are being told that this water is going entirely to waste as cattle feed but the land now supports several “large bird breeding colonies”. Presumably these birds are feeding on the same feed, and associated biodiversity, as the cattle.
And the question must be asked, have total bird numbers changed or have they simply followed the water to the private land? To which one must also ask, who gives a stuff if they have? As long as the birds are breeding and sustaining their young on the “cattle feed” then what is the issue?
In any event, the Hogandykes have been quite misleading in suggesting that this diverted water is being used solely for commercial (non-environmental) purposes. The water is clearly being delivered to places at a frequency that is sufficiently beneficial to prompt the permanent relocation of “several large bird breeding colonies”.
And one is curious to know exactly which of these, presumably native marsh tolerant, tree species are dying from excess flooding?
So what, exactly is the core issue here? Is it that those birds are not nesting in the people’s democratic nature reserve? Is the trouble with them that they ‘aint got no damned gratitude’?
Could it also be the case that the entire wetland fauna suite are attracted to the private land because a much higher proportion of the private land has been fertilised and key trace element deficiencies have been remedied?
There is not the slightest room for doubt that the nutrition of plant species, and the insects that feed on them, is determined by both the nutrient content of the soils and the interaction of leaf area to soil moisture. On-going grazing produces short term reductions in leaf area that extend the duration of soil moisture which, in turn, enables an extended supply of new shoots favoured by both cattle, herbiverous wildlife and the insects that comprise much of the food resource for birdlife.
It is only in the very dry periods when total leafy biomass is substantially reduced by further grazing. But clearly, the birds appear to take the view that this is a fair trade-off.
It’s very encouraging to see this issue gain some traction. I think the Sydney Morning Herald article is balanced and fair to both sides.
As Jennifer points out, we would prefer to see some selected properties with good natural wetlands purchased from willing sellers and managed for conservation. We have been members of both AWC and BH for some years and both these groups are very professional.
I love Gavin’s suggestion. Early records of the Macquarie talk about “rafts” in the river- natural log jams that created leaky weirs (the early settlers burnt them out). To your recipe I would like to add “fence off the river” so that riparian vegetation can help to slow flow.
Ian is also right in suggesting functional erosion control works in channel in the Nature Reserves. Whenever this has been suggested in the past the marsh graziers have lobbied hard against it , fearing that people downstream of the Nature Reserves will get less water.
We are advocating that the considerable public money put towards rehabilitating these wetlands be spent on a number of projects like this, rather than the current mindset of just buying water entitlements. You can see from the SMH slideshow what can happen to the water!
Perhaps we should ask Peter Andrews’ advice?
Gillian: One hurdle you have to overcome in Peter Andrew’s strategies is his use of exotics namely willows. It’s the reverse of fire stick ecology, sprig by twig. However I see this as only a first stage. Red gums would most likely flourish again in silt accumulations.
This is where I differ from say Peter Cundall. Quick growth is essential in shoring up erosion channels and for that matter, blocking up a few man made channels as well. Willow infestations are seen as notorious for impeding floods and causing stream bed saturation over wide areas. Isn’t that just what we want in your old marsh land?
Also along routes like the Murray Darling were snigging boats, employed to free the river of logs and obstacles.
For quick bank stabilisation long stem tube planting has been successful
http://asgap.org.au/APOL33/mar04-3.html
Rog: I had a few native re-veg trials running in odd places back in the 60’s using stock from “Treeplanters” (Vic.) in 6” plywood tubes. Short term and sacrificial species usually flourished long enough to get other things away. Depending on their years of experience we used a lot of unusual and often interstate varieties to see what survived where early on.
Later the native garden mob from the Dandenong Ranges also got stuck into some difficult blocks with what ever. In very dry places I had success with candle bark gums in deep mounds. On sand dunes it was wattles that mostly got away. We also had WA bits and pieces doing well all over.
What a few might miss is the need to crop tops frequently to get the roots thickening as well as racing. Topside only reflects underside development in the long run.
For starters with most natives; more than one third top to two thirds root/tube ratio gives inferior tap root development.
However rog, the old timers simply walked up stream and along gutters with a bundle of long green willow and by their results we can’t be too fussy in the absence of more robust water barriers.