Wendy Sullivan works for New Zealand Landcare Trust, primarily as the Marlborough catchments coordinator and has been integral in the Farming With Native Biodiversity program.
She has a diverse area to work in with a mix of sheep and beef farmers, dairy farmers and of course vineyards, and the forestry industry. She supports farmers and growers and with their environmental projects. That can be anything from running workshops, organising working-bees, facilitating community meetings, or helping with all the “dreaded paperwork that people end up having to do now. So I see myself as a connector, I connect people with, hopefully the support they need to get on with their environmental actions.”
When it comes to riparian planting or getting started with improvements in in biodiversity it is something that can seem somewhat overwhelming and indeed expensive.
“I'm not going to lie, it can be really expensive, so actions like fencing, or setting up a trapping regime does cost money and it takes time out of core work to do it. It is considerably cheaper to enhance biodiversity that you've already got, than to start from scratch.”
“So if you're in a lucky enough position to already have some kind of biodiversity on farm then just by fencing it off for a start is the first step. So I recommend that landowners start with a clear plan with your desired outcomes in mind because what you want to achieve will dictate how you go about achieving that and what your actions will be and then break it down into and manageable steps that you can do over time. And there's no harm and looking at a 5,10, or 20 year plan, you don't have to do everything in the first year. And then it's just a matter of picking off those actions as time and resources allow.”
“And remember that each action in itself will have further action, so if you're planting, after you've planted your plant for the next probably two years, you need to spend time and making sure that it's not being choked by weeds, and it's got its plant guard up and all the rest of it. So it might be better to stagger planting every three years for example, so that you don't get overwhelmed. And it's really important that landowners feel comfortable and reaching out for help. In my experiences, once agencies and organizations learn of potential biodiversity projects, people are more than willing to help whether it be with assisting with working bees or providing free technical advice or helping us with funding applications. People love supporting proactive people. So don't be shy and sharing your vision.”
Currently, 50% New Zealand’s land cover is pastoral farming, and pastoral land contains one quarter of all remaining native vegetation.
The project aims to make it much easier for farmers to integrate existing native biodiversity into their farming systems and protect and enhance the biodiversity already existing on their land. The NZ Landcare Trust led this project with support from Living Water, Silver Fern Farms, and the BioHeritage National Science Challenge/Ngā Koiora Tuku Iho. The Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures fund (SFF Futures), administered by the Ministry for Primary Industries, contributed 70 percent of the $1.4 million funding.
The Farming With Native Biodiversity project evolved from Farming and Nature Conservation; a research project supported by the NZ Biological Heritage National Science Challenge. It was also known from the biodiversity assessments on-farm pilot carried out by Living Water on Fonterra farms that the biggest barriers to farmers taking action were limited access to good advice and ecological expertise, as well as the cost of preparing farm biodiversity plans. Building on this information, the project aimed to have expertise and resources easily accessible to farmers and their advisors by the end of 2023.
NZ Landcare Trust is really like a Camp Mum when considering catchment groups, they are pioneers in this space, and I will be talking to more with them.
Have a listen to the podcast to hear the full story.
Angus Kebbell is the Producer at Tailwind Media. You can contact him here.
6 Comments
Yes I planted 1000's of natives, and didn't have time to look after them. Maybe 10- 20 % survived. Didn't help all the weeds/ vines coming down the river to smother them.now I plant bigger trees, if you can't afford them, buy small ones and repot them. Unless you can spend the time looking after young plants.
A quandary I've mulled over for many years now, is that the title area of a farm proscribes the area available to the farmer for their enterprise.
Think of it as a box. The farm enterprise revenue is generated from within that box. It will often contain a diverse range of topography, land cover, and geology. Each acre contributes something to that enterprise function. And that are is all you have.
A couple of examples: That 90 acre, dirty, steep, class 7 or 8 gully on the back boundary doesn't produce a lot of pasture, and should be permanently retired but it's good to winter your 50 or so replacement weaner heifers. That 60 acre paddock that's 50% scrub and 'regenerating' bush, should be fenced off to exclude stock but it is a safe place to put the hoggets after shearing in spring when they are most vulnerable to a bitter southerly blowing in. I term these 'sleep easy' elements.
The argument is that those low productivity areas can be dropped out of the enterprise box with more emphasis focused on the more productive land. But how is the 'sleep easy' aspect accommodated?
I haven't got an answer to that yet.
I bought land which had been sub-divided off a pastoral farm (which had itself been run into the ground - acidic as hell and not an earthworm in sight. It also contained one of the major highway slips.
Thus 'balancing' was not an issue; the sub-divider had done that for us.
We continued planting trees on the slip (to slow/stop the movement), added flaxes as we learned more (best water-transpirers going and they don't fall over in a wind, or particularly catch fire). Then orchard and native and forest-garden on the non-slip areas. We made no attempt to pay debt off with it though; that was done earning off-site - and maybe that's the fly in the ointment? Folk being debt-pressured to use every square inch 110% of the time?
But this bunch of clowns are going to attempt the unachievable - GROWTH - and in doing so, will try to force 'productivity' out of anything and everything (they'll fail, but the collateral damage will be tangible). I sense that the global arrangement is sinking faster than this lot will be able to prop things up; probably scope for some Fred Dagg-style humour in the next year or two..
You are right about trying to get growth on most hill country. It’s been tried many times and each time fails and it’s serious failure in a lot of places now. Nature will take care of this and I see large areas being left to regenerate and rewild as the reality of high energy inputs doesn’t work. Going to be an interesting time ahead as defying gravity is proven not to work - again.
But how much is that sleep easy area costing the farm? There are always costs.
Would those heifers do better on easier country and those hoggets in a purpose built/planted area.
I don't know that I've been on a farm that didn't have areas that would improve it by planing. I was really disappointed with the fonterra farm environment plan on the last property I was at. I was hoping for a plan to include tree planting to give the owners somewhere to start and an idea of how it should look. It cost enough. But was a waste of bloody time, I wrote better stuff 30 yrs ago at Lincoln when I knew jack.
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