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REPORT ON 2012 LANDCARE CONFERENCE

By Ross Smith

representing the Greater Mary Association Inc

( sponsored by BMRG)

MONDAY

Social Media for Landcare – Stewart Dawes An intense training session by an excellent presenter.

He covered mainly the use of Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest but also dealt with Facebook and Youtube

etc.

He gave an insight into how he and other people were using social media to improve their bottom line and

some ideas how not for profit organisations could also.

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TUESDAY

Landcare, be heard- Mia Freedman and Peter FitzSimons A most entertaining, thought provoking and informative presentation delivered by two excellent

communicators. With some reference to social media and marketing/advertising principles.

Some quotes;

“Don’t deal with the world the way you wish it to be but deal with it the way it is”

“Facebook to younger generations replaces the communications at the church or the pub”

“Organisations like landcare have to find a way to cross the “make me care” threshold with individuals.”

“Marketing success depends on finding the correct “emotional entry point” for the target group”.

“An example of marketing success – YouTube video on how to stack a dishwasher with giveaway of

dishwasher cleaning tablets “

German Land care – Beate Krettinger A short presentation of the Landcare movement in Germany.

Lots of similarities with Australia – seemed to evolve after Australia did but no mention of copying Aust.

Some areas of Germany Active and some not active in landcare.

More levels of government than in Aust

Farming closely linked with landcare

Frog Dreaming – Sarah Schmude A very impressive presentation on involving schoolchildren ina landcare oriented conference and

storytelling involving year 5/6 students with older students and developing action plans - in northern NSW

(Uralla).

Conducted at a very intense level and over a period of years so would have a lot to offer anyone who is

interested in this field

Social Media and the Social Movement - Tom Croft A presentation about the developments in Victorian Landcare (which QLD should watch) and the

application of social media to the landcare movement

Government provides a gateway to give small groups websites etc

Landcarevic on Youtube gives a good explanation and worth looking at even if all the facilities are not

available on QLD

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“Beyond Reasonable Drought” Doug Avery An NZ farmer lecturing Australians on how to handle drought ???

This turned out to be very informative story of how a farmer in the north east of the South Island changed

his farming systems to combat the inherent dry climate.

His main innovation seemed to be an introduction of Lucerne into the farm to make better use of moisture

stored lower in the profile.

Sustainablity – Environmental

Financial

Social

Use of legumes encouraged early rumen development

Producing 2 kg per day wt gain on pastures all year round (wow)

He also mentioned that he was using Plantain but did not elaborate

Motivation for sustainable farm practices in Australian Agriculture -

Dr Saan Ecker This presentation was of the results of a study to better understand what caused farmers to uptake certain

practices or innovations. The results of research by ABARES

Results showed that motivations included a mix of financial, environmental and personal issues with

support being an enabler not a driver of change

Regenerating Landscapes through innovative land management practice Simon

Gould Soils for life an environmental NGO

A presentation which I thought would be interesting to follow up as it left some gaps in my understanding

of what was achieved and now there is a website which gives a lot of information soilsforlife.org.au

20 case studies mostly grain cropping and some diary with 1 in NT and one in QLD – “Dukes Plains” at

Brigalow

http://www.soilsforlife.org.au/

Farmer led research to improve soil health productivity and reduce carbon

emissions - Cam Nicholson One of the highlights of the conference

Scientifically based and farmer led research into the benefits of conventional and alternate fertilizers with

some very interesting results which did not back the claims of some alternate fertilizer proponents.

A good web site with a lot of information and a downloadable report -

http://www.woadyyaloak.com.au/index.html

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SW VIC near Ballarat

Quotes: “microbial activity more influenced by management than by the products added”

“no consistent links between soil biology and production”

“start where people are at and when they are ready to go” (getting adoption of research results)

Plenary Session

Dr Carole Hungerford A GP with urban and rural practices and a passion for healthy food and the environment.

Author of “Good Health in the 21st Century” 2006

She spoke on the importance of gut bacteria and how the food we eat can influence these – GM food may

influence gut bacteria.

Food value of produce is not changed by its attractive appearance or not – some deformed fruit are better

for us for they have better plant hormone balance because they have dealt with a threat

Selenium is very important anti-cancer agent (not taken up in acid soils)

Tim Flannery Author of “The Weathermakers” and other books www.theweathermakers.org

Some Quotes;

“most politicians come from a law or business background so have little scientific knowledge and not good

ability to enterperet the scientific data of climate change etc”

“99.999% of all species that have been on our planet are extinct”

Climate does change over millions of years but humans speed these changes up”

“ the human advantage over other animals is foresight”

“we are changing the physical and geological state of the planet”

“ 50 billion tonnes of soil travel from Africa to USA every day”

“Manage Humans – the only thing that can be managed”

“we should be moving towards measuring wellness and happiness” “Ecuador is moving this way”

“Japan has shown no growth for a period and there has not been a major disaster because of this”

“Use the experience of the “elders””

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Gala Awards Dinner Something to experience – 900 people? In one room being served and waited on very well with impressive

speakers and cuisine. Notables included Bob Hawke, Fed Minister Ludwig, Jack Thompson etc A list of

award winners appears at the end of the document

WEDNESDAY

David Suzuki As would be expected a moving and thought provoking address on the world outlook. The address was to

be available on the Landcare website in 2 weeks but I have not been able to find it yet

Plenary Session

Ron Archer Very eloquent speaker connected “mother earth” and “mother Nature” gave some insights into how to

influence the younger generation and acknowledged that white people can also have a connection to the

land!

Ian Lowe ? ACF Gave and interesting point of view: commonly used business accounting practices do not allow for the

real cost of environmental damage in the long term.

“managing our natural resources is like coaching a football team if you only know three players – we need

so much more knowledge”

Directed us to read the “State of the Enviroment 2011” published by Fed Govt however this report is

116mb to download – the summary is 18 pages and both are available at

http://www.environment.gov.au/soe/index.html

“The 2011 State of the Environment (SoE) report aims to give Australians the best possible and clearest

answers to three basic questions:

• What is the current condition of the Australian environment?

• What are the risks the Australian environment faces and are we doing enough to protect it?

• Where is the Australian environment headed?”

Presentations

Victorian Landcare Programme – strategic plan - Ingrid Duncan It seems Victorian Landcare has a very supportive government which has aided with the gateway as

demonstrated on their website : http://www.landcarevic.net.au/

A National Approach to Building Resilient Rangelands - Kate Forrest A national approach to managing rangelands with 14 NRM regions in Australia covering 85% of the

continent.

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The Australian Rangeland Initiative ---Aim:

To demonstrate that the decline of rangeland health is an issue of national importance

To stimulate investment in Rangelands at a national level

Contact the Alliance through any of its member organisations or Through the coordinator Kate Forrest at

the SA Arid Lands Board. Email: Kate.forrest@sa.gov.au Office: 08 82049131

There doesn’t appear to be a QLD member

Carbon Farming Initiative and Land Sector Package Lee Nelson Wide ranging presentation mentioning Carbon Farming Futures, Methane, Nitrous Oxide and link dates for

European Carbon trading market

Some information about the Carbon Farming Initiative is available at

http://www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au/clean-energy-future/land-use/

Caring For Our Country – Ian Thompson One speaker that was a little hard to understand but he gave an outline of the governments analysis and

thinking that has given rise to the changes in Caring For Our Country grants most of which is delivered in

the “Outline for the Future” to be found at:

http://www.nrm.gov.au/about/caring/review/pubs/c4oc-outline-future.pdf

General Impressions Quite an eye-opening experience to see so many people gathered together with the same broad goals in

mind.

The strong emphasis on farming as an integral part of Landcare – many presentations pitched towards

farmers not pure enviromentalist

No mention of controversial issues such as Coal Seam Gas and Mining in general.

Very well organised and smoothly run conference though I hoped that more of the conference proceedings

would have been available by now – even attendees can’t be at every sessions.

There were many impressive speakers and displays some of the memorable ones were

Speakers:

David Suzuki, Tim Flannery, Peter Fitsimons

Presentations

Social Media for Landcare – Stewart Dawes, Farmer led research to improve soil health productivity and

reduce carbon emissions - Cam Nicholson

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Displays

Weeds of National Significance, Regenag, dung beetle research

NOTE

The Link:

https://picasaweb.google.com/rpsmith45/LANDCARECONFERENCE2012?authkey=Gv1sRgCM3LwNP224CG

YA#

will show of some photos I took at the conference of presenters, the dinner and the static displays. The

static display photos are not always clear but more information can be obtained by zooming in on ones that

are of interest. Unfortunately the resolution in this web album is too low to be able to do this so if anyone

wishes to explore a poster more contact me by email and I will send you the higher resolution original

Ross Smith

Greater Mary Association Inc. PO box 1381 Maryborough 4650

rpsmith45@yahoo.com.au

An extract from the Landcare Newsletter The 2012 National Landcare Conference was an outstanding success. The speakers in the plenary and

concurrent sessions were inspiring and informative. The presentations from the key note speakers in the

plenary sessions (such as David Suzuki) were filmed and these should be up on conference web site

(www.daff.gov.au/landcareconference.) by early October and are highly recommended. The powerpoint

presentations or papers from most of the concurrent sessions will also be available. The conference was

very well attended by people involved with the Landcare movement across the country and internationally.

Representatives from eight other countries attended the conference which was opened by the Secretary of

DAFF, Dr Conall O’Connell and you can read his presentation at

www.daff.gov.au/about/contactus/secretary/landcare.

The National Landcare Awards were also a highlight and the night included well known Aussie star Jack

Thompson (who has been a supporter of Landcare for a number of years), Minister Joe Ludwig and former

Prime Minister Bob Hawke who was presenting the inaugural Bob Hawke Landcare Award. This award was

won by dairy farmer and passionate Landcarer, Lynne Strong from NSW.

Media commentators Mia Freedman and Peter FitzSimons gave a fascinating insight into the chaotic and

evolving world of social media and the need for Landcare to get its message out. Later in the conference,

Tom Croft from Victoria gave a presentation on how Landcare groups are using social media and he has

uploaded his own presentation to Youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8A_kAu3YNQ.

(Landcare Patron Jack Thompson, David Suzuki, Minister Joe Ludwig, Bob Hawke Landcare Award winner

Lynne Strong, Social media session with Mia Freedman & Peter FitzSimons, Individual Landcarer winner

Chris Scott, Lunch Time, Landcare Elders Session with Alice Knight/Horrie Poussard, Ron Archer, Professor

Ian Lowe, Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke.) 3

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2012 National Landcare Award Winners

Australian Government Individual Landcarer – Chris Scott, NSW

Australian Government Innovation in Sustainable Farm Practices – Running Creek Feed Test Station, QLD

Australian Government Coastcare – South West Rocks Dune Care, NSW Australian Government Local

Landcare Facilitator – Susie Chapman, QLD Australian Government NRM - SEQ Catchments, QLD Westpac

Education - North Dandalup Primary, WA Be Natural Young Landcare Leader - Megan Rowlatt, NSW Toshiba

Community Group – Ellen Brockman Integrated Catchment Group, WA Leighton Holdings Indigenous –

Bunya Mountains Murri Ranger and Elders Council, QLD Rural Press Primary Producer – Danny Flanery,

NSW Urban Landcare – Georges River Combined Councils’ Committee, NSW Local Government and

Landcare Partnership – Byron and Tweed Shire Councils, NSW People’s Choice Award – Youngtown Primary

School, TAS