Page 4124 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 18 November 2015
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management capability in the lower Cotter catchment. This funding has allowed for the engagement of two new rangers to focus on land management activities in the catchment. These staff will, amongst other things, oversee the delivery of $150,000 of weed control works in 2015-16, targeting pine wildlings and blackberry, but also hawthorn and St John’s wort.
The reason we have done that is that we know that the lower Cotter catchment is an important area for land management, for several key reasons. The first is that it is the water catchment for the expanded Cotter Dam, and so it is important that we have good environmental controls in that area, that we are not seeing levels of run-off and sedimentation flowing into our water supply. The other is that we know it is a vulnerable landscape; it is still showing some effects from the very significant bushfires of 2003 and we know that a lot of the land out there was destabilised as a result of the loss of vegetation from the 2003 bushfires. That is why TAMS has worked to prioritise that area and get additional funds in there to ensure that those two points that I have just touched on are adequately addressed, and we have resourced our parks service to be able to do that job to a good standard.
The fight against weeds is not the responsibility of just government. TAMS works closely with the territory’s rural community to provide guidance and advice on weeds management; where possible, works are coordinated to maximise the effect of control activities. Also announced in this year’s budget was funding to boost TAMS’s capacity to support ParkCare, a community-based environmental movement that has, for 26 years now, contributed to the management of the territory’s reserve system. The 46 groups that make up the ParkCare and Landcare network contributed approximately 18,000 hours of work in our local environment in 2014-15, and a good proportion of that time was dedicated to environmental weed control work. This volunteer base of weed control work complements the bulk of the control work which is delivered by TAMS, and serves to also spread the message of the need to be vigilant on the spread of weeds in order that we may preserve the extent and quality of the bush capital’s natural assets.
I would like to underline the fact that we have brought in a second ParkCare coordinator. The reason we did that is that we had so much community energy. We had groups that wanted more time and more support from the rangers, and we had new groups that wanted to form. By being able to appoint that second ParkCare ranger, we have been able to fulfil those things and we have really amplified the money that the government has available. That money—$100,000 or so for a second ParkCare ranger—I could have spent just on environmental weeds. We could easily have added it into that line item of the budget. This is a smart investment by government because it actually amplifies that money; it taps the energy that is there in the community. Before anybody stands up and says, “This is just making it somebody else’s problem,” let me say that we know that people in the community want to be involved; they are enthusiastic, they have expertise and they can make a very significant contribution. This is a smart investment by government to tap into that energy and that enthusiasm and amplify our efforts across this city in partnership with our rangers.
Let me turn finally to the issue of the Weeds Advisory Group, raised in Ms Lawder’s motion. I can confirm that the Weeds Advisory Group, set up to assist TAMS and the
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