Date: January 12, 2025Author: Editor, cairnsnews 10 Comments
Cool fire burning on Cape York which leads to widespread vegetation thickening laying waste to once productive land
By *Jim O’Toole
Cape York Peninsula, Queensland’s iconic piece of paradise has been gradually handed over by Labor to Aborigines to create a separate indigenous state north of 16th Parallel.
In its heyday the Peninsula carried more than 150,000 head of cattle supporting many families and was the source of the State’s cheapest breeder cattle for southern markets.
Latitude 16 degrees South is recognized as the southern boundary not far from Cooktown stretching west to the Gulf of Carpentaria and north to the Tip of Cape York giving the Peninsula an area of around 137,000 square kilometres.
Native Title determinations and numerous national park acquisitions over the past 25 years have ripped the guts out of the cattle industry leaving only a handful of actively producing cattle stations nearly all owned and managed by white pastoralists. One exception is a part of the former Department of Primary Industries research station Batavia Downs which has been handed over to an indigenous group who run the cattle station properly.
This is the only surviving, successful, large, indigenous cattle station in north Queensland other than Delta Downs at Normanton and Normanby Station north west of Cooktown. There have been more than a dozen handovers to indigenous groups in the past 25 years but here is the result.
Aboriginal interests also operate only one other cattle property, Meripah Station NW of Coen which was handed over to them by the Indigenous Land Corporation after the ILC sold 90 per cent of the cattle.
They now struggle for existence.
Former large and productive cattle stations, now parks such as Rokeby, Dixie, Lakefield, Billys Lagoon, Shelbourne Bay, Bramwell and Heathlands are all overrun with vegetation thickening and have turned into fire bombs and pig breeding pens albeit a recent Supreme Court decision which should now prevent QPWS from wantonly shooting cattle they don’t own which run on some of these parks.
None of these properties has a boundary fence but the Labor-controlled QPWS and now it seems their alter-ego the Liberals remain quite content to shoot any cattle from neighboring stations which may wander onto a park looking for new grass after fires.
Recently QPWS acquired the 700,000 acre Kendall River Station PH in central west Cape York paying $30 million with a small herd of resident cattle whose fate remains unclear in light of the recent court ruling.
This property substantially adds to the national parks and indigenous estate which now covers nearly 60 per cent of the Cape York land mass.
Another former, quality cattle property south of Weipa, Piccaninny Plains went to the Australian Wildlife Conservancy 12 years ago, and was considered a terrible loss to the cattle industry.
Situated in the centre of Cape York Peninsula, the 408,000 acre Piccaninny Plains extends from the foothills of the McIlwraith Range to the western plains of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Fifty-two kilometres of the Archer River and its towering gallery forest form the southern boundary. From here, a network of wetlands, woodlands, tall grasslands and deciduous vine forests extend 60 kilometres to the north, meeting the rainforests of the Wenlock River and the north eastern boundary.
It has been at best, poorly managed and has been accused by locals of selling cattle it didn’t own, a common theme since the advent of the Peninsula cattle industry. Its vast areas of open savannah and downs are slowly succumbing to intense fires and encroaching woody regrowth defeating its intended purpose.
It is a perfect example of country acquired in its original state being forced into another thickening jungle of ti-tree, wattle and eucalypt through lack of a suitable fire regime and insufficient grazing cattle.
Carbon farming
Then there are the carbon farmers, Brisbane-based Corporate Carbon which has purchased a number of viable cattle properties to play the carbon dioxide offset trading market.
In the past three years their agricultural body, Paniri P/L purchased a number of Cape York cattle properties to garner Australian Carbon Credit Units for offset trading on the national and international markets.
To date the company has traded nearly nine million ACCU’s earning the company substantial income at the current price of $30 per tonne.
Corporate Carbon several years ago acquired Holroyd, Crystalvale and Yarraden Pastoral Holdings in central Cape York for a reported $29 million, pushing up local property prices by 100 per cent.
Their carbon business model is solely dependent upon a cool fire regime during the dry season and now there is added benefit with carbon sequestration in soil virtually doubling the income for land holders provided burning is conducted within the parameters of the fire schedule.
There can be no cheating because satellite imagery has them covered.
It has since added Watson River and recently it is believed, Merluna Pastoral Holdings to its far northern portfolio giving it control of more than two million acres in total and potentially 20,000 breeding cattle.
It now seems the only chance for the few remaining operational cattle properties on Cape York to remain in white hands would be for the owners to sell them to a carbon company or start their own carbon farming businesses.
The poor state of market financial returns for Cape York breeder cattle stations over the past two years has severely reduced their economic viability.
World Heritage listing
Compounding land ownership difficulties on Cape York is Labor’s determination to give away to foreign ownership 20 per cent of the area for an initial World Heritage listing. UNESCO, the Paris-based arm of the United Nations reportedly wants to take over all of Cape York but local Aborigines have a different view.
In spite of federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek staging photo-ops on Cape York with a handful of local Aborigines the overwhelming majority of indigenous prescribed body corporations which control much of the Peninsula are opposed to a listing.
Last year Wuthati Elder Johnson Chippendale, a native title holder, claimed he supported a listing over the million-acre Shelbourne Bay, a former cattle station which holds the largest deposit of nearly pure silica sand in the world.
A Wuthati member told Cairns News Mr Chippendale was speaking out of turn and the PBC did not support a listing, leaving virtually no Aborigines in favour of any World Heitage.
Fortunately the Liberal government intends to hold an inquiry into the proposed nomination because of its possible impact on the economic viability of the whole region.
Newly elected state member for Cook, David Kempton, a solicitor, told the Cairns Post he supported taking a deeper look at the formal nomination to the UNESCO World Heritage tentative list announced last June.
“It is a big issue and there needs to be full consultation, not only with traditional owners but with all landholders to ensure that the so-called economic benefit that comes with World Heritage listing does exist,” Mr Kempton said
“We also need to put that into the context of economic opportunity and the entire future of the region. A piecemeal approach to the environment doesn’t always necessarily deliver the best outcomes.
“If it isn’t managed and if the resources aren’t put into it, it faces the risk of becoming an economic backwater. That’s the risk.”
Trump factor
Corporate Carbon and other atmosphere trading companies should be getting jittery over a Donald Trump presidency and the band of operatives he has employed to oversee his world-reshaping policies.
Trump said at one of his massive public rallies in September the Environment Department would be the first to go.
“The green new scam is over,” Trump told a recent Mar-a-Lago media conference.
He previously alluded to carbon dioxide being “necessary for the environment” leaving no doubt he will put an end to CO2 trading at least in America, which would substantially impact international markets.
Labor, Greens and Teal climate cultists won’t be able to stop what is coming.
What then Cape York?
*Jim worked on Cape York during the 80’s and has an excellent knowledge of the area.
Nelle's journey 