Nature’s Stocktake – Set your goal, then ask your questions

Posted on 13 May, 2015 by Connecting Country

On 8 May 2015, Alex Pannelli kindly offered his bush block in Taradale to host the fourth and final workshop in our 2015 Autumn series -‘Nature’s Stocktake’. Participants visited four sites on his property, which is protected into perpetuity by a Conservation Covenant, to learn about how to measure the biodiversity changes that their restoration work would bring about.

Following Alex’s compelling introduction to the site, where participants learned about his family history on the property and stories of ‘the big tree’, they walked to a nest box where Connecting Country’s Tanya Loos gave an insight into our long-term monitoring programs across the shire for birds and arboreal marsupials. The approaches used in these monitoring programs were outlined as possible methods for participants to implement on their own properties.

Next, Paul Foreman of Blue Devil Consultancy provided participants with a nuanced view of what we know as landscape health, and also useful tips and tools for conducting a desktop study. Following a warming lunch, Terri Williams from Bendigo TAFE then took participants though the percentage cover method of vegetation surveys at two sites so that people could ‘get their eye in’ and experience the process of scientific rigour.

Thanks to Alex, Tanya, Paul and Terri for their contribution to an informative and practical workshop. Thanks also to Jules Walsh for her great help on the day and Alex and Ned from the Connecting Country works crew for their help with the marquee.

For further references and reading on various monitoring techniques are available on our webpage (click here).

A new monitoring topic has been established on the Discussion Forum so that the conversation and questions can continue. If you are not already a registered Forum user, you follow this step by step guide to join (click here). Or you can simply view the forum (click here).

This concludes our Autumn Biodiversity Workshop series for 2015. Preliminary information about our Spring Workshop series can be found here . More detailed information about the Spring series – including registration forms – will be available soon.