 Notice. New forum software under development. It's going to miss a few functions and look a bit ugly for a while, but I'm working on it full time now as the old forum was too unstable. Couple days, all good. If you notice any issues, please contact me. |
Forum Index : Off topic archive. : Cutting down trees.
| Author | Message | ||||
Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5116 |
OK, This is bound to get a few interesting answers. Cutting down trees, in particular, on you own property. My view is, its ok to cut down trees so long as you dont affect the local ecosystem dramatically, meaning I would be ok to thin out an area, cut a path, make a clearing, etc. More important is what you do with the timber. I've cut down trees to improve the view. The trees are cut at about chest height so the tree can re-shoot and grow again. I leave the felled tree to rot into the ground, or I use the timber to make a fence or something usefull. If I did need to clear a padock or field, I would make a effort to plant more trees around the edges. I dont like the idea of burning trees for the sake of clearing the land, it destroys the local ecosystem, its better to let the tree rot and return to the soil. But I'm ok to burn trees to power something, like a stove or BBQ. The CO2 released when burning timber was captured in the last 100 years, its a very quick CO2 cycle. Burning trees that died millions of years ago is different, its releasing CO2 that was captured over millions of years, not a few decades. Just my view. I have a brother who wont cut down anything, even if it was in the way, thats his view. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
||||
| birdhouse Regular Member  Joined: 27/01/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 63 |
i think i'm on about the same page as you glenn. up at my ranch i'll cut down trees for view, and to make everything "work" better. lately i've been burning lots of down wood during the winter months. when i got my place a few years back, some areas look like an oversized game of pick-up-sticks. if a forest fire ever comes through i'm totally screwed! i'm just trying to put a dent in it all. there are cords upon cords of down wood. i'd rather chip it and let it decay, but i don't know if anyone makes a chipper that will take down 18 inch logs. some stuff i buck up and then let rot assuming that bucked timber rots faster than whole trees. plan on building a full cabin up there eventually, and am highly considering "fire proof" siding for the first so many feet. sorry to send a previous thread off kilter. adam i pee more than once before flushing, and don't have to flush at all up at the ranch! |
||||
| VK4AYQ Guru  Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Gizmo We don't cut trees down we only trim them but we do harvest carrots. Any trees that get inadvertently blown over in storms can be replaced by fruit trees in a position less likely to suffer storm damage. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
||||
sPuDd Senior Member  Joined: 10/07/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 251 |
Glenn, you have to check with some Gov dept (don't recall which) as they have zoned the entire country as to what can be done where. You can be fined or jailed if you cut in the wrong zone. However, the fire act over rides all codes :) "Looks like a fire in the trees - we'll have to cut them down to stop it..." sPuDd.. It should work ...in theory |
||||
SSW_squall Senior Member Joined: 20/03/2010 Location: AustraliaPosts: 111 |
Absolutely spud: Not sure what the deal is with the laws in QLD, but just recently in SA the laws for clearance of native vegetation for fire protection reasons have been changed such that: ANY VEGETATION within 20m of a building or 5m of a structure is fair game, meaning it can be cleared without approval The only exception being: SIGNIFICANT TREES means any native or non-native tree that has a trunk with a circumference of 2m or more at a point 1m above natural ground level. In the case of trees with multiple trunks, the total circumference of the trunks must be 2m or more and the average circumference of each trunk must be 62.5cm or more. A BUILDING within the meaning of the Development Act 1993 (other than a Class 7A or 10B building under the Building Code) that is permanently fixed to land; and (b) a building of a kind contemplated by paragraph (a) that is in the course of construction if the foundations, concrete slab or other footings have been completed; A STRUCTURE could be any of the following if they are permanently fixed to the ground: a small aviary or other animal enclosure, a small shed constructed around a pump or other small infrastructure, a small garden shed or greenhouse, a pool shed, a gazebo, or a children’s playhouse. Even then there is no law to prevent pruning of significant trees, it just has to be done with due care. Eg not unbalancing the tree by heavily pruning one side. Under this guise a wind turbine (or other RE generator) would definitely fall into the "structure" category... AB Einstein: Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler |
||||
| SSW_squall Senior Member Joined: 20/03/2010 Location: AustraliaPosts: 111 |
This is the law in fact as stated. I might add that I am not avocating wholesale destruction of native vegetation, actually we are currently trying to revegetate the creek in our valley with the correct native plants as well as getting rid of the blackberries and other weeds. But because i live the adelaide hills in an area that is at SEVERE fire risk this is of particular interest to us. Recently the (significant) trees around the power lines and infrastructure were pruned. Due to the easter holiday the branches were left sitting around for a day longer than normal much to our annoyance. However i wasn't complaining too much as this just gave me the opportunity to go nuts with the chainsaw and clear a whole lot of fire risk material by adding it to piles waiting to get chipped. Olive bushes (aka kerosense plant), dead braches, small pissy little trees all disposed of at no expense 
AB Einstein: Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler |
||||
| domwild Guru Joined: 16/12/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 873 |
Glenn, By all means cut down some trees to reduce the fire risk. Remember, cutting trees will increase the salinity of the soil as the water table rises. My plantation used to be cleared native forest and when I bought the land it was cattle country and badly waterlogged. So bad the foresters said not to plant trees, which I did and planted on ripped and mounded lines. The first harvests are OK but the coppice does not come up from the cut stumps for the next harvests. Have read that existing forests are carbon neutral as the growing trees suck up the CO2, but the rotting ones release CO2 and methane. Dams for hydro are not as green as claimed as the flooded and rotting vegetation of the valley floors releases methane. Taxation as a means of achieving prosperity is like a man standing inside a bucket trying to lift himself up. Winston Churchill |
||||
| Arron Newbie  Joined: 01/07/2010 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1 |
You would need to get permission from the council, remember Deforestation is harming our enviornment, and the less trees chopped down the better in my view! |
||||
| VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Arron The most harmful thing to our environment is the Government and its stupid policies implemented and policed by Idiots. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
||||
| dwyer Guru Joined: 19/09/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 574 |
Hi Bob You forgot as There is more out there is greedy is Land Developer and Coal mining companies pushing farmer and family out their land too 
Dwyer |
||||
| VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Dwyer I think you hit the nail on the head, the GREED that's behind all the questionable decisions made by government, it's a grab for taxes and tariffs and royalties with little or no regard for the environment. The farmers are only pawns to be sacrificed for the greater good and income for the government, they have as much right as a mouse in a snake enclosure and guess who is the snakes, pubic serpents. We don't need to be told of the multinational's greed for riches as they rape and pillage the country and its environment, this combined with the stupidity and short sightedness of government will mean our descendants will inherit a dessert island devoid of assets and resources as the government members at the time fly away to the tax-haven where they have piled up the ill gotten gains, saying well we tried to do the best we could but we got voted out. Or perhaps they might get involved in cricket management to see if they can stuff that up too. It's a sad state of affairs when GREED IS GOD. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
||||
| windlight Guru Joined: 03/03/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 331 |
As a farmer in lower west of Australia I can agree with most of the above, what sticks in my gullet is the unchallenged clearing of any land for houses. Since taking over this farm (3rd generation) I have cut down a few trees to improve my view (1) and because I will not have any tree within falling distance of a building. Balancing this I have planted hundreds of trees and native shrubs for windbreak reasons and creak lining. One very pleasing benefit of this is an explosion in the bird population. Most if not all farmers are conservationists by default, it is their livelihood at stake, albeit a dying breed. It is not generally recognized but say the average 1 acre horse block, here usually located on the coastal sand plain, has a perimeter planting of trees established and say said trees were 10-12M high then the area inside when planted with an appropriate grass would remain green all year, it creates its own ecosystem, if it was not for the horses. I don't like horses just an example. I don't believe politicians act out of greed, rather ignorance and stupidity, just look at the recent squandering (midnight oil), by and large politicians are not cleaver enough to be affected by greed. allan "I like this place and willingly could waste my time in it" - (Act II, Scene IV). |
||||
| VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Windlight I agree that farms should be environmentally friendly I believe that 10 Percent of farm area should be trees the shelter cattle and provide wind breaks and prevent erosion, even broad acre farms gain benefit from wind brakes to slow moisture loss. As you say there is a lot more trees in rural residential properties than most farms percentage of area that is. Trees are like long lived carrots if you dont harvest and replant at the proper time then they both become useless. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
||||
| windlight Guru Joined: 03/03/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 331 |
Hi Bob, all very relevant comments, I would defend Glenn's comments on being able to remove a tree even if for ones view as long as one takes a balanced approach which I believe he does. Many farms used for grazing have clearing by stealth, that is the animals eat the seedlings that would replace the old trees, end result less trees. It is incumbent on the land owner to ensure a percentage of trees/shrubs, my personal preference is 25% which I believe is a very viable combination having regard for shelter/ rain/ salt levels etc. I know this property was cleared and farmed since, I assume around 1918, as that was when my grandfather came home from the 1st world war and it was a solider settlement block, therefore many of the trees are at the end of their life. Trees are extremely important for rainfall so I have every intention of maintaining a good ratio, albeit often in areas that are advantageous to me IE windbreaks for the orchard, creak lining and shelter breaks for stock. allan "I like this place and willingly could waste my time in it" - (Act II, Scene IV). |
||||
| VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Windlight The thing that worries me is the indiscriminate clearing of trees from marginal land turning it into a virtual desert, and also the creeping civilization, that has consumed the fertile garden soils around our major cities, these small farms / market gardens provided food for the city, and now they are subdivisions in the urban sprawl, and more marginal land has to be cleared and artificially fertilized to make up the difference, along with food being transported thousands of miles from other states, even the import of inferior products from Asia. Australia is no longer a food bowl but a fool bowl administered and planned by enviro idiots in government. On the tree density subject I will be a bit controversial there as when I was a little boy my grandfather told me, when he was young there was hardly any trees on the ranges surrounding our family farm in Victoria, he was 85 at the time and I was 5 so that covered a time of 120 years, as a young man I walked those ranges on numerous occasions and found that most of the trees where new growth, I have been told the same thing by one of the original settlers family in the area where I live now, Old Lenny was over 80 at the time and that was thirty + years ago as I purchased a small lot of his original farm. The original farm was a land grant of some 50 000 acres. He actually showed me the trees that where there when as a boy he tended his Dad's cattle in the valley and up onto the Crows Nest range SE QLD, all the trees there now are regrowth no more that 60 years old. I believe that a combination of bad management and increased CO2 levels has caused the growth of the scrub that infects the area choking out the better species of trees. The creek up the valley seldom runs now but when Lenny was young they used to row their boat up the creek another five miles past where I am, and there are many more trees in the valley now than then, the older trees have died of and now replaced scrub wattle and scrub mahogany. The conclusion that I come to from this is that the rainfall has decreased, as the rain forests in the top of the valley have died out by 90 Percent. originally the valley was regularly burned by the local tribe of aboriginals. The forestry on the range is now burnt out every 3 years and that,s it. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
||||
| windlight Guru Joined: 03/03/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 331 |
Bob, We are in agreement, I am sure that the story of urban encroachment onto food growing land has been the same Australia wide and most probably worldwide. If we were to look back far enough into Perth’s early days there were dairy farms where the University of WA now stands (banks of Swan river and southern foot of Kings Park). Modern transport has negated the need for food to be grown adjacent to populated areas, even if it was still practical. Don’t get me started on food imports from sources with unknown food safety programs, if they exist. Do you understand that the current trees are re-growth because the original white settlers ring barked the old growth? In WA we don’t have the same “weed” growth in creaks etc. but I have read about these introduced weeds and seen the explosion of Camphor Loral trees in the Lismore region of NSW. We are certainly in agreement here, for areas away from the coast rainfall decline goes hand in hand with vegetation decline, I personally will agree climate is changing as it has done through all time, in cycles, I do not believe we humans have as much affect on that as those with a vested interest in selling “climate change” would have us believe. Certainly there are many many actions/industries that can and should do it better but there is no need to bankrupt businesses and the country. It still rains here on the same day each year, the Sunday of the Easter long weekend it rains, the hundreds of thousands of urban elfs who migrated to the Margret River area start heading home early, but they will do it all again next year. Governments went through a period of cleaning logs from rivers around 70-80 years ago here in WA, I can only imagine it was to reduce flooding, my father told me of a time when he had a government contract to carry out such work with a team of horses in the upper Murray river (WA ). All of which is another story but he did say that there is gold in them there hills, he was talking about the area that is now the largest gold mine in the world, Boddington. Water was never meant to flow to rapidly through a river or creak, it needs time to soak into the ground, flood occasionally to drop its silty burden, and of course excessive clearing in a systems catchment can/does change a water ways characteristics. The property I am on has a seasonal creek that mostly only runs after a heavy down poor, the cattle would walk through this breaking down the bank causing more erosion etc. I have fenced most of this and planted bottle brush on the bank, they have a root system that is good for stabilizing such soil, and the birds love them. Water now takes over 30 min to travel some 500m, I call that a good result. Allan "I like this place and willingly could waste my time in it" - (Act II, Scene IV). |
||||
| VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Windlight On your idea that all the timber is regrowth that may be in your area but the area I was referring to that's not the case as it was never settled in the early days, our family had the saw mill in the area from 1920 cutting timber for the local farmers, it was run by my grandfather so he knew what he was talking about. Other places in Victoria and NSW are certainly as you say, I have seen it many times. The other issue in the drying out of the rural areas is just as you say the creeks where cleaned out and the water run away to quickly, our farm had a beautiful little creek winding its way through the valley they cleaned the creek out and denuded the banks and within six months the creek died along with the trout and lobsters, they did the same to all the rivers as well with the same result, It is difficult to imagine that these educated idiots causing so much damage to the environment under the management of government, I have a small dog that is smarter than them he pisses on trees to make them grow and leaves the creeks alone. We had willow trees along the creek and they said they where weeds so pulled them out and graded the banks and poisoned the blackberries the next flood washed the whole creek flat away and we lost 50 acres of the best soil on the farm, after the flood it was washed down to the gravel bed, and the only thing that saved the house was the willow trees they didn't clear as my uncle chased them of our land. To think Idiots like this with university degrees, and enough letters after their name to choke a horse, can make decisions about things that they haven't got a clue about is criminal, and they get paid $100K + a year for making stuff ups. On your creek banks plant blackberries as they hold it together like nothing I have seen, even the deadly to the environment willow tree, and in a few years you will have a nice little trickle of water all year, contry to the ideas of these Idiots. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
||||
 Print this page |
 |
The Back Shed's forum code is written, and hosted, in Australia. | © JAQ Software 2025 |
