Opportunities for regenerative management of our rural landscapes
When land is cleared the soil and local ecology suffer, and thanks to decades of unhealthy land management practices it is a situation faced by primary producers around Australia. Simon Gould says there is a way to regenerate the land.
It is well documented that there is significant land degradation across Australia that is aggravated by a changing climate and decreasing water resources.
Despite good practices of many of our land managers and farmers, supported by good science, we are faced with an increasingly arid landscape, severe salinity and erosion, diminishing water availability, declining soil health, as well as rising costs for fuel and non-organic fertilisers.
Recently, we reached a major milestone in our work to begin the wide-spread regeneration of our land. It is the culmination of much effort by an informed group of people covering many fields, particularly farming.
According to the independent report to the Federal Government of Australia: ‘State of the Environment 2011’, about 60 percent of Australia’s 770 million square kilometres is managed land, including uses such as grazing, cropping and forestry. This offers a huge and often insufficiently acknowledged opportunity to address a multitude of challenges facing us on a national and global level.
Often, managed uses of land are not seen as compatible with conservation – as if protecting the environment and agriculture are in competition. This need not be the case – as many innovative farmers are already showing (see here). By adopting regenerative landscape management practices, farmers and land managers are achieving positive results, not only for the environment, but for their production, profits and personal wellbeing.
These practices focus on natural cycles, particularly the soil’s physical, microbial and mineral health. Consequently, due to increased organic matter and increased soil carbon, water capture and retention is enhanced. Along with this increased moisture, essential nutrients are also made available for more efficient use by plants and animals. Naturally functioning cycles improve landscape resilience to climate extremes – such as too much or too little rainfall. Plant, and subsequently animal and human health is also enhanced with this effective nutrient cycling.
Soils for Life is seeking to promote these practices to become the norm across Australia, enabling such broad and demonstrated outcomes as:
- sequestering up to 10 tonnes of CO2 a hectare per annum.
- producing grain crops on around 100mm rainfall in the growing season
- increasing stock carrying capacity and production on reducing rainfall
- reducing chemical and labour inputs without reducing production
- regenerating landscapes enabling sustainable production
- improving profit stability regardless of rainfall variation
- healing erosion, salinity and landscape degradation
- enhancing landscape biodiversity
To achieve this on a national level it is important that farmers and land managers are recognised as stewards of the land and are rewarded accordingly. We need a strategic, coordinated approach to management of rural land – respecting the multiple uses of the landscape – ideally led at the Deputy Prime Minister level. Part of this is to acknowledge that water is a primary strategic asset; to be valued and managed accordingly.
By adopting regenerative landscape management we can reverse degradation of the landscape, enable sustainable and quality production of food and fibre and enhance the wellbeing of all Australians. We can also provide a model for others to follow.
This is particularly important to provide food, fibre and water security for a growing population in the face of an unpredictable and changing climate.
Simon Gould is a former Army Officer of 31 years service. His military career included commanding an infantry battalion in East Timor, the Deputy for Operations with the Multi-National Force in Iraq and an appointment as Director General of Defence Force Recruiting. He brings his planning, coordination and communications skills to the Soils for Life program, where he has been assisting the Chairman since October 2009.
