Research Library Resource management technical reports Natural resources research 1-1-2009 Bringing us together : presentations from the Natural Resource Management Division meeting, May 2008 Georgina Wilson Follow this and additional works at: https://researchlibrary.agric.wa.gov.au/rmtr Recommended Citation Wilson, G. (2009), Bringing us together : presentations from the Natural Resource Management Division meeting, May 2008. Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, Western Australia, Perth. Report 341. This report is brought to you for free and open access by the Natural resources research at Research Library. It has been accepted for inclusion in Resource management technical reports by an authorized administrator of Research Library. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Bringing us together presentations from the Natural Resource Management Division Meeting May 2008 RESOURCE MANAGEMENT TECHNICAL REPORT 341 ISSN 1039-7205 Resource Management Technical Report 341 Bringing us together – presentations from the Natural Resource Management Division Meeting May 2008 Compiled by Georgina Wilson June 2009 Disclaimer: While all reasonable care has been taken in the preparation of the information in this document, the Chief Executive Officer of the Department of Agriculture and Food and its officers and the State of Western Australia accept no responsibility for any errors or omissions it may contain, whether caused by negligence or otherwise, or for any loss, however caused, arising from reliance on, or the use or release of, this information or any part of it. © Western Australian Agriculture Authority, 2009 NRM DIVISION MEETING 2008 2 NRM DIVISION MEETING 2008 Summary In May 2008 a meeting of staff within the Natural Resource Management Division was held in Fremantle to provide an opportunity to hear about expected future directions from senior management, opportunities for networking at all levels and for a small taste of recent research and extension work within the cohort. Twenty-four topics were selected for oral presentations in concurrent sessions, and the papers from those presentations comprise most of this report. They are listed in the order provided in the program. They range widely across the natural resource management spectrum within the Department of Agriculture and Food. Results from many projects would have been extended since presentation of those papers and more current details could be obtained from the authors. Managerial summaries, mostly presented via PowerPoint, have not been included. These presentations were from a more strategic level, as opposed to technical research and extension information. The overall conclusion at the end of the day and a half was that the exercise had been very useful and should be repeated within the next few years to maintain linkages between staff working in widely separated locations but with many common interests. 3 NRM DIVISION MEETING 2008 Contents Introduction............................................................................................................................................ 5 Meeting program ................................................................................................................................... 6 Concurrent session presentations from staff ................................................................................... 9 Long-term monitoring shows that integrated farm forestry has little impact on salinity.................. 9 Adoption of saltland pastures: a case study of the SGSL WA Producer Network ........................ 14 Latest developments in accessing and using DAFWA land resource mapping data ................... 17 Rangeland assessment ................................................................................................................. 21 The agroforestry challenge: dollars and the environment ............................................................. 24 Assisting farmers adapting to salinity - integrating engineering and agronomy in the South West ................................................................................................................... 28 Bioengineering actions of native plants on soil profiles in semi-arid ecosystems of the South West Botanical Province*.............................................................................................. 32 Merging biodiversity and production in the Southern Rangelands - Ecologically Sustainable Rangelands Management (ESRM) ......................................................................................... 34 Resource condition monitoring and analysis of long-term groundwater trends ............................ 37 Supporting adoption of perennial pastures in the south west low to medium rainfall zone........... 41 Planning for impact in catchments: Beyond incentives to technology development ..................... 44 The role of land resource information in achieving sustainable land use* ................................... 49 Mission impossible: ‘precision pastoralism’ for sustainable profits* .............................................. 50 Groundwater responds by declining in a drier climate in the Northern Agricultural Region.......... 52 Determination of the ability of pastures to reduce nitrate-N leaching............................................ 55 Environmental assurance and Western Australia's broadacre industries - gaining the marketing edge.................................................................................................................. 58 Planning for project impact ............................................................................................................ 62 Acidic groundwater in the South West of Western Australia: Its distribution, causes and implications for agriculture....................................................................................................... 67 Reducing nitrogen and phosphorus leaching from feedlots using Green Pad bioremediation ..... 71 Setting catchment and regional scale salinity targets in the South West NRM Region ................ 74 Climate change – DAFWA policy and research activities* ............................................................ 78 Waterwise on the Farm in Western Australia ................................................................................ 79 The Greener Pastures project - a good model for effective NRM integration with industry? ........ 83 Modelling reliable runoff from farm scale catchments ................................................................... 87 * Papers marked with an asterisk are only provided as an abstract; the full versions were not supplied by authors. 4 NRM DIVISION MEETING 2008 Introduction The Natural Resource Management Division of the Department of Agriculture and Food comprises around 150 staff, located from Kununurra in the north of the State to Esperance in the south-east. Getting together as a group had not happened since the 1990s, and staff feedback during a review of communications within the Division saw an all-of-Division get together as an important activity. Rebecca Heath from the Extension and Communication project (REX) was nominated to coordinate the delivery of a Divisional Meeting. A working group was formed which included representatives of each region and part of the Division. To assist with preparations, working group members were assigned portfolios for which they were responsible. The portfolios included Venue, Program, Communications and Registrations, Evaluation, Senior Management Liaison and overall Coordination. The theme of the meeting – Bringing Us Together – who we are, what we are doing, where we are going – was established based on feedback from staff. This feedback identified the need for the Division to come together in order to strengthen the connections and to find out what everyone was doing and what lies ahead. The final result was a two-day meeting at the Esplanade Hotel in Fremantle, beginning on Tuesday 13 May and concluding by mid-afternoon on Wednesday 14 May. The event program was devised in consultation with staff and included plenary and concurrent presentations, and a feedback session where staff could discuss and present their views on the Divisions strategic direction. The plenary sessions had a focus on the ‘bigger picture’ including presentations that outlined the importance of agriculture to Western Australia, the role of the department in agriculture and natural resource management, overviews of the Division’s branches and regions and emerging policy issues and directions for the natural resource management sector. NRM Division Staff were invited to submit abstracts for 24 presentation slots across four concurrent sessions. A committee comprising Hayley Turner, Jamie Bowyer, Rebecca Heath and Janette Hill-Tonkin was established to review the abstracts submitted and select 24 for presentation. Papers for these are included in this report. Additional presenters were invited to submit posters summarising their work which were displayed in the foyer during the meeting. A facilitated group discussion feedback session on the Wednesday afternoon enabled staff to provide input to the current and emerging direction of the NRM Division, and identified how the Division could do better for natural resource management. The results were compiled into themes and passed to senior management. A response to each theme was formulated, including new activities to address the issues raised.