Strategic tree farming

Almost 18,000 ha or 25 million trees have been integrated into the wheat and woolbelt of south-west WA between 2005 and 2009, as part of the largest investment under the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality.

The $64 million strategic tree farming (STF) project is being implemented in partnership with the Australian and WA Governments, and four regional NRM groups - Northern Agricultural, Avon and South West Catchment Councils, and South Coast Natural Resource Management Inc.

The critical role of trees in the landscape is universally acknowledged. The trees planted under the Strategic Tree Farming project are designed to deliver not only a range of environmental benefits but also economic and social benefits to Western Australia that will continue to flow long after the project is complete.

The environmental benefits include:

• reduced recharge of rising water tables with a corresponding reduction in the impacts of salinity, improvements in water quality, and protection of biodiversity;
• protection of soils from wind/water erosion;
• protection of remnant vegetation and other valuable natural assets such as watercourses and wetland through buffering;
• creation of fauna corridors and expanded habitat;
• sequestration of CO2e.

The economic and social benefits include:

• stimulation of new regional industries based on commercial tree species;
• diversification of regional and rural economies;
• increase in agricultural productivity through the beneficial effects of shelter on crops/stock;
• Improved landscape appearance.

The establishment of plantings of trees species with commercial potential for a range of wood (e.g. sawlogs) and non-wood products (e.g. oil and CO2e sequestration) will attract investment in processing facilities to the regions, driving demand for more product and making tree planting profitable in its own right.

This will ensure that planting on the scale required to address the widespread threat of rising groundwater and salinity will continue with less reliance on public funding. This represents a significant economic benefit for both Federal and State Governments.

•  “It looks a hell of a lot better with trees than being blasted away by the wind and….you’re not wasting time and energy trying to fix it with the cropping system.”
• “As far as operations, I think it has dried out the valley.”
• ”My only regret is I haven’t got a picture of when we first looked at the block as to what it is now, because it’s totally transformed…..[the] aesthetics are just amazing.”
• “The significant change for us is just the change in the whole environment in that sandplain country from being very open harsh, freezing cold when there’s strong winds blowing across it; the soil erosion; the water shedding off it; all those aspects have changed. It’s just broken up that landscape and made it a much nicer “[F]or me it’s largely peace of mind, seeing that it looks a whole lot better with trees on it than bloody spare sand.”
• “We’ve got a fair bit of light country, sandy ground……so we decided to go with trees-to try and stop a bit of sand blowing and drift. [It’s early days yet]…but it has made a difference because those paddocks have been locked up for 12 months, there’s no drift, they’ve got a grass cover and everything now.”
• “We found a big racehorse goanna under the tree….it’s fantastic to see the native animals and birds are starting to use the tree lots.”

While the vast majority of farmers recognise the need to return a proportion of trees to our cleared and degraded agricultural lands, the following quote from a participating STF farmer indicates the need for the trees to provide an additional source of income.