The article included an interview with Sarah Hubbard of Spring Ridge who, with others, has set up a Facebook page – Liverpool Plains Youth – with in excess of 1100 followers.

It is both interesting and encouraging to see young people utilising technology to spread their message on such an important cause as the potential degradation of our finest lands. 

Sarah Hubbard’s grandparents, Harry and Lorna, were awarded the Brownhill Cup in the early ’80s for conservation for the management of their blacksoil property South Wondabah.

At about this time Jim Downes, a producer of ABC’s Four Corners, made a program about soil erosion that featured Harry Hubbard and his conservation land management practices. 

Sarah Hubbard and her generation have grown up with conservation farm management and the subsequent economic benefits. 

This generation of young farmers has conservation land practices as part of their DNA. 

One estimate is that each year the Liverpool Plains produce $2.4 billion worth of farm products. 

The low footslopes surrounding the plain are just as important, with their increasing diversity, as shown in a County Leader article about a 20ha dryland cotton trial on James Arnott’s The Berwick, Willow Tree.

Shenhua Watermark has spent six years developing a mine application for approval, so it is sad at this stage that the member for Tamworth, Kevin Anderson, has now called for the Liverpool Plains to be quarantined. 

Mr Anderson and his government have had the past four years to act, but in this time they have produced only words. 

AE Stannard

Tamworth