Kevin Goss and others have identified the potential loss of 17 million hectares of agricultural land to salt encroachment within the lifetime of our grandchildren has become yesterday’s problem, when in reality it is very much with us, and growing by the hour.

In 2011 the Federal Government believes that climate change is taking place and what is more, they believe that it is man-made. They are firmly of the view that unless we reduce our emissions of carbon, which really is carbon dioxide, the climate will deteriorate.

The Federal Government, together with the Greens and the very powerful environmental lobby, want a carbon tax. They want to tax those who emit carbon dioxide.

The government’s chief adviser on climate change, Prof Garnaut, an economist, believes the ‘price’ of carbon (dioxide) should be between $20 and $30 a tonne. Although the political environment being what it is in Australia it is not possible to predict what the price will be. All we know is that if the ‘Carbon Tax’ legislation is passed, there will be a price on carbon.

Permits will be bought and sold at that price. So the emitters of carbon will be able to buy permits from those who store carbon.

The Opposition agrees that climate change is real and is man-made. They are of the view that a carbon tax is unnecessary and a reduction in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can be achieved by other means. One of which is by planting more trees.

Unlike the world of politics where nobody agrees, science does agree that trees use carbon dioxide to grow and in the process of growing they store carbon both above and below the ground, they sequester it. They are what is called a carbon sink. In a new world of carbon trading that ‘sink’, those trees, will have a value other than as a source of timber.

Planted at the rate of 1000 trees per hectare it has been calculated that eucalypts will sequester an average 10 tonnes carbon per hectare per year.

If we do get a carbon tax, based on Garnaut’s price, River Red Gums (or any other salt tolerant tree) planted at a rate of 1000 trees per hectare would (eventually) have an annual value as a carbon sink of between $200 and $300 per hectare per year. That’s a lot better than growing cereals.

If a carbon tax does not come to pass and the current Federal Opposition gets it’s way and we go down the path of planting more trees, the farmers of Australia and in particular the farmers of Western Australia will be able to offer an almost unlimited supply of land on which to plant those trees.

It will be up to agriculture to value and present the salt affected land to those who want to plant trees. Land that is currently considered a liability will become an asset and more importantly, have a value—again.

And the trees that grow on that salt affected land will eventually have a value whether it be in ten or twenty years.

Plant nothing and the salt land and it will be there forever, it will grow in area, and remain as worthless as it is today.

So where do we go from here?

• The biggest decision we have to make is whether as a community of all political and environmental persuasions, we are prepared to accept the hard-core scientific evidence presented by Goss and many others of the almost certain loss to salinity of 17 million hectares of farmland in Australia in the next forty years?

•  If we do, ipso facto, we accept that what we have done thus far, the millions of dollars we have spent to combat salinity, has just not been enough.

•  The decisions are difficult. Are we prepared to make a start at financing, planning and fashioning a truly national strategy to create a business plan, which will empower regional Australia start planting trees and in so doing, make our ever-increasing salt land productive again?

• Or is the decision, or has the decision already been made, to do nothing, and in doing nothing accept the almost certain loss to salt of 17 million hectares of fertile farmland by 2050?

• If the decision is to do nothing, it will mean both State and Federal governments reject the science. It will mean that all Australian governments expect farmers to produce more food, for more people, from less land and service their ever-increasing farm debt from a diminishing equity capital resource.

• If the decision is to do nothing our legacy to future generations will be clear and obvious. Their judgement, quite rightly, will be that we knew — and did nothing. We faltered and then failed. We created the problem and left it to them to fix it.

Roger Crook

June 2011

© Roger Crook 2011

Epilogue.

It is interesting to contemplate that if salt land were reclaimed with trees, would that alter the position Peter and others find themselves in being banned from clearing trees? If the banning was to enable Australia to meet (fudge?) its target for Kyoto then where  would the reclamation of say 1 million hectares a years leave us? Could land then be cleared again?

I have noticed in another discussion that none other than the Wentworth Group have a view on land clearing by farmers, yet, as far as I am aware, they are unaware of the tens of thousands of hectares a year, which is being cleared by Mother Nature, by salinity.

On reflection I have not castigated and criticized the Greens, the WWF and all the other motley environmental crew enough, for their apparent ignorance on this matter of salinity if for no other reason than for the loss of biodiversity, flora and fauna extinction of which they seem blissfully unaware.

Over a month ago I did send this paper to the Shadow Minister for the Environment and told him I would not print until I had heard from him. I thought it might help in their formulation of an alternative to the Carbon Tax. I have not heard anything since I received a thank you.

Roger

Sept 11.