{"id":1729,"date":"2011-07-27T09:20:31","date_gmt":"2011-07-26T23:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/?p=1729"},"modified":"2015-02-23T16:05:13","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T06:05:13","slug":"henbury-station-r-m-williams-agriculture-carbon-trading-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/henbury-station-r-m-williams-agriculture-carbon-trading-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"Henbury Station – R.M. Williams Agriculture – carbon trading scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"

Further to the June 5 post re. Henbury Station’s purchase by RMWAH, here’s quote in The Australian<\/a>\u00a0from CSIRO ‘site leader’ Ashley Sparrow, regarding ‘revegetating’ Henbury and turning it into a ‘carbon sink’:<\/p>\n

“….\u00a0the rejuvenation would be “a slow process, since most recovery relies on big rainfall events.\u00a0 I would expect in a while, and after some good rains, you’d see fields full of daisies in winter and high grass in the summer”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I think Ashley needs to go and read some of the dairies written by explorers, the first white people to travel through inland Australia.\u00a0 All the photos I’ve seen of Henbury show it looking right now as good as it probably has for a couple of centuries – well before whities arrived in this area with cows.<\/p>\n

There’s more comments on\u00a0‘removal of 17,000 cattle by year’s end, and thus significant emissions of methane gas.’ and “The project managers will then orchestrate a campaign to weed out introduced plants that have choked the propagation of native, carbon-storing species’ (only native plants store carbon?\u00a0 Interesting view.) Plus:\u00a0\u00a0‘New efforts will be made to cull the population of feral camels. Finally the company will manage fires on the property.’\u00a0\u00a0 Can anyone tell me whether anyone has succeeded in eradicating camels from the Simpson Desert yet?\u00a0 I thought not.\u00a0 And ask National Park neighbours – in any state –\u00a0what they think of Federal Government weed control programmes on park land.\u00a0 Henburywill be different?\u00a0 Why, are taxpayers going to have to cough up more?\u00a0 As for the fire comment – does this mean they are going to stop fires altogether, patch burn at the end of the wet season, or what, exactly?\u00a0 What will be different to what the previous owners did, in relation to fire and vegetation management?\u00a0 It is notable that all the Elders advertising I’ve seen in relation to Henbury Station, has stated clearly, what a well managed property is has been.<\/p>\n

$9.1 million of taxpayer’s money has gone into the purchasing of Henbury Station and who knows how much taxpayers will be footing the bill for future management and research.\u00a0 On just this one station.\u00a0 How much good would $9.1 million have done, plus the rest that will inevitably be spent in future,\u00a0if spread around on a number of other properties or parks – for weed and feral animal control.<\/p>\n

RMWAH’s press release quotes R.M. Williams Agricultural Holdings Managing Director David Pears as saying:\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re in the business of sustainable agriculture and we see an exciting opportunity in carbon sequestration.\u00a0 By actively managing fire, water, weeds and feral animals on this former pastoral property we\u2019ll encourage natural revegetation, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing carbon in the soil and native plants. We\u2019ll be creating sustainable habitat and enhancing biodiversity.”\u00a0 Is David suggesting that former owners\/managers were not<\/em> ‘managing fire, water, weeds and feral animals’?\u00a0 Isn’t that exactly what any cattle station manager does on a daily basis?\u00a0 Or is David suggesting that cattle station managers are not as competent as RMWAH managers, who are the only ‘sustainable agriculture’ model?<\/p>\n

You know the absolutely funniest part?\u00a0 I wonder how much fossil fuel will be burnt up ferrying purchasers, politicians, researchers, idle visitors and other hangers-on to this part of central Australia, either via Alice Springs airport or direct charter flights\u00a0– on endless trips to and from Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne.\u00a0 My bet is it will be truckloads.\u00a0 But that’s ok, it won’t hurt the earth’s atmosphere one bit, because Henbury is suddenly, after all these years, growing fields of daisies.\u00a0 Those involved will all sleep soundly at night because hey, they’re saving the planet.<\/p>\n

Why don’t we just turn all the land outside of Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra into\u00a0one great big national park owned and run by the Federal Government and\/or big investment companies, as clearly they believe their efforts are second to none when it comes to land management.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I’m all for the preservation of Australia’s native plants and animals (as a read of the blog topics, over the years, attest).\u00a0 But this preservation should begin in cities, where the greatest environmental destruction has occurred.\u00a0 In cities large and small, weeds and introduced animals flourish and native plants and animals are scarce.\u00a0 When it comes to rural land, the most efficient way to ensure the preservation of native plants and animals, and sustainable, environmentally responsible agriculture, is to encourage family property ownership via rebates and tax incentives etc.\u00a0 This is because, believe it or not,\u00a0all rural families have the intention of passing the land on to the next generation, so are naturally thinking long-term, constantly.\u00a0 They DO\u00a0NOT\u00a0damage the land they are in charge of.\u00a0\u00a0More scrutiny than is currently the case should be applied to ownership of leasehold land by large companies (whether families & investment companies) because investors\/extended family members\u00a0apply constant pressure for short-term dividends, which\u00a0always has the potential to be environmentally detrimental.\u00a0 At present leasehold land management by government departments gets a big FAIL because while the vast majority of pastoral leasehold landowners do the right thing, right now there are 3 people in the bush, in charge of very large tracts of land, that should not be allowed to own or run\u00a0anything other than a high-rise apartment.\u00a0 Everyone in the bush knows who they are, yet nothing is done to reign in their poor land management by those in charge of overseeing leasehold land management.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Further to the June 5 post re. Henbury Station’s purchase by RMWAH, here’s quote in The Australian\u00a0from CSIRO ‘site leader’ Ashley Sparrow, regarding ‘revegetating’ Henbury and turning it into a ‘carbon sink’: “….\u00a0the rejuvenation would be “a slow process, since most recovery relies on big rainfall events.\u00a0 I would expect in a while, and after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,5,7,8,10],"tags":[48,158,161,166,176],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1729"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4430,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729\/revisions\/4430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}