Through funding from NPWS under the Save our Species (SOS) Program, Hunter Region Landcare Network facilitated the final Bell Frog event for the financial year.
On Thursday, June 30th, we held a Green and Golden Bell Frog Education session – an evening of presentations from stakeholders and partners of Kooragang Wetlands National Park including; Bell Frog experts from the University of Newcastle and representatives from NPWS and Industry.
The idea for this event came about as a response to the sheer number & variety of stakeholders at Kooragang Wetlands, and to encourage communication and information sharing across these partnerships and to the interested public.
It is also directly related to the Save Our Species objective; “encourage partnerships with community, corporate and government in threatened species conservation.”
This event brought in attendees from Lake Macquarie to Cessnock, even as far as Sydney, with a wide range of experience and connection to these special amphibians.
Providing a purely educational event allowed engagement with those who may be interested in Green and Golden Bell Frogs, but are lacking the physical capacity to take part in the hard yakka planting sessions.
The event was booked out! Again, increasing engagement and awareness of the threatened species to a wider audience and demonstrating the desire for future info sessions like this. Highlights included; hearing experts talk about their subject of interest with such passion and enthusiasm; learning about the multiple threats to Green & Golden Bell Frogs; learning about the success industry partners are having with implementing compensatory habitat.
Attendees reportedly enjoyed “hearing from all key stakeholders,” “seeing maps, learning about the history of the site” and the “inter-agency approach for saving species”.
Personally, it was inspiring to hear about the interdisciplinary collaboration on solving these complex problems.
After hearing all our speakers, it was clear that innovative solutions were created by having multiple schools of thought working together, to mitigate threats for this species.
Hunter Region Landcare Network looks forward to facilitating more events like this in the future. This project is supported by funding from the National Parks & Wildlife Service.
