Leichhardt, land clearing and livestock: the legacy of European agriculture in the Brigalow Belt bioregion of central Queensland, Australia
Craig M. Thornton
A * and Amanda E. Elledge A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Department of Resources, PO Box 1762, Rockhampton, Qld 4700, Australia.
Craig Thornton is a Senior Scientist with the Department of Resources and the project leader for the long-term Brigalow Catchment Study. He is passionate about understanding the effects of land clearing and land use change on the natural resources of the Brigalow Belt bioregion. This knowledge guides agricultural best management practice towards long-term sustainability. An extensive list of Brigalow Catchment Study publications is available at www.brigalowcatchmentstudy.com and includes 25 publications authored by Craig. |
Amanda Elledge is a scientist with the Department of Resources in Rockhampton who has worked on the long-term Brigalow Catchment Study since 2010. This project has been active for over 57 years and was originally set up to monitor the impacts of clearing virgin brigalow woodland for cropping and grazing on hydrology, soil fertility and water quality. In more recent years, the project has been focused on comparing different grazing management strategies, such as leguminous pastures and grazing pressure on the same environmental outcomes. Amanda has authored eight peer-reviewed publications. |
Animal Production Science 62(11) 913-925 https://doi.org/10.1071/AN21468
Submitted: 9 September 2021 Accepted: 2 December 2021 Published: 21 February 2022
© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
Context: The Brigalow Belt bioregion of central Queensland has been extensively developed for agriculture since exploration by Leichhardt in 1844. About 4.5 million hectares of vegetation dominated by brigalow (Acacia harpophylla) was cleared as part of the Land Development Fitzroy Basin Scheme, which commenced in 1962. When the Vegetation Management Act 1999 commenced, 93% of brigalow woodland had been cleared. Grazing is the dominant land use in the Fitzroy Basin, with 2.6 million cattle over 11.1 million hectares (72% of the catchment area). This is the largest cattle herd in any natural resource management region in Australia, accounting for 25% of the state herd and 11% of the national herd.
Aims: The Fitzroy Basin, Queensland’s largest coastal catchment, drains directly to the Great Barrier Reef, and as reef health continues to decline, there has been increased focus on the impacts of land-use change and grazing management on hydrology and runoff water quality. The Brigalow Catchment Study sought to determine the impact of land clearing, land-use change and land management on hydrology, soil fertility, water quality and animal production in the Fitzroy Basin.
Methods: The study is a paired, calibrated catchment study. Catchment hydrology, soil fertility, water quality and agricultural productivity were monitored before and after land clearing and land-use change.
Key results: The Brigalow Catchment Study has shown that clearing brigalow for grazing in the Fitzroy Basin doubled runoff, increased peak runoff rate by 50% and increased total suspended solid loads by 80%. Soil fertility and pasture productivity also declined under grazing compared with brigalow. Overgrazing exacerbated these results, as failure to reduce stocking rate with reduced pasture productivity more than tripled runoff, peak runoff rate and total suspended solid load compared with conservatively grazed pasture.
Conclusions: This study demonstrates the impacts of land-use change and land management on hydrology, soil fertility and water quality. The long-term data records are a model in their own right, capable of answering land-use and land-management questions beyond the initial study scope.
Implications: Sustainable grazing management should consider the production limitations of depleted soil and pasture resources to minimise land degradation.
Keywords: agricultural systems, buffel grass, dryland farming, grazing management, pesticides, rangelands, resource management, stocking rate.
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