In just 3 days, the 2008 Queensland Landcare Conference will kick off in Monto. Monto is of course in the Burnett Catchment so it is only fitting that the BCCA should make a contribution. So the Better Burnett team will be hosting 2 of the 7 field trips on Tuesday 23th.
Beef, Bunyips & Boonie Doon - will look at Leucena cultivation and how it and herd recording can improve land condition. The tour will check out Native Forestry opportunities in Spotted Gum forests, play a game to benchmark pasture condition, and hear all about BMRG’s Water Quality Monitoring network
Sip’n'Sap - will visit a Cat’s Claw Creeper biocontrol site, hear from Rohan Allen about Native Forestry, find out about Creeping Lantana and a trial using Compost Tea to manage it and finally visit a winery for some wine tasting.
Katie, Louise, and Letetia have all worked hard to pull the tours together and I’m sure anyone on their trips is going to have a great day out. See you there.
Stop Press If you haven’t registered for the conference yet, why not? You still have time to register if you haven’t already but you need to get on to it now. Contact Event Manager Sam Morris: email sam {[at]} wombatcreative.com.au or phone 0421 709 519.
Stock and Land Victoria poses the question “Could carbon trading be the next Landcare?”, suggesting that the opportunities carbon trading presents could be as good for Agriculture as Landcare has been. As the article suggests there are as many opportunities for Agriculture as there are threats. After all the business of agriculture using sunshine, rain and atmospheric carbon to create primary produce.
Of course internationally and historically we have a pretty poor history of looking after our farmers. The farming community wields little political power in comparison to the energy sector (doesn’t stop them having a go sometimes). For the opportunities to be equitable Agriculture will be relying on some sound carbon science and some appropriate extension to make it digestable to the farming community.
An article from Farfax’s “The Land” reveals a fight back by NSW landcare groups in the wake of job cuts. As a result the upcoming C4OC Open Grants Round is going to be very competitive. By the sounds of it the Holbrook Landcare Group still have plenty of passion and are convinced that the landcare model is valuable to their stakeholders. Read the full story by clicking on the link below.
The web strategy is based around a Wordpress Content Management System because of it’s power and ease of use. Committee Members and staff are easily able to make additions to the website easily and effortlessly. Best of all the website is rapidly and prolifically indexed by search engines such as google.
See here is the Queensland Landcare Conference site already listed number 3 in our highest priority google search “2008 Queensland Landcare Conference”, how cool is that.
Stay tuned to 2008 Queensland Landcare Conference for updates on the conference. You can subsribe to updates and /or the conference newsletter. See you in Monto.
one of the great advances of the web 2.0 is the opportunity to easily and effortlessly create and share video content. in the past landcare groups, NRM groups, and extension programs have lamented the indifference of mainstream media, towards our efforts to improve two great pillars of our society; agriculture and the natural resource that supports it. now you can have your own tv commercial, documentary or radio show for peanuts (using free web 2.0 tools). and in then event you make the evening news you can upload to youtube and have your story work for you indefinitely.
below is a youtube video of a landcare exercise near Bundaberg. i was so pleased to see Maureen Schmidt (Bundaberg Landcare) interviewed she works so hard, has a great deal of knowledge and deserves to say her piece. imagine the impact if every landcare group, nrm body and ag extension program regularly posted youtube videos. many in the industry have said that until the broader population care about this work we are fighting an uphill battle. perhaps this is a way to share the important work that you do.
