The Muster- Simon Stokes: Environment Southland

Simon Stokes gives some reminders around farm burn offs.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
I know that, John.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome back to the muster from Environment Southland. We're catching
up with Simon Stokes. Of course, the segment paid for
by Environment Southland. He is Land Sustainability manager for the organization. Simon,
good afternoon. How are you today?

Speaker 1 (00:24):
I'm very good, saying sandy and yourself.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, not bad, but a sunshine over more than thirty
six hours will be quite cool. As silly as that.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Sounds, yeah know, I enjoyed Sunday immensely. It was like
a welcome relief to I've had since I've been moved
down here, that's for sure.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah. You must be wondering what the hell you've done
moving down here and seeing a Southland spring.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Ah, well look yeah, but you know that the weather's
the weather. There's always another day exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
That's a great way to look at sibon. Now we're
looking at talking land sustainability ability officers right now. So
i'd say the primary focus of your team would be
the events from a month ago.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Here there's a primary focus, and we've been attached to
the recovery and what we're what we're well, what we're
really looking for at the moment is for farmers to
get in touch with us while while we've got funding
available in particular, and we have a couple of grand
schemes that we have where we have funding available for

(01:28):
farmers to use for uh planting by perian areas or
constructing wetlands and planting by native trees in general and
doing those sorts of things, and you can get in
touch with us with regards to obtaining some of that funding.
And given the given the storm and maybe how farmers

(01:51):
are thinking about what to do next, it's a good
time to get these professionals out there to give give
them a hand, perhaps particularly with three species selection, that
would be good thing. We also have Biodiversity Team as
well in that MAX that I've got and they've got
some funding available for community groups at the moment too,
so that funding closes off around the end of November.

(02:12):
So any of those community groups out there that particularly
have got involved with specialty sites or reserve sites with
native bush and that they can get in touch with
us and maybe try and obtain some funding.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah, that's always a positive. And there's a bit of
money allocated which environments south and doesnt regular basis for
this kind of activity, especially regarding shout about some of
the likes.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah, you know, and as well as we must know,
there's been a few shelter belts affected, and so the
guys spent a bit of time thinking about what alternative
species they could be used in different locations. And really
it's just a case of the farmers getting us out
there and getting us on farm to help provide that

(02:55):
advice we're also keen to. We've got a lot of
expertise here too, Andy with regards to helping farmers prepare
for this coming I suppose summer, autumn, winter with regards
to cultivation and getting their crops in, and then looking

(03:15):
ahead to next year's winter grazing as well. I kind
of summarize it up as just good, good farm planning,
and there's nothing better than getting the team out in
the field on the hills actually helping you figure out
just what are the rules or what can we do
to actually really hold that soil in place.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
We're talking about the rules now following the winds last month.
What do people need to think about before conducting outdoor burning?

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Ah, yes, yeah, that's something that's quite tricky. Actually, you're
not really allowed to actually burn things that are green.
It creates quite a bit of smoke and air pollution
and in fact we actually had some issues at Edendale
recently where Fonterra was straight with the amount of smoke
and that can that did cause them a few problems.

(04:06):
What it does is it can actually taint their product
and it three good senses which can shut down parts
of the plant. So yeah, I think farmers just need
to just you know, tidy their shelter belts, put it
in a pile and let it dry. But I'd also
advise to any that get that location pretty well sorted

(04:27):
with regards to where you might burn when it's dry
in the future, because sometimes you can leave it a
bit too close to other places which you don't want
sparks to jump. And speaking of jumping, we're all pretty
jumpy about fires these days, and so you just you've
got to be cautious all the way around. Don't burn
it while it's green, and be very careful when you're
burning it when it's dry.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Get on your simon, always appreciate your time on the muster,
enjoy the afternoon.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
All right, mate, Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Silent Steaks, Land Sustainability manager at Environments Southland, this who
is the Master. Before we wrap up out of Thornbury,
Young Farmer's Blackland Duddon is here about the centenary or
the ninetiest sorry that occurred at the weekend