Kaniva and district fight fires
Kaniva fire brigade group crews were busy battling a number of fires over the weekend. On Friday lightning started a fire on Coastview at approximately 11.38pm. Broughton, Dinyarrak, Telopea and Sandsmere tankers were in attendance. A second fire occurred on Blue Hills Telopea at approximately 12.06am...
Farmers push back
We all know that the federal Labor government has set itself the impossible task of reducing carbon emissions by 43 per cent by 2030, plus setting itself a target of achieving 82 per cent renewables across the power grid ... Hence the recent announcement by federal anti-agriculture Minister, Murray Watt, offering up the livestock sector as one industry which could be made into an unwilling sacrificial lamb to the climate change gods by imposing rather than hoping for emissions cuts.
Australia’s shrinking share of farming estate
Over the past 45 years, Australia has lost over 15 per cent of its pastoral and farming estate ... The data shows a consistent trend of diminishing agricultural land since 1976 when Australia boasted nearly 490 million hectares that was either arable, dedicated to permanent crops or suitable for grazing. So where did the "agricultural" land go?
Diocese reverses decision on closing flood-damaged school
“When can we go back?”– a mother said her daughter keeps asking when she can return to school. The mother was speaking at the community meeting in June about reopening St Joseph’s Primary School in Woodburn that was flooded in February last year.
Announcing the winners of the 2023 BirdLife Australia Photography Awards!
Picture this: a solitary heron foraging in the muted, autumnal half-light of dawn. Or an ethereal gull hovering motionless in mid air. Or a lonely stone-curlew gazing wistfully into the artificial lights of a forbidden destination. These and more are the winning entries of the sixth annual BirdLife Australia Bird Photography Awards, which have just been announced.
Webinar: Biochar as a livestock feed supplement – implications for carbon, profit and sustainability, 21 November 2023
Brief webinar to showcase research conducted on a commercial farm in Tasmania, where steers were allowed ad libitum (free) access to feed-grade biochar. The webinar will discuss results measured for liveweight gains, pasture composition and growth, manure and soil organic carbon, enteric methane emissions and cost-benefit modelling
Achieving sustainable food production and reducing greenhouse gas emissions
Scott Duxbury from YF.TV discusses the challenges and opportunities in achieving sustainable food production and reducing greenhouse gas emissions with Matthew Harrison, lead author of the research report 'Clarifying confusions over carbon conclusions' from the University of Tasmania. The discussion explores strategies such as soil carbon sequestration, regenerative agriculture, and reducing food waste that can help us move towards a more sustainable and equitable food system.
Letter to the Editor – Bushfire management should focus on fuel reduction: McArthur
In my adjournment matter, I encouraged the Minister for Emergency Services to delve more deeply into Dr Tolhurst’s life’s work and consider his recommendation that bushfire management should have a greater focus on fuel load reduction. Dr Tolhurst repeatedly pointed out the folly in prioritising expensive and difficult suppression of fire, instead of fuel load management ... He powerfully argued against an influential Climate Council factsheet, which had concluded “no amount of hazard reduction will protect human lives, animals and properties from catastrophic fires” – pointing out that analysing the extent of burned areas, rather than the severity of the fire, is misleading.
Big water bombers still on the ground
Big water bombers still cannot be used in Alice Springs which is again surrounded by wildfires ... Preparations for the use of large fire bombers … are locked in a Catch 22 situation: The NT is part of a national system for the use of such aircraft but “they are ineffective given the location”: Tony Fuller, of Bushfires NT.
Hay season’s early start
An earlier hay season has Victorian farmers and CFA talking about the dangers of high moisture content in hay as they begin cutting, baling and storing it in warmer conditions. Just this week we saw the repercussions of hot northerly winds, when seven hay sheds, each with 800 bales of hay, caught on fire in Kerang following a damaging ember attack.
Cost blowout
When will the Bordertown community get a new medical hub? That’s the million-dollar question ratepayers are asking the Tatiara District Council that’s battling a “developer crisis”. Plans for a multi-million-dollar medical clinic on the land next to the Bordertown Hospital … have been scrapped as the developer faces a cost blowout of over $2million.
Lessons from Tasmania’s timber industry
The ‘precautionary principle’ is not included in the code of Tasmanian Forest Practices Code, where a more pragmatic approach manages any threatened species, according to a senior Tasmanian forestry expert ... Dr Peter Volker said the system had been in place for more than 30 years and had stood the test of time. “We have been able to harvest, reforest and protect threatened species in a sustainable manner.”
Climate change drives huge rise in fire risk
Patricia Gill. Climate change has driven the occurrence of extreme ï¬re risk days in Denmark from two in 1930 to 150 expected by 2030. The occurrence of days has risen incrementally in more recent years from 50 extreme risk days in 2019 driven by the warming climate and earlier summer conditions. Also indications are that Denmark is two months ahead of ‘normal’ weather conditions with silage and hay being cut in paddocks in October and the beginning of November rather than in December.
Weeds and pests cost farmers billions, reinforces need for container levy: NFF
A report released by ABARES this week has highlighted that weeds and pests are costing farmers $5.3 billion a year through management and production loss ... The sector has told the Government its key concern with the new producer Levy is the apparent abandonment of a Container Levy policy on importers.
Labor’s Basin plans will result in higher food prices, farmers warn: NSW Farmers, NFF, NSWIC, AgForce
The Albanese Government’s proposed changes to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan will shut down farms, destroy jobs and increase the price of food ... National Farmers’ Federation, NSW Farmers, AgForce Queensland and the NSW Irrigators’ Council– have joined forces to warn the Government is going far beyond the original 2012 Plan that sought to balance environmental, social and economic wellbeing.
MRSG explains ‘a better way’ to Senate Basin Plan hearing
“There are alternative investment options that deliver far greater and more sustainable environmental outcomes than the original architects of the Basin Plan’s approach of ‘just add water’. Sadly, politics doesn’t allow common sense to prevail. MRSG has also identified a range of project options that could achieve environmental outcomes while at the same time protecting staple food production, jobs, rural communities, economic activity and export earnings”: Louise Burge, Murray Regional Strategy Group.
Closure marred by vast contradictions
The Victorian government’s regulation of timber harvesting, which has led to the impending closure of Gippsland’s native forest industry in January, directly contradicts the joint national-state approach to ensure biodiversity alongside a timber industry over the previous 30 years, analysis shows ... When setting up the National Forest Policy Statement in the 1990s, the JANIS working group – conservation scientists and planners from all states and the CSIRO – drew up the criteria to form a CAR (comprehensive, adequate and representative) reserve system.
Biologist claims western openings hampering inlet oyster growth
A trial oyster hatchery in Wilson Inlet will need steady marine exchange to maintain salinity for the spats to continue their promising growth ... Marine biologist Zak Launay, who previously harvested mussels commercially in the inlet, said the oysters could grow to commercial size in about half the time of the standard growth cycle.
New measures to protect one of the Tweed’s most beloved birds
Safeguarding of osprey population taken to new heights with interactive website and calls for community help. This November, Council is shining a spotlight on one of the Tweed’s favourite top-order predators – the osprey, listed as vulnerable to extinction in NSW.
Prepared for the next flood
The damage caused to the Dalrymple Creek bank by previous flooding was a wake-up call that some sort of prevention needed to take place. The answer was stabilising the creek bank.
Local performers flowing with excitement
As he prepares to share Flow, a contemporary and ancient First Nations story about rediscovering culture and identity while utilising the beauty of the Clarence River with his friends and family in the audience for the first time on Yaegl Country, writer and performer Mitch King, a proud Yaegl and Bundjalung man, said he feels incredibly privileged.
Farmers fork out billions a year on pests and weeds: ABARES
Pests and weeds are costing farmers a combined $5.3 billion a year in both management and production loss ... ABARES Executive Director Dr Jared Greenville said the latest ABARES report, Cost of established pest animals and weeds to Australian agricultural producers, was an eye-opening reminder of the immense task of managing pests and weeds.
