|
PRESS RELEASE - December 2002 Seedling Orders For 2.5 Million Mallees Placed with Regional Nurseries. 2.5 million mallee seedlings will be produced in regional nurseries for the 1000 hectare planting program being carried out for the Kansai Electric Power Corporation, Japan's second largest power Company, by the Oil Mallee Company in 2003. The Chairman of the Oil Mallee Company, Professor Syd Shea, said that this phase of the Kansai project alone would provide an estimated 40 to 50 extra jobs over the next 4-5 months and the eight regional nurseries which had won tenders for the program would employ more staff when the seedlings were due to be lifted for planting in winter and spring. "I am delighted with the response of farmers in the Kalannie - Wongan Hills region to the project", Professor Shea said. Offers to provide land for the establishment of belts across farmland had been high but he stressed that farmers still interested in the scheme should contact the Company. "Under the scheme, which was negotiated over a two year period, Kansai would pay all costs for growing and establishing mallee and an annual rental to farmers equivalent to the return from agricultural crops", Professor Shea said. "Kansai was making this investment to provide offsets for the carbon dioxide they produced in Japan. But Kansai had a worldwide environmental program and it was very interested in the use of mallees to ameliorate salinity". Professor Shea said that if Australia signed the Kyoto protocol the Kansai project could be increased one hundred fold with many other Companies investing in planting mallees. The sale of the new product, sequestered carbon, would mean that farmers could make a profit out of reducing their salinity problem and many new employment opportunities would be created in the wheatbelt region. Contact: Professor Shea - 0403 309 003 Keith Parnell President of the Oil Mallee Association - 9883 2024 |