A National Reforestation Strategy.
Why we need to plant trees.
A National Reforestation Strategy will grow an abundance of natural vegetation, planted on hillside gullies to slow the flow of water when it rains. That water if retained within the gullies by rocks, fallen trees, let us call them small fords allows water to be absorbed into the ground, where it is retained by the bio mass of the vegetation. The above ground cover of the plants shades the ground and reduces the evaporation rate. The roots under the ground also retain moisture and prevent erosion. This natural system effectively works as a water storage system.
The water remains in the ground, the plants offer a home for the fish who live in the waterways, the birds who live in the trees, the insects and the animals. All of which help to mend our planet and prevent the adverse effects of global warming.
We can divert the funds allocated to dam building into a national reforestation strategy and obtain greater storage capacity, create sustainable long term employment and simultaneously resist the onslaught of global warming.
By increasing the moisture content in the ground for longer periods assists in perpetuating rainfall, the moisture evaporating from the soil rises and forms with the overhead clouds allowing a critical point to be reached where rain falls. By developing a national reforestation plan we create employment opportunities, make our nation more drought resilient, resist the advance of global warming and provide a home for our natural fauna.
A critical aspect in this diagram may not be clearly evident. Heat will always move towards cooler regions so if the land is hotter than the oceans that`s the direction the winds will blow blocking and holding the rains off shore. The rains will only return when the opposite is true. If the land is kept cool, the rains will return.
On land plants take over and run the show. Evapotranspiration seeds the clouds carrying rains inland.
Below is a link to 6 months’ worth of NASA Satellite imaging condensed. It clearly demonstrates waters subtle attraction to itself. How plants maintain terrestrial precipitation and how in the absence of Transpiring plants or evaporation from a water body clouds do not generate.
This is why rehydration is so important. By this I mean, storing water in the soil where it falls, slowing flows back to per-drainage levels.
Return the rains while cooling the climate and reactivating a self-automated carbon draw-down system that ran perfectly prior to human intervention.
We are living on a planet that is telling us we are making it unwell. We know that by consuming greater and greater amounts of energy each day we are pouring more carbon into our atmosphere which is acting as a radiation absorb-er and a blanket that is making our environment hotter. Our ice caps are melting, the rainfall patterns are changing, the ocean currents are reacting, the development of microorganisms that can kill us are growing at an ever increasing rate (Covid-19). Our addiction to consumption has become our nemesis and as with any true addict we suffer from our greatest affliction, denial. As with any true addict we attack those who speak the truth and are concerned so as we can continue with our mindless pursuit. In this case it is the pursuit of money and power which ignores common sense, compassion, the ability to feel and to use the most valuable gift in our lives, our intellect. Any person looking at the Proposed Road Project on the Western Highway will see it is a high energy project. It will consume billions of tons of concrete, steel and ash-felt, all high energy materials and will facilitate a high energy carbon producing system, Trains use less energy than trucks and we could travel together instead of everybody sitting one person per one car? We do not stop there we continue perpetuating the sickness by removing the large old trees from the environment. The very creatures that are the foundation of the ecology of the land, they hold the moisture in the soil, they provide homes for the wildlife and shade for the small plants and yet they are known as “Fucking Bastards” not “Precious Creatures” by those people who build the dinosaurs (the roads) that have been used to invaded our land since the Romans arrived. The people who have created this insane place are not people of science, they are people of words, words that give them power, they are the lawyers. They make and create the laws we have to abide by, they administer those laws and they interpret those laws to ensure that when required they can be manipulated, subverted and if necessary ignored.
THE TRUTH IS THAT SOME PEOPLE ARE MORE EQUAL IN THE EYES OF THE LAW THAN OTHERS AND LARGE OLD TREES “THEY DO NOT EVEN COUNT.“
How to invest money into land reclamation improve the environment, save money and reduce crime. Why we need a National Reforestation Plan.
We used to produce our own consumables either at the point of consumption of within the country. These consumables were transported by lorry or by semi-trailer. The bulk transport was carried out on railway tracks. This system provided local jobs and a healthy locally owned business structure that provided benefit for the whole community.
Now we import a large percentage of our products which arrive in shipping containers that are moved around the nation on very large trucks. In the name of safety our governments have decided to invest millions of dollars in road building. A great deal of this new infrastructure requires the removal of many large old trees and creates immense damage to local etiologies for minimal benefit to the long term well being of local economies as most of the work is carried out by large corporations and only lasts the life of the project.
This change in the structure of local business, perpetuated by both of Australia`s major political parties has caused a decline in the availability of employment opportunities, particularly for many younger people who become more dependent upon welfare. One of the consequences of this malaise is the ever present threat of a growing narcotics industry and I do not mean a smoke under the gum tree. Ice Heroin and a wide selection of mind altering substances are being produced and are readily available to any vulnerable members of our community, particularly young unemployed people who live in country towns and are not actively involved in a constructive activity, IE WORK. bought about by a national reforestation strategy.
These young people become factory fodder for the criminal justice system, a highly sophisticated system that has developed within Australia over the past 230 years. It is the industry of people institutionalisation.
If you analyse the pathway to jail for a young person it is a very expensive and destructive road, for the person, for their family and for the community. It takes a lot of time and effort to process a person for a stay in jail, many interactions with the police, many interactions with social workers and programs that are ineffective and underfunded, many expensive interactions with the magistrate and the court. I would estimate that destructive pathway costs the taxpayer around $400,000 per person before they walk through the iron doors of the jail house. Once housed in the jail it costs another $100,000 per person per year. A person sentenced for a three year minimum sentence has most likely cost the tax payer $700,000 by the time of their release from prison. The problem is that the recidivism rate in Australia is about 45%, better put; a failure rate in the government provided product of criminal justice, of 45% at a cost 0f $700,000 per unit.
There were 7,666 prisoners in the Victorian prison system on 30 June 2018. This represents an increase of 81.5% on the 30 June 2008 figure of 4,223. An additional 3,443 people at $700,000 each. Approximately $2.4 billion extra which has also required the investment of another $1.8 billion to build a new prison. Note at least $1.2 billion is wasted as 42% end up going back to jail within two years of release.
The people who run the “Criminal Justice System” are the lawyers. They have a monopoly over the system with a very large sign on the castle gate that says;
“Go away peasants: All those not carrying the badge of (LLB) “Little Lying bandit” and equipped with wig and gown shall not enter.”
The small print below the sign says.
To enter the learned profession it is preferable that you attend our selected list of private schools in order to complete your degree in Arrogance prior to entering Law school. It is advisable that you attend an approved university residential college during your time at law school so as to bond with your brethren and as an added bonus you will be able to view the exam papers prior to the exams.
For those wishing to become a member of the court it is a prerequisite to have an approved learning difficulty or a defined personality disorder, we have special assistance in the form of pre-written exams to aid and assist you in achieving your dreams.
It is of course essential that this system runs this way in order to keep the lawyer elite employed and to maintain the flow through of people to the institutionalisation industry.
These people do not live in the country side they are not farmers or gardeners or involved in the plant industry. The words, ecology, environment, nature are only symbols on pieces of paper that they cannot identify with.
What if we were to spend some of the money that is going to be wasted on these large scale infrastructure projects on the social infrastructure required to run a land reclamation system? A national reforestation strategy.We will need some utes and trailers, a few quad-bikes with post hole diggers, some fertilised soil and some plant tubes, a yard some boots, ect ect but not too hard. I gather prisoners are very cheap to employ when they are in jail? The naughty ones who are on Community directions orders can come along as well and help out.
With the economic devastation wreaked by the Covid-19 pandemic upon our hospitality and tourist sectors of our economy we desperately need to create jobs in other sectors of the economy. We do not only have the wasted resource of our prison population but also all of those other people who no longer have a job and are now being kept alive by government benefits.
Utilising the prison population. Within a National Reforestation Strategy
I would suggest that at full tilt we could plant 30 trees per day per person, most prisoners are in their for drug related offenses which means there would be at least 4,000 people available to plant. At 30 units a day 4,000×30=120,000 per day = 600,000 per week, which equates to 150 million trees per year in Victoria alone.
I would bet the recidivism rates would decrease dramatically the number of people entering the criminal justice system would reduce dramatically, the damage that is currently being created by government incompetence in rural areas because of drug addiction would dramatically be reduced and a few prison guards, lawyers, and social workers would have to find a real job. Of course the shares in Sirco would drop and the politicians who support this current mess would have to go and find another street to beg on or just get out of business and let some honest people represent the communities who are crying out for good and honest government.
The Benefit cost ratio of a current road project on the Western Highway as calculated by Major Road Projects Victoria is 0.5 which means the costs will outweigh the financial benefits.
The Environmental Effects Statement on this project does not analyse the loss of any of the trees and does not take into account the damage the road will do to the ecology of the area. In other words an environmental effects statement is another lawyer trick to make it appear to the public that the environment has been considered in the appraisal, not so only the economic environment at a very limited level.
There is zero rational discussion with regards to the alternative solutions to the road and also alternative ways of spending the tax payer’s money. As stated above by allocating the funds to social projects there would be immediate benefits.
- Many people who are in jail would be learning a skill
- 150 million trees would be being planted each year in Victoria benefiting the water holding capacity of the land, bringing in more native bird life and plant diversity and improving the aesthetics of the landscape
- Provide the basis for local industry as the money now spent on the courts and incarceration would be more evenly distributed into the rural town ships.
- Reduce the numbers of young people entering the Criminal Justice system and reduce the recidivism rate.
Considering the government has outlaid at least $3.4 billion on the incarceration of people over the past ten years without any success one would think it would make sense to put the money into land reclamation projects instead of cultural destruction projects.
The Victorian Government has budgeted for $1.8 billion to build new jails.
By the way the funding for the cultural center at Halls Gap has been cut from $500,000 per year down to $200,000 per year which means all this talk about benefits to aboriginal culture, tourist opportunities, back packers as laid out in the Vic Roads Western Highway Project – Section 2: Beaufort to Ararat Economic Impact Assessment Report is just window dressing.
In Victoria, 0.8 per cent of the population is Aboriginal yet they make up 9 per cent of the prison population. The Sentencing Advisory Council found that in 2017 the rates of imprisonment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders was 1,833.9 per 100,000 adults compared with 145.4 for all Victorians.
The down stream benefits of a National Reforestation Strategy.
Apart from producing long term sustainable employment for many Australian people who live in rural areas and providing work and training for our prison population and many others who are caught up by the costly and destructive criminal justice system we can develop an Australian wide industry in plant and seed propagation through a National Reforestation Strategy. Our plants are unique, drought resistant beautiful and hardy, they will grow in places where there is extremely low rain fall without the need for large amounts of rainfall and can be used in many parts of the world to resist the advance of desserts. By having a National Reforestation program we will get to better understand how to create and develop natural ecologies with a suitable mix of species of plant. We are very fortunate in Australia to have a wide and diverse landscape, we have plants that will grow in all conditions, by the coast line where salt content is extreme in the dessert where their is very little rainfall, in mountains where it snows, in the tropics under monsoon conditions, all it takes is a national reforestation plan to create an industry that will end up befitting ourselves and the whole of the planet.
If we were to divert the rivers of money now being directed to redundant and wasteful road building projects and away from the buckets now being poured into the people who have not got a job because of the impact of Covid-19 virus without any long term plan into a National Reforestation Strategy we could create a new way of living help the planet and also have a sustainable industry for our communities. Otherwise known as “Flower Power.”
It is time to rebuild our economy with Community Collaboration
The laissez faire ideology run by a neoliberalism agenda emanating from the nine separate parliaments of Australia has allowed our politicians and our major political parties to obfuscate their responsibility to the families of Australia to plan for the future. This failure to plan and to ensure the judicial system conforms to a set of quality standards underpinned by principles that respect our families and our communities has sown the seeds of corruption. Those seeds have grown into a cultural plague which requires an urgent irradiation program otherwise they will destroy this nation. Begin today and pull a weed and become part of the community collaborators.
We are seeing announcements in the media about various state government economic stimulus packages particularly in infrastructure spending in the construction industry such as the building of new dams to drought proof the land, new projects such as the $16 billion North East Link project in Melbourne.
Unfortunately in Australia over the past five years we may have spent only $1 Billion dollars on planting trees. We need to come together during this economic crisis created by Co-vid 19 and develop an intelligent reforestation program that will employ many thousands of people, strengthen our horticultural industries and add a much needed stimulus to our regional areas whilst at the same time improving our ability to store water and begin to heal our environment.
Imagine if we spent Ten Billion Dollars a year on planting and caring for trees instead of wasting it on policing weapons and social welfare.
If we were to spend $10 billion a year planting and maintaining trees we could employ 200,000 people. At 20 trees per day per person we could plant and maintain half a billion trees per year. We could with Australian innovation develop the worlds best reforestation program.
The net gains would be:
The wages earned would be spent in regional areas which would boost the local economies.
The productivity of the land would increase with the ability to prevent erosion and increase the water holding capacity of the ground.
Wild life and bird life would flourish.
Other associated flow on industries such as tourism small scale value added business particularly within horticulture would benefit.
Crime rates would drop which would drop the cost of law enforcement.
People would be a lot more happier as they would have a purpose and would be far less inclined to become involved in overindulging in harmful substances and we could enjoy a positive space for our families to live in.
