Mount Roland

COMMUNITY AWARENESS PROJECT

This has been a comprehensive community awareness project, supported with $10,370 from the Australian Government Envirofund.

The aim of the project was to increase land manager and general community understanding of the techniques and benefits of natural resource management, which would eventually lead to improvements in catchment management practices for the Dasher, Don and Minnow Rivers.

The project included newsletters, articles and features in local newspapers and radio, which regularly broadcasted the impact of riparian zone rehabilitation on water quality, land use and native animals.

Large information panels were installed in the centre of Sheffield and one thousand brochures promoting Mount Roland River Catchment were also distributed. These outlined the area's major rivers, the group's objectives and the work done to date.

Through this project, weed calendars were created for istribution to members as a reminder on when to tackle weeds and with what treatments.

The group held field days along the river for bird observation, as well as for council and stream management specialists.

The group worked with the schools and ran school excursions, plus an art or poem competition for 5-16 year old children on 'A day in the life of the river', which attracted 42 entrants and a further 390 people when the presentations were made.

Funds also helped with the purchase of water monitoring equipment and members were trained in the use of the gear in order that water sampling could be done on a monthly basis. In addition, nine demonstrations have been held for land managers on spray units for weed control.

Sharing information with other landcare groups, members, and NRM bodies about MRRCI's journey - what had worked, what didn't and how problems were solved - was an important part of this project. 200 copies of a bound report was published and distributed to interested parties.

The final launch and presentation of this project results was made at a Morning Tea, which was well attended by state and federal politicians and representatives from the many groups and government agencies that MRRCI had dealt with over the years. More information about the launch and morning tea is available here.