NSW

Jerilderie Gold Cup, 23 September 2023

A public meeting called this week by local emergency services served its purpose to allay the town’s fears after the Barkly was declared an emergency situation on Tuesday. More than 300 people packed the Civic Hall ... More than 1,323,300 hectares have been burnt with the fire active for over two weeks.

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."  

Dre Jackson from Elliott and Duqarn Foster from Tennant Creek were chosen to represent the NT at Australian School Sport Australian Football Championships held in NSW. The cold conditions had all the players making sure their beanies and scarfs were in great use off the field.

Vic Jurskis. Koala plagues and megafires go together. Koalas are breeding faster than ever on all the soft young growth generated by Black Summer. The scrub development is unprecedented. Our next extreme fire season will kill more people and animals than ever before. But the koala is in no danger of extinction.

A public meeting called this week by local emergency services served its purpose to allay the town’s fears after the Barkly was declared an emergency situation on Tuesday. More than 300 people packed the Civic Hall ... More than 1,323,300 hectares have been burnt with the fire active for over two weeks.

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.

Dairy farmers from across Queensland and New South Wales converged on Pittsworth a couple of weeks ago for the annual general meeting of the advocacy body eastAUSmilk, which formed in 2021 following the merger of Queensland Dairyfarmers’ Organisation and Dairy Connect.

Narrandera Landcare Group held their AGM in the last week of August, when the only change in the executive positions was Sue Ruffles accepting a nomination as vice-president ... The group received and accepted a healthy financial report from the treasurer. A pleasing increase in membership numbers was noted ...

Narrandera's Gary Myers and his son Jake have been chosen to run for the Street Machine of the Year awards with their famous Mustang and they are hoping for your vote ... The GM176/S1CKO Mustang gave Gary his first win in 2001 and it’s seen a few guises since his son Jake took up burnouts in the car, although it's always rocked blown 302 Windsor power.

The Grong Grong Solar Farm team hosted crowd equity investors and other stakeholders onsite last Thursday ... The Grong Grong Solar Farm team showed them through the site, and took time to explain how bifacial solar panels work...

Zoli Myers is no backyard dog. The newly awarded Australian Champion might be partial to a romp in the garden and fetching sticks, but on weekends, he transforms into a show dog. Zoli, a Welsh Springer Spaniel, is now an Australian Champion...

A recent inquiry into Victoria’s duck hunting had more than 10,500 submissions, a record for a Victorian parliamentary inquiry. Labor chair Ryan Batchelor said Victoria should end recreational native bird hunting on all public and private land from 2024 ... The report did also recommend transforming hunting reserves into state recreation reserves, and excluding non aboriginals, whilst allowing traditional owners to continue to hunt ducks.

51 people gathered at Western Murray Land Improvement Group’s Bio Link field day to hear about the evolution in the way big business views farmland ... With carbon targets already set in the Paris Agreement, the next could come via the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), which will also factor in biodiversity (nature).

Out now!

Out now! Buy here!

Country Road, Landcare Australia and cotton farmers are marking Biodiversity month by celebrating a landmark achievement in their New South Wales Namoi Valley project It’s been three years since ‘The Biodiversity Project’ kicked off in the Namoi Valley and since the first tree was planted, about 60 hectares of cotton farming land has been revegetated.

Wooli Public School welcomed more than 170 kindergarten to Year 2 students from several Clarence Valley schools when they hosted the 2023 K-2 Traditional Indigenous Games at Wooli Sports Oval on September 6 … participants took part in a number of modified activities and games which were based on the skills and learning resources taught to First Nations children hundreds of years ago.

In July 2022, The Big Banana received an email from the Royal Australian Mint about exploring the unique opportunity for The Big Banana to be featured on an Australian legal tender coin as part of a collection of ten coins celebrating iconic ‘big’ monuments across Australia. The collection was planned to be made available as part of a nationwide collectable coin program, providing the Australian public with access to these coins through their change.

Future Wallabies stars were on show at Yamba over the weekend as the Ngayundi Sports Complex hosted hundreds of children from across the state for the under 12 and 13, 2023 NSW Country Rugby Union Championships ... The Far North Coast under 13 side, coached by the Lower Clarence’s Dane Mitchell, impressed in every one of its four games, scoring more than 100 points while keeping their opposition score to zero.