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www.bordermail.com.au The Border Mail, Saturday, October 18, 2008 — 45

(((pulse)))
inside today
why wood works
Denis Brown is carving a future for
native timber ahead of a major forestry
conference on the Border and if his
instincts for spotting a new product
for the market prove correct, then blue
gum may become a furniture timber of
the future.
pages 4-5
paradise found
The good news about fi shing on Fraser
Island is you rarely have to exaggerate.
Talk to a group of fi shermen who
line up along Seventy Mile Beach and
they describe the fi shing in one word:
awesome. The world’s largest sand
island, is also a nature lover’s paradise,
with loads of attractions from ancient
rainforests, mighty sand dunes, pristine
saltwater lakes and streams to an
abundance of birds and wildlife.
page 7
usual suspects
travel........................... 6-7
puzzles ............................9
comics ......................... 10
TV guide ....................... 11
full stop ........................ 12
roll the credits
editor: jodie o’sullivan
writer: sue wallace
subeditors:
jennifer grant,
john conroy,
natasha sherwood
layout & design:
john charlton, daniel dulhunty
phone: (02) 6024 0581
email: features@bordermail.com.au
on the cover:
design: daniel dulhunty
picture: kylie goldsmith
2 cover
saving the
ALLAN Scammell used to enjoy calling
in to a drover’s camp late in the afternoon
where the billy would be boiling
and you were sure to get an invite for a
cup of tea.
“You would talk about where they’d
been and catch up on the news,” says the
Hume ranger who knows the droving
paths like the back of his hand.
“They seem to have their own bush telegraph;
you could fi nd out where every
other drover was for a 100 miles around.
“If you were going out to visit a drover,
you took a spare copy of the The Border
Mail with you or a loaf of bread, it was a
traditional thing and they were always
very appreciative.
“I’ve met a lot of drovers, (but) unfortunately
most of the old-time drovers
have either retired or passed on.”
The well-worn paths they tread are
called travelling stock routes, thin tracts
of land along roadways that blossom into
bigger, wider paddocks every 10km or so.
Drovers use them to move stock, resting
in the bigger paddock overnight.
Drover Rob Strachan,
from Gerogery East, is one
of the last working this
region and he loves the life
the stock routes offer.
Mr Strachan has been
working the NSW routes
for 14 years, ditching his
life as a shearer for the
open road, which he shares
with partner Lara and
daughter Billieann, 2.
“It’s a good way of life,”
he says.
“You’re your own boss and you fi nd
that drovers are pretty easy-going sort of
fellas that just like the bush.”
“If we lose them we’ll be losing a part
of our heritage.”
Australian poet Banjo Paterson often
told stories of the routes, also known as
the Long Paddock.
In Saltbush Bill he writes:
Now Saltbush Bill was a drover tough
as ever the country knew,
He had fought his way on the Great
Stock Routes from the sea to the big
Barcoo.
The routes were developed in the
1830s by pastoralists wanting to move
domestic stock to cities and goldfi elds.
‘ ‘
john
conroy
Our forefathers
set them up 100
odd years ago
and it would be
a terrible loss.
They were surveyed by the governments
in the 1870s and formalised as
offi cial droving pathways.
But their real age and heritage value
could be much greater.
Research now suggests the routes
were based on Aboriginal walking tracks
that have crossed the continent for up to
40,000 years.
But, much like Aboriginal heritage,
they are under threat.
Unfortunately for drovers, ecologists,
graziers, the region’s Wiradjuri people
and all the others who love the stock
routes, a number now threatens their
existence — three million.
An independent report commissioned
by the NSW Government revealed stock
routes have run at a loss of $3 million
during the past few years and the Rural
Lands Protection Boards that manage
them have been told to make a business
case for keeping the routes — or cede
them to the Lands Department.
NSW Primary Industries Minister
Ian Macdonald has promised not to sell
the routes but there are
fears they are going to be
more easily permanently
leased, or even sold with
a change of government
personnel.
Mr Strachan is worried
about his livelihood.
“I can see there is not
going to be a big future in
droving,” he says.
“Once they (TSRs) are
leased, you don’t seem to
get them back.”
The drover fears powerful farmers are
trying to gain control of some of the precious
lands.
“I think they’re closing them for different
reasons,” he says.
“It’s about cockies feathering their own
nests. They should give everybody a fair
go, these are travelling stock routes not
just there for agistment stock.
“They use arguments like the reserve
is getting fl ogged bare or the travelling
stock are pushing on their fences.”
Stock routes litter the Border region,
running along the Murray River, up, in
and around everywhere.
One of the most famous reserves
around here is Bells reserve, named
A life grazing stock in
the Long Paddock is
under threat. Travelling
stock routes may be
heading down the path
of extinction — and
with it the livelihoods
and ecosystems they
help protect.
after the pioneering Bell family of the
area, at Thurgoona, about 4km north of
the Kinross Hotel.
Then there is the 12-Mile reserve running
south along the Murray from Albury.
There’s the route along the road
between Daysdale and Corowa and literally
thousands of hectares more across
the Riverina — more than 600,000ha in
NSW alone.
In Victoria stock routes were never
formalised but a similar system of Crown
land networks exists.
“The distinguishing feature of the
stock reserve is that it generally hasn’t
been cleared, hasn’t been cultivated, so
it’ll have a good stand of native trees
and a good swathe of native grasses on it
plus other native plants,” Mr Scammell
says.
His Hume board manages 163km
and 3880ha of routes that stretch from
Howlong to Henty to Tumbarumba to
Khancoban.
Thurgoona ecologist Peter Spooner,
from Charles Sturt University, says the
nature corridors will save Australian
plants and animals as climate change
worsens.
Selling the routes for grazing would
be like selling “the Crown jewels in a
garage sale”, he says.
“These long corridors that connect up
reserves through Queensland and NSW
are critically important to keep species
alive to allow for movements across the
countryside as the climate changes.”
“We’re already seeing it anecdotally
now, there seems to be some movement
of birds and other wildlife towards the
south, or to higher altitudes.
“Selling off segments of the TSR
network could be perceived as a key
threat to how we deal with the impacts
of climate change in the future.”
Already, Catchment Management
Authorities have been paying RLPBs to
lock up stock reserves to restore them to
their natural state but those funds are
starting to run dry and bigger bucks are
needed.
Dr Spooner has joined more than 500
scientists as a signatory to an open letter
to NSW and Queensland premiers
demanding routes be preserved for
multiple uses, most importantly protecting
endangered ecosystems and species,
46 — The Border Mail, Saturday, October 18, 2008 www.bordermail.com.au

drover’s run
such as yellow box and white box
woodlands.
Dr Spooner points to the English
experience with their hedgerow
network.
The iconic hedgerows, closely
spaced shrubs and bushes planted
and trained to form a barrier, had
been developed over centuries.
In the 1980s farmers, and others,
decided to remove them to allow
more agriculture production and
eliminate vermin they believed sheltered
there.
“What they found is they lost a lot
of their bird wildlife and now there
is a lot of effort to return the hedgerows,”
Dr Spooner says.
A similar epiphany occurred in
Spain when they sought to do away
with their stock reserves.
The fi nal point Dr Spooner makes
in defence of the status quo is that
TSRs are a seed source for re-vegetation
activities.
“If we put the stock in there we’re
going to knock those plants out,
meaning we can never re-vegetate
those plants again,” he says.
Mr Scammell backs the science.
It’s actually diffi cult to fi nd people
who don’t. Drovers have joined environmentalists,
graziers and scientists
to protest the move.
Meanwhile the NSW Farmers’ Association
supports some closures.
“Although NSW Farmers’ doesn’t
have a position about privatising
stock routes, we do have a position
about the need for RLPBs to review
them and to close them if they are
not genuinely used,” a spokeswoman
told Pulse this week.
However, the association is still
sitting on the fence when it comes
to commenting on recommendations
stemming from the report.
“We are seeking clarifi cation as to
how the TSRs would be managed,
particularly weeds and pest animals,
if they were transferred to the Department
of Lands,” she says.
Henty farmer Grenville Coe, who
last week was the only person in the
Hume area using a reserve for agistment
purposes, says the stock routes
should stay as they are.
“Our forefathers set them up
100-odd years ago and it would be a
terrible loss,” he says.
“It’s cheaper than prime movers
and creates a job for the drovers.”
Mr Coe says the stock routes also
limit fi re risk in the district and control
introduced grasses.
All parties — rangers, farmers,
drovers and academics — admit
there are some “cowboys” who abuse
the reserves but say they are few and
far between.
Mr Scammell says some boards,
too, have leased areas to graziers for
too long.
“That’s a backward step,” he says.
“A desperate move to try and get a
bit of extra money but long-term it
causes a lot of damage environmentally.”
Dr Spooner says a compromise can
be reached balancing the needs of
graziers and conservationists.
“Biodiversity can improve
agricultural production and vice
versa.
“They can co-exist and that way
the TSRs can be kept as a community
resource forever.”
Mr Scammell also holds out hope.
“Now with the growth of Landcare,
and younger members of (farming)
families more interested in the
environment, I think farmers see the
routes as a real plus in their district
rather than just an old reserve
that probably should be cleared and
ploughed up,” he says.
The number of drovers in the
district has diminished in recent decades,
from about 14 travelling Hume
in 1982 to just the one this week
— Mr Strachan.
Yet there are those who say that
with fuel prices soaring, the old art
may not yet be dead.
Now this is the law of the Overland
that all in the West obey —
A man must cover with travelling
sheep a six-mile stage a day;
But this is the law which the drovers
make, right easily understood,
They travel their stage where the
grass is bad, but they camp where the
grass is good.
(Saltbush Bill, 1917)
cover 3 (((pulse)))
OPPOSITE PAGE and ABOVE:
It’s a travelling life for Gerogery drover
Rob Strachan and his partner Lara.
Pictures: KYLIE GOLDSMITH
LEFT: CSU ecologist Dr Peter Spooner says
travelling stock routes provide vital corridors
for wildlife. Picture: RAY HUNT
BELOW: Ranger Allan Scammell knows the
region’s droving paths like the back of his hand.
HUME TRAVELLING STOCK ROUTES
■ Size: 3880ha and 160km
Balance sheet for “last few years”:
■ Management expenses: From $120,000 to $170,000
■ Management income: From $100,000 to $130,000
■ 68 TSRs are covered by the Biodiversity Restoration
agreement with CMA (2100ha)
■ 2 TSRs are being rehabilitated as wetlands in the
Upper Murray (58ha)
Permits issued so far this year:
■ 70 apiary permits
■ 48 camping permits (free)
■ 97 short-term grazing permits for in excess of
2000 sheep and cattle
■ 73 walking permits to 33 stock owners and/or
drovers (only four were moving stock for more than
one day – thus utilising the stock route – others
were moving stock a short distance from property to
property)
Source: Hume Rural Lands Protection Board
Is this a case of
cruel to be kind?
FOR workers based on oil rigs
in the Arabian Gulf, there is a
part of their day some dread.
First comes the smell, then
come the fl oating sheep — some
dead, some trying to swim.
Some live export ship operators
simply throw the sheep
overboard because they would
not pass an inspection by agents
at their destination.
Numerous stories — and pictures
— like these have turned
three quarters of Australians
against the live export trade,
according to the RSPCA.
They have also provided ammunition
for animal rights activists
to fi re in their call for a ban
on live export for slaughter.
But the issue is complicated.
The live trade brings in $1.8
billion a year,
and supports
thousands of
farming communities.
Farmers
pay a levy
to Meat and
Livestock
Australia
(MLA) every
time they sell
one of their
animals. That
levy helps
fund research
to improve welfare.
Michael Finucan, manager
of livestock exports for MLA,
admits there have been — and
continue to be — issues of animal
welfare during journeys.
But, he says, it is disappointing
the public does not recognise
industry improvements.
“We’re now above 99 per cent,
which means of all the sheep
that walk on, 99 per cent walk
off. With cattle, it’s above 99.9
per cent.”
A one per cent mortality rate
means 41,000 of the 4.1 million
sheep exported from Australia
last year didn’t survive the trip.
The last federal budget put
$7.6 million into a program
to improve animal welfare in
countries importing Australian
livestock, and MLA has just
pushed more than $500,000 into
programs to manage salmonella
and inanition (when animals go
off their food during the trip).
On board every sheep ship, by
law there must now be an Australian
vet and, preferably, an
Australian-trained stockman.
The chair of the World Society
of the Protection of Animals
(WSPA), Hugh Wirth, says there
is only so much a vet can do because
of the way stock is carried
— jammed into pens — “even if
a vet sees a problem, he can’t get
to the animal”.
Once the animals arrive at
their destination, in Asia, Egypt
or, predominantly, the Middle
East, their welfare cannot be
guaranteed, he says.
Cue the images of sheep bound
and shoved into car boots in a
region where temperatures reach
50 degrees celsius in summer; of
cattle having their throats cut
while fully conscious; and of dying
sheep fl oating at sea.
The WSPA, through its
Handle With Care campaign, is
fi ghting for live exports bound
for slaughter to be replaced over
a fi ve-year period by chilled and
frozen meat.
If Australia did decide to halt
its export trade, farmers would
be faced with the momentous
task of fi nding an alternative
revenue stream, at one of the
most challenging times for rural
communities in our history.
WSPA believes the answer is
to reopen Australian abattoirs,
which it claims would still allow
Australian farmers to get the
same value from their meat.
Cue the
images
of sheep
bound and
shoved into
car boots.
www.bordermail.com.au The Border Mail, Saturday, October 18, 2008 — 47