By Bev Debrincat, Chair of Greater Sydney Landcare.
Greater Sydney Landcare has a vision of ‘connected communities, resilient landscapes’. With this vision in mind we continue to build connections and partnerships across our region to ultimately assist in improving biodiversity, land and water health. Apart from networking with the landcare, bushcare and environment groups we have the pleasure of working with many brilliant people on fantastic projects, for example, Parramatta River Catchment Group’s Our Living River Project creating safe swim sites and now looking at bank naturalisation, and Western Sydney University’s projects including Hawkesbury Nepean Waterkeeper, Resilient Rivers for Resilient Hawkesbury Platypus Populations and more recently the Future Drought Fund project researching seeding ground covers for resilient landscapes. Another inspirational initiative is with Macquarie University and the Durumbura Dhurabang (Lane Cove River) project led by Dharug women caring for Country for a sustainable future.
This year we are going to focus on further developing partnerships with Councils, other landowners, corporates and volunteers across our region. We are going to extend our offerings (previously delivered under the Creating Canopies project and Corporate Engagement) to include facilitating fun active days for all volunteers where volunteers can attend events designed to teach a couple of new skills, participate in activities such as bush regeneration, Streamwatch, bird watching, Aboriginal cultural activities and more, and above all build an understanding of how they are contributing to environmental health. If you are a Council or landowner and would like us to run engagement days for you – please contact info@greatersdneylandcare.org or chair@greatersydneylandcare.org.
We are also keen for Councils and other landowners to nominate sites for on-going supervised volunteer restoration works. And don’t forget, with our experienced staff we are now offering a range of fee-for-service activities which will ultimately allow us to fund local landcare coordinators into the future.
Wishing everyone a wonderful year.
Bev Debrincat,
Chair, Greater Sydney Landcare
