For most people the rain has heralded an incredible start to the season for the lower valley.
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Demonstrating the continued vagaries of the cloud bands, Walgett once again missed out on much of this widespread rain which means it's been three years since many people in that area last saw even a half-decent shower.
Speaking of showers, it showered money last week as the federal government saw $660 million spent from the first Emission Reduction Fund (ERF) auction which equates to 47 million tonnes of CO2.
This is Tony Abbot's 'direct action' plan to reduce CO2 emissions and, with the fund totally $2.55 billion, that's about one quarter of the total fund spent and it's set a benchmark price for carbon of $13.95 per tonne.
A national group of farmers who've been practising holistic management techniques put in a bid to sequester more than three million tonnes of carbon into their collective soils and was awarded a contract, so that should see well over $40 million dollars pumped back into regional Australia.
This is why Macquarie 2100 is pushing the ERF so hard, with severe federal budgetry constraints on everything but fighting terror, it's really the only bucket of money of any scale on offer, and regional Australia needs as much money flowing into it as possible.
The negative part of the ERF is that a quarter of it has now been spent.
Originally designed as the Carbon Farming Initiative, the money then allocated was going to flow to farmers who changed their practises to both store carbon in their soils and also reduce emissions from their farming and livestock operations.
The ERF encompasses virtually any aspect of reducing emissions and includes industry such as manufacturing and processing, mining, transport and commercial buildings, so we now have competition from the major corporates who'll be hiring the smartest people to work out how they can grab some cash by doing as little as possible.
This also means the next auction may have some of these bigger players able to sell their CO2 reductions at a reduced rate, bring the carbon price down and making it less viable for everyone else.
On the positive side, there's always the 'secondary' international market where companies in other countries which have to reduce their carbon load can contract with Australian farmers and industry to buy credits directly from them.
The ERF process is constantly evolving as new methods are being written, backed by science, to allow individuals and groups to put in bids when the next auction is announced.
M2100 is working with Regional Development Australia (RDA) Orana to ensure everyone from this region who thinks there's an opportunity for them can participate in this complex process.
To that end we're operating as a conduit between interested parties and the Environment Department in Canberra, doing the legwork for individual farmers and businesses so they don't have to become experts in the process but can still get on board.
With so many diverse agricultural operations in the region, coupled with industry and local government, we're hoping to get as big a slice of the pie as we can.
If anyone wants more information, you can email me on m2100@bigpond.com