"S.. McLaren" wrote in message
"John Savage" wrote in message
news:021226000090313.26Dec02

The first step to insulating agriculture against extended periods of
zero
rainfall is to get rid of all hoofed animals from unimproved grazing
land.
Hoofed animals pound grassless trails, the start of soil erosion,
along.....
(excellent stuff there!!!!!)


How come we're not doing this? I've heard several politcians and land
groups
talk about these sorts of things but nothing ever gets done.

A few of the reasons why it is not done:

Unimproved grazing land is usually owned or leased by individuals not
governments or land groups. Attitudinally, not too many owners of anything
take kindly to people making suggestions or legislating on something that
will cost the owner's in terms of their money and/or their effort.

Soft footed animals are not seen by anyone who owns or leases unimproved
grazing lands as being harvestable and having a commercial value. Since
owners and leaseholders have invested money they seek a return on investment
so that they can live.

Excluding hoofed animals from unimproved grazing land will do nothing to
bring more rain if there is no rain to fall.

Rainfall or degradation will not improve if stocking rates of soft footed
animals is high as they are themselves are part of the problem.

Land groups and politicians understand that there even in most bad times
there are still huge economic returns from unimproved grazing land that
feeds stock. If these returns do not find their way into regional Australia
from the land owners then the money has to come from somewhere. Regional
Australia is not well these days and Joe Public and Federal and State
governments are not keen to cough up to support services that most
Australians in the Eastern seaboard expect to be available.