Contributor, ARR.News

Buffel grass is a threat to remote Indigenous communities in Australia because it causes heightened fire risk, damage to cultural sites, and a reduction in the ability to pass on cultural knowledge to the next generation ... Left unmanaged, the weed poses a threat to grazing and cropping systems because it spreads quickly in hotter, stormier weather.

The Water Legislation Amendment Bill delivers on a key commitment by the government to strengthen water measurement in Queensland to improve management of the state’s precious water sources ... New arrangements will help Queensland meet its Murray-Darling Basin commitments, including through telemetry and better measurement of overland flows.

The Malinauskas Government releases its response to the Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission 2019 that will guide action on all 44 recommendations, a key election commitment. The response sets out the government’s expectations, policy positions and proposed actions, focusing on four key objectives...

The state’s peak farming body has welcomed a new Parliamentary Committee to re-examine underground transmission lines following strong community outrage. A recent government-dominated review into undergrounding high-voltage transmission lines ignored community concerns and strong opposition from the farming sector, recommending enormous above-ground towers and powerlines...

The Minns Government’s proposed Great Koala National Park is not an extinction panacea for koalas, says the President of Forestry Australia, Dr Michelle Freeman ... "it is simplistic to suggest that locking away forests is the great panacea for saving koalas from extinction ... In fact, experience shows us that declaring a National Park does not equal koala population growth."  

Mount Isa will next month host a first of its kind, community-led event discussing Australia’s energy future, with a particular focus on nuclear power technology. The Mount Isa Nuclear Power Forum: “What if we went nuclear?” is being staged by Katter’s Australian Party Leader (KAP) and Traeger MP Robbie Katter, who has promised a “frank discussion around the possibilities of nuclear power production in outback Australia”.

Grain growers across central and northern New South Wales are being advised to be ‘alert, not alarmed’ as reports of Russian wheat aphid (RWA) in winter crops come in from across the region. NSW Department of Primary Industries (NSW DPI) entomologist at the Tamworth Agricultural Centre, Dr Zorica Duric said RWA had been detected in crops on the Liverpool Plains and around Moree in recent weeks.

Australian research project, Farming for the Future releases preliminary findings. In a study of global significance and at a scale never previously undertaken, Phase 2 of the Farming for the Future research program has collected financial, ecological and social data from 130 Australian grazing and cropping enterprises...

Farming groups have come together in Canberra to call out the misinformation peddled in Parliament this week regarding the Government’s rewrite of the Murray Darling Basin Plan. National Farmers’ Federation Chief Executive Tony Mahar said the fact the Government felt the need to stretch the truth just revealed how flawed the proposal is.