Landline: War of the Willows

Transcript from broadcast (16/06/2013)

Reporter: Adrienne Francis

Video available at Landline

PIP COURTNEY, PRESENTER: Here is a story about a war over willow trees. They used to be planted to stabilise river banks and eroded gullies. But more recently, many species of willow have been outlawed for their destructive behaviour. Whilst millions are being spent to remove the trees from waterways across the nation, some farmers are now risking everything to plant them back. They've also attracted the support of an Australian icon who shares their unorthodox views on farm regeneration. Adrienne Francis reports.

PETER MARSHALL, FORESTER & FARMER: We've had every kind of reception from armed conflict and judgemental activity to people crossing the road so they don't have to walk past me in town, to complete approval. It's been an interesting 16 years.

ADRIENNE FRANCIS, REPORTER: Peter and Kate Marshall left Canberra in 1991. What they're doing on this land near Braidwood is so sensitive they didn't want to reveal the address and they even contemplated moving to New Zealand.

PETER MARSHALL: We wanted to restore broken landscape. So we were looking for a broken old dairy farm, somewhere that was really, really worn out so that we could experiment with restoration techniques.

ADRIENNE FRANCIS: Their techniques attracted a hostile reception. Unwittingly, the Marshalls became embroiled in a controversy dubbed the "War of the Willows".

PETER MARSHALL: One of my concerns about the eradication efforts of willows is that it's convinced people that they're a bad species in any environment. Here, they're an environmental benefit.

ADRIENNE FRANCIS: The trained forester describes the daily pruning, or coppicing, of these New Zealand fodder willows as restoration forestry.

PETER MARSHALL: What we're doing is we're applying old European forestry techniques - coppicing is the big one - where we're actually managing the willows out of the environment in the places where they could cause trouble in the future and we're respecting those that have been strong enough over all these years to hold this place together. We had cracked willow, which is the one that causes trouble in streams because it breaks up and propagates downstream, but we don't have any near the streams on this property. They're only grown in the uplands where they can't spread. We're gradually getting rid of those.

ADRIENNE FRANCIS: Most species of willow, including the crack willow, are among the worst weeds in the nation. It is illegal to sell and distribute those willows.

PETER MARSHALL: We tried originally to restore the native casuarinas. It was a big failure. The property has been so disturbed that they just couldn't survive the compaction, the frost and the feral animals. So, we realised we'd actually have to use imported species which have been brought into Australia without their pests so they're actually much more productive and fast-growing. So, we actually started propagating from the trees that are on site on the basis that if they'd survive this terrible experience, they might be the ones to go with. And, well, you're standing under a 20-metre tree that wasn't here 12 years ago. It's a willow that was planted by someone's grandma long, long ago to stabilise the gullies. It worked, it was inexpensive, it was on site, so we used it. Now we can actually re-establish the casuarinas, teatrees, blackwood and so forth.

ADRIENNE FRANCIS: The property attracts the interest of Canberra forestry students and the allegiance of unorthodox farmer Peter Andrews.

PETER ANDREWS, FARMER: And just by knowing that plants make soils and all plants contribute to that process, they've got an amazing outcome. ... It is absolutely remarkable in that they've been able to do it just with plants.

ADRIENNE FRANCIS: The Hunter Valley farmer, racehorse breeder and author attracted notoriety when he was featured by ABC TV's Australian Story.

PETER FITZSIMONS, JOURNALIST (Australian Story): There is no doubt Peter Andrews is an extremely good horseman. He has this belief that you can't create a great racehorse without having the right environment.

PETER MARSHALL: Andrews is a visionary. He can see the landscape, he can half-close his eyes and see the landscape as it was before white man arrived and he can look around and he can tell you what it should look like in the future.

ADRIENNE FRANCIS: Peter Andrews was awarded the Order of Australia medal in 2011. For many decades his approach to repairing landscapes has been dismissed and ridiculed.

PETER ANDREWS: It is, yeah, beyond frustrating.

ADRIENNE FRANCIS: You've been described as an antagonist of mainstream science and agriculture. Are you?

PETER ANDREWS: No. I'm just telling 'em the truth. You know, if they see that as antagonism, well I hope I get worse.

ADRIENNE FRANCIS: Peter Andrews is also a long-time advocate for willows. He's stepping up campaigning against their removal across Australia.

PETER ANDREWS: Well we're here on the Molonglo River, which a couple of years ago, I came and it was beautifully vegetated. Today, it's open to winds, evaporation rate is soaring and there are no plants to really prevent that from esculating even further.

ADRIENNE FRANCIS: We have had many years of dry. Many people accuse the willows being greedy with the water.

PETER ANDREWS: Look, it's really false science.

STEVE TAYLOR, PARKS AND CONSERVATION SERVICE: That's just not true. There is a lot of science.

ADRIENNE FRANCIS: Steve Taylor co-ordinates wheat control across the ACT's parks and nature reserves.

STEVE TAYLOR: The CSIRO has shown that when you remove willows from a river system, you increase the numbers of native fish because the numbers of native insect life in the creeks and rivers goes up because you're returning more aeration to the river. Willows are a declared pest species in the ACT. They're a noxious weed in NSW. The Federal Government also classes them as a weed of national significance, which is just another way of saying it's another serious weed for the country. And the seriousness comes from not only their ability to smother native vegetation along waterways, but to build up willow chokes and damage infrastructure.

ADRIENNE FRANCIS: Over the last three decades the ACT Government has spent close to $3 million removing willows. Critics say the practice is ad hoc and misguided.

PETER MARSHALL: Willow management around Lake Burley Griffin, extraordinary business. Millions of dollars spent in tearing out mature trees out of the environment, allowing the river banks to drop into Lake Burley Griffin and quite likely cause blue-green algae downstream seems to me a misallocation of resources, you might say.

STEVE TAYLOR: In the normal year, for the ACT, willow control only represents between 10 to 20 per cent of our budget. Most of our budget gets taken up on blackberry control.

ADRIENNE FRANCIS: This year, the ACT Government is spending $800,000 removing them. Steve Taylor says critics should be more patient with the process.

STEVE TAYLOR: I guess initially things look stark 'cause you've gone from a green vegetation to virtually none. But that will change rapidly as these planted plants grow and as the native reeds come in.

ADRIENNE FRANCIS: Critics also blame political correctness.

PETER ANDREWS: It is the most disgraceful environmental process that's ever been instigated in landscape, no question. It's crazy that we believe that some plants shouldn't be around when the plants that they discriminated against have got seeds that blow everywhere, travel in the wind, on the animals. The process of the environment is as many seeds as possible spread as widely as possible and humans have got the opposite view. It doesn't make any sense. There's absolutely no scientific reason for an idea that native means anything.

PETER MARSHALL: Stop being prescriptive about the control of so-called noxious weeds, stop demonising particular species.

PETER ANDREWS: Peter Andrews, the Marshalls and their supporters are calling for an urgent independent review of willow policy and more research.

PETER MARSHALL: It would be to see if these trees can be managed for social benefit and environmental good, rather than just a drain on national resources.

KATE MARSHALL, FORESTER & FARMER: It's hard to be brave, but I think out of the experimental work that we've done, there is a lot of value and a lot that can be learnt and unless we're brave enough to do - to experiment with our own funds, our own time, our own toil, then we may not be able to learn the lessons.

PETER MARSHALL: I think what will happen is people will look at this environment and realise that the law needs a bitta tweaking.

KATE MARSHALL: I'm glad we stayed 'cause we loved here, we love this community and we love this particular piece of land and it's our life's work.