Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th May, 2025
Clearly, we hadn’t had enough of getting away because on Friday at 4.00 p.m. we finished packing up the Sherwood and drove up the hill to Glen Forest. There was a talk by Malcolm French who is a botanist and farmer, a man of experience and wisdom.
Curiously, we had something of the same hopefulness after his talk that we felt after the film ‘Oceans’, with David Attenborough. David spoke about the regeneration of life in the ocean by creating sanctuaries, and how everything could come alive after just a few years, with spill over effects which make fishing viable. Though not deep sea trawling, which creates deserts on the ocean floor.
Anyway, Malcolm’s message was that many of the beautiful native trees to the east of Perth can thrive in very hot, dry conditions. He suggests that we start to plant these trees closer to Perth so that we still have lots of trees as climate warming bites.
As a farmer, he knows that local producers can get much higher prices selling to the European Union, if they adhere to the sustainable farming practices set by the Union. This means that farmers are adhering to these principles out of self interest. The EU does not take this on trust, but does satellite and in person inspections to confirm compliance. The farmers get 10% higher prices. A win for the environment and farming becomes more sustainable financially.
On arrival we had checked out the park where we stayed overnight last time to check for no camping signs, then went and parked near the hall to have our small meal.
At 7.00 p.m., when the meeting was supposed to start, we walked along the road trying to find the hall, but all was in darkness and we initially walked straight past. When people did arrive the lights came on briefly before going out. It took a fair bit of trial and error to work out what the problem was. The offending light switch was turned off and meeting commenced.
We had a quiz to start, Stephen and I could answer none of the questions. Then we had the talk, with slides showing the various trees. Malcom is quite old, but he didn’t need a microphone to project his voice and we really enjoyed it.
After a peaceful night in the parking area we had breakfast and went for a walk along the Heritage Trail, heading east this time, we went west last time.
We still somehow ended up at the cafe for hot drinks and a savoury scone.
