Guest poster Peter Lear says no. Peter Lear studied Forestry at University of Queensland (UQ) and The Australian National University (ANU) graduating from the ANU with a Bachelor of Science (Forestry). He then worked for the Queensland Department of Forestry from 1971 till 1987 in various areas around the state in managerial positions, including over four years in the Dalby District, which takes in the cypress forests of Queensland. He also spent five years in Head Office in Brisbane from 1980 to 1985 working on the development and maintenance of the harvesting and marketing systems used in the Department. In 1987 he resigned from Forestry to pursue interests in small business.
The decision by the Queensland Government to convert Barakula State Forest into a National Park should not proceed for a number of very good reasons some of which I would like to outline. (See also earlier post.)
History of Barakula
Barakula was one of the first state forests in Queensland dedicated under the State Forests and National Parks Act of 1906. The actual dedication took place in early 1907, so it has been managed as a working forest for over 100 years. In that time it has produced huge quantities of both cypress pine and hardwood timbers, mainly spotted gum and ironbark.
Over this period much of the area has been silviculturally treated to improve the productivity of these forests. A comprehensive roading system has been built for management and fire control purposes and a number of lookout towers have been constructed for fire observation in the frequent periods of high fire danger in the spring and early summer periods.
The timber has been harvested under tree marking rules, which is a selection process to ensure that the harvesting operation not only takes a commercial harvest of wood but the residual forest is upgraded at the same time. Proof of this claim is visible over much of Barakula. The fact that some of the Cypress stands have now been logged six times confirms the sustainability of the operations in this forest. Nearly all the area has been logged several times.
This ongoing work represents a huge effort by many people who worked at Barakula over the last 100 years. Before and after the Second World War the staff numbers at Barakula were in excess of 100. The current Barakula Forest estate is a worthy memorial to those who made this great effort. The local timber industry, which has relied on this forest for timber, has been one of the backstays of the country towns in the area such as Chinchilla, Miles and to a lesser extent Taroom and Jandowae.
The principal timber species of Barakula
The main species of commercial timber harvested at Barakula are cypress pine and eucalypts. Of the eucalypts, spotted gum, narrow leaf and broad leaf ironbarks are the principal species. These species are well suited to sustainable forest management practices for the following reasons:
Firstly cypress pine: This species produces prime sawn timber products. The main uses are as flooring and framing in houses. The timber has been used unseasoned for many years as a framing timber although recently it is used more and more in seasoned form. It is sought after as a flooring timber in many overseas markets now, because of its attractive appearance, resistance to rot and termites and its good wearing qualities.
As well as its prime timber qualities cypress is a species that regenerates well as long as it is kept free of fires, it has very good form which assists in maximising sawn recovery and responds well to harvesting and silvicultural treatment.
The Eucalypts: The principal species growing at Barakula are slow growing dense hardwoods. They have unique properties that make them ideal for specialist applications where timber of great strength is required. These timbers cannot be substituted by plantation timbers. Some of the main uses have been as poles and sleepers in the past, but more recently as exposed walkways, heavy duty flooring both internally and externally, in heavy load bearing applications and as wear buffers in places such as wharves.
Again these species readily regenerate and respond positively to harvesting and silvicultural treatment. They are tolerant of fire and indeed fire promotes regeneration.
One of the fortuitous advantages of the Barakula State Forest as it stands is the naturally occurring mosaic of cypress and eucalypt forests. Whilst there are areas of cypress-eucalypt mixed forest there are much larger areas of almost pure cypress or pure eucalypt forest. The advantage of this situation is that the eucalypt forests can be regularly burnt to reduce fuel build up and foster regeneration. These regularly burnt forests in turn provide fire protection to the cypress forests, which are very sensitive to fire.
What will be achieved by conversion to national park?
The short answer is nothing.
The history of national parks in Queensland shows conclusively that active forest management other than for restricted areas to cater for tourist and recreational purposes is virtually zero. Roading systems are allowed to revert to scrub and very little controlled burning is done. Fuel build up will eventually lead to fire which in the case of Barakula will destroy 100 years of sustainable forest management in the cypress forests. Barakula endures regular periods of severe fire risk, so it is not a matter if fire will occur but when it will occur. The resultant devastation will be dependent on previous controlled burning regime and the management of the particular wildfire, which is very difficult without good access (roading) and trained staff.
One of the main reasons for declaring areas of national park is to preserve endangered ecotypes. For a national park to be declared over an area, the vegetation should be in a pristine or near pristine state.
The fact that Barakula has been producing timber for over 100 years is surely proof that the management regime imposed on this area has not endangered the ecosystem. If the place has been successfully managed on a sustainable basis for 100 years why cannot the status quo go for 1000 years? The fact that it meets the standards for national park status confirms the success of past management.
It is also relevant to note that the conversion to national park means that all the millions of dollars spent in managing this area for the last 100 years plus will be wasted. This action would suggest that the Governments’ commitment to employment particularly in the bush is nothing more than hollow rhetoric. The loss of this sustainable resource will mean another loss to country Queensland’s economy and in all probability substitution with timber products harvested in South East Asia or Africa where sustainable forestry is unknown.
Conclusion
The conversion of Barakula from State Forest tenure to National Park tenure will be a retrograde step for the ecosystem, country Queensland and sustainable forest management. There is no rational or scientific justification for this decision.
This is nothing more than a decision by a government who is increasingly being advised by a minority of so-called conservationists who harbour a mistaken belief that locking away forests for ever will maintain them in their present state for ever. Mother nature does not work this way and passive management or no management regimes will have unintended consequences far greater than the scientific-based and sustainable management regime of the last 100 years.
Always very clever – look, this is such a great forest, so well managed, that we need to protect it by changing it’s management!
A 2 second warm fuzzy glow by people reading their sunday papers in the city, and a whole lot of unemployment in the region, with more unsustainable harvesting overseas.
Great post, Peter. I suspect you may have shown up in the previous Barakula thread with a slightly different moniker – your knowledgeable and measured opinion is hard to mistake.
patrickg @ 2, I suspect that the above post is Peter B’s one and only appearance.
It seems to me that in the light of the previous discussion, prospective tourism is irrelevant and both conservation and economic outcomes would be best served by continuing the current arrangement.
We simply don’t know what the forest was like prior to the arrival of European settlement. It’s a case of the best way forward from where we are now. There seems to be great risk, indeed almost certain disaster from fire damage if we go the national park route. It is particularly fortuitous that the eucalypt and pine forests form a mosaic where the current regime enhances the fire prevention aspects of management beyond what could be achieved in our wildest imagination under national park management.
Well I hope not the last, Brian. Tourism is a ridiculous distraction in this discussion, that’s for sure. I presume Bligh et al are relying on the ignorance of the area that (mostly) Brisbane has in even trying this on.
Colour me cynical but I reckon it’s just labor going for the cheapest biggest superficially green credentialist claim it can get: “We expanded the national parks system by XXXX hectares/ % “
Probably, Danny.
patrickg, I’d be astonished if more than a handful of people in SEQ knew of the existence of Barakula State Forest. I’d also be surprised if many (any?) within the conservation groups that appear to have the ear of the government knew anything about it.
Just a point about which I’m curious: is there anywhere on the web discussing this issue besides LP? I’m not seeing anything about it on gov’t sites, including the Hansard, and there’s no results on google news. Apart from the mention of a stateline segment there’s been no publicity that I can see.
Word Brian.
But am I alone in thinking the only reason we are discussing this is because Foresty Plantations Queensland is being privatised? And it owns Barakula? (I haven’t been following it – how much clout does the Sth Bris Branch have danny?)
It’s nationalisation in a park, or sold to someone rich enough to buy it, it seems. This is as good as it gets, and be thankful considering its location that it is not a coal mine.
Has LP ever thought about a live interview/chatsard? I would love to read the responses on this issue from anyone in the government or the anonymous(?) conservation groups, loggers, forestry unionists, you name it. It could be like Qanda, but typed
“how much clout does the Sth Bris Branch have?” …
umm, South Brisbane branch .. voted unanimously to expel Anna from the party over her privatisation plans on the grounds she was
She’s still there, so I guess the SB branch doesn’t have much clout. Now Peel Street (TLC) on the other hand …
“be thankful considering its location that it is not a coal mine.”… it probably is over a deposit/ tenament, they’re so extensive. These days you can get fuel substances out of coal deposits without ‘mining’ in the traditional sense. They can burn/pyrolise it underground, and harvest the gases coming out of a pipe, turn it into dimethyl ether. Very sinister, minimal obvious damgage topsides, but hellish underneath, including major compromising of water table.
“Has LP ever thought about a live interview”. As a matter of fact, a couple of times the opposition spokesperson on environment, last parliament, turned up in comments when the discussion was coal mining on farming land.
A question (or two):
If the forest was in good nick pre-logging/management/roads, which led to the species balance which made it so attractive for logging, why won’t it “return” to such a state if left alone, given enough time?
Apart from the logged cypress and eucalypts, what other life forms in the forest might breathe a little easier with this reversion, or even return there?
Cheers.
I wish to congratulate Peter Lear for taking the time to write down his thoughts about the future of Barakula & to allow Brian to post it on LP. I believe that Peter’s posting is significant because he has had both university education & field experience as a Forestry officer.
Upthread the question has been asked, why hasn’t there been any media or blog coverage of this issue? A very good question, a lot of people who live near Barakula would like to know the answer to this too. There have recently been two stories about Barakula on Stateline, but nothing else that I’m aware of.
Does politics come into this? Of course it does, 260 000 ha is a sizable slab of country to brag that it has been ‘saved’ & now is a National Park. I don’t believe that Barakula represents an ecosystem that is endangered. There is the same type of country in private ownership. The soil is that infertile that there is little return in clearing it. The harvesting of forest product is its most suited land use.
Well Lear would say that wouldn’t he … slow-growing timer, eh? We would need much more specific data than this. e.g. has the re-logging been actual regrown trees? Um why not plant plantation trees onto cleared land in the same general area, if it’s so sustainable? I know an area in southern New South Wales near Quaama where Forestry cleared and planted. They were delighted and proud of the results, they said. But 35 years on, the regrowth looks OK from a distance but is still too spindly to log, and simply hasn’t regenerated as real forest. In a natural regrowth situation, how do foresters gauge whether they are logging regrown trees, or lessening the ecological value? How are they measuring the detailed state of the ecosystem concerned?
Adam T @ 12, I assume that’s why foresters go and do a Bachelor of Science (Forestry) and then presumably learn how to apply it. You can’t really expect answers to your questions in a blog comment, surely?
I had a look at Antony Green’s Election Guide to see which electorate Barakula falls within. I think the short answer is that it is in the NE corner of Warrego (Howard Hobbs), but it is near the intersection of Callide (Jeff Seeney) and Nanango.
It seems to me that Warrego, which takes in Roma, Charleville, Cunnamulla and Thargomindah, has its centre of gravity further west, but does contain the towns of Miles and Chinchilla. Callide seems to own the a fair bit of that blank space I mentioned (see map in the earlier post). Callide has Wandoan and Taroom, mentioned in Peter Lear’s post.
But I understand there is a mill in Dalby, which is in Condamine (Ray Hopper). So perhaps politically Barakula falls through the cracks.
It’s all safe LNP territory, of course.
In terms of local government it seems to be within the Dalby Regional Council.
Brian, yes you are correct, as far as electral boundaries are concerned it is at the backend of everywhere. Seeney in Callide would be to the north & west. Is Dorothy Pratt the independant for Nanago to the east? Hobbs holds Warrego that is on the southern side. This is most likely the seat where the biggest impact would be felt in the town of Chinchilla. This is the service town for Barakula & where a significant part of the sawmill industry is located.
Have these members been raising the issue? I suppose you would have to pour through hansard to answer that one.
Adam,
possibly the answer to your question about clearing and planting a plantation, is given by still@downfall, who claims the soil there is infertile.
Here in Vic a plantation of blue gum on flat, dampish land went great guns for the first 5 years, but now (approx. 15 years in) the trees are spindly and looking ill. They’d grow better on hilly terrain. That’s where foresters and ecologists come into the picture.
Ambi, the farm I grew up on was almost 25% ‘forest’ country. We used to call it lizard country, with a note that it was only good for ’store’ lizards, not fat ones.
The soil is certainly infertile. It is stupidity to try to broadacre clear it. Two things can occur hard pans will come where nothing will grow & the trees will sucker or reseed & come back with a vengence. This is no good for either forest practice or any other land use. The new young growth will form into a thicket that I believe could take at least half a century to stabilize.
I have witnessed some old timers who have battled a lifetime trying to keep a patch of freehold clear & are barely cold in their coffin & the trees are again re-growing. A local who grew up at Gurulmundi, when in his 60’s went back to where his family used to live & found millable cypress pine where as a child his father had cleared & farmed a small area. But I believe that this was on deep sand ideally suited for cypress.
Bottom line is the country is best at growing trees.
Maybe Forestry Plantation Qld doesn’t control Barakula – I’m not sure who does. But 200 000 hectares of plantation is still for sale and alot of that in the South-east.
I had thought it interesting I hadn’t seen anyone comment about the environmental impacts of the future land use and ownership of those chunks of territory (alot of foreign timber in a ‘green space’ zone, where agriculture is becoming unprofitable and human population pressures expanding exponentially) when this discussion started.
Back to Barakula. The only environmental group that I can find that has anything on its website about it is The Austrelian Rainforest Conservation Society.
They also have pictures post burning.
In other travels, I found this thesis on frogs in Barakula, Barrakula is home to some vulnerable and endangered plants and
apparently the word is “Aboriginal” for “tall and big timber”.
the conversion to national park means that all the millions of dollars spent in managing this area for the last 100 years plus will be wasted.
To me that suggests that no profit has been made, or at the very least not enough profit to cover the “externalities” that you extol. If privatisation would spell the end of the regime, then it’s even less likely to be profitable. To me, if you’re managing a forest for timber a key part of that is making a profit. Otherwise it’s just taxpayers subsidising those fortunate enough to be allowed the timber. It also suggests that we could save money and preserve the forest by simply not paying for the “silvicultural improvements” and timber harvesting, but continuing the rest of the activities.
If I assume you simply consistently misspoke or misunderstood what has been happening, you’re saying that the state government through the timber company has run the forest to produce timber for a century or so. They’ve paid above market rates for the timber because of secondary benefits like jobs and fire management, and have decided to stop. Since there’s no profit to be made through sustainable management, the options are destructive timber harvesting or abandonment as a national park. I’m not convinced that immediate destruction is better than abandonment.
moz,your reading between the lines, I believe, has led you up the wrong tree. The Barakula State Forest has & if left as a forest will continue to give a profit to the people of Queensland. If since 1907 millions of dollars in todays money has been spent on management of Barakula, many more millions have been earnt. I don’t have any documentation at hand to support that aguement but I do know the State Forest has always had its royality rates at the higher end of the market & even though it is a low impact forest operation since we are talking about an area of 260 000 ha there is a lot of mill log sold.
Still@21: that’s not reading between the lines, that’s quoting the article. Which is full of similar poor arguments (it’s been done for 100 years so it’s sustainable… just like coal mining?), and I’m struggling to understand anything other than “I don’t like what’s proposed” from reading it. The bought media are presenting this as a transfer from the extractive resource department to the conservation department, but this writer just dumps some thoughts onto the page and says “so clearly I’m right”. And in classic bought media fashion refuses to provide references let alone links.
I see a variety of options and arguments and against for all of them. Some things that would make sense ecologically are politically implausible, and vice versa. I do wonder if the Australian watered-down “National Park” idea even prevents the operation of a sustainable timber industry within the Park? We have a uranium mine in Kakadu, why not a timber company in Barakula?
My anarchist sensibilities have me asking whether this could be resolved by simply gathering up the interested parties and seeing if they can work together for a win all round. Perhaps by making some parts of the forest exclusive conservation zones? I dunno, I’m not on the ground up there, but I’ve been in some interesting efforts in NZ where indig, conservationists (both real and “so-called”), recreationalists and competing bits of government have sat down and thrashed things out. Sometimes even reaching consensus!
Moz, I take your points on board. No doubt the majority of people have never heard of Barakula before & it is hard to come to grips with the situation with limited data. I take it you read Brian’s earlier post simply called Barakula, where he tried to give as much info as the format allowed. I don’t believe our difference in opinion is all that great, just allow me to say the following. The guest post has been presented as one man’s opinion based on training & practical experience in a specialized field. It is of no more & has no less value because of that. I don’t believe that you can lightly throw mining into this argument, it is after all an extractive process upon a non-renewable resource whereby under correct management, timber is one of the best renewable recourses we have available.
abandonment as a national park. I’m not convinced that immediate destruction is better than abandonment.
See, “abandonment” is how it is always framed. Transition to national park is always bad because they’re always neglected (talk of “weed farms” and the like. What if it wasn’t? What if we got past our neoliberal refusal to contemplate direct employment by government? What if enough people (including some people only suited to physical work – the very people who are often doomed to years on the dole in our increasingly technocratic and credential-ist labour force) were actually employed to look after the place? As others have pointed out, we all pay taxes for forests already. In SE Australia, those taxes subsidise woodchippers. I’d much rather pay for burly blokes maintaining the forest.
Helen, that’s what I meant by “politically implausible”
When “long term” means two whole electoral cycles it’s hard to settle on anything with assurance.
Still@, I used mining advisedly – I’ve seen too many “sustainably managed” forests that are having the guts mined out of them and at some point will cease to work as forests because of that. Just because the gutting takes a few hundred years rather than being a quick clearfell does not make it sustainable. I’ve planted trees for timber that won’t be fully grown in a century, let alone qualify as mature. Forests are not fast-moving things.
My preference would be to continue the existing extraction regime with a few tweaks to get all the stakeholders to at least stay involved. Getting the traditional custodians (indigenous people) to sit down the with the current custodians (state government) to work out an ownership model that suits both parties, then add in any other interested parties to get a management regime working would be ideal. But while people focus on dung-flinging I can’t see that happening, so perhaps start by discarding the obvious bad actors? Unfortunately my impression is that the ownership-oriented part of the govt is one of the bad actors.
My observation of some of the govt/greenie/Maori/recreation combinations in New Zealand was quite interesting. There was a lot of justifiable skepticism initially but once people knew each other well enough for some trust to build up things usually went well. Sometimes in the “equally unhappy” sense, sure, but more often everyone felt that they’d gained via the process. The trick is to make sure that the people at the meetings have the authority to make decisions, and specifically to refuse government representatives who can only “report back the feeling of the meeting”. Either they’re stakeholders with decision making power, or they’re spectators. Accepting spectators makes the group just another bunch of lobbyists, so the first fight is normally for recognition.
I can’t link for chops.
Images of Baracula actually here.
Study on frogs in Barakula actually here.
Also, studies on Cypress Pine growth, the effects of roads and fire on bird populations and my personal favourite, biting habits of a sp of beetlet for those with the interest. All carried out in Barakula.
If your interested in all that, than there is this evaluation of the forest on Origin website.
Also a map.
And two reports from bird-lovers which are quite interesting.
And for more irrelevency, you can have the report from the Burnett Catchment area, which proposes the protection of the headwaters of the Canarga and Grant Creeks which fall just inside Barakula State Forest.
Rum, thanks for getting those links right. I haven’t got time to go through them properly now, but wish to add this comment. The Australian Rainforest mob have been extending their reach out into these dry western woodlands & it is my believe they are trying to influence the decision of making Barakula a National Park. I feel uncomfortable with big green groups with political muscle shouldering in & creating emotional issues. I am very happy that local green groups with along association with the area, such as this link you provided, are involved. Smaller local green groups are more likely to have a long-term knowledge of both the environmental & the community. Large centralized green groups have often taken on other agendas & have scant regard for distant small communities of people.
Most likely a generalization, but there you go, its my opinion.
moz @ 20, I think I should explain the genesis of this post. The bottom line is what still@downfall said. What we have is a comment by a qualified and experienced forester who has had experience in the area under question and who is responding to the the earlier post and some of the commentary it generated.
As far as I know Peter Lear doesn’t normally read this blog. Some people I know who read it selectively asked his opinion as a person with relevant expertise and experience. What they got is the post above with minor cosmetic alterations, eg. removing a sprinkling of capitals. The comment was passed on to me with a note that I could do whatever I considered appropriate with it. The piece is a bit over 1200 words, too long for a comment and indeed longer than most posts.
After having been away for a week, I could have added comments to the other thread, saying “an experienced forester considers…” etc. I thought the best option was to put up a complementary post. Peter provided the biographic information to allow this to happen but indicated that he personally was not interested in blogging. I’d still welcome his participation in the thread, but decided to go ahead knowing it probably wouldn’t happen. Since then I’ve learned that he is in fact away from home this week.
In posting I thought he strengthened what seemed to be an emerging consensus coming out of the other thread. That doesn’t mean I agree with every word.
There are some phrases that mean something a bit different to those familiar with the Qld situation and specifically the conflict (probably best described as ideological, but it goes to arguments over the science and basic justice in what is seen as an attack on property rights, amongst other things) between conservation groups and farming interests (also Cape York Aboriginals) which has become quite bitter.
I’ll make one more comment below and then reserve further comment until I’ve read all the links provided by rumbellious.
The recent ClimateQ report (p.34 of the Summary Report) – download from here, identifies the following as ‘early actions”:
The Government is laudably interested in preserving biodiversity and storing carbon, but looking for 20 million hectares is setting the bar high. Also we can legitimately ask about where the economic base will come from to maintain these “conserved” areas, as well as what “conservation” actually means. Ditto with carbon storage.
But large licks of country like Barakula must seem very tempting in this strategy although there are much larger areas involved in Cape York and the north of the state generally (ask Bill Heffernan), which I don’t want to get into in any detail here.
moz, you said “I do wonder if the Australian watered-down “National Park” idea even prevents the operation of a sustainable timber industry within the Park? We have a uranium mine in Kakadu, why not a timber company in Barakula”
This is incorrect. By international IUCN standards, Australian National Parks are highly protected. Unlike most of the world we have very few category V and VI parks. The kakadu mine existed before the park was created around it, it is a special case that is obviously highly controversial and there are very few similar examples to be found elsewhere in Australia.
Brian’s reading? Oh dear. Better keep trolling then.
Bio-diversity assessments by the australian government and brisbane regional environment council of Barakula.
A take by Waratah Coal.
Ironically, a study on spotted-gum being used to reforest bauxite mines in Western Australia – Barakula trees do well!
There seems to be at one stage a file on the Bureau of Meteorology website on the historical weather data taken at Barakula Forest Station (number 042000, opened 1940) but maybe that’s a project for someone with more googlefu skills or foi time.
Another map?
If you click one link about Barakula make it this one.
Also, apparently Barakula once had a tram.
I’ll provide the links, you the insight.
Woah there, Helen. I can’t help but feel this comment reflects your experience as a Victorian, among other things.
Barakula is a long way from anywhere at all. A long way. It would be bloody challenging to get enough people to work there on the kind of shitty pay they would get from it. It would be a challenge sourcing that labour from the far broader pool of ‘credentialist’ (whatever that means) people that actually live within two hours’ drive.
The idea of packing off the retards to weed paths in the forest makes me feel kind of uncomfortable; as if ‘they’ should be grateful or even willing to do so. Especially when – contra your suggestions – there are many valuable jobs and people in large metropolitan and rural areas doing interesting and valuable work, with or without credentials or computers. And it would be expensive. I’m not really sure who that policy would benefit. Arguably not the area itself.
Forestry, logging, call it what you want, isn’t inherently evil. And national parks aren’t inherently good. Turning this area into a national park would only result in one thing: more fires.
Some local history. Do they still log trees like these?
I have more to say but I’m going to leave you with this link about the Black Breasted Button Quail. Hell I’ll learn how to use block-quotes properly too
Ahem. Black-breasted Button Quail redux.
Helen – “What if enough people (including some people only suited to physical work – the very people who are often doomed to years on the dole in our increasingly technocratic and credential-ist labour force) were actually employed to look after the place? As others have pointed out, we all pay taxes for forests already. In SE Australia, those taxes subsidise woodchippers. I’d much rather pay for burly blokes maintaining the forest.”
I did want to highlight the fact that though the on-ground management of conservation sites is indeed quite physical work, it also requires quite a lot of skill – it’s not just about killing weeds [and most of us aren't "retards" - ahem, though I'm sure that some people with learning difficulties may find satisfying work out in the landscape], it’s about understanding the dynamics of the system and working within that. That’s not to say that big burly blokes could not do the work well, but to be honest, I’ve seen ‘big-brash-results-driven’ people do much more harm than good in many places.
Also, in my experience the majority of people working in this field are indeed rather lithe females.
I’ll confess this is a little sexist, but women are great at this type of work and for those of us that like outdoorsy stuff it’s a great job.
It’s interesting to see advocation for clearing and planting of a monoculture forest over selective harvesting of timber from within a state forest, I can’t say I understand the logic of that. I would think that it’s possible that harvesting in a forest can be justified when the regenerative ability of natural landscapes can be harnessed, and the size of the asset allows for a sustainable rotation to occur. I’ll leave it to the locals to discuss the degree to which harvesting can be sustainable in the context of Barakula..I’m more than a little jealous that you have such an asset remaining, given the lack of native forest cover in my own state.
The issue of land tenure is another matter entirely. Privatisation of a public asset raises my hackles just a wee bit.
Also in regards to mining vs logging in national parks…simple truth is that mining legislation usually over-rides most other legislation, so where the clearing of trees to build a house, or plant a crop is disallowed, the clearing of trees to dig up the ground is not. BTW: I saw an interesting post mining restoration in WA…at a conservative costing of 20,000$ a hectare we looked at a weed infested native stand that was about waste high – it was best practice though, because they had left some habitat trees, had reinstated the soil profile [minus 30cm] and restored the pre-disturbance species diversity. Titanium is pretty valuable it seems.
mmmm, lithe females.
I’m enjoying this thread.
Rum, after good rains in Nov & Dec the quails had good hatchings. Am not up to the species though. Are you sure that the quail you write about live in the forested country, the quail I know prefer the more open grasslands. Barakula type country is very rich in insect life & of course blossoms from the trees. Other than the predatory birds most of the birds are adapted to these two feed sources.
Must go will be back in after dark. I am actually working on my boundary with leasehold title that the Barakula State Forest also has control over. Its control of timber harvesting extends beyond the official State Forest to these areas as well
Hi Furious, sorry about the “retard” line, my usage of it was wholly sarcastic; I believe we are/were actually making the same points.
That said, I unreservedly apologise to you, or anyone I might have offended with that term, I would certainly never use it without irony.
No worries, patrickg…I detected the irony, I was being a little tongue in cheek myself, since I’m not excactly the sharpest tool in the shed.
In boots and akubras also. I call for a fundraising calendar.
Helen, in response to your comment, there isn’t a bottomless tax pool for this stuff. There is a forest there now, much of it native. We haven’t sorted out in this thread whether it’s currently “profitable”, but at the least it subsidises itself.
I like Moz’s ideas about mixed use. Such a mind-set could conceivably allow us to re-forest other areas, as irrigated agriculture declines somewhat, with economic offsets.
Yes, much better for unskilled people to be unemployed. After all, it’s not like our taxes support them, or anything.
I’m not talking, like, an army. Oops, forgot, we already support an army.
Unskilled people haven’t joined an army, Helen, so we can’t just order them to the backblocks to do the work we won’t. I understand the draw of the ‘get unqualified fuckups and large slow types to do the boring outdoors shit we’re too special to do for crap money’ meme, but its not very appealing when you stop and think about things like rights.
Leaving aside all that, I’m very much troubled by the assumption that land management is simple. To quote Pollan, leaving our agricultural systems to ‘D’ students got us into the mess we’re currently in.
wtf does that have to do with forestry? Or, um reality? That’s some really left field stuff there, dude. I’m with Grumphy.
Unskilled people haven’t joined an army, Helen, so we can’t just order them to the backblocks to do the work we won’t. I understand the draw of the ‘get unqualified fuckups and large slow types to do the boring outdoors shit we’re too special to do for crap money’ meme, but its not very appealing when you stop and think about things like rights.
FFS! Have I historically come across as a person unconcerned with rights? I’m talking about something to address the well-known tendency in the last three decades for technological change and credentialism to push out unskilled work leaving a pool of unemployables. Maybe that hasn’t come onto your radar or that of people close to you in which case congratulations. And I would have thought kids and others trained up in park rangery and construction might, you know, gain skills. But if you want to carefully comb through what I write for the most uncharitable reading, given the Oz blogosphere in general, well, colour me not surprised. Seeya, I’m off to go walking in an actual park, not Barakula.
It doesn’t have to be a quail still@downfall. It could be the chinchilla wattle or a golden-tailed gecko (another pic) or some other locally endemic or rare/endangered/vulnerable species. We got no shortage of them. Or we used to.
The whole brigalow eco-system is listed as endangered. That link also has a list of species that are endangered, vulnerable or rare.
Some more pics. That last one might be your road, but also includes the tidbit that our first ever oil bore was out that way. Would be interesting to find what year that was.
Some cachment maps where you can see how barakula is at the headwaters of each.
I never wanted to be in such a shambolic sketch.
I always wanted to be a lumberjack
Out of curiosity are there any people here trying to work within the conservation ratings framework and finding it incredibly problematic? I haven’t been a great fan of Peter Garrett as enviro Minister, but I do credit him with trying to switch the rhetoric away from a species based approach to a systems based approach.
Rumrebellious, to a certain extent all of our remaining ecosystems are endangered, I think it would be simplistic to assume that switching from one form of management to another would, in itself, change that. I work in a conservation park that has one of the rarest plants on the planet in it…it’s is part of the national parks system, it attracts less funding per annum for threat abatement than most of the local council reserves and it is about 100 times bigger. The funding stream for National Parks is the most fallible, least reliable/secure…that’s the thing that really needs to be addressed, and at some point there may be a mechanism for secure funding – ie: through a global carbon policy?..but in the absence of that, I would be very wary of the notion that National Parks affords a place with rare endangered species and ecosystems the kind of protection they require.
Helen, I’m looking to hire some people in the near future, I think you are underestimating the qualities required to do this work. Yes, the unskilled can become skilled, but finding people with the right attributes to do that kind of work is actually extremely difficult. The thing that impedes industry growth at the moment is not lack of work, it’s the lack of people who have the attributes and passion to do it. Work for the dole in the form of greencorp hasn’t worked in skilling a workforce to do it. BTW: if you are championing the cause of those that aren’t adept at changing technologies, then the way you initially framed the argument is sexist and patronising. Shove a bunch of big burly blokey ex-timber workers into the forest and let them go for it..after all we would be paying their dole anyway, what harm could they do? I know you were being a bit flippant, but really..I want to be able to pay people a decent wage, and provide them with a secure income, doing demanding, but rewarding work…it’s hard enough with most of the community thinking that a voluntary workforce can do this work efficiently and effectively…but people promoting as the domain of those that aren’t good at anything else is hardly going to be good for the industry.
Good one Rumbellious, although lumberjack in high heels down at the pub in this neck of the woods could be trouble. Certainly furious balancing’s lithe females will draw attention from big burley locals of Helen’s liking.
There are plenty of candidates about for the Farmer wants a wife, TV show.
I believe that the debate on the endangerment of the brigalow eco system is out of context in this posting. Barakula is a very different environment to the brigalow. It is like chalk & cheese. There are some very small pockets of Brigalow within the fringes of Barakula but the State Forestry now heavily protects these areas.
What sort of work is that furious? ‘Cause this highly credentialled, pimply-arse business is giving me the shits. I’ve got me chainsaw ticket!
rumrebellious, I’ve followed most of your links, and very interesting they were too.
moz’z notion of mixed developments could have value in certain circumstances, but I don’t think the notion is particularly useful in Qld right now. At the end of the Stateline segment we are told that
A decision will be made within the next year and neither the government nor the conservation groups would talk to the program.
For reasons I gave @ 29 and Danny @ 5 I suspect there will be more national park at the end of the process. If so it would be interesting as to whether the LNP would reverse the decision if Labor loses the next election. I suspect not.
The existence of endangered species as linked by rumbellious (“50% of ecosystems types are threatened, endangered or vulnerable; 41 species of plant and animals listed as endangered or vulnerable have been recorded in the subregion”) will be used as a clincher.
In the post Lear referred to “so-called conservationists”. This taps into a meme “out there” in rural Qld that conservation values almost invariably deteriorate when country is locked up in national parks. Certainly I have been given umpteen examples over the years where it is hard to argue otherwise.
Brian, I am somewhat amazed that you
(a) regard the opinions of a forester as somehow being indicative, or worthwhile, with respect to “conservation values” when the forestry industry as a whole, has strenuously resisted all efforts to make their operations less destructive of ecosystem values for at least the last 30 years. Remembering of course, that forestry (which is NOT a science, but rather a resource extraction activity driven by economics) is about extracting profit, not about the environment, except incidentally.
(b) you apparently accept uncritically the meme that
“conservation values almost invariably deteriorate when country is locked up in national parks” – can you provide any scientific evidence of this? Not about the existence of such misguided thoughts, but about the realities ?
(c) The assertions made by the poster (and which I assume you support) wrt to NP management are only defensible if comparable management inputs are applied – for instance, I have no doubt that if similar levels of management funds and resources were applied to NPs as are applied to State Forests, then widely different results would be expected. That you (over several posts) attempt to blame “conservation/ists” for the perceived problems in management is dishonest IMHO, particularly given the huge gaps in funding which apply.
(d) apparently you, and some of the other posters, are unable to accept that scientists who have devoted their lives work to relevant ecosystem studies should be listened to when making decisions about land use/management, but regard the vested interests concerned as being more reliable sources of “information” concerning matters in which they have no expertise ?
(e) It is claimed that “sustainable harvesting” has been going on in Barakula for 100+ years. How sustainable ? How many “second cuts” (harvesting of regrowth) have taken place over that time ? Given the time it takes to grow timber, I would suggest, very few – and if so, how sustainable is that? Further, “sustainable harvesting” does not amount to “biologically/ecologically sustainable” in terms of biodiversity maintenance and management, except incidentally, and not too often at that, given my experiences working in the field.
Pterosaur, I have to go out and earn a crust, so a longer response tonight, perhaps.
you’ve made a lot of assumptions about views that I hold. I’d point out that because I give air to an idea, or a view it doesn’t mean that I automatically support it.
In fact I try to take the position of not having a settled view if my state of knowledge doesn’t warrant it. Nevertheless, I do adopt interim positions at times to see how they fly.
You assert that forestry is not a science. I wouldn’t know, but if it isn’t ANU by offering a Bachelor of Science (Forestry) are misrepresenting the situation. I’d expect that instead of claiming to be a fundamental scientific discipline it is conceived of as an applied science which draws from a number of scientific disciplines.
Finally, for now, you seem to expect me to accept that your field experience has some kind of ultimate validity, which, frankly, I don’t. That is not to say that what you have to say may not have value, and that you didn’t authentically experience what you say you did, if there aren’t too many negatives in that sentence.
Pterosaur, I’ll attempt a somewhat longer response but there is a problem. You’ve raised five points in 350 words. It would probably require 500 words to answer each point adequately, so this is going to be something short of that.
(a) the worth of the foresters opinions with respect to “conservation values”
Peter Lear has not just given us opinions, he’s given us information about Barakula, its history and practices employed. That helps. He has opinions. Take them as you find them. Just because he’s a forester it doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
(b) the meme that “conservation values almost invariably deteriorate when country is locked up in national parks”
I was making two points. First that the meme is out there. Secondly that I had been given many examples that in themselves lent credibility to this claim. Nothing more. On that basis I’m not prepared to accept your description of the claim as “misguided thoughts”. So no scientific evidence at all. Nevertheless I’m fairly confident that instances put to me were based on realities, but I’m unable to make a summative evaluation.
(c) Funding of national parks compared to forestry and me blaming conservation/ists for perceived problems in management
It’s my impression that national parks in Queensland are chronically underfunded, and this is in fact a large part of the problem. An example I heard recently was of a forestry area near Brisbane which was converted to a national park. In the process the number of workers reduced from 34 to 6. For one reason or another, possibly a lack of staff, burning off was no longer undertaken. The neighbour (not unbiassed, who told this tale), who used to coordinate in burning off, can now no longer get a permit to burn unless he installs a 5 metre fire break, a physical impossibility because of the terrain. So the load builds up and awaits a really hot involuntary fire.
Of course I didn’t hear from the other side, as it were, but in the case of Barakula you have an economic base to provide the care, with an economic incentive to preserve the viability of the forest.
As to me blaming “conservationists” (take the “/” out please) I cited elsewhere two Queensland academics who considered conservation groups in this state able to hold the elected government accountable for (woody) vegetation management, so if there is blame going around they just might have to wear some.
(d) Not listening to scientists
I have in fact been reading a few scientific articles, but studies on Barakula, which seems quite unique, are in short supply.
(e) The sustainability of “sustainable harvesting”
I assume you’ve picked up along the way that the place isn’t selectively logged. Still@downfall gave some information from observation here and
here. Bottom line 5% to 30% in the case of cypress. In the post Peter Lear said some areas had been logged six times. He also said:
How long it will be sustainable I guess it’s too early to say, but it seems apparent that turning it into a national park under the resourcing and management that is likely to apply will not necessarily preserve it in perpetuity. You make a fair point about the distinction between “sustainable harvesting” and “biodiversity maintenance”. Perhaps, along the lines of moz’s mixed use model we could have logging as well as national parks input.
Sean – I do landscape restoration for conservation. I have someone with a chainsaw ticket already on my team and have yet to find some way for her to make use of it [hey myriad! - lithe women WITH chainsaws!]. We mostly get rid of trees in a more subtle way ie: ring barking for pinus sp, or stem injection for feral olives. It’s cheap, it’s effective, it’s safer and it’s less damaging on the surrounding landscape – I also have a theory that the gradual change in the canopy shade means that weeds are less favoured than natives. On top of that the dead/skeletonised tree will provide some structure for birds for a while too.
Pterosaur – it’s impossible to generalise across the wide range of ecosystems in Australia, so I wont do that, but there is quite a lot of good research being done that suggests that there is a loss of species richness in some ecosystems when they are simply fenced up and left. The obvious answer is better management of our National Parks, but as I mentioned up thread, National Parks have the most fallible funding provisions of any land for conservation that I work on.
As an example of biodiversity loss in unmanaged land, I work in some ecosystems that are listed as critically endangered [the swamps of the Fleurieu Peninsula, the swamps are also habitat of the critically endangered Southern Emu Wren]. The first management action when those swamplands are identified is to exclude grazing, if no other management happens the swamps will inevitably be consumed by blackberry [and other weeds, but blackberry is the most invasive in this ecosystem]. If weed management is carried out then species diversity will increase, but [and this frustrates me no end] in this particular ecosystem there is also a likelihood that after a period without disturbance [5-8 years -??], species diversity may begin to decrease again. That is to say that one native species will begin to dominate. This stuff is being researched in regard to fire management regimes in the swamps and is the subject of some research currently being done by students at Adelaide Uni.
Likewise there are some issues pertaining to the manner in which forest ecosystems regrow after disturbance, this is an issue in the Adelaide Hills where much of the forest cover is regrowth. The uniformity of the growth has resulted in very spindly stands, these trees are far less likely to become good habitat for birds as [somewhat perversely] they have grown too well, and because of this they branch too high and are less likely to form the hollows that bird [and possums etc] utilise for nesting. Truth be told, some of those regrowth forests should have been thinned, and this problem will carry over into planted forest too…people fuss over their management at establishment too much, they overplant some areas; they plant stands with too much uniformity cover; they curse the roos for grazing them etc etc, but our famously gnarled vegetation is the result of being battered and burnt and grazed etc etc. Waht we put back needs to be managed too, direct seeded projects may need to be thinned, some coppicing may be required so trees form hollows lower [???] etc etc.
I don’t know the first thing about Barakula, but wanted to talk about some management issues in a way that explores the meme, not to justify forestry in native forests but to advocate for better conservation management. Governments are in the habit of using the statistics of area under National Parks to spruik their conservation credentials, and it IS actually quite meaningless when those parks are so poorly managed.
Firstly, let me say I do not know what I’m talking about. Now let me speak.
Another link. Probably best yet peoples and I would love to hear some other points of view, especially local about what they consider to be the actual threats to the ecological community out there – the map lists vegetation clearing, grazing, increasing fragmentation and changed hydrology. While on that page, just for fun, check out the provisional table of listed threats to the riparian systems in that region. It’s very provisional, and highlights how little we do know but maybe they stopped updating the webpages before the data was inputed.
Helen, Im sorry if I came over as too mocking, I have always ‘read’ you as a person concerned with rights, and I think your economic criticism is still valid even if the way it was framed resulted in some passionate responses. But if I may say, I also learnt alot from some of the responses your comment generated. And still@downfall, OT I know, but I will point out there are quite a few inner-city pubs I wouldn’t go into in drag either. And I think I read a few years ago somewhere that David Graham got bashed up coming out of the Wickham. My OT and uncharitable reading rant: I don’t like it when homophobia is promoted as synonymous with rural machismo, because that’s not my understanding of either. I know you didn’t mean it that way, but it allows me to make my OT point and sound self-righteous at the same time, yeah?
Succinctness is not my art. Googling Barakula is fun. More to come.
Rumrebellious, checked out your link. One point is that the sub region that has been named Barakula within the Brigalow Belt South region is of a much larger area than the Barakula state Forest. It would be interesting using the same scale to overlay a map of the Forest over the Biodiversity Assessment sub region also named Barakula.
This leads me to the question that of the common threatening processes identified how much is occurring inside & outside the Barakula State Forest boundaries. Scanning through your link there would be some of these processes that would have no application to inside the boundary of the State Forest at all, for example fragmentation.
And I suspect the majority of grazing damage within the borders of the state forest are caused by invasive pests, either pigs or horses. And the risk of changed hydrology might stem from the expanding coal mines in the area.
Which has sfa to do with logging. I don’t know. But the fact that neither conservationists nor the government are talking publicly leads me to suspect that the decision is being made for political purposes.
I could be convinced otherwise Pterosaur. But fess up and link up.
I too am not entirely convinced of the idea of ‘wilderness’ as being the most efficient and effective way of serving ecological values – just a way for us to try and address our lack of knowledge and mismanagement in the past. As others have pointed out, eco-tourism is limited. I will add, timber stores carbon, and I do prefer sustainable native forest management over plantation forest of an introduced species over an equivalent area. Which coincidentally, is exactly what the Qld government currently has for sale.
A lot more Aborigines would own land now if Frazer hadn’t added attached a whole lot of special rights (and restrictions) to Aboriginal owned land. Because these special rights made much harder for the mining industry, the mining industry campaigned hard on the issue. When the Burke government was considering land rights we were inundated with maps showing us how the miners would lose acess to most of WA.
I think a similar situation exists with national parks. Their creation is often resisted by foresters, miners etc. In many cases we would have more access to recreational land and a wider range of environments if governments were encouraged to create more mixed use land instead of national parks vs nothing.
Well Furious, that sounds like a good way to put food on your family. Re Helen’s comment, are you a public servant? If not, ever re-habbed a mine?
Yeah but you can’t carve yourself a camp chair in five minutes with a syringe, dude.
[Then, when you leave the scene, the native animals can use the camp chair for their secret native animal card games]
Some good stuff in the previous comments – I’ll address the factors I regard as relevant – maybe over a few replies to keep it manageable.
I know nothing about Barakula, apart from what I have read here (and through the links), so much of what I am putting forward should be regarded as a “meta commentary” on the issues being discussed.
Firstly, I think it needs to be acknowledged that :-
1. Australia’s ecology has been severely compromised through a number of factors, and the process continues, and will only get worse, given the realities of Climate Change.
2. The principal agencies behind this destruction have been (in order of magnitude), agriculture, forestry, urbanisation, and mining activities. I can think of no other factors which even approach these – ferals (plants and animals), while posing huge problems are essentially offshoots of the first three factors.
3. NP’s and similar reserves represent a small proportion of the ecosystems which have been historically compromised (or destroyed), and constitute a recognition of these factors, and an attempt to arrest the processes leading to environmental collapse.
4. I reckon it’s drawing a pretty long bow to attempt to assert that they (NPs) are part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, yet that is exactly what I have taken from many of the comments posted here. Hence my “2 bob’s worth”.
Secondly, I don’t think the use of perjorative terms or blanket generalisations – such as “locking up”, “so called conservationist”, “national parks tenure means no management, more fires” are useful, or even relevant – they merely reflect an ideological approach – best characterised as an “anti greeny” meme, and usually promulgated by vested interests opposed to ANY restrictions on their activities.
I don’t challenge that some of these flaws happen, just the attribution of this to “conservation/ists”, (the “/” to save typing two words) or “national parks” and “greenies” rather than where it belongs, which is at the feet of the various governments, for the inadequate funds committed to the organisations charged with the responsibility for the management of such areas. This is, I think, an Australia wide problem.
“Well Furious, that sounds like a good way to put food on your family.”
Ur doin’ it rong!
“Yeah but you can’t carve yourself a camp chair in five minutes with a syringe, dude.”
That depends… In Rockingham or Narre Warren, “carve yourself a camp chair” could be slang for going on a good long nod.
still@downfall, that’s an interesting point about the differences in the various manifestations of Barakula.
rumrebellious, still@ would probably know, but I’ve not heard of pigs in the Barakula State Forest area and I wouldn’t have thought horses should be a problem (easy to eradicate if they were there).
As to hydrology and coal, Barakula State Forest would be right at the edge of the Murray-Darling system and may spill over into other riparian systems. In any case there would be nothing upstream.
Secondly, I don’t think the use of perjorative terms or blanket generalisations – such as “locking up”, “so called conservationist”, “national parks tenure means no management, more fires” are useful, or even relevant – they merely reflect an ideological approach – best characterised as an “anti greeny” meme, and usually promulgated by vested interests opposed to ANY restrictions on their activities.
Amen Pterosaur.
And people could be employed doing the useful work of looking after / maintaining the integrity of a national park, doing whatever is appropriate for the ecosystem and the region. Could. If there was the political will.
and to continue…
I find it pretty hard to give any credibility to arguments that the Qld. government is somehow beholden to a secret cabal of greenies holding it to ransom.
If such were the case, I would have expected that the Traveston Dam would have been rejected out of hand, and National Parks would indeed receive appropriate funding.
I would further note, that in Tasmania, at least (and the evidence suggests a similar state of affairs in all the eastern states) the governments ARE unduly influenced by unrepresentative Agriculture, Mining and Forestry interests, which IMO is one of the major driving forces behind the continuing degradation and ongoing destruction of our publicly owned resources and assets.
I also favour multiple use as a management regime, and indeed, for a major part of my PS career, was responsible for the management of such areas, and development of appropriate zonings for different usages, in addition to management of those uses.
However, I think that it should be recognised that such an approach is no more appropriate as a generality, than the “preservation” or “anything’s OK as long as it pays” memes which are also current. In short, I am in favour of “what works” in terms of land management, rather than any particular management ideology – “an adaptive approach” if you like.
Such an approach allows a variety of management regimes, and methodologies, and all options will have application – however, given the extreme fragmentation of many of our surviving ecosystems, and the corresponding reduction in their resilience, I think it’s pretty foolish to attempt to characterise the “preservation” approach as wrong. It is, I think obvious, that if the alternatives tried are unsuccessful, in terms of the outcomes desired then the result will be (often) irreversible loss of whatever one is trying to conserve – whereas, under a “conservative” approach, ongoing assessment can determine the success (or not) of what is being attempted, and room remains for a modified approach or approaches.
They’re called park rangers aren’t they?
If you’re going to substantially expand a land use that doesn’t produce anything economically*, you’re going to have to do the budget work. In the case of Barakula, you’re advocating taking money our of the GDP and simultaneously increasing public spending.
Rule of realism: you can’t disband the ADF.
*I know this is not the only virtue in life.
They win some, they lose some and at the recent AgForce conference Bligh said the no-one would be happy with the outcomes, soon to be announced, on the vegetation regrowth clearing moratorium. Pterosaur, you are right in assigning final responsibility to government.
You don’t need to infer a cabal, Pterosaur, although there are always going to be things going on that we don’t know as much about as we’d like. The “green” influence has been out in the open in Qld at various points. Everyone who’s awake and half alert knows about The wilderness Society and its influence, to the chagrin of Noel Pearson and many Aborigines, on the “wild rivers” policy. On vegetation management TWS declared that the green groups had won (with the Government against the farmers) after the election in 2004.
There is a contestation of ideologies (understood as systems of beliefs, principles and ideas and not per se a derogatory term) in Queensland politics (understood as contestation for power in social relations).
On the wild rivers extension, the world heritage application for Cape York and the rgrowth moratorium there is a story that someone in the re-election team concluded a deal with green groups (which was later brokered for preferences with the Greens Party) and announced before Bligh knew about it. Be that as it may, a deal was in fact done and we don’t exactly know by whom and how.
So much of the wheeling and dealing is quite obvious, as in the tip of the iceberg, but what’s underwater in not always visible.
There are too many generalisations floating around and people assuming because the general has some truth it also applies to the particular. I’m sorry, but you keep doing this all the time, Pterosaur, as inferring from the badness of forestry that foresters and forestry associated with Barakula must be crook. Most of us do from time to time. Another was in the appeal to the autority of your own experience (earlier) which I thought, in Queensland at least, was in agriculture rather than forestry. And now you say you know nothing about Barakula.
FWIW, I agree in general terms with points 1-4 @ 60 but would have to seriously qualify the assumptions within the following para beginning “Secondly..” which I find tendentious (I think the word is).
It could just be that something exemplary has been going on in the forestry at Barakula for the last century. I have no final opinion on the matter, but I am pleading for others to consider it as a case in itself rather than in the light of more general ideologies, generalisations and agendas.
Sorry no links and I have to go. There will be more in future posts.
I wouldn’t accept everything the neoliberal Pearson says as being representative of indigenous people. Many say he doesn’t speak for them. His allegations of an eeevil Green conspiracy are pretty much the usual Howard government / IPA story. I think one has to be more than half alert when listening to that accomplished spinmeister.
#62 re feral animals & mining.
I can’t give an exact answer that will cover the entire area of Barakula but I’ll fill you in based on what I have seen & hearsay. There used to be a small mob of brumby’s that ranged roughly in the center to the nor-easterly regions. I have not heard if the mob is still intact, I would assume that the series of drought years drying up natural waterholes have forced them to where they have been captured, died or destroyed. These brumby’s were never a problem that furious balancing is familiar with in central Australia. There may have been a few scrubbers (wild cattle) but for similar reasons their numbers would be almost non-existent. Barakula has soils that are infertile & livestock left to their own devices become very deficient in the nutrients for their health & fertility.
The feral animal that is of concern is feral pigs. They have adapted to these forest type (lizard country) only in the last 20 years. They go after plants that have bulbs or tubular roots. Their impact is that great that they destroy this food source & have to further their range to new parts of the forest. The pigs have also adapted to dingoes & wild dogs, which are prevalent within Barakula. Eyewitness accounts tell of sows with piglets teaming up & actually chasing a lone dog.
Must go will return to the mining tonight.
Brian@53: That ‘forestry area near Brisbane which was converted to a national park. In the process the number of workers reduced from 34 to 6′ ..
would be the D’Aguilar National Park .. expanded from 2,400 to 38,000 hectares, from Brisbane city to Mount Mee, encompassing large parts of the area known as Brisbane Forest Park, yes?
That’s a lot of ground for a mere half a dozen workers to keep an eye on. I can just imagine the meeting where it was mooted, and the proponent crowing ‘not only do we reduce the government wages and super exposure, but we fool the punters into thinking we’ve gone green….ha ha ha pollies pwn the public once again’.
I see that what once was Brisbane forest park is now incorporated into the (understaffed) nat park and is contiguous with Mt Cootha council reserve… is that near you?. My folks back onto one of the brisbane reserves and it’s obvious fire has gone through, uncomfortably close to the hills hoists and tool sheds of the suburbs. I guess it was the 94 one, when 3000 homes were evacuated.
If the reduction in staff/area ratio means prudent fire prevention measures are no longer practiced or even possible, or events responded to as well as before, then it’ll be only a matter of time till a conflagration reaches into the leafy suburbs. Zooming in on the (pdf) bushfire risk map shows how scary it will be along waterworks road: both sides close in are coloured dark, The Gap will be in a veritable ring of fire.
I see qld, if nothing else, is at least on board with the new national fire ratings scheme, with it’s a new level higher than extreme: catastrophic. There’s something oddly teleological about that: only an uber-bureaucracy-gone-mad would devise a rating system with an after-the-event told-you-so factor built in, like they get Bureaucrat Olympics points for being right about the damage caused, the ultimate in pyrrhic victories.
If, as you say, one of the consequences, intended or otherwise, of the departmental letterhead exercise of making the bush (and contiguous suburb) fire risk the responsibility of greenies rather than lumberjacks is that there are significantly less resources available to manage that risk, then the change is grievously irresponsibile in that it significantly increases danger to the public.
Me careful with that match Eugene.
#62 mining
It appears that mining exploration has not been allowed within the boundaries of Barakula State Forest. However mining exploration has been conducted in the very recent past in the adjoining freehold & special grazing lease titles. There has been coal found in a couple of locations.
Currently its gas pipelines that are impacting these parts. I believe that there are four separate gas pipelines under various states of development making their way to Gladstone. Two of these pipeline corridors go pass Barakula. The State Forest is not allowing the pipeline to cross their boundaries. This has created some ill feeling amongst some other landowners when the pipeline is forced on a longer route to avoid state land. Private landholders can’t stop the gas lines from entering. The gas company can knock down whatever trees they wish to, something the landholder can no longer do. This is seen to be a double standard on the State Government’s behalf.
Danny, Mt Mee was mentioned, as was the fire threat to Brisbane. We are in Ashgrove on the border with Bardon and back onto the area in question. It used to be a BCC water reserve. The BCC bought back the private land that went across the saddle behind us and now it is all incorporated into the national park.
There have been a few fires since we came here in 1981, but only forest floor fires – nothing that really threatened. When we first came we’d see wallabies in the bush, but they are long gone. First, I think by hunting dogs not kept on the leash. Earlier this century there was an unplanned fire during a very dry period, started by some kids having an unauthorised barbeque in the park down the road. After that fire the native grasses didn’t come back.
Pterosaur @ 64, back on an earlier thread I identified the following issues as the main ones that related to conservation and farming in the last election:
It seems to me that the conservation groups were successful in influencing Labor policy on the first four, but not the last two. You might recall that The Greens party did not preference Labor in all seats. It was my impression that this was because they couldn’t support some of Labor’s policies. In fact there seemed to be some doubt whether a preference deal would be done at all. But The Greens were quite keen to get Ronan Lee, the Labor rat, elected in Indooroopilly and Labor were sufficiently keen to get a swag of preferences for them to overlook the ratness of Lee.
In the event Lee wasn’t elected but 12 seats were decided on Greens’ preferences, enough to win the election. Whether enough greens voters would have preferenced labor anyway to win them the election I simply don’t know.
As far as I know no Labor policies were changed specifically to get the Greens preference direction, but Labor knows that they must have some sort of credible green agenda to have a chance.
Helen @ 67, I know that Noel Pearson doesn’t speak for Australian indigenous people generally. Lowitja O’Donohue said that in very direct language talking to Phillip Adams recently. There is a question as to whether the Pearsons speak for Cape York Aboriginal people. There is a further question as to who Labor spoke to in developing the wild rivers and World Heritage policies. We may soon find out, because litigation is now being threatened.
I’d like to ask you whether you also regard Marcia Langton as a neoliberal spinmeister.
Or Tom Calma.
Or, from the same link, Michael Ross:
It has been suggested to me that I might like to do a post on Wild Rivers. I suggested that I might not, because the thread would end up being all about Noel Pearson.
I heard a bit of what Pearson said to the Brisbane Writers Festival on Counterpoint the other day. I missed it on Fora Radio and haven’t had time to listen to it since. It sounded really crook and if what he says is anywhere near true (how do I find out?) I felt I should give it a run. But I’d like to have the text of his speech available for starters.
If you want to tune into some of the local acrimony you could try this and this.
67 & 73
I would prefer a seperate posting on wild rivers, but is it possible to do so without getting bogged down on the baggage being carried about the perceptions about Noel Pearson?
The author of Brians last two links would be about as far as you could get from being a neoliberal. Scoll down the page of the link I’m about to give you & read the short bio on Bryan Law.
Greg Mc Intyre SC, the barrister who helped Eddie Mabo win his landmark native title case believes Queenslands controversial wild rivers laws could be invalid.
Rumrebellious @ 57
“I could be convinced otherwise Pterosaur. But fess up and link up.”
You’ve lost me a bit there – convince you of what ?
Furious @54
thanks for the info – sounds a bit like the ecotones you are working in are heading towards an early “climax system” – much as has happened in some areas that I am intimately familiar with, such as that of Poa sp. grasslands replacing rainforest following catastrophic fires early last century. I guess one of the questions worth asking in such circumstances is “whether the observed biodiversity reduction represents a positive or negative conservation outcome ?”. Remembering that we are dealing with dynamic systems at all times – easily answered when specific species are targeted, but a bit more difficult when management objectives are loosely defined, I guess.
I wholeheartedly agree that “active management” is usually preferable to “set and forget” regimes – subject to the provisos made in my post @64, and indeed with your concluding paragraph, you pretty much sum up what I have been attempting on this (and related) threads – although I have the added goal of attempting to address some of the negative, and inaccurate generalisations aimed at “greenies” and conservation/ists.
A somewhat coincidental matter is that my property in Nth. Tassie is also home to a small population of the Southern Emu wren.
still@downfall @ 68, horses and pigs.
I’m sorry to hear that pigs have turned up. My brother tells me that they are one of the things that can wipe you out as a grazier.
He had trouble with wallabies and pigs on one of his properties in Central Qld. There was a steep range along one of the long sides of his property that was being used as a dormitory by wallabies who had fled there after other graziers had gotten rid of them by habitat destruction, back in the days when there were no limits on clearing. That option wasn’t open to him because the land was too steep. (I’ve never said farmers were angels.) The wallabies used to sweep the platter clean in a strip 400 meteres from the edge of the bush, running kilometeres long. Not a blade of grass to be seen.
Two things happened. First, the wallabies contracted a disease that thinned their numbers out. Possibly from living in overcrowded quarters.
Secondly, he stopped using 1080 on the dingoes. This resulted in an appropriate balance between dingoes and wallabies, plus at the same time his problem with pigs went away.
So maybe Barakula needs more wallabies so that it can support more dingoes to get on top of the pigs. But I guess it’s not very good wallaby country either. Certainly any thickening of the forest will make it harder for them.
still@downfall @ 70, perhaps some good news on mining.
Today I attended the first event of a weekend celebrating 50 years since I graduated from high school. I met up with a guy who used to be my room-mate. His dad owned a coal mine at Ipswich. Anyway he went on to become a mining engineer and still works part-time as a senior consultant in the coal industry.
He said that it is not certain that the Wandoan mine is going ahead. The problem is the cost of the rail line to Gladstone and the elevated dollar. Apparently the investment maths don’t add up at present and XStrata is considering its position.
The news is not good on coal seam gas, however. It is still profitable.
Yet another gas pipeline heading for Gladstone. Was contacted tonight by yet another company. So to update on mining activity around Barakula, it is now three gas pipelines going past Barakula’s boundary.
Sean, I’m not a dude, I’m a lithe female
. I have a private contracting company. No, I don’t do post-mining restoration, that’s not an area I personally wish to explore. Most of our work is doing threat abatement in relatively intact vegetation. The Fleurieu work is mostly land that was grazed.
Helen, I guess my point is that the type of thing you speak of IS actually happening, and it’s happening quite successfully on most types of land tenure [but not so much in National Parks]. BTW, there is a project in South Africa called Working for Water, where environmental works are carried out as a secondary aim after employment creation. They had to get a special agreement with the unions to pay less than the minimum wage. The program has been successful in employing people, but less successful in genuine environmental outcomes. I really think we will do best in Australia when our conservation work is driven first and foremost by conservation outcomes, the social benefits will be there, we don’t need to engineer it.
Pterosaur, the invective doesn’t bother me in the least, at some point you have to deal with such opposing points of view, it matters little to me how those views are articulated. I live in a wine-growing region where articulate agronomists abound, I’d rather deal with straight-talkers.
RE the swamp dilemma….conservation for biodiversity will continue to throw up these dilemmas, in a way it’s not a bad problem to have. The people from the northern hemisphere at the conference I recently attended seemed a little jealous. They have to invent concepts like “novel ecosystems” to make up for the lack of landscape integrity. My unofficial company motto is “fix it before it’s fucked”, a lot of the northerners have no such luck. :p
Anyway, I’m way off-topic once again. Sorry about that Brian.
That the ecological values of Barakula will be best protected by a National Park?
Probably too personal, another apology, (Sorry Pterosaur!) but I thought you were attacking Brian for having a different point of view. You have illuminated your position in subsequent posts. I’ll try to do the same.
But first, some more links. The report from the Australian Rainforest Conservation Society on the Conservation and Intergrity of the Western Hardwoods region. It includes these very relevent tidbits;
and
Another interesting report – actually a Brigalow-Belt Reptile Bio-diversity study. Barakula included.
This might explain some of the genesis of the national park lists and the scattered reports I have been able to find; including I suspect the reports given back to the local Toowoomba bird group (have a closer read Still@downfall and you’ll see that people who compiled those lists were either from Brisbane, or employed by the govt
).
rumbellious, you are doing some interesting work here and I hope to come back to some of the broader issues.
On Pterosaur, I think it’s fair to say that his comments @ 51 saw me as having a different view and included this statement:
If you ask those who know me I’d expect that “dishonest” is about the last appellation they’d think appropriate – wrong perhaps, but not dishonest. I don’t know how to defend myself from such a charge, so I’ll just plug on and people can think what they like.
My repeated line is that there is severe contestation between conservation groups and rural producers and an extreme lack of trust. The involvement of the Australian Rainforest Conservation Society at such depth in looking at forests that are quite different from rainforest is of great interest. In one of your links there were a couple of photos of burnt Barakula forest taken by one A.Keto.
Some of Aila Keto’s many honours and awards can be seen here and here. She has a reputation as an extremely tough negotiator with direct influence on the Beattie government and apparently involved in the formulation of Vegetation Management Act 1999 which is regarded as oppressive and procedurally iniquitous by primary producers.
One honour not mentioned was an honorary doctorate awarded at the Gatton campus of UQ in 2003. I’ve told the story before here (see also @ 42 and 43 on that thread) of how in her acceptance speech she suggested that Australia might be better off giving up farming. I’m not sure what her qualifications in dryland farming are.
Then there was the suggestion by Imogen Zethoven that I’ve reported on before see Whelan and Lyons p.7 who as head of the QCC wanted no vegetation clearing whatsoever. That was at a time when an Australian Greenhouse Office report nominated 40% of land clearing in Qld as being of regrowth.
In the bargaining before the establishment of the 1999 Act I’m told that the conservation groups wanted 80% preservation, whereas the producers wanted 10%. What the Government decided was 30%. That means, I understand, 30% of each vegetation type within a subregion. So 80% would mean in effect mean more than 80%.
Farmers who were exhorted for the best part of 150 years to clear the land and produce food are now routinely told that they are environmental vandals, it seems to them for just being there.
Now in the regrowth moratorium I understand that 1.9 million hectares of land has been coloured blue on the maps with the prospect of taking 1.2 million hectares out of production. Part of the problem with this is how the burden is unequally spread and the fact that farmers are to play the role of honorary park rangers without recompense or recognition.
“Locking up” land is not an unreasonable description under these circumstances. Some affected farmers are reported to be losing 50% or more of the value in their land, which, when you have a business plan and a bank loan is no small matter.
If there is blame on the part of conservationists, in part it relates to a lack of appreciation and sympathy for the position that the policy positions they are seeking has placed some of their fellow citizens in. Also an evident lack of appreciation that the food we eat, the fibre and timber we use has to come from somewhere.
There was a classic a few years ago when a Jondaryan cotton grower was attacked (verbally) by a green-oriented journalist wearing cotton jeans and T-shirt. In that case his response led to a series of programs on local radio that did a lot for mutual understanding.
Not all farmers do the right thing, but some who did and left vegetation on cleared land have now found that area designated “endangered” or “high value” regrowth and coloured blue on the map. Some of them did this as a result of earlier Landcare programs. The feel somewhat betrayed, so finding common ground is not easy at present in this state.
This is not strictly on topic, but it is important that people understand the context within which decisions are being made.
In the comments I have been submitting I have endeavored to be restrained & measured. If I let loose to communicate the deep frustration, resentment & disempowerment that I feel; then the resulting spray would most likely be unreadable. Brian @ 81 articulated the emotion, injustice & distrust of some of the people have amongst the wide range of people he takes time to communicate with. Let me assure you that what Brian has told of rural landholders thinking on these issues is not only real but is even more intense than what Brian portrayed. In another posting we have also diverted to these issues; go to comment 219 & then scroll down to #231 to view further comments I made on this subject.
Go upthread in this posting to comment #26 to see the link Rumbellious gave of photos taken by Aila Keto who was trying to create the image of “Spotted Gum-Ironbark forest in Barakula State Forest severely affected by fire”. My answer at the time can be viewed the following comment @27. I will add that ‘creating of an issue’ is mischievous & mis-informative. (If there is such a word). The State Forest is very particular about its annual burning program. There are fires in Barakula at this time of year; very soon with increasing heat there will be no more fire permits issued. If you search around it would be possible to find a tree fire scarred as in the photo. The most common cause would be of a tree fall where a tree has naturally fell against a live standing tree & the fire with the extra fuel load killing this tree. To try to portray the norm of purposely hot fires roasting an entire area of forest is untrue. It is very easy to portray the blackened panorama of a recently burned forest area in negative terms but in some eco systems a fire every now & then is important. It may have something to do with the low fertile soils of Barakula type lizard country that the surviving vegetation to my observation appears to benefit after a burn.
To be honest Brian, it’s hard to consider primary producers who are advocating for 10% native vegetation cover as being good land managers..and yeah, if they were advocating that, the term “environmental vandals” does not seem inappropriate. That’s not to say the invective thrown the way of many enviro groups is not warranted either, but the ‘food on the table’ argument has a hollow ring when it’s attached to a position that all but 10% of the landscape shall be cleared. I actually don’t know any farmers who would be so stupid as to advocate for that.
fb, it’s more than 10% cover. I many places you would get much more than 10% covered with trees that no-one particularly wanted to clear. It was 10% (now 30%) of each vegetation type, which are legion, within a subregion, compared to what was originally there.
If you possess a good stand of a particular type of vegetation that has been heavily cleared by others who got in first, then you might end up with a good deal more than 30% of your property locked up. Frankly I just don’t know how common a problem that is.
It was over 10 years ago and I suspect that ambit positions were taken. It’s probably irrelevant now.
In this weeks issue of the QCL is this article It’s about Qld Premier annocing the end of the regrowth moratorium & unknown new laws to be put into place. The article follows with Agforce’s response but also this response that I have quoted from the article.
fb, further to @ 83 and 84, there are still farmers who see it as their right to pretty much strip the land bare and indeed some have in defiance of the law. So far, it seems, with impunity. This is distressing and deplorable. Because of the aim to find and preserve 30% of each vegetation type within a subregion, such behaviour also can make things difficult for their fellow farmers. Anyway that’s the way I understand how the system works.
These circumstances might be seen to justify an authoritarian and punitive approach in framing the law on the part of the government. We have to remember also that laws that are not policed are routinely ignored in any field where the laws are not respected by those affected. You see this in industrial relations, for example. Also occupational health and safety in the building trade.
In the early days of the VMA DERM, as it now is, used to publish a “kill sheet” of farmers that had been brought to book. No doubt this had a salutary effect.
There remains a question, however, whether a more cooperative approach would be better in the long run. In the same link still@downfall has provided @ 85, John Cotter of AgForce has suggested an incentive-based approach:
It seems to me that his suggestion would provide a better way forward. As exemplars multiply, norms would change and recalcitrant farmers would be left behind. Greens, where they have genuine information and expertise, might eventually be welcomed. At the moment farmers tend to see red when they are faced with greens.
I feel a little guilty still posting, especially after #85. If that is restraint, still@downfall, you know how to pack a punch. I don’t know what to say to that.
I like quolls. I like 600 year old trees. I like 300 million year old species that have only one lung. I want our environment protected. Please don’t hate me if that makes me a Greenie. But I do understand we need people living in the bush, with sustainable communities and the jobs to support them to do that. And if Barakula’s ecological values have been sustained and can be sustained under the current system because it has been resourced; why change?
Perhaps I am being diabolically cynical in suggesting there was a trade-off between some conservation groups and the ALP – the govt ends ‘old-growth’ logging in Qld (debateable in Barakula) and the conservation groups don’t campaign against the sale of Forestry Plantations Qld. It also gives them a reason to favour the ALP over the LNP in the next electoral cycle and thus not fracturing the green-left alliance. I am just speculating though. But I do find it surprising no conservation groups seems to discussing best land use and future environmental protection for the chunks of territory under FPQ control.
While perusing the FPQ website, you can glean the following information.
Also;
To give people some idea of some of the real estate we are talking about go to google earth yourself and compare Beerburrum and Beerwah State Forest – which is introduced pine, with the contiguous Glasshouse Mountains and Bribie Island National Parks, and remember that it is almost an entire catchment area for the Pumicestone Passage – with creeks with some of the highest ‘ecological values’ in the SE. And that it is covered by the SE 2020 regional plan, which aims to keep the ‘green space’ zone between our ever expanding cities.
Or the Toolara/Tuan State Forest’s just north of that – also introduced pine, which coincidentally contain some watershed for the Mary River, and entire creeks which flow directly into the ocean. It is about an equivalent size as the Fraser Island National Park and is opposite its southern end. I understand that we shouldn’t just talk species but eco-systems. But I also think the Grey Nurse is cool; intrauterine cannibalism is fascinating.
And the ecological work FPQ does is important too; it not only carries out management on adjacent lands (burning, pest control etc) it also has a program to lease private land for timber, (thus providing an income for vegetated land) and that is concentrated on Western Hardwoods. We’re selling a utility like this in an era of climate change?
But to bring the story back to Barakula and logging, FPQ does seem to be aware of the political situation. There is this;
Those quotes are from this Sustainable Management Overview.
Their Strategic Plan Overview notes;
Incidentally, the last I heard was that Dalby farmers who planted Hemp were left without a buyer. Do we even have a wood-products hemp industry in Qld? CSR was set up for a reason; well many reasons actually. But I digress.
The other point I will make is I do think pest management is incredibly important. I am no expert, but I have seen what pigs do to the river flats of the Darling Downs and I fear for the frogs. If you look at the wave of extinctions across that area, it is pre-industrial clearing, and the majority of species are small and ground-dwelling. Like the Paradise Parrot, the Brush-tailed Bettong, the Long-Nosed Bandicoot. Cats and foxes cause umimaginable havoc. We can debate the extent urbanisation and agriculture assist in their spread and destruction, but I prefer to blame history and the cane toads. For example there is the Grey Snake which threats include;
Totally off-topic, but I also find it absurd that it is legal to own a cat, but illegal to own a quoll.
My apologies for such long rant.
Rumrebellious, I certainly won’t hate you for being green. I’m a little bit green (just look at my avatar), I just have a few rough brown patches. We mightn’t always agree but as long as we can strive for some sort of balance, I can live with it. I don’t believe that you are being “diabolically cynical” to suggest the existence of a political trade off between some conservation groups with muscle & the ALP.
There is a certain ‘political correctness’ to the proposition that we must immediately be all plantation timber, private forests & don’t touch with a 40-foot pole land reserved (State Forests), for the production of native forest products. This is only an utopia that exists between the ears of a select few that fails miserably in the short term future. Unless the plantations are in a very high rainfall area, hardwood species take a very long time to mature. If the plantation timber is not ready, State forest timber out of bounds, then the small area of private owned timber would have to be raped unmercifully. Why not spread out the available forest area out to a large area & conduct a timber harvest in a planned & sustainable manner. By all means plant forests for future product but only on marginal agricultural land. With a rising world population & the uncertainties of climate we need all the food production land available.