Buffel grass

A billion-dollar exercise in looking virtuous, while watching the bush go to ruin

4 July 2025 / 12 Comments

Conservation in Australia is largely a matter of pious intentions.

Germaine Greer

When Anthony Albanese’s Labor government came to power in May 2022, environmental groups quickly pressed their wishlist onto the incoming ministers. Near the top was a global conservation commitment to protect 30 per cent of Australia’s land and oceans by 2030, part of a United Nations-endorsed pledge to halt biodiversity decline.

Grass rings of the outback and trees of the artificial wilderness

4 February 2022 / 3 Comments

“Fire has helped the flammable spinifex invade this vast land, and that spinifex has helped fire to dominate the landscape”. Peter Latz

So I’ll see you out on the mulga and spinifex plain; Anytime, Tjilpi, I’ll be coming back this way; See you out on the mulga and spinifex plain; Just light me a fire and I’ll soon be home again

“Mulga and spinifex plain”, Warumpi Band (Track 10 on Big Name, No Blankets)

As we have travelled through large arid and semi-arid areas of Australia, two vegetation communities have dominated the country – spinifex grasslands and mulga shrublands.… Read more

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A tale of two grasses

5 November 2021 / 7 Comments

How buffel grass changed the dead heart of Australia

When you enter the Northern Territory from South Australia the landscape changes immediately from mulga scrub to more open savannah woodland dominated by the introduced buffel grass (Cenchrus ciliaris).

Buffel grass landscape at MacDonnell Ranges.
Photo courtesy-Tony-Faithfull-https-www.faithfull.id_.auindex.phpweeds13-buffel-grass-changing-the-ecology-of-the-west-macdonnell-ranges-2.jpg

Buffel grass is a deep-rooted perennial native to Africa, the Middle East and India.… Read more

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Woody weed invasion of the rangelands

6 November 2020 / 2 Comments

As you travel north from Winton to Cloncurry along the Landsborough Highway, you see spectacular open Mitchell grass (Astrebla app) plains with their distinctive golden colour under the relentless sunshine. I had heard about these magnificent plains but had no idea how extensive and beautiful they really are.

Mitchell grass plains in north-west Queensland

After McKinlay, you start to see a change in the soil from the black-grey clays to the red mineralised earth soils.