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Men of the Trees and the Gardening Process

© John Bottomley

One of the biggest problems in the countryside in Western Australia is 'salinity'.

City people, in partnership with country people, have been asked to help in a scheme that will grow and plant more trees on more farms in Western Australia. The scheme is organised and administered by The Men of the Trees, an organisation founded in Kenya on July 22 1922 by Richard St Barbe Baker, a forestry officer.

Men of the Trees are in many countries including every mainland state of Australia. In Western Australia the Society has over 1200 volunteers who collectively plant a third of a million trees in the season. The volunteers in Western Australia dedicate their efforts to preventing the land in Western Australia from becoming a desert and saving the wheatbelt from wind erosion and salt by planting masses of trees.

I thought it might be a good idea to become involved in helping to keep the farming land free from salt. Apparently Western Australia is losing 100,000 hectares annually to salt. The outbreak of salt can be attributed to the clearing of perennial vegetation that has lead to the rise of the water table and the emergence of salt at the surface where it concentrates and kills off plant matter.

One of the interesting pieces of information was the rate at which the salinity spreads. Apparently every minute of every day, half an acre of land becomes lost to salinity. As my garden covers approximately half an acre, it is quite easy for me to visualise what sort of a problem exists in the state in which I live.

The philosophy of Men of the Trees is that we all carry a share of the responsibility to put things right. Farmers have been aware of the threat of salinity for a long time but successive governments and lending institutions have ignored the problems and advocated clearing more land.

Having heard a talk by a member of the organisation I thought it would be a good idea to use some of the space in my garden to help grow trees for what is called the Farm Tree Help Scheme. Through the scheme I will be matched to a farming family (or I can nominate a farmer I already know), raise 300 or 600 seedlings in my backyard then, in winter, take my seedlings to the farm and help plant them.

My garden is big enough to do this and I thought I might also become a member of the organisation.

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