Rainforest Live '97 Topic Essays from Queensland, Australia Faculty and Student Topic Essays

From the week ending May 2, 1997

Milk Production and Reforestation
by Melissa Barker

At one time early landholders in the Atherton Tablelands, a sub-tropical dairying region, were required to show that they were “improving their land,” which meant that they were clearing it. It became a common practice among early farmers in Far North Queensland to remove nearly all native trees to create more open land for grazing their cattle. Farmers have started to realize the benefits that trees can have for their cattle. Within the last fifteen years several studies have looked at land use and management in an attempt to find ways to increase milk production per cow. Revegetation has been a major focus as a way to increase benefits to the dairy farmer.

As well as having environmental, ecological, and social benefits, riparian reforestation has been shown to offer many benefits to the individual dairy farmer. The fences that are erected around the revegetation area limit or stop cattle access to the creek. This decreases cattle losses and mustering (gathering) time. Two dairy farmers in the Atherton Tablelands, Ross Chapman and Case Schoorl, estimate that between fifteen and twenty minutes are saved in mustering time per day. The increase in water quality, due to less erosion, also benefit the farmer. According to local farmers, cattle will drink more water if it is of better quality, which is essential because drinking water is the main method cows use to naturally dissipate excess heat through evaporation.

Another major benefit of riparian reforested areas, as well as other planting areas within or surrounding paddocks, is the shelter and shade areas they provide for cattle. Dairy cattle in the Atherton Tablelands are subjected to cold winter frosts and hot, humid summers. Farmers believe that it is essential that dairy cattle are able to regulate their heat load. Reports tell us that by reducing the effects of extreme heat and cold, windbreaks and shade plantings can contribute to the animals’ survival and foster growth in reproduction and weight. Ross Chapman and Sliver, local farmers, believe that shade and shelter areas, reduce stress, which leads to an increase in milk production of 1.5 to 2 liters per day per cow. In this study it is hypothesized that farms with adequate shade and shelter cover for their entire milking herd will have less variation in milk production, especially on very hot and cold days. Finally after hard work on the part of area farmers and scientists, the Atherton Tablelands now boasts the highest milk production per cow for any region in Queensland.  

Reptile Communities in the Toohey's Creek Corridor Zone
by John Grant, Faculty
Ecologist

Another ongoing study is to assess reptiles as indicators of corridor development and usefulness. Reptiles present a different aspect of corridor use than do birds, since they are mostly too small and too limited in movement to travel through a corridor a kilometer long. Instead, for the corridor to be useful to them, they must establish a permanent population within it, and thereby create a link between the populations at either end. We conduct census transect counts and pitfall trapping to assess the communities using each part of the corridor zone. As with the birds, we have found some species are more specialized to the rainforest than others, and therefore these species will be useful indicators of corridor establishment. Already we have found that some reptile species which are typical of the rainforest have colonized the two-year old replanting, indicating that the microclimate and microhabitat changes in that site (increased humidity, shade and leaf litter, decreased temperature) are already having an effect on the fauna.

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