Mosaic Map: NRM funded projects
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Sharing Indigenous knowledge in Albury
An Aboriginal Corporation and the local council have joined forces in Albury in New South Wales to tackle some key land management issues and share their knowledge.
In 2003 the Wandoo Aboriginal Corporation and Albury City Council took part in a joint project to protect valuable pockets of native vegetation and give council workers a crash course in identifying Aboriginal heritage.
Funding
The project was supported with more than $22,600 from the Australian Government.
Work focused on protecting existing native plants in three natural areas and important wildlife corridors near Albury at Eastern Hill, Mungabareena Reserve and Padman Park.
Activities
"The project was a really good cross cultural exercise," said Paul Scannell, Albury City Council Coordinator for the venture. "Our staff trained Aboriginal workers in replanting and fencing techniques and the Wandoo people taught us a lot about recognising important cultural aspects of natural areas.
"This included identifying middens, stone tools and fish traps and understanding more about native plants. It was fantastic and I think it has led to much greater understanding."
Locations selected for the project were sites with high conservation values that needed protecting.
"The idea was that where we had large hollow bearing trees with weeds growing underneath, we'd try to plant out the understorey to compete with the weeds," Paul said. "This would provide food for threatened species like Swift Parrots, Turquoise Parrots and Squirrel Gliders who used the trees as habitat."
All the plants were provided by Wandoo Nursery, a native plant nursery run by Wandoo Aboriginal Corporation which propagated some $15,000 tube stock for the project.
Bev Campbell, Nursery Coordinator, said the project was an excellent training opportunity for people working at Wandoo Nursery.
"It was our first reasonably-sized order, just back when we were learning about horticulture," she said.
"It gave staff the opportunity to learn about local provenance seeds and aspects of planting such as spacing, and how to mix taller plants with understorey plants and grasses. We were working with the revegetation officer from Albury City Council and learned a lot from that.
"The project also provided staff with experience in interacting with Albury Council and dealing with a major customer and getting orders ready for a client with particular specifications for plants."
More information
- Paul Scannell, Albury City Council: pscannell@alburycity.nsw.gov.au
- Bev Campbell, Wandoo Aboriginal Corporation, Wandoo Nursery: (02) 6023 6436 or wandooalbury@bigpond.com.au
See also
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