Forty South Tasmania Magazine - Issue 113

In this issue

About 20 years ago, a bloke contacted environmental authorities in Tasmania and told them that alien weeds were infesting the state’s south-west wilderness, and something had to be done about it. The bloke knew what he was talking about – he is an environmental scientist – but the authorities said they knew about it too, and that nothing could be done.

The worst of the alien weed invaders is called sea spurge. It first invaded Western Australia and South Australia about a hundred years ago, probably arriving in ship ballast water. It quickly spread beyond control, and is now present across the entire southern coastline of mainland Australia as well as much of Tasmania.

But it has been pretty much eradicated from our south-west wilderness, because the bloke who ran into bureaucratic rebuttal 20 years ago organised his own army of volunteers and fought back against the invader. And won.

His name is Dr Jon Marsden-Smedley. Helen Gjone, a proud weed warrior in his army, tells the story.

Weed warriors in the wilderness may meet another army fiercely determined to clean up the environment, the plastics warriors. There will be no conflict. As Bert Spinks tell us in this issue, the aims of both these groups correspond with an ancient tradition, what the First Tasmanians thought of as “care for country”.