Fogg Dam is a pristine wetland less than an hour’s drive east of Darwin. Walking along the Dam wall just after sunrise, I was puzzled to find what looked like a piece of industrial junk sitting, as if abandoned, among the lily pads and aquatic grasses.
When I asked the leader of a small tour group about it she said the machine could best be described as a kind of aquatic lawnmower*. She went on to explain that in a good wet season with plenty of rain, the monsoonal flows flush out the dead plants from the previous season. But in years when there’s insufficient rain, the dead plants remain in the Dam where they rot and de-oxygenate the water--a situation that threatens the health of the freshwater turtles, water pythons and other aquatic wildlife. The solution is to use the “lawnmower” to remove the debris.
So it turns out that the piece of “industrial junk” is a part of what keeps this pristine wetland pristine.
* The Friends of Fogg Dam refer to it somewhat more prosaically as a weed harvester.
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