Gulf Rivers Landcare Group Formed

Heartbreak Hotel on 8 November 2012 where community members decide to form a landcare group

It is very exciting to see the formation of the Gulf Rivers Landcare Group on Thursday 22 November 2012 at Cape Crawford. The response to this meeting and the field day on 8 November has been amazing and it is great to see landholders stand up and say let’s deal with issues together and make everybody more productive, capable and sustainable.

The idea of a gulf landcare group was raised to me in December 2011 just after I become a landcare facilitator. I went to a pastoral landcare meeting where Tahnee Thompson from NT Government Weeds Branch said, "If you could get a landcare group going in the Gulf it would be great." I spun my regular line that a group would need community support. But ever since then, James Wright from Territory Natural Resource Management and myself have talked about how we could facilitate such a group.

James worked locally and held a meeting in Borroloola in July that about 15 people attended but that a lot of pastoralists couldn't make. We all agreed that day that a group would be beneficial but would need the support of pastoralists, and we decided to meet again in November for a field day.

I made contact with some additional pastoralists through the NT Cattlemen's Association and we arranged a second meeting at Cape Crawford in September that was interrupted by fire and attracted just one person, Nicola Lorimer from Kiana.

We bit the bullet and told everybody we were having a field day on 8 November and started to organise presenters. For a while the draft agenda was tentative, but about 10 days out it started to come together thanks to commitment from speakers (see final agenda below and thanks to them all for making the day that is was, and Dow Agro for donations).

By the eighth we had 45 RSVPs thanks to numerous emails and phone calls by James, and that morning waited nervously to see if anybody would attend. Apprehension turned to excitement as the number reached 40 people and we realised that there was a lot of interest in what we had come to talk about. Judy MacFarlane summed up the feelings that day on ABC radio, linked here.

I couldn't make the meeting on the 22nd, but was glad to hear that there was a good turn out, great interest in being involved on the committee, and that the community was taking charge of the process.

 

Agenda from the November 8 2012 meeting:

 

Parkinsonia control demonstration (Tahnee Thompson & Brad Sauer, NT Govt—Weeds, and Kit Jolly, Dow Agro)

Minimising track and fence erosion (Kit Jolly, Dow Agro Chemicals)

Pastoral extension and support including the Indigenous Pastoral Program (Neil Mac-Donald and Steve Robertson, NT Govt—Primary Industries)

Fire control for carbon credits (Peter Clifton, Regional Landcare Facilitator)

Pest management technologies (Jamie Dennison, Animal Control Technologies Pty Ltd)

Wild dog 1080 baiting system (Geoff Walduck, NT Govt—Chemical services)

Industry biosecurity (Graham Shultz, NT Govt—Biosecurity & Product Integrity)

Funding and Regional Land Management Groups (James Wright and Peter Clifton)