Lee Mead, Tarrangower Times
Over the past 16 years, the Tarrangower Cactus Control Group has achieved remarkable success in increasing knowledge about wheel cactus in our local area, and how to keep the problem under control.
Now, in this new era of change, the TCCG Committee has decided to plan some different approaches and objectives for our future.
These changes are brought about by many factors, including having achieved most of our original objectives, the overwhelming logistics of running large field days and the desire to have landowners and managers, both public and private, take more responsibility for the control of wheel cactus on their land.
The major changes we are implementing are, limiting our large community field days to two per year and instead focusing on supporting smaller, casual groups treating areas of wheel cactus that they find and by providing information and education via stalls at community events such as the Maldon Market and Maldon and Baringhup Agricultural Show.
We will be maintaining many of our actions, such as continuing to educate and advise new landowners, continuing to provide equipment loans and support to community members willing to kill wheel cactus and continuing to assist Parks Victoria in controlling re-infestations in the Maldon Historic Reserve.
We’ll also continue to liaise with council and state government departments for action on the wheel cactus problem and actively promote the wheel cactus issue via TV and radio media, our website, Facebook and wheel cactus control brochure distribution, etcetera.
We have five more events planned for this year which include: a small-scale field day on 28 August, an info stall at Maldon Market on 11 September, an info stall at Maldon Baringhup Ag Show on 16 October, a community field day in Maldon Historic Reserve on 23 October and our AGM on 27 November.
We welcome community members who need help with a wheel cactus problem, especially anyone who is new to our area, to please email us via our website at www.cactuswarriors.org.
This article appeared in the Tarrangower Times, 26 August 2022.
