Central Murray Environmental Floodplain Group chair Geoff Wakeman is on the war path against Paterson’s curse.
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In this open letter to Parks Victoria’s Northern Regional Director Daniel McLaughlin, he raised his concerns about the return of the noxious weed.
The letter read: “Dear Daniel, Sorry that I have to contact you directly, but I attempted to contact your nominee, Peter Foster, by email (March 23, 2021) and unfortunately never received a reply.
I hope your officers have advised you that the Paterson’s curse problem in Gunbower National Park/Forest is even larger than last year.
This is to be expected as the feeble spraying efforts that were carried out earlier this season addressed very little of the problem.
The Paterson’s curse is now very extensive in some of the flood runners and has been in the floor of several lagoons. This will obviously lead to even further spread, next season, when the current environmental watering disperses the seeds.
The attached photographs were taken from approximately the same spot in a flood runner off Robertson Rd and show the increase that has occurred this year.
I realise funding is always an issue but as you mentioned in your response dated 3 December 2020 “… there will be a need to source additional funds to treat the germination next year.”
The Hon. Lily D’Ambrosio, in reply to a question raised by the Hon. Wendy Lovell in the Victorian Parliament, stated that “Current strategies in Gunbower aim to treat new infestations as a priority and over time, reduce the larger clusters of the plant that have germinated extensively in 2020”, hence I am querying how much additional funding was allocated and what steps have been taken to reduce the Paterson’s curse?’’
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