Community Repairing Landscapes

Above: A community at work building a series of in-stream rock structures in Guyra, NSW

‘Learning by doing’ was the motto of the Mulloon Insitute Bootcamp hosted by Southern New England Landcare and Armidale Regional Council in the Guyra region of NSW. In a first, the education team delivered a three-day program integrating theory and practice with a series of small structures built in an eroded flowline. The host property is a mixed beef cattle, sheep and goat enterprise managed by a combination of rotational grazing and fenced-off waterways with some tinkering of landscape rehydration tactics (brush and logs). The project location for the structures is an actively eroding flowline that's advancing into productive land upslope and impacting water quality downstream leading into the MALPAS dam.   

Utilising materials sourced from the property, and equipment generously provided by the Council, the group were set to task in assessing and planning the small-scale project. Peter and Erin introduced Mulloon Consulting’s rigorous technical design process, which factors in the many risks and opportunities associated with landscape rehydration infrastructure. The group then selected appropriate intervention styles and locations utilising desktop and field observations as well as precision laser level measurements. Two rock ramps were built in only two hours using a 12-tonne excavator and then finished off by hand, with the whole team coming together to place the final layer of rocks, soil and vegetation in and around the newly created structures. The implementation process was, according to one participant “simple once you do the planning”.  

The comradery and ‘can-do’ attitude by all who participated made this bootcamp a wonderful experience and hopefully the beginning of some future projects on the ground in the region. 

Mulloon Institute’s Learning Programs have been developed with the assistance of the NSW Government’s Environmental Trust.