Mapping our old trees of central Victoria: we need your help!
Posted on 20 December, 2022 by Ivan
We are excited to announce the arrival of our new mapping portal, aimed at helping community citizen scientists to map the old, and often large, trees of central Victoria. The interactive mapping portal is part of Connecting Country’s larger project, ‘Regenerate before it’s too late‘ that engages the community about the importance of old trees and how to protect them.
Over the next three years (2023-25), we will continue to host community workshops and develop engagement resources such as the mapping portal and a video. We will also help local landholders with practical on-ground actions to protect their large old trees and ensure the next generation of large old trees across the landscape.
The community, including landholders, Landcarers and land managers, will be vital in mapping their favourite old trees of across our region. Anyone can access Connecting Country’s new online mapping portal. The portal uses BioCollect, an advanced but simple-to-use data collection tool developed by the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) and its collaborators. BioCollect helps users collect field biodiversity data for their own projects, while allowing the data to be easily copied into the ALA, where it can be publicly available for others to use in research, policy and management. This allows individual projects to collectively contribute to ‘big science’.
We need your help!
The mapping portal is now open for any community member to record the old trees in your area. You will need to register with the Atlas of Living Australia (its easy and free), then upload a photo and enter the field details needed for the survey. The portal will ask you simple questions about the tree location, size, species, age (if known), health status and habitat value.
Trees can be tricky to identify, especially eucalypts. If you are unsure about the identification of the tree species, you can:
- Use the to iNaturalist app assist with identification – click here
- Refer to a good guidebook, like those published by Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests – click here
- Visit the Castlemaine Flora website – click here
To record your large old tree, or view the field survey questions and required measurements – click here
By recording large old trees you will help build our understanding of the large old trees in our region, and contribute to the largest biodiversity database in our country. As the database grows, you can also access the portal to learn about other wonderful large old trees in our area and view the photos.
We are most grateful for our generous project support from the Ian & Shirley Norman Foundation. The foundation aims ‘To encourage and support organisations that are capable of responding to social and ecological opportunities and challenges.’ To learn more about Ian & Shirley Norman Foundation – click here
Euan Jenny and Peter with a large old tree (photo by Beth Mellick)
Hi the portal link states ‘bad gateway’ now,
Cheers,
Joel
Hello Joel,
We are currently trying to update the species list, but it should be up again now. Cheers
Hi the portal link states ‘bad gateway’ now,
Cheers,
Joel
Hello Joel, it should be updated now with the correct bioregion species list! Thanks
Hi folks,
I just tried to add a record of Eucalyptus camaldulensis. That species isn’t in the filtered list of species available, in fact none of our local Eucalypts are and only Acacia melanoxylon of our wattle species. The species that are available appear to belong to eastern coastal Australia (northern NSW to Queensland).
Hello Ian, well spotted, we will get this updated, and resend out the blog and information! Cheers
Hello Ian, thanks for the heads up! It was the incorrect database sorry, but has now been fixed for this region. Can you please have a look and see if it works for your old trees?