Science, credibility, and alpine grazing

Science, credibility, and alpine grazing 1

Science, credibility, & alpine grazing

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Cattle grazing on Holmes Plain, shortly after the Caledonia fire, summer 1998.

2 Science, credibility, and alpine grazing

The cattlemen repeatedly question the scientific integrity of a large

group of alpine ecologists, despite the strong reputation of those scientists in the scientific world. And the cattlemen have particularly questioned the credibility of Dr Dick Williams, the highly respected author of around 100 published scientific papers on alpine ecology and fire ecology. Instead, they appear to have relied largely on the verbal advice of Dr Peter Attiwill. That is a rather odd situation, as Peter Attiwill has never published any research on Victoria’s High Country. Read on…

Peter Attiwill is the lead editor of the widely used textbook Ecology, an Australian Perspective (Oxford University Press). In that book his expertise is identified (p. xxv) as ‘productivity and nutrient cycling in eucalypt forests, fields in which he has published extensively’.

Remarkably, the chapter on Alpine Landscapes in that same textbook is written by members of the very same group of alpine ecologists that the cattlemen seek to discredit. Dick Williams, indeed, is the lead author of

that chapter – at Peter Attiwill’s invitation!

That chapter clearly says that cattle grazing does considerable damage to the high country.

Dr Williams’ expertise is outlined in the textbook (p. xxxi) as: ‘His research on the ecology of Australian Alpine environments commenced in the early 1980s, and he has continued this research since moving to Darwin [where he works with CSIRO as a plant ecologist in tropical savannah landscapes]. He has published widely on the composition, function, and structure of alpine vegetation, and the impact of domestic cattle-grazing and fire on the long-term vegetation dynamics of alpine vegetation’.

Though Peter Attiwill defers to the considerable authority of Dick Williams and colleagues on alpine matters in the textbook, he has been offering contrary advice to the cattlemen, and has failed to publicly defend Dick Williams against attacks by the cattlemen.

Update (10 Jan 2011): Dr Peter Attiwill is quoted in the Sunday Age (9 Jan 2011) as saying he is not critical of the research that formed the background to the government’s decision to stop grazing, but that he remains critical of that decision. He adds: “Research is one thing; how we use it is another”.

The Mountain Cattlemen’s Association of Victoria has been fairly bold in labelling 60 years of alpine ecology as ‘an arguably coloured interpretation of the evidence’*. Indeed they say that because the science has consistently shown cattle damage alpine ecosystems, then the scientists must be biased. This is unsupported by evidence.

Many claims the cattlemen make in relation to alpine science and scientists need examination.

Science, credibility, and alpine grazing

1 Dr DiCk WilliamS anD Dr Peter attiWill

* ‘The Links between Cattle Grazing and Fuel Reduction in the Grazing Zones of the High Country.’ MCAV p. 9

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/gazing-into-grazing-future-marks-low-point-for-highcountry-greenies-20110108-19jgr.html


2 Fire, Cattle grazing, anD tHe HigH PlainS

The cattlemen’s claim that ‘grazing reduces blazing’ is supported, on

their website, by misinformation and highly selective ‘evidence’.

It might seem sensible to argue that there will be less fire where cattle graze, but it doesn’t actually stack up. Indeed if it was true that grazing was an effective fire reduction tool in the high country, perhaps the cattlemen wouldn’t feel so compelled to resort to skewed information.

The landscape-scale scientific study of the 2003 fire, ignored by the cattlemenAfter the 2003 fire, a landscape-scale study was made of the path and severity of the 2003 fire, to test the hypothesis that ‘grazing reduces blazing’. The authors included Dr Dick Williams (see previous page), Dr Ross Bradstock (more recently a member of the Bushfire Royal Commission’s expert panel), and Dr Henrik Wahren (internationally renowned for his work on climate impacts in alpine, and arctic tundra, grasslands). Measurements were made at 419 survey points along 108 km of transects across both grazed and ungrazed areas of the Bogong High Plains.

The study (published in 2006 in Austral Ecology issue 31, pp 925-936) showed that:

‘There was no statistically significant

difference between grazed and ungrazed areas in the proportion of points burnt. Fire occurrence was determined primarily by vegetation type...

‘In both closed-heath and open-heath, grazing did not significantly lower the severity of fire, as measured by the diameter of burnt twigs.

‘Whatever effects livestock grazing may have on vegetation cover, and therefore fuels in alpine landscapes, they are likely to be highly localized, with such effects unlikely to translate into landscape-scale reduction of fire occurrence or severity. The use of livestock grazing in Australian alpine environments as a fire abatement practice is not justified on scientific grounds.’

The result is not entirely surprising. Fire, it seems, is largely carried across the high plains by shrubs, and cattle don’t eat them. Nevertheless, some heavily grazed grassy areas (such as Buckety Plain) were fairly comprehensively burnt. And notably, while the cattlemen point out that many areas of the grazed southern Bogong High Plains were spared fire, they fail to point out that similar areas were unburnt in the ungrazed northern Bogong High Plains. And a vast area of the long-ungrazed high plains in Kosciuszko National Park was untouched by the same fire.

If we go back in time to the 1998 fire in the Caledonia area of the Alpine National Park, fire raged across the cattle grazing licence areas. (See cover photo, and fire map below).

AvonWilderness Park

CareyState Forest

Grazing Licences

Grazing Licence

Grazing Licences

Grazing LicenceAlpine

National Park Park

AlpineNational Park Park


State Forest

DIRECTIONOF FIRE

Private

Caledonia fire, Alpine National Park 1997

Alpine National Park Avon Wilderness State Forest Fire area (overlay)Nat Park grazing licence

AvonWilderness Park

CareyState Forest

Grazing Licences

Grazing Licence

Grazing Licences


National Park Park



State Forest

DIRECTIONOF FIRE

Private



AvonWilderness Park

CareyState Forest

Grazing Licences

Grazing Licence

Grazing Licences


National Park Park



State Forest

DIRECTIONOF FIRE

Private



AvonWilderness Park

CareyState Forest

Grazing Licences

Grazing Licence

Grazing Licences


National Park Park



State Forest

DIRECTIONOF FIRE

Private



AvonWilderness Park

CareyState Forest

Grazing Licences

Grazing Licence

Grazing Licences


National Park Park



State Forest

DIRECTIONOF FIRE

Private



AvonWilderness Park

CareyState Forest

Grazing Licences

Grazing Licence

Grazing Licences


National Park Park



State Forest

DIRECTIONOF FIRE

Private




The cattlemen’s use of localised ‘evidence’ to make a landscape argumentSome of the photographs cattlemen use in support of their argument are highly localised situations, where fire meandering through a fenced cattle exclusion plot, for example, doesn’t continue into the grazed area on the other side of the fence. But in the cases shown, it is clear that a low intensity blaze was stopped by the heavy trampling of the area around the fenceline.

For example this photograph (pictured right), featured on the cattlemen’s website, has to be seen in the context of fire behaviour in the broader landscape.

The photograph, looking west across the southern Bogong High Plains, features a roughly hexagonal fenced area excluded from cattle grazing. The exclusion plot is situated immediately east of the Bogong High Plains Road, which can be seen across the middle of the photograph. The road has been sealed since the photo was taken shortly after the 2003 fire. It marks the highest point of the high plains, and east of the road (in the foreground in the photo) the land slopes steeply downwards.

The photo has been used by the cattlemen to show how fire, moving through the ungrazed area (arrow A), stops as soon as it reaches the grazed area outside the fence. However, to the immediate right of the photo, it can be seen (arrow B) that much the same thing happens when fire moved upslope through the grazed area, and also stopped at the top of the ridge.

It would seem that the fire in this instance is trickling back upslope, possibly against a prevailing westerly wind, and is weak enough to be stopped by the heavily trampled line where cattle have circled the fenced area. (On the cattlemen’s website, the area to the right of the exclusion plot has been cropped from the photo.)

A

B

High Plains Road

Cattle exclusion plot

When we look at the broader landscape (see aerial view on next page), the pictures tell another story altogether. In this aerial photograph, you can see the same cattle exclusion plot in the bottom left of the picture. The 2003 fire, fanned by a roughly westerly wind, made its way right across the grazed area of the High Plains (arrow 1), and having crossed the High Plains Road, trickled back upslope in a few places, including through both the grazed area and the ungrazed plot (arrow 2), but stopped at the ridgeline near the road.


1. Main path of �re across

grazed high

plains

2. Firetrickles

upeastern

slope

N

EW

S

aerial view of Southern Bogong High Plains, near Cope Hut, showing path of 2003 fire (See previous page).

High Plains Road

Cattle exclusion plot


The Mountain Cattlemen’s Association (MCAV) website

includes a document called ‘The Links between Cattle Grazing and Fuel Reduction in the Grazing Zones of the High Country’. It includes the misinformation discussed above, and many other flaws.

Fire and peatbogs/mossbedsIn that document the outragious claim is made (p. 8), for example, that ‘no bogs were burned in the grazed South Bogongs in the 2003 fires’.

But an (unpublished) assessment, by La Trobe University in association with DSE’s Arthur Rylah Research Institute, of mossbeds burnt on the high plains after the 2003 fire, tells a different story. In the table below, the 72 surveyed burnt mossbeds were in the grazed southern Bogong High Plains.

Pre-European fireAlso, the statement that it is ‘widely accepted’ that Aboriginal people lit fires in the high

3 mOre miSleaDing StatementS

Proportion of mossbed burnt, and proportion of Sphagnum moss burnt, in all 125 burnt mossbeds assessed on the Bogong High PlainsGrazing Status Qty Size (ha) % System Burnt % Sphagnum BurntGrazed 72 3.4 65.2 48.8Ungrazed 53 3.5 52.5 39.8

Victorian National Parks Association IncLevel 3, 60 Leicester Street, Carlton Vic 3053. Website: www.vnpa.org.au. Phone: 03 9347 5188. Fax: 03 9347 5199.

Craspedia, or Billy Buttons, flowering abundantly since cattle were removed from the Bogong High Plains.Photo: Henrik Wahren

country, and that ‘the land experienced continual fires’ is not supported by scientific evidence. Indeed two studies of fire scars on old Snow Gums in NSW have shown that pre-European fire on the high plains was probably rare. Those studies are:

Banks, J. C. (1982) The Use of Dendrochronology in the Interpretation of the Dynamics of the Snowgum Forest. PhD thesis, Australian National University.

Banks, J. C. G. (1989) A history of forest fire in the Australian Alps. In: The Scientific Significance of the Australian Alps. (Ed. R. Good) pp. 265-280. Australian Alps National Parks Liasion Committee, Canberra

And a more recent study of historical fire throughout Australia shows that Aboriginal burning was probably highly localised, rather than at a landscape scale. That paper is titled Late Quaternary fire regimes of Australia, by S.D.Mooney et al (there are 19 authors), and is published by Quaternary Science Reviews, 2010.

There are many other misleading statements in the cattlemen’s document.

Documents

Science, credibility, and alpine grazing