Northern Rivers Intrepid Landcare

Young people engaged in adventurous landcare

Northern Rivers Intrepid Landcare

Young people engaged in adventurous landcare

Reaching Out -

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The issue

The challenge was to involve more young people in Landcare. There was an identified gap in the age range of people involved in landcare - we work with schools and our groups are made up mostly of volunteers who are 40+.

The solution

I had been following Illawarra Intrepid Landcare on Facebook for a while and was excited by the projects they were running. So when I met Megan Rowlatt, the founder, at the Local Landcare Coordinator Initiative training I jumped at to talk to her about Intrepid. I then talked to the other Landcare Coordinators in our SEL and discovered that they were all excited by Intrepid Landcare. So we made contact with Megan and arranged a meeting with her and Naomi Edwards, the other co-founder, to discuss how we could bring Intrepid to the Northern Rivers. We decided to run a taster day to see how Intrepid could work in our region and to see what interest there was from local young people.

And so Intrepid Northern Rivers was born and we ran our first day on Saturday 27^th August in Brunswick Heads. 16 people attended and feedback from the day was all positive. Brunswick Heads was decided as the location as the local Dunecare group had a young coordinator and a very experienced mentor. The local eco cruise and kayak company were also members of BVL.

Brunswick Heads Dunecare came along in the morning to help run the tree planting and weeding along the river. Byron Bay Eco Cruises and Kayaks partnered with us to do the river cruise and kayak in the afternoon. Brunswick Valley Landcare provided the plants, Byron Shire Council provided the mulch and local businesses donated food for lunch. Four of the networks in our SEL – Tweed Landcare, Richmond Landcare, Border Ranges Richmond Valley Landcare Network and Brunswick Valley Landcare all contributed to be able to pay for the boat. Simon from Byron Bay Eco Cruises and Kayaks donated his time – thank you Simon!

The impact

We achieved a lot in one day. We engaged young people in hands on conservation work and connected them to each other. We have set up a facebook group NorthernRiversIntrepidLandcareStartUp for everyone to connect and hopefully continue with the group with our support. It stayed dry, if rather windy! We learnt that there is interest in the area and a number of super motivated young people are looking to move the group onto more adventures.