Thousands of hungry Cochineal scale insects have been released by Natural Resources Officers at seven Opuntia cactus outbreak sites near Cleve, Cowell and Kimba, with a strong focus on the Birds-eye Hwy section between Cleve and Cowell, to curb the spread of invasive and introduced prickly Opuntia plants. The release is part of the Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board’s targeted biological control program primarily concentrating on the Indian fig, but also effective against multiple Opuntia species including the common prickly pear and wheel cactus, on eastern Eyre Peninsula.
If you have a Natural Resource Management focused project idea you would like to see come to life in the next few months the Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management (NRM) Board welcomes applications from community groups, Aboriginal groups, Schools, Local Government and Farming Systems groups for the 2019-20 small grants funding round.
Understanding where Eyre Peninsula’s saltmarsh habitats might be forced to move to escape predicted sea level rise is part of a new computer modelled landscape-scale study underway between Natural Resources EP and a student at the University of Adelaide.
Enormously undervalued and frequently overlooked Eyre Peninsula’s quite secretive Subtropical and Temperate Saltmarshes are set to benefit from a host of land care actions after the Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board receives $1,880,000 in funding over four years from the Australian Government’s Regional Land Partnership program. The funding will be used to better understand hydrological flows (including projected sea-level rise) through monitoring and making improvements to some coastal infrastructure, undertaking actions to bolster shorebird recovery and public awareness, and where necessary implementing delicate revegetation operations aimed at improving the health and function of these ecologically and economically important wildlife-rich ecosystems.
The Eyre Peninsula NRM Board is calling for funding applications from farming groups on the Eyre Peninsula to trial approaches to address sub-soil constraints such as low pH levels at depth, and hard pans limiting root growth.
The coordinated control of European rabbits through best management practise and biological control RHDV1-K5 will be the focus of two open workshops at Cleve and Port Lincoln in August hosted by Natural Resources Eyre Peninsula and PIRSA Biosecurity SA.
A failing woodland ecosystem, stressed by historic over-clearance and dryland salinity amongst other threats, has been given a massive boost by local students, farmers, Council and Natural Resources Eyre Peninsula staff this year through funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program.