National award to CRC weed fighters
Congratulations to CRC Project Leaders, Dr Samantha Setterfield
and Dr Michael Douglas on their recent national award. The Invasive
Species Council Australia (ISC) recently awarded its highest
honour—the annual Froggatt award—Sam and Michael for
their research on the severe impacts of tropical grassy weeds such
as Gamba Grass in northern Australia, and advocacy for a strong
response from government.
The ISC Froggatt Award is presented annually to a person or
organisation that makes an outstanding contribution to the
eradication of invasive species in Australia. The award honours Mr
Walter Froggatt, a visionary biologist who was one of the few who
opposed the introduction of cane toads into Australia. The award
itself is quite appropriate—a stuffed and mounted cane
toad.
Benchmarking report
The CRC has a new report out: “Benchmarking Regional
Planning Arrangements for Natural Resource Management
2004-05”. Written by the research team from the Healthy
Savanna Planning Systems project, the report presents a synthesis
of regions’ progress against criteria designed for tracking
effective planning arrangements. While the first stage of the work
focuses mainly on Queensland’s regions, Stage 2 in
2005–06 will expand to include NT and WA.
The criteria include links between different planning activities
in regions, roles and responsibilities of different resource
managers, and the technical adequacy of regional plans and
targets.
You can download free PDFs of the report on the CRC website, as
well as a standalone executive summary. Hard copies of the report
will be available over the next couple of months. Contact Bruce
Taylor, CSIRO, details below. Download the report and summary at
either
http://savanna.cdu.edu.au/publications/books_reports/natural_resource_ma.html
or
http://savanna.cdu.edu.au/research/projects/healthy_savanna_pla.html
