The maverick outback grazier using donkeys to regenerate his land | Australian Story
Ron: This is a typical example of how Australia's belligerent occupying governance is deliberately ruining the flora, fauna & environment of this nation & her inhabitants.
Ron: The Talmudically controlled governance of Western Australia, situated in Perth, 2,000 miles away has been harassing & destroying the life & work of Chris Henggeler & his family for many years.THIS is a good example of what belligerent occupiers DO to destroy the lives & work of Australians.
Divine natural law requires that every human being act as a good guardian of the land s/he occupies; & properly cares for the flora, fauna & physical resourcs of that land. NO ONE may interfere with the occupiers’ quiet enjoyment of that land & anything on it without permission of the occupier. THAT situation will be mandated under Christ Michael’s Millennial Reign.
The idea that Talmudic politicians & bureaucrats 2,000 miles away can decide that Chris Henggeler & his family MUST kill ANY animals on the wilderness 200,000 acre landholding they have occupied & skillfully managed for 33 years is not only absurd BUT diabolical. Such abuses of power MUST stop & those supporting them must repent or cease to live on this planet. Capiche?
256,197 views Nov 6, 2024 #AustralianStory #Donkeys #RegenerativeAg
In one of the toughest parts of Australia, a barefoot grazier is running a bold regenerative experiment that might land him in jail. For the past three decades Chris Henggeler has dedicated his life to transforming an eroding, desolate, fire-prone property in the Kimberley into an oasis of green paddocks and fresh running water. A secret of his success — feral donkeys. Despite the support of ecologists and a local Indigenous resident, the pastoralist has found on the wrong side of the law. Subscribe: https://ab.co/3yqPOZ5 Read
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Transcript
0:11
Dad fell in love with Kachana the minute he saw it. He often refers to it almost as his calling.
0:19
He said his dream is to leave this planet a little bit better than he found it. And it has become his
0:25
life. It has become his life. Well,
0:34
when I came and looked at this, I thought, ‘Well, I don’t have to keep looking. This ticks all the
0:41
boxes and more, but it took us a while to realise, actually, this country's a skeleton
0:51
of what it could be. This country comes with a custodianship obligation and we need to look after
0:59
these beautiful landscapes and to restore them. Chris's work has been absolutely amazing. He has
1:06
transformed a desert into an oasis. When I first moved here, there was so little vegetation around,
1:15
and now I walk around and I see grass everywhere. I see life everywhere. I see water everywhere.
1:25
It's an extraordinary case of regeneration at a time when we desperately need it and it was
1:33
playing out for a couple of decades when suddenly, as far as the station was concerned, they found
1:39
themselves on the wrong side of the law. I’ve got better things to do than go to
1:44
court with my own government. And if someone had said, do you know that you’re going to be spending
1:48
seven-odd years thinking about how to keep a few donkeys alive, I would have laughed at the idea.
1:59
If the science is not on my side, I deserve to be locked up. And if the science is on my side,
2:04
well, I deserve an apology. Would you go to jail over this?
2:09
Yes. Our home is Kachana Station,
2:26
which is 120 km southwest of Kununurra. It’s got no road access. You can only reach it by
2:33
air or by taking a five-day walk. It's an area bigger than Singapore,
2:41
but had been abandoned, stripped of First Nations, of course, and then abandoned
2:45
by Whitefellas who'd been out there. When we first started the intention was
2:52
to do some pastoral venture and have tourism to subsidise us. So I had no intention of becoming
3:00
a land care apostle or a prophet or whatever. Dad's very set in his ways. Very single minded.
3:10
Uh, and he can sometimes be difficult working with such a strong personality as Dad's.
3:19
Chris is absolutely not afraid to be unconventional, to do things differently.
3:28
He swims, I guess, against the stream. I'm a person who swims very much with the
3:35
stream. I always tried to change Chris. Kachana has been a wonderful learning
3:45
experience that continues, but the price has been unacceptable. I had I known the price that Jackie
3:55
and my children would have to pay for my learning, I would not have embarked on this project.
4:06
They called their oasis in this desert, Kachana. An African word meaning faraway place.
4:14
25 years ago, Landline came out and did a segment on Kachana and our children
4:19
at the time were small little helpers. Chris: I wanted something to do with cattle,
4:25
at least enough cattle to, for self-sufficiency. And I saw that we had sunshine, we had water. So,
4:31
yeah, I believed that I could compensate for my lack of experience and lack of knowledge
4:35
with a bit of common sense and perseverance. At the time when we did Landline, it was still,
4:41
you know, like I was still trying to find my feet out here. It took a long time.
4:46
What were your first impressions, Jacquie? I really enjoyed it. I liked the place.
4:51
You know, you're still young. And I was in love. And I think anything is possible at that stage.
4:59
But I didn’t realise how difficult it would be. You know, I just,
5:03
the terrain and everything. It was so new to me. I grew up in Switzerland, in a little village
5:12
called Engelberg. You've got high mountains all around you where you can ski all year round
5:19
because there is always snow there. It is the total opposite of Kachana, not just the landscape,
5:26
the way I grew up as well. I had a very privileged lifestyle. My parents managed
5:33
a hotel in that village. You know, I never had to cook or do much. I met Chris, I was in year
5:42
six in Engelberg, and we were told that a new girl was going to join our class and that they had just
5:48
moved from Africa and that they had lost their farm. And so, this new girl was Chris's sister.
5:57
I grew up on a little farm in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. Dad was Swiss born and Mum was
6:03
Austrian. And in ‘73, for security reasons, the family decided to move back to Switzerland. Our
6:15
farm was in a hot, hot spot at one of the areas where the liberation started,
6:20
and it was pretty clear that we weren't going to be able to keep the family farm.
6:24
The new flag was raised, Robert Mugabe’s government assumed power, and Zimbabwe was born.
6:32
What drew me to Australia was really the wide, open spaces. Europe was too crowded for me and
6:37
too controlled. Being a farm boy, I needed land. I was looking for a place to commit to. I was
6:44
looking for a home. I wanted my children, if I had any, to grow up in a bush setting. When I got to
6:52
the Kimberley, I thought ‘This is it, I don’t need to go any further’. It was far enough to be able
6:57
to do our own thing and hopefully be left alone. Chris had already emigrated to Australia, but then
7:08
he came back to Switzerland for quite a few months because his mum wasn’t too well. I was probably
7:14
24 at that time and he would have been 29. I'd last seen her as a little girl,
7:20
but I'd never really looked at her as a young woman, prospective wife.
7:27
He had told me about the project Kachana. He had told me that this is where his heart was,
7:35
I couldn’t tell that he was stubborn straight away, but he knew his goals,
7:40
he knew where he wanted to go in life. She was in love and blind and obviously
7:45
didn't see how hard it would be. I didn't think it'd be that hard either.
7:49
Yes, I can remember we watched Crocodile Dundee and I thought, oh this is my own,
7:55
this is going to be my Crocodile Dundee. Something like that, yeah (laughing)…
8:01
We moved out here in 1991. Our first bedroom was the back of the Landcruisers. The plan was, ‘Oh
8:12
we going to just camp here for maybe two years and then in that time we'll build the, the homestead,
8:18
you know, and but that never eventuated. And so, where we actually camped became our home.
8:26
And yeah, that's where we still are. We don’t have roads. Everything has to
8:31
be flown in. So I was very fortunate in so far that I was able to explain to my
8:36
wife that the aircraft and the airstrip was more important than the house, so we bought
8:42
an aircraft very early in the piece. I had to learn to fly. We started building airstrips.
8:50
The cooking was all done in camp ovens on the fire, which got really annoying during the wet
8:56
season because, you know, no sooner had you built a nice fire to maybe bake bread in the camp oven,
9:03
you had some rain and then, you know, you had to start all over again. So that was hard work. Yeah,
9:10
very hard work. In those first years, there were many, many occasions where I could have
9:18
just packed up and left. But to me at that stage, I already had two little children.
9:25
Chris was the most fantastic father I could wish for any child they were so involved in,
9:31
you know, his daily life. I probably would have had to leave on my own, because I could not
9:38
break those children’s hearts, nor Chris’s heart because he’s just such a good, he loves family.
9:48
X-Ray Zulu Victor, are you there? Over. Good morning, Bobby…
9:53
We'd only get into town maybe 4 or 5 times a year, and it made you very self-reliant
9:59
and resourceful. We didn’t just have a Bunnings down the road, so you had to look after your
10:05
stuff where you broke the handle on the shovel, you’d have to go and find a tree,
10:10
find the right branch, make a new one. We had a very free childhood, I would
10:17
say. We were always outside, outdoors. When we went to Kununurra and our friends would
10:24
just be like jumping on a trampoline in a small backyard, and we were like, well
10:29
okay, you know, where’s the fun in this? From an early age, dad put a lot of
10:35
responsibility on us, and we helped out a lot, before and after school. So there
10:41
was always chores. He wouldn’t tell us how to do things, he would tell us what needed to get done.
10:49
For the children it wasn't unconventional at all because this was reality for the children. The
10:53
rest of the world was unconventional. (Landline, 2000)
10:57
Reporter: Pretty much the only thing that's come off this property in the past decade
11:00
or so is soil. Possibly millions of tons of it washed down the creeks and rivers
11:05
and out to sea during the wet season deluge. I was passionate about the land. Passionate
11:11
about conservation. But I had no inkling that, that this country was. That there was an issue
11:17
here. So by 92 we'd realised that something was very wrong. The very areas that had attracted us,
11:24
these, these little oases were being carved up and, and draining and dying.
11:32
Every morning, I would wake up with sand between my teeth, because when you had the wind and the
11:37
storms come in, there was no vegetation around. It was just dirt. It was just sound and Chris
11:44
knew from what he had seen in Africa where desertification had started, he knew the same
11:52
thing was happening in these rangelands, that we were losing a lot of soil and unless something
11:58
was done, we, it would all be a desert one day. Conventional thinking is that we had too many
12:06
animals. When we first arrived on the property, my estimation at the time was about 1200 head of
12:11
feral cattle and about 400 feral donkeys. And so then we did the destock. And then
12:17
after the destock, things got worse. All of a sudden we had a fire problem. We forgot to
12:23
tell the grass to stop growing. And the grass grew, and we ended up with a fire nightmare.
12:32
That's when he then started going back to, you know, doing, doing different courses,
12:37
learning more about it, finding like-minded people to talk to. Mostly they weren't in Australia.
12:45
They certainly weren't in the Kimberley. In ‘97 I found out about the work of Allan Savory,
12:54
and that in seasonally dry environments you need the large herbivores for their mouths
12:59
and hooves to keep the soil healthy. That's when the penny dropped and I realised, hey,
13:05
we need we need more mouths and hooves, not less. Basically, we’re getting them to do what their
13:11
wild ancestors would have done prior to domestication, and that’s a role that’s
13:17
sorely needed in the Australian landscape.” Our cattle are very valuable as a landscape
13:22
management tool. They mulch, fertilise and prune vegetation which helps build the soil structure.
13:30
Each one will take out about 15 kilos of manure and spread it around the landscape. So,
13:36
we've got these landscapes. Seasonally dry landscape is dotted with These biologically
13:42
active microsites. It's still it's still humid. It's damp. This will be working for another two
13:48
months and then it just goes dormant. And when it's when the rain comes, it'll explode with life.
13:55
The question is, what do we do in the areas where the cattle don't readily go to?
13:59
And we already had donkeys and, and I realised, well, well, we maybe let's not shoot the donkeys.
14:06
Let’s have a no shoot zone between this gorge and the next gorge, and we started experimenting.
14:14
We have very, very rough country out here. We have a lot of rocks. We have a lot of,
14:19
you know, steep banks. The cattle won't go up there, but the donkeys will.
14:26
We've learned that we can manipulate the donkey behaviour through lick blocks,
14:31
through how we shift the cattle around. It's actually been a surprise to me that
14:36
that donkeys are a key ingredient because I didn't like donkeys by appreciating the value that these
14:43
animals could have in the landscape. That's when I started getting enthusiastic about it.
14:54
When I was young, and Dad first started out there, they laughed at him. They
15:01
would say things behind his back, no doubt. Most people thought he’s a crazy Rhodesian, maybe.
15:09
I guess they couldn’t really understand because, obviously you have to have an income somewhere.
15:17
With a young family, why would you suddenly put all your efforts into regenerating land?
15:24
It is a bit of a challenge because Kachana hasn't paid its own way yet. Um, and we are
15:30
supporting it off by our farm income. Chris had some investments, we’ve got
15:37
an apartment in town, we rent out and then I sometimes go and work a little bit as well.
15:46
The hardest part was the social rejection and the ridicule. I found the peer pressure was more an
15:52
issue for Jackie and the children. I could always see the reward in what I was doing by looking
15:57
outside and. And nature responding to what I was doing. But the drudgery of being based in the
16:03
camp and having primitive conditions and people thinking your husband's a nutter or your dad's a
16:09
nutter. You know that that that was the pressure that the children suffered from like especially
16:13
when they left here and realised, oh, you know, nobody can relate to what we've been through.
16:19
I think now people are starting to wake up and listen and more and more people are going
16:24
towards the regenerative way of managing the land. And that's really exciting.
16:32
The method of regeneration is 100% ground cover 100 per cent of the time. So, he achieves this
16:39
with what he's framed as the new megafauna, large herbivores that used to run on the Australian
16:46
continent. The diprotodons of today, he would say. This is a fledgling experiment in many ways,
16:54
they still don't have enough megafauna to cover their whole 200,000 acres. But they've got these
16:59
model areas which show extraordinary regeneration of grasslands at Kachana.
17:07
Now we've got this ground cover and it actually acts as a filter. So, all the water that goes
17:12
through here into the main river gets filtered and you've got clean water going out there.
17:18
I can only admire the work that he's done out of Kachana station, you know,
17:23
and he's used his cattle, and he's used his donkeys to take care of, take care of country.
17:29
You know, I believe that what Chris is doing is,
17:31
is a perfect example of what Aboriginal people want to see on their country.
17:38
A few years ago, Chris won an award as soil champion for the Kimberley region for,
17:44
you know, the work he was doing, and I think, wow, this is amazing.
17:50
There are a number of tests for rehydrating your property. And the simplest test is to go
17:55
to the lowest end of your property and drink what runs off it. And I’m perfectly happy to do that.
18:02
Good enough for me. Mmm, cheers. He's slowly starting to get recognised,
18:11
which is really nice because it's been a long battle for him, and I think it still is a fairly
18:15
big battle, especially with the donkeys. We thought we were doing quite well and
18:24
it was looking very promising. And then all of a sudden 2018, the rules seem to have changed.
18:32
We were told, no, we'd have to get rid of the donkeys. And yeah, I guess there was a,
18:40
on my part, it was just disbelief. The Department of Agriculture and Regional
18:47
Development issued a shoot order to Kachana Station to kill the donkeys they’d observed in a
18:53
helicopter flyover inspection. It’s effectively a culling order that they’re expected to implement.
19:00
Wild donkeys are descendants of pack animals used in the old gold rush days…
19:06
The wild donkey story started when donkeys were brought out to Australia as transport
19:11
and beasts of burden. And like many other pests today, they were let go. And then
19:19
came to be regarded as feral as they were doing extraordinary damage to the landscape.
19:28
In the Kimberley alone, upwards of half a million donkeys have
19:32
been culled in the last four decades or so. In relation to Kachana station, I can't comment
19:39
on the specifics of what they're, um, looking to achieve and the use of donkeys on their property.
19:44
But donkeys are certainly one of the major problems in northern Australia. They can carry
19:50
weeds. They do have the tendency to change soil, soil structure by removing the native grasses
19:59
and in some cases they will, um, create erosion on the banks or actually get into the water and, and
20:05
increase turbidity. We think of donkeys in line with Lantana or cane toads, uh, feral horses, etc.
20:15
Under the guidelines of the WA state legislation that has declared donkeys as a feral pest, it is
20:22
the responsibility of the landholder to control and manage donkeys on their on their landholdings.
20:32
I’m not for one minute suggesting we need to sort of unleash wild donkeys all over
20:37
the Kimberley. I’m interested in managing the resource that I'm responsible for. Feral
20:43
behaviour we've always culled against right from the start. And we still do.
20:48
We had around about up to 150 odd depending on the seasons. If it was a dry season,
20:55
we'd bring that number back down. I've shot an awful lot more donkeys than any one of those
21:04
people sending us letters in the department have. But, um, to go out there and shoot our
21:10
little population of donkeys that we know to do good. No, that won't be me and it won't be Chris.
21:18
I realised we got to look at it from the science point of view. And the role of
21:22
science is not to defend your hypothesis. It's to challenge it, so we needed to have
21:28
research and we came across Arian Wallach. I’m an ecologist interested in feral and
21:37
invasive species. The first time I came to Kachana, I was struck by the complexity
21:47
of what was going on here. I know this country here,
21:51
it’s too rough for cattle and you can see the donkeys they go up here regularly.’
21:56
In this case, we have an opportunity to ask some really interesting ecological questions,
22:02
such as the relationship between donkeys and fire. Burning through thousands of hectares, a bushfire
22:09
shuts the Kimberley outback’s main highway. Fire is an extraordinary problem in the Kimberley.
22:19
Everybody agrees we have to prevent wildfire So this is this year's prime dust bath
22:27
One of the interesting things that donkeys do is dig dust baths. They’ll rub around in the
22:33
soil until it becomes powdery and soft. These dust baths are a good thing if you don’t like
22:40
fire. Once it rains, those depressions fill up with water. Vegetation grows on the edge of it.
22:47
The soil becomes wetter, and the fire becomes less likely to spread through the environment.
22:56
I’ll use those later in the year if there’s a fire, I can burn back burn off one of these pads.
23:02
Donkeys can cut down fire risk in ways that cows cannot because they can eat dry, senescent
23:09
vegetation, the most flammable vegetation. and they can go up into the hills. That can be where
23:14
you really can't control fire. So it's in the hills and places as rocky and steep as
23:21
the Kimberley, it's either fire or donkeys. In 2021, we were given an infringement notice
23:32
and a pest control notice, which we've challenged and are still challenging.
23:37
And so we asked for the pest control notice to be reviewed under the State Administrative Tribunal.
23:44
And it appears at this point in time there will be a hearing scheduled for later in the year.
23:53
One thing I do believe that Chris deserves is an ear, you know, and great constructive
23:58
conversations because looking after country is everyone's responsibility.
24:05
I don't want to go to jail, but I don't, I want to be able to look my grandchildren
24:09
in the eye and say, listen, I knew what was going on. I did my best to communicate that.
24:14
I'll go visit him in jail if they want to lock him up. And if I need to go,
24:17
as well as being one of the directors, we'll see. This is another case where I would have given up
24:26
years ago um I don’t know if Chris actually knows how to give up. But, you know, we. Yeah, it's,
24:33
it's up to him. It's got to sit right for him. And I will just support him.
24:41
Hey how are you. Hello Kristina. So today was the deadline. We sent
24:48
in all the witness statements. So that’s happening, that process is continuing and
24:52
we have faith that’ll do its thing… Are you feeling a little bit
24:55
less stressed now dad? I believe we’ve got science on
24:58
our side and let the science prevail. It’s had a lot of impact on dad. He
25:04
had health issues last year that would definitely have been related to stress.
25:09
Well it’s totally derailed my whole succession plan, like I’d hoped to be retired long time by
25:16
now. I'm ready to step back the moment someone steps up. If any of the kids come back to live
25:23
here, that would be great. But I can’t see it happening within the next five years.
25:28
If you just penalise innovation, well we’re not going to expect
25:31
young people to step up to the plate. I do want to see Kachana, if possible, stay
25:38
in the family with either myself or a combination of us running it, managing it, making that happen.
25:49
But I’m definitely hesitant to keep investing more money and time until we have a clear way forward.
25:58
We're hoping that once we get a positive result with the donkeys,
26:03
we can start focusing on our succession planning a bit more
26:06
as a family.. It would be disappointing to see the land go back to what it was.
26:17
As a family, you're going without a lot of the day-to-day conveniences which most people come
26:21
to take for granted. what does that done for you, and what do you think it's doing for your kids?
26:26
I actually think it's very good for the children and also for us. You learn to communicate because
26:33
you can't run away from each other. You just have to, you know, sort your problems out.
26:41
I think the love story is stronger, much stronger. So are you going to retire out here with me?
26:47
I will. I will support you. Haha you’ve got to say I do.
26:53
I learned to love Chris as Chris. And that that is. That's nice. That is much better
26:58
than just, you know, falling in love. It’s been tested a bit, hasn’t it?
27:03
It has been tested a lot, I’d say.” I think I might have fallen out of love
27:07
a few times, but I have. I certainly love you much more now than then. I would say,
27:13
and it's. Yeah, it's a strong love. So likewise it's good. It’s been a success against the odds.
27:36
The WA Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development declined to comment on the
28:02
donkey issue at Kachana Station.
28:18
A final hearing into the matter begins on November 5, 2024.
English (United Kingdom)
And so we asked for the pest control notice to be reviewed under the State Administrative Tribunal.
23:44
And it appears at this point in time there will be a hearing scheduled for later in the year.
23:53
One thing I do believe that Chris deserves is an ear, you know, and great constructive
23:58
conversations because looking after country is everyone's responsibility.
24:05
I don't want to go to jail, but I don't, I want to be able to look my grandchildren
24:09
in the eye and say, listen, I knew what was going on. I did my best to communicate that.
24:14
I'll go visit him in jail if they want to lock him up. And if I need to go,
24:17
as well as being one of the directors, we'll see. This is another case where I would have given up
24:26
years ago um I don’t know if Chris actually knows how to give up. But, you know, we. Yeah, it's,
24:33
it's up to him. It's got to sit right for him. And I will just support him.
24:41
Hey how are you. Hello Kristina. So today was the deadline. We sent
24:48
in all the witness statements. So that’s happening, that process is continuing and
24:52
we have faith that’ll do its thing… Are you feeling a little bit
24:55
less stressed now dad? I believe we’ve got science on
24:58
our side and let the science prevail. It’s had a lot of impact on dad. He
25:04
had health issues last year that would definitely have been related to stress.
25:09
Well it’s totally derailed my whole succession plan, like I’d hoped to be retired long time by
25:16
now. I'm ready to step back the moment someone steps up. If any of the kids come back to live
25:23
here, that would be great. But I can’t see it happening within the next five years.
25:28
If you just penalise innovation, well we’re not going to expect
25:31
young people to step up to the plate. I do want to see Kachana, if possible, stay
25:38
in the family with either myself or a combination of us running it, managing it, making that happen.
25:49
But I’m definitely hesitant to keep investing more money and time until we have a clear way forward.
25:58
We're hoping that once we get a positive result with the donkeys,
26:03
we can start focusing on our succession planning a bit more
26:06
as a family.. It would be disappointing to see the land go back to what it was.
26:17
As a family, you're going without a lot of the day-to-day conveniences which most people come
26:21
to take for granted. what does that done for you, and what do you think it's doing for your kids?
26:26
I actually think it's very good for the children and also for us. You learn to communicate because
26:33
you can't run away from each other. You just have to, you know, sort your problems out.
26:41
I think the love story is stronger, much stronger. So are you going to retire out here with me?
26:47
I will. I will support you. Haha you’ve got to say I do.
26:53
I learned to love Chris as Chris. And that that is. That's nice. That is much better
26:58
than just, you know, falling in love. It’s been tested a bit, hasn’t it?
27:03
It has been tested a lot, I’d say.” I think I might have fallen out of love
27:07
a few times, but I have. I certainly love you much more now than then. I would say,
27:13
and it's. Yeah, it's a strong love. So likewise it's good. It’s been a success against the odds.
27:36
The WA Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development declined to comment on the
28:02
donkey issue at Kachana Station.
28:18
A final hearing into the matter begins on November 5, 2024.
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[Ron: As Australia’s belligerent occupying governments in Western Australia & the nation are about to be removed, the decision will favour the occupier of the land or be quickly overturned with extreme prejudice to the decision makers.].
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