Mike Bolan
In Tasmania the government is encouraging Councils to prevent the building of dwellings on any rural area smaller than 40 ha. This effectively removes ‘tree changers’ and small holding buyers from the market, thereby holding down land prices and making acquisitions easier for plantation interests. This policy will also tend to ‘lock in’ the growth of plantation estate by removing competition for land blocks and hence mitigating the constraint of land availability.
THE total water flowing into Murray Darling Basin in 2006 was reported at 1,317 Gl or 1.3 Tl.1 (tera litre, or million million litres). What isn’t reported is that the massive Australian tree plantation estate, fuelled by 100% tax deductions via MIS schemes, took 1.5 Tl out of MDB states without paying or accounting for it.
Tree plantations are a very dense, water hungry crop with very deep roots that remove groundwater where other plants cannot reach, thus depleting aquifers. (Eucalypts can extract water from 6 to 15 m deep 2 and lower water tables by several metres).
The federal government’s 2020 Vision program reports that the plantation areas on the MDB states in 2002 were:
ACT 15907 ha
NSW 322679 ha
Qld 207974 ha
Vic 359873 ha
SA 149380 ha
Total 1,055,813 ha (NB plantations have expanded since 2002 so the real situation is worse than described)
According to the CSIRO and others, a tree plantation needs an average of 1.5 Ml of water per hectare per year over and above that for typical agricultural uses.
Therefore the tree plantations will require around 1,055,813 ha x 1.5 Ml per year = 1,583 Gl of water
This indicates that the tree plantation estate in the MDB states used more water than was available in the rest of the MDB in 2006.
Australia’s problems with tree plantations are exacerbated because:
1) MIS schemes are fuelling a rapid transfer of land from active farmers to tree plantations and hence, greater water use
2) Tree plantation water is not counted, paid for or available to anyone else
3) The plantation estate is set to expand to 3 million hectares by 2020 without the value of water being counted
4) It takes 10+ years to get a pulpwood crop, so it’s at least 10x the water use for one crop of trees (15+ Gl/ha)
5) Pulpwood trees are a low value product that only added 1.5 % to GDP4 in 2002 in exchange for the water used
6) Tax subsidies disconnect the industry from the free market and totally distort price and other signals
7) The race to approve pulp mills could ‘lock in’ the growth of plantations for decades as mill investments start to drive an even greater commitment to tree plantations
The taxpayer funded conversion of land owned by individual Australians to corporate ownership under federal MIS schemes is open-ended, so the only thing throttling the program is availability of land.
In Tasmania the government is encouraging Councils to prevent the building of dwellings on any rural area smaller than 40 ha. This effectively removes ‘tree changers’ and small holding buyers from the market, thereby holding down land prices and making acquisitions easier for plantation interests. This policy will also tend to ‘lock in’ the growth of plantation estate by removing competition for land blocks and hence mitigating the constraint of land availability.
Conclusion
While there is little doubt that trees provide us with important benefits, the open-ended and unregulated nature of the MIS tree plantation schemes and their disconnection from the free market by tax subsidies, coupled with the severe problems in the MDB created by lack of water, all should be a trigger for a major, in-depth review of tree plantation and water priorities to be coupled with a comprehensive audit of resources available.
Common sense and the severity of the drought all over Australia indicates we should review our circumstances carefully before we commit to pulp mills and more tax subsidised tree plantations, for everyone’s sake, including putative pulp mill investors.
1 The Age, Feb 8, 2007 ‘Running out of time’ by Rachel Kleinman
2 Peck, A. J., and D. R. Williamson. 1987. Effects of forest clearing on groundwater. J. Hydrol. 94:47-65.
3 Bosch, J.M. and J.D. Hewlett (1982). A review of catchment experiments… Journal of Hydrology, 55, 3-23.
4 2002 figures http://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/fs/aust.pdf and NFI (2003) stating wood products contributed $6.6 bn to economy
