CITIZEN SCIENCE : CHANGING THE FACE OF FOREST PROTECTION.
by Brenda Marshall
Our Loongana Valley community have maps out and boots on the ground as we get together and share our collective knowledge about the rich biodiversity that makes up our environment. Thanks to the tools and training provided by our local landcare group Friends of the Leven, the outbreak of Covid-19 virus and physical distancing hasn't meant social distancing or slowed this work down.
Community training day (Friends of the Leven)
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When you live in a beautiful part of Tasmania, you're either resigned to its destruction, or you're fighting to save it. |
The proposed industrial scale transmission line and logging of our native forests will wreck havoc on our valley and many residents here have fought this same fight before in the early 1980s, and won! This time the fight has moved online and there are many tools available and more ways to work together and separately, to connect with other groups. Citizen Science is changing the face of environmental protest. Through citizen science local landscapes are surveyed by the very people who live there and through daily observation know their areas intimately. These observations are recorded and verified by scientists and naturalists, it is a way to fill the void of reliable data used by proponents of projects with vested interests.
One of the problems with infrastructure projects is that initial decisions are based on investigations using desktop surveys. If the area you want to protect has no data from surveying in the past this could be detrimental to your cause and the environment ends up the innocent victim. Once a large project has been given the green light further assessments are often done by public relations companies whose main task is to streamline the process and implement positive outcomes for their clients. This includes community consultation and this can be a conflict of interest and leads to community stress and anxiety. When the client is your own government it becomes an obstacle to true community engagement.
Our community has gritted their teeth through information sessions run by PR companies with powerpoint presentations and oily words convincing us that the transmission line is a marvelous thing which is good for everyone and we just need to get used to it, maybe a few tiny negotiations here and there would make us happy? No actually, it won’t. So with our confidence with the process ruined we have become Citizen Scientists.
One of the problems with infrastructure projects is that initial decisions are based on investigations using desktop surveys. If the area you want to protect has no data from surveying in the past this could be detrimental to your cause and the environment ends up the innocent victim. Once a large project has been given the green light further assessments are often done by public relations companies whose main task is to streamline the process and implement positive outcomes for their clients. This includes community consultation and this can be a conflict of interest and leads to community stress and anxiety. When the client is your own government it becomes an obstacle to true community engagement.
Our community has gritted their teeth through information sessions run by PR companies with powerpoint presentations and oily words convincing us that the transmission line is a marvelous thing which is good for everyone and we just need to get used to it, maybe a few tiny negotiations here and there would make us happy? No actually, it won’t. So with our confidence with the process ruined we have become Citizen Scientists.
Citizen Science is bringing our community together. From neighbours who know the bush like the back of their hands to newbie nature lovers, we all have a part to play and are connecting with our wilderness stronger than ever. |
We have surveyed many areas that could be impacted by the proposed transmission line easements but also with an eye to protecting all of our remaining native forests, the data keeps growing each week. The various forest communities in the valley have been identified, significant trees measured, threatened species documented and data on the rich diversity collected. Most of us are using iNaturalist to record our own observations and it has been wonderful to see these observations get verified and progress up into official datasets.
Alongside the seriousness of the task is the learning involved and through sharing our observations with each other we are gaining a better understanding of where we live. We now realise even more how special the valley is and how important it is that our forests remain intact.
Alongside the seriousness of the task is the learning involved and through sharing our observations with each other we are gaining a better understanding of where we live. We now realise even more how special the valley is and how important it is that our forests remain intact.
Recording a masked owl was the biggest thrill. I had spoken to neighbours who have heard them and heard them myself but actually recording and documenting it to a database was really satisfying. |
Holding a bioblitz last year was disrupted by Covid but we have done one recently and hope to do more. A Bioblitz, or forest audit, is an intense period of biological surveying to record as many living species within a designated area. We aim to collect data on the Black Bluff, Loongana Range and Winterbrook forests. The Loongana Valley is under threat from this transmission line but our native forests are under continual threat from logging. The valley is unique in that the biodiversity covers a diverse range of plant communities in a small area so a bioblitz can cater to many areas of expertise. From rivers, creeks, and karst, rainforests, spring fed gullies, wet viminalis forest, poa grasslands, dry schlerophyl, and right up to sub alpine, alpine heathlands with conifers and a stand of king billy pines around the pristine aquatic ecosystem of the glacial Paddy’s Lake.
If you would like to be involved in a bioblitz at Loongana get in touch with us at solvetasmania@gmail.com
If you would like to be involved in a bioblitz at Loongana get in touch with us at solvetasmania@gmail.com
