Published name
Which of the following best describes your situation?
Upload your submission here:
October 2, 2024
FDF Drought Hubs Review
Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
GPO Box 858
CANBERRA ACT 2601 via email fdfhubsreview@aff.gov.au
Dear Sir/Madam
RE: Feedback on the Future Drought Fund Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hubs review
I am pleased to provide feedback on the Australian Government’s review of Future Drought Fund Drought Resilience
Adoption and Innovation Hubs. This feedback is provided in my capacity as National Feral Pig Management
Coordinator and my role in leading the implementation of the National Feral Pig Action Plan 2021-2031. My position is funded by the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry’s National Feral Pig Management
Coordinator Program, and is being delivered by Australian Pork Limited.
The National Feral Pig Action Plan 2021-2031 is the first national coordinated plan developed to address, and reduce, the significant and widespread impacts caused by feral pigs. It was endorsed by the National Biosecurity Committee in
October 2021. The National Feral Pig Action Plan 2021-2031aims to shift feral pig management to being more coordinated, collaborative, proactive and strategic (rather than short term and reactive) to support land managers to work together. Its purpose is to deliver long-term active suppression of feral pig populations, or eradication (where this is feasible), to reduce their impacts to Australia’s environment, our $72 billion agricultural sector, cultural sites and social assets.
Feral pigs are an established and declared pest in Australian states and territories, inhabiting 45% of Australia’s land mass. In 2023, Australian Bureau of Agricultural Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) estimated that feral pigs cost the Australian economy a total of $156 million per year, based on private land manager responses to the ABARES
2019 Pest Animal and Weed Management Survey and current available data and knowledge. Times of drought are the most suitable and opportune time to effectively conduct feral pig management activities to take advantage of the congregation of feral pig populations to permanent sources of water. However, conducting feral pig management activities (as well as those of other vertebrate pests) directly competes with the prioritisation of other on-farm activities by land managers, including managing the health and welfare of any remaining livestock and infrastructure maintenance. From a biosecurity perspective, feral animals pose significant biosecurity risks to land managers as they move through areas in search of available water and food, carrying disease onto and around different properties.
It is well recognised that the most successful feral pig control programs require land managers to work together and conducting planned activities at the same time across a large area, rather than just on individual properties. However, in times of drought, many land managers may withdraw from their community to deal with overwhelming financial pressures, property management tasks and manage their mental health. This situation is exacerbated by the finding from the ABARES 2022 Pest Animal and Weed Management Survey that only 9.7% of land managers work collectively to manage vertebrate pests. It is therefore recommended that programs be supported through the Drought Hubs to bring private and public land managers together to underpin efforts being driven through the National Feral Pig Action
Plan (and other national vertebrate pest Action Plans) to encourage and sustain coordinated community-led programs.
These local community networks may also then be utilised to support the delivery of other local National Feral Pig
Action Plan 2021-2031 National Feral Pig Action Plan 2021-2031 National Feral Pig Action Plan 2021-2031 initiatives.
Feral animal management is not explicit within the programs being funded by the Drought Hubs, which may reflect that their economic and social impacts are often overlooked and/or undervalued by many agricultural producers. Feral animal management, unlike weeds, is typically an add-on task conducted when land managers have time. For feral pigs, this results in ad hoc, reactionary and sporadic activity by land managers that does not result in the required annual population reduction targets (of at least 70%) needed to curb the growth of feral pig populations. Their impacts can also increase during drought as they congregate, causing extensive damage to man-made infrastructure such as water troughs and dams, reduce both the availability and quality of water accessible to commercial livestock and native wildlife, damage remaining pastures and remnant vegetation, degrade soils and predate vulnerable commercial livestock.
Furthermore, resources that may be available for feral pig management are also typically redirected into support of farm enterprises. Drought can therefore be regarded as periods of missed opportunity to both substantially reduce feral pig populations in affected areas and the impacts that they cause as well as bring communities together to address this issue collectively on a landscape-scale, cross tenure basis.
To enable the effective reduction of feral pig populations and their impacts, programs and management needs to be integrated, adaptive and innovative, particularly in times of drought. Understanding the need for this, and to include support for these activities, is required in order to improve their approach to preparing for, managing through and recovering from drought.
It is requested that closer alignment and linkages of relevant programs being supported by the Drought Hubs be made with those initiatives that are enabling the implementation of the National Feral Pig Action Plan 2021-2031.
In summary, it is requested that programs being funded by the Drought Hubs more explicitly incorporate feral pig management (and other vertebrate pests) to support the mobilisation of management actions by coordinated groups of land managers during periods of drought.
I welcome any opportunity to further discuss this with the evaluation team.
Yours sincerely
Dr. Heather Channon
National Feral Pig Management Co-ordinator
Mob: 0423 056 045
Email: heather.channon@feralpigs.com.au