Cornering the Minister and extracting a promise

Michael Kiely, convenor, Carbon Coalition, gets his man! The Hon. Tony Burke was the guest of honour at the RIRDC Rural Woman of the Year event in Canberra. The Coalition had made an approach to see the Minister and received a curious letter from a senior public servant which said, in effect, that the Minister was too busy to see people from the country like me because he has to get around to see people from the country.the Minister immediately agreed to accept a proposal from the Coalition. He is a charming man who speaks well and said some touching things, like "It's such a privilege to be here with the people who provide the rest of us with food, clothing anf shelter."

Also at the event - and sitting on Louisa's table at the event - was the Hon. Mark Coulton, Member for Parkes (Michael stood against him in the election in November.) We agreed to help him with climate change information. Mark's probably too nice for politics and probably hates Canberra by now. (All politicians are charming and most National Party people are nice.) I also spoke with Wilson Tuckey who said he had a car engine that ran on air and the transmission comes from a Fisher and Pykel washing machine. He's a wild man

One Tree Hill: A Series

I saw this tree through the window of the car while we were held up at roadworks on the road between Mudgee and Lithgow. I stared at it for a while, thinking it looked out-of-this-worldish. Just before the stop light changed, I grabbed the camera and got 4 or 5 shots, one of them was this.


Dang me if I didn't see something similar while driving between Wellington and "Uamby" by the front route (the highway) while flashing lights and waving cars down as Tim Woods drove his humungous sowing machine down the highway. I came back a few days later - late in the afternoon - and took this shot. Eerie.

Tim's big sowing machine comes to slice the pasture

Tim Woods, one of our classmates from the first "Farming Systems Course" came out to help us do some pasture cropping. We used his 'no kill' direct drill rig which he built out of a second hand combine harvester. It has 16 double disk openers to slice open the soil to drop the seed in and seal it with the following rollers.

This causes minimum disturbance for the soil vegetation. It also means we don't have to use herbicide or fertilizer. We planted 30 acres of oats and 30 acres of cereal rye into perennial pastures for a trial. We had a bit of fun and games getting the rig out to Uamby as it is 20 feet wide and many double gates installed in years gone by are a little less than that. SO we had to cut he fence her and ther. thanks for your help, Dennis Woods. (No relation) On the return trip we lifted it onto a truck, but still there were some tighjt moments getting it back to Tim's place Mt Nanima near Wellington. We hope for rain (we sowed almost dry).

The double disks can slice through quite heavy vegetation. It will be interesting to see if the sun can get through to the seeds in Cemetery Paddock - which we cant have animals on at present because the river banks are too overgrown. Thanks to Tim and his super slicer.

Masters of the Skies

We often see a wedgetail eagle calmly scouting out wht's below from on high and I rush for a camera. We even occasionally get three circling together. Well, I was up on the highest point on the south side of the property mustering on foot becuase I couldn't get the quad bike up there, when a wedgey rose up from the valley and soared across the ridge before I could get the camera out. Later I was photographing the Caliope trials when I looked up and there were three of them again. This time I didn't miss.

"Blue Poles" marks natural fertilizer trials

We recently put a small amount (200kg) of "Caliope" out as a thumbnail trial on a hectare in a paddock close to the house (Stanley Paddock). We call it a thumbnail trial because we want to move to bigger trials but don't have the dollars. John Pashai has offered us an opportunity to help him promote his product. He is a passionate soil man, being a farmer and an engineer who bought a 'pelletising installation' which he uses to produce a horticultural product that sells its head off to Italian gardeners. They and some Greek gardeners as well say it is miraculous. It consists of lime, dolomite, humates, and trace elements and plants literally sing when they receive it. For us, as the Carbon Coalition, he formulated a special size pellet for broadacre farming. We distributed it by hand. John tells us about the scientists at University of Western Sydney who took some of his product to trial and put his in some "pots" in a greenhouse and over the weekend something went haywire with the heating and every plant in the greenhouse died except those with John's Caliope.
We hesitated to take John's product on because we're dedicated to the soil carbon trading objective. But things are moving faster than we anticipated and we may just be on the job sooner than we thought. The "Blue Poles" refers to the four star pickets we used to mark olut the hectare. We painted them blue. Caliope means song or singing. The song of life.

Xavier without trainer wheels

FIRST ATTEMPT - CRASH!LAUNCHED BY NONI
ACTION CAMERAWORK BY PA...

THERE'S BEEN A FALL...


SECOND TRY - SUCCESS!






THE SMILE OF TRIUMPH...

BBC Radio 4 program on "Uamby:A Carbon Farm" webcast in May

Today we received news abot the BBC # documentary episode featuring Uanby:

Producer Mukti 'Campion wrote:

Dear Michael and Louisa

The series is now ready for broadcast and you are in Episode 3 which will air in the UK on May 13th.

A SUNPARCHED COUNTRY

Caroline Holmes discovers how Australia is facing up to its worst drought on record and meets people at the vanguard of innovative adaptations to climate change.

First Broadcast in the UK on BBC Radio 4 92-95 FM & 198 LW Tuesdays 09.30am

22 April 2008 Episode 1: Water is Precious
06 May 2008 Episode 2: Farming Waterwise
13 May 2008 Episode 3: Save the Soil, Save the Planet
20 May 2008 Episode 4: Changing Gardens
27 May 2008 Episode 5: Green Buildings, Cool Cities

The programme will be available to listen again online for 7 days after broadcast at www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 . To do this you will need to download (free) Realplayer software. You can do this by following the instructions at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/categories/plug/real/newreal.shtml?intro2

I do hope you will be able to listen to the programmes!

Kind regards,

Mukti

Mukti Jain Campion
Executive Producer

Will you still Need Me, will you still feed me, When I'm 64?

My very good friend Mike Connor is 64 today. He is symbolic of all of us for lots of reasons. He's living his dream, sailing the northern waters with his wife Michelle, who he is damn lucky to have beside of him, as is anyone of his age and education and upbringing. Michelle and Mike are both beautiful people who don't hide their humanity and human frailty. Mike and I and all the men like us should get down on our knees and thank whoever runs the Universe for sending us the women we married. Because we are clots. We don't tell these amazing people how much we love them. We don't let them stay in bed while we bring them breakfast often enough. We don't listen to them. We don't. We hear them, but not because we are listening. Not that Mike doesn't listen to Michelle - I am sure he does. But he's a male, so there's every chance he doesn't "hear" what she's saying. So my wish for Mike on reaching 64 with the woman of his dreams (and all of us men who are married to wonderful but weary women ... "She may be weary, women do get weary...") is that we find the secret to letting them know how important they are to us. (Men have blissful lives when they discover this skill.)

Happy 64th Mike.

AMAZING FACTS ABOUT MIKE CONNOR:

He once played drums in the backing band for The Big Bopper (who died in the plane crash with Buddy Holly)
He drinks Gin neat.
He is a sailor from Boston Harbour (where the world's first giant tea bag set off the AMerican Revolution.)
His wife is part psychic, part energy healer, part sailor... and full of brilliance.

Wedding bells in Bowral for our Jessica

These are the rosellas frolicking in the fountain outside our window at Milton Park, the Southern Highlands Stately Country House where daughter Jessica married Fred Schebesta on Easter Monday. All the official photos will be posted eventually.
Here we see Rachael and Brodie (baby grandson) with brother Stephen and sister-in-law Roxanne observing the ceremony. l
Jess and Fred really stretched their budget to pay for an amazing wedding.

Louisa said to Fred's father (Fred) "She looks like an Austrian princess!" Alfred said: "No, much more than that!"This pic shows Louisa and Fred's mother Kerrie (in stunning blue) greeting Jess and Fred after the ceremony. The boys wore tails and top hats. Very theatrical

Lighting a fire in WA

SALT PANS SCATTERED ACROSS THE LANDSCAPE IN WA

Louisa and I flew to Western Australia to speak at the Western Australia No Till Farming Association conference at Perth (outside Perth at the Vines Resort). We flew over a drought ravaged land with thin ground cover or none. We landed to meet some of the most courageous people we have ever met. More than half the farmers in the West are facing the last throw of the dice in the coming season. Dr Tim Wiley of the Department of Agriculture said we lit a fire in WA about soil carbon. It is now top of the agenda for WANTFA. (Shades of NZ. BTW, we didn't light a fire with the Ministry of Ag in NZ re the tender. We missed out. Sadly, it appears the Kiwis have delivered the project to the scientists, which is the kiss of death for a market mechanism to emerge.)

With the mulesing issue burning hot after the latest blunder by the wool industry, we spent a day working on marketing strategies with the Multi Purpose Merino breeders group. These innovators have developed a wrinkle-free sheep that needs no mulesing. (We have bought 9 MPM rams to breed mulesing out of our flock.) One of those breeders is Bob McFarlane, the man behind CharleyCarp, the fertiliser made from the caro that are destroying our waterways. He is a man of ideas.

We were also honoured to address a gathering of progressive farmers at the Department of Agriculture in Geraldton, thanks to Jane Bradly. While there we saw a presentation by Bob Wilson of Evergreen Consulting on his experiments with perennial grasses and tagasaste.
The perennials scored 23 tonnes CO2e/Ha more than the annual pasture and the Tagasaste 67 tonnes CO2e. (Samples were taken from deep sands under an old annual pasture, a 3 ½ year old Rhodes grass stand and an 18 year old tagasaste stand in adjoining paddocks.) The hand emerging from the gloom is Bob's.

...a scene from the movie...

This is a shot from "Healing the Land", the TV Documentary which is studying the alternative agriculture movement around the world. In this shot Louisa is mustering the ewes from Creek Paddock.

Media madness

There's always a camera stuck in your face.
Here is Louisa being interviewed for Regional Television outside Hamilton NZ. Mandy, the journalist, is a shoestring budget operator who will one day control the Universe.

This film crew from New Mexico is making a documentary called "Healing the Earth" and they spent 2 days with usfilming. Here they are interviewing Ian Chapman down by the river. Ian is a TAFE Co-ordinator of courses such as woolclassing, shearing, etc. He shares many of our beliefs about weeds and pesticides, etc.

Christopher Schueler, who is making the documentary, is from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and he has had a long career in television and film. He brought Randy the cameraman with him and picked up david the soundman here in Australia.

The sheep will be complaining to their agents if we have too many more film crews arrive.

Tim Sheridan makes a visit, then flies...

We got a surprise one morning a week or so ago when this tall,d ark and handsome man came to the back door. "SHerro!" It was Tim SHeridan, who we knew when at Bathurst (Mitchell College) in the early 1980s and who played drums in the Channel 9 Band (I played bass). He and I studied journalism at about the same time and he became a famous face on Channel 9 Sports. Tim' grew up on a farm that joined our first property in the district.
After he left I found this huge blow fly on the back step. They say there's no flies on SHerro, and now we know why. He leaves them behind.

No need for Mulesing at "Uamby"

We have always hated mulesing but did it because 'they' said we should. But now we hope we don't have to do it ever again. We are replacing our rams gradually with Multi Purpose Merinos, the first 8 arrived a few weeks ago.
These noble beasts have few wrinkles and flaps and so they and their progeny don't need mulesing. Simple. Australian-grown solution. Louisa and I are meeting with the company whose growers produce the new bloodline to see if we can help them develop a 'carboncredited™' offering. The meeting will be a full day working with their growers in WA.


We only just got back from NZ (see carboncoalitionboz.blogspot.com) where we spent a week campaigning for climate change agriculture. We will be a week in WA, speaking to WANTFA (no till farmers), farmers from the Northern Catchment, and the MPM breeders.

Busy? Who, us?

This is a photo of the audience at the Macquarie 2000 Landcare AGM 2 weeks ago. We spoke on the same program as Christine Jones who is a stunning educator. It was a pleasure to be working with her again. She has been our inspiration since 2005 when we attendd her Carbon Forum in Armidale - and where we met Col Seis, David Marsh, and Rick Maurice.

We are off the NZ at the end of the week to speak to farmers and scientists and government officials about soil carbon. An entrepreneur called Alan Mayne is paying us to do the trip. He was a delegate at the Carbon Farming Conference we organised last November. We are putting our slides in order for a Kiwi version of our presentation. (They have a problem with the official view of soils in NZ as well: the dominant paradigm says that NZ soils can't sequester much carb on because they're all full up! Paradigm Busters!)

At the same time I am negotiating with the publishers of Ethical Investor Magazine to speak at their conference in both Sydney and Melbourne in May on "Green Marketing". Unfortunately they don't want to pay my travel and accommodation (not to mention my speakers' fee) and we have to weigh up the value of the opportunity.

At the same time I have a presentation to do at ad agency WHYBIN to sell in our CarbonCredited™Brands solution for city based businesses.

At the same time we have to prepare for a week in WA speaking at Conferences and meeting farmers, in March.

At the same time we are working on a Voluntary Carbon Standard for soils, to submit to the global Voluntary Carbon Standard organisation.

At the same time we are working to codify our current 'proxy/indicator' model for selling 'sol credits' by April 4 when our 'sustainability coach' Michael Mobbs is in town.

Meanwhile we must soon have another meeting with our friends in the scisntific community to plan the 2008 Conference...

Soil-C-Central is going ahead, despite the fact that Louisa did not win the $10k bursary from the Rural Womens' Award, which was to be our down payment. Need a sponsor.

Meanwhile I am toying with a user pays information service for soil carbon....

Serenading the sheep

Last week I sat for a few minutes singing and strumming some of my songs out front of the house while the ewes grazed in "House Paddock". A little audience gathered out of the road to listen, but did not stand there long enough for Louisa to get the photo. They didn't like it that much.

Our Rural Woman of the Year

Louisa was runner-up in the NSW RIRDC Rural Women’s Award 2008. The winner was Tracey Knowland, a businesswoman from Brooklet near Byron Bay. Here's how the organisers presented he two finalists:

Tracey Knowland, a businesswoman from Brooklet
Tracey, along with her husband Stuart, owns and operates Bangalow Wholesale Nursery at Bangalow in the Byron Bay hinterland. Tracey’s business specialises in trialling and developing superior selections of small to medium Australian temperate/subtropical rainforest trees and coastal tolerant trees. Her target markets include the landscape and development industry. Tracey proposes to use the bursary to fund her participation in the 2008 National Nursery & Garden Industry Association National Conference in Adelaide in March, followed by a study tour of Victoria's largest wholesale production nurseries to look at sustainable growing methods. Tracey also hopes to build on a water recycling project as part of their nursery business, and share her experiences with other women in rural and urban-based businesses.



Louisa Kiely, Goolma

Louisa and her husband Michael own and operate a superfine wool enterprise at Goolma in central western NSW. Her focus for the past two years has been on climate change and sustainable farming. She has coordinated a number of workshops and summits, bringing together scientists and farmers to share information about carbon farming. Louisa’s award project involves building and launching SoilCCentral.com – a website devoted to research and knowledge of carbon soil sequestration, including ideas and farming techniques to increase carbon in soils. She hopes to use her project to highlight the benefits of increasing carbon in our agricultural soils to help save family farms and the environment at large.

And this is how ABC RADIO's Country Hour reported the event:

Last night at a gala ceremony in Sydney, Bangalow Nursery manager Tracey Knowland was named NSW rural woman of the year, by the Minister for Primary Industries Ian Macdonald.

"Tracey's business focuses on innovative advanced tree production and and is looking to develop a thriving export business as well as keeping a sense of the environmental issues involved with tree planting and production.

"The environment also plays a big part in the success of the runner up for the award Louisa Kiely from Goolma who is a strong advocate for carbon farming and the implications of climate change."


THIS WAS LOUISA'S APPLICATION:

Louisa Kiely

“Uamby” via Goolma NSW 2852
Convenor
Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming
Principal,
Carbon Farmers of Australia

[Mobilise the Soils, Save the Planet, Save the Family Farm]

DEMONSTRATED PERSONAL COMMITMENT*

February 2006 - Co-Founded the Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming to lobby for the right of Australian landholders to trade on the emissions offset market the credits they can earn by sequestering carbon in their soils.
May, 2006 - Presentation at Manning Landcare event, Gloucester
2 June, 2006 - Brief NSW Farmers’ Association, Jock Laurie, Sydney NSW
14 July, 2006 – Presentation for CWCMA, Mudgee Small Farm Field Day
19 July, 2006 – Presentation to Baradine Landcare Group
July, 2006 - Presentation to Land Management Workshop, Cobar
18/19 September: Washington DC –2006 Global CO2 Cap-And-Trade Forum
21/22 September: Bozeman, Montana - Big Sky Carbon Sequestration Partnership Phase 2 Project Management Plan Workshop
25 September: College Station, Texas - Professor Bruce McCarl, Department of Agricultural Economics, Texas A&M University
27 September: Albuquerque, New Mexico - Peter Holter, Holistic Management Int
28 September: Attended and addressed 2 day Phase 2 Workshop in Albuqurque,New Mexico of the Southwest Regional Partnership
29 September: Swanton, Vermont - Address Farmers’ gathering organised by Coalition member Abe Collins from Vermont.
1 October: Columbus, Ohio - Professor Rattan Lal, School of Natural Resources at Ohio State University, Columbus Ohio
3 October: Chicago, Illinois – Mike Walsh, SVP, Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX)
Secured first order for 25,000 acres Australian soil from CCX.
23 October, 2006 – Presentation to Kingaroy Carbon Forum, Kingaroy
Coordinated 8-farm application for CWCMA funding for soil trials.
13 November, 2006 – meet with NSW President Soil Science Society re data for CCX and Summit of scientists and Practitioners
25 November, 2006 – Make presentation to Cobar/Nyngan Landcare
22/23 November, 2006 - Speak at National Carbon Forum Canberra
19 December, 2006 - Briefed NSW Farmers’ Asociation’s Jock Laurie.
9 February, 2007 - Address SA No Till Farmers’ Association, Tanunda, SA
5 March, 2007 - Address CWA Agriculture & Environment Seminar, CWA House
7 March, 2007 - Conduct 4 hour workshop on carbon trading for RCS, Yeppoon
8 March, 2007 - Address soils gathering, CWCMA Dubbo, NSW
10 March, 2007 - Address landholders’ gathering at Collarenabri, NSW


12 March, 2007 - Address Landcare meeting, Mudgee NSW*
1 April, 2007 - Launch Carbon Farmers of Australia – trading arm of Carbon Coalition. Make first sales of Australian farm Soil Credits.
22 March, 2007 Organised Summit between Scientists and Farmers, Dubbo NSW


29/30 March, 2007 - Address Landcare Farming Forum, Grafton
25-27 April - Address Southern Rivers CMA/Landcare Forum, Merimbula /Eden

3 May, 2007 - Attend “Green Dollar” Conference, Canberra ACT
15 May, 2007 - Brief Judi Earl, Holistic Management International, Goolma
14 June, 2007 - Organised 2nd Summit between scientists and farmers, Orange
21 June, 2007 – Attend and address DPI landholders’ meeting at Junee Reef.
4 July, 2007 – Address Ebor Beef Group, Armidale NSW
14-15 July, 2007 – Address NSW Women In Agriculture Conference, Forbes
19 JULY, 2007 – Address Biodynamic Farmers, Melbourne Victoria

*My husband Michael is Co-Convenor. He does all the website communications and public relations. We often share the podium or present alone. Michael’s solo lobbying or presentation work is not listed here.


THE SOIL CARBON OPPORTUNITY

• Restore Australia’s heavily depleted agricultural soils to health and productivity.
• Restore the financial security of farm families by giving them access to what will soon be the largest commodity market in the world.
• Restore local economies and rural communities.
• Restore the balance of CO2 in the atmosphere and help avert the worst effects of Climate Change.

A PERSONAL MISSION: My specific focus for the past 2 years has been Climate Change and Sustainable Farming. When I entered agriculture as a woolgrower 10 years ago, I studied sustainable farming practices as part of the Advanced Diploma of Farm Management at the University of Sydney (Orange) and my husband and son joined me in learning the Holistic Management approach to grazing management. I experimented with various techniques of rebuilding the depleted soils on our ‘renovator’s dream’ property “Uamby”, which has been farmed hard for 182 years.

To get litter on the ground and encourage soil biological processes that make healthy soil, we tired mulching bare earth, mulching rank grass and thistles, spreading manure, spreading treated human biosolids, spreading worm juice, spreading seaweed, and other experiments. We proved that you can grow new topsoil quickly with effort.

But the breakthrough for me was attending one of the first Carbon Forum staged by Dr Christine Jones in Armidale. We were selected as among the 10 most innovative farm families in the Catchment by the Central West Catchment Management Authority, and trained for 20 days in a range of skills to do with innovative farm planning. We that soil carbon was the key performance indicator of progress towards soil health, reduced salination, water management, biodiversity, reduced erosion… and climate change mitigation. In fact, we concluded that the world’s agricultural soils could be the only solution to the Global Warming Crisis.

The UN, NASA, and our own Australian Greenhouse Office agree: there is already enough CO2 in the atmosphere to push the globe through the 2°C increase that will cause climate chaos. The only way to remove it is Photosynthesis. Plants and Trees. No other popular solution can do it – clean coal, nuclear power, solar and wind power, these can only avoid future emissions. And Forests, even if we planted enough today, cannot reach critical mass in less than 15-20 years. The Stern Report said we have 10 years in which to act, and NASA agrees. The only solution is agricultural soils. They already have critical mass and can start sequestering carbon instantly on a large scale.

A slight increase in soil carbon across Australia’s agricultural regions can sequester more than half our greenhouse gas emissions.

EVIDENCE: A 0.1% increase in organic carbon across only 10% of Australia’s agricultural lands would sequester 387 million tonnes CO2. Australia’s emissions are projected to reach 603 million tonnes annually over 2008–12. (Soil C in the top 20 cm of soil with a bulk density of 1.2 g/cm3 represents a 2.4 t/ha increase in soil OC which equates to 8.8 t/ha of CO2 sequestered. - Dr Christine Jones)

CASE STUDY: Pasture cropping/time controlled grazing combination in Central West NSW recorded increase in soil carbon from 2% to 4% over 10 years (0.2%C/yr) (CSIRO)

OPPORTUNITY: Soil carbon credits could underwrite the income of many farm families and enable them to offset their emissions from methane and other greenhouse gases. Australia’s soils are badly in need of restoration. We have lost 50% of our topsoil in 200 years and 80% of the soil organic carbon. There is great potential for reversing these trends.

CALCULATIONS: The Department of Environment and Climate Change, and the Central West Catchment Management Authority estimated that the soils in the Catchment can capture 183 million tonnes of Carbon by 2020 if farmers switch to “advanced farming practices”. The shift would result in a doubling of the soil carbon contained in paddocks.

183 million tonnes of Carbon = 671 million tonnes CO2e (Carbon tonne x 3.67 = Carbon Dioxide tonne)
At $25/tonne = $16.75 billion dollars. At only $5/tonne = $3.35 billion dollars
$3.35 billion dollars ÷ 5500 farms* = $609,440 per farm
$600,000 ÷ 15 years** = $40,000/year (At $5/tonne, the low point.)

*In the Central West Catchment (ABS)
**2005-2020 – the average period for soils to saturate with carbon.

POTENTIAL: The Carbon Coalition has been the only organization to focus consistently on promoting this opportunity. It has lobbied all levels of government and raised awareness of the opportunity with government officials and scientists. The Commonwealth Government has the power to allow landholders access to the carbon market on equal terms.

Through our lobbying efforts, the NFF, NSW Farmers, the NSW National Party and the ALP (Federal Opposition) have endorsed the soil carbon trading concept. Others we have influenced include Australian of the Year, Dr Tim Flannery, NSW Commissioner for Natural Resources Dr John Williams, and Professor Rattan Lal, the world’s foremost soil scientist and leader of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change soils delegation from the USA to the UN.

LATEST PROJECT: We are organizing the world’s first CARBON FARMING EXPO & CONFERENCE on 16th-17th November, 2007 in Mudgee NSW. Professor Lal described it as “an historical event of international importance.” The Kiely family is underwriting the conference.

HOW $10,000 WOULD BE INVESTED:
We hope to launch “SoilCCentral.com”, website devoted to all known research and knowledge of Soil Carbon sequestration, including ideas and farming techniques to increase Carbon in soils. It will have links to every resource available online and be useful for scientists, primary producers, and policy makers. Once we have achieved our objective, it would be transformed into a resource to support farmers trading soil and other forms of carbon.



Budget:

Research (time and subscriptions) $5000
Website development $3500
Publicity $1500


LEADERSHIP AND SKILLS SHARING

This role has given me for, the first time in my career, the authority to shape policy and direction. The Coalition is a leadership body – leading the campaign for property rights to the carbon a farmer grows in their soil.

The tool we have at our disposal are basically two:

1. knowledge
2. communications technology

Soil C Central will provide us with both, but at a higher level than to date.

The website by its nature will be a vehicle for sharing knowledge and opportunities.

This knowledge will also be delivered through my public speaking activities.





A PERSONAL STATEMENT

As a landholder and woolgrower, I am concerned about the health of the land I have in my care.

As a grandmother and mother, I am concerned about the world I will leave to my children and their children.

As a human being, I am afraid for the future of our community and nation as we enter a new era of uncertainty and insecurity.

The 2008 RIRDC Rural Women’s Award would be a significant contribution to our morale and resources. But the recognition alone would be worth more than the money in helping to promote our work and the outcomes we seek.

Together, we can achieve good things for the environment, good things for farm families and our communities, and good things for those who will otherwise be severely effected by extreme climate events.


Louisa Kiely

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