ENVIRONMENTAL WEEDS ACTION NETWORK (WA)
A REFLECTION OF THE EARLY DAYS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL WEEDS ACTION NETWORK
A Presentation to the 10th AGM of EWAN: Compiled and presented by Margo O'Byrne
I recently heard an interview on the ABC with Patrick Dodson, the former Chair of the Reconciliation Commission. Dodson was asked to highlight some of the greatest achievements during his time in the position. He spoke of the of land claim they had won and said that it was not his achievement, but it was an achievement for the traditional owners, the lawyers who worked on the claim, the anthropologists, the field staff, the drivers, the office workers. "Without each and every one of those people, we could not have done it."
As I think back on the past 10 years of the Environmental Weeds Action Network I remember all the people who contributed so much. I will touch on some of the obvious things that happened, but each person involved has contributed in their own way, and each part of that contribution, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, has contributed to the whole.
Of course there are some outstanding contributors. In particular, I would like to acknowledge Joanna Seabrook; without Joanna this organization would not have started and without her energy and drive, it would not have made the significant impact that it has.
I want to take you back to what was happening in the conservation scene in Perth in the early 1990's. That's the time I became involved in this work and I have called this a personal reflection. It is what I remember. Of course, there are always other things which influence events, some of which I was aware of some I cannot recall or others that I never knew about. I present the following sequence as being what I understood to be happening, and in time others may add to this to create a tapestry which is rich and detailed.
What is a weed?
In the early 90's it seemed that governments and those willing to spend money on weeds considered that weeds were things that occurred in crops. The Department of Agriculture had a substantial weed science section which was situated together with the Agriculture Protection Board. It had a staff of about 15 research officers and 10 technical officers who were engaged on a very wide range of weed related issues. Naturally their primary focus was on agricultural weeds because funding came through Department of Agriculture, the APB and agricultural industry funding bodies. APB officers had their patch and were responsible for the control of weeds when individual control wouldn't be adequate. The Agriculture and related resources protection Act allowed for the deceleration of plants in various categories. In order for a plant to be declared, it had to be a threat to agriculture.
A huge problem arose in the early 1990's with one particular weed, Kochia. Its potential to impact severely on agricultural lands and the pristine environment of the Gardner River was terrifying. In March of 1992 a seminar was held in the Jerramungup Landcare district on methods to rehabilitate saline country. A local farmer was asked to speak on his successes in rehabilitation and brought along a plant which stood out because it was twice the size of everything else and beautifully green and lush. This plant was Kochia!
At the time, not much was known about it in WA. It later emerged that of the 205 scientific papers reviewed in other countries, two thirds of the articles related to the harmful effects of the plant and its potential weediness. Rex Edmondson, a Jerramungup farmer and later the chair of the State Soil and Land Conservation Council, could see that the potential spread of this plant to the Gardner River required more than the resources of any individual farmer. A community based control program was required. By February of 1993 more than 90 people turned up to a work day - this was from a community of 1,400 who were spread over 6,500 sq kms of land. With considerable input from the APB and a total expenditure of nearly $460,000 the weed was controlled, thankfully before it hit the Fitzgerald River National Park.
CALM developed a policy statement (Dept of CALM Policy Statement No 14) on CALM's Role in the Management of Bushland Weeds in 1993. Later CALM obtained funding to develop an environmental weeds strategy that David Kaesehagen and Ben Carr of Ecoscape compiled for CALM. Joanna Seabrook sat on that committee, and it was referred to as the "State Environmental Weeds Strategy."
Around the Perth area, individual bushland groups were trying to focus public attention on the impact of weeds. Peter Day undertook Watsonia control around Darlington and Parkerville and published a booklet based on his work. The Eastern Hills Branch of the Wildflower Society of WA worked with the Shire of Mundaring to produce a pamphlet for householders on weeds, and the Murdoch Branch of the Wildflower Society initiated the Pampas Grass project where postcards and pamphlets were produced and dropped in the letterboxes of people with this plant in their garden, alerting them to its weediness.
In 1991 at the request of the Conservation Council, the Environmental Protection Authority established the Ecoplan program to give support to community groups looking after bushland. APACE president, David Kaesehagen went to Sydney to look at the work of bush regenerators. When he returned, he and others including Bob Dixon, establish the Australian Association of Bush Regenerators (WA) (AABR). APACE began to teach a basic course in the subject. People began to think about how they were undertaking weed control in the bush. John Robertson started the first Bush Regeneration business in WA.
The awareness of how weeds were invading the bushland and causing damage to ecosystems was still only held by a few people. Bob Dixon had been working away at Kings Park for a number of years trying to convince the powers that be about the importance of managing the bushland in the park. A management plan was finally released in 1995. Greg Keighery in his role as a botanist at CALM and his interest in the Wildflower Society had worked to compile an annotated list of the Naturalised Vascular Plants of Western Australia, and Bob Dixon and Greg were working together to develop a table of major weeds and how to treat them.
During the "Decade of Landcare" we were able to use the banner of "Landcare" to advance the various causes we saw as important. Each March was designated as Landcare month and various agencies and community groups would try and hold some activity to draw public attention to particular issues. The theme of 1994 Landcare month was Weeds and a number of activities were organized which included:
- A seminar entitled Bushland Plants; Why Worry was organized by Main Roads Department, CALM, Greening Australia and Landcare. Speakers included John Colwill, Bob Dixon, and Peter Day.
- Jan Knight from the Department of Agriculture organized a variety of stories in the media including a series of speakers for John Colwill's gardening program on 6WF.
- Department of Agriculture developed a Weed Kit for Kids which were sent to schools and LCDC's contacted to encourage them to arrange "weedy activities" and invite schools in their local area.
- Dept of Ag held an in-house weed ID competition and gave this material for loan to other government departments, Landcare groups, regional shows, district offices etc. This was later set up as a display at the July Weeds Conference.
- The Australian Association for Environmental Education (WA) organized a public forum on 29 March 1994 at Perth Zoo. The organizing committee was Margo O'Byrne from DEP, Karen Majer from Waterways Commission and Michael Parker from WAMA.
- The speakers were Gary Burke from Murdoch University, Luke Pen from the Water Authority and Greg Keighery from CALM. A panel discussion was held and panel members included Joanna Seabrook, Penny Hussey, Bob Dixon, John Robertson, Frank Smith form APB, Miles Hitchcock from Bayswater Greenwork, Martine Scheltema from Greening Australia, Mark Street form City of Melville and Robert Atkins from Waterways Commission.
You can see there was a fairly strong interest in Weeds and the momentum was growing.
Getting Support
Joanna Seabrook who was on the board of Greening Australia became a trustee of the Gordon Reid Foundation for Conservation (which was the conservation arm of the Lotteries Commission). Joanna put forward the proposal that the Foundation should fund conferences to address the issues of feral animals and feral plants.
The first conference was held in 1993 - Feral Animals in South Western Australia and organized by the Conservation Council of WA. Following the success of this conference, the Wildflower Society of WA put forward a proposal to hold a conference on weeds. The organizing committee was Joanna, Steve Hopper from Kings Park, David Kaesehagen president of APACE and ABBR, Charlie Nicholson from EPA and Gary Burke from Murdoch University.
Murdoch Conference
The conference, Invasive Weeds and Regenerating Ecosystems was held at Murdoch University in July 1994 and I believe this was a turning point. Tom Alford, then the President of the Wildflower Society said in his opening address at the conference that he wanted to "maintain the thrust of earlier conferences" and acknowledged the work done by Kings Park, the Eastern Hills and Murdoch branches of the Wildflower Society and others.
In compiling this talk I have spoken with both Joanna Seabrook and Gary Burke and we all agree that there was a great deal of positive energy generated at this conference. Perhaps it was the particular combination of local people, speakers included (the usual suspects) - Joanna Seabrook, Bob Dixon, Greg Keighery, Richard Hobbs, David Kaesehagen, John Robertson, Di Harwood, Rex Edmondson, John Moore, Jonathon Dodd, Roger Armstrong, Charlie Nicholson, and myself. As well, we were fortunate to be able to attract national speakers such as Stella Humphries from CSIRO and Peter Bridgewater, the then Director of the Australian Nature Conservation Agency.
Stella Humphries said "I found this to be a remarkable conference. It brought together a group of people whose interests and expertise spanned the full range of issues associated with the problems of weeds. It provided a forum where scientists, naturalists, members of the country and urban communities and representatives from Local, State and Commonwealth governments could speak openly, yet constructively about the common problems of weeds. The co-operative dialogue was fostered by the subtle but significant attention to human factors such as the beautiful flowers in the lobby, the creative design of the poster and the warmth of Tom Alford's chairmanship. "
A number of resolutions came from the conference including:
- Restricting nursery sale of invasive species
- Screening of plants before importation
- Increasing local government activity in prevention and control
- Lobbying politicians to better resource those in the field
- Developing a broad scale community education campaign and
- Producing a weed calendar for distribution to nurseries
There was a resolution for the organizing committee to continue as a sub-committee to help advance the new initiatives. Proceedings from the conference were published in April 1995. This was about the same time as the release of the National Weeds Strategy and we hoped that the issue of weeds would be taken up by National, State and Local governments………. The national strategy recognized the indispensable role of the community.
How to Control Weeds
Greg Keighery prepared a list of the weeds for Western Australia in 1990 which was updated and published as an annotated list of Naturalised Vascular Plants of Western Australia in the proceedings of the 1994 conference. Greg and Bob Dixon worked together to compiled a list of weeds and the suggested methods of control. Greening Australia (GA) had obtained funding from the Federal Save the Bush fund to produce a publication which was to include this information.
I remember at the forum in March 1994 there was pressure on GA to get this information published. DEP committed support in the form of Jillian Harris who was working with me on the Ecoplan program and who also had skills as a journalist. Jill and Martine Scheltema worked to write the book which became Managing Perth's Bushland and we gained further support from DEP to do the lay out and design, some funding from Department of Planning for the printing and Bob Dixon, Martine and myself finally got the book out by the end of 1995. The book was dedicated to Joanna Seabrook "who inspired so many Western Australians with here passion for conserving the State's flora and fauna."
At the same time, the Plant Protection Society and the weeds science section at the Department of Agriculture were working away and there was a significant meeting called to bring the "environmental and agricultural" weed people together. I have a memory of going along to that meeting with the expectation that we would carry on this "co-operative working relationship" that was evident at the Wildflower Society conference. This meeting was really a "bun fight" and I seem to recall that the APB field staff had just learned that their resourcing was to be severely cut and they were really annoyed about this. Our naive expectation was that some of the APB expertise and resources could be directed towards the control of environmental weeds. However it was painfully clear that their services were in fact being reduced and they were uncertain about their future. I think this was another pivotal point in the realization that if we were going to get any resources and direction to address weed issues, then it had to come from community pressure on the government of the day, and that if a community group was going to be effective, it had to have some input from those of us working in agencies.
Joanna and I spent a lot of time talking about this, and although neither of us can recall the precise details, I think the sub-committee from the conference continued to meet. We decided to form EWAN and the inaugural meeting of Environmental Weeds Action Network was called at Greening Australia in West Perth on 21 February 1996. There was tremendous support for the formation of EWAN and a number of people who are here today were at that initial meeting. I also remember that Dr Judy Edwards, the member for Maylands attended.
A core groups was formed, Joanna Seabrook, Patrick Piggott, Bob Dixon, Margo O'Byrne, John Robertson, and Judy Fisher. Meetings of the Core group were held at the Herbarium. By the middle of the year the organization was forming sub groups to decide the directions and actions that EWAN would undertake. Members concentrated on what interested them. Some worked on displays, producing posters, getting together information while others were interested in the technical aspects of weed removal and effective education while still others worked on lobbying for a State Weeds Strategy.
Janice Marshall and I adapted the AABR constitution to develop it into one for EWAN and the organisation was Incorporated in December 1996. By the 1997 AGM we had developed a pamphlet with the assistance of Department of Environmental Protection, and displays were set up at the opening of the Swan Catchment Centre and the Royal Show. David Abel, the graphic artist working at DEP drew several of the characters which were used in the pamphlet and later material.
Joanna had the idea to get a character made out of bent wire, so that we could fill him with weeds and make a "weed person" to take to displays and events. We named him Willy Weedy. 1997 Committee Joanna Seabrook, Margo O'Byrne, Tony Baird, John Robertson, Bob Dixon, Eleanor Bennett, Rosemary Charsley, Mary Appleby, Rod Safstrom, Judy Fisher, Gillian Stack and Mark Angeloni.
We decided to have a "Weed of the Year" as a way to focus attention on a particular weed. Bridal Creeper was chosen as the first weed and EWAN produced a poster on the evils of this weed. Funding of $2000 was provided by the Weeds CRC. Further funding of $3700 was granted by Gordon Reid Foundation in 1997.
Rod Safstrom and others worked on an application to the Natural Heritage Trust (NHT) to set up "demonstration weed sites" on the Coastal Plain and one in the wheat belt to look at effective control of weeds. We obtained support from City of Fremantle and City of Melville and the Swan Catchment Centre for the application. Also it was decided to officially "launch" the network at the launch of Western Weeds publication in October of 1997.
We obtained a grant of $47,738 from NHT and became everyone's friend! Various agencies were keen to have us "work with them" and have our employee situated in their agency. When we realized what percentage of the funding they required and what "control" they wanted over the worker, we decided to employ the project officer as a EWAN employee and set up a project management committee. We negotiated with the Swan Catchment Centre who generously offered to house the position, give us access to a computer network, administration support, telephone etc. Gary Matthews agreed to take on the financial management of the project (if he knew then what he knows now, he may not have agreed), I became the project manager and Bob Dixon and Patrick Piggott (then later Rod Randall) were on the committee. Peter Nash from the catchment centre sat in on meetings from time to time. I think we were very fortunate to find Kate Brown as the project officer. Kate's skill, attention to detail, knowledge of wildflowers and weeds and her willingness to persist were tremendous assets to the organisation. The "cutting edge" work that Kate and those who worked with her, including Sally Madden and Kris Brooks, undertook gave EWAN a local, State wide and National profile. The business of managing this project and in particular adhering to the requirements of NHT (who didn't seem to want to fund "weed" projects so that we always framed things in terms of "bushland restoration") and dealing with the difficulties of funding not coming through on time, and having to go through a number of evaluations where visitors from Canberra arrived to "inspect" what we were doing.
As I have focused on the early days of EWAN in this talk, I will not go into a great deal of detail about the NHT project. That is the subject of another talk, but between 1997 and 2002 the NHT project brought in nearly $ 300,000. This allowed Kate to form partnerships with others, to undertake good science to understand the behaviour of weeds in our soils and recommend effective ways to control them; conduct informative and educational workshops on a range of topics; produce excellent brochures on specific weeds and distribute these to land managers; establish a web site where information was available; work with staff in the Department of Agriculture to make sure that certain chemicals were registered for use on bushland weeds; to maintain the "face of EWAN" to scientists and other weed people throughout Australia; and of course research, write, produce and distribute the great book Bushland Weeds. But the greatest of these achievements is to see that some parts of the bush are in a much better state because of this work. Whenever I am heading north, I call in to Gingin Brook and remember what a weed infested place it was before this project. Of course, the work of Pauline and Richard Diggins in maintaining the effort required to keep it this way is paramount, but without the help of EWAN they were struggling.
For a relatively small band of people, with a relatively small amount of money, this organisation has achieved a lot. I have not touched on the contributions made to the Environmental Weeds Strategy or the development of the State Weeds Plan, but they have been significant. In particular I acknowledge the band of people who have kept it all going, Diane and Gary Matthews, Hazel Dempster, Robyn McElroy, Katherine Batchelor, Kate Brown, Bob Dixon and also the extraordinary efforts of the late Andrew Thompson.
Of course there are still many things to do. The recommendations made after the 1994 conference are probably as relevant today:
- Restricting nursery sale of invasive species
- Screening of plants before importation
- Increasing local government activity in prevention and control
- Lobbying politicians to better resource those in the field
- Developing a broad scale community education campaign and
- Producing a weed calendar for distribution to nurseries
I think this could all be achieved because of what Stella Humpheries saw when she came to Perth for the 1994 conference. It brought together a group of people whose interests and expertise spanned the full range of issues associated with the problems of weeds. It provided a forum where scientists, naturalists, members of the country and urban communities and representatives from Local, State and Commonwealth governments could speak openly, yet constructively about the common problems of weeds. The co-operative dialogue was fostered by the subtle but significant attention to human factors.
We can all stand and look with pride at the contribution EWAN has made to the environment of Western Australia. Thank you, each and every one of you, for the valuable contribution you have made.