Fran, [with a disclaimer that I'm talking from a South Australian perspective], to a certain extent what you advocate in terms of the prioritising of high conservation value areas and their management is already happening. That’s why I asked about the non-arbitrary valuing of conservation land, just to get a sense of what it was that you thought should be ‘valued’.

Most of the management is being done by professional labour. I do not want to diminish the role of community groups in this, but since I used to work for the community sector, I think most would be surprised to learn that it is actually costs more than than using professional labour. I think the real value in the community sector could be measured through outcomes other than environmental, ie: health/well-being/community engagement. The benefit to the environment however is mostly through the education and promoting the merits of the environmental restoration.

The reason I’m being a bit of a big mouth about this stuff lately is because I see a bit of a catch 22 going on – that is, if govt. agencies set priorities and manage land according to those priorities the results will generally be invisible to the general public. This leads to the kind of nonsense that Abbot has come up with in his plan – Ie: “green armies” and planting urban forests and green belts. This plan would take environmental planning back 20 years. To me it’s like implementing water restrictions in the knowledge that it has little real value in terms of the amount of water saved, but because it imposes itself on the population it makes people feel like their government is addressing the problem.

to address each of your points:

1. Yes, it depends on the site and the kind of threat abatement required. The highest conservation value site I work on is currently about $2000.00/hectare/year, after 4 years active management, the cost is more like $500.00/h/y. There are way too many variables to cover in terms of costing. The titanium mine example will need more ongoing threat abatement funding than a stable, relatively intact system, the same is true for any planted landscape. I mentioned the example because it puts a value on vegetation, relative to the value of the resource being mined. The ecologist was trying to wrap his head around the concept of ‘pricing nature’ and all that it means.

2. Yes. Planning/management already considers this. Unfortunately, historically conservation efforts has favoured planting over threat abatement in native landscapes. Planted landscapes have low species diversity, and are highly weedy. Native landscapes have high species diversity, and range between having few weeds to being highly modified by invasives.

3. As I mentioned volunteerism comes at more of a cost than people seem to realise. Regardless, if priorities were well set, I suspect that community service is not something that could be relied upon. As an example, in the high value site I mentioned @ 1 – the task involves methodically moving through difficult terrain, carrying a third of my body weight in a not-particularly pleasant selective herbicide, and spot-spraying an invasive south african grass that can be distinguished from native grasses by having a purple ligule [the place where the grass leaf connects with the stem]. If you know anyone who can, and is willing to do that for free, please let me know, as I’m having a little bit of trouble trying to find someone who’ll do it for a wage.

4. No argument from me there, but like I said, it IS happening. The reason that I have been in the threads that relate to the way agricultural production is impacted on by the carbon economy is because I think that there is economic, environmental, social and cultural benefits from engaging the rural sector in restoration – because aside from money the other limiting factor to restoration will be finding a workforce in the areas where it really needs to happen.

He was blown away [smitten is probably not to strong a word] by the WA landscape and somewhat stunned by the cost involved in restoration work – ie: $20,000 per hectare at one place we visited.

I certainly agree that the potential costs in some areas may well be quite high, but I would make several observations:

1. A good part of the areas we’d want to protect would be in places with a far lower cost structure.
2. Some areas are less feasible to restore than others
3. Much of this work could probably be done by people working in a community service/study mode. There are many people who would be willing to donate service under certain conditions to do this kind of work
4. At the moment, it costs between $US500k and $US1m per year to keep a US soldier in the field. Reecently, as we saw in the US under TARP, most of 1 trillion was given away to prop up corporate shonks who were seen as too bit to fail. I’d describe biodiversity and ecosystem services as “too big to fail” and if I had to choose which to save …

The resources exist to do the things we need to do. We just need to do them.

The 15 acres of pasture (for want of a better word) has feral wheat, barley, canola and peas (from previous cropping), numerous weed species (including cut-leaf mignonette, Salvation Jane and thistles), barley grass, rye grass, something my son assures me is vetch, several types of clover, and some dryland lucerne another son and I broadcast. Oh, and ruby saltbush. Lots and lots of it. There are also about half a dozen olive trees I planted along the creek line.

To a certain extent the information gathering on the components that could underpin your idea has/or is happening, it’s the costing part that would be tricky – it’s funny I had an interesting conversation with an American ecologist who had a background in economics when I was in Western Australia, and he came up with one idea that was not all that dissimilar to yours – [his other idea was Australia as biodiversity theme park, hehe]. He was blown away [smitten is probably not to strong a word] by the WA landscape and somewhat stunned by the cost involved in restoration work – ie: $20,000 per hectare at one place we visited.

I think, the more complex and loaded the notion of putting a cost on carbon becomes, the trickier it becomes to try and factor ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation into the equation too. I’d love to see a plan similar to the one you mention, but I get a feeling that the carbon economy may be the only chance we get to ‘put a price’ on the integrity of the landscape..and well, so far that’s not getting an easy ride.

Bill, we are doing the little bits, we have been for years [decades], of course there is no ‘harm’ in doing that [in the most obvious sense of the word - we could argue over what we might have been achieved in those decades if our time/money/energies had been better directed]. What I’m trying to address is the practical reality we face if we continue to swallow the idea that planting a bunch of trees is a cheap and easy way to restore the environment, much less mitigate carbon emissions. It’s not cheap, and it is not easy and it is sadly quite fallible. I actually think that the per annum increase in electricity prices we might face from the Rudd government plan would seem insignificant alongside the actual cost’s involved in tree planting ‘direct action’.

DI {nr} “My tongue was firmly in my cheek, btw, furious.”

*snickers* for a nano-second I thought you were serious.

“I found about 20 different plant species growing last time it was green, and it’s got quail, lizards, and a few snakes. (Also rosellas and galahs visit.)”

Do you mean you found 20 native plant species in the 15 acres, or in the direct seeded area?

On the subject of direct seeding, and just so I don’t sound completely defeatist and negative about this stuff – The folks in Western Australia recently identified the molecule in smoke that triggers germination. It’s a pretty exciting advancement for direct seeding restoration projects, reducing the amount of seed needed to be drilled, not to mention getting germination on plants that have thus far been very difficult to propagate. Mind you the kind of minds at work in Western Australia are pretty impressive, we should take that kind of intellectual resource for granted either – I’d say some of those people come along once in a generation, intimidatingly smart.

I think that what you have said is 3/4 of the problem.

The trees are intended to provide windbreak, habitat, and woodlot. I was actually gently taking the piss.

They are getting ready for a name change… I can’t see any other option for the crack smoking followers of tryhard elitism!

I was just watching a science documentary on Galapagos, where they say that bad El Ninos cause mass deaths of wildlife on the islands. Presumably, with increasing frequency, it would make it difficult for some species to recover in between these events?