Lives and Livelihoods

Turning back time on decades of damage at Mt Riddock

Dick and Ann Cadzow

When veteran Northern Territory pastoralists Dick and Ann Cadzow moved their family onto Central Australia’s Mt Riddock Station in 1986, the homestead paddock was a dustbowl - ‘a sea of moving sand’.

Right across the 2635 sq km property, extensive rabbit warrens had de-stabilised the land, wind and water erosion had leached any goodness from the soil, and the rock-hard surface of vast tracts of supposed grazing land meant the areas were devoid of vegetation. It was a virtual desert!

The Cadzows, fresh from 20 years of developing pastoral land management skills on the Barkly’s Phillip Creek Station, took stock of the mammoth task confronting them, rolled up their sleeves and began a remarkable transformation.

Their efforts, including their willingness to share their land for research trials, has placed Mt Riddock on a pedestal and recently earned its owners NT Landcare’s 2004-05 Rural Press Primary Producer Award. Mt Riddock is a showcase of landcare success today but Dick Cadzow modestly describes his family’s efforts as ‘just doing what has to be done’.

“You’ve got no choice but to look after your land if you want to make money from it,” Dick says. “It costs you more not to have the land in a healthy and productive state. You’ve got to be prepared to move the stock out when necessary and rest the land to get it back to normal. You’ve got to let the grass have a chance to re-grow without something biting its head off as soon as it pops up out of the ground. ”

As soon as they moved onto Mt Riddock, the Cadzows - including son Steven and daughter Robyn - began identifying priorities for restoring productivity to degraded areas – with no government funding assistance. The strategies they set to redress past disastrous management practices needed a long-term comprehensive and expensive commitment.

They employed one bulldozer driver full time for 18 months to rip rabbit warrens, and another to undertake extensive landforming to slow erosion and rehabilitate sealed soil surfaces.

They also culled more than 1000 feral horses that were competing with the cattle for food, wiped out the station’s entire rabbit population, restocked and ‘rested’ the homestead paddock, and built ponding banks in severely depleted areas to help trap valuable nutrients and moisture from the rain.

The rehabilitation works have cost them a personal fortune. For starters, they invested more than $330,000 – and 4500 bulldozer hours – to eradicate Mt Riddock’s extreme rabbit infestation.

The result was that the property had no rabbits left by the time the deadly calicivirus was released to wage war on one of Australia’s most destructive enemies for farmers and graziers. Getting rid of that feral pest alone led to the dramatic recovery of pasture and shrub species, which could sustain a healthy cattle herd.

The Cadzows also spent $126,000 on soil rehabilitation works in the station’s Table Hill paddock, a former barren wasteland that couldn’t carry any stock when the work began in 1987. It is now lush with native grasses and is able to sustain four cattle per square kilometre in a region where four cattle per two square kilometres is the norm.

The list of work goes on. Mt Riddock’s regimes today are keeping on top of the full spectrum of land and natural resource issues facing Territory pastoralists – soil erosion, water conservation, weeds and feral animals, biodiversity and sustainable beef production.

Steven is carrying on his father's tradition of land stewardship by entering into a rotational grazing trial, one of the first of its kind in Central Australia. The trial involves preparing sale cattle and implementing a telemetry system to monitor water points. The idea is to help reduce fossil fuel consumption and to free up time for other important aspects of running a sustainable rural property.

The collective results of work done on Mt Riddock since the Cadzows arrived in 1986 prove the value of this family’s lifelong personal commitment to the land and its future. The property is now a showcase of what sound land management practices can do to turn back the clock and convert a disaster into a highly successful cattle station, operated in tune with a healthy local natural environment.

Daughter Robyn Cadzow, a rangelands officer in Alice Springs, is clearly proud of what her family has achieved. She sums up the philosophy that has driven their determination and success.

“Repairing and looking after the land is all part of life at Mt Riddock,” she says. “Dad has brought so much valuable knowledge to the station and he never stops learning because he’s constantly trying out new ideas to make things even better. He is such a humble fellow. He hates being put on a pedestal for our family’s achievements at Mt Riddock - because he firmly believes it is his life, his job and his hobby to keep improving the land so it is as healthy, productive and sustainable as possible so future generations can benefit from it.”

Source: Kerry Sharp