Snowy cattlemen and conservationists face off

File photo / Thinkstock

Cattlemen in the Snowy Mountains are circling their wagons to face down another bid by the federal Government and conservationists to turn herds out of the Alpine National Park.

They have only been allowed back since the start of the year - and to bring a mere 400 head with them - following the former State Labor Government's decision to ban grazing there five years ago.

Now newly-elected Premier Ted Ballieu's Coalition Government has approved a six-year research programme to determine if grazing can lower the risk of bushfires devastating the high country, as they have twice in the past decade.

The two biggest, in 2003 and 2006, each consumed more than 10,000ha of fragile bushland, including endangered species that have become a battleground for opposing forces.

But this is more than just another environmental dispute.

On one side are the high country and its cattlemen, who have been running herds in the Snowies for more than 170 years and have become lodged in Australian mythology.

The opening lines Banjo Patterson's Man from Snowy River are possibly Australia's most iconic:

There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around

That the colt from old Regret had got away...

Opposing them are conservationists and a federal Government that believes the cattlemen have been allowed back only as a payback for political favours during last year's state election.

It is now considering the use of constitutional powers to overturn the decision.

Cattlemen and conservationists have been facing off since the 1960s, waging a bitter battle until the State Government agreed in 1989 to allow cattlemen renewable, seven-year grazing leases in return for the creation of a national park.

About 60 licences were issued to allow 7900 cattle to graze in the park, with about 10,000 more able to graze nearby state forest.

But as concern grew over the impact of cattle on water, soil and rare and threatened plants, the then-Labor Government set up an alpine grazing taskforce in May 2004: within a year, cattle were banned from the park.

The task force had considered bushfires, but a scientific study after the 2003 fires had concluded there had been no statistically significant differences in damage between grazed and ungrazed areas, and that the use of livestock to lower fire risk could not be justified on scientific grounds.

Victorian Environment Minister Ryan Smith disputes the finding.

He said there were important gaps in the study, including key variables known to influence fire behaviour, such as fuel load and structure, topography and weather.

Smith has commissioned another study by University of Sydney Professor Mark Adams, the head of the high fire project for the Bushfire Co-operative Research Centre.

Smith has promised the study will be peer-reviewed, made public, and used as a basis for a final decision on the future of grazing in the park.

Cattlemen are backing Smith to the hilt.

"In 2005 the Labor Government kicked us out of the park for short-term political gain," Mountain Cattlemen's Association Mark Coleman said.

"This new Government is to be congratulated for having the courage to revisit that very bad decision and to accept in principle what the association has been saying about grazing and fuel reduction for more than 50 years."

The association, some of whose members can trace their alpine roots back to 1834 - others were extras in the 1982 movie based on Patterson's poem - believes everyone will suffer if they are again ordered from the park.

"The taking of the alpine leases in 2005 means the intimate knowledge of the land, the culture and living Australian heritage of the Mountain Cattlemen is in grave danger of being lost to Australia forever," Coleman said.

Under Smith's plan, the 400 cattle now returned to the park will remain until the grazing season closes at the end of April, and will be used to shape research for the next five years.

But federal Environment Minister Tony Burke is furious at the decision, has demanded Victoria present scientific evidence justifying the research within two weeks, and is investigating whether the state's action breaches federal law.

"Australia's been having an argument internationally with Japan for a long time now about so-called scientific whaling," he told ABC TV.

"I never thought we'd be in a situation where we were dealing with a state government about so-called scientific grazing."

During a visit to the park Burke said in the six weeks since cattle moved back, the park had been damaged extensively.

In federal parliament, Greens MP Adam Bandt has introduced a bill to ban what he described as "environmental vandalism".