A Queensland cattle producer is bucking the stereotype that farming and forests don't mix by and embarking on a project to revegetate her property.
Melinee Leather's property, near Banana in central Queensland, looks like countless others across the state but she has a plan to transform it by reintroducing native trees.
The cattle producer has partnered with Fitzroy Basin Association (FBA) to plant a tree corridor spanning 10 hectares with 12 different species.
"We want to increase the biodiversity of our flora and fauna species on property," Ms Leather said.
"We're also wanting to make sure that we can provide shade for our cattle in the future."
Ms Leather said that once grown, the roughly 30-per-cent tree cover in the paddocks that have been planted would give them optimum productivity for their cattle.
The planting is part of a wider project with FBA, which is working with four landholders to plant 30 hectares of forest on agricultural land.
"The idea is that we're just using a small amount of area at the moment," senior project officer Hannah Kaluzynski said.
"By learning the lessons of the do's and don't's, and what to plant and how challenging it can be, we're going to be able to scale that up to the region.
"Native trees provide a number of benefits from increasing habitat and biodiversity; to stabilising soil; and acting and improving resilience to climate change by sequestering carbon; but also improving the cattle production."
Tree species are selected by botanists and are based on what would naturally occur at each of the chosen properties.
Tree clearing in Queensland
In 2018, the Queensland government strengthened legislation to crack down on tree clearing on farming properties.
Landholders argued that clearing allowed them to better create fire breaks, feed cattle during droughts and improve grass cover.
Late last year the annual Statewide Landcover and Trees Study that showed tree clearing in 2019–20 had fallen nearly 40 per cent over the previous year.
WWF conservation scientist Stuart Blanch said that while promising, it was still not enough.
"There's some very good progress, but we still have 418,000 hectares of land clearing in 2019–20," Dr Blanch said.
"The vegetation management act in Queensland allows for a lot of clearing because it's exempt."
While Dr Blanch says he wants to see the legislation tightened further, he says reforesting projects such as the FBA's is encouraging.
"I think they're great and they're happening all around Australia, and in many parts of the world, to a greater or lesser extent," he said.
"We need to do more of that."
Environmental challenges
Planting trees in central Queensland does not come without its challenges.
The first round of planting on Ms Leather's property suffered a 50-per-cent loss due to climate and animal predation.
"It was extremely hot and dry when we did that planting, and we were trying to water and keep things going," she said.
"We learned that we had to plant them maybe a little bit deeper, with a bit of well around them.
"We also had to use a really good mulch, and we needed a very robust tree guard."
FBA has received a share of $11 million in state government funding over two years to expand the program.
"Rather than just planting trees back, we're also going to be looking at some assisted regrowth methods," Ms Kaluzynski said.
"By isolating areas from cattle, what actually can come back from the seed bank and what already might exist in the property."
At Coonabar station near Rolleston in central Queensland, grazier Cameron Gibson has been incorporating native trees into his property for decades.
Unlike Ms Leather, he's not planted anything but rather let the trees regrow in a controlled manner.
"Having a diverse ecosystem helps your property through different times, whether it's through the wet times or through the dry times," he said.
"It is very profitable at the same token, too. There's a lot of management and time and energy that goes into it."
Decades of work
Coonabar is located in the Brigalow Belt which runs from northern Queensland into New South Wales.
The Brigalow ecological community is listed as nationally endangered as it's declined to just 10 per cent of its former area.
Mr Gibson's family bought the property in 1988 and in 10 years they had transformed by allowing the native acacia trees to regrow as well as introducing a time-controlled grazing system.
The family has employed a system where cattle feed in a paddock for 24 hours before being rotated to another, which is then left to regrow for 32 days before cattle are put back in it.
"You still have a system where your country is being rested and fresh feed is growing [for] your cattle, whether it's 100 head or 3,500 head," Mr Gibson said.
While landholders involved in the program will see some initial results from their plantings, it'll be decades before the trees are fully grown and the corridors are complete.
FBA has hailed Mr Gibson's property as a success story of incorporating native trees into an agricultural production system.
Ms Leather said at her property, the Queensland Herbarium has recorded baseline data to measure the project's success.
"There's all sorts of little marsupials, a lot of different bird varieties, reptiles and spiders," she said.
"It'd be nice within the three to five-year time frame that we'd start to see some differences."
