AFTER THE VIRUS - IN S.E.QUEENSLAND

Building community resilience to climate change impacts - the Granite Belt of S.E. Queensland

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GUEST: Rick Humphries, organic grower and sustainable land management advocate

Rick lives on a 100-acre farm south-west of Stanthorpe on S.E. QLD’s Granite Belt with his wife Mary, where they are returning their block to a productive small organic holding while protecting its rich biodiversity. Rick talks about ways in which the population of the Granite Belt area can be better engaged on the need for more widespread adoption of sustainability practices in a climatically changing world.

Introduction to this episode:

The Granite Belt area of S.E. Queensland is the most southerly in the region. Centrered around the small town of Stanthorpe it is an important agricultural production area, with unique geographic, geological and water catchment features. In recent years the area has been increasingly impacted by the climate change influenced factors of reduced water availability and growing bushfire risk.

Across parts of S.E. Qld today, many commentators recognise there are problems of reduced water availability caused by long term sporadic and reducing rainfall trends, and consequent reduced catchment inflows. This problem is particularly acute on the Granite Belt due to its higher altitude and head of catchment location. At present, there appears to be no obvious innovative answers to the water availability issue in this area; and climate change impacts do not seem to be featuring in present water security assessments.

Traditional, business-as usual-approaches are in play, however – e.g., proposals to build another (bigger) dam to supply growers, or another pipeline to bring water from more secure catchments. And in the meanwhile, there has been strong competition for limited, existing water supplies – threatening the agricultural productivity of the area, and potentially exacerbating other community security threats linked to climate change – e.g. from bushfire.

Selected Talking Points from this episode

  • The guest personal experience of six years farming in the Granite Belt area – with the three most recent of those in record breaking drought. The 2019 drought being a particular wake up call for this area.
  •  The financial, emotional and psychological cost of drought impacts – the last two impacts are relevant to the growing research work on the phenomenon of Solastalgia – a form of emotional or existential distress caused by environmental change - with implications for community mental health.
  • In S.E. Queensland, we are already in a new meteorological reality, in which sporadic or reduced rainfall overall, higher average temperatures, higher evaporation rates and therefore lower soil moisture, has significant implications for existing, traditional farming methods and agricultural marketing in this region.
  • The need to consider climate induced change to agricultural and lifestyle practices intersects with a natural rural conservatism which is slow to adopt new approaches. The strategies to engage such rural communities must be slow and steady and take communities along with locally based change agency.
  • The work of the newly formed, not for profit organisation Granite Belt Sustainable Action Network (GBSAN) employs such an approach.
  • Linked to several new initiatives, GBSAN’s vision is to help facilitate a self-organising local community which advocates efficiently for its own self-interest in these rapidly changing times. For example by accessing Queensland state or Federal government program funding for innovatory new approaches to land management and restoration such as carbon farming and long-term drought resilience

    • Guest and other contact details:

    Guest: Rick Humphries, Convenor: Granite Belt Sustainable Action Network  e: [email protected] |

    p:+61 (0)7 4683 5166  m: 0488 491 709

    Granite Belt Sustainable Action Network (GBSAN)

    (GBSAN – Web)  F https://www.facebook.com/GraniteBeltSAN/

     Householders’ Options to Protect the Environment (HOPE):

    T 07 4639 2135 E [email protected]                                            W http://www.hopeaustralia.org.au/ 

    F https://www.facebook.com/Householders.Options.to.Protect.the.Environment/

    Production:

    Produced for HOPE by Andrew Nicholson. This episode recorded in Toowoomba, S.E. Queensland, Australia on November 13th, 2020.

    Artwork: Daniela Dal'Castel      Incidental Music: James Nicholson

     

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