One of Australia’s pivotal habitat restoration ecological communities has dropped to only five percent of its original extent. To mitigate this, 10 farmers met to discuss how they might change this to ensure the country can effectively support the vast diversity of plant and animal species within the region (including many threatened or endangered ones).
Box Gum Grassy Woodlands, and derived native grasslands (BGGW), are needed to support agriculture by maintaining ecosystem levels (such as controlling erosion and salinity, regulating hydrology and by providing shelter and protection for livestock against pests and predators.
A gap in having too little trees in the landscape can ultimately lead to lowered productivity and, in the instance of no trees, lowered biodiversity. When the opposite occurs and too many trees are planted too closely together in an environment (such as national parks and tree forestry locations), it no longer can be used as a grazing area and becomes a forest.
Open Woodland Restoration, a government initiative comprised of farmers hoping to crack the code in creative productive farmland that supports the ecosystem got a three-year grant from the government to pursue a new strategy.
Geoff Kay, from Jeir, was the person to pioneer the innovative design after discovering how two close rows of trees, followed by a large gap and another two close rows of trees (followed by another big gap) and onwards could be the answer.
The local senior ecologist and farmer found this plantation method improved productive pasture which improved the income from generating carbon credits (ACCU’s), reduced erosion and desiccation, and restored ecological territory. It also allowed for machinery access and created fire safe grazing areas.
Regen Farmers Mutual, a farmer cooperative whose priority is in creating profitable regenerative agriculture, saw the initiative and now supports Open Woodland Restoration in the Southern Tablelands. It is through this partnership that a second three-year grant was received (this one from the New South Wales Government) to scale the discovery.
Regen Farmers Mutual CEO, Andrew Ward, says, “There is a sweet spot where there are enough trees (not too many), which is around 20 to 30 percent of canopy cover, and there are ways in which farmers can direct seed.”
Direct seeding is a process in which seeds are planted directly into the soil (bypassing nurseries or transplanting). As Andrew says, the practice is a low-cost way of putting in tree seeds, acacias and eucalypts.
“Based on what generates [from direct seeding], it will form a BGGW, and that design is in two really close lines, a big gap, two close lines and a big gap,” he says.
“That enables an open natural woodland system to emerge, which is suitable for grazing.”
If these trees reach above two meters and produce a 20 percent canopy cover, they qualify for carbon credits.
“It’s a productive use of returning trees to the landscape, and it’s financially rewarding because of the carbon and biodiversity credits that can be sold, and it’s restoring BGGW, which is a threatened ecological community,” he says.
The project has also been awarded a six-month grant project from NRM Regions Australia (a natural resource management organisation) to see how the Tablelands Region might benefit from the BGGW restoration process.
Run by farmers, Andrew says it’s important for those on the ground to be conducting the project.
“If you’re an ecologist, you’re going to maximise ecological benefit, if you’re an economist, you’re going to maximise profit and if you’re a farmer, you’re going to maximise productivity and benefit to your farm,” he says.
“It’s more appealing to farmers to do open land restoration that it is to do forestry, which is a whole new enterprise that they’re not used to.
“This is about growing trees, still being able to graze.
“At the end of it, you’re not having to prune the trees and cut timber to turn it into a new product.”
While the environmental benefits of doing so can outweigh the negatives, Andrew says it shouldn’t be up to the farmers to go broke in trying to do right.
“They’ve got to make money out of it,” he says.
“There’s not a single farmer who doesn’t love the bush and if you ask them, that’s one of their main motivations.
“So, I think it’s a really good solution, because it’s farmer led, it’s practical and it’s keeping them in the industry they want to be in, but accessing income that they otherwise wouldn’t get.”
Now, the Open Woodland Initiative is coming to Goulburn on February 26 to discuss the strategy with local farms to further grow awareness and engagement.
“There are three different farmers who’ll share their own experience with creation Open Woodland Restoration on their farm,” says Andrew.
With more opportunities open later in the year, Andrew says farmers can look forward to engaging with a “peer to peer” structure when one farmer opens his farm for a field trip to see the strategy in motion.
With many years of plantation, integration and planning behind the initiative, Andrew says this year will be focused on raising awareness and conversations, with 2027 used to process this awareness into helping others implement designs on their own farms.
This method of direct seeding, he says, is something he has never seen before.
“It’s an innovative thing that I hadn’t personally seen across hundreds of projects, until I was in the Southern Tablelands,” he says.
“There’s been a series of flukey coincidences or good fortune because the farmer who I first saw doing this on his farm is not an average farmer, he’s the chief ecologist for the New South Wales Biodiverstiy Conservation Trust in his day job.”
Located just outside of Murrumbateman, Geoff Kay owns a small farm, something he hopes to pass down to his children.
“He was pretty disgusted with how plantations were considered an arboretum-style forestry,” says Andrew.
“When he looked at nature, he could see that there are multiple stories, multiple levels. There are mature trees and young trees, and different species of grass that make up a lot of the food and forage for the birds.
“Trees alone aren’t what you need, you need that BGGW to derive native grasses.”
Dr Kay did this eight years ago and, as an ecologist, could understand what the clean regulator in the carbon market was asking for.
Breaking down the legislation to do it himself, Andrew says he “forged a pathway”.
On a field trip to Dr Kay’s farm to see the plantations, he says it was like a lightbulb clicking on for the farmers.
“We could crawl this across the landscape and in doing so, [we’re] restoring a threatened ecological community,” says Andrew.
“It was high fives all around as the penny dropped.”
Overall, he says it is “quite fascinating”.
“For a small famer-led project to have support of NSW Farmers Association, Elders and local landcare services of farming systems, all of these organisations are saying that this is a good thing, and when you hear about environmental projects, often it’s about dodgy carbon operators and sacrificing food productivity for environmental goals,” he says.
“This is where it is ‘tick, tick, tick’, all the boxes.
“To see the community buy in and the overwhelming support from all sides is indicative of how exciting this project could be.”
For more information about this event, or to secure your spot, visit https://events.humanitix.com/open-woodland-restoration-townhall
– Elizabeth Kovacs
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