Source : Perth Now news
An invasive grass seed hitching a ride on a mining truck could be the death knell to a region’s protected native flora and fauna, as conservationists renew calls for a national response.
First introduced in the 1870s, Buffel grass has spread through central and northern Australia and is currently breaking containment lines in South Australia’s mid north, amid fears it will fuel destructive fires.
The highly invasive grass transforms ecosystems and can burn at 300 degrees, hot enough to kill native trees and desert vegetation.
Animals dependent on native plants have also been directly impacted.
Having seen its destruction across Alice Springs, John Binda Reid from Adelaide University and Gawler Ranges Aboriginal Cooperation has worked with South Australia’s Department of Environment and Water to manage its spread through the upper Eyre Peninsula.
But recent mining ventures and looming renewable energy developments have increased risks of the seed “hitching a ride” and taking over sacred waterhole sites in the Gawler Ranges National Park.
Several copper and gold mines are underway and new tenders for renewable energy projects are set to be revealed this year as part of the Gawler Ranges East release area.
“Protocols have been developed and put in place to ensure…trucks and any form of transport going in and out of these places are washed and cleaned,” he said.
“It will spread like wildfire.”
“When the environment is damaged and when the waterholes are damaged, that impacts on cultural identity, and people’s ability to care take country. That’s their main responsibility in life is to care take their country.”
South Australia was the first jurisdiction to declare buffel grass a weed in 2015, later followed by the NT government in 2024 who committed $750,000 annually towards its management.
But the federal government has stopped short of declaring it a weed of national significance, partly due to lobbying from the farming sector which benefits from the natural resource for stock feed.
In its submission to the South Australian Parliamentary Inquiry into Buffel Grass, it claimed the grass directly added more than $5 billion to the economy and was one of the most important plants for the sector.
A Northern Territory government report also found the costs of allowing the weed to spread amounted to 60 times the benefit.
Biodiversity loss, damage to cultural sites, severe fire and management costs amounted to $6216 per hectare every year according to the Charles Darwin University assessment.
Invasive Species Council senior advocate James Johnston, who fronted the Natural Resources Committee on Thursday, has been calling for a federal inquiry into managing the weed and says its one of the hardest topics to get attention on.
“I think that speaks to remoteness of this issue,” he said.
“There is an influence from the pastoral industry that … taking action on buffel grass is not warranted because in South Australia, we have that model already and the sky has not fallen.”
A state buffel grass strategy was drafted in late 2024 to unite government agencies and emergency services, but it remains unratified and unfunded for the current financial year.
