The NSW “Forest Eye” project

& how you can help in our area

The Forest Eye project is looking for volunteer citizen scientists to learn techniques for forest monitoring and to help plan and action improvements for future forest health in our region - are you interested?

You can start learning more about the “Forest Eye” project and contributing to its success, by clicking the image below and helping to ID fauna that has already been recorded.

photographs and slides courtesy of the Natural Resources Council NSW

We - the local community and the Atlas of Life, have been invited to partner with the NSW government in an important and ground-breaking “Forest Monitoring and Improvement Program”, where the government is asking citizen science volunteers to work with them to learn and undertake scientific monitoring of our forests in order to develop evidence-based management and improvement plans.

The first thing that needs to be done is for volunteers to work with NSW Forest scientists to agree the best methods for monitoring the existing state of the forests and their inhabitants.

We will be learning about the latest scientific techniques and equipment used to record forest health, fauna species occupancy, water qualityand quantity, soil health and carbon.

We are looking for volunteers to work with the scientists in this first phase of trialing the methods and equipment for monitoring fauna. Once that has been agreed, volunteers will be asked to undertake regular monitoring of their “patch”, using the scientific survey methods agreed.

The work here in Bega Valley will be replicated across NSW by other scientists and volunteer groups, so we can all get a much more detailed and accurate picture of the current health of our forests - across the whole ecosystem of the forests. Then plans and actions can be made to improve the health of our forests and their fauna and flora, especially Threatened species and their necessary habitat.

If you are interested please contact Libby Hepburn libby@atlasoflife.org.au to find out more details and when and where the first activities of this program will take place. This should have happened in September, but as we all know, everything has been delayed by the pandemic. If you would like to volunteer, we will keep you informed of plans to start the work as soon as we can.

This research will take place in all kinds of forest ownership, including state forests, national parks, private native forests, private conservation forests and crown forested land.