Just a few more thoughts from a rebel of a different kind: Lloyd, will you look at what you're saying? Bearing in mind that Oz is the driest continent on Earth and that before white settlement 200 years ago the native flora and fauna which had adapted to climate conditions over millions of years coexisted quite happily with the indigenous population?
The first thing 'we' did was introduce hoofed animals to a country that had none. Also rabbits, domesticated dogs and cats. Next it was European 'heavy soil' methods of farming in a mostly 'fragile soil' country. When the soils failed to match up to or reduced below product expectations, we introduced superphosphates followed 30 years later by a fearsome array of artificial fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides and straight-out poisons. 'The local natives are not up to it anymore' BECAUSE we have 'seriously modified the ecosystem'. One of our most damaging 'modifications' has been to remove nearly all the organic content from soils through 200 years of successive harvests without replacing it. Commonly known as 'mining the soil'. I am willing to bet there isn't a working property on the inland grain belt that has soil with an organic content above 1%. Native grasses are naturally moisture retentive; imported species have little if any retention qualities, die out during droughts. Eucalypts and other native trees have leaf systems and life cycles which are attuned to local conditions. Imported species do not, are not, 'do quite ok' by taking up groundwater which could be used in better ways - like stock watering. As for sheep and goats being a danger to new tree growth - fence them off . In a nutshell: In 1788 Oz had low water tables and no salinity, no blue-green algae, no e-coli, unpolluted river or lake systems. We imported animals trees and plants which shouldn't be here; changed the ecosystem so they would flourish. In 2002 we have high water tables, salinity, river systems and lakes which abound in algae, e-coli, oils, chemicals and every other pollutant you care to name. The soil has so much phosphate locked up in it you could almost cut it up in blocks and sell it. Is there a lesson here, d'you think? roger Lloyd Charles wrote: >> why not grow trees that are suitable for the new environment >>? - if they happen to originate in Europe or North America why is that >>automatically seen as a problem? >>Just a few thoughts from an old rebel. >>
