Saltland Management Pride Exposed

What do a catchment management group and an agricultural scientist from Western Australia; a grain and sheep farmer from Victoria, and a wool producer and Landcare group from South Australia all have in common?

They are among the 15 winners of the national Sustainable Grazing on Saline Lands (SGSL) ‘Pride in Saltland Management’ national photographic competition, sharing in nearly $30,000 in prizes.

The pride of Australian farmers and researchers in managing dryland salinity has been uniquely captured through the competition, which saw 400 photographs entered across five categories. The overall winning entry, also the winner of the ‘Farmers in Action’ category, was the image titled ‘and that’s where I live’, which depicts two farmers discussing salinity management plans.

The image, taken by Peter Garside from Alcoa, was entered by members of the South Yoting Catchment Group (an SGSL Producer Network member group) which is located in the central wheatbelt of WA. Mr Garside subsequently donated the $6000 in prizemoney to the catchment group to help contribute to on-ground salinity management activities.

Other major prize winners included Dr Ed Barrett-Lennard from Department of Agriculture WA, who won the ‘Science in Saltland’ category with his image titled ‘Logger Download’ ; SA farmer Barb Woolford who won the ‘Productive Saltland Pastures’ category with the image ‘ Smoko ‘; Tungkillo Landcare Group member Neil Hodge, SA, who won the ‘Before and After’ category with the image ‘ Salt scald in Dairy Creek ’ and Victorian farmer Chris Harrison who won the ‘Saltland Humour’ category with the image ‘ Hidden Salinity’ .

SGSL State prize winners included Justin Hardy, WA; Dr Nick Edwards, SA; Reto Zollinger, Victoria and Luke Beange, NSW. Winners of the ‘Saltland Rescue’ prize (where the SGSL Producer Network will help develop a salinity management strategy plan for the winner to the value of $1000) included Margie Ward, WA; Kate Morris, SA and John Powell, NSW.

Photographs were judged by a panel including Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) Limited Chair The Hon Ian McLachlan AO, media personality and Chair of the Australian Environment Foundation, Don Burke, AWI Limited Chief Executive Officer Dr Len Stephens, and SGSL National Coordinator Dr Warren Mason. The award ceremony was held at historic Urrbrae House at the University of Adelaide’s Waite Campus.

A travelling exhibition of winning entries from the ‘SGSL Pride in Saltland Management’ photography competition will be on display at numerous natural resource management conferences and other events nationally in coming months.

Citation

Land & Water Australia. 2005. Saltland Management Pride Exposed. [Online] (Updated November 20th, 2007)
Available at: http://lwa.gov.au/node/49 [Accessed Wednesday 29th of February 2012 10:10:15 PM ].