Answers from David and Frances

Under the impression that David Pollock had destocked his station Wooleen permanently, we put a series of questions to him after his story appeared on Australian Story. WHile he and partner Frances have not turned the property into a 'national park with no income', their radical destocking strategy has forced a lot of graziers to consider their own stiuation. As David says, most could not afford to do it. Here are their answers to our questions:
Q.1. Would the tourism enterprise keep the property afloat without stewardship payments?
A.1. The short answer No. Perhaps with more investment and some staff the tourism would be able to. But at the current level it can’t, and we unfortunately can't afford the investment it needs to go to the next level. Tourism has allowed us to pay majority of the bills over the last 4 years but it hasn't been able to pay interest and so our overdraft increases each year. As a condition of our pastoral lease we need to maintain all infrastructure on the property and so the tourism income is running two businesses.
Q.2. What contribution does the regeneration strategy chosen make to providing food or fibre?
A.2. It makes a huge contribution. It means that we will be able to produce food and fibre into the future. You’re a farmer, you would know that sometimes you push a paddock too far, and it needs time to recover. We have a whole station like that! just because you have a paddock with no stock doesn’t mean that it’s a write off into the future. In fact it means the opposite, that you will be able to produce a better quality product, and if you manage it well and have a good understanding of how to manage it, it will produce more. Currently in our area, we have a degraded resource, and no clear idea of how to manage it to its environmental, economic and social capacity.
Q.3. Was a regeneration strategy using grazing management to restore the landscape considered?
A.3. It was considered and is being used on most properties, more or less. It is a very long and difficult road to achieve recovery and most of the stations that are trying to get through with stock in this area are at best sustaining an bad situation. In essence, all grazing management should also be a regeneration strategy, the problem is that the landscape is too degraded at this time to handle any grazing, and Im not just talking about cows, as to have one windmill on could result in 2000 kangaroos in an area, enough to make sure it doesn’t recover. Added to this argument is the necessity of added infrastructure to obtain the control needed for grazing based regeneration. Wooleen has over 200kms of (reasonable) fence, which is hard enough to look after itself, let alone the fences needed for a good rotational grazing system. I’m not saying it’s not possible, but it will take much longer to see results, be just as expensive, and mean a much greater susceptibility to making a wrong judgement in a landscape whose maximum potential is not known.
Q.4. Have the opportunities presented by the Carbon Farming Initiative been considered?
A.4. At this stage, what opportunities? I probably know as much as most pastoralists about CFI, being selected to represent them at a recent meeting of government agencies and industry to identify and address knowledge gaps that may stop uptake of CF. At present there are no avenues to uptake CF, and no means of measuring carbon at a rangeland scale. There are lots of Gaps though! Were working on it.
Q.5. Have the carbon levels in the soil been monitored?
A.5. No. not by me.
Q.6. Is the model valid for use by a large number of graziers in any district or can there be only one as a demonstration property.
A.6. to my mind the best thing about destocking is its simple, it will work everywhere(Maybe with variations), and if they were paid to, everyone could do it. In fact if a few stations did it together it would be much more effective.