Gamba grass ban a major environmental win for the NT
25 Nov 2008
WWF today strongly welcomed the Northern Territory Government’s decision to to ban the sale and planting of gamba grass, one of Northern Australia's most destructive invasive grasses.
"Gamba grass is called the 'green bulldozer' of Northern Australia because it can have the same effect as land clearing,” said WWF’s Northern Landscapes Manager Dr Stuart Blanch.
"Declaring it a weed is great news and is one of the most significant environmental decisions made by the Territory Labor Government since it came to office.
"It's a good decision based on 10 years of scientific research and community concerns and we must push ahead with outlawing other weeds identified by the Weed Risk Management Strategy."
Gamba grass is one of Australia's worst environmental weeds and is responsible for fueling dangerous fires that are up to eight times hotter than natural fires, and which kill native savanna trees and grasses.
The grass also threatens to turn vast areas of Northern Australia's wilderness into a gamba grass monoculture, with catastrophic consequences for native Australian species.
"There are other grass feeds that pastoralists can plant that are much less weedy than gamba,” Dr Blanch said.
"The zone where gamba has to be controlled, but not eradicated, is very large, stretching from Darwin to Katherine to Kakadu. The size of this zone must be reduced in the years ahead.”
WWF would like to see funding to manage gamba grass and other highly invasive weeds made available through the Commonwealth Weed Spread Prevention Plan.
"The announcement provides clarity but gamba grass already infects more than one million hectares,” Dr Blanch said.
“Farmers and Aboriginal communities need more money to control it, otherwise it will keep spreading. We will be battling this environmental scourge for decades to come.”
For more information
Dr Stuart Blanch, Northern Landscapes Manager, WWF-Australia: 0427 957 868
Julian Murphy, WWF Press Officer: 0418 970 778
