A series of events to empower Southern New England communities has just completed successfully.
The eight events supported landholders affected by the devastating drought and bushfires with information and access to service providers such as animal welfare, pests and weeds, community wellbeing and mental health, where the service providers came to their local district.
Service providers included Rural Fire Service, Rural Adversity Mental Health Program, New England Weeds Authority and Northern Tablelands Local Land Services.
The Boorolong/Dumaresq and Balala/Brushgrove events also featured Southern New England Landcare's Koala Conservation Officer, Des Anderson, who presented information about the Northern Tablelands Koala Partnership Project. In addition to addressing threats to koalas, this project will also establish and conserve habitat for wildlife more generally in the Armidale and surrounding regions.
Southern New England Landcare thanks the several local businesses from Uralla, Walcha and Armidale who provided delicious food for the events.
Value from each event was found in surprising ways.
For example, Rachel Lawrence, who coordinated the events, enjoyed exploring local history at Tenterden, where she discovered historic, locally made bricks at Tenterden Church that included a dog’s footprint from long ago (see photo below).Two spin-off events also resulted from renewed community enthusiasm to re-unite.
These were both funded by the NSW Government Drought Resilience Program. The Tenterden BBQ and Band night was a roaring success attracting more than 100 people from the local community, while Kingstown’s ‘Just Add Water’ event is scheduled for June 19th, and looking to be very popular.
Images by Rachel Lawrence, top to bottom - Local identities, Eva Knorles and Jenny Frizell presenting at the Wollomombi event. Josh Robb from New Egnland Weeds Authority at the Walcha and District event. The dog footprinted brick at Tenterden Church. Tarinore pasture monitoring with Glen Chapman at Wollomombi.
