Tag Archives: Broome

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]

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]

Orbital snaps reveal Roebuck Bay’s tidal movements 1/3/2016

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Image courtesy of the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Centre

Click on this NASA image to expand it. 

 

A simple editor’s request to find scientists to interpret a picture of the coastline near Broome turned into quite a paper chase.

The academic year was only just starting, so it took a week to find two experts to interpret a photograph taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station..

They then fundamentally disagreed about what caused the unusual parallel tidal creeks.

Science Network WA [read this story]

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]

Migratory birds find Kimberley safe haven via China 24/10/2013

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A SUB-SPECIES of a small shorebird spends much of the northern winter feeding at Roebuck Bay and Eighty Mile Beach in the Kimberley.

The red knot sub-species (Calidris canutus piersmai) breeds in the Siberian Arctic tundra, and travels to and from the Kimberley via China’s Yellow Sea—a round trip of at least 20,000km.

PhD student Ying Chi Chan is one of a group of Netherlands-based scientists conducting detailed longitudinal studies of shorebirds’ flight paths and foraging ecology.

“Habitat destruction is happening in a lot of places but the rate is particularly fast in China,” she says.

“The main thing I want to know is how the bird adapts to this change in environments.”

When I wrote this piece I was unaware of the Wilson Inlet (Denmark WA)’s importance to this intrepid little traveller.

Science Network WA [read this story]

More research needed into Roebuck Bay menu options 24/12/2013

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Last  months story about Wilson Inlet (Denmark, WA) shorebirds has prompted me to post this story from two years ago.

From the Broome Advertiser, March 13, 2014. Click on this image to read the story.

From the Broome Advertiser, March 13, 2014. Click on this image to read the story.

The Royal Netherlands Institute of Sea Research is the world centre for shorebird ecology.

Dutch biologists Tanya Compton and Marc Lavaleye have been to Broome a couple of times to sample and assess the marine life that migrating shorebirds feed on during their annual stay.

They say the relative population of bivalves, worms and crabs has changed every time they have been there.

Science Network WA [read this story]

The Broome Advertiser republished this story.

He’s a Mason Master 22/8/2012

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Gordon Marshall is an Aboriginal man and a freemason.

From The Koori Mail 22 August 2012 Photo - Geoff Vivian

From The Koori Mail 22 August 2012 Photo – Geoff Vivian

He has been Worshipful Master of The Derby Lodge seven times, and is now the Worshipful Master of Roebuck Lodge in Broome.

He appeared this week as a guest on The Mary G Show, where the “hostess with the mostest” congratulated him.

Anyhow, this was a good opportunity to share a Koori Mail story I wrote two years ago.

 

Science and community pinpoint algal bloom causes 8/6/14

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Scientists say wastewater treatment by Broome Shire and the Department of Water is causing toxic algae blooms in Roebuck Bay.

Broome Advertiser 19 June 2014 P 13

Click on this image to enlarge it

A blue-green algae has been troubling Broome residents for 14 years.

Lyngbya causes bad skin irritations, and can kill small animals.

Scientists say it blooms in Roebuck Bay every wet season, thanks to the nutrients it gets in the runoff from the first rains, groundwater pollution, and the practice of dumping treated sewage water on local parks.

Science Network WA [read this story]

Broome Advertiser republished this story on 19 June 2014 – P13.

Aboriginal night patrols 17/7/13 and 31/7/13

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The Koori Mail

Text by GEOFF VIVIAN

Police, the WA government and Aboriginal community organisations agree that night patrols are an essential service.

Click on this image to read the story

Click on this image to read the story

Teams of trained Aboriginal workers drive through the streets of Perth and regional towns at night, stopping to speak to stranded countrymen who are often intoxicated or otherwise distressed.

They then offer them a lift home, or to emergency accommodation

In July 2013 the WA Aboriginal affairs minister ordered a review of the service, with a view to extending it.

Koori Mail 31 July 2013Meanwhile the Commonwealth Attorney General, who part-funded the service in Broome and Perth, decided to cut funding for the patrols by 37 and 20 per cent respectively.

‘Bushtucker’ fruit standout in Broome ecological survey 10/4/2013

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THE WA Government has listed an ecological community on Broome’s outskirts as Priority 1 PEC (Priority Ecological Community).

The dominant species is a small tree that grows on the top of relic sand dunes in the Broome Peninsula.

Broome Advertiser 4 July 2013It is commonly known by the Bardi name Mangarr and in English as wild prune (Sersalisia sericea)formerly (Pouteria sericea).

“It is an important and renowned local bushtucker species and does not occur in such frequency and longevity in other locations,” says ecologist Louise Beames.

Science Network [read this story]

This story first appeared in Science Network WA on 10/4/2013 and it has been republished by Broome Advertiser on 4/7/2013