The Bugle - 10 June 05
In news this week
- ‘Learning Through Landcare’ goes statewide
- A snapshot of Queensland
- Community asked to participate in national park plans
- North Queenslanders track fires using the web
- Doctorates are awarded for Indigenous knowledge
- Wild Bill supports natural rivers
- Community dips its toes into water quality
- Play a role in tracking a nomadic wanderer
- Hopped to it, controlled locusts and saved 50%
- Surfing for weeds and pest animals
- Bugs eating Queensland's weeds for a century
- Regional bodies get better information
- Early bird registrations: a real money saving option
- Get tips for successful grants
- Last call to nominate landcare heroes
- Students plan for the future
‘Learning Through Landcare’ goes statewide
The Landcare Discovery Centre’s new Education Queensland sponsorship will help take the Learning Through Landcare program to fifty teachers statewide.
The Toowoomba-based centre is a community educational service provided by the Queensland Murray-Darling Committee. The Learning Through Landcare program assists schools to participate in an innovative local environmental research and monitoring project.
Benefits of the program include free professional development workshops, resource material, assistance from scientific or technical mentors, support from landcare education officers and tickets to the Discovering Landcare Conference in Toowoomba in October for two teachers and five students.
The Landcare Discovery Centre hope to attract rural and remote schools to the Learning Through Landcare program by subsidising some travel, accommodation and registration costs for the conference.
If you would like to find out more, visit the Discovery Centre web pages or phone 4637 6201.
A snapshot of Queensland
NR&M has recently completed the largest land-use-mapping project ever undertaken in Queensland.
Scientists used satellite imagery, aerial photography and existing land-use databases to produce a giant snapshot of Queensland.
The Queensland Land Use Mapping Program (QLUMP) identified how the state's 1.7 million square kilometres were primarily used in 1999, down to one hectare in urban and regional areas and four hectares in remote areas.
Almost 86 per cent or 152 million hectares of Queensland was grazing land and 7.84 million hectares (4.4%) was conserved land. Dryland cropping covered over 2.7 million hectares, irrigated cropping less than one million hectares and open-cut mining about 100 600 hectares.
The 1999 baseline data set will be used to map changes in land-use and land-management practices for priority regions or catchments.
QLUMP is available as a GIS data set and will soon be available as a CD.
For more information contact Christian Witte on 3896 9832
Community asked to participate in national park plans
Queensland's national parks are enjoyed by millions of people every year and they protect some of Queensland's most beautiful natural landscapes.
The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service is preparing management plans for Cania Gorge, Girraween, Sundown and Lake Bindegolly National Parks and is inviting the public to take part.
Submissions or comments are invited from land managers, local governments, Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders and other interested groups from the community. The closing date is 23 July.
Submissions will be considered in developing draft management plans, and public comment will be invited again when the draft plans have been prepared.
Email your input to management.plans@epa.qld.gov.au, fax to 4699 4388 or post to Attention: Conservation Officer (Planning), QPWS, PO Box 731, Toowoomba QLD 4350.
For more information on parks and forest planning visit the EPA web site.
North Queenslanders track fires using the web
A new version of the North Australian Fire Information (NAFI) web site has been launched. It builds on the previous successful version and incorporates improvements recommended by its users.
The new site is quite flexible in what fire information it can display as it now uses the map-making capability of the latest Oracle database.
The new site features a personal preferences option so fire maps appear in your preferred format each time you visit the web site. You can save shortcuts to frequently used maps in a side menu and save maps as a separate link on your computer's desk top or favourites list.
There is a more efficient way of mapping fire scars that allows whole-of-Australia views and you can now view maps showing the fire history of the last eight years. The dates and times of hot spots are updated more frequently and there are advanced information and find tools which allow hotspot patterns to be analysed more effectively.
To see the new site, visit the NAFI web site or for more information contact Peter Jacklyn on peter.jacklyn@cdu.edu.au
Doctorates are awarded for Indigenous knowledge
In May the Balkanu Cape York Development Corporation and the Traditional Knowledge Recording Project (TKRP) hosted the "Dr. Celebration" event to help celebrate a landmark and historic occasion: the awarding of doctorates to Kuku-Thaypan Elders George Musgrave and Tommy George.
George Musgrave and Tommy George are the only two surviving Elders of the Kuku-Thaypan clan with traditional knowledge and a fluency in the Kuku-Thaypan language.
TKRP has been running for three years, recording all aspects of the Kuku-Thaypan language and culture, from fire, land and water management, to indigenous medicines and uses for flora and fauna.
The doctorates recognise their traditional knowledge, contributions to research, maintenance of the Kuku-Thaypan language and culture to ensure its survival for generations to come.
Wild Bill supports natural rivers
No Queensland's "wild" rivers will not be protected by an old American cowboy, it is a different Bill, landmark legislation being introduced into State Parliament by NR&M's Minister Stephen Robertson.
The Wild Rivers Bill is the first legislation of its type and the most comprehensive approach to preserving wild rivers in Australia.
The legislation will provide a framework and process for the nomination of rivers and their declaration as "wild" following consideration by the government.
The Bill also provides safeguards to ensure that any future development in these rivers and their catchments is compatible with preservation of the rivers' natural values.
Extensive community consultation will occur prior to any river receiving wild river status.
To view the Wild Rivers Bill visit the legislation web site bills page.
Community dips its toes into water quality
The Queensland Murray-Darling Committee’s (QMDC) water quality monitoring program is experiencing unprecedented levels of interest from people concerned about water.
In the past six months, sixty people in the Queensland Murray-Darling Basin have trained in water quality testing and sampling and are now collecting quality assured data about the region’s creeks and rivers, thanks to QMDC's technical officers.
QMDC's Natalie Fries says the training is well received and will result in usable data for policy makers and government bodies.
“So far, about twenty different groups from the Maranoa Balonne and Border Rivers catchments have participated in the training. This means we’ll have lots of helpful data to draw from in the future when we make decisions about development, restoration and environmental changes.”
High levels of interest in the water quality monitoring program were received throughout Queensland and Northern NSW, indicating a growing community interest to increase the level of reliable information available on the state’s creeks, rivers and wetlands.
For more information contact QMDC on 4637 6201.
Play a role in tracking a nomadic wanderer
Researchers are calling on land managers to help a new three year research project to examine the ecology and management requirements of Flock Pigeons. Flock Pigeons are a large, strong-flying native pigeon that are characteristic of black-soil grasslands.
Australian National University Phd student Peter Dostine is leading this research project and he says not much is known about this bird, but believes they are nomadic seed eaters that can travel large distances to locate feeding areas after good rainfall.
Resident land managers throughout the range of the Flock Pigeon can make a significant contribution to his work by completing a mail-survey seeking information on if and when the birds have been seen on their property.
Mr Dostine said that working with land managers on the project will provide a long-term landholder perspective on the ecology of this species.
Once found in ‘countless millions’ throughout semi-arid Australia, over the last century their population has vanished from large areas, leaving them a stronghold at the Barkly Tableland in Northern Territory and the Channel Country in Queensland.
“We hope the project can provide insights as to how country can best be managed for both pastoral productivity and the maintenance of habitat for wildlife like the Flock Pigeon, to ensure they remain and inspiring feature of our landscape,” he said.
For more information email Peter Dostine, phone (08) 448 475 or by mail at PO Box 496, Palmerston, NT 0831.
Hopped to it, controlled locusts and saved 50%
In May land managers saved their crops and their bank balances, thanks to the State Government providing an extra $1 million funding to meet the costs of locust control operations in Queensland during 2004-05.
The $1 million was on top of the $530,000 already spent this year by the State Government and local councils on locust control.
The funding was for aerial spraying, surveillance operations and financial rebates for land managers who conducted locust control operations.
Land managers can apply for a rebate of up to 50 per cent on the cost of registered insecticides they used for aerial or ground application for locust control this season.
Rebates applied to the control of Australian Plague Locusts, Spur-throated locusts, Yellow-winged locusts and Migratory locusts where they represented a threat to the state's main cropping areas.
The rebates are applicable only to the responsible use of appropriately registered insecticides applied by ground or air according to label requirements.
Applications for rebates closed on 3 June and had to be accompanied by documentary proof of purchase and application.
Surfing for weeds and pest animals
Looking for information about weeds and pest animals? Stop searching and start surfing!
NR&M’s weed and pest animal web site has been reborn, after undergoing a major redevelopment.
Although previous bookmarks to this site will be broken, the logical navigational system ensures information can be easily found, saving time and reducing frustration, especially for people in rural areas or with slow Internet connections.
Features of the new site include:
- A-Z listing of declared plants and animals and other significant pests
- Legislation, policies and permits
- Pest-distribution and predictive maps and mapping systems
- Index of pest-management plans and planning resources
- Pest-management research
- Media releases, newsletters, events
- Educational resources, training and careers
- Index of technical and operational pest management publications
Increased awareness of pest-management issues will lead to a greater understanding of the impacts that pests have on our economy, environment, health and natural resources, and the importance of pest management.
For more information or to provide feedback, email Nicole Blackett or on 3405 5546.
Bugs eating Queensland's weeds for a century
Drawing on extensive historical data, Reclaiming lost provinces: a century of weed biological control in Queensland explores weed biological control in Queensland over the past 100 years.
In Australia, the first insect deliberately introduced was in 1903 to control pest prickly pears and by the 1970s Australia was a world leader in biological control of weeds.
This new book highlights the contribution of bio control on Queensland’s environment, society and primary production. It features dramatic historical images of before and after photographs.
It reviews the impacts of biological control on such highly invasive weeds as prickly pears, harrisia cactus, Bathurst and Noogoora burr, water hyacinth, salvinia, parthenium, rubber vine and lantana.
Over 40% of the worldwide weed biological control releases have been in Queensland with a currently estimated return of $80 for every dollar spent on the biological control program.
This new book is $35.95 and can be ordered from a NR&M Service Centre on 3237 1435, or contact Wendy Deem on 3405 5533, or by emailing the book's author Craig Walton.
Regional bodies get better information
Regional bodies, NR&M and the EPA will be gaining an insight into future trends in information management at a forum in Brisbane at the Lennons Hotel on the 15-16 June.
At the forum, regional bodies will present their major information management problems. The state will put forward its views on data sharing agreements and discuss aerial photography, satellite imagery and land cover mapping.
Presentations on future trends in satelite imagery and web mapping services will also be delivered.
Staff from the Regional Information Services (IM01) project, which concludes at the end of June, will be conducting the forum.
The IM01 project has provided training to regional bodies in information management and developed the Regional Information Service Internet web portal. A set of natural resource information management guidelines based on the natural resource information management toolkit have also been published.
For more information email Ken Adsett or on 4938 4598.
Early bird registrations: a real money saving option
Have you registered yet for this year's Landcare Conference? Early bird registrations, close on 17 June and offer delegates a great money saving option.
There are a number of registration options during the conference from full registration to day registration.
Full registration allows attendance at all events listed in the Conference program.
This includes:
- Registration BBQ
- Queensland Landcare Awards and dinner
- Field trips
- Lunches
- Morning and afternoon teas
- Desert Uplands 10th anniversary Graeme Connors concert
- Conference satchel
- Transfers to selected accommodation houses where provided.
For a registration form visit the Desert Uplands web site or call 4651 2160.
Get tips for successful grants
You could make your community group richer by attending this years Landcare conference. Sunday morning at the conference, a writing tips for grant applications forum will help people to secure funds.
Successfully acquiring resources and funding is more about developing partnerships than grant applications and this session will give participants a handful of tips and tools to successfully develop partnerships to help increase your resources.
The workshop will provide ample time for delegates to share their own experiences and will give an introduction to partnership development principles for non profit organisations.
Presenter Samantha Morris is Executive Marketing Officer for the Queensland Landcare Foundation. A previous Queensland Young Australian of the Year winner for her services to the environment, Sam has more than 12 years experience in the environment sector and has a passion for grant writing and partnership development.
Last call to nominate landcare heroes
With just seven days until entries close, Queenslanders are urged to enter their inspiring projects in the 2005 Queensland Landcare Awards.
Held once every two years, these awards celebrate the valuable contribution made by individuals and groups in regional communities.
There are ten categories including individual, community group, local government, Indigenous community and primary producer awards. You can nominate your own or someone else's project for one or more awards.
Winners will be announced at a special ceremony on 5 August in Barcaldine at the Queensland Landcare & Catchment Management Conference and flown to Canberra for the National Landcare Awards ceremony next year.
This year's Queensland Landcare Awards are coordinated by Queensland Water and Land Carers, a non government, non profit organisation, supporting Queensland volunteers striving for sustainable water and land use.
Visit the Landcare Australia web site for forms and guidelines or call 1800 151 105. Entries close 17 June.
Students plan for the future
High school agriculture students from across southern Queensland will design a working property management plan for a commercial farm, as part of a new program offered through the QMDC’s Landcare Discovery Centre.
The Property Planning Program takes students through the steps involved in developing a property management plan, including consideration of the natural resources, goals and limitations. Seven schools from southern Queensland have registered over 100 students.
“The Property Planning Competition has been running in New South Wales very successfully for nine years and with assistance from the Gambling Community Benefit Fund, we’re pleased to now be able to offer it to Queensland schools,” said Project Coordinator, Jill Heywood.
By visiting a commercial property, undertaking hands-on activities and then drawing up a plan using digital mapping technology students will gain a diverse range of skills.
If you would like to find out more, visit the Discovering Landcare web page email Jill Heywood or by phone 4671 7900.
We welcome your input and feedback on this newsletter. If you have any contributions, comments or suggestions please contact Carl Glen or Shona Strachan.
To view past issues of The Bugle use this link, on the regionalNRM web site .
The Bugle is a weekly newsletter published by Strategic Policy and Regional Arrangements, Natural Resources and Mines, highlighting regional natural resource management activities around Queensland.
Last updated 05 April 2006