Past Programs
Environment - 2008
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Out-foxing the fox
25/05/2008
On the 'mainland' it is generally accepted that Tasmania is fox free, however this may not be necessarily so. Franz Docherty went and spent a couple of days with the members of the Fox Eradication Program and an hour or two with a true blue sceptic, to find the answer to the ongoing question, 'Are foxes in Tasmania?'
In getting to know the people on the front line of this fight against the fox, we will get an insight into the work being done to protect Tasmania from a potential environmental nightmare, as well as discover what drives this dedicated group of people. We find out how they feel about the dilemma and give them the chance to answer the critics who question the need for the Fox Eradication Program's existence.
We also meet a doubter, someone who doesn't believe all is as it seems, and find out the reasons for their scepticism. It is not the first argument in Tasmania over a creature's existence, as many still believe the Tasmanian Tiger is out there in the wilderness. In the end this program will expose the real situation: are there foxes in Tasmania? Have a listen and find out.
- Watch the short film of Peter Darke, the hunter co-ordinator for the Fox Eradication Program (19.5MB)
On the river's edge: the life and soul of the Clarence River
20/04/2008
The quest to find enough water to sustain a bulging coastal population on Australia's east coast has thrust an untouched wild river in northern NSW into the politics of water sharing.
What starts as a trickle in the wilderness near the Queensland border ends 400 kilometres away as a broad and majestic river system flowing into the Pacific Ocean. The Clarence River channels five million megalitres of water out to sea each year. A federal government proposal is on the table to dam its flow and pipe its fresh water resource to south east Queensland, to ease water shortages there. There are also demands on Clarence water from the west of NSW, which continues to face the dilemmas of drought.
Along the banks of the Clarence are generational fishermen and farmers, Indigenous elders, tourism operators and lifestyle retirees who make their income and draw inspiration from its flow.
In the upper reaches of the river system, Steve and Sharon Ross have carved out a living from a remote property that boasts five kilometres of river frontage. They earn their income guiding tourists down the flow of the Clarence in canoes and plan to have their ashes cast across its surface when they die.
Russell Farmer is a third generation cattle and timber producer. He remembers chasing turtles, catching eels and racing corrugated iron canoes down the river at Cangai. He has also worked on the Snowy Mountains scheme as a teenager and cannot help but compare the health of the two river systems; one managed and one wild.
Many of the Indigenous elders along the Clarence grew up on one of 109 islands that are nestled within the flow of the Clarence River, as it transforms from a mountain stream to a broad estuary. They reminisce about raking prawns from the shallows, chiselling oysters from the mangroves and the dramatic evacuations during floods.
Vince Castle grows sugar cane on the edge of the Clarence estuary. He is predicting that water sharing will be a feature of the future and that the community will be disappointed if it wants to claim the Clarence water resource as its own.
Judith Melville has no car and describes the river as her road. She lives in Yamba, a coastal community on the southern edge of the Clarence River. The community of Iluka sits on the northern bank where the Clarence flows out to sea.
Renee du Preez followed the course of the Mighty Clarence to bring us the story of a river.
Port to Paradise
23/03/2008
Port Adelaide is a working class, suburban region that contains one of the last working, historic ports in Australia. It sits on the Port River and it is this waterfront that has attracted developers to the area.
South Australia's State Government has sold a swathe of riverfront land to a consortium of developers who are building many multi-storey, high-density residential apartments, expected to attract a further 8,000 people into the region.
With half a dozen buildings, up to six storeys high, already complete and plans for buildings of up to 12 storeys, there are mixed feelings about what will happen to the Port and its people.
Hundreds of millions of dollars of capital investment, environmental cleanup, new marinas, an influx of 'outsiders', higher housing prices and the loss of heritage are in the mix that is dividing locals. Some are against the developers and government while others are celebrating the change in lifestyle and population mix.
