Digging a Little Deeper

Tony Dickson 2009 I grow weary of feeling obliged to respond to the hysteria provoked by every proposed planning application for a globulus plantation. Am I the only member of the community that can see the benefits of such land use as well as the problems? I invite those of you who are not locked into a doctrinaire position, to consider the following: The economics of these plantations do not allow irrigation. They require a minimum of 600mls of rainfall and can intercept approximately 80-85% of runoff. They do have the potential to impact on shallow water tables (i.e. those within 6m of the surface). Recent research (Caboon 2009 Flinders Uni) indicates that this is slightly less, over the term of rotation, than endemic vegetation. ABL is indeed owned by a syndicate of Japanese investors, the principal being Mitsubishi. They are seeking to establish a pulp wood industry in the Mt. Lofty Ranges with a resource of 6,500 to 10,000 ha. This sounds a large area until one considers that it represents only a fraction of one percent of the Mt Lofty Ranges. The clearance of native vegetation cover in the MT. Lofty Ranges has been so extensive (approx. 84%) that in most catchments only tiny pockets of healthy habitat survives. Mature native woodlands intercept slightly more rainfall than plantations. These two factors would indicate a huge increase in runoff since European settlement and a consequent catastrophic disruption to the hydrology of the whole landscape. One obvious effect in valleys like the Hindmarsh and Inman was the conversion of the extensive wetlands that covered their flood plains into the erosion gullies that we now call rivers. As there is currently no significant forestry (in percentage terms) of any sort in these catchments, more recent reductions of environmental flows down these rivers can only be attributable to climatic variation, farm dams and extraction from streams and bores. The water intercepted by plantations is entirely utilised for production; i.e. their water efficiency is 100%. The water stored in farm dams can be expected to lose as much as a metre to evaporation over summer, which may represent much more water than is actually used for production. This is a dreadful waste of such a valuable natural resource. Attempts to combat salination by planting trees, in order to lower water tables, has had only limited success because it has been found that the desired results dissipate within a short distance of the plantings. Thus the prescribed buffer zones around the Fleurieu swamps, required as a condition for planning approval, on the available evidence, should be adequate to preserve these important habitats; at least until climate change finally does them in, along with the Emu Wren and most of the other species that share our land. It is true that Globulus plantations are monocultures and if it were proposed that they replace remnant vegetation I would be the first one to the barricades. However, this is not the case. They will be planted on land currently occupied by shallow rooted, introduced grasses and legumes. Land that is currently subject to the deprivations of hard hoofed exotic animals, unnatural levels of

phosphate, regular chemical applications and periodic cultivation. None of these aspects of usual farming practice are consistent with the enhancement of ecological values. Consider by way of contrast, the globulus monoculture. It has been estimated recently that the canopies of Australias eucalypt forests provide habitat for as many as 250,000 species of arthropods. Allowing for the ecological deficiencies of a plantation, even a tiny percentage of these species could amount to hundreds of different arthropods in the canopy of our local Blue Gum crop. It is difficult to imagine nature not providing predators to compliment such a smorgasbord. If we move down to ground level, to the cool shaded leaf litter, we might encounter a few adventurous native grasses, ground covers, lichens, moulds and presumably a whole new population of insects, grubs and spiders. These creatures are going to find even a monoculture of eucalypts more congenial than a heavily grazed paddock of phalaris, frying like a dusty egg under the summer sun. Now lets move underground. Instead of the shallow roots of grasses and soil, dry and compacted by stock, we have the deep, searching, massive root systems of trees. Almost fifty percent of a eucalypts biomass is below the ground. At the end of a twelve-year rotation, a plantation may reasonably yield 100 tonnes of timber/ htr, leaving a similar amount in the ground. When the tree dies or is harvested, those roots dramatically increase the carbon levels in the soil, improving fertility and structure and water absorption, which in turn supports a whole complex ecological system: worms, nematodes, insects, fungi, moulds, bacteria and a host of species that remain anomalous still. Indeed, it is estimated that over half of all terrestrial life on Earth and more than 90% of biodiversity, is in fact, in it. The really tricky issue for plantations is of course fire. All eucalypts burn enthusiastically, but equating well-maintained plantations with native forests of the same species is quite spurious. If we accept that a plantation is, for most purposes, a monoculture, then it must be differentiated from a complex and structurally layered ecology that is left to collect and dispose of its litter. The preparation and follow-up weed (introduced grasses) control of young plantations keeps fuel load to a minimum until the trees are big enough to shade out the often very persistent pasture species. Thereafter, until about twothirds of the duration of the crop rotation, the evidence is clear that the lack of fuel load on the ground mitigates strongly against the maintenance of a crown fire. This fact combined with the reduction of wind speeds, in and beyond the forest, means that such plantations do effectively retard fires. Of course, inevitably, it is not quite so simple; things rarely are. After about eight years, the eucalypts begin to drop their lower limbs as they become redundant in the competition for light. These small branches, combined with increased bark fall, creates two serious problems: first, is the dramatic increase in fuel load on the forest floor; the other is the hanging bark which can provide a wick to the canopy. Together, these factors convert a fire retardant into the opposite. However, there is a solution to this problem; it is called maintenance. Periodic inter-row mulching, or controlled burning, dramatically reduces the effective

fuel load and aids the decomposition of the forest litter. This would be an additional cost to growers like ABL, but not, I would argue, an unreasonable one. It could be another condition of planning approval. Unfortunately, the VHCC, by succumbing to populism and opposing such applications outright, rather than taking the advice of its own professional planning staff, has forfeit the chance to regulate such enterprises. Notwithstanding the above, I would like to express my grave concerns about the plantation proposed at Green Hills, on the very outskirts of Victor Harbor. This proposal would appear to combine a number of otherwise manageable risks into a potential for disaster. An uphill slope, in the most acute fire risk sector, so close to a suburban area, itself a high fire risk, given extreme conditions, may again see fire behaviour that breaks all the rules. The point is that such planning applications must be considered on their merits, in a balanced, evidentiary process and not determined on the basis of emotional prejudices and ignorance. And as for Mr. Hastings question of why the wicked Japanese dont plant these forests in their own country; the answer is that there is not much space to do so, because 60% of Japan is already covered with forest. They had more sense than to just bulldoze their trees and burn the timber. Japan has been rightly criticised for providing a market for illegal loggers throughout the developing world and Russia. ABL is making an attempt to replace such sources with plantation timber grown on land already ecologically degraded. If we are going to continue to read newspapers, wrap Christmas presents and use toilet paper, we have two choices: grow plantations or cut down old growth forests. Simple, isnt it?

Tony Dickson Keen Rd. Back Valley. 0410501484 85545283