EarthChat BEAM Mitchell Environment Group Inc

Vanessa and Ruth discuss the recent Landcare forum on soil health and sustainable farming, held at the Seymour Racecourse on the 2nd May,  including a presentation by TV celebrity chef Matthew Evans and his book on Soil. Vanessa outlines the contributions by the various speakers invited to the forum, touching on soil health and productive soils, biology and plant pathology. There were lots of practical examples of soil health applicable to farms, as well as the connection between healthy soil and nutrient rich foods, management approaches in Regenerative Agriculture and an outline of the pitfalls that need to be avoided.

Tony Richardson and his partner Rita have been growing trees on their two farms for 25 years. They invested their super (against advice at the time) and grew different eucalypt species hoping to log them for timber after about 25 years.However, Tony, a transport engineer by profession, had been captivated by the potential of biochar, and peeler logs for plywood. Growing trees for logs locks up carbon for maybe 50 years, and all of the upper tree and branches and leaves (75% of the biomass of a tree) become carbon emitting waste. In contrast, biochar can lock up carbon for 100 years, and all of the tree not peeled for plywood can be pyrolysed…no waste.  Logging takes the base of the tree trunk, but the rest of the tree is left to rot, or burnt; a big carbon emitter, and a wasted resource. Tony recommends a 10 year plantation turnaround as the best carbon storage, with biochar and peeler logs sold on the retail market. A short turnaround means the farmer’s plantation is less likely to be lost to bushfires.What does this all mean? EarthChat this week shares an interview with Tony Richardson, with Peter Lockyer as host and guest commentator and local gardener Brian Bowring offering his perspectives… Brian has been a biochar advocate for years. It's a great yarn.

Over the last six months, the killing of over 30,000 people and the forced relocation of approximately 2 million people has brought global attention to the plight of people in Gaza and the wider conflict between Israel and Palestine. Our EarthChat guest this week is Dr Rachel Coghlan who completed her PhD on palliative care in Gaza and who maintains close contact with health workers and others there who are enduring the ongoing destruction talking place. Houses and hospitals have been damaged and destroyed, fields and trees uprooted, people left without access to food, clean water or sanitation. Tim and Ruth talk to Rachel about the damage to society and to the environment that has taken place and ask what role can we play in advocating for peace, reconciliation and restoration of destroyed ecosystems?Rachel Coghlan is a public health leader with over 20 years’ experience in clinical physiotherapy and in international humanitarian health research, policy, and advocacy. She is also a Fulbright Scholar and holds a PhD from the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership, at Deakin University. She has contributed to palliative care research and education in Gaza and maintains connections with Palestinian friends and colleagues. Rachel is a curious thinker and listener, always searching to learn from those most affected by illness and humanitarian crises with a view to trying to help make some sense of the grief and suffering that mark life in our world.Her Crikey articles can be found here

 

Marie and Tim talk to  Phoebe Gardner from Bardee about their developments in using black soldier flies to transform very large amounts of food waste into protein, animal feed and fertilizer. Part of a truly circular economy.Bardee claim that their vertical farming system feeds and nurtures soldier flies through their natural growth phases and in their Grow Labs, larvae grow 3000x in size in just 7 days eating only food waste with no added water required. Larvae are processed into a high quality insect protein for pet food and animal feed & the castings become a nutrient-rich organic fertiliser.As well as producing very useful products this diverts large amounts of waste that would otherwise be going to landfill. This is a very positive project for the environment.

This week, Ruth welcomes back Grace Davis-Williams who is our Regional Waste and Resource Recovery Education Officer in Mitchell Shire. This role is part of a collaborative project between Mitchell, Murrindindi and Strathbogie Shire Councils who came together in 2018 to provide a regional approach to waste education, a critical tool for supporting waste management strategies and sustainability.Grace has been straddling her efforts to minimize waster over three shires for the last six years. A big undertaking. She somehow fitted in giving birth to Benny but now returns to work determined as ever to raise awareness of how we can improve our waste practices.Her priority list includes the reminder to us to keep recycling loose in our bins - a big problem in Mitchell Shire where up to a whole truckload of recyclables is sent to landfill each week because people keep bagging their recyclables before putting them in their yellow bins. Put them in loose!And then there’s the battery challenge. Batteries are a problem for the environment. Supermarkets have special receptacles where people can dispose of their batteries. Grace is holding a webinar on 17th April about why they are such a problem for the environment and what we can do to help.The good news is that Victoria is definitely pro recycling - around 98% of Victorians are trying to recycle. Join us to learn how we can do it even better especially in Mitchell Shire where we have one of the highest contamination rates in the State and the highest in the region. See here for a huge range of local workshops and events.

The end of logging in native forests by VicForests raises the wonderful opportunity for us to think of future prospects for these tree communities in Victoria.This week on EarthChat, Tim and Marie talk with Paul Macgregor, forests campaigner for BEAM, and committee member of the Victorian Forest Alliance, about the importance of restoring these forests to biodiverse splendour and cultural richness. 1.8 million hectares of state forest, once reserved for logging, now face a brighter future.Trees and forests will now have a chance to grow old and mature, providing greater habitat for rare animals, and reducing forest flammability. Biodiversity can expand. Carbon can be sequestered. Air and water will be cleaner. The cultural uses of forests and their plants by First Nations can be respected, explored and shared.But after 200 years of logging, clearing, tree monoculture and inappropriate fire regimes, there’s a lot of work to be done to help these forests restore to their full potential as living communities. Paul, Tim and Marie discuss the ways in which we can do this.