IF YOU buy into hard left green arguments, farmers in NSW love knocking down trees.
And – just like we saw in Queensland – they’re ready to fire their bulldozers up for more carnage.
But anyone who gets clear of the city smog knows traditional farm practice and modern conservation values are the same thing.
Farmers have long known the benefits of planting and maintaining trees strategically on their properties (see page 6, Growing a bottom line). What’s more, the nature of a farm business means landowners must actively manage their biodiversity – whether that be creating nature corridors, planting windbreaks, or addressing water table issues.
It may be shocking to some of our city readers – but farmers also like having trees around for aesthetic reasons.
Last week we saw the latest chapter in the War on Trees with the release of the Biodiversity Conservation Act submissions. Conservation groups crowed that only 150 submissions (2 per cent) came from the farm sector, a clear sign, they said, that the laws lacked support even from farmers.
In contrast about 5100 submissions came via an online form from the Stand Up For Nature website. Unfortunately, the survey did not allow each of the 5100 respondents to say how many trees they had planted. Because NSW Farmers – while rightly scrutinised for demanding further pro-industry tweaks to the laws – say its members have planted on average 18,500 trees each over the past 20 years.
Maybe Stand Up For Nature respondents planted more? We look forward to their correspondence.
The point is, efforts to scrap the proposed native veg laws have resorted to painting farmers as rednecks who gallivant around with chainsaws.
Let us be clear: Illegal clearing is an issue worthy of coverage and something that the vast, vast majority of farmers want to see stamped out.
Just last month an Office of Environment report showed unexplained clearing of woody vegetation did accelerate between 2012 and 2013. But also accelerating was the amount of new land conserved (a boost of 15 per cent to 24,740ha in 2012-13), new land restored (34pc to 316,460 ha), and land put under new management to boost environmental outcomes (72pc to 1.36 million ha).
Maybe give farmers a bit more credit?