Climate change: a simple first solution

This approach has been utilised, in part, by some Australian land care groups with good results apparent over the past 10 to 15 years, especially in the Western Australian wheatbelt. There, as the land slowly repaired itself more moisture was held in the land system for there was less flood runoff, greater soil moisture infiltration, and increased throughflows of soil and ground waters. As the herbs, shrubs and trees grew there was an increase in plant transpiration, resulting in higher humidity around and beneath the canopy layer. As more moisture was taken up and transpired by plant life the elevated saline water tables declined, reducing groundwater salinity levels as the salty water table retreated beyond the tree and shrub root zone.

With vegetation removal on moderate to steep slopes the top soil is left unprotected and surface runoff dramatically increases leading to, depending on soil type, gully erosion, entrenched stream channels and a lose of soil nutrients on those slopes. Part of the natural regeneration repairing process needs to include the infilling of these erosion-formed gullies and entrenched stream channels - note that this may currently be illegal in some jurisdictions. They could be filled in with anything at hand, providing it is not polluting and non-toxic: rocks; fallen tree branches; discarded farm equipment. This will slow down gully and stream flows resulting in soil and particle deposition after the next and following significant rain events, so helping preserve soil nutrients that might otherwise be lost.

Gradually these gullies and entrenched stream channels will fill in, more so if their immediate margins and headwaters are allowed to naturally regenerate. Infilled gullies and stream channels will allow future flood events to spread across the adjacent floodplain returning moisture to the soil and help create, or maintain, riverine wetlands.

The process of natural regeneration could be instituted in a number of ways, for instance: individual landholders taking the initiative themselves; local land care and other groups working co-operatively on a catchment-by-catchment basis; corporations subsidising environmental groups to naturally regenerate public lands; government bodies encouraging landholders to become custodians of their land by offering incentives or agricultural extension services; heritage groups, corporations and governments buying back, for natural regeneration purposes, unproductive, denuded and marginal land.

The natural regeneration process need not be expensive. Just by leaving some land unfarmed or ungrazed (this would require fencing) Nature herself, by being self-renewing, eventually revegetates that land for free. Nature could be helped along by assisted regeneration (re-seeding and tree planting) on cleared land with species typically found on that land prior to deforestation or land clearing; both re-seeding and tree planting will be subjected to the vagaries of precipitation so failure to germinate or grow will be high. Nonetheless, assisted regeneration could be undertaken by school children as a part of their studies.

On dryland farming and grazing country a government imprimatur sanctioning natural regeneration and, where necessary, assisted regeneration through tree and shrub planting, on the aforementioned parcels of land, could be achieved by offering a system of tax credits or rebates as an indirect payment for the establishment and maintenance of naturally regenerated land, or provide direct payment or income support for custodianship, if the land is not economically viable. Revegetated drainage lines and groundwater intake beds would likely only occupy a small percentage of a farm’s acreage - the remaining land would continue to be utilised for cropping and grazing. Anecdotally, farmers report increased grain yields in crops planted adjacent to stands of vegetation while well-established naturally regenerated land offers the potential of a drought refuge for stock. As well, farmers could trial darker strains of cereal crops in order to change the ground surface albedo and increase heat absorption, so assisting rain producing ground level turbulence.

In addition, direct or indirect assistance could be provided for fencing off land from stock and feral pests. A fencing scheme could be introduced, administered locally by land care or other interested incorporated groups, which trained and involved local people. Training could be undertaken by local TAFE colleges and could include study components that deal with fencing, land care and natural regeneration issues. Such a scheme would inject funds into local communities, help preserve the economical viability of small towns and townships, and perhaps engage unemployed people, or youths at risk.

It is important that natural regeneration be conducted at a grassroots level with state and federal governments devolving decision-making to the community on natural regeneration matters. Local people, farmers and other land managers are the people best placed to deal with local decisions in a co-operative spirit; a top heavy-handed governmental approach is likely to lead to group infighting for limited funds and considerable resentment if locals feel they are being neither listened to nor consulted. Without the cooperation of local communities, farmers and other land managers such a scheme is doomed to failure.

By revegetating the countryside and retaining moisture in the environment we can minimise the effects of drought, help induce rainfall, reduce our salinity levels, maintain and increase biodiversity, help reduce global atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, and increase productivity on our good quality agricultural and grazing lands. Furthermore, it would not involve a major restructuring of our economic system nor will it cost the “Earth”.