12 March 2016 – Castlemaine Community Science Project

Posted on 22 February, 2016 by Connecting Country

Dr Dominique Hes is a senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning. She has written a a book called Designing for Hope which is about moving “…beyond reducing impact to creating net ecological and social, restoration and regeneration through understanding place/country and its systems.” Dr Hes is working with a local architectural firm and local landholders on the design of a ‘settlement’ in Reckleben St, west Castlemaine, which is to be to the Living Community standard (see http://living-future.org/lcc for details) Dr Hes says that this standard of design stipulates that ‘any human community needs to be designed to provide net ecosystem service benefits.’

As part of this early phase of the design process, they are coordinating an ecological assessment of the site as a community science project. They are keen for interested residents of Castlemaine and surrounds to come along to help, and learn from, expert specialists with the ecological assessment on Saturday 12 March from 10am to 2pm. On-the-day support for the assessment is being provided by Bendigo TAFE, with food and drink provided by Growing Abundance. This ecological assessment is to include flora and fauna surveys, tree health assessments and water quality testing. Follow up surveys for comparison may then be undertaken in 5 and 10 years time to determine whether they have achieved their Living Community standard objectives.

If you are interested in being part of the ecological survey, further details are provided in the attached flier (CLICK HERE).

And, on a similar topic, the Mount Alexander Sustainability Group is hosting a Sustainable House Education Day on Sunday 28 February 2016. Further details are provided in the attached MASG press release (CLICK HERE).