The Jewel in the NSF Crown- TARWYN PARK

[duane]

Most recently I reported in the July Newsletter on the nsfarming site that the Hunter Valley had suffered a severe flood event. At Tarwyn Park it was reported as a 1:30 yr flood.

Peter Andrews has carried on research into landscape function at Tarwyn Park for 33yrs. He has looked at how this landscape evolved to manage water and fertility in the flattest, driest Continent on Earth. Australia evolved a system of water and fertility management like no other. Unlike Europe, where there is a regulated pattern based on sunshine and daylight hours, a fall, then a freeze, then a thaw with water moving the fall fertility…Australia’s system was totally unregulated. It had to survive long periods (years) of drought, only to be followed by floods (see what is happening in SEQ at present).

How could a landscape with such extremes of climatic events produce such a rich biodiversity UNLESS there was a natural mechanism available that allowed for water and fertility management? The mechanism that operated was the storage of water in the landscape, especially as floodplain groundwater.

When our early explorers went looking for this sustaining water system, they travelled inland looking for the INLAND SEA. Of course, they never found it. It did not exist. What they did find and they reported on so vividly were reeds sometimes up to 50 miles across, separating wetlands and discontinuous streams or ponds or rivers. They reported finding water on the high ground in perched billabongs, and chains of ponds. There were swamplands everywhere impeding their travels.

This was a natural system, the operating paradigm, the explorers had NEVER witnessed before. Theirs was a drainage paradigm. Today, almost two hundred years later we STILL do not understand the reasons why this natural system was and is so important. Today, farmers are still wanting to remove wetland systems and native vegetation because of ignorance and the power of the $. What they miss is the fact that they are mining their own environmental capital to the point that recovery of the landscape's resilence, is almost impossible.

Last week at Tarwyn Park I saw for myself the way Nature used to run and operate this landscape for millennia. After surviving 8 years in drought, the farm was still cutting and bailing Lucerne hay. After the recent June floods, what lay before me was the original Murray Darling Basin but in miniature. The floods have now been and gone. Upstream of Tarwyn Park the sandy creek was bone DRY. Downstream from Tarwyn Park the creeks are also bone dry and farmers were irrigating. But at Tarwyn Park itself there was a totally different story to tell.

The creek was running, farm crossings were babbling over, flood runnels were running in sequence across the floodplains, billabongs were full of water, water birds abounded, the highest points in the floodplain had a water table 300mm below the surface and the whole place was ready to burst with the arrival of spring. You could smell the biological activity in the air; floodplains full of humus and fertility, it was like no other property I had seen in recent weeks around NSW. This farm had captured that crucial rain/flood event and now the floodplain was full to overflowing. There would be enough moisture in this system to survive another 8-year drought should it come. And no irrigation will be needed either in the short or the long term. This Tarwyn Park floodplain is FULLY HYDRATED

Heading home to the Central Coast the whole of the Hunter Valley should have looked the same as Tarwyn Park. It did not. If it had the valley would been set for the next 8-10 years. Instead, it was reported that if some areas don’t get follow up rains soon it could be bad spring/summer.

There are valuable environmental, economic and social implications for looking and implementing and repeating the ‘type species’ at Tarwyn Park. BUT current legislation prevents a repeat of this valuable research. Tarwyn Park is the jewel in the crown of Natural Sequence Farming. The sooner the authorities experience the brilliance of this Australian landscape operating at Tarwyn Park the quicker will be our recovery.

But meantime, we wait and listen while Nero plays his fiddle and Rome burns.

[Peter Andrews]

The recovery process of the degrading rural landscape could have been started decades ago.

All of the landscape components that allow for sustainable agriculture have been demonstrated at Tarwyn Park.

In 2002 the Deputy PM commissioned CSIRO to look at my property. They said I had established a sustainable farming solution and then the report was buried.

Lupton and Associates did a valuation on Tarwyn Park which was confirmed by the finacial managers of one of Australia's leading research organisations that they could not repeat the science that was done at Tarwyn Park for $20m.

In 1995 my direct contribution to this research was valued at $5m by a syndicated R&D project.

I have been trying to persuade the policy makers of the potential for this knowledge to be widely disseminated for years but it has fallen on deaf ears.

And now like many other innovations the ownership of these natural processes of our Australian heritage may be going into overseas hands.

Potential joint venture partnerhips are being expressed from Japan, China, Europe and Indonesia.

An International Reference Panel on NSF would like to see this work go forward and stay in Australian hands but time is running out.

And meanwhile as Duane says 'our Nero's keep on fiddling'.

[Angela Helleren]

Peter -Sounds like you need the ear of a Mr Geoff Cousins to draw attention, like he has re Gunns proposed paper mill.

Perhaps if you sent him a copy of the Catalyst programme, he too would see the irony of you having to prove scientifically why NSF works to improve the environment, while another segment on the programme, from Beverley Mine in SA is allowed to pollute using sulphuric acid and tons of water to mine uranium, before environmental safety and impact studies where completed.

Hang in there Peter and THANK YOU for all your hard work and heartache.

[Shirley Henderson]

Thanks Duane for summing up Tarwyn Park the way you did. It was a brilliant post and I intend to share this information with as many people as possible.
Shirley

[duane]

I now have some photos available of a recent visit to Tarwyn Park taken by Paul Cockram of the USNSA to illustrate my post above.

Click on http://pub34.bravenet.com/photocenter/a ... lbum=49657 to see how the aussie floodplain system is supposed to work when it is fully functional.

Remember that this TP floodplain is now like a fully super saturated sponge after the recent 1:30 flood that occurred at Tarwyn Park. Above Tarwyn Park the creek is BONE DRY. Below TP the same thing.

But at Tarwyn Park itself the pictures tell a TOTALLY different story.

***Pls note: the photos have NOT yet appeared. I am having the webmaster check the site.

[duane]

The photos of Tarwyn Park are now on the Photo Album...Click on http://pub34.bravenet.com/photocenter/a ... lbum=49657 to see how the aussie floodplain system is supposed to work when it is fully functional.

Thanks Webmaster

[Wilkie]

Re. In 2002 the Deputy PM commissioned CSIRO to look at my property. They said I had established a sustainable farming solution and then the report was buried.


Is a copy of the report available ?

[duane]

http://www.clw.csiro.au/publications/co ... Valley.pdf