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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-12-02 Daily Xml
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WILLUNGA HILLS FACE LANDCARE GROUP

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (15:42): I rise to put on the public record my appreciation and that of many other members of the southern community when it comes to the great work that the Willunga Hills Face Landcare Group does. I regularly receive its updated newsletter. I have worked with and watched this group since it was formed many years ago. I want to commend who I believe was the primary initiator, Mr John Campbell, a gentleman I have known for a very long time, and also all of the other people who are, and have been, involved in committee work, particularly Brian Visser who does so much when it comes to producing the publications.

I want to commend them for the proactive and positive way in which they have worked with farmers and landholders and the community generally to set up what I think is an excellent model for the nation on re-greening a hills face zone. I encourage my colleagues when they are going up Willunga Hill, or heading towards Willunga, to look at the absolute transfer of landscape with respect to the hills face zone from Sellicks through and around to an area between McLaren Flat and Kangarilla.

When I was a young person, they always said that trees did not grow on the hills up there but, when I was exploring in the gullies, there was lots of remnant vegetation and it was clear that trees did grow up there and that we over-cleared. Together with good initiatives through successive commonwealth governments, in particular, they have had hundreds of thousands of dollars of direct money and also thousands of hours of volunteer time to set up this project, which is now actually doing a lot of great work for the environment in the Willunga hills face area.

The other important factor is that the Willunga Environment Centre—and I know that Shirley Worsfold, the centre manager, is very committed to the centre—actually assists, in particular, smaller farmers and people who live in rural environments with how to look after land in the southern region. That is moving further through the whole of the Fleurieu Peninsula, which is important, because it assists with training and development on weed problems, fencing, good husbandry management of the land, and so on.

I hope that there will be a day not too far distant for the Regreen the Range project. Also, I should put on the record that this year again they are planting another 50 hectares of hills face to trees and fencing two kilometres of creek lines to restrict stock so that the creeks can reinvigorate.

There is a missing link to this, in my opinion. The City of Onkaparinga is pretty proactive when it comes to waterproofing the south and environmental water management, but I would like to see it help facilitate, with the Willunga Hillsface Landcare Group, and other groups, development of the creeks and corridors between the Willunga hills face and the sea. That is the missing link at the moment. I saw in the Sonoma Valley many years ago how they were able to revegetate the creek lines, and it actually benefited the viticulture because they did less spraying as a result of the trees coming back and natural predators being reintroduced.

As part of the concept that Family First has of protection of the Willunga basin through the bill we had passed through the Legislative Council, there is a real opportunity to consolidate and strengthen the iconic environmental, economic and tourism opportunities that we have. However, we would also be able to set up serious wildlife corridors so that the native fauna can grow and develop in the reafforestation that the Willunga Landcare group has developed and also travel those natural corridors. A lot of it is publicly owned reserve land, and it would be of enormous benefit to all.

If it was not for some of these committed volunteers, nothing would have changed; and it shows that, when members of the community are passionate about improving the environment and the amenity in the general region, from small things big things can grow. Again, I encourage members to have a look as they head up Willunga Hill.

Time expired.

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