The Hon. Gary Nairn AO
“Spring into Spring” is a well-worn catch phrase particularly from retailers wanting to excite their customers into a shopping spree. With NSW, Victoria and the ACT still in lockdown as I write, it is hard to feel too much excitement just now. Probably more like trepidation that the lockdown is going to continue or if your “glass is half full”, hopeful expectation that “freedom” is not far away. Let’s hope!
Despite the restrictions we have been getting on with the job at The Mulloon Institute (TMI), Mulloon Consulting (MC) and Mulloon Creek Natural Farms (MCNF), albeit very constrained. In particular TMI and MC have not been able to run workshops, field days, do on-farm consultations etc. Fortunately there has been plenty of design work and data analysis to get on with, keeping our team busy. Our free ranging chickens at MCNF don’t understand “lockdown” and so they have been doing what comes naturally, laying eggs! Different story for Jim Steele and his team at MCNF, feeding, watering, collecting and packing under strict COVID guidelines.
In addition, there has been no shortage of advocacy work for us with multiple Zoom or Teams meetings with government, corporates and our many collaborators. Carolyn Hall and her team have also been very busy preparing submissions for numerous government grants, chief amongst them being the Future Drought Fund Innovation Grants.
While there are quite a variety of government funding programs, the holistic approach we take to landscape repair and rehydration doesn’t easily fit the programs that are generally offered. For example, programs are usually quite specific with respect the area of government in which they sit. Restoring landscape function includes water, soil, biodiversity, agriculture and community interaction. So with some funding opportunities we are required to target one or two aspects of our work. But we are finding government is open to considering this issue for future programs.
IPCC REPORT ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Taking a more holistic approach was also very much in my mind when the recent IPCC Report on Climate Change was released. As expected, the headline reporting concentrated on modelling projections of temperature rise, emission reductions and date targets for countries to become net-zero. No criticism there, however, as we know there are practical ways to directly impact these issues through landscape rehydration and increases to soil organic carbon. View our press release: ‘Australia’s Emissions Reduction Target Lies Beneath Our Feet’.
Rehydrated landscapes are key to carbon sequestration and improving farm resilience to climatic extremes. (Westview Farm 2020)
These opportunities were in fact raised in the IPCC Report as it referred to the potential of land carbon sinks and acknowledged that biological methods of increasing land carbon storage also enhance primary productivity. It would have been useful if the IPCC had also included that in policy proposals. Perhaps the next report.
I hope that you find the many diverse articles on our activities in this Spring edition of Resilience are of great interest. As always, I very much appreciate your ongoing philosophical and/or financial support, we can’t achieve our goals without you.
Warm regards,
Gary Nairn AO
Chairman