Australian Story next week profiles WA grazier Chris Henggeler, locked in a battle with the WA govt over feral donkeys.
In one of the toughest parts of Australia, a barefoot grazier is running a bold regenerative experiment that might land him in jail.
For the past three decades Chris Henggeler has dedicated his life to transforming an eroding, desolate, fire-prone property in the Kimberley into an oasis of green paddocks and fresh running water.
A secret of his success – feral donkeys.
“We’re using animals as a landscape management tool to mulch, fertilise and prune the vegetation, build soils, rehydrate the landscapes,” Chris Henggeler says.
Despite the support of ecologists and a local Indigenous resident, the pastoralist has found himself on the wrong side of the law.
The WA government has deemed the feral donkeys a pest and Chris is defying an order to shoot them. A court battle is days away.
Despite the property never turning a profit, and a lack of creature comforts, Chris’s longsuffering family supports his grand land care passion.
“If someone had said, do you know that you’re going to be spending seven odd years thinking about how to keep a few donkeys alive, I would have laughed at the idea,” son Bobby Henggeler says.
Chris says he will go to jail before shooting the donkeys.
“If the science is not on my side, I deserve to be locked up. And if the science is on my side, well, I deserve an apology,” Chris Henggeler says.
8pm Monday on ABC
links to content on ABC
TV Tonight
