Land & environment

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.  

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Renewed focus on weed biocontrol through a collaborative initiative is set to deliver benefits to land managers and the environment in the fight against weeds. The initial phase of implementing the National Weed Biocontrol Pipeline Strategy includes the drafting of a national priority list of candidate weeds for biological control.

“At the same time we have seen these shocking declines in volunteer numbers, without any genuine attempt to stem the flow, Labor governments have embarked on a land lock-up spree that has seen National Park size in Queensland increase from around 6.6 million ha in 2002 to more than 7 million ha in 2022 ... Then we have the Prime Minister running around the country saying he will protect 30 per cent of lands, meanwhile what is currently under lock and key are poorly-managed, ecological wastelands that raise the nation’s bushfire risk": Traeger MP Robbie Katter.

The critically endangered southern purple-spotted gudgeon will be reintroduced to River Torrens / Karrawirra Pari ... The gudgeons have been a missing part of the river system for over a century, and are being reintroduced to the Breakout Creek / Purruna Pari section, which has progressively been restored from an artificial channel to a more natural waterway.

Despite low mouse activity reported around Australia, grain growers are being asked to remain vigilant and harvest cleanly to enhance future baiting effectiveness and increase on-farm profitability. Leading mouse experts recently spoke at the National Mouse Group Meeting supported by Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) investment, where the link between harvest losses and baiting effectiveness was discussed.

"Our connected solution, PestConnect, collates and analyses emerging trends through millions of data points crunched by machine learning algorithms, identifying patterns and correlations that human observation alone might miss, which enables us to map and predict pest activity more effectively and then control pest activity sustainably": Andrew Stone, Rentokil Initial MD.

The third $10,000 red-tagged barra of Million Dollar Fish Season 9 has been caught just five weeks into the season. The season runs from 1 October 2023 until 31 March 2024 ... This season someone is guaranteed to win a million dollars.  

Two small wetlands in the middle of western Victoria are at the heart of a plan to bring back a critically endangered aquatic plant. Davis’s Dam on private farmland between Lake Buloke and Birchip, and Creswick Dam north of Marnoo, are being managed with water for the environment partly to help re-establish the marbled marshwort aquatic plant.

The lack of a TAFE, children with special needs, the health bureaucracy, E-tag regulations, arts, rare earth mining, radiation therapy and plastics were among 16 questions asked at last week’s Country Cabinet forum in Naracoorte. During a two-day whirlwind visit SA Premier Peter Malinauskas, his ministers and all department chiefs collectively met with hundreds of people as they travelled to various special spots within our region.

The landmark federal-state CarbonNet project, which aims to take carbon dioxide emissions from the Latrobe Valley and sequester them under Bass Strait, has got the go ahead for a vital part of the project – the plan to build a pipeline that will carry liquefied CO2 to the coast. The 100 kilometre-pipeline – 80km buried onshore and a further 20km offshore – will take liquefied CO2 to a carbon capture and storage hub at Golden Beach, creating a connection for multiple carbon capture projects.

A potential new non-lethal and ethical approach to control invasive mammal pests was showcased at a briefing held at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute in Adelaide ... Hosted by the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions and the University of Adelaide, the briefing introduced guests to a world-first breakthrough in gene drive technology.

BirdLife Australia, leaders for bird conservation in Australia, reveal the preliminary results for the Aussie Bird Count. With more than 420,000 counted, the colourful Rainbow Lorikeet once again comes out on top, beating the Noisy Miner with nearly 220,000 and the iconic Australian Magpie with around 154,000 counted.