CC behind the scenes and grant success!
Posted on 23 February, 2017 by Connecting Country
Connecting Country has recently been successful with three grants enabling us to continue our education program into 2018, review our Woodland Bird Action plan, and provide increased support and botany training to local Landcare groups. These opportunities are thanks to wonderful support from the Norman Wettenhall Foundation and the North Central Catchment Management Authority (NCCMA). In addition, we have been working closely with the state government, NCCMA, Dja Dja Wurrung, and Parks Victoria to develop a woodland bird conservation project for the Box Ironbark East biodiversity hub. If successful, Connecting Country will be the lead organisation for this exciting project which will include activities to reduce threats on both public and private land. Our fingers are crossed!
Attendees at the 2014 Community Education Program learning about soils. With funding from the Norman Wettenhall Foundation we can continue to educate and engage our local community.
Funding from the Norman Wettenhall Foundation’s Small Environmental Grants Scheme will allow Connecting Country to continue to provide our popular community engagement program that includes:
- educational events about biodiversity conservation in an agricultural landscape,
- monthly Nature News articles in the Midland Express,
- provision of on-line educational resources and blog posts, and
- partnerships with other organisations and agencies to implement additional educational events.
A huge thank-you to the Norman Wettenhall Foundation for their on-going support. We are so pleased to continue delivering useful information and events to our local community.
Last week, Connecting Country staff and some of our treasured volunteers attended a session facilitated by Geoff Park and Anna Roberts from Natural Decisions. This workshop gave us the opportunity to incorporate local information and knowledge into an update of our Woodland Bird INFFER assessment and Action Plan. This project enables us to utilise expert advice, our monitoring data and experience from completed on-ground projects in this planning process. Funding for the update was provided through the North Central Catchment Management Authority Contingency Fund and means Connecting Country and project partners will be ‘project ready’ for potential future funding.
Asha will be helping groups to increase their knowledge and capabilities with funding from the NCCMA.
Finally, Asha Bannon, our Landcare Facilitator, is getting ready to roll out the “Landcare Adapting to Change” project which is funded through the NCCMA’s Landcare Network Grant. Asha and Bonnie Humphreys, Connecting Country’s botanist, will be working closely together to build the capacity, knowledge and skills of our local groups. The project has two main objectives:
- To assist groups with plant identification skills, establishing local weed priorities, future project development, mapping, and determining appropriate species lists for planting.
- To increase the knowledge and capability of groups to address landscape management issues associated with cultural heritage, climate change, land use changes, and the increasing threats of weeds and pest animal species.
Thanks to the North Central Catchment Management Authority for their ongoing support for Connecting Country for these two projects. We are looking forward to continuing to work with the local community to improve the natural environment in the Mount Alexander Region.
Congratulations to those involved in the grant process.
This sounds like a very exciting program.
Best wishes,
Jill Teschnedorff