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The Molonglo
Catchment Group is one of three community-based catchment groups in the ACT.
All catchment group areas cross over the NSW border, however the Molonglo
Catchment is largely in NSW. The catchment groups act as umbrella groups for
the many Landcare and other natural resource management (NRM) interest groups in
their geographical area. The group's basic objectives are available
here (
23 KB).
 ("About the
Molonglo Catchment" Factsheet
738KB)
The Molonglo Catchment Group was formed in late 2003 as a network
of Landcare and Park Care groups in the Molonglo Catchment. Our role is to help
these groups promote and undertake environmental protection and enhancement
within the catchment. The Group has been supported by the ACT and Australian
Governments’ environmental programs.
The Group’s initial priority was to develop a sub-catchment
strategy based on community consultations and informed by the regional NRM
plans. The excellence of the Molonglo
Catchment Strategy 2004-2014 was recognised by the ACT Regional Landcare
Award in 2005.
Implementation of the strategy so far has involved extensive work
within the local community, through the Australian Government’s National
Landcare Program. This has resulted in the following tangible on-ground
outputs which contribute to improvement in water quality and biodiversity, and
community capacity within the catchment:
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Assisting more than 70
landholders to protect or enhance over 200Ha of native vegetation;
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Restored over 25km of
riparian land;
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Established over 325Ha
of perennial pastures; and
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Published
indigenous
planting lists for the four major waterways in the catchment.
The Molonglo Catchment Group has sponsored four revegetation
projects and conducted 10 field days involving over 200 people from local
community groups. In order to spread our message to the local community we have
designed and built a display trailer to take to field days. Our website is
recognised as a valuable resource for the regional community. In the last 4
years, we have distributed fortnightly electronic newsletters to an
ever-increasing distribution list currently over 350 subscribers.
The Molonglo Catchment Group also supports the ACT Waterwatch
program. We have 30 groups and individuals undertaking
monthly water quality measurements. This
data is used as a means of establishing baseline measurements against which to
assess the environmental conditions of the catchment into the future. These
results are published on the group’s website.
We are endeavouring to extend the reach of our message through
events such as the “Along the Molonglo” art competition sponsored by local
businesses. The competition works with the artist societies in Queanbeyan and
Canberra – with the theme of “capturing the spirit of the Molonglo catchment”.
The art competitions have grown in size with around 90 entries in the 2009
Queanbeyan Art Prize and nearly 50 in the 2009 Canberra Art Prize. Through the
relationship with the Artists Society of Canberra, we have been able to hold
some of the Canberra event at Floriade where we are able to engage the greatly
increased audience that attend in informal discussion and provide education
material on environmental management issues. We have an association with Radio
Landcare which broadcasts on Sundays from QBN-FM 96.7 and Tuesdays on 2XX 98.3
FM Community Radio. It is hoped these processes will encourage increased
participation in local environmental community groups such as Landcare. To this
end, we are partnering the ANU Art School in a project to assess the potential
to use art to extend our engagement with the community.
We published the Willow
Management Strategy for Lake Burley Griffin in 2006, a
Weed Information Pack
in 2008 for the top 20 weeds in the catchment and released the
Pest Animal Information Pack for the catchment
in 2009. The
Glovebox Guide to Frogs of the ACT Region, also released in 2009, has been
very successful. We are working with Hawker College to
mentor students in establishing a community-based natural resource database for the
lower
Molonglo Valley.
One of our most exciting projects has been our involvement in the
Kosciuszko to Coast
partnership. This project brings together government agencies with
non-government and community organisations to work with landholders to increase
the resilience of the landscape to meet the challenges of climate change.
We continue to implement the Molonglo Catchment Strategy,
planning projects into the future with the goal of helping the community to
understand the NRM issues in our area and to provide them with the skills to
manage these issues.
Current projects include the Molonglo River Rescue
and the
Sustainability on Small Farms projects.
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