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Honours project demonstrates value of tree planting for biodiversity

December 14, 2005

roth_smith_span.jpgA study by an Honours student at The University of New England has given scientific status to the popular understanding that planting trees and shrubs on cotton farms increases the local diversity of animals and plants.

Rhiannon Smith’s three-month study in the Namoi Valley revealed that the planting of trees on cleared agricultural land had the potential to double the number of fauna species living and feeding there. “The number of bird species increased by an average of four,” she said, “but some planted areas had twice as many bird species as adjacent cleared agricultural land.”

Ms Smith, who comes from a Narrabri family, won a Summer Scholarship from the Cotton Catchment Communities Cooperative Research Centre (Cotton CRC) to carry out her research at the beginning of 2005 – the final year of her Bachelor of Natural Resources (Honours) degree program at UNE. (She is pictured here, at centre, with the Chief Executive Officer of the Cotton CRC, Guy Roth, and the Community Support Officer from the Narrabri office of the Namoi Catchment Management Authority, Stacey Spanswick.)

“Declining biodiversity is a key environmental concern worldwide,” she explained. “In Australia, it is attributed to an inability to integrate the preservation of biodiversity into agricultural practice. The planting of trees and shrubs on cotton farms in the Namoi Valley is an attempt to address this problem. The success of such plantings in conserving biodiversity, however, is anecdotal and not well documented.”

“This project quantified the potential for tree plantings on cotton farms to contribute to biodiversity conservation and provided recommendations for maximising that potential,” she continued.

Her survey of flora and fauna in plantings of trees and shrubs on five Namoi Valley cotton farms included birds, invertebrates (such as insects), and herbaceous plants. She found, among other things, that the number of herbaceous plant species increased by an average of three under tree cover, and that planting trees – particularly Acacia species – significantly increased the abundance of invertebrates.

“The study showed that revegetation activities on cotton farms have the potential to contribute to biodiversity conservation in the Namoi Valley,” Ms Smith concluded.


Media contact: Associate Professor Nick Reid, School of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resources Management, UNE (02) 6773 2759 or Guy Roth, Chief Executive Officer, Cotton CRC, Narrabri (02) 6799 1500.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at December 14, 2005 04:34 PM