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MISCELLANEOUS PUBLICATION 1271, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



State forest lands, or of the lands administered 

 by the Bureau of Land Management. This is pos- 

 sibly a reason for the lack, in Australia, of any 

 strong Federal or State agencies for rangeland 

 research and management. It also means that 

 management of the rangelands is largely the 

 prerogative of the individual leaseholders, for 

 whom no training facilities are available in Aus- 

 tralia. Everywhere management strategies de- 

 signed from research results will have to be ex- 

 tended to individuals; nowhere are they applied 

 directly by government agencies. 



The rangelands are administered by the 

 Lands Department of each State and the North- 

 ern Territory. Legislative provisions against 

 overstocking and degeneration of leases exist in 

 each State, the penalty for nonobservance gen- 

 erally being forfeiture of the lease. However, 

 the means for applying the legislation, that is, 

 range monitoring services and range condition 

 and trend standards, are nonexistent. Under the 

 Australian land tenure system, individual flocks 

 and herds graze vear-long within the confines 

 of individual stations; there are no summer or 

 winter leases. Similarly, nomadism is precluded 

 by the lack of common land, although stock 

 routes are used to a certain extent for a similar 

 purpose. 



Economics 



The main features relevant to the application 

 of management strategies is the very extensive 

 nature of the grazing enterprises. Large sta- 

 tions with large flocks and herds are operated 

 with low capital and low labor inputs. Returns 

 per unit area are extremely low, returns per 

 animal are low, but, until recently, returns to 

 capital and labor have both been high in both 

 the sheep and cattle industries. In recent years, 

 depressed prices for wool and rising costs have 

 reduced the profitability of the sheep industry, 

 and many stations, particularly smaller ones, are 

 facing financial problems. Some amalgamation 

 of properties, itself a management strategy, is 

 inevitable. 



The important point is that profitability has 

 in the past depended on low capital and low la- 

 bor. Any management strategies which increase 

 capital or labor inputs, without more-than-com- 



mensurate increases in productivity, are im- 

 practicable. 



Animals 



Broadly speaking, sheep are grazed in the 

 south and cattle in the north, although in re- 

 cent years there has been a tendency for sheep* 

 properties to also carry some cattle or, in some 

 cases, to convert entirely to cattle. Under the 

 extensive S} r stem described earlier, the cattle and 

 sheep are able to range widely in large paddocks. 

 If these paddocks contain several plant com- 

 munities, the stock are free to select the areas 

 they graze at any time, thus complicating man- 

 agement strategies. 



Domestic stock are not the only herbivores 

 supported on the rangelands. Introduced rab- 

 bits occur in the south, and reach plague propor- 

 tions at times. Kangaroos and other marsupials 

 are widespread. In many areas, termites possibly 

 account for as much as half of the animal bio- 

 mass and grass consumption. Other invertebrates, 

 such as grasshoppers and caterpillars, can be im- 

 portant at times. All these animals must be con- 

 sidered in devising and applying management 

 strategies. For example, resting areas from do- 

 mestic stock may have little effect if rabbits are 

 not controlled. In another example (from south- 

 ern Queensland), the increased grass production 

 following destruction of mulga trees caused a 

 buildup of grass-eating termites, the end result 

 being a bare area almost completely covered 

 with termite nests (34)- The inference from this 

 example is that the mulga-grass-termite-sheep 

 system was stable but the grass-termite-sheep 

 system was self-destructive, at least in this par- 

 ticular area. 



Management Tools 



The management tools available in the United 

 States are also available in Australia, but there 

 will be differences between the two countries as 

 to the practicability of applying them and the 

 results obtained. The methods include burning, 

 chemical sprays, mechanical treatments, and 

 grazing management. 



Essentially rangeland grazing enterprises are 

 climate/land/plant/animal systems, and it is de- 

 sirable that their future stability and produc- 



