2024-01 Rabbit Sweep Report
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Subject: 2024-01 Rabbit Sweep Report
Date: 20 January 2024 3:09:37 pm AEDT
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Rabbit Sweep
- a BLG Rabbit Action Group Project.
This newsletter is for those interested in the development of a whole-of-peninsula rabbit control project. If you do not want to receive the newsletter, please let us know.
Monday 15th January, 2024
Happy New Year!
Work has been continuing over the Christmas break. Please read the notes below and see how you can help with this important project.
Mid-January 2024 – Rabbit Sweep Report
Where are we?
In 2023, 40 entities helped discuss the problem of rabbits on the Bellarine Peninsula. All have engaged because rabbits are a problem on the peninsula and we know that each year they cost the community millions of $$$ and a huge loss of valuable environmental resources.
We have not yet engaged with the Wadawurrung Elders who we believe will have vast insights and advice for us in our work.
We do not have a good way to speak to those landholders who are not in the group of ‘converted’ managers of invasive flora and fauna (including people whose are disenchanted with efforts to date).
Techniques for clearing individual regions of private properties (and available to other entities) are documented and commented here, there and everywhere. But they need to be in one place, accessible and provide pros and cons, techniques, costs, etc. Making sense of the myriad of info is a priority.
Multiple websites and social media do not always help – we want ONE agreed, comprehensive source of information. We are working to assemble all the info available and then to work with the Victorian Rabbit Action Network (VRAN) to make it available in a single location in suitable forms (yet to be determined in consultation with VRAN).
We have scheduled our ‘Techniques Workshop’ to identify, organise and review the currently known techniques on Friday February 16, 2024 at the Leopold Library – 10.00 am to 4.00 pm.
Please RSVP/register for this workshop - let us know if you can't come, if you or a colleague will represent you, and if the proposal is to come to the meeting or join by Zoom. Let us know asap, please:
It is clear that rabbits are one of many environmental problems on the Bellarine but for many they are not seen as a problem. Nevertheless, those who want to control pest populations need the support of all their neighbours – so everyone needs to be involved. The Rabbit Sweep is seeking help with engaging the wider community including seeking funds for a support person (see below).
Whatever is done to control invasive flora or fauna has consequences for other things, so there is a wide range of constraints that must be observed in any control program. Awareness of local constraints, including those related to Aboriginal heritage and other cultural sensitivities can be difficult to ascertain – these must be clearly expressed and accessible.
The BLG is working with others on a wider program for looking after the environment. ‘Rabbits’ or ‘cats’ or ‘foxes’ are never the only problem but they are almost always in the mix. The vegetation is also a major problem as its control can mean the difference between a healthy and an unhealthy environment. Inevitably rabbits will be in a mix of invasive flora and fauna to be targeted in a major project for the Bellarine (see below).
The Rabbit Sweep project aims to produce a strategic plan for rabbit control on a regional basis. As this affects the whole of the Bellarine and so all landholders, it is essential to work with them on their goals and needs.
What has to be done immediately?
Bring the community together to determine the best way to work across the community – and possibly form/identify a single entity to move the process forward.
(Jan – Feb 11, 2024) The Victorian Government is offering significant funding to an entity to work on the Urban Rivers and Catchments Program (URCP). As BLG, it makes good sense to work up an application which must be submitted by 19 February. The current idea is to work in conjunction with the Southeast Bellarine Biolink Master Plan, aiming to start by working on the private landholders' side (north side) of the region identified in the URCP. Current proposal is to work with BLG on the Stage 1 grant application and to do this with other entities on the Bellarine.
(Jan – Feb 15, 2024) The Victorian Government is offering another grant that would enable the employment of a person to help with Rabbit Sweep for 4 years. The application for these funds needs to be submitted by 19 February. It is thought it might be good to employ someone to work with the small local groups determining their goals and needs. Doug May from the Department of Agriculture is helping with this (1). The person could be engaged to work with small groups of local landholders determining and documenting their situation, starting close to the excellent original work of the URCP and extending it northwards across private landholdings.
We need to do what we can to take advantage of the government funding. We will only manage to achieve our goals, whatever they are, if we propose work that complements the work already done by State and local governments and continue it by working on community-led aspirations.
Help with these applications will be most welcome. Endorsement of our applications will be called for in the next few weeks – ideas and contributions are always welcome!
What have we learned in 2023?
We have learned, and been reminded, that working with landholders to achieve outcomes of community value on their properties, requires their choice of goals, ownership of the activity, and management of the process.
Engaging the community to determine their shared goals and collaboration with neighbours requires effort to determine and embed those aspirations.
Local communities tend to have local aspirations so recognition and support of multiple combinations of local goals and plans needs to be available.
Information about how to work on the problems needs to be informative, with pros and cons clearly accessible. (This is the kind of stuff we can hopefully have on the VRAN website.)
What must we work on in the next few months?
No grants will be available until the middle of the year but we do have a small one for now. It must be determined in detail what we will do with that money which is mostly for help with documenting our work.
Clarifying our goals and how we will work towards them is of major concern. Once the grant applications are in, we need to be working on the Rabbit Sweep itself. A high priority will be organising how we will start talking to and importantly, listening to small clusters of neighbours across the target area. The City of Greater Geelong (CoGG) has an interest in working with rural and peri-urban communities so we will liaise with them on this work. Councillor Jim Mason, a former BLG President, has offered to assist us where necessary.
We need a small group of people who will volunteer to start our listening process. Inevitably some training will be required – listening to local people does not mean telling them what we want done or how they should act but being disciplined and offering suitable prompts for them to engage with what they want individually and as a group. The volunteers for this group will need to know what we need to hear about, and document their discoveries.
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1. Our current proposal is to work on the Round 2 grant to find a facilitator, possibly a graduate student. If successful, the grant would cover the student for 4 years work. But why a gred student? We need to be sure we are not reinventing the wheel but learning from its use by others – this is background essential work for a grad student. We need to learn how to engage the wider community, what they want to see done and are willing to work on, we need to test their ideas, and then we need to document all that is learned for re-use in later programs. Grad students with an environmental interest seem to go to RMIT, Deakin, and Charles Sturt Unis. A local person might be very interested in such an opportunity.
contact: rabbits @ Bellarinemac.org.au