[Oz-envirolink] Grass pest spreading

[hugh spencer]

Please help protect the northern  Australia wooldlands - email Qld Primary
Industries Minister Tim Mulherin at
<mailto:DPI at ministerial.qld.gov.au+>DPI at ministerial.qld.gov.au  ,  asking
him to immediately ban sales & plantings of gamba grass - see  Courier-Mail
story of today below:  

Grass pest spreading

 Article from: <http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/?from=ni_story>

See also
http://www.weeds.org.au/cgi-bin/weedident.cgi?tpl=plant.tpl&ibra=all&card=G04  
for pictures and more details  on Gamba grass.

Brian Williams

 August 03, 2007 12:00am

AN African grass with the potential to turn vast  areas of Queensland
eucalypt country into treeless plains is on the verge of  taking over large
slabs of Queensland.

It has been described as so  dangerous to the environment that the cane
toad fails to even compare.

But the State Government has not banned gamba grass despite a
recommendation  by government scientists in 2005 recommending it be
eliminated.

A report by Natural Resources Department scientist Steve Csurhes, obtained
by  The Courier-Mail, recommended its sale be stopped and plantings
eradicated.

 Mr Csurhes said negative impacts far outweighed any benefits.

Invasive Species Council spokesman Tim Low said the only other issue with
as  much potential to damage Queensland was climate change.

"Gamba is looking like a nightmare," Mr Low said. "Because it grows so high
(4.75m) it kills gums trees.

"If allowed to get away, vast areas of northern Australia would be
converted  to treeless plains."

The grass altered nitrogen cycling in soils and used three times as much
water as native species. Gamba grass fires were eight times as intense as
native  grass fires.

Mr Low said scientists had told him Primary Industry Department staff had
declined to move on the issue, given the push to develop northern Australia.

Primary Industries Minister Tim Mulherin said a preliminary risk assessment
showed there were environmental risks and production benefits that had to
be  weighed up.

 "The department is currently collecting some additional on-the-ground
information to help clarify some of these issues, for example the extent of
the  spread to date," Mr Mulherin said.

 "We want a complete, balanced and informative view before developing a
draft  policy position (later this year)."

 But the nation's leading weed scientist Rachel McFadyen said the
Government  had known about the dangers for two years and could stop seed
sales tomorrow if  it wanted.

 "The Government already knows perfectly well how bad it is and they should
have moved to ban it in 2005 when their own people warned them," Dr
McFadyen  said.

 The grass benefited graziers but only in controlled situations where it
was  kept slashed or grazed down, she said.

In Queensland's vast northern plains such controls would not occur and the
grass would grow too high and become unpalatable.

"Of course they then try to control it by fire and it burns so fiercely it
takes away everything native," Dr McFadyen said.

"This is one of those things that in 10 years from now we'll be saying 'how
on Earth could we have been so irresponsible, so absolutely bloody
stupid?'."

Weeds such as gamba, introduced mostly for rural industries and gardeners,
cost the nation $10 billion a year.




-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner 
at http://lists.altnews.com.au/MailScanner.html ,
and is believed to be clean.