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From the Chairman, The Mulloon Institute
An over-used quote,
"we live in interesting times", is however very applicable for the world's current situation. The quote has been used by many including Robert F Kennedy, but it would seem there is acceptance that it stems from an ancient Chinese curse translated as "may he live in interesting times". While COVID-19 is a global pandemic, for our region and significant parts of Australia, it has come hard on the heels of devastating bushfires, followed by floods and preceded by prolonged drought.
My dictionary defines
'makeshift' as
"temporary expedient" and
"that will do for a while as a substitute". The unknown here though is how long is 'temporary' and 'a while'. I wish I knew the answer to that!
An upside to our current circumstances, is that we are better placed than many. Our team in TMI and MCCC have always worked remotely so there hasn't been the readjustment to working from home that most businesses are currently still experiencing. Our normal get-togethers at Mulloon Creek Natural Farms
, the living laboratory of TMI, have been replaced with regular Zoom meetings. But field work has continued where appropriate with all the social-distancing and related rules in place.
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Summary of the evening by Grow Love Project |
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Mulloon Law Committee
Early March, before the pandemic was declared and restrictions commenced, saw our Mulloon Law Committee (MLC) very busy with ministerial briefings to:
- The Hon. Rob Stokes Minister for Planning and Public Spaces
- The Hon. Melinda Pavey Minister for Water, Property and Housing
- The Hon. John Barilaro Deputy Premier and Minister for Regional New South Wales, Industry and Trade
- The Hon. Adam Marshall Minister for Agriculture and Western New South Wales
- Christian Dunk Deputy Chief of Staff for The Hon. Matt Kean Minister for Energy and Environment.
The briefings were well received and culminated in an Information Session at NSW Parliament House, attended by over 100 guests. MLC Chairman Matt Egerton Warburton hosted the evening. Gary Nairn presented a detailed description of the Mulloon Institute's work including the Mulloon Community Landscape Rehydration Project, Carolyn Hall (TMI CEO) spoke about our work in the Burdekin catchment in north Queensland, and Wilfred Finn and Trudy Sheehan, (members of the MLC), ably described the proposed legal reforms. You can read
another review of the evening
here.
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Strategic Planning
During March, TMI Board members, CEO Carolyn Hall, and Special Projects Coordinator Peter Howarth took part in an all-day Strategic Planning Session. With interest in our work accelerating over the past year or two, the Board felt it was an ideal time to assess where we will be going into the future. It is an exercise all organisations need to engage in to ensure the whole organisation understands the future path. We will be fine tuning the Strategic Plan at our next monthly Board meeting and then publish it on our website.
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Global Evergreening Alliance
A major engagement during March has been with the
Global Evergreening Alliance (GEA), an international organisation which aims to restore degraded lands worldwide. TMI Chairman Gary Nairn attended the launch of their Australian project,
Restore Australia, and is part of their Technical Advisory Board advising on technical aspects of the project.
Up until recently much of GEA's work has been in developing countries primarily in Africa. Its major donors have now committed 150m euro to restoring landscapes in Australia and increasing soil carbon, so it would seem that its aims are virtually identical to the actual work of TMI.
Read more
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Hill ponds on contour at Duralla, MCNF |
Landscape rehydration training
With the current Corona virus (Covid-19) situation, our group workshops and field trips have been postponed until further notice. This includes the Natural Sequence Farming training scheduled to run at Mulloon Creek Natural Farms on 19-22 May 2020. Stay tuned for new dates as developments unfold.
Meanwhile, please enjoy new recruit and
Science Officer Nolani McColl's
review of the recent NSF course at MCNF.
Read NSF course review
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Structure DM4 at Duralla after recent rains |
Mulloon Community Landscape Rehydration Project
Australia really is the land of droughts and flooding rains. And it is invariably the flooding rains that bring the end to the drought - that's if the landscape can hold onto some of that precious water, rather than it otherwise scouring everything in its path as it then carries all your precious soil, nutrients and biodiversity out to sea or into the nearest reservoir.
Fortunately for the landholders taking part in the MCLRP that have so far had leaky weirs constructed on their places, rather than erosion being the result of four major surges of water through the system in the last month, rehydration of the creek and of the floodplain, and nutrient rich sediment deposition has been the result.
Read more from MCLRP Project Coordinator Peter Hazell HERE.
See how the first crossing structure installed at Duralla Farm (MCNF) has been transformed by rain and how the tree plantings are faring at Westview Farm. HERE
View 'before and after' pictures of several structures installed as part of the MCLRP. HERE
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Science & monitoring
Research Coordinator Luke Peel has been busy with great assistance by others finalising the hydrological equipment needed for monitoring during and ongoing after the MCLRP, such as soil moisture sensors and
weather stations and drones. When these are installed data collected will be digitally telemeted to a central data centre, which will be accessible to the public in due course.
Tony Bernardi (Hydrologist) and James Diack (Science Officer) have also been busy undertaking rapid stream assessments in the MCLRP project area and conducting a maintenance run of hydrological instruments to ensure they are functioning fully following the recent heavy rains and turbid stream flows.
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Barker College visit to Mulloon
In early March, 26 Geography students from
Barker College
in Hornsby, NSW visited Mulloon Creek to learn about regenerative farming in the context of catchment management-river, catchment health and sustainability. They also explored landscape rehydration and the retention of fertility in that landscape, along with upstream/downstream user relationships.
Please note that while all school tours and field trips to Mulloon are currently suspended at the moment, we are open to enquiries for future school visits. Download our 'Educational School Tours' brochure for more information.
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On-ground works underway at Wombramurra, NSW |
Mulloon Consulting Contracting & Certifying
March has been very busy for
Mulloon Consulting Contracting & Certifying (MCCC), with presentations, onsite planning for physical works, construction supervision, site visits and challenging farm plans. Plus, some strategic planning and viewing of recent on-ground works.
Read more
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Mulloon Creek Natural Farms
While many people have been initially hoarding toilet paper and then other staple items, customers of supermarkets have also been buying eggs in far larger volumes. In fact, MCNF's
pasture-raised, organic, biodynamic eggs have also been racing out the door. Our focus on increasing production over the past couple of years has certainly been good timing. And by buying MCNF eggs you are helping TMI increase our landscape repair and rehydration work. You can find out where our eggs are sold in NSW and ACT by visiting the
MCNF website.
* MCNF eggs will also be featuring in various upcoming episodes of '
Good Chef Bad Chef', screening from Monday 23 March, weekdays at 4pm on Channel 10.
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Events
Sadly, in the light of recent developments around Covid-19,
we have made the decision to cancel our Tree Planting Day @ Mulloon Creek, which was already postponed from December due to bushfire risk. We will let you know when we are running this again.
The CWA Wollondilly Field Trip to Mulloon has also been postponed until Saturday 14 November 2020, and a
ll things going well we will still be holding our
Mulloon Creek Field Day
on
Saturday 7 November 2020
. All other group workshops and field trips have currently been postponed until further notice. We appreciate your understanding with this.
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In concluding this month's update, I want to highlight that the end of the financial year is looming large. We are now into the final quarter so it is a good time for TMI to reflect on the
great financial support we received prior to the end of the last financial year that allowed us to expand our
landscape rehydration projects and therefore bring extra resources on board. Our donor list grew as the value of our work became even more relevant to
environment and
climate issues that are of increasing interest to the broader community.
For those individuals, organisations and foundations contemplating support for these crucial matters I ask you to consider
The Mulloon Institute, the work it is doing and could be doing with your generous
tax-deductible donation. Til next month when I'm sure we will still be in
'makeshift' working arrangements but still achieving great results.
Cheers,
Gary Nairn AO
The Mulloon Institute, Chairman
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