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Media release by Peter Andrews OAM, 15 December 2018  The simple facts that explain why Australia can be a world leader in regeneration of climate and landscape function are as follows:
Ancient and current state of Australian landscape processes and functions The ancient Australian landscape was automatically powered by sunlight, gravity and some capillary action. It has been extensively demonstrated that recognising the skeleton of the landscape could take us back to that ancient condition. This would support all forms of agriculture at minimum cost, because this previous process was automatic. The plants of ancient Australia evolved a sedimentary pattern that prevented erosion and allowed an unlimited maximum of flooding waters in the evolution of the sediments, which recharged massive underground water systems. This allowed plants to work at 100% efficiency. We should be aware that the initial professional opinions that first observed this land declared that there would be an inland sea - and there is! It is in the ground. Our great inland sea is actually the Artesian Basin, along with its many superficial water bodies. 94% of our land had wetlands that could manage the same thermal energies as a rainforest. Water bodies feed plants to allow them to function at their highest level of efficiency, therefore having ability to manage climate and thermal extremes. Today, 94% of our wetlands have been drained, with close to 80% loss of previous water volume. They no longer function as they once did, and less than 3% of our rainforests remain. All landscapes age! Australia being the oldest landscape on Earth had used plants to slow down the ageing process, so it was able to rebirth itself to become many times older than many other parts of the world. The ancient Australian landscape functions and processes were infallible. They had the adaptive mechanisms available to allow incredible megafauna to thrive. These same processes also evolved the singing birds, the flowering plants, two thirds of the fish species and created the capacity for the human body to achieve its current complexity. All of these components are related. Australia is the comeback king of desertification with the real potential of reinstating deserts back to productive tracts of land. We need to understand plants by their function, because there are many new impositions now that are impacting the natural plants on this continent. Furthermore, the way the Australian landscape managed its fertility and climate was most cost effective as it operated on nothing but energies from the sun and gravity. The points above, when understood and applied, can truly transform all current agricultural applications. The blueprint of the old Australian landscape is the greatest opportunity ever. Australia’s land managers absolutely can lead the world in climate recovery. We have no more time to procrastinate! Peter Andrews OAM peterandrewsOAM@gmail.com www.peterandrewsOAM.com
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Peter Andrews, 27 November 2018  Previous ecological civilisations and current gardeners who use mulch-farming are the most efficient producers. For example, if our biological asset was a trillion dollars, we could double it in one year while reducing costs.
Solar-powered plants that work 24/7 manufacture food and scrub the atmosphere of CO2, releasing oxygen, purifying water, filtering biological production from being lost to the sea while modifying (climate) thermal energies. Demonstrations of the above are available for assessment by the most rigorous scientific analysis. Plants made the landmass habitable; a quarter has been reduced to desert by human activity and animals. 80% of water has been drained from the land, trillions of tons of sediment returned to the sea. The Australian continent was once an example of optimal landscape function. A skeleton still remains of how solar-powered plants evolved all the above efficiencies. Our wold leaders are ignoring this at their own peril.  These extreme climate events that are happening all around the world right now are only helping us to sit up and take a bit more notice of what should be obvious.
The Australian landscape science is clearly showing us how we can recreate an automated agricultural production system that generates the highest possible outputs at the lowest costs imaginable, and thus presents to us all, the greatest opportunity ever.
These simple facts have been shown to support rainforests from the tip of the north to the bottom of the south, with effective plant coverage right across the landmass, supporting the most diverse megafauna the planet has ever seen prior to human interventions. The Australian landscape science guarantees that when we apply its principles and follow its laws, then plants can function at the maximum level of efficiency, which is called Field Capacity. Plants manage a perfect climate for us to live in and this is the greatest opportunity that is available for us to recreate today. I’m not the inventor of these things, I’m merely an observer of a scientific process, that all Australians can take advantage of!  What people need to remember is that the old explorers used to find islands and land by spotting the cloud formations above them. But when the land gets too hot, the clouds form over sea.
The evaporating surface of a well-vegetated landscape can be 10-20 times greater than that over the sea, because the sea is only evaporating at the surface layer. In a rain event on well-vegetated landscape, 70 percent of the water that comes down has been through a plant. These are all tested and proven measurable scientific facts. The next thing is the expansion rate of water as it is evaporated by plants and it gets the transpiration and the cooling of photosynthesis. That requires a lot of water to cool it. So, collectively, the land gets loaded with this huge gaseous water vapour which, as soon as the sun goes down, shrinks, and draws the evaporated water off the sea onto the land. A Russian group of scientists have called it the “biotic pump”. (1) From extensive science, 14 groups came together with this information and produced a book called “The International Journal of Water” which was fully peer-reviewed. (2) Australia has the longest hours of sunlight, previously the greatest range of plant species that worked generally 24/7. Therefore, it has a second to none chance, as the Ancient Australia had proven to do, to manage climate at the highest level. 1. See “The Biotic Pump: Condensation, atmospheric dynamics and climate” by Anastassia M. Makarieva, Victor G. Gorshkov, Int. J. of Water, 2010 Vol.5, No.4 2. See “Special Issue on Water and the Complexities of Climate", International Journal of Water, 2010 Vol. 5 No. 4, Guest Editor: Associate Professor Ariel Salleh  During my childhood and adolescence near Broken Hill, I experienced fires, floods, dust storms and drought at first hand. In adulthood, it dawned upon me that our Australian landscape might have lessons for the entire world to learn. I began to understand that the extremes of the Australian climate demanded a special kind of recovery mechanism dependent on a number of interrelated factors:
 The ruins of human civilisations in every climate zone of the planet indicate a failure by our forebears to utilize basic landscape and climate functions. More of the same or similar is therefore not an option.
The Australian landscape has been naturally subjected to river flow loss and subsequent plant destruction, resulting in climate collapse that would normally be associated with human activity. After a number of cycles of collapse, plant biodiversity built an ecosystem which allowed the development of mega-fauna in Australia. Once again human intervention (Aborigines) brought about climate change and the loss of the mega-fauna. Subsequently, the landscape went from an era of growth to one of slow decay.  Australian businesses will need to pay an estimated $65 billion to purchase international Carbon Credits. This cost will inevitably be passed on to consumers in increased prices for goods and services.
Scientists know that actively growing vegetation will absorb CO2, nitrogen and water vapour from the atmosphere and release O2 as a by-product. Using plants to manage water could turn this $65 billion deficit into $180 billion in credits to our economy and our environment over 3 years. This information can be demonstrated but not modelled on a computer. |
AuthorPeter Andrews OAM, Australian landscape repair specialist, grazier and race horse breeder Archives
December 2021
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