Garma 2025 live: Australia's largest Indigenous festival marks 25 years
We're here at the festival on north-east Arnhem Land, home to the Yolŋu people, and will bring you all the highlights from the event, now running for its 25th year.
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ABC News
10 hours ago
- ABC News
Coast With the Most
Sophie is on the Eyre Peninsula where she meets local Coastcare volunteers helping to heal the damage done by an unexpected explosion in visitor numbers. Kerryn McEwan has been volunteering with here for nearly 20 years. The area has battled degradation for some time, but tourist numbers suddenly boomed a few years ago after a local rockpool became famous through Instagram. The fragile area was not set up for so many large vehicles, often towing caravans, and the increased traffic caused extensive erosion. It also became littered with rubbish that visitors left behind. 'Plants were getting driven on, new tracks were opening up and the damage gets done,' Kerryn says. To help combat the damage, volunteers have been planting to help stabilise the land. The environment is tough even for local plants, with salt-laden, strong winds, full sun, sandy soil and very low rainfall. However, the team has found plants that are reliable – and devised new ways of planting them to boost their chances of survival. The winged or flat-stemmed wattle (a form of Acacia anceps ) is one that endures the harsh conditions, as does coast wattle ( Acacia longifolia subsp. sophorae ) even though the wind makes it more prostrate than upright, and native pigface is a great groundcover that helps reduce wind erosion. Scaevola crassifolia forms a wide, low shrub, providing habitat and food with its massed white flowers. Plants like this have become 'hero' plants to help protect other smaller plants nearby. The remoteness of the area makes it hard to bring in volunteers, but the group manages to look after 140 hectares – including 2.5km of coastline – through the hard work of dedicated locals. Students from the Lake Wangary School help with plant propagation, and teacher Luke Rowe ensures their conservation work becomes linked to their curriculum in many ways. They also get hands-on experience in plant out the seedlings they have grown. One trick that volunteers use to help give the new plants a head start is called deep planting. The lower leaves are trimmed off along the plant's stem, and the tree or shrub is planted deeper than normal, making it easier for the roots to reach any moisture below, and less likely for its roots to be exposed by strong winds. After planting, volunteers still visit to care for plants with regular watering until they are established. The group also puts down matting for erosion control, to keep the sand stable until plants have grown enough to hold it in place. In some places, trimmed branches from local plant species are used to mulch eroded areas. This reduces wind erosion but also introduces a source of seeds that is protected by the branches and stands a better chance of germinating and growing. Kerryn says they have been having some success with this method, as the prunings help keep the soil moist as well as holding the soil in place. Acacia sp. Winged syn. Acacia anceps PIGFACE Carpobrotus sp. CUSHION FANFLOWER Scaevola crassifolia COAST WATTLE Acacia longifolia subsp. sophorae * * Check before planting: this may be an environmental weed in your area
ABC News
10 hours ago
- ABC News
Neil and Wendy Marriott
We visit horticulturists and conservationists Neil and Wendy Marriott, whose property near the Grampians has become a living collection of stunning native plants, and a sanctuary for its local wildlife. Describing his hilltop home in the Black Range, Neil says, 'It's just like stepping back into a wild, sort of a bushland area, but with gardens dotted through it.' 'It's a wild garden; it was designed for habitat,' adds Wendy. Neil has written or co-written several books on grassland plants and Grevillea and is regarded as a leading expert on Grevilleas. They both work as environmental consultants, surveying the flora found growing on properties, both weeds and native. Their property, called Panrock Ridge, covers 200 acres of heathy and grassy woodland. As well as many indigenous plants to the area, they have planted huge collections of hakeas, grevilleas, dryandras, and banksias on the property. Neil's main passion is grevilleas – he loves their diversity, with every form from groundcovers to trees and in between. The Marriotts have about 350 species and subspecies growing, including unusual forms such as Grevillea vestita 'Mulberry Midnight', which is a WA plant that no longer exists in the wild. A nursery-owning friend found it and took cuttings, which resulted in the plants Neil has, but when she revisited the site, it had been bulldozed for a housing estate. Zig Zag grevillea is also very rare in the wild, only found in one reserve near Perth, but it loves the granite outcrop at the Marriotts and is happily self-seeding there, so there are possibly more plants there than in the wild. Growing up, Neil wasn't very interested in plants but like birdwatching, and soon realised that the birds were attracted to the many Grevilleas and Banksias in his father's garden, so his interest grew from there. More than two thirds of all Grevilleas are found in WA and the Marriotts have made many trips hunting for them. The Christmas Grevillea is another stunning WA species, with very spiky, holly-like leaves. It is now almost fully confined to roadsides in the southern wheatbelt. A while ago, there were discussions about including Hakeas in the Grevillea genus, so Neil started collecting them too. Of the 175 known Hakea species, he now has about 165 growing at Panrock. The best way to tell the difference between the two is the seed pods; hakea seedpods are hard and woody, while grevilleas have a thin, leathery cover. Both include just two seeds. The land was formerly a farm and fully cleared when they moved in – many friends thought they were mad moving there. The soil is free-draining granite but there is sticky clay underneath so some beds have still needed to be raised up. The whole garden was burnt out in the 2006 bushfires but most plants recovered well and there are still seedlings popping up. Wendy says that Neil was devastated by the damage of the fires so they built a new garden, focusing on Verticordias, and mulched the area with white gravel to contrast with the black land around them. Wendy and Neil have enclosed 20 acres with a predator-proof fence, so that any animals inside that are protected from everything except birds of prey. There is a conservation covenant on the land that will protect the land after they move on. Grevillea vestita 'Mulberry Midnight' ZIGZAG GREVILLEA Grevillea flexuosa Grevillea fastigiata CHRISTMAS GREVILLEA Grevillea insignis subsp. insignis Hakea marginata Hakea pritzelii Hakea varia CRICKET BALL HAKEA Hakea platysperma BROOM HAKEA Hakea scoparia
ABC News
13 hours ago
- ABC News
BTN Newsbreak 01/08/2025
PETS ON PLANES Virgin Australia has been given the green tick of approval by Australia's national food regulator to allow pets on board for domestic flights. Food Standards Australia New Zealand has just given Virgin airlines the all clear to carry small pets on board. But it's taken a while to get here. See, under aviation regulations, an aeroplane is considered a restaurant, and since we're not normally allowed to bring pets into restaurants, Virgin had to get the rules changed to allow pets in the cabin which has stirred up some mixed feelings. Pets will have to be a certain size and weight must stay in a pet carrier and would only be allowed in specific rows so that people who don't want to be near animals can book a seat away from them. Virgin says we could have pets flying by the end of the year, but that the final say on each flight will rest with the pilot. MOLLIE O'CALLAGHAN Aussie swimmer Mollie O'Callaghan has snagged her 11th world championship gold medal! Winning the women's 4x200m freestyle relay in Singapore last night, O'Callaghan has now equalled Ian Thorpe's record of 11 world championship gold medals for the most by an Australian, not too shabby hey. BMX KID 11-year-old BMX racer Penny has just taken out a junior BMX World Championships title this week, all the way in Copenhagen, Denmark. Penny competed against 77 other girls from around the world. She was chased down by competitors from Japan and Colombia who came away with second and third, but they were no match for Penny, who came out on top by 1.3 seconds. It's a whole lotta pressure to be on top but Penny has a special way of preparing for her races. The journey to Denmark has been no small feat. She's had to keep up with a dedicated training schedule 6 days a week! And she has no plans to stop. HEAVIEST STICK INSECT First up, to a new species of stick insect discovered in Far North Queensland. Researchers reckon it could be the heaviest insect in all of Australia, coming in at 44 grams, or about the same weight as five $1 coins. BIGGEST LIGHTNING Now to a world-record-breaking lightning flash in the US. Yes, spanning 3 states, this lightning flash covered a bit of ground. But there's a twist, it actually happened in 2017, but only now has the tech caught up to allow scientists to properly put all the data together, and see it in 3D. PONY SWIM And finally to dozens of wild ponies going for a big swim in the Assateague river in the US. This is the 100th annual Chincoteague pony swim, a tradition which started as a way to auction young foals and raise money for the local fire department.
