Issue 22 - September 2002

Community Grasps Opportunity

Members gathered in a combined meeting at Moomba on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of August and settled on a course of action to transition the process to the Natural Heritage Trust Mark 2 (NHT2). They were unanimous in their resolve to reposition their community-driven process to take advantage of the new funding environment of NHT2.

Angus Emmott, Deputy-Chair of both the Cooper’s Creek Catchment Committee and the Lake Eyre Basin Coordinating Group said the meeting, the culmination of six months of funding uncertainty, was very positive in its outcomes.

“I think the community and the funders have come to a common understanding of what we can offer each other under NHT2,” he said. “We have a range of challenges and opportunities in front of us and the Lake Eyre Basin community will meet these with the same energy and commitment that has seen this process become a world recognised model for community-driven natural resource management.” (See ‘Perspectives’ on page 5 for more responses to the Moomba meeting).

More than 30 members of the Cooper’s Creek Catchment Committee, the Georgina Diamantina Catchment Committee, and the Lake Eyre Basin Coordinating Group heard presentations from Government representatives on the proposed Regional arrangements of NHT2.

In light of current funding realities, repositioning was acknowledged as the best way to continue to achieve benefits for the Basin and to maintain initiatives and community capacity gains made to date while also retaining independence and identity.

Government advice that the catchment committee process will continue to be supported to maximise resources for community activities was seen as a key factor in allaying community fears that their process was being dismantled.

The model endorsed by the meeting is for the catchment committees to work closely within the new NHT arrangements to ensure the continuation of whole of catchment integrated natural resource management. This will entail taking full advantage of Queensland Government’s generous offer of considerable in-kind support in the form of office space and administrative support for the Catchment Committees.

The meeting was resolute that the identity, effectiveness, and independence of the committees would not be compromised in the least. They did acknowledge, however, that the Coordinating Group’s structure and operation will require some refining.

While this may also mean an adjustment to the membership of the Community Advisory Committee (CAC) to the Lake Eyre Basin Ministerial Forum, it will not diminish the role of the CAC. The CAC will always remain, by definition, the community’s advisory committee to the Ministerial Forum and will be made up of community members.

Negotiations to clarify the details of the new relationships are proceeding in the spirit of goodwill and common purpose that exists between the community of the Lake Eyre Basin and the Commonwealth, Queensland and South Australian governments.

More detailed information about the arrangements will be made available as soon as they are finalised.

From the Chair

I recently attended the International Farm Management Congress in the Netherlands and while this may seem far removed from the Lake Eyre Basin, there is a global similarity in the way society feels about farming and rangeland landscapes.

In most under-developed countries there is a widespread concern at growing enough food and distributing it to people in the towns and villages rather than growing crops for export.

Conversely, in well-developed countries like Australia that tend to have food surpluses, the concerns are for safe food, sustainable farming, environmental care, maintenance of a rural landscape, and caring for indigenous peoples.

There were also some key messages from the recent Australian Rangelands Society Conference in Kalgoorlie that already form the basis of how we in the Lake Eyre Basin process operate. Some of these were:

• the value to scientists of local and traditional knowledge and the need to work together

• biodiversity is the cornerstone of rangelands management

• the time is right for change to adaptive management using the wide range of skills good pastoralists already have

• the improvement in the condition of the rangelands over the past 50 years

• the need to talk to each other and use alliances between different interest groups

Other papers delivered in the Netherlands and in Kalgoorlie provide clear messages about ways to achieve community goals with minimum conflict. Successful rural, agricultural and rangeland strategies invariably include structures inclusive of all stakeholders regardless of their education or skill levels, open discussion of each others’ needs, and enough funding to keep people meeting and to support desired change.

The Lake Eyre Basin community-based structures that we are part of, demonstrate these success factors in our country. Broad-based community structures do work.

I encourage the Lake Eyre Basin community to vigorously push for enough funding for all stakeholders to meet across borders, to continue to lead and plan for a sustainable future for the whole Basin. This funding is our right, as an integral part of us caring for the rangelands of our country on behalf of all Australians.

The Three Essentials

While it is the well-known mantra of the real estate game, position, position, position very much applies to the negotiating table as well.

The Lake Eyre Basin process, which was set in train by the community of the Basin in 1995, is currently negotiating its future with respective state jurisdictions.

The funding realities of the Federal Government’s Natural Heritage Trust Mark 2 are that dollars will only flow via the states’ Natural Resource Management bodies and only at the ratio of one-to-one for each cash or in-kind dollar that individual states contribute.

A Regional Body will be established for the Lake Eyre Basin portion of western Queensland while South Australia is looking to form one body for the whole of the South Australian Rangelands. Both bodies will administer and deliver funds to those groups or individuals who will achieve measurable on-ground natural resource management outcomes.

With the catchment committees for the Cooper’s Creek and the Georgina Diamantina working effectively with broad community support, the mechanism for linking funding with community-supported projects is already in place.

Governments acknowledge that community-driven processes, working in partnership with government, are the best way of delivering natural resource management outcomes. This makes the catchment committees, with their attendant networks, goodwill, and community ownership, valuable organisations for the Government to continue working with.

The catchment committees are therefore in a very strong position to say to the Queensland Government, ‘with funding, we can continue delivering natural resource management outcomes, but our community-driven committees must retain full independence, integrity, identity and cross-border function’.

While the catchments of the Cooper and the Georgina Diamantina form only a part of the South Australian Rangelands, the South Australian Government has indicated it wants to continue working closely with the catchment committees to ensure cross-border integration of natural resource management.

Both Governments have given the catchment committees tremendous support in the past and have indicated they will continue doing so. They know they could never hope to replace what the community has so successfully established and run over the last four years.

Position, Position, Position!

Chief Executive's Report

This newsletter provides some details about the structural changes the Lake Eyre Basin Coordinating Group is making in order to ensure we are positioned to secure our future.

Members of the Cooper’s Creek and Georgina Diamantina catchment committees and the Lake Eyre Basin Coordinating Group met in joint sessions at Moomba in early August and came to a common understanding of the funding realities and options available to us. For more detail, see our cover story and associated articles on pages 3, 6 and 7 .

While this is not the outcome we would have wished for at the beginning of the year, it has the full endorsement of the committee members. I’m confident it will take the organisation forward and ensure continuing delivery of funding for onground natural resource management activities. I encourage all members of the community to provide us with your views about the changed arrangements.

My major concern is for the team of professional and dedicated staff who have continued to work enthusiastically despite the uncertainty of their employment future ? at present, we only have funding security to the end of December 2002. We are anxiously waiting for the state and Federal governments to finalise arrangements for the implementation of Natural Heritage Trust Mark2 so we can get on with the business of Natural Resource Management in the Basin.

The community information and consultation meetings on draft policies and strategies for the Lake Eyre Basin Ministerial Forum are in full swing and will have been completed by the time this goes to press. Community responses will be incorporated into the final draft policies which will be approved and released by the Ministerial Forum.

Arrangements for the biennial Ministerial Forum Conference in Birdsville in October are well advanced. The program has a great mix of scientific, industry and community people presenting information. If you are interested in attending please contact us for a brochure.

While on the subject of events, we had two very successful ones recently. There was a lot of interest in our display at Barcaldine’s Westech Field Day and I enjoyed the opportunity of talking to people and viewing the latest bore control technologies at the well-attended Mungerannie Field Day.

Underground Activity

For the past three years, researchers in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands of South Australia have been studying the elusive Itjaritjari or Southern Marsupial Mole (Notoryctes typhlops) and now a new project has come on line to assist the research.

The ‘Mole Patrol’, a project funded by Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Land Management through the Natural Heritage Trust, is aiming to enlist the help of people in the bush to gain a better understanding of these elusive marsupials and their distribution.

According to the Mole Patrol’s Jarrad Holmes, the more we know about the habits and distribution of the rare and endangered marsupial mole, the better we can ensure the conservation of the species.

“We’re relying on volunteers across the sandy desert country to record and report mole sightings so we can get a handle on their distribution,” he said.

“Our Mole Patrol information package includes descriptions and photos of marsupial mole signs and an introduction to the survey techniques available. The package is for people who would like to participate in the Mole Patrol project or for those who would just like to learn some more about marsupial moles.”

Marsupial moles spend almost their entire life underground and are found throughout the sandy desert country of Australia. Even though they leave very distinctive tracks when they do occasionally come to the surface, few records exist for mole sightings, partly because people do not know what mole sign looks like.

About the size of a small rat, the marsupial mole has a shield of horny skin covering the nose and greatly enlarged spade-like claws on its front paws for rapid burrowing through sand. Its thick fur is silky and pale-golden. A backwards-opening pouch is present in both sexes, although it is better developed in the female. The fact that it completely lacks eyes and has only rudimentary ear openings is offset by a well-developed sense of smell which it uses to locate grubs, ants and termites.

Two species of marsupial moles are currently recognised: Itjaritjari or Southern Marsupial Mole (Notoryctes typhlops) from the sandy deserts of central Australia; and Kakarratul or Northern Marsupial Mole (Notoryctes caurinus) from the north-west deserts. They inhabit sand dune and sandy plain country throughout SA, NT, WA, and possibly south-west Qld. Although first described to science over 100 years ago, marsupial moles are so rarely encountered that very little is known about the biology and distribution of either species.

For further information or a Mole Patrol pack, contact the Threatened Species Network, Alice Springs, at either coolabaheco@aol.com or (08) 8952 1541.

Perspectives

Whatever the issue, whatever the proposal, everyone has their own perspective. The following is a cross-section of the points of view on the outcomes of the joint meeting of the Lake Eyre Basin Coordinating Group, the Cooper's Creek Catchment Committee and the Georgina Diamantina Catchment Committee at Moomba on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of August.

“It’s positive in that both the community and the Government realises we (NRM groups) need to talk to each other and work together in an integrated manner whether it be at a property or regional level. It was really satisfying to see the level of communication and trust between the community and Government representatives.”

David Lord, Thackaringa, Broken Hill (Lake Frome Region)

“My major concern is the public perception of being a Government agency if we’re hosted in a Government building. Protocols to maintain catchment committee independence and identity are critical.”

Helen Avery, Nogo, Longreach (Cooper’s Creek Catchment)

“It’s extremely important that we maintain cross-border representation and integration.”

Phil Gee, William Creek (Western Rivers)

“It was a good meeting where things came together ? it just took someone to guide us to a common understanding of our options. Things (the funding future of the catchment committees) are now more concrete.”

Jan McIntyre, Kiriwina, Winton (Georgina Diamantina Catchment)

“All in all it was fairly successful. Finance governs what we can do so we must work with those supplying it.”

Bob Young, Brighton Downs, Winton (Georgina Diamantina Catchment)

“I’m comfortable with in-kind office space and administrative support from the Queensland Government provided protocols are in place to preserve our independence and identity.

It’s up to the community ? if they really want to maintain the whole-of-Basin process then they have to work really hard to preserve it.

This may be an opportunity to get more uniformity and integration in natural resource management across state borders.”

Maree Morton, Innamincka Station, Innamincka (Cooper's Creek Catchment)

“Change will be more positive than negative as long as the correct protocols are put in place and observed as regards our independence.”

Mike Price, Marengo, Aramac (Cooper's Creek Catchment)

“It’s taken a long time and a lot of work to set this (the Lake Eyre Basin) process up and we’re now starting to get things done ? things are coming together and it’s important we keep our experienced people.

Local ownership and input is paramount to ongoing success.”

Don Rowlands, Wangkangurru Elder, Birdsville (Georgina Diamantina Catchment)

“There was broad community support for change to:

- deliver the outcomes required by the community and governments

- enable the current community-driven cross-border natural resource management approach to continue

- provide the basis for the community to more effectively engage in:

. regional arrangements under Natural Heritage Trust 2

. implementation of the Lake Eyre Basin Inter-governmental Agreement

. the work of the Community Advisory Committee to the Lake Eyre Basin Ministerial Forum.

Scott Parker, Environment Australia, Canberra (Lake Eyre Basin Ministerial Forum Secretariat)

“The outcomes from Moomba were positive and indicated the opportunity for a closer working relationship between community and government. The importance of maintaining the effort and direction of the current Catchment Coordinators and Catchment Groups was recognised and supported.”

Andrew Johnson, Primary Industries and Resources South Australia, Adelaide (Strategic and Environmental Services)

“The meeting and the resulting outcomes are a clear demonstration of a constructive working partnership between the Community of the basin and Government. These things do not happen without positive personal interaction. The level of participation in discussion by everyone at the meeting indicates the common resolve by all concerned to secure the basin's future within the changing operating environment.”

Jeff Smith, Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines (West Region Director)

Money Well Spent

Aridflo is an ambitious project looking at the relationship between flow patterns in the rivers of the Lake Eyre Basin and the biological responses of aquatic life, from fish and water-birds to zooplankton and algae.

The project has been running since the beginning of 2000 and is funded by the Natural Heritage Trust from the Environmental Flows initiative of Environment Australia. It is run by the South Australian Department for Water Resources in partnership with the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency, Parks and Wildlife Service, and Department of Natural Resources and Mines.

According to the project’s initial chief investigator, Jim Puckridge, a researcher with the Department of Environmental Biology at the University of Adelaide, it has been well worth it.

“We’ve had to try and cover a huge range of biological communities,” he says, “which has been an unusual feature of the project and an expensive one as well.

“Getting all that expertise into the field, month after month has not been cheap but it’s certainly been necessary - basically the information hasn’t existed for any of the river systems in the Lake Eyre Basin. For river systems that cover such a large portion of the continent, it’s astounding how little we know.”

The fieldwork stage of Aridflo has finished and the final stage of data collation and analysis, and hydrological modelling is nearing completion. The ultimate aim is to produce a model that can assist managers of the river to determine what environmental outcomes might occur for different water uses.

Right from the outset, Aridflo has recognized and made use of records and knowledge of local land managers regarding river flows and the responses to them. “We’re very conscious of the wealth of local knowledge,” says Puckridge. “It’s a very big source of information.

“And I think there’s a lot in this project for the pastoral community - we’ve created this huge database of biological and hydrological information that can be related right down to property and individual water-body level.”

To get the information out to the people who will use it, Aridflo has begun producing a series of information sheets for pastoralists on the characteristics of the rivers that run through their properties.

Jim Puckridge says the project has provided a dramatic leap in the level of knowledge on the rivers of the Lake Eyre Basin. “I think everyone involved has been stunned by how biologically rich these rivers are.”

Artificial Wetlands

In some of the most arid parts of Australia, water has been coming to the surface for millennia, forced upwards by the temperature and pressure of the Great Artesian Basin. Oozing, bubbling, seeping or gushing up fault lines from hidden aquifers, this water has formed the hundreds of artesian springs that dot the landscape above a vast underground basin and provide the essence of life to a wide variety of creatures.

These creatures are a cross-section of the diversity and richness of life evolved to live in a harsh environment ? crustaceans, snails, worms, fish and plants, many of which occur only in a single group of springs. These springs have also provided a refuge for birds, animals and of course, humans.

It is only in the last 124 years that humans have reshaped how this water gets to the surface and the rate at which it is used. Since the first bore-hole was hammered into the Great Artesian Basin in 1878, the extraction of water and the resulting loss of pressure has seen the demise of many springs and their unique flora and fauna.

At the same time, however, some artificial wetlands created by these new outflows have become valuable refuges for wildlife and humans. This makes the task of saving water much more complex than simply controlling all bores and restricting water to pipes, tanks and troughs.

The Arid Areas Catchment Water Management Board of South Australia has been running a ‘Boredrain Wetlands Study’ to develop a method for identifying which of these artificial wetlands need to be maintained.

Lynn Brake, presiding member of the Board, says the study had two important components.

“The first thing was to identify which artificial wetlands should be saved and which should be closed and the water confined to piping,” he says.

“We then had to quantify how much water is required to maintain those reasons for saving a boredrain wetland.”

According to Lynn Brake, the reasons to maintain an artificial wetland fall into two broad categories.

“One is for environmental and conservation reasons, the other is for lifestyle and other social reasons.

“If the wetland supports important environmental values such as threatened species or provide habitat for migratory birds, or if wetlands have important recreational or lifestyle values for people who live close to them or visit them, then these boredrain wetlands need to be maintained to support these values.

“What we’re trying to do, is decide how we can make sure we don’t lose the benefits the wetlands provide yet still save water where it needs to be saved.”

Illusion or Error

To drive up to this industrial complex in the middle of the Strzelecki Desert is to think that the mirages are working overtime, the desert heat has finally got to you, or that you’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere back down the track.

Massive towers rising above the sand dunes are visible from 20 kilometres away but it’s the view from the final crest that drives the incongruity home. The sand dune stretches left and right, its twin is in the distance, but the intervening space is chocked full of human ingenuity and enterprise.

A gargantuan oil and gas processing plant supplying 50% of eastern Australia’s gas requirements fills your view. Gas and ethane is sent to Sydney, gas to Adelaide and liquids to Port Bonython for further processing for the domestic and export markets. The maze of pipes, towers, machinery and storage tanks are surrounded by offices, accommodation, catering, health, maintenance and repair facilities, contractors compounds and airport ? like so many workers busily attending the queen bee.

And it has an atmosphere of its own. Wind-whipped sand and dust beat against bricks and mortar and steel beneath a tinder dry sky drawn tight from horizon to horizon. The whine and hum and squeal of frantic machine parts and compressed gas penetrate the straggle of coolibahs to the furthest corner of the facility, while dingoes patrol the grounds looking for an easy feed, not wanting to leave their very own canine ‘Club Med’.

At night, desert breezes caress the dunes and a billion stars can’t be dimmed by the puny Christmas-light efforts of man. Depending on your mood or point of view, the sand dunes of the Strzelecki are either embracing Moomba or trying to choke it to death.

The Moomba facility sits astride the Cooper Basin, an oil and gas rich geological formation underlying the lower end of the Cooper’s Creek channel country. The Cooper Basin development is Australia’s largest onshore resource project. More than 900 wells across 21,000 square kilometres provide oil and gas to the thousands of kilometres of pipelines that feed Moomba and other processing facilities.

Around 700 men and women work out of Moomba which is the jewel in the crown of the Cooper Basin operations of South Australian-based Santos, in the top 25% of the world’s oil and gas companies. And no one knows more about Santos’ place in the oil and gas industry, the community, and the environment than Trevor Whitelaw.

He began with Santos at Moomba in 1974 and is now Manager, Facilities Review, dealing with operational integrity and ensuring consistency across Santos’ business worldwide.

The Santos philosophy of contributing to the community and supporting sustainable natural resource management is evidenced by its long-term commitment to the Lake Eyre Basin process. Trevor Whitelaw sits on the Cooper’s Creek Catchment Committee, the Georgina Diamantina Catchment Committee, and the Lake Eyre Basin Coordinating Group as both a community and a petroleum industry representative.

He says that during his 28 years with Santos there has always been a strong environmental emphasis and an eagerness to embrace technologies that minimise disturbance to the environment.

“We’ve used technological advances to ensure seismic tracks are much less intrusive to the landscape than they were back 15 or 20 years ago,” he says. ǎven the plot we put our rigs on these days is smaller and contained.”

Santos operates across a large area of the southern end of the Cooper’s Creek catchment. The operations stretch from Durham Downs Station, through Innamincka, out to the edge of Coongie Lakes and around to where the Cooper starts to head south to Lake Eyre.

“Anything we do on the ground has some impact so we have to be very conscious of that and how we manage our business,” adds Trevor Whitelaw. “Part of our business is on Innamincka Regional Reserve and that obviously raises issues, but we don’t distinguish between the Reserve and other places in that we have common practices for minimal disturbance. We do have some disturbance but it’s all done in a very managed manner.”

The Santos policy of environmental responsibility is also obvious in their use of water. You don’t see well-manicured lawns at Moomba; instead the facility is landscaped with hardy local plants that, rarely if ever, need artificial watering.

“You can’t run an operation and a process like this without using some water,” Whitelaw states matter-of-factly then adds, “We draw our water out of the Great Artesian Basin ? we don’t harvest any surface water.

“Because we need pure water for domestic and fairly pure water for some of the processes ? things like steam generation for our boilers ? our water is treated, but it costs us money so we don’t use more than we have to.

“Our waste water goes out to evaporation ponds in closed-off interdunal sections that can’t get intersected by flowing water.”

Not that the sand dunes of the Strzelecki Desert see much flowing water. The average annual rainfall is only 50 to 100mm and several years worth often comes in one hit then next to nothing for extended periods, periods when the world is full of swirling dust, drifting sands and searing heat.

At first sight, Moomba may look like an illusion or an error, but the more you see, the more comfortably it sits between sand dunes that will still be whispering in the wind in a thousand years time.

Profile - John Moore

John Moore has recently begun work with the Lake Eyre Basin Coordinating Group as the Salinity Project Officer.

John hails from Albury where he has a forestry and natural resource management consultancy and describes himself and his wife, Lyn as ‘empty nesters’ with the youngest of their three children having left home.

His is a trained forester and has worked in the hardwood and softwood industry sectors. This has included establishing commercial tree planting projects to control salinity on farms in the Riverina district of the Murray/Darling Basin and recently, with the Upper Murray Landcare Network working with landholders to raise awareness about Natural Resource Management issues in the Upper Murray catchment.

John grew up on a mixed grazing property between chilly Canberra and Yass and loves the land and the rural way of life. He likes to stay fit with bushwalking and camping, and relaxes with gardening and woodwork.

John is a member of two Landcare groups and chairman of the South-West Slopes Branch of the Australian Forest Grower.