GBSAN President's report AGM 2022
By Rick Humphries
2022 was another busy year for GBSAN with plenty of emerging opportunities in 2023. It is probably timely that we review the structure of the organization and streamline some of our processes. I believe we also need to rethink our focus as our membership has at best plateaued and we are spinning our wheels on a couple of fronts.
2022 highlights
Partnering with the Quoll Society Australia (QSA). QSA received a $230,000 federal habitat restoration grant focused on the Regent’s Honey Eater and the Swift Parrot. The project aims to include at least 30 properties. Happily the project is well over subscribed an indication of our community’s interest in protecting the Region’s wildlife. GBSAN supported a successful launch in April and continues to work with the QSA on a number of wildlife related issues including the creation of an online downloadable education unit on endangered species: flora and fauna for Granite Belt primary schools driven by the Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery.
Wildlife Friendly Granite Belt. The relationship with the QSA and the considerable community support for the protection of the Spotted Tail Quoll and other threatened species was the catalyst for the creation and launch of the Wildlife Friendly Granite Belt initiative. Wildlife Friendly has a range of goals but the big hairy audacious one is to see the Spotted Tailed Quoll adopted by the Granite Belt community as its mascot – a symbol of our community’s concern and affinity with the Region’s native fauna.
Rodenticide education campaign. In addition to supporting the education pack, Wildlife Friendly launched a successful rodenticide education campaign through CRT and Mitre 10 aimed at steering consumers toward purchasing rodenticide products that do not have a second-generation impact on wildlife.
You’ll be hearing a lot more from the Wildlife Friendly team over the coming months including major community engagement program with the Spotted-tailed Quoll as the mascot. Other innovative ideas include labelling and brewing a special beer based on local hops at Granite Belt Brewery as both a fundraiser for QSA and a pathway to engage a new audience around wildlife protection! So watch this space!
Regen Farmers Mutual (RFM) Traprock Pilot. The other major initiative in 2022 is the Regen Farmers Mutual (RFM) Traprock Pilot.
There are 3 threatened ecosystems, 4 endangered animal species and numerous endangered plants that can be regenerated through a coordinated approach by landholders in the Traprock. By individual farmers linking their individual habitats with nearby State forests, they can extend the habitat, breeding opportunities and resilience of these threatened and endangered species to climate change. Eight Traprock families with a combined landholding of 18,000 hectares have signed up to the Traprock Landscape Regeneration Pilot.
The goal is to regenerate and enhance the viability of threatened vegetation communities and associated rare, endangered and threatened species of flora and fauna whilst improving the livelihoods and environment for the farming families in the region. The pilot farmers, manage 8 farms that are coordinating their activity around land use, regrowth, fencing, feral animal control and measurement to create an extension of habitat around Pikes Creek and Sundown National Park. If successful, the work done by these eight landholders will “open” the transaction and encourage more neighbors to participate.
This has been years in the making. Two years ago GBSAN established a sustainable land management group to explore the promotion of sustainable agriculture. The original working group included USQ, Tony Gleeson, Andy Ferrier, Southern QLD landscapes and a couple of Landcare groups. After a number of false starts and a degree of frustration GBSAN identified RFM as the most likely partner and introduced them to Southern QLD Landscapes and the Traprock Group Association leading to the formation of a local RFM pilot team including GBSAN members Andy Ferrier representing the Traprock Group, Michelle Conkas working on communications, Kym Wilson – appointed as RFM’s local landscape agronomist through her association with Carbon8 – and Rick Humphries representing GBSAN and the convenor of the pilot team. The Pilot has attracted funding from the Land Restoration Fund and will be completed by 2023.
The RFM pilot is a shining example of GBSAN’s role as a catalyst and initiator of partnerships that lead to measureable change and improvements in our local environment
Upgrading of the Broadwater and Passchendeale State Forests. In partnership with the National parks Association of QLD, GBSAN continues to push the creation of a nature-based tourism strategy for the Granite Belt based on the upgrading of the Broadwater and Passchendeale State Forests to national parks and an associated marketing and business development strategy. Thus far the proposal has attracted the support of the Kambuwal Traditional Owners, Granite Belt Wine and Tourism, Southern QLD Country Tourism and local state MP James Lister.
Currently the initiative is experiencing some “wheel spin” with the SDRC qualifying its original support on the back of concerns about the forest upgrades and inertia at the State Government level. To rectify this, we are redoubling our engagement with the local tourism industry in the hope of gaining active support from Council and some real and meaningful engagement at the state level
The Resource Recovery Team (RRT) continue to prosecute their agenda to build a bio-digester in the Region, improve recycling rates and push Council toward a waste reduction strategy and the adoption of targets including diversion of waste to landfill. Despite repeated attempts to engage with Council, they have not taken up the offer to work with GBSAN to develop a practical and achievable strategy to reduce waste to landfill and reduce the future cost to rate payers. This has been a catalyst to for the RRT to regroup and consider a different tack in 2023.
It has always been important to have an informed and rational discussion about water security for all of the Stanthorpe community and the recent four year deferral of federal funding of Emu Swamp Dam will support that.
The current La Nina and the deferral means there is now the “space” to explore a range of real water security options. It may well be that the time has come for the Water Team’s proposal for the establishment of a community lead discussion on water security to have its day in the sun. This is indeed an opportunity for GBSAN take a higher profile on water security issues in 2023.
The election of the Albanese government and their focus on climate action and the biodiversity crisis has no doubt changed the national discussion in spite of the Opposition quickly reverting to type on climate. There are funding opportunities for local action that we can access. We need to encourage council to be progressive in this space and support action that will ensure that this region is prepared for climate change. Although SDRC has an Environmental Sustainability Strategy, to date there has been no meaningful action. The present council are in the latter part of their tenure and one would imagine they will want to see some implementation of this strategy. There have been reviews of cat management and invasive species strategies but the results have been very disappointing. The invasive species strategy has been watered down and the cat management falls a long way short of accepted best practice. It will be important for rate payers that their council is prepared for climate action by undertaking a basic audit to identify its greenhouse gas footprint and the possible financial risk to rate payers in the likely event a defacto carbon price is adopted in Australia.
Clearly direct approaches to Council are not working. It is time to change our direction and focus more on mustering and mobilizing community support for our agenda. As the wildlife protection experience demonstrates, there is a lot of community support for our agenda. We need to get out there and engage locally. Our headline campaigns on protecting biodiversity, climate action, water security and waste minimization enjoy a lot of community support particularly where these issues intersect with rate rises!
In addition to more investment in community engagement, we must raise our media profile and engage Council and other stakeholders in a more public debate. This more public approach can be done without compromising our commitment to respecting other opinions and fostering constructive solutions.
Earlier in the year, the Management Committee endorsed the need for a strategic review of how we operate with a view to looking at ways to make us more effective. Lead by Anna Purvis the review involved interviews with active members, supporters and other stakeholders. It’s recommendations will be considered at the first management committee meeting in 2023 and then will discussed at the first general meeting of members with a view to any changes be put to members for adoption at that meeting.
Finally, I want to acknowledge the work done by the Management Committee, working group members and team leaders and other GBSAN supporters and partners such as the Granite Belt Brewery who gives us access to this venue free of charge.
Rick Humphries President GBSAN 13/11/22