The editor’s musings

We finished the year with the last of the Precision Pastoral Management Tools Project field days held at Undoolya Station. Through trialling this project at five stations across North Australia, the value of introducing remote technology to the pastoral industry has been undeniably demonstrated.

Congratulations go to Sally Leigo, who received a Chief Minister’s Medal for the capable manner in which she has been leading this highly innovative, collaborative and now internationally recognised project.

Other achievements over the last quarter to be celebrated are the three groups at AZRI who have been nominated for the Chief Executive’s STAR awards for exceptional services and Coral Allan’s 30-year service medal at the same event. The Quality Graze Project received high recommendation at the NT NRM awards night, while at the same ceremony Curtain Springs Station took out a prestigious tourism award. Another Alice Springs ‘local’ Tracey Hayes was listed as one of the most influential women in Australia.

To all these achievers, and those that I may have missed, congratulations and thank you for your unselfish service to Central Australia.

During the past year we have lost a number of stalwarts of the pastoral industry, some through tragic accident, but we also welcomed a couple of new entrants to the industry with a definite generation change gradually taking place.

The challenge is now for the established pastoralists to guide these new individuals in such a way that they benefit from the vast experience built up over generations of pastoralism in Central Australia, but also create the freedom to experiment with new initiatives and ideas essential to ensure the industry remains vibrant and relevant in a very competitive and constantly changing environment.

With these thoughts I wish you all an enjoyable and peaceful Christmas and as aptly referred to in the talk on resilience by Martin Pentecost on page 10, “look after yourself and take this time to recharge the batteries mentally and physically”.

Regards, Pieter