Connecting Community
For over 30 years, we’ve connected with landholders, schools, the general community and the region’s Landcare groups in planning and implementing rainforest restoration and events.
Big Scrub Rainforest Day
The highlight of our community engagement program is the Big Scrub Rainforest Day, which Big Scrub Rainforest Conservancy has presented annually since 1998, except for 2021 when Covid-19 restrictions caused its cancellation. It informs and engages with the community on all aspects of lowland subtropical rainforest and its restoration.
The event comprises presentations, panel discussions, workshops, and rainforest walks led by expert rainforest scientists and restoration practitioners. It is also a great family and networking day.
The Big Scrub Rainforest Day has attracted more than 25,000 attendees since 1999, making it one of the most successful and enduring Landcare community engagement events in Australia.
Community Outreach
We also inform and educate landholders and interested community members via field days and site visits. Additionally, we conduct seed propagation workshops, rainforest planting days and Big Scrub immersive excursions for local school students.
We email a newsletter about every two months to our many subscribers and upload it to our website. We also communicate with more than 5,000 followers via our various social media platforms.
Big Scrub Schools Education Program
September – November 2023
Kicking off In September is our new educational project in the region’s schools, funded by Big Scrub Rainforest Conservancy and Rekindle Foundation. The project will offer hundreds of local primary-aged kids the opportunity not only to to learn about the rainforest, but a chance help bring it back.
First up, in coming weeks hundreds of students at nine schools from Main Arm to the Channon will get their hands dirty during short and fun seed propagation workshops. Those workshops will be delivered with help from staff at the Firewheel Rainforest Nursery.
The workshops are very much hands-on, and students will get to propagate native seeds and pot-up baby seedlings destined for future tree-plantings. Some of the seeds will include Banksias, Black beans and Ooray fruit, formerly known as Davidson Plums.
Some of the students from the workshops will then go on to attend a very special day at Rocky Creek Dam in late November, being produced with help from Rous County Council. The day will include a rainforest tree-planting and walks in the regenerated rainforest around the dam with ecologist guides.
The workshops, walks and plantings this Spring are potentially part of a 5-year project. The vision is to embed a seamless cycle of propagation, plantings, and ecological restoration into the life of school students in the region. The aim is to enrich student experience of, and love for, the rainforest known as the Big Scrub.
The project draws on a lot of similar environmental education work that has been happening in the region for decades, as the colonial led destruction has moved into times of ecological restoration, and the planting of millions of rainforest trees.
Its also based on the Regeneration initiative, involving a successful and popular series of school workshops and school plantings that took place during 2022-2023, funded by the NSW Government.
The new project builds on that work, with new educational materials, including a pre-workshop worksheet, shiny new posters featuring key rainforest trees, and a wonderful new map of the Big Scrub remnants from artist Mike Finch.
If you would like to know more about the project, to donate or engage with it, please don’t hesitate to be in touch. Dr Ray Moynihan is coordinating the new schools project with Deb Noble. For more information contact Ray at raymoynihan@bond.edu.au
Education Resources
Our widely acclaimed Subtropical Rainforest Restoration Manual and book titled The Big Scrub Rainforest – A Journey Through Time also help us connect with our community.
