How Goats are Regenerating a Forest and Protecting this Town from Bushfire

From Weedy Forests to Grassy Woodlands tells the story of a community-led permaculture initiative to mitigate forest fire risk using goats and hand tools rather than herbicides, heavy machinery, and burn-offs. On the edge of Daylesford, a town on Dja Dja Wurrung country in Victoria, Australia prone to massive bush fires, a small group of community-minded folk have pulled together to work towards restoring the ecology of their commons forest – in order to stop the future need for controlled burn-offs by the local fire authority.

Burn-offs keep the township safe from out-of-control fires, but they hinder the forest’s ability to regenerate, and thus cannot provide the environment necessary for the diversity of insects, birds and animals that are necessary in a healthy forest on a healthy planet. Restoring the forest also allows for traditional indigenous burns to take place, as the danger created by flammable non-native species has been reduced.

The work being done by the Goathand Cooperative is not only showing stunning results on the forest floor, it’s having much broader effects: the forest’s wildlife is thriving, the goats are healthy and happy, but in addition neighbours previously dubious about the project have come on board, so that new and strong community connections are being made. And as one Cooperative member says in the film, an important re-connection is also being made with nature. “We haven’t always been trammellers of land,” says Patrick Jones. This connection to the soil and to the forest is, he believes, “our way back to sanity”.

From Weedy Forests to Grassy Woodlands offers inspiration to anyone looking for ways to regenerate their own or a commons forest, anyone feeling the urgency of mitigating the potential disasters of forest fires in the most natural way possible, anyone in a locality and position to use goats for that purpose, and just anyone seeking reconnection to the earth that created and sustains us!

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** Film credits **
Directed and written by Jordan Osmond
Story feedback by Antoinette Wilson & Nick Tucker
Cinematography by Jordan Osmond
Editing, colour grading and sound mix by Jordan Osmond

** Thanks! **
Thank you to our wonderful Patreon supporters: Filip Zeman, Greg & Rachel Hart, Carolyn Gillum, Brian Newton, Emma Savage, Lauren, Susan Hunsberger, Danielle Klein, Al√™ Franco, Klyti Green, Kirti Patel, Kelly Milikins, Tabitha Bristow, Gabriel Moreno, Vijayalakshmi, Nathan Kitchen, Alex Muir, Geoffrey Torkington, Tiitus Laine, Cicely Jette Stewart, Mehron Kugler, Rex & Jo, Brett Davidson, Jess O’Shea, Tony Schaufelberger, Sankar Madhavan, Pierre Blom, Moana Kiff, Namaste Foundation, William B. Everett, Ron Hastie, David, Melissa Tripodi, Kate Hall.

[lesboucher]

Around 40 years ago I moved to New Zealand. While there I met a guy who had purchased some land on the west coast of the south island. Locals laughed at him because it was filled with Gorse. He fenced it off, a bit at a time, and introduced goats. After a few years, he had the best farm in the area thanks to those goats. He turned the scorn into people then asking him for advice. Mother nature knows the answers if we just take the time to ask and listen to the answers.

[ajwrighty]

I first watched this film about 2 years ago and it inspired me to buy a small herd of Boer goats to help with clearing our riverbank, which had become quite choked with weeds and vines, including blackberry, kudzu and lantana. We’ve had our small herd working for about 18 months now and thought I’d share my observations:

- They have done a magnificent job chewing down the blackberry, kudzu and another prickly vine that I don’t know the name of but was growing into and over the canopy of our big natives and strangling them. They’ve also eaten the wild tobacco, Chinese elm and to a good extent they’ve eaten back the lantana. I’ve managed to get the remaining lantana and blackberry thickets under control by cutting them back with a blade attachment on a whipper snipper. The blade slices through the woody thickets like butter and turns them into mulch on the ground. Much easier work than a machete or hand pruners!

- Many of the vines were growing 20+ metres up into the canopy of some beautiful old silky oaks, and strangling many of the native trees along the riverbanks (bottle brush, banksias, wattles). The goats have chewed down what they could reach but I found I had to get in and pull down a lot of the vines that were growing out of their reach and cut some vines that were too thick to pull down.

- Cutting vines at the base left a large thicket of dead vines right up to the canopy of the trees. Over a period of about 12 months, this tangled thicket has largely fallen to the ground in wind and storms and will eventually breakdown into the soil.

- The goats have been very gentle and light footed on the riverbanks and get to the steep parts of the riverbank that are otherwise too hard for humans or their machinery to work on. I move them regularly so that they don’t overgraze a particular area. I had some preliminary concerns that they might cause soil erosion but this hasn’t been an issue as they don’t disturb the roots or the soil and all the big established trees are still in tact and holding the soil together.

- The goats are not selective when it comes to eating the leaves of trees and saplings. The established trees with canopies out of the goats reach are generally safe and won’t be harmed by the goats. I’ve observed the goats like to rub/scratch their heads on the trunks of smaller trees with bendable trunks so I’ve had to protect a few of the smaller trees that I wanted to save by wrapping their trunk with polypipe (I cut it vertically with a slit to open and enclose the trunk), and/or with chicken mesh. I prune any lower branches on the tree to allow for an easy wrap of the trunk up to a height that the goats can reach.

- Goats hate getting their feet wet and will avoid it at any cost so if using a water course/river as a fencing boundary, you only need to fence a metre or two into the river to stop them getting around it. I use the netting for the main perimeter fence and at the rivers edge, I use star pickets and poly wire to extend the fence about 2 metres into the river.

- When our river floods, the debris used to bank up and dam, which created all sorts of problems. Now it has a much clearer path to flow downstream and I’ve observed that we’ve actually reduced our flood risk by reducing the density of obstructions.

I hope these observations may help others who want to engage on a similar path. Goats are a bit of work to manage well but very rewarding to see the transformation and they are a pleasure to have around.

My thanks to the crew who made this film and inspired me to take this journey!

[billderinbaja]

A couple of months ago, I "inherited" responsibility for 10 goats, 40 chickens and a rooster... first time in my 64 years I ever had to care for farm animals. I really loved the goats.... funny animals with great personalities, will follow you like dogs when they trust you. Really enjoyed this video, love what you are doing.

[russelljenkins]

What an amazing gift these men are. They make me proud to be an Aussie. Knowing w have ambassadors like these. Absolutely love what they're doing!

[samuelchappell]

Some times, going against conventional wisdom yields more and better results. In this case, using goats to control black berry bushes from oppressing local forests has done a tremendous service to the overall environment. I would consider this a win for not only the people, but for everything that calls this area a home.

[Daaannns]

no way!! stumbled across these goats 6 months or so back on a bush wander Didn't realise it was Patrick's doing. So awesome

[JennyWinters]

In Chattanooga Tn, during the 1980's, goats were used to decimate kudzu. Kudzu is an invasive plant in the southern US and it climbs up telephone poles. It smothers out everything in its path. It was originally imported from Asia to help with soil erosion. While in Asia it was in control and small but in the heat of the Southern US, it thrived and grew to excess 10X over. Goats were brought in to eat the kudzu and it helped in maintaining an invasive plant problem. I hope California can use goats in their fire problems.

[matthewedwards]

This video is SO reassuring. I'm in the process of using my goat herd to clear about 5.5 acres of "thicket" in east Tennessee. The plot has been grossly mismanaged in past years (completely bulldozed on three separate occasions in an attempt to convert it into a hay field, and then left to regrow without any further management). That said, it's completely overrun with blackberries, black locust trees, and other types of shrubbery and invasive plants. My goal is to let the black locust trees continue to grow into a shady canopy while grasses gradually establish on the under story. A grassy woodland, so to speak.

The reason this video gives me hope, is that I have no mechanical equipment. It's just me, my goats, and a machete. For a while, I thought it must be absurd for me to walk about this plot and hack the thorns and shrubbery into something more manageable, but I now rest assured knowing that I'm not the only one utilizing this "hands on" approach! Great video.

[jgcchapman]

This film was a wonderful reminder that we CAN find our way back from the brink. That we live because there is soil, water, and sunlight. That we damn well need to stop taking those three vital things for granted. A beautiful example of people and animals on the land.

[fluorescentblack]

It's so heartening to see people caring for the ecology of this beautiful continent. Well done guys!

[anarich]

I got 3 goats this spring for the purpose of helping me reclaim my wild 5 acre property. My goal is forest pastures to rotate a small amount of livestock for our homestead. Thank you for validating my approach.

[benfranklin]

Goats are great for clearing out poison ivy...they love to eat it and it has no adverse effects on them.

[RealJudyi]

Blackberries are headaches but we had goats for a few years and they ate 80% of the weeds in our two acre land. They also ate a lot of other trees and plants but they did such a great job that even 9 years afterwards we don't have as much blackberries. We can manage it now. They also helped our backyard become more fertile, all this done by two hungry goats. My grandparents also take care of goats for a few months just to get free natural lawnmowers while the owners get free food for their pets.

[cherigreen]

We just from NE Ohio and we had forest on two sides of our property filled with blackberries and I know how hard they are to manage even though I would try to thin back every year, but leave some for the birds and other animals.They really are invasive! I love how this documentary is showing a wonderful eco friendly solution to manage this problem!

[masonreeves]

So good to see supreme leader Kylo Ren taking initiative in managing the land

[germaineludik]

The "like" button just seems so mundane when it comes to showing love for this video. My response is DEEP LOVE. thank you

[Tomadair]

The love of the man speaking about human relationships with the land and animals makes my heart sing with joy, we are going home to Mother and learning again about how to truly live in harmony. Thank you.

[kdkay]

This is a beautiful example of the symbiotic relationship between animals and nature. Thank you for showing the two working towards a common goal!

[yj]

Animals deserve love and affection of humans. The only way we can have a bright future is by treating animals as partners, rather than a resource.

[mkwy]

We transformed our little 55 acres here in Kansas by using a flock of hair sheep...both our pasture land and creek bottom. Our neighbors were stunned by the changes. The combination of grazing our sheep and cattle together worked wonderfully.