Author Archives: Geoff Vivian

About Geoff Vivian

Geoff Vivian is a freelance journalist based in Perth, Western Australia with a particular interest in the Kimberley and Australia's north. He has worked at various times as an art and theatre reviewer, science writer, and general rounds journalist for several local newspapers. He has managed an Indigenous radio station where he was breakfast announcer, and more recently completed a university degree with a journalism major. He is a regular contributor to Science Network WA and The Koori Mail, and maintains the news digest KimberleyPage.com.au

Pressure on City over Rex hangar deal 3/12/2015

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ALBANY’s Mayor said the City had fewer than three months to build a large aircraft hangar if Regional Express Airlines (Rex) was to start operating early morning flights in late February.

Click on this image to read the story.

Click on this image to read the story.

In late November, Albany Mayor Dennis
Wellington and Member for
Albany Peter Watson said the
airline, which was the State Government’s
preferred tenderer for
the Perth to Albany route, was yet
to speak to anyone from Albany.

“I would have thought it would
have been a really good idea to
come and talk to us before we get
too excited about anything,” Mr
Wellington said.

There are various ways of reporting a local government story.

Some like to concentrate on personalities.

I prefer to show how a given issue will affect everyday people’s lives.

The Mayor’s disappointment at the City not being consulted is worth noting, but not the story’s main angle from my point of view.

The Great Southern Weekender, December 3, 2015.

 

 

Drier areas a refuge from cane toad 26/9/2015

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The pindan scrub, which is a type of arid heathland, is not a place toxic cane toads care to tarry.

Click on this image to read the story as printed in Kimberley Echo, Kununurra WA, 26 Nov 2015.

Click on this image to read the story as printed in Kimberley Echo, Kununurra WA, 26 Nov 2015.

As a result, the large reptiles that tend to eat them have had a better survival rate in this drier environment.

This is an interesting, opportunistic study by government scientists working out of Kununurra in the East Kimberley.

It has now been republished in The Kimberley Echo. 

Science Network [read this story]

 

 

26 Nov 2015
Kimberley Echo, Kununurra WA

Expert quashes oil spill drift concerns 29/10/2015

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A scientist says West Australians have no need to worry about new oil exploration wells in the Great Australian Bight.

Click on this image to read the story.

Click on this image to read the story.

A company wishes to explore for oil, and there have been fears a potential oil spill from the wells would drift westwards to Albany and beyond.

Oil spills expert Monique Gagnon says the heavy crude oil the explorers are seeking would degrade and sink before it had a chance to reach WA shores.

The Great Southern Weekender, October 29, 2015 p7

Mapping to help preserve Broome’s rare ecology 11/11/2015

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While Broome is home to several unique and vulnerable ecosystems, two ecologists say builders and planners could take fairly simple steps to preserve them.

The Minyjuru tree within the restricted Broome PEC, provides a much coveted sweet fruit and traditional Yawuru Mayi (pictured).

The Minyjuru tree within the restricted Broome PEC, provides a much coveted sweet fruit and traditional Yawuru Mayi (pictured).

They have exhaustively mapped the four ecosystems so that making small zoning changes and planning new works and subdivisions around them would be a fairly simple matter most of the time.

Science Network WA [read this story]

Fines for strays 12/11/2015

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A southern WA shire is seeking the power to prosecute property owners who let their cattle stray on to roads.

Click on this image to read the story.

Click on this image to read the story.

Vehicles collide with straying stock fairly frequently on Australian country roads, sometimes with fatal results.

If successfull, this would allow Kononup Shire to police straying stock on its own roads, but not those owned by the Main Roads Department.

The Great Southern Weekender Thursday, November 12, 2015.

Early wine in Shire 15/10/2015

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A KATANNING local says although Frankland and Plantagenet vignerons have been celebrating “50 years of wine”, his family planted the Great Southern’s first vineyard a century ago.

Click on this image to read the story.

Click on this image to read the story.

Derrick Nalli said his grandfather established Roma Vineyard on a 440 acre block he took up in 1911 at Broomehill.

Nalli and Sons became known for their Muscat, Sherry, Marsala, Port and Hamburgh wines, which they continued to produce until the early 1950s.

“My grandfather came from Italy around about 1904,” Mr Nalli said.

“When Grandfather arrived in Fremantle with his one son they had seven and six in
their pocket which in the new money is 75c – so they had nothing.”

Mr Nalli senior lived in a tent and worked for another Italian immigrant, Mr Genoni, on his farm for several years, returning to Italy to pick up most of his eight children.

From The Great Southern Weekender, October 15, 2015.

 

Migrant woman remembered 13/8/2015

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Caterina Macri, who spoke no English, was pregnant and newly arrived on a boat from Europe when she started camping in the Australian bush with her husband and two young sons.

X13ALB_036-37PHer daughter Lena Elliott is getting ready to tell her story in a book “Bread on the Table”.

This is the first of several history pieces I will post about people starting new farming ventures in the Great Southern region where I now work.

The Great Southern Weekender, August 13, 2015

In her element October 2015

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Perhaps once in a generation we come across an artist whose practice is informed and inspired by a life in the forest environment, and a close observation of its elements.

Photo by Ebone Tippett

Photo by Ebony Tippett

Although she makes no attempt to copy his work, Monique Tippett is an artist that works within the genre started by Howard Taylor.

Monique lives in a part of the world where my earliest coherant memories come from: Dwellingup.

Artsource

Ancient campfires show early population numbers 14/9/2015

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RADIO carbon data from prehistoric occupation sites are providing insights into Australia’s fluctuating human population levels tens of thousands of years ago.

ANU archaeologist Alan Williams used radio carbon dating technology to examine charcoal dates from more than 1000 prehistoric campfires and based on this he says populations appear to have increased steadily until 25,000 years ago.

Dr Williams compared these dates with climatic change profiles provided by a recent synthesis of Australia’s palaeoclimate from the OZ-INTIMATE (Australasian INTegration of Ice core, Marine and TErrestial records) project.

Co-author UWA archaeologist Winthrop Professor Peter Veth says Dr Williams’ comparison showed a clear correlation between datasets.

Science Network WA [read this story]

Complaint follows Shire suspension 4/6/2015

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GEOFF VIVIAN

Click on this image to read the story.

Click on this image to read the story.

A senior manager at Demark shire has complained to WA’s Minister for Local Government after being put under virtual “house arrest” while under suspension.

As the shire’s engineer, he was suspended after he wrote a report to council recommending public money not be spent on a feasibility study for a development.

He said the shire had a culture of intimidation.

[From The Weekender, June 4, 2015 p3]