Yesterday I was at the Victorian Parliament in Melbourne to launch a new plan for the management of the River Red Gum Forests of the mid-Murray in northern Victoria.
The comprehensive plan is contained within a 150 page report by the Rivers and Red Gum Environmental Alliance; a group of 25 community and environmental NGOs representing over 100,000 people.
This is what I said:
Ladies and Gentlemen,
What a privilege it is to be here today to launch a comprehensive plan for the river red gum forests along the Murray River; a plan put together with the aim of not only looking after the forests but also the communities who live, work and play in them.
There are some who argue that the only way to look after a forest is to exclude people. But they are wrong and particularly when it comes to river red gum forests.
Red gums are fire sensitive and the large forests along the Murray, including the Barmah Forest, have always been tended by people. The Barmah forest, the largest river red gum forest in the world, is only about 6,000 years old as it came about following a geological uplifting that changed the course of the Murray River.
The wood cutters and cattlemen who now live and work in the region have gone to great lengths to keep fuel-loads in red gum forests low through controlled grazing and the collection of firewood. This, combined with a network of rural fire fighting brigades, has made it possible to stomp out fires started from lightning strikes or camp fires.
And this may explain why some aboriginal elders call river red gums ‘white fella weed’ and why areas which were described by the early explorers as open woodland are now covered in trees including part of Barmah.
Whether open woodland from burning, or dense forest from fire exclusion, bush users, both indigenous and non-indigenous, know that the beauty of what many regard as wilderness is often the consequence of a particular approach to land management.
Indeed the idea of a forest without people is a Romantic European notion of wilderness.
In 1820 English poet and Oxford graduate Percy Shelley wrote,
“Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and downs,
To the silent wilderness,
Where the soul need not repress
Its music.”
For Shelley, wilderness was a place far away.
The late American writer J.B. Jackson has suggested that once upon a time wilderness was the domain of the nobility, an environment where they alone could develop and display a number of aristocratic qualities and that friction arose between the “peasants” and the “nobles” and persisted as long as the peasants felt excluded from that portion of the landscape they believed their right by heritage.
There are more contemporary notions of wilderness that include ordinary people.
A fellow who comments at my weblog under the pen name Travis has written,
“Wilderness has no gods or one almighty. All is equal in life and death and just simply being. The rich tapestry of a wilderness includes the naked ape – but does not sustain those that want to dominate it. It then becomes something else.”
And so the beautiful river red gums forests along the Murray can sustain the communities that currently harvest them, and graze them, and camp in them, as long as no one group dominates.
This is the big difference between the VEAC plan and the community plan; The Community Plan for the Multiple use of Public Lands in the River Red Gum Forests.
VEAC is the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council. The council is comprised of a small group of people without a mandate from the local community and without any particular expertise, who have decided, a little like the English Aristocrat of the 1800s, that the forest is best protected through the exclusion of people. Thus, their plan focuses on changes to land tenure, management and use.
But the problem right now for the forests is water, not ordinary people.
Indeed many of the problems facing the red gum forests along the Murray stem from a chronic lack of water from the protracted drought.
But VEAC, with their outdated European notion of wilderness, seem to think that by excluding people they can somehow make things better; that they can somehow save the forests.
But they can’t. Furthermore the people who know how to practically and efficiently deliver water to the forest are the very people who live and work in the forests and who understand how the forest floods.
Some of the locals know how to piggyback environmental flows on to managed flows for irrigation, they know how to push water down creeks when the Ovens River floods. They know where the on-river regulators are, and they know how the on-river regulators, in conjunction with the distribution works located on flood runners through the forests, can deliver small quantities of water efficiently to the most stressed parts of the forest.
There is a rich oral history within not only the indigenous, but also the white-fella communities along the Murray.
But this potential for ‘within forest’ water management, to efficiently distribute this increasingly precious resource is largely untapped. This is partly because organisations, including VEAC with their outdated European notion of wilderness, falsely assume they can save the environment “naturally” and want overbank delivery of water which is neither practical nor efficient – at least not in these dry times.
In November last year, I stayed with friends on the Murray River. I saw a lot of river red gums – I saw some beautiful old habitat trees, many thickets of young saplings, some healthy forests, some water-stressed forests, some bushfire-damaged forests, some trees ready to be made into railway sleepers, others into veneer.
Some of the forests were suffering from the drought and some of these forests really needed thinning.
Commercial timber production is currently permitted within less than 45,000 hectares of state forest which represents just 16 percent of the total area of public land in the VEAC investigation area.
Environmental flows require a water allocation and the possibility for this are limited until the drought breaks. In the meantime, there is evidence that some forests can be at least temporarily ‘drought proofed’ through thinning.
While VEAC proposes an 80 percent reduction in the area of state forest there is no scientific basis for such a proposal and the benefits of thinning to reduce competition between trees for the limited available water – the benefits of active management – have been ignored.
An Ecological Grazing Strategy was undertaken by the Department of Sustainability & Environment concluding in June 2005 – just two months after the VEAC investigation started – and determined that grazing could be managed to minimise impacts on native flora and fauna while controlling introduced weeds.
A key recommendation in the new community plan is the establishment of Ramsar reserves along the Murray River to provide for sustainable multiple use and bio-diversity protection under the ‘wise use’ principles of the internationally accepted Ramsar Convention.
Ramsar is a term for ‘Wetlands of International Significance’ following an international conference, held in 1971 in Ramsar in Iran. Ramsar provides a practical and internationally recognised mechanism for protecting forest and wetlands. The Ramsar convention endorsed ‘wise-use’ as a key plank in conservation whereby the use of wild, living resources, if sustainable, is an important conservation tool because the social and economic benefits derived from such use provides incentives for people to conserve them.
The recommendation by the Rivers and Red Gum Environmental Alliance, if adopted by government, would create the largest Ramsar reserve in the world; the largest Ramsar Reserve in the world – an area of 104,000 hectares.
In short the Conservation and Community Plan is a well researched and referenced document that provides a credible alternative for government to consider; particularly as it provides a strong focus on bio-diversity conservation and also community well being. In short, the plan is contemporary and practical and rejects outdated notions of wilderness where people are excluded.
The new plan assumes a concept of wilderness which includes people recognising we are a part of the landscape and we can live in harmony with the red gum forests.
So without further ado, let me declare
“A Community Plan for the Multiple Use Management of Public Lands in VEAC’s River Red Gum Forests Investigation Area” launched.
Thank you.
Members of the Rivers and Red Gum Environment Alliance Outside the Victorian Parliament House, Melbourne, Thursday July 31, 2008. Photographed by Jennifer Marohasy. Members of the Alliance in the photograph from left to right are: Jodie O’Dwyer, Paul Madden, Rod Drew, Max Rheese, Barrie Dexter, Ian Lobban, Sandy Atkinson, Marie Dunn, Colin Wood, Peter Newman, Shelley Gough. In the background you can see members of the Rheese family from Benalla – Kyra, Michael and Samuel – cheering.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
“But this potential for ‘within forest’ water management, to efficiently distribute this increasingly precious resource is largely untapped. This is partly because organisations, including VEAC with their outdated European notion of wilderness, falsely assume they can save the environment “naturally” and want overbank delivery of water which is neither practical nor efficient – at least not in these dry times.”
So, in ‘these dry times’, the natural water flow isn’t up to the task? What are ‘these dry times’, and what effect are they having on nature. Why is our ‘outdated’ European notion of wilderness, which was that nature had done alright up till now, outdated?
SJT,
‘Wilderness’ is usually defined as an area of the earth’s surface unaffected, or hardly affected, by human presence and activities. Apart from a few islands and mountain tops, very little of Australia, at first European settlement, met this definition. Most of it had been managed by Aborigines for thousands of years, using fire as their chief tool. If you don’t believe this, go and ask some Aboriginal Elders. I have, and they all say the bush needs more frequent burning than occurs now. They say the bush is ‘dirty’, and ‘closed up’. Nyoongars use the word ‘winnaitch’, meaning bad, or sick.
I don’t have first hand knowledge of the Murray River, but I doubt if it was much different from other areas. I doubt if it was a wilderness – such notions are based on outdated ‘terra nullius’ stuff. Too many non-Indigenous Australians have, unthinkingly, parroted the ideas of people such as John Muir in America. As a migrant from Scotland, he was wrong about ‘wilderness’ too. Time to move on.
Try reading Simon Schama’s ‘Landscape and Memory’.
River Red Gum is great timber that can stand long droughts but if it was thinned, would be a useful resource, store carbon, de-stress the forest, save water and reproduce again when the wet returns thereby storing more carbon and producing more resources.
I’ve got a close relative, Forest Red Gum which is wonderful stuff.
You wondered why I was a bit dense?
Now you know.
Jen, You and the community groups are very brave going up against the media savvy VEAC. In an earlier inquiry where their predecessor also recommended a lock up of the Box – Iron bark forest, they knew they would have to influence the public and the Parliament.
The Victorian Government’s Environment Conservation Council wanted an information campaign to counter timber community concern against its Box-Ironbark National Parks proposals so the laws could get through the Opposition controlled Upper House, it asked PR consultants EMC.
EMC ran four focus groups in towns next to the forests and tested arguments on both sides. EMC then took the ECC report and held embargoed media briefings for local editors and journalists so they had an hour to talk with Chairman of the ECC to get fully across the issues.
When the report launched it was greeted with a full front page story in the Bendigo Advertiser. Local opposition was muted and the bill passed through the Upper House with Opposition support.
The community needs to be aware that they could be at the wrong end of a slick PR campaign to “save the forest” again.
Interesting Green Davey – to the aboriginal the land is unclean until burnt, I agree, I’ve experienced that belief.
But is it true? I seriously doubt it.
The aboriginies needed to burn forest to survive but more eco-ethics than that is needed today.
I recall that retired forester Barry Dexter gave a very informative talk on the issue at last year’s conference of the Australian Environment Foundation.
I have just checked at their web site and the PDF version of the presentation is still available at http://www.aefweb.info/display/speakers2007.html although it is a 6mb file due to lots of maps and pictures.
The AEF also have a range of articles on the issue and the River Red Gum Environmental alliance also has a web site http://www.rrgea.org
SJT says “Why is our ‘outdated’ European notion of wilderness, which was that nature had done alright up till now, outdated?”
Because it is an illusion. This European notion of perfect beginnings and endings implies a problematic disconnect which leads to this entirely maladaptive behaviour as with entrenched avoidance behaviours like pulling down the shutters, creating closed exclusive systems, disconnecting and walking away to a misperceived cosy but aggressive ignorance. An illusion is a belief without any evidence giving certain people the frozen in mindset always preferring presumption/belief/theory over facts. This is where these unfortunates will only find their little ego along with the righteousness that facts can be bent or ignored to fit their hypothesis.
e.g.
When Al-AGW adopts the per capita CO2 emissions method it is in fact a representation of this problematic disconnect. It sees our mind as something separate from our biology which in turn disassociates us from our unique immediate environment and our fuller, wider, unbounded environment. A natural consequence of this disconnect is seen with our prime minister who from all reports is looking at 300,000 immigrants per year. This may lower per capita emissions but have diabolical effects on the environment. e.g. There is the increased demand for finite water resources in the Murray/Darling basin plus increased demand for food, infrastructure and energy. For Wong Wudd to disconnect in this manner a climate change issue resulting from our carbon emissions is delusional.
I see the modern idea that charcoal added to soil being good for holding moisture, among other things, is not accepted by everyone here?
So called NATURAL forest is what causes the catastrophic fires here in California. We fight the fires every year. Every year more brush, undergrowth, and fallen timber choke the ground. The decomposition takes up extra nutrients also. Eventually there is enough fuel load on the ground for the fires to reach temperatures that not only burn down redwoods but sterilise the soil.
The aboriginals have it right. Unless we take upon ourselves the ACTIVE CULTIVATION of the forests like we do gardens, frequent fires are part of the NATURAL processes to keep the land healthy. Urban renewal natures way!!
Another little issue ignored by many environmentalists is that animals will breed until they overpopulate an area and denude it. Fires simply buffer this process.
Regular fires also leave less fuel on the ground for when there ARE droughts where large trees are more easily destroyed.
If you stop fires, you MUST replace the mechanisms or have unhealthy eco-systems.
Oh, Jennifer, just thought I’d ask, think this is very relevant and should be disclosed on your blog:
Are you, or any associated entity, funded by interests associated with fossil fuels or irrigation interests?
Didn’t get an answer before, quite concerning as you’d understand……
Janama,
Not sure what you mean. I take it you agree that Aborigines describe long unburnt land as ‘unclean, ‘closed up’, etc. I assume you question the Aboriginal understanding of these matters.
Given a choice between believing the views of Aboriginal Elders and those of some academic ‘fire experts’ I will believe the Elders every time. Their understanding of fire is not based on whitefella science. It goes much deeper than that.
I remember you saying you had been dismayed at the amount of burning in the Northern Territory. I believe that some Elders are too. It seems, in some places, that younger Aborigines, without proper knowledge, are doing the burning. However, I don’t have first hand knowledge, so I will not take a dogmatic stance on that.
There is ample evidence (whitefella mathematics) that the only way to maintain a particular mosaic is to burn often, and therefore mildly. Try to exclude fire, and eventually the whole area will burn fiercely, causing damage.
The experiment has been replicated in Victoria, NSW, South Australia, Tasmania, and WA. Also in California, and Kruger National Park. There is no doubt about the results. Frequent, mild, deliberate burning over most (not all) of the Australian landscape is essential. I will be dogmatic about that, because it is the inarguable truth.
Glen: I know someone who knows Jen and I’m a known user of petrol,diesel,LPG,natural gas and electricity and have done the odd hazard reduction burn and have cows that burp and I breathe. In short, I must be a CO2 emitter. Aren’t you? Even just a teeny weeny bit?
Green Davey: when we showed our new camp to Jennifer, a local Kimberly afghan/aboriginal, she immediately lit a match and set it on fire. Her intention was to “clean” it as per her culture. It opens it up so they can see snakes etc and clears the sharp grass seeds. We had to remove them from our dog’s paws as they drill in a get infected.
There was a documentary recently where they showed film footage of the Kimberly and Northern Territory from the early 20th century. The “fall down” trees I mentioned were in the pictures but they were 3 – 4 times taller and fully grown, like I saw in an unburnt area by the Margaret River.
Your average Aboriginal elder in the top end is an ex stockman. He grew up on a station herding cattle, his only knowledge of burning is creating fresh grass for cattle. The Aboriginal council in Wyndham employs two burners to burn the whole area every year.
Fire is a natural and essential part of the Australian landscape, I agree, but not the deliberate intense burning we see at this time of the year, every year, in the top end.
Hi Glen,
I think your comment about fossil fuels and irrigation interests disingenous and irrelevant.
Furthermore this thread is about red gum forests.
As regards the red gum alliance alliance:
I have not received any money from them. I usually charge a speaking fee but I did this gig for free.
As regards your reference to fossil fuels and irrigation:
I am paid a salary by the IPA and they receive donations from a variety of sources including irrigation companies and fossil fuel companies – at least in the past.
It is my understanding that the fossil fuel companies, including Exxon, are not funding climate change skeptics and organisation that employee climate change skeptics anymore because of all the bad publicity that has resulted. If you would like to do some research and send me a blog post on this issue (who oil companies fund i.e. Exxon, BP, Shell) I would be happy to post it as a new thread.
Bryant Macfie, a known climate change skeptic, and a retired doctor, is a major funder of my programs at the IPA. He asks only that we take an evidence-based approach to issues.
Murray Irrigation has made donations to the IPA and they also donate to the Australian Conservation Foundation.
There is more information on me, what motivates me and who funds the IPA here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Marohasy
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jennifer_Marohasy
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/about.php
“Frequent, mild, deliberate burning over most (not all) of the Australian landscape is essential. I will be dogmatic about that, because it is the inarguable truth.”
Davey,
I live on the slippery edge of extinction between wet and dry sclerophyl and rain forest and I see and live by what happens with burning.
If I wish to promote more dry forest, I burn more. If I wish to regenerate the burnt rainforest, I burn as little as possible.
If it were possible to avoid burning for 50 years I would see good rainforest regeneration and big increases in fauna in the thickened understorey and eventually a nearly unburnable forest.
I live with a lot of short-term risk to promote long-term desirability. Aboriginies didn’t live in these areas permanently because they couldn’t burn these forests. But whites for lots of reasons managed to.
Generally, you probably can’t say generally but in this neck of the woods, the more you burn the more you have to.
It’s a slippery slope.
As Jennifer has posted info on herself , I see that Wiki states : ” Dr Marohasy’s research topics include dugongs and whales”.
I would be very pleased to know more about Jennifer’s research on whales , as whales and whaling is my hobby.
Could Jennifer please e-mail me her research on whales or posting her research on whales here on the site?
Thanks,
Ann
Sorry . Read : “as whales and whaling are my hobbies.”
I see that Jennifer has made the comment ” that it is almost only blue whales that are endangered”.
HMMM, what about North Atlantic Right whales, Western Gray Whales, Spitsbergen Bowheads, that are all on the IUCN Critically Endangered Red List?
I’m sorry Jennifer, but this site have to do better if you want to sway the public. As it is now , it’s only cheap tabloid stuff.
Jen,
I’m interested in your idea to thin the river red gum forests. Can you cite the science that supports your claims regarding this. Forest thinning sounds like a very costly, labor intensive exercise. Who do you believe should pay for it?
Whale oil be ferry interested in working out whayles from wed gums so some comments here are whale out of context.
Dear Louis , I have already made apologies on my very first comment here on the blog for my loosy English:)!
Dear Ann
so you have but raising the issue of Cetaceans in a floral post is not useful for undistracted discussion.
Spanglo,
I respect your local knowledge. Several inquiries into fire have emphasized the need for local knowledge, and common sense points that way too.
My understanding of the rainforest/eucalypt boundary is that Aboriginal burning in the past probably reduced the area of rainforest initially, but then protected it by preventing big fires in the surrounding country. I believe in some areas that are now rainforest, there are the stumps of old eucalypts, which grew there before European settlement. Do you have any information on this?
I expect that climate change, especially rainfall, over the past few millennia has also played a part in the shifting of the rainforest/eucalypt boundary.
I have read that Aborigines were/are very canny in burning at the right time and place in preventing the destruction of rainforest, and other types that are damaged by fire. Seasonal soil moisture gradients would play a part in this. Any ideas?
Having said all that, I still maintain that the only way to maintain a diverse mosaic in dry, seasonally flammable vegetation (i.e. most of Australia) is to burn often and mild and patchy. Trying to exclude fire will lead to inevitable big fires, which diminish diversity. Comments?
Leichardt noticed (1840s?) that fires in NSW were common and widespread, but not dangerous to humans. There’s an obvious implication there.
There are many similar historical comments, which I can supply if anybody is interested.
History is an integral part of ecology, despite the attempts of some to banish it as ‘mythology’ or ‘mere anecdote’ or ‘lay opinion’. Barren scientism is an intellectual dead end.
Dave: What spangled says about his patch also applies to my patch however we probably both assume much higher average rainfall than the majority of other regions in saying the absence of fire eventually leads to “rainforest” recovery.
Any discussion of a fire frequency for “wet forest” maintenance programs must also consider the impact of nasties like bracken fern infestation when other forms of weed control are not available. Blackberries in particular become a problem in S E Aus where forests are removed for a time as they seem to thrive even after fire.
Mel, It doesn’t take much science to work out if thinning is good for the trees. If you’ve ever grown carrots you will know that if you do not thin them you get a lot of weedy, spindly carrots that are no good for any purpose but if you thin them you encourage bigger and better ones.
The forests in question here were thinned by aboriginal fire before the white man arrived. Early white settlers wrote about open, grassy forests with big old trees and very few smaller ones. They were able to gallop through them.
You’d be hard pressed to walk through parts of them now.
The first Europeans clear-felled the river banks for railway sleepers. There’s very little evidence of their activities today, such is the regenerative ability of the River Red Gum.
Thinning can be self-funding. Trees that are not suitable for milling can be turned into landscape materials and sold.
As Jennifer said, the mid-Murray forests are not that old and have been managed by man since they began to grow.
Mel, most forest thinning can more than pay for itself provided there is a market for bent and deformed stems which are the main items removed. This allows the taller, straighter and healthier stems to grow faster in good times and survive the bad times.
The main markets for bent stems is for woodchips or fire wood, both of which have been wrongly targeted by the gonzo greens. As woodchips are eventually converted into paper valued at over $1000/tonne, it provides the greatest value adding but due to green interference, this value adding is not carried out in australia as much as it could be.
Another use, as charcoal, has been in longterm decline but has much potential for renewal, both as fuel and as soil enhancer.
As usual, it is, and will continue to be local folk who provide the real solutions while distant greens merely exacerbate the problems while posturing for the media.
Thanks Ian and David. If what you both say is true then I would support thinning. In fact I’ve done it myself with the patch of grey box on my acreage in North-Central Victoria but it is too early to detect any benefits.
The idea of allowing cattle to tramp through the red gum forests worries me though. Surely this compacts the soil thus reducing subsurface moisture and reducing the quality and species diversity of undergrowth. This in turn would reduce the value of the forests as habitat for birds as well as some other species.
Any thoughts on this guys?
Davey,
Yes, every area has its specific problems and I have the advantage, as Gavin says, of reasonable, reliable rainfall. [In aust that’s the best 3 Rs you can have.]
There certainly are old burnt eucalypts in rainforests and it would be interesting to carbon date them.
I have no problem with your dry forest management. It generally promotes the best all round outcome.[And for savannah too.]
Davey,
Aboriginies obviously had reason to protect rainforest that had good supplies of bush tucker and they made big raids on these areas at selected times much like big flocks of fruit pigeons still do.
A good question, Mel, and a common perception, but also a misplaced concern. Think about it. The density of cattle on most River Red Gum forested woodland is in direct proportion to the amount of fodder that is present. So the density in pure pasture is much higher than in forested woodland.
Actual stocking rates can be as low as one animal to 20 hectares and this means that compaction is rarely concentrated, except at key paths and watering points. Add to this the fact that for most of the time the vegetation has already captured all the moisture in the upper layer of soil so the capacity for compaction is reduced considerably.
The net effect is that cattle hooves,in the brief periods when compaction is possible, make small, widely spaced depressions that can trap surface water and help it soak in. These also form wet spots where seeds have a better chance of successful germination etc.
In fact, in many tropical riparian zones it is actually the so-called damage from cattle hooves that has assisted in the re-establishment of many tree species (like Red Cedar) that rely on soil disturbance for successful regeneration.
I have actually seen environmental impact assessments that have wrongly complained about apparent stock damage to “old growth” riparian forest when the old aerial photos prove that the area was formerly completely bare. In those cases the regeneration has taken place at the same time that stock were present. It has been the soil disturbance by stock that has restored the forest they are now being accused of damaging.
Spanglo, Janama and Gavin,
Thanks for the info on rainforests, Aborigines, burning, and the top end. There is always more to learn.
My information on the south-west is that the dry areas (jarrah, tuart, wandoo and banksia woodland) were burnt, regular as clockwork, every 2-4 years, but there were many fire refuges, such as rocks, creek banks etc. That’s exactly where most ‘rare and endangered’ plants grow now.
The wet sclerophyll (karri and tingle) was not so much used by Nyoongars (too prickly), and burnt less often in general, but some tracks through, and along rivers, were burnt as often as the dry areas, so keeping them open. Old settler families remember this up to World War 2, as they continued the Aboriginal tradition of burning small patches in early summer.
Some areas that burnt often would no longer carry such frequent fire after the rabbits arrived (1920-30), and ate out the grasses, roots and all.
I don’t know if all this is relevant to Murray River Red Gums. Were rabbits a factor in reducing fire frequency there? Or grazing? Or was it the earlier decline in the local Aboriginal population? Were there fire refuges in damp areas?
An area of red gum forest that was effectively locked away from active management (no grazing, wood cutting, logging etc) was an area called the Top Island State Park. Top Island is one of two Ramsar reference areas in Barmah State Forest and in 1978 was declared as a site to be protected as an “area to which those concerned with land management may refer”. As a result the forest was left basically untouched and resulted in an intensity hot fire in October 2006 that destroyed most of this forest and almost all of the RRG’s (including 400-500 year old specimens) and the fire sensitive ecosystem. The fire was one of the largest fires experienced in a Red Gum forest and is an example of the expected impact of fire in the future if RRG National Parks are approved for implementation by the Victorian Government.
Mel, as outlined in Jennifers opening address, the Ecological Grazing Strategy undertaken by the Department of Sustainability & Environment (of which VEAC is apart of), was not referenced at all in the 700 odd pages of VEAC documentation. The grazing strategy did not suit the VEAC pre-determined outcome for National Parks. A leading red gum ecologist was part of the ecological grazing strategy.
A good, flexible grazing policy such as that used in NSW red gum forests can help control weeds too. I have seen photos of Paterson’s Curse growing fence-high on a public road reserve while in the adjacent forest it was practically non-existent. The grazing is monitored and if there is any danger of damage the cattle are removed.
I think they try to get the cattle into the Curse while it is at rosette stage. That seems to prevent it flowering.
It takes co-operation between the stock owner and the foresters but it seems to work.
Some of the best fire management plans, usually unwritten ones, involve heavy grazing at key parts of a woodland mosaic at critical times of year. This can actually be encouraged with fertiliser and supplementary sowing to ensure stock favour these critical fire choke points.
One of the best ways to maintain fire trails is to ensure that they have the most nutritious fodder of all so both stock and wildlife preferentially feed on them to an almost putting green condition that provides minimum fuel for fires.
And one of the worst fire management strategies, and one that poses a direct threat to entire private forests, is to allow the Landcare turkeys to convince you to join up all your forested pockets with additional plantings. They claim this enhances “connectivity” and improves habitat size etc but this assumes that woodland species are incapable of crossing 50 to 500 metre gaps in canopy.
The fact is that very few woodland species are unable to cross such gaps and even fewer are unable to obtain a portion of “habitat services”, including food and territorial space, from the pasture, orchards, crops, isolated shade trees and weed thickets that often make up these gaps.
So all these heavily subsidised and usually overly priced vegetation indulgences succeed in doing is substantially increase the risk of stand threatening fire for minimal additional ecological gain. And the promoters are never around to help you fight the fire, rebuild your fences or replace damaged infrastructure.
Caveat emptor.
Good points Ian,
Habitat areas are so fragmented these days that you have to look at them individually.
But grazing fire trails with livestock and wildlife works well and the ribbons of bowling green that result are far better than fireplough tracks for both fire and erosion control.
Just another comment in relation to impact of fires and a takeaway from the VEAC report and a comment made as part of the submission process to VEAC. Historically, fires have been managed under existing fuel loads in RRG State Forests due to the combination of timber harvesting, thinning, firewood collection, grazing and relative access
availability through the forest by fire authorities when a fire is encountered. The RRG investigation Report from VEAC (pg. 36) states that there have been “few major wildfires and those that have occurred are of limited extent”. “few species are geared to regenerate post-fire., nor does the succession of plant species found in regenerating RRG forests suggest that fire is a natural part of their life cycle…
RRG are particularly sensitive to fire ..” See VEAC report pg. 87. It is questionable whether VEAC have a grasp on the impact of fuel loads etc. as a contribution to fire risk “although there was a significant number of submissions linking wildfire frequency and national park status, no strong evidence was provided to support this position. VEAC report pg. 295. Note that no mention of fire intensity was included when fire frequency was mentioned.Since the Top Island State Park in the Barmah Forest was left basically untouched to be protected and maintained as an “area to which those concerned with studying land may refer” in 1978 and was destroyed by an intense “hot” fire, it is recommended that studies be conducted here in the future to determine impact on local flora and fauna, whether there has been localised threatened species extinction and determine the rate and extent of flora and fauna re-establishment in the Park. This needs to be completed before any additional National Parks be recommended. This is another example of items not addressed effectively by VEAC. If there are VEAC representatives out there having a look at this blog please comment on.
In relation to sustainability of red gum forests I would like to reference an extract out of another report.”The Forest areas have been used by communities for 150 yrs – an example of one of the longest continuous sustainable operations in Australia”. Source: Gunbower, Perriccota Forest discussion Paper MDBC, 2004.
Ann,
Your reference is a to a wikipedia entry that I did not make. But certainly I have researched whaling and dugong issues – and you are well aware of this.
Jenn, in her new Greenpeace role as blog troll, Ann is no longer being all sweetness and light. Rather, she is trying to imply a limited meaning to the word “research” to go no further than the actual taking of primary source data etc. It is standard green MO to debase the meaning of terms to suit their agenda. As if conducting a literature review is outside the meaning of the term “research”. The irony is that if that narrow definition were applied to the output of so-called greenpeace ‘experts’ they could certainly not claim credit for a single jot of research.
give it a rest, Ann, while you still have a scrap of dignity.
What happenned to equality in the VEAC process? There has been significant reference made by VEAC in relation to increased involvement of indigenous land management in RRG State Forests. Maintaining existing conditions will provide for indigenous cultural involvement, which is part of the current Mid Murray Forest Management Plan, whilst at the same time also recognize existing cultural significance that the local community has in a multi-use forest. This ensures a balance between indigenous and non indigenous culture, which is at the heart of societies expectations for equality.
There’s a bit of confusion about the history of the red gum forests. This may help:
Woody thickening was already underway in the red gum woodlands of the central Murray when the first squatter arrived in the 1840s. (Aboriginal populations were decimated by a smallpox epidemic in 1789.) He was E.M. Curr who saw young trees, about 50 years old growing out of old Aboriginal ‘ovens’ and new ‘sapling scrubs’. Curr first described Aboriginal ‘fire stick farming’, and 35 years later he remarked that Aboriginal people and reedbeds were virtually all gone and the “old forest” was “fast being converted” into railway sleepers.
In 1878 there was a government inquiry into the rate of cutting, and it appeared that the millable timber would be cut out in five years, but that there was a much larger new forest developing. The Pastoral Times in NSW reported (in 1889) that young red gum trees “have sprung up in an extraordinary dense manner”. The dense stands were completely devoid of grass and “except for roads, utterly impassable”. This was country which had been described as “good forest land – very fattening” only 25 years earlier. The forester at Moama recommended thinning to improve the productivity of the new forests, and 18,000 hectares were treated between 1892 and 1895.
European management created the current red gum forests. It was not timber cutting but the removal of natural controls, such as fire and dense reedbeds, that shaped the forests as we know them. Graziers displaced Aboriginal people and stock removed reeds and grasses that prevented establishment of red gum. Ironically the new forests had no grazing value unless they were thinned. At the same time, the area of reedbeds, grassplains, saltbush plains, cypress woodlands, box woodlands, shrublands and mallee was reduced by overgrazing, clearing and cropping. Also rabbit plagues denuded sandhills because they provided easy burrowing and flood refuge.
Vic, The knowledge of firestick farming has been more or less lost in red gum forest ecosystems, so if re-introduced as a control measure to control “very thick forest” and competion for limited resources (namely water), would now be an experiment in land management. In the 19th century there were periods of unregulated control, such as intensive harvesting of timber resources for the river boat trade, the situation has changed markedly as outlined in the VEAC report pg. 214-225. “The current Mid Murray Forest Management Plan (MMFMP) is the fundamental plan for the management of environmental, cultural and resource values. It establishes broad strategies for integrating the sustainable production of timber and other uses with the conservation of natural, cultural and aesthetic values. Public input is integral to the forest management planning process. Areas of forest are allocated to one of three zones, a General Management Zone (GMZ). Special Management Zone (SMZ) and a Special Protection Zone (SPZ). Zoning excludes harvesting from areas (such as SPZ) or restricts the intensity or timing of harvesting permitted in others (SMZ) The total area of forest within the MMFMP is 57,984 ha of which 10,125 ha is zoned SPZ, 15,898 ha is zoned SMZ and 31,467 ha is zoned GMZ An example of an area within the SPZ is 660 ha in the Gunbower State Forest principally protected as a Carpet Python management area. In the Barmah Forest SPZ areas are specifically for the protection of Superb and Regent Parrots etc.
It was recommended that grazing not be discontinued in the Barmah forest by a leading River Red Gum ecologist in a DSE report prior to the VEAC investigation process (this was not referenced by VEAC in the 700 pages of reports).
It is increasingly apparent that the National Park model or management practices are not suitable for dry schlerophyl eucalypt forests, this is especially the case in relation to fire management in which ideological green groups never seem to take responsibility. The focus seems to be on “total area locked up as national park” as a KPI, not ecolgical performance in existing National Parks.
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