Land Use
Approximately 56% of the Mallee region falls within what the Department of Agriculture and Food calls the "Intensive Land-use Zone" (ILZ), the area of Western Australia that has been largely cleared and developed for intensive agriculture such as cropping and livestock production. This includes most of the western parts of the region, and a smaller area along the road from Norseman to Esperance. Within this area, only 19.5% of the native vegetation remains uncleared. The remaining 44% of the region falls within the "Extensive Land-use Zone" (ELZ), where the native vegetation has not been cleared but may have been degraded by the grazing of introduced animals and/or changes to the fire regime. Thus about 44.9% of the total Mallee region has been cleared. The majority of clearing was undertaken by the Government of Western Australia between 1958 and 1969, under a program of assisted settlement in which the Government cleared, fenced and stocked virgin crown land, then sold it to aspiring settlers. There has been virtually no further clearing since 1980, when Beard estimated the cleared proportion of the region at 44%.
About 30% of the Esperance Plains region is now in protected areas. It therefore has only medium priority under Australia's National Reserve System.
Read more about this topic: Mallee (biogeographic Region)
Famous quotes containing the word land:
“The windy springs and the blazing summers, one after another, had enriched and mellowed that flat tableland; all the human effort that had gone into it was coming back in long, sweeping lines of fertility. The changes seemed beautiful and harmonious to me; it was like watching the growth of a great man or of a great idea. I recognized every tree and sandbank and rugged draw. I found that I remembered the conformation of the land as one remembers the modelling of human faces.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may eat. You shall do the same with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 23:10,11.