Junior Landcare in the Northern Rivers: rejuvenation, regeneration, restoration
Capacity building - LEP23_0034 LLC_BVL_04
The issue
The condition of our environment is declining and young people particularly, are facing the anxiety of an uncertain future as they witness our declining natural environment.
The solution
A Foundation for Regional & Rural Renewal (FRRR) grant enabled BVL to deliver a project to reconnect communities through an innovative environmental education program for primary school-aged students. Landcare volunteers and professional practitioners facilitated an exciting intergenerational transfer of place-based knowledge and skills in ecological restoration designed to empower young students in becoming part of the solutions to protect and enhance the biodiversity of our region. Forging localised connections between schools and the existing Landcare movement is a means of showing students that they are not alone in tackling the big environmental challenges – we all have our part to play.
Seven local schools were engaged in a series of tailored workshops and bespoke plantings. Students learnt about a range of specialist topics including: Indigenous land management practices and cultivation of bush foods, preservation of habitat for threatened fauna species in our local region such as the Richmond Birdwing Butterfly and Glossy Black-Cockatoos, the role of pollinators in our forests and gardens, the unique wetlands systems of our coastal areas, local history of how community stood up to protect a local reserve, how to identify local invasive weed species that threaten our forests and most importantly – how to plant trees.
A representative from each Landcare locality group, local to each school, attended every workshop to share their knowledge, skills and enthusiasm with students. Each participating student received their very own Planting Licence.
Follow-up maintenance and weeding workshops were held later to teach students the skills needed in raising and tending successful trees. The commitment from each school towards the legacy of their Junior Landcare experience was to feature their planting site, and its ongoing maintenance, as learning spaces and ongoing in-class activities.
The impact
At conclusion of each workshop, students were asked to complete a brief survey to share their thoughts on the experience. Survey Results collated for the school children during this engagement are one measure of the Project's success:
92% of survey respondents said they liked the experience (7% did not like it).
84% of survey respondents said they would like to do an activity like this in the future.
This is an important opportunity to acknowledge the resilience of each of these school communities in the face of what they have experienced during and since the 2019-2020 bushfires. More importantly, it gave them skills and knowledge to help protect our natural environment, which came out as a very strong theme at most schools. The school communities each welcomed us very warmly and were very keen to have the plantings on their grounds so students could watch the growth of their trees every day and continue to tend them.
Key facts
- Program created by Dr Ray Moynihan and shaped for delivery by BVL’s Project Team
- 7 schools engaged – Rous PS, Ocean Shores PS, Main Arm Upper PS, Upper Coopers Creek PS, Wilsons Creek PS, Byron Bay PS, Goonengerry PS
- A total of 300 students participated in the workshops & planting series, with a total of 14 workshops delivered
- 7 Landcare representatives connected with students at their local school
- 11 Presenters workshop presenters engaged
- 755 trees planted at 7 different sites