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Case studies
Rural women award winners reach new heights
Australia’s rural women may not always get the rewards they deserve, but there’s no doubt they have earned the awards they are winning.
High among them is the RIRDC Rural Women’s Award, which recognises the essential role of rural women in their industries and communities. More importantly, it opens up opportunities for them to increase their participation.
Since it began in 2000, more than 35 women have received the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation’s prestigious award, and the support and resources it provides.
Each of the seven State and Territory winners receives a bursary of $15,000, and the chance to attend an Australian Institute of Company Director’s course. Each runner up receives a $5,000 Development Award.
For more information about the RIRDC Rural Women’s Award, visit www.ruralwomensaward.gov.au
For information about the Industry Partnerships – Corporate Governance for Rural Women program visit www.daff.gov.au/ruralwomen
The pursuit of the Viarsa 1 — more than a sea chase
We will catch you. We will seize your boat. And we will prosecute you.
That’s the blunt warning the Australian Government has sent to poachers who think fish and other valuable marine species inside the Australian Fishing Zone are easy pickings.
In 2003, Australia seized 119 vessels allegedly fishing illegally in the zone’s northern and southern waters.
Most of the seizures took place in the northern waters. But the incident that grabbed the world’s headlines was the pursuit of the Uruguayan-flagged vessel, the Viarsa 1, suspected of illegally fishing in the zone’s southern waters.
When run down and apprehended, the Viarsa 1 was directed to Fremantle, the nearest Australian port, where the vessel was seized under the Fisheries Management Act 1991.
“The chase was a warning to the pirates and poachers who invade Australia’s waters to fish illegally that Australia will pursue them to the end of the earth to stamp out this illegal activity,” Fisheries Minister Senator the Hon Ian Macdonald said.
Snakes, lies and videotape
Quarantine officers at Melbourne’s International Mail Centre got more than they bargained when they inspected a parcel from Sweden.
The label on the package said it contained videotapes, but the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service (AQIS) staff weren’t so sure.
The AQIS inspectors used one of the mail centre’s four tri-colour imaging
X-ray machines, and discovered two suspicious images wound inside the videotapes.
Inside the videotapes were two rattlesnakes. Each snake was wrapped in a black stocking. They were between one and two years old, and about 40 centimetres long. One was already dead.
The surviving rattlesnake posed a quarantine risk to Australia’s native reptiles because it could have been carrying exotic diseases and parasites.
AQIS officers screen the 180 million pieces of international mail that come into Australia every year and their work is crucial to protect Australia’s agriculture and tourism industries, and unique environment.
For further information about Australia’s quarantine laws, visit the AQIS Website.
Eradicating feral animal pests — dollars or sense?
Every farmer and environmentalist dreams of eradicating Australia’s many introduced agricultural and environmental pests. Our feral populations of rabbits, foxes, cats, pigs, cane toads and carp – to name a few – run into the millions. And we spend millions of dollars each year, trying to control them to reduce the damage they do.
If pests were gone, agriculture and the environment would face one less damage risk. The threat of them spreading disease would disappear. And we would no longer have to meet the huge costs of trying to control them.
Successful and intentional eradications, however, are rare. Scientists in the Bureau of Rural Sciences have developed criteria to assess whether eradication is likely to work, and all criteria should be ticked off before considering an expensive eradication campaign for a pest species.
The Feral Pig Action Agenda developed in June 2003, called for a national approach to eradicate the threat of feral pigs, which could be achieved by supporting the development of new approaches to reduce the agricultural and environmental damage they cause and the risk of them spreading diseases.
A new approach could include the use of the BRS criteria, and by controlling them in areas where there are clear economic or environmental benefits from reducing their numbers, and to invest resources in developing improved techniques for feral pig control.
For further information about feral animal pests and their management visit www.feral.org.au