Restoring productive land and improving woodland biodiversity

Introduction

Pindari Plains is a 283ha property located near Dubbo, in the central west of NSW owned by John and Sue Middenway. Productivity of the small sheep and wheat enterprise was limited by invasive native species dominating the arable land.  

The property is also home to a significant community of Grassy White Box Woodlands, an Endangered Ecological Community (EEC) in NSW, which was being impacted by the invasive native cypress pine.

Challenge

To return the farm to productivity, allow plans for expansion and restore a more diverse species mix to the landscape.

The extensive, invasive-acting black and white cypress pine that is present in high densities has been choking over 90% of the arable land.  

Tracts of Grassy White Box Woodlands, which provide habitat for species such as wedge-tailed eagles, parrots and finches, were being impacted by the cypress pine. The pine in high densities has resulted in:

• a bare understory
• increased erosion  
• lack of soil moisture
• limited feed for grazing operations.  

John and Sue were trying to remove extensive invasive-acting cypress pine from the property to stimulate natural regrowth of the groundcover and regenerate a more diverse species mix including grassy white box woodlands.

This land management activity will also allow the development of the enterprise and result in a more productive working farm.

“We are farmers, we are also eco-friendly. The wildlife that’s around this place is important to us to try and keep a natural balance”.

- John Middenway, Landholder Pindari Plains

Solution

Local Land Services supported John and Sue to gain approval to remove cypress pine on the property which was provided under the Low impact clearing of invasive native species part of the Land Management Code.  

The Middenways also received certification for the continuation of land use activities within the Continuing Use part of the Land Management Code.

This certification recognises land use undertaken prior to 1990, and includes:

• provisions for managing woody native regrowth
• continuation of previous land management activities  
• continuation of rotational activities.  

This work also opened the opportunity to consider funding for conservation management under the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust (BCT). The next step for improvements is planning the infrastructure that may be needed to assist with grazing management in preparation for funding rounds in their region.

John and Sue are removing the cypress themselves using measures to minimise soil disturbance. They are also investigating options for engaging a logging contractor in future.  

Outcomes

Removing the cypress pine and active management will allow:  

• the rehabilitation and restoration of a diverse understory populated by native grasses
• limiting erosion risk associated with dense cypress pine communities
• development and expansion of new paddocks and more open country
• support the rotational grazing of up to 400 ewes
• return the farm to a productive and financially viable enterprise.

Grassy White Box Woodlands on the property will be encouraged to regenerate over time, ensuring this important community is protected and continues to provide refuge and habitat for a range of native species.

“Because of the amount of timber it was very hard to improve the property. It was a bigger job than fencing off areas to keep out the kangaroos. Our goal is to work to restore this farm to a working state and look after the wildlife on the place.“  

John Middenway, Landholder Pindari Plains

videocam 3:56

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Video transcript

Sustainable Land Management at Pindari Plains, central west NSW

[Music]

my name's Jon Benet we're at Pindari

Plains at Arthur bill in New South Wales

we bought the place eight years ago the

property was very random when we first

bought it there was virtually no feed on

the place there was no care given to the

place initially we wanted to buy it and

read our own land to sell at market but

the way that property was at the time

with the amount of pine trees that are

on the place and the laws were in place

at the time it was impossible to

actually do that errand goal for this

place here is to be able to subdivide

paddocks into a lot smaller paddocks and

do a weekly rotation with the to lots of

200 years so that we can make this an

actual working farm turn this place

around we really have to remove a lot of

the pine that's on the place it's not

only stopping the native grasses from

growing but it's also taking up any

moisture that anything else can get hold

of especially the white box scum that we

have here and it does create soil

erosion by stopping anything from

growing underneath you can see here that

there's just nothing growing here

because the pine trees are stopping

anything from actually growing Jonathan

says properties located in traditional

white box grassy woodlands country which

was considered a threatened ecological

community unfortunately at the moment

it's it's that's pine dominated so it's

probably lost its original function so

hopefully by treating the invasive

native species the pond we can return it

to a more natural state

we got in touch with the local Land

Services two years ago spoke to a fella

called Matt Lane that came out about

four times and we actually went over

everything together we looked at the

points we had here the areas we had and

then we were able to sit down together

and actually put a plan together as to

what we could do and could not do

they've used a low impact invasive

native species code so it's all about

treating the pine in a low disturbance

method and retaining as much ground

cover as possible and promoting native

pastures as a result you'd hope to see

that the first thing as a short-term or

a medium-term response will be the

return of a ground cover layer and over

time with with with good grazing

management I see an increase in the

species diversity

[Music]

we are families we are also eco-friendly

the wildlife that's on the place is

important to us to try and keep a

Natural Balance I guess with with what

goes on the native grasses will bounce

back when the native clusters has

bounced back its going to be feed to

birds it's going to be feed for lizards

and all the other things that actually

need to be reacting you know the white

box gums will be able to get bigger and

stronger and hopefully it'll shoot up

some more white box comes to continue

the growth from the older ones to take

their place the new legislation will

provide at John and suanne Avenue or a

method to to begin that the process on

restoring this landscape back to how it

shouldn't could be the local Land

Services we've looked at different

avenues and different opportunities for

John and suanne and will hopefully be

working with the biodiversity

conservation trust to provide as much

assistance for John and Sue to enable

them to achieve their goals there is a

good strong possible return for income

once all these pine trees are taken away

we hopefully will be able to subdivide

it all that property into in debates and

paddocks and be able to run more stuff

the land management and invasive native

species actors come in has been

absolutely terrific in allowing us to

try and get the property back to where

it should be back to where it was once

before

you