I WOULD like to take issue with the statements of your commentator Tom Marland in his article 'Consultation and engagement is vital for ag' (Farm Weekly, May 13, 2021) on farmers standing firm in saying 'no' to controls on clearing of native vegetation.
I own two country properties that have conservation covenants and am heavily invested in sustainability.
I have undertaken revegetation on these properties and am trying to control foxes, cats and weeds in conjunction with my neighbours.
I think your correspondent has little idea what sustainability actually means.
It means development that does not reduce or prejudice the ability of the environment to support humanity in the future.
It does not mean producing more and more income by continuing to exploit natural resources.
Several principles relevant to sustainability were stated in the United Nations Declaration on the Environment in 1972, as follows:
- Principle 2 - The natural resources of the earth, including the air, water, land, flora and fauna and especially representative samples of natural ecosystems, must be safeguarded for the benefit of present and future generations through careful planning or management, as appropriate.
- Principle 3 - The capacity of the earth to produce vital renewable resources must be maintained and, wherever practicable, restored or improved.
- Principle 4 - Man has a special responsibility to safeguard and wisely manage the heritage of wildlife and its habitat, which are now gravely imperilled by a combination of adverse factors. Nature conservation, including wildlife, must therefore receive importance in planning for economic development.
- Principle 5 - The non-renewable resources of the earth must be employed in such a way as to guard against the danger of their future exhaustion and to ensure that benefits from such employment are shared by all mankind.
This was neatly summarised in the UN-commissioned 1983 Brundtland Report, which states:
"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
Have you ever thought what the benefits of native vegetation are?
Let me list a few:
- Sheltering predators that consume the insects that might affect agricultural enterprises. For example, birds that help to keep the Australian plague locust under control most of the time, except when conditions are so conducive to insect pests that they explode. But in other seasons, they keep a lid on them.
- Keeping native animals far from our habitations. One of the theories behind the outbreak of COVID-19 is that bats were so close to human habitation, because their natural habitat in China was so devastated, that they were able to infect human domestic animals. The same is said to be the reason fruit bats in Queensland have spread highly infectious human and horse diseases.
- Many tourists come to WA to see the wildflowers, spending a lot of money in the process. This is a very important business in WA, but in recent years there has been so much clearing of native vegetation, both legal and illegal, that it has been difficult for tourist operators to find places to take their clients.
- Everyone knows about the impacts of clearing native vegetation on rising water tables and the ensuing encroachment of salt. Why then do farmers still clear in susceptible areas (ie most of the WA Wheatbelt)?
- There is a growing movement to paint dead trees blue as a warning to men of mental health issues. In my view, not having areas of native vegetation to create a welcoming and calming sense of place for men (and women), because they have been cleared, is one of the contributing factors to mental health issues.
- Removing native vegetation provides a breeding ground for weeds which spread into pasture and crops. Native vegetation, both that above and especially below ground, is a sink for carbon dioxide, that is strongly implicated in rising temperatures, especially in Australia.
Given that Australia is one of the most vulnerable countries to rising temperature with drought, rainfall and storm patterns, frequency and intensity, it would appear to be in everyone's best interest, farmers and graziers included, to reduce clearing of native vegetation.
This is increasing being recognised by many farmers, including farmers' groups.
- In return for sequestering carbon dioxide, trees and other native vegetation produce oxygen.
We could not exist as we do if there were no trees.
A mature leafy tree produces as much oxygen in a season as 10 people inhale in a year.
What many people don't realise is the trees also act as a giant filter that cleans the air we breath.
- Removing trees and other native vegetation is well known to reduce the amount of rainfall and induce desertification.
The sudden change in rainfall and native vegetation density at the vermin proof fence in the south eastern Wheatbelt is often cited as a classic example of this effect.
- Trees clean soil of dangerous chemicals and other pollutants, including nutrients that damage waterways and the Great Barrier Reef, that have entered the soil.
Trees can either store harmful pollutants or actually change the pollutant into less harmful forms.
Trees filter farm chemicals, reduce the effects of animal wastes and clean water runoff into streams.
- Trees slow storm water runoff.
Flash flooding can be dramatically reduced by a forest or by planting trees.
- Trees fight soil erosion.
Tree roots bind the soil and their leaves break the force of wind and rain on soil.
Trees conserve rainwater and reduce water runoff and sediment deposit after storms.
In summary, governments around Australia have enacted rules and regulations to protect native vegetation.
So much has been cleared in the past 200 years, and the rate has increased substantially in the past 10 years, that such regulations are needed and sensible.
Many areas in WA and Australia have such low levels of native vegetation coverage that what remains needs to be protected.
For example, in some local government areas, less than seven per cent of the original vegetation remains, including only 3pc in some woodland areas.
We need our native vegetation and our native vegetation needs us.
We should retain it and look after it, not consider it some worthless thing that stands in the way of prosperity.
Indeed, it is the reverse our prosperity depends on our native vegetation and our natural environment more generally.
J.E. WAJON
Winthrop