6 January 2009
DAFF09/68T

Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Foresty - Tony Burke
Chairman, South Coast NRM - Alex Campbell

Albany, WA

Tony Burke: G’day, it’s Tony. I’m out in Albany today with South Coast NRM Group and we’ve got Alex Campbell, South Coast NRM, thanks for joining me today.

Alex Campbell: Hello, Tony.

Tony: And all around us we have got one of the weeds of national significance—Alex, could you explain a bit about it?

Alex: Yeah, well this is the gorse park that we have around us here. In Western Australia we have relatively small infestation compared to Victoria and Tasmania but none the less it is significant, but we believe we can eradicate it—completely get rid of it this gorse in Western Australia and we just needed the impetus of the National Gorse Program supported by our local community and we’re really wanting to get stuck into it and we welcome you being here Tony to help sow the seed for us a little bit with some funding to kick start it.

Tony: So most of the time when we talk about weeds we talk about weed management, but you’re serious here that you reckon WA can actually look at a full eradication program?

Alex: That’s our plan and we aren’t taking it lightly. I’m carrying this thing here which tells us all about it. We’ve got at twenty-five year commitment because we can knock it down, as you’ve seen around here today, but there’s hard seed that will keep on popping up for the next twenty-five years.

Tony: Twenty-five?

Alex: Yes. So our commitment and what we’ve signed today and I have here with me now is that for twenty-five years we have to monitor these sites and eradicate any seed that germinates before it can in turn set seed. So we aren’t entering into this lightly. So while we have a relatively small infestation it is a twenty-five year haul for us and that’s what we’re going to do.

Tony: And the work that’s being done, who’s involved like as you’ve got volunteer groups a part of it or how does the South Coast NRM work get done along here?

Alex: Absolutely, we work in partnerships and I guess one of the main partnerships would be our local ag. department—Agricultural Department. And they provide the expertise behind the eradication program. That’s only the start if we didn’t have the community there with us – firstly identifying any little rogue infestation, it might be one or two plants hundreds of metres away and then also the community are the people who will come back and monitor they are the ones who will come back every year for twenty-five years and without that it just wouldn’t work.

So the community, state agencies are the real crutch to it. The role of South Coast NRM I guess is the glue that holds all the communities together because we’ve got these gorse plants in quite a few of the catchment groups and each of those catchment groups needs to have the confidence that they’re not going alone. The other catchment groups around them are doing the same thing and if there’s any new techniques that come to light we will spread the work quickly. Yep – community working with the relevant expertise.

Tony: Okay, well best of luck with it. In twenty-five years time I guess we’ll all hope to come out here and see nothing.

Alex: That’s right. And Tony, thank you for coming to this part of Australia.

Tony: No, no great to be here, Alex. Thank you.