Background

Paddock trees are the remnants of once-extensive woodlands and are often the oldest living things in the landscape.

Across our rural landscape, paddock trees stand out as an iconic image, providing shade and shelter for livestock and helping to maintain the productive capacity of the land. Paddock trees also provide immense benefits to biodiversity by offering food, shelter, and nesting sites for a large number of birds, bats, insects, and small mammals.

Landholders can make a huge difference towards the sustainability of their farms and the broader landscape by protecting and encouraging paddock trees.

 

Why are paddock trees disappearing?

Scattered paddock trees overlap with the most productive areas of our grazing landscape, making them particularly vulnerable to grazing pressures. These large trees are disappearing due to:

• Senescence: Many large trees are at the end of their lifespan, and if regeneration is not encouraged, these trees, their genetics, and their habitat value will be lost from the landscape.
• Mistletoe and insect damage: Stressed trees are more prone to attacks by mistletoe and insects such as Christmas beetles, sawfly larvae, and lerps.
• Clearing: Many large trees are still being removed for firewood, fences, and access for wider machinery.
• Chemicals: Fertilisers and herbicides change soil nutrient levels, and herbicide drift slowly kills seedlings and mature trees. Seed germination is also significantly reduced in highly fertilised soil, which is unsuited to native species.
• Livestock: Livestock contribute to paddock tree decline by ringbarking rough-barked trees such as Stringybark, as well as eating seedlings. Their impacts are also indirect, through camping under trees, which changes soil fertility and causes soil compaction and degradation.
• Bushfire: The vulnerability of paddock trees has been further compounded by the January 2020 Dunns Road Bushfire, which burned many of these old trees in our region.

 

How can paddock trees be saved?

Recognising the importance of paddock trees on farms, landholders can protect and support paddock trees through:

• Fencing around selected trees to prevent damage and encourage regeneration.
• Avoiding fertiliser and cultivation near trees.
• Avoiding herbicide spray drift onto paddock trees.
• Leaving fallen timber on the ground as habitat.
• Including paddock trees when designing revegetation sites.
• Managing grazing to help young plants survive.
• Controlling herbivores such as rabbits and hares.

 

About this project

This project was a partnership between Murrumbidgee Landcare Inc., Kyeamba and Tarcutta Landcare groups, and NSW WIRES Inc. The aim of this project was to help 10 landholders in each valley reinstate paddock trees on their farms.

 

What incentives were available?

Each landholder was reimbursed up to 100% of the costs for planting and protecting 10 advanced tubestock across approximately one hectare of land:

• Individual guards were constructed from a cylinder of sheep mesh or equivalent, 1.6 m high and 1 m wide, secured with four steel pickets.
• Advanced tubestock species included Blakely’s Red Gum, Yellow Box, and White Box.

All participating landholders signed a Management Agreement detailing the works required and their ongoing responsibility to manage the site/s for 10 years.

 

This project was funded by NSW WIRES Inc. and is now closed.