Benefits to Landholders in Planting Trees

Trees integrated onto a property in conjunction with a farming systems approach can provide a range of significant positive environmental, financial, biodiversity and agronomic benefits. Read the interview with CO2 Australia landholders Andrew & Carolyn Robinson.

Community

The establishment of mallee trees provides opportunity for employment within local communities. Contract service providers are required throughout the site preparation, planting and monitoring phases of the program which facilitates local job creation. Well placed and designed tree plantings also enhance the aesthetic and capital value of a property.

Farm Productivity

Mallee plantings can make significant contributions to the productivity of crops, pastures and animals. These plantings can reduce physical damage to crops and pasture by reducing the impact of strong dry winds, contribute to potential yield increases by influencing temperature, humidity, evaporation and soil moisture conservation. They contribute to improving soil quality by limiting the loss of valuable top soil to wind erosion. These tree belts are a key component in the mitigation and reduction of dryland salinity at the local paddock and property scale but also at the catchment and broader landscape scale. This in turn has the potential to enhance water quality and minimise runoff. Tree belts also provide shelter for grazing stock during extremes of heat and cold and significantly minimise animal production losses.

Financial benefits

These unique mallee plantings offer a direct financial injection into your farming and grazing business. Landholders participating in this program are paid on a $/ha rate for the land planted under trees. All costs associated with the planting program including surveys, site preparation, planting, seeds and seedlings, weed and pest management, cultivation and monitoring costs are all met by CO2 Australia. This payment is in recognition of the long term nature of the CO2 Australia Carbon Sequestration Program.

Environmental Benefits

The mallee planting program offers significant environmental benefits to existing farming and grazing enterprises. These plantings reduce the effects of soil erosion and loss of valuable topsoil, mitigate waterlogging and dryland salinity and have positive impacts on water quality. The mallee eucalypt has been extensively cleared across much of low rainfall farming zone in southern Australia and these carbon plantings provide landholders the potential to enhance the biodiversity and wildlife habitat on their property. These integrated belts can provide wildlife corridors and link existing important remnant vegetation.

Read the research carried out by Future Farm Industries CRC and CSIRO on Fact Sheet 1 and Fact Sheet 2.

For further information or to register your interest, please contact:

Victoria & New South Wales: 02 6921 2949 or email us.
Western Australia: 08 9295 2044 or email us.