For Sunset Symphony in the Sunflowers, we’re hosting up to 200 people on the farm for an afternoon, drinking cocktails and eating canapes amongst the dual crop of sunflowers and sugarcane. Behind the scenes, many of our punters are going to want to do a wee, and perhaps few might need to poo. So how […]
Sunset Symphony in the Sunflowers is finally happening! We’ve been collaborating with farmer Simon Mattsson on this idea for ages now, ever since he first started experimenting with planting sunflowers in with his sugar cane a few years ago. This is a key event in the ongoing evolution of our Sugar vs the Reef project. […]
It’s mid-March, and we’re back in Mackay to have meetings with quite a few people and organisations. It’s very hot and humid and locals are saying that although there’s been some rain, the usual wet season of March hasn’t really happened. Simon Mattsson, our main cane-farmer collaborator, is hoping for some rainfall for his […]
Kim and I are back in Mackay briefly this week. The image above shows a little something I’ve been growing since our last visit: sugar cane in my vegie garden in Wollongong! Took a while to germinate, but seems quite happy in its multi-species environment… This week we’ve got a packed schedule of meetings to […]
Just before I left Mackay, I had a great meeting with Richard, Maya and Aaron from the Mackay Botanical Gardens. I wanted to pitch them a crazy idea – a crop of sunflowers and sugar cane at the gardens. This is quite different from the usual thing you see at the Botanical Gardens. It’s big […]
This just went up on the ABC, by journalist Lara Webster. Really great news this week for the Sugar vs the Reef? project, as we began working with the Mackay Botanical Gardens towards a big work of land art – a crop of sugar cane and sunflowers – a collaboration between artists, farmers, horticulturalists, Mackay […]
In 1987 I had my first Great Barrier Reef experience, snorkelling on one of the outer reefs off Cairns. Seeing for the first time a wonderland of corals and tropical fish remains one of the most astonishing things I’ve witnessed. It was sheer, glorious, teeming beauty. The second Great Barrier Reef snorkelling trip was in […]
Tuesday 4th October – Lucas and I got an early start this morning to drive from Mackay to Townsville for a 1pm meeting with environmental scientist Jon Brodie at James Cook University. Jon is the Chief Research Scientist, Centre for Tropical Water & Aquatic Ecosystem Research (TropWATER). He has a long list of research articles […]