NP Journal

Kempsey biodiversity workshop

Naturekeepers recently shared biodiversity knowledge and skills with the Aboriginal community in Kempsey, writes NatureKeepers Coordinator KATE SHEARER

On 17 September Booroongen Djugun College in West Kempsey, in partnership with the NatureKeepers program, joined in a day of learning about the local bush, discovering its plants and animals and sharing knowledge within the community. Fifty Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal primary students, college students and Elders participated in the workshop.

Plant identification with
Green Hills Primary students.
Photo: Kate Shearer

Green Hills Primary students identify habitat features.
Photo: Kate Shearer

The morning session of the two-part workshop involved 24 students and six teachers from Green Hills Primary School, as well as 10 local Elders. Maria Mathes, a professional ecologist from the region, along with NPA's NatureKeepers Coordinator, Kate Shearer, conducted activities to discuss the importance of biodiversity, the relationships between species, and the impacts of ferals and fragmentation on native biodiversity. The students learned about plant identification as well as scat identification as a method of determining what animals can be found in a habitat.

Using a basic worksheet, the students learned to identify different habitat features and biodiversity indicators in the natural area site, such as tree hollows, fallen logs, and insects under bark.

The session concluded up with a joint lunch and discussion about the natural landscape with the Elders and the college students who attended the afternoon session.

The discussion between different members and age groups lent itself to community building around the issue of natural area management and biodiversity conservation.

Nine college students attended the afternoon session that started with a discussion about the natural world and its importance to the community: why biodiversity monitoring is important, and an overview of the biodiversity survey methodology.

The discussion was followed by a practical session where we used biodiversity survey methodologies in a field setting. The college site was ideal as it allowed us access to their 60-acre outdoor natural educational facility on which we conducted the fieldwork.

The students learned how to set up a sampling transect and quadrat; record site descriptions and landscape features such as eastings and northings, slope and soil type; complete the data sheets; and take species samples for an herbarium.

These students are well equipped to act as leaders within their community and we hope they will employ their new skills to collect important biodiversity data in the upcoming community biodiversity survey in Kempsey Shire.

Initial interest from the Kempsey Shire Council to organise a community-based biodiversity survey on a few Council-managed natural areas instigated holding this type of workshop in the Kempsey Shire. Both the Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority and Council agreed that the workshop was an important first step to building momentum and skills within the community for a successful community biodiversity survey.

We found a major benefit of working with Booroongen Djugun College students was that they were studying accredited units in the Conservation and Land Management Certificate II. The students were focused and motivated to learn the monitoring skills and apply them to their own projects.

We would like to thank the Federal Government's Envirofund and the George Alexander Foundation for generously funding this community capacity building workshop. We would also like to thank the staff of Booroongen Djugun College for their coordination support and the College's in-kind contributions to the project.