Thanks,Ian, for this excellent article.

Revegetation of Australia's clapped out agricultural and pastoral land is indeed one very badly needed solution to our environmental problems and it can be done now at relatively little expense.

There is some very good work going on but it is a drop in the bucket given the scale of the damage.

Proactive governments are needed for a suitable scale scheme to be put in place.Given the appalling stupidity,ignorance and arrogance of the reigning oligarchy that is not going to happen without political change.

Tony Abbott's Eco Army could take this up as an ongoing task.

A real solution, not just more ALP taxes.

We need political change from the current ALP governments and their tricky ways.

The work of Henderson-Sellers and McGuffie receives support from a recent study by two Russian physicists, Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva of the St Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute.

See: RAINFORESTS MAY PUMP WINDS WORLDWIDE, New Scientist, Issue 2702,

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227024.400-rainforests-may-pump-winds-worldwide.html (subscription required)

The gist of the Gorshkov's and Makarieva's theory is this. A rain forest creates its own rain. Australia may be largely desert because the Aborigines burned down the old forests

Some quotes from the New Scientist article:

"If correct, the theory would explain how the deep interiors of forested continents get as much rain as the coast, and how most of Australia turned from forest to desert…."

"The volumes of water involved in this process can be huge. More moisture typically evaporates from rainforests than from the ocean. The Amazon rainforest, for example, releases 20 trillion litres of moisture every day."

"In conventional meteorology the only driver of atmospheric motion is the differential heating of the atmosphere. …"Nobody has looked at the pressure drop caused by water vapour turning to water." The scientists, whose theory is based on the basic physics that governs air movement have dubbed this the "biotic pump" and claim it could be "the major driver of atmospheric circulation on Earth". …"

"To back up their hypothesis they show how regions without coastal forests, such as west Africa, become exponentially drier inland. Likewise, in northern Australia, rainfall drops from 1600 millimetres a year on the coast to 200 mm some 1500 kilometres inland. In contrast, on continents with large forests from the coast to interior, rainfall is as strong inland as on the coast, suggesting the trees help shuttle moisture inland"

"…Australia once had forests but is now largely desert. Gorshkov and Makarieva argue that Aborigines burning coastal forests may have switched the continent from wet to dry by shutting down its biotic pump."

End quotes

We may be able to drought-proof Australia by planting trees.

Thanks for this Ian. I am totally on side with the idea of revegetating for all kinds of reasons, let alone combatting drought and climate change - but the emphasis should be on restoring native vegetation and habitats, as you say, rather than adding grist to the monocultural plantations mill. I fear that Abbott - and Rudd/Wong - will use a simplistic interpretation of these kinds of arguments to extend the managed investment schemes which have already swallowed up good agricultural land and displaced farmers in some areas.

The potential of a revegetation program for providing employment in rural communities is of particular interest. Plantations actually reduced jobs in our area - and interestingly, the company destroyed houses on the farms they brought up reducing opportunities for people to move to this depopulating district.

I would be interested in contacting you in regard to writing an article for a community development journal I am editing for publication later this year with a focus on rural Australia - how can I do that?

It is all very good to argue that we should re vegetate but how do we manage these new forests.
Having just lost my house in a bushfire before Christmas I can tell you that the current standards of managing forests in SE Australia is pretty damn poor.
The fire that took our house has also reduced 1000's of hectares of montane forest landscape to sticks and bare earth.
No one in their right mind can argue that this is a good result for the forest and can be directly traced to the decisions made by Carr and Debus in the mid nineties that resulted in the SEP 46 regulations (NSW Govt)

I believe that you are optimistic in your desire to stop head-wall erosion in gullies also.
If you look at Barry Starr's work looking at the attempted repair of these erosion gullies in the Googong and Cotter catchments you will find that these erosion gullies only stop when they reach bedrock.
The natural forces at work are just to great to stop without large engineering intervention.

Ian, I support your concept.

But I wonder about the practicalities.

< This approach has been utilised, in part, by some Australian land care groups with good results apparent over the past 10 to 15 years >

Yes. It is widely evident in the WA wheatbelt for example. However, it is still of very limited extent, all told. So I wonder about the prospects of considerably boosting the planting rate to the extent of it making any real difference to albedo, rainfall, salt mobilisation and groundwater, and doing it without significantly reducing the extent of productive land.

< Without the cooperation of local communities, farmers and other land managers such a scheme is doomed to failure. >

Indeed. In Queensland and New South Wales, rural landholders have recently had restrictions on clearing old growth and regrowth greatly increased. So to expect them to plant up significant portions of their properties on top of this is going to meet with strong opposition, to say the least!

So unfortunately, it is not a simple solution.

Everyone supports spending other people's money, don't they? Here's a great idea for the author and everyone who supports his proposal: pay for it yourselves!

Peter Hume,

It's a pity you didn't think that one through.
two points ...
- "No man is an island, entire of itself;" this applies to actions and non actions alike.
- Isn't collective action and protection of all the point society? and supersedes the selfish recalcitrant interests of the minority?

Even Col's Baroness Valde Caeletis had to admit reality and support some socialist ideals over her professio ridiculum 'there is no such thing as community'
___________________________________________

Ian,

Your idea sounds great however, I tend to having spent years on re veg your idea sound simple and from your perspective it may even appear so however I fear both practicalities like logistics,other people, attitudes,nature and other associated disciplines would agree.

To wit I spent three years watering tending a patch of regen to stop gully erosion only to find a (suspected belligerent)adjacent neighbour poisoned them because it stopped a view of the sea.
In another patch local teenagers used the slopes for illegal dirt bike races. and in a bush propper site 4wd used the warning signs as leverage to unbog their 4WD.

How do you water a large patch untill the natural processes take over? Did I mention developers and recalcitrant land owners at the top of gullies? Oh yes there are the native animals that wander off their allotted territory. I know of one patch being cleared to rid a bush turkey and the odd snake...usually pythons.

Then there's bushfire protection, the edge effect, weed infestation feral animal control. This could take years, 5-6 electoral cycles.
Politically we can't guarantee consistent political will for more than one truncated cycle let alone multiple.
Sorry sir, it *IS* highly complicated

Ian these are your words in a previous article.

"In other words the basis for runaway global warming or catastrophic climate change, and the attempt to mitigate the effects of such through the implementation of an ETS and internationally binding agreements, are based on unverified assumptions, à priori notions and unreliable data."

In other words it is a load of BS.

Indeed the solution is easy. This country needs to look after the farmers and people on the land.

Just what do you propose if, every time an agreement is signed by the Rudd government in some far off country, the poor bloody farmers and people on the land have to wear it. This country could be a food bowl for the world if the government did something constructive. Like water collection at the top end.

The fuzzy BS they tout is demeaning and at best does not address anything important. Meanwhile the country is slipping away due to inaction. Take away the Native Vegetation Act, that would be a really good start. But please don't advocate putting other Acts in it's place, that goes beyond the pale.

The Rudd government wants to be aware, people are taking notice of these so called "climate change solutions". Most on the people on the land do not believe the global warming BS anyway. They know the their land and they know the climate and they care for their land accordingly. They know what they know because generations of them have been there.

Farmers are not bureaucrats sitting in a forum in Copenhagen deciding who will take over the food production for the world, on the basis of some hand fed global warming modelling computer statistics.

Apparently Kevin Rudd is willing to sell the country down the drain for what? A place on the UN when he is out of politics?

Give us one decent government that is willing to take care of this country first and I will be forever in their debt.

A simple first solution. The total solution will come from the people that live on this earth, so don't blame any body else. What have you done to contribute. Whingeing and whineing will not do a thing. So get off ya ass and do something for ya self.

At last, thank you Ian, a paper that addresses the ecological [im]balance in all spheres: soil, water, and atmosphere. All being damaged by the effects of deforestation. This has NOTHING to do with carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas induced warming. Wind, weather and rain patterns all change after deforestation and this causes soil moisture drying, erosion, leaching and even less rain. Agricultural practices and forestry urgently need to be altered so they operate in more sustainable ways. This will not be addressed by taxing CO2 emissions. Rather the ETS will send farmers broke and make them angry and recalcitrant.

We need a clever and fair tax deduction incentive for farmers on building carbon into the soils (mulch) to improve fertility and soil structure. This idea already exists, in its infancy, on reforestation of land with native vegetation. Some landowners are setting up BioBanking sites that will bring them an income and tax incentives for further improvement. Encouraging farmers to simply allow re-growth of natural bush and wild-life corridors along waterways, along ridgelines, in gullies - would be so easy through the tax system. After all, there were once tax incentives for clearing forest not so long ago. There were tax incentives for using super-phosphate fertilizer, for fencing and buying farm machinery that in some instances was never used. Reforestation can be done quite swiftly through the taxation system by allowing farmers rebates where their action in sustainability is clear and measurable. Essentially, it amounts to a stroke of the pen by government. Farmers will all take this action immediately if they can save on taxes for their business.

I once worked for a rice farmer in the MIA, west of Griffith NSW, mostly in driving tractors. He used to clear the irrigation canals by driving a big gutsy 4 wheel drive tractor into the rice paddy irrigation canals, and with a big rotary hoe on back, we'd chop the thick water weed choking water flow. Prior to this, the water just sat there evaporating and flow was not strong enough to be channeled to rice paddies and beyond. The rotary hoe would relieve the clog alright, induced by water weed, but after the treatment the chopped weed would float down stream to regenerate and clog canals, channels and rivers. In India this water weed is harvested to make paper.

Irrigation canals should be covered with a thin but tough plastic (polyethylene) film, like the big plastic sausage-like skin that farmers use to wrap hay and silage. Such plastic cover over canals would stop water weed growing and reduce evaporation to a minimum so that more of the water might be reused, and may even make it down the Murray to Adelaide. Again, the incentives for such practices could be easily made available to farmers, after verification, via the tax system.

"If correct, the theory would explain how the deep interiors of forested continents get as much rain as the coast, and how most of Australia turned from forest to desert…."

"…Australia once had forests but is now largely desert. Gorshkov and Makarieva argue that Aborigines burning coastal forests may have switched the continent from wet to dry by shutting down its biotic pump."

You know that has to be the greatest load of BS I have read. So now they blame the aboriginals.

How many thousands of years ago would that be? How many millions of years ago would it have been that inland Australia was forested like the Amazon? How many millions of native aboriginal dwellers would it have taken to make Australia's inland red?

You know why they get rainfall at the top end, it's called the Monsoon season. It is what happens in this country climatically.

So have a go, get off your bums, revegetate the middle of Oz, see how far you get without water. The farmers will tell you.

Have you wondered why there is a salt lake out there?