Stories of the Oldfield River Some of the landholders were carrying out 'landcare' long before the phrase was coined. They worked mainly in isolation without outside financial support. A few joined together to form small catchment groups but still they were without financial help. In 1997 the Oldfield Catchment Group was formed and thus began the period of cooperation on a larger catchment scale.

"Well Charlie was an early one for doing that [landcare] because we had five creeks on our farm. We had a bank manager that come out and said, 'Eh, this needs clearing, that needs clearing'. Charlie said, 'That's on top of a hill'. I was there and I said, 'We didn't clear because on top of the hill there's huge rocks'. We cleared the first lot, we went straight through, cleared the creeks and spent most of the rest of the time farming trying to get them back again. And the rest of the farm, well he had huge wide trees on the creek. We had more trees, in fact the Doctor, Gillian Craig, said we won hands down, (laughs) specially because we didn't plant a great deal of pine trees (laughter). They always growled at us about the amount of trees and scrub we left behind. They all said, 'Ahh your farm, just look at all those trees'. They were used to open spaces, ploughing, cropping. We had trees.

We never thought about it until Gillian come along and started talking about it. We said, 'Oh well, it's only common sense that we do it'. The program was still well under way, [although] I think it was well overdue on time. With having so much land we really didn't get back to the old country ,til well later because we [had] all this new land that we were fencing all the time. We also went back to our boundary fence again, to do the boundary fence, 'cause we're so close to the coast and the wire would get rusted out. We were very much one of the founders of that type of doing it. I despaired with a chappie that was leasing a property, which was [above us]. He ploughed and he cropped it 'til one year we just went over there and it just looked like the place was just rocks, just little pebbles. This wonderful land was just devastated, gullies and things etcetera... break your heart. We said we'd never ever lease anything to anybody, we'd always sell. Unless you own it you don't care for it.

I noticed when they were putting a ban on clearing, everybody got in and cleared as much as they could. Then every seven years the photos get taken of the country and they waited ,til these photos were taken and then they just went and wiped out all these patches that they had left behind. They got their grants and they'd alienate and cleared it more again. Then I noticed when I drove out not long ago there was trees growing (laughs) and I thought, ahh ha I told you. Now you've got all the expense of growing trees when you could have had the natural scrub and everything else there."
Elvie Scadding

"I actually initiated the Oldfield Landcare Group. There were several groups in this region that were undertaking landcare works. Because we weren't obtaining funding I thought it was a good idea if we looked at joining together to become more of a larger group because we all had a common focus; we all ultimately drained into the Oldfield River. I spoke to the groups and asked them their thoughts on that and worked with them in trying to decide how we would work out what our Oldfield Group would encompass and what the names of the groups would be and how they would work together. I didn't want to take away anyone's identity, the ones that were already formed. It worked out really quite well; we worked with the groups and came up with a common idea about how the group could be formed. And we went from there; we actually divided up into four main groups north and south of the [road] and east and west of the Oldfield River.

The work that Dr Gill Craig did with the study where she involved every farmer and presented a catchment report which covered all the areas of all the farms. Most people have read it cover to cover and their awareness has certainly been raised. And I think it's an ongoing process, people do realise that if their creeklines become salty that it does affect the river. The fact that each walk we've had (we've had a couple of walks along the river) and different people have been each time and people are more aware all the time of what we've actually got there, what pristine condition a lot of our river is in. So they have become more aware and realise the need more to keep it in good condition. One of the observations made by Dr. Craig in her catchment report was that the salinity is rising in the tributaries, at the extremities of the tributaries. When we came here in 1979 there was one particular paddock that was partly cleared, not fully cleared, we cleared the stumps and the bush that was left in it and we began cropping it. About ten years ago we noticed that some of the trees in the bottom of the tributary were starting to die. It went ahead very quickly, the salt scald grew bigger, and in about 1994 I decided that I had to do something because the scald was really quite bad and the trees were still dying.

I started with casuarinas, just planting them well above the salt scald. The children at the school [Munglinup Primary School] came and planted trees there and we talked about various problems with salt and salinity. The next year they came again and we planted more trees. We planted paperbarks along the creekline. The third year they also came and they observed the trees that they had planted, they looked at what happens when it's fenced out, how the sheep eat the young shoots from the bottom of the trees. They actually grew trees themselves at school and planted those trees along the creekline. They didn't come for a couple of years but they came out again this year and some of the children could even remember the names of the trees that they'd planted.

I think initially it's a monetary thing in a way and it comes like this with a lot of people. If you don't do anything you have a degradation that grows enormously. Some people think that it's cheaper to let the degradation go and just buy another farm. I've heard this mentioned more than once and I really don't agree with that. But if you can contain a problem you have and lessen your problem you've got to be more viable. But it's not only that and I think that the awareness of where this water goes and where there's salt, erosion, all these things, they end up in the river. So if we look after our land we're also looking after the river and I think with the landcare group being established people are much more aware of the river and what it really does have to offer because it really is very pristine. And I think people are more and more beginning to realise this and I think its an ongoing process and that's what it's all about, ultimately we're protecting the health of the river.

Well I think we are really lucky because when you walk the river you can see how really pristine it is. We have 35% of our catchment in vacant crown land, which has never been cleared. We have 35% of vegetation within the cleared farming land, which is made up of reserves, and farmer uncleared vegetation. So we have in fact almost 70% of the Oldfield catchment that is in bush, in vegetation. There are problems gradually coming in which has happened because the land's only been cleared for thirty or forty years. We could have, without a lot of work, a very stable situation. My view is that it's very important to have sustainability as well as conservation. I just think that we could do that here without a lot of work and farms could continue to be profitable, and that's what it's all about."
Ruth Kirchner

"All the floodways on the property are fenced off and bushed so that the water has to run through some vegetation so it's absorbed. That's the main thing that I've done. Then to get the water into these drainage ways we put contour drains, like herringbones, they bring the water back along the contour, across the hillside back into these drainage ways.

I was fortunate when I started [because] having worked on all these properties as I did I could see trouble starting. Because we went round all these river valleys and we cleared them to within fifty metres of the water I could see that was far too close to them. So I could see that really that's what we should do here, we should leave more room. So when we put in our contour drains, [to] make sure the water comes right back and goes into the trees and then, well it filters it out and makes it better.

We only have a tributary [of the Munglinup River], it comes across the road and comes right down through. Now that tributary, we'd have at least forty hectares of trees on that, which completely soaks the water up and it flows out of our property. There's a little bit of salt where it goes through the boundary but it's all paperbarks and tussock grass, there's no actual scald, you won't see a scald there. I think that's the way it should be done. I can honestly say we have no salt on the place at all."
Don MacKenzie

"I'd like to see all these tributaries revegetated. I think it's great that now most people are aware of how much damage has happened through farming. The Oldfield River itself is in very good order but the tributaries are not very good I would say. But with a bit of effort, fencing and revegetation they should come back. I'd say probably ninety percent of the tributaries are degraded and you can find salt patches on them. But I think they will come back with time and effort."
Richard Field

"The contours virtually we put in when we first got the place because there was so much erosion on the steeper country. We had to just to be able to farm it basically. It had just been put down to crop or pasture by the original owner, and there was a lot of erosion across the paddocks. Not that there was a huge amount cleared but what was quite a mess.

The creeks, which were cleared on parts of the farm which we bought, we are now fencing off because there's no small trees coming on and all the smaller bush in amongst the trees, the sheep have eaten them all out. You don't tend to notice it until suddenly you find that you can see from one side to the other. Even if it's a hundred yards wide in parts you don't realise how much the sheep do as far as damage is concerned. We're steadily fencing it out, and planting trees and just working along well aware that there is potential they could go salty. We only started probably four or five years ago on the fencing."
Tom Walker

"I really regret not having a farm on the river. We have a couple of creeklines but they're tributaries of the Oldfield, they're not part of the main river. But I enjoy those places. One's got a lot of granite rock on it and water runs down there quite regularly. There are sandalwood trees there and moss grows in the winter and ferns and sheoaks, so it's really quite beautiful down there. The other place is another tributary, which I've been revegetating, and I get a lot of pleasure in seeing what's growing, seeing what's come back and walking through the tributary as such."
Ruth Kirchner

"Ultimately [I'd like] to get all these creeklines fenced off and deal with any of the problems that are emerging then. And then I suppose try and be as involved in the overall catchment to try and make sure that continues. It's something that I think we're working away at and we've done a pretty good job so far. There's a couple of applications in that will deal with those things. I think we've got a good future if everybody gets on the bandwagon. Unfortunately the old saying though 'you've got to be in the black to be green' really (laughs). And that's the big thing I think that really needs addressing is the financial side of it. If there was some incentive for farmers to fence off other than just protecting the bush, because a lot of them don't see it like that if they've got huge overdrafts and huge debt structures. I think it needs to be something in the way of a taxation thing that maybe would help. Definitely needs addressing though and there would be a lot more people doing more about it and we wouldn't have the problems we've got."
Sue Marshall

"Where we had a problem with rising water table or salinity encroaching onto the creeklines that feed into the river system, we have fenced out the creeklines and revegetated. Or we have fenced out and just stabilised the waterway so that there's no further erosion. Where there is remnant vegetation left close to the river we have fenced it off so that some natural revegetation takes place there. That's mainly what we've done. There's a huge number of people out there that are willing to help you or work with you. So everything is out there, it is just having the time to deal with everything. From the farmer's point of view, there's not always the need for everything that is offered out there, to incorporate that in your planning for your catchment. Because we are not so degraded here in this area we don't have the need, like in some areas, of recovery teams coming in and you have to have so many hectares of revegetation and you have to do this and that. Well there is need for that but it's not as urgent so you have to have a different approach to it. Whilst the alarm bells should be going off everywhere it's not clear to every landholder that he might be losing something. Either at the back of his farm or maybe what he is doing is detrimental to his neighbour because it just hasn't sunk in yet. Everything still looks all ok. That is a challenge. There are some farmers that are very committed and some farmers that can see that they ought to change or that they have to change and have to include some sort of perennial farming system or trees on their farm. But there are also others that say 'Oh well it's not for me'.

I do hope that we can preserve the river like it is now. I think if we can manage it would be such a wonderful example to the rest of the state. What you can do if you get in early enough. If you've got a chance to stop rising water tables and salinity and if you give those people that live on the land there a bit of support and guidance in achieving that. That would be my vision for this.

If we can keep the reserve and learn more about it too. Since being involved with the landcare group it's something that always staggers me, how little I know about this. But then I always have the excuse I wasn't born here, I didn't know this country before. But then also how little everyone else knows, it just staggers me. About the plants the animals, their requirements, I don't know anything. It would be great if we could start there, also with the school and do something. I'd like to see the community see their river and their reserves as an asset and not as a liability. Which they are, unfortunately, sometimes, because of the problems associated with some of the reserves. They harbour all the rabbits and they can be a fire hazard. We need to learn a lot more, we need to have more understanding about this. I think we have a chance to maybe get it right."
Brigitte Wallefeld