For the first time in many years, native flowers are flourishing across Alice Springs bringing the outback town to life and providing a mood-lifting splash of colour. It's happening partly because the Northern Territory Government has declared war on an invasive grass.
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00:00Alice Springs is once again blooming, a stunning display not seen for decades.
00:09It's just awakening again. We've had a great season, the wildflowers, the acacias, everything is blooming.
00:16The outburst following a long battle with invasive buffelweed.
00:20Where the buffel exists, there's not a wildflower to be seen.
00:23Where the buffel has been removed by the volunteers, it is wall-to-wall colour.
00:28Long-term locals like horticulturalist Geoff haven't seen anything like it since childhood.
00:34I remember back in the 70s, it was a wall-to-wall wildflowers. In the 80s and 90s, those wildflowers disappeared.
00:42Buffelgrass was introduced by the government around the 50s as a way to suppress dust, and it quickly dominated the landscape.
00:50But in July, the NT government declared the grass a weed.
00:55It produces a chemical that suppresses other plants from germinating and growing, so it's quite insidious really.
01:01In recent months, efforts have stepped up to eradicate the weed.
01:05One of the stories with buffel has been that there's no hope, that it's spread so widely and it's so hard to get rid of,
01:14that what's the point? And it just makes you realise how resilient the country is.
01:20But environmental groups say a national approach is needed. Now the NT government has taken the first step to control it.
01:27What we're looking at now is basically introducing appropriate management for a really dangerous weed.
01:34And obviously the first thing you would do is to stop it spreading into new areas.
01:38Despite the task ahead, many hope the beautiful blooms will continue long into the future.
01:45With dedication, we can turn them back into a field of wildflowers without the buffel, but it's going to take a huge effort.
01:52An outback town bursting with life and colour.