Dear supporters, friends and critics of Kachana,
With never a dull moment in this part of the world, we now seem to have been dropped into an early dry season.
Of course, we always hope for more rain, but we cannot count on it.
Also, there are people in Queensland and New South Wales who need rain more than we do!
Here is one perspective of the season:
With nowhere near enough herbivores in the Kimberley to keep the vegetation healthy, this sort of rainfall distribution leads to much “fuel” already early in the dry season. Land managers do their best to prepare for arson and lightning that inevitably arrive later in the year. In much of northern Australia this involves fuel-reduction burns. The NAFI website gives an indication of when areas are exposed to fire. We argue that much of this pre-emptive burning is not sustainable. We do it only in the hope to buy time. Communication across station, departmental and racial boundaries is now better than ever before. Good communication is building more trust and cooperation as we work towards building resilience back into our landscapes. Resilient landscapes allow us to role with the punches as we learn what the land is telling us.
The aim of course is to dance with nature and not get in its way and risk getting pushed out of the way…
Our Kachana Wild Donkey Project still stands on shaky ground.
- Political science defines “pest species”.
- Regulation dictates the removal of “pest species”.
- People charged with policing regulation wish to do their job.
- Cutting-edge ecological thinking is challenging the political science.
- Local communication is aiming for win win outcomes.
We encourage scientific evaluation of the different practices that are being advocated and hope to have more to report later in the year.
In March Bob arranged for a muster in the valley north of our camp. This added to the number of managed lawn-mowers in the past few months.
We thank our various helpers during this time: Gustav, Terry, Ruth, Zack and Ben who assisted Bob with taking the working herd south to our Alligator Creek area where Bob was/is based for a few weeks mowing the strip and treating the improving pasture with high animal-impact.
Enjoy a selection of some snap-shots from March and April:
We are already in May (!) and we hope it is a great month for you all.
Greetings from Kachana
Link of the Month:
A Culture of Poverty – Published in 1975, Schumacher presents a powerful argument for us to challenge our life-style priorities. Hindsight (for those prepared to discard wilful blindness) appears to endorse his line of thinking. (Thank you for this link, Percy!)
Quote of the month:
"It is not mass production but only production by the masses that can do the trick."
Gandhi commenting on poverty and unemployment