Latest news with #AthertonTablelands
ABC News
28-06-2025
- Climate
- ABC News
Rain-shadow effect inspires Mareeba's claim to 300 sunny days a year
Far North Queensland may be renowned for its rainforests, monsoons and cyclones, but nestled in heart of the wet tropics one town claims to be a literal ray of sunshine. Proudly boasting 300 sunny days a year, Mareeba, near the Atherton Tablelands on the range west of Cairns, is just 180 kilometres north of Australia's wettest town, Tully. But while Mareeba is known for its clear days, whether or not the marketing matches the weather records is more cloudy. The Bureau of Meteorology's Livio Regano said Mareeba did have a drier climate compared to other parts of the region, due to a "rain-shadow" effect. "It just means that if you're behind a big range and the eastern side catches the moisture, most of the rain falls on that side and by the time the air comes over the other side, it's already dried out a bit," Mr Regano said. "The moisture has been rung out on the eastern side like a wet sponge getting squeezed and there's nothing left in it. "On the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range, you're in a rain shadow, and that includes most of the Atherton Tablelands." While it makes for a pleasant climate, Mr Regano said the "300 days of sun" claim was harder to substantiate. To accurately measure sunshine statistics, a sunshine recorder is needed. Mareeba does not have one. But there is a weather station at the airport, which has recorded an average 86 clear days, and 95 cloudy days per year. "That nowhere near adds up to 300 sunny days a year, unless your definition of sunshine is that the sun pokes through the cloud, at least for one minute every day," Mr Regano said. When comparing the days of sun in Mareeba to other towns and cities in different parts of Australia, it doesn't quite make the leaderboard. "It's not comparable with what they have, for example, in the Burdekin and around Townsville — you know the Townsville Dome as we all call it," he said. Gaining traction in the 1990s, the tagline "300 sunny days a year" became popular as the once-thriving tobacco industry declined, and Mareeba sought a fresh identity. Rochelle Harding from the Mareeba Shire Council, which erected a sign with the slogan, said the sunny weather had proven to be one of the town's greatest assets, especially for tourism. "It's an ideal location for recreational flyers with access to the Mareeba Airport and for hot air ballooning," she said. "Mountain bikers, hikers and campers benefit from the reliable weather, with easier access to outback stations and trails. "Mareeba's climate also attracts grey nomads, who enjoy the warm, dry conditions while camping and exploring the region at their leisure." The official records are one thing, but for Peter Howe from Rock Ridge Farming, the proof is in the avocados and bananas he grows in both Mareeba and the Atherton Tablelands. He said although his blocks were relatively close in proximity, he noticed the difference in production and climate. "We've got we got ladyfingers [bananas] down at Mareeba and in Atherton, and there's a about a four-week delay on the ones in Atherton coming in versus Mareeba," he said. Mr Howe said picking bananas was also more efficient in sunny conditions, and bigger bunches were produced. "You just need sunshine to make everything grow and perform," he said.
ABC News
28-06-2025
- General
- ABC News
Food supply chain system costs farmers and regions millions of dollars
Australia's labyrinthine food distribution system means some "fresh" produce travels thousands of kilometres away from, and then back to, where it was grown. It's a process costing farmers and regional communities millions of dollars every year. But in some fertile minds, fresh alternatives are sprouting. A bird's-eye view of Australia's food supply chain would look, as one farmer says, like a "starburst in all directions" spanning thousands of kilometres. Produce of every variety and colour — fruit, veggies, grains and meat — all makes its way to you from farms and orchards in regional "food bowls", and then from key distribution hubs in major cities. For the most part, the notion of food leaping the fence from "paddock to plate" no longer exists. In a vast network of long-haul trucking and grand-scale distribution, it's more likely to go from paddock to pallet to metro distribution centre to retailer, before reaching anyone's kitchen to be plated and served. To get to stores in outback Queensland, most avocados grown on the Atherton Tablelands — one of the country's most productive food bowls … … must first head south to Brisbane … where they are sorted and then put on road trains to Cairns … before being trucked west to Normanton in the Lower Gulf Proving there really is no advantage to neighbouring a food bowl like the Atherton Tablelands So why do Normanton's avocados travel 4,000km before locals can buy them? Some fresh food travels thousands of kilometres to be sorted and divvied up, before being sent back to where it came from to be sold in regional and remote supermarkets — often at up to twice the city price. For example, until recently, prawns caught less than an hour's drive from a shop in Karumba, in Queensland's Gulf country, were sent on a 5,000-kilometre round-trip via Brisbane before locals could buy them in-store — if they could afford the prohibitive price. Australia's supermarkets are stocked via a vast network of long-haul trucking covering tens of thousands of kilometres every day. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) So how does the food supply chain work? What does it mean for farmers, consumers and communities? Who is driving this process? And can Australia do better? The buyers Coles and Woolworths control 66 per cent of the Australian grocery market, giving them huge influence over the food supply chain. As the biggest buyers, they largely dictate how food travels, where it goes, what's grown, its quality, and the scale of production. In Queensland, which produces a third of Australia's fresh fruit and a fifth of the nation's vegetables, Coles and Woolworths both have two distribution hubs — one each in Brisbane and Townsville. Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of fresh fruit and vegetables from all over the state are funnelled into these hubs each year before being dispersed to supermarkets around the country. And these long travel distances add up to more than just food miles, with remote shoppers paying far more for groceries to cover freight costs, according to policy analyst and food sociologist Kimberley Reis. "It doesn't make sense when you're growing food in situ, but then it's being trucked down south and then being trucked back up north again in order to sell it," Dr Reis says. But, as agronomist Paul Keevers says, the logistics of the food supply chain are dictated by the "person buying [the product] from the farmer, and in most instances, it's either a Coles or a Woolworths". The grower Jim Kochi's family has grown avocados in Queensland's Tablelands region for close to 45 years. He's an hour-and-a-half drive from Cairns, but nearly all of his fruit goes to the three big eastern markets — Brisbane, Sydney, or 3,000km to Melbourne. Atherton avocado grower Jim Kochi tends an orchard of 8,000 trees. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) "We're not marketers. What we do is we fight with the chains to get the best price we can for our fruit," Mr Kochi says. "The best a fruit can be is to pick it yesterday, pack it the next day, straight into cold rooms." Within 24 hours of being picked, the fruit is sized, graded, packed, and dispatched in consignments of just under a tonne. A mango orchard in the heart of the Tablelands fruit bowl. ( ABC News: Lucy Cooper ) Jim Kochi has been growing avocados for almost 45 years. ( ABC News: Lucy Cooper ) Mr Kochi has sold fruit to local independent grocers in the past and still sells some third-grade fruit to local markets, but with 8,000 trees, his operation is now geared towards the major supermarkets. "My job is to grow the fruit, to make a pallet of 160 trays of that quality that the consumer wants. And then I give it my blessings and kiss it goodbye, and it goes to a transport hub," he says. "It gets transported safely to … where they will break that pallet down to supply any number of customer orders. "It's like a starburst in all directions." The agronomist Paul Keevers has worked in the Tablelands region — one of the biggest producers of bananas, mangoes and avocados in the country — for 25 years. Paul Keevers says Tablelands farmers have diversified into crops they can grow in large quantities. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) The region produces more than 60 crops and staple grocery items, such as milk. In fact, it produces every ingredient in your tea and coffee — milk, sugar, tea leaves and coffee beans. "We can grow anything you want on the Tablelands. We've got the cool winters; we've got the nice warm summers," he says. They used to farm an even bigger variety of produce, including cabbage, carrots and lettuce, but not everything can be grown at the volume big buyers demand, Mr Keevers says. So, farmers have stopped cultivating some crops and diversified into others that are "bigger [and] more versatile". "The reality is, to be a viable farm, you have to grow a lot of something. You can't grow a lot of everything." Most Tablelands produce will first be trucked to Brisbane before it's dispersed nationally and internationally, with some inevitably making its way back to the district. Mr Keevers says the journey our food takes has become longer, and more convoluted with the dieback of independent grocers. Red wax tips on bananas indicate they have been produced using sustainable practices. ( ABC News: Lucy Cooper ) The Tablelands is one of the biggest producers of mangoes in Australia. ( ABC News: Lucy Cooper ) If growers aren't aligned with a big buying group — such as Coles, Woolworths, Aldi or IGA — they're going to "really struggle to get into a marketplace", he says. "There's no volume of small grocers anymore. "Anyone who is small is not actually small, they're niche, and unfortunately, niche markets aren't viable for the kinds of farming entities that exist." A freight train snaking its way through central Australia. ( Supplied: Australasian Railway Association ) Fifteen years ago, the biggest challenge that faced the Tablelands food bowl was water security. Now, it's how far farmers have to send their produce to market, because they have to cover the freight costs to the metro distribution hubs. "That central point has been moved to further and further away, to a location where there is a lot of consumption, but … regional areas [suffer] because it takes time to get all the way back," Mr Keevers says. The inland rail is being built so it can take double-stacked trains between Melbourne and Brisbane. ( Supplied: Australasian Railway Association ) "We can all grow crops, there's no fear of that, and we've got big producers, and we've got small producers. "But the key is they have to have a home for their goods. "If they don't have a home for it, they'll go broke." Lara Wilde, managing director at Agrifood Catalyst, helps growers add value to their lower-grade produce by connecting them to manufacturers and small businesses. The problem isn't whether they can grow enough of their crop, it's finding the right market and how to get it there, she says. Lara Wilde helps regional growers connect with markets. ( Supplied: Lara Wilde ) "What we discovered was that there are a lot of farmers out there who are very, very good at farming," Ms Wilde says. "The challenge, though, is that they are completely and utterly price takers, not price makers. Every ingredient needed to make a cup of tea or coffee is grown on the Atherton Tablelands. ( Flickr: Geoff Whalan, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 ) "It frustrates me to no end that we have some of the best produce in the world, and it's grown on the Tablelands, and then it's shipped to Melbourne or Sydney through our agents, and then it is slowly filtered back. "The irony of having such a productive region, where we can grow almost anything but … have shelves in our [regional] shops that are lacking in things, is just mind-boggling." The community engagement leader This is a problem Sunny Oliver-Bennetts, a doctor of corporate social responsibility, has been studying for some time. She says collaboration between all levels of government, the private sector, and communities needs to occur before high food prices in remote areas come down and the quality of fresh food goes up. Dr Sunny Oliver-Bennetts says affordable, fresh food should be available to everyone. ( ABC News: Amy Sheehan ) "For Mornington Island [in the Gulf], food travels for 27 hours from Brisbane to Cairns, via truck to Karumba, and via barge to Mornington Island, and often by the time it gets there, it's poor quality and wilted," she says. "Food arrives once a week on a Wednesday, and by Saturday there is no fresh and affordable food left on the shelves," she said. "What this means for the people of Mornington Island is significant health implications." Sunrise over the Gulf of Carpentaria. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) Dr Oliver-Bennetts, who works for Arup, a global consultancy firm focused on sustainable development, says a recent study on the food security supply chain tracked a basket of fruit and vegetables to compare their cost to equivalent items in Brisbane. "When they travelled to Mornington Island and Bamaga, they were 67 per cent times the price of those foods in Brisbane," she says. However, it is in these communities that local solutions to this national problem are starting to sprout. The Mornington Island community, and neighbouring residents in Burketown and Doomadgee, have aspirations for a local food production hub. "They would like to have a commercial market garden on country where they can produce, grow, process and sell their own food," Dr Oliver-Bennetts says. "This would create access for the local community to fresh and affordable food … and provide an opportunity to sell that produce to other local communities as well." But, she says, "significant investment is required to kickstart this process", which is where governments and private organisations need to step up. The independent grocer At Atherton's Fresh St. Market IGA — just 15 minutes down the road from the Kochis' avocado farm — something innovative is already happening. Depending on the season, the supermarket sources 15 to 40 per cent of its fresh produce — from beef and potatoes to finger limes and micro herbs — from local farmers. The Atherton IGA store sources locally grown fresh produce whenever it can. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) The Atherton IGA supermarket supports local farmers. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) Fruit and vegetables grown locally are always fresher than produce that has travelled thousands of kilometres. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) Avocados, bananas and paw paws are dropped directly to the back dock by the grower. "Wherever it makes sense, and it is logical for us to source products locally, we do," store manager Matt Bowles says. "They're [the growers] not then having to freight their product to market and they're not having to pay to freight it from market back to here." Matt Bowles says the Atherton IGA store's buying policy is great for local farmers as well as customers. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) It's a win-win-win for growers, the supermarket, and for customers who want truly fresh food. But despite sourcing a significant amount of produce locally, Mr Bowles says freight is the franchise's second-biggest expense after wages, totalling about 3 per cent of turnover. "We are at the end of the traditional freight line," he says. "Brisbane to Townsville is quite a manageable run, the extra … hours from Townsville to Cairns is what makes it more complicated." But Mr Bowles says there are benefits in buying as much fresh produce as is viable from local farmers. "I can have mandarins that are on the tree in the morning … and on the shelf by that afternoon," he says. There are benefits in buying as much fresh produce as possible. ( ABC Rural: Jo Prendergast ) A small child holding a mandarin. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) Buying locally means fruit growing on a tree in the morning can be on shelves by that afternoon. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) Not only is the produce fresher than fruit and vegetables that have been sent to Brisbane before being trucked back, Mr Bowles says local farmers are supported, with better prices and fewer overheads, such as freight. He says he hopes the Atherton model is one more local supermarkets consider. "It's definitely something people need to look into more," he says. The food sociologist Griffith University's Kimberley Reis, who researches local supply chains and how to make them more resilient, says the current model needs to improve. "We don't have a food system model that is based on supporting local and regional economies," Dr Reis says. Dr Kimberley Reis wants supermarkets to bring in local food procurement requirements. ( Supplied: Griffith University ) She wants the big supermarkets to bring in local food procurement requirements, where food isn't just grown locally, it's also sorted in the region where it is grown. In other words, "the produce doesn't leave" the area at any stage. "So that they [the big supermarkets] are showing good corporate responsibility to support the self-reliance and the resilience of that region," she says. But a Coles spokesperson says central distribution points and a national supply chain "is the most effective way for us to deliver value and quality for our customers", with the same prices for shoppers in the supermarket giant's city and regional stores. "While some suppliers could deliver direct into stores on a case-by-case basis, this is not a sustainable business model for a retailer of our size," the spokesman says. "It would result in reduced quality, more trucks on local roads and, ultimately, higher prices for our customers." The Woolworths distribution centre in Melbourne. ( Supplied: Woolworths ) Coles trucks cover thousands of kilometres a day as they deliver fresh produce to stores across Australia. ( Supplied: ATN ) How far food travels from the paddock to your plate is largely controlled by Coles and Woolworths. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) Both Coles and Woolworths have 20 distribution facilities nationally, servicing about 2,000 stores combined. Woolworths' distribution network is the largest retail supply chain in Australia. "The right balance of scale and efficiency is important across such a large nation and supply chain — for both fresh suppliers and our stores," a company spokesperson says, adding that the Townsville hub "plays a critical role in supporting natural disaster resilience for the north of the state". The butcher The Lower Gulf is cattle, prawn and barramundi country. Normanton butcher Ash Gallagher sells all three, but only two are sourced locally. Ash Gallagher stocks beef from as far away as Western Australia but is able to source seafood locally. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) The Gallaghers' meat comes via Brisbane from as far away as Western Australia and Tasmania — wherever the wholesaler can get the best price. Even beef, which is reared around Normanton, is fattened, slaughtered and processed elsewhere. Mr Gallagher's family also runs a cattle farm where they kill their own stock, but shoppers' expectations and preferences for specific cuts — such as rumps and fillets — mean the size of their herd could never meet that demand. The cold room at Gallagher Butchering. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) "The stuff we've got in the fridge at the moment, some of it's from Gympie, some of it's been slaughtered at Dinmore [in Queensland's south-east]. We've got New England lamb. It comes from all over," he says. "You've just got to do it. It's the only thing you can do." Until recently, the Karumba prawns the Gallaghers sold — caught less than an hour's drive away — would make a 5,000km round-trip via Brisbane before arriving at the shop for customers to buy, he says. And because of the size of that supplier, they'd have to buy a tonne of prawns at a time. Now they source prawns from a local fishmonger, which means they can buy in smaller volumes, and avoid the logistics and costs of freighting "fresh" prawns from Brisbane. "It's way less hassle. You can drive down and pick them up yourself," Mr Gallagher says. Ash Gallagher's father Mick makes sausages at the family-owned butcher. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) Some meat travels thousands of kilometres to the Gallaghers' cold room. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) Ms Wilde, who is based in Cairns, doesn't see Australia's supply chains changing under the current duopoly. "It's a numbers game, isn't it? They've got the majority of consumers down there [south of Cairns] so an agent can come in and say, 'I will buy so many tonnes, take it all to Brisbane, divvy it up, get their premium down there'. "Then we're getting what's left over back in our area in the north." The local store Freight makes up about 10 per cent of Foodworks Normanton's costs. Although located 600km west of the Atherton Tablelands food bowl, most of the supermarket's fresh produce comes from Brisbane, on a 2,700-kilometre, three-leg journey by truck and train via Cairns. Gene Geedrick says the store tries to keep customers' costs down. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) "Typically, in a month, our freight costs anywhere between $40,000 and $50,000," Gulf Regional Economic Aboriginal Trust business adviser Gene Geedrick says. The Indigenous-owned supermarket subsidises fresh fruit and vegetables, with an overall profit margin of 2 to 3 per cent. "The whole purpose behind the store was to provide food security to the Lower Gulf, and food security means good quality food at a competitive price," Mr Geedrick says. The organisation advocates for a more circular, local economy to lower freight costs, and a supply chain that's less vulnerable to disruption during the wet season and natural disasters. The famous Karumba prawns are mainly freighted to Coles and Woolworths stores around the country. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) Seafood caught near Karumba is often sent to Brisbane before returning to the Gulf region for sale in shops. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) Prawns from Vietnam are sold at the Normanton Foodworks supermarket. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) But it's not always possible to get seafood locally, or at a price their customers can afford, so sometimes they stock prawns from overseas. "There's not a lot of money floating around in Normanton, people shop on price," Mr Geedrick says. "A lot of the locals supplement their diet through fishing and hunting. "People have said if it wasn't for their hunting and fishing, they wouldn't survive." These prawns caught at Karumba will be used as bait for sand fishing. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) Some members of the community enjoy fishing for extra food. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) When groceries run low or meat runs out, many families fish or hunt for food. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) The community Kukatj elder Francine George shops for a household of five — four adults and a child. She'd love to buy avocados but they're often too expensive. Depending on the season, an avocado in Normanton can cost twice as much as it does in a city, and even more in the wet when the town's cut off. Kukatj elder Francine George says Normanton residents pay about twice as much for their groceries as city dwellers. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) Ms George's grocery bill is more than $1,000 a fortnight. She says a three-litre bottle of milk costs $8 in Normanton — almost twice as much as families who live near a Coles or Woolworths supermarket pay. "If you're paying say $6 in the city for something, in Normanton you'd be paying 100 per cent more," she says. "Forget about the apples and oranges, sometimes you just can't afford those things." Francine George's food bill is staggering. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) A 250g block of Cheer tasty cheese costs more than $11 in Normanton. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) Normanton's fresh fruit prices can be double what city residents pay. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) She says they always have tinned beef, rice and flour for damper in the cupboard, a lot like the rations Ms George's mother was paid in while working on Gulf cattle stations half a century ago. "It's that old ration that our parents taught us, 'This is what you need, you need these food items to get you by'." Ms George says it's a lot easier to get groceries since the big supermarket opened three years ago, but supply can still be patchy. In Normanton, when food runs out, shoppers have to wait for the next delivery, which could be days away. ( ABC News: Jess Black ) "Sometimes if you're not quick enough, you go in there and there's nothing left and you've got to wait for them to get the next truckload of food," she says. "I see it firsthand that kids go without fruit and veggies, they go without a decent meal. When supermarket supplies run out, some in the community rely on bush tucker, such as turtle, goanna and bush turkey, for meat. ( ABC News: Jessica Black ) "They just settle for noodles or settle for the old bully beef, and that's it." Sometimes they supplement their dwindling food supplies with bush tucker, such as fish, turtle, goanna and bush turkey. More than half of Normanton's 1,300 residents are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. "Indigenous health will never improve with all the gaps that are out in our communities," Ms George says. "When you say go back to the basic, well, the basic for us is to have tinned meat in your cupboard and have a packet of rice there and have the whole flour there, because if you haven't got money for bread, you go back to eating that sort of food." Watch ABC TV's Landline at 12:30pm AEST on Sunday or stream anytime on ABC iview. Credits:
ABC News
09-06-2025
- Health
- ABC News
How creative writing can aid healing process to create happy ending
Renee Hayes was leading an "ordinary" suburban life when a back injury up-ended her plans, rendering her bed-bound. "I was an active 30-year-old who went from having a busy life to being stuck in bed for [six] months," she said. She had been working in a dental surgery in the Atherton Tablelands when one morning she woke in excruciating pain after a disc burst in her back. She tried countless options to manage the constant, chronic pain, but was ultimately unable to move or work, and the sudden changes in her life made it difficult to cope. "Anyone who has been in chronic pain knows it is incessant and it's very hard to escape from," she said. Hayes eventually found an escape in the written word. Initially, without a laptop, Hayes hand-wrote the first draft of her self-published fantasy trilogy, the Rim Walker series, while flat on her back. "After being stagnant for so long trying to heal, it felt like a gift and that I hadn't wasted that time," she said, reflecting on how writing gave her a fresh start. Now a published author of three novels, Hayes credits the creative writing process as a therapeutic outlet that allowed her to find joy again, despite the pain. "It helped me through an incredibly tough time mentally and physically and I no longer felt like I'd lost anything or life was punishing me." Creative writing expert Edwina Shaw isn't surprised. The writer, educator and tutor in the University of Queensland's creative writing department said the therapeutic benefits of writing went far beyond the stereotypical journalling exercise. "It's about using the craft of writing to create something beautiful from the pain, trauma or loss someone has suffered," she said. She said research had shown that the process of handwriting was very calming on the body and a subduer of our stress systems, while creativity was "a natural calmer of the vagus nerve". She said writing could help to avoid internalising powerful emotions such as anger, which was associated with experiences of grief or trauma. "We need to separate ourselves from what's happening in our lives and reframe the way we think about it," she said. "Creative writing can help us do that, whether writing a poem, a song, a novel or even writing comedy." That was singer-songwriter Greta Stanley's experience when she lost her home and contents in the December 2023 flood that ripped through Far North Queensland. "Songwriting was a big part of my healing process, 100 per cent," Stanley said. At the time, she felt lost, anxious and completely overwhelmed, was trying to manage a debilitating autoimmune disease and write her third album. Stanley said she tried meditation, reiki healing, a therapist and even a visit to a psychic to help her manage her mental health and chronic pain, but songwriting was the most cathartic outlet. Stanley, 27, said using the lyrics as a tool to express herself on the album about navigating mental health gave her hope. "The album has definitely been my way of putting all the noise and stuff going on in my head, into something that makes sense for me." But creative writing expert Ms Shaw said the writing did not have to be an autobiographical piece to be effective, and acknowledged that for some, that would be too confronting. "Sometimes life is too close or too hard to write about it as yourself, so you can invent a character … and give your experience to someone else … change the ending." Canberra-based widow Emma Grey took that approach in her novel after the death of her husband Jeff. "I found incredible comfort in writing about grief and it was a very cathartic process for me." She said using writing to navigate the trauma of losing her husband allowed her to manage the myriad of feelings that would creep up, often without warning, and channel them into something "useful". The Last Love Note, her novel written while grieving, sold more than 100,000 copies in the United States alone, becoming a beacon of hope for many who had lost loved ones, Grey said. "I have since been inundated with messages from around the world from readers sharing their stories of loss and how my novel helped them through tough times," she said.
ABC News
07-06-2025
- General
- ABC News
First Nations firefighters changing culture on the Queensland fire line
When Arlene Clubb and her relatives joined their local volunteer fire brigade in rural Queensland a decade ago, they were not entirely welcomed with open arms. "People didn't want us there because we were Indigenous people," the Kuku-Thaypan, Kuku Yalanji and Kuku-Possum woman said. "[Some members] in a photo, they turned their backs on us, they didn't want to be in the same photo as us and it just sort of made us feel no good. "But we didn't let that faze us. If you let people like that affect you, you're not going to go anywhere." The reception some gave the Clubb family at the Tinaroo Rural Fire Brigade in the state's far north belied the efforts of first officer and founding member Les Green, who went out of his way to encourage the Wadjanbarra Yidinji traditional owners to join in the first place. It started with a conversation about the need to manage a piece of the Atherton Tablelands of great importance to traditional owners. Arlene's sister-in-law Kylee Clubb, who also signed up, is now the Tinaroo brigade's second officer, working to drive cultural change in fire management more broadly. "[We] thought about what we wanted to do as a family and what we wanted to do as First Nations people, especially on the lands we've been on up there on the Tablelands," she said. Kylee said the growing number of First Nations firefighters was leading to a greater appreciation within agencies of the importance of cultural burning. The practice involves using small fires to benefit the ecology and encourage plant growth, rather than a simple focus on reducing fuel loads. But the best time for a cultural burn on the Atherton Tablelands — an ancient landscape shaped by volcanic activity millions of years ago — might clash with statewide fire bans or burning schedules decided elsewhere in the state. Kylee said the "conversation is being started" about moving away from strict burn schedules, to better include Indigenous knowledge of landscapes. "At the moment, we've seen heaps of lantana, heaps of different weeds, sicklepods just overtake the forest," she said. "[It's about] paying attention to what's flowering and what's seasonal. "The seeds we have out here need activation from fire." Fire management agencies have shown an interest in investing in the leadership skills and expertise of their First Nations personnel too. When the Queensland Fire Department was looking for female firefighters to attend an Indigenous-focused intensive training exchange program in the United States three years ago, Kylee was one of those asked to go. She and fellow Far North Queenslanders Chloe Sweeney and Alex Lacy found the experience so rewarding, they decided to organise their own version of Women-in-Fire Training Exchange, or WTREX, on home soil. It ran over 12 days near Cairns last month, bringing together 40 fire practitioners from across Australia and overseas, most of whom were Indigenous women. One of those was Arlene, who said the growing presence of Indigenous women among the ranks of volunteer firefighters was about showing "we're not just mothers, not just caregivers, not just stay-at-home wives anymore". "[Dispossession] did stop a lot of our cultural burning but it never got lost — the mentality has always been there and all the knowledge we had from our elders is still there," she said. Lenya Quinn-Davidson, an expert on human connection to fire at the University of California, was one of the founders of WTREX in 2016. She took part in the recent Queensland program, and said it was important to offer Indigenous women a safe place to develop their skills and share knowledge so they could thrive in a traditionally "male-dominated, very militaristic" field. "The fire issues we have globally are so wicked, they're wicked problems, and we need diverse perspectives to solve them," she said. Megan Currell, an Australian-born member of the British Columbia Wildfire Service said a decade ago, "it felt like Canada was way ahead of Australia" when it came to relationships with Indigenous peoples. "When I come back and visit home, honestly, I see a massive improvement in the relationship and that cultural aspect, starting to get into cultural burns and being a support system for that and forming real partnerships," she said. "I'd say now they're starting to become neck-and-neck a bit or maybe even Australia is starting to take over."
Daily Mail
02-06-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
Urgent manhunt for heavily tattooed prison inmate who escaped on a tractor two days ago
A manhunt is underway for an inmate who escaped a prison farm on a tractor. Michael Graeme Rennie, 43, was last seen using the machinery while working at Lotus Glen Low Custody Correctional Centre in far north Queensland. Rennie likely left the farm on a red tractor on Sunday morning, Detective Inspector Jason Chetham said. 'I haven't heard that one before,' he told reporters on Monday. 'There have obviously been prisoners abscond from the corrections centre up there in the past but I don't think anyone's left on a tractor.' Police are on the lookout for the heavily tattooed Rennie who is serving more than six years for motor vehicle, weapon, drug and other offences including serious assault, theft and burglary. Police have released a photo of Rennie and the tractor he was using when he escaped the Atherton Tablelands prison farm near Cairns on Sunday. 'The Tablelands is an agricultural centre so tractors on the road I don't think are something that would turn a lot of heads, but we're keen to find it anyway,' Det Insp Chetham said. Rennie is described as Caucasian and 174cm tall, with blue eyes and fair hair. He has multiple tattoos across his body including a gun on his left shoulder, a demon holding a skull with horns on his left arm, a full sleeve on his right arm. Rennie also has multiple dog bites and scars on his left arm, police said. He was from the state's far north and there had been a 'number of sightings' of the tractor, Det Insp Chetham said. 'We don't have specific concerns about what he might do in the community ... but we certainly ask people not to approach him and to call us immediately if they have any information,' he said. A 28-year-old man serving two years for break-and-enter offences escaped from the prison farm in February 2023, and was arrested three days later.
