Do you remember when we were inundated with Christmas beetles at this time of year? What happened to them, and can we revive the Christmas beetle spirit?
In a BBC Future article by Zaria Gorvett, entitled, ‘Why insects are more sensitive than they seem’, she points out that 400,000 insect species face extinction.
She details why insects have feelings, and are far more like us than we’d ever dare to admit.
Nature globally has been under sustained attack for decades from destruction of habitat, over-exploitation and drowning the planet in plastic and pesticides.
The callous disregard for the natural world has led to devastating outcomes for all other creatures with whom we share this planet.
Struggling ecosystem
Our local ecosystem has fared as badly. Most of the rainforest has been destroyed, although heroic efforts are underway to replant it and look after the remnants.
The Richmond River used to have metres-deep oyster beds that were plundered by settlers.
Oysters and shells were shipped to Sydney to be used for lime mortar for colonial buildings.
Now oysters are struggling to survive. Research, to be published in the January 2024 issue of Environmental Pollution, found they’re loaded with a cocktail of 21 pesticides.
The National Toxics Network publication ‘Getting the Drift’ explains how pesticides don’t stay where they are applied. They move around, in the air, soil and our waterways.
Australia was one of the last countries to prohibit the use of the highly toxic insecticide endosulfan, used by macadamia farmers. Sadly, that was replaced with another toxic pesticide.
Over a decade ago, the National Toxics Network undertook a rainwater tank sampling study in this region and found every tank in the survey had endosulfan in the water, including ours at Possum Creek, which was meant to be a control. The nearest macadamia farm is hundreds of metres away.
Pesticide regulation in Australia has been abysmal. The agency responsible for it, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA), has been captured by the pesticide industry.
It’s intent on facilitating the use of new pesticides rather than getting rid of those already banned in other countries.
Glyphosate is not even on the radar for review by the APVMA, despite massive compensation payouts in other countries.
It’s used widely in Australia, and very casually around these parts too. It’s not only linked to human cancers but the surfactant in some formulations can kill fish and tadpoles.
Some of the biggest users of pesticides in this Shire are macadamia farmers, who apparently are unable to grow this local nut organically, but they are in trouble.
I was talking to a farmer who was receiving only $1.70 per kg for nuts in the shell. His breakeven is $2.50. He’s losing money, but intends staying for the long haul, hoping prices come back up. Other farmers are rooting out thousands of trees. Will they now graze cattle? Being at the mercy of global commodity prices is no way to grow food, or care for country.
Perhaps one answer to this fundamental problem is local bush foods that have been growing here, used by First Nations people, for millennia.
Here at the Forest of Friends we’ve planted hundreds of ‘Davidson’s plums’. We’re now adopting the name Ooray plums, the original Queensland name. I’ve just made dozens of jars of this delicious jam from an initial pick, with hundreds more to come.
Local mobs used them as a healthy food for generations. It’s a valuable food, containing anthocyanins and antioxidants that fight cancer and other illnesses. At least one local farmer is making a living growing Ooray plums and other bush foods on a small acreage.
Apparently, it’s hard to make a living grazing cattle on a hundred acres, but this is not cattle country anyway. It’s rainforest and bush foods country.
Chefs overseas have discovered the taste sensation of finger limes (called gulalung in Bundjalung language), pods of exploding caviar.
These under-storey trees are local to this area, and have the extra benefit that little birds like nesting safely among their prickly branches.
Abundant crops produced without pesticides
We’ve never used any pesticides on our place, and yet we have abundant crops. We have so many insects and birds.
Not a single one of the hundreds of plums I broke up to make the jam had fruit fly grubs in them.
The trees are not planted in rows as a plantation but among the regenerating forest, as they used to grow in the wild.
I’m absolutely convinced that the best way to live in harmony with this country is to restore the rainforest and cultivate bush foods within forests. Mono crops of macadamias or sugar cane are not only a financial risk, they are also a serious health hazard for neighbours and wildlife.
Diversity is the foundation of sustainability. Restoring rainforest without using any poisons will bring back our Christmas beetles.
Let’s do it in 2024!
♦ Richard Jones is a former NSW MLC and is now a ceramicist.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
