Winter Music Festival Gets Dirty
Winter Music Festival Gets Dirty
Planning a Native Riparian Plant Propagation Workshop in conjunction with the Bellingen Winter Music Festival LeaF Program
Stronger Together -
LLCI033-072
The issue
How often do we blather on about riparian health and protecting our native species without giving people the chance to understand the processes at work? People learn by doing, sharing and talking. How can you empower the individual landholder to feel like they can actually look after their riverbank and help with native plant recovery where weeds have taken over and biodiversity has been lost due to a few dominant weeds?
The solution
You introduce them to Lomandra seed the two types and other local native seed and then you have them actually propagate that seed and take it home. As part of the Bellingen Winter Music Festival, there is the alternative LeaF program which has as a theme ‘sustainability’ and the environment. The music event brings everyone out and a Native Riparian Plant Propagation Workshop was run by Landcare on the first day of the festival. We gave them the knowledge and then let them get their hands dirty, explaining when and how to collect seed, what conditions to nurture the seedlings at home and then when to plant them out. Resources were partially donated and some funds came from our river project.
The impact
This was hugely successful. People loved digging in bringing their children and then being able to take their work home with supporting information prepared by a passionate Landcarer, Barb Moore who lives in the Never Never. The only failure was that we had to restrict numbers due to limited resources. Combining this activity with a larger event helped with publicising it and having participants in the right mindset. Engaging a local experienced person added the right combination of passion and real life experience. An evaluation is required to see how many seedlings survived.
Key facts
- The link between riparian health and the ability for the individual to contribute to this with simple plant propagation is capacity building at its best
- 27 people actively learning by doing and teaching their children