Cattle Wars - Vic High country

As good a bit of stereotyping as I've seen on this website there Hairy. "Greenies" worldwide have done more to protect our environment than the rest of us put together. Like lefties, righties, fence sitters and rednecks they come in a variety of shades with a huge diversity of views and ideas.

Hairy,

Is that a touch or red on your neck I can see?

Best get in out of the sun.

Skull

Yep.........haven't had a real good run with the "GREENIES" lately........LOL

Most Greenies I know are well educated with high paying jobs. There are a lot here in the Blue Mountains. I 4 wheel drive a lot and wish that people were more like the Greenies I have contact with than most of the 4 wheel drivers I see leaving crap around campsites. The Greenies never do that and they camp and bush walk a lot.

I don't deny for a minute there are a lot out there who are workers, sensible and done a lot of good.........BUT........the MAJORITY I have come across is my line of work have been either unrealistic, feral, or just professional protesters. That's why I have the opinion I do.....

Likewise?....

It's not just "the" science Robin that is no longer believed in. The international Murdoch press has been hammering the credibility of the scientific community for the past decade. Scientists are now dismissed as "elites". In the western world, government support for science has been drying up. And this at a time when the Asian countries have been increasing the numbers of science graduates. Quite a price is going to be paid in the near future.

My question regarding "climate change", as seems to be the preferred term, is .... What caused the Ice Age?

As far as the cattle are concerned, get them back ASAP, leaving anything to Perks Victoria or the Dept of Sparks & Embers is fraught with danger.
There is so much fuel build up since the cattle have left that it is a disaster waiting to happen, & yes I do have a vested interest, my property is on the edge of the High Country & has twice been threatened by wildfire!

They also took away the rights to grazing along sections of the Murray River, it is now derelict & overgrown with weeds & is also an accident waiting to happen.

There are also plenty of locals in Tasmanua that would agree wholeheartedly with Hairy.

I don't understand what you are getting at? The generally accepted theory on the cause of the ice ages relates the Milankovitch cycles to movements of the earth on its axis, sunspot cycles and impact events. The first three appear to be be very long term cyclical while impact events are totally random. None of these factors appears to have any relationship to current climate change data. Except that the current rate of change can only be compared (in geological age terms) to an impact event. But of course their is no impact event in the last 100 years.

However I agree with you that once land is cleared it must either be reaforrested or managed. Leaving it to secondary growth is a disaster waiting to happen. Nope, I don't live there however I have a number of friends with properties in the Corryong/Nariel area and we discuss these issues.

You answered your own question in regard to what I was alluding to!
Movements of the Earth on its axis can contribute to climate change if it can cause a catastrophic change like the Ice Age.

I still don't follow what you are getting at. There haven't been movements of the Earth on its axis in rather a long time. None of the factors that we know have contributed to the cycle of ice ages and warmings in the past have any bearing on the current changes. The science is there for those who are prepared to put the time into researching it. Instead, in the west, we are increasingly turning away from science. Climate change is only a part of what this will eventually cost us.

Believing the MURDOCH press is like a woman believing what is written in New Idea.

WOW! I just looked and guess who owns New Idea. Gutter press themselves.

Putting aside the high country discussion, surely you're not serious about the significance of environmental damage from cattle Ken.

Bazooka I'm not sure what cattle damage you are referring to but the thread is about the high country and it is there that I question the claims of massive damage. I have never said there is no environmental damage anywhere as suggested by your broad statement; simply it is nowhere near the extent that some would have us believe in the Alpine NP.
I fully understand that this country originally had no hard hoofed animals so their introduction logically must have some impact. What I cannot accept is that it is on the scale claimed by those opposed to grazing. Also I do not hear demands for removal of 2 other hard hoofed animals with healthy appetites which are in greater number than cattle ever were and are in the alpine parks all year ! Deer and horses, if you are not acquainted with the 2 largest feral animal populations currently in residence.

Ken

Hullo Ken

To me at least, you have made some valid points, especially wrt to the Wonnangatta valley.

I have been visiting the Vic High Country for over 45 years. My concern is that it seems that the amount of fuel has markedly increased, especially the understory that has grown unchecked after major fires, particularly where the canopy trees has been severely reduced. Many of the dead trees, mainly mountain ash, provide significant fuel supporting further hot fires, thus continuing the cycle.

Consequently it may well very be difficult to re-establish the old "balance" maintained by the original custodians of this country, where patchwork, low intensity fires reduced the understory to a minimum and produced fresh feed for the native animals.

These practices were maintained in many areas by the cattlemen, the fresh feed in this case being for their cattle. Any move to try to return to what Bill Gamage termed the 1788 landscape may require many decades of years of consistent practice - probably something beyond our short term thinking.

On the other hand, the current custodians are also highly unlikely to produce a satisfactory and sustainable outcome based on current practice, lack of funds and political interference.

From my point of view, we need some middle ground between the "no cattle anywhere" vs "cattle are OK everywhere" approaches.

Cheers
Andrew

Yes, & the Wilson's Prom fire was lit by the same authority that are supposed to be managing the land where the cattle were!

That's the one Mate !

Department of Natural Disasters

No other name for the bunch of FW's

I live near the "Prom", and as a Kid the Old Man used to take us there occasionally, to show us, and the odd Cousin from Melbourne, where he trained during WW2, Tidal River and Mt Oberon, Squeaky Beach, Whiskey Bay, ect.

The Department of Natural Disasters, have turned the Prom into a great "Mulga" !, that will burn to the ground every few years.

It's no longer Pretty, because of the fires, and the continual efforts of the DSE to "bugger up" every thing those idiots get their grubby hands on.

As inquiries have shown the understory grazing tale is near enough to a myth as far as meaningful fire mitigation is concerned, and comparing the NT to the highlands as was written elsewhere is just total nonsense. Some limited grazing for "preservation of historical customs" might be reasonable but I agree totally let's stop the bullshit about it having any significant effect on bushfires.

I always look at this and ask the question .... "so the cattle eat branches, twigs, bark, gum leaves, and top growth ??"

I believe there seperate issues,
do we need to reduce fuel loads to avoid major bushfires - yes,
but there are a number of ways to achieve this, one of which is grazing.

The grazing issue is a cause looking for justification, not the otherway around.


My 2c worth

The stuff that really burns are the dead gum leaves and twigs. They fill gutters in a matter of weeks and catch alight that easily a house has no chance. The fires went through here 6 weeks ago and already you can't see the black earth anymore due to a carpet of dead leaves. Australian native trees are veritable flammable debris machines of the highest order. Hazard reduction burns are the only answer in my view and they are inherently risky, but what are you going to do? The bush wants to burn, lots of species depend on it for their life cycle.
Putting cattle in National Parks is right up there with putting deer, horses, foxes or cats in them. In my opinion, if you have a choice then you don't do it. At the end of the day they will be competing for resources with native animals and we all know who wins that battle. Think Indian Miner or Cane Toad for worst case scenarios.

Couldn't have been much of a fire compared to the one that went through the Victorian High Country, there were no trees left to drop dead leaves!

As far as damage to the ground itself, compared to 4 wheel drives driving off the formed tracks & pushing their way through scrub etc, the cattle damage is minimal.

I never said anything about cattle causing damage. I said they compete for resources. I'm sure you have much scarier fires in Victoria, but 212 houses lost is scary enough for "not much of a fire".

Hullo mikehzz

This is a huge and complex subject, with no clear one approach "answer". So just a few points to consider.

It is interesting that you used the term "parkland". The most common descriptor used by white explorers as they traversed this country back in the 18th and 19th centuries and reproduced in sketches and paintings was parkland - in many cases for as far as the eye could see, grasslands with large trees well spaced throughout. How could this be? Because of the systematic and intelligent use of fire by the custodians at the time. [Ref "The biggest estate on earth" by Bill Gamage]

When the widespread use of controlled fire ceased and where the land was not used for cropping, the balance of plants and animals was upset and in many cases a thick understory developed. The fuel created as a result meant that fires started by lightning became much hotter and thus further altered the balance, in some cases causing the end of species in that area and enhancing the growth of others [plant and animal]. It is too early to know what the new balance will be, given the short time scale involved.

In the high country, the cattlemen often moved in after the original custodians and in many cases, continued with the use of patchwork fires in autumn, thus maintaining a generally clearer forest with less understory. The creation of NPs with little or no frequent cold burning has meant that a vigorous understory has developed. The result has been the recent series of devastating and frequent hot wildfires that have swept through some parts of the NPs. This new growth is no more "natural" than the previous growth of generally open forest.

Now some people might think that a landscape that is deliberately and systematically modified by man is not "natural". It could argued that man is an integral part of the natural environment, one of a number that modify the environment, for example, beavers which cut down trees, build dams, etc? I am sure biologists could think of many examples.


Now cattle grazing by itself will not solve the problem of devastating wild fires. And I would never advocate the wholesale grazing of the high country. What it might well do is help keep the fuel loads down in selected areas such as the Wonnangatta Valley and progressively those areas where frequent cold burning might eventually lead to the re-establishment of more open treed [parkland] areas covered with native grasses.

In closing, I think it is hard to directly apply ones experiences in one part of the country to another. For example, my understanding is that the vegetation, topography, micro climate, etc of the Blue Mountains is generally not the same as that in the High Country.

Leaf litter in a forest with little or no understory can actually assist in the promulgation of cold fires in the right conditions. OTOH, high levels of understory fuel, together with high temps, low humidity and high wind speeds turn ground fires into hot crown fires with devastating impact on large mature trees.

Cheers
Andrew

All good points Andrew and hard to disagree. I'm all for hazard reduction burns. But, I disagree with farming in National Parks and running someones cattle is farming. I suspect the only people jumping up and down about it have got $$ signs in their eyes looking at all the grazing land being "wasted".

Hi

Putting it simply, a lot of people only have, what I would call, a superficial knowledge of the environment in which they are part custodians of. One persons reference to "parkland" is a classic example. In Australia natural "parkland" and cattle created "parkland" are two different things.

Hundreds of native plants and native animals (vertebrates and invertebrates) are simply not taken into account when making such a comment. It may look OK to the average punter but more important things than some not so old tradition of letting cattle chew through the bush could be lost.

Lets not turn the whole place into a "parkland" cleared cow paddock just because some long dead English explorer described a natural area of bush using the same term and because beavers like chewing trees down (lucky they didn't learn how to use chainsaws:)

Cheers
Greg

Hullo Greg

Thanks for your comments.

It is difficult to have an extended conversation in a forum such as this. Words have different meanings for each of us - in this case that of "parkland".

Given your thoughtful posts I have previously read on many topics, I think you would be very interested in Gammage's book. Mind you, it is really a text, with more than 300 pages arguing a case and nearly a 100 more pages of appendixes, notes and a bibliography. In a short time, it has been recognised by those in this field and outside it as a seminal work and has changed the way we perceive the Australian landscape.

I came across the book when it as recommended to me by staff at the HQ of the Namadgi NP south of Canberra. It certainly has changed by understanding and I now travel in the bush with "new eyes", both with respect to what I pay attention to and the role the Aboriginal peoples had in shaping what he calls the 1788 environment.

Cheers
Andrew