If I could take some of that precious time of yours I’m curious about the statement you have made about how we have stuffed up this continent in the last 60,000 years, initially by burning. Could you elaborate your thoughts on this subject? Are you suggesting there is a link between regular buring over many millenia and the adaption of sclerolphyll vegetation and development of a dry and arid climate?

Yours appreciatively,

Jareth.

I don’t work on the land so I cannot “preach”, I am an observer living in the suburbs of a city hoping that your message will be acted upon. I can say thank you though and mean it from the bottom of my heart because what you do gives this country hope.

Can I ask if you have any do’s or don’t for us city folk. What can we do to help, most of the population of this country live in or around our cities and towns. What can we change in our lives that will help the land, what knowledge should we gain to change our ignorance and make us a part of the solution?

Hopefully the flood gates are opening, pardon the pun.
For too long the community has had to follow the bureaucrats – regulation by compliance rather than best use practice.
I’ts difficult to research if you don’t get the money and adhere to timelines and guidelines for the wrong sorts of returns – the true philosophers such as yourself tend to starve or be strangled!

Lots of strong, irrefutable messages from you Peter.

Here’s a couple, just to let you know we are listening.
1. Nature depends on cycles and when we burn, plow etc we are causing components to be lost from the cycles which can collapse.
2. What worked in Europe may not work here and in many cases, didn’t due to different soils, turbidity, climatic conditions; the list goes on. Then again, it is easier to use someone else’s tools than build your own. If it doesn’t work, you have someone to blame.
3. Lateral thinking is depressed. Leonardo Da Vinci, Aristotle and Peter Andrews were/will never always be 100% right, but have sure made a positive impact. We now concentrate on Leonado’s successes, is there an ulterior motive to concentrating on what might be seen as Peter’s mistakes?
4. Sometimes it may not seem complicated enough to work!
I often get the feeling if there’s not enough numbers or letters in the formula, it’s doomed to failure.

Well done.
My wife and i are hoping to travel to one of your field days in the near future.

Regards,
Les.

I am an Aus Aid funded volunteer working in Nth Viet Nam with an NGO that wants to change farming methods to sustainable organics and I am to be managing a 2 to 6 ha farm here (initially), that is a victim of the slash and burn and NPK monoculture madness that seems to be a global problem now.

The top soil here, like much of the rest of the region is pretty much non existent, and red clay subsoil is all there is left.
The situation can mostly be managed using NSF advice, but my biggest challenge is the Eucalypt plantation on this site, which I think is E. urophylla. There is also a small plantation of what I believe to be Acacia mangium, but this I believe has been Genetically engineered to prevent seeding fortunately, so should be easy to manage. Problem is, like everywhere else, these 2 species have come to dominate the landscape on the higher ground, but they are never inter planted, so a monoculture situation prevails. Like much of Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, these 2 species have come to dominate the landscape and much of this madness appears to be “Aus Aid” funded. I would like to encourage the planting of native rainforest species in the hope of helping what little native fauna remains here and have been at a loss to find Camphor laurel seeds or plants, as they have been long ago logged for their highly prized timber. Quite a contrast to the Aus. situation where I farmed for 35 years or so in the Northern Rivers area of NSW where the cattle and sugar cane industry successfully demonised this tree to the point of having it removed and chipped to fuel the “Green Power” electricity generators at the sugar mills. All this to the tune of in excess of $50 million of government funding I might add.
So please, what should I do to best demonstrate a profitable and sustainable way to deal with the Eucalypt situation here?
Colin.

Regards,

Peter Hooper

Congratulations on your marriage. When we are up in that area again, we will try to get over to seen what you have there now. It sounds interesting.

Lonnie is still recording and performing all over the place as always, and sends his best.

Regards,

Peter

When the Australian landscape particularly Qld, had a feature referred to as gas melon holes the function of these systems was to establish dynamic bio diverse communities of plants that could create a hydrological pattern that allows these plants to co exist in such a way as to maintain a surface fertility because the rim on the melon hole was a contour. When the melon hole filled in the wet season, the organic floating material was deposited on the rim of that contour line automatically lifting that fertility to the highest area in that biological progression.

The recycling of these residues was the dynamic aspect oft the Australian landscape that compensated that extreme wet/ dry process allowing the uniquely efficient plants that were the hallmark of our landscape.

We have now seen 60,000 years of human intervention first by burning and disrupting these these plants, second by the grazing on introduced animals that has created the circumstance that precipitates your question. As this is a highly complex set of relationships, I have only attempted to describe the simple functions you are able to manipulate…

1. a contour, storage pond which creates a water table facilitating the maintenance of surface fertility. W e can’ t go further at this point, the detail can only be explained by understanding the relationships that we have described and how our European requirements had used these principles to their advantage.

Whilst I am honoured you’d think of me for Australian of the Year, I am more interested in helping Australia become sustainable for far more than a year. With people like yourself helping to spread the word, maybe we have a chance.

Regards,

Peter

You, your generation and the generations which follow, are the ones who will ultimately be left with the problems we do not solve today. We are trying to get things moving as fast as we can, however changing old habits and attitudes of governments and bureaucrats is harder than many understand.

I wish you well in your project and by the time you read this, someone from NSF would have been in contact with you to offer what we can, in the time you have given us.

Thank you for your interest. and good luck.

Regards,

Peter