The RegenNarration Podcast
The RegenNarration podcast features the stories of a generation that is changing the story, enabling the regeneration of life on this planet. It’s ad-free, freely available and entirely listener-supported. You'll hear from high profile and grass-roots leaders from around Australia and the world, on how they're changing the stories we live by, and the systems we create in their mold. Along with often very personal tales of how they themselves are changing, in the places they call home. With award-winning host, Anthony James.
The RegenNarration Podcast
230. Chris Henggeler at Kachana Station: Marking a very special episode of Australian Story
One of the most remarkable stories of regeneration on this podcast – still the second most listened to episode - featured in a landmark ABC TV special back home last week. One of Australia’s best journalists, Walkley-award winner Ben Cheshire, pulled together the story of Kachana Station, in the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia, for one of Australia’s most loved, influential and long-running TV series, Australian Story. Beautifully introduced by another legendary Aussie journo, Leigh Sales, within a few days of screening, it had already notched up over 120,000 views.
It was about a year ago when I first proposed to the show that they feature the Kachana Station story. Come January, I was happy to hear from producer Winsome Denyer with her interest. Then Ben called me in July to say they were going to do it. We managed to line up an interview for the show the following month when we were in NY state. And when it went to air last week, it landed a day ahead of yet another state tribunal hearing, set to cast judgement on the family’s appeal of a government order to shoot the donkeys they use as a key part of their regeneration efforts.
To mark the moment, I hope you enjoy revisiting one of this podcast's very special encounters in a truly incredible part of the world, for what happened to be the 100th episode back in 2021. I start with an update from last week’s hearing, and a reminder of a rare opportunity to catch Chris in person at the new Grounded Festival being staged in Tasmania next month.
This episode has chapter markers and a transcript (available on most apps now too). The transcript is AI generated and imperfect, but hopefully provides greater access for those who need or like to read.
Recorded at Kachana Station throughout the week of 13 September 2021, with today’s introductory update recorded in Baltimore USA.
Title slide: from Australian Story.
See more photos on the original episode website linked above, and for more from behind the scenes, become a subscribing member via the links below.
Music:
The System, by the Public Opinion Afro Orchestra.
The tune accompanying the intro is by Jeremiah Johnson.
The RegenNarration
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What a week here in the States. An extraordinary time at the Regenerate conference in Denver and, of course, an extraordinary federal election. More on both those fronts next week. Today, one of the most remarkable stories of regeneration on this podcast - still the second most listened to episode - featured in a landmark ABC TV special back home last week. O ne of Australia's best journalists, walkley Award winner Ben Cheshire, pulled together the story of Kachana Station in the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia for one of Australia's most loved, influential and long-running TV series Australian Story. Beautifully introduced by another legendary Aussie journo, Leigh Sales, within a few days of screening it had already notched up over 120,000 views.
AJ:It was about a year ago when I first proposed to the show that they feature the Kachana Station story. Come January I was happy to hear from producer Winsome Denyer with her interest. Then Ben called me in July to say they were going to do it. We managed to line up an interview for the show the following month when we were in New York State. And when it went to air last week it landed a day ahead of yet another state tribunal hearing set to cast judgment on the family's appeal of a government order to shoot the donkeys they use as a key part of their regeneration efforts. The outcome of that hearing? A final final adjournment to the 11th of December. A growing public and local and international media contingent are watching on closely in anticipation, including a few hundred festival goers, as the week ahead of that final hearing, on the 4th and 5th of December, chris will be a special guest speaker at the new Grounded Festival being staged in Tasmania. Links to that and the Australian story episode are in the show notes. And to mark the moment, I hope you enjoy revisiting one of this podcast's very special encounters in a truly incredible part of the world for what happened to be the 100th episode back in 2021.
AJ:G'day there. Welcome to the 100th episode of The RegenNarration. It does feel a bit special, but probably just because I grew up on cricket. At the least, it feels like an opportune time to say thanks for listening this far along the journey and, of course, huge thanks to all you patrons and donors who've made it possible for me to make it this far. What an incredible vehicle for learning and sharing this podcast has turned out to be. It all started with a belief in the value of these conversations and a commitment to get out and connect with people on country. And here we are 100 episodes in, still free of ads, admission fees and desertifying mindscapes. This is hydration for soils and souls. Thank you in turn for keeping me fed and watered. With the podcast nearly doubling in plays since going weekly a month ago, it feels like we, along with regenerative efforts everywhere, are just gearing up. You're with The RegenNarration, exploring how people are enabling the regeneration of life on this planet by changing the systems and stories we live by.
Chris:We can work with Australia's new megafauna, the animals that we brought in for pastoral purposes, for riding, for freight, camels and donkeys, all the domesticated animals that are in Australia could actually help us to go out there and start rehydrating our landscapes.
AJ:G'day. My name's Anthony James, and that was pioneering regenerative pastoralist, Chris Henggeler. Tens of millions of pests degrade lands and waters in Australia alone, pigs, goats, camels, buffaloes, donkeys. Cruel, wasteful, expensive, mostly futile and often counterproductive culling programs are no solution. But what if it didn't have to be this way? What if some of those large wild herbivores could be harnessed towards regeneration? This is the story of a family that has regenerated an incredible patch of country and for 20 years that has incorporated and relied on wild donkeys. The bond these animals share with this station family is clear, but the State Department recently ordered the family to gun them down. It's a painful flashpoint. One of the great stories of regeneration is on the line and, by extension, the potential for next generations to build on it, further restoring landscapes at scale for all our benefit.
AJ:Chris Henggeler and his family manage Kachana Station in a remote pocket of the East Kimberley, only accessible by foot or air. They took responsibility for this desertified and abandoned country and have achieved so much. Yet, with still vast lands desertifying around them and so much opportunity to build on models like Kachana, chris gave a presentation earlier this year called Wanted Land Doctors. It was a powerful invitation for the next generations to join the fray and how the rest of us can help them do it. The model areas at Kachana feel like an oasis, but imagine this being the norm. Something very special is happening here, and a significant aspect of it is in jeopardy, when it could be a great catalyst for further regeneration. As Judith Swartz, renowned author of the Reindeer Chronicles, says, we could be a world leader off the back of developments like this, and she's not alone. My family and I spent a couple of days here with the podcast last time, back in 2018, and felt transformed. We spent ten days this time to delve more deeply into this great tale of regeneration and see for myself whether the donkey shoot order is a necessary evil or, as Chris argues, an enormous error in regeneration at a time when we can least afford it.
AJ:I've gone the full distance on this one, with a couple of parts to release as a) it's so rare I'm here, b) it's so vitally important for more of us to be talking about, and c) there just might be opportunities stemming out of this with some of you. In the main episode here then, we head out to the station in the old Cessna light plane before a short evening stroll on arrival. Then come morning Chris and I head out into the gorge behind the homestead for an extended walk. Then stay tuned for a special extra to this episode out shortly, which follows us the next day as we crank up the rarely used beat up old ute and go where the donkeys do their work. Then the final chapter out next week features a culmination of sorts, a very personal conversation Chris and I shared back at the homestead on our last day there. But let's start at the start. Join us as we meet up with Chris on a warm September afternoon in Kununurra and fly out over spectacular Kimberley rangelands to Kachana station.
Chris:How are you keeping?
AJ:Good, how are you? How's the plane going? Trusty as ever?
Chris:Trusty as ever. Bob's keeping it in the air. Alright, get you to strap yourself in. Alright, so we've got everybody strapped in. I'll close the door when we get the van going. Welcome back.
AJ:Beautiful. It's just amazing to be walking through here, chris, and cushioned no less by the mulched grass underfoot.
Chris:We're getting the hottest time of the year. We've just been through here with the cattle and we still got, you know, three to four inches of insulation. Yeah, so the little bacteria under there, they can keep on working as long as they've got moisture, and they've obviously got some moisture, otherwise there wouldn't be any green.
AJ:I remember someone telling me once might have been Evan Pensini actually that 100% ground cover is the dream 100% ground cover, 100% of the time.
Chris:That's the holy grail which you keep on working towards.
AJ:And this almost feels peat like.
Chris:It is well, that's that's how it's made. It's just in the carbon farming. That's just a whole section that hasn't even been looked at. Actually rebuilding peat swamps or making peat swamps, just making peat.
AJ:I can tell you peatlands, and that whole thing does get a big treatment in Paul Hawkins' book Regeneration Big treatment yeah, but to see it here. I mean we haven't stepped on anything like that in the Kimberley, that spongy, peachy soil and this is September.
Chris:And the thing is, we could replicate it again, and, again, and again. We've just got to, first of of all, put a value on it, yes, and then just get on with the job. Yeah, it's not about getting it perfect, it's just understanding what you know, just agreeing on what we want to achieve and then letting innovation go. But yeah, agreement on what we want to achieve, that would be a good start.
AJ:Do you see a shift there since we saw you last in the last three years, in that public clarity of what we're trying to achieve?
Chris:None I've heard In the community. We've got individuals who are absolutely exploring big time and very supportive and realise something's got to change and they're open, they're asking questions and I think that's the a very important part is just knowing that what's here now isn't good enough and something has to change. That that opens up for exploration. But in a lot of cases we're still asking the wrong questions and, um, that's that's where I really found that conference over east in Aubrey brilliant where all of a sudden you just had a whole hall full of people who were yeah, A different take off point.
Chris:Yeah, you didn't have to explain. You could. Actually, you're talking to people who are on the same wavelength, doing similar things in different parts of the country, and, yeah, it was good. And what was especially good was that the age distribution was good too, was it? So there was a lot of younger people too, right, very encouraging. The other thing is a lot of people there were still with young children, so the fact that you had young families attending well, that shows that it's going to go mainstream yeah, no, that seems to be coming on quickly.
AJ:Let's start with the big picture, the last three years probably.
Chris:The the picture for me got um re-re-imprinted when, a year ago, when we flew over to northern Queensland for my Christina's wedding and it's country that I've known since 1979. I've worked in that country for about two years, I've driven through it a number of times, I've flown over it three times and I've had at least 11 encounters in the last 40 years and what I saw what I think I saw was that this country's going backwards really fast. I guess it triggered off this last lot of environmental proactivity that I've been engaged in for about 12 months now. Where I'm saying is we have a problem in northern Australia that we're not. It's not what we're doing. There's a lot of good things happening. The industry is so much better than ever before, I believe there's there's so many new ideas and so many innovators and so much innovation happening. But by making the industry more efficient and more competitive, what we've actually done is we're shrinking the positive impact footprint of the industry to small efficient production areas or smaller efficient production areas and we're neglecting stuff that's already been neglected and we're also neglecting more country on that. That is just not conventionally viable.
Chris:What I feel what's happening is by providing a better food story in the industry, whether it's animal welfare, whether it's the profitability of the industry, whether it's the health of the, the nutrients that we're producing, we've lost sight of the water story. Now, in other parts of the planet it's not really a problem, because by creating a better food story and you've got higher population densities, well, you automatically improve the water story. But in a country like Australia, where nobody's starving, where most of the nutrients that we produce locally are exported, we've never really had to look at the water story and we read about the water story if there's a lot of rain and there's floods, or if there's a drought and not a lot of rain, or there's a bushfire after the lot of rain. So the droughts, floods and bushfires are three aspects of the water story that very often people don't connect the three of them and realize they're the same thing which stems back to your bigger observation of where the water story is the story on a day-to-day basis the desertification of country.
AJ:It gets highlighted with the big news items drought flood and so on, but they're all connected to a root thing anyway and that root thing's sort of out of view. Yeah which is the general pattern of desertification.
Chris:Yes, across the top so yeah, I guess at the root of a water story is hydration. So there's nothing corny about that, it's just without hydration, you don. Root of a water story is hydration, so there's nothing corny about that, it's just without hydration, you don't have a water story.
AJ:No, it sounds obvious, doesn't it? Yeah, it is obvious, but how does the hydration?
Chris:happen, and on a continent that's drying or dehydrating. Well then, we have a problem with the water story Now. So let's have a look at what the water story actually is. Probably a good way to do it is do what? What the source for life. People do this. They just studied one raindrop and had a look. What is the fate of one raindrop? And you look at it, just follow the whole story of the raindrops.
AJ:So what happened? What was the story?
Chris:well, most of the raindrops don't end up where they drop. They end up downstream or back up evaporated. We're not using the water that we're getting and, as a consequence, landscapes are dehydrating and our water story is becoming poorer and poorer or simpler and simpler. And certainly in my experience here, and even well, I've been in sort of seasonally dry parts of the world I don't know aboutally dry parts of the world, I don't know about the rainforest part of the world, but certainly in the savannah landscapes and in all these seasonally dry landscapes we have two major thieves who take care of those raindrops. The first one up here is gravity, so what doesn't go in runs off. And then the next biggest thief is the evaporation off bare ground. So it's gone in but there's no ground cover, the sun comes out, the wind blows, the ground dries and the water gets sucked up back up and up into the atmosphere just nearly as fast as it came down. So they are two biggest thieves that we could readily influence. And nature would influence them through vegetation, by just having things grow and slowing the shattering raindrops, slowing raindrops down and then slowing down the evaporation rate. So there's two thieves there that we've just let loose Thief. Number three is in the absence of a microclimate, what vegetation is? There will transpire, moisture and then the wind will just take it out of the area again. So unless you've got a microclimate, you end up with dews once again. We have a. We lose moisture locally through vapor transpiration.
Chris:And this is where my observation, being attracted to Australia because of the pastoral industry having worked in the pastoral industry for a few years and then spent the last 35 years actually trying to build the foundations for pastoral enterprise I'm saying we have a great opportunity here in Australia, and that is we can use pastoralism, regenerative pastoralism, to rebuild our water story. We had a great example just across the across the border there, where john dunnacliffe before died on the property that he had that originally had 20,000 animals. All of a sudden he ran an extra 80,000 animals, so an extra 80,000 head of cattle. Just all right, they're drinking water that's been pumped up out of the ground, but just think about how much water that they are taking out into the landscape on a daily basis in the form of dung and urine, dotting the landscape with biologically active microstites that have biological activity going on for about up to four to eight weeks and then activity stops and when it, when, when the first rains come, each one of those microstites can explode with with life. So, in the face of the three water thieves that are already working against us, we can work with australia's new megafauna, the, the animals that we brought in for partial purposes, for for riding, for freight in the camels and donkeys, just all the domesticated animals that are in austral.
Chris:Australia could actually help us, in the face of these thieves, to actually go out there and start rehydrating our landscapes. I guess it's putting animals to work in a manner that simulates what their wild ancestors would have done before they were domesticated, when we still had intact predator-prey relationships on other continents and we don't know what was here. But what was here would have had a similar effect, because the wealth that humans in Australia have been tapping into for thousands of years, that wealth was built by nature, and so the natural processes haven't gone. We've changed them a bit, but there's no reason why we can't learn to understand the local idiosyncrasies and start improving the effectiveness of these processes, of these wealth-building processes, and get about rebuilding the wealth that was here before humans started tapping into it. I don't think we shouldn't be aiming at what was here 300 years ago. I will argue that Australia 300 years ago would not have sustained the current nutrient export.
AJ:Well, our expectations of this country have obviously just skyrocketed.
Chris:Yeah. Well, not only the expectations have grown simply because there's more people expecting more. There's 5 billion people added to the planet just in my lifetime. Yes, it's extraordinary. And each one of those, they all want to work less and want to have a greater level of comfort. Well, you don't need to do high school maths to realize. You know we'll run into challenges at some stage or ceilings yeah, so that water, that water story?
AJ:you mentioned Soils for Life. Did that experiment? You're talking about building soil. You're talking about regenerating literally the Earth's integrity, the Earth's structure.
Chris:Well, that's the next step. It's just. I'll go so far as saying that as a planet, we get solar energy every day gratis. But for that solar energy to actually facilitate life, water's got to come into it. Now, there's no new the water's here. It's been on the planet in some form or shape forever. But we somehow have got to understand what is the story of water. And just having just oceans of salt water isn't the answer. And having rain that drops out of the sky and just washes nutrients out into the, into the, into the seas, making them saltier and leaching out the soils, that's not the answer. Either having dams that will then just evaporate and stuff back into the, into the air, or having just exposed landscapes where you've got bare ground and the water goes back into the air, that's not the solution either.
Chris:We've got to have a look at that wealth that we took for granted. Biodiversity is probably the way to look at it, because that's what we've been tapping into. How did that function, how it was actually? Biodiversity, as the word implies, the diversity of life, implies activity, it implies growth, it implies generation and regeneration, and with our european thinking, but not only with our european thinking, just with our focusing just on our species, thinking whether we are earlier migrants to these shores or more recent migrants to these shores. If we just focus on our species, what's in it for us? Well, very often we make the mistakes and we've displaced other species, not realizing what else they do apart from potentially being a threat or being an opportunity to capitalize on.
Chris:The way to look at it is I give the example of a concert pianist, a heavyweight boxer, a football player, a mechanic, a nurse, a doctor, a chain smoker All these different skill levels, right, and their performance is very different in each situation. But just take them off fluids for three days and they're all at the same level, right? So water is a leveler. So without water, without hydration, nothing can happen. So it's the same, you know, whether we're trying to protect a desert rat or a rainforest, if there's no water, we can't even enter that discussion. So soil building is very important if we want to have a rainforest. It may not be quite as important if we're trying to protect a desert rat. But hydration is the common denominator and this is where I'm seeing a great opportunity.
Chris:With all this diversity of opinion, diversity of skills, diversity of expectations, we do have a common denominator, and that is we all need hydrated landscapes. In this case, because there's more of us all the time, we need rehydrating landscapes. So, whether we're vegan or carnivores, whatever we are, wherever we come from, we can at least agree. Let's have a look how did nature hydrate landscapes and how did she build the wealth that we can then tap into? And then, once we get into the wealth building mode and understand that it begins with hydration and soil building and that that it's actually a living biological process and that's going to be different in each situation, that's what we've got to be managing. Well, then we can then entertain the next step and they and say well, how do we want to, how do we want to divide up the spoils? Or maybe do we wait and delay the gratification and actually build up more spoils, make a bigger cake so that there's really enough for everybody, before we start doing out the slices?
AJ:and buffer, and buffers for tough times yes, so here we are in a living, breathing case that you've been working at for the last 30 years, and we're walking on more beautiful ground cover. There's mulched grasses, spongy underfoot, uh, as we head into a place I haven't actually walked to before, down the gorge back of the house, this used to be rocks.
Chris:I always said before I die, I want to be able to gallop over here on an unshod horse. Well, I'm going to have to live quite a long time the way, the speed that I'm going, but we are. We now have some ground cover and I can safely say that the raindrops that come out of the sky here are no longer bombshells and they're not only splattered by the rocks that are there, they're also splattered by leaves and grass and sticks and that, and there's a, there's a good little carpet of dry stuff there that will keep the moisture in there. Stop the flow. If there is any flow, it's going to filter the water. So I've always said you know, we should be exporting water, but we want to be exporting clean water. We don't want to be exporting our nutrients.
AJ:Your 30-year work here, taking responsibility for this patch that had been abandoned, and you know a lot of that story we've talked about before and people can go back to that episode to hear it. But I mean, I was staggered to read in Judith Swartz's latest book. I didn't quite realise the scale of the station. She said larger than Singapore, a couple of hundred thousand acres. But you've come out here and you've thought, well, okay, I've got to bite this off bits and pieces at a time. We've got to set a vision and then set some model areas. And you said last time that scale is neutral, but then that can go across the whole landscape if we want it to. So how's that progressed and how are you seeing that big picture and and big picture and some other plans that have come up, even since we met three years ago for the rest of the station?
Chris:My vision got expanded very early in the piece, 23 years ago, when I learned about brittleness and the role of the herbivores in cycling vegetation herbivores in cycling vegetation and that fire was actually a largely unnecessary proxy for lack of herbivore behavior. That's that's when I realized I'm not going to live anywhere near long enough. In fact, I originally, you know, my 100 year vision became a 150 year vision. I realized there's no way that I can do this country justice. So my focus was well, instead of trying to just do everything which I can't, at least find out what is locally relevant. So you've got ideas that have been tested and been working very successfully in other parts of the world. You've got ideas that have been picked up in the industry and people are using them in Australia, using these ideas within the industry. I'm saying as well, can we? How relevant are these ideas when we actually want to build productivity back into a landscape at landscape scales? So it's that first-hand knowledge of how to influence biology, how to improve the water story, that really it not only excites me, but it's also. I see that is where the expense of learning curve is and and I think it's it's a lot easier to contain that learning curve in small areas, because we know, if we keep mechanics and chemicals and all the these other inputs out of the equation and work with biology, with scale neutral, as we said last time, what works on a square foot will work on a hectare, will work on a catchment, will work on a station basis, so what's locally relevant?
Chris:So the years that I've got left, I just want to keep on focusing on my little model areas where I've already got 35 years of learning curve behind me and just see, well, how much further can we go up so that someone who wants to take on new country doesn't have to go through the same learning curve. They can come in, learn from me and then go and replicate. I believe I can contribute more to those who come after me, whether they're my own children or someone else's, by just testing that learning curve, and I guess I'm fortunate that I don't have to put children through school anymore. I I don't have that pressure to perform. I can still make mistakes and we all do make mistakes. Not that I want to make mistakes, but I'm I can afford to make a mistake a lot more than some young fellow who gives it their everything or young young couple who just give it everything and they've still got children, you know.
Chris:They know that for the next years their bills are going to increase. They can't risk the station that. I guess that's what I'm doing. I've got my little model areas there and one went up in smoke in 2018 and I haven't gone back to to repair that literally went up literally went up.
Chris:It was a lightning strike. I wasn't here at the time, I was just coming back and, um, you know, those were here. They tried to do what they could and I don't know if it would have been any better if I'd been here, but the fact is we had six years of work go up in flames. However, I've what I've done there. I've we've demonstrated this documented. We know what we can do in that land type. I've got a similar small area close to home here where I can still. So it's not as if the results are lost. The knowledge isn't lost.
Chris:Yes, so I guess what I'm doing as I'm stepping back is consolidating the winners. Really, yes, it's like when you get a bunch of young horses that you want to start up. Well, all of a sudden, you see where the talent is. Well, you haven't got time to train them all and take them all to the top level, but you pick out a few winners and you say, well, listen, I'm going to make the best horse out of this that I can. And that's what I'm doing with my little model areas and I'm keeping them all close by.
AJ:Yes, you talked them all close by. Yes, you know you talked about that next generation, how they can build on a model rather than having to start from scratch out here. When we say start from scratch, it is worth reminding that people will hear in the previous episode that it really had desertified almost completely.
Chris:Yeah, where we're standing now, for example, that was bare ground. I've got the photographs and now we're standing on a on a carpet two inch carpet of mulch and fresh stuff coming out, and here on the other side, where we haven't treated it, the carpet isn't pressed down as much. It's like walking through a four inch. Well, it's, yeah, it's a knee-deep carpet, but we'll ration that out before the rains come and um, so there's any water that drops out of the sky here goes in where it is. So there's any water that drops out of the sky here goes in where it is. Maybe towards the end of the wet season you'll have some water going past from higher up in the range there, but anything, yeah, what drops out of the sky here goes in here, and that was not the case when we first started.
AJ:So there is a little prospect with the west side of the station.
Chris:What I'll flag at this stage is we realised pretty early in the piece is to do this country justice, we need more people, and the experience that we've had now is you can't just, at a family scale operation, take on this whole bit of country. So what we're saying is we've done the pilot projects. If we can get a group of people who wish to replicate what we've done on the western side of Kachana, we're very happy to encourage that and work in with that. So it's not about selling the place. On the contrary, it's not about populating the place either, it's it's. It's about encouraging people to build relationships to the land.
Chris:And here's a stepping stone by coming and doing at a larger scale what we've done on a small scale the last 35 years. We could set an example that can be replicated again and again, because I I don't like the, the empire building models. I think they've, they have their place and it's just not for me, it's not for a, for a family either. We need to take models that that are more sustainable, like the models that nature shows us, where you have growth, grow like the fungi or grow like the bacteria, where you have models that are replicable and you don't create these big monopolies or monocultures that invariably create friction or greed.
AJ:That's it. We've talked about how they're based on a certain understanding of power and coercion, rather than the relationality that comes with them.
Chris:Well, they're not necessarily based on power and coercion, but that is something they very often derail into that terrain. Nature has its hierarchies, there's no doubt about it, and I'm very aware of that. I mean, I'm fully aware that before the first humans arrived, this was all rainforest, and by the time before we arrived, there were still wetland patches here. Now, if you take a wetland patch that just had been turned into a desert and you start doing things right, well, it's quite possible that all of a sudden, well, nature's going to say, well, I'm going to turn this back into a wetland patch. And if your vision was to have a little pasture there or an orchard, well, Adjust.
Chris:It's going to be an expensive adjustment and if you don't adjust, it's going to be more expensive. Yes, we'll see. To me it's like I driving along a some desert road and you you've got a body lying there. You realize, oh, this body's alive. Well, you know, we'll drag him off the road so he doesn't get run over, wash the dirt off and cover him, take him out of the sun and, um, protect him. If they wake up, they can give him a drink or whatever.
Chris:And you don't know who you're dealing with. He could be a criminal trying to run away. He could have been someone who got lost and you do't know who you're dealing with. It could be a criminal trying to run away. It could have been someone who got lost and you do not know what you're dealing with. So let's just manage this patient back to health and in the process, see, you know what sort of relationship can we build? And by relationship I mean can, can we? Can we build communication here? Can we find out who? This is what they want, because healing is generally we find that in the medical arena they say the doctor cares, nature heals and the patient is part of the team.
Chris:So unless you have a good patient-doctor relationship, the healing is going to be very slow. So if the patient doesn't trust the doctor or the doctor doesn't believe the patient is taking the medication, you already have a problem. So the challenge is to, as you start healing the patient, see how the patient responds and be responsive and start communicating. And, as I said, there's been times when nature's responded very kindly to my experimentation. But there's been other times, like right where we're standing here, actually I put in some fences and and then what I thought were going to permit fences, and then I thought, well, maybe, as things started growing, I thought, well, maybe we should take these fences down and not have permanent fences here. Well, I was a bit slow taking him down. The week later, nature already taken down for me and I had spent the next three weeks just pulling wire out of flood debris.
Chris:You know it's, you get it wrong, she'll let you know. Pretty well, sooner or later she'll let you know. Yeah, that's what I'm saying is the learning curve is going to be there. We're gonna have to make mistakes or we will invariably make mistakes. It's got to be safe for people to make mistakes. It's got to be safe for people to make mistakes. It's got to be affordable for people to mistakes and they've got to be able to hang around, hang around for long enough to learn from their mistakes and get up the next step. We don't want to have these situations where people get so far and then they just get knocked out of the game yeah, that's a huge point.
AJ:It's worth mentioning here for the listener that this has become a project of international repute.
Chris:Featured in Well interest. Let's say, I don't know about repute.
AJ:You'll be humble about it, because the places I see it turn up are significant places. And then when we talk about the prospect of people joining this, you made a presentation in Albury at the land to market conference earlier this year. That impacted some people very strongly there and you went with the banner, which I thought was terrific and it's really evocative. Wanted land doctors yes.
Chris:This country. Well, land doctors are wanted all over the world and we already are. We're finding land doctors that are around, but we need all sorts of land doctors. We need the GPs, and I would hazard to say that, yeah, I'd say most of the regenerative farmers already fall into the gp category. But we also need specialists and we need surgeons. We need people who have a vocation to be land doctors. Well, that means they're going to have to be skilled up to perform and they've got to be able to deliver.
Chris:And what I see with kachana West is by taking on stuff where the nature has given us the basic ingredients across the range. We've already got the pilot projects Lange doctors can go there and cut their teeth in a real life university and then go and take that knowledge further. But that's the one side that excites me. What excites me even more is because no one's gonna starve, whether or not we achieve this dream. We can actually, in that land doctoring, we can try new things, and not only that we can. We can find out what's relevant in other settings that are similar. So, instead of spending thousands of dollars, or tens of thousands, in some cases millions of dollars going to Africa and to other desertified parts of the world and telling people how to run their show. We can actually invite them to come and see how we're solving our problems, and they can steal ideas that are relevant to them, whether it's culturally relevant or whether it's a whether it's culturally relevant or whether it's ecologically relevant.
Chris:I'm saying is they can steal ideas and they can then know how to incorporate them in their own situation, and it's I actually see it as a two-way street because, my personal experience is that the best stock control I've ever seen was in kenya, by the messiah, so I would just love to invite a few Maasai here to teach me how they train their cattle.
AJ:You, have to give us the little story. It's so powerful, what you saw.
Chris:Well, we were on the edge of a nature conservancy and there was a agricultural communal area just next door with a big game fence and a gate, and I saw this herd coming and they were going to go into the forest to graze and forage. There was cattle, there was donkeys, there was goats, sheep, a couple of dogs and two Maasai warriors. Normally the herding is done by children, but in this case we're going into an area where there's there's lions and there's there's buffalo and that so. So they were. They were armed warriors, and so I was filming them as they came through the gate into this conservancy area. And then they saw me. The herd stopped and they came over to me both of them and we talked for 20 minutes and the whole herd just just stayed, stood there and waited, and when we'd finished talking they went back and the whole herd moved on again. So they were the herders, the dogs, the various species in the herd. It was like just one organism.
AJ:It was just brilliant to see and that's a beautiful way to put it just like one organism. Because what? We've learned is it is exactly yes, and it is some of what I've observed in you here, I mean three years ago very mild voice control and direction for cattle to go on to the next strip, next cell, if you like.
Chris:And in this guy's body language, because I mean, they're moving through the jungle and whatever, and the dogs knew what to do. It's just, yeah, it's there's. There's an awful lot of learning that that can happen and, yeah, we can. We can can be a two-way street. They can show me how, how they, how they manage their animals and I could show them how I grow water, because some of the water that I saw those herds drink in Kenya, that was a pretty putrid and our horses wouldn't touch it. There you go, we actually had to take water along for our horses because, yeah, that's a you wrote recently to your email list.
AJ:If we ever needed support, now is the time that alone rang alarm bells for me, because I know that. You know you guys didn't do this. You had a lot of support to be and you needed it. Then I mean the pictures of where you started.
Chris:We've been thankful for our support right through the whole.
AJ:That's right, so for you to say we need it now more than ever is already ringing alarm bells for me. And you said it's not for the environmental work this time, of course, but to invite and I wanted to read this out because it's going to be what we refer to throughout Invite and promote a collaborative approach from community bureaucracy and politics. Tell us about what you're being confronted with right at the moment.
Chris:Right now, I am being confronted with a situation where the very animals that have helped me in these last 30 years are being classified as a pest, and I'm supposedly meant to go and shoot them.
AJ:And we're not talking about the cattle, we're talking about donkeys.
Chris:We're talking about wild donkeys in areas where I couldn't go with the cattle, where, if I did go with the cattle, I'd end up with animal welfare issues.
AJ:Because you're talking about higher rockier.
Chris:I'm talking about rough, inaccessible terrain where these animals readily go and where they would be cycling carbon. They would be just each, each one of these little animals would be eating its harmful of hay every day. And if you stop mowing your lawn in this part of the world, well, once the tap shuts off, everything just dries and it's just a fire hazard waiting to happen. Now, if it doesn't, if lightning doesn't hit it, arson doesn't hit it this year, well, it's just gonna choke new growth. There won't be any growth next year. You'll end up with underneath, you'll just have bare ground and you just have this blanket of dead, senescent, gray organic matter that's just waiting for a fire. And if that happens on too large a scale, well then we come in and we do the fuel reduction burns. The problem is that's going to be a hot fire, because once all the plants are dead and you put a match in there, well, it's going to be a hot fire. That's simple, whereas if you've got living plants and you've got a little bit of dead material in between, you can look at cool birds, arguably, if you do it at the right time of the year and you do it in the right spot and in the right manner.
Chris:So I'm being asked to literally replace herbivores with fire. Asked to literally replace herbivores with fire after having spent 20 years I've been here, 35 years, but the last 20 years or more actively trying to rehydrate the landscape and protect it from fire, in their wisdom, because of the legislation or because of the letter of the law? I don't think it has anything to do with the intent of the legislation, but according to the letter of the law, someone in an office two and a half thousand kilometers to our south on a given day, must have, together with someone else, agreed that this particular animal needed to be removed from one column and put into another column. And with that bureaucratic decision, all of a sudden it was a pest and I can't.
AJ:I'm trying to find out what exactly went wrong and what exactly the intent is, because you did have an ongoing process that was sort of seeing how things evolved until this unexpected juncture.
Chris:Well, already in 2002, we started questioning the wisdom of the decision to take animals herbivores out of an area where they were reducing fuel loads. So I don't think anybody who was here in the Kimberley 40 years ago, and probably very few people who are here now, would actually dispute that there was a time when many areas of the Kimberley we just had too many donkeys. Now why and what could have been done about it, they'd be different discussions, but the fact is the country was very bare and the animals were unhealthy, and no one wants to see starving animals or sick animals in bogs around dams or choking up the access to to troughs or breaking infrastructure. That is a situation that had got out of hand and that was before my time. I just know when I came here in this part there were a lot of animals wild donkeys and wild cattle and they were here before we got here and there was no industry here, so this country hadn't been managed ever for pastoral purposes. I can't say what sort of a balance there was. All I noted was the donkeys were healthy all year round and the cattle were healthy during the wet and pretty ordinary looking in the drier months and in line with the wisdom of the day, we took it upon ourselves to reduce the numbers, and we did, and especially so in the areas that we couldn't manage the way I believe we should have managed or should have been should have managed them. So that was fine, but at the same time we got a run of good wet seasons and we ended up creating our own fire nightmare.
Chris:Now, in the areas where I had control of the cattle, we were growing more vegetation every year and there's more miles and more hooves and the country's good and it wasn't a problem. The problem we had is in the areas we couldn't manage to satisfy our satisfaction. That's where I realized hang on, we've got to go back to what was there before, because the fires, the fires that I was watching, were arguably having a greater ecological impact than the feral animals ever did. So I don't want feral animals, but I did need some sort of set stocking in the areas that I couldn't manage. So I purposely left wild cattle out there and wild donkeys in my buffer areas, to make it easy to protect the areas that I was managing, but also to to mitigate the effect of the wildfires, because we ended up getting a wildfire every three years on average yes, which means that if you don't get rid of a third of your ground cover every year, you will lose 100% every third year.
AJ:Yes, and this bit isn't contentious, nobody wants that. It's just how you bring that fuel load back.
Chris:Well, I think most people agree, or most people who've been on the ground and have seen the effect of wildfires agree. We can't have uncontrolled wildfires late in the year. And what AWC are doing is great. They're really putting patchiness into the country. And then the fire scar map of this year it's got even smaller patches than last year, so it's going to be very interesting. There's no doubt that that is the first step.
Chris:Is you want to break up the vegetation, the age of the vegetation and get patchiness back into the country? However, if we still end up with fire being our main tool and we end up with our ground cover in any, every area just being taken out every three years, whether we do it ourselves or with a hot fire later, I don't think we'll be building soil and, given the fact that we should be rehydrating the country and getting more vegetation there, it's going to be a very hard one. So I think we need to be comparing notes, and this is what I'm saying is we need the collaboration, we need the people on the ground who are out there having that direct influence where wild nature meets human civilization, called a domesticated nature. But we also need the support of the local communities, because hydration is an issue that you cannot tackle at a property level, and we also need the support of our brethren down in the cities, including the legislators. So the challenge for me, after 30 years of local knowledge, is not what needs to be done, it's how can I do it without conflict?
Chris:And and and not only that, how can I hand over the reins to someone younger who's got the energy that I no longer have to do it without them having to forever be scared that someone's going to tell them how to run their show? Yeah, we. I just put it down to to ineffective communication. We somehow need to learn to communicate better, and I'm probably I have a bad habit of pulling a spade a spade, but it's never been to insult anybody, it's been to table the argument. But yeah, so it's an interesting discussion we've entered into and maybe this is what it takes. Maybe it does need to come, come to a head and and maybe it needs a court case or whatever.
AJ:Yes, a reckoning inquiry or whatever.
Chris:But but yeah, I don't think the city people can survive without us on the land and I don't think we could do much up here unless we have the city people. So, um, I guess where I probably risk getting a few people annoyed is where, 20 years ago or 30 years ago, quite often you got to hear phrases similar to well, you guys have got all that land, you've got to be accountable for what you do to it. And I'm saying hang on. If a significant portion of our society wishes to live in a manner that is removed from ecological and biological realities, well, someone's got to be out there doing the land doctoring. And I don't think we'll get land doctors on an apprentice's wage. If we want land doctors, we've actually got to recognise first of all we have got patients that need healing and we need the wherewithal to fund the land doctoring and the doctors.
AJ:Yeah, we'll get to that later on as well, how that can and might happen. Just following on from this issue now. So you have been ordered literally by as we stand here today, the end of the week, to shoot 72, which I was mildly bemused to see such a number plucked out from one helicopter survey apparently 72 donkeys you need to shoot by Saturday, I think it is, or Sunday. 72 donkeys, you need to shoot by Saturday, I think it is, or Sunday, and you have appealed that and you have a sat directional hearing on Thursday online. So people will hear this after the event and we'll have an update perhaps.
AJ:But just to contextualize our discussion here and again to further contextualize it, I mean the way it looks in many ways. I mean everything you described about land doctrine and there's also producing integrated into that, and once the land can handle it, more production could be possible. We would see. So it's not just. You know you've gone away from the reduction of harm model to a more. How do you get back to nature's providing across the board model and avoiding the wildfires, tending the biodiversity year round, year-round water, which is what we talked about last time as well to me, if you've got an, a place where cattle is used in such a fashion. And now these are sort of they're everywhere now that sort of um livestock grazing model. If you're gonna do that and you're gonna see that it works.
AJ:So even if, for example, you wonder if cattle, the hooved animal, should still be done on australian soils, that might well be a discussion we continue to have, but you can't dispute that it works. It's one of the ways. Awc might be another way. It's one of the ways we're standing on the evidence of that. And then if you see that and that's not disputed people, well, it's not disputed in the mainstream, it's not disputed by the government and bureaucracy. That's what we, that's still what we base everything off. We're going to be livestock farmers as as country.
AJ:Then if you believe that, then the only reason you would feel donkeys and other megafauna to use that frame don't have a place is if you haven't been convinced they can be managed and so, even if you see good results on your property, their offspring will be smashing somewhere else, for example. That's the only way I can understand that you could have that contradiction. Is that you actually you think it's not a contradiction? Because the donkey bit the wild bit, if you like, means they can't be managed, but you're finding a way to harness and change behavior and so forth well, just talking about wild, it'd probably be a whole podcast and I'm not qualified there.
Chris:I've just, in our context, I've actually devoted one page in our website where I differentiate what how I see wild versus feral, and in a nutshell I'll say wild is a species or animals of a species behaving on their terms in line with how their wild ancestors would have behaved in performing or in working within their ecological niches. We can get more sophisticated or we can dumb it down. It really doesn't matter. It's a nice summation. What we do need to understand is that all larger animals herbivores, carnivores, all larger animals on this planet now are responding to human inputs. Whether they are in a national park, whether they're in a feedlot, whether they're on a regenerative property or in a back paddock and just being harvested by bullcatchers, it really doesn't matter. Animals, large sentient beings, are responsive to their environments and the messages in their environments, and one of the big messages in most environments today is humans. Now, whether it's a helicopter that comes every six weeks and shoots all your mates if you've got a Judas color on, or whether it's the mustering helicopter that rounds you up, you get to appreciate your surroundings and you get to interact and you respond according to your experience. So the question now is what is management? Now, I'd say management is ubiquitous. What level of management now we do.
Chris:Certainly, the lightest skinned people in this country, a lot of them, hail from european areas and we're sort of encumbered by this thinking that got a lot of headwind, got a lot of tailwind in the Industrial Revolution, where all of a sudden we think management equals control. Yes, in a factory situation, management equals control. Right, and I'd say most of us, as drivers of vehicles, have control Until something goes wrong and all of a sudden we're still at the same speed and we haven't realized we just had an inch of rain in the last 10 minutes. Well, if we haven't adjusted our management, there's a chance we'll lose control, and this is a you know what's interesting.
AJ:In Spanish, from my background in Latin America, the verb for to drive is manejar, it's management.
Chris:Latin derivative. Just as an aside to back up your analogy.
AJ:It's management. Isn't that interesting Latin derivative? Just as an aside to back up your analogy, but it's a good point.
Chris:I certainly know that in our bush situations a lot of our vehicles seem to have characters of their own, and management is probably more applicable than control.
AJ:But, yeah, we're in a culture where that managerialism, how it's been so unhealthy, has been rightly criticised. But this is a different frame. This is management as in human engagement with the world, and a responsive one at that. And a responsibility-oriented one at that.
Chris:When I think of the donkey thing, they tell me that I'm not managing my donkeys, although I've been managing for 35 years. I think of it's like saying to someone hey, you're not managing that dog because it's not on the leash. But if that dog is rounding up sheep or rounding up cattle and it's out of earshot, it doesn't mean it's not being managed right and it doesn't mean it's not going to come back and get its reward. You know that dog is absolutely sensitized to what you're doing. And then someone else pointed out you know we've got pastoralists in the in the territory with their dingoes. Or we've got pastoralists here in west australia too you know who who manage their dingoes in a different way. Instead of just putting out poison baits and trying to get rid of them, they, they manage them.
Chris:Now I haven't been there so I'm not quite sure how, but the reality is it's working for them and they know what's happening. So this is where, you know, management is the key. And of course it depends where people are. You know it'd be very hard to explain to some. You know, owner of a poodle in Perth. You know how we get a working dog to go and help us. You know it's just they're worlds apart and that's where you know you've got to try and retain a sense of humour.
AJ:It's true, but there is an, there's almost a colloquial appreciation of the farm dog. You know Red Dog, the film, even that came out, you know there's an appreciation that.
Chris:Well, he was unmanageable, arguably. Well, there you go. But he wasn't feral either.
AJ:No well, there you go I'm glad we stumbled on it, then it's perfect. It's illustrative, the intelligence. I mean even watching your little guy, almost a maniac when he came up to me but when he was set to round up the single duck into its bed at night delicate it's, the intelligence, so that I guess it's underselling as well, isn't it?
Chris:It's still the old frame of human control and dominion, yeah, and it comes from that industrial revolution and with that industrial revolution, obviously, your factory mindset. You want to have factory workers and people got to operate a machine and now, now they've got to become software jockeys and you know we're short changing ourselves, I believe I'm not saying we don't get the job done.
Chris:If the job needs, you know, if we need a good machinery operator or if we need a good software jockey, good, that's what we're rewarding for. And then and the industry will pay for that or the market will pay for that the price signals are there. But let's not shortchange ourselves. Let's still manage with open eyes and see what opportunities there are and understand that we live in a very dynamic world, a changing world, and just like us, us, I consider myself to be very fortunate to have lived the years that I have on this planet and I just hope that we can allow a similar good fortune, or make possible similar good fortune, to future generations. And therefore management is a key word.
AJ:So here you are. You've found an asset, if we use that metaphor in the donkeys and you have harnessed their instincts where they've been useful for 20 years, and you found similar beneficial results from that and your management techniques. On the one hand, you know you mentioned rewards for for the dog, they're salt licks that you'll put up in the high country and then they'll invariably linger and you'll observe where their pads emerge and all that sort of stuff. So you're working in with that. I know that there's a bigger picture, though. What comes across most then is the connection. It is the relationship, as with pastoralist farmer and dog, for example it's and cattle, for that matter, the way we described it and the way you're doing it in the messiah, but it's that with the donkeys and you've described well how you've observed them go from seeing you as predator who would do them in to having a relationship over the years. Is there a moment or a time when you realized that this was evolving and it was going to work? That really showed you that?
Chris:um, a few things came together in one hit in in 97. For me, that is in one hit in in 97 for me, that is, and that is tim flannery's book the future eaters and his and the abc series that they put out about the future readers. When all of a sudden it became clear to me that australian wealth was built by the megafauna within the landscapes, fulfilling the function that they fulfilled in other landscapes as well, and that they were no longer here, that's when I realized, wow, you know, humans, certainly modern humans in Australia have inherited a basically dysfunctional ecosystem that for millennia had been kept. A very, a very delicate balance had been achieved by aboriginals, and they've kept. They kept it there, but but we were at low levels of ecological production, we were squandering a lot of our daily income, our solar energy, and a lot of the water wasn't being used either. So so from an economic point, economics point of view, we had a very delicate model that was was in a critical balance, and with European colonization we destabilize that balance and potentially what we've taken into free fall in some areas. Some areas have stabilized again and there's some areas where we're doing some great things, but, but certainly northern Australia, we have a. We have a real problem there that I mentioned earlier on. So in 97, the, the understanding that megafauna were here and then getting the understanding of how megafauna in other parts of the world still perform and realizing hang on, we've got these same animals here. And the other thing about multi-species, how species work can work synergistically. And this is where I was all of a sudden able to tap into the relevance of my earlier experiences in Africa where dad had reintroduced zebra, he had reintroduced eland, he had reintroduced impala that had been locally extinct on our farm.
Chris:When we arrived on our little farm, or when he took on the little farm in the 50s, mid 50s, there were a few sable antelope there, but the only group of sable around. Well, he managed around those animals. He made them feel comfortable. They could have gone across the fence, but they realized that with the management that dad had in place, they had a safe area. They could meet all the nutritional and water requirements. We didn't crowd them with cattle. There were even leopards in the area. So it's exactly the paddock where, when we had calves, we never let any calving cows be in that paddock.
Chris:So we had just 20 years of experience there just keeping that, managing that little herd of wild sable and they were wild but that doesn't mean that didn't mean we couldn't get on horseback and show them to our visitors and occasionally we had some sable steak as well. Yes, back and show them to our visitors, and occasionally we had some sable steak as well. So the combination of knowing that with pressure and release or carrot and stick approaches, you can very effectively interact with these animals, with any animal, that was one thing, but I had that first-hand experience. And then the other one was, obviously with the symbiosis, realizing that the moment, the moment dad started bringing back the, the got the eland back all of a sudden you know bush encroachment was no longer a problem. So there's just so much there that we could tap into and just haven't tapped into because we just haven't been asking the questions no, we've got well.
AJ:Let's trace it back a bit. I mean, again, one of the things that I struggle with, just at a relatively surface level, is the fact that we used the. The reason the donkeys are here, because we brought them, europeans brought them and we used them well.
Chris:We needed them. So we got the afghans and the donkeys, yes. And now we're saying no, we don't need the donkeys anymore, we'll cancel everything.
AJ:Yes, because we figure we don't need them anymore.
Chris:We're going to start sending the Afghans and the Europeans back. You know just where do we draw the line.
AJ:Well, this is actually very relevant on so many levels because I think also, I think, okay, we created the conditions where feral donkeys and camels and whatever else, yeah, ripped up country, but we created that as much for bringing them out as for whatever else we did, and then they stepped into that breach and so our destruction begot.
AJ:Their destruction now begets our destruction. To be doing them in, to get rid of them, it's a cycle of it's reminiscent of the Gabe Brown passage we talked about last night, where it's got that frame of okay, next step, what can I kill? And so you do you destroy as a sort of a way of being, whether you're you know you've got the best intent or not, versus Gabe Brown's now famous line, which is I started to wake up. Instead of asking what can I kill today in my farming and ranching, it was what can I bring alive today? And you ask a similar question. You ask, as we talked about last time, briefly too, if we've got an issue what's missing and what can I harness? That's been missing for a while, for a while, and that's an entirely different lens and seems just so critical to the disjunct and the tricky spot you're in right now.
Chris:Yeah, but that that aside, I guess still that that's more subtle and and I hope it would have dawned on me as well over time but what really just hit home was this is the increase in fire and the damage that the fires did, and I just realized hang on, we're replacing herbivores with herbivores, with fire, yes, and you get a wildfire in and everything's cooked well, all of a sudden, your wallaby, your marsupial populations, crash as well, because you know you've got four months of nothing.
Chris:Yes, so it's not only. It's not only the donkeys and the cattle. Just by by removing the donkeys and the cattle as fast as we did in areas we did, and bringing in wildfire, and then, in the face of a few good seasons which we didn't know were coming, you know we just created the you know that the perfect storm, and we happen to be living in the eye of that perfect storm and I've been saying, hey, let's look at it. And for some reason no one wanted to look at it. And all of a sudden they say they're hoping they can make the storm go away. But yeah, I'll be gone before this issue is gone.
Chris:Yes, the question is you know, can we revisit this whole thing, with sort of scientific lenses and discussion coming from different areas, or do we sort of just try and make it go away and see what happens?
AJ:You've got Victor Steffensen's book Fire Country on your bookshelf. I have Back there. How's that gone down with you? How are you finding it?
Chris:I hope to one day be able to have a chat to Victor Stephenson Me too, just like with anybody I come across to. It probably wouldn't take me long to find differences, but if you want to have a relationship, let's find that common ground. And what I really enjoy about Stephenson is his observation is this country needs people out there making decisions based on current information. Well, I'm not going to get into an argument with Stephenson for quite a while, although I'm sure there are areas we could find opposing views that's a terrific way to put it the more I think about it too.
AJ:I mean, for example, I had a discussion before I came out here, as it happens, with one of the very successful fire management projects happening in the West Kimberley and with Aboriginal rangers and helicopter like AWC but obviously a different model, because you're getting Aboriginal folk back on or back connected with their country and we had a very interesting discussion about, on the one hand, the industrialized frame that operates out of and, on the other hand, he was able to explain to me beautifully that the bridge that's creating for aboriginal people to reconnect with country they've been removed from and indeed it's being treated like that as a bridge to reconnect with country they'd been removed from and indeed it's being treated like that as a bridge to reconnecting further.
AJ:You know, it's a, it's a trajectory of reconnection that ideally is going to end up with more people and more of those people back on their country in person as well. And it again just showed me where the common ground is and there's a lot more fertile ground for engagement than perhaps we realise and certainly than that is being facilitated at that bureaucratic level, because I think again with the donkeys, I mean, I've had conversations with Indigenous folk like Judith Swartz documented in her book, where the person she'd spoken to said you know, if something's here, it belongs, we're not in the business of striking things out of existence. So could we have a prospect where you've got all these voices and hands at the table that is unified enough, you know, is connected enough that the more refined conversations go on? But the basic nature of engaging can be collaborated upon, can be shared. Where fire has its part, animals have their part, like it all has its part, and we keep responding to what's in front of our faces now in the best manner.
Chris:Do you buy that? Yeah, well, whether it's the fire or the animals, as I said, at the end of the day we want rehydrated landscapes that are productive, and let's just use our mechanical mindset there for a while. So when we start producing, we use tools. We're a tool, loving animal as humans. Fire is a tool, technology is a tool, chemistry is a tool. We've got physical tools, but we've also got biological tools.
Chris:Just like you know, if you want to do a barrel race, you can get a pony. Well, maybe they do barrel racing in motorbikes as well, I don't know. But anyway, I'm saying there's always a choice of tools. If you know what you want to achieve, let's have a look at the toolbox, make sure that the tools are functional, that are there, easy to find, and that we can discuss the use of tools and then reference our results to what we need and be prepared to say well, maybe in this instance, you know, I should have used a smaller hammer, or maybe I shouldn't have used a hammer at all, maybe a pair of pliers would have done the job. And then again, you know, if I haven't got the hammer and I needed to knock in this one nail, well then I can use the pliers. It's probably not good for the pliers, but you can do that. You know, the thing is it's it's it's understanding.
Chris:We need to open up the eye, open up the discussion, open up the perspective, look at things from different sides, find the common ground and and and build those bridges and create abundance. When you've got abundance, you can talk about sharing. When you haven't got abundance, all of a sudden competition kicks in and that's that's. That's the interesting thing that I certainly have learned in the last few years, and that is that to me, the primary principle of nature seems to be symbiosis, working together. Competition seems to be a secondary principle. Competition is generally within a species, for the health of the species, within a given set of parameters.
Chris:So if we're out here and we're competing, well, something's wrong. If I'm competing with the donkeys or with the wallabies for my cattle feed, something is drastically wrong. So let's stand back and find out how can we work together. And it's the same thing with our different land managers. We've got AWC, we've got Kachana, we got. We've got el cuestro, we've got the national parks. We've got all sorts of different expectations. There's plenty of room. Let's compare toolboxes, let's compare results, let's learn from each other's mistakes, from each other's successes, and yeah, to me it's it's. It's an exciting time because we now have the other tools, the communication tools. You know my children, they can compare notes with notes. They don't even have to go and see the neighbor Next thing. They certainly they can communicate their mistakes and things a lot better.
Chris:Whereas, you know, back then we had to get good reception on the two-way and everybody had to be there and then at some stage you had to leave the two-way because you had to get back to work.
AJ:No, that's right. It's potentially one of the tools. If we can take care of that one and not lose it, that's a great asset. The fact that the government can even the bureaucracy can haul you in on a zoom. Call for a sat hearing.
Chris:Yeah, well, that's good, but then, but then again, it's not. You've got to make sure that this convenience doesn't you don't end up taking shortcuts or the wrong shortcuts. I mean, if we can cut down on the plane flights with zoom calls, that's good, but then again, if that can be, that's great if I give evidence, but if the evidence is actually out here, nature talking to us, well then I'd rather these people come and actually listen to nature themselves. If they want my commentary, I can give it to them, but I want them to be able to stand here and appreciate. Here we are, middle of September, the sun's shining, it's nearly, nearly already past 10 o'clock and we've got ground.
AJ:That's not hot if it was bare you wouldn't be able to stand on that barefoot.
Chris:And you know we've still got green and the last rain was six months ago. So what's happening here? What's? Why wasn't this the case 20 years ago when we arrived?
AJ:I think that's essential. I think it's essential and it's essential for many a city dweller, I mean, like myself. This is how I came to be here. I think it's essential where country does speak for itself in all sorts of ways, and to think that big decisions with big ramifications, where things are going well, would happen in the absence of that.
Chris:Yeah, I can feel the dismay so this all needs, this all needs to be rationed out before the wet season yeah, so we're talking hip-high grasses here.
AJ:We're going through a bit of a padded down spot, but down by a.
Chris:That's the creek that didn't flow when I first arrived.
AJ:Now it's very green.
Chris:It's flowing both sides here.
AJ:Yeah, speaking of hydrating landscapes, that sound of running water just makes me wanna drink it and jump in it and to think, yeah, that's a September. What are we? Mid-september artefact where it had been dried up before you got here. Country speaking for itself. That was pioneering regenerative pastoralist, Chris Henggeler, out at Kachana Station in the East Kimberley. For more on Chris, Kachana Station, the wild donkeys and how you can get involved with and or support the Henggelers, see the links in our program details.
AJ:Stay tuned for the special extra to this episode out shortly and the closing chapter to this time at Kachana out next week. There's also an extensive selection of photos on the episode webpage if you fancy a look, with some additional stories attached to them. Oh, and I owe mention to our young boy. He's got his own podcast now with his own episode with Chris, so you'll find that on Yeshe Interviews, spelled Y-E-S-H-E Interviews. It's on Anchor, Spotify and a few others. Something for the kids. With thanks to the generous supporters of this podcast for making this 100th episode possible. Please join them and help power the next 100 episodes of The RegenNarration by becoming a podcast patron. Just head to the website via the show notes regennarration. com forward slash support. Thanks, as always. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.
