27/8/01

Hi Everyone,

                   A bit less national news this week. Thanks to those

sending in some very good material, some will go on the web site in time, and

some in News & views.

We have just sent an email with our "Demands for a national propert rights

bill" to most politicians and others who may be interested. Many pollies have

replied.  Several state Farmers lobby groups are working on their position to

property rights and compensation issues.

In this edition we have

(1) Report of the visit by Nick Bolkus to Aramac (Qld) last week

(2) Lance Jones (Qld) criticises Firewood figures

(3) Ian Mott updates on the Barns Case & Local Govt Ethics

(4) Govt introduces tax incentives for conservation covenants

(5) Wilson Tuckey says tree clearing not necessarily cause of salinity

(6) Environmental Defense (US) model for improving the environment.

(7) Several studies of property conservation show large costs involved

(8) NSW  Vegetation Committees not addressing legal requirements?

(9) Greg Burrows comments on locked up sites

(10) Bill Soko discusses biodiversity

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(1) Report on Shadow Federal Environment Minister Nick Bolkus`s visit to

Aramac

Chairman of the Aramac Landcare Group Mike Price said the visit by Nick

Bolkus on 14th August was fairly dissappointing bordering on depressing.

While he believes Nick is quite approachable, Mike cannot see Nick having a

view that is moderately close to Landholders views.

Several landcare members showed Nick Bolkus around for a few hours. They

visited places including

* Areas of Gidgee invasion where 5000 seedlings / per ha  plus were growing

on previously clear land.

* Areas of ironbark invasion where 3000 trees per ha were now growing.

* Open Downs that never had trees and no salinity problems either.

* Some natural springs with Endemic species of fish

Due to a lack of time they did not see any pulled country with improved

grasses and soil structure.

Some of the Shadow Ministers comments were

* He couldn`t understand why there wasn`t a salinity problem in central Qld.

* He did however accept that the Open Downs never had trees on it.

* He couldn`t understand how tree pulling could improve the environment.

* In the circles he mixes (NFF etc) tree pulling is not regarded as a

required management tool for landholders

There is one comment that Mike never heard but others reckon Nick Bolkus said

or at least alluded to, which is that if he (Nick) had his way then all

treepulling (even for regrowth control) would be banned.  

The visit at least shows one thing. It is important that the NFF realises

what timber management is required to keep the tree thickening areas of

Australia productive, otherwise they are not representing us, which is what

they are supposed to do.

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From Lance Jones (Qld)

(2) Firewood Figures Questioned

Leon ,

I heard this " Firewood" story on ABC  while in Hospital in early July

someone from conservation  council talking about the 6 million tonne of

firewood taken in Australia each year of which 1.2 million tonne it is taken

in QLD.Has anyone stopped to analyse these at all?

Simply this, it equates to 1/3 of a tonne per Man , Woman  and Child in Aust

or 1 TONNE per household for every household in the country . I have

travelled  very extensively through much of Qld and I do not know of a single

house [Town or Country] that uses firewood for cooking.

The last one was about 10/12 years ago. Most certainty some use  wood for

heating in Winter but they  would be a small percentage .

Now  let's use some real figures 1.2 MILLION Tonnes works out to 48,000  25

tonne semi loads or nearly one thousand loads per week [ 923 actually ]  

Strangely in hundreds of thousands running into millions of  klms I have done

in cars and trucks I don't ever recall seeing one loaded with firewood , sure

some would be loaded in tippers and don't see their  load yet I have  seen

hundreds of trucks carting wood chip

I travel a lot in areas toward Brisbane  and Toowoomba and am yet to  see any

activity of clearing old timber for firewood , plenty raked for burning so

where does it all come from?

Certainty the weekenders in their 1/2 ton trailers but no way would  they

amount to a significant proportion , So I  DEMAND  to know how these figures

are calculated

It seems to me we are being feed  a  red herring by the Conservation Council

and the Government  have come in hook , line and sinker  as they see as a

money raiser . Can we get the FACTS or they carefully hidden and distorted

from the truth like  our Vegetation Management .

Sawmills would supply a big qty I imagine [from what is not chipped ]  

Those figures should be obtainable.

 Regards  Lance Jones. (Rolleston, Qld)

*The web site www.ea.gov.au/land/firewood/publications/strategy/strat1.html

says

Data on the precise amount of firewood collected in Australia each year is

variable and scarce. Estimates range from 3 million to 6 million tonnes.  

(Australia currently exports 3 million tonnes of eucalypt woodchips.)

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This is from Ian Mott (QLD)

Barns Case Update - Where Maroochy shire won a case which means there is a

requirement for a development permit for every change of land use

The Qld Supreme Court did not grant Mr Barns leave to appeal his case so the

decision stands. He is left with legal bills of circa $150,000 and has to

continue negotiating with a council that blatantly wants his property for

public use without payment.

And the implications are already feeding through. While native forestry

operations are still going on consistent with their newly defined rights,

the same cannot be said of the plantation sector. One Sunshine Coast Nursery

has not sold a single tray of seedlings since the judgement. Jim Barns would

now be fielding more telephone queries on farm forestry than the DPI

switchboard and, as one would expect, he tells it like it is. Many of those

seeking his advice have been prospects for the DPI Forestry Joint Venture

Program.

Yet, the persecution still goes on. Mr Barns recently received a demand from

the council to seek approval (at $800 fee) for the Bee Hives that had

recently been placed on his property, as they had been placed every winter

for the past 30 years, or face a fine for a development offence. The fact

that the annual rental charged to the hive's owner was no more than a bucket

of honey for Jim's family did not seem to phase the intellectual heavy

weights at Maroochy Council.

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Ian Mott also comments on Local Government Ethics

It is clear from the actions of council staff that a major priority of all

the landowning sector in Qld must be to ensure that Local Government

employees are brought in under the provisions of the Public Service Act

1994, under the supervision of the Public Service Commission.

At the moment, a breach of the ethics principles under the Public Sector

Ethics Act, which include "proper regard for the rights and obligations of

persons", and respect for law etc, is an offence for State employees only.

The Public Sector Ethics Act outlines ethics obligations for all sectors of

government but it has no provision for offences. The Public Service Act

provides for a breach of those ethics principles to be treated as a breach

of discipline by State employees (usually by way of departmental codes of

conduct).

But the relevant provisions in the Local Government Act only apply to the

CEO of each local government entity who is required to apply those

principles to his area of responsibility.  Few local government codes of

conduct have any consideration of ethics obligations and any breach of those

principles by employees are referred to the CEO only. This is clearly of

insufficient arms length to ensure adequate compliance with these

obligations.

At state level, all Director Generals of departments are required to report

to parliament annually on their compliance with their ethics obligations and

The Public Service Commissioner is the ultimate referral authority.

But even in the State sector these obligations are not well understood, even

by those tasked with ensuring compliance. It is a matter of record, for

example, that when I telephoned the secretary to the Director General of the

then Department of Environment, a year or so ago, to obtain a copy of their

employee code of conduct, I was initially told that these ethics obligations

only applied between employees and other employees, not between employees and

the public.

So if the very top of the organisation doesn't know their own obligations,

it is easy to see why the new veg police can slip so easily into the

jackboots.

Extending the ethics obligations to local government employees, under the

Public Service Act, as is the case in NSW, must become a major priority.

Find the Public Sector Ethics Act ,  The Public Service Act and the

voluminous but seriously lacking Local Government Act at

www.legislation.qld.gov.au

Regards

Ian Mott

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From ABC radio

(4)  Government pushes green incentives

In a move that clearly signals the growing importance of the green vote, the

Prime Minister has announced new incentives for landholders who want to

protect their land. The new measures mean farmers who place part of their

property under a perpetual conservation covenant, will receive income tax

deductions, in lieu of not being able to sell or develop the land. Both

farming and conservation groups agree the move will see more land of high

conservation value protected.

Greens Senator Bob Brown supports the move but says the government needs to

go further. "It's very important that the Prime Minister take up other

proposals put forward by the CSIRO and others which would mean that where a

convenant is put on the land, people get tax breaks for managing that land

for its conservation value. Or where a landholder gives land of high

conservation value to an environmental organisation at less than the cost,

they sell it cheaply, they get a tax deduction for the effective gift they've

given to that entity."

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From ABC radio

(5) Planting trees not the key to solving the salinity crisis

Federal Forestry Minister Wilson Tuckey says millions of dollars has been

wasted planting trees to fight the country's salinity problem. Mr Tuckey says

trees are not the best defence against salinity and the money would have been

much better spent on engineering works. He's also challenged the idea that

the country's salinity crisis is the result of land clearing by farmers.

Minister Tuckey says a lot of the ground water that is affecting and

producing salinity is to be found in million-year-old paleo channel streams

that are 40, 50, 60 metres under the ground and have been there for a million

years, long before farmers started clearing trees.

Reaction to salinity options

State Salinity Council Executive Officer, Don Crawford says there are a

number of solutions to the salinity problem, of which engineering is one and

trees are another. Mr Crawford agrees a combination approach should be used

to address the salinity problem. He says while there is natural groundwater

some metres below the surface, it's the additional water going in as a result

of clearing which is causing salinity problems. Mr Crawford says scientists

would dispute any statement which suggests land clearing hasn't caused the

salinity problem.

*  There have been several other salinity / tree water use  / grass water

holding  comments in the Australian farm journal (eg Dr John Angus, CSIRO)

and on ABC local radio (SA)  saying the impact of grasses in water retention

in the soil has been undervalued while the tree impact has been over valued.

These views align with Dr Christine Jones articles on our web site.

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(6) US Environmental Defense model for improving the environment

From Bill Soko (Daintree rainforest Foundation)

Environmental Defense (USA) is a leading national nonprofit organization

representing more than 300,000 members. Since 1967, we have linked science,

economics, and law to create innovative, equitable, and cost-effective

solutions to the most urgent environmental problems.   

Federal and state regulators essentially threw up their hands at the prospect

of controlling "non-point source pollution," which was generated by hundreds

of small farms. State regulators called on farmers to use "best management

practices" to curb this dangerous pollution, but selenium continued to pour

into wildlife refuges, threatening ecosystems and violating water quality

standards in the San Joaquin

River downstream.

Environmental Defense sat down with farmers, the federal agencies responsible

for water quality and management in the region, and leaders in the towns

downstream to

collectively design a better way. Convincing the farmers to significantly

modify their daily operations required some serious negotiating (and federal

agencies played an important role in this process), but eventually the

farmers agreed to reduce selenium pollution. Environmental Defense proposed a

four-step plan to achieve the needed cuts:

o First, set a cap: a limit on the amount of selenium pollution that local

waterways

could accommodate without suffering irreparable damage.

o Second, let the farmers decide what equipment or procedures they would use

to

reduce selenium  runoff into nearby waterways.

o Third, have regulators measure the results to ensure compliance with the

cap.

o Fourth, hold the farmers accountable and impose penalties if they exceed

the cap.

Given the flexibility to find ways to reduce pollution that worked best for

them, the farmers implemented a variety of solutions including a discharge

trading program. And it worked! By 2000 - the fourth year of the program -

selenium discharges had already been cut 23% below the allowed total.

 Combining firm limits on pollution with accountability for results and local

control of implementation has yielded benefits for everyone involved:

o Farmers benefit because the flexibility to find pollution controls that

work best

for them lets them choose the most cost-effective techniques.

o State and federal regulatory agencies benefit because their focus is only on

enforcement of the cap.

o The environment benefits because the program begins by placing a cap on

pollution

that protects waterways and wildlife and then proceeds with clear

accountability and strict enforcement.

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(8) Studies on properties that took up conservation practices

From NSW Farmers

A detailed analysis was conducted of the conservation options available on

eight farms in south-east Australia that had significant areas of native

grasslands. In each case, the objective was to investigate whether plans that

involved the retention of these grasslands in their original state would be

cost-neutral for the farmers involved.

Four of the properties were in plains areas, and a range of conservation

options were examined to determine their impact on farm business

profitability. Fencing out just 2.5% of the property for conservation

resulted in losses of between $16 and $42 per hectare. Lighter stocking to

preserve the native pastures was also examined, but when compared with a

traditional cropping/pasture sequence, the results were not favourable.

Planting of areas to native species such as saltbush was also examined, but

the results were marginal and very sensitive to a number of management

variables.

The authors conclude “None of the actions which might maintain or improve

conservation management …are unambiguously profitable. Conversely, cropping

native grasslands is profitable on the two Victorian properties.”

For the four properties in more hilly areas, the results were not dissimilar.

In all cases, the conservation options examined resulted in significant

reductions in whole-farm expected operating profit, in comparison with a

range of land development options that were identified.

Again, the authors conclude “ …if various development options are undertaken

(on native grassland areas)…all four farmers are in a much better position to

pursue conservation management…(on the rest of the property)” .

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From a draft paper "landscapes for the future"

Four properties were recently involved in this study in South east Qld

All properties were beef cattle enterprises ranging from 991 ha to 10,107 ha

and from 130 breeders to 900 breeders.

Extra woodland was needed for

*salinity risk (**debatable)

*Wooded riparian buffers

*Viable patches (minimum 5ha in native pastureland or 10 ha in sown pasture

or crops)

*Overall woodland cover meeting 30% property level (**again debatable, but

some green groups demand it)

Estimates were made for capital costs (fences, gates, water troughs & poly

pipe, some tree seedlings) but no debt servicing commitments were  allowed

for.

The capital costs ranged from $87,000 to $1,699,000 per property.

The % lost income from reduced herd size was from 9% to 22% per property

The % lost profitability was from 29% to 73% per property

( You guessed it, one property needed to spend $1.7 million and stood to lose

 73% of their profitability as a result)

* While this study is very good at identifying the imposts on the landholders

finances, it did not look at

(1) if the conservation methods are in fact going to achieve the expected

outcomes

(2) if there is actual management and some further costs required to achieve

good conservation.

*If Allan Savory`s understanding of the environment is correct then the lock

it up approach will cause ecological degradation in brittle (non humid)

environments  *Monitoring and some grazing and / or  occassional fire will

still be necessary to ensure the conservation goal is achieved.

*However by using grazing as a tool to assit in the conservation of grasses

there would be less profitability loss.

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(8) NSW Vegetation Committees not addressing Legal Requirements?

*This has been sent to us and will be of interest to people in NSW on

Vegetation committees. It illumuninates the fact that the DLWC is supposed to

report on how vegetation controls will impact on landholders rights, loss of

income, and more in the Richmond region.

Original Message-----

From: Roger Bailey <rnbailey@nor.com.au>

To: Glynn Tosh <gtosh@midcoast.com.au>

Date: Tuesday, 14 August 2001 10:49:am

Subject: Questions to Des Schroder- 18/9/00

Hello Glynn.

Attached is a document tabled at a Richmond Regional Vegetation Committees

meeting twelve months ago. The questions on notice are still relevant to the

Plans development today. A lack of reply from DLaWC will be questioned at the

next meeting and a response solicited.

The Richmond RVC's current "Draft Plan" is unable to meet the required

criteria defined under the Guidelines and Schedules 1 and 2 of the

Subordinate Legislation Act 1989. As such the Minister is obliged to modify

the proposed regulation (the Plans Regulatory Code) to meet those criteria

prior to submission to the Regulatory Review Committee (a joint committee of

parliament), whose brief under the Regulatory Review Act 1987 is;

9. (1) The functions of the Committee are:

    1.. to consider all regulations while they are subject to disallowance by

resolution of either or both Houses of Parliament;

    2.. to consider whether the special attention of Parliament should be

drawn to any such regulation on any ground, including any of the following:

        1.. that the regulation trespasses unduly on personal rights and

liberties;

        2.. that the regulation may have an adverse impact on the business

community;

        3.. that the regulation may not have been within the general objects

of the legislation under which it was made;

        4.. that the regulation may not accord with the spirit of the

legislation under which it was made, even though it may have been legally

made;

        5.. that the objective of the regulation could have been achieved by

alternative and more effective means;

        6.. that the regulation duplicates, overlaps or conflicts with any

other regulation or Act;

        7.. that the form or intention of the regulation calls for

elucidation; or

        8.. that any of the requirements of sections 4, 5 and 6 of the

Subordinate Legislation Act 1989, or of the Guidelines and requirements in

Schedules 1 and 2 to that Act, appear not to have been complied with, to the

extent that they were applicable in relation to the regulation; and

     c.   to make such reports and recommendations to each House of

Parliament as it thinks desirable as a result of its consideration of any

such regulations, including reports setting out its opinion that a regulation

or portion of a regulation ought to be disallowed and the grounds on which it

has formed that opinion.

The "Plan" as drafted, fails to meet most of the above criteria and will be

rejected unless major modifications are applied. DLaWC's failure (including a

senior planning officer) to acknowledge these legislative requirements

jeopardizes months of work by this committee and is potentially a breach of

the DUAP Code of Conduct.

Yours sincerely,

Roger Bailey.

* a copy of the document mentioned is attached to this email.

============================================================

This is from Greg Burrows (WA)

(9) Environmental responsibility

In reply to Leon Ashby

First just going back a week or 2 on a couple of issues

With your question on what is fair for clearing (you could ask fair for who?

you , your neighbour or the region?).

As I understand in a farm/catchment approach,  fair would be to keep a

representation of the various vegetation types (linked) that exist and in

doing this retain a sufficient size area for habitat for all the fauna that

exist in that niche.

Also to keep a water "balance" the clearing would need to relate to the

proposed new landuse. As you have indicated in the past ,base data is the

first step.

I would also like to comment on the rangeland grazing as far as to say I

agree that stock are selective grazers and once introduced into a system

along with water, alter that system. They are most likely to graze those

species most pallatable and work on from their, several species a year can

be lost without notice, expecially with no base data.

The decline of a grass habitat that was "locked up"is an example of such a

changed system. Some of the things removed from the system are likely to be

the cause of the problem, these are the burrowing type mamals/ reptiles that

have been spoken about before, the larger fauna  roos & emus etc and the

bacterian and other soil biota have also probably changed. Is the problem

than , so where are they now? When key species are removed from the system

the system starts to collapse, lack of diversity.

I`ll just finish by saying that  I am sure farmers should be payed for

managing remnat vegetation, if it has a value than it needs to have  a

figure put on it, maybe according to its signifigance after an an intial

base rate , it needs to be substansial, farmers would soon get the money

back into the system, it would create jobs and contribute to rural

communities.

Where would the money come from, Banks are the biggest land holders and

Australians spent 13.8 billlion on  legal gambling last year, thats got to

be a start!

 G`day Greg,

just to clarify one point you have raised

 The locked up sites at Ilfracombe Qld had both total grazing exclusion, and

partial grazing (no stock) but roos, rabbits etc could still graze. Both

areas had less mitchell grass that the areas outside the enclosures, and the

remaining grasses in the enclosures were less vibrant as well. Only the

pigweed and roly poly were doing well. This is not an isolated case. Allan

Savory and others have many photos of comparable sites side by side from

around the world, where the only difference is stock separated by a fence,

all other factors are the same. The conclusion is that in brittle

environments, the perennial grasses decline over the years without

appropriate grazing.

To verify this theory we should then be able to do the reverse - that is by

using the appropriate grazing on degraded areas perennial grasses should

return. And today many landholders around Australia are doing just that. (see

our Web site)

On the video called :"Creating a sustainable civilization" - Allan Savory  

makes the comment that without stock such as cattle, two thirds of the world

land mass will eventually become desertified because of the need to recycle

carbon (grass) via dung, microbes, soil biota and plants etc. He explains how

Africa and America in past centuries had phenomenally large herds of grazing

animals roaming the abundant grasslands grazing the land and recycling the

carbon, but now it is only a fraction of that.

Savory has verified his views many times over but the understanding still

does not get through to some people as the following story indicates.

Richard Makim retells this story from Savory. A mining company wanted to

revegetate with grasses etc some land that they had finished using for

mining. They got all sorts of people in to plant the varieties they wanted,

watering & fertilising them etc but the results were very unsuccesful. They

were about to give up when some one suggested they get Allan Savory to try

his ideas. So Savory comes and throws out some hay, then runs cattle on the

area, takes the cattle off the area, grasses come up. Grazes the grasses,

more dung gets spread around, rests the area etc etc. After he does this for

some time, Savory says to the mining people, "You`ve seen what I`ve been

doing, now it`s your turn to manage the area".  So the  mining company says

"Beauty the first thing we`ll do is get rid of those *#@!*+&  cattle".

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(10) Bill Soko (daintree rainforest Foundation) has replied on biodiversity

.Leon,

biodiversity -- big topic

its not possible to simply state that every rural landowner should put

15% of their land under conservation purposes including BD.

It does take regional plans, on a catchment by catchment basis to plant

out all conservation needs.    It is difficult because in some areas we

are in a crisis situation and in others not.   There is a lot of work

done in some area on identifying areas of high BD but it is of coarse

incomplete and not down to property by property detail.  It should be

included in gereral veg management.

My professional opinion in the interium or as a present direction for

farmers favors

   * protecting vegetation on watercoarses,  particularly in the flood

     paths.  Of coarse, in broad acre flood areas in the west the main

     channels must be protected.

   * protecting vegetation on land considered margional for farming due

     to; shallow or infertile soil, steepness, wetlands, or any land

     that has a high cost to bring into production making it

     economically risky .   Only very sound judgement can in the end

     draw the line between productive and non-viable marginal land,  but

     lets say that FARMERS SHOULD ERROR ON THE SIDE OF CAUTION and they

     will be less likely to go broke in the process.  Desperate acts

     usually finish up that way.

   * landowners need expert advice of where the best place to conserve

     BD is on their land taking into long range regional plans.

I close with a recent quote....  regards Bill Sokolich

LEAKEY WARNS OF MASS EXTINCTIONS

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, August 23, 2001 (ENS) - The world is losing

between 50,000 and 100,000 plant, insect and animal species a year,

Kenyan conservationist Richard Leakey said Wednesday at a lecture. This

is much higher than a similar estimate Leakey gave in 1997. "Human

activities are causing between 10,000 and 40,000 species to become

extinct each year," Leakey said then.

Hi Bill,

Many of us probably agree with your comments on Biodiversity planning as it

what we already do in Qld.

The still unanswered question is, what is the determination between "duty of

care" and "public good"  as there are situations where biodiversity

conservation is a "public good' such as in the federal EPBC act, whereas a

level of biodiversity for sustainability would fit into the "duty of care"

requirement.  

So my question is can anyone propose a fair way to decide what the duty of

care is in actual terms or will it eventually become an indefinite

politicised haggling point determined by court cases.

Here are two situations to consider.

The dairy farm I am managing has virtually no native vegetation except for

bracken fern. It is continually producing 4 times the milk from the same area

as it was 40 years ago. We are reducing chemical use assuming that natural

processes (biodiversity in the soil  with some minerals to balance things)

will find a balance for most disease and pest control.

What is the biodiversity duty of care on this Property and why?

The Qld property I have has 95% native vegetation cover. It runs 700 breeding

cattle.

Buy reducing the tree density in places and using high intensity short

duration grazing it could run substantially more than that number, and the

grasses (some native, some introduced), will become  healthier and denser

with next to no erosion occurring).

By not managing the trees and with no improved grazing management it will

become an unmanageable mass of trees with less native grasses and more

erosion. Productivity will decline as well

What is the duty of care on this property and why?

My thoughts are a brief definition of  "duty of care " could be

(1) To prevent / reverse dryland salinity (mainly via dense perennial grasses)

(2) To keep a level of biodiversity e.g. 15% native veg in timbered areas,

with a bit of dead timber left on the ground. Otherwise to create healthy

soils.

(3) To reduce / prevent erosion ( via dense perennial grasses) Otherwise with

a water runoff plan.(crops)

And everything done for conservation above that is for the public good.

One final thing - the quote of Leaky`s is very exaggerated

Our university text book "Environmental Science" (Botkin & Keller) says there

are 1.4 million identified and named species and many unnamed species (mainly

in the insect & plant world)

Going by Leaky`s comment, there would be nothing left alive in 20 or more

years (100,000 species extinct each year), or better still, in the last 20

years most of the world`s species became extinct.

Does Richard Leakey actually have a list of the species that have become

extinct?

This is very different to the figures in the "Environmental Science" text

book which has a graph on page 45 with a grand total of 104 bird species and

77 mammal species  extinct world wide by 1993. -   world conservation union

Do conservationists question Leakey`s claims? I think we ( the

environmentally concerned public) should  challenge his claims and others

like him because they are misleading the public . While some conservationists

believe they cannot get governments to react without sensational claims,

honesty and credibility should be able to get more cooperation in the long

term than exaggeration.

Cheers