The Editor

John O'Donnell reviews the NSW Rural Fire Service Annual Report 2021/22 ... Unfortunately, areas of annual hazard reduction burning and mechanical reduction in NSW are both at very low rates ... Only 3.1 per cent of the NSW forested landscape has received fuel treatment over five years, this is extremely low and inadequate to reduce bushfire areas and risk. In addition, the forests with extensive hot bushfires of 2019/ 20 are now three years old and in many cases there are extensive areas of dead trees, heavy grass/ bark etc fuel and dense understoreys ...

The NSW Government has released its plan to roll out electronic identification (eID) for the State’s $1.5 billion farmed sheep and goat industries. Minister for Agriculture and Western NSW Dugald Saunders said the plan has been developed hand-in-hand with industry, ensuring a timeline that works for each sector.

Today’s River Murray flow update shows the floodwater peak is still due in Renmark around the end of December and forecasts remain between 190 and 220 gigalitres a day, consistent with previous projections. While flow rates are useful for forecasting the scale of floods, water heights provide a better picture of conditions on the ground. Subsequently, as we are now closer to the expected peak, the Department for Environment and Water is now able to provide daily height forecasts for population centres.

A number of state forests across south east Queensland will be conserved earlier, the Palaszczuk Government has announced ... Environment Minister Meaghan Scanlon said it’s part of the Palaszczuk Government’s election commitment to transfer 20,000 hectares of state forest to Queensland’s protected areas.

CSIRO, Australia's national science agency, is part of a nappy recycling trial announced today to help address the 1.5 billion disposable nappies that end up in Australian landfill each year ... The trial has been underway in South Australia since July 2022 and uses anaerobic digestion to turn the organic materials in used nappies into nutrient-rich compost, as well as bioenergy which is captured and used to power the recycling process.

Australia’s farmers are heading towards the end of 2022 with signs of growing optimism, following a year where challenges around high input costs, excessive rainfall and biosecurity concerns had taken the edge off otherwise generally very positive seasonal conditions and commodity prices. The latest quarterly Rabobank Rural Confidence Survey, released on 14 December 2022, found sentiment was edging back up after four consecutive quarters of decline...

David McPherson, NSW DPI. Dr Law is one of Australia’s leading forest ecologists, with the sustained excellence of his research and distinguished service to Australian zoology recognised with his appointment in 2021 as a Fellow of the Royal Zoological Society of NSW. In the history of the Society there have been fewer than 100 Fellows elected ... Criticisms of the scientific excellence or objectivity of the research undertaken by Dr Law are unfounded.

Aquaculture has continued its steady growth within the Australian seafood industry, according to the latest edition of ABARES Australian Fisheries and Aquaculture Statistics. ABARES Executive Director Dr Jared Greenville said the aquaculture sector has continued its recent growth, accounting for 56 per cent of the total gross value of fisheries production (GVP).

Australian consumers are seeing significant price increases across dairy products – based on the national Consumer Price Index (CPI) data – with milk prices having risen at the fastest rate since records began, according to a new report by agribusiness banking specialist Rabobank. In its Global Dairy Quarterly Q4 2022 – Walking the Tightrope into 2023, Rabobank says while the Australian consumer has shown resilience in the face of cost-of-living pressures, signs of dairy demand weakness are emerging as a willingness and ability to spend on discretionary items softens.

The fur seal spent three months in rehabilitation at Sea World before being released outside the heads of Sydney Harbour last week. It was a great success, with tracking data showing Skip travelled 100 km south within the first 24 hours, and he’s currently swimming about 130 km south of the NSW-Victoria border, an impressive 550 km from where he was released.