Ranger Team Coordinator Samantha (Sam) Williams

WICC has partnered up with the Southern Aboriginal Corporation's newly formed Moorditj Noogar & Yorks Ranger Team. The Rangers are working with a number of landcare groups in our region to carry out works on country.  

WICC has engaged the Rangers to assist with monitoring of feral animals on the Nullaki Peninsula with the use of camera traps (motion activated cameras).  With permission from participating landholders, the Rangers will be managing up to 15 cameras.  The Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions will be providing training to the Rangers over the coming months to share their expertise in analysing and managing camera data.

GWN7 tagged along for our most recent outing where we were placing cameras to quantify the ingress of foxes and cats that enter the Nullaki Peninsula across the Wilson Inlet sandbar (western end of Nullaki).  This data will be used to guide our ongoing feral management efforts (or potentially justify the need for a western boundary fence for the Nullaki).

Coordinator Sam Williams says, "the Moorditj Noogar & Yorks Ranger Team are funded for 2 years with the possibility to extend beyond that dependent on the success of our program and/or change of government.  Our team are excited to not only be in a position to care for country, including our native flora and fauna, but to also be involved in the upkeep and maintenance of sites of cultural significance within the City of Albany municipal boundaries.  We look forward to developing ongoing and sustainable working relationships with our partnering groups and agencies (DBCA, City of Albany, DFES, WICC, Torbay Catchment Group, Oyster Harbour Catchment Group & GSCORE)

.

Tim and Val Saggers operate Wandooland Farm at the foot of the Stirlings.  The Saggers have successfully revegetated a salt scorched creek which has increased their grazing area, provided health benefits to their sheep and emotional benefits to their whole family.  WICC caught up with Tim and Val to hear more about this feel good story and provide some tips for other growers looking to do the same thing.

Tim Saggers revegetated salt scorched creek

WICC: Can you give us a little bit of history about this farm?

Tim: My dad bought the first property when I was 12 years old.  That was about  200 hectares.  He was always a bit of a conservationist so we retained that bit of remnant.  Then we bought this 300 hectares here in 2003.  There was a salt creek running the length of the property, about three kilometers.  Potters Creek… and that had gone pretty saline and it was pretty ugly in parts. We did a big reveg project in 2004.  I think it was 20 hectares, right down the length of the creek. It was primarily from seed. Our son in the law was involved in the seed business so we collected local seed from over a hundred species and planted that down the creek.  It's been very successful. Not all of it, but most of it

WICC: What benefits have you seen from your revegetation efforts?

Val: We have land that we can actually use now…. it wasn't very valuable before. 

Tim: We do graze some of that which would otherwise be unproductive. We don't put stock on all of it.  We just put stock in there for a short time.  Crash graze it.  The main benefit is the vitamins.  It's very beneficial for the sheep to go in there for a week or two, particularly this time of the year or in the autumn when there's no grain feed around, they can get up their vitamin D levels.  It also acts as a natural wormer so you don't have to use drench nearly so much if you've got native plants.   The melaleucas and eucalypts are very good for worming sheep. But I'd say the main benefit is for the environment.  You don't really affect the salt because the salt isn't created in the Creek. It's there because of the clearing further upstream on the catchment.  We can't really affect that, but we can affect the environment as it was. It was virtually bare scorched with no life whatsoever.  Once you fence it off and you get reveg established it just starts a chain reaction with the environment.

WICC: What about like the emotional benefits that you gain from rehabilitating land?

Val: That's it. That's our motivation. It's just because you get a really good feeling that you've brought it back. We have three girls. They're passionate about the bush side of our farm. They've all helped with planting out different sections.  It's an amazing feeling, Now we don't plant so much because our reveg efforts are now self-seeding. 

WICC: What tips could you give to other growers that were looking to do something similar? 

Tim: You need to fence the stock off of it.  You don’t have much chance if you don’t do that. Management of the kangaroos is essential. I’d recommend direct seeding as opposed to planting seedlings. I think direct seeding is vastly superior because you can collect seed locally and you can have a lot more diversity.  It is more imitating nature. My approach has been just to adapt.  The more plant matter you have there and the more carbon, then there is more life in the soil and the more productive potential it has. You're storing carbon in a big way, which is going to become economic because there will either be a penalty or a reward. There'll be a stick or a carrot that they offer… there'll be something for carbon.  I wouldn't push the economic advantage of regen ag or other environmental projects, particularly in the short term, but if you've got an appreciation for the environment, it can give you a lot of other benefits.

And in the long run, particularly the carbon side of it, we might get our recompense, I don't know. You're at the whim of the government. 

Aerial photo Potters Creek today - Courtesy Roger D’Souza Photography

The Department of Water and Environmental Regulation (DWER) has continued with its fortnightly water quality monitoring.  WICC asked DWER's Environmental Officer, Dr Elke Reichwaldt, how the inlet is fairing following its non opening...

Elke says, "Due to the non-opening of the sandbar in 2019, the water level is around 30 cm higher than last year. Evaporation throughout summer will cause the water level to drop until cooler weather and winter rains start. As the sandbar remained closed there has been no water exchange with the ocean and as a consequence the water at Prawn Rock Channel, a popular spot for swimming and fishing, is browner than last year. This colour comes from the tannins that have been transported into Wilson Inlet by river flow during last winter.

Another consequence of the lack of saltwater inflow into Wilson Inlet is that there has been no stratification over summer. This is when denser ocean water forms a layer beneath fresher, less dense water. This is great news for the fish and aquatic animals that call Wilson Inlet home with high oxygen concentrations throughout the water column including close to the sediment where a lot of fish search for food.

Observant visitors to the Inlet might have noted floating macroalgae in the area around Dog Island. Although it might not look nice, the algae are harmless and have recently been identified as non-toxic, green algae by DWER’s Phytoplankton Ecology Unit."

– Dr Elke Reichwaldt, Environmental Officer at the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation​​

With the two main climate drivers for Australia returning to a more neutral position the Bureau of Meterology is predicting a more ’normal’ long range forecast.  This raises the question as to what the 'new normal' is, so we caught up with Arthur Patterson who has a farm on St Werburghs Road in the Hay Subcatchment.  

Arthur is a retired science teacher and has kept meticulous rainfall records since 1984.  We took the opportunity to look at some of Arthur’s data and compare the seasonal trends of the last decade with that of 1984 to 1993.  Over the last 10 years there has been a noticeable trend of reduced autumn and spring rainfall with only subtle declines in summer and winter.  Arthur says that while they had a good hay crop, the lack of good winter rains over the last couple of years has been insufficient to recharge the ground water.

1984-1993 vs 2010-2019

Rainfall throughout catchment over the last 12 months

Escapee olives establishing in our remnant vegetation

WICC has started mapping escapee olives throughout the catchment.

The humble olive tree (Olea europea) is a potential sleeper weed in our region. 

A sleeper weed exists in the landscape as a seemingly benign species that can quickly expand in range and density when conditions change. Two key factors contribute to this: patterns of reducing rainfall and widespread commercial plantings.  Longer dry seasons in our catchment are creating similar opportunities for infestations that led to the plant becoming a declared weed in South Australia.

Summer is an ideal time for taking stock of any outbreaks on your property and developing a long term control plan. In the wetter months, seedlings can be hand pulled and larger plants cut back and grubbed out. In periods of active growth, chemical control methods can be used. 

Information is sourced from Feral Olive Fact Sheet (SA) and other weed references including ‘Western Weeds’ and ‘Southern Weeds’. 

Fish traps of Oyster Harbour and Wilson Inlet

Fish traps were built by the Noongar people throughout many of our estuaries to catch fish at low tide.  These are the oldest man-made structures in Australia.  The traps consisted of low stone structures that were used to trap fish that swam in on the high tide and then were unable to escape when the tide fell. Large rocks were placed at the top and smaller rocks at the bottom.  By removing the smaller rocks, the juvenile fish could be let out for the next season.  The Wilson Inlet and Oyster Harbours fish traps that we know of are about 6500 years old. 

WICC recently caught up with Minang Elder, Aunty Vernice Gillies, to discuss the traps between Denmark and Albany. Vernice’s work with the Albany Heritage Reference Group Aboriginal Corporation has allowed her to help protect these significant cultural sites and turn them into a place of education.

Vernice says, “The traps rely on tidal ebbs and flows.  When they were not in use, rocks were removed so they were left open to allow fish to come and go. The fish traps were used all year around.  In the winter they were used less as most of the Minang People travelled inland at that time of year.  

Fish traps were shared when large celebrations were held with people from all over the Great Southern and South West. The traps in the Wilson Inlet near the Nullaki (Noongar for place of seaweed) were much larger than the Oyster Harbour ones as they were needed to feed a lot of people.

A number of years ago the Albany Aboriginal Heritage Reference Group noticed that the Oyster Harbour fish traps were being destroyed and together with local people we had a series of meetings to decide what we needed to do.  The outcome was a wheelchair accessible boardwalk branching in 2 directions.  We also decided on a natural but open-air cover featuring drawings of some of the fish caught in the Harbour.  Large boulders with some Grammar school students’ drawings are also a feature along with stories of how they worked.  It was very much a Noongar initiative but supported by all others.  The boardwalk has kept people off the ground and allowed the grasses and reeds to regrow.  Funding came from various organisations which allowed the project to be completed in 2016.

It was such a fabulous project which not only bought all our communities together but continues to allow us to visit the protected site and share our values.”

With the decimating fires across Australia I thought it is timely to share something I learned about rainfall.

When I was doing a fire weather course for Parks and Wildlife some years ago I was told something by the lecturers that was alarming about our reduction in rainfall.  They claimed approximately ½ of our decline can be attributed to land clearing and it was backed up by research. The course was run by two retired, highly respected senior meteorologist from the Bureau of Met. These guys knew a few things about rain.

They said there was a body of research that showed that carbon induced climate change was more about redistributing the rainfall, not reducing it.  Land clearing on the other hand reduces rainfall at a local scale.  Research by the Centre for Water at UWA has shown that the clearing of over half of our native forest in the SW of WA has led to a 16% reduction in rainfall (Andrich, M., & Imberger, J. 2013).  There are similar findings around the world.

The reason is because air moving over forest picks up moisture from trees and plants, and eventually loses this moisture as rain.  It is more likely to rain over a forest than it is over bare land because forests are cooler.  Cleared land is often two degrees warmer than adjacent forested land.  When trees are cut down, the bare surfaces left behind absorb more heat than the forest they replaced. The hot air rises… travels over a forest, cools, rains, and the forest has the ability to retain some of that moisture and the cycle continues.

There is a positive side to this story.  By maintaining forests and planting trees we can make the most of our changing rainfall distribution.  In fact, planting trees is a panacea for many of our woes.  They absorb carbon, provide habitat for fauna, minimise erosion, buffer our inlets from excess nutrients, maintain soil biology, help restore our bees, and retain soil moisture in our rural landscapes… the list goes on.

WICC will be advertising Community Revegetation Days again this autumn.  With over 60% of our catchment cleared, planting trees can make a measurable difference for our water supplies and our farmers.  Come get involved!

Andrich, M., & Imberger, J. (2013). The effect of land clearing on rainfall and fresh water resources in Western Australia: a multi-functional sustainability analysis.  

WICC Community Planting Days

Festival of Birds - January - April 2020

The 2020 South Coast Festival of Birds and Biodiversity is now on!   Between January and April 2020 Green Skills and BirdLife Australia are facilitating an exciting program of events including field trips, citizen science survey, workshops, art exhibitions, nature walks, birdwatching outings, a concert, kite fiesta,  a science symposium and film screening activities. Activities will focus on the Albany area, but will also extend into the hinterland to include other important bird and biodiversity conservation sites and centres across the South Coast.  

You can find current information about the festival HERE.

Accuspread Field Day - 18 March 2020

WICC will be holding an Accu Spread Field Day at Denvale Farm on South Wragg Road, Denbarker.  Accu Spread Testing Officer, Russell Nichol, will be helping farmers calibrate their spreaders.  Bring your spreader (or come along 'spreader-less') and learn how to do it yourself.  Registration details for this program will be sent out mid February.

Accu Spread Field Day at Shapland's Farm in 2019

Do you want to receive WICCNews in your letterbox? sign up here​

Do you want to become a member of WICC? 

email: [email protected]