Why do we need biosecurity in Australia? “Biosecurity” was first used to describe preventive and quarantine measures to reduce the risk of invasive pests or diseases arriving at a specific location that could damage crops and livestock as well as the wider environment. We live in a very challenging environment, an island! This means we need to be protected from exotic pests and diseases. We also have a really big border to protect especially when we are trading with international countries. Biosecurity, a shared responsibility On 1 July 2017, the way government, industry and the community manages biosecurity in NSW changed. Over 39 million people visit our 850 national parks and reserves each year. There are more than 350 species, populations and communities considered to be threatened by the impacts of pest animals across NSW, impacting on the quality of the experience for visitors. Biosecurity isn’t just for farmers and animals – biosecurity applies to urban areas as well.
- Don't buy seeds online for your garden, consider the risks because you can accidentally import a pest plant - Waste from the fish tank can be a risk to our waterways - they should go in the bin not in sewers or waterways - If you plan on going away for the weekend perhaps camping, hiking or fishing? Make sure you aren't spreading seeds or bugs from your car, clothes, boots or equipment A successful biosecurity system requires scientists, government, industry, and the community to cooperate. In the end it is a system of shared responsibility.
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The planet is already suffering from some impacts of global warming. Ice is melting worldwide, especially at the Earth's poles. Sea levels are rising and this is making our oceans too acidic. Think about the the Great Barrier Reef, the coral wasn't always so white. Severe changes in weather and increases of greenhouse gases will not only effect our daily life and health but also the agricultural industry Have a look at those statistics down below! The information above shows the importance of renewable energy. We as global citizens need to recognise climate change as a real problem that needs to be addressed immediately! Fossils fuels are non-renewable, becoming more sparse and more expensive. Humans need to reduce there dependency on fossil fuel gas and oil. Compare these materials to renewable energy such as solar power, the sun will never run out! Some other renewable energies: - Solar energy: solar hot water, solar electricity , passive solar heating and daylighting - Wind energy - Geothermal energy : geothermal electricity production , geothermal heat pumps - Bioenergy : biofuels , bio products - Hydropower - Ocean energy - Hydrogen and fuel cells - Green powers In Australia alone only 17.6% of our energy came from renewable energy in 2016. This is definitely not enough to make an impact to the irreversible damage of climate change. It is the role of local communities to raise awareness and spread education on these issues So...How can we as a community or school help promote climate change?
Help spread the word We were lucky enough to get a visit from Laura Phelps who works with Australian Pork Limited and also a Young Farming Champion. Laura introduced herself as a country-city hybrid moving from a farm to Melbourne. At the age of 19, she decided to pack up her bags to study science and agriculture. Her dad, a vet and mum, a scientist, supported her choices. Amongst the years of Laura’s studies she travelled to Indonesia. Here she noticed that farmers weren’t taking care of pesticides properly. It was at this moment; Laura was able to see how agriculture can present itself it many forms. She began to work with local farmer groups, village leaders and farmers to improve pesticide safety management. Agriculture is very important in Laos as it provides for proper nutrition which we noticed was similar to our Australian farmers. Laura continued to explain how she fell into the world of pigs. Pigs are actually raised in different ways such as an indoor system, outdoor shed and free range. They also need to be separated in stalls if they are pregnant because they can have crazy hormones! After that, Laura explained that methane produced by pigs could and does run an entire farm! We were pretty intrigued by this point and it gave us great ideas for our Archibull designs. We learnt a lot about the different by products of pig poo and how they can be vital to helping the environmental impact of the farming industry. Lastly, Laura explained swill feeding, which we had never heard about before. Pigs cant eat meat or dairy as they can get foot and mouth disease. She even said that this disease can cripple the economy…. Eeep This is why biosecurity is really important in the pork industry. After Laura had finished her presentation she stuck around to answer our questions and help us brainstorm some designs for our archie. It was really helpful and she provided some great ideas. Thankyou for visiting Laura, hope we will keep you porkin on about our schools. p.s. we love our mini pigs! In today's session we learnt all about pigs and the environment. We were given some homework that taught us about what green house gases are and the effect of methane on the environment. If you didn't already know pigs produce a lot of methane and waste! However the pork industry is working really hard to become more sustainable, so we all gathered to view a PowerPoint presentation all about it. We learnt that you can turn pig waste into asphalt roads, worm farms and even compost. The most interesting thing they do with methane is turning it into energy and it can power so many houses with just 500 sows (mother pigs, yeah we learnt that too). Check out our photo gallery for more information. After that we brainstormed about how we can reuse the waste we produce at home. We then used plastic water bottles to transform them into little piggies! Finally we arrived for our first visit to Matraville Sports High School to work on the Archibull together. We all gathered together in the art classroom and met Miss Trovato and Miss Robinson for the first time! First, we played a few ice breaker games so we could get a bit comfortable with everyone. We started off with chicken and the egg and some word games. They were great fun! After that, we were introduced to our industry and had a really great talk about what the pork industry was about. Miss Trovato showed us some past examples of videos, info-graphs and final archies which gave us lots of inspiration. It was finally time to let our archie free (to be named...) and he/she motivated us to develop some design ideas before we went home with some homework about pigs and the environment Tune in to our next post to see what unfolds... Check out the photos and video snippets below of our porkin' time
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