Monthly Archives: April 2016

Broome’s new bush tucker seed bank 16/4/2016

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The Kimberley has a new seed bank that will function as a seed shop for bush tucker (Aboriginal food) plants, and for those needing to propogate plants for mine site rehabilitation and gardening. 

Tamara Williams (Nyul Nyul Rangers), Cat Williams (Apace WA), Devena Cox (Nyul Nyul Rangers), Debbie Sibasado (Bardi Jawi Oorany Rangers), Kylie Weatherall (Environs Kimberley) and Cissy Tigan (Bardi Jawi Oorany Rangers).

Tamara Williams (Nyul Nyul Rangers), Cat Williams (Apace WA), Devena Cox (Nyul Nyul Rangers), Debbie Sibasado (Bardi Jawi Oorany Rangers), Kylie Weatherall (Environs Kimberley) and Cissy Tigan (Bardi Jawi Oorany Rangers).

It is also intended to be a supplier to high-end restaurants serving Aboriginal food-influenced dishes.

It also has a serious conservation purpose in preserving rare species for ecological renewall.

This may become important when, for example, rare Kimberley vine thickets are destroyed by bushfires.

Science Network [read this story]

Job creation and ‘rural smells’: two piggery tales – 14/4/2016 and 10/3/2016

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PLANTAGENET Shire has approved two free-range piggeries in two months, despite neighbours’ objections on environmental and amenities grounds.

Click on this image to read the story.

Click on this image to read the story.

I love development stories because hardly anyone else does them.

Council minutes and agendas can make them appear so dull, yet to someone, somewhere, someone is planning to dig, build or change something right beside the places they live, work or otherwise value.

Click on this image to read the story.

Click on this image to read the story.

This is not boring for them and if we don’t give them good information as readers we don’t deserve to be their chosen newspaper.

If a similar story comes up a second time, the challenge then is to see what is new about it, and tell the story afresh.

From The Great Southern Weekender

City claims success with targeted burns 7/04/2016

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TEXT AND PICTURE BY GEOFF VIVIAN

Having just been through the disatrous bushfires at Yarloop and Wooroona and the catastrophic Esperance fire, many Western Australians are demanding to know what is being done.

Click on this image to read the story.

Click on this image to read the story.

I would not usually go into such detail about fire control in a local paper but my editor agreed that people were in the mood to read this right now.

All through winter a prescribed burning program is reducing fuel loads in areas of bush, while giving wildlife a reasonable chance to escape to nearby intact habitat.

This is an account of a well-planned burn, how it worked and why.

I was really pleased with the pic too – nothing flash but I trust it conveyed the idea of “business as usual” burning rather than firefighting.

Great Southern Weekender April 7, 2016 p5.

Coastal development impacts migrating shore birds 10/4/2016

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Red Knot by Adrian Boyle

Red Knot by Adrian Boyle

Shorebird ecologists say they have proven conclusively that Chinese and Korean developments on the Yellow Sea coast are decimating migrating shorebirds.

Careful banding and observation by scientists and the bird watching fraternity shows almost all of the birds that leave Broome’s Roebuck Bay reach the Yellow Sea, their second major feeding ground. 

Shorebird_threats_by Adrian Boyle

A Yellow Sea dredge dumping site. Photo by Adrian Boyle.

However it seems they don’t all find enough food there to complete their journey back to North West Australia via Siberia.

Science Network WA [read this story]