🦎 Gippsland’s most dangerous roads

🎊 WHAT’S ON THIS WEEK 🎟️

• FRI. 27/02 - SUN. 01/03 | Paynesville Classic Boat Rally

• FRI. 27/02 - SUN. 01/03 | Festival of Small Halls

• SAT. 28/02 - SUN. 15/03 | Neerim Artsfest

• SATURDAY, 28/02/26 | Foster and district agricultural show

• SATURDAY, 28/02/26 | South Gippsland Garlic Festival

🧺 FARMERS MARKETS 🥧

• SATURDAY, 28/02/26 | The Mirboo North Market

• SATURDAY, 28/02/26 | Fish Creek Summer Market

• SATURDAY, 28/02/26 | Lions Traralgon Farmers Market

• SATURDAY, 28/02/26 | Yarragon Craft and Produce Market

• SUNDAY, 01/03/26 | Longwarry & District Fire Brigade Market

• SUNDAY, 01/03/26 | Maffra Rotary Community Market

• SUNDAY, 01/03/26 | Kongwak Market

🔍 HEARD THIS WEEK👂

🦪 Oysters and mussels return to Gippsland Lakes thanks to three year restoration project

An area larger than the MCG’s playing field has been successfully populated with oysters and mussels in a big win for Gippsland Lakes health.

What happened: A three year reef restoration project in Gippsland Lakes has been recognised by the United Nations after showing significant signs of recovery, with mussels, native oysters and marine life flourishing.

Why do Gippsland Lakes need restoring?

The program manager at the East Gippsland Catchment Management Authority, Sean Phillipson, told the Monitor that Blue Mussel and Australian Flat Oyster reefs were once abundant across Victoria and South Australia – but fell into decline from overharvesting, pollution and waterway changes. 

• 🗣️ “Physical disturbance to the reefs are the most likely cause of decline,” Phillipson said. “Changes in water quality and other environmental conditions are also factors.”

In Victoria, more than 95 percent of shellfish reefs that once covered the bays and estuaries in the state have been lost.

• An oyster dredge fishery, which operated in the Gippsland Lakes in the 1920s and a Blue Mussel fishery, which operated in the lakes from the 1970s to the 1990s likely contributed to the decline in the shellfish reefs.

Three year plan: In March 2022, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), with support from the East Gippsland Catchment Management Authority, began restoration work on 2.5 hectares of reef at a site near Nyerimiland, located between Lakes Entrance and Metung.

• The project is part of TNC’s national Reef Builder project, which aims to restore shellfish reefs at 21 locations around the country.

Read the full story here.

🏥 Over a dozen organisations sign open letter opposing cuts to Victoria’s mental health services

Australian Health organisations are concerned the quality of Victoria’s mental health services could be on the chopping block as the government looks for $4 billion in savings.

What happened: More than a dozen organisations have signed an open letter to the Victorian government opposing changes to the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission (WHWC), which oversees feedback and complaints to the state’s mental health services.

The changes: As part of a review to find $4 billion in government savings, a bill has been put before parliament that will cut the number of commissioners from four to one and remove the requirement that its leadership include people who have been impacted by mental illness.

• The bill will also remove the ability for the commission to access information about the 2021 Royal Commission recommendations. 

Gippsland resident and Senior Lecturer in Rural Health from Monash University, Dr Rochelle Hine, told the Monitor the changes could strip the WHWC commission of funding and give fewer opportunities for people who use mental health services to raise concerns when things go wrong.

• 🗣️“The result will be that quality will be compromised,” she said.

Hine said that less free access to the commission will mean “less accountability, less transparency and fewer recorded complaints. That's how insidious this is”.

Read the full story here.

🏡 "Masterpiece of Victorian architecture": Early settler homestead in Drouin hits the market for $3.8 million

By the time the rather grand homestead at 210 Stock Street in Drouin West was built in the 1890s, Gippsland was slowly emerging from the shadows of Melbourne and the goldfields north and west of the city.

In the wake of the Californian gold rush, which peaked in 1849, the 1850s saw prospectors from around Australia and the world descend on the Victorian goldfields - Ballarat, Bendigo and many points between - all in search of a life changing payday.

The gold rush lasted about a decade and altered the face of Australia, but east of Melbourne, places such as Drouin in Gippsland were struggling to become Colonial outposts of significance, despite gold being discovered in 1862 at Walhalla, about 90km away.

This was due in large part to the unforgiving, densely forested territory - home for tens of thousands of years to the Kulin and the Kurnai Nations - that had to be traversed and cleared to make way for pasturelands.

According to a 2020 Heritage assessment for another Drouin property, from 1860 the Victorian government, “motivated by the ideal of populating Victoria with independent farmers, and by the demands to 'unlock the land' from miners leaving the central Victorian goldfields”, passed legislation aimed at breaking up the squatting runs into small farming allotments.

Read the full story here.

🐄 No wires, no posts: Will Gippsland farmers flock to virtual fencing?

After decades of restrictions on electronic livestock collars, Victoria has changed animal welfare laws and approved its first virtual fencing system.

The move clears the way for farmers to use GPS-guided collars to herd and monitor cattle.

What happened? The state government announced on Wednesday that the Halter P5 electronic collar system is the first to be approved in Victoria for virtual fencing. 

What’s that? Virtual fencing is a system that enables livestock such as cattle to be herded or confined through the use of collars with coordinates and sensors.

• New Zealand tech company Halter’s P5 system features a collar connected to an app, allowing farmers to fence, move and monitor the wellbeing of their cows and check pasture conditions.

• The remote, hands-free nature of the technology promises to reduce workload by herding or moving cattle through the collar’s cues, and reduce costs by limiting the requirement of physical fencing. 

Read the full story here.

LOOKING NATIONALLY 👀

I found this piece my colleague Archie Milligan recorded on the use of artificial intelligence in the Australian police force really interesting.

I didn't know how widespread the use of AI already was by police and what kind of implications it has for the public.

Take a look at Archie’s video below.