Jorgen Doyle is a native plant grower/horticulturalist based in Mparntwe/ Alice Springs. He runs an arid-zone native plant nursery providing local seedlings to landcare properties and conservation interest groups where bush regeneration of degraded land is a priority. Email: jorgendoyle@gmail.com
The threats posed by buffel grass invasion continue to increase despite the best efforts of conservation groups such as the Australian Wildlife Conservacy and Bush Heritage, and the Indigenous rangers of the southern and northern Tanami IPAs who work tirelessly with minimal resourcing to keep their Country healthy. It is clear that the national coordination and attention to the threat of buffel grass invasion enabled by a Weed of National Significance declaration is desperately needed to enable the control and management of buffel grass at scale, including via research into a potential biological control.
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I am writing in support of the nomination to declare buffel grass a weed of national significance.
I am the owner of an arid zone native plant nursery in Mparntwe/ Alice Springs. My main customers are landcare properties and conservation interest groups where bush regeneration of degraded land is a priority. I have seed collection agreements with the Newhaven Wildlife Sanctuary in the southern Tanami Desert (administered by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy) as well as Bon Bon Station (administered by Bush Heritage Australia), both of which are impacted by buffel grass invasion and dedicate considerable resources to managing its spread. I also intend in 2025 to renew seed collection agreements I have previously brokered with Warlpiri Traditional Owners to collect native seeds from the southern and northern Tanami Indigenous Protected Areas.
The spread of buffel grass is one of the key invasive species threats to these four conservation areas, and its continued spread will have a highly detrimental effect on biodiverse native plant populations in these regions; the populations I rely on to collect seed for regeneration purposes. In the Tanami, where Indigenous rangers practice cultural burning in order to promote regeneration, increased seeding of culturally important plants, and to mitigate the risk of hot, high carbon-emitting dry season fires, buffel grass invasion threatens to make it harder to care for Country via cultural burning. It’s increasingly difficult to make the right fire at the right time.
Around Mparntwe/ Alice Springs, where many of the landcare properties I provide seedlings to are situated, buffel grass is a key invasive species threat, and a threat to community safety and resilience. Buffel grass played a role in the 2023 catastrophic grassfires that killed 102 people in Lahaina, Hawaii. There is every reason to believe that buffel could pose a similar threat to lives and livelihoods in Central Australia, and particularly to the township of Alice Springs.
I’m also aware of the critically important role this continent’s arid and semi-arid zones are expected to play in Australia’s efforts to combat global heating and meet our emissions reduction obligations under the Paris Agreement. Buffel grass invasion presents a major challenge to our efforts to meet these obligations.
Much of Australia’s expansion in carbon farming is occurring in the arid and semi-arid regions (i.e. a recent CSIRO report on offsetting emissions from Beetaloo gas development claims 50 million ha of Australian rangelands [the ‘outback’] have lost 95% of their vegetative cover, and Beetaloo emissions can be partially offset by restoring these rangelands). So-called human induced regeneration via destocking in mulga woodlands is the chief means of expanding vegetation, storing more CO2, and generating carbon credits for sale on Australia’s carbon market.
Buffel grass forms dense monocultures in many arid and semi-arid regions. Buffel grass fires, more frequent and much intenser than native grass fires, kill mulga trees and undermine the carbon sequestration potential of arid and semi-arid ecosystems. Climate change favours the continued expansion of buffel. Buffel grass responds positively to increased concentrations of atmospheric CO2, increasing its biomass and thus increasing buffel fuel loads. This means hotter, more frequent, higher CO2 emitting fires. Ongoing alterations to fire regimes associated with buffel grass invasion represent a loss of carbon storage potential as ecosystems such as mulga, gidgee and Red Gum woodlands are converted into frequently burnt buffel grasslands.
Submitted: 20 May 2025