Australian Horse Alliance

”Horses are our Heritage”

 

 

Horse Riders are Misrepresented

Are horse riders a bunch of rednecks who are slow to get the environmental message? Or are we a bunch of selfish individuals who just don’t care? The general public might think this if they believe what they read in unsympathetic newspaper articles and National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) Plans of Management (PoM). Statements in the PoMs like “scientific studies show that horses disperse weeds” or “horses damage trails and cause erosion” are biased statements designed to support unjustified management decisions.

 

Horse riders have no desire to see the bushland we love to ride through destroyed. We recognise that over the last three decades environmentalists and Greens have done a tremendous job in exposing habitat destruction, loss of biodiversity, species extinctions and other important concerns. We accept that many of these issues have a direct bearing on the survival of life on Earth. We want to cooperate with reasonable environmentalists to ensure that our impacts remain within sustainable levels. Our dispute is with those Greens at the extreme end of the movement who are determined, on principle, to prevent horse riders from accessing the public reserve system.

 

Green Politics

As well as thoughtful Greens, there are Green ideologues. These people have an unalterable vision of what they think the environment should be and direct all their efforts to achieving this goal. Divergent views are summarily dismissed even when there is supporting evidence for these views. In a way, it’s understandable why the extreme Greens are like this. For three decades they have been opposed by economic rationalists many of whom care only for money and haven’t picked up the environment message at all. Nothing spawns bigotry and ideological posturing more than opposing bigotry and posturing. It’s been difficult for the Greens. They have been pressed into adopting a hard line.

 

The Greens have learned to block the tactics of their opponents. They have become very adept at this. In three decades they have gone from nowhere to the point where they now exercise influence in Australian politics. Their protests can impact on commercial activity perceived by them to be environmentally damaging. They have enough support to get a few members in the upper houses of  some Australian parliaments. Their preferences in lower house electorates are sufficient to determine the outcome in some areas where the major parties are closely balanced. If the major parties want to gain power they can’t afford to dismiss the Greens. They are forced to deal.

 

Horse riders are collateral damage in this political struggle. Extreme Greens have taken a strong anti-horse position. Any Government which feels it cannot give the Greens what they want in one area can always do a deal which locks out horse riding in another area to placate these Greens. We believe that it is this kind of politics that is influencing the Management of NPWS.

 

Why are Horse Riders being Scapegoated?

The real reasons for Greens’ anti-horse sentiments are unclear. One can only speculate. Here are a few possibilities that offer food for thought.

1.      Horse riders are perceived to be silvertails so the politics of envy enters into it. In truth, most horse riders fall into the average Australian economic group. We’re just ordinary people who enjoy horse riding and visiting our Australian bush heritage.

2.      In many parts of the world, including Australia, mounted police have been used to break up Greens’ demonstrations. As a psychological consequence, an association has been established in the subconscious minds of some Greens between horse riders and right wing authoritarianism.

3.      A strict ideological bias drives those in control of Green groups. As with other ideologies, the Green ideology is characterised by rigid adherence to a number of tenets. One of these tenets is, “Thou shalt have no exotic animals in conservation areas”. Once this has been internalised by the Greens it becomes an act of faith. They will no longer question the original  reasons or check to see if it is justified in particular circumstances.

 

The Use of Science as a Tool against Horse Riding

The forces that seek to lock horses out of National Parks have been identified in earlier articles. How is this carried out? In a democratic state you can’t be seen to be locking citizens out of public land capriciously. It would cause a public outcry. You have to dress it up somehow, give it some respectability so that it seems justified. NPWS is attempting to make it appear that there is a scientific basis for their policies. In reality, the scientific literature on horse riding impact is far more balanced than the way it is being represented.

 

This might seem like an arrogant statement. Is the AHA suggesting that it has more expertise, and is therefore in a better position to judge these matters, than the combined resources of NPWS in the field of environmental science? Of course we’re not. It’s not a question of expertise. It’s more a question of whether the expertise is being applied with an open mind to ensure that the various studies are being represented in a way that is fair and balanced.

 

So, what makes us think we have a case and that we are not also guilty of misrepresenting the situation? Put simply, we do not see the evidence in National Parks of wide spread devastation caused by horses. Where are the fields of oats, barley and lucerne commonly fed to most horses? Clearly, there are weeds in natural areas but this doesn’t mean that horses introduced them. Nor does it mean that locking horses out will arrest the damaging processes. For instance, the Illawarra Escarpment State Conservation Area as well as other NPWS estate is badly infested with Crofton Weed. This is toxic to horses. It can eventually cause respiratory failure and death. Is anyone seriously suggesting that horse riders, through malice, negligence or ignorance, are allowing their horses to eat Crofton Weed to such an extent that horses are responsible for the spread of this pest? In another area, Ku-ring-gai NP, the only threatening weeds cited in the Draft Plan of Management were located in areas not accessible to horse riders.

 

Other opponents might say, “You can’t draw conclusions simply from what you can see. What about the impact you’re having on micro flora and fauna. Damage at the microscopic level can eventually lead to more obvious effects. Unless you’re a micro-biologist you don’t have the expertise to comment on these matters.” There may be truth in these statements, but the ultimate test for any environmental issue is the passage of time. If irreversible damage due to horse riding is occurring we would expect to see some evidence of  a definite link within a few decades and certainly within a century. Some NPWS estate has been exposed to horse riding for these time scales and no firm relationship between horse riding and widespread  environmental damage has, as yet, been demonstrated.

 

A Test Case

Horses are often accused of destroying native vegetation through either trampling or eating it and also of compacting the soil making it less viable for future vegetation growth.

 

If  horses are being ridden cross country through sensitive bushland there may be grounds for these concerns. On the other hand, some land managers claim that riding horses across grassland is preferable to concentrating them on trails. However, most riding is undertaken on formed trails. The AHA promotes responsible horse riding. We do not encourage riding across sensitive areas  where an adequate network of trails exists. Any frequently used trail – regardless of whether it is used by walkers, mountain bikes or horses - is likely to be already devoid of vegetation and the soil will probably be compacted. This will not be changed by a prohibition on horse riding.

 

The impact of horse riding on trails was put to the test in 1997 when NSW Scientific Committee, in its preliminary determination, listed horse riding as a threat to the Duffys Forest Endangered Vegetation Community. Interested community groups commissioned environmental consultants, R & C Sawyer Consulting Services, to look into the issue.

 

Sawyer studied the soils, vegetation patterns, the impact of horses on the trails and also the possibility of weed dispersal through manure. He concluded:

“There is no evidence presented in the preliminary determination or its background references that demonstrate that horse access poses a threat to Duffys Forest Vegetation Community given current controls and codes governing horse riding in the area. The observations and research on which this report is based have not found any evidence that horses would pose a threat to the plant community by any mechanism that cannot be readily managed. Its inclusion as a threatening process in the preliminary determination has not been given sufficient justification. The alienation of the horse riding community that would result from denial of access to these areas has the potential to be a much greater threat. ….”

 

The Sawyer report was submitted to the Scientific Committee which accepted its findings.

 

In a letter to Ms B Matterson of the North Shore Horse and Pony Club, the Committee Chairman, Dr Chris Dickman, referring to its final determination, writes:

“…The listing of the Community will not affect any activities already approved or authorised and the Committee has amended the determination to indicate that it is unauthorised horse riding that is a threat to the community….”

 

This translates as: Only unauthorised horseriding (i.e. riding off the trails) is a threat. Riding on the trails is OK.

 

Further Observations

The above case is not the only example of where a scientific investigation has been unable to find conclusive evidence of damage by horses.

 

In 1998 a NPWS document titled: Horses for Courses? Recreational Horse Riding in New South Wales National Parks, Australia was written by Bob Conroy and Bob Harden. Bob Harden was a Regional Manager within NPWS at the time and Bob Conroy is now the Director of the Central Directorate of NPWS.

 

This document is in two parts. The first is an exploration of the scientific literature on the impact of horse riding. The second is a survey of horse riding impact in NSW Parks. The second part is largely anti-horse and contains many subjective estimates and value judgements which we find highly contestable. The scientific part, on the other hand, is fair.

 

We quote from the scientific Section 1.2:

“While horses have the potential to spread exotic plants via their dung, the extent to which  they do so in conservation areas in Australia is unclear. The only field study appears to be that of Whinam et al (1994) who showed that several weed species grew and set seed in horse manure imported to the study area, particularly when the manure is placed on bare soil or the soil surface was disturbed. However, they found that in plots without exclosures many of the weeds were eaten by native and introduced herbivores, and were unable to reach any conclusions about the potential for the weeds to colonise away from the manure. In a subsequent study of the impacts of commercial horse riding, Whinam and Comfort (1996) found no evidence of introduced weeds during two years of monitoring. They concluded that this might be the result of the constant churning of the manure and the track by horses in combination with marsupial grazing of weed seedlings.

 

The limited field evidence then suggests that horse manure is not a major contributor to the spread of exotic plants in conservation areas.”

 

 

New Report Commissioned

In 1999 recommendations contained in a report by Jill Landsberg of CSIRO Wildlife and Ecology led to the closure of several horse riding trails in Canberra Nature Park.

 

Beth Stone of the ACT Equestrian Association Inc. and James Elsbury of the Duntroon Paddocks Landcare Group felt that the Landsberg Report was  flawed and that the trail closures were unjustified. They approached Dr Sara Beavis of the Water Research Foundation of Australia, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra. She was commissioned to write a new report to critically examine earlier findings.

 

This report is provided in full with the author’s permission. It is 2.3Mb in size and is in PDF format so you will need Adobe Reader to view it. Click Adobe Reader for free download of Reader if you don’t already have it. To read the Report online click Horse Riding in Canberra Nature Park. To download and save the Report for future reference right click the link then choose Save Target As from the popup menu.