Land & environment

A beautiful soaking rain has fallen around the district this week. Falls from 15 to 30mm have been recorded and the timing couldn’t be better as farmers are busy sowing pasture and preparing for winter crop cereal plantings. The chorus of birds and life in the forest has also been rejoicing, there is nothing quite like the gentle patter of rain through the tree canopy. Irrigators will be keeping a watchful eye on storages as inflows are on the rise. With huge rains in the floodplain harvesting regions of northern NSW it will be interesting to see the volumes of unlicenced and unmetered water intercepted. Member for Murray, Helen Dalton, posted this week, “It was 117 years ago that poet Dorothea Mackellar proclaimed Australia as the ‘land of drought and flooding rains.’ “I wonder if, in the next 100 years, we might start expecting and planning for them?” We live in hope!

The annual Murrabit Cod Challenge was held over the weekend of March 19-21, an event run each year by the Murrabit Football and Netball Club to raise funds for their club. The event has been running since 2009 and is run 100% by local volunteers. Entries for the competition were capped at 300 adult tickets and sold out in just over a week, proving to be a very popular event. There were also 39 enthusiastic junior competitors entered, who were all lucky enough to take home an assortment of prizes donated by Hookem Fishing.

Rockhampton Regional Council aren’t taking any rubbish when it comes to polluting our waterways. Last year Council installed a device known as a ‘Baffle Box’ on the riverbank, opposite the Pilbeam Theatre. Baffle Boxes are underground structures made up of different chambers that trap gross pollutants such as debris, trash, and other pollutants from stormwater that flows off streets and into storm drains after heavy rain.

Emma Pritchard. With areas of bushland and forestation cleared following the bushfires, cane toads have hopped their way south along the Summerland Way and breeched the southern containment line, the Clarence River, within the past 12 months.

This turtle nesting season, Sunshine Coast TurtleCare volunteers have been gifted with three separate visits from a special tagged (K90712) loggerhead turtle known as Mystify, who has laid her eggs at Buddina beach. Volunteers suspect that she lives close to the Sunshine Coast as she returns frequently to lay eggs – the normal or expected interval is four years, but Mystify returns every one or two years.

The Bells Line of Road, which provides the alternative route over the Blue Mountains to the Central West from Sydney, will be closed indefinitely due to landslides caused by the recent heavy rains. This is a timely reminder of the many years of inaction on building the long overdue Bells Line Expressway ... One of the last roles held by the the recently departed former Leader of the National Party in NSW, Ian Armstrong, was as Chairman of the Bells Line Expressway Action Group. As Mr. Armstrong said in 2010 - "the road was built for a previous age".

Despite years of warnings, public protests, approaches to Ministers and Members of Parliament, and, in particular, the vocal opposition of the very active Community Action for Windsor Bridge (CAWB) group, Roads & Maritime Services in NSW insisted on building the new Windsor Bridge across the Hawkesbury River in exactly the wrong location.

Barkly MLA Steve Edgington met with the team from Sun Cable this week – the company which has signed a milestone agreement to advance the $22 billion Australia-AASEAN Power Link). Mr Edgington said the project will see up to $8 billion invested in the Barkly which will host the largest solar farm and renewable energy system in the world.

Emma Pritchard. There is a lot of admiration for the unique piece of equipment Grafton Fire and Rescue 306 Station Captain Garry Reardon holds proudly. The impressive state-of-the-art remote piloted aircraft system (RPAS), more commonly referred to as a drone, is the latest addition to Grafton Fire Station and will assist in the protection of the Clarence Valley community and help keep the dedicated team members who make that possible, safe as well.

This "Seas of Change" will take you on a 35-year journey in 2 minutes, highlighting how the Northern Prawn Fishery recognised in 1985 that sustainability needs to be a never-ending process.

Researchers at The University of South Australia have developed a cost-effective new technique to monitor soil moisture using a standard digital camera and machine learning technology.

David Landini, Riverina State Group. The Labor party victories in the recent Queensland and West Australian State elections are a reminder that a Labor government will eventually be elected federally as well.

Forestry Corporation of NSW delivered the first load of 25,000 koala food tree seedlings recently to support north coast koala care groups’ efforts to build koala habitat. The organisation delivered 10,000 seedlings to a new Lismore nursery facility managed by Friends of the Koala to support their, and Bangalow Koalas’, planting programs.

MidCoast Council is again asking the community to refrain from approaching or feeding Dingoes in the Tea Gardens / Hawks Nest area following the need for lethal control of a sub-adult pack this week. The three males and two females had been involved in at least five incidents involving people and domestic pets over the last month, all increasing in ferocity ... "We are all really disappointed that it has come to this," said Council's Senior Ecologist, Mat Bell.

The NSW State Government announced on 10 March 2021 that The Minister for Planning will issue a new section 9.1 direction (to the Koala SEPP) to ensure that only the Minister, and not councils, will be empowered to rezone land used for primary production to an environmental zone (E zone), or to rezone land currently in rural zones 1, 2 and 3 to other rural zones.

Last year’s world-first discovery that smoke dose is directly linked to the level of smoke taint in wine was an ‘absolute gamechanger,’ according to Professor Ian Porter. ‘We discovered that provided the burn is not right next to the vineyard, it actually takes a lot more smoke to cause smoke taint than we originally thought’, Professor Porter from La Trobe University said.

The future of funerals is in the spotlight following community feedback showing increased interest in more eco-friendly burial options. Sunshine Coast Council is investigating natural burial sites within existing cemeteries.

Last week the stars aligned, the heavens opened and upon rays of golden light came a contingent of politicians and bureaucrats to witness what the current water policy decisions are doing to our economy, food producers and environment. The attendance of such dignitaries was less to do with heavenly intervention, but mainly blood, sweat and tears by those who tirelessly advocate to end the government sanctioned destruction.

Geoff Helisma. According to Clarence Valley Council there are fewer than 50 coastal emus remaining along the east coast of Australia and only 36 individuals in the Taloumbi/Tyndale/Pillar Valley region, if the estimates in CVC’s Natural Resource Management Coastal Emus: Sighting Data Analysis, July 2020 are correct.